explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Talk:3245: Results Age

2026-05-14T17:20:53Z

82.132.212.205:

oh god these are uncomfortably accurate...though sometimes the post age is the next time rung down. i hit an issue recently which sent me to mozilla forum posts from 2008, migrated twice, where the people having the problem seem to have stopped caring about it a decade ago - '''[[User:Vaedez|Vaedez]]''' ([[User talk:Vaedez|talk]]) 18:43, 13 May 2026 (UTC)

Man, I’m not even 24 ''years old'' [[Special:Contributions/2A02:6B6F:E226:B00:803D:CE4C:ED8:DED4|2A02:6B6F:E226:B00:803D:CE4C:ED8:DED4]] 18:45, 13 May 2026 (UTC)
:Can we block this IP address? [[Special:Contributions/82.13.184.33|82.13.184.33]] 08:33, 14 May 2026 (UTC)

I guess once we finish the table in the explanation we can convert that to a similar table in the transcript, rather than doing them independently. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 19:13, 13 May 2026 (UTC)
:No. [[explain xkcd:Editor FAQ#What is the format of the transcript section?|Tables do not belong in the Transcript.]] It serves a different purpose. And it'll just be the text that's there, so would be far simpler (and more likely to be 'finished' any time soon) than the Explanation table which will get tweaked to add or clarify explanatory descriptions.
:You ''could'' copy an Explanation table (having the comic text, in various rows and columns) to the Transcript then 'de-Table' it (remove the table-formatting) and 'en-Transcript' what remains (add the ":[This bit looks like..]" stuff). But that's not much less effort than rewriting such a relatively small comic's from scratch.
:It can also go the other way, though... Someone gets the Transcript done, and then ''from that'' the base text of the Table is 'en-Tabled'. It'd depend on who visits the newly-created Comic page and what they decide to concentrate on to start up the otherwise blank page that the BOT put together. [[Special:Contributions/81.179.199.253|81.179.199.253]] 20:56, 13 May 2026 (UTC)
::I added the content of the table to the transcript based on the format of [[3120: Geologic Periods]] which also has a table. --[[Special:Contributions/208.59.176.206|208.59.176.206]] 00:49, 14 May 2026 (UTC)

I will add an explanation of an edge case [[User:SomebodyElse|SomebodyElse]] ([[User talk:SomebodyElse|talk]]) 19:40, 13 May 2026 (UTC)

If it's negative time old you are in a Tardis. If it's sqrt(-1) time old, give me some of whatever it is you are smoking. [[Special:Contributions/64.201.132.210|64.201.132.210]] 22:02, 13 May 2026 (UTC)
:''Which'' sqrt(-1)? If it's imaginary i then you're in weird territory, but if it's quaternionic i, j, or k, you can interpret that as a spacelike separation, so it just means that you've found someone with an FTL drive i.e. the flowchart arrow also goes to TARDIS.[[Special:Contributions/185.146.232.73|185.146.232.73]] 10:03, 14 May 2026 (UTC)

Yeah it's even better when there's no god damn results at all.[[User:RG|RG]] ([[User talk:RG|talk]]) 00:29, 14 May 2026 (UTC)

What about when the post is more than 13 years old and you see that the post is from yourself, you had just forgotten about it? [[User:JohnHawkinson|JohnHawkinson]] ([[User talk:JohnHawkinson|talk]]) 01:52, 14 May 2026 (UTC)
:Same vibe as googling early warning signs of alheizmers for the first time but all the links are purple.[[User:RG|RG]] ([[User talk:RG|talk]]) 02:08, 14 May 2026 (UTC)

I once discovered a scanned magazine article from 1999 or so that briefly mentioned how to use a hidden Mathematica feature that a) still existed more than 20 years later and b) was in fact directly applicable to my problem. Sometimes things do work out![[Special:Contributions/185.146.232.73|185.146.232.73]] 10:03, 14 May 2026 (UTC)

I actually made my first table on this one! It took a lot of trial-and-error. [[User:GSLikesCats307|GSLikesCats307]] ([[User talk:GSLikesCats307|talk]]) 11:10, 14 May 2026 (UTC)

What's wrong with this is that the first search result is irrelevant, since it will just tell OP to use Google because the question has been asked before. --[[Special:Contributions/80.187.113.212|80.187.113.212]] 13:07, 14 May 2026 (UTC)

The Internet is not over 50 years old. The Internet as we know it came online at the beginning of 2023, when Arpanet switched from the old NCP protocol to TCP/IP. So I changed that explanation to "over forty years old". Although as far as modern users are concerned, anything prior to the WWW is mostly irrelevant. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 14:07, 14 May 2026 (UTC)
: Really? I'm sure I remember using it way more than three years ago... [[Special:Contributions/82.13.184.33|82.13.184.33]] 14:10, 14 May 2026 (UTC)
: Because of progressive interoperability over time, I'd say that you can't give a definite hard limit to the start of 'the Internet'. The TCP backbone itself was first implemented in 1974, and yet even in the early '90s I had to tunnel some 'internet' traffic through legacy systems that weren't using TCP/IP for the layer-3 OSI (that's alongside other 'similarly old' alternatives to TCP/IP like IPX/SPX). Battling with using ZMODEM (or ''one'' of the <FOO>MODEMs, maybe X or Y instead) over X.25 forms part of my early efforts (that I'd happily now forget) to learn how to do (as a 'new guy') what others around me were already perfectly at ease using. Even concentrating on layer-7 (user experience) or layer-1 (the physical infrastructure), the Internet-that-everyone-now-uses can be argued as to having started at different times (e.g. the arrival of Broadband, or perhaps even Mobile Data, as a mass-consumer product for a given territory, yet dial-up access existed before that, as well as permanent ISDN or T#-lines between institutions and businesses sufficiently invested in the need for interconnectivity).
:Did you mean 1983, instead of 2023? That makes more somewhat more sense, all these further caveats aside. [[Special:Contributions/82.132.212.205|82.132.212.205]] 17:20, 14 May 2026 (UTC)

I thought for sure that the title text was gonna be about how AI makes solving some problems trivial, while sometimes it sends you off the deep end even worse than a UseNet thread from 1994. [[User:blagae|blagae]] ([[User talk:blagae|talk]]) 15:47, 14 May 2026 (UTC)

3245: Results Age

2026-05-14T16:21:17Z

82.132.212.205:

{{comic
| number = 3245
| date = May 13, 2026
| title = Results Age
| image = results_age_2x.png
| imagesize = 478x669px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Please, we need your help. Our research suggests you're the last living descendant of the person who knew how to format this config file.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|This page was created BY AN INTERNET GRANDPA. Don't remove this notice too soon.}}
This comic shows how likely it is that a bug reported will be fixed, based on the age of some past post that matches your search for details of the problem.

A table is shown below of the explanations of each table row:
{| class="wikitable"
!Age of post !! Explanation given !! Full Explanation
|-
|2 hours ago || A service outage. Not very long to fix - Just wait. ||The recentness of the information implies that it has just happened, and other people have noticed it and started to post about the issue. Large-scale problems like a service outage are obvious priorities, and will (hopefully!) be fixed quickly.
|-
|5 days ago || A new update just broke something big. High chance to be fixed, but you might have to wait for a patch || Similar to before, a large breakage would be very high priority to be fixed. However, as it's been five days since reporting it, the bug is likely taking a while to be found, so - as pointed out in the comic - you could have to wait a bit longer for this one to be resolved.
|-
|3 months ago ||A new product isn't working for some users. Decent chance of finding a solution in replies || This problem is clearly not considered a priority for a fix by the creators, judging by how long it's been there. It possibly isn't an issue affecting everyone, or even a large proportion of users. However, people are innovative, and someone may well have found their own fix, patch or kludge to get around the product limitations.
|-
|2 years ago||You've run into an edge case. Low chance to be fixed, but the replies could help with troubleshooting||An edge case is a rare situation that the developers did not think to account for, usually causing a logic error, where the program works, but outputs something unexpected which might cause an error down the line. Very few people will suffer from this precise problem, which may mean that it's not considered worth the effort to apply a fix. The developers or other users may have encountered similar issues on this or similar software, and noting how they solved ''those'' problems might lead you towards how to solve your own.
|-
|3 years ago||''not described in the table, only given as the illustrated example''|Slightly more worrying, incrementally, than the above case, but still far more likely to be a solved (or solvable) issue than with the tabled examples that follow.
|-
|13 years ago||You're the only one with this problem. Very Low chance to be fixed, and the post is likely irrelevant||A post of this age likely predates the software you're using, or at least the current version of it. It's probably a coincidental match to your search query, and doesn't actually relate to the problem you've encountered. Since no-one else has posted about this issue or anything similar within a recent timeframe, it's likely that you're the first person (or at least, one of very few people) to have come across it.
|-
|24 years ago||Oh god how is the Internet so old. Maybe whoever posted the message's children can help you out. || This is another comic where Randall [[:Category:Comics to make one feel old|makes people feel old]], in this case by pointing out that {{w|the Internet}} is very old, and people posting comments in the early period of the Internet have now had time to have kids who have reached an age where they are themselves posting. It is also (presumably) rare enough to be a [[979: Wisdom of the Ancients|DenverCoder9 situation]], and 13 years is longer than the time in that comic, so 13 years might be such a situation too.
The {{w|Internet}} is, in fact, significantly over forty years old, based upon original infrastructure and methods that were set up for perhaps up to two more decades previous to that. The World Wide Web (to many, synonymous with the Internet) hails from the early 1990s, and Google (one of the more commonly used search engines, through which this error search might have been made) was launched in the late 1990s, which are still practically older than this notional post. The biggest surprise might be that some information published on a webpage in 2002 (and still relevant to your search) survives on some still live web server (or as an archive/{{w|Mirror site|mirror}} of that original information on some archival/successor site). For example, any topical write-up of a then extant case of this issue, if documented upon web pages originally hosted by {{w|GeoCities}}, would have otherwise been made permanently inaccessible by the end of 2014.
|-
|Title text||Please, we need your help. Our research suggests you're the last living descendant of the person who knew how to format this config file.||The title text appears to be a conversation taking place in a distant future with the descendant of an ancient internet post. The 'last living descendant' is a common trope in fiction where arcane knowledge is passed down through a family line (often on the previous generation's deathbed). The suggestion is that the solution to the user's issue is a closely guarded secret that has had to be kept safe in this way.
|}

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

:Implications of the age of the posts you see when you Google an error message

:[A search engine prompt field is shown, containing part of an error code message (beginning with E-21, and what looks like a 9 and 3 next to it). Below this are search results shown as obscured text, except for a the phrase '3 years ago' in the first heading. This is expanded into an ellipse that obscures the rest of the search field.]
:[A table, with 3 columns, labelled "Age of post", "What it means", and "Probability of a fix"]

:[Row 1: Age of post:] 2 hours ago
:[What it means:] There's an infrastructure outage
:[Probability of a fix:] Very high -- just wait

:[Row 2: Age of post:] 5 days ago
:[What it means:] A recent update broke something big
:[Probability of a fix:] High, but you might have to wait for a patch

:[Row 3: Age of post:] 3 months ago
:[What it means:] A new product isn't working for some users
:[Probability of a fix:] Decent chance of a solution in the replies

:[Row 4: Age of post:] 2 years ago
:[What it means:] You've run into an edge case
:[Probability of a fix:] Low, but maybe the replies can help with troubleshooting

:[Row 5: Age of post:] 13 years ago
:[What it means:] You're the only person with this problem
:[Probability of a fix:] Very low -- post is likely not relevant

:[Row 6: Age of post:] 24 years ago
:[What it means:] Oh God how is the Internet this old
:[Probability of a fix:] Maybe whoever posted this message has kids who can help you

{{comic discussion}}<noinclude>

[[Category:Comics to make one feel old]]
[[Category:Computers]]
[[Category:Internet]]

3207: Bad Map Projection: Zero Declination

2026-05-14T15:54:26Z

82.132.212.205: /* Transcript */ Not recent, but needed renormallising.

{{comic
| number = 3207
| date = February 13, 2026
| title = Bad Map Projection: Zero Declination
| image = bad_map_projection_zero_declination.png
| imagesize = 740x544px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = 'The zero line in WMM2025 passes through a lot of population centers; I wonder what year the largest share of the population lived in a zone of less than 5° of declination,' he thought, derailing all other tasks for the rest of the day.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|This page was created recently by a misaligned map. Don't remove this notice too soon.}}
This is the tenth comic in the [[:Category:Bad Map Projections|Bad Map Projections]] series, displaying Bad Map Projection #216: Zero Declination.

While the Earth's magnetic field is broadly aligned North-South, the actual alignment of the magnetic field varies over time and position. The difference between True North (the axis of Earth's rotation) and Magnetic North (the direction a compass will point) will vary depending on your position, and is known as the {{w|Magnetic Declination}} of that point.

The comic shows a map that has been distorted based on the Magnetic Declination so that Magnetic North for every point is pointed toward the top of the map. If this were reality, then Magnetic North would always be aligned with True North, or in other words, there would be Zero Declination at all points.

The red arrows indicate the distortions from the starting map required to make Magnetic North be at the top.

In the title text, "WMM2025" refers to the 2025 version of the {{w|World Magnetic Model}}, a representation of the Earth's magnetic field. You can see it [https://web.archive.org/web/20260212034745/https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/sites/default/files/inline-images/D.jpg here]. The "zero line" is in green, which shows where in the world magnetic declination is 0°. [[Randall]] has presumably wasted a day trying to figure out what year has had the most population living in an area of less than 5° declination by searching through previous WMM maps. He appears to have not found the answer, but luckily explainxkcd user Ahogue [[356|finished the job]] and made a [https://awhogue.github.io/zero-declination/output/ beautiful interactive map] to let you see that the answer is 2000.

You can see magnetic declination [https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/maps/historical-declination/ historical data here].

In {{w|orienteering}}, the maps are printed in such a way that magnetic north is always up - but given that the maps rarely show more than a few square kilometers, Randall's problem of mapping the entire world doesn't occur.

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

[An outline map of the world is shown, with all landmasses rotated and extended about - shown by sets of three red arrows around each change. A title on top of the map reads as follows: 'Bad Map Projection #216:', then below that: 'zero declination', and finally below that 'A cylindrical projection distorted so up is magnetic north'.]

{{comic discussion}}<noinclude>

[[Category:Comics with red annotations]]
[[Category:Bad Map Projections]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]

Kidball

2026-05-14T15:52:13Z

82.132.212.205: I (and others?) will continue to put in the proper word, as a matter of style and convention.

{{Infobox character
| image = Kidball.png
| imagesize = 200px
| caption = '
| first_appearance = [[38: Apple Jacks]]
}}

<noinclude>:''For a list of comics, see [[:Category:Comics featuring Kidball|Comics featuring Kidball]].''</noinclude>

'''Kidball''' is a [[stick figure]] character in [[xkcd]]. His appearance is like a [[Cueball]], but as a child. He commonly appears in classrooms led by [[Miss Lenhart]] (or [[Randall|her substitute]], alongside other kids like [[Jill]]. Unlike [[Jill]] however, Kidball lacks a distinctive personality, and more often appears as a filler character in scenes with children, such as classroom scenes.

==Name==
The name "Kidball" is derived from Cueball, taking the suffix of Cueball's name and adding "Kid" as a prefix. See [[explain xkcd:Community portal/Proposals#New Character Proposal for Kid Cueballs|Proposals § New Character Proposal for Kid Cueballs]] for more info.

{{navbox-characters}}
[[Category:Characters]]
[[Category:Minor characters]]

User talk:GSLikesCats307

2026-05-14T15:49:06Z

82.132.212.205: /* As mentioned above. */

Hello! This page is for anyone that for some reason or other wants to discuss anything on my page! So if you do, just fire away!

Ok, someone has done that then.

== I apologise for making this the first Talk for you... ==

Hi there, just thought that since you've now established your Talk page, I could finally chat directly to you about {{diff|410923|an edit I just edited}}.

Firstly, you're keen on using ampersands, I note. But can I persuade you to spell out 'and' in prose like that? It's not like you're trying to keep the character count down, and stylistically it's a bit jarring (to me, at least). At least outside of some scenario where space (or the time needed to jot something down) actually ''is'' at a premium, and two less characters.

They have their place, like "/” in leiu of "or" also does, but I've been redoing them 'in full' a few times (and have seen others update it, too, clearly with the same idea in mind) a few prior times that you've applied. Ampersands rather draw the eye, disproportionately, at least for me. YMMV.

Secondly, the convention for the {{template|Citation needed}} tag (and aliases for that, and also the {{template|Actual citation needed}} ones, etc) is to follow the punctuation. Follow the link I just gave to see the examples.

As for using "cn" versus "Citation needed" template name (and other abbreviated or case-adjusted versions), the former redirects to the latter and gives the same resulting appearance wherever either is embedded. I wouldn't normally go in and expand it out, as a lone edit, but as I was in there shuffling the "." position (and spelling out "and"), I took the liberty. Again, no real need to spare the (markup) space, and I only made ''that'' change to spare the need to evaluate a redirect and be more obvious to hypothetical future editors. I'm much less personally worried about "cn" vs "Citation needed" vs "Citation Needed" or any of the other various aliases ({{template|fact}} used to be one!), so am not suggesting you stop using the 'wrong' version in anything like as strong a term. But thought I'd at least explain why I also made that alteration, along the way.

But, otherwise, let me congratulate you on your contributions, over the last month or so. You've been a decent contributor (the above points notwithstanding), and this little note (which isn't anything but my own individual opinion on the matter) is by no means intended to detract from your generally good style and authorship! [[Special:Contributions/82.132.238.56|82.132.238.56]] 21:31, 22 April 2026 (UTC)

== As mentioned above. ==

Could you please {{diff|412563|not do that}}? [[Special:Contributions/81.179.199.253|81.179.199.253]] 20:11, 13 May 2026 (UTC)
:Force of habit I guess. Out of curiosity though, why does everyone get so riled up over the ampersand? It's also a valid way to write 'and', so why does no-one like that? I just want to know. [[User:GSLikesCats307|GSLikesCats307]] 11:04, 14 May 2026 (UTC)
::<abbr title="You can abbreciate things for your text-speak and elite-speak, naturally. But (it)'s not good for well-formed writing and understanding">U cn abrvi8 thngz 4 ur txtspk / 1337-5p34k, natch. Bt s! gd 4 wel4md ⇨ing & ↳st&ing…</abbr>
::There's just no need for the universal use of it in 'normal' grammatical composition. It has some examples of {{w|Ampersand#Usage|acceptable usage}}, which then intentionally stand out as special cases within the text. Speaking from my own experience, using it for every single 'and' disproportionately draws my eye to it, making it look and read more like a "quoted gluing character" than the more flowing conjunction between wider clauses or (top-level) list-items that it ususually should be.
::Just like there are(/there're) times to use other abbreviations, when it is(/it's) useful, and other times when it is not(/it's not/it isn't) that are often useful to give different impressions and stresses to the surrounding text.
::To provide a more practical check, I've just intensely scanned through several books (fiction and non-fiction; including coding manuals) and a number of web-pages (wikipedia pages on various subjects, a rather lengthy blog, a local-government site's pages on planning aplications, the extensive rules and regulations of a sporting organisation... and more) and there is zero 'everyday' use of the ampersand anywhere. (Grammatically-atomic examples such as "Fish & Chips" do exist, as special cases. And the coding book uses it in code snippets, because then it's (part of) a literal operand or other special character.)
::This is just ''my'' opinion, I cannot speak for anyone else who seems to be bothered. But it impedes reading due to the stop-go implications as the text is scanned and parsed. [[Special:Contributions/82.132.212.205|82.132.212.205]] 15:49, 14 May 2026 (UTC)

Talk:3242: Aperiodic Table

2026-05-14T14:45:19Z

82.132.212.205:

And the award for turning the periodic table into Chutes and Ladders goes to... 18:18, 6 May 2026 (UTC)
:I don't see any chutes or ladders (or snakes for that matter), so this looks more like Candyland. [[Special:Contributions/2600:1001:B02D:5F1A:A53B:AB2A:3F1B:CF1D|2600:1001:B02D:5F1A:A53B:AB2A:3F1B:CF1D]] 23:33, 6 May 2026 (UTC)

FIRST! also how has this not been explained? explain it! {{unsigned ip|2605:59c8:22e3:3e14:2583:32c8:f9de:2888|18:31, 6 May 2026}}
:Actually, I was first, I just took a while explaining it. {{unsigned|Teddy|18:46, 6 May 2026}}
:Well, you weren't first, were you. Moved you to chronologically after the actual first comment here. HTH, HAND. [[Special:Contributions/81.179.199.253|81.179.199.253]] 20:26, 6 May 2026 (UTC)

Hey guys, don't forget to sign your comments with 4 tildes. 18:54, 6 May 2026 (UTC)
:Hmm, something seems to be wrong with the signature code. It's putting in the timestamp, but not the username. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 18:55, 6 May 2026 (UTC)
::And now the username is back! [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 18:56, 6 May 2026 (UTC)
:::If you sign with "<nowiki>~~~~~</nowiki>" (''five'' tildes), you get just "20:26, 6 May 2026 (UTC)" (for this edit, note that it is identical to the timestamp this edit's end-signature of four tildes will have given). You/whoever else might have accidentally done that. [[Special:Contributions/81.179.199.253|81.179.199.253]] 20:26, 6 May 2026 (UTC)

The first paragraph currently ends with "and the elements increase in size when reading it left-to-right and top-to-bottom (like a book)." This is incorrect. Actually, they do get larger going down a column, but they get smaller going left to right along a row. This causes a staircase effect. The short explanation is that as you add protons, they pull in the electron cloud more tightly, making the atom smaller, but when you add an electron in a new primary energy level, it's enough larger to overcome the effect of the additional protons resulting in a larger atom. [https://chem.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Introductory_Chemistry/Introductory_Chemistry_(CK-12)/06:_The_Periodic_Table/6.15:_Periodic_Trends-_Atomic_Radius This page] has a more complete explanation. So, should we just remove the claim that the atoms get larger in size? We could make it accurate, but I'm not sure how to phrase it in a way which actually adds to the explanation. [[User:Mootstrap|Mootstrap]] ([[User talk:Mootstrap|talk]]) 20:50, 6 May 2026 (UTC)
:Increase in 'size' is differently interpretable. The atomic number itself increases. The typical nucleon count/atomic weight (''almost'' identically) tends to rise (give or take choice of isotopic variation), and the nucleus itself will therefore be larger by the same degree (if not slightly more, for the same reason as the electron shells/orbitals get pulled inwards a bit for any given model) if that's something that you care to measure.
:Maybe just a different word, to replace the ambiguous "size". Although I'm also personally not enamoured of the "like a book" bit, which seems to be trying to just say that the table ''isn't'' unusually ordered, like it potentially could have been (e.g. a bottom-up version). [[Special:Contributions/81.179.199.253|81.179.199.253]] 21:16, 6 May 2026 (UTC)

The "they don't have enough enrichment in their enclosures" is a suggestion that scientists are being treated as zoo animals, and unless they have enough toys to play with they start coming up with strange concepts. -- [[User:Dtgriscom|Dtgriscom]] ([[User talk:Dtgriscom|talk]]) 21:00, 6 May 2026 (UTC)

It should be noted that element 81 in the table is incorrectly labeled “Ti” (as in titanium) instead of “Tl” (Thallium) [[User:Vekkizunt|Vekkizunt]] ([[User talk:Vekkizunt|talk]]) 21:11, 6 May 2026 (UTC)
:Strange that Name Explain had a YouTube video recently, where he made the same error. [[User:SDSpivey|SDSpivey]] ([[User talk:SDSpivey|talk]]) 21:21, 6 May 2026 (UTC)
::The colors are also peculiar to me, in particular, why is hydrogen colored as an alkali metal, or bismuth colored as a metalloid? [[User:Vekkizunt|Vekkizunt]] ([[User talk:Vekkizunt|talk]]) 21:51, 6 May 2026 (UTC)
:::Hydrogen is generally placed as "Group 1", as per the actual Alkali Metals. Unless you 'float' Hydrogen (and sometimes even Helium, not actually above Group 18) as entirely apart from the rest of the table, there's no better placement than above the left-(and right-)most column.
:::Metaloid classification is... fuzzy. Bismith ''is'' metaloid, for some listings/tables, as well as others just off the 'main sequence' diagonal. Or it's one of the other metalloid-like subset demarcations that float around the potentially rather variably-defined metal/non-metal demarcation line. [[Special:Contributions/81.179.199.253|81.179.199.253]] 22:16, 6 May 2026 (UTC)

It's... not a table though? So wouldn't it be the Aperiodic Non-Table of the elements? {{unsigned ip|198.27.229.162|16:53, 7 May 2026 (UTC)}}
:Aperiodic Snake of the Elements 🐍 [[User:PotatoGod|PotatoGod]] ([[User talk:PotatoGod|talk]]) 17:13, 7 May 2026 (UTC)

Am I the only one who started reading all the elements with the Animaniacs 'Yakko's World' song music running through their head? 22:23, 7 May 2026 (UTC)
:You aren't the only one. Someone should do this on youtube.[[User:RG|RG]] ([[User talk:RG|talk]]) 00:25, 14 May 2026 (UTC)

By inventing an alternative periodic table layout in this comic, Randall is telling us *HE* doesn't have enough enrichment in his enclosure. Could someone please go enrich his enclosure ASAP? [[User:Martin|Martin]] ([[User talk:Martin|talk]]) 22:35, 7 May 2026 (UTC)
:Webcomic artists are a dying species, this is a serious issue, someone notify the Wildlife service. [[User:RG|RG]] ([[User talk:RG|talk]]) 03:20, 14 May 2026 (UTC)
::So... I take it you've got some ideas about a Captive Breeding Program? ;) [[Special:Contributions/82.132.212.205|82.132.212.205]] 14:45, 14 May 2026 (UTC)

I actually disagree with the last sentence of the explanation. This comic is about the genius of the invention of the periodic table. Initially all scientist had was something like it is depicted above, but with some repetition in the properties of the elements (here colors), but not in regular intervals, but in increasing ones, and with holes. The periodic table made sense out of it. --[[Special:Contributions/2001:4091:A245:85A4:B3F7:458A:62CB:C68D|2001:4091:A245:85A4:B3F7:458A:62CB:C68D]] 05:57, 8 May 2026 (UTC)

May also be a nod to how some paths in some games where they are relevant are randomly chosen. [[Special:Contributions/2001:4C4E:1C0F:2600:1507:76:E696:AF71|2001:4C4E:1C0F:2600:1507:76:E696:AF71]] 13:33, 8 May 2026 (UTC)

Has anyone noticed it ended in "cul-de-sac", without any easy way to add more elements? [[User:SDSpivey|SDSpivey]] ([[User talk:SDSpivey|talk]]) 17:06, 8 May 2026 (UTC)
:Clearly, the creator of ''this'' periodic table knows something that no other creator of a periodic table knows... There ''are'' no other elements possible, despite what 'normal' theoretical physics says... ;) [[Special:Contributions/81.179.199.253|81.179.199.253]] 19:59, 8 May 2026 (UTC)

The "periodic" table is not periodic according to the mathematical definition, since the repetition interval changes.[[Special:Contributions/76.180.39.133|76.180.39.133]] 01:54, 9 May 2026 (UTC)

3230: Overton

2026-05-14T14:40:17Z

82.132.212.205: /* Explanation */ Correctly punctuated, again. (Too many CNs for one article, IMO, but that's another issue.)

{{comic
| number = 3230
| date = April 8, 2026
| title = Overton
| image = overton_2x.png
| imagesize = 242x268px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = I think I accidentally installed an Overton window in my bedroom. A few months ago, the sun wasn't in my face in the morning, but now it is.
}}

==Explanation==
{{w|Joseph Paul Overton}} was a political scientist who created the concept of the {{w|Overton window}}, which is the range of subjects that are politically appropriate to raise during a period of time. The first set of dates, 1960 and 2003, are the years that Overton was born and died.

It is common for political commentators to state that the Overton window has "moved," meaning that the standard for which political positions are "moderate" or "extreme" has changed. In the comic, the "Overton window" refers to the time span in which Joseph Paul Overton was alive. The dates on Overton's grave have been repeatedly crossed out and replaced as this 'window' has moved. This creates the ridiculous implication that Overton was living at least four overlapping lives, or that history has repeatedly changed so that the dates of his life shifted, either of which is impossible.{{cn}} Alternatively, it could reflect changes in the frame of reference the keepers of the grave are using to date events.

Notably, the gravestone doesn't have an updated death year, implying that Overton actually came back from the dead the last time the window updated, and is still alive to this day, which is untrue.{{cn}}

In the title text, the speaker notices that the sunlight is now being let in earlier in the morning, and attributes this to it coming through an "Overton window" that can physically move. This is unlikely, since the Overton window is an abstract concept, not an architectural feature, and sunlight is not generally influenced by social attitudes.{{cn}} It is more likely that the phenomenon is due to the seasonal movement of the Sun in the sky, where its apparent path across the sky moves further north or south between the {{w|summer solstice}} (highest arc) and {{w|winter solstice}} (lowest arc), changing the place it falls at a given time of day, and therefore its angle of entry through any given window. This shift is caused by the Earth's tilt relative to its orbit. The Sun's position at a certain clock time may also be perceived to change suddenly due to the beginning or end of {{w|daylight saving time}}, as occurred in most US states and many other countries shortly before this comic was published. (This is an issue that Randall has covered [[:Category:Daylight saving time|multiple times]], although apparently ''not'' (unless this is a subtle reference) this year.)

==Transcript==
:[A gravestone is shown on some grass. On the inscription, all of the years except the last one are crossed out in red, and all except the first pair of years have the years themselves in red. The inscription is as follows:]
:Joseph Paul Overton
:<s>1960</s> - <s>2003</s>
:<s>1965</s> - <s>2011</s>
:<s>1973</s> - <s>2018</s>
:1982 -

{{comic discussion}}<noinclude>
[[Category:Politics]]
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Comics with red annotations]]