explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

2910: The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald

2024-03-22T17:57:06Z

Boffy b: /* Explanation */ fixed broken Wikipedia links

{{comic
| number = 2910
| date = March 22, 2024
| title = The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald
| image = the_wreck_of_the_edmund_fitzgerald_2x.png
| imagesize = 463x672px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = You know that asteroid that almost destroyed Earth in the 90s? Turns out the whole thing was secretly created by Michael Bay, who then PAID Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck to look heroic while blowing it up!
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by ONE OF THE FBI'S MOST WANTED, FOR CRIMES AGAINST SHIPPING - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

The comic features [[Cueball]] identifiable as a {{w|minstrel}}, {{w|bard}} or {{w|Folk music|folk singer}}, performing a {{w|narrative song}} on a jetty. It parodies {{w|Gordon Lightfoot}}'s song '{{w|The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald}}', recounting the fate of the {{w|SS Edmund Fitzgerald}}, a vessel famously wrecked on the {{w|Great Lakes}} and thus a promising subject for a musical retelling. The words begin with some of the original lyrics of Lightfoot's song, but soon become a direct reference to the art of songwriting itself. Rather than describing the disaster itself, the song turns out to be a description of how the disaster occurred ''for the sake of'' the song.

In real life, the reason for sinking is still unknown, but it's speculated that her hull broke up in the rough waters of a storm on {{w|Lake Superior}}.[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIg90sVSwSE] This comic implies that the ''real'' reason for her sinking is that the songwriter bribed a mechanic to intentionally engineer her sinking and give him sufficient material for a new song.

As a punchline, the verse goes on to reveal that another even greater maritime disaster, the {{w|Sinking of the Titanic|sinking of the RMS ''Titanic''}}, occurred for the sake of a {{w|Titanic (1997 film)|film}}. While the tale of Lightfoot causing the first disaster is feasible, since the song came out a few months after the accident, this second tale is not, since director of the film, {{w|James Cameron}}, was born more than 40 years after the ''Titanic'' sank.

The title text continues this particular cycle by suggesting that an even bigger potential disaster was orchestrated {{tvtropes|RecycledInSpace|in space}}, as the real life basis for yet another film, {{w|Armageddon (1998 film)|Armageddon}}.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

:[Cueball is holding a guitar and singing on a pier.]
:The ship was the pride
:of the American side
:It was due to set
:sail for Cleveland
:As the big freighters go,
:it was bigger than most
:With a crew and good
:captain well seasoned

:But taking a walk on
:the shore by the dock
:Was a songwriter named
:Gordon Lightfoot
:He was humming a tune
:but it didn't have words
:For it's challenging
:trying to write good

:Poor Gordon sought glory
:but needed a story
:His career in folk
:music imperiled
:He mulled over this as
:he watched them do work
:On the hull of the
:''Edmund Fitzgerald''

:Perhaps it was wrong,
:what he did for a song
:He should never have
:bribed that mechanic
:But his maritime crimes
:are no worse than the time
:Young James Cameron
:sank the ''Titanic''

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]]
[[Category:Songs]]

Talk:2761: 1-to-1 Scale

2023-04-19T21:35:38Z

Boffy b: punctuation

Really want an explanation for this one. [[User:JobbieJimmies|Melomaniac]] ([[User talk:JobbieJimmies|talk]]) 03:23, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

My comment got deleted by a bot!!! [[User:Unreliable Connection|2659: Unreliable Connection]] ([[User talk:Unreliable Connection|talk]]) 03:23, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
:RIP... [[User:JobbieJimmies|Melomaniac]] ([[User talk:JobbieJimmies|talk]]) 03:25, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
:No, UC, it just got overwritten by the 'bot, when it did its job and (re)created the whole initial state of the various pages to depict the new comic coming out. (Noting that you'd not set them all up fully/correctly.)
:That you had spotted it already and had ''just'' gotten in ahead of the 'bot clearly isn't something it was prepared to handle. But as someone spotting it can usually wait a short while for the 'bot to catch up, I don't think it's a problem. In fact, you could have just copied your old contributions into the now receptive page(s), with nary any comment. Too late now. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.101|172.70.90.101]] 03:44, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

:: This may have broken the next link on the previous page. --[[Special:Contributions/172.71.160.36|172.71.160.36]] 06:41, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

The lines represent the surfaces of the planets I think, so it's basically all the planets overlaid on top of each other. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.142.35|172.71.142.35]] 03:28, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

:Yup, I think it's what he meant - but I find it unlikely that the gas giants would have this clear cutoff of a "surface". [[Special:Contributions/162.158.189.241|162.158.189.241]] 03:34, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
::If there is a gas - liquid phase transition (and I think at least the gas giants have them): Why not? OK, you could see "rain" as blurring a clear cutoff, but wouldn't that also apply to Earth, then?[[User:Tier666|Tier666]] ([[User talk:Tier666|talk]]) 08:04, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
:::Gas giants' diameters are frequently defined at the average radius at which the atmosphere has a pressure of 1 bar (approximately equal to the pressure at sea level on Earth). There's not a physical edge there, like the boundary between the ground and the atmosphere on a rocky planet, but it is a reasonably well-defined (or, at least, define-able) measurement. FWIW, the pressure gradient is pretty high, and Jupiter's atmospheric pressure increases from 1 bar to 10 bar over about 100 km, which is about 0.1% of the radius, so it's fairly insensitive to the pressure you choose.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.139|162.158.158.139]] 16:20, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

I’d think the same citation as stands for ridiculously large would also cover larger than currently exists on earth, and his that citation is not in fact needed? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.174.186|162.158.174.186]] 06:53, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

:It seems like the gas-covered worlds are explicitly those with clearly cutoff "surfaces," so maybe in those cases the cutoff is some specific gas density -- which occurs at a consistent radius throughout the planet, thus creating a flat surface. While for rocky worlds (except Venus, which is treated like a gas planet here), a density cutoff can lead to bumpiness due to terrain. [[User:Trimeta|Trimeta]] ([[User talk:Trimeta|talk]]) 03:57, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
::Correct re: gas giants. Typically 1 bar, which is approximately Earth's atmospheric pressure at sea level.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.139|162.158.158.139]] 16:20, 13 April 2023 (UTC)
:: just to be very clear (this being a explanation site!) that Venus is "treated like a gas giant" because of it's thick atmosphere. It would be just as correct to say "All the gas giants are treated like Venus" After all, ordinary telescopes couldn't take a picture that sees through any atmospheres, except Earth, where you'd see clouds but often surface where clouds don't appear. Sorry if that's an overexplanation [[User:Cuvtixo|Cuvtixo]] ([[User talk:Cuvtixo|talk]]) 19:10, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

On Twitter there seems to be concern that all planets are depicted flat. This may make this a contribution/mockery of the ongoing [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Earth Flat Earth] discussions in some corners of the internet. --[[Special:Contributions/198.41.242.132|198.41.242.132]] 06:49, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
:You can't see the curvature of the Earth when standing on it; doesn't mean it's flat. Since we're looking at the planets at a 1:1 scale, we're literally only seeing a couple of inches of each of their edges (notwithstanding the whole gas-giants-don't-have-a-sharp-edge issue). [[Special:Contributions/162.158.239.20|162.158.239.20]] 12:06, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
:actually you can see it, standing on the shore of any large lake on a calm day looking at a shore that's ~6.5 miles (10.5km) away. You'll lose ~8ft (2.5m) below the horizon - [[Special:Contributions/162.158.186.213|162.158.186.213]] 13:55, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

The display for an uncropped version of the image would not only be larger than any display on earth. It would be larger than earth. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.86.243|162.158.86.243]] 06:59, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
:By necessity, at least as large as Jupiter. Maybe slightly above two Jupiters (max dimension squared compared to display height*width of any common aspect ratio) if you wanted to not overlay any of the others at all. And make the lower limit a packing-problem, then add a buffer so there isn't the actual need for any to touch. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.253|172.70.90.253]] 10:02, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
::I'm going to add that. Someone was confused enough to put {{cite needed}} there, which may be a joke onto itself?, I can't tell. I've removed the cite needed, but I guess it needs to be more clear why it's totally nonsensical and doesn't need a citation? [[User:Cuvtixo|Cuvtixo]] ([[User talk:Cuvtixo|talk]]) 19:16, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
:::The four inner planets are small enough to fit the upper left corner of any display big enough for Jupiter. As Uranus and Neptune are smaller than the latter one, they cannot extend past its top, bottom or right edge in the constellation shown, so they will not need additonal screen space either. Only Saturn is shifted so far to the left that he will require more width than Jupiter itself, but will still fit within the same height. Knowing Randall, the shown angles are not random, but were calculated to match a commercial available display ratio with Saturn placed touching the left edge and Jupiter touching the top, bottom and right edges. 16:9 or 16:10 at 142 km hight would be a fair guess, so I would not rule out 4:3 resulting in total width significantly smaller than two Jupiters. Of course Randall might also be playing hardcore nerd: The outer diameter of Saturns F ring, which is almost always included in representations, has almost exactly a ratio of 32:9 to Jupiters polar diameter, making a picture showing the former in front of the latter a perfect match for those new fancy double wide monitors. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.111.77|162.158.111.77]] 00:22, 12 April 2023 (UTC)
:Just use a projector, obviously. [[User:Boffy b|Boffy b]] ([[User talk:Boffy b|talk]]) 21:33, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

:What can we use as a citation for the graphics card? I couldn't find a single unified source for that concept, but stitched together some information to cover this:
:The world's largest digital display is the Fremont Street Experience, at 457m by 27m, which is about 12,000 sq meters. It has 16.4 megapixels. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_video_screens
:The mean radius of Jupiter is about 70x10^6 m, so its area is roughly 1.5x10^16 sq meters.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jupiter
:That means the world's largest digital display would only provide a 7.8x10^-13 fraction of the area of Jupiter.
:Going with NVIDIA's Titan V, which has Total Video Memory of 12288 MB, that would mean it could handle about 98x10^9 black-and-white (1 bit) pixels.
:Using the pixel density of the world's largest digital display (16.4 megapixels), scaling it up by its 12000 sq meters to the area of Jupiter (1.5x10^6 sq meters), that comes out to 2.1x10^19 1-bit pixels. So, we would somehow need about 2.1x10^8 of those graphics cards working together to handle our Jupiter-sized display.
:That display wouldn't even be at HD resolution, let alone 4K. Then again, if we use Apple's "Retina" designation that is dependent on reasonable viewing distance, that might be acceptable. [[User:DanShock|DanShock]] ([[User talk:DanShock|talk]]) 20:22, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

1-to-1 scale means 'assume all planets are the same size,' right? I see Earth's grass is shown to be as large as Martian rocks, because Earth is a third again as large. (At the scale where grass is visible, Earth looks flat.) At first I thought the point was that altitude variation in cloud-tops varied so little that a gas giant shrunk down to Earth size would be featureless and have a distinct edge, but that's wrong. Ground isn't cloud-tops. Do gas giants have any solid ground? We've seen Jupiter eat comets, and it makes sense they would've collected at least some minerals and metals. According to [[https://www.teachastronomy.com/textbook/The-Giant-Planets-and-Their-Moons/Internal-Structure-of-the-Gas-Giant-Planets/|Teach Astronomy]], gas giants have Earth-sized solid cores. I'm guessing gas giants' immense gravity compresses their cores into featureless spheres, which, if scaled to Earth-size and viewed at the scale where one could see grass, would look flat. Yes?
[[User:EllenNB|EllenNB]] ([[User talk:EllenNB|talk]]) 10:14, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
:Gravity itself won't compress (and 'flatten') the cores. "Shell theory" shows that gravitational force only counts from the proportion of the body that is within the radius of the bit you're concerned with. But there'll also be the external pressure (from being at the bottom of a thick atmosphere that ultimately ''is'' above far more of the planetary mass) and possibly a degree of compression density to make any Earth-sized core slightly heavier than if it was just a bare core of the same size but shorn of outer layers.
:As to flatness, I can take you to very flat stretches of Earth and very lumpy bits (depends which direction I go, from where I am now), all within 30 minutes' drive. We can'teven know how representative a sample of planetary cross-sections we are seeing (once we get over the issues of gas/space boundaries for gas-giants), but I bet there are bits that resemble the diagram... If you ''really'' want it to be so real. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.242.87|172.71.242.87]] 11:05, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
:No, 1-to-1 means that they are actual size, not the same size. [[User:SDSpivey|SDSpivey]] ([[User talk:SDSpivey|talk]]) 13:37, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

There are several pieces of information here that are featured but don't make sense to me. What's the function of the dark polygon in the center? Why are the lines showing each surface going in random directions? Why is the surface of each planet so flat at a full scale rendition? When I look out my window at full sized Earth, it's not flat. It's quite bumpy, actually. But perhaps he doesn't mean these are full size, he might be saying that they're all shrunk, but the same amount, so 1:1:1:1:1... but even then, I'm totally lost.

"What's the function of the dark polygon in the center?"
I think it is a view of the dark sky, "above" the surface of the Earth, Mars, etc. [[User:Rps|Rps]] ([[User talk:Rps|talk]]) 11:43, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
:I think the "polygon" is a grassy Earth itself, with the white above it sky. Earth is the rearmost planet pictured. Then in front of Earth, on all sides except the top, are the overlays of the various planets, what little of each one as can fit. But then maybe the polygon is night starry sky, and Earth is the white area above it. [[User:N0lqu|-boB]] ([[User talk:N0lqu|talk]]) 14:35, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
::No, the polygon is the sky. Zoom in and you see the Milky Way and stars and other space stuff. And the ant on the Earth has its legs pointing upwards (in the reference frame of the image). [[Special:Contributions/162.158.239.26|162.158.239.26]] 03:09, 12 April 2023 (UTC)
:::Agreed. [[User:N0lqu|-boB]] ([[User talk:N0lqu|talk]]) 13:43, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

Is this an ant on earth, over the letters "EA" ? On my monitor, set for my less-than-perfect vision, it is 15mm long, which (at a 1:1 scale) makes it a cow ant, or a large african ant. I guess people with normal vision get fire and carpenter ants instead? And those on smartphones get pavement ants?[[Special:Contributions/172.68.50.73|172.68.50.73]] 11:00, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
:I do believe it is! It's 6 mm on my desktop monitor and 3 mm on my phone. We also don't know what side of the Earth we're looking at, so I suppose it could really be any ant, including the one in your local area. I like to think it's a black garden ant (''Lasius niger''), since I'm most familiar with those :) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.239.25|162.158.239.25]] 12:16, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
:: The image metadata suggests 80dpi for the image. The ant is around 20px long, so the ant is 6.35 mm long. [[User:Quantum7|Quantum7]] ([[User talk:Quantum7|talk]]) 23:21, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

It took me a good while to figure out this one; I don't normally need to come here, but this one stumped me at first. (The comments as of right now weren't too illuminating either.) I think the lack of color was an issue; I first thought the black polygon in the center was the earth, and then interpreted the various lines as a really weird diagram type I'd never seen before, like a phase diagram or something; I also considered one-dimensional planets. [https://imgur.com/a/yJOYvk1 I colored in the planets to aid me.] The way I now interpret this one is thus: imagine an observer sitting a tremendous distance away from the solar system, and they have a camera with an extremely supremely highly zooming telephoto lens. Then a lining-up of all eight planets happens – I believe this is impossible IRL (because of resonances or something), but just go with it. The observer manages to snap this incredible image of a teeny tiny spot of the sky, which simultaneously manages to include the very very edges of all the planets as well as some of the sky behind them all. The sky is the black polygon: it has nebulae and stars. Neptune is in front of Uranus, and that as well as Mercury are in front of Saturn, which is in front of both Jupiter and Mars; Venus is between Mercury, Mars and the Earth, and the Earth is also behind Jupiter. The reason why these are all so smooth is because it's such a small area: we're literally only seeing a couple of square inches of the surface of each of the rocky planets. (See, you can see an individual ant on the Earth. Go to the most rugged mountain range you can find and observe a couple of square inches; it'll be locally flat.) The lack of atmospheres on the rocky planets as well as the hard edges of the gas giants are artistic license. This one is a member of the genre of "true yet unhelpful diagrams"; I'm surprised that isn't a category on this wiki. – [[Special:Contributions/162.158.238.4|162.158.238.4]] 12:58, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

((Written whilst 162.158.238.4 was editing, above, and I got an edit conflict on that. The editor concerned touches on this ordering business, but I'm pasting my original in unaltered, not rejigged as a more focused reply.)) I was wondering abut the "overlap order" for a while, until I twigged it. May not be worth officially documenting, but my analysis, showing that (perhaps depending upon specific orbital positions, during a given range of times, which can of course be checked) it's ''probably'' based upon distance away from Earth.
*Earth is bottom-most. Could be 1st/2nd, shared with Mars, as their overlap isn't shown.
*Mars is our nearest neighbour. (As above, could be 1st ''or'' 2nd on stack.)
*Venus next. Although it could be 7th (only obscured by Mercury) or anywhere else down to 3rd.
*Jupiter as 4th from bottom. (''Could'' be 3rd..5th, though.)
*Saturn takes 5th-up position. (4th..6th)
*Mercury as 6th. (Or all the way to topmost, but I made an assumption about its relationship to the last two.)
*Uranus as 7th. (6th/7th a possibility, depends on Mercury)
*Neptune as 8th. (7th/8th possible, Mercury again.)
...or at least that's what my mental notes tell me. Not helped by starting off counting from near to far and possibly messing up my numbers when I realised it made sense to flip them. It could also be "delta-V needed to reach the planet concerned" (either without or ''including'' flyby slingshot momentum borrowing/burning), but that's something I'd also need to check. I doubt it really needs tying down/Explaining, and when I edited the Transcript I decided not to record every nuance of the "variously orientated surfaces", as I think it adds nothing so long as the description gives the general idea. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.121|141.101.98.121]] 13:06, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

So no one is going to mention that for the clarity depicted you'd need to literally place the planets inside of each other, or have some sort of focal length from zero to infinity? I'm not sure if that bothers me more or less than the missed trick of making the length of ground shown relate to some comparative parameter (albedo might have been a fun one) - [[Special:Contributions/162.158.186.213|162.158.186.213]] 13:55, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
:To be fair, you're also going to have to choose a "flat" few inches of surface that stands proud of the local geography (such that anything higher is below the curvature of the Earth for its proximity), and deal with an impossible resolution of an impossibly zoomed telephoto shot from a viewpoint unimaginably distant (''whilst'' a near-enough non-Solar conjunction/asterism is happening, or at least was, when the light passed each body), without significant atmospheric distortion (which is a relatively minor issue, compared with the scarcity of photons that reach the camera ''anyway'').
:Can we perhaps instead assume that these are just individual 1:1-scale cross-sectional diagrams (or even carefully curated local photos) drawn together into a hybrid image to accurately retain the scaling verisimilitude, and individual contexts, but happily faking the relative positions? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.56|172.70.85.56]] 15:00, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

It would take some work to check, but I'm wondering if the angle of the horizons of the various planets are perpendicular to the line made between the earth and the planet in question [[Special:Contributions/162.158.154.141|162.158.154.141]] 15:36, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

This is how I interpret this image: [https://imgur.com/a/WwdbXkN I didn't want to make the black dot as small as in the picture so dimensions are insanely larger] [[Special:Contributions/172.69.194.80|172.69.194.80]] 20:35, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
: that is a very clarifying picture, thank you! Shall we include it on the explanation page? It belongs there IMO [[User:Flekkie|Flekkie]] ([[User talk:Flekkie|talk]]) 22:19, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
:: You may by me. The original picture is from NASA https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/resources/686/solar-system-sizes/ and they have no restrictive copyright either. I view this picture as 2D planets stacked and not real planets viewed in space since this is clearly impossible orientation and you couldn't see half the planets, let alone ant on Earth's surface, from behind Neptunes orbit [[Special:Contributions/162.158.239.26|162.158.239.26]] 10:43, 12 April 2023 (UTC)
::: I calculated the positions of the planets based off the same idea and created a [https://gist.githubusercontent.com/sbliven/83324f3d59f7733828191733cd62ee00/raw/a47df59fa229a4df37a6115b3c52b91290cbb56e/1_to_many_scale.svg similar figure] mathematically ([https://gist.github.com/sbliven/83324f3d59f7733828191733cd62ee00 source code]). [[Special:Contributions/172.69.194.80|172.69.194.80]]'s version differs very slightly: the "window" is exaggerated a bit (all planets should meet at this scale) and Mars is visible rather than being behind Venus/Satern. However as it is much prettier with the NASA images I suggest we include [[Special:Contributions/172.69.194.80|172.69.194.80]]'s in the main explaination. [[User:Quantum7|Quantum7]] ([[User talk:Quantum7|talk]]) 23:34, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

: Is this right though? Based off the image Mercury is in front of Saturn. For this to happen, Mercury has to be closer distance wise, so Saturn has to be on the opposite side of the sun. But that can't be true if Saturn is in front of Jupiter and behind Uranus/Neptune?

I don't like the current explanation, since the planets never line up like this. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.203.40|162.158.203.40]] 07:11, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

This is truly one of the comics of all time. AzureArmageddon 08:48, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

We have a 1::1 bird book, where each page has a photo of the bird (or a portion of the bird, in case of flamingos) at 1::1 scale. This comic is a play on those books. -- Bob Jenkins [[Special:Contributions/172.71.150.174|172.71.150.174]] 15:25, 12 April 2023 (UTC)
:Regarding the flamingo, and anything else bigger than the book, what a waste of an opportunity for a fold-out section..! [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.152|172.70.91.152]] 18:58, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

This image is only going to be 1:1 scale on a really large display too; The grass on Earth is around a centimeter in length when the image is full-screen on my 27" (68.58 cm) monitor, while it's clear from the way it is depicted that it is supposed to be long grass, at least 50 centimeters in length. That means that the display which would make this truly 1:1 is about 50 times larger than mine, or in other words has a diagonal of about 34 m. This is bigger than a typical cinema screen, but I suppose not that much bigger and there ought to be cinemas in which one can display this image such that it is truly 1:1. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.87.66|162.158.87.66]] 06:27, 13 April 2023 (UTC)
:The ant is 'about right' for a possible ant even on my display (8"/20cm). If that would be 0.5m long grass, the ant would be truly huge, nothing like the typical ones around here. Which I think are actually smaller (certainly more svelte) than the image, if I wandered down the garden path to find an actual ant or three in the 'wild'.
:So I don't think that's long grass of the kind you're assuming. But it does resemble the kind of 'pre-grass' (one step up from mosses) or microscrub (effectively bonzaied grass due to local growing conditions) to be found on a bit of semi-fresh dusty hardcore/well-worn footpath, as also shown by the loose stoney debris also present. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.151|172.70.91.151]] 09:50, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

Talk:2761: 1-to-1 Scale

2023-04-19T21:33:57Z

Boffy b: A very practical suggestion

Really want an explanation for this one. [[User:JobbieJimmies|Melomaniac]] ([[User talk:JobbieJimmies|talk]]) 03:23, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

My comment got deleted by a bot!!! [[User:Unreliable Connection|2659: Unreliable Connection]] ([[User talk:Unreliable Connection|talk]]) 03:23, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
:RIP... [[User:JobbieJimmies|Melomaniac]] ([[User talk:JobbieJimmies|talk]]) 03:25, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
:No, UC, it just got overwritten by the 'bot, when it did its job and (re)created the whole initial state of the various pages to depict the new comic coming out. (Noting that you'd not set them all up fully/correctly.)
:That you had spotted it already and had ''just'' gotten in ahead of the 'bot clearly isn't something it was prepared to handle. But as someone spotting it can usually wait a short while for the 'bot to catch up, I don't think it's a problem. In fact, you could have just copied your old contributions into the now receptive page(s), with nary any comment. Too late now. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.101|172.70.90.101]] 03:44, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

:: This may have broken the next link on the previous page. --[[Special:Contributions/172.71.160.36|172.71.160.36]] 06:41, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

The lines represent the surfaces of the planets I think, so it's basically all the planets overlaid on top of each other. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.142.35|172.71.142.35]] 03:28, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

:Yup, I think it's what he meant - but I find it unlikely that the gas giants would have this clear cutoff of a "surface". [[Special:Contributions/162.158.189.241|162.158.189.241]] 03:34, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
::If there is a gas - liquid phase transition (and I think at least the gas giants have them): Why not? OK, you could see "rain" as blurring a clear cutoff, but wouldn't that also apply to Earth, then?[[User:Tier666|Tier666]] ([[User talk:Tier666|talk]]) 08:04, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
:::Gas giants' diameters are frequently defined at the average radius at which the atmosphere has a pressure of 1 bar (approximately equal to the pressure at sea level on Earth). There's not a physical edge there, like the boundary between the ground and the atmosphere on a rocky planet, but it is a reasonably well-defined (or, at least, define-able) measurement. FWIW, the pressure gradient is pretty high, and Jupiter's atmospheric pressure increases from 1 bar to 10 bar over about 100 km, which is about 0.1% of the radius, so it's fairly insensitive to the pressure you choose.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.139|162.158.158.139]] 16:20, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

I’d think the same citation as stands for ridiculously large would also cover larger than currently exists on earth, and his that citation is not in fact needed? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.174.186|162.158.174.186]] 06:53, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

:It seems like the gas-covered worlds are explicitly those with clearly cutoff "surfaces," so maybe in those cases the cutoff is some specific gas density -- which occurs at a consistent radius throughout the planet, thus creating a flat surface. While for rocky worlds (except Venus, which is treated like a gas planet here), a density cutoff can lead to bumpiness due to terrain. [[User:Trimeta|Trimeta]] ([[User talk:Trimeta|talk]]) 03:57, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
::Correct re: gas giants. Typically 1 bar, which is approximately Earth's atmospheric pressure at sea level.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.139|162.158.158.139]] 16:20, 13 April 2023 (UTC)
:: just to be very clear (this being a explanation site!) that Venus is "treated like a gas giant" because of it's thick atmosphere. It would be just as correct to say "All the gas giants are treated like Venus" After all, ordinary telescopes couldn't take a picture that sees through any atmospheres, except Earth, where you'd see clouds but often surface where clouds don't appear. Sorry if that's an overexplanation [[User:Cuvtixo|Cuvtixo]] ([[User talk:Cuvtixo|talk]]) 19:10, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

On Twitter there seems to be concern that all planets are depicted flat. This may make this a contribution/mockery of the ongoing [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Earth Flat Earth] discussions in some corners of the internet. --[[Special:Contributions/198.41.242.132|198.41.242.132]] 06:49, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
:You can't see the curvature of the Earth when standing on it; doesn't mean it's flat. Since we're looking at the planets at a 1:1 scale, we're literally only seeing a couple of inches of each of their edges (notwithstanding the whole gas-giants-don't-have-a-sharp-edge issue). [[Special:Contributions/162.158.239.20|162.158.239.20]] 12:06, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
:actually you can see it, standing on the shore of any large lake on a calm day looking at a shore that's ~6.5 miles (10.5km) away. You'll lose ~8ft (2.5m) below the horizon - [[Special:Contributions/162.158.186.213|162.158.186.213]] 13:55, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

The display for an uncropped version of the image would not only be larger than any display on earth. It would be larger than earth. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.86.243|162.158.86.243]] 06:59, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
:By necessity, at least as large as Jupiter. Maybe slightly above two Jupiters (max dimension squared compared to display height*width of any common aspect ratio) if you wanted to not overlay any of the others at all. And make the lower limit a packing-problem, then add a buffer so there isn't the actual need for any to touch. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.253|172.70.90.253]] 10:02, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
::I'm going to add that. Someone was confused enough to put {{cite needed}} there, which may be a joke onto itself?, I can't tell. I've removed the cite needed, but I guess it needs to be more clear why it's totally nonsensical and doesn't need a citation? [[User:Cuvtixo|Cuvtixo]] ([[User talk:Cuvtixo|talk]]) 19:16, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
:::The four inner planets are small enough to fit the upper left corner of any display big enough for Jupiter. As Uranus and Neptune are smaller than the latter one, they cannot extend past its top, bottom or right edge in the constellation shown, so they will not need additonal screen space either. Only Saturn is shifted so far to the left that he will require more width than Jupiter itself, but will still fit within the same height. Knowing Randall, the shown angles are not random, but were calculated to match a commercial available display ratio with Saturn placed touching the left edge and Jupiter touching the top, bottom and right edges. 16:9 or 16:10 at 142 km hight would be a fair guess, so I would not rule out 4:3 resulting in total width significantly smaller than two Jupiters. Of course Randall might also be playing hardcore nerd: The outer diameter of Saturns F ring, which is almost always included in representations, has almost exactly a ratio of 32:9 to Jupiters polar diameter, making a picture showing the former in front of the latter a perfect match for those new fancy double wide monitors. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.111.77|162.158.111.77]] 00:22, 12 April 2023 (UTC)
:Just use a projector, obviously [[User:Boffy b|Boffy b]] ([[User talk:Boffy b|talk]]) 21:33, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

:What can we use as a citation for the graphics card? I couldn't find a single unified source for that concept, but stitched together some information to cover this:
:The world's largest digital display is the Fremont Street Experience, at 457m by 27m, which is about 12,000 sq meters. It has 16.4 megapixels. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_video_screens
:The mean radius of Jupiter is about 70x10^6 m, so its area is roughly 1.5x10^16 sq meters.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jupiter
:That means the world's largest digital display would only provide a 7.8x10^-13 fraction of the area of Jupiter.
:Going with NVIDIA's Titan V, which has Total Video Memory of 12288 MB, that would mean it could handle about 98x10^9 black-and-white (1 bit) pixels.
:Using the pixel density of the world's largest digital display (16.4 megapixels), scaling it up by its 12000 sq meters to the area of Jupiter (1.5x10^6 sq meters), that comes out to 2.1x10^19 1-bit pixels. So, we would somehow need about 2.1x10^8 of those graphics cards working together to handle our Jupiter-sized display.
:That display wouldn't even be at HD resolution, let alone 4K. Then again, if we use Apple's "Retina" designation that is dependent on reasonable viewing distance, that might be acceptable. [[User:DanShock|DanShock]] ([[User talk:DanShock|talk]]) 20:22, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

1-to-1 scale means 'assume all planets are the same size,' right? I see Earth's grass is shown to be as large as Martian rocks, because Earth is a third again as large. (At the scale where grass is visible, Earth looks flat.) At first I thought the point was that altitude variation in cloud-tops varied so little that a gas giant shrunk down to Earth size would be featureless and have a distinct edge, but that's wrong. Ground isn't cloud-tops. Do gas giants have any solid ground? We've seen Jupiter eat comets, and it makes sense they would've collected at least some minerals and metals. According to [[https://www.teachastronomy.com/textbook/The-Giant-Planets-and-Their-Moons/Internal-Structure-of-the-Gas-Giant-Planets/|Teach Astronomy]], gas giants have Earth-sized solid cores. I'm guessing gas giants' immense gravity compresses their cores into featureless spheres, which, if scaled to Earth-size and viewed at the scale where one could see grass, would look flat. Yes?
[[User:EllenNB|EllenNB]] ([[User talk:EllenNB|talk]]) 10:14, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
:Gravity itself won't compress (and 'flatten') the cores. "Shell theory" shows that gravitational force only counts from the proportion of the body that is within the radius of the bit you're concerned with. But there'll also be the external pressure (from being at the bottom of a thick atmosphere that ultimately ''is'' above far more of the planetary mass) and possibly a degree of compression density to make any Earth-sized core slightly heavier than if it was just a bare core of the same size but shorn of outer layers.
:As to flatness, I can take you to very flat stretches of Earth and very lumpy bits (depends which direction I go, from where I am now), all within 30 minutes' drive. We can'teven know how representative a sample of planetary cross-sections we are seeing (once we get over the issues of gas/space boundaries for gas-giants), but I bet there are bits that resemble the diagram... If you ''really'' want it to be so real. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.242.87|172.71.242.87]] 11:05, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
:No, 1-to-1 means that they are actual size, not the same size. [[User:SDSpivey|SDSpivey]] ([[User talk:SDSpivey|talk]]) 13:37, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

There are several pieces of information here that are featured but don't make sense to me. What's the function of the dark polygon in the center? Why are the lines showing each surface going in random directions? Why is the surface of each planet so flat at a full scale rendition? When I look out my window at full sized Earth, it's not flat. It's quite bumpy, actually. But perhaps he doesn't mean these are full size, he might be saying that they're all shrunk, but the same amount, so 1:1:1:1:1... but even then, I'm totally lost.

"What's the function of the dark polygon in the center?"
I think it is a view of the dark sky, "above" the surface of the Earth, Mars, etc. [[User:Rps|Rps]] ([[User talk:Rps|talk]]) 11:43, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
:I think the "polygon" is a grassy Earth itself, with the white above it sky. Earth is the rearmost planet pictured. Then in front of Earth, on all sides except the top, are the overlays of the various planets, what little of each one as can fit. But then maybe the polygon is night starry sky, and Earth is the white area above it. [[User:N0lqu|-boB]] ([[User talk:N0lqu|talk]]) 14:35, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
::No, the polygon is the sky. Zoom in and you see the Milky Way and stars and other space stuff. And the ant on the Earth has its legs pointing upwards (in the reference frame of the image). [[Special:Contributions/162.158.239.26|162.158.239.26]] 03:09, 12 April 2023 (UTC)
:::Agreed. [[User:N0lqu|-boB]] ([[User talk:N0lqu|talk]]) 13:43, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

Is this an ant on earth, over the letters "EA" ? On my monitor, set for my less-than-perfect vision, it is 15mm long, which (at a 1:1 scale) makes it a cow ant, or a large african ant. I guess people with normal vision get fire and carpenter ants instead? And those on smartphones get pavement ants?[[Special:Contributions/172.68.50.73|172.68.50.73]] 11:00, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
:I do believe it is! It's 6 mm on my desktop monitor and 3 mm on my phone. We also don't know what side of the Earth we're looking at, so I suppose it could really be any ant, including the one in your local area. I like to think it's a black garden ant (''Lasius niger''), since I'm most familiar with those :) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.239.25|162.158.239.25]] 12:16, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
:: The image metadata suggests 80dpi for the image. The ant is around 20px long, so the ant is 6.35 mm long. [[User:Quantum7|Quantum7]] ([[User talk:Quantum7|talk]]) 23:21, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

It took me a good while to figure out this one; I don't normally need to come here, but this one stumped me at first. (The comments as of right now weren't too illuminating either.) I think the lack of color was an issue; I first thought the black polygon in the center was the earth, and then interpreted the various lines as a really weird diagram type I'd never seen before, like a phase diagram or something; I also considered one-dimensional planets. [https://imgur.com/a/yJOYvk1 I colored in the planets to aid me.] The way I now interpret this one is thus: imagine an observer sitting a tremendous distance away from the solar system, and they have a camera with an extremely supremely highly zooming telephoto lens. Then a lining-up of all eight planets happens – I believe this is impossible IRL (because of resonances or something), but just go with it. The observer manages to snap this incredible image of a teeny tiny spot of the sky, which simultaneously manages to include the very very edges of all the planets as well as some of the sky behind them all. The sky is the black polygon: it has nebulae and stars. Neptune is in front of Uranus, and that as well as Mercury are in front of Saturn, which is in front of both Jupiter and Mars; Venus is between Mercury, Mars and the Earth, and the Earth is also behind Jupiter. The reason why these are all so smooth is because it's such a small area: we're literally only seeing a couple of square inches of the surface of each of the rocky planets. (See, you can see an individual ant on the Earth. Go to the most rugged mountain range you can find and observe a couple of square inches; it'll be locally flat.) The lack of atmospheres on the rocky planets as well as the hard edges of the gas giants are artistic license. This one is a member of the genre of "true yet unhelpful diagrams"; I'm surprised that isn't a category on this wiki. – [[Special:Contributions/162.158.238.4|162.158.238.4]] 12:58, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

((Written whilst 162.158.238.4 was editing, above, and I got an edit conflict on that. The editor concerned touches on this ordering business, but I'm pasting my original in unaltered, not rejigged as a more focused reply.)) I was wondering abut the "overlap order" for a while, until I twigged it. May not be worth officially documenting, but my analysis, showing that (perhaps depending upon specific orbital positions, during a given range of times, which can of course be checked) it's ''probably'' based upon distance away from Earth.
*Earth is bottom-most. Could be 1st/2nd, shared with Mars, as their overlap isn't shown.
*Mars is our nearest neighbour. (As above, could be 1st ''or'' 2nd on stack.)
*Venus next. Although it could be 7th (only obscured by Mercury) or anywhere else down to 3rd.
*Jupiter as 4th from bottom. (''Could'' be 3rd..5th, though.)
*Saturn takes 5th-up position. (4th..6th)
*Mercury as 6th. (Or all the way to topmost, but I made an assumption about its relationship to the last two.)
*Uranus as 7th. (6th/7th a possibility, depends on Mercury)
*Neptune as 8th. (7th/8th possible, Mercury again.)
...or at least that's what my mental notes tell me. Not helped by starting off counting from near to far and possibly messing up my numbers when I realised it made sense to flip them. It could also be "delta-V needed to reach the planet concerned" (either without or ''including'' flyby slingshot momentum borrowing/burning), but that's something I'd also need to check. I doubt it really needs tying down/Explaining, and when I edited the Transcript I decided not to record every nuance of the "variously orientated surfaces", as I think it adds nothing so long as the description gives the general idea. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.121|141.101.98.121]] 13:06, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

So no one is going to mention that for the clarity depicted you'd need to literally place the planets inside of each other, or have some sort of focal length from zero to infinity? I'm not sure if that bothers me more or less than the missed trick of making the length of ground shown relate to some comparative parameter (albedo might have been a fun one) - [[Special:Contributions/162.158.186.213|162.158.186.213]] 13:55, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
:To be fair, you're also going to have to choose a "flat" few inches of surface that stands proud of the local geography (such that anything higher is below the curvature of the Earth for its proximity), and deal with an impossible resolution of an impossibly zoomed telephoto shot from a viewpoint unimaginably distant (''whilst'' a near-enough non-Solar conjunction/asterism is happening, or at least was, when the light passed each body), without significant atmospheric distortion (which is a relatively minor issue, compared with the scarcity of photons that reach the camera ''anyway'').
:Can we perhaps instead assume that these are just individual 1:1-scale cross-sectional diagrams (or even carefully curated local photos) drawn together into a hybrid image to accurately retain the scaling verisimilitude, and individual contexts, but happily faking the relative positions? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.56|172.70.85.56]] 15:00, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

It would take some work to check, but I'm wondering if the angle of the horizons of the various planets are perpendicular to the line made between the earth and the planet in question [[Special:Contributions/162.158.154.141|162.158.154.141]] 15:36, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

This is how I interpret this image: [https://imgur.com/a/WwdbXkN I didn't want to make the black dot as small as in the picture so dimensions are insanely larger] [[Special:Contributions/172.69.194.80|172.69.194.80]] 20:35, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
: that is a very clarifying picture, thank you! Shall we include it on the explanation page? It belongs there IMO [[User:Flekkie|Flekkie]] ([[User talk:Flekkie|talk]]) 22:19, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
:: You may by me. The original picture is from NASA https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/resources/686/solar-system-sizes/ and they have no restrictive copyright either. I view this picture as 2D planets stacked and not real planets viewed in space since this is clearly impossible orientation and you couldn't see half the planets, let alone ant on Earth's surface, from behind Neptunes orbit [[Special:Contributions/162.158.239.26|162.158.239.26]] 10:43, 12 April 2023 (UTC)
::: I calculated the positions of the planets based off the same idea and created a [https://gist.githubusercontent.com/sbliven/83324f3d59f7733828191733cd62ee00/raw/a47df59fa229a4df37a6115b3c52b91290cbb56e/1_to_many_scale.svg similar figure] mathematically ([https://gist.github.com/sbliven/83324f3d59f7733828191733cd62ee00 source code]). [[Special:Contributions/172.69.194.80|172.69.194.80]]'s version differs very slightly: the "window" is exaggerated a bit (all planets should meet at this scale) and Mars is visible rather than being behind Venus/Satern. However as it is much prettier with the NASA images I suggest we include [[Special:Contributions/172.69.194.80|172.69.194.80]]'s in the main explaination. [[User:Quantum7|Quantum7]] ([[User talk:Quantum7|talk]]) 23:34, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

: Is this right though? Based off the image Mercury is in front of Saturn. For this to happen, Mercury has to be closer distance wise, so Saturn has to be on the opposite side of the sun. But that can't be true if Saturn is in front of Jupiter and behind Uranus/Neptune?

I don't like the current explanation, since the planets never line up like this. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.203.40|162.158.203.40]] 07:11, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

This is truly one of the comics of all time. AzureArmageddon 08:48, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

We have a 1::1 bird book, where each page has a photo of the bird (or a portion of the bird, in case of flamingos) at 1::1 scale. This comic is a play on those books. -- Bob Jenkins [[Special:Contributions/172.71.150.174|172.71.150.174]] 15:25, 12 April 2023 (UTC)
:Regarding the flamingo, and anything else bigger than the book, what a waste of an opportunity for a fold-out section..! [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.152|172.70.91.152]] 18:58, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

This image is only going to be 1:1 scale on a really large display too; The grass on Earth is around a centimeter in length when the image is full-screen on my 27" (68.58 cm) monitor, while it's clear from the way it is depicted that it is supposed to be long grass, at least 50 centimeters in length. That means that the display which would make this truly 1:1 is about 50 times larger than mine, or in other words has a diagonal of about 34 m. This is bigger than a typical cinema screen, but I suppose not that much bigger and there ought to be cinemas in which one can display this image such that it is truly 1:1. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.87.66|162.158.87.66]] 06:27, 13 April 2023 (UTC)
:The ant is 'about right' for a possible ant even on my display (8"/20cm). If that would be 0.5m long grass, the ant would be truly huge, nothing like the typical ones around here. Which I think are actually smaller (certainly more svelte) than the image, if I wandered down the garden path to find an actual ant or three in the 'wild'.
:So I don't think that's long grass of the kind you're assuming. But it does resemble the kind of 'pre-grass' (one step up from mosses) or microscrub (effectively bonzaied grass due to local growing conditions) to be found on a bit of semi-fresh dusty hardcore/well-worn footpath, as also shown by the loose stoney debris also present. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.151|172.70.91.151]] 09:50, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

2697: Y2K and 2038

2022-11-13T10:46:57Z

Boffy b: Revert memetic vandalism revision 298649 by 172.71.150.82 (talk) - The comic says “20”, not “Ϫ”

{{comic
| number = 2697
| date = November 11, 2022
| title = Y2K and 2038
| image = y2k_and_2038_2x.png
| imagesize = 527x190px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = It's taken me 20 years, but I've finally finished rebuilding all my software to use 33-bit signed ints.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a Y2K-BRICKED BOT (MADE JAN 1, 1970). Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

[[File:Year 2038 problem.gif|thumb|An animation of the 2038 bug in action. The {{w|integer overflow}} error occurs at 03:14:08 UTC on 19 January 2038.]]

The Y2K bug, or more formally, the {{w|year 2000 problem}}, was the computer errors caused by two digit software representations of calendar years incorrectly handling the year 2000, such as by treating it as 1900 or 19100. The {{w|year 2038 problem}} is a similar issue with timestamps in {{w|Unix time}} format, which will overflow their {{w|Signed number representations|signed}} 32-bit binary representation on January 19, 2038.

While initial estimates were that the Y2K problem would require about half a trillion dollars to address, there was widespread recognition of its potential severity several years in advance. Concerted efforts among organizations including computer and software manufacturers and their corporate and government users reflected unprecedented cooperation, testing, and enhancement of affected systems costing substantially less than the early estimates. On New Year's Day 2000, few major errors actually occurred. Those that did usually did not disrupt essential processes or cause serious problems, and the few of them that did were usually addressed in days to weeks. The software code reviews involved allowed correcting other errors and providing various enhancements which often made up at least in part for the the cost of correcting the date bug.

It is unclear whether the 2038 problem will be addressed as effectively in time, but documented experience with the Y2K bug and increased software modularity and access to source code has allowed many otherwise vulnerable systems to already upgrade to wider timestamp and date formats, so there is reason to believe that it may be even less consequential and expensive. The 2038 problem has been previously mentioned in [[607: 2038]] and [[887: Future Timeline]].

This comic assumes that the 38 years between Y2K and Y2038 should (or must) be split evenly between recovering from Y2K and preparing for Y2038. That would put the split point in 2019 (specifically, January 10, 2019). The caption points out that it's now (2022) well past that demarcation line, so everyone should have completed their "Y2K recovery" and begun preparing for Y2038. It is highly unlikely that there are more than a very few consequential older systems that still suffer from this bug, while systems built to operate only since the millennium can already handle years after 1999 correctly, though not ''necessarily'' those after 2099, 2255 or some other notable problematic date. There's also no reason any developer should have waited until 2019 to start preparing for 2038.

The title text refers to replacing the 32-bit signed Unix time format with a hypothetical new 33-bit signed {{w|Integer (computer science)|integer}} time and date format, which is likely to be a complicated task as almost all contemporary computer data structure formats are allocated no more finely than in 8-bit bytes. Taking 20 years to develop and implement such a format is not entirely counterproductive, as it would add another 68 years of capability, but it is a far less efficient use of resources than upgrading to the widely available and supported 64-bit Unix time replacement format (which much better fits 64- and even 32-bit hardware than a 33-bit format does) and software compatibility libraries.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

[A timeline rectangle with 37 short dividing lines between the two ends, defining it into 38 minor sections, with the label "2000" above, associated with the leftmost edge, "2038" associated with the rightmost edge and "2019" directly over the centermost division that starts the section which covers that year, which is also extended to form a dotted line divided the whole height of the timeline into two equal 19-section halves. The left half has the label "Recovering from the Y2K bug" and the right half is labeled "Preparing for the 2038 bug". A triangular arrowhead labeled "Now" is also above indicating a rough position most of the way through the section that would represent the year 2022.]

[Caption:] Reminder: By now you should have finished your Y2K recovery and be several years into 2038 preparation.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Calendar]]
[[Category:Computers]]
[[Category:Programming]]
[[Category:Timelines]]

2681: Archimedes Principle

2022-10-06T11:27:47Z

Boffy b: “pretext for the reason for” -> “pretext for”

{{comic
| number = 2681
| date = October 5, 2022
| title = Archimedes Principle
| image = archimedes_principle_2x.png
| imagesize = 312x379px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = "I've always wanted to run naked through town, but I don't want to get in trouble with the king or be remembered by history as a weirdo. I wonder how I could ... EUREKA!"
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created for a heist - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

{{w|Archimedes' Principle}} is a well known principle of fluid mechanics that states "Any object, totally or partially immersed in a fluid or liquid, is buoyed up by a force equal to the weight of the fluid displaced by the object." {{w|Archimedes}} supposedly discovered it when he was getting into a bathtub and noticed how much water spilled out of the tub when he got into it.

Archimedes' insight led to the solution of a problem posed by king Hiero of Syracuse, on how to assess the purity of an irregular golden votive crown; Hiero had given his goldsmith the pure gold to be used, and correctly suspected he had been cheated by the goldsmith removing gold and adding the same weight of silver. Equipment for weighing objects with a fair amount of precision already existed, and now that Archimedes could also measure volume, their ratio would give the object's density, an important indicator of purity (as gold is nearly twice as dense as silver and therefore has significantly greater weight for the same volume). The legend says that upon discovering that he could use this insight to solve the problem, he went running naked down the street shouting "{{w|Eureka (word)|Eureka}}!". Note that Archimedes' Principle is about buoyancy, not volume measurement, so his Principle is not strictly required for the crown measurement story; however [https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/history/it-true-archimedes-formulated-his-famous-principle-based-observation-he-made-he-immersed-himself Archimedes did formulate] the Archimedes' Principle.

In the comic, Archimedes plans on swapping the king's gold crown with a less valuable silver crown with gold plating, and this is claimed to be the first heist. It almost certainly wouldn't be the first robbery, but seems to refer to the complex, planned robberies of large amounts that are typical of {{w|heist films}}.

According to the title text, Archimedes's eureka moment wasn't when he discovered the buoyancy principle, but when he realized that he could use this discovery as a pretext for running naked through town, which is something he'd always wanted to do.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[Megan is seen picking up a crown from a bucket filled with water, while Archimedes, depicted as a balding man with a short white beard, is writing at a desk.]
:Megan: Uh, Archimedes, why is there a bucket of water with a gold crown hidden in the bottom?
:Archimedes: It's mostly silver. Replica of the King's crown. He's coming here later, and I have a plan.

:[Caption beneath the panel:]
:Archimedes invents the heist.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category: Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category: Comics featuring real people]]
[[Category: Physics]]

2595: Advanced Techniques

2022-03-19T19:34:16Z

Boffy b: /* Explanation */ With all the fantasy references, I thought this ought to be clarified.

{{comic
| number = 2595
| date = March 18, 2022
| title = Advanced Techniques
| image = advanced_techniques.png
| titletext = A blow from Emmy's Cutlass of Variations will transport the dragon to a corresponding symmetric position in the Noetherworld.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by AN EULISH CLAUSS- Please slay this dragon when editing this page. Do NOT travel to the Noetherworld.}}

[[Miss Lenhart]] is teaching a class. She outlines a process by which a mathematical result is achieved through what sounds suspiciously like witchcraft. The caption describes this scenario as being "All advanced math techniques."

This comic plays on mathematical terms which have other meanings, using them in different contexts from the ones intended for the terms.

The title text contains two puns and a reference. The phrase "{{w|Cutlass}} of Variations" is a pun on the mathematical technique called "{{w|Calculus of variations}}". The word "Noetherworld" is a pun on "{{w|underworld|netherworld}}". The reference is to the mathematician {{w|Emmy Noether}}, who was a (figurative) giant in the field of Abstract Algebra. Furthermore, so-called {{w|Noether's Theorem}} is used in the Calculus of Variations.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[Miss Lenhart is using a stick to point at a whiteboard with a drawing of a dragon, an archer, and rows of text on it, while facing, presumably, a crowd of students.]
:Miss Lenhart: To solve this equation, we invoke Gauss's operator to transform it into a dragon.
:Miss Lenhart: Then we slay the dragon with Hilbert's Arrow, and transform its corpse back into the solution.
:Voice off-screen: Just to be clear, this is a metaphor, right?
:Miss Lenhart: Does this '''look''' like English class?!

:[Caption below the panel:]
:All advanced math techniques

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Miss Lenhart]]
[[Category:Math]]

1826: Birdwatching

2017-04-21T06:38:57Z

Boffy b: /* Trivia */ fixed my broken links

{{comic
| number = 1826
| date = April 19, 2017
| title = Birdwatching
| image = birdwatching_small.png
| titletext = No, tell the park rangers to calm down, it's fine--I put a screen on the front. I just want to get the birds a little closer.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Needs more information on birdwatching specifically about using binoculars vs. a superzoom (or just large zoom) camera, and if it is correct how the explanation say it is more difficult with the camera or if it is just an inexperienced Cueball that is the reason for the trouble.}}
In this comic [[Cueball]] and his [[1350:_Lorenz#Knit_Cap_Girl|friend with a knit cap]] are out birdwatching (hence the title). {{w|Birdwatching}} is an activity to observe birds. Usually this is done at a distance, as birds are flying in the air, and are far away. It is thus helpful to use {{w|binoculars}}.

Cueball's friend uses binoculars and manages to spot a {{w|hawk}} a mile up. Cueball, however, has brought his camera, probably his superzoom camera from [[1719: Superzoom]]. But it is very difficult to find anything in such a camera if you zoom in first. And maybe Cueball is with his trained friend, out birdwatching for the first time. Cueball is frustrated and comments on the difficulty and is amazed his friend can spot birds over such distances.

Frustrated with his camera Cueball comes up with a solution, which is to use a {{w|vacuum cleaner}}, specifically a {{w|shop vac}}, to pull the birds in closer so he won't need the superzoom camera to see them (this he has just left on the ground next to the shop vac). This is physically impossible with such a small device. Even if the shop vac created a perfect vacuum, it can only pull out air at the speed of sound, which amounts to approximately 1 cubic meter per second considering the apparent size of the hose. This is not enough to create a significant amount of wind or affect the atmosphere. (Of course he may have borrowed it from his other friend [[Beret Guy]] who has many [[:Category:Strange powers of Beret Guy|strange powers]] that also extends to improving vacuum cleaners, which Cueball knows about as seen in [[1486: Vacuum]]).

The title text refers to {{w|park ranger}}s, who would naturally be distressed by birds being forced to coalesce via an extremely powerful vacuum. If such a vacuum were created and used for this purpose, it probably would pose a threat to said birds. Cueball says he has solved this problem by placing a perforated screen in front. In doing so, he can safely attract the birds without trapping them inside the vacuum. He implies that this should remove the danger to the birds, which is not the case. While the birds can no longer enter the vacuum itself, having a large number of birds pulled into a (presumably small) screen would probably fare poorly for the birds, so Cueball's solution is rather poor.

When out birdwatching it is a great idea to have a silhouette chart to be able to recognize the birds by the shadow they make against the sky. Two comics before this one [[Randall]] made a comic with just such a chart, [[1824: Identification Chart]], although that was for combinations of birds and planes...

==Transcript==
:[Cueball and his friend with a knit cap are standing together looking up in the sky. Cueball holds a camera with a large lens down in front of him, and his friend holds binoculars down in front of him.]
:Cueball: Birdwatching is hard.
:Cueball: They're all way too small and far away.

:[In a frame-less panel they both raise their tool eyepieces to their eyes.]
:Cueball: That hawk is over a mile up! How did you even spot it?

:[Both lower their eyepiece again. The friend still looks up while Cueball looks down on his camera which he holds up in front of him. A black squiggly line above his head indicates that he is fuming over his camera's abilities.]

:[Cueball now has a vacuum cleaner with a big body and a large hose which he is pointing towards the sky, as air is visibly sucked in to the hose and the vacuum cleaner is making a very loud noise which extends beyond the frame of the panel.Cueball is holding one hand on the vacuum cleaner which has a label with its brand on it. Cueball's camera lies on the ground in front of the vacuum cleaner. The friend looks back at Cueball.]
:Vacuum cleaner: <big>'''''Whrrrrr'''''</big>
:Label: Shop Vac

==Trivia==
*This comic was originally published with a very large picture, much larger than the standard screen.
**The original image was named [https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/birdwatching_huge.png birdwatching_huge.png]
**The image at that location has also been downsized to normal dimensions.
**It was later updated to use an image without the "_huge" in its name, at the usual size.
*The unexpected size was at first interpreted as being part of the joke, see the [[#Discussion|discussion page]].
**The idea was that the reader was only seeing an inconvenient subset of the magnified image on the screen, just like Cueball was experiencing an inconvenient subset of the magnified sky through the zoom of his camera lens.
**It seems, however, that it wasn't meant to be like this, as both the size and name of the image were later corrected.
*Alternatively the size gave people trouble with reading the page, and made Randall change his mind and reset it to normal size.
**It seems weird he would make a "_huge" version by mistake?
*The premise is similar to the {{w|Superman_(1940s_cartoons)|Fleischer Superman}} cartoon {{w|The Magnetic Telescope}}, where a mad scientist does essentially the same thing with comets.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Characters with Hats]]
[[Category:Animals]]

1826: Birdwatching

2017-04-21T06:31:13Z

Boffy b: /* Trivia */

{{comic
| number = 1826
| date = April 19, 2017
| title = Birdwatching
| image = birdwatching_small.png
| titletext = No, tell the park rangers to calm down, it's fine--I put a screen on the front. I just want to get the birds a little closer.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Needs more information on birdwatching specifically about using binoculars vs. a superzoom (or just large zoom) camera, and if it is correct how the explanation say it is more difficult with the camera or if it is just an inexperienced Cueball that is the reason for the trouble.}}
In this comic [[Cueball]] and his [[1350:_Lorenz#Knit_Cap_Girl|friend with a knit cap]] are out birdwatching (hence the title). {{w|Birdwatching}} is an activity to observe birds. Usually this is done at a distance, as birds are flying in the air, and are far away. It is thus helpful to use {{w|binoculars}}.

Cueball's friend uses binoculars and manages to spot a {{w|hawk}} a mile up. Cueball, however, has brought his camera, probably his superzoom camera from [[1719: Superzoom]]. But it is very difficult to find anything in such a camera if you zoom in first. And maybe Cueball is with his trained friend, out birdwatching for the first time. Cueball is frustrated and comments on the difficulty and is amazed his friend can spot birds over such distances.

Frustrated with his camera Cueball comes up with a solution, which is to use a {{w|vacuum cleaner}}, specifically a {{w|shop vac}}, to pull the birds in closer so he won't need the superzoom camera to see them (this he has just left on the ground next to the shop vac). This is physically impossible with such a small device. Even if the shop vac created a perfect vacuum, it can only pull out air at the speed of sound, which amounts to approximately 1 cubic meter per second considering the apparent size of the hose. This is not enough to create a significant amount of wind or affect the atmosphere. (Of course he may have borrowed it from his other friend [[Beret Guy]] who has many [[:Category:Strange powers of Beret Guy|strange powers]] that also extends to improving vacuum cleaners, which Cueball knows about as seen in [[1486: Vacuum]]).

The title text refers to {{w|park ranger}}s, who would naturally be distressed by birds being forced to coalesce via an extremely powerful vacuum. If such a vacuum were created and used for this purpose, it probably would pose a threat to said birds. Cueball says he has solved this problem by placing a perforated screen in front. In doing so, he can safely attract the birds without trapping them inside the vacuum. He implies that this should remove the danger to the birds, which is not the case. While the birds can no longer enter the vacuum itself, having a large number of birds pulled into a (presumably small) screen would probably fare poorly for the birds, so Cueball's solution is rather poor.

When out birdwatching it is a great idea to have a silhouette chart to be able to recognize the birds by the shadow they make against the sky. Two comics before this one [[Randall]] made a comic with just such a chart, [[1824: Identification Chart]], although that was for combinations of birds and planes...

==Transcript==
:[Cueball and his friend with a knit cap are standing together looking up in the sky. Cueball holds a camera with a large lens down in front of him, and his friend holds binoculars down in front of him.]
:Cueball: Birdwatching is hard.
:Cueball: They're all way too small and far away.

:[In a frame-less panel they both raise their tool eyepieces to their eyes.]
:Cueball: That hawk is over a mile up! How did you even spot it?

:[Both lower their eyepiece again. The friend still looks up while Cueball looks down on his camera which he holds up in front of him. A black squiggly line above his head indicates that he is fuming over his camera's abilities.]

:[Cueball now has a vacuum cleaner with a big body and a large hose which he is pointing towards the sky, as air is visibly sucked in to the hose and the vacuum cleaner is making a very loud noise which extends beyond the frame of the panel.Cueball is holding one hand on the vacuum cleaner which has a label with its brand on it. Cueball's camera lies on the ground in front of the vacuum cleaner. The friend looks back at Cueball.]
:Vacuum cleaner: <big>'''''Whrrrrr'''''</big>
:Label: Shop Vac

==Trivia==
*This comic was originally published with a very large picture, much larger than the standard screen.
**The original image was named [https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/birdwatching_huge.png birdwatching_huge.png]
**The image at that location has also been downsized to normal dimensions.
**It was later updated to use an image without the "_huge" in its name, at the usual size.
*The unexpected size was at first interpreted as being part of the joke, see the [[#Discussion|discussion page]].
**The idea was that the reader was only seeing an inconvenient subset of the magnified image on the screen, just like Cueball was experiencing an inconvenient subset of the magnified sky through the zoom of his camera lens.
**It seems, however, that it wasn't meant to be like this, as both the size and name of the image were later corrected.
*Alternatively the size gave people trouble with reading the page, and made Randall change his mind and reset it to normal size.
**It seems weird he would make a "_huge" version by mistake?
*The premise is similar to the {{w:Superman_(1940s_cartoons)|Fleischer Superman}} cartoon {{w:The_Magnetic_Telescope}}, where a mad scientist does essentially the same thing with comets.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Characters with Hats]]
[[Category:Animals]]