explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

2000: xkcd Phone 2000

2020-10-27T19:14:31Z

188.114.103.129: /* Explanation */ Underscores to spaces

{{comic
| number = 2000
| date = May 30, 2018
| title = xkcd Phone 2000
| image = xkcd_phone_2000.png
| titletext = Our retina display features hundreds of pixels per inch in the central fovea region.
}}

==Explanation==
This is the seventh entry in the ongoing [[:Category:xkcd Phones|xkcd Phone series]], and once again, the comic plays with many standard tech buzzwords, and horribly misuses all of them, to create a phone that sounds impressive but self-evidently isn't to even the most ignorant customer. The previous comic in the series [[1889: xkcd Phone 6]] was released 8 and a half months before this one, and the next comic [[2377: xkcd Phone 12]] was released five months later.

This time a nonconsecutive version number is used to match the milestone comic number 2000.

List of features (clockwise from top-center):

*'''Dockless:''' It was common practice for older standard cellphones (i.e. non-smartphones) to use a docking station for charging. "Dockless" could be a catchy marketing term for wireless charging, or it could simply mean wired charging without a dock.
*'''Silent:''' Most mobile phones have a "Silent" mode in which all ringing and vibration is muted, so the user can receive messages and missed-call notifications in a place that requires silence. This xkcd Phone feature may be a "Silent" mode button, but perhaps the phone is silent all the time and unable to produce sound at all. While most people these days use their smartphones for functions that do not require sound, a completely silent phone would not fit the traditional definition of a "phone". This feature is labelled at the location where a headphone socket would traditionally be, although some recent phones have discarded the traditional headphone jack in place of wireless headphones.
*'''Quad camera takes four copies of every picture:''' Recent phones have added up to three rear-facing cameras, offering different fields of view, monochrome cameras for low light, and a wider base for emulating depth of field effects. At the time of writing no phone on the market has four rear-facing cameras. However, YouTube personality nigahiga created a parody of the iPhone (iFhone 8) that has four cameras structured similarly, e.g. taking a picture of a letter K gives 4K. An alternative interpretation is that the cameras take four ''identical'' pictures simultaneously, which would use up storage space at 4 times the rate of a standard camera while providing no advantage.
*'''Front-facing camera obscura:''' A {{w|camera obscura}} is a dark room or box with a small hole allowing light to enter. The size of the hole causes light travelling in straight lines to project a dim inverted image on the back of the room or box; the concept is the predecessor to a modern camera, which uses a lens to allow more light to enter. A camera obscura is not strictly speaking a camera as in an image capture device (although there are pin-hole cameras which use the same mechanism). Actual phones have front-facing conventional cameras, allowing selfies, video calling, etc.
*'''3D facial contour analysis shows you a realistic preview of your death mask:''' Recent computational photography effects implemented on mobile phones support facial analysis, allowing for artificial relighting or the creation of avatars. However, since a {{w|death mask}} is created to look just like the deceased's face, all cameras provide this "feature" automatically.
*'''Sponsored pixels:''' Presumably this means that parts of the screen (pixels) can be bought in a sponsoring deal. If enough pixels are sold, your screen would be rendered unusable. It is common for advertisers to buy part of the screen real-estate on a service web site (in fact, {{w|The Million Dollar Homepage}} hosted nothing but a 1000x1000 pixel grid of advertisements), and "images" the size of individual pixels can be used to track site access without being intrusive to the user. For the xkcd Phone 2000, it appears that advertisers have access to part of the screen (worryingly, right in the middle). Slightly less intrusive approaches have been used in bookstores selling customised versions of the Kindle, for example, and it is common for cell phone networks to insist on network-specific software to be installed on a phone.
*'''Front and rear pop-out grips:''' There are accessories that stick to the rear of a phone and can be "popped out", offering a grip, a stand, or somewhere to store headphone cables. Integrating such a feature into the phone design is novel, although some phones have incorporated kick stands. Pop-out grips are normally placed on the back of the phone to make it easier to hold with one hand. Having a second grip to the front of the phone does nothing except block part of the screen. There could be a small screen on the top of the grip since the grip is shown to contain "Sponsored Pixels".
*'''Humidity-controlled crisper:''' A crisper is a drawer in a refrigerator meant to control the humidity to keep vegetables from drying out and getting limp. Obviously, a smartphone would have no need for a crisper{{Citation needed}}.
*'''Antikythera mechanism:''' The {{w|antikythera mechanism}} is an ancient Greek clockwork device for predicting astronomical positions. It is one of the earliest known analogue computers. While impressive for its time, by now it is obsolete by millennia.
*'''New York Times partnership: all photos taken with camera app are captioned in real time by reporter Maggie Haberman:''' Modern phones can use machine learning techniques (usually in the cloud) to identify and tag camera content - this makes it possible to search, for example, for photos containing a particular person or subject without requiring user input. Cellphone photos are often used in contributions to social media with some form of user-provided caption. This phone appears to combine the two, using {{w|Maggie Haberman}} to provide automatic captions for photos taken by the phone's owner (although whether this is explicitly for social media use or internal to the phone is unclear).
*'''Spit valve:''' A water key, or "spit valve," is a feature on most brass and some woodwind instruments used to empty the instrument of condensation caused by the musician's breath (and not, as is commonly thought, saliva). Of course, one wouldn't think condensation would form on the inside of a smartphone{{Citation needed}}.
*'''Standard USB connector:''' a USB A port is displayed. Unfortunately, a "standard" USB connector, according to the USB standard, would be a USB B port as a phone typically acts as the "slave" device, rather than the "host" as a USB A port would imply. However, in recent updates to the USB standard, bi-communication between 2 A ports is supported.
*'''Coin purse-style squeeze access:''' presumably, the casing is flexible in this region, and when squeezed at the sides (a bad idea, considering the next design item) reveals the USB A port and spit valve.
*'''Hollow-ground:''' a {{w|Grind#Typical_grinds|hollow grind}} is a type of knife (or similar sharp tool) edge noted for sharpness and general fragility, often seen in razors. This seems to imply that the phone is exceedingly smooth, which would make it difficult to hold{{Citation needed}}.
*'''Absorbent:''' Many modern phones are designed to be waterproof, to avoid accidents and allow use in the rain. It's also common to have some form of oleophobic coating on the screen to reduce smearing as fingers are used on the touchscreen. This phone seems to have the reverse feature, and be explicitly designed to absorb things (presumably liquids--perhaps that's why it needs a spit valve). "Absorbent" is more commonly a property touted by the packaging of paper towels.
*'''Keyboard supports dynamic typing:''' {{w|Type_system#Dynamic_type_checking_and_runtime_type_information|Dynamic typing}} is a computer programming concept, and has nothing to do with typing on a keyboard.
*'''Backflow preventer:''' A {{w|backflow prevention device}} is a mechanism that avoids the possibility of liquid (usually water) travelling in the opposite direction from the normal intent if the expected pressure is inverted. Since there is not normally any liquid flowing through a phone (unless in this case relating to the spit valve), this would not normally be a useful feature. However, some smart phones do contain pressure measuring devices such as barometers (which can also be used in some cases to detect the phone being squeezed), so maybe this phone is intended to be resilient to such conditions.
*'''Swiss Army partnership: folding knife (unlocks only if Switzerland is invaded):''' A {{w|Swiss Army knife}} is a folding knife, traditionally with many secondary "blades" for multiple uses such as can openers and files. Usually it is a generic term for that style of knife, but the knife in this phone surprisingly really has a connection with the army of {{w|Switzerland}}. Switzerland is known for remaining neutral (and not being invaded) in both of the World Wars of the 20th century despite war raging across surrounding countries, suggesting that it is unlikely that the knife would ever be unlocked. While such a feature on a phone (or phone case) may be useful, it is likely to be a safety concern, and a threat to convenience when security checkpoints such as airports start confiscating the phone when they notice it conceals a knife blade. What's more, a phone does not provide the ideal grip for a knife blade - especially if force is to be applied to it. This may also reference the Swiss military practice of soldiers keeping military rifles in their private homes but only being given ammunition in the event the army is mobilized.
*'''100% BPA-free PCB construction:''' {{w|Bisphenol A}} (BPA) is a chemical used in plastics such as waterbottles. Recent studies show that BPA can leach estrogen-like compounds into liquids, so BPA-free water bottles have become popular. PCB probably refers to a {{w|printed circuit board}}, which is made of resin-bonded fiberglass, not plastic, and which contains the electrical components that control most modern electronic devices such as phones. It may also refer to {{w|Polychlorinated biphenyl}} (PCBs), a category of persistent organic pollutants which are not used very much any more; it would be far worse than BPA for anyone concerned with the issue.
*'''AMOLCD display (7-segment):''' {{w|AMOLED}} is a display technology often used in cell phones, providing thin and emissive displays. {{w|Liquid-crystal_display|LCD}} is another display technology used in phones, and works by blocking light from a separate backlight. A {{w|Seven-segment_display|7-segment display}} is a device made of seven independently-controlled segments (usually either LCD or LED) which can be used to display a single digit; as such the technology is common in traditional digital watches. In contrast most phone displays are made of a uniform high-resolution pixel grid that allows arbitrary content, like random images, to be displayed, although some very old (pre-smart) cellphones and land lines did use this technology in displaying a phone number, like the {{w|MotoFONE F3}}. The technology cannot represent the entire alphabet without modification (one method is to put X's on both the top and bottom squares) , so it is inappropriate for displaying plain text, let alone graphics and images.
*'''Runs on battery for the first 6 hours, then uses gasoline:''' A nod to the increased popularity of gas-electric hybrid vehicles. This would be a fantastic breakthrough for fuel cells. There have been many attempts to create a highly portable fuel cell that can be used to power phones. Although having to use gasoline instead of a USB cord would likely cause more problems for the average consumer, like the phone blowing up, a fuel cell does have some notable advantages over a standard lithium-ion battery. When comparing a fuel cell to a battery of equal size the fuel cell will be capable of powering an object for far longer than the battery. This includes lithium-ion batteries which are commonly used for powering phones and are typically the majority of its mass. This would mean one could shrink the size of the battery substantially yet still be able to provide the same amount of power. The smaller battery can be kept as is in order to reduce the weight of the phone or can free up space for more features to be installed into the phone. This might simply be the first xkcd phone that mentions that it does this. Provides a possible explanation to how the manufacturer of the phone is capable of fitting so many unusual features into the phone to begin with. Another advantage of a fuel cell powered phone is that it is independent from a working power grid (useful for disaster situations where thousands of people would no longer be capable of staying in contact with others or people who are stranded and alone) and there is no need for a bulky generator to convert the gasoline into electricity first. This is not the first time Randall has talked about this before, with much of the information here coming from what-if #128: {{what if|128|Zippo Phone}}.
*'''Sharpie® dual stylus (dry-erase + permanent)''' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharpie Sharpie®] is a brand most associated with a line of permanent fine-tip markers. While a stylus is generally a pen-like object that doesn't create markings, but instead allows finer input on a touch screen, "Dry-Erase + Permanent" implies that these are in fact markers. These would allow the user to write on the screen, but as this wouldn't allow any form on input to the phone, it would only serve as a very expensive pseudo-whiteboard. Even if they were actually styluses, having two would be of little use. Note that permanent was previously spelled "permenant", incorrectly. This was later corrected; See [[#Trivia]]
*'''Mouse cursor:''' A feature of BlackBerry smartphones using mice has gone out of favor due to the popularity of touch screens, which are lighter and more convienient. However, Android devices, at least, still support Bluetooth HID access, and on some devices it is possible to pair the device with a mouse (and keyboard) and access the screen through a mouse pointer. These peripherals may also be attached with {{w|USB On-The-Go}}. This can be particularly useful if the device is exporting its display to a large external screen - and {{w|Samsung_DeX|some manufacturers}} have provided tethering systems based around pairing a phone with a mouse. 

The tagline for the phone says that the marketing team hopes that 2000 still sounds like a futuristic number. It was common for a time to have futuristic science-fiction take place on or around the year 2000 (e.g. 2001: A Space Odyssey, Knight Rider 2000, Death Race 2000, Space: 1999), and many devices marketed in the late 20th century had a "2000" as part of their product name in order to sound futuristic. However, since the year 2000 was 18 years ago at the time of this comic's publication, this is no longer the case. The number 2000 also represents the fact that this is the 2000th xkcd comic.

The nonsensical trademarking of xkcd Phone slogans has become even more pronounced: as well as the inapplicable-as-ever copyright symbol, the slogan is listed three times as a {{w|registered trademark}} and twice as an unregistered one – and the second of those trademark signs is itself trademarked.

The title text refers to {{w|Retina Display}}, a term used to describe Apple products with higher pixel densities. The xkcd Phone marketing team would be unable to use the term due to Apple's having registered it as a trademark, as it would be a copyright violation. Additionally, the {{w|Fovea centralis|central fovea region}} is a portion of your eye's retina containing the most densely packed photosensitive neurons (confusing the biological retina with the electronics display of the same name). {{w|Foveated rendering}} is a genuine computer graphics technique intended to increase performance by rendering with higher quality to the regions of the display where the user is looking, and lower quality at the edges of vision; it is expected to be useful for virtual reality (one of the uses for cell phones) as a way to deal with the required high pixel densities while managing power consumption. There are displays with variable density, in specialist uses, but such a feature is not practical in a phone because the whole area of the display is typically useful and needs to provide high resolution (as the user's eye moves across it). Also, hundreds of pixels per inch is not considered a very high resolution, as a full-hd smartphone [https://www.lifewire.com/how-many-pixels-in-an-inch-4125185 has 440.58 pixels per inch].

==Transcript==
:[The comic depicts a smartphone showing many uncommon features. The front view shows a mouse cursor and a circle in the middle. The side view reveals the circle as something like an old photo lens from 1900 extending far above the surface and four large buttons (camera lenses) at the rear. The third view is from the top and just mentions a "hollow ground." The bottom view looks like as it was opened by a can opener and shows a big USB connector and on the right a small black connection.]
:Dockless
:Silent
:Quad camera takes four copies of every picture
:Front-facing camera obscura
:3D facial contour analysis shows you a realistic preview of your death mask
:Sponsored pixels
:Front and rear pop-out grips
:Humidity-controlled crisper
:Antikythera mechanism
:New York Times partnership: all photos taken with camera app are captioned in real time by reporter Maggie Haberman
:Spit valve
:Standard USB connector
:Coin purse-style squeeze access
:Hollow-ground
:Absorbent
:Keyboard supports dynamic typing
:Backflow preventer
:Swiss Army partnership: folding knife (unlocks only if Switzerland is invaded)
:100% BPA-free PCB construction
:AMOLCD display (7-segment)
:Runs on battery for the first 6 hours, then uses gasoline
:Sharpie® dual stylus (dry-erase + permanent)
:Mouse cursor

:Introducing
:'''<big>The xkcd Phone 2000</big>'''
:We're still hoping this sounds like a futuristic number®®™®©™®

==Trivia==
The stylus was previously called 'permenant'. This was later corrected, to permanent. You can still see the original image [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/images/archive/b/b4/20180531174214%21xkcd_phone_2000.png here]

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:xkcd Phones]]
[[Category:Comics sharing name|xkcd Phones]]

2000: xkcd Phone 2000

2020-10-27T19:13:55Z

188.114.103.129: /* Explanation */ Link to subsequent installment

{{comic
| number = 2000
| date = May 30, 2018
| title = xkcd Phone 2000
| image = xkcd_phone_2000.png
| titletext = Our retina display features hundreds of pixels per inch in the central fovea region.
}}

==Explanation==
This is the seventh entry in the ongoing [[:Category:xkcd Phones|xkcd Phone series]], and once again, the comic plays with many standard tech buzzwords, and horribly misuses all of them, to create a phone that sounds impressive but self-evidently isn't to even the most ignorant customer. The previous comic in the series [[1889: xkcd Phone 6]] was released 8 and a half months before this one, and the next comic [[2377:_xkcd_Phone_12]] was released five months later.

This time a nonconsecutive version number is used to match the milestone comic number 2000.

List of features (clockwise from top-center):

*'''Dockless:''' It was common practice for older standard cellphones (i.e. non-smartphones) to use a docking station for charging. "Dockless" could be a catchy marketing term for wireless charging, or it could simply mean wired charging without a dock.
*'''Silent:''' Most mobile phones have a "Silent" mode in which all ringing and vibration is muted, so the user can receive messages and missed-call notifications in a place that requires silence. This xkcd Phone feature may be a "Silent" mode button, but perhaps the phone is silent all the time and unable to produce sound at all. While most people these days use their smartphones for functions that do not require sound, a completely silent phone would not fit the traditional definition of a "phone". This feature is labelled at the location where a headphone socket would traditionally be, although some recent phones have discarded the traditional headphone jack in place of wireless headphones.
*'''Quad camera takes four copies of every picture:''' Recent phones have added up to three rear-facing cameras, offering different fields of view, monochrome cameras for low light, and a wider base for emulating depth of field effects. At the time of writing no phone on the market has four rear-facing cameras. However, YouTube personality nigahiga created a parody of the iPhone (iFhone 8) that has four cameras structured similarly, e.g. taking a picture of a letter K gives 4K. An alternative interpretation is that the cameras take four ''identical'' pictures simultaneously, which would use up storage space at 4 times the rate of a standard camera while providing no advantage.
*'''Front-facing camera obscura:''' A {{w|camera obscura}} is a dark room or box with a small hole allowing light to enter. The size of the hole causes light travelling in straight lines to project a dim inverted image on the back of the room or box; the concept is the predecessor to a modern camera, which uses a lens to allow more light to enter. A camera obscura is not strictly speaking a camera as in an image capture device (although there are pin-hole cameras which use the same mechanism). Actual phones have front-facing conventional cameras, allowing selfies, video calling, etc.
*'''3D facial contour analysis shows you a realistic preview of your death mask:''' Recent computational photography effects implemented on mobile phones support facial analysis, allowing for artificial relighting or the creation of avatars. However, since a {{w|death mask}} is created to look just like the deceased's face, all cameras provide this "feature" automatically.
*'''Sponsored pixels:''' Presumably this means that parts of the screen (pixels) can be bought in a sponsoring deal. If enough pixels are sold, your screen would be rendered unusable. It is common for advertisers to buy part of the screen real-estate on a service web site (in fact, {{w|The Million Dollar Homepage}} hosted nothing but a 1000x1000 pixel grid of advertisements), and "images" the size of individual pixels can be used to track site access without being intrusive to the user. For the xkcd Phone 2000, it appears that advertisers have access to part of the screen (worryingly, right in the middle). Slightly less intrusive approaches have been used in bookstores selling customised versions of the Kindle, for example, and it is common for cell phone networks to insist on network-specific software to be installed on a phone.
*'''Front and rear pop-out grips:''' There are accessories that stick to the rear of a phone and can be "popped out", offering a grip, a stand, or somewhere to store headphone cables. Integrating such a feature into the phone design is novel, although some phones have incorporated kick stands. Pop-out grips are normally placed on the back of the phone to make it easier to hold with one hand. Having a second grip to the front of the phone does nothing except block part of the screen. There could be a small screen on the top of the grip since the grip is shown to contain "Sponsored Pixels".
*'''Humidity-controlled crisper:''' A crisper is a drawer in a refrigerator meant to control the humidity to keep vegetables from drying out and getting limp. Obviously, a smartphone would have no need for a crisper{{Citation needed}}.
*'''Antikythera mechanism:''' The {{w|antikythera mechanism}} is an ancient Greek clockwork device for predicting astronomical positions. It is one of the earliest known analogue computers. While impressive for its time, by now it is obsolete by millennia.
*'''New York Times partnership: all photos taken with camera app are captioned in real time by reporter Maggie Haberman:''' Modern phones can use machine learning techniques (usually in the cloud) to identify and tag camera content - this makes it possible to search, for example, for photos containing a particular person or subject without requiring user input. Cellphone photos are often used in contributions to social media with some form of user-provided caption. This phone appears to combine the two, using {{w|Maggie Haberman}} to provide automatic captions for photos taken by the phone's owner (although whether this is explicitly for social media use or internal to the phone is unclear).
*'''Spit valve:''' A water key, or "spit valve," is a feature on most brass and some woodwind instruments used to empty the instrument of condensation caused by the musician's breath (and not, as is commonly thought, saliva). Of course, one wouldn't think condensation would form on the inside of a smartphone{{Citation needed}}.
*'''Standard USB connector:''' a USB A port is displayed. Unfortunately, a "standard" USB connector, according to the USB standard, would be a USB B port as a phone typically acts as the "slave" device, rather than the "host" as a USB A port would imply. However, in recent updates to the USB standard, bi-communication between 2 A ports is supported.
*'''Coin purse-style squeeze access:''' presumably, the casing is flexible in this region, and when squeezed at the sides (a bad idea, considering the next design item) reveals the USB A port and spit valve.
*'''Hollow-ground:''' a {{w|Grind#Typical_grinds|hollow grind}} is a type of knife (or similar sharp tool) edge noted for sharpness and general fragility, often seen in razors. This seems to imply that the phone is exceedingly smooth, which would make it difficult to hold{{Citation needed}}.
*'''Absorbent:''' Many modern phones are designed to be waterproof, to avoid accidents and allow use in the rain. It's also common to have some form of oleophobic coating on the screen to reduce smearing as fingers are used on the touchscreen. This phone seems to have the reverse feature, and be explicitly designed to absorb things (presumably liquids--perhaps that's why it needs a spit valve). "Absorbent" is more commonly a property touted by the packaging of paper towels.
*'''Keyboard supports dynamic typing:''' {{w|Type_system#Dynamic_type_checking_and_runtime_type_information|Dynamic typing}} is a computer programming concept, and has nothing to do with typing on a keyboard.
*'''Backflow preventer:''' A {{w|backflow prevention device}} is a mechanism that avoids the possibility of liquid (usually water) travelling in the opposite direction from the normal intent if the expected pressure is inverted. Since there is not normally any liquid flowing through a phone (unless in this case relating to the spit valve), this would not normally be a useful feature. However, some smart phones do contain pressure measuring devices such as barometers (which can also be used in some cases to detect the phone being squeezed), so maybe this phone is intended to be resilient to such conditions.
*'''Swiss Army partnership: folding knife (unlocks only if Switzerland is invaded):''' A {{w|Swiss Army knife}} is a folding knife, traditionally with many secondary "blades" for multiple uses such as can openers and files. Usually it is a generic term for that style of knife, but the knife in this phone surprisingly really has a connection with the army of {{w|Switzerland}}. Switzerland is known for remaining neutral (and not being invaded) in both of the World Wars of the 20th century despite war raging across surrounding countries, suggesting that it is unlikely that the knife would ever be unlocked. While such a feature on a phone (or phone case) may be useful, it is likely to be a safety concern, and a threat to convenience when security checkpoints such as airports start confiscating the phone when they notice it conceals a knife blade. What's more, a phone does not provide the ideal grip for a knife blade - especially if force is to be applied to it. This may also reference the Swiss military practice of soldiers keeping military rifles in their private homes but only being given ammunition in the event the army is mobilized.
*'''100% BPA-free PCB construction:''' {{w|Bisphenol A}} (BPA) is a chemical used in plastics such as waterbottles. Recent studies show that BPA can leach estrogen-like compounds into liquids, so BPA-free water bottles have become popular. PCB probably refers to a {{w|printed circuit board}}, which is made of resin-bonded fiberglass, not plastic, and which contains the electrical components that control most modern electronic devices such as phones. It may also refer to {{w|Polychlorinated biphenyl}} (PCBs), a category of persistent organic pollutants which are not used very much any more; it would be far worse than BPA for anyone concerned with the issue.
*'''AMOLCD display (7-segment):''' {{w|AMOLED}} is a display technology often used in cell phones, providing thin and emissive displays. {{w|Liquid-crystal_display|LCD}} is another display technology used in phones, and works by blocking light from a separate backlight. A {{w|Seven-segment_display|7-segment display}} is a device made of seven independently-controlled segments (usually either LCD or LED) which can be used to display a single digit; as such the technology is common in traditional digital watches. In contrast most phone displays are made of a uniform high-resolution pixel grid that allows arbitrary content, like random images, to be displayed, although some very old (pre-smart) cellphones and land lines did use this technology in displaying a phone number, like the {{w|MotoFONE F3}}. The technology cannot represent the entire alphabet without modification (one method is to put X's on both the top and bottom squares) , so it is inappropriate for displaying plain text, let alone graphics and images.
*'''Runs on battery for the first 6 hours, then uses gasoline:''' A nod to the increased popularity of gas-electric hybrid vehicles. This would be a fantastic breakthrough for fuel cells. There have been many attempts to create a highly portable fuel cell that can be used to power phones. Although having to use gasoline instead of a USB cord would likely cause more problems for the average consumer, like the phone blowing up, a fuel cell does have some notable advantages over a standard lithium-ion battery. When comparing a fuel cell to a battery of equal size the fuel cell will be capable of powering an object for far longer than the battery. This includes lithium-ion batteries which are commonly used for powering phones and are typically the majority of its mass. This would mean one could shrink the size of the battery substantially yet still be able to provide the same amount of power. The smaller battery can be kept as is in order to reduce the weight of the phone or can free up space for more features to be installed into the phone. This might simply be the first xkcd phone that mentions that it does this. Provides a possible explanation to how the manufacturer of the phone is capable of fitting so many unusual features into the phone to begin with. Another advantage of a fuel cell powered phone is that it is independent from a working power grid (useful for disaster situations where thousands of people would no longer be capable of staying in contact with others or people who are stranded and alone) and there is no need for a bulky generator to convert the gasoline into electricity first. This is not the first time Randall has talked about this before, with much of the information here coming from what-if #128: {{what if|128|Zippo Phone}}.
*'''Sharpie® dual stylus (dry-erase + permanent)''' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharpie Sharpie®] is a brand most associated with a line of permanent fine-tip markers. While a stylus is generally a pen-like object that doesn't create markings, but instead allows finer input on a touch screen, "Dry-Erase + Permanent" implies that these are in fact markers. These would allow the user to write on the screen, but as this wouldn't allow any form on input to the phone, it would only serve as a very expensive pseudo-whiteboard. Even if they were actually styluses, having two would be of little use. Note that permanent was previously spelled "permenant", incorrectly. This was later corrected; See [[#Trivia]]
*'''Mouse cursor:''' A feature of BlackBerry smartphones using mice has gone out of favor due to the popularity of touch screens, which are lighter and more convienient. However, Android devices, at least, still support Bluetooth HID access, and on some devices it is possible to pair the device with a mouse (and keyboard) and access the screen through a mouse pointer. These peripherals may also be attached with {{w|USB On-The-Go}}. This can be particularly useful if the device is exporting its display to a large external screen - and {{w|Samsung_DeX|some manufacturers}} have provided tethering systems based around pairing a phone with a mouse. 

The tagline for the phone says that the marketing team hopes that 2000 still sounds like a futuristic number. It was common for a time to have futuristic science-fiction take place on or around the year 2000 (e.g. 2001: A Space Odyssey, Knight Rider 2000, Death Race 2000, Space: 1999), and many devices marketed in the late 20th century had a "2000" as part of their product name in order to sound futuristic. However, since the year 2000 was 18 years ago at the time of this comic's publication, this is no longer the case. The number 2000 also represents the fact that this is the 2000th xkcd comic.

The nonsensical trademarking of xkcd Phone slogans has become even more pronounced: as well as the inapplicable-as-ever copyright symbol, the slogan is listed three times as a {{w|registered trademark}} and twice as an unregistered one – and the second of those trademark signs is itself trademarked.

The title text refers to {{w|Retina Display}}, a term used to describe Apple products with higher pixel densities. The xkcd Phone marketing team would be unable to use the term due to Apple's having registered it as a trademark, as it would be a copyright violation. Additionally, the {{w|Fovea centralis|central fovea region}} is a portion of your eye's retina containing the most densely packed photosensitive neurons (confusing the biological retina with the electronics display of the same name). {{w|Foveated rendering}} is a genuine computer graphics technique intended to increase performance by rendering with higher quality to the regions of the display where the user is looking, and lower quality at the edges of vision; it is expected to be useful for virtual reality (one of the uses for cell phones) as a way to deal with the required high pixel densities while managing power consumption. There are displays with variable density, in specialist uses, but such a feature is not practical in a phone because the whole area of the display is typically useful and needs to provide high resolution (as the user's eye moves across it). Also, hundreds of pixels per inch is not considered a very high resolution, as a full-hd smartphone [https://www.lifewire.com/how-many-pixels-in-an-inch-4125185 has 440.58 pixels per inch].

==Transcript==
:[The comic depicts a smartphone showing many uncommon features. The front view shows a mouse cursor and a circle in the middle. The side view reveals the circle as something like an old photo lens from 1900 extending far above the surface and four large buttons (camera lenses) at the rear. The third view is from the top and just mentions a "hollow ground." The bottom view looks like as it was opened by a can opener and shows a big USB connector and on the right a small black connection.]
:Dockless
:Silent
:Quad camera takes four copies of every picture
:Front-facing camera obscura
:3D facial contour analysis shows you a realistic preview of your death mask
:Sponsored pixels
:Front and rear pop-out grips
:Humidity-controlled crisper
:Antikythera mechanism
:New York Times partnership: all photos taken with camera app are captioned in real time by reporter Maggie Haberman
:Spit valve
:Standard USB connector
:Coin purse-style squeeze access
:Hollow-ground
:Absorbent
:Keyboard supports dynamic typing
:Backflow preventer
:Swiss Army partnership: folding knife (unlocks only if Switzerland is invaded)
:100% BPA-free PCB construction
:AMOLCD display (7-segment)
:Runs on battery for the first 6 hours, then uses gasoline
:Sharpie® dual stylus (dry-erase + permanent)
:Mouse cursor

:Introducing
:'''<big>The xkcd Phone 2000</big>'''
:We're still hoping this sounds like a futuristic number®®™®©™®

==Trivia==
The stylus was previously called 'permenant'. This was later corrected, to permanent. You can still see the original image [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/images/archive/b/b4/20180531174214%21xkcd_phone_2000.png here]

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:xkcd Phones]]
[[Category:Comics sharing name|xkcd Phones]]

871: Charity

2020-10-06T18:28:58Z

188.114.103.129: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 871
| date = March 11, 2011
| title = Charity
| image = charity.png
| titletext = I usually respond to someone else doing something good by figuring out a reason that they're not really as good as they seem. But I've been realizing lately that there's an easier way to handle these situations, and it involves zero internet arguments.
}}

==Explanation==

Organizations such as {{w|Steam (software)|Steam}} often offer sales where certain games are available for low prices--in order to compel or persuade buyers to make donations to worthwhile charities. [[Cueball]] is participating in one of these purchases (to fight {{w|malaria}}), but [[Megan]]'s snide denigration of Cueball's act of charity as inadequate and self-serving has dissuaded him from any act of charity at all. People donating to charity are in fact buying a feeling that they are good people doing good things. If you take this feeling away, many people stop donating, which is shown on the third panel.

This also shows the stupidity of the situation: donating some of your money to charity can result in insults and arguments, while donating nothing at all does not.

However, whatever somebody's internal motivation was, charity is a good thing. Therefore the proper response is to neither care what people say about you nor attack other people's charitable giving. The action that Randall recommends here is the right one, which is to donate anyway without caring about what others say or do. Clicking on the original image leads to [http://www.nothingbutnets.net the website of] {{w|Nothing But Nets}}, an organization that distributes mosquito bed nets in Africa for the eradication of malaria.

A subtext here is that the friendship between Cueball and Megan has been strained or even broken. Cueball has picked a new friend to talk to, who reacts positively to his decision.

In the title text, Randall expresses an opinion critical of "respond[ing] to someone else doing something good by figuring out a reason that they're not really as good as they seem", in part because supporting charity shouldn't cause "internet arguments."

==Transcript==
:Cueball: I'm going to buy this $10 game I want, and I'm donating $10 for malaria eradication.

:Megan: If you actually cared, you'd skip the game and donate all $20.
:Megan: What's more important? Games, or mosquito nets and medicine for kids?

:(Caption above the comic)
:Later:
:Cueball: I think I'm going to buy these two $10 games I want.
:Friend: Cool; which ones?

==Trivia==
Following the publication of this comic, comments responding to anti-malaria charities, celebrities who raise money for charity, and charity directors in general, by figuring out reasons that they're not really as good as they seem, were posted on [[Talk:871:_Charity|the discussion page for this comic]]. However, this did not lead to internet arguments.

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

2362: Volcano Dinosaur

2020-09-23T13:03:15Z

188.114.103.129: /* Explanation */ This is 2020, folks.

{{comic
| number = 2362
| date = September 21, 2020
| title = Volcano Dinosaur
| image = volcano_dinosaur.png
| titletext = Phylogeneticists are working on identifying and notifying its next of kin.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a SLOWLY RECOVERING DINOSAUR. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This comic is a reference to [https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/new-dinosaur-discovered-china-volcano-b511774.html this discovery] of [https://peerj.com/articles/9832/ fossils of dinosaurs that were buried and killed by a volcanic eruption].

Facetiously, Megan asks if the dinosaur was okay. As living things typically don't survive being fossilized in volcano debris{{Citation needed}}, the answer to the question would obviously be "no", but Cueball replies that he is unsure. Even if the dinosaur somehow survived the initial burial, it would be very difficult for it to survive buried for 125 million years. 2020 wouldn't probably be the best year to dig it up and potentially let it free.

Megan's response is natural and expected in many situations when hearing of a person or creature experiencing misfortune. The humour here comes from the inaptness of asking the question millions of years after the event. Rather than responding to the ridiculousness of Megan's question, Cueball takes it seriously, and deadpans that he can't tell.

The title text suggests contacting its "{{w|next of kin}}", which usually means a nearest living relative, e.g. a brother or a sister. The process of identifying and contacting next of kin is a standard step performed by authorities in the event of a death being discovered. In this case, dinosaurs are extinct, so it is the job of {{w|Phylogenetics|phylogeneticist}}s (those who study evolutionary relationships) to determine which living animal (presumably a bird of some kind) is the "nearest relative" to the deceased dinosaurs.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[Megan is standing facing right, talking to Cueball who is sitting at a computer desk and also facing right, looking at a computer screen.]
:Cueball: Oh cool, they just found a dinosaur that was buried by a volcanic eruption 125 million years ago.
:Megan: Wow.

:[Pause. Megan is still facing right. Panel closes in on Megan and Cueball is not shown. This panel has no dialogue.]

:[Megan has stepped closer to Cueball, who is still looking at the screen.]
:Megan: Was it okay?
:Cueball: Hmm, it doesn't say.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Volcanoes]]
[[Category:Dinosaurs]]
[[Category:Biology]]

2353: Hurricane Hunters

2020-09-03T18:35:39Z

188.114.103.129: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2353
| date = August 31, 2020
| title = Hurricane Hunters
| image = hurricane_hunters.png
| titletext = Our flight gathered valuable data on whether a commercial airliner in the eye of a hurricane can do a loop.
}}

==Explanation==

The comic strip opens with [[Black Hat]] explaining to [[Cueball]] (who is presumed to be some government official) that flying into hurricanes, while risky, provides valuable scientific data. Although the {{w|Eye (cyclone)|eye}} itself is relatively calm, it is surrounded by the '''eyewall''', a region of extremely intense thunderstorms. Thus, the danger of flying through such storms must be carefully weighed against the scientific knowledge being gained. In the real world, such missions are conducted by highly-trained pilots with specialized aircraft, such as the {{w|NOAA Hurricane Hunters}} and the US Air Force's {{w|53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron}} (also nicknamed "Hurricane Hunters").

However, Cueball's comment in the third panel shows that Black Hat is not discussing the activity of hurricane hunting in general, but rather is attempting to justify his decision to fly a passenger jet through the eye of a hurricane (perhaps {{w|Hurricane Laura}}, which was active during the week prior to this comic strip's publication). Passenger airliners are not meant to fly into hurricanes{{Citation needed}}, and can easily crash there. It's not clear if Black Hat is (somehow) a jet pilot himself, or has come into ownership of an airline and was merely directing a flight, but the passengers wanted to go to St. Louis, Missouri, which is [https://www.homefacts.com/hurricanes/Missouri/St.-Louis-City-County/St.-Louis.html only very rarely struck by hurricanes] (although [https://www.homefacts.com/tornadoes/Missouri/St.-Louis-City-County/St.-Louis.html tornadoes are of greater concern]), so they were certainly not expecting to "participate" in a hurricane hunting mission. Black Hat replies that, instead of being upset, the passengers should be proud of their contributions to meteorology, but their contribution is probably negligible, as they were not actively collecting useful scientific data. A similar situation where historical/well-documented experimental techniques are used in inappropriate situations occurs in [[1594: Human Subjects]], albeit by test subjects rather than “researchers”, if Black Hat can be called that.

In the title text, Black Hat says that their flight gathered data on the ''possibility'' of making loops in the eye of the hurricane by passenger airliners, but if it had ''actually done'' a loop, he probably would have said so. (The Boeing 707 ''was'' made to successfully execute a barrel roll and fly inverted [https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/60-years-ago-the-famous-boeing-707-barrel-roll-over-lake-washington/ during a 1955 test flight], but probably no commercial jetliner could perform any ''more'' advanced aerobatic maneuvers.) If no flight envelope protections are active, barrel rolls are possible with any aircraft and any helicopter, because the aircraft and its fuel systems only experience mild and positive g loads, never negative ones. Likewise, the air flow stays the same as in level flight. Problematic is ending the barrel roll, as there is a risk of exceeding the safe speed limits.

Another passenger jet that was barrel-rolled was the Concorde. Pilots Brian Walpole and Jean Franchi did so on a test flight.

Loops are even more problematic because of the speeds reached when ending the maneuver, but like the barrel roll, a loop ''can'' be flown while only experiencing mild and positive g loads. In fact, Harold E. Thompson flew several loopings in a Sikorsky S-52 helicopter, in 1947. Prolonged inverted flights, though, cause negative g forces, an altered air flow, and cause havoc with the fuel systems, parts of which are gravity-driven.

It is possible that this is his justification of why the flight contributed to meteorology. However, passenger airliners' abilities to do loops has nothing to do with that field of science. Moreover, the same data could be gathered by flying the same airliner without passengers, or with willing ones.

==Transcript==

:[Black hat facing left]
:Black Hat: Yes, flying into the eye of a hurricane is dangerous.

:[Cueball on left at a desk being addressed by Black Hat on the right]
:Black Hat: But it provides us with crucial data that helps us understand and predict these storms.

:[Same as previous cell, with Black Hat raising his hand]
:Cueball: But your passengers had bought tickets to St. Louis.
:Black Hat: They should be ''proud'' of our contributions to meteorology!

==Trivia==
:Everything on Cueball's desk has gone missing in panel 3.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Black Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Hurricanes]]

1648: Famous Duos

2020-09-03T13:13:28Z

188.114.103.129: /* List of alternative duos */

{{comic
| number = 1648
| date = February 26, 2016
| title = Famous Duos
| image = famous_duos.png
| titletext = The Romeo and Butt-Head film actually got two thumbs up from Siskel and Oates.
}}

==Explanation==
In popular culture (the term is loosely used in this case) there are many '''famous duos''', such as {{w|Calvin & Hobbes}} (six-year-old boy and his toy tiger, from the cartoon strip with the same name) or {{w|David & Goliath}} (famous past King of Israel and giant, {{w|Biblical}} characters from the {{w|Book of Samuel}} in the {{w|Old Testament}}). (See the [[#Trivia|trivia section]] regarding an on-line list of duos).

In this table, [[Randall]] describes a fictional {{w|Many-worlds interpretation|parallel universe}} where the same names are used in different combinations — instead of Calvin, it is now Thelma (from the movie ''{{w|Thelma & Louise}}'') who is paired up with Hobbes, and Calvin is instead paired off with the King, from ''{{w|Anna and the King}}''. In all cases the one mentioned first on the list is also mentioned first in our universe, so it is always of the form Calvin and the King, never Calvin and Anna. There are 24 duos, and all 48 partners are mentioned (they go through four [[#Cycles|cycles]]). (In the title text of [[1644: Stargazing]] from the week before this comic, there is an indirect reference to parallel universes/{{w|multiverse}}).

The humor of this comic comes from the ridiculousness of the pairings, and the reader's imagination of the stories that are created with the pairs. See the whole [[#List of real duos|list of real duos]] as well as the [[#List of alternative duos|list of alternative duos]] below, with more detailed explanations.

In the title text, alternative movie ''Romeo and Butt-Head'' is mentioned, the fifth entry on the list. This is a combination of the famous {{w|Shakespeare}} play ''{{w|Romeo and Juliet}}'' and ''{{w|Beavis and Butt-Head}}''. ''{{w|Romeo and Juliet}}'' has been filmed many times; most recently in ''{{w|Romeo + Juliet}}'' from 1996 with {{w|Leonardo DiCaprio}} and {{w|Claire Danes}} in the leading roles. {{w|Butt-Head}} is the less stupid one (of the very stupid duo) from the animated TV series ''{{w|Beavis and Butt-Head}}'' (and a {{w|Beavis and Butt-Head Do America|film}}). As Romeo and Juliet is one of the best known love stories and Butt-Head is one of the most disgusting teens ever depicted on the big screen (only overtaken by {{w|Beavis}}), the combination could create disturbing pictures in people's heads (especially in the heads of anyone who may identify themselves with Juliet).

In the alternative universe, when this movie was released, it got the best possible review of two thumbs up from the critics ''Siskel and Oates''. {{w|Gene Siskel}} was paired with {{w|Roger Ebert}}, when they reviewed movies as the famous duo {{w|Siskel and Ebert}}. They were widely known for the "thumbs up/thumbs down" review summaries, with their best combined review being ''Two Thumbs Up'', one from each of them. Coincidentally, or perhaps not, they actually gave {{w|''Beavis & Butthead Do America''}} ''Two Thumbs Up''.

In the alternative universe Siskel and his partner gives the film a (surprising) two thumbs up, but Ebert has been replaced with Oates. This is a reference to John Oates of {{w|Hall & Oates}}, a famous American musical duo from Philadelphia.

There also exists a comedy duo named {{w|Garfunkel and Oates}}, formed by Riki Lindhome and Kate Micucci, who chose the "Garfunkel and Oates" name by combining the second names from both ''Hall & Oates'' and ''{{w|Simon and Garfunkel}}'' (the latter duo is mentioned in the main comic). Although this exact combo would not be possible in the xkcd version, as the "real universe" combo takes the second names from two duos rather than the first name from one and the second name from another (as in this comic), there may definitely be a deliberate reference to this group as well which has taken the parallel universe idea into our universe.

===List of real duos===
*See the list of [[#List of alternative duos|alternative duos]] below.
*In this list the ''partner index'' indicates whom the second from the duo is linked with in the comic
**So in the case with Thelma (index 1) and Louise (partner index 3), this means that Louise is paired up with Batman (index 3).
**Thelma is paired up with the Hobbes who has partner index 1.
{| class="wikitable sortable"
|-
|+ Famous duos in this universe
|-
! scope="col" | Name
! scope="col" class="unsortable" | pairing
! scope="col" | Partner
! scope="col" class="unsortable" | Explanation
! scope="col" | Name index
! scope="col" | Partner index
|-
| Thelma
| and
| Louise
| ''{{w|Thelma & Louise}}'' is a famous road trip film from 1991.
| 1
| 3
|-
| When Harry
| Met
| Sally
| ''{{w|When Harry Met Sally...}}'' is a romantic comedy film from 1989.
| 2
| 16
|-
| Batman
| and
| Robin
| {{w|Batman}} and {{w|Robin (comic)|Robin}} are comic book characters (first appearance for Batman was in 1939, Robin the year after). There have been several {{w|Batman_in_film#Films|films}} including one called ''{{w|Batman & Robin (film)|Batman & Robin}}'' from 1997. A new Batman film ''{{w|Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice}}'' had its release date three weeks after the release of this comic (2016-02-26).
| 3
| 4
|-
| {{w|Mark Antony|Antony}}
| and
| {{w|Cleopatra}}
| {{w|Mark Antony#Antony and Cleopatra|Antony and Cleopatra}} are historical figures who had an affair and three children together after the death of {{w|Julius Caesar}} up to Anthony's death 30 BC. Their combined names are best known from the play ''{{w|Antony and Cleopatra}}'' by {{w|Shakespeare}}.
| 4
| 12
|-
| Romeo
| and
| Juliet
| {{w|Romeo and Juliet}} are characters from Shakespeare's famous romantic tragedy, from 1597, made into several {{w|Romeo and Juliet on screen#Significant feature releases|major films}}.
| 5
| 24
|-
| {{w|Bonnie and Clyde#Bonnie Parker|Bonnie}}
| and
| {{w|Bonnie and Clyde#Clyde Barrow|Clyde}}
| {{w|Bonnie and Clyde}} were American criminals who traveled the central United States with their gang during the Great Depression until their death on May 23, 1934. They are well known from the film ''{{w|Bonnie and Clyde (film)|Bonnie and Clyde}}''.
| 6
| 7
|-
| {{w|Pinky and the Brain#Pinky|Pinky}}
| and
| {{w|Pinky and the Brain#Characters|the Brain}}
| Two mice from ''{{w|Pinky and the Brain}}'', an American animated TV series from the 1990s.
| 7
| 20
|-
| {{w|Paul Simon|Simon}}
| and
| {{w|Art Garfunkel|Garfunkel}}
| {{w|Simon & Garfunkel}} is a very famous musical duo from the 1960s. (See also explanation for the title text).
| 8
| 22
|-
| Beauty
| and
| the Beast
| {{w|Beauty and the Beast}} are fairy tale characters from a French book from 1740, today best known from the {{w|Beauty and the Beast (1991 film)|Disney film}} from 1991.
| 9
| 10
|-
| {{w|Beavis}}
| and
| {{w|Butt-head}}
| ''{{w|Beavis and Butt-Head}}'' is an animated TV series from the 1990s shown on {{w|MTV}}.
| 10
| 5
|-
| {{w|Rocky the Flying Squirrel|Rocky}}
| and
| {{w|Bullwinkle J. Moose|Bullwinkle}}
| A flying squirrel and a moose known from the ''{{w|The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show}}'', an American animated TV series from the 1960s.
| 11
| 2
|-
| {{w|Bud Abbott|Abbott}}
| and
| {{w|Lou Costello|Costello}}
| {{w|Abbott and Costello}} is a famous American comedy duo whose work in vaudeville and on stage, radio, film and television made them the most popular comedy team during the 1940s. They are known for their famous {{w|Who's on First}} sketch.
| 12
| 17
|-
| Dr. Jekyll
| and
| Mr. Hyde
| Not really a duo, {{w|Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (character)|Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde}} are the two sides of a well known character from the book ''{{w|Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde}}'' written by the Scottish author {{w|Robert Louis Stevenson}} in 1886. It has been adapted into several {{w|Adaptations_of_Strange_Case_of_Dr._Jekyll_and_Mr._Hyde#Film|films}}.
| 13
| 15
|-
| {{w|Samson}}
| and
| {{w|Delilah}}
| Not really a duo, Samson and Delilah are Biblical characters from the {{w|Book of Judges}} (chapters 13-16). Samson was given supernatural strength by God in order to combat his enemies. However, Samson had two vulnerabilities: his attraction to untrustworthy women, and his hair, without which he was just a normal man. These vulnerabilities ultimately proved fatal for him when Delilah had him reveal the secret of his hair, which she subsequently cut off. Then she handed him over to be captured by the Philistines, who gouged his eyes out and brought him to imprisonment in Gaza. He died while in capture but on his own terms. Delilah had not explained why he was no longer strong, so his hair had been allowed to grow out again. When he got it all back, he used his power to destroy a temple he was led into, taking many enemies with him in death.
| 14
| 11
|-
| {{w|Butch Cassidy}}
| and
| the {{w|Sundance Kid}}
| They are historical criminals who died in 1908. They were notorious American train and bank robbers with the {{w|Butch Cassidy's Wild Bunch}} gang in 1899-1901. They were made famous by the film ''{{w|Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid}}'' from 1969.
| 15
| 23
|-
| Bill
| and
| Ted’s Excellent Adventure and Bogus Journey
| {{w|Bill & Ted (franchise)|Bill & Ted}} are characters from the two films ''{{w|Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure}}'' (1989) and ''{{w|Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey}}'' (1991). The two titles are spread out on the two new pairings for Bill and Ted, in recognition that this duo is mainly known for these two films, although there also is a {{w|Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventures (1990 TV series)|spin-off animated series}} from 1990-1991.
| 16
| 6
|-
| {{w|David}}
| and
| {{w|Goliath}}
| Not really a duo, David and Goliath were biblical adversaries best known from "small" David's defeat of giant Goliath in the story {{w|David#David_and_Goliath|David and Goliath}}. David later became the second king of Israel, according to the {{w|Books of Samuel}}, and according to the {{w|New Testament}}, an ancestor of {{w|Jesus}}.
| 17
| 8
|-
| {{w|Sherlock Holmes}}
| and
| {{w|Dr. Watson}}
| Characters from {{w|Arthur Conan Doyle}}'s famous books (from 1887-1927) which have been made into numerous {{w|Adaptations of Sherlock Holmes#Film|films}}. In 2009 and 2011, a new {{w|Sherlock Holmes (2009 film)|series of movies}} has been released with {{w|Robert Downey Jr.}} and {{w|Jude Law}} as the two characters. There have also been several TV series.
| 18
| 19
|-
| Jay
| and
| Silent Bob
| {{w|Jay and Silent Bob}} is a strange duo from {{w|View Askew Productions|View Askew's}} film universe, first seen in the film {{w|Clerks}} from 1994. A film called {{w|Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back}} was later released in 2001. The director of these movies, {{w|Kevin Smith}} plays Silent Bob, who of course rarely speaks, but when he finally does it often becomes a long defining monologue. Jay (played by {{w|Jason Mewes}}) talks all the time!
| 19
| 18
|-
| {{w|Anna Leonowens|Anna}}
| and
| the {{w|Mongkut|King}}
| Recently made famous by the 1999 film ''{{w|Anna and the King}}'', based on the 1944 novel ''{{w|Anna and the King of Siam (novel)|Anna and the King of Siam}}'' by {{w|Margaret Landon}}. The Langdon novel was based on two memoirs written by Anna Leonowens in 1870 and 1872, from her experience as royal governess for King Mongkut's children and language secretary for the King from 1862-1867.
| 20
| 21
|-
| {{w|Calvin (Calvin and Hobbes)|Calvin}}
| and
| {{w|Hobbes (Calvin and Hobbes)|Hobbes}}
| ''{{w|Calvin and Hobbes}}'' is a comic series by {{w|Bill Watterson}} that ran from 1985-1995. Calvin is a six-year-old boy and Hobbes is Calvin's stuffed tiger and best friend, who becomes a living anthropomorphic tiger in Calvin's private fantasy world. They have been [[:Category:Calvin and Hobbes|featured regularly]] in xkcd, most prominently in the "duo" comic: [[409: Electric Skateboard (Double Comic)]].
| 21
| 1
|-
| Timon
| and
| Pumbaa
| {{w|Timon and Pumbaa}} are characters from ''{{w|The Lion King}}'' film (1994) and they also have their own {{w|The Lion King 1½|film from 2004}} and a {{w|Timon & Pumbaa (TV series)|TV series}} that ran from 1995-1999. There have been [[:Category:The Lion King|many references]] to ''The Lion King'' in xkcd, for instance the comment in the final panel of [[1504: Opportunity]], is from the original movie.
| 22
| 14
|-
| {{w|Mary Kate Olsen|Mary Kate}}
| and
| {{w|Ashley Olsen}}
| Known as the {{w|Mary-Kate_and_Ashley_Olsen|Olsen twins}}, these {{w|Twin#Dizygotic_.28fraternal.29_twins|fraternal twin}} actresses born in 1986 have been on TV since they were infants (on ''{{w|Full House}}'' from 1987) and began starring together in TV, film, and video projects, which enabled them to join the ranks of the wealthiest women in the entertainment industry at a young age. They have previously been the pun of the joke in [[362: Blade Runner]].
| 23
| 13
|-
| {{w|Mario}}
| and
| {{w|Luigi}}
| In the {{w|Mario (franchise)|''Mario'' series of video games}}, which started with the 1983 game ''{{w|Mario Bros.}}'', Mario and his brother Luigi are the main characters. ''Mario'' games have been referenced in several xkcd comics, such as [[151: Mario]] and the comics in the {{w|''Mario Kart''}} [[:Category:Mario Kart|category]].
| 24
| 9
|}

===List of alternative duos===
*See the list of [[#List of real duos|real duos]] above.
{| class="wikitable"
|-
|+ Famous Duos in a nearby parallel universe
|-
! scope="col" | Duo name
! scope="col" | Explanation
|-
| Thelma and Hobbes
| In this essay [http://www.exampleessays.com/viewpaper/207623.html Political Philosophies in Thelma and Louise] the sentence ''Thelma and Hobbes's Total Sovereign Authority'' can be found. In this case it is a reference to {{w|Thomas Hobbes}} as the essay is an analysis of Thelma and Louise's actions and the decision they make in comparison to the political philosophies of Thomas Hobbes and {{w|Jean Jacques Rousseau}}. Hobbes was an English philosopher, best known today for his work on political philosophy. He also developed some of the fundamentals of European liberal thought, which could be said to be relevant for the movie.
|-
| When Harry met Bullwinkle
| {{w|Billy Crystal}} who played Harry in When Harry Met Sally... also has an uncredited cameo part as a mattress salesman in the movie {{w|The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle}} (see the list of uncredited actors on [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0131704/combined IMDb]). In this real action movie, Rocky and Bullwinkle ends up in the real world, where it thus becomes likely that Billy who played Harry ends up meeting Bullwinkle "in real life".
|-
| Batman and Louise
| This duos name comes rather close to the real duo {{w|Clark Kent}} and {{w|Lois Lane}} especially since the film {{w|Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice}} was set for release three weeks after the release of this comic in February 2016.
|-
| Antony and Robin
| There is a book called ''[http://www.amazon.com/Shakespeares-Antony-Cleopatra-English-Literature/dp/0713155884 Shakespeare's "Antony and Cleopatra"] written by a Robin Lee.
|-
| Romeo and Butthead
| It would be quite a different story if either Butt-head should replace Juliet or if Romeo should replace Beavis... (Note Butt-Head is spelled with a hyphen, but has been misspelled in the comic.)
|-
| Bonnie and Ted's excellent adventure
| There was not much excellent about the adventure for Bonnie as {{w|Ted Hinton}} was a Dallas County, Texas, deputy sheriff, the youngest of the posse that ambushed and killed Bonnie and Clyde in 1934. That they could have had an excellent adventure in an alternative universe becomes clear from this segment from his history on Wikipedia: "Ted Hinton was also once acquainted with young Bonnie Parker while she was working in Marco's Cafe in Dallas. Because of her good looks, many of the male customers would flirt with her. Hinton was always gentlemanly and treated Bonnie with respect. Hinton admitted in a later biography that he had a crush on Bonnie, which made it difficult for him as one of the men on the team sent to kill her and her lover, Clyde."
|-
| Pinky and Clyde
| As can be seen in the table above this refers to Pinky the mouse from Pinky and the Brain and Clyde from Bonnie and Clyde. But {{w|Ghosts (Pac-Man)#Pinky|Pinky}} and {{w|Ghosts (Pac-Man)#Clyde|Clyde}} are also the names of the pink and orange {{w|Pacman}} ghosts in this universe. They are, however, not a duo as there are {{w|Ghosts (Pac-Man)|four ghosts}} ({{w|Ghosts (Pac-Man)#Blinky|Blinky}} and {{w|Ghosts (Pac-Man)#Inky|Inky}} being the two others).
|-
| Simon and Goliath
| Goliath begins with G as Garfunkel. Simon was the shorter of the duo thus fitting as David vs. Goliath.
|-
| Beauty and Luigi
| No direct relation to either Mario or the Beast. However, each story has had a less-popular adaptation that takes place in the sewers of New York City: the 1993 {{w|Super Mario Bros. (film)|''Super Mario Bros.'' film}} and the 1987-1990 {{w|Beauty and the Beast (1987 TV series)|"Beauty and the Beast" TV series}}. Of course, Mario and Luigi are beast hunters rather than beasts.
|-
| Beavis and the Beast
| Beavis starts with the same three letters as Beauty, just like Beast does.
|-
| Rocky and Delilah
| There is a book called ''[http://www.bensonink.com/delilahsdaughters.html Delilah's Daughters]'', by Angela Benson, where Delilah Monroe's (note the closeness to Munroe) late husband is called Rocky. (See also [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsIvBLuiiRs Rocky and Delilah] on YouTube...)
|-
| Abbot and Cleopatra
| Abbot starts with an A as does Anthony. Cleopatra starts with a C as does Costello.
|-
| Dr. Jekyll and Ashley Olsen
| In the Robert Louis Stevenson story, Dr. Jekyll has a sinister alter-ego in Mr. Hyde just like twins are (almost) the same persons. Though the Olsen twins are not {{w|Twin#IdenticalTwins|identical twins}}, as children the two shared the role of Michelle Tanner on the U.S. sitcom ''Full House''. Jekyll and Hyde are two people in one body, while Mary Kate and Ashley were, in a way, one person in two bodies. There are only three switches in this cycle. Butch Cassidy takes Mr. Hyde and the other Olson twin takes The Sundance Kid. This means that both twins are paired with a man instead of as in real life with a woman.
|-
| Samson and Pumbaa
| Samson has several letters in common with Timon but Samson is a huge man where Timon is a very small animal compared to the other main characters in The Lion King film.
|-
| Butch Cassidy and Mr. Hyde
| See above explanation for Dr. Jekyll and Ashley Olsen.
|-
| Bill and Sally's Bogus Journey
| In this [http://www.rogerwhitney.com/casestudy/ case study] regarding retirement we ''meet Bill and Sally'' (as Sally met Harry). It could be said to be a ''bogus journey'' as it is just a case study.
|-
| David and Costello
| As Costello was the smaller of Abbot and Costello this does not match up with David vs. a Goliath as it did with Goliath vs small Simon.
|-
| Sherlock Holmes and Silent Bob
| This is the only case of a direct switch between two duos. Dr. Watson usually listen to the musings of Sherlock Holmes and Silent Bob is, as his name indicates, mainly silent. Jay talks all the time.
|-
| Jay and Dr. Watson
| See explanation above for their respective real universe partners (the only case of a direct switch between two duos).
|-
| Anna and the Brain
| The Brain desires to take over the world; the King is ruler of his domain.
|-
| Calvin and the King
| Although it is Calvin's fantasy that decides what happens, it is Hobbes that behaves like the King in their relationship at least when it comes to displaying physical strength to determine who decides.
|-
| Timon and Garfunkel
| Timon is put together with Garfunkel, which makes it a close match to Simon and Garfunkel.
|-
| Mary-Kate and the Sundance Kid
| See above explanation for Dr. Jekyll and Ashley Olsen.
|-
| Mario and Juliet
| Mario would have no issue with balconies. His name has some similarities with Romeo. Also, like Romeo, he is italian.
|}

===Cycles===
*There are four cycles.
*The cycles listed below are sorted like explained this example from the longest cycle:
**It starts with "Thelma" (from Thelma and Louse), who is paired with "Hobbes". Hobbes is then shown diagonally down in the next entry below, Calvin and Hobbes, thus leading from "Hobbes" to "Calvin", who is similarly paired with "the King" leading to Anna and so on, until "Batman" is paired with "Louise", completing the cycle.
* First cycle: length 15
Thelma & Louise
Calvin & Hobbes
Anna & the King
Pinky & the Brain
Bonnie & Clyde
Bill & Ted
Harry & Sally
Rocky & Bullwinkle
Samson & Delilah
Timon & Pumbaa
Simon & Garfunkel
David & Goliath
Abbot & Costello
Antony & Cleopatra
Batman & Robin

* Second cycle: length 4
Romeo & Juliet
Beavis & Butthead
Beauty & the Beast
Mario & Luigi

* Third cycle: length 3
Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde
Mary-Kate & Ashley Olsen
Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid

* Fourth cycle: length 2
Sherlock Holmes & Dr. Watson
Jay & Silent Bob

* Assigning an index starting with 1 (= Thelma & Louise) to 24 (= Mario & Luigi), they can be written as:

(1, 21, 20, 7, 6, 16, 2, 11, 14, 22, 8, 17, 12, 4, 3)
(5, 10, 9, 24)
(13, 23, 15)
(18, 19)

==Transcript==
:[Caption above the panel:]
:Famous Duos in a nearby parallel universe

:[A list with 24 duos with a gray “and" between the two names (in one case it is a “met") and three times there is a gray word before (once) or after (twice) the names. The list is centered with the “and" in the middle disregarding the length of the names on each side:]
:{|
|-
| style="text-align:right;" | Thelma
| and
| Hobbes
|-
| style="text-align:right;" | When Harry
| met
| Bullwinkle
|-
| style="text-align:right;" | Batman
| and
| Louise
|-
| style="text-align:right;" | Antony
| and
| Robin
|-
| style="text-align:right;" | Romeo
| and
| Butthead
|-
| style="text-align:right;" | Bonnie
| and
| Ted's excellent adventure
|-
| style="text-align:right;" | Pinky
| and
| Clyde
|-
| style="text-align:right;" | Simon
| and
| Goliath
|-
| style="text-align:right;" | Beauty
| and
| Luigi
|-
| style="text-align:right;" | Beavis
| and
| the Beast
|-
| style="text-align:right;" | Rocky
| and
| Delilah
|-
| style="text-align:right;" | Abbot
| and
| Cleopatra
|-
| style="text-align:right;" | Dr. Jekyll
| and
| Ashley Olsen
|-
| style="text-align:right;" | Samson
| and
| Pumbaa
|-
| style="text-align:right;" | Butch Cassidy
| and
| Mr. Hyde
|-
| style="text-align:right;" | Bill
| and
| Sally's Bogus Journey
|-
| style="text-align:right;" | David
| and
| Costello
|-
| style="text-align:right;" | Sherlock Holmes
| and
| Silent Bob
|-
| style="text-align:right;" | Jay
| and
| Dr. Watson
|-
| style="text-align:right;" | Anna
| and
| the Brain
|-
| style="text-align:right;" | Calvin
| and
| the King
|-
| style="text-align:right;" | Timon
| and
| Garfunkel
|-
| style="text-align:right;" | Mary-Kate
| and
| the Sundance Kid
|-
| style="text-align:right;" | Mario
| and
| Juliet
|}

==Trivia==
*Here is a ranked list with [http://www.ranker.com/list/best-duos-of-all-time/ariel-kana The Best Duos of All Time].
**When this comic came out there was still less than 300 duos on the list.
**16 of the 24 in the comic, and one of the two mentioned in the title text was on this list.
**Below the ranking refers to where they were on the list Sunday after the release of the comic (on Friday).
**The index refers to the index from the table above with the [[#List of real duos|list of real duos]].
:{| class="wikitable sortable"
|-
|+ Ranking (on 2016-02-28) of famous Duos
|-
! scope="col" | Rank
! scope="col" | Duo
! scope="col" | Index
|-
| 2 || Batman and Robin|| 3
|-
| 8 || Holmes and Watson|| 18
|-
| 11 || Simon and Garfunkel|| 8
|-
| 22 || Thelma and Louise|| 1
|-
| 23 || Pinky and The Brain|| 7
|-
| 24 || Hall and Oates|| 26 Title text
|-
| 31 || Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid|| 15
|-
| 35 || Calvin and Hobbes|| 21
|-
| 41 || Jay and Silent Bob|| 19
|-
| 46 || Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde|| 13
|-
| 71 || Abbott and Costello|| 12
|-
| 79 || Beauty and the Beast || 9
|-
| 85 || Antony and Cleopatra|| 4
|-
| 99 || Beavis and Butt-head|| 10
|-
| 106 || Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen|| 23
|-
| 110 || Romeo and Juliet|| 5
|-
| 206 || Rocky and Bullwinkle|| 11
|-
| N/A || When Harry Met Sally...|| 2
|-
| N/A || Samson and Delilah || 14
|-
| N/A || Bill & Ted|| 16
|-
| N/A || David and Goliath || 17
|-
| N/A || Anna and the King || 20
|-
| N/A || Timon and Pumbaa || 22
|-
| N/A || Mario and Luigi || 24
|-
| N/A || Siskel and Ebert || 25 Title text
|}

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Video games]]
[[Category:Calvin and Hobbes]]
[[Category:The Lion King]]

1490: Atoms

2020-08-04T12:41:37Z

188.114.103.129: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1490
| date = February 23, 2015
| title = Atoms
| image = atoms.png
| titletext = When I was little I had trouble telling my dad apart from the dog. I always recognized my mom because she had a bunch of extra plutoniums in her middle. I never did ask her why...
}}

==Explanation==
This comic shows another quirky and fantastical ability of [[Beret Guy]].

In this comic, [[Megan]] is preparing a sample of what appears to be some mineral for {{w|elemental analysis}}. It seems to be some kind of {{w|silicate}} containing a small amount of {{w|iron}} (a common example of this would be {{w|red sandstone}}), and she is running a test to see if it contains {{w|beryllium}} (a rarer element whose best-known natural form is as a component of {{w|emerald}}). Such analyses typically involve many instruments and steps to prepare the sample. However, Beret Guy seems to be able to identify all the elements the substance is composed of just by eyeballing it, making him perhaps the perfect elemental analysis instrument.

To confirm this, Megan asks Beret Guy what he sees when he looks at her face, expecting that a normal person would describe the arrangement of colors and features that they see. Since Beret Guy sees the atoms Megan is composed of (mostly {{w|Composition_of_the_human_body|oxygen, carbon and hydrogen}}) he only notices the unusual atoms. In this case he sees the metal atoms her {{w|Dental_restoration#Materials_used|dental fillings}} are composed of. This shows his "atomic vision" extends beyond the surface of the substances. Megan finds this bizarre and asks Beret Guy what is wrong with him. He states that he has always suspected he contains too much {{w|zinc}}, which he believes makes people think he is weird, thus missing Megan’s point: what is weird is not Beret Guy’s elemental content, but his ability to apparently see everything as atoms sorted by element.

High zinc intake ({{w|Zinc toxicity|zinc toxicity}}) can cause nausea, vomiting, pain, cramps and diarrhea. It also reduces copper absorption, which affects the immune system. However, it does not grant superhuman sensory abilities{{Citation needed}}.

The comic continues the theme of Beret Guy’s naive misunderstandings of scientific terminology turning to be literally true. In a previous [[1486: Vacuum|comic]] his misinterpretation of the notion of energy in the vacuum resulted in him gaining significant superpowers.

In the title text, the concept is taken even further: Beret Guy found his dad indistinguishable from a dog. This is likely because all mammals are essentially made of the same basic elements. Absent a distinguishing element from either his dad or the dog, they would appear to be the same. He could, however, apparently distinguish his mother because she contained {{w|plutonium}}. This is a very unusual occurrence that cannot possibly occur naturally in humans{{Citation needed}}. Some possible explanations are:
#She had an {{w|Radioisotope thermoelectric generator|RTG}}-powered pacemaker (a few hundred were made in the 1970s).
#She lived near Los Alamos during the second world war and was a member of the [http://warisboring.com/articles/the-scientists-who-pee-plutonium/ UPPU club (translated as “You pee Pu!”)]. Alternatively, she could have been exposed to another source such as {{w|radioactive contamination from the Rocky Flats Plant}}.
#She was one of {{w|The Stepford Wives}} robots.
#She was the victim of some unidentified, unethical medical experimentation.
It is also possible that the presence of plutonium in his mother may be the source of his own differences: radioactive exposure (in this case, potentially in utero) is a common source of super powers in comic books and other fiction (though unfortunately, this does not work in real life{{Citation needed}}).

It's not clear whether his mother's plutonium is related to his "too many zincs". One explanation for Beret Guy having too much zinc could be that his mother's plutonium changed into zinc through the process of {{w|radioactive decay}}.

It is worth noting that the verbs "recognized" and "had" in the title text are written in past tense. This presents the possibility that Beret Guy's mother passed away due to {{w|radiation sickness}} from exposure to the radiation originating from the plutonium in her middle. This possibility is further evidenced when Beret Guy adds "I never did ask her why...", indicating that he may no longer have the opportunity to do so.

The English physicist {{w|Henry Moseley}} discovered the law relating the {{w|atomic number}} of elements with their {{w|characteristic x-ray|characteristic x-rays}} when bombarded by free electrons, providing physical evidence for the {{w|periodic table}}, the {{w|Bohr Model}} of the atom and the concept of {{w|atomic number}}. In doing so he developed a method of identifying elements in a substance by bombarding them in a vacuum with electrons and using {{w|x-ray diffraction}} methods to measure the resulting X-rays. A famous French chemist brought him a complicated mixture of {{w|Rare Earth element|Rare Earth elements}}, many of which had only recently been discovered, to test his method. Within a short time, Mosley amazed the chemist by identifying all the elements by number using his method and referring to his chart to name them. This comic may therefore be subtly alluding to this method by suggesting that Beret Guy's eyes can fire electrons at anything he looks at and "read" the resulting X-ray radiation, giving him the ability to identify the composite elements in a similar manner.

==Transcript==
:[Megan stands at a table and is preparing a sample for some kind of analysis in a device, when Beret Guy walks in.]
:Beret guy: What’re you doing?
:Megan: Testing a sample for beryllium.
:Beret guy: That? Yeah, there’s a bunch of berylliums.
:Megan: How do you know?

:[Megan turns to Beret Guy who takes the sample and looks at it.]
:Beret guy: Look at it! See? Tons of oxygens and silicons, a few irons but definitely some berylliums too! Can’t you see them?

:[They continue to talk.]
:Megan: No, I can’t see a list of the atoms in a thing by looking.
:Beret guy: How do you tell what things are?

:[Zoom in on Megan.]
:Megan: This is ridiculous. Look at me. What do you see?
:Beret guy (off-panel): You have tons of metal in your face. Lots of fillings, I guess?

:[Megan stares at Beret Guy who takes a looks at his own arm.]
:Megan: What’s '''''wrong''''' with you?
:Beret guy: Too many zincs? I’ve always worried I had too much zinc and everyone thought I was weird.

==Trivia==
*In the original version of the comic there was a typo in the title text, ''form'' instead of ''from'':
**I had trouble telling my dad apart '''form''' the dog.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Beret Guy]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Strange powers of Beret Guy]]

1467: Email

2020-07-28T11:42:22Z

188.114.103.129: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1467
| date = December 31, 2014
| title = Email
| image = email.png
| titletext = My New Year's resolution for 2014-54-12/30/14 Dec:12:1420001642 is to learn these stupid time formatting strings.
}}

==Explanation==
A [[:Category:New Year|New Year comic]], where [[Megan]] asks [[Beret Guy]] if he has any {{w|New Year's resolutions}}, and even though this is just before {{w|new year}} 2015, his resolution is to find out what an email is!

Despite being in popular use since 1998 when free email providers appeared and having existed since before 1982 when {{w|SMTP}} was established, Beret Guy apparently doesn't understand what {{w|email}} is, even though he maintains a web page that includes his email address. Megan wonders how else he expects electronic messages to be sent. She explains that one must check email regularly, making a slight at {{w|voicemail}}, which she implies is not worth ever checking.

Beret Guy offers two alternatives: {{w|Fax}} and {{w|Snapchat}}. Megan refers to Snapchat as "the naked pic thing", calling to mind how many of its users send naked pictures of themselves over the Internet. Beret Guy replies that people use fax machines for more than just "faxting" (a made-up term similar to {{w|sexting}}), implying that many people send sexual content via fax, a technology that predates SMTP by more than a century. Beret Guy knows what a fax is, which implies he is very behind in the technology world, so it makes sense he doesn't know what email is. But he also knows what Snapchat is, which was very popular around the time of this comic. Either Beret Guy heard about it in a similar way to email, or he definitely knows what it is and/or uses it. What's strange is that if Beret Guy knows what Snapchat is, he should know what email is as well, since you need to provide an email account in order to create a snapchat account.

The title text, which could be [[Randall]]'s New Year's resolution for 2015, refers to various date/time formats. In programming, a point in time (e.g. the current system time) is usually stored and processed as a single number that represents the count of seconds that have elapsed since a given starting time known as "epoch" (the Unix standard epoch is January 1, 1970 at midnight, {{w|UTC}}). In order to make sense to people, this number must be converted to a human-readable format, but programmers must choose a format that best meets the needs of their users. This can be a complicated problem to solve, given that there are many different standard formats for different regions, different levels of precision for different applications, and differences between "universal time" and a user's local time zone. Randall has previously advocated for widespread adoption of the {{w|ISO 8601}} format as a universal standard.

The title text also probably references a twitter outage that took place on December 29, which was blamed on an [http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/dec/29/twitter-2015-date-bug error in a date format string].

Most programming languages provide functions to create a custom date-format string using "tokens" that represent different parts of the date/time. Here, Randall appears to have used one of these functions with the string "%Y-%M-%D %h:%m:%s", which looks like it should produce a date and time as "Year-Month-Day Hour:Minute:Second". However, he used the wrong tokens for this:

*%Y = 4-digit year (2014)
*%M = minute (54)
*%D expands to %m/%d/%y, which is "month/day/2-digit year" in the user's local time zone rather than UTC. ("12/30/14" - see below)
*%h = abbreviated month name ("Dec")
*%m = 2-digit month (12)
*%s = Unix timestamp (1420001642 seconds since epoch)

The "%s" token shows us the actual {{w|Unix time|Unix timestamp}} used (1420001642), which corresponds to 2014-12-31 at 04:54:02 UTC. The format string shown above thus yields "2014-54-12/30/14 Dec:12:1420001642". Note that the middle portion of this string shows "12/30" instead of "12/31" - this is due to the %D token expressing the date in Randall's local time zone (Eastern Standard Time, or EST), which is 5 hours before UTC. The time there was 23:54:02, or just before midnight, on the previous day.

The correct format string for Randall's apparent desired result is "%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S", which gives the string "2014-12-31 04:54:02" (UTC) or "2014-12-30 23:54:02" (EST). Given the similarity between Randall's string and the correct one, it is easy to see how this type of formatting is confusing and often frustrating for programmers - particularly those not intimately familiar with these functions.

Randall previously addressed date/time formatting in [[1179: ISO 8601]] and [[1340: Unique Date]] (the latter of which uses a formatting string correctly).

This was the second comic in a row with Megan holding a smart phone, the first being [[1466: Phone Checking]]. The comic before that one was also about smart phones: [[1465: xkcd Phone 2]].

==Transcript==
:[Megan approaches Beret Guy.]
:Megan: Any New Year's resolutions?
:Beret Guy: Gonna figure out what email is.
:Megan: ''...Email?''

:[Megan points to her phone.]
:Beret Guy: People always say they're sending them. They sound really into it, so I always nod, but I have no idea what it is.
:Megan: You have an address on your website!

:[Megan and Beret Guy walking.]
:Beret Guy: Oh, ''that's'' what that thing is.
:Megan: Email is important! You can't just ''never'' check it. It's not like voicemail.

:Beret Guy: Can't they just send messages ''normally?''
:Megan: How?
:Beret Guy: Fax! Or Snapchat.
:Megan: ...The naked pic thing?
:Beret Guy: Fax machines aren't ''just'' for faxting!

==Trivia==
The Unix timestamp is a standard method of keeping time by counting the absolute number of seconds that have elapsed since a set point in time known as "epoch", defined as midnight on January 1, 1970, Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). Epoch, in {{w|ISO-8601}} format, is "1970-01-01T00:00:00Z", where Z indicates UTC.

The timestamp in this comic's title text (1420001642) is 1,420,001,642 seconds since epoch. The process of converting that number into a human-readable time is as follows:

*Years since 1970 = 1,420,001,642 seconds / 60 seconds per minute / 60 minutes per hour / 24 hours per day / 365.25 days per year
**This yields 44 years plus 31,467,242 seconds.
**The year for the timestamp is 1970 + 44 years = '''2014'''.
***Note: The year calculation specifies 365.25 days per year to account for {{w|leap year|leap years}} (every fourth year adds an extra day). Also note that 2014 is not a leap year.
*Days since start of year = 31,467,242 seconds / 60 seconds per minute / 60 minutes per hour / 24 hours per day
**This yields 364 days plus 17,642 seconds. Given January 1 is considered the ''first'' day of the year, this means we are on the 365th day of 2014.
**The 365th day of a non-leap year is '''December 31'''. December is the '''12th month''' in the Gregorian calendar.
*The remaining seconds can be converted into a time:
**Hours since start of day = 17,642 seconds / 60 seconds per minute / 60 minutes per hour = '''4 hours''' plus 3,242 seconds
**Minutes since start of hour = 3,242 seconds / 60 seconds per minute = '''54 minutes''' plus '''2 seconds'''

Thus, Randall's timestamp represents the time "'''2014-12-31'''T'''04:54:02'''Z" (again in ISO-8601 format).

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:New Year]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Beret Guy]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]

1457: Feedback

2020-07-14T09:33:12Z

188.114.103.129: /* Skinner's real experiment */

{{comic
| number = 1457
| date = December 8, 2014
| title = Feedback
| image = feedback.png
| titletext = A new study finds that if you give rats a cell phone and a lever they can push to improve the signal, the rats will chew on the cell phone until it breaks and your research supervisors will start to ask some questions about your grant money.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic is a joke about the psychological theory that animals conditioned using seemingly random rewards and punishments promotes superstitious behavior, and then extrapolates this theory to humans and Wi-Fi or (more likely) Cellular signal integrity.

Often when connecting to unfamiliar Wi-Fi networks or when in a poorly covered area of a cell network, the signal displayed by the connecting device varies wildly, especially as distance increases. Poor wireless signal and drops in connection can be extremely frustrating, and hence [[Cueball]] has likely tried a variety of methods to improve the signal. As a result of his desperation, he replicates scenarios that are unlikely methods to increase his signal, but in some way mirror conditions where he has been successful finding a signal in the past. His past conditions have somehow led him to having the superstition that holding a pineapple while standing on top of a chair may resolve the problem. Likely, the signal increased at random while he was standing on a chair holding the pineapple, and he erroneously concluded that the chair and pineapple ''caused'' the signal strength increase. It is almost inconceivable that this technique could have any positive effect on the signal. This is related to the idea in comic [[552: Correlation]]. See also the much later [[2259: Networking Problems]].

[[Megan]] questions his ridiculous behavior, but it seems Cueball has become extremely erratic due to the inconsistent signal strength.

The title text refers to a fictive study that apparently examined the behavior of rats in response to signal strength on a cellphone. It is a reference to {{w|B. F. Skinner}}'s [[#Skinner's real experiment|experiments]]. In these experiments, rats and, more frequently cited, pigeons are taught superstitious behavior by being rewarded at random intervals. In this new experiment the rats naturally could not understand the concept of signal strength, so they chewed up the cellphone till they broke, leading to the research supervisors questioning the validity of the study and questioning whether the grant money for the study was well used.

===Skinner's real experiment===
Skinner placed a series of hungry pigeons in a cage attached to an automatic mechanism that delivered food to the pigeon "at regular intervals with no reference whatsoever to the bird's behavior." He discovered that the pigeons associated the delivery of the food with whatever chance actions they had been performing as it was delivered, and that they subsequently continued to perform these same actions.

One bird was conditioned to turn counter-clockwise about the cage, making two or three turns between reinforcements. Another repeatedly thrust its head into one of the upper corners of the cage. A third developed a 'tossing' response, as if placing its head beneath an invisible bar and lifting it repeatedly. Two birds developed a pendulum motion of the head and body, in which the head was extended forward and swung from right to left with a sharp movement followed by a somewhat slower return. Skinner suggested that the pigeons behaved as if they were influencing the automatic mechanism with their "rituals" and that this experiment shed light on human behavior.

See this [https://youtu.be/BR-eMMCp7tg Mind Field episode] where this experiment has been performed on humans!

==Transcript==
:[Megan is looking up at Cueball who is standing on a chair facing away from her. He is holding a pineapple at breast height in his right hand while he is looking up at his smartphone, which he is holding up above head height in his left hand.]
:Megan: Why are you standing on a chair holding a pineapple?
:Cueball: '''''I wasn't getting good reception but now I am!'''''

:[Caption below the panel:]
:The erratic feedback from a randomly-varying wireless signal can make you crazy.

{{comic discussion}}

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

Talk:2321: Low-Background Metal

2020-06-18T01:31:15Z

188.114.103.129:

I can't help but notice that the basic premise of this comic is very much like the reason for going back to 1970 in ''Avengers: Endgame'', when they needed more Pym particles for time travel. I wonder if Randall re-watched it again recently? — [[User:KarMann|KarMann]] ([[User talk:KarMann|talk]]) 17:10, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

== Drawing ==

There's one leg of the time-machine missing from the 3rd panel. (or is it the side of a base?) --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.155.126|162.158.155.126]] 19:57, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

== Mined lead ==

Pb-210 (half-life 20.4 years) is a decay product of radon, and thus accumulates everywhere that is exposed to the atmosphere or where radon seeps from the ground. I suspect it could be a contaminant in lead from some lead mines, but wasn't able to find any references [[User:ShadwellNH|ShadwellNH]] ([[User talk:ShadwellNH|talk]]) 20:00, 17 June 2020 (UTC) Paul

== One use only? ==

The way I understand it, the time machine is one-use unless you find other Low-Background Metal. If you find it, you can make more trips. It would appear that the trip is successful.
--[[Special:Contributions/188.114.103.129|188.114.103.129]] 01:31, 18 June 2020 (UTC)