explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Talk:3250: Flag Design

2026-06-02T17:42:05Z

82.132.239.195: I'm not sure if I'm missing the 'meta', seems like just the traditional site humour, to me. But... Meh. All I'm.bothered about is the signing, here.

Could there possibly be a reference to New Zealand’s laser kiwi flag? [[Special:Contributions/2A02:6B6F:E226:B00:2D7E:D360:EEA6:2104|2A02:6B6F:E226:B00:2D7E:D360:EEA6:2104]] 22:01, 25 May 2026 (UTC)

Oooh, I like a good Flag comic. Not been one for a while, and I used to use one of them as my xkcd fora avatar. [[Special:Contributions/81.179.199.253|81.179.199.253]] 22:09, 25 May 2026 (UTC)

what is that animal [[User:Mathmaster|Mathmaster]] ([[User talk:Mathmaster|talk]]) 22:22, 25 May 2026 (UTC)

The inner flag doesn't have its own inner flag... [[User:AoPS is superior|AoPS is superior]] ([[User talk:AoPS is superior|talk]]) 22:43, 25 May 2026 (UTC)
:Which suggests to me is that ''this'' flag is of one nation/entity that incorporates the national flag of another nation (often done... see Hawaii's flag). It only says "National flag" (which, as it happens, has many identical features, just not all), rather than "''this''' nation's national flag", so it needn's necessarily be "The People's Republic of Drosteland" being totally self-referential through infinite recursion. [[Special:Contributions/81.179.199.253|81.179.199.253]] 23:38, 25 May 2026 (UTC)
:Was I the only one who was disappointed that the inner flag doesn’t have ''different'' strips torn off than the outer flag? [[User:Dúthomhas|Dúthomhas]] ([[User talk:Dúthomhas|talk]]) 16:25, 26 May 2026 (UTC)
:It's just someone who took the [[878|second rule of model train layouts]] seriously. --[[Special:Contributions/2001:A62:5C9:AC01:C7BE:4061:F033:C5C7|2001:A62:5C9:AC01:C7BE:4061:F033:C5C7]] 18:38, 26 May 2026 (UTC)

Isn't the "tribute to topology" a half-turn to make the flag one-sided (Möbius strip)? [[Special:Contributions/130.216.50.126|130.216.50.126]] 00:54, 26 May 2026 (UTC)

Wifi transmitter? it looks liek the contactless icon for cards so i was thinking it'd at least work in that NFC-adjacent way, which needs no power source. [[Special:Contributions/193.61.208.1|193.61.208.1]] 00:56, 26 May 2026 (UTC)

The state flags of Costa Rica, Colombia, and Haiti, and the national flags of El Salvador and Ecuador have themselves on the flag, via the state seals [[Special:Contributions/104.58.95.236|104.58.95.236]] 01:27, 26 May 2026 (UTC)
: Also Bolivia, Dominican Republic, and Venezuela [[User:AdmiralMemo|Admiral Memo]] ([[User talk:AdmiralMemo|talk]])

I think the customize option doesn't refer to customizing the flag itself, but customizing privacy options for the data it collects. It is similar to the options shown on a website when it asks about using cookies. [[User:An architect|An Architect]] ([[User talk:An architect|talk]]) 02:24, 26 May 2026 (UTC)

Is 'beige background' a reference to the 'color of the universe' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_latte ? That struck me especially given the mention of stars [[Special:Contributions/202.80.150.54|202.80.150.54]] 02:56, 26 May 2026 (UTC)

Why is one of the little tear off tabs missing the full phone number? [[Special:Contributions/2401:D005:D402:7A00:A657:9BBB:CD:EF55|2401:D005:D402:7A00:A657:9BBB:CD:EF55]] 03:57, 26 May 2026 (UTC)
: It's a citizenship test - if you take that one, we don't want you. [[Special:Contributions/82.13.184.33|82.13.184.33]] 15:32, 26 May 2026 (UTC)

"Customize" does not mean "changing the colour/design of the flag". It is one of the two most common buttons in GDPR (supposedly-) compliant cookie warnings, which allows you to access a very long list of uses to manually give consent to, as well as a link to access a very long list of data vendors to also tweak who you do not mind getting your data. --[[Special:Contributions/94.73.49.13|94.73.49.13]]

Could the rounded corners be a reference to this? https://www.androidpolice.com/2012/05/04/the-samsung-galaxy-s-iii-the-first-smartphone-designed-entirely-by-lawyers/

Can anyone add an explaination of "Every place has a local cryptid"? --[[Special:Contributions/85.159.196.177|85.159.196.177]] 10:49, 26 May 2026 (UTC)
: Well it's something of an exaggeration, but certainly {{w|List_of_cryptids#List|''many'' places do have a cryptid.}} If you allow mythological/folkloric beasts that might once have been considered cryptids (albeit the word itself might not have been coined), then there are many more, many of which do appear on flags. Randall is suggesting that they're so commonplace that they're less interesting than ''real'' animals that we can't identify the representations of. Perhaps even to the extent of advocating that such cases should be deliberately created. [[Special:Contributions/82.13.184.33|82.13.184.33]] 15:11, 26 May 2026 (UTC)

The Best National Flag Ever! would be gold plated, and carry the name and image of the current Monarch. Don't be surprised if one is adopted somewhere between now and 2029. [[User:These Are Not The Comments You Are Looking For|These Are Not The Comments You Are Looking For]] ([[User talk:These Are Not The Comments You Are Looking For|talk]]) 15:40, 31 May 2026 (UTC)

The flag of Ukraine has its own in there infinite times in infinite locations and sizes along the centre line {{unsigned ip|115.70.50.83|10:51, 26 May 2026 (UTC)}}

Perhaps the Chromaticity Diagram is meant to render the flag impossible to make. Any pigment used to produce the flag will occupy a point on the diagram, and only points within a polygon defined by those pigments' vertexes could be accurately reproduced by mixing. So the edges would be approximations of the representative colors, making the diagram not "true." {{unsigned ip|2600:387:c:6e14::1|14:48, 26 May 2026 (UTC)}}

"Text on flags is considered bad" - weeeell.... Flags with text are not particularly usual in the "pure symbology" variation of vexilology, given that easy (and potentially illiterate) recognition/reproduction is one thing for which flags were developed (as opposed to, for example, modern day placards with a 'message' of some kind, decorated/illustrated or otherwise). But if the flag contains a full 'coat of arms' in its design then it likely (along with the heraldic 'supporters') has the "motto ribbon" with text set upon it, at its most thorough rendering. The four trigrams on the S. Korean flag might be considered 'text' to some, and there are other flags of the region that contain local glyphs. A number of Islamic country flags have actual arabic text featured on them (yes, to some, such a flag ''might'' be considered "bad", but for different reasons). The "Don't step on me" snake-flag also (and, again, some might consider its use bad, but only because they consider its ''users'' to typically be 'bad', politically-speaking, and it's getting to be more a 'banner' than a flag, anyway). I don't expect that original bald statement to last much longer, but I'm not sure how much I could do to improve it. Making the flag (apparently) interactive seems to be the big issue, IMO, adding label and button widgets (dynamic or otherwise) ''and'' for GDPR-like purposes is the thing. Text, or any kind of more complex glyph, probably should be avoided in a properly designed symbolic flag, but that doesn't mean that one cannot have a flag with (say) "15th <MY TOWN> Cub Scouts" written around/beneath the scouting symbol as a parading banner, alongside the Union Flag which lacks text but has (if anything) stricter positioning of its various more simple coloured swathes and field in order to be correct (and not perhaps even upside-down). [[Special:Contributions/82.132.231.190|82.132.231.190]] 16:37, 26 May 2026 (UTC)

The island looks like Guernsey/ [[Special:Contributions/86.146.156.232|86.146.156.232]] 07:43, 27 May 2026 (UTC)

I dare say the "generic island" concept refers to the European currency "Euro". When the bills were designed, there were supposed to be pictures of European bridges on them, but the commitee could not agree on which specific bridges to choose (the discussion probably going somewhat like "But your Zapatonian bridges are ugly, let's take our famous "Bridge of the 30th February!"). In the end, they put generic drawings of fictitious bridges on them. Because, you know, that's how emotional bonding works. --[[Special:Contributions/2A02:8108:4C96:9700:14A2:B1A0:4439:D1|2A02:8108:4C96:9700:14A2:B1A0:4439:D1]] 08:09, 27 May 2026 (UTC)
: Not quite true. They were always meant to be generic representations of architectural styles* - there was no disagreement over real bridges to be included. The designer was later found to have based the winning designs on actual bridges, so these were then amended to 'genericise' them.
:(* It ''is'' true that this theme was chosen to avoid potentially contentious things like historical figures which had typically appeared on pre-euro banknotes.) [[Special:Contributions/82.13.184.33|82.13.184.33]] 08:39, 27 May 2026 (UTC)

This is in stark contrast with the design here, where the flag might get more and more tattered with time by design.
Fringing a flag can actually increase its resistance to wind damage (though making it out of tearable material probably isn't going to help). [[Special:Contributions/82.13.184.33|82.13.184.33]] 08:43, 27 May 2026 (UTC)

The flag in here does not contain itself recursively. I think that this is caused by the flag previusly not having it and then the new flag having the previus flag, meaning that every generation of flag will have one more level of recursion.
[[User:Velocifyer|Velocifyer]] ([[User talk:Velocifyer|talk]]) 16:25, 28 May 2026 (UTC)

I think that the dull colours tan, beige and white are even more difficult to distinguish on a flag. Remember that flags are flown outside, where they are bleached by the sun. This bleaching would quickly make the stars very difficult to make out from the background.
[[Special:Contributions/212.10.121.77|212.10.121.77]] 19:38, 29 May 2026 (UTC)

As of today (2024-06-02), there's an alert box stating "This is one of 44 incomplete explanations: This page was created by a recursive flag. Don't remove this notice too soon. If you can fix this issue, edit the page!". Accidental meta irony, I love it! {{unsigned ip|2601:18f:102:b2d0:c10:3f18:e53:1f98|17:13, 2 June 2026}}

Talk:3252: Ancestral Genomes

2026-06-02T15:43:10Z

82.132.239.195:

I'm expecting some reference to the revelation of Neandthalic/etc genes in various branches of our own population, along the way, but shall leave the actual writing to others. [[Special:Contributions/81.179.199.253|81.179.199.253]] 18:15, 29 May 2026 (UTC)
Sexis canon again! [[User:CalibansCreations|'''Caliban''']] ([[User talk:CalibansCreations|talk]]) 18:31, 29 May 2026 (UTC)

This comic is an interesting contribution to discussion about how science and the public handle privacy issues. For instance a museums finds it okay to display a dead body [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ötzi] just because he died a very long time ago. --[[Special:Contributions/2001:4091:A241:81DC:350B:874D:E1AA:9FEE|2001:4091:A241:81DC:350B:874D:E1AA:9FEE]] 13:46, 30 May 2026 (UTC)
: We need more details about Ötzi to better understand how he is related to us. For example, did he play the Steirische Ziehharmonika, and if not, how did he fail to learn it? Was he killed because of Harmonikamusikhass--someone hated accordions and did not want them to perpetuate? His display in a museum would be much more exciting and appropriate with those details. [[Special:Contributions/173.188.194.118|173.188.194.118]] 15:18, 30 May 2026 (UTC)
:: Ötzi probably predates the Steirische Ziehharmonika, unless someone used their time machine to fix the temporal ordering requirements. --[[Special:Contributions/2A10:D586:3E93:0:907B:6DDD:C33E:4855|2A10:D586:3E93:0:907B:6DDD:C33E:4855]] 07:52, 31 May 2026 (UTC)

see also [[2268]] [[User:Treeplate|Treeplate]] ([[User talk:Treeplate|talk]]) 15:19, 30 May 2026 (UTC)

*This strip reminds me of [[830: Genetic Analysis]], where counselor Megan tells Cueball, "... we've analyzed genes on several of your chromosomes, and it's hard to avoid the conclusion: at some point, your parents had sex." --[[Special:Contributions/208.59.176.206|208.59.176.206]] 19:16, 30 May 2026 (UTC)

Think about how uncomfortable it is to think about your grandparents having sex. It's exponentially worse with your great-great-great-great-great-great-etc-grandparents. [[User:RegularSizedGuy|RegularSizedGuy]] ([[User talk:RegularSizedGuy|talk]]) 14:34, 31 May 2026 (UTC)
:I disagree. I never met my great-great-great-great-great-great-grandparents, and I don't even know what their names were or what they looked like. So I have no specific image of them with which to be discomforted by the idea of them having sex. It may be ''somewhat'' uncomfortable to think about them having sex, but considerably ''less'' uncomfortable than thinking about my grandparents having sex. --[[Special:Contributions/208.59.176.206|208.59.176.206]] 05:53, 1 June 2026 (UTC)
::One most likely has 256 great-great-great-great-great-great-grandparents (a number Randall might appreciate btw). When put in a room, one would have to realize they all had sex together (most likely in pairs), which might feel slightly uncomfortable as a thought.[[User:SubtrEM|SubtrEM]] ([[User talk:SubtrEM|talk]]) 08:11, 2 June 2026 (UTC)
:::''At most'' 256 biological great⁶-grandparents (plus possibly some extra ''de jure''/''de facto'' ones, step-relations, etc).
:::It's distinctly probable that some of those 256 are the same people as 'others' of those 256. Also, over those few generations, some of them may (on different branches!) also be members of the 512-group and/or 128-group great⁷s- and great⁵s-, if not beyond.
:::Case in point: I am roughly the age of several of my first-cousins' children. My grandparents' other grandchildren started having their own offspring only a year or two after one of their younger children 'finally' became one of my parents. At least two of my cousins-once-removed have had children of their own, and not even even uncommonly precipitously such that it might be remarked upon! I'm not ''yet'' too unusually old to be a parent myself (though I won't comment on how much preparation I've made, to fulfil that possibility), and yet my offspring would be younger than some of their second-cousins-twice-removed, if I've not messed up the counting there. With eight of 'my' more slow-burning generations, if that continues, who knows what distant cousin-removed relationship might appear in the greatⁿ-level ancestries of some hypothetical common descendent of both my parent's sub-tree and that of one of their siblings', just by chance.
:::Going back, from me, to my own great⁶th ancestry, I wouldn't need to go even half way back to find the marriages being between residents of the same (large) village, who might well have been nth-cousins (with or without 'removed's). My paternal lineage isn't even obvious as there were two possible couples of the ''same'' names (first names and the married name, but having differing maiden-names for the wife) who married about a year apart and a year or two before my earliest definite ancestor. Unless the husband was the same person (records are sketchy enough to not be definite, so he could have prefered a particular woman's name when on the rebound from a bereavement or other marital issue), the two husbands were likely Nth-cousins through their paternal lineage alone (the surname itself arrived in that general area maybe 100-150 years before, from another area about 100 miles away). And that's just official and patronimic information the female branches and the ''genetic'' reality of my ancestry is nearly impossible to be as certain about.
:::Even without invoking any awkward in-breeding, or intergenerational age-imbalances, an accurate list of every individual who is my genuine great⁶-grandparent is likely to feature fewer than the full compliment of 256 unique individuals (and few people could say for sure that it does, for their own case, though its easier ''these days'' to marry people from far further wfield that ''might'' add more diversity of background — I've seen my own contemporaneous cousins marrying people from several different continents, something their parents were unlikely to have had the opportunity to do, even after my branch of the family moved ''another'' 100-odd miles to the general sub-region that I have always considered 'home'). And the sum total of all individuals who are part of the tree-of-ancestry from that level all the way down to myself is likely also going to be less than the nominal 511, even if it ''was'' somehow the full 256 exclusively at that particular generational remove.
:::As to whether I imagine any of them having sex... Not really, but then it's also unlikely that I'd (even hypothetically) feature in their thoughts whilst they were having sex, also. Though who knows what kinks such long-dead people might once have had, suitable for our retrospective views on the society of that age or not. There could have been some right ravers/proto-swingers in my progenitor-list, for all I know, and ae long as it was sufficiently consenting, all round, I say "all power to them" for it. [[Special:Contributions/82.132.239.195|82.132.239.195]] 15:43, 2 June 2026 (UTC)

While I agree that, in general, the public doesn’t respect the privacy of people who died a long time ago, I think it should be pointed out that this is a real ethical discussion in history and in social sciences more generally. Ethnic studies has really broached the subject of what sources should be available to us, the importance of respecting the people/cultures behind those sources, etc. and historians have been taking note. Ari Kelman’s book Misplaced Massacre is a good example. I think saying that at a certain point privacy is just left to history is a bit reductive.
[[User:Salsmachev|Salsmachev]] ([[User talk:Salsmachev|talk]]) 15:30, 31 May 2026 (UTC)

I'd just like to note that the diagram as shown could either be one of descendency or ancestry.
*Descendency: from a single common ancestor at the top, it tracks known descendents chronologically downwards until the modern day extended family whose genomes may have been sampled to back-derive the separate paths down which various genetic variations from the original presumed common heritage found their way (presumably mostly added in by partners of the intermediate descendents). Dotted lines may indicate tentative 'non-maritable' genetic links across branches ("uncle Bob was always nearby, ready to help mother out while my father was away"). There's quite a few modern-day descendents. But, realistically, any ancestor far enough back who ''has'' extant descendents is likely to have many (i.e. the "X% of the world's population is directly descended from Genghis Kahn”, or whoever, but the same could probably be said of various anonymous others from that time, if only we knew who they were), so long as all their branches haven't all died out.
*Ancestry: Top node is the single present target individual, each layer down is the parents of the layer above, with some (but limited) information about the most immediate layers. The clumped lines at the bottom is where it turns into more generalist assumptions starting to be more based upon official records and even regionality/ethnicity assumptions. (Again, dotted lines indicate possible 'unofficial gene-sharing'.)
...I would lean towards the latter, given that most nodes that have decinite and distinct 'feeder lines' from below have exactly two of them. Everyone{{Citation needed}} has two parents, one way or another. For the other, you'd have to assume a lot of consistent two-child families as the overwhelming norm, in a part of the diagram leading back in a time where Family Planning was (at best) more like making good practical use around the home/farm/factory of as many of the numerous children you had that hadn't already succumbed to one of the copious childhood illnesses/accidents. (Or, if a more priveleged family tree, some rather deliberate sticking to the "an heir, and a spare" philosophy, though even that would have been hit-and-miss and you'd still expect to see intergenerational and intragenerational variations.)
 The more Doylist explanation is that it's just a scribbled diagram by Randall, and whichever archetype of figure he might have taken inspiration from, in an actual Ancestry/Descendency study, he just went for the general look. But it doesn't stop me pondering the in-universe/Watsonian facts deep behind the festuted scenario, however unnecesary it might be to try to understand (and then explain) in order to appreciate the comic's more deliberate punchline(s). But I still wished to share my ponderings on the matter. [[Special:Contributions/82.132.238.174|82.132.238.174]] 13:37, 1 June 2026 (UTC)

3253: Sunbeam

2026-06-02T10:52:47Z

82.132.239.195: /* Explanation */ Hedge the bets regarding *solar* hemisphere, and as best answer the questions asked about the comic location as I reasonably can. (Noting 'complaints' about over-verbosity, recently. But someone wants to know, so what else can I do?)

{{comic
| number = 3253
| date = June 1, 2026
| title = Sunbeam
| image = sunbeam_2x.png
| imagesize = 398x347px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = While weather control is typically thought of as a superpower, the unconscious ability of astronomers and astrophotographers to summon clouds is more properly classified as a curse.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|This page was created BY A TABLE SOON TO BE LIT BY THE SUN. Don't remove this notice too soon.}}

{{w|Astrophotography}} is the act of taking pictures of very distant objects. Common subjects of astrophotography include celestial bodies like planets and moons of the solar system, faraway galaxies, nebulae, spacecraft, or even {{w|Hubble Deep Field|empty patches of the sky}}.

In order to take such photos, one needs to know where these objects are in the sky. One major problem faced by Earth-based astrophotographers (most of them) is the fact that the Earth rotates. As the Earth rotates, it creates the illusion that the celestial objects being photographed are rotating through the night sky. Therefore, in order to get clear pictures of their subjects, astrophotographers must develop a strong understanding of how objects like a galaxy or the sun move through the sky, so that their cameras can compensate for this rotation and produce clear pictures.

This understanding of how objects move through the sky due to the Earth's rotation is the minor superpower referred to in the comic. As the sun is an example of an object in the sky, the intuition of astrophotographers allows them to predict where the sun will be in the future, and by extension, where the light flooding in through the window will be in the future. With this knowledge, Cueball, who assumingly has this minor superpower, can advise his friends to sit at the far table to avoid the light from the window hitting them. Though normally extra light may be considered desirable, such direct sunlight in this case would probably be considered problematic as there may be excessive heat and/or light. By contrast, the table currently beyond the beams of sunlight would be a perfectly acceptable place to sit and would remain so.

This ability is called a minor superpower because it's honestly not impactful. Regular people can often easily determine where the sun will fall through a window, making the claim of that being a 'superpower' questionable at best. And it's often useless, e.g., preventing people from being in a bad spot for their meal ostensibly because of sunlight usually has little bearing on how much they enjoy the meal. On the other hand, many people need to work in the shade for a plethora of good reasons, and some people occasionally need to work in sunlight. People who need to modulate the sunlight falling into their space, e.g. through large windows, often learn what times to adjust their blinds in a couple or three days at most.

This comic takes place north of the Sun's current ground-track (i.e. the line through the tropics which experience the Sun being directly overhead on any given day of the year, which changes over the course of the year due to the axial tilt of the Earth). In both hemispheres, the Sun can be found rising in the east in the morning, at its highest at around midday (exactly at true local midday, but must be adjusted for timezone issues such as the [[1799: Bad Map Projection: Time Zones|offset from the nominal local datum]] and [[:Category:Daylight saving time|DST]] effects), then setting in the west in the evening. (At least until you get close enough to the poles to experience no, or barely any, day or night according to the time of year.) Therefore, typically in the subtropical and temperate latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere, a shadow (and, by being framed by shadows, the light flooding in through windows) moves in a clockwise direction, from westerly, then north, then easterly. Similarly, shadows in the Southern Hemisphere move counter-clockwise, from a western direction, via south, eventually towards east. The light from the window in the comic is predicted to move from the center to the left, a clockwise rotation, consistent with the comic being set in the Northern Hemisphere, especially as this comic has been released almost in the middle of the time of the year where this scenario happens only to places north of the equator.

(The declinated angle of the Sun through the window is hard to measure, and without even knowing the time of day we cannot hope to further narrow down the true latitude of the l9cation and which direction the window faces. Although it is typical that, in temperate northern latitudes, major windows like the one shown are set to face as close to south as the orientation of buildings/rooms allow, to make the best use of daylight — particularly in the winter months. It is also a not unreasonable assumption that this meeting (or perhaps a meal) is occuring not long before/after noon, or even during it, with the Sun then approaching its zenith. Overall, it would be possible to see something very like this scene play out for [[Randall]] in his current home location, of around 42°N, at this time of year.)

The title text talks about another minor "superpower", that astrophotographers have, which makes clouds always seem to show up in front of the night sky. Because this "ability" is actually just coincidence,{{Citation needed}} that only appears causal to some, as well as that it interferes with their work, by ruining their photos, the title text more accurately classifies it as {{tvtropes|BlessedWithSuck|a curse}}, which is why the rest of the comic describes astrophotographers having only one "actual" superpower.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Don't remove this notice too soon.}}
:[Cueball, Megan, and White Hat are in a large dark room, presumably a restaurant, with two tables and a large window, with 4 panels and a topsection. The window is casting a large sunbeam between the two tables.]
:Cueball: Let's take the far table.
:Cueball: The closer one will be in the sun soon.
:[Caption below the panel:]
:Astrophotography gives you exactly one extremely minor superpower.
{{comic discussion}}<noinclude>

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:Photography]]

Talk:3253: Sunbeam

2026-06-02T10:03:44Z

82.132.239.195:

did the transcript, but the explanation seems a bit daunting [[User:GreyFox|GreyFox]] ([[User talk:GreyFox|talk]]) 15:32, 1 June 2026 (UTC)
: You beat me to the punch! Very fast editing. And I agree, the explanation seems a little too out of reach for my knowledge base. Most likely explanation is that Astrophotography requires the knowledge of how the sun moves in relative to the Earth to take good photos, but that's just my guess. [[Special:Contributions/66.154.219.128|66.154.219.128]] 15:35, 1 June 2026 (UTC)
:: yeah, i tried to be fast; thanks for fixing the caption for me btw. searching astrophotography on wikipedia didnt really help much; lets wait for another more <s>nerdy</s> experienced user to get that done [[User:GreyFox|GreyFox]] ([[User talk:GreyFox|talk]]) 15:48, 1 June 2026 (UTC)
::: No problem. [[Special:Contributions/66.154.219.128|66.154.219.128]] 16:11, 1 June 2026 (UTC)

Can we deduce that the comic takes place in the northern hemisphere? {{unsigned|184.174.152.128|15:35, 1 June 2026}}
: That was my surface-level interpretation too, that this must be a Southern-facing window in the Northern hemisphere, since the East-West axis (the line that the light will travel along) is roughly parallel to the wall, and the light will pivot to the East (left) as the Sun moves West? [[User:SomeDee|SomeDee]] ([[User talk:SomeDee|talk]]) 15:52, 1 June 2026 (UTC)
:: Either that, or Cueball is wrong: on the southern hemisphere the sun still "moves" from east to west, but north of the observer. If this was the southern hemisphere, the sun beam would thus move towards the far table. [[Special:Contributions/2001:67C:2564:AB0C:1C57:EB42:6C3F:FD47|2001:67C:2564:AB0C:1C57:EB42:6C3F:FD47]] 16:02, 1 June 2026 (UTC)
::Could someone create a function which shows at which latitudes this scene could happen at which time of the day on which dates based on what we estimate the solar elevation angle shown to be. (Also assuming that Cueball is right)? Please? [[Special:Contributions/195.65.24.115|195.65.24.115]] 06:18, 2 June 2026 (UTC)

:: Barring reflections or other less-common situations, the window must indeed be in the northern hemisphere for Cueball to be correct. The window need not face directly south (unless the scene takes place precisely at the north pole). If it's at a sufficiently-high north latitude (e.g. that of the Boston area) the wall could face west or east and the nearer table could still get some sun a bit later. [[Special:Contributions/75.164.137.175|75.164.137.175]] 00:59, 2 June 2026 (UTC)

Yes, when I was in the southern hemisphere all my sense of where the Sun and stars should be moving to was totally off.
: Same, when I went to the Northern Hemisphere I was caught out when all the shadows started moving in the wrong direction [[User:MrCandela2|MrCandela2]] ([[User talk:MrCandela2|talk]]) 01:01, 2 June 2026 (UTC)

The sun could be reflecting off a nearby building, which would mess things up a bit. [[Special:Contributions/64.201.132.210|64.201.132.210]] 16:17, 1 June 2026 (UTC)
:Judging by the style of window, this is most likely near an older part of town or a more suburban area, where there are very few skyscrapers with reflective windows and a lot of wood and brick and mortar buildings, so I think that this is unlikely. [[Special:Contributions/66.154.219.128|66.154.219.128]] 16:31, 1 June 2026 (UTC)
::I was getting that old-downtown-church-vibe, which could easily be near a glass-plated skyscraper. [[Special:Contributions/64.201.132.210|64.201.132.210]] 20:23, 1 June 2026 (UTC)

Hang on, Randall got this wrong. Astrophotography (as defined by the Wikipedia page, the link is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astrophotography) is the act of taking pictures of the night sky... where there is no sun. An error on his part? [[Special:Contributions/66.154.219.128|66.154.219.128]] 16:21, 1 June 2026 (UTC)
: No, there's a transferrable skill between learning and predicting the movement of galaxies in the sky and predicting the movement of the sun in the sky. [[User:MrCandela2|MrCandela2]] ([[User talk:MrCandela2|talk]]) 01:01, 2 June 2026 (UTC)

Based on the title text, I'm guessing the joke is that because he said there will be sun, there will instead be clouds. His superpower is presumably summoning clouds. [[Special:Contributions/2607:FB91:17EC:E4FE:AD3:E858:6B10:E3E1|2607:FB91:17EC:E4FE:AD3:E858:6B10:E3E1]] 16:31, 1 June 2026 (UTC)

Wanted to say that you also learn how the sun moves as an astrophotographer, lots of planetary photography can happen during the day (Venus Mercury, strategic sun blocking) and need to take it into account, and there's also taking pictures of the sun with solar filters. So my interpretation of the joke was just genuinely pointing out the mini superpower of intuiting sun movement, rather than a joke about day versus night. [[Special:Contributions/142.114.245.145|142.114.245.145]] 16:36, 1 June 2026 (UTC)
: Hm, good point. Add that to the explanation if you can, I'm running out of the magic smoke that lets me edit pages. (motivation) [[Special:Contributions/66.154.219.128|66.154.219.128]] 16:38, 1 June 2026 (UTC)

I think the point is that someone who does astrophotography is intimately familiar with the motion of objects in the sky due to the rotation of the Earth, the sun is one such object that is visible during the day. Predicting its motion in the sky, due to the earth's rotation allows for the prediction of which table to sit at. The superpower is this predictive ability, which is normally not useful for all that much in modern life.

I don't think Randall messed this up. For example, the zodiac is defined as the Sun's path through the stars, even though the stars and the sun are not visible at the same time. Knowledge of how things move in the night sky is very related to how the Sun moves during the day.

To my mind, this comic is more closely related to the inherent calculations from within [[2463: Astrophotography]] (with the name of it being not a coincidence) than merely being good at photographing nebulae/etc. [[Special:Contributions/81.179.199.253|81.179.199.253]] 19:51, 1 June 2026 (UTC)

FWIW you don't need no Astrophotography to predict the sunny table. I see it on my dogs as they lay on the floor after lunch. --[[User:PRR|PRR]] ([[User talk:PRR|talk]]) 20:26, 1 June 2026 (UTC)
:Conclusion: your dogs know about astrophotography ;-) [[User:Martin|Martin]] ([[User talk:Martin|talk]]) 01:28, 2 June 2026 (UTC)

Is there something about the illustration that makes it clear which direction the sun is going to move? Or does the speaker in the comic require additional external knowledge about which direction the window is facing? -- [[Special:Contributions/108.18.36.182|108.18.36.182]] 22:21, 1 June 2026 (UTC)

:They only need to know that the sun travels east to west in the sky, and the approximate orientation of the window. (Without regard to the hemisphere or season; in re [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=3253:_Sunbeam&diff=414125&oldid=414124].) [[Special:Contributions/2601:642:4C00:7984:B516:F866:A46E:3715|2601:642:4C00:7984:B516:F866:A46E:3715]] 00:10, 2 June 2026 (UTC)

If I'm not mistaken, the direction of the sun relative to the movement is not perfectly predicted by the hemisphere, but by the one of the two following possibilities: 1. the scene is north of the tropic of cancer, or 2. the person is north of the tropic of capricorn and south of the tropic of cancer at the time of year when the sun passes to their south. Note that if you stand just south of the equator during the northern hemisphere winter, the sun passes to the south, and thus, the scene would work in the southern hemispere. Equally,if you stand just north of the equator during the northern hemisphere summer, the sun will pass to the north, and the scene does not work. {{unsigned|Billdxdydz|05:46, 2 June 2026}}