explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Talk:3146: Fantastic Four

2025-09-25T02:12:23Z

82.132.244.45:

And everyone wonders why that Franklin Richards kid is a little off...
[[Special:Contributions/2601:8C3:8682:1FC0:9DB2:6777:1660:1D9C|2601:8C3:8682:1FC0:9DB2:6777:1660:1D9C]] 20:32, 24 September 2025 (UTC)

Could be worse. In Star Trek, the kid would be born 2 centuries in the past. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 21:06, 24 September 2025 (UTC)

Spoilers, Randall, spoilers...I'm sure there are other people who missed the theatrical release and are waiting for it to hit Disney+... [[Special:Contributions/128.4.149.3|128.4.149.3]] 21:22, 24 September 2025 (UTC)
:It's probably fine, the movie came out... two months ago.
:Holy shit it only came out two months ago. [[User:Redacted II|Redacted II]] ([[User talk:Redacted II|talk]]) 22:04, 24 September 2025 (UTC)
:This is how I learnt there was a new Fantastic Four movie [[Special:Contributions/64.114.211.124|64.114.211.124]] 23:25, 24 September 2025 (UTC)
:I had already heard of the movie, but only after it had been released. Whatever advertising they'd used had bypassed me... I only saw the 'poster' for it when someone who had already watched it included the image in a review. And, by my own (probably wrong) count, this is the fifth live-action FF film, anyway (one of them was made but never released, for... reasons) and I've only actually seen two of the prior ones. (Couldn't say for sure which plot-points belong to which. Was the one where Johnny Storm had a 'pre-powers-kicking-in' skiing accident different from the one with the dimensional travel thing? ...I think so, but then which order were they?).
:It seems that cinema releases are these days probably considered loss-leaders (and 'Oscars-qualifying') to justify subsequent online-platforming sales. I was lucky enough to have a fairly local cinema play The Thursday Murder Club, given that I don't have access to Netflix (or Disney+, or Paramount+, or all the rest that might be necessary to view all the various different franchises of possible interest) and am stubbornly unlikely to succumb anytime soon.
:As to spoilers, I'll have probably forgotten/disregarded this comic by the time I get to see this one. By which time there'll be an even newer re-re-reboot FF film, ''anyway'' (probably photorealistically generated with AI 'actors', and piped straight into subscribers' brains!), if not ''several'' more. [[Special:Contributions/82.132.244.45|82.132.244.45]] 02:06, 25 September 2025 (UTC)

Brings to mind the 1999 IgNobel Prize winner (in Managed Health Care), US Patent #3216423 ("Apparatus for facilitating the birth of a child by centrifugal force"), <https://patents.google.com/patent/US3216423A/en> {{unsigned ip|2601:189:8501:71a0:2ce2:fc8d:e6ee:d0f|00:21, 25 September 2025}}

Talk:3146: Fantastic Four

2025-09-25T02:07:42Z

82.132.244.45:

Talk:3146: Fantastic Four

2025-09-25T02:06:21Z

82.132.244.45:

And everyone wonders why that Franklin Richards kid is a little off...
[[Special:Contributions/2601:8C3:8682:1FC0:9DB2:6777:1660:1D9C|2601:8C3:8682:1FC0:9DB2:6777:1660:1D9C]] 20:32, 24 September 2025 (UTC)

Could be worse. In Star Trek, the kid would be born 2 centuries in the past. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 21:06, 24 September 2025 (UTC)

Spoilers, Randall, spoilers...I'm sure there are other people who missed the theatrical release and are waiting for it to hit Disney+... [[Special:Contributions/128.4.149.3|128.4.149.3]] 21:22, 24 September 2025 (UTC)
:It's probably fine, the movie came out... two months ago.
:Holy shit it only came out two months ago. [[User:Redacted II|Redacted II]] ([[User talk:Redacted II|talk]]) 22:04, 24 September 2025 (UTC)
:This is how I learnt there was a new Fantastic Four movie [[Special:Contributions/64.114.211.124|64.114.211.124]] 23:25, 24 September 2025 (UTC)
:I had already heard of the movie, but only after it had been released. Whatever advertising they'd used had bypassed me... I only saw the 'poster' for it when someone who had already watched it included the image in a review. And, by my own (probably wrong) count, this is the fifth live-action FF film, anyway (one of them was made but never released, for... reasons) and I've only actually seen two of the prior ones. (Couldn't say for sure which plot-points belong to which. Was the one where Johnny Storm had a 'pre-powers-kicking-in' skiing accident different from the one with the dimensional travel thing? ...I think so, but then which order were they?).
:It seems that cinema releases are these days probably considered loss-leaders (and 'Oscars-qualifying') to justify subsequent online-platforming sales. I was lucky enough to have a fairly local cinema play The Thursday Murder Club, given that I don't have access to Netflix (or Disney+, or Paramount+, or all the rest that might be necessary to view completely all the various different franchises of possible interest) and am stubbornly unlikely to succumb anytime soon.
:As to spoilers, I'll have probably forgotten/disregarded this comic by the time I get to see this one. By which time there'll be an even newer re-re-reboot FF film, ''anyway'' (probably photorealistically generated with AI 'actors', and piped straight into subscribers' brains!), if not ''several'' more. [[Special:Contributions/82.132.244.45|82.132.244.45]] 02:06, 25 September 2025 (UTC)

Brings to mind the 1999 IgNobel Prize winner (in Managed Health Care), US Patent #3216423 ("Apparatus for facilitating the birth of a child by centrifugal force"), <https://patents.google.com/patent/US3216423A/en>

3146: Fantastic Four

2025-09-25T01:30:24Z

82.132.244.45: /* Explanation */ Slight edits. And a precommented statement that I suspect needs significant analysis to be proven true enough to be worth mentioning openly.

{{comic
| number = 3146
| date = September 24, 2025
| title = Fantastic Four
| image = fantastic_four_2x.png
| imagesize = 343x388px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = One perk of being born at 0.88c is that your birthday is over two days long.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|This page was just born. Don't remove this notice too soon.}}

The comic is a pun on the {{w|Oberth effect}}, which causes orbital maneuvers to be more efficient when deep into a gravitational well.
The movie referenced is ''{{w|The Fantastic_Four:_First_Steps|The Fantastic Four: First Steps}}'', released in 2025. The comic says that there is a boost because of the propulsion produced by the baby.

This effect is probably zero, as the change in the centre of mass of the ship and crew would not constitute a form of effective reaction-based propulsion. 

The title text states that being born at 88% the speed of light results in a birthday that's over two days long. This is due to {{w|time dilation|time dilation}}, and from the perspective of Earth. At 0.88 c, the dilation factor γ is 2.1 .

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Don't remove this notice too soon.}}
:[Ponytail is facing Cueball with one of her hands out, facing up and towards Cueball.]
:Ponytail: In the new ''Fantastic Four'' movie, their ship doesn't have enough fuel to get home and Sue Storm goes into labor, so they slingshot around a neutron star and fire their engines at periapsis — as Sue has her baby — to get a boost.
:Cueball: Ah yes, the Obirth effect.
{{comic discussion}}<noinclude>

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Fiction]]
[[Category:Physics]]

Talk:3142: (City)-Style Pizza

2025-09-25T00:54:00Z

82.132.244.45: Might be my browser, but div didn't seem to work. Trying just one alternative.

Altoona-style is listed first in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pizza_in_the_United_States#Variations but that's because the list is alphabetical. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 21:12, 15 September 2025 (UTC)

I prefer +style pizza. [[User:SDSpivey|SDSpivey]] ([[User talk:SDSpivey|talk]]) 21:16, 15 September 2025 (UTC)
: Not a fan of electrons as a topping then? [[Special:Contributions/82.13.184.33|82.13.184.33]] 08:37, 16 September 2025 (UTC)
:: Imo, positron pizza is far better. Some people won’t appreciate it though, as it disintegrates [in] your mouth. [[User:Logalex8369|Logalex8369]] ([[User talk:Logalex8369|talk]]) 15:28, 16 September 2025 (UTC)

Altoona-style most literally looks like a sandwich except cheese instead of a top bun《プロキシ》(XKCD中毒者) 21:54, 15 September 2025 (UTC)
:Yeah, a bunch of open-faced sandwiches side-by-side. [[Special:Contributions/47.248.235.170|47.248.235.170]] 22:07, 15 September 2025 (UTC)Pat
: It looks most like a heart attack in waiting. [[Special:Contributions/82.13.184.33|82.13.184.33]] 09:42, 16 September 2025 (UTC)
Wildly accurate description《プロキシ》(XKCD中毒者) 21:40, 16 September 2025 (UTC)
: ">sandwich" not a dealbreaker ">too much cheese" well that can be balanced if ">american cheese" ruined [[Special:Contributions/158.91.163.43|158.91.163.43]] 19:59, 16 September 2025 (UTC)
::Isn't that similar to French bread pizza? It's just one half of a French bread bun with sauce, cheeze, and toppings on the top. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 16:40, 17 September 2025 (UTC)

On a related note, locally (hint: absolutely nowhere near the place mentioned), there's a business advertising "genuine New York-style bagels". The juxtaposition of the "genuine" claim and yet the acknowledgement that they are only of the given ''style'' always makes me wonder what worth the genuineness truly has, with an ocean's-width of distance between any physical manifestation of New Yorkification and what we have here. [[Special:Contributions/92.17.62.87|92.17.62.87]] 23:12, 15 September 2025 (UTC)

I thought he was talking about Altoona Iowa (less than half the size of Altoona Pennsylvania). Look up “Altoona Iowa pizza” and one of the top hits will tell you it’s ranked one of the worst in the nation. You see, in Iowa, they lay out the dough, put on the ‘toppings’ (ahem) then dump on so much cheese that you can’t see any of the ‘toppings’ (ahem) anymore. When I came home from college in another state, I had to teach my mother how to make good pizza. [[Special:Contributions/2607:FB91:1D15:883A:11:B0B6:84B2:3C0C|2607:FB91:1D15:883A:11:B0B6:84B2:3C0C]] 23:49, 15 September 2025 (UTC)

: Yes. It is truly amazing how many people eat pizza, but when making pizza themselves they put the cheese on top. My mom did this and i did this until my girlfriend (now wife) asked me "how many pizzas have you ever eaten at an italian restaurant where the cheese was on top and you could not see the toppings?" A question that left me baffled. And convinced me. But I remember vividly the night where us and a bunch of friends met to make pizza, and my wife and me got into heated arguments with our friends about where to put the cheese, until everybody did it their own way (of course, our pizza was better). --[[Special:Contributions/2A02:8071:B84:FE60:20AE:FA46:3981:11E|2A02:8071:B84:FE60:20AE:FA46:3981:11E]] 19:27, 16 September 2025 (UTC)
:: If I feel the need to ''add'' extra cheese to a pizza (c.f. the other day, some Blue Shropshire...yum!), I never put it on prior to cooking. Either entirely after or ''just'' before I've finished heating/reheating it. 'Base cheese' (the good stuff) and lesser 'cheese toppings' (usually less so) can get melted into oblivion and still do their job, but adding a little thinly slice Stilton (or even some generousy gloops of extra-creamy, and crawling-off-the-plate, Somerset Brie, which doesn't even ''need'' heating to be semiliquid) is best done after the fact. And still-chilled cheese atop hot pizza conveys its own particular culinary delights, just as with my prefered "bacon-and-brie" part-toasted smörgåsbord. [[Special:Contributions/82.132.246.186|82.132.246.186]] 15:36, 17 September 2025 (UTC)
::: Oh, definitely. Like there is a ''huge'' difference between a toasted cheese sandwich (make a sandwich, toast it, the aim being to have slightly melted cheese (and various other constituents as might be chosen) between toasted bread) and cheese on toast (do ''not'' grill your bread-and-cheese, unless you either do not value the roof of your mouth vs. the molten cheese or are content to let it cool down enough to no longer be tastily warm throughout). [[Special:Contributions/92.17.62.87|92.17.62.87]] 22:06, 19 September 2025 (UTC)

Well at least THIS one was about a kind of pi. I guess pi does round to 3.142. [[Special:Contributions/138.88.96.2|138.88.96.2]] 00:16, 16 September 2025 (UTC)

Shame he missed out on Pittsburgh's 'specialty' with this... since they had the sheer audacity to call it 'Ohio Valley Pizza'... Which I hadn't even *heard* of, let alone actually seen, in 40 years of living in Cincinnati! -Edit: Turns out it originates from Steubenville, which had he named it 'Steubenville style pizza' would've put it way down on the bottom left somewhere. -Tiron [[Special:Contributions/2600:2B00:934E:6200:2186:FE87:5D5E:1AB7|2600:2B00:934E:6200:2186:FE87:5D5E:1AB7]] 01:18, 16 September 2025 (UTC)

Wikipedia has a way of displaying article titles that have non-standard characters in them. Could something similar be done here? [[User:Dogman15|Dogman15]] ([[User talk:Dogman15|talk]]) 04:05, 16 September 2025 (UTC)
:they do, but it doesn't work. {{w|WP:DISPLAYTITLE|DISPLAYTITLE}} doesn't support <> symbols. [[user:lett‪herebedarklight|raeb]] 13:29, 16 September 2025 (UTC)
::Not even with <nowiki><</nowiki>nowiki<nowiki>></nowiki> tags? [[User:Dogman15|Dogman15]] ([[User talk:Dogman15|talk]]) 09:52, 17 September 2025 (UTC)

The article is describing the Altoona style pizza, but Randall is calling on the viewer to look it up on Google images because the picture is likely more offensive than the description. I don't know what the wiki policy is but a picture in the article would do a much better job at explaining than anything Randall may or may not like about the ingredients. [[Special:Contributions/46.144.8.194|46.144.8.194]] 06:43, 16 September 2025 (UTC)

Surely it's no coincidence that XKCD 3142 is about pie. [[User:Gmcgath|Gmcgath]] ([[User talk:Gmcgath|talk]]) 11:43, 16 September 2025 (UTC)
:I hope it ''is'' a coincidence, because I'd like to think that Randall knows better than to call a pizza – a dish that isn't a pie – a "pie". [[User:Yorkshire Pudding|Yorkshire Pudding]] ([[User talk:Yorkshire Pudding|talk]]) 12:53, 16 September 2025 (UTC)
:: Says the person whose name is a pancake that calls itself a pudding. [[Special:Contributions/82.13.184.33|82.13.184.33]] 13:54, 16 September 2025 (UTC)
:::A [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yorkshire_pudding yorkshire pudding] is made similarly to a pancake, but it ends up more like a bun. And the British just call any dessert a "pudding", though I don't see how a yorkshire pudding could be a dessert... [[User:PDesbeginner|PDesbeginner]] ([[User talk:PDesbeginner|talk]]) 17:22, 16 September 2025 (UTC)
:::: Not like anything that I would call a 'bun'. I would give you 'halfway between a pancake and a frittata'. 'Pudding' doesn't just mean dessert - it can refer to a thing more like a sausage that is boiled/steamed (black pudding, white pudding, etc.) which is the older meaning of the word. Even then, though, Yorkshire pudding is nothing like that either. [[Special:Contributions/82.13.184.33|82.13.184.33]] 13:28, 17 September 2025 (UTC)
:::: https://bubbablueandme.com/delicious-filling-ideas-sweet-yorkshire-pudding-recipes/
:::: ...just the first of many links found when looking for YPs being used as the base for a sweet dish. (Though I'm more of a traditionalist than that, myself.)
:::: And perhaps wander south a bit, into Derbyshire, and have a discussion about Bakewell and its famous pudding/tart/pie/flan thing(s)! ;) [[Special:Contributions/82.132.246.186|82.132.246.186]] 15:36, 17 September 2025 (UTC)

Randall suggests that pizza quality correlates with city size. That means Brazilians were right all along, and the best pizza is from São Paulo. [[User:MCBastos|MCBastos]] ([[User talk:MCBastos|talk]]) 14:01, 16 September 2025 (UTC)
: No - it's completely outclassed by Chongqing Pizza. [[Special:Contributions/82.13.184.33|82.13.184.33]] 14:43, 16 September 2025 (UTC)

I had never heard of pizza styles "being named after a city" when I was living in Europe or South America. Is that just a USA thing? [[User:Ralfoide|Ralfoide]] ([[User talk:Ralfoide|talk]]) 17:31, 16 September 2025 (UTC)
: No, several regions in Italy also have pizza styles named after them (e.g. Naples, Sicily & Rome) --[[User:Btx40|Btx40]] ([[User talk:Btx40|talk]]) 19:07, 16 September 2025 (UTC)
::Some examples of the more popular 'City'-Style pizza types I know of in the US:
::;New York Style : Huge, round, thin, floppy crust cut into a small number of huge slices. Pretty much have to fold the pieces lengthwise in order to get enough rigidity to eat them.
::;Chicago Style : Aka 'deep dish'. Thick, round crust. Almost like an actual pie, but open top.
::;Detroit Style : Rectangular rather than round, cut into squares. Medium Crust.
::;St. Louis style : Round, thin, firm-to-crisp crust. Cut into squares... Ish(it's round!) Toppings go nearly to the edge, and the outer crust is approximately the same thickness as it is under the toppings.
::-Tiron [[Special:Contributions/2600:2B00:934E:6200:327C:A6EE:BDF7:E40F|2600:2B00:934E:6200:327C:A6EE:BDF7:E40F]] 19:44, 16 September 2025 (UTC)
::::St Louis style pizza is topped with [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provel_cheese Provel cheese], which adheres to tooth enamel. Persistently. {{unsigned|Smith|04:26, 22 September 2025}}
:::Feel the need to add here an Australian translation/interpretation, having been to two of those cities so far. New York Style Pizza is a huge wheel of pita bread with grease spots on it they call "cheese" and circles of cardboard they call "sausage", everything flat as a tack and tasteless as well as floppy. Chicago Style Pizza, on the other hand, is tomato soup in a bread crust, and quite tasty. And all the American pizzas rarely have more than two toppings, which is a bit weird, but it's what they do... Sort of like their hamburgers, I guess. [[Special:Contributions/124.150.67.115|124.150.67.115]] 05:16, 17 September 2025 (UTC)

Currently the explanation describes the "<City>" glitch as an encoding error, and that doesn't strike me as quite correct. The problem is that it's not supposed to be "encoded" at all, but because it appears to be an HTML tag, it's being ''treated'' as encoded. [[User:BunsenH|BunsenH]] ([[User talk:BunsenH|talk]]) 20:30, 16 September 2025 (UTC)
:Changed it to "invokes" the error, unless you can think of a better word. Also added a few extra bits. And ''also'' also moved it over into Trivia, for not being an explanation to the comic; only the way the comic page may have been inadvertently presented to us. [[Special:Contributions/82.132.247.226|82.132.247.226]] 16:44, 17 September 2025 (UTC)

Please don't take it badly, but you should start calling it something else. Because it's not, well, _pizza_. --[[Special:Contributions/2001:16B8:CC2E:B600:ECF3:65DF:9AC4:63E6|2001:16B8:CC2E:B600:ECF3:65DF:9AC4:63E6]] 20:30, 18 September 2025 (UTC)
[[Special:Contributions/2604:2D80:DA83:DE00:5547:BA7B:AF4A:454E|2604:2D80:DA83:DE00:5547:BA7B:AF4A:454E]] 00:21, 19 September 2025 (UTC)

No mention of New Haven Pizza? Sacrilege.
[[Special:Contributions/2604:2D80:DA83:DE00:5547:BA7B:AF4A:454E|2604:2D80:DA83:DE00:5547:BA7B:AF4A:454E]] 00:21, 19 September 2025 (UTC)

==Incorrect page name==
I’m pretty sure this comic is intended to be titled “<City>-Style Pizza”, as it is labeled in the HTML of xkcd.com (notably, xkcd.com itsel uses “-Style Pizza” for the <title> elements and the rss/atom feeds, but not for the visible title. (But there, the “<city>” gets swallowed by the browser)--[[User:Nleanba|Nleanba]] ([[User talk:Nleanba|talk]]) 21:49, 15 September 2025 (UTC)

What about moving this page to [[3142: (City)-Style Pizza]] or similar? --[[User:Birdlover32767|Birdlover32767]] ([[User talk:Birdlover32767|talk]]) 16:25, 16 September 2025 (UTC)
:I agree that [[3142:(City)-Style Pizza]] would be appropriate. I don't have an exact analogy from Wikipedia, which also can't include < or > symbols in an article title, but they would use a similar substitution in a similar situation. See {{w|Wikipedia:Naming conventions (technical restrictions)#Forbidden characters}}. --[[Special:Contributions/208.59.176.206|208.59.176.206]] 15:52, 17 September 2025 (UTC)
:I was tempted to go ahead and do this move, but I'm not sure what might break. Will previous and next navigation break, or the link in the "All comics" page? Or would those recover after a short time, like an hour? I guess one way to find out is to just do it... [[User:Orion205|Orion205]] ([[User talk:Orion205|talk]]) 21:40, 18 September 2025 (UTC)
::The previous/next links point at [[3142]], which currently redirect to [[3142: -Style Pizza]] (as does the jump-off of [[-Style Pizza]]).
::Changing "3142: -Style Pizza" to something else would of course need the changing of the redirect from the number-only (and title-only) page. Anything that just used the number would get here if you do that. Anything going to the full "number: title"-style pagename (e.g. the two "&D" pages, that someone linked here) would need editing. As would anything (though I don't know of any, off-hand) that link via the title-only intermediary, because you'd want to change/move that to being the 'correct'-title-only as well, as well as update where it redirects.
::Alternately, make sure the correctly titled page has the contents and (replacement) wrongly-titled page redirects to the correct one, but that's a messy half-arsed solution that's not ideal. Or necessary as a backstop time-saving answer to all the thousands of 'links inward' it ''doesn't have''. So don't do that.
::Oh, and remember to move this Talk: page, too! [[Special:Contributions/82.132.246.204|82.132.246.204]] 23:02, 18 September 2025 (UTC)

:::{{Done}} --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 12:59, 20 September 2025 (UTC)

The current description for New York and Chicago style pizza just sounds like a description of pizza in general, aside from the specific crust thickness. "topped with tomato sauce, followed by various toppings, then topped with mozzarella cheese" that's just a normal pizza, and "various toppings" is so vague that again, almost any pizza qualifies. Never heard people describing the simplest and most common pizza type there is as being a New York style in particular, are there really no other distinct characteristics to it?

Also I'm relieved but also disappointed that the Altoona-style pizza isn't an all-tuna pizza. THAT would qualify as a true audacity! [[User:PotatoGod|PotatoGod]] ([[User talk:PotatoGod|talk]]) 17:47, 21 September 2025 (UTC)
:(Why did this get lumped into the Incomplete tag. Better, surely, to just briefly anchor a link to here rather than make an intrusively unreliable paste up there...)
:I'm no expert, but my impression is that New York-stlye and Chicago-style pizzas ''are'' the respective types of crust. Because you can get "New York-style <topping type> pizza" and "Chicago-style <toppings> pizza" for pretty much any topping.
:At least in the wider-world. Whether the native Nouveau Yorvikians or Chicagoans have additional ideas/preferences about the preparation (tomato base, actual toppings, the crust being stuffed with anything, etc), I think there's still likely to be much unique variation between establishements. Either in order for each to claim that 'theirs' is the true original <City>-style one, just an allowable deviation in 'house style' or even because their particular formulation has elements of 'secret recipe' to it. (Smaller places might have just the one place and happily, like the alleged-Altoona, have 'perfected' a whole-pizza 'standard', at least until they change their chief pizza-chef (or he/she decides to experiment a bit). But I very much doubt that even the respective 'Mobs' of two big cities could possibly strongarm their whole respective city into anything more than the general outline of teh product. [[Special:Contributions/92.17.62.87|92.17.62.87]] 22:06, 23 September 2025 (UTC)
:(Why did this get lumped into the Incomplete tag. Better, surely, to just briefly anchor a link to here rather than make an intrusively unreliable paste up there...)
::So that people don’t have to click a link to see whats wrong. Please feel free to use an anchor, I don’t mind. --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 15:53, 24 September 2025 (UTC)
:::"Incomplete" doesn't even apply here (or, indeed for "too technical, shorten it!" complaints sometimes given), and tends to require scrolling around ''anyway'' to work out what the grief is about in a long article - as it may well be in an 'overcomplete' example. But possibly something else could be used here to better target such things. [[Special:Contributions/82.132.244.45|82.132.244.45]] 00:37, 25 September 2025 (UTC)

3142: (City)-Style Pizza

2025-09-25T00:50:46Z

82.132.244.45: /* Explanation */ Whether it's still ongoing or not!

:''The correct title of this article is '''''3142: <City>-Style Pizza'''''. It appears incorrectly here due to {{w|Wikipedia:Naming conventions (technical restrictions)|technical restrictions}}.''
{{comic
| number = 3142
| date = September 15, 2025
| title = <City>-Style Pizza
| image = city_style_pizza_2x.png
| imagesize = 480x314px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = If you want to see true audacity, do an image search for 'Altoona-style pizza.'
}}

==Explanation==
{{w|Pizza}} is one of the most popular foods in the United States, and a number of major cities have {{w|Pizza in the United States#Variations|regional variations on pizza}}, which have come to be named after the city. {{w|New York–style pizza}} and {{w|Chicago-style pizza}} are two of the most well known. New York-style pizza is characterized by a distinctly thin, wide, and flexible crust. Slices are incredibly wide, and flexible enough to typically be eaten folded. Chicago-style pizza is cooked in a deep dish, from which it gets its namesake, with a very thick crust. Unlike many other pizza styles, Chicago-style pizza has chunky tomato sauce over a large amount of cheese, rather than having the cheese on top.[[[Talk:3142: (City)-Style Pizza#pizzas|''ongoing discussion'']]]

This comic contains a chart that compares the tastiness of pizza styles with the size of the city in the name. They generally span a broad range, and the upper limit tends to be pretty consistent, suggesting that cities of all sizes can produce good pizza. The smallest cities are shown as having the least possibility for a good pizza named after them.

The apex is shown as being for mid-sized cities toward the smaller end of the spectrum, clearly an unspecified one of the "Various Controversial Regional Specialties" noted. The graph indicates that these little-city pizzas are in fact the tastiest, but [[Randall]] is too respectful of his readership's opinions and tastes to join (and exacerbate) the controversy by naming his own favorites. This way, each reader can assume that [[Randall]] secretly agrees with them, but that he does not wish to offend the less enlightened. [[Randall]] signals his opinion by deeming NYC pizza, which New Yorkers take for granted is the best, to be in actuality just average, as far as cities go.

The lower end of the range shows much more variation. The largest cities are shown as being incapable of having bad pizza as their speciality, with the worst examples still being okay. The smaller the cities are, the more potential there is for a bad pizza to qualify for the name. This may be due to the fact that large cities tend to have many restaurants. As a result, there is more chance of one of them producing a decent variant, and more competition for which one will become synonymous with the city. Smaller cities with fewer eating options might accept lower quality choices because they lack options.

At the lowest end of the range are very small cities with terrible regional pizza. The caption jokes that this is to due to "bored restaurant owners" deliberately making up bad pizza varieties as a "fun prank" on visitors. The implication is that some local pizza styles are so bad that they could only have been created as a joke, and even the people who created them don't think they're appealing.

New York-style pizza is indicated at the top of the city size axis (New York City being the largest city in the US), and near the top of the tastiness axis, but in the middle of the range of cities of its size. New York City is where pizza was first popularized in the US, having been brought by Italian immigrants in the 19th century. The style from New York has been highly influential over pizza throughout the country, and is generally acknowledged to be appealing to most people.
[[File:2023 Altoona Pizza from Dino’s.jpg|thumb|upright=0.7|An {{w|Altoona-style pizza}}.]]
The title text gives a specific example of a terrible pizza from a small city, describing {{w|Altoona-style pizza}} as "true audacity". Created in the Altoona Hotel in {{w|Altoona, Pennsylvania}}, it has a thick square of bread-like Sicilian-style crust, covered with tomato sauce, bell peppers, and salami and a slice of American cheese. Not only does Randall implicitly find this to be highly unappetizing, but considers it audacious to even call it pizza. The structure of this dish is very odd for pizza (looking more like an open-faced sandwich), the toppings are eccentric, and the use of American cheese to top pizza is so strange as to border on culinary heresy. This is presumably the type of "pizza" that Randall believes could only be created as a joke.

==Transcript==
:[A graph.]
:[The x and y axes have no unit markings, and are labeled:]
::[X axis: City size]
::[Y axis: Tastiness of "<city>-style pizza"]

:[A shaded region is bounded by a lower bound and an upper bound. The upper bound has a slight peak corresponding to a smallish city, but is otherwise mostly flat. The lower bound appears on the X axis close to the left, evens out to being almost flat in the middle, and rises toward the right.]

:[An arrow points to the right end of the shaded area, with the label:]
::New York up here somewhere

:[A label is in the middle of the shaded region at a medium X value. Many arrows point outward from the text, which reads:]
::various controversial regional specialties

:[An arrow points to the region with a low x and y-value, where the line for the lower bound is missing. This region is labeled:]
::towns with bored restaurant owners who have come up with a fun prank to play on visitors

==Trivia==

A remarkable spike in [https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=%2Fg%2F11nmt6q5kp Google searches for "Altoona-style pizza"] was observed at the publication date of this comic.

The original comic's title invokes an encoding error in terms of HTML rendering, and it was copied to this wiki page. It reads "<City>-Style Pizza", which can be interpreted by web browsers and scrapers as containing an HTML tag for a "City" element for some unknown semantic/formatting effect. Being not {{w|Document type definition|defined}} or implemented, this 'tag' ends up being ignored and the remaining content is rendered as just "-Style Pizza". It is not the [[3015: D&D Combinatorics|first]] [[3028: D&D Roll|time]] that Randall has accidentally clashed with HTML-rendering issues. The "<" and ">" signs are not supported on [[explain xkcd|this wiki]] and other wikis due to {{w|Wikipedia:Naming conventions (technical restrictions)|a technical restriction on page titles}}, so the wiki's pagename for this comic's explanation doesn't precisely match the official title.

{{comic discussion}}<noinclude>
[[Category: Food]]
[[Category: Charts]]

3142: (City)-Style Pizza

2025-09-25T00:43:32Z

82.132.244.45: /* Explanation */ 'Subst'ing a Citation needed as a quick base to the feal change intended. (Though I see no sign of the main points being addressed, seems to have been sorted...)

:''The correct title of this article is '''''3142: <City>-Style Pizza'''''. It appears incorrectly here due to {{w|Wikipedia:Naming conventions (technical restrictions)|technical restrictions}}.''
{{comic
| number = 3142
| date = September 15, 2025
| title = <City>-Style Pizza
| image = city_style_pizza_2x.png
| imagesize = 480x314px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = If you want to see true audacity, do an image search for 'Altoona-style pizza.'
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Copypasted from talk:

The current description for New York and Chicago style pizza just sounds like a description of pizza in general, aside from the specific crust thickness. "topped with tomato sauce, followed by various toppings, then topped with mozzarella cheese" that's just a normal pizza, and "various toppings" is so vague that again, almost any pizza qualifies. Never heard people describing the simplest and most common pizza type there is as being a New York style in particular, are there really no other distinct characteristics to it?}}{{w|Pizza}} is one of the most popular foods in the United States and a number of major cities have {{w|Pizza_in_the_United_States#Variations|regional variations on pizza}}, which have come to be named after the city. {{w|New York–style pizza}} and {{w|Chicago-style pizza}} are two of the most well known. New York-style pizza is characterized by a distinctly thin, wide, and flexible crust. Slices are incredibly wide, and flexible enough to typically be eaten folded. Chicago-style pizza is cooked in a deep dish, from which it gets its namesake, with a very thick crust. Unlike many other pizza styles, Chicago-style pizza has chunky tomato sauce over a large amount of cheese, rather than having the cheese on top.[[[285: Wikipedian Protester#top|''citation needed'']]]

This comic contains a chart that compares the tastiness of pizza styles with the size of the city in the name. They generally span a broad range, and the upper limit tends to be pretty consistent, suggesting that cities of all sizes can produce good pizza. The smallest cities are shown as having the least possibility for a good pizza named after them.

The apex is shown as being for mid-sized cities toward the smaller end of the spectrum, clearly an unspecified one of the "Various Controversial Regional Specialties" noted. The graph indicates that these little-city pizzas are in fact the tastiest, but [[Randall]] is too respectful of his readership's opinions and tastes to join (and exacerbate) the controversy by naming his own favorites. This way, each reader can assume that [[Randall]] secretly agrees with them, but that he does not wish to offend the less enlightened. [[Randall]] signals his opinion by deeming NYC pizza, which New Yorkers take for granted is the best, to be in actuality just average, as far as cities go.

The lower end of the range shows much more variation. The largest cities are shown as being incapable of having bad pizza as their speciality, with the worst examples still being okay. The smaller the cities are, the more potential there is for a bad pizza to qualify for the name. This may be due to the fact that large cities tend to have many restaurants. As a result, there is more chance of one of them producing a decent variant, and more competition for which one will become synonymous with the city. Smaller cities with fewer eating options might accept lower quality choices because they lack options.

At the lowest end of the range are very small cities with terrible regional pizza. The caption jokes that this is to due to "bored restaurant owners" deliberately making up bad pizza varieties as a "fun prank" on visitors. The implication is that some local pizza styles are so bad that they could only have been created as a joke, and even the people who created them don't think they're appealing.

New York-style pizza is indicated at the top of the city size axis (New York City being the largest city in the US), and near the top of the tastiness axis, but in the middle of the range of cities of its size. New York City is where pizza was first popularized in the US, having been brought by Italian immigrants in the 19th century. The style from New York has been highly influential over pizza throughout the country, and is generally acknowledged to be appealing to most people.
[[File:2023 Altoona Pizza from Dino’s.jpg|thumb|upright=0.7|An {{w|Altoona-style pizza}}.]]
The title text gives a specific example of a terrible pizza from a small city, describing {{w|Altoona-style pizza}} as "true audacity". Created in the Altoona Hotel in {{w|Altoona, Pennsylvania}}, it has a thick square of bread-like Sicilian-style crust, covered with tomato sauce, bell peppers, and salami and a slice of American cheese. Not only does Randall implicitly find this to be highly unappetizing, but considers it audacious to even call it pizza. The structure of this dish is very odd for pizza (looking more like an open-faced sandwich), the toppings are eccentric, and the use of American cheese to top pizza is so strange as to border on culinary heresy. This is presumably the type of "pizza" that Randall believes could only be created as a joke.

==Transcript==
:[A graph.]
:[The x and y axes have no unit markings, and are labeled:]
::[X axis: City size]
::[Y axis: Tastiness of "<city>-style pizza"]

:[A shaded region is bounded by a lower bound and an upper bound. The upper bound has a slight peak corresponding to a smallish city, but is otherwise mostly flat. The lower bound appears on the X axis close to the left, evens out to being almost flat in the middle, and rises toward the right.]

:[An arrow points to the right end of the shaded area, with the label:]
::New York up here somewhere

:[A label is in the middle of the shaded region at a medium X value. Many arrows point outward from the text, which reads:]
::various controversial regional specialties

:[An arrow points to the region with a low x and y-value, where the line for the lower bound is missing. This region is labeled:]
::towns with bored restaurant owners who have come up with a fun prank to play on visitors

==Trivia==

A remarkable spike in [https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=%2Fg%2F11nmt6q5kp Google searches for "Altoona-style pizza"] was observed at the publication date of this comic.

The original comic's title invokes an encoding error in terms of HTML rendering, and it was copied to this wiki page. It reads "<City>-Style Pizza", which can be interpreted by web browsers and scrapers as containing an HTML tag for a "City" element for some unknown semantic/formatting effect. Being not {{w|Document type definition|defined}} or implemented, this 'tag' ends up being ignored and the remaining content is rendered as just "-Style Pizza". It is not the [[3015: D&D Combinatorics|first]] [[3028: D&D Roll|time]] that Randall has accidentally clashed with HTML-rendering issues. The "<" and ">" signs are not supported on [[explain xkcd|this wiki]] and other wikis due to {{w|Wikipedia:Naming conventions (technical restrictions)|a technical restriction on page titles}}, so the wiki's pagename for this comic's explanation doesn't precisely match the official title.

{{comic discussion}}<noinclude>
[[Category: Food]]
[[Category: Charts]]

Talk:3142: (City)-Style Pizza

2025-09-25T00:37:04Z

82.132.244.45:

Altoona-style is listed first in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pizza_in_the_United_States#Variations but that's because the list is alphabetical. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 21:12, 15 September 2025 (UTC)

I prefer +style pizza. [[User:SDSpivey|SDSpivey]] ([[User talk:SDSpivey|talk]]) 21:16, 15 September 2025 (UTC)
: Not a fan of electrons as a topping then? [[Special:Contributions/82.13.184.33|82.13.184.33]] 08:37, 16 September 2025 (UTC)
:: Imo, positron pizza is far better. Some people won’t appreciate it though, as it disintegrates [in] your mouth. [[User:Logalex8369|Logalex8369]] ([[User talk:Logalex8369|talk]]) 15:28, 16 September 2025 (UTC)

Altoona-style most literally looks like a sandwich except cheese instead of a top bun《プロキシ》(XKCD中毒者) 21:54, 15 September 2025 (UTC)
:Yeah, a bunch of open-faced sandwiches side-by-side. [[Special:Contributions/47.248.235.170|47.248.235.170]] 22:07, 15 September 2025 (UTC)Pat
: It looks most like a heart attack in waiting. [[Special:Contributions/82.13.184.33|82.13.184.33]] 09:42, 16 September 2025 (UTC)
Wildly accurate description《プロキシ》(XKCD中毒者) 21:40, 16 September 2025 (UTC)
: ">sandwich" not a dealbreaker ">too much cheese" well that can be balanced if ">american cheese" ruined [[Special:Contributions/158.91.163.43|158.91.163.43]] 19:59, 16 September 2025 (UTC)
::Isn't that similar to French bread pizza? It's just one half of a French bread bun with sauce, cheeze, and toppings on the top. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 16:40, 17 September 2025 (UTC)

On a related note, locally (hint: absolutely nowhere near the place mentioned), there's a business advertising "genuine New York-style bagels". The juxtaposition of the "genuine" claim and yet the acknowledgement that they are only of the given ''style'' always makes me wonder what worth the genuineness truly has, with an ocean's-width of distance between any physical manifestation of New Yorkification and what we have here. [[Special:Contributions/92.17.62.87|92.17.62.87]] 23:12, 15 September 2025 (UTC)

I thought he was talking about Altoona Iowa (less than half the size of Altoona Pennsylvania). Look up “Altoona Iowa pizza” and one of the top hits will tell you it’s ranked one of the worst in the nation. You see, in Iowa, they lay out the dough, put on the ‘toppings’ (ahem) then dump on so much cheese that you can’t see any of the ‘toppings’ (ahem) anymore. When I came home from college in another state, I had to teach my mother how to make good pizza. [[Special:Contributions/2607:FB91:1D15:883A:11:B0B6:84B2:3C0C|2607:FB91:1D15:883A:11:B0B6:84B2:3C0C]] 23:49, 15 September 2025 (UTC)

: Yes. It is truly amazing how many people eat pizza, but when making pizza themselves they put the cheese on top. My mom did this and i did this until my girlfriend (now wife) asked me "how many pizzas have you ever eaten at an italian restaurant where the cheese was on top and you could not see the toppings?" A question that left me baffled. And convinced me. But I remember vividly the night where us and a bunch of friends met to make pizza, and my wife and me got into heated arguments with our friends about where to put the cheese, until everybody did it their own way (of course, our pizza was better). --[[Special:Contributions/2A02:8071:B84:FE60:20AE:FA46:3981:11E|2A02:8071:B84:FE60:20AE:FA46:3981:11E]] 19:27, 16 September 2025 (UTC)
:: If I feel the need to ''add'' extra cheese to a pizza (c.f. the other day, some Blue Shropshire...yum!), I never put it on prior to cooking. Either entirely after or ''just'' before I've finished heating/reheating it. 'Base cheese' (the good stuff) and lesser 'cheese toppings' (usually less so) can get melted into oblivion and still do their job, but adding a little thinly slice Stilton (or even some generousy gloops of extra-creamy, and crawling-off-the-plate, Somerset Brie, which doesn't even ''need'' heating to be semiliquid) is best done after the fact. And still-chilled cheese atop hot pizza conveys its own particular culinary delights, just as with my prefered "bacon-and-brie" part-toasted smörgåsbord. [[Special:Contributions/82.132.246.186|82.132.246.186]] 15:36, 17 September 2025 (UTC)
::: Oh, definitely. Like there is a ''huge'' difference between a toasted cheese sandwich (make a sandwich, toast it, the aim being to have slightly melted cheese (and various other constituents as might be chosen) between toasted bread) and cheese on toast (do ''not'' grill your bread-and-cheese, unless you either do not value the roof of your mouth vs. the molten cheese or are content to let it cool down enough to no longer be tastily warm throughout). [[Special:Contributions/92.17.62.87|92.17.62.87]] 22:06, 19 September 2025 (UTC)

Well at least THIS one was about a kind of pi. I guess pi does round to 3.142. [[Special:Contributions/138.88.96.2|138.88.96.2]] 00:16, 16 September 2025 (UTC)

Shame he missed out on Pittsburgh's 'specialty' with this... since they had the sheer audacity to call it 'Ohio Valley Pizza'... Which I hadn't even *heard* of, let alone actually seen, in 40 years of living in Cincinnati! -Edit: Turns out it originates from Steubenville, which had he named it 'Steubenville style pizza' would've put it way down on the bottom left somewhere. -Tiron [[Special:Contributions/2600:2B00:934E:6200:2186:FE87:5D5E:1AB7|2600:2B00:934E:6200:2186:FE87:5D5E:1AB7]] 01:18, 16 September 2025 (UTC)

Wikipedia has a way of displaying article titles that have non-standard characters in them. Could something similar be done here? [[User:Dogman15|Dogman15]] ([[User talk:Dogman15|talk]]) 04:05, 16 September 2025 (UTC)
:they do, but it doesn't work. {{w|WP:DISPLAYTITLE|DISPLAYTITLE}} doesn't support <> symbols. [[user:lett‪herebedarklight|raeb]] 13:29, 16 September 2025 (UTC)
::Not even with <nowiki><</nowiki>nowiki<nowiki>></nowiki> tags? [[User:Dogman15|Dogman15]] ([[User talk:Dogman15|talk]]) 09:52, 17 September 2025 (UTC)

The article is describing the Altoona style pizza, but Randall is calling on the viewer to look it up on Google images because the picture is likely more offensive than the description. I don't know what the wiki policy is but a picture in the article would do a much better job at explaining than anything Randall may or may not like about the ingredients. [[Special:Contributions/46.144.8.194|46.144.8.194]] 06:43, 16 September 2025 (UTC)

Surely it's no coincidence that XKCD 3142 is about pie. [[User:Gmcgath|Gmcgath]] ([[User talk:Gmcgath|talk]]) 11:43, 16 September 2025 (UTC)
:I hope it ''is'' a coincidence, because I'd like to think that Randall knows better than to call a pizza – a dish that isn't a pie – a "pie". [[User:Yorkshire Pudding|Yorkshire Pudding]] ([[User talk:Yorkshire Pudding|talk]]) 12:53, 16 September 2025 (UTC)
:: Says the person whose name is a pancake that calls itself a pudding. [[Special:Contributions/82.13.184.33|82.13.184.33]] 13:54, 16 September 2025 (UTC)
:::A [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yorkshire_pudding yorkshire pudding] is made similarly to a pancake, but it ends up more like a bun. And the British just call any dessert a "pudding", though I don't see how a yorkshire pudding could be a dessert... [[User:PDesbeginner|PDesbeginner]] ([[User talk:PDesbeginner|talk]]) 17:22, 16 September 2025 (UTC)
:::: Not like anything that I would call a 'bun'. I would give you 'halfway between a pancake and a frittata'. 'Pudding' doesn't just mean dessert - it can refer to a thing more like a sausage that is boiled/steamed (black pudding, white pudding, etc.) which is the older meaning of the word. Even then, though, Yorkshire pudding is nothing like that either. [[Special:Contributions/82.13.184.33|82.13.184.33]] 13:28, 17 September 2025 (UTC)
:::: https://bubbablueandme.com/delicious-filling-ideas-sweet-yorkshire-pudding-recipes/
:::: ...just the first of many links found when looking for YPs being used as the base for a sweet dish. (Though I'm more of a traditionalist than that, myself.)
:::: And perhaps wander south a bit, into Derbyshire, and have a discussion about Bakewell and its famous pudding/tart/pie/flan thing(s)! ;) [[Special:Contributions/82.132.246.186|82.132.246.186]] 15:36, 17 September 2025 (UTC)

Randall suggests that pizza quality correlates with city size. That means Brazilians were right all along, and the best pizza is from São Paulo. [[User:MCBastos|MCBastos]] ([[User talk:MCBastos|talk]]) 14:01, 16 September 2025 (UTC)
: No - it's completely outclassed by Chongqing Pizza. [[Special:Contributions/82.13.184.33|82.13.184.33]] 14:43, 16 September 2025 (UTC)

I had never heard of pizza styles "being named after a city" when I was living in Europe or South America. Is that just a USA thing? [[User:Ralfoide|Ralfoide]] ([[User talk:Ralfoide|talk]]) 17:31, 16 September 2025 (UTC)
: No, several regions in Italy also have pizza styles named after them (e.g. Naples, Sicily & Rome) --[[User:Btx40|Btx40]] ([[User talk:Btx40|talk]]) 19:07, 16 September 2025 (UTC)
::Some examples of the more popular 'City'-Style pizza types I know of in the US:
::;New York Style : Huge, round, thin, floppy crust cut into a small number of huge slices. Pretty much have to fold the pieces lengthwise in order to get enough rigidity to eat them.
::;Chicago Style : Aka 'deep dish'. Thick, round crust. Almost like an actual pie, but open top.
::;Detroit Style : Rectangular rather than round, cut into squares. Medium Crust.
::;St. Louis style : Round, thin, firm-to-crisp crust. Cut into squares... Ish(it's round!) Toppings go nearly to the edge, and the outer crust is approximately the same thickness as it is under the toppings.
::-Tiron [[Special:Contributions/2600:2B00:934E:6200:327C:A6EE:BDF7:E40F|2600:2B00:934E:6200:327C:A6EE:BDF7:E40F]] 19:44, 16 September 2025 (UTC)
::::St Louis style pizza is topped with [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provel_cheese Provel cheese], which adheres to tooth enamel. Persistently. {{unsigned|Smith|04:26, 22 September 2025}}
:::Feel the need to add here an Australian translation/interpretation, having been to two of those cities so far. New York Style Pizza is a huge wheel of pita bread with grease spots on it they call "cheese" and circles of cardboard they call "sausage", everything flat as a tack and tasteless as well as floppy. Chicago Style Pizza, on the other hand, is tomato soup in a bread crust, and quite tasty. And all the American pizzas rarely have more than two toppings, which is a bit weird, but it's what they do... Sort of like their hamburgers, I guess. [[Special:Contributions/124.150.67.115|124.150.67.115]] 05:16, 17 September 2025 (UTC)

Currently the explanation describes the "<City>" glitch as an encoding error, and that doesn't strike me as quite correct. The problem is that it's not supposed to be "encoded" at all, but because it appears to be an HTML tag, it's being ''treated'' as encoded. [[User:BunsenH|BunsenH]] ([[User talk:BunsenH|talk]]) 20:30, 16 September 2025 (UTC)
:Changed it to "invokes" the error, unless you can think of a better word. Also added a few extra bits. And ''also'' also moved it over into Trivia, for not being an explanation to the comic; only the way the comic page may have been inadvertently presented to us. [[Special:Contributions/82.132.247.226|82.132.247.226]] 16:44, 17 September 2025 (UTC)

Please don't take it badly, but you should start calling it something else. Because it's not, well, _pizza_. --[[Special:Contributions/2001:16B8:CC2E:B600:ECF3:65DF:9AC4:63E6|2001:16B8:CC2E:B600:ECF3:65DF:9AC4:63E6]] 20:30, 18 September 2025 (UTC)
[[Special:Contributions/2604:2D80:DA83:DE00:5547:BA7B:AF4A:454E|2604:2D80:DA83:DE00:5547:BA7B:AF4A:454E]] 00:21, 19 September 2025 (UTC)

No mention of New Haven Pizza? Sacrilege.
[[Special:Contributions/2604:2D80:DA83:DE00:5547:BA7B:AF4A:454E|2604:2D80:DA83:DE00:5547:BA7B:AF4A:454E]] 00:21, 19 September 2025 (UTC)

==Incorrect page name==
I’m pretty sure this comic is intended to be titled “<City>-Style Pizza”, as it is labeled in the HTML of xkcd.com (notably, xkcd.com itsel uses “-Style Pizza” for the <title> elements and the rss/atom feeds, but not for the visible title. (But there, the “<city>” gets swallowed by the browser)--[[User:Nleanba|Nleanba]] ([[User talk:Nleanba|talk]]) 21:49, 15 September 2025 (UTC)

What about moving this page to [[3142: (City)-Style Pizza]] or similar? --[[User:Birdlover32767|Birdlover32767]] ([[User talk:Birdlover32767|talk]]) 16:25, 16 September 2025 (UTC)
:I agree that [[3142:(City)-Style Pizza]] would be appropriate. I don't have an exact analogy from Wikipedia, which also can't include < or > symbols in an article title, but they would use a similar substitution in a similar situation. See {{w|Wikipedia:Naming conventions (technical restrictions)#Forbidden characters}}. --[[Special:Contributions/208.59.176.206|208.59.176.206]] 15:52, 17 September 2025 (UTC)
:I was tempted to go ahead and do this move, but I'm not sure what might break. Will previous and next navigation break, or the link in the "All comics" page? Or would those recover after a short time, like an hour? I guess one way to find out is to just do it... [[User:Orion205|Orion205]] ([[User talk:Orion205|talk]]) 21:40, 18 September 2025 (UTC)
::The previous/next links point at [[3142]], which currently redirect to [[3142: -Style Pizza]] (as does the jump-off of [[-Style Pizza]]).
::Changing "3142: -Style Pizza" to something else would of course need the changing of the redirect from the number-only (and title-only) page. Anything that just used the number would get here if you do that. Anything going to the full "number: title"-style pagename (e.g. the two "&D" pages, that someone linked here) would need editing. As would anything (though I don't know of any, off-hand) that link via the title-only intermediary, because you'd want to change/move that to being the 'correct'-title-only as well, as well as update where it redirects.
::Alternately, make sure the correctly titled page has the contents and (replacement) wrongly-titled page redirects to the correct one, but that's a messy half-arsed solution that's not ideal. Or necessary as a backstop time-saving answer to all the thousands of 'links inward' it ''doesn't have''. So don't do that.
::Oh, and remember to move this Talk: page, too! [[Special:Contributions/82.132.246.204|82.132.246.204]] 23:02, 18 September 2025 (UTC)

:::{{Done}} --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 12:59, 20 September 2025 (UTC)

<div id="pizzas" />The current description for New York and Chicago style pizza just sounds like a description of pizza in general, aside from the specific crust thickness. "topped with tomato sauce, followed by various toppings, then topped with mozzarella cheese" that's just a normal pizza, and "various toppings" is so vague that again, almost any pizza qualifies. Never heard people describing the simplest and most common pizza type there is as being a New York style in particular, are there really no other distinct characteristics to it?

Also I'm relieved but also disappointed that the Altoona-style pizza isn't an all-tuna pizza. THAT would qualify as a true audacity! [[User:PotatoGod|PotatoGod]] ([[User talk:PotatoGod|talk]]) 17:47, 21 September 2025 (UTC)
:(Why did this get lumped into the Incomplete tag. Better, surely, to just briefly anchor a link to here rather than make an intrusively unreliable paste up there...)
:I'm no expert, but my impression is that New York-stlye and Chicago-style pizzas ''are'' the respective types of crust. Because you can get "New York-style <topping type> pizza" and "Chicago-style <toppings> pizza" for pretty much any topping.
:At least in the wider-world. Whether the native Nouveau Yorvikians or Chicagoans have additional ideas/preferences about the preparation (tomato base, actual toppings, the crust being stuffed with anything, etc), I think there's still likely to be much unique variation between establishements. Either in order for each to claim that 'theirs' is the true original <City>-style one, just an allowable deviation in 'house style' or even because their particular formulation has elements of 'secret recipe' to it. (Smaller places might have just the one place and happily, like the alleged-Altoona, have 'perfected' a whole-pizza 'standard', at least until they change their chief pizza-chef (or he/she decides to experiment a bit). But I very much doubt that even the respective 'Mobs' of two big cities could possibly strongarm their whole respective city into anything more than the general outline of teh product. [[Special:Contributions/92.17.62.87|92.17.62.87]] 22:06, 23 September 2025 (UTC)
:(Why did this get lumped into the Incomplete tag. Better, surely, to just briefly anchor a link to here rather than make an intrusively unreliable paste up there...)
::So that people don’t have to click a link to see whats wrong. Please feel free to use an anchor, I don’t mind. --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 15:53, 24 September 2025 (UTC)
:::"Incomplete" doesn't even apply here (or, indeed for "too technical, shorten it!" complaints sometimes given), and tends to require scrolling around ''anyway'' to work out what the grief is about in a long article - as it may well be in an 'overcomplete' example. But possibly something else could be used here to better target such things. [[Special:Contributions/82.132.244.45|82.132.244.45]] 00:37, 25 September 2025 (UTC)

Talk:252: Escalators

2025-09-25T00:15:20Z

82.132.244.45: Actually, ~~~~~ just adds the datestamp, and ~~~ just adds the 'userlinks'). But I know you meant ~~~~ that does both.

I just wanted to point out that I think it's funny how in-depth some of these wiki's are and how others aren't. In this one we have good hearted contributors explaining what an escalator is, while in [[Appropriate Term|the last article I read]] the author uses NSFW as if it's common parlance. My rhetorical question is this: who, reading this article, immediately recognizes the acronym NSFW yet has no previous knowledge of escalators? Although not an Explain XKCD reader, my kindergartener has less knowledge of work ethics (let alone Internet slang regarding work ethics) yet has a basic understanding of escalators in popular culture, including the phenomenon of "running up the down". That is all ;) [[Special:Contributions/71.154.215.156|71.154.215.156]] 17:51, 10 May 2013 (UTC)
:Welcome to public wiki's ;-) You get what people are willing to write. Both articles could do with some wikilinks. [[User:Markhurd|Mark Hurd]] ([[User talk:Markhurd|talk]]) 18:37, 10 May 2013 (UTC)
:Haha! I suppose someone who spends all his time indoors on the internet would understand NSFW but not an escalator. Maybe that's who I was writing for. And maybe that says too much about my life. ;) --[[User:Druid816|Druid816]] ([[User talk:Druid816|talk]]) 21:54, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
----
I've confirmed "tangent graph" is from the official transcript, but it doesn't look like a tangent graph, except perhaps on its side. It looks more like a bell curve to me. [[User:Markhurd|Mark Hurd]] ([[User talk:Markhurd|talk]]) 10:18, 26 May 2013 (UTC)
:I have to assume by "tangent graph" he doesn't literally mean a graph of the trigonometric tangent function, but a graph that shows an asymptotic approach to a particular value (in this case, probably zero). [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.223|108.162.219.223]] 19:14, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

I changed the explanation to make it less about what an escalator is, and more about the intent behind the joke. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.223|108.162.219.223]] 19:14, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

It depends on what kind of escalators it is. If you are running up the 70-meter-long down escalator which has a [[Chin-Up Bar]] at the end of it, you should feel like what you was supposed to feel.--[[User:Handbug|Handbug]] ([[User talk:Handbug|talk]]) 04:19, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

It also depends on whether you have need of doing this, for example if you are rushing to the metro station finding an overcrowded upward escalator and a sparsely crowded downward escalator every day, then you will have much strong urge to put in that chart.--[[User:Handbug|Handbug]] ([[User talk:Handbug|talk]]) 04:23, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

I've actually run up a down escalator. It was: 1) exciting, and 2) actually pretty hard to do. [[User:Leafy Greens|Leafy Greens]] ([[User talk:Leafy Greens|talk]]) 02:40, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

One could also interpret the graph as the y axis as the altitude on an escalator and the x axis as time. If someone started running up the down elevator as soon as they got on, their altitude would remain at the top, whereas if someone rode the elevator down, their altitude would go down as shown in the graph. [[User:Phlaxyr|Phlaxyr]] ([[User talk:Phlaxyr|talk]]) 20:47, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

Sometimes when I'm going up an escalator and there are lots of people behind me, when I get to the top, instead of walking off I just stop and stand there, forcing everyone behind me to start walking backwards :) [[User:The Cat Lady|--The Cat Lady]] ([[User talk:The Cat Lady|talk]]) 11:32, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

It should probably also be mentioned that the downwards graph looks like an escalator and there's a person at the bottom looking up, as if to contemplate running up it. [[User:Treeplate|Treeplate]] ([[User talk:Treeplate|talk]]) 14:16, 24 September 2025 (UTC)