explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

1656: It Begins

2016-03-16T12:23:53Z

199.27.130.180: Update the incomplete tag to notify the comic is much different than already described.

{{comic
| number = 1656
| date = March 16, 2016
| title = It Begins
| image = it_begins.png
| titletext = You can also try 'Yikes.'
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|This explanation seems all off. This is not just impending change, more like impending doom from silly things, like in [[1387: Clumsy Foreshadowing]]. And has nothing to do with nerd sniping here.}}

This comic encourages the reader to post random news stories on the Internet, under the line "It begins." This creates a sense of impending change, as well as making people wonder what, exactly, is being referred to. This could also encourage people to theorize about what, exactly, is beginning.

This could in the worst case speedily lead to several people making repost of such a non-news story that would not have gotten any attention otherwise. This may lead to speculation, and other curious theories, going out the tangent it could create fear or mass hysteria.

It may also just qualify as a form of nerd sniping, in a feedback loop, which may be either prevented or worsened by company when reading the "it begins" news.

Some stories that might benefit especially from this are those relating to machine autonomy, animal attacks, disease, and so forth. This would call to mind various popular culture and/or scientific hypothetical scenarios.

Perhaps the comic's choice of article refers to the idea of an animal revolution, or just that even animals get sick of us always looking at our smart phones.

The title text instructs readers to try the line "Yikes!" instead. The idea is the same but it would give a completely different response though.

Other comics which advocate using catch-all phrases as standard responses for any comment:
* [[174: That's What SHE Said]]
* [[559: No Pun Intended]]
* [[1022: So It Has Come To This]]
* [[1215: Insight]] ("Before we rush to adopt <X>, we should stop to consider the consequences of blithely giving this technology such a central position in our lives").
* [[1627: Woosh]]

==Transcript==
:[A post in Megan's news feed on some social network platform is shown. Megan's head-shot profile image is shown in a frame to the left with two lines of unreadable text below. Her comment is to the right of this image, also with unreadable text above both in a black and gray font. This comment is above the news story she has posted below in a frame. Inside the frame there is another smaller frame to the left with a picture of Cueball on a beach, holding his hand out towards a seagull that flies away with his phone. Two other seagulls can be seen in the air above the sea. There is a small heading at the top, and then a larger one below this. Below that again there is two lines of unreadable text:]
:It Begins
::''Local News''
::Seagull Steals Phone, Drops it in Ocean

:[Caption below the panel:]
:Protip: To make your day more dramatic, post a random minor news story with the comment "it begins."

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Protip]]
[[Category:Social networking]]
[[Category:Animals]]

602: Overstimulated

2015-12-11T23:36:29Z

199.27.130.180: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 602
| date = June 26, 2009
| title = Overstimulated
| image = overstimulated.png
| titletext = My favorite thing to do at parties is to talk judgmentally about people who aren't there.
}}

==Explanation==

{{incomplete|What in the world is this Asperger's test comment for? I'm really confused.}}

After being cooped up working on papers, [[Cueball]] goes to a party, only to find himself tuning out the gossip of his friends in order to work on math problems in his head. He writes down the prime numbers on cards, and then stretches them out such that the area of the card is the same (say, 1), but one of the sides has been elongated to a length equal to the number on the card. This reduces the length on the other dimension to the reciprocal of the number on the card (i.e. 1/''n'', with ''n'' being the number on the card), according to the area formula for rectangles.

Stacking these reciprocals all up will eventually diverge, meaning the sum will be infinite without ever leveling off. This is referred to as the {{w|divergence of the sum of the reciprocals of the primes}}, and was proven by {{w|Euler}} in 1737.

[http://aq.server8.org/ The Cambridge Aspergers Test] includes questions on preferences for, and ability to cope with, social situations. It also asks the person taking the test if they have an affinity for numbers and see patterns in every day objects. Cueball would score high on the Asperger's scale — or he could just be introverted. Thinking about things on one's own is often relaxing for an introvert, while hanging out with other people is not. Hence the irony of the comment in the last panel. Cueball's friends fail to realize that hanging out with them is actually more stressful for him than doing math - especially when people are doing nothing but talking negatively about those not present.

The title text mentions people that talk negatively about people that aren't there, which isn't uncommon. A much later comic; [[1176: Those Not Present]], is about just that.

==Transcript==
:[There is a group of people. Three women and four men. They are standing around a table with a drink on it.]
:Man #3: Have you seen John lately?

:Woman #3: He and Claire blew off this party to see Jeff.
:Man #4: They do that a lot.

:Man #1: Yeah; I don't know what his problem is with hanging out lately.
:Man #3: He's like Katie—ever noticed how she only goes somewhere if Jeff's there?

:[Cueball is cringing away from all the text; none of the text is attributed to specific people.]
:Somebody: It's so lame how she hangs around him even when he's not single:
:Somebody: HE LIKES IT.
:Somebody: SOMEONE SERIOUSLY NEEDS TO DATE HER.
:Somebody: TOTALLY.
:Somebody: And honestly I feel like a jerk but I wouldn't mind if she hung around with us a little less. She needs other friends, you know!

:[Cueball peels a hole in the panel. The numbers '1', '2', and '3' are visible through the gap.]
:Somebody: HAVE YOU NOTICED HOW EVERY DUDE SHE DATES IS A TOTAL DRUGGIE?
:Somebody: NOPE
:Somebody: I'm glad I'm not the only one who thought that was weird.
:Somebody: Michelle dates potheads like Elaine but at least they both have real jobs.
:Somebody: Michelle does? She designs those book covers, right?
:Somebody: And it's not like she smokes a lot.
:Somebody: Elaine is one of those girls who

:[The previous panel's text appears again, but peeled back even further. Cueball looks up.]
:1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

:Somebody: NOTICED HOW
:Somebody: NOPE
:Somebody: -es is a tota-
:Somebody: -t th- -ought

:[The man starts taking down the prime numbers.]
:1 4 6 8 9 10 12 14 15 2 3 5 7 11 13
:[The man grabs and squeezes the 2, so it is half as wide and twice as tall.]

:[A formula: \Sum_{i=1}^{\infty}{1 P_i} = h]
::[ie. The sum from 1 to infinity of the inverse of each prime.]
:[The panel shows a 2 that is 2 units tall and 1 2 wide, a 3 that is 3 units tall and 1 3 wide, and so on. Cueball is moving the 7.]

:[Cueball writes h = infinity. The numbers are piled on their side next to a scale.]
:Voice: Don't you agree?
:Voice: Hey, wake up.

:Man #1: You zoned out or something.
:Cueball: Sorry; I must be... tired.
:Man #1: I don't blame you. All day cooped up working on papers.
:Man #3: Must be nice to get out and relax, huh?
:Cueball: Yeah.
:[Girl #3 reaches for the glass on the table.]

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

734: Outbreak

2015-12-11T21:55:25Z

199.27.130.180: /* Explanation */ Added DESPERATELY needed incomplete tag

{{comic
| number = 734
| date = April 30, 2010
| title = Outbreak
| image = outbreak.png
| titletext = Let's get dinner after we promptly destroy all the X-7 we've manufactured.
}}

==Explanation==

{{incomplete| Dear lord this explanation. THERE'S NOTHING HERE! I could list everything that needs to be added, but It would literally be longer than the current explanation. I would fix it myself, but this is playing on a trope I haven't had exposure to, (I hate zombie movies,) so I can't really do the joke justice.}}

Patient Zero is the usual terminology for the first patient tested or infected with an outbreak-style infection.

Also, it seems every zombie movie is rife with terrible mistakes which allow the slowly lurching zombies (or outbreak) to escape and spread. For example, the nurse will look at the chart and not look at the patient and then walk away. The security guard will cross the hall 2 seconds after the zombie has left the doorway.

The situation in the comic sounds more realistic; blast the zombie, destroy the toxin and then go on a date.

==Transcript==
:[Two scientists, Ryan and Laura, stand outside a lab. A zombie is visible through the window.]
:The outbreak started with Patient Zero...
:Ryan: He was exposed to toxin X-7—now he's a bloodthirsty monster!
:Laura: Has he been in isolation?
:Zombie: Braaains!

:Ryan: Yes, but I can't hold this door for long!
:Laura: Hang on, I've got a gun in my truck.
:[She runs off.]
:''wham''

:[Ryan opens the door as Laura shoots through it.]
:''BLAM''

:And ended with Patient Zero five minutes later.
:Ryan: So, I never got your name. I'm Ryan.
:Laura: Laura.
:The remaining 90 minutes of the movie will be a romantic comedy.

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

1610: Fire Ants

2015-11-30T10:44:27Z

199.27.130.180: Basic transcript, missing panel descriptions. If someone has a name or a better descriptive term for the person at the desk, please swap it in, otherwise remove the ?s

{{comic
| number = 1610
| date = November 30, 2015
| title = Fire Ants
| image = fire_ants.png
| titletext = Here in the entomology department, we have a simple two-step formula for answering any question: (1) ants are cool, and (2) we forgot the question because we were thinking about ants.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a BOT - Please change this comment when editing this page.}}

==Transcript==
:Cueball: I'm having second thoughts about grad school and could use some advice.

:Advisor?: Consider the fire ant.
:Advisor?: When there's a flood, fire ants survive by joining together into giant floating rafts.

:- No Text -

:Cueball: Wait, what lesson am I supposed to take from that?
:Advisor?: Ants are so cool!
:Cueball: ... You're not big on metaphors, are you.
:Advisor?: I am big on ants.

{{comic discussion}}

249: Chess Photo

2015-10-18T22:10:55Z

199.27.130.180: /* Trivia */

{{comic
| number = 249
| date = April 16, 2007
| title = Chess Photo
| image = chess_photo.png
| titletext = We once tried playing blindfold chess on the Aerosmith ride at Disney World.
}}
==Explanation==
A {{w|roller coaster}} is a kind of thrill ride where a small train carries people through a number of twists, turns, and hills at a high speed to the occupants' great delight. Such rides are popular at amusement parks where people have to wait in long lines to get on a ride that can last less than two minutes.

Many amusement parks have a spot where they take souvenir pictures as you are experiencing the ride. After you get off the ride, you can buy one, or a set to commemorate riding the roller coaster. These pictures usually have people with their hands up, yelling and screaming. Wind may be going through their hair as they pass through the air at high speeds.

[[Cueball]] is subverting the usual 'souvenir picture pose' by gluing chess pieces to a board and then staring at the board when the picture is taken. He [https://allthetropes.orain.org/wiki/Dissonant_Serenity stands out in the picture as a calm person] studiously studying a chess problem while everyone else yelps and whoops with excitement.

The title text refers to blindfold chess, which doesn't require any actual blindfold, it's just called that way because the two players don't need a board and just communicate their moves. This would of course be impossible to photograph.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball sits at a desk with glue, chess pieces, and a chessboard while a friend looks over his shoulder.]
:Friend: What are you doing?
:Cueball: Gluing down chess pieces.
:Friend: Why?
:Cueball: Because there's a picture I've always wanted... I'll need your coat to sneak this onto the ride.
:[A photograph of a roller coaster ride with Cueball sitting in the first car, chin in hand, thinking over the chessboard. The photograph has "Mega Coaster 3000 souvenir photo" written on the margin.]

==Trivia==
*This comic [http://xkcd.com/chesscoaster/ inspired people to try this in real life], to awesome effect.
*This comic is referenced in the bonus panel for [http://www.mrlovenstein.com/comic/113#comic]

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

Talk:1275: int(pi)

2015-09-22T17:59:43Z

199.27.130.180:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Talk:1275: int(pi)

2015-09-22T17:34:26Z

199.27.130.180:

Talk:1268: Alternate Universe

2015-09-22T15:10:44Z

199.27.130.180:

This reminds me of that conspiracy theorist thing where a bunch of people thought that New Zealand was, like, to the west or north of Australia (I can't quite remember), only to check on a map and see it was definitely to the east... And as such convinced themselves that they somehow travelled to an alternate version of Earth were everything was basically the same except NZ was in a new place. Anyone else remember/know about those guys?
EDIT: Found one of 'em, so hopefully I sound less crazy (than them): [http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread543455/pg1 NZ conspiracy nut in action]
[[Special:Contributions/67.71.33.122|67.71.33.122]] 01:29, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

I thought Earth Prime was a reference to Sliders... but Wikipedia says it's been used much more widely. [[User:Saibot84|Saibot84]] ([[User talk:Saibot84|talk]]) 04:40, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

Wait, wait ... only "some of you" change your clocks? In the universe I just came from, MOST of them changed their clocks at unsynchronized times for no good reason anyone has ever been able to demonstrate. Only the Third World along with Hawaii and Saskatchewan were holdouts where I came from.{{unsigned ip|72.68.9.56}}

Neither India nor China are having this obscure idea of occasionally changing their clocks for no obvious reasons. So even "most" might be a bit of a stretch. [[User:Pmakholm|Pmakholm]] ([[User talk:Pmakholm|talk]])

:Sure they do -- they're just more occasional about it than others! China last did it in '91, and India in '45.{{unsigned ip|72.68.9.56}}

:Neither does Indonesia. Apparently, according to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:DaylightSaving-World-Subdivisions.png this map], neither does a good deal of the world (particularly those near equator) as well. [[User:Goldstein-Izayoi|Goldstein-Izayoi]] ([[User talk:Goldstein-Izayoi|talk]]) 13:57, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

Iceland (definitely NOT Third World) does not changes its clocks. It remains on GMT throughout the year, despite being way west of the Greenwich Meridian [[Special:Contributions/95.131.110.106|95.131.110.106]] 09:53, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

:In my universe, Iceland was a small, inbred fishing community -- prone to collapsing the world's economies with banking phishing scams {{unsigned ip|72.68.9.56}}

Yeah I think it's a Sliders reference. Randall says he was transported in the late 1990s and Sliders aired from 1995-2000. [[Special:Contributions/184.56.86.168|184.56.86.168]] 06:02, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

:Didn't we already had discussion about Earth Prime on [[1184:_Circumference_Formula]]? Hmmm ... should we prepare category for comics mentioning Earth Prime? :-) -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 10:02, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

They eat spiders in some parts of this world, e.g. Cambodia. [[User:Geevade|Geevade]] ([[User talk:Geevade|talk]]) 06:54, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

Reminds me a little bit of this Married to the Sea strip: http://www.marriedtothesea.com/index.php?date=111008 [[Special:Contributions/213.86.4.78|213.86.4.78]] 10:38, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

Reminds me of this bit from [http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/06/27/1680102/the-lobster-rebellion.html a Dave Barry column]: "I personally see no significant difference between a lobster and, say, a giant Madagascar hissing cockroach, which is a type of cockroach that grows to approximately the size of William Howard Taft (1857-1930). If a group of diners were sitting in a nice restaurant, and the waiter were to bring them each a freshly killed, steaming-hot Madagascar hissing cockroach, they would not put on silly bibs and eat it with butter. No, they would run, retching, directly from the restaurant to the All-Nite Drive-Thru Lawsuit Center." [[User:SteveMB|SteveMB]] ([[User talk:SteveMB|talk]]) 10:46, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

Has this guy never heard of Bear Grylls? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WVcSufp3Fw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJRpXYs1pQA (Just occasionally!) [[Special:Contributions/121.74.169.237|121.74.169.237]] 11:01, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

I wonder how amount of meat compares, and meat-to-shell ration, and taste of meat. BTW Wikipedia says that {{w|Spider#Benefits_to_humans|''Cooked tarantula spiders are considered a delicacy in Cambodia''}}. --[[User:JakubNarebski|JakubNarebski]] ([[User talk:JakubNarebski|talk]]) 11:56, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

Personally, I don't think spiders to lobsters is a good comparison. Spiders are carnivores, while lobsters are carrion eaters. Personally, I would never want to eat a carrion eater. (Of course, I would never want to eat a spider either, but that's different...) --[[User:Divad27182|Divad27182]] ([[User talk:Divad27182|talk]]) 13:53, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

I always compared Lobster to cockroaches. But, maybe calling them "The cockroaches of the sea" was just me. --[[User:Jeff|Jeff]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 16:22, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

So, this alternate universe has a restaurant chain called "Red Spider"? [[User:SteveMB|SteveMB]] ([[User talk:SteveMB|talk]]) 21:28, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

: Brilliant. [[Special:Contributions/192.249.1.163|192.249.1.163]] 02:45, 9 October 2013 (UTC)
:eek! http://xkcd.com/8/ [[User:Orazor|Orazor]] ([[User talk:Orazor|talk]]) 13:48, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

On this one episode of Game Grumps on of the guys on that show mentioned some comedian or something making a comment along the lines of "Realizing you really are getting old is like seeing a teenager eat a spider like it's nothing. You can't explain to him why it's wrong, you just know it is, but his generation doesn't get why it isn't okay." That was the first thing I thought of when I saw read this, does anyone know who said this? [[Special:Contributions/74.110.143.25|74.110.143.25]] 21:42, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

I read: "where people occasionally ARE spiders"!
...and though Megan was about to kiss her spider boyfriend. [[Special:Contributions/205.151.118.100|205.151.118.100]] 00:41, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

Can someone explain why occasionally eating spiders is weird? The universe that I come from has people eating on average 8 spiders a year while sleeping, though I can't seem to find a source of that information on this universe's Internet. Spiders being not okay to eat occasionally and the Internet failing me must surely be signs I'm in a parallel universe. --[[Special:Contributions/68.97.21.122|68.97.21.122]] 03:32, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

:Somewhere I saw that the 8 spiders a year is probably low estimate :-). (Other sites insists its urban legend, but seriously, how would you prove this?) But no matter what you think about spiders opinion on mouth as possible home, I would say it only counts when you eat spider deliberately. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 09:28, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

::CP Grey tackles the spider myth in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCzXZfNIu3A {{unsigned|Rael}}

The 8 spiders a year is false. Here's a link: http://www.snopes.com/science/stats/spiders.asp
:Note that this only proves that the statistics is urban legend and doesn't say anything about how high the actual consumption is. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 09:06, 16 October 2013 (UTC)
::Sure it does. It says the actual consumption is zero, and explains why. [[Special:Contributions/199.27.130.180|199.27.130.180]] 15:10, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

Indeed "8 spiders" is probably a very low estimate of annual consumption. In the universe where I originally came from, insect parts (and presumably spiders) provide a nutritional boost to many industrially-processed foods. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Food_Defect_Action_Levels [[Special:Contributions/108.160.230.100|108.160.230.100]] 17:23, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

HaHaHa i'm from Israel and this comic is about us! according to jewish diatery rules, spiders and lobsters are both forbidden (only one Arthropod is allowd - Locust). We also had a mix-up with our clock because we changed the date without telling Apple and Google, so the smartphones had to be switched manually. {{unsigned ip|84.229.22.212}}

:Really? I'm not sure it's about Israel. I think it's about the ridiculousness of eating lobsters, as they are similar to spiders, and eating spiders is "disgusting", while eating lobsters is "normal". I'm a vegetarian, so I don't eat any arthropods. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.62|108.162.216.62]] 17:53, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

(CTU) 3102 rebmevoN 1 ,92:30 [[Special:Contributions/108.162.246.117|711.642.261.801]] ?sdrawkcab gnitirw lla uoy era yhW {{unsigned ip|108.162.246.117}}

I get why people might dislike eating lobster (and/or spiders) but I don't get why it would seem rational to consider it the same thing when they are quite physically distinct. -Pennpenn [[Special:Contributions/108.162.249.205|108.162.249.205]] 00:55, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Talk:1263: Reassuring

2015-09-22T09:58:51Z

199.27.130.180:

Does anyone know of any specific Go program/progress this comic is referring to? Nothing on Slashdot prior to the comic, so unless it's just looking forward I don't know of any current events it's referring to. {{unsigned ip|192.55.54.36}}
:No specific program that can compete with Dan players yet. But when the problem was started in the 80s, computers couldn't even agree the game was over without giving up a good sum of points. 10 years ago, the best supercomputer was outclassed by a trainee. But now, all the current algorithms can match a decent player. The Deep Blue of Go will probably come within 5 years.[[Special:Contributions/96.251.85.48|96.251.85.48]] 18:12, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

Panel 2 seems to be set up as a reference to [[894: Progeny]]. [[Special:Contributions/100.40.49.22|100.40.49.22]] 07:01, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

It seems that there's been progress since [[1002: Game AIs]] [[Special:Contributions/188.221.199.135|188.221.199.135]] 09:06, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

I am reminded of Isaac Asimov's comment: "It always amuses me to hear some perfectly ordinary human being say that a computer 'can't compose a symphony', as though he himself could." [[User:SteveMB|SteveMB]] ([[User talk:SteveMB|talk]]) 10:25, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

The tooltip text is a reminder that PCs become to be obsolete as well, I think. [[Special:Contributions/217.31.207.1|217.31.207.1]] 11:33, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

Is the Dell Inspiron supposed to be quietly amusing humans, which it might be, or itself? I don't think it can be amusing itself. [[User:Jb|Jb]] ([[User talk:Jb|talk]]) 15:44, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

I think that the screensaver thing is in itself a reference to futility, as screensavers are getting more obsolete with every flatscreen there is - although people are still using them to no avail. [[Special:Contributions/213.55.184.130|213.55.184.130]] 16:02, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

Screensavers are more of a security tool now, as they can be set up to require login credentials to resume work. [[User:Gardnertoo|Gardnertoo]] ([[User talk:Gardnertoo|talk]]) 16:49, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

What is that truncated word supposed to be after salad? Salad compost? Salad component? You don't win friends with salad compared to a BBBQ? [[Special:Contributions/128.49.161.70|128.49.161.70]] 20:33, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

I think it's "computers," beginning the next reassuring expression. [[Special:Contributions/69.245.155.187|69.245.155.187]] 01:16, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

It’s shurely no coincidence that megan makes a python script: http://xkcd.com/353/ --[[Special:Contributions/84.191.162.233|84.191.162.233]] 09:15, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

Haha. https://www.khanacademy.org/cs/sentence-generator/2038602492 [[Special:Contributions/203.188.230.100|203.188.230.100]] 10:38, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

http://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Shih-Chieh+Huang {{unsigned ip|82.15.102.182}}

Actually, the screen saver being obsolete is not true. I have an LCD monitor here that has a faint, but still distinctly visible Windows XP taskbar with a very blurry clock when displaying black. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_persistence
[[User:Lennartgoosens|Lennartgoosens]] ([[User talk:Lennartgoosens|talk]]) 22:57, 5 October 2013 (UTC)
:You can simply set a timeout for the display to turn off to avoid this (the same timeout as you would set for a screensaver). I have clarified that in the explanation. [[User:Sten|'''STEN''']] ([[User talk:Sten|talk]]) 01:06, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

The screensaver is not obsolete; the years-old Dell that has been running it (and possibly being amused by it) is obsolete. No other reading of the title text can be justified. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.58|108.162.219.58]] 09:33, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

I don't see why computers can "never" do certain things. I mean, humans can do those things, so its just a sensory inputs and processing, and the structure that gets built to understand it. The first step though, is to figure out why we do those things so we can replicate it elsewhere. -Pennpenn [[Special:Contributions/108.162.249.205|108.162.249.205]] 03:07, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

:You're assuming that everything humans do is algorithmic. Every computer scientist agrees with you, and almost every neurologist, and the vast majority of cognitive scientists. But a few physicists and a lot of philosophers disagree. If human minds are actually doing something that requires quantum computing (as Penrose believes), or that's impossible even with quantum computing (as Searle claims not to believe but keeps ending up arguing for), then... Well, then we're wrong about the last century or so of knowledge, and we've got bigger problems than AI anyway.... [[Special:Contributions/199.27.130.180|199.27.130.180]] 09:58, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

1222: Pastime

2015-09-21T10:28:36Z

199.27.130.180: /* Explanation */ accept != except. Also missing a full stop.

{{comic
| number = 1222
| date = June 7, 2013
| title = Pastime
| image = pastime.png
| titletext = Good thing we're too smart to spend all day being uselessly frustrated with ourselves. I mean, that'd be a hell of a waste, right?
}}

==Explanation==
When asked by [[Megan]] what he's been up to, [[Cueball]] responds with the (warning: TV Tropes link) [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SuspiciouslySpecificDenial suspiciously specific denial], "Definitely not spending every day consumed with worry over stupid things I never talk to anyone about.", which suggests that that is exactly what he's been spending every day doing, but he is hiding it from her and everyone else. Megan's response "Oh, yeah, me neither" suggests she too is worrying over stupid things but isn't admitting it.

Instead of discussing their mutual worry and possibly making each other feel better, they instead continue to "not talk to anyone about it" and stand in {{w|awkward silence}}.

The title text continues the irony suggesting it's good that they're too smart to spend all day being uselessly frustrated with themselves, but that's apparently exactly what they are doing.

This could also be a reference to the common response to the question Megan asks in the first panel, "nothing", a response that is almost certainly false, and usually means the same thing that Cueball said, but is usually accepted, if not expected.

==Transcript==
:[Megan and Cueball are chatting. She has hair.]
:Megan: What've you been up to?

:Cueball: Definitely not spending every day consumed with worry over stupid things I never talk to anyone about.

:Megan: Oh, yeah, me neither.
:Cueball: That's good.
:Megan: Yeah.

:[The final panel is silent.]

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

Talk:1221: Nomenclature

2015-09-21T10:26:57Z

199.27.130.180:

I honestly thought this was a reference to The Batter from the game Off. He often looks like an XKCD character.

When I saw the obvious Doctor Who reference, I jumped on the Wiki hoping to be the first to post the Who's On First reference. I drastically underestimate xkcd fans. [[Special:Contributions/76.106.251.87|76.106.251.87]] 04:44, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

I thought that the middle guy was Short Round from Temple of Doom, since he shouts "Doctor Jones, Doctor Jones!" but I suppose that doesn't really make sense.--[[Special:Contributions/74.125.18.32|74.125.18.32]] 10:05, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

I came here for an explanation of the ''comic'' and found none. So far there are only explanations of the ''references.'' Who are the three characters in the comic, and what is the situation they’re in? Which kind of confusion arised between them? (Though I got ''all'' the pop-cultural references mentioned I cannot make any sense of the comic so far.) --[[Special:Contributions/77.185.42.247|77.185.42.247]] 10:45, 5 June 2013 (UTC) Who is not in the comic. Who is on first. What is not in the situation of the characters of the comic; What is on second.
:Hypothetical answer: The tall and short baseball players are Bud Abbott and Lou Costello, respectively. Abbott is talking about the baseball team with the oddly-named players from the "Who's on First" routine, except that the Doctor from "Doctor Who" is playing first base. Abbott is attempting to tell Costello about his lineup in the usual "Who's on First" style, and Costello is completely confused by it as usual. However, Megan (someone more familiar with the Doctor Who franchise) interrupts to explain that the first baseman, who Abbott thinks is named "Dr. Who", is actually just "The Doctor" and does not have "Who" as part of his name. --[[Special:Contributions/99.140.166.189|99.140.166.189]] 13:42, 5 June 2013 (UTC) The Doctor is not on first. Who is on First. The Doctor is in right field.

I see it as an homage to Abbot & Costello's "Who's on first" routine, but with actual characters from literature and the media. The joke is that when the "Who's on first" routine first came out everyone thought the names were just implausible, made-up characters. We were wrong, but I don't know (Third Base). [[User:Galois|Galois]] ([[User talk:Galois|talk]]) 11:05, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

I went a bit verbose on expanding the exposition, only to get edit-sniped right as I was posting. I think the other version is better, but FYI here is what I'd ended up with, in case any of it is still useful...
:{{w|Doctor (Doctor Who)|The Doctor}} from the long-running British television series ''{{w|Doctor Who}}'' has been incorrectly referred to as "Who", "Doctor Who" or "Dr. Who" by fans and commentators (not helped by the series name, itself, and how the character was credited in various earlier episodes' and some spin-off works). When not using a pseudonym or playing along with some form of mistaken identity, however, he overwhelmingly tends to introduce himself as "The Doctor". If not unquestionably accepted (perhaps due to natural {{w|Time Lord}} 'glamour'/confidence or some {{w|TARDIS}} effect) this tends to elicit the response "Doctor who?". His response to this question is often "Just 'The Doctor'."
(...which, I originally pointed out but edited away, often tends to settle things. Really, between the TARDIS translation field/etc, his recent use of psychic paper and of course his own long-practiced assertive air of self-confidence, he has avoided a ''lot'' of 'First Contact'-type problems. Not infallably so, of course, but that's Plot for you.) [[Special:Contributions/178.98.154.137|178.98.154.137]] 13:05, 5 June 2013 (UTC) Similarly, some people may think that Mrs. Whatsit's name is Whatsit, but her name is What. Whatsit is actually the name of her husband. [Not the Doctor's husband, the husband of the second baseman.]

Interestingly, it appears that his name is both "Doctor Who" and "The Doctor". All living pre-2005 actors who played the role, as well as Doctor Who Magazine itself, refer to him as Doctor Who. It's only since the reboot of the series in 2005 that people, mostly those referred to as "NuWhos", insist his one and only name is "The Doctor".

How is it that no one has mentioned the Robot Chicken take on this? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNIdqvMUhrE

What does "Aunt Beast" in the title text refer to? [[Special:Contributions/72.92.72.222|72.92.72.222]] 16:13, 5 June 2013 (UTC) "Aunt Beast" is another example of an honorific, and refers to a player on the batting team.

:On the issue of "NuWhos" being the pedantic ones, I'm an avowed traditionalist Whovian from way back when (4th Doctor era, technically, although I actually relate more to Five's era), and we were ''always'' being joyfully sniffy about those (including 'official media', and episode credits themselves) that used to name any given incarnation as "Doctor Who". (''Apart'' from Peter Cushing, who ''is'' a doctor named Who... and is also entirely human.)
:We noticed with disgust when new-era Who ''perpetuated'' the error. The end-credits for Nine/Eccleston said "Doctor Who" for his entire season. It became only became "The Doctor" for The Christmas Invasion, the inter-season special that was Ten's first full episode. Probably due to a load of us fans berating TPTB about the error. (My recordings of the '96 TV movie and what I have of the older seasons aren't at hand, though, to double check their credits, and I know it varied. The IMDB listing for McGann's production suggests "The Doctor" ''was'' correct for him, though.)
:And I can't subscribe to the authority of 'mere' actors or even official spin-off literature if the producers ''themselves'' can be shown to be utterly '''wrong'''... ;) [[Special:Contributions/178.107.63.150|178.107.63.150]] 19:21, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

:I don't think fan complaints had anything to do with the change. RTD clearly enjoys trolling the hardcore fans sometimes (remember when he claimed not to know anything about the novels, even though we all remember that he actually wrote one of them?). But David Tennanf is one of the people who complained, and I suspect Davies just found it too exhausting to argue with Tennant. [[Special:Contributions/199.27.130.180|199.27.130.180]] 10:21, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

I slightly disagree with the current state of the explanation. First, I think the Doctor is the first baseman, not Mrs. Who (why else is the Doctor even being mentioned by the duo in the comic?). Second, the "on first" or "on second" is little bit ambiguous. If you say "X is on first" that could mean that X is a member of the batting team and has made it to first base, or it could mean that X is a member of the fielding team and is the first baseman. Now, the Abbot and Costello routine removes the ambiguity because it is said at the start of the skit that the team's lineup is being given, which means any references to "on first", "on second", etc. have to be to the defensive positions. But in this explanation I think it would be better to say that the Doctor is the first baseman (or is playing first) and Mrs. Whatsit is the second baseman. 16:54 5 June 2013 (UTC)
:That's actually what's funny about this comic. Costello is confused about the name of the player playing first base. Megan is adding to the confusion because she misinterprets the "Who" in a new, different way than either Abbott or Costello. --[[User:DanB|DanB]] ([[User talk:DanB|talk]]) 17:42, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

I think we do need more explain on the title text. While we still have this confusion about names there is someone (the captain?) shouting to the field. So this must be a real baseball game. Aunt Beast is the batter and hitting the ball for Mrs Whatsit to reach the second base. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 19:02, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

The title text refers to "A Wrinkle in Time" by Madeleine L'Engle. {{unsigned ip|71.199.241.5}}

"Nomenclature" could use a definition, since it ties the joke together. [[Special:Contributions/76.106.251.87|76.106.251.87]] 03:41, 6 June 2013 (UTC)
:So write one. --[[User:DanB|DanB]] ([[User talk:DanB|talk]]) 14:17, 6 June 2013 (UTC)
::The explanation looks like it needs to be rewritten since it looks so patchy from pieces of explanations just getting added on a whim. I don't want to add to that problem since I'm not a writer. But I appreciate your faith in me. [[Special:Contributions/76.106.251.87|76.106.251.87]] 16:55, 6 June 2013 (UTC)
:::Tell us more, there are writers here who will adopt.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 18:49, 6 June 2013 (UTC)
::::I planned to go into more detail when I got off of work, but the IP that cleaned it up already did an amazing job. [[Special:Contributions/76.106.251.87|76.106.251.87]] 21:39, 7 June 2013 (UTC)
:::::Mrs Whatsit is not running for the second base but catching the ball against the runner (who? - not the Doctor) ??? I'm still sure she is running to that base. Help me to understand if I am wrong.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 22:08, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

In this comic, Randall demonstrates two sources of ambiguous nomenclature based on honorifics: What, playing second base, is married to Mister Whatsit. What is Mrs. Whatsit. The players in the comic are confused by the name of one of the players from the fielding team, the Doctor. Doctor Who? No. Who is on first. The Doctor is in right field. One justification for bringing the Doctor into the Abbot and Costello's team of players is that cast of characters in one of their video performances shows the right field position is held by "?". This symbol has been associated with the Doctor and has been seen embroidered on his clothing. [Perhaps the appearance of a question mark is a coincidence of the type that causes people to think that Superman's "S" is the initial letter of the word "Superman".] Note: In the Abbot and Costello routine, honorifics were not used, as the players were named familiarly, as one would use nicknames, and no honorifics, such as "Mr. Who" were used. Only in this comic are honorifics "Mrs." and "Dr." and "Aunt" used, which is a main reason for the title being called "nomenclature." (But it may be that "Aunt" may be Ms. Beast's first name...){{unsigned|Comet}}

Perhaps also worth mentioning for posterity is that this comic appeared three weeks after the 2013 Dr Who season finale called "The Name Of The Doctor".
[[Special:Contributions/149.241.204.87|149.241.204.87]] 19:23, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

----
Note that, according to the official transcript, "Megan" is "Mrs. Whatsit" here. [[User:Markhurd|Mark Hurd]] ([[User talk:Markhurd|talk]]) 15:41, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

What I find implausible here is the idea that the Doctor would play baseball. I could maybe see Eleven putting on Five's old outfit and going onto the diamond to try to play cricket and not understanding why everyone kept telling him he was doing it wrong. But that's about as close as I can imagine any incarnation getting to baseball. [[Special:Contributions/199.27.130.180|199.27.130.180]] 10:26, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

Talk:1221: Nomenclature

2015-09-21T10:21:46Z

199.27.130.180:

Talk:1170: Bridge

2015-09-19T02:02:45Z

199.27.130.180:

I am ''definitely'' going to do this to someone!
~tartilc

Ahhh it's been a while since the last classic. This one is instant.
-Adam

Note that the Cueball's argument doesn't really defeat the idea behind the phrase. Jumping off the bridge JUST because your friends did is still bad idea. What you should do is analyse situation. In best case, FIND the logical reason why your friends jumped, although it's true that spending too much time analysing can be dangerous. Also, look WHERE are your friends jumping too and if they landed alive. In many catastrophic scenarios, panic can kill more people that the catastrophe. That said, statistically speaking, if all your friends jumped off the bridge, there probably IS reason why they did it and you WILL probably do the same - not because they jumped, but for the same reason they jumped. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 09:01, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
:But cueball didn't go for reasonably check why they jumped before making the decision. From what I understood, his argument, even if not the best idea, is to trust the friends judgement and jump too. Jump first, ask questions later. [[Special:Contributions/189.123.129.34|189.123.129.34]] 18:11, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

In Hong Kong, Moms use "jump off the building" instead of bridge. (Too many skyscrapers, tall apartments right here, only really rich people live in houses). Ok, next time I will argue with her with this when I am going to do something stupid LOL [[Special:Contributions/123.202.19.132|123.202.19.132]] 09:08, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

I probably one of the people who will not jump right away, at least think and looking around first. Yes it need some time and may cost me, but that's me. [[User:Arifsaha|Arifsaha]] ([[User talk:Arifsaha|talk]]) 21:37, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Cueball's argument assumes that each of his friends made independent decisions to jump off a bridge. However, if his other friends were reasoning in a similar fashion to Cueball, they may have come to the conclusion that the bridge was on fire after only a single person jumped. This herd behaviour is exactly what the adage is to remind one of. --[[Special:Contributions/128.135.70.143|128.135.70.143]] 21:56, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

I always was of the opinion that if '''all''' my friends DID jump off a bridge, I would probably jump off too, because I'd be far too depressed at the thought of all my friends being dead. Can you imagine living with that trauma? And who exactly is going to console you through it? All the likely candidates are dead! - [[User:KeithTyler|KeithTyler]] ([[User talk:KeithTyler|talk]]) 21:58, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert, did a comic similar to this one in 1999: [http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/1999-11-21/ Young Dilbert] --[[Special:Contributions/24.145.230.202|24.145.230.202]] 01:10, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

I think the point is that if you choose your friends wisely you can trust their logic. If they ALL jumped, ther must be a reason, unless you hang out with morons.
-Adam
:Or they have been all influenced by some gas or radiation, so cannot reason logically. :-) [[User:Arifsaha|Arifsaha]] ([[User talk:Arifsaha|talk]]) 17:16, 8 February 2013 (UTC)
:Or, you know, blood control or something. Except I'm the A positive...maybe they'd have the sense not to let me jump. --Prairie

I can't help but notice: We've all heard this, right? So basically, a lot of persons repeat saying that after having heard another say it. Should it make them question their logic? Not really. Saying this adage is kind of a fine example where doing something just because so many others did it, is rather stupid.
-thelvin

I wonder what Cueball and his friends were going to do? On the face of it, it didn't appear to be anything all that dangerous. His mother, if she was using this argument out of reflex, probably just got her comeuppance for applying it in an inappropriate context. Poor mom. She probably already has too much on her hands, working for a living and raising a very intelligent kid, and now she has the extra chore of checking her metaphors carefully before use. This should push her right to that old favorite, "Because!"[[Special:Contributions/24.79.11.46|24.79.11.46]] 20:42, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

So Mom, got her comeuppance? Isn't this exactly what she wanted her son to do, examine what was going on and make a logical decision based on it... the fact that he said "their must be a reason", means she failed of course and must retrain him. So now she just has to say..."Ok, you can go as long as you can demonstrate to me the value of you attending (said function) and those that will be denied to you by not attending and doing something more socially responsible!18:24, 11 February 2013 (UTC) MI Ranger 11 Feb 2013

I want to do this! Except that it requires having friends...
Wait... All my friends are doing it is still a valid argument, since any expression of the form 'All X are Y' is always true whenever X (my friends) is an empty set! (vacuously true)[[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.244|141.101.98.244]] 21:57, 3 November 2013 (UTC)
Much simpler... Up until the parent asks about bridge jumping, everything is the same: then cueball says "yeah. We're going bungee jumping." {{unsigned ip|108.162.219.35}}

If I ever have children, and the situation comes where I'll have to say "If all your friends...", I'll say it and see how they answer.
:If they give up on doing what they were going to do, I'll tell them they're wrong and then expose the idea of this comic.
:If, instead, they respond with the idea of this comic, then I raised them well.
[[Special:Contributions/108.162.212.18|108.162.212.18]] 01:37, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

Wait a second.... If the bridge is on fire, then you're probably a wolf. So your friends would jump off WITHOUT the bridge being on fire, simply because they see a wolf.
[[Special:Contributions/173.245.50.141|173.245.50.141]] 20:29, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

According to my mom, I was such a smartass as a kid that she knew not to say this to me... But when she tried it on my sister, I butted in with, "that's probably the best time every to jump, with all those friends to cushion her fall". [[Special:Contributions/199.27.130.180|199.27.130.180]] 02:02, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

Talk:1168: tar

2015-09-19T01:54:08Z

199.27.130.180:

I thought the title text would be "tar --help"
[[Special:Contributions/123.202.19.132|123.202.19.132]] 06:59, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

Is it good that I could have disarmed the bomb, and I have only used tar (or for that matter, Linux) sparsely? [[User:NSDCars5|NSDCars5]] ([[User talk:NSDCars5|talk]]) 12:16, 9 May 2014 (UTC)NSDCars5

The comic is about the difficulty of the tar program options.

Even if his life depended on it and after years of usage, Bob/Randall could not come up with the right parameters without looking them up. So a situation is shown, where Bob's life depends on coming up with the right parameters:

* It shows an atomic warhead
* It has a user interface, which requests any valid tar command
* If it is not entered on the first try within 10s, the bomb is not disarmed and potentially explodes on the spot

Randall has come up with a situation, where the unix guy Bob can be the hero by knowing tar parameters. This is a pipe dream of a geek; nobody cares IRL, if you know tar parameters on the first try.

It is hilarious, that
* the bomb says in full detail the rules including that you should not cheat and it probably has no means to check whether you cheated. This is no game, but feels like one. In war and love every means is allowed - even cheating; it would also be self-defense for disarming the bomb; Bob and his colleagues are not even considering to cheat.
* the user has root access to the bomb, shown by the bomb as ~#, the tilde is the home directory, the # signifies super-user rights; even if the available programs prevent the bomb from being shutdown or disabled by a nonintended way, normally no root access is given for users of linux devices during normal usage; and disarming the bomb with official rules is normal usage of a bomb; a root prompt should not be necessary, if the bomb software is designed and configured well; possibly the unix prompt is a simulation for entering an answer
* Bob shurely needs more than 10s to come. So the bomb will have announced that questions, which require unix knowledge will follow - or has already asked other Unix questions; perhaps after 10s without entering anything a new question comes up
* this bomb can be disarmed with "common knowledge"

Small notes:
* The screen looks to be really grayscale (esp. the inverted "TEN") - not just because of the comic; it has at least 3 colors (black, white, tar gray); it could be that the "TEN" is updated dynamically and is thus inverted
* The comic is quite black: The screen and the bomb; Randall seldomly uses solid black areas; the bomb is a gloomy topic so it is black like "tar" (pun)

Sebastian --[[Special:Contributions/178.26.121.97|178.26.121.97]] 07:24, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

I think there is a visual double pun in this strip: the bomb disarmed by a tar command is a reference to the [[wikipedia:Tar (computing)#Tarbomb|tarbombs]], but it also looks like the [[wikipedia:File:Tsar Bomba Revised.jpg|Tsar Bomb(a)]]. --[[User:Koveras|Koveras]] ([[User talk:Koveras|talk]]) 08:24, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
: I don’t think it looks like Tsar Bomba. If anything, it is much more similar to [[wikipedia:Fat Man|Fat Man]]. --[[User:Mormegil|Mormegil]] ([[User talk:Mormegil|talk]]) 08:38, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
:: Yeah, but "Fat Man" doesn't sound like "tarbomb". --[[User:Koveras|Koveras]] ([[User talk:Koveras|talk]]) 10:48, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
:: Furthermore, the Tsar bomb was much bigger; I think I've read somewhere that it had the size of a bus. --[[Special:Contributions/95.34.7.179|95.34.7.179]] 11:11, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

I think another joke is in the fact that you don't know which Unix is running on the bomb so you don't actually know which parameter layout is supported. tar --help for example may or may not be valid since -- is a GNU extension.

tar -bvzx for a tar.bzip2 .... wait... no... argh... I've always just trusted my fingers.. --[[Special:Contributions/59.167.191.93|59.167.191.93]] 10:14, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
: Will '''tar -?''' be valid everywhere?. [[User:Arifsaha|Arifsaha]] ([[User talk:Arifsaha|talk]]) 19:32, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

tar -lvvb archive.tar.bz
File not found. Sorry, you're dead.
~#
[[Special:Contributions/74.82.68.68|74.82.68.68]] 12:35, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

Googling tar commands would definitely take more than 10 seconds, especially considering that Rob did not take his computer. (A smartphone is an option, but...)
Then again, why would "ten" be written in letters instead of numerals? [[User:Greyson|Greyson]] ([[User talk:Greyson|talk]]) 13:28, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
:I think the clock is already counting down. So probably they've discovered the bomb with still some minutes on the display. They call Bob when there is a minute left, He arrives with 25 sec's on the display and 15s later the screendump is made... [[Special:Contributions/86.82.116.63|86.82.116.63]] 22:33, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
:: This makes sense. --[[User:Shine|Shine]] ([[User talk:Shine|talk]]) 22:41, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

I think the current explantion is missing an important point: the tar commands are not that much difficult. What makes tar complicated is that there are many different implementations. The linux guy knows only gnu tar, but some unices have much different implementations and different commands. "tar --help" is certainly not available on an old hpux, for example. '''That''' make is difficult to type a valid tar command – even more if you don't know the implementation.
[[Special:Contributions/212.222.53.78|212.222.53.78]] 10:26, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
: Will '''tar -?''' be valid everywhere?. [[User:Arifsaha|Arifsaha]] ([[User talk:Arifsaha|talk]]) 19:32, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

I'm a Windows user, so bear with me. Couldn't he type something like "man tar" to get the proper usage of the "tar" command on this particular system? It's a "man" command, so it shouldn't count as a try towards typing a "tar" command. Of course, maybe the bomb would explode if he entered anything else. [[Special:Contributions/70.31.159.230|70.31.159.230]] 13:46, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

:Yeah, all standard Unix installations should have man installed. But many mini installations don't, so these days Google is the standard backup.[[User:CityZen|CityZen]] ([[User talk:CityZen|talk]]) 14:58, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

Randall's joke is spot on, as usual. I've been using UNIX for nearly 30 years. Windows User's solution is elegant. Before Google there was the <code>man</code> command. In all seriousness, productivity on a UNIX box can be greatly enhanced simply by keeping good notes. I keep patterns of all sorts of UNIX commands handy so I don't have to look them up. As Wikipedia implies, <code>tar -tf</code> (I prefer <code>-tvf</code>) should be memorized because one quickly learns that one should ''always'' inspect tarballs before unpacking them. ''– [[User:Tbc|tbc]] ([[User talk:Tbc|talk]]) 14:11, 1 February 2013 (UTC)''

One of the reasons that tar is so useful is that it can often do exactly what you want when other, more obvious commands cannot. For instance, recursively copying a directory from one place to another (using "cp") can be tricky when symbolic links are involved, and thus people memorize incantations like "tar cf - . | (cd dest; tar xf -)". As well, it's a standard tool that's guaranteed to be found on every Unix installation (unlike zip/unzip).[[User:CityZen|CityZen]] ([[User talk:CityZen|talk]]) 14:58, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

tar --help. Problem solved. '''[[User:Davidy22|Davidy22]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 15:21, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
: Maybe '''tar -?''' is better?. [[User:Arifsaha|Arifsaha]] ([[User talk:Arifsaha|talk]]) 19:32, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

What about "tar xf foo.tar"? I always assume options without dash work everywhere because options they are the original scheme. Of course, foot.tar might be absent, but in my view, the command itself remains valid.
As to the time limit: I imagine a countdown starts when the first key is hit - that leaves little time for "man tar". [[Special:Contributions/46.142.35.251|46.142.35.251]] 16:49, 1 February 2013 (UTC) madd

It feels like a partial reference to comic [http://xkcd.com/208/ xkcd 208]--[[Special:Contributions/108.162.157.176|108.162.157.176]] 04:31, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

I don't find tar all that tricky. The situation I'm always trumped with is when copying data, using cp, scp or rsync -r, then chmod -R /data 555. Why is '-R' capitalized? --[[Special:Contributions/98.253.217.12|98.253.217.12]] 19:54, 2 February 2013 (UTC)
:Because -r is 'substract the "read" right'. More interresting question is, why ssh -p but scp -P? -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 00:03, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

First thing that struck me here was the Jurassic Park allusion. Surprised no-one else has mentioned it.--[[Special:Contributions/58.6.184.37|58.6.184.37]] 07:01, 3 February 2013 (UTC)
:No one mentioned "What are four lowercase letters that are not legal flag arguments to the Berkeley UNIX version of `ls'?" question either ... -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 00:07, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Does this mean we should start retroactively rename cueball to "rob"?
:Rob is ''a'' Cueball, not ''every'' Cueball, so no. [[User:JET73L|JET73L]] ([[User talk:JET73L|talk]]) 14:05, 8 February 2013 (UTC)
::By that logic, Megan is ''a'' Cutie, not ''every'' Cutie. We should only name Megan in comics where her name appears. [[User:Djbrasier|Djbrasier]] ([[User talk:Djbrasier|talk]]) 17:07, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

There is something morbid in the subtext here.... I have a feeling that Randall is going to kill off Megan, Rob, and "White Hat"... [[User:Greyson|Greyson]] ([[User talk:Greyson|talk]]) 01:47, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Randall, I am disappoint! I haven't used tar for more than a year and I don't err anymore: tar -xvzf file (.gz) or tar -xvjf file (.bz2), and I still consider myself quite the newb. Works on all flavors of linux I tried (I like trying linuxes on VMs, dunno about other unixes, but everytime I need it, I get it right, so I wouldn't even consider this in my list of hardest programs to get right first time). For those interested: -x extract -v verbose (I like it) -z uncompress (for some compression types, in some flavors this works with bz2, IIRC) -j uncompress (for bz2, maybe others). [[Special:Contributions/189.123.132.123|189.123.132.123]] 20:51, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

:Your "z" Is wrong for .bz2 (or .z or uncompressed); it's only for ".gz". The reason it works for you is that your distro is using BSD tar, which silently ignores compression-related flags on the t and x commands and figures it out automatically. Which means you're better off using "-xvf" than "-

:More importantly, "works on all flavors of linux I've tried" is a far cry from "portable". The majority of desktop Unix systems are not linux, but OS X. There are plenty of servers running other BSD flavors. And lots of old machines running commercial *nixes or OpenSolaris. Not to mention Cygwin, and native/MinGW ports to Windows. People checking in code because "it works on Fedora and Ubuntu, so it must be portable" is becoming as big a problem as when people used to test on three different BSD derivatives but no SysV. So you should feel bad. :P [[Special:Contributions/199.27.130.180|199.27.130.180]] 01:54, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

:Originally bzip used -y. Not speaking about fact that bzip is pretty new - and some unixes don't have ANY compression support in their tar. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 00:03, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

The quickest tar command with valid syntax would be "tar t". Every switch after the first command letter is optional. Even the initial dash is optional. [[Special:Contributions/85.24.234.35|85.24.234.35]] 11:03, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
:(That would also be a command that is valid in every known tar version throughout the universe.)

The tar command actually has a unique syntax in unix. Classicly, it's first parameter is a subcommand (letter) followed by zero or more option letters. (And I think the subcommand had to be first.) Parameters for the options follow in sequence after that, in the same order the options where listed. Then, for the 'c' subcommand, an input filename list follows. This syntax was rather painful when you had perhaps 5 different option letters each with parameters, but this was a normal enough occurance when you specified the tape drive, tape block size, tape length, and a few others I can't even remember. Early implementations would have a file listing tape configurations so you could pick one and all its parameters with a single digit. In any case, it should be noted that a dash ('-') was actually NOT ALLOWED on the parameters. More recent versions of tar have attempted to add the more common unix option parsing, but still support the dash-less form. Having said all that, I tend to prefer "tar xvzf filename.tar.gz" and "tar tvzf filename.tar.gz". [[User:Divad27182|Divad27182]] ([[User talk:Divad27182|talk]]) 20:18, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure about it, so I'll not add to the explanation: doesn't "tarbomb" also refers to a malicious tarball that releases a ridiculously big file filled with blank/random data? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.212.18|108.162.212.18]] 01:26, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

Um... the prompt is "~# "... That's a root prompt. Shouldn't Rob just "~# kill -9 1

Kernel panic – not syncing: Attempted to kill init!"? [[Special:Contributions/173.245.56.105|173.245.56.105]] 03:50, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

Talk:1153: Proof

2015-09-18T14:17:58Z

199.27.130.180:

Integral calculus will solve the paradox only on the assumption that space is continuous. If space is discrete, solution lies in probability nature of quantum mechanics. The arrow paradox, meanwhile, is based on incorrect assumption: uniform motion is normal and selfsustainable and doesn't need to be explained (as proved by Newton). Also note that mentioning Leibniz without mentioning [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_Isaac_Newton Newton] might have some significance, as both are claiming to develop integral calculus. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 09:23, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
:Quantum mechanics is based on differential equations, and also requires that space not be discrete. {{unsigned ip|199.27.130.192}}
Actually Newton discovered (devised the mathematical method of) fluxions which is similar, but not as elegant, as calculus. He got miffed (and the British science establishment on his behalf) that Calculus was a rip-off. Newton did not publicise his fluxions as he firstly thought that they were a 'fix' that having found a solution needed to be shown by Euclidean Geometry. Secondly it have him an analytical edge over his contemporaries that he did not want to give up. Interestingly it can be shown that Pythagoras used an integration technique to calculate his formulas for the circle and sphere families, but worked it out the hard way! --[[Special:Contributions/90.197.0.66|90.197.0.66]] 17:55, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

----------------------------------------

There is a simple observation that solves the 'paradox'. Yes, the number of steps become infinite, but the span of each successive step, and thus the time required to traverse it becomes infinitesimally small - REGARDLESS of whether Newton's first law holds (provided negative acceleration - if any, is finite, and provided the assumption of nature being continuous holds). Leibniz and Newton's independent discoveries of calculus (the concept of limits actually), and this branch of mathematics' ability to deal with infinites, resolves the paradox, because an infinite sum of infinitesimals (in some cases... Zeno's geometric progression being one of them) can be shown to converge to a finite number.

While it is true that calculus remains applicable only if space and time...actually, it's post annus mirabilis, so let me reframe that. While it is true that calculus remains applicable only if the domain is continuous, the paradox may be solved to a fair degree even if spacetime is discrete. Why? Because if spacetime was discrete (ref. Planck Length. It's fascinating! :D ), successive division of the remaining length to be traversed would bring you down to the fundamental quantum at some point. Now, unless you violate Newton's law and suddenly bring the moving object to a standstill, it will continue moving. But the only way it can do that is by moving atleast by one fundamental unit (which we'll assume is the Planck Length), which is the same as the distance that it has just translated! [Pedantically, one doesn't even have to wait until the step size reaches such scales. We have this contradiction even if the macroscopic distance is a prime multiple of the Planck Length - but that's a trivial consideration, because one may just as well expand Zeno's paradox to not just halves, but the whole set of fractions of inverted-natural numbers]. But you'll note I said discredited, instead of solved, because rejecting the notion of no-motion-possible would atleast require an acknowledgement of the validity of Newton's first law of motion. But if there's no motion possible, then Newton's laws would be meaningless too.

Maybe that's why the prosecution only called on Leibniz. If the lawyer (or Zeno) had gone on to (chronological aberrations notwithstanding) to discredit Newton, they might've been ostracised as a result of a vengeful Isaac's social engineering. But let's find a more charitable (to the Principia author) explanation. Newton was notoriously taciturn. He was a Member of Parliament for a good while, but his only recorded comments were to have the windows closed because there was a draught. (ROFLMAO) It's unlikely that he'd ever get talked into being a witness, or even a subject matter expert for a criminal trial.

Also, IMHO, the "approach the bench", "-but never reach it!" might be a reference to the fact that the lawyer thinks he will probably never become a judge, and will be ignored, as punishment for his impudence. Leibniz and Newton were the brightest of the luminaries, and their scientific propositions may have been considered as sanctimonious as judgments delivered by the highest court of law. But in contemporary or even historic scientific circles, I guess Zeno was never accorded any more respect, than that set aside for 'a simple αστός'. Add to that the almost truant nature of his proposition, and it's as likely that it'd rile up those in charge of barrister promotions, as a smart question riles up a tired teacher. :) [[Special:Contributions/115.242.227.17|115.242.227.17]] 19:29, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

:[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck_length Planck length]. Ref done.
:Note that Newton laws doesn't really work on Planck lengths. See [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncertainty_principle Heisenberg principle]. Actually proving that macroscopic object move on the time and distances close to Planck would probably require more computing power that we have. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 13:02, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

{{w|The Quantum Zeno effect}} seems to be a modern-physics reincarnation of the arrow paradox. (Doesn't it feel like every time you think that you have something fiqured out, some quantum phenomenon will suddenly pop up and make matters more complicated than they ever were?) – [[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 00:52, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
:The Quantum Zeno Effect has nothing to do with Zeno at all. The authors just thought it sounded more profession than "A Watched Particle Never Boils". The Quantum Zeno Effect is not a paradox at all, but rather just the mathematical implications of quantum entanglement. {{unsigned|206.181.86.98}}

The explanation previously said that quantum mechanics (in contrast to Zeno and to calculus) says that spacetime is really discrete. It does not. In fact, it inherently assumes that spacetime is continuous. The original formulation of quantum theory can be redone with discrete spacetime, but that breaks special relativity, and cannot be extended to QM. There may be ways around that within QFT (doubly special relativity, continuously variable fields over discrete space, ...), but it's unlikely any of them can be made consistent with our universe. Loop quantum gravity might work, but it still has continuous spacetime, it just means (oversimplifying) that at a small enough scale there's more noise than signal in any measure of distance. [[Special:Contributions/199.27.130.180|199.27.130.180]] 14:17, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

1153: Proof

2015-09-18T14:05:44Z

199.27.130.180: /* Explanation */ QM does not mean spacetime is discrete. See talk.

{{comic
| number = 1153
| date = December 28, 2012
| title = Proof
| image = proof.png
| titletext = The prosecution calls Gottfried Leibniz.
}}

==Explanation==
{{w|Zeno of Elea}} was an ancient Greek philosopher who devised several apparent paradoxes of motion called {{w|Zeno's paradoxes}}. Here are the two relevant to the comic:

:'''Arrow paradox:''' At any instant in time, an arrow suspended in mid-air is no different from an arrow in motion. How, then, can motion occur? The lawyer presumably intends to use this argument to prove that his client could not have used the arrow to commit murder. Another possibility was that it is impossible to hit a person in motion.

:'''Dichotomy paradox:''' Suppose I need to go from point A to point B. First I must walk halfway there: half of the distance between A and B. Then I must walk half the remaining distance, which would bring me to three-quarters of the original distance; then I must again walk half the now-remaining distance to reach a point seven-eighths of the way from point A, and so on. Because I would have to take an infinite number of non-zero steps, I will never reach point B. By the same argument, the lawyer in the cartoon can get closer and closer to the judge's table, but never reach it.

There are two possible law vs math/logic puns in the comic, on the words "approach" and "proof." "{{w|Approach the bench}}" is a legal term meaning to have a private conversation with the judge; approach in calculus means an infinite process where a function value gets closer and closer to a {{w|Limit (mathematics)|limit}} value that it never actually reaches, reminiscent of Zeno's paradoxes. "Proof" is also ambiguous with different significations in formal disciplines than in {{w|jurisprudence}}; see {{w|proof (truth)}}.

{{w|Gottfried Leibniz}} is the co-inventor of {{w|calculus}} (along with Isaac Newton)([[626: Newton and Leibniz]]). If Leibniz were to testify in this imaginary trial, he might argue that calculus invalidates Zeno's paradoxes, because the moving arrow has a different velocity than a stationary one (the function describing the motion has a nonzero derivative at the point), and the {{w|infinite series}} in the dichotomy paradox has a finite sum. Both Zeno and calculus assume a continuous, infinitely divisible, ideal {{w|spacetime}} (as does {{w|quantum mechanics}}); a different solution would be available it spacetime turns out to be discrete. However, Zeno is arguably not concerned with actually calculating the correct answer. In the real world, Zeno can be trivially disproven simply by moving and reaching a desired target. It remains a question of debate whether a mathematical approach addresses the central points in Zeno's arguments.

[[994: Advent Calendar]] is also about Zeno.

==Transcript==
:Zeno: My client couldn't have killed anyone with this arrow, and I can ''prove'' it!
:Judge: I'd like to examine your proof, Zeno. You may approach the bench.
:Zeno: —But never reach it!

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

Talk:1127: Congress

2015-09-18T12:24:59Z

199.27.130.180:

Being a stupidly over political (please don't ask me here, this is an xkcd wiki not reddit) kinda guy, this one really interests me. Another one of those amazing visualizations of real-world facts xkcd is so great at. I have no idea what one might write for an explanation that would be useful. Everything is explained in pretty thorough fashion right on the panel... {{unsigned|Renegade4dio}}
:Well, there's always the transcript for us to <strike>waste time</strike> work on. [[User:Davidy22|Davidy22]] ([[User talk:Davidy22|talk]]) 12:36, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

The first thing that is missing is the explanation why there are two houses. Why never three or four?
I get why monarchy only had advisors but opposition varied with whichever branch of the family had most to lose. So there was a never ending and closely focussed stream of opposition, albeit short-lived if unsuccessful.[[User:Weatherlawyer| I used Google News BEFORE it was clickbait]] ([[User talk:Weatherlawyer|talk]]) 18:29, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

;Congress as check

Perhaps a pedantic point, but I couldn't leave the description describing Congress as simply a check on the president. That would imply that the president has free reign (literally) and that Congress only acts (or, more often, doesn't act) to veto the president. That is a much more accurate description of the president's role in legislation (or of a pre-modern English Parliament). {{unsigned|208.32.120.10}}

;Typo
There's a typo on the right-hand side of the comic around 1952 - "''Other than these few years after the war; the House [was] under control Democratic control for the entire period ...''". The "was" is missing. [[User:TheHYPO|TheHYPO]] ([[User talk:TheHYPO|talk]]) 15:27, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

;definition of conservative is pejorative

Conservatives are not interested in preserving wealth amongst those who have it - they are interested in creating as many opportunities to create wealth as possible by reducing unwanted government regulation and returning to constitutional limitations (aka 10th ammendment) on Federal power. A different view of liberty and rights than what liberals maintain, but highly supported - I find your definition to be highly pejorative. [[User:Ghaller825|Ghaller825]] ([[User talk:Ghaller825|talk]]) 18:59, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

:That went completely over my head, but you're entirely welcome to change it if the definition in the article bothers you. [[User:Davidy22|Davidy22]][[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>(talk)</tt>]] 09:16, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

::Perhaps the segment could be changed to say "conservatives believe the government should not interfere with a person's wealth", or something very similar. The resistence to government involvement seems to be more consistent across the various degrees of the modern conservative movement. I'll admit that my suggested statement is also false, because almost everyone believes there should be some amount of taxes, and taxes affect wealth. However, it should be more palatable to the political ideology.

:I understand your offense, Ghaller. On the other hand, the current phrasing using "making wealth" is also a loaded term, as many factory workers would feel that they are "the ones who make it" more than the CEOs, but are certainly not getting more money. I'm not saying I agree with that perspective, just that it's a suggestive statement, and this is not the forum to have an endless debate over it. The unsigned comment above me has the best compromise in my opinion, so I will implement it. [[User:Jerodast|- jerodast]] ([[User talk:Jerodast|talk]]) 18:12, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

;Errors
I notice the following: (1) George H.W. Bush is shown as serving in the Senate. He never made it to the Senate, just the House. (2) Abraham Lincoln appears to be shown as serving in the House for about seven years. He only was there for one term (two years). --[[Special:Contributions/99.14.234.119|99.14.234.119]] 02:18, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

It also lists John A. Garfield in the House from 1862 until his election -- it is James A Garfield, not John.

It lists Abraham Lincoln (and the Republican Party of Lincoln's time in general) as right-leaning, even though it's widely accepted that the Republicans of that era (whose base was made up mostly of Northern abolitionists) were the more liberal party, and the Democrats (whose base was comprised in large part by Southern slave-owners) the more conservative. {{unsigned|140.247.0.73}}

;Definition of Liberal

While in the US, liberal might mean left-wing, in the UK it's pretty central and in Australia it's right-wing. Go figure.--[[User:Joe Green|Joe Green]] ([[User talk:Joe Green|talk]]) 04:23, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
:Classical liberalism [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_liberalism] is very different from American liberalism; Americans would recognize it more as Libertarianism. --[[User:Prooffreader|Prooffreader]] ([[User talk:Prooffreader|talk]]) 09:12, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

The socialists are well-known for hijacking the good-sounding misleading names. Such as "liberal" in America or "bolshevik" (a made-up word meaning literally "majoritan", a member of majority) in Russia. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.245.111|108.162.245.111]] 00:10, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

That comment makes it sound like there's some conspiracy behind the left thinking up good names for their movements. The words themselves don't really mean anything. You don't have to go back too far in US history to find 'liberals' and 'socialists' being demonized as spies and traitors, and even today the right is happy to call the left 'liberal' with strong undertones of 'weak'. Leftist are generally better at naming things I'll grant you, but then almost all leftist movements (barring the Khmer Rouge and cultural revolution era china) have had strong ties to both universities and the entertainment industry, people who are used to being persuasive with words so it's not surprising that they came up with nice friendly sounding terms for their movements.[[User:LostAlone|LostAlone]] ([[User talk:LostAlone|talk]]) 12:17, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

;Typo

In the "How Ideology Is Calculated" section, I note "acccounting".--[[User:Joe Green|Joe Green]] ([[User talk:Joe Green|talk]]) 04:23, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

;Conservative?

He didn't exactly say that Conservatives are interested in preserving wealth amongst those who have it; I think the implication is that "if you made it, you should get to keep it" (or as much of it as possible, hence lower taxes). One ''consequence'' of this is that the ''distribution'' of wealth tends to remain static, in that the rich stay rich and the poor stay (relatively) poorer. Whether or not that consequence is an intentional one is perhaps in the eye of the pejoratively-inclined beholder :-)--[[User:Joe Green|Joe Green]] ([[User talk:Joe Green|talk]]) 04:30, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

:I made an edit to that effect, but it appears to have been wiped out by another editor calling it "right-wing trolling". If you would like to try re-wording it, please do. [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]] ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 05:05, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

::By changing just a little bit I think I removed most of the negative connotation.[[User:Bugefun|Bugefun]] ([[User talk:Bugefun|talk]]) 05:11, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

;Arteries
Kind of unrelated but the diagram to me looks sort of like arteries and veins, with the red and blue. And the branches look like how they branch off the heart and stuff. [[User:Bugefun|Bugefun]] ([[User talk:Bugefun|talk]]) 05:10, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

;Red inside blue and vice versa
What do the red strands inside the blue section and the blue strands inside the red section represent? It doesn't seem to be explained anywhere.
[[Special:Contributions/199.27.200.82|199.27.200.82]] 14:15, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

:Red on the blue side represents "Conservative Democrats" and Blue on the red side represents "Liberal Republicans". Confusing a bit, but so are both those political terms (lol). It is stated (in small text) on the top right diagram of the comic--[[User:Dangerkeith3000|Dangerkeith3000]] ([[User talk:Dangerkeith3000|talk]]) 14:53, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

;Left vs right - or why this comic is stupid
The traditional definition of left vs right (people attribute all sorts of things to it these days) is the support of change (hence the names progressives vs conservatives, or radicals vs reactionaries). The terminology comes from France where those that advocated reforms to government sat on the left of the chamber and those that wanted to do such things as restore the monarchy sat on the right. Your traditional Burkian conservative (smidgen to the right of the centre) would accept change is inevitable, but must be controlled. To the right of that people that want to maintain the status quo, further right people that want to go back to some "better time". To the left you get the, let change happen as it comes, further left lets make change a "good thing", to the furthest left "lets force change". A large part of the Marxist philosophy is that not only is communism desirable, but inevitable as according to Marx that is the final destination of all societies. Now to my point. Over time the parties have switched sides and often will be left on one issue and right on another. Often the parties themselves were divided (look at the civil rights act's passage) To simply say Democratic Party has always been left and the Republicans have always been is such a gross simplification that is renders the whole image a farce. [[Special:Contributions/192.43.227.18|192.43.227.18]] 01:07, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

;What can we learn from this?
I've learned that our congress (and law in general) is too complex. We are tying to keep outdated laws relevant by using an endless series of exceptions (legally called amendments). I hope someday we will be able to scrap the whole thing and simplify our laws so that our children do not have to spend up to a quarter of their lives learning our mistakes. XKCD, please help us simplify something like law so you don't have to waste your time visualizing something as broken as our understanding of it. - e-inspired [[Special:Contributions/24.51.197.187|24.51.197.187]] 18:36, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

This is something someone needs to contact Randall about. {{unsigned ip|108.162.219.105}}

; Mesage of the day

<div class="toccolours">Today's incomplete explanation of the day is 1127: Congress. Help us fix it!</div>
Yes. We desperately need to fix the Congress... -- [[User:Wesha|Wesha]] ([[User talk:Wesha|talk]]) 19:39, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

It might help to have a corollary chart that tracks gerrymandering, that is the practice of selecting and isolating minority and majority populations in districts so that there is virtually no contest at the time of election. A city can be carved up to include just enough suburban voters to overwhelm what would otherwise have been their political choice. Districts now often resemble convoluted, sinuous serpent creatures rather than geography divided along natural boudaries. If someone could write code that would redraw districts with the following parameters: number of voters, and walking distance to polling places - without regard to income, race, party designation, etc. It would change the map drastically.
At any rate, many districts have been redrawn to control election results. Such a chart would parallel the divisions in congress.[[User:Bralbovsky|Bralbovsky]] ([[User talk:Bralbovsky|talk]]) 00:25, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

Someone could (and probably has) come up with code to do what you suggest, but the courts won't let them use it.

When districts are drawn without regard to race, some racial groups wind up underrepresented, because they are a substantial percentage of the total population, but are not a majority in a proportional number of districts (for example, if there are 4 districts and they are 25% of the total populations, then they should be able to elect someone from that group in 1 district, but if they are 25% of each district, then members of the other racial group, which is 75% of each district, may get elected in all 4 districts, when it should be just 3). This is considered unfair and a violation of their right to "equal protection", so districts must be drawn along racial lines to comply with court orders to give these groups fairer representation.

[[Special:Contributions/108.162.215.190|108.162.215.190]] 16:50, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

----

Not intending to worry anyone, but isn't it annoying that the colours are the wrong way around? In the UK we represent the Tories/Conservatives/Republicans with blue and the Labs/labour/democrats with red. This is why it fits that the social democratic reforms promoted by social communism a flown on a red flag and the working capitalists and imperial monarchists are represented by a blue flag. Why the other way round? [[User:Raydleemsc|Raydleemsc]] ([[User talk:Raydleemsc|talk]]) 08:05, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

If this chart was about British politics, the colours would be wrong, but in US those are the standard colors for the parties. Blame mass media if you want [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_states_and_blue_states]] [[User:S42ky|S42ky]] ([[User talk:S42ky|talk]]) 18:51, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

:This is actually a pretty recent thing--and a silly one. Traditionally, each news outlet picked colors independently, and they were pretty evenly split among red for Republican or red for Democrat most years. In 2000, when the election was hung waiting on the Florida recount, everyone on TV was pointing at electoral maps on every broadcast. After two days, NBC switched colors. Other outlets began to follow suit, and once most outlets were using the same color scheme, after which pundits started talking about "red states" and "blue states" as shorthand for states where republicans or democrats won, and we've been stuck with that ever since. So, what made NBC change? Either their news director was annoyed that NBC and the Washington Post (the first paper he read in the morning) used opposite colors, or one of their pundits couldn't remember which colors they used and suggested that the alliterative red=Republican would help him stop screwing it up. Whichever of those is true is the ultimate reason red means Republican. [[Special:Contributions/199.27.130.180|199.27.130.180]] 12:24, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

Talk:1118: Microsoft

2015-09-18T11:15:37Z

199.27.130.180:

Let the discussion begin! (replace this stub with actual content?) [[User:Odysseus654|Odysseus654]] ([[User talk:Odysseus654|talk]]) 04:29, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Well in the case of Microsoft they already dominated the market and so threatened to gain monopoly power. In the case of Apple (disclosure: I use a Mac) the market share is insignificant, really. As for Facebook and Google, the oversight is puzzling to say the least.[[Special:Contributions/172.190.2.141|172.190.2.141]] 05:16, 8 October 2012 (UTC)ExternalMonologue

:¬I Ummmmmmm... Why does my IP address show?? Other peoples' addresses don't show. How do I prevent this from happening?[[Special:Contributions/172.190.2.141|172.190.2.141]] 05:19, 8 October 2012 (UTC)ExternalMonologue

::Click the "log in / sign up" icon in the upper right and login or create an account for youself. Then you will no longer be known by your IP address[[User:Odysseus654|Odysseus654]] ([[User talk:Odysseus654|talk]]) 06:27, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

:I think the reason Microsoft was noticed and Facebook/Google didn't was that Netscape complained. It didn't helped him, of course. Which may also be reason why nothing is happening with Facebook/Google: seriously, WHAT do you think can the court do? And about Apple: yes, they could forbid Apple to control the list of application, but ... RIAA/MPAA will then complain. They WANT to end the era of "you own the device, therefore you can install whatever you want on it", because THEY want that control. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 08:24, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
One could add that the European Union did the same thing (see [[Wikipedia:European Union Microsoft competition case]]), first because of Windows Media Player (imagine any operating system coming without media player), but later also because of Internet Explorer. (It was already laughable back then, even before Apple completely dominated the mobile and tablet market.) Thanks to that we now have [[Wikipedia:BrowserChoice.eu]], and we are a free people. --[[Special:Contributions/84.75.58.16|84.75.58.16]] 08:49, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

: In the tablet and smartphone markets, Apple's market share is not at all insignificant. Furthermore, legal solutions are supposed to be even-handed, not "it's okay if these other guys do the same thing because." If a situation arises with a particular party arises such that one of its practices is determined to be abusive, then that practice is restricted, not that party.

Note that Microsoft [http://venturebeat.com/2012/09/27/microsoft-browser-choice-fine-eu/ has been in the news recently] because they (accidentally?) broke the agreements they made (or were forced into) when the last browser rulings came down [[User:Odysseus654|Odysseus654]] ([[User talk:Odysseus654|talk]]) 22:43, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

What about Fa€ebook, App£e, and Goog£e?

:In retrospect, the whole Internet Explorer thing seems pretty dumb. I guess at the time web browsers still weren't considered to be an essential, fundamental piece of computer functionality. But they certainly are now. It would be weird for an operating system, ANY operating system, to not have a built-in web browser at this point. [[Special:Contributions/173.21.57.231|173.21.57.231]] 20:42, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

::Wouldn't Fac€book be more exact?
::Yes, the browsers ARE essential and BECAUSE of that it's important WHICH browser you have. Personally I can't understand why the OS (any of them) can't came with multiple browsers preinstalled. I find hard to believe it's because of size. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 08:36, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
:::How many web browsers? What standards are used to select them? Which one is the default? How are naive users to decide? As a semi-power user, I would be irritated to know that a bunch of redundant bloatware came pre-installed, especially when it's an application that often intertwines with the operating system. Frankly, it's NOT that important which browser you use for most users, just that you have one. The ones for whom it is important are going to change theirs regardless of what came preinstalled. [[User:Jerodast|- jerodast]] ([[User talk:Jerodast|talk]]) 17:51, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

::::Apple bundled their OS with two browsers at least twice. First, after Microsoft told Apple they would no longer commit to maintaining IE for Mac, Apple began installing both IE and Mozilla. I don't remember anyone complaining about that. Much later, they started preinstalling Safari (and installing it with updates) alongside Firefox. People did complain about that, but only the people who thought Safari was not ready for prime time, who would have been even unhappier if it were the only preinstalled browser... (OS X also comes with Emacs preinstalled with, IIRC, two different text-mode web browser packages in it, as do many linux and *BSD distros, but I doubt anyone complains that they want emacs but don't want www-mode because they already have a browser...)

::::Meanwhile, the way to solve the problem of the browser intertwining with the OS is to not intertwine it with the OS. You can have WebKit or KHTML3 or gecko or whatever as a shared lib if you want to share between programs without making Safari or Konqueror or Firefox the default browser. There really is no reason to organize things the way Microsoft did unless you're deliberately trying to make it hard for people to switch to Netscape.

::::Anyway, this is no longer the same issue it was at the time. The first-gen browser wars were about trying to lock people into other technologies; the current ones are about making products (phones and tablets) better. Android comes with Chrome instead of WebKit or Gecko because it means Android devices do better on benchmarks and feature checklists so more people want to buy them, not because Google wants to lock people in to Chrome. Google has plenty of evil ways to make money, but this isn't one of them; it's a sincere competitive loss-leader. [[Special:Contributions/199.27.130.180|199.27.130.180]] 11:15, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

Would it also be relevant that, a week before this comic, [http://redmondmag.com/articles/2012/10/01/google-surpasses-microsoft-as-most-valuable-tech-company.aspx| Google surpassed Microsoft] in market value? —[[Special:Contributions/98.122.166.235|98.122.166.235]] 13:30, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

I don't really understand the advantage of browser market share. Browsers are free and have no ads. If the advantage is in using browser features to promote other services (like search), then THAT's the bundling that should be scrutinized. In contrast, forcing users to funnel all purchases for your system through your own store is much more abusive. [[User:Jerodast|- jerodast]] ([[User talk:Jerodast|talk]]) 17:51, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Let's start again shall we?

IE hurt Netscape but Windows is Windows, Netscape should have got its own OS while it was still warm.

Today we have a multitude of OSs and can control what we do either by not doing it or by doing it everywhere even places we aren't really. This would make people following us work bloody hard.

Next we take all their toys away by speaking to "friends" in codes that are unbreakable, using a made up language and converting a mutually shared book into that language and just picking out one word from it occasionally to tell the friend the one particular thing he needs to know. Or substance of this.

After that the internet is pretty much secure again except for ordinary people not in the business of foiling secret services. Everyone who needs to know this knows this. It is about as obvious as the supply of a choice of web browsers to an operating system.

The business of your IP address showing up pretty much foils the secret service's desire to know the things about you that you don't even know about you is marred if you go to hell and back and stop off at ever shop on every street corner along the way. Also if you pop into every supermarket and chase every dog and do all the stupid things that stupid people do, such as sending quasi-secrets on the name tags on kittens in pictures of kittens.

That will fuck with GCHQ and the NSA, it would even get on the nerves of the FBI and the CIA eventually. Not that they would notice.

Begone foul pest[[User:Weatherlawyer| I used Google News BEFORE it was clickbait]] ([[User talk:Weatherlawyer|talk]]) 17:55, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Talk:1114: Metallurgy

2015-09-18T06:35:57Z

199.27.130.180:

"extraterrestrial metal was often more refined and plentiful than man-made metal ingots." -I'd love to read about this. Citation needed! --[[User:Buggz|Buggz]] ([[User talk:Buggz|talk]]) 08:59, 28 September 2012 (UTC)
:Sure. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_meteorite. It was mostly cultures with little industry picking up meteorites and finding that the stuff lying on the ground was miles better than the awful fragile metal that they were making from rocks. [[User:Davidy22|Davidy22]] ([[User talk:Davidy22|talk]]) 09:06, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Actually the first extra terrestrial tools belonged to a man who lived when the earth was inhabited by angels. They needed to find weapons to manage the brontosaurii or giants that lived in those days and were killing everyone. So he developed metallurgy and got the credit for such by god.

If you don't believe me look up Twoball Chain (aka [Tubular Cane][http://tools.wmflabs.org/bibleversefinder/?book=%20Genesis&verse=4%3A22&src=NIV])[[User:Weatherlawyer| I used Google News BEFORE it was clickbait]] ([[User talk:Weatherlawyer|talk]]) 18:15, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

In fantasy stories, the world is usually much more complicated place. Meteorite, which may have easily traveled billions kilometres going through places with environment greatly different from anything available on the planet, can easily develop interresting properties. Still, for every super-cool super-effective sword, there must be many other meteorites whose properties make them LESS usefull for weapons.
Even in our universe, meteorites may went through temperatures and magnetical fields much greater that available for preindustrial civilization. -- [[Special:Contributions/89.177.52.2|89.177.52.2]] 10:42, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

That salesman was likely to sell a flashlight as a lightsabre.--[[User:DelendaEst|DelendaEst]] ([[User talk:DelendaEst|talk]]) 11:20, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

It is possible that Randall drew inspiration from the piece of news that was making rounds yesterday, best exemplified by an article in The Register titled [http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/09/27/tibetan_alien_statue_discovered_by_nazis/|Tibetan STATUE found by 1930s NAZI expedition is of ALIEN ORIGIN]. Many publications ran a similar headline, stating that the statue, and not the material it is made from, is of extraterrestrial origin. [[User:Mem|mem]] ([[User talk:Mem|talk]]) 13:46, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

The explanation should perhaps also address how in various computer/fantasy games one will often come across a weapons dealer, a non-player character who will happily sell you whatever he has in stock. [[User:CityZen|CityZen]] ([[User talk:CityZen|talk]]) 20:06, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

: You know, the shopkeeper struck me as a particularly jaded individual, perhaps tired of the RPG fan-boys (and -girls, judging by Megan's presence) looking for a real-world souvie of their gaming exploits. He gives some half-hearted patter, but is completely forthcoming in unsalesman-like fashion: ''I'm going to lay this out without misrepresentation, and if you're dumb enough to buy this....'' But that's just me. -- [[User:IronyChef|IronyChef]] ([[User talk:IronyChef|talk]]) 14:15, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

Hey! The word "eldritch" is actually more pertinent than I thought it would be:
"eldritch"
Origin:
1500–10; earlier elrich, equivalent to Old English el- foreign, strange, uncanny ( see else) + rīce kingdom ( see rich); hence “of a strange country, pertaining to the Otherworld”; compare Old English ellende in a foreign land, exiled (cognate with German Elend penury, distress), Runic Norse alja-marki r foreigner" Woot.[[User:Noni Mausa|Noni Mausa]] ([[User talk:Noni Mausa|talk]]) 12:07, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

Anyone as annoyed as me to find a 45 year old paper costs $40? Living here in The Ferengi States of America is getting harder and harder.[[Special:Contributions/172.191.224.148|172.191.224.148]] 17:04, 29 September 2012 (UTC)ExternalMonologue
:Lol. 'Ferengi States of America' Genius.

Both of the swords can be taken as references to the Tolkien Legendarium. The first, made from a fallen star, could be a reference to Anglachel (Gurthang). Anglachel is a sword from First Age Middle Earth that was crafted from a fallen star. Turin Turambar reforged it as Gurthang. After the Fourth Age, it is the sword that Turin uses to ultimately kill Morgoth.

The second sword, which glows blue, could be a reference to the infamous Sting, which belonged to Bilbo and Frodo in the Third Age but was crafted in Gondolin in the First Age.[[Special:Contributions/70.65.139.132|70.65.139.132]] 15:42, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

Am I the only one here that thinks the swordsmith looks suspiciously like the Beret guy (with a beard (may be fake))? Or his ancestor perhaps? This kind of odd behaviour fits (albeit remotely) with the Beret Guy's persona. [[User:BK201|BK201]] ([[User talk:BK201|talk]]) 18:52, 18 December 2013 (UTC)BK201

Fallen-star swords made sense in a universe where fallen stars are magical things rather than meteorites, like first-age Arda, or where civilization hasn't developed iron smelting, like early Hyborea. The problem is that most epic fantasy is set in a quasi-medieval setting in a solar system just like ours, so normal swords are late medieval steel and falling stars are lumps of impure iron that can't possibly be nearly as good as steel, but the writer still uses them because, you know, Tolkien and Howard did it, so it's standard fantasy. Even A Song of Ice and Fire, which goes into enough detail that you know their swords are like 13th century European steel, and has an interesting story about the superior Valyrian steel (which, like real-world Damascus steel, requires now-lost techniques, and which also required horrific sacrificial magic) still throws in a fallen-star sword because fantasy. [[Special:Contributions/199.27.130.180|199.27.130.180]] 06:35, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

Talk:1113: Killed in Action

2015-09-18T06:01:22Z

199.27.130.180:

The title text is essentially the beginning of the hanging paradox: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unexpected_hanging_paradox
:It's not quite the same--[[User:Joehammer79|Joehammer79]] ([[User talk:Joehammer79|talk]]) 17:03, 27 September 2012 (UTC) thing.
:The unexpected hanging paradox only applies when you have a measure of foreknowledge. [[User:Davidy22|Davidy22]] ([[User talk:Davidy22|talk]]) 05:50, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

I think there's also a strong indication that this is mocking cop films from the 80's/90's, such as Lethal Weapon, where a character would always die just before retirement.
--[[Special:Contributions/46.246.31.111|46.246.31.111]] 07:08, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

This one is a variant of the old Czech joke: "The study has proved that statistically the most casualties happen in the last car of a train. Therefore the committee suggests to make all trains one car shorter." --[[User:Mity|Mity]] ([[User talk:Mity|talk]]) 09:59, 26 September 2012 (UTC)
:On the other hand, adding a vacant car to the end of the train could be a reasonable approach.[[Special:Contributions/173.245.50.174|173.245.50.174]] 21:55, 7 September 2015 (UTC)

This comics's explanation is complete bollocks, I think. Of course it is NOT a "fact that such a room exists". This comics parodies trope often used in cop movies - an elderly cop goes to work for the last time before his retirement, packs things, plans fishing the next day ... only to be called to one more case (possibly with a new, young and brash partner). And despites his efforts not to screw anything and stay clear of danger, he is either mortally wounded or screws big time and is degraded. So much clichè, that if someone says "It's my last day or service", you might be sure one of the two options above happens. See http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Retirony for all the use cases and examples. [[User:Edheldil|Edheldil]] ([[User talk:Edheldil|talk]]) 10:25, 26 September 2012 (UTC)
:I added the tv trope to the explanation. Didn't even see your comment at first, but why didn't you just change and add to the explanation yourself? That would be the whole point of the wiki. --[[User:Buggz|Buggz]] ([[User talk:Buggz|talk]]) 10:34, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

To add a little irony to the irony, the dead cop actually IS in a "locked, heavily guarded room." (There's a Sufi story along those lines.) The real solution to the retirony risk would be for their retirement day to fall within a 12 month window, chosen by some randomly generated number chosen before the shift begins. Thus they could avoid building up a hazardous "retirony field" focused around the point-source retirement day. Sort of like this thing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corona_ring [[User:Noni Mausa|Noni Mausa]] ([[User talk:Noni Mausa|talk]]) 12:11, 26 September 2012 (UTC)
:...But that doesn't eliminate the "retirony field", it only dispurses it over a larger area. The retirony claim would shift to "(s)he was due to retire this year" times the number of retirees within that retirement window. Assuming these tragic events are "uniformly distributed" the probability they'll happen will be present right up to the end of one's active tour of duty, no matter what. Shorten the train, indeed. :) -- [[User:IronyChef|IronyChef]] ([[User talk:IronyChef|talk]]) 14:29, 26 September 2012 (UTC)
::How about simply not planning your retirement at all, and instead just spontaneously quitting at some point? [[User:Erenan|Erenan]] ([[User talk:Erenan|talk]]) 15:38, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
:::Yeah, that would work. Writing it into a collective agreement might be a bit iffy...[[User:Noni Mausa|Noni Mausa]] ([[User talk:Noni Mausa|talk]]) 11:20, 28 September 2012 (UTC)
:Alternative route: declare someones retirement '''on the day of their retirement'''. Make sure to forbid them in the day of their retirement from taking any missions, no matter how much they need the cop! [[User:Greyson|Greyson]] ([[User talk:Greyson|talk]]) 15:17, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
:That would not work. Working on Dec 30th, you would know for sure that Dec 31st would be your retirement date. So you cannot retire on Dec 31st. With that in mind: working on Dec 29th, you would know for sure that Dec 30th would be your retirement date. With that in mind: working on Dec 28th, you would know for sure that Dec 29th would be your retirement date. With that in mind.... --[[User:Oscar|Oscar]] ([[User talk:Oscar|talk]]) 13:02, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
An unstated but related phenomenon is "[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias Confirmation Bias], where something significant stands out in our mind, causing us to overreact or use bad judgement. In this case, the confirmation bias makes it seem like cops are always killed on their last day, so they create such a room.
:Actually, all cops who are killed on the job are killed on their last day!
::Not necessary true in all movies. Detective [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marty_Hopkirk Marty Hopkirk], for example, continued fighting crime after dead. [http://hellsing.wikia.com/wiki/Seras_Victoria Seras Victoria] changed the classical police officer uniform for a special force one but was still reffered as "police girl". I'm sure there are more examples. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 08:16, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
^then show us these other examples if you're so sure. [[Special:Contributions/71.23.180.37|71.23.180.37]] 23:28, 30 December 2012 (UTC)Realist

There is an easy solution: as soon as a cop is "getting too old for this shit", surely he's going to retire soon. So, to avoid the chance of retirony, you fire him immediately. This has the side effect of meaning you no longer need to pay any pensions. And, just as in every other case of "let's run this public service like a for-profit corporation", it can't possibly have any downsides. If people try to point out that such a policy will make it very hard to maintain a loyal and dedicated police force, you just call them socialists and soft on crime. Eventually they'll start gathering statistical proof that it was a bad idea, but all you have to do is maintain that the science still isn't 100% in because this one retired astrophysicist disagrees with all of the economists, so it would be rash to do anything. Keep that up for a decade or two, retire, and then blame all the problems on your successor. Everybody wins! [[Special:Contributions/199.27.130.180|199.27.130.180]] 06:01, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

Talk:19: George Clinton

2015-09-18T01:40:41Z

199.27.130.180:

[[User:Rikthoff|Rikthoff]] ([[User talk:Rikthoff|talk]]) Does anybody know what the correct date of issue of this comic is? Also, does anybody know why Randall loves George Clinton?
:Have you listened to George Clinton? It's seems reasonable to me that [[Randall]] should love him. [[User:Blaisepascal|Blaisepascal]] ([[User talk:Blaisepascal|talk]]) 03:54, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

While reading that I got curious: How is it possible to gain a B.A. in mathematics? I couldn't find any information about the U.S. bachelor system, but in Germany a bachelor's degree in any STEM field is considered a B.Sc. [[User:Elektrizikekswerk|Elektrizikekswerk]] ([[User talk:Elektrizikekswerk|talk]]) 12:08, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

:In America, BA and BS are both 4-year degrees with an equivalent number of courses, but a BA usually has a certain percentage of its coursework drawn from what counted as a "liberal arts" education in the mid 19th century--which included math. In Europe, the Bologna Accords standardized a similar system, but based on late 20th century rather than mid 19th standards. (Or, if you're older than that, depending on your country, the meanings could be very different.) So, it makes sense to have a BA in math, and many universities offer that instead of, or in addition to, a BS. For example, at my university, a BA in math required some of your non-math courses to come from philosophy and related fields, while for a BS some of you non-math courses had to be (non-social) science courses that had math (usually calculus/analysis) as a requirement. When I was a student, focusing on mathematical computer science, the computer classes came from engineering rather than science, so I didn't qualify for either the BA or the BS, so my faculty advisor had to create a custom degree profile for me to get a combined BA in mathematics and electrical engineering, but I assume that's no longer a problem nowadays. [[Special:Contributions/199.27.130.180|199.27.130.180]] 01:40, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

Interestingly, a few years after this comic was made, George Clinton did record the track "Mathematics Of Love" (http://www.metrolyrics.com/mathematics-of-love-lyrics-george-clinton.html). [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.77|141.101.99.77]] 11:57, 6 January 2015 (UTC) Kingofderby

I don't think explainxkcd has a math extension yet...--{{User:17jiangz1/signature|12:49, 01 May 2015}}

The expression on the blackboard is the expression of Laplace transformation and inverse Laplace transformation.--[[Special:Contributions/173.245.53.145|173.245.53.145]] 06:21, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

added lyrics and background [[Special:Contributions/173.245.54.205|173.245.54.205]] 03:57, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

I feel we should just remove the "incomplete marker, as noone seems to have changed anything. Also, regarding the date of this comic, assuming Randall has always uploaded on mondays, wednesdays, and fridays, couldn't we then create a formula to see how many days ago the comic was made? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.105|108.162.219.105]] 22:01, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

1559: Driving

2015-08-07T05:09:22Z

199.27.130.180: /* Transcript */ Not a bag. Just a crumbly rock.

{{comic
| number = 1559
| date = August 3, 2015
| title = Driving
| image = driving.png
| titletext = Sadly, it probably won't even have enough gas to make it to the first border crossing.}}

==Explanation==
A {{w|self-driving car}} is a car that requires no human interaction to navigate streets to a destination. Thus, when [[Black Hat]] places the bag of sand that weighs "as much as a small adult" into the car's seat, he begins the process of fooling the car into thinking it has an occupant when it does not. His purpose in doing so appears to be to send the car to {{w|Anchorage}}, {{w|Alaska}}, which is presumably quite far from where Black Hat and [[Cueball]] are standing, thus taking the car far away from its owner with relatively little effort on the part of Black Hat. This is the kind of evil prank Black Hat is infamous for.

The title text references the fact that driving to Alaska from the {{w|contiguous 48 states|continental USA}} requires two border crossings, once into {{w|Canada}} from the mainland, and once from Canada into Alaska. The car apparently begins some distance from the Canadian border, since it will likely run out of gas before reaching Canada. Title text expresses regret about this probable failure; perhaps Randall was looking forward to the encounter between the border guards and the vehicle's "occupant." However, even if the car does not get to Anchorage, Black Hat will have created a serious problem for its owner who will have to report the car as stolen.

At the time of the release of this comic there were no places where self-driving cars were for sale to individuals, however several corporate owned test cars are frequently seen on public road (such as those operated by Google among others). {{w|Google_driverless_car|Nevada, Florida, California and Michigan}} were the first states to allow the testing of self-driving cars on public roads, and this legality is quickly spreading to many other states, as well as several countries in Europe. Alternatively, Randall might be setting this comic in an idyllic near future, wherein you could drive all over the country and in Canada with these cars!

It could have been [[Beret Guy|Beret Guy's]] car - see [[1493: Meeting]].

==Transcript==
:[Black Hat, carrying a rock, is walking toward Cueball, leaving a trail of sand.]
:Black Hat: Would you guess this weighs as much as a small adult?
:Cueball: What?
:Cueball: Uh, probably.

:[Black Hat walks past Cueball who turns to look after him.]
:Black Hat: Great!

:[Black Hat has walked out of the frame. Cueball is looking in the direction he left. Several noises and voices are coming from off-panel.]
:Off-panel: <nowiki>*</nowiki>Thump*
:Car voice (off-panel): ''Please fasten your seatbelt.''
:Off-panel: <nowiki>*</nowiki>click*
:Black Hat (off-panel): Take me to Anchorage, Alaska.
:Car voice (off-panel): ''Navigating''
:Off-panel: <nowiki>*</nowiki>slam*

:[Black Hat walks back in the panel towards Cueball.]
:Car driving off:''Vrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr''
:Black Hat: I love self-driving cars.
:Cueball: ...Whose car was that?
:Black Hat: Dunno, but they shouldn't have left it running.

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

1363: xkcd Phone

2014-05-02T06:42:40Z

199.27.130.180:

{{comic
| number = 1363
| date = May 2, 2014
| title = xkcd Phone
| image = xkcd_phone.png
| titletext = Presented in partnership with Qualcomm, Craigslist, Whirlpool, Hostess, LifeStyles, and the US Chamber of Commerce. Manufactured on equipment which also processes peanuts. Price includes 2-year Knicks contract. Phone may extinguish nearby birthday candles. If phone ships with Siri, return immediately; do not speak to her and ignore any instructions she gives. Do not remove lead casing. Phone may attract/trap insects; this is normal. Volume adjustable (requires root). If you experience sudden tingling, nausea, or vomiting, perform a factory reset immediately. Do not submerge in water; phone will drown. Exterior may be frictionless. Prolonged use can cause mood swings, short-term memory loss, and seizures. Avert eyes while replacing battery. Under certain circumstances, wireless transmitter may control God.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a BOT - Please change this comment when editing this page.}}

This comic is a parody of a multitude of mobile-technology related issues that, when brought together, create a general satire of smartphone advertising. The advertised features here either make previously useful capabilities useless or add features nobody wants.

From bottom left, going clockwise:

Flightaware partnership - This is a parody of flight mode, a capability most smart phones have. When activated, flight mode disables all transmission and receiving capabilities, making the phone suitable for use while on commercial flights. Flightaware partnership, by contrast, is an intrusive presumably airline-sponsored capability that no one wants.

Realistic case– possibly a joke on various audiovisual devices like gaming consoles that advertise realistic sound, graphics, etc. Of course, applying "realistic" to an actual physical case is ridiculous. Either the case is actually real, or it doesn't actually function as a case.

Clear screen– This is a pointless descriptor from the perspective of the consumer. Of course the screen is clear. This joke works in tandem with the previous joke, as a play on "clear case, realistic screen," which are both hypothetically viable selling points.

Side Facing Camera – There was a recent controversy surrounding a kickstarter for a surreptitious, side-mounted camera device for smartphones due to the advertisement of the device as a good way to take creep shots, which are illegal in many places. Widespread dissemination of these devices as a built in would likely result in a sharp increase in delinquency of this nature.

Custom blend OS – iOS and Android are offered by different conglomerates and run on different kernels. A "custom blend" would probably be a nightmare to work with.

Simulates alternate speeds of light - This renders the clock useless. The speed of light is roughly 2.99x10^8 meters per second. Relatavistic effects, such as time dialation, only occur at significant fractions of the speed of light. Since the phone is simulating a much slower speed of light, driving at highway speeds will cause time dilation. For example, driving at 90mph (90% of the default simulated speed of light) gives a time dilation of about 2.29. So while you are driving at 90mph your clock will run 2.29 times slower than a stationary one.

Wireless - as in cordless phone. This is the bare minimum a phone has to have in order to be a mobile phone, so advertising it as a feature feels dated by decades. Or, perhaps Munroe is implying the entire phone is without wires, in which case it wouldn't function.

Accelerometer screams in free fall– Another useless function. Rather than having some sort of feature to prevent breakage or cracking when a drop is detected, the phone just makes you more aware of its potential imminent doom.

When exposed to light, phone says "hi" - Bait and switch, and also a build from the previous joke. The implied feature is that the screen or camera will automatically adjust, but instead the phone is weirdly anthropomorphized.

The ominous warnings and disclaimers in the title text are probably a reference to the ''Saturday Night Live'' parody ad for {{w|Happy Fun Ball}}.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript}}

{{comic discussion}}

Talk:1350: Lorenz

2014-04-02T00:14:38Z

199.27.130.180:

I've had the story loop back to the first frame, so it wouldn't surprise me if this could go on infinitely if it had the available dialogue options.

This is going to be a hell of a thing. Good luck... [[User:H|H]] ([[User talk:H|talk]]) 15:39, 1 April 2014 (UTC)
:I think this is one of those times when the custom field might come in handy. Duplicating Randall's code seems like it might be difficult, and it might just be easier to link to the original page. Probably. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 15:47, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

There's always new story lines, even when you think you've read them all, new ones appear to replace them. I don't think it'll ever be possible to record them all. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.212.192|108.162.212.192]] 15:55, 1 April 2014 (UTC)
:The text changes, but there are recurring themes with the panels. The rocket, the big hole, the little hole, Dinosaurcomics, pokemon, waking up, stranded swimming.........[[User:H|H]] ([[User talk:H|talk]]) 18:03, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

When I go to XKCD, all I see is the comic from Monday... weird. --[[User:Jeff|Jeff]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 16:45, 1 April 2014 (UTC)
:Same here... and a lot of space below it. [[User:Z|Z]] ([[User talk:Z|talk]]) 17:43, 1 April 2014 (UTC)
:: I think that happens when you have refreshed the page too many time -- kind of an anti spam for user submissions. I simply create an anonymous browser window and I got back to the real page once xkcd was not able to track me as a returning user. [[User:Spongebog|Spongebog]] ([[User talk:Spongebog|talk]]) 17:59, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Currently there appears to be a bug. Instead of the evolving, crowd-sourced comic, I just see an off-center copy of the previous comic, 1349: Shouldn't Be Hard. [http://i.imgur.com/pw2OfOL.png Screenshot here].
UPDATE: it appears to be a bug in the XSRF-blocking code. Chrome console shows me the error "XMLHttpRequest cannot load http://c1.xkcd.com/graph/1/. The 'Access-Control-Allow-Origin' header has a value 'http://xkcd.com' that is not equal to the supplied origin. Origin 'http://www.xkcd.com' is therefore not allowed access."
FURTHER UPDATE: you can work around this bug by going to http://xkcd.com instead of http://www.xkcd.com!
It also doesn't work if you have HTTPS Everywhere enabled.
[[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.38|108.162.216.38]] 16:46, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

** I can confirm this bug in Firefox. Weirdly, the work-around functioned one time for me, but now going to "xkcd.com" rather than "www.xkcd.com" just gives me a copy of 1349 as well. [[Special:Contributions/199.27.130.180|199.27.130.180]] 17:40, 1 April 2014 (UTC)
:The workaround didn't work for me, I still got monday's comic on either URL. (Chromium 36.0.1919.0 (260611), Mac OS 10.9.2) [[User:Z|Z]] ([[User talk:Z|talk]]) 17:45, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

This comic introduced(?) a font of its own of Randalls comic type. I don't know if it has been sitting there for long, but I just noticed it: http://xkcd.com/fonts/xkcd-Regular.eot -- phiarc [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.12|108.162.219.12]] 17:20, 1 April 2014 (UTC)
:Is it the same as was used in Externalities? [[User:H|H]] ([[User talk:H|talk]]) 18:00, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Does everyone have these options in some order for the first tile?
*Refresh... No New Email... Refresh .. No New Tweets... Refresh...
*These Stupid Tiles... I'll Just Play One More Game
*Oh. Hey. There's Some Kind Of Politicial Thing Going On.
*Let's See If BSD Is Any Easier to Install Nowadays
--[[User:Jeff|Jeff]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 17:54, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

:If so, we can begin to build a map of at least the first set of options before the crowd-sourced ones. --[[User:Jeff|Jeff]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 17:56, 1 April 2014 (UTC)
::Yes, though the second-tier options have changed [[User:H|H]] ([[User talk:H|talk]]) 18:00, 1 April 2014 (UTC)
:::The first level options may be constant (Im seeing the same as Jeff), but I suspect that the following options is based on some sort of ckick though statitics / machine learning -- which means that the will continue to change until Randall closes off the 'voting' -- if [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1193:_Externalities 1193: Externalities] is anything to go by that should be within the next 24-48 hours, at which point automating the collection of story lines may be possible. [[User:Spongebog|Spongebog]] ([[User talk:Spongebog|talk]]) 18:11, 1 April 2014 (UTC)
:::: I'm going to transcript some of what I get at least through the first few levels and then we can start with a list of options for those who don't want to go through them all. --[[User:Jeff|Jeff]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 18:37, 1 April 2014 (UTC)
::::: I have no idea how one would do this, but it would be cool to render the transcript as a tree of some sort; having one vertical list will be hard to follow for more than a few decisions. [[Special:Contributions/199.27.130.180|199.27.130.180]] 00:14, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

Ohh, this comic is buggy and the link here at the top gives just the page from Monday, showing errors on debuggers. But removing the WWW from URL helps. Further more I can't see that the result of the choices is dynamic. So let's prove this. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 19:33, 1 April 2014 (UTC)
: Have a look at http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/images/2/2b/lorenz_combination1.png and http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/images/9/9a/lorenz_combination2.png and you can see the option orders are changing -- this is a typical artifact of A/B testing where randomization of options is needed to avoid selection bias. I have futher observed "your car is on fire" instead of the "dinosaur" option, hence not only the orders are channging but the content as well -- maybe somebody else can capture this. [[User:Spongebog|Spongebog]] ([[User talk:Spongebog|talk]]) 22:08, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

How are new dialogue suggestions approved? Are they random, by popular vote (unlikely, not very many people would suggest the same thing), or is Randall approving them one by one? [[User:Z|Z]] ([[User talk:Z|talk]]) 20:26, 1 April 2014 (UTC)
: They may not need to be explicitly approved at all -- one of the beutiful things about click though measures is that the public '''votes''' for what is good by clicking -- this is also a factor in search ranking by your favorite search engine where statistics are driving the entire show -- in a search engine some input to the statistical process comes from the web pages, but other comes from what people are actually clicking [[User:Spongebog|Spongebog]] ([[User talk:Spongebog|talk]]) 22:14, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

What is this a screenshot of? It's zoomed out so far. http://xkcd.com/1350/#p:5b5bd04e-b9d6-11e3-8008-002590d77bdd [[User:Haithere|Haithere]] ([[User talk:Haithere|talk]]) 20:39, 1 April 2014 (UTC)
: you mean this : http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/a1-2014/Rl92nFEWd9huvXABNkHKHg.png ? [[User:Spongebog|Spongebog]] ([[User talk:Spongebog|talk]]) 22:20, 1 April 2014 (UTC)
:: It appears to be a screen shot from a flight simulator program of some sort, however im not able to tell which, and since it is most likely an 'in-game' screen short we will never find out unless somebody else is playing this precises flight simulator program [[User:Spongebog|Spongebog]] ([[User talk:Spongebog|talk]]) 22:37, 1 April 2014 (UTC)
:: I am not certain, but I strongly suspect that is Kerbal Space Program {{unsigned ip|108.162.242.111}}

Talk:1350: Lorenz

2014-04-01T17:40:18Z

199.27.130.180:

Talk:819: Five-Minute Comics: Part 1

2014-04-01T03:29:21Z

199.27.130.180:

''The Magic Flute'' was composed by W.A. Mozart, not Bach! --[[Special:Contributions/96.20.169.44|96.20.169.44]] 02:10, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

:You are correct! I've fixed that particular mistake. If you spot any other errors on any explanation, please edit the explanation to be correct. Or, if you find an explanation to be lacking, please add to it! [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]]_a ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 06:13, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

Regarding #7, couldn't perhaps the lines of the respective girls be transcribed, too? (can't read them)--[[Special:Contributions/108.162.254.197|108.162.254.197]] 10:59, 4 February 2014 (UTC)
::Ups,sorry, very bad reading. Refers only to the first girl.--[[Special:Contributions/108.162.254.197|108.162.254.197]] 11:03, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

::Can anyone tell what the magazine girl is saying? To me it looks like "Airbrush!", but I'm not sure. [[Special:Contributions/199.27.130.180|199.27.130.180]] 03:29, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Talk:819: Five-Minute Comics: Part 1

2014-04-01T03:28:23Z

199.27.130.180:

''The Magic Flute'' was composed by W.A. Mozart, not Bach! --[[Special:Contributions/96.20.169.44|96.20.169.44]] 02:10, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

:You are correct! I've fixed that particular mistake. If you spot any other errors on any explanation, please edit the explanation to be correct. Or, if you find an explanation to be lacking, please add to it! [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]]_a ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 06:13, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

Regarding #7, couldn't perhaps the lines of the respective girls be transcribed, too? (can't read them)--[[Special:Contributions/108.162.254.197|108.162.254.197]] 10:59, 4 February 2014 (UTC)
::Ups,sorry, very bad reading. Refers only to the first girl.--[[Special:Contributions/108.162.254.197|108.162.254.197]] 11:03, 4 February 2014 (UTC)
::Can anyone tell what the magazine girl is saying? To me it looks like "Airbrush!", but I'm not sure.

Talk:819: Five-Minute Comics: Part 1

2014-04-01T03:28:03Z

199.27.130.180:

''The Magic Flute'' was composed by W.A. Mozart, not Bach! --[[Special:Contributions/96.20.169.44|96.20.169.44]] 02:10, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

:You are correct! I've fixed that particular mistake. If you spot any other errors on any explanation, please edit the explanation to be correct. Or, if you find an explanation to be lacking, please add to it! [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]]_a ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 06:13, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

Regarding #7, couldn't perhaps the lines of the respective girls be transcribed, too? (can't read them)--[[Special:Contributions/108.162.254.197|108.162.254.197]] 10:59, 4 February 2014 (UTC)
::Ups,sorry, very bad reading. Refers only to the first girl.--[[Special:Contributions/108.162.254.197|108.162.254.197]] 11:03, 4 February 2014 (UTC)
::Can anyone tell what the magazine girls is saying? To me it looks like "Airbrush!", but I'm not sure.

216: Romantic Drama Equation

2014-03-29T21:50:23Z

199.27.130.180: /* Explanation */ The assumption part is not irrelevant, Mr. DgBrt. In a series that focuses on gay pairings, the possibility of bisexuals and transsexuals is very real

{{comic
| number = 216
| date = January 29, 2007
| title = Romantic Drama Equation
| image = romantic drama equation.png
| titletext = Real-life prospective-pairing curves over things like age can get depressing.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|More explanation needed on the title text - what is a dating pool and why would this be depressive?}}
The equations in the comic and the graph show how many different love pairs can be made if you know the number of females and males in a group. The text explains that it was inspired by TV Romantic Drama (in this case, the gay drama {{w|Queer as Folk (U.S. TV series)|Queer as Folk}}), but of course the formula is valid for any group of people. There are two graphs and equations - gay option is the case when we are looking for pairs with same gender, straight option is for heterosexual equations. The interesting/funny part about the results is that in most cases there are more possibilities when we consider the homosexual option. Also it is interesting to observe what is kind of obvious - in the heterosexual case the "best" case is if both genders are present equally and the possibilities drop very fast if there is substantial difference between genders.

The graph makes a note that it only holds true for large casts. Case in point, with a cast of only four people: a two-to-two female-to-male ratio will have four straight pairings to two gay pairings, while a three-to-one female-to-male ratio will have three straight pairings and three gay pairings.

The title-text mentions that Randall made a chart of his own prospective dating pool as he gets older, and was depressed by the results.

'''The formulas may be derived as follows:'''

Each straight couple needs to include one of the x males and one of the (n-x) females so there are x(n-x) possible ways of combining one of each. E.g., if there are n=5 people, of whom x=2 are male, then there will be 3 possible pairings involving the first male, and three possible pairings involving the second yielding 2(5-2)=6 possible pairings.

Each gay couple needs to include either two males or two females. To choose two males, we can start with any of the x males and choose any of the (x-1) remaining males. However, that counts each possible pairing twice. E.g., Adam&Steve got counted when we chose Adam first and Steve second, and again when we chose Steve first and Adam second. To avoid double counting the possible couples, we therefore need to divide that total by 2. So there are x(x-1)/2 possible male-male pairings. Similar reasoning involving the (n-x) females tells us that there are (n-x)(n-x-1)/2 possible female-female pairings. Multiplying these out and combining the male and lesbian couples together, we get the total number of possible gay couples is [x^2 - x + n^2 - nx - n - xn + x^2 + x]/2. That simplifies to [n^2 - n + 2 x^2 - 2 xn]/2. The left two terms can be combined together as n(n-1) and the right two terms can be combined together as -2x(n-x) or 2x(x-n) [which is negative, because x-n<0]. Since the sum of these terms was divided by 2, we get that the total number of possible same-sex pairs is n(n-1)/2 - x(n-x) or n(n-1)/2 + x(x-n), which is what the cartoon says.

'''Equations and links to wolfram-alpha:'''

* Formula for Gay pairing: [https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=n*%28n-1%29%2F2%2Bx*%28x-n%29 n*(n-1)/2+x*(x-n)]

* Formula for Straight pairing: [https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=x*%28x-n%29 x*(x-n)]

'''Assumptions'''

The chart and the calculations assume that:

1. No one is bisexual (able to be paired with both genders) or a hermaphrodite (person with the sexual organs of both genders, which is a real medical condition, but very rare in humans).

2. The ENTIRE cast, male AND female, will ALL be of the same sexuality (all homosexual OR all heterosexual).

3. All genders are constant. (If sex-change operations are allowed, then the number of possible pairings is n(n-1)/2, because any two individuals can undergo surgery to become a possible pair.)

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript}}
:TV Romantic Drama Equation (Derived during a series of "Queer as Folk" episodes)
:[A table shows equations for possible romantic pairings in a TV show. The equation under "gay" is n(n-1)/2+x(x-n); the equation under "straight" is x(n-x).]
:x: Number of male (or female) cast members.
:n: total number of cast members.
:[A graph plots pairings (for large casts) against cast makeup. Each of the above equations forms a curve. "Gay cast" starts high for an all male cast, dips down at 50/50 cast makeup, and then rises again for all female. "Straight cast" starts at zero for an all male cast, peaks at 50/50 cast makeup, and then drops to zero again for an all female cast. The two curves intersect at two points close to the middle.]

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Math]]
[[Category:Romance]]

1331: Frequency

2014-03-28T07:49:59Z

199.27.130.180: checked them, they're done

{{comic
| number = 1331
| date = February 17, 2014
| title = Frequency
| custom = <center><table><tr>
<td>[[File:heartbeat.gif|This comic shows estimated average frequency. I wanted to include the pitch drop experiment, but it turns out the gif format has some issues with decade-long loops.]]</td>
<td>[[File:birth.gif|This comic shows estimated average frequency. I wanted to include the pitch drop experiment, but it turns out the gif format has some issues with decade-long loops.]]</td>
<td>[[File:death.gif|This comic shows estimated average frequency. I wanted to include the pitch drop experiment, but it turns out the gif format has some issues with decade-long loops.]]</td>
<td>[[File:wikipedia.gif|This comic shows estimated average frequency. I wanted to include the pitch drop experiment, but it turns out the gif format has some issues with decade-long loops.]]</td>
<td>[[File:vibrator.gif|This comic shows estimated average frequency. I wanted to include the pitch drop experiment, but it turns out the gif format has some issues with decade-long loops.]]</td>
</tr><tr>
<td>[[ File:car china.gif|This comic shows estimated average frequency. I wanted to include the pitch drop experiment, but it turns out the gif format has some issues with decade-long loops.]]</td>
<td>[[ File:car japan.gif|This comic shows estimated average frequency. I wanted to include the pitch drop experiment, but it turns out the gif format has some issues with decade-long loops.]]</td>
<td>[[ File:car germany.gif|This comic shows estimated average frequency. I wanted to include the pitch drop experiment, but it turns out the gif format has some issues with decade-long loops.]]</td>
<td>[[ File:car us.gif|This comic shows estimated average frequency. I wanted to include the pitch drop experiment, but it turns out the gif format has some issues with decade-long loops.]]</td>
<td>[[ File:car elsewhere.gif|This comic shows estimated average frequency. I wanted to include the pitch drop experiment, but it turns out the gif format has some issues with decade-long loops.]]</td>
</tr><tr>
<td>[[ File:kiss.gif|This comic shows estimated average frequency. I wanted to include the pitch drop experiment, but it turns out the gif format has some issues with decade-long loops.]]</td>
<td>[[ File:fire dept.gif|This comic shows estimated average frequency. I wanted to include the pitch drop experiment, but it turns out the gif format has some issues with decade-long loops.]]</td>
<td>[[ File:holeinone.gif|This comic shows estimated average frequency. I wanted to include the pitch drop experiment, but it turns out the gif format has some issues with decade-long loops.]]</td>
<td>[[ File:turnsignal1.gif|This comic shows estimated average frequency. I wanted to include the pitch drop experiment, but it turns out the gif format has some issues with decade-long loops.]]</td>
<td>[[ File:turnsignal2.gif|This comic shows estimated average frequency. I wanted to include the pitch drop experiment, but it turns out the gif format has some issues with decade-long loops.]]</td>
</tr><tr>
<td>[[ File:earthquake1.gif|This comic shows estimated average frequency. I wanted to include the pitch drop experiment, but it turns out the gif format has some issues with decade-long loops.]]</td>
<td>[[ File:earthquake2.gif|This comic shows estimated average frequency. I wanted to include the pitch drop experiment, but it turns out the gif format has some issues with decade-long loops.]]</td>
<td>[[ File:earthquake3.gif|This comic shows estimated average frequency. I wanted to include the pitch drop experiment, but it turns out the gif format has some issues with decade-long loops.]]</td>
<td>[[ File:earthquake4.gif|This comic shows estimated average frequency. I wanted to include the pitch drop experiment, but it turns out the gif format has some issues with decade-long loops.]]</td>
<td>[[ File:parliament toilet.gif|This comic shows estimated average frequency. I wanted to include the pitch drop experiment, but it turns out the gif format has some issues with decade-long loops.]]</td>
</tr><tr>
<td>[[ File:flight.gif|This comic shows estimated average frequency. I wanted to include the pitch drop experiment, but it turns out the gif format has some issues with decade-long loops.]]</td>
<td>[[ File:book mockingbird.gif|This comic shows estimated average frequency. I wanted to include the pitch drop experiment, but it turns out the gif format has some issues with decade-long loops.]]</td>
<td>[[ File:cat mockingbird.gif|This comic shows estimated average frequency. I wanted to include the pitch drop experiment, but it turns out the gif format has some issues with decade-long loops.]]</td>
<td>[[ File:phoenixshoes.gif|This comic shows estimated average frequency. I wanted to include the pitch drop experiment, but it turns out the gif format has some issues with decade-long loops.]]</td>
<td>[[ File:phoenix.gif|This comic shows estimated average frequency. I wanted to include the pitch drop experiment, but it turns out the gif format has some issues with decade-long loops.]]</td>
</tr><tr>
<td>[[ File:keys.gif|This comic shows estimated average frequency. I wanted to include the pitch drop experiment, but it turns out the gif format has some issues with decade-long loops.]]</td>
<td>[[ File:amelia.gif|This comic shows estimated average frequency. I wanted to include the pitch drop experiment, but it turns out the gif format has some issues with decade-long loops.]]</td>
<td>[[ File:dogbite.gif|This comic shows estimated average frequency. I wanted to include the pitch drop experiment, but it turns out the gif format has some issues with decade-long loops.]]</td>
<td>[[ File:bike.gif|This comic shows estimated average frequency. I wanted to include the pitch drop experiment, but it turns out the gif format has some issues with decade-long loops.]]</td>
<td>[[ File:eagle.gif|This comic shows estimated average frequency. I wanted to include the pitch drop experiment, but it turns out the gif format has some issues with decade-long loops.]]</td>
</tr><tr>
<td>[[ File:bottles.gif|This comic shows estimated average frequency. I wanted to include the pitch drop experiment, but it turns out the gif format has some issues with decade-long loops.]]</td>
<td>[[ File:recycled.gif|This comic shows estimated average frequency. I wanted to include the pitch drop experiment, but it turns out the gif format has some issues with decade-long loops.]]</td>
<td>[[ File:meteor.gif|This comic shows estimated average frequency. I wanted to include the pitch drop experiment, but it turns out the gif format has some issues with decade-long loops.]]</td>
<td>[[ File:oldfaithful.gif|This comic shows estimated average frequency. I wanted to include the pitch drop experiment, but it turns out the gif format has some issues with decade-long loops.]]</td>
<td>[[ File:shark.gif|This comic shows estimated average frequency. I wanted to include the pitch drop experiment, but it turns out the gif format has some issues with decade-long loops.]]</td>
</tr><tr>
<td>[[ File:us cancer.gif|This comic shows estimated average frequency. I wanted to include the pitch drop experiment, but it turns out the gif format has some issues with decade-long loops.]]</td>
<td>[[ File:us cancer death.gif|This comic shows estimated average frequency. I wanted to include the pitch drop experiment, but it turns out the gif format has some issues with decade-long loops.]]</td>
<td>[[ File:dog.gif|This comic shows estimated average frequency. I wanted to include the pitch drop experiment, but it turns out the gif format has some issues with decade-long loops.]]</td>
<td>[[ File:cat.gif|This comic shows estimated average frequency. I wanted to include the pitch drop experiment, but it turns out the gif format has some issues with decade-long loops.]]</td>
<td>[[ File:wedding.gif|This comic shows estimated average frequency. I wanted to include the pitch drop experiment, but it turns out the gif format has some issues with decade-long loops.]]</td>
</tr><tr>
<td>[[ File:domain.gif|This comic shows estimated average frequency. I wanted to include the pitch drop experiment, but it turns out the gif format has some issues with decade-long loops.]]</td>
<td>[[ File:house.gif|This comic shows estimated average frequency. I wanted to include the pitch drop experiment, but it turns out the gif format has some issues with decade-long loops.]]</td>
<td>[[ File:tattoo.gif|This comic shows estimated average frequency. I wanted to include the pitch drop experiment, but it turns out the gif format has some issues with decade-long loops.]]</td>
<td>[[ File:pulsar.gif|This comic shows estimated average frequency. I wanted to include the pitch drop experiment, but it turns out the gif format has some issues with decade-long loops.]]</td>
<td>[[ File:facebook.gif|This comic shows estimated average frequency. I wanted to include the pitch drop experiment, but it turns out the gif format has some issues with decade-long loops.]]</td>
</tr><tr>
<td>[[ File:iphone.gif|This comic shows estimated average frequency. I wanted to include the pitch drop experiment, but it turns out the gif format has some issues with decade-long loops.]]</td>
<td>[[ File:littleleague.gif|This comic shows estimated average frequency. I wanted to include the pitch drop experiment, but it turns out the gif format has some issues with decade-long loops.]]</td>
<td>[[ File:ndsex.gif|This comic shows estimated average frequency. I wanted to include the pitch drop experiment, but it turns out the gif format has some issues with decade-long loops.]]</td>
<td>[[ File:bieber.gif|This comic shows estimated average frequency. I wanted to include the pitch drop experiment, but it turns out the gif format has some issues with decade-long loops.]]</td>
<td>[[ File:denverpizza.gif|This comic shows estimated average frequency. I wanted to include the pitch drop experiment, but it turns out the gif format has some issues with decade-long loops.]]</td>
</tr></table></center>
| titletext = This comic shows estimated average frequency. I wanted to include the pitch drop experiment, but it turns out the gif format has some issues with decade-long loops.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic shows a number of common events, arranged in a grid. Each of the events flashes with their average frequency.

For example, statistically a child is born somewhere on the world approximately every 0.24 seconds, or four times per second. Therefore the tile "One birth" blinks about 4 times per second.

The title text refers to the {{w|Pitch drop experiment}} which measures the flow of a piece of pitch over many years. At room temperature, tar pitch flows at a very slow rate, taking several years to form a single drop. The title text jokes that Randall tried to include a tile that flashes about once every {{w|decade|ten years}}, but the tiles are all {{w|Animated GIF|animated GIFs}} and while the file format supports animations of any length, the resulting file would be too big (at least 10 megabytes).

A thorough analysis of the frequencies present in this comic and how they relate to the underlying technology (the GIF format) was published as [http://notebooks.jsvine.com/reverse-engineering-xkcd-frequency/ Reverse Engineering xkcd's 'Frequency'].

The table below lists all the events and their duration / frequency. Some events make reference to other comics.

{| class="wikitable sortable"
!class="unsortable"|Picture
!class="unsortable"|Text
!Period (seconds)
!Frequency (per minute)
!Frequency (per year, N/I = not interesting)
!class="unsortable"|Explanation and/or references to other comics.
|-
|[[File:heartbeat.gif]]
|Heartbeat||style="text-align:right;"|0.86||style="text-align:right;"|70||style="text-align:right;"|33,000,000||The typical resting {{w|heart rate}} in adults is 60–80 beats per minute (bpm).
|-
|[[File:birth.gif]]
|One birth||style="text-align:right;"|0.24||style="text-align:right;"|250||style="text-align:right;"|131,490,000||The {{w|Birth rate|birth rate}} happens on earth.
|-
|[[File:death.gif]]
|One death||style="text-align:right;"|0.56||style="text-align:right;"|107||style="text-align:right;"|56,360,000||The {{w|Mortality rate|Mortality rate}} is much lower than the birth rate shown above, the world population still increases.
|-
|[[File:wikipedia.gif]]
|Someone edits Wikipedia||style="text-align:right;"|0.67||style="text-align:right;"|90||style="text-align:right;"|47,100,000||{{w|Wikipedia}} is an online, freely editable encyclopedia.
|-
|[[File:vibrator.gif]]
|Someone buys a vibrator||style="text-align:right;"|2.99||style="text-align:right;"|20||style="text-align:right;"|10,550,000 || This is just a joke, there are no reliable statistics on world wide vibrator productions or sells.
|-
|[[ File:car china.gif ]]
|China builds a car||style="text-align:right;"|1.89||style="text-align:right;"|32||style="text-align:right;"|16,700,000|| China is the biggest market for many western car manufacturers — most car makers are happy on that market — but the most cars for their own country they do produce in China itself.
|-
|[[ File:car japan.gif ]]
|Japan builds a car||style="text-align:right;"|4.01||style="text-align:right;"|15||style="text-align:right;"|7,870,000|| {{w|Toyota}} is the biggest car seller by the time of this comic.
|-
|[[ File:car germany.gif ]]
|Germany builds a car||style="text-align:right;"|5.8||style="text-align:right;"|10||style="text-align:right;"|5,440,000|| {{w|Volkswagen}} tries to overcome Toyota by 2018.
|-
|[[ File:car us.gif ]]
|The US builds a car||style="text-align:right;"|6.95||style="text-align:right;"|8.6||style="text-align:right;"|4,540,000|| The US car market did change, many rumours, but it isn't that misbehave published often in the press.
|-
|[[ File:car elsewhere.gif ]]
|Someone else builds a car||style="text-align:right;"|1.03||style="text-align:right;"|58||style="text-align:right;"|30,640,000|| All car manufactures dwarf about this — those "unknown" or "not recognized" countries like Brazil, India, will play an important rule on the future markets.
|-
|[[ File:kiss.gif ]]
|A European Union resident has their first kiss||style="text-align:right;"|5.53||style="text-align:right;"|11||style="text-align:right;"|5,700,000||
|-
|[[ File:fire dept.gif ]]
|A US fire department puts out a fire||style="text-align:right;"|23||style="text-align:right;"|2.6||style="text-align:right;"|1,370,000||
|-
|[[ File:holeinone.gif ]]
|Someone hits a hole-in-one||style="text-align:right;"|180||style="text-align:right;"|⅓ (20 per hour)||style="text-align:right;"|175,320||A {{w|hole in one}} is a feat in {{w|golf}} in which the player hits the ball directly from the tee into the cup with one shot. This does not account for possibility of [https://what-if.xkcd.com/85/ Rocket Golf].
|-
|[[ File:turnsignal1.gif ]]
|My turn signal blinks||style="text-align:right;"|0.94||style="text-align:right;"|64||style="text-align:right;"|N/I||This, together with "The turn signal of the car in front of me blinks", forms a reference to [[165: Turn Signals]].
|-
|[[ File:turnsignal2.gif ]]
|The turn signal of the car in front of me blinks||style="text-align:right;"|0.9||style="text-align:right;"|67||style="text-align:right;"|N/I||This, together with "My turn signal blinks", forms a reference to [[165: Turn Signals]].
|-
|[[ File:earthquake1.gif ]]
|Earthquake (magnitude 1)||style="text-align:right;"|2.43||style="text-align:right;"|25||style="text-align:right;"|13,000,000|| [[711: Seismograph]]
|-
|[[ File:earthquake2.gif ]]
|Earthquake (magnitude 2)||style="text-align:right;"|24.26||style="text-align:right;"|2.5||style="text-align:right;"|1,300,000|| Review [http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/map/#%7B%22feed%22%3A%221day_all%22%2C%22search%22%3Anull%2C%22sort%22%3A%22largest%22%2C%22basemap%22%3A%22grayscale%22%2C%22autoUpdate%22%3Atrue%2C%22restrictListToMap%22%3Atrue%2C%22timeZone%22%3A%22local%22%2C%22mapposition%22%3A%5B%5B-84.47406458459159%2C-25.6640625%5D%2C%5B84.4740645845916%2C425.390625%5D%5D%2C%22overlays%22%3A%7B%22plates%22%3Atrue%7D%2C%22viewModes%22%3A%7B%22map%22%3Atrue%2C%22list%22%3Atrue%2C%22settings%22%3Atrue%2C%22help%22%3Afalse%7D%7D USGS's Quake Map] for verification.
|-
|[[ File:earthquake3.gif ]]
|Earthquake (magnitude 3)||style="text-align:right;"|242.6||style="text-align:right;"|¼ (15 per hour)||style="text-align:right;"|130,000|| [[1037: Umwelt#Earthquake-Blizzard|1037: Umwelt]]
|-
|[[ File:earthquake4.gif ]]
|Earthquake (magnitude 4)||style="text-align:right;"|2426||style="text-align:right;"|0.025 (1.5 per hour)||style="text-align:right;"|13,000|| [[723: Seismic Waves]]; below this magnitude earthquakes pass by largely unnoticed by Tweeters.[http://earthquake.usgs.gov/learn/topics/mag_vs_int.php]
|-
|[[ File:parliament toilet.gif ]]
|A member of the UK parliament flushes a toilet||style="text-align:right;"|10.06||style="text-align:right;"|6||style="text-align:right;"|3,140,000||Note that probably during the daytime in Britain such a toilet is flushed 8.5 times per minute, while at night it is flushed only 1 time per minute.
|-
|[[ File:flight.gif ]]
|An airline flight takes off||style="text-align:right;"|0.93||style="text-align:right;"|65||style="text-align:right;"|34,000,000||
|-
|[[ File:book mockingbird.gif ]]
|Someone buys ''To Kill a Mockingbird''||style="text-align:right;"|42.05||style="text-align:right;"|1.4||style="text-align:right;"|750,000||“{{w|To Kill a Mockingbird}}” is a novel by {{w|Harper Lee}}, often an assigned reading in high school.
|-
|[[ File:cat mockingbird.gif ]]
|Someone's pet cat kills a mockingbird||style="text-align:right;"|1.82||style="text-align:right;"|33||style="text-align:right;"|17,340,000||Whereas the previous item references the well-known book “To Kill a Mockingbird”, this one talks about {{w|Mockingbird|mockingbirds}} being literally killed (in this case, by cats). There are 45 million mockingbirds in the world;[http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/accounts/Mimus_polyglottos/] this means that according to Randall, cats kill 39% of mockingbirds in one year, i.e. in 2.5 years they are able to kill all mockingbirds (excluding the ones that are born in the meantime).
|-
|[[ File:phoenixshoes.gif ]]
|Someone in Phoenix buys new shoes||style="text-align:right;"|1.08||style="text-align:right;"|56||style="text-align:right;"|29,200,000||Since {{w|Phoenix metropolitan area|metro Phoenix}} has 4,200,000 inhabitants, according to Randall people in Phoenix buy 7 pairs of shoes per capita per year.
|-
|[[ File:phoenix.gif ]]
|Someone in Phoenix puts on a condom||style="text-align:right;"|2.05||style="text-align:right;"|29||style="text-align:right;"|15,390,000|| ''Buy two pair of shoes, get a free condom''?
|-
|[[ File:keys.gif ]]
|Someone locks their keys in their car||style="text-align:right;"|2.43||style="text-align:right;"|25||style="text-align:right;"|13,000,000||
|-
|[[ File:amelia.gif ]]
|A Sagittarius named Amelia drinks a soda||style="text-align:right;"|7.79||style="text-align:right;"|7.7||style="text-align:right;"|4,000,000||Randall Munroe is a [http://blog.xkcd.com/2014/01/31/the-baby-name-wizard/ fan of The Baby Name Wizard] blog and its [http://www.babynamewizard.com Name Voyager] tool which shows that "[http://www.babynamewizard.com/baby-name/girl/amelia Amelia]" has recently exploded in popularity. 
This particular frequency is taken from:
* The number of persons called {{w|Amelia_(given_name)|Amelia}} ([http://howmanyofme.com/ est. 82,572 people in the U.S.])
* The number of persons born between November 22nd and December 22nd under the astrological sign of {{w|Sagittarius (astrology)|Sagittarius}} (~1/12th of the population, i.e. approximately 6881 Amelias in the U.S.)
* The frequency of soda (soft drinks) being drunk (216 liters per person per year in the U.S.[http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/foo_sof_dri_con-food-soft-drink-consumption]).
According to our figures, 6881 Amelias drink 1,44 million liters of soft drinks per year in the United States alone, which means that Randall's figures only account for American Amelias (drinking 356 cc or 12 fl. oz. of soda in each drink).
|-
|[[ File:dogbite.gif ]]
|A dog bites someone in the US||style="text-align:right;"|7.01||style="text-align:right;"|8.6||style="text-align:right;"|4,500,000||
|-
|[[ File:bike.gif ]]
|Someone steals a bicycle||style="text-align:right;"|24.93||style="text-align:right;"|2.4||style="text-align:right;"|1,265,000||
|-
|[[ File:eagle.gif ]]
|A bald eagle catches a fish||style="text-align:right;"|2.69||style="text-align:right;"|22||style="text-align:right;"|11,700,000||
|-
|[[ File:bottles.gif ]]
|50,000 plastic bottles are produced||style="text-align:right;"|1.27||style="text-align:right;"|47||style="text-align:right;"|1.24 trillion||
|-
|[[ File:recycled.gif ]]
|50,000 plastic bottles are recycled||style="text-align:right;"|4.64||style="text-align:right;"|13||style="text-align:right;"|340 billion||27% of the plastic bottles manufactured get [[885: Recycling|recycled]]
|-
|[[ File:meteor.gif ]]
|A bright meteor is visible somewhere||style="text-align:right;"|1.15||style="text-align:right;"|52||style="text-align:right;"|N/I||
|-
|[[ File:oldfaithful.gif ]]
|Old Faithful erupts||style="text-align:right;"|5640 (94 minutes)||style="text-align:right;"|0.011 (15 per day)||style="text-align:right;"|5,595||{{w|Old Faithful}} is a geyser in {{w|Yellowstone National Park}} in the US, that tends to erupt every 65 or 91 minutes. XKCD's period of 1h 34m falls between the [http://geysertimes.org/getGeyserInfo.php?geyserID=2 mean and median of recent Old Faithful eruptions] and corresponds to a [http://geysertimes.org/getSingleEruption.php?id=645135 February 16, 2014 eruption].
|-
|[[ File:shark.gif ]]
|A fishing boat catches a shark||style="text-align:right;"|0.83||style="text-align:right;"|72||style="text-align:right;"|38,000,000|| [[1326: Sharks]]; Shark populations have experienced severe declines due to fishing impacts both of {{w|shark finning|finning}} and by-catch.[http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=shark+population+decline+fishing]
|-
|[[ File:us cancer.gif ]]
|Someone in the US is diagnosed with cancer||style="text-align:right;"|18.99||style="text-align:right;"|3.2||style="text-align:right;"|1,660,000|| [[881: Probability]]
|-
|[[ File:us cancer death.gif ]]
|Someone in the US dies from cancer||style="text-align:right;"|54.34||style="text-align:right;"|1.1||style="text-align:right;"|580,000|| [[881: Probability]]
|-
|[[ File:dog.gif ]]
|Someone adopts a dog from a shelter||style="text-align:right;"|15.6||style="text-align:right;"|3.8||style="text-align:right;"|2,000,000||
|-
|[[ File:cat.gif ]]
|Someone adopts a cat from a shelter||style="text-align:right;"|21.3||style="text-align:right;"|2.8||style="text-align:right;"|1,500,000||
|-
|[[ File:wedding.gif ]]
|Someone gets married||style="text-align:right;"|0.75||style="text-align:right;"|80||style="text-align:right;"|42,000,000||
|-
|[[ File:domain.gif ]]
|Someone registers a domain||style="text-align:right;"|0.64||style="text-align:right;"|94||style="text-align:right;"|49,300,000 ||
|-
|[[ File:house.gif ]]
|Someone in the US buys a house||style="text-align:right;"|6.22||style="text-align:right;"|9.6||style="text-align:right;"|5,000,000||
|-
|[[ File:tattoo.gif ]]
|Someone in the US gets a tattoo||style="text-align:right;"|2.06||style="text-align:right;"|29||style="text-align:right;"|15,300,000||
|-
|[[ File:pulsar.gif ]]
|The star PSR J1748-2446AD rotates 1,000 times||style="text-align:right;"|1.4||style="text-align:right;"|42.9||style="text-align:right;"|N/I||{{w|PSR J1748-2446ad}} is the fastest spinning {{w|pulsar}} known.
|-
|[[ File:facebook.gif ]]
|Someone lies about their age to sign up for Facebook||style="text-align:right;"|4.32||style="text-align:right;"|14||style="text-align:right;"|600,000 per month||To sign up for Facebook, [https://www.facebook.com/help/210644045634222 the user must claim to be at least 13 years old]. This is a reflection of the U.S. {{w|Children's Online Privacy Protection Act}}.
|-
|[[ File:iphone.gif ]]
|Someone breaks an iPhone screen||style="text-align:right;"|0.93||style="text-align:right;"|65||style="text-align:right;"|34,000,000||
|-
|[[ File:littleleague.gif ]]
|A Little League player strikes out||style="text-align:right;"|1.23||style="text-align:right;"|49||style="text-align:right;"|N/I||{{w|Little League Baseball|Little League}} is a system of local youth baseball and softball competitions. A {{w|strikeout}} is a situation in baseball and softball.
|-
|[[ File:ndsex.gif ]]
|Someone has sex in North Dakota||style="text-align:right;"|1.38||style="text-align:right;"|43||style="text-align:right;"|22,900,000||Since {{w|North Dakota}} has 723,000 inhabitants (ranked the 48th state), and if we estimate the sexually active population as 80% (and if ''someone'' means ''a couple)'' this means that people in North Dakota have sex 79.1 times a year. It is estimated that 3.93% of the world population has sex on a given day;[http://geography.about.com/od/culturalgeography/a/geographyofsex.htm] Randall's rate for North Dakota is 17.3% which is not low.
|-
|[[ File:bieber.gif ]]
|Justin Bieber gains a follower on Twitter||style="text-align:right;"|4.73||style="text-align:right;"|13||style="text-align:right;"|556,000 per month|| [[802: Online Communities 2#Twitter Region|802: Online Communities 2]];  {{w|Justin Bieber}} is a Canadian pop music singer whose [https://twitter.com/justinbieber Twitter account] is extremely popular
|-
|[[ File:denverpizza.gif ]]
|Someone in Denver orders pizza||style="text-align:right;"|1.27||style="text-align:right;"|47||style="text-align:right;"|2,000,000||
|}

==Transcript==
:[Repetitive events are written in grey and arranged in a grid. Each statement pulses to black and then returns to grey at an interval characteristic of the named event.]

{| style="text-align:center;"
|- style="vertical-align: top; background-color:#eeeeee;"
|Heartbeat (0.86 sec)
|One birth (0.24 sec)
|One death (0.56 sec)
|Someone edits Wikipedia (0.67 sec)
|Someone buys a vibrator (2.99 sec)
|- style="vertical-align: top;"
|China builds a car (1.89 sec)
|Japan builds a car (4.01 sec)
|Germany builds a car (5.8 sec)
|The US builds a car (6.95 sec)
|Someone else builds a car (1.03 sec)
|- style="vertical-align: top; background-color:#eeeeee;"
|A European Union resident has their first kiss (5.53 sec)
|A US fire department puts out a fire (23 sec)
|Someone hits a hole-in-one (180 sec)
|My turn signal blinks (0.94 sec)
|The turn signal of the car in front of me blinks (0.9 sec)
|- style="vertical-align: top;"
|Earthquake (magnitude 1) (2.43 sec)
|Earthquake (magnitude 2) (24.26 sec)
|Earthquake (magnitude 3) (242.6 sec)
|Earthquake (magnitude 4) (2426 sec, 42 min)
|Member of the UK Parliament flushes a toilet (10.06 sec)
|- style="vertical-align: top; background-color:#eeeeee;"
|An airline flight takes off (0.93 sec)
|Someone buys ''To Kill a Mockingbird'' (42.05 sec)
|Someone's pet cat kills a mockingbird (1.82 sec)
|Someone in Phoenix buys new shoes (1.08 sec)
|Someone in Phoenix puts on a condom (2.05 sec)
|- style="vertical-align: top;"
|Someone locks their keys in their car (2.43 sec)
|A Sagittarius named Amelia drinks a soda (7.79 sec)
|A dog bites someone in the US (7.01 sec)
|Someone steals a bicycle (24.93 sec)
|A bald eagle catches a fish (2.69 sec)
|- style="vertical-align: top; background-color:#eeeeee;"
|50,000 plastic bottles are produced (1.27 sec)
|50,000 plastic bottles are recycled (4.64 sec)
|A bright meteor is visible somewhere (1.15 sec)
|Old Faithful erupts (5640 sec, 94 min)
|A fishing boat catches a shark (0.83 sec)
|- style="vertical-align: top;"
|Someone in the US is diagnosed with cancer (18.99 sec)
|Someone in the US dies from cancer (54.34 sec)
|Someone adopts a dog from a shelter (15.6 sec)
|Someone adopts a cat from a shelter (21.3 sec)
|Someone gets married (0.75 sec)
|- style="vertical-align: top; background-color:#eeeeee;"
|Someone registers a domain (0.64 sec)
|Someone in the US buys a house (6.22 sec)
|Someone in the US gets a tattoo (2.06 sec)
|The star ''PSR J1748-2446ad'' rotates 1,000 times (1.4 sec)
|Someone lies about their age to sign up for Facebook (4.32 sec)
|- style="vertical-align: top;"
|Someone breaks an iPhone screen (0.93 sec)
|A little league player strikes out (1.23 sec)
|Someone has sex in North Dakota (1.38 sec)
|Justin Bieber gains a follower on Twitter (4.73 sec)
|Someone in Denver orders a pizza (1.27 sec)
|}

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Dynamic comics]]
[[Category:Charts]]

1347: t Distribution

2014-03-26T05:34:06Z

199.27.130.180: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1347
| date = March 26, 2014
| title = t Distribution
| image = t_distribution.png
| titletext = If data fails the Teacher's t test, you can just force it to take the test again until it passes.
}}

==Explanation==
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Student's_t-distribution
"In probability and statistics, Student's t-distribution (or simply the t-distribution) is a family of continuous probability distributions that arise when estimating the mean of a normally distributed population in situations where the sample size is small and population standard deviation is unknown."

The comic is play on the name "Student" (the pseudonym of the creator) vs. "Teacher", and the fact that a even smaller population (Teachers vs. Students) would have a more irregular distribution. (or something like that).

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript}}

{{comic discussion}}

Talk:463: Voting Machines

2014-03-08T04:13:08Z

199.27.130.180: Created page with "What's incomplete? ~~~~"

What's incomplete? [[Special:Contributions/199.27.130.180|199.27.130.180]] 04:13, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

Talk:1326: Sharks

2014-02-06T05:57:51Z

199.27.130.180:

Um... Are the sharks the prisoners? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.222.227|108.162.222.227]] 11:00, 5 February 2014 (UTC)
:Yeah, it's awfully quiet... looks like nobody gets this one? :) --[[Special:Contributions/108.162.254.179|108.162.254.179]] 12:05, 5 February 2014 (UTC)
:To some extent. I think the first mentioned "prisoner" who escaped and was swimming could be a human, but maybe not. However, the "PRISONERS" mentioned in the title text are definitely sharks.[[Special:Contributions/199.27.130.180|199.27.130.180]] 05:57, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

No - a real prisoner escapes - and then the evil guy has a reason to release the sharks. And as the sharks are just happy to be free, they escape instead of going for the prisoner. So he can release more sharks ad ifinitum - except that his hang-man can see the problem with the plan - to release sharks into an ocean - that humans are emptying of sharks to use only their fin... [[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 12:50, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

Makes me wonder if Randall recently watched Despicable Me 1 and/or 2... [[User:Condor70|Condor70]] ([[User talk:Condor70|talk]]) 13:01, 5 February 2014 (UTC)
:Yeah, or a Sean Connery-era James Bond film... [[Special:Contributions/173.245.55.62|173.245.55.62]] 13:51, 5 February 2014 (UTC)Pat
::Even still, I feel this one is lacking a bit. It would have been better if there was a stick-minion in one of the frames. ;) [[User:Jarod997|Jarod997]] ([[User talk:Jarod997|talk]]) 13:52, 5 February 2014 (UTC)
::Thunderball, Licence to Kill and Despicable Me 1 all feature sharks. But none of them have the same setting as this comic. [[User:Condor70|Condor70]] ([[User talk:Condor70|talk]]) 14:11, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

A quick google search reveals that "Doom Island" is a location in a game called "Fish Wrangler": http://fishwrangler.wikia.com/wiki/Doom_Island. This may tie into the sharks theme...? [[User:Thegreatsasquatch|TheGreatSasquatch]] ([[User talk:Thegreatsasquatch|talk]]) 19:56, 5 February 2014 (UTC)
:Occam's Razor would suggest that it's just a generic sounding "Evil Villian Lair" name, rather than a reference to something.[[User:Pennpenn|Pennpenn]] ([[User talk:Pennpenn|talk]]) 22:54, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

102: Back to the Future

2014-02-01T04:58:10Z

199.27.130.180: He went from 1985 to 1955, and has an older brother who (in the altered timeline) works in an office.

{{comic
| number = 102
| date = May 15, 2006
| title = Back to the Future
| image = back_to_the_future.jpg
| titletext = He's kind of an asshole, when you think about it.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Cueball is Hairy at the first two panels, it's not an inking error}}
This comic is a reference to the "{{w|Back to the Future}}" film series (specifically the first film) in which the protagonist, Marty McFly (played by {{w|Michael J. Fox}}) travels back from 1985 (present day for him) to 1955 and accidentally interferes with his own parents' first meeting. He must then arrange for them to fall in love before he ceases to exist from the paradox of his own parents never having children. An unintended side-effect of the way events occur is that his dad gains self-confidence in the past and becomes "less of a loser" in the present.

As noted in the comic, the time machine Marty uses is built by his professor friend, Doctor Emmett L. Brown ({{w|Christopher Lloyd}}) out of a {{w|DeLorean DMC-12}} (a 1980s-era sports car).

[[Cueball]] (who seems to have hair in the first two frames but perhaps that is just an inking error) has a very similar experience, and suggests that the aforementioned changes to history are what he really needed to do. After a frame of awkward silence, [[Megan]] reminds him that her father was in the {{w|World Trade Center}} North Tower – implying that he died (along with several thousand others) in 1 World Trade Center on {{w|September 11, 2001}} at the time the tower collapsed due to a terrorist-flown passenger jet crashing into the building. Megan is therefore implying that that saving her father's life (and perhaps the lives of the other 9/11 victims) might have been something else of importance he "needed" to do - perhaps something of significantly more importance. He seems oblivious to what she is trying to suggest, which as the title text notes, makes him kind of an asshole.

As a side note, for the comic to make sense, the events in the comic must take place after {{w|September 11, 2001}}, and not 1985 as it is in the movie. Since no dates are mentioned, Cueball probably went back by thirty years, because that's how far back Marty travels in the film.

==Transcript==
:[Megan and Cueball are standing, talking to one another.]
:Cueball: This weekend, my professor friend built a time machine out of a DeLorean and I went back in time! I helped make sure my parents got together and helped my dad to be less of a loser.

:Megan: Wow! Do you still have the time machine?
:Cueball: Nah. But I did what I really needed to do.
:Megan: Uh huh.

:[Neither says anything.]

:Megan: Okay, you remember that my father was in the WTC North Tower, right?
:Cueball: Yeah...why?
:Megan: I...nothing.

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

Talk:730: Circuit Diagram

2013-11-26T03:22:13Z

199.27.130.180:

So, is the arena a new kind of comparator or something? '''[[User:Davidy22|Davidy22]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 13:28, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

11:13, 10 April 2013 (UTC)11:13, 10 April 2013 (UTC)[[User:Jh6p|Jh6p]] ([[User talk:Jh6p|talk]])
The 3 liter capacitor could also be a ball approximately 6 inches in diameter if the seams on the ball were similar to the seams on a basketball. Perhaps a volleyball?

: "A squirrel. What it does as a circuit element is unsure."
Perhaps an allusion to a {{w|Squirrel-cage rotor|squirrel cage}}?
[[User:Wwoods|Wwoods]] ([[User talk:Wwoods|talk]]) 18:51, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

: The shape of the squirrel's tail reminds me of a {{w|hysteresis}} curve, although this is admittedly a bit of a stretch. —[[User:Scs|Scs]] ([[User talk:Scs|talk]]) 16:02, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

The 'to scale' motor would be about half a mile wide. Powering the rabbit on Gaia's vibrator (also included)? --[[User:StarChaser Tyger|StarChaser Tyger]] ([[User talk:StarChaser Tyger|talk]]) 08:40, 22 June 2013 (UTC)

I beg to differ on the flux capacitor thing, as cool as it sounds. Since it is right above the I-90 notation, it is more likely a fork in the road (notice the road stripes indicating that you can pass at any point in the fork). [[Special:Contributions/97.87.12.114|97.87.12.114]] 02:15, 24 June 2013 (UTC)
: Oh, I'm pretty sure it's a flux capacitor. Compare some of [http://www.google.com/search?q=flux+capacitor&tbm=isch these images]. Yes, there are several road references in this comic, but an electronic reference (especially to a ''fictional'' electronic component!) makes more sense. Also I've never seen a Y-shaped highway intersection that looked quite like that (and especially not on an interstate). —[[User:Scs|Scs]] ([[User talk:Scs|talk]]) 14:52, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

I have wasted 4 hours on the puzzle, and after wasting 9 pages of A5 paper, the resistance of that terrible resistor mess worked out to be exactly 25265/33783 ohm, or about 0.74786135 ohm. --KopaLeo [[Special:Contributions/199.48.226.89|199.48.226.89]] 15:16, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

I think that the "fishing float" might actually be a picture of an ordinary push switch (similar to foot switches used on standard lamps). [[Special:Contributions/87.194.171.29|87.194.171.29]] 16:12, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Isn't the "YES" resistor a reference to the anecdote of how John Lennon and Yoko Ono met? That's what I thought when I saw it, but then, I kinda like The Beatles a bit. [[Special:Contributions/200.70.22.74|200.70.22.74]] 12:27, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

I think the attempt to explain every single piece of the comic is rather silly. The humor largely draws from the absurdity of the diagram, and that can probably be summarized without going into detail about the possible references of each individual component. [[Special:Contributions/199.27.130.180|199.27.130.180]] 03:22, 26 November 2013 (UTC)