explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

2185: Cumulonimbus

2025-07-27T07:33:29Z

2001:4450:8178:2200:6C77:934F:5853:8A0A: Redirected page to 3120: Geologic Periods

#REDIRECT [[:3120: Geologic Periods]]
{{comic
| number = 2185
| date = August 5, 2019
| title = Cumulonimbus
| image = cumulonimbus.png
| titletext = The rarest of all clouds is the altocumulenticulostratonimbulocirruslenticulomammanoctilucent cloud, caused by an interaction between warm moist air, cool dry air, cold slippery air, cursed air, and a cloud of nanobots.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic follows the naming of clouds. As with other lists (like in [[1874]], [[2022]], [[2497]], [[2687]] and [[2954]]), it starts off as normal but then gets more unusual until it is unrealistic.

;Cumulus
: The first panel shows a {{w|cumulus cloud}}, from the Latin for "heap". These are common clouds and are relatively small. Cumulus clouds form when warm (and thus rising) moist air condenses when it hits the {{w|dew point}}, the temperature at which relative humidity hits 100%. Cumulus clouds with sharp, defined borders are still growing. When they stop growing (because the rising moist air is exhausted), they get fuzzy and fluffy, and eventually dissolve.
;Cumulonimbus
: The second panel shows a {{w|cumulonimbus cloud}}, from the Latin for "heaping raincloud", with the upper part about the same size as the lower part. Though somewhat like the cumulus cloud, it is more prone to causing rain and lightning. Cumulonimbus clouds, like cumulus clouds, grow vertically because of their moist warm air, but they have enough energy to reach the top of the {{w|troposphere}}, giving them the distinctive anvil shape shown in the comic and their tendency to produce nasty weather.
;Cumulonimbulonimbus
: The third panel shows an even bigger cloud and names it cumulonimbulonimbus (Latin for "heaping rainy raincloud"). Here the scientific facts end and the humor begins. The cloud has the upper part about twice as large as the lower part. The humor here comes from building up an even bigger name by adding another "nimbus" element for the cloud as its size increases, suggesting that its growth as compared to the second cloud shown has made it even more "rainy".
;Cumulonimbulonimbulocumulonimbus
: The fourth panel shows an absurdly large cloud with three major layers and gives it the name cumulonimbulonimbulocumulonimbus (Latin for "heaping rainy rainy heaping raincloud"). This is a combination of the third and second cloud names in this comic, and indeed the fourth cloud looks a lot like the second one emerging out of the top of the third. This cloud may look like a [[220: Philosophy|super soaker]], ready to spray water on everyone, or perhaps a faucet ready to open and pour water down.
;Altocumulenticulostratonimbulocirruslenticulomammanoctilucent
: The title text takes this comic to its logical extreme by naming a new cloud that has the longest name of them all and is also supposedly the rarest. Its name can be translated as "mid-altitude, heaped, lense-shaped, layered, grey, rainy, wispy, breast-like and lit at night". It mentions a common joke in weather communities, making fun of the common [https://youtu.be/WMtAaETOVSY?t=448 trope] that thunderstorms form when "warm moist air" meets "cold dry air," an extreme oversimplification. A complicated cloud needs complicated processes, so Randall adds in "cold slippery air," then {{w|curse}}d air and {{w|nanobots}}, which makes the cloud impossible since neither of those exist.{{Citation needed}}

:The name of this cloud is a {{w|Compound (linguistics)|compound}} of the following cloud names:
:{{w|altocumulus}}: "heap up high"; these clouds are mid-altitude white patches.
:{{w|lenticular cloud}}, often shaped like a flying saucer.
:{{w|Stratus cloud|stratus}}: a layered cloud, effectively above-ground fog.
:{{w|Nimbostratus cloud|nimbus}}: a grey cloud producing continuous rain.
:{{w|Cirrus cloud|cirrus}}: a cloud that looks like thin, wispy strands.
:"lenticulo" gets repeated, perhaps indicating that there's a second disc in the cloud.
:{{w|mammatus}}: a breast-like cloud structure that forms at the bottom of some thunderstorm clouds, which signifies sinking air and is associated with severe storm activity and, in the central United States, tornado formation.
:{{w|noctilucent}}: a cloud-like structure formed from ice crystals, often formed after volcano eruptions and other cataclysmic events and illuminated by a just-set sun.

The {{w|International Cloud Atlas}} defines the cloud types that are recognized by the WMO, the {{w|World Meteorological Organization}}. It was first published in 1896. Similarly, {{w|IUPAC}} publishes a manual that allows chemists to name chemical compounds in a consistent manner. The Altocumulenticulostratonimbulocirruslenticulomammanoctilucent may thus be a pun on IUPAC, which (theoretically) offers a unique name for each possible strand of DNA and other complex molecules (such as [[wikt:Appendix:List of protologisms/Long words/Titin|Titin]]). Therefore, Randall might have seen a unique cloud that has never been observed before, but yet, thanks to IUPAC-like cloud naming rules, he came up with a "valid" name for his observation.

==Transcript==
:[Drawing of a small cloud with with a label beneath:]
:Cumulus

:[Drawing of a medium sized tall hourglass shaped cloud with a label beneath:]
:Cumulonimbus

:[Drawing of a large cloud, larger at the top than at the bottom, with a label beneath:]
:Cumulonimbulonimbus

:[Drawing of a huge and very complicated cloud in three layers, with a label beneath:]
:Cumulonimbulonimbulocumulonimbus

==Trivia==
On xkcd, this comic replaced the preceding [[Disappearing Sunday Update]], which was temporarily assigned the sequence number 2185, as it followed the Friday comic [[2184: Unpopular Opinions]] on Sunday. This was done in order to prevent the trouble of having an unnumbered comic on [https://xkcd.com xkcd.com]. It was designed to disappear completely and leave no trace in xkcd's history or archives when this comic was released. The original comic also no longer appears in this wiki's comic navigation and is hence [[Disappearing Sunday Update|available here]].

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Weather]]
[[Category:Robots]] 
[[Category:Comics with cursed items]]

3120: Geologic Periods

2025-07-27T07:32:31Z

2001:4450:8178:2200:6C77:934F:5853:8A0A: Redirected page to 2185: Cumulonimbus

#REDIRECT [[:2185: Cumulonimbus]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
{{incomplete|This page was created by a Cretaceous raptor. Don't remove this notice too soon. [[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]}}

{| class="wikitable"
!Period [[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
!Dates (millions of years ago) [[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
!My Favorite Part [[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
!My Biggest Complaint [[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
!Explanation [[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
|-
|Precambrian
|4500-539
|Life develops
|Snowball Earth episodes
|The {{w|Precambrian}} (italicized in the comic since it's not a {{w|Period (geology)|geologic period}}) is the first 88% of Earth's history, including the time 4.1 to 3.4 billion years ago when life on Earth began. The {{w|Snowball Earth}} hypothesis says that during some time spans in the past, Earth became nearly or entirely frozen, with no liquid water on the surface. It's related to the idea of the {{w|Greenhouse_and_icehouse_Earth#Icehouse_Earth|icehouse Earth}}, times when the planet fluctuates between glacial and interglacial periods (such as now).
|-
|{{w|Cambrian}}
|539-487
|Trilobites!
|Evolution could stand to calm down a little
|The {{w|Cambrian explosion}} was a sudden radiation of complex life forms when nearly all important animal phyla, or precursors to them, appeared. {{w|Trilobite|Trilobites}}, a lineage of {{w|Arthropod|arthropods}} (related to present-day insects and spiders), was one of the groups that appeared during the Cambrian. Fossil trilobite specimens are abundant and charismatic, and attract the attention of amateur and professional enthusiasts.
|-
|{{w|Ordovician}}
|487-443
|Earth might have had rings
|Scary volcanic eruption in North America
|Due to the non-random location of impact of one type of meteorite, {{w|Rings_of_Earth|it is proposed}} that those have formed a planetary ring system around Earth before colliding with it. The volcanic eruption(s) that deposited the {{w|Deicke_and_Millbrig_bentonite_layers|Deicke and Millbrig ashfall layers}} during the Late Ordovician are thought to have been among the largest in the last 600 million years of Earth history. The volcano(es) involved may have been among those formed during the mountain-building event in what is now northeastern North America that is called the {{w|Taconic_orogeny|Taconic orogeny}}.
|-
|{{w|Silurian}}
|443-420
|First land animals
|Earth's newfound mold problem
|Green plants first became established on land during the Ordovician period, after having evolved ways to protect themselves from desiccation and ultraviolet light. During the Silurian, land animals (mostly arthropods resembling {{w|Kampecaris|millipedes}}) followed the plants - and mycelial fungi ("mold") evolved to attack them and decompose their remains.
|-
|{{w|Devonian}}
|420-359
|Big mountains in Boston
|Yeah, sure, what those giant killer fish needed was ''armor''
|A series of mountain-building events, during the middle to late Devonian, that are collectively termed the {{w|Acadian_orogeny|Acadian orogeny}} resulted in a section of the present-day Appalachian Range from the Canadian maritimes to the Carolinas, including what is now the Boston area of Massachusetts. (At the time, Boston was in the tropics, just south of the equator.) {{w|Placoderm}} fishes, which were common in but did not survive the Devonian, were characterized by plates of {{w|Dermal_bone|dermal bone}} in the head and thoracic portions of the body. Not all placoderms were giants, or apex predators. The best guess as to why placoderm fishes had these bony plates is that they helped protect the fishes from predation by other placoderms.
|-
|{{w|Carboniferous}}
|359-299
|Cool forests
|Bugs too big
|The {{w|Carboniferous#Terrestrial_invertebrates|'bugs' in this period}} included the largest-ever known land invertebrate, a {{w|Arthropleura|2.6-m (8.5-ft) millipede-like animal}}; the largest-ever known flying insect, resembling a {{w|Meganeura|dragonfly with a wingspan of ~75 cm (30 in)}}; and a {{w|Pulmonoscorpius|70 cm (2 ft 4 in) scorpion}}.
|-
|{{w|Permian}}
|299-252
|Pangea
|Google "The Great Dying"
|{{w|Pangaea}} was the most recent supercontinent containing nearly all of Earth's landmass. The Great Dying, more formally known as the {{w|Permian-Triassic extinction event}}, occurred at the end of the Permian and is the most severe of Earth's {{w|Extinction_event#The_"Big_Five"_mass_extinctions|'Big Five' mass extinction events}}. In it, 81% of marine species and 70% of terrestrial vertebrate species were wiped out.
|-
|{{w|Triassic}}
|252-201
|Tanystropheus
|Damage to Canada still visible from space at Manicouagan
|{{w|Tanystropheus}} was a basal archosaur (not a dinosaur) with a proportionally long neck. {{w|Manicouagan Reservoir}} is a ring-shaped lake, the remains of the crater caused by a 5-km (3-mi) asteroid hitting {{w|Quebec}}.
|-
|{{w|Jurassic}}
|201-143
|Birds
|Parasitoid wasps
|Birds are cool.{{Citation needed}} Parasitoid wasps are not; their reproduction cycle is such a grisly process that it caused a {{w|Ichneumonidae#Darwin_and_the_Ichneumonidae|crisis of faith}} among 19th-century European scholars.
|-
|{{w|Cretaceous}}
|143-66
|Raptors
|Raptors
|[[:Category:Velociraptors|Raptors]]
|-
|{{w|Paleogene}}
|66-23
|Pretty horseys!!!
|Paleocene-eocene thermal maximum
|The {{w|Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum}} was a time where the global average temperature rose by around 5-8 °C in a relatively short period of time.
|-
|{{w|Neogene}}
|23-2.6
|Forests of Dracaena dragonblood trees
|Zanclean flood
|{{w|Dracaena draco}} and {{w|Dracaena cinnabari}} trees are a source of {{w|dragon's blood}}, a naturally occurring bright red resin with uses including as a varnish and a dye.
The {{w|Zanclean flood}} is theorized to be the flood that refilled the Mediterranean Sea.
|-
|{{w|Quaternary}}
|2.6-present
|Burrito invented
|Whoever picked the name for the third period of the Cenozoic
|Randall jokes that, in the last 2.6 million years, his favorite moment was the invention of the {{w|burrito}}, rather than many other, much more significant discoveries. The precise origin of the burrito is not known, but the {{w|Maya civilization}} used to make food resembling burritos as early as 1500 BC.
The third period of the {{w|Cenozoic}} Era is the Quaternary era, named by Jules Desnoyers in 1829. This naming is controversial; the {{w|International Commission on Stratigraphy}} is proposing to abolish it.
|}

2607: Geiger Counter

2025-07-27T07:30:07Z

2001:4450:8178:2200:6C77:934F:5853:8A0A:

{{comic
| number = 4001
| date = Horizon 64, 9999
| title = FDF
| image = sick.gif
| titletext = FDF
}}

==Explanation==
This comic is a simple {{w|pun}}. [[Cueball]] and [[Ponytail]] are standing in what looks to be a desert, and Cueball is holding a {{w|Geiger counter}} in his hand. Cueball remarks that he did not understand why he was asked to carry a Geiger counter, but that it then "clicked" with him.

Geiger counters are devices used to measure the amount of {{w|radiation}} in an area. When a particle of ionizing radiation hits the sensor of a Geiger counter, it will give off a distinct "clicking" noise. "Click" can also be a slang term for the {{w|Eureka effect}}, a sudden moment of understanding. The pun in this comic insinuates that Cueball realized why he was asked to bring the Geiger counter when it clicked, indicating radiation nearby. In radioactive areas, it is usually a good idea to carry around some sort of radiation detector for {{w|Radiation#Possible_damage_to_health_and_environment_from_certain_types_of_radiation|safety reasons}}.{{citation needed}}

This is likely a {{w|parody}} of a fairly well-known pun that takes advantage of a similar double meaning: "I wondered why the baseball was getting bigger. Then it hit me." Just as that pun uses "hit me" to mean both the action of the ball and to understand, this comic uses the "clicking" to mean both the action of the Geiger counter and to understand. A related variety of pun, told in the {{w|Narration#Third-person|third person}}, is the {{w|Tom Swifty}}.

The title text is also a pun, with the implication being the narrator "understood" once they "stood under" the birds that were perched on the wire (who may have then pooped on the narrator to bring them to their understanding [in the "realization" sense]).

==Transcript==
:[Cueball and Ponytail are wearing hard hats and standing in what looks to be some sort of desert or rocky area. Cueball is holding a Geiger counter in his hands. Ponytail is holding a clipboard.]
:Cueball: At first I was confused about why they wanted me to carry a Geiger counter here, but then it clicked.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Characters with hats]]
[[Category:Language]]
[[Category:Puns]]

3100: Alert Sound

2025-07-27T07:26:42Z

2001:4450:8178:2200:6C77:934F:5853:8A0A: /* Transcript */

{{comic
| number = 3100
| date = June 9, 2025
| title = Alert Sound
| image = alert_sound_2x.png
| imagesize = 393x455px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = With a good battery, the device can easily last for 5 or 10 years, although the walls probably won't.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|This page was created recently by a BOT THAT GOES BOOP. Don't remove this notice too soon.}}

"Living well is the best revenge" is a {{w|Proverb|proverb}} that has been part of English-language popular culture since 1640. The message is spending your energy and attention on seeking revenge on others tends to be self-defeating. To ignore people who have mistreated you and focus instead on improving your own life is generally to your own benefit, and that may, ironically, upset those who wish you ill more than if you attacked them directly. The joke is in Randall's claim that this particular practical joke is so effective that it's the only form of revenge ''better'' than living well.

The prank takes the form of placing a [https://www.geekextreme.com/annoyatron-holy-grail-of-pranks/ small noisemaking device] in the wall of a room that a computer is typically used in. When USB devices are plugged into a computer, there's typically a brief, audible signal to let the user know that the computer has recognized and connected with the device. Hearing this signal when you haven't plugged in a device can cause anxiety, because it could be meaningless, or it could be a sign of a problem: it could indicate that someone else is connecting to a computer in the room, or a connected device keeps spontaneously disconnecting or shutting off, or some other uncommanded and unwanted computer activity is occurring. Such a sound occurring with no obvious source will tend to perplex, and then annoy, anyone present. The truly pernicious part of the plan is that it happens repeatedly, but at long intervals (presumably random intervals between 6 and 12 hours). That makes it virtually impossible to identify the source of the sound, or to predict when it's coming again, but it would keep happening, day after day, week after week, month after month. The implication is that it would eventually drive the person into fits of anxiety, but the only solution would be something drastic (like abandoning or demolishing the room).

The [https://quoteinvestigator.com/2018/09/02/living-well/ "living well"] proverb first appeared in a collection of [https://muse.jhu.edu/article/848854/summary "Outlandish Proverbs"], attributed to {{w|George_Herbert|George Herbert}} and, presumably, assembled from his papers after his death in 1633. The collection of more than 1,000 such proverbs also include the original forms, in English, of such chestnuts as "Those who live in glass houses should not throw stones".

The title text makes an estimate for the battery life of a device that only activates every 6 hours at the most, and then jokes about the lifespan of the wall in which such a device would be set. {{tvtropes|DontExplainTheJoke|The joke being, of course}}, that users plagued by this sound will eventually start tearing down walls once they begin to narrow down the source of the sound, or will start damaging the walls out of frustration, e.g. punching holes or hitting their heads against the walls.

This is the second comic in a row that advocates putting things in other people's walls, the first being [[3099: Neighbor-Source Heat Pump]].

==Transcript==
:[A loud sound appears out of nowhere in the upper left part of the panel, around the word are many small lines going away from it and before the word there is a warning emoji. In the lower right corner Cueball is sitting in an office chair at his desk in front of his computer. He is holding his hands to his head and begins by shouting and then talking.]
:'''[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]'''
:Cueball: '''''Aaaaa!'''''
:Cueball: '''''I heard it again!'''''
:Cueball: '''''Where''''' is that '''''coming''''' from!?

:[Caption below the panel:]
:It turns out living well is only the '''''second''''' best revenge. The '''''best''''' revenge is making a tiny hole in someone's wall and dropping in a battery-powered capsule that, every 6-12 hours, plays the alert sound of a USB device connecting.

{{comic discussion}}<noinclude>

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]

3099: Neighbor-Source Heat Pump

2025-07-27T07:25:54Z

2001:4450:8178:2200:6C77:934F:5853:8A0A: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 3099
| date = June 6, 2025
| title = Neighbor-Source Heat Pump
| image = neighbor_source_heat_pump_2x.png
| imagesize = 431x284px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = The installation of the pipes on the inside of the insulation can be challenging, especially when the neighbor could come home at any minute.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]}}
Since the energy crisis of the 1970s, electric {{w|air source heat pump}}s have been offered as a more efficient alternative to burning fuel. Much like the operation of a typical refrigerator or air-conditioner, heat pumps use a relatively small amount of power to move heat to where it is most needed (away from where heat is ''not'' required or deeper cold can be tolerably dispersed). This is most commonly and conveniently done using a heat exchanger installed on the outside wall of the building/apartment, which can extract heat from the ambient outside air and use that to heat the inside of the household, concentrating the energy to provide temperatures typically over and above those originally present in either location. Because of the varying nature of the external climate, this is less efficient (or at least more technically difficult) in colder weather, the time when the heating would be most appreciated. Although the effectiveness of cold climate heat pumps has [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7J52mDjZzto significantly improved in recent decades], heat pumps still suffer from a poor reputation compared to combustion heating due to their poor cold weather performance, resulting in discomfort, high electricity usage/cost, or both.

An alternate method of harvesting heat is the {{w|ground source heat pump}}. This does the same job of extracting heat energy from ''its'' surroundings (pipes sent deep into the ground, rather than just being exposed to the air by the side of the building), and benefits from the more constant temperature of the pedosphere (or deeper), which is often below the [[402: 1,000 Miles North|frost-line]], always giving a ''relatively'' warm heat-source to extract energy from, even in the depths of winter. If set up to also cool a home, in warm conditions, it also finds the same reliably small range of ground-temperatures useful in being ''cooler'' than the ambient air of summer, thus being more suited to disperse excess heat into whilst cooling the indoor environment. A further method, the water source heat pump, similarly makes use of a sufficiently large body of water's tendency to provide a near constant 4°C temperature (whatever the external conditions) in its depths.

In this comic, [[Randall]] goes further and finds a handy source of heat (in winter) and cold (in summer)… the house of a neighbor, which is itself being actively maintained (perhaps by more traditional heating and cooling technology) at a temperature which approaches his own preference for temperature. Being thermally inverted to the current seasonal conditions, it would be even more economical to tap into for heat during cold times and coolness during the warmer ones. That is, it would be for Randall, not the neighbor who is now forced to effectively air-condition ''two'' buildings, instead of the one they thought they were maintaining. This is accomplished by sending the pipes (that ''might'' have been just buried in the ground) from the heat-exchange unit off into the walls of the neighboring house to tap into the artificially-maintained temperature there.

While the small-scale application suggested here can thus be assumed to cause neighborly trouble, this concept has been in use at much larger scales for about the last ten years with virtually no repercussions — which is largely due to [https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200908-the-buildings-warmed-by-the-human-body the tapped neighboring premises not being residential buildings]. On top of this, {{w|district heating}}, or "neighborhood heating" is a real system where a centralized heat source provides heating for multiple buildings in the neighborhood, either through a dedicated heat source (created to exploit the economies of scale) just for this purpose, or else taking waste heat from some other local amenity (e.g. a waste incinerator) that is producing sufficient quantities to spare as a side-effect of its core operation. This is humorously in contrast to the comic where someone steals heat from one of their neighbors as one might {{w|Cable television piracy|steal Cable TV}}.

The title text addresses some of the issues involved when trying to properly install the Neighbor-Source Heat Pump, without the neighbor realizing that they are about to be leeched from in this way. It may already be quite difficult to interfere with the structure of the neighbouring house (in this case, by feeding pipes up into at least two of its wall cavities) without this being noticed once the absent neighbour returns, but to do so under the imminent risk of being observed at work by the neighbor arriving home would take [[666: Silent Hammer|even more care]] to accomplish.

This was the first of two comics in a row that advocate putting things in other people's walls, as this was followed by [[3100: Alert Sound]].

==Transcript==
:[Two houses are shown next to each other. They have almost identical facades with a base, two windows on either side of a door and a chimney to the right on the roof. But next to the left house there is a small box with two light-blue pipes going from the house to the box. From the bottom of the box two similar light-blue pipes goes a bit down under ground, the left further than the right, and then they bend to the right and goes under the neighboring house to the right. The upper pipe closest to the ground is shown to enter the wall of the right house, going almost up to the roof, and then bending sharply around going down below ground. Then it goes under ground to the other side of the house and do the same in the right wall, going up and down. Where it goes under ground, it connects to the the other pipe that has gone all the way straight under the house.]

:[Caption below the panel:]
:A covertly-installed '''''Neighbor-Source Heat Pump''''' takes advantage of the fact that your neighbor keeps their house cool in the summer and warm in the winter.

{{comic discussion}}<noinclude>

[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Physics]]
[[Category:Engineering]]

3098: Trojan Horse

2025-07-27T07:23:56Z

2001:4450:8178:2200:6C77:934F:5853:8A0A:

{{comic
| number = 3098
| date = June 4, 2025
| title = Trojan Horse
| image = trojan_horse_2x.png
| imagesize = 740x196px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Ultimately, history would imperfectly record the story of the Foal of Troy.
}}

==[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]==
{{incomplete|This page was created by a BABY BOT INSIDE A BOT. Don't remove this notice too soon.}}
This comic presents a brief retelling of the {{w|Trojan Horse}} story, the climactic event of the legendary {{w|Trojan War}}, one of the best-known epics of ancient Greece and Rome. The retelling is a {{w|feghoot}}, set up to deliver the pun in the title text as well as a deconstruction of the story, replacing the epic elements with far more ordinary ones while keeping the tone of the tale the same.

The premise is that the Trojan Horse story's origin is mundane. The gift to the Trojans by the (supposedly) departing Greek army, we are told, was a normal-sized, living mare, which promptly and unexpectedly dropped (i.e. gave birth to) a foal. According to the title text, this is the story of the "Foal of Troy", which "history imperfectly recorded". In the "imperfect record" (i.e. the {{w|Epic Cycle}} and later works based on it which tell the story of the entire Trojan War), the normal-sized live horse became a colossal wooden statue that "dropped" a commando unit of some 40 Greek soldiers, who opened the gates of Troy to the main Greek force (who had sailed back under the cover of darkness), resulting in the "''Fall'' of Troy". The pun is implicit, as "Fall of Troy" does not appear in the comic. "Fall" and "foal" share the initial consonant and stem vowel in Ancient Greek (''πτῶσις'' vs. ''πῶλος''), whilst spelled even more similarly in English as well as being nearly {{w|homophone}}s.

It is not made clear whether the gifter of the horse knew of/suspected the pregnancy or whether they would have even chosen to hand it over under different circumstances. However, it is consistent with the story, and with the "{{w|Beware of Greeks bearing gifts}}" trope that originated with it, that the Greeks intentionally gifted a pregnant mare to annoy the Trojans. Surprise foals, where a mare is purchased with a hitherto unknown pregnancy, actually occur. The pregnancy is typically excused as weight gain, up until the point where a foal is discovered with its mother in the morning. Horses with rounder builds, like some pony breeds, are known for maintaining undetected pregnancies. The reason a surprise foal might be salient for the comic, beyond the "Foal of Troy" pun, is the non-trivial costs of horse ownership, which can amount to hundreds or thousands of dollars per month. Food costs are part of (but not all of) this, as the comic touches on.

The humor in the joke comes from an anachronistic assumption — that a pregnant mare would be seen as a costly burden rather than a generous gift. In reality, during the time period referenced, horses (particularly one as large as the mare depicted in the comic) were highly valued for labor, transport, and even as a food source if necessary. Far from being an unwelcome expense, such a gift would have been considered a significant and practical boon. The joke plays on the incongruity of projecting modern attitudes backward, pretending that horses were once the kind of liability they are now.

Archaeological evidence of a military conquest of {{w|Troy}} during the Bronze Age, or even of a major war centered on the city, is lacking. Far better evidence exists for the destruction of several iterations of the city by earthquakes. Possibly, the Trojan War legend arose as visitors attempted to explain the ruins of an earthquake-ravaged, deserted city. The "Foal of Troy" story, therefore, need not include a Greek conquest of Troy, or even a major military conflict with the Greeks.

==[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]==
{{incomplete transcript|Don't remove this notice too soon.}}
:[A horse is facing Cueball and Ponytail, who are standing in front of an entrance below a tower.]
:[In an inset panel, Cueball is talking to Megan and Hairy.]
:Cueball: When the Greeks departed, they left behind a horse as a gift.

:[Hairbun is standing behind a horse, with Cueball standing in front.]
:We took it as a gesture of peace, but it carried a secret payload.

:[A smaller horse is standing behind the horse from previous panel, which is looking behind at it.]
:One night, from within the horse, '''''another, smaller horse emerged!'''''

:[Close-up on Cueball.]
:Cueball: Our guards have been unable to determine the inner horse's objective, but it has begun to show an interest in our oats.
:Off-panel voice 1: An attack on Troy's food supply!
:Off-panel voice 2: How ''dare'' they!?

{{comic discussion}}<noinclude>
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairbun]]
[[Category:Animals]]
[[Category:Food]]

3097: Bridge Types

2025-07-27T07:22:42Z

2001:4450:8178:2200:6C77:934F:5853:8A0A:

{{comic
| number = 3097
| date = June 2, 2025
| title = Bridge Types
| image = sick.gif
| imagesize = 740x581px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Pontoon bridges are just linear open-sided waterbeds.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|This page was recently created by a TESSERACT BRIDGE ABUTMENT. Don't remove this notice too soon.}}
This comic shows, in a four-by-four grid of images, a series of bridge types. As with [[1714: Volcano Types]] and [[1874: Geologic Faults]], the comic starts off with real bridge types, and then swiftly proceeds to make things up for absurdity. That said, real-life examples of some of the joke bridges exist, as shown in the table below. The joke lies in the progression of bridge types from the simple and straightforward to the complex and ridiculous.

{| class="wikitable sortable"
! Name given
! style="width:7em;"| Status
! Type
! Explanation
|-
! Plank
| {{Yes|Real}}
|{{w|Beam bridge}}
|A straightforward piece of solid material (in this case, made of solid wood, but there are {{w|Clapper bridge|other materials}}) is the most basic form of bridge, and generally the easiest to construct, but also the weakest. Consequently, such bridges are only suitable for small spans and light weights (such as a footbridge over a stream).
|-
! Rope
| {{Yes|Real}}
|{{w|Simple suspension bridge}}
|Rope bridges consist of several lengths of rope anchored on both sides of the span. Typically, one or more ropes will be intended to support the crossing load (possibly with boards or some other walkway between them), and additional ropes will act as handrails, reducing the risk of falling. These are typically only intended for foot traffic, due to their light construction and lack of rigidity. Because of the simple materials and relative ease of construction, they're often used as improvised bridges. However, a ridiculous design for this bridge type was explored in [[3048: Suspension Bridge]], in which the rope functions as a road.
|-
! Truss
| {{Yes|Real}}
|{{w|Truss bridge}}
|A truss is a common type of framework consisting of supports connected in a series of triangles which provide support for a load. This design provides significant strength and rigidity with minimal material and weight. A truss bridge can either have the truss above the bridge platform (as in the drawing) or underneath it (also known as a deck truss). This is the first bridge type on this list which is commonly used for vehicle traffic.
|-
! Trestle
| {{Yes|Real}}
|{{w|Trestle bridge}}
|A trestle bridge is held up by supports reaching all the way to the ground beneath. Typically at least some of the supports will slope outward to give a larger base of support. Once common for railroads, these are less popular nowadays, but are still seen in certain areas and applications.
|-
! Arch
| {{Yes|Real}}
|{{w|Arch bridge}}
|Arches are one of the oldest kinds of bridges for carrying significant loads. They can be made out of rock or metal. Each span consists of an arch resting on supports. Simple arch bridges rest on both sides of a river or other gap, but longer bridges (as in the drawing) will have intermediate pillars to support multiple arches. The arches distribute the load, allowing a relatively small number of pillar to support weight across the entire deck of the bridge.
|-
! Suspended Arch
| {{Yes|Real}}
|{{w|Through-arch bridge}}, possibly {{w|Tied-arch bridge}}
|A through arch bridge uses a similar concept as an arch bridge, but the deck is entirely or partially suspended below the top of the arch (in this case fully suspended, at the bottom of the arch). The tie of a tied arch bridge refers to using the deck as a tension member to restrain the horizontal spreading of the arch; without a tie, the arch's foundation must resist that horizontal loading. From the picture, it is not clear whether the deck is acting as a tie. Such bridges may use a single arch (as in the drawing) or multiple arches in succession.
|-
! Draw
| {{Yes|Real}}
|Drawbridge (more precisely a fixed-trunnion {{w|Bascule_bridge|bascule bridge}})
|Drawbridges are used to allow ships to pass through obstacles like bridges. They use various methods to raise one or multiple sections of the bridge to create enough height clearance for vessels to pass through, in this case using a cable to rotate the bridge about a pivot point (trunnion).
|-
! Suspension
| {{Yes|Real}}
|{{w|Suspension bridge}}
|A suspension bridge suspends its deck with cables or rods from a cable linked to a pillar and a point a certain distance from each pillar
|-
! Filler
|{{Maybe|Real}} method of maintaining {{w|Grade (slope)|grade}}, not really a 'bridge'
|{{w|Embankment (earthworks)|Embankment}}, {{w|Causeway}} or even a {{w|Dam}}
|Serves the purpose of allowing travel across the gap, but by removing (or {{w|Culvert|mostly removing}}) passage through the gap itself. By filling the gap with hard, irregular material (most commonly rocks), support can be provided, while still allowing water to flow through the gaps. Due to the generally small size of the gaps, generally only slow-flowing water can reliably get through.
|-
! Budget Overrun
| {{Yes|Real}} (with an absurd name)
|{{w|Cable-stayed bridge}}
|Specifically, the pictured bridge is a {{w|cantilever spar cable-stayed bridge}}, similar in appearance to the {{w|Samuel Beckett Bridge}} in Dublin or the {{w|Erasmusbrug}} in Rotterdam. Many bridges in this category suffer severe cost overruns. Randall may be drawing upon his local knowledge of the {{w|Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Memorial Bridge|Zakim Bridge}} in downtown Boston's {{w|Big Dig}}, also strongly associated with cost overruns. Also, while not a bridge, the budget overrun and diagonally inclined tower supporting cables may be a reference to {{w|Montreal Tower}} and {{w|Olympic Stadium (Montreal)|Olympic Stadium}}, which has suffered infamous budget overruns, costing over 6.7 times the initially planned amount.
|-
! Jump
| {{No|Not real}}
|Similar to a pair of small {{w|cantilever bridge}}s, constructed at an incline.
|A "bridge" that appears to be being used by a skateboarder, though in a manner far more dangerous than any jump in a typical skatepark. While not {{w|London Buses route 78#History|normally}} a feature of the highway, jump ramps can be used for gap-crossing stunts by almost any vehicle with sufficient speed. Partial bridges, which allow ''some'' vehicles using them to safely cross the gap, iconically featured in {{w|The Dukes of Hazzard}} TV show, as well as common in various {{w|The Man with the Golden Gun (film)#Car stunts|action}} {{w|Speed (1994 film)#Filming|films}}, though typically less easy to use correctly than the setting implies.
|-
! Halfhearted
|{{Maybe|Not}} real under this name, but with real analogs
|[https://www.archdaily.com/184921/moses-bridge-road-architecten Moses bridge]
|The diagram shows that there was barely any attempt to bridge the gap in the landscape at all, just take the 'deck' down into it and back up out again. The concept may have been inspired, in part, by [https://www.fastcompany.com/90186315/the-strange-art-of-the-melting-bridges-of-google-earth an artifact in Google Earth software].
Structures exist, at the {{w|Fort de Roovere}} in Halsteren, Netherlands and elsewhere, that resemble this 'solution', though these would have involved much thought and commitment in their building, possibly more 'hearted', even, than any more conventional bridge design, especially in the provision of stairs to allow easier ingress/egress (at least for foot traffic) than in the comic's version.
|-
! Waterbed
| {{No|Not a bridge}}
|{{w|Waterbed}}
|Rather than a bridge, it is more like another version of a causeway (see 'Filler') using trapped water to maintain the upper surface.
Named for a 'mattress' type, which is usually a raised surface ''on top of'' a piece of bedframe, with an unusual approach to padding and comfort.
|-
! L'Engle
| {{No|Not real}}
|[https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2018/03/192728/tesseract-definition-wrinkle-in-time-space-dimension Tesseract AWIT] not {{w|Tesseract|Tesseract (geometry)}} cf. {{w|Einstein–Rosen bridge}}
|References {{w|A Wrinkle In Time}} by Madeleine L'Engle. Characters cross great distances by "tessering", moving via a tesseract through a higher dimension which essentially brings the two ends of the journey together from the perspective of the traveler. The image shows the two ends of the gap being brought together, with the gap apparently crumpled in between them.
|-
! Fun
| {{No|Not real}}
|{{w|Vertical loop}}
|It is a loop-de-loop, not normally a practical or necessary way of bridging a gap. Something previously seen, in an arguably even more impractical manner, in [[2935: Ocean Loop]].
|-
! Repurposed Elevator
|{{Maybe|Real}}, but not as displayed
|Horizontal elevator / {{w|People mover|People mover}}
|There are various implementations of such designs, the best-known one is probably the {{w|Schmid Peoplemover|Schmid Peoplemover}}.
However, unlike a regular people mover, where the door stays upright, the image shows a regular elevator that has been rotated 90 degrees. This not actually its own type of bridge, but just a type of plank bridge where the elevator shaft (or one side of the elevator shaft) is used as a plank - closing the circle to the first image.
|-
! (Title text)
| {{Yes|Real}}
|{{w|Pontoon bridge}}
|Pontoon bridges are described as a series of fictitious "waterbed bridges", as shown above, but constructed without sides. This would mean that that the 'bed'-supporting water flows in one side and out the other, if there is any passage or tidal flow of water. It may technically mean that you cannot cross {{w|The Same River Twice|the same bridge twice}}.
Pontoons rely upon buoyancy, either of the whole deck or distinct floating elements, whereas an enclosed "waterbed" bridge would rely upon the strength of the membrane to keep the mass of water within it, and thus the deck above that mass.
|}

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Don't remove this notice too soon.}}
:Bridge Types

:[A 4x4 matrix of 16 ways to cross the same rectangular hole in the ground]

:Plank [shows a plank laid over the hole]

:Rope [shows a rope bridge with rope guardrail]

:Truss [shows a truss bridge with a triangular truss above the bridge deck]

:Trestle [shows a trestle bridge]

:Arch [shows stone arches supporting a straight deck]

:Suspended Arch [shows a single arch, with the bridge deck suspended from it]

:Draw [shows a truss bridge, with one half opened like an unrealistic draw bridge]

:Suspension [shows the bridge deck suspended from a cable strung between two pillars and the shores]

:Filler [shows the hole filled with dirt and stones]

:Budget Overrun [shows a bridge deck suspended by cables from an artistically shaped pillar]

:Jump [shows two ramps at the edges of the hole, and a skateboarder jumping across the hole]

:Halfhearted [shows a ramp at each side of the hole that leads down to the bottom]

:Waterbed [shows the hole filled with water, two fish and an octopus, a wobbly covering, and two stick figures crossing]

:L'Engle [shows the hole warped such that the opposite shores meet]

:Fun [shows a loop-de-loop rollercoaster bridging the hole, and a skateboarder using it to get across]

:Repurposed Elevator [shows an elevator tower, rotated sideways as a whole, laid across the hole. 2 stick figures using the elevator are also rotated.]

{{comic discussion}}<noinclude>

[[Category:Engineering]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]
[[Category:Animals]]

3120: Geologic Periods

2025-07-27T07:21:35Z

2001:4450:8178:2200:6C77:934F:5853:8A0A:

[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
{{incomplete|This page was created by a Cretaceous raptor. Don't remove this notice too soon. [[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]}}

{| class="wikitable"
!Period [[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
!Dates (millions of years ago) [[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
!My Favorite Part [[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
!My Biggest Complaint [[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
!Explanation [[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
|-
|Precambrian
|4500-539
|Life develops
|Snowball Earth episodes
|The {{w|Precambrian}} (italicized in the comic since it's not a {{w|Period (geology)|geologic period}}) is the first 88% of Earth's history, including the time 4.1 to 3.4 billion years ago when life on Earth began. The {{w|Snowball Earth}} hypothesis says that during some time spans in the past, Earth became nearly or entirely frozen, with no liquid water on the surface. It's related to the idea of the {{w|Greenhouse_and_icehouse_Earth#Icehouse_Earth|icehouse Earth}}, times when the planet fluctuates between glacial and interglacial periods (such as now).
|-
|{{w|Cambrian}}
|539-487
|Trilobites!
|Evolution could stand to calm down a little
|The {{w|Cambrian explosion}} was a sudden radiation of complex life forms when nearly all important animal phyla, or precursors to them, appeared. {{w|Trilobite|Trilobites}}, a lineage of {{w|Arthropod|arthropods}} (related to present-day insects and spiders), was one of the groups that appeared during the Cambrian. Fossil trilobite specimens are abundant and charismatic, and attract the attention of amateur and professional enthusiasts.
|-
|{{w|Ordovician}}
|487-443
|Earth might have had rings
|Scary volcanic eruption in North America
|Due to the non-random location of impact of one type of meteorite, {{w|Rings_of_Earth|it is proposed}} that those have formed a planetary ring system around Earth before colliding with it. The volcanic eruption(s) that deposited the {{w|Deicke_and_Millbrig_bentonite_layers|Deicke and Millbrig ashfall layers}} during the Late Ordovician are thought to have been among the largest in the last 600 million years of Earth history. The volcano(es) involved may have been among those formed during the mountain-building event in what is now northeastern North America that is called the {{w|Taconic_orogeny|Taconic orogeny}}.
|-
|{{w|Silurian}}
|443-420
|First land animals
|Earth's newfound mold problem
|Green plants first became established on land during the Ordovician period, after having evolved ways to protect themselves from desiccation and ultraviolet light. During the Silurian, land animals (mostly arthropods resembling {{w|Kampecaris|millipedes}}) followed the plants - and mycelial fungi ("mold") evolved to attack them and decompose their remains.
|-
|{{w|Devonian}}
|420-359
|Big mountains in Boston
|Yeah, sure, what those giant killer fish needed was ''armor''
|A series of mountain-building events, during the middle to late Devonian, that are collectively termed the {{w|Acadian_orogeny|Acadian orogeny}} resulted in a section of the present-day Appalachian Range from the Canadian maritimes to the Carolinas, including what is now the Boston area of Massachusetts. (At the time, Boston was in the tropics, just south of the equator.) {{w|Placoderm}} fishes, which were common in but did not survive the Devonian, were characterized by plates of {{w|Dermal_bone|dermal bone}} in the head and thoracic portions of the body. Not all placoderms were giants, or apex predators. The best guess as to why placoderm fishes had these bony plates is that they helped protect the fishes from predation by other placoderms.
|-
|{{w|Carboniferous}}
|359-299
|Cool forests
|Bugs too big
|The {{w|Carboniferous#Terrestrial_invertebrates|'bugs' in this period}} included the largest-ever known land invertebrate, a {{w|Arthropleura|2.6-m (8.5-ft) millipede-like animal}}; the largest-ever known flying insect, resembling a {{w|Meganeura|dragonfly with a wingspan of ~75 cm (30 in)}}; and a {{w|Pulmonoscorpius|70 cm (2 ft 4 in) scorpion}}.
|-
|{{w|Permian}}
|299-252
|Pangea
|Google "The Great Dying"
|{{w|Pangaea}} was the most recent supercontinent containing nearly all of Earth's landmass. The Great Dying, more formally known as the {{w|Permian-Triassic extinction event}}, occurred at the end of the Permian and is the most severe of Earth's {{w|Extinction_event#The_"Big_Five"_mass_extinctions|'Big Five' mass extinction events}}. In it, 81% of marine species and 70% of terrestrial vertebrate species were wiped out.
|-
|{{w|Triassic}}
|252-201
|Tanystropheus
|Damage to Canada still visible from space at Manicouagan
|{{w|Tanystropheus}} was a basal archosaur (not a dinosaur) with a proportionally long neck. {{w|Manicouagan Reservoir}} is a ring-shaped lake, the remains of the crater caused by a 5-km (3-mi) asteroid hitting {{w|Quebec}}.
|-
|{{w|Jurassic}}
|201-143
|Birds
|Parasitoid wasps
|Birds are cool.{{Citation needed}} Parasitoid wasps are not; their reproduction cycle is such a grisly process that it caused a {{w|Ichneumonidae#Darwin_and_the_Ichneumonidae|crisis of faith}} among 19th-century European scholars.
|-
|{{w|Cretaceous}}
|143-66
|Raptors
|Raptors
|[[:Category:Velociraptors|Raptors]]
|-
|{{w|Paleogene}}
|66-23
|Pretty horseys!!!
|Paleocene-eocene thermal maximum
|The {{w|Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum}} was a time where the global average temperature rose by around 5-8 °C in a relatively short period of time.
|-
|{{w|Neogene}}
|23-2.6
|Forests of Dracaena dragonblood trees
|Zanclean flood
|{{w|Dracaena draco}} and {{w|Dracaena cinnabari}} trees are a source of {{w|dragon's blood}}, a naturally occurring bright red resin with uses including as a varnish and a dye.
The {{w|Zanclean flood}} is theorized to be the flood that refilled the Mediterranean Sea.
|-
|{{w|Quaternary}}
|2.6-present
|Burrito invented
|Whoever picked the name for the third period of the Cenozoic
|Randall jokes that, in the last 2.6 million years, his favorite moment was the invention of the {{w|burrito}}, rather than many other, much more significant discoveries. The precise origin of the burrito is not known, but the {{w|Maya civilization}} used to make food resembling burritos as early as 1500 BC.
The third period of the {{w|Cenozoic}} Era is the Quaternary era, named by Jules Desnoyers in 1829. This naming is controversial; the {{w|International Commission on Stratigraphy}} is proposing to abolish it.
|}

3120: Geologic Periods

2025-07-27T07:20:54Z

2001:4450:8178:2200:6C77:934F:5853:8A0A:

[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
{{incomplete|This page was created by a Cretaceous raptor. Don't remove this notice too soon.}}

{| class="wikitable"
!Period [[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
!Dates (millions of years ago) [[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
!My Favorite Part [[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
!My Biggest Complaint [[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
!Explanation [[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
|-
|Precambrian
|4500-539
|Life develops
|Snowball Earth episodes
|The {{w|Precambrian}} (italicized in the comic since it's not a {{w|Period (geology)|geologic period}}) is the first 88% of Earth's history, including the time 4.1 to 3.4 billion years ago when life on Earth began. The {{w|Snowball Earth}} hypothesis says that during some time spans in the past, Earth became nearly or entirely frozen, with no liquid water on the surface. It's related to the idea of the {{w|Greenhouse_and_icehouse_Earth#Icehouse_Earth|icehouse Earth}}, times when the planet fluctuates between glacial and interglacial periods (such as now).
|-
|{{w|Cambrian}}
|539-487
|Trilobites!
|Evolution could stand to calm down a little
|The {{w|Cambrian explosion}} was a sudden radiation of complex life forms when nearly all important animal phyla, or precursors to them, appeared. {{w|Trilobite|Trilobites}}, a lineage of {{w|Arthropod|arthropods}} (related to present-day insects and spiders), was one of the groups that appeared during the Cambrian. Fossil trilobite specimens are abundant and charismatic, and attract the attention of amateur and professional enthusiasts.
|-
|{{w|Ordovician}}
|487-443
|Earth might have had rings
|Scary volcanic eruption in North America
|Due to the non-random location of impact of one type of meteorite, {{w|Rings_of_Earth|it is proposed}} that those have formed a planetary ring system around Earth before colliding with it. The volcanic eruption(s) that deposited the {{w|Deicke_and_Millbrig_bentonite_layers|Deicke and Millbrig ashfall layers}} during the Late Ordovician are thought to have been among the largest in the last 600 million years of Earth history. The volcano(es) involved may have been among those formed during the mountain-building event in what is now northeastern North America that is called the {{w|Taconic_orogeny|Taconic orogeny}}.
|-
|{{w|Silurian}}
|443-420
|First land animals
|Earth's newfound mold problem
|Green plants first became established on land during the Ordovician period, after having evolved ways to protect themselves from desiccation and ultraviolet light. During the Silurian, land animals (mostly arthropods resembling {{w|Kampecaris|millipedes}}) followed the plants - and mycelial fungi ("mold") evolved to attack them and decompose their remains.
|-
|{{w|Devonian}}
|420-359
|Big mountains in Boston
|Yeah, sure, what those giant killer fish needed was ''armor''
|A series of mountain-building events, during the middle to late Devonian, that are collectively termed the {{w|Acadian_orogeny|Acadian orogeny}} resulted in a section of the present-day Appalachian Range from the Canadian maritimes to the Carolinas, including what is now the Boston area of Massachusetts. (At the time, Boston was in the tropics, just south of the equator.) {{w|Placoderm}} fishes, which were common in but did not survive the Devonian, were characterized by plates of {{w|Dermal_bone|dermal bone}} in the head and thoracic portions of the body. Not all placoderms were giants, or apex predators. The best guess as to why placoderm fishes had these bony plates is that they helped protect the fishes from predation by other placoderms.
|-
|{{w|Carboniferous}}
|359-299
|Cool forests
|Bugs too big
|The {{w|Carboniferous#Terrestrial_invertebrates|'bugs' in this period}} included the largest-ever known land invertebrate, a {{w|Arthropleura|2.6-m (8.5-ft) millipede-like animal}}; the largest-ever known flying insect, resembling a {{w|Meganeura|dragonfly with a wingspan of ~75 cm (30 in)}}; and a {{w|Pulmonoscorpius|70 cm (2 ft 4 in) scorpion}}.
|-
|{{w|Permian}}
|299-252
|Pangea
|Google "The Great Dying"
|{{w|Pangaea}} was the most recent supercontinent containing nearly all of Earth's landmass. The Great Dying, more formally known as the {{w|Permian-Triassic extinction event}}, occurred at the end of the Permian and is the most severe of Earth's {{w|Extinction_event#The_"Big_Five"_mass_extinctions|'Big Five' mass extinction events}}. In it, 81% of marine species and 70% of terrestrial vertebrate species were wiped out.
|-
|{{w|Triassic}}
|252-201
|Tanystropheus
|Damage to Canada still visible from space at Manicouagan
|{{w|Tanystropheus}} was a basal archosaur (not a dinosaur) with a proportionally long neck. {{w|Manicouagan Reservoir}} is a ring-shaped lake, the remains of the crater caused by a 5-km (3-mi) asteroid hitting {{w|Quebec}}.
|-
|{{w|Jurassic}}
|201-143
|Birds
|Parasitoid wasps
|Birds are cool.{{Citation needed}} Parasitoid wasps are not; their reproduction cycle is such a grisly process that it caused a {{w|Ichneumonidae#Darwin_and_the_Ichneumonidae|crisis of faith}} among 19th-century European scholars.
|-
|{{w|Cretaceous}}
|143-66
|Raptors
|Raptors
|[[:Category:Velociraptors|Raptors]]
|-
|{{w|Paleogene}}
|66-23
|Pretty horseys!!!
|Paleocene-eocene thermal maximum
|The {{w|Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum}} was a time where the global average temperature rose by around 5-8 °C in a relatively short period of time.
|-
|{{w|Neogene}}
|23-2.6
|Forests of Dracaena dragonblood trees
|Zanclean flood
|{{w|Dracaena draco}} and {{w|Dracaena cinnabari}} trees are a source of {{w|dragon's blood}}, a naturally occurring bright red resin with uses including as a varnish and a dye.
The {{w|Zanclean flood}} is theorized to be the flood that refilled the Mediterranean Sea.
|-
|{{w|Quaternary}}
|2.6-present
|Burrito invented
|Whoever picked the name for the third period of the Cenozoic
|Randall jokes that, in the last 2.6 million years, his favorite moment was the invention of the {{w|burrito}}, rather than many other, much more significant discoveries. The precise origin of the burrito is not known, but the {{w|Maya civilization}} used to make food resembling burritos as early as 1500 BC.
The third period of the {{w|Cenozoic}} Era is the Quaternary era, named by Jules Desnoyers in 1829. This naming is controversial; the {{w|International Commission on Stratigraphy}} is proposing to abolish it.
|}

3120: Geologic Periods

2025-07-27T07:19:24Z

2001:4450:8178:2200:6C77:934F:5853:8A0A:

[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]
{{incomplete|This page was created by a Cretaceous raptor. Don't remove this notice too soon.}}

{| class="wikitable"
!Period
!Dates (millions of years ago)
!My Favorite Part
!My Biggest Complaint
!Explanation
|-
|Precambrian
|4500-539
|Life develops
|Snowball Earth episodes
|The {{w|Precambrian}} (italicized in the comic since it's not a {{w|Period (geology)|geologic period}}) is the first 88% of Earth's history, including the time 4.1 to 3.4 billion years ago when life on Earth began. The {{w|Snowball Earth}} hypothesis says that during some time spans in the past, Earth became nearly or entirely frozen, with no liquid water on the surface. It's related to the idea of the {{w|Greenhouse_and_icehouse_Earth#Icehouse_Earth|icehouse Earth}}, times when the planet fluctuates between glacial and interglacial periods (such as now).
|-
|{{w|Cambrian}}
|539-487
|Trilobites!
|Evolution could stand to calm down a little
|The {{w|Cambrian explosion}} was a sudden radiation of complex life forms when nearly all important animal phyla, or precursors to them, appeared. {{w|Trilobite|Trilobites}}, a lineage of {{w|Arthropod|arthropods}} (related to present-day insects and spiders), was one of the groups that appeared during the Cambrian. Fossil trilobite specimens are abundant and charismatic, and attract the attention of amateur and professional enthusiasts.
|-
|{{w|Ordovician}}
|487-443
|Earth might have had rings
|Scary volcanic eruption in North America
|Due to the non-random location of impact of one type of meteorite, {{w|Rings_of_Earth|it is proposed}} that those have formed a planetary ring system around Earth before colliding with it. The volcanic eruption(s) that deposited the {{w|Deicke_and_Millbrig_bentonite_layers|Deicke and Millbrig ashfall layers}} during the Late Ordovician are thought to have been among the largest in the last 600 million years of Earth history. The volcano(es) involved may have been among those formed during the mountain-building event in what is now northeastern North America that is called the {{w|Taconic_orogeny|Taconic orogeny}}.
|-
|{{w|Silurian}}
|443-420
|First land animals
|Earth's newfound mold problem
|Green plants first became established on land during the Ordovician period, after having evolved ways to protect themselves from desiccation and ultraviolet light. During the Silurian, land animals (mostly arthropods resembling {{w|Kampecaris|millipedes}}) followed the plants - and mycelial fungi ("mold") evolved to attack them and decompose their remains.
|-
|{{w|Devonian}}
|420-359
|Big mountains in Boston
|Yeah, sure, what those giant killer fish needed was ''armor''
|A series of mountain-building events, during the middle to late Devonian, that are collectively termed the {{w|Acadian_orogeny|Acadian orogeny}} resulted in a section of the present-day Appalachian Range from the Canadian maritimes to the Carolinas, including what is now the Boston area of Massachusetts. (At the time, Boston was in the tropics, just south of the equator.) {{w|Placoderm}} fishes, which were common in but did not survive the Devonian, were characterized by plates of {{w|Dermal_bone|dermal bone}} in the head and thoracic portions of the body. Not all placoderms were giants, or apex predators. The best guess as to why placoderm fishes had these bony plates is that they helped protect the fishes from predation by other placoderms.
|-
|{{w|Carboniferous}}
|359-299
|Cool forests
|Bugs too big
|The {{w|Carboniferous#Terrestrial_invertebrates|'bugs' in this period}} included the largest-ever known land invertebrate, a {{w|Arthropleura|2.6-m (8.5-ft) millipede-like animal}}; the largest-ever known flying insect, resembling a {{w|Meganeura|dragonfly with a wingspan of ~75 cm (30 in)}}; and a {{w|Pulmonoscorpius|70 cm (2 ft 4 in) scorpion}}.
|-
|{{w|Permian}}
|299-252
|Pangea
|Google "The Great Dying"
|{{w|Pangaea}} was the most recent supercontinent containing nearly all of Earth's landmass. The Great Dying, more formally known as the {{w|Permian-Triassic extinction event}}, occurred at the end of the Permian and is the most severe of Earth's {{w|Extinction_event#The_"Big_Five"_mass_extinctions|'Big Five' mass extinction events}}. In it, 81% of marine species and 70% of terrestrial vertebrate species were wiped out.
|-
|{{w|Triassic}}
|252-201
|Tanystropheus
|Damage to Canada still visible from space at Manicouagan
|{{w|Tanystropheus}} was a basal archosaur (not a dinosaur) with a proportionally long neck. {{w|Manicouagan Reservoir}} is a ring-shaped lake, the remains of the crater caused by a 5-km (3-mi) asteroid hitting {{w|Quebec}}.
|-
|{{w|Jurassic}}
|201-143
|Birds
|Parasitoid wasps
|Birds are cool.{{Citation needed}} Parasitoid wasps are not; their reproduction cycle is such a grisly process that it caused a {{w|Ichneumonidae#Darwin_and_the_Ichneumonidae|crisis of faith}} among 19th-century European scholars.
|-
|{{w|Cretaceous}}
|143-66
|Raptors
|Raptors
|[[:Category:Velociraptors|Raptors]]
|-
|{{w|Paleogene}}
|66-23
|Pretty horseys!!!
|Paleocene-eocene thermal maximum
|The {{w|Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum}} was a time where the global average temperature rose by around 5-8 °C in a relatively short period of time.
|-
|{{w|Neogene}}
|23-2.6
|Forests of Dracaena dragonblood trees
|Zanclean flood
|{{w|Dracaena draco}} and {{w|Dracaena cinnabari}} trees are a source of {{w|dragon's blood}}, a naturally occurring bright red resin with uses including as a varnish and a dye.
The {{w|Zanclean flood}} is theorized to be the flood that refilled the Mediterranean Sea.
|-
|{{w|Quaternary}}
|2.6-present
|Burrito invented
|Whoever picked the name for the third period of the Cenozoic
|Randall jokes that, in the last 2.6 million years, his favorite moment was the invention of the {{w|burrito}}, rather than many other, much more significant discoveries. The precise origin of the burrito is not known, but the {{w|Maya civilization}} used to make food resembling burritos as early as 1500 BC.
The third period of the {{w|Cenozoic}} Era is the Quaternary era, named by Jules Desnoyers in 1829. This naming is controversial; the {{w|International Commission on Stratigraphy}} is proposing to abolish it.
|}

3120: Geologic Periods

2025-07-27T07:17:37Z

2001:4450:8178:2200:6C77:934F:5853:8A0A:

3120: Geologic Periods

2025-07-27T07:15:20Z

2001:4450:8178:2200:6C77:934F:5853:8A0A:

[[File:sick.gif|12px|link=]]

3120: Geologic Periods

2025-07-27T07:12:21Z

2001:4450:8178:2200:6C77:934F:5853:8A0A: delete page

3120: Geologic Periods

2025-07-27T07:06:48Z

2001:4450:8178:2200:6C77:934F:5853:8A0A:

{{comic
| number = 1606
| date = November 20, 2015
| title = FDF
| image = five_day_forecast.png
| titletext = You know what they say--if you don't like the weather here in the Solar System, just wait five billion years.
}}

==Explanation==
{{w|Weather forecasting}} is an extremely difficult task, even if it is only for five days. In numerical models, extremely small errors in initial values double roughly every five days for variables such as temperature and wind velocity. So most {{w|Meteorology#Meteorologists|meteorologists}} provide us with only a five-day forecast.

In this comic [[Randall]] takes this to the extreme by first showing a '''Five-Day Forecast''' and then progressing to five-month, year, million, billion and finally trillion-year forecasts, leading to {{tvtropes|WeirdWeather|weather patterns that we don't regularly see.}}

Since the first weather symbol is the same in all six rows, we can assume it indicates the weather today and not tomorrow, in a trillion years, etc. It is only in the second panel of each row that time has passed per the row's label. Consequently, the last column gives the predictions for four days, four months, ..., four trillion years from today.

When moving past the five-day prediction, the forecast is just a qualified guess based on the time of year. In a month it is Christmas as shown in the second panel of the second row. Then it is January and February so snow is likely, but certainly not something that happens on all days of a winter month.

Looking at the five-year forecast, guesses are made as to what the weather will be like at the same time of year. For these first three predictions the weather symbols are all of the same three types: Sun, clouds and some kind of {{w|precipitation}}, rain or snow, with the temperature ranging from 21 to 44 °F (-6.1 to 6.6 °C) - winter temperatures.

Then we go into the far future, jumping a million years from panel to panel. But still the weather symbols stay the same. In 3 million years, however, aliens (or advanced humans) attack with energy beams from {{w|flying saucers}}. They are gone a million years later. The temperature range remains the same across the panels except that it rises to 52 °F (11 °C), a possible reference to global warming, in one panel, and while the attack is going on it rises to 275 °F (135 °C).

Once we get to the billion-year mark it actually becomes more meaningful to try to predict the "weather", because now we reach the times when the {{w|Sun}} begins to change. Although the Sun will continue to burn hydrogen for about 5 billion years yet (while in its {{w|Sun#Main sequence|main sequence|}}), it will grow in diameter as it begins to exhaust its supply of fuel. The core will contract to increase the temperature, and the outer layer will then compensate by expanding slightly. This is what is indicated in panels two and three, where the color of the Sun changes towards red as the surface becomes cooler as it expands away from the center of the Sun. The temperature will rise on Earth as indicated in the panels (105 °F = 40.5 °C and 371 °F = 188 °C). The temperature will get hot enough in about [http://phys.org/news/2015-02-sun-wont-die-billion-years.html a billion years] that the Earth's oceans will boil away.

Once it {{w|Sun#After core hydrogen exhaustion|no longer has enough hydrogen}}, the Sun will expand into a {{w|red giant}}. This should not happen until around {{w|Sun#Composition|five billion years from now}}, but in the forecast it is indicated to happen in only three. Maybe this is Randall taking liberties to show what happens during this phase, which would not fit into a four-billion-year forecast. Alternatively it just indicates how uncertain these kinds of forecasts are, or a statement that we may not know for certain that it will take five not three billion years.

In any case, the fourth panel shows the temperature at Earth's position inside the red giant Sun. The color of the panel indicates that we are inside the Sun. The temperature is 71,488,106 degrees Fahrenheit (39,715,597 degrees Celsius). The current temperature of the center of the Sun is "only" 27 million degrees Fahrenheit (15 million degrees Celsius), and although that may rise by a factor of ten during {{w|Stellar nucleosynthesis|helium fusion}}, that will only be at the very core and not out in the solar atmosphere reaching out to Earth. Here the temperature would only be of the order of thousands of degrees Fahrenheit, since the Sun's outer temperature decreases as it increases its diameter. So this panel's temperature also makes little sense. It may involve some ambiguities regarding what the forecast means; the edge of the red giant Sun is predicted to be somewhere near the current orbit of Earth, but the position of the Earth could change. The most likely prediction at the moment is for Earth to move outward, but if the planet is engulfed by the Sun, it would spiral inward, and at some point fall apart. So in some sense "here" for the forecast could become a position deep inside the Sun, where core temperatures could reach 100 million Kelvin. The temperatures shown are unreasonably precise; they probably should have only two or at most three significant figures.

The red giant phase lasts only half a million years, so a billion years after the Sun has been a red giant its outer atmosphere will definitely have disappeared, leaving only a dim, cool {{w|white dwarf}} to cool down. Given Randall's version of this time schedule, then it will have had about a billion years to cool down, but would still likely be the brightest object in the sky as seen from where the Earth once was. It is not shown in the last panel, where we just see other stars of the Galaxy. The temperature is down to that of the {{w|Cosmic microwave background|background radiation}}. Today this radiation has a temperature of 2.72548 kelvin = -270.4245 °C = -454.7641 °F. That is a few degrees F colder than what is shown in the comic, which states the temperature is -452 °F = 4.26 kelvin. This higher temperature may have been chosen to reflect that even the light from other stars would increase the actual temperature.

In the last panel with trillions of years, we jump right past the Sun's red giant phase to a panel looking much like the one after five billion years with only other stars. Over the next three trillion years the stars become fewer and fewer and dimmer and dimmer as they run out of fuel and fewer new stars form. After four trillion years the background temperature decreases one degree to -453 °F as the universe keeps expanding and the wavelength of the radiation does the same, thus decreasing its temperature.

The title text is a play on comments referring to fast-changing weather on a more ordinary human timescale, such as Mark Twain's quip, "If you don't like the weather in New England now, just wait a few minutes."

A ten-day forecast was used in [[1245: 10-Day Forecast]]. In [[1379: 4.5 Degrees]], Randall looked at the weather over long periods of time as well. in [[1643: Degrees]] he addressed Celsius vs. Fahrenheit for measuring temperature.

===Image using Celsius===

There is a different user-made version for the picture, using [[3001|Celsius]] instead of Fahrenheit, [[:File:five_day_forecast_Celsius.png|in this image link]].

==Transcript==
:[A grid with six rows of five columns, where each row is labeled to the left. For each of the 30 squares a temperature is given in Fahrenheit at the top left. The rest of the square represents the weather as in a weather forecast (or some other relevant items for the comic), mainly in bright colors. Below are the six labels given above each of their five weather symbols with temperature given below these symbols description.]

:'''Your 5-day forecast'''
:[A bright yellow sun.]
:38°F
:[A grey cloud.]
:41°F
:[A grey cloud with six lines of blue raindrops below.]
:36°F
:[A grey cloud in front of a yellow sun.]
:40°F
:[Same as Today]
:44°F

:'''Your 5-month forecast'''
:[Same as Today]
:38°F
:[A green Christmas tree with red presents beneath it.]
:29°F
:[A grey cloud with four snowflakes below.]
:21°F
:[Same as Next 2 Months]
:24°F
:[Same as Tomorrow]
:35°F

:'''Your 5-year forecast'''
:[Same as Today]
:38°F
:[Same as Tomorrow]
:25°F
:[Same as Today]
:36°F
:[Same as Next 2 Days]
:37°F
:[Same as Today]
:41°F

:'''Your 5-million-year forecast'''
:[Same as Today]
:38°F
:[Same as Today]
:52°F
:[Same as Tomorrow]
:40°F
:[Two red flying saucers (with bright domes) are shooting energy beams downwards. One of the beams seems to impact with something at the bottom of the panel, which then explodes. Two plumes of smoke rises up from below, drifting to the right.]
:275°F
:[Same as Next 3 Days]
:40°F

:'''Your 5-billion-year forecast'''
:[Same as Today]
:38°F
:[A larger orange sun.]
:105°F
:[A very large red sun.]
:371°F
:[A pale yellow panel with no drawing.]
:71,488,106°F
:[A night sky with many bright stars.]
:-452°F

:'''Your 5-trillion-year forecast'''
:[Same as Today]
:38°F
:[Same as Next 4 Billion Years]
:-452°F
:[A night sky with many stars.]
:-452°F
:[A night sky with fewer not so bright stars.]
:-452°F
:[A night sky with few dim stars.]
:-453°F

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics with inverted brightness]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Science]]
[[Category:Space]]
[[Category:Astronomy]]
[[Category:Weather]]
[[Category:Aliens]]
[[Category:Christmas]]

3120: Geologic Periods

2025-07-27T07:06:09Z

2001:4450:8178:2200:6C77:934F:5853:8A0A: