explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Talk:2041: Frontiers

2020-01-25T09:28:59Z

Brenda:

Most likely though of course not guaranteed reference for the title text is the recent stories out (about 2 days ago) saying that William Shatner regrets directing Star Trek V: The Final Frontier.
Quick example of one story here [https://www.cinemablend.com/news/2456761/william-shatner-regrets-directing-star-trek-v]
--[[User:Wjbodin3|WJBodin3]] ([[User talk:Wjbodin3|talk]]) 21:17, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
:I would find the timing very suspicious at the very least. I think it's highly likely the news inspired this comic, especially in light of Star Trek being outright named - and specifically that instalment. [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 13:22, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

It is interesting that all the current frontiers seem somewhat equidistant from the "center" of the squarish figure, as if we have achieved the same level of knowledge/exploration in each category... [[User:Daiemos|Daiemos]] ([[User talk:Daiemos|talk]]) 15:18, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
:Each is on its own (unlabeled) axis, scaled to imply parity among the topics. See [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/2023:_Y-Axis] [[Special:Contributions/172.68.58.89|172.68.58.89]] 16:53, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

;...finished exploring it by now (Title text)
If Randall means space and not the movie alone this would contradict the comic itself where space is still a big challenge. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 16:24, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

:I was thinking that myself, he could be saying that star trek has been fully explored, which the could be a slight reference to the relatively hot topic about star trek discovery. Some trekkies lamenting the fact that they didn't want another prequel... If on the other hand it is a reference to space itself, randall could have left the contradiction in on purpose, as part of the joke. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.70.143|172.69.70.143]] 18:02, 4 September 2018 (UTC) Sam

: Actually the title text states that the movie is only a small part of the space frontier and also probably fully explored by now. So the diagram is about Space, not the movie.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.167.174|162.158.167.174]] 04:39, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
I, embarrassingly, thought it referred to "Looking for Alaska." I am not worthy of XKCDhood
[[Special:Contributions/162.158.78.10|162.158.78.10]] 00:36, 13 November 2018 (UTC)

I always assumed that the final frontier to which the title was referring was "Death". [[User:Brenda|Brenda]] ([[User talk:Brenda|talk]]) 09:28, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

Talk:2041: Frontiers

2020-01-25T09:28:30Z

Brenda:

Most likely though of course not guaranteed reference for the title text is the recent stories out (about 2 days ago) saying that William Shatner regrets directing Star Trek V: The Final Frontier.
Quick example of one story here [https://www.cinemablend.com/news/2456761/william-shatner-regrets-directing-star-trek-v]
--[[User:Wjbodin3|WJBodin3]] ([[User talk:Wjbodin3|talk]]) 21:17, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
:I would find the timing very suspicious at the very least. I think it's highly likely the news inspired this comic, especially in light of Star Trek being outright named - and specifically that instalment. [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 13:22, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

It is interesting that all the current frontiers seem somewhat equidistant from the "center" of the squarish figure, as if we have achieved the same level of knowledge/exploration in each category... [[User:Daiemos|Daiemos]] ([[User talk:Daiemos|talk]]) 15:18, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
:Each is on its own (unlabeled) axis, scaled to imply parity among the topics. See [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/2023:_Y-Axis] [[Special:Contributions/172.68.58.89|172.68.58.89]] 16:53, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

;...finished exploring it by now (Title text)
If Randall means space and not the movie alone this would contradict the comic itself where space is still a big challenge. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 16:24, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

:I was thinking that myself, he could be saying that star trek has been fully explored, which the could be a slight reference to the relatively hot topic about star trek discovery. Some trekkies lamenting the fact that they didn't want another prequel... If on the other hand it is a reference to space itself, randall could have left the contradiction in on purpose, as part of the joke. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.70.143|172.69.70.143]] 18:02, 4 September 2018 (UTC) Sam

: Actually the title text states that the movie is only a small part of the space frontier and also probably fully explored by now. So the diagram is about Space, not the movie.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.167.174|162.158.167.174]] 04:39, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
I, embarrassingly, thought it referred to "Looking for Alaska." I am not worthy of XKCDhood
[[Special:Contributions/162.158.78.10|162.158.78.10]] 00:36, 13 November 2018 (UTC)

: I always assumed that the final frontier to which the title was referring was "Death". [[User:Brenda|Brenda]] ([[User talk:Brenda|talk]]) 09:28, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

Talk:1606: Five-Day Forecast

2019-05-21T12:17:26Z

Brenda: Added comment.

As far as I can figure out, -452 F is something like 4 K, which seems a bit too warm (above OTL microwave background). It probably should be -456 in the next-to-last row and -458 in the last row (-459 for the last column). --[[Special:Contributions/141.101.81.76|141.101.81.76]] 12:58, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

: Inside a galaxy, it presumably ''is'' a bit warmer than CMB, since there are stars around to heat the {{w|interstellar medium}} a little. --[[User:Aaron of Mpls|Aaron of Mpls]] ([[User talk:Aaron of Mpls|talk]]) 05:40, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

:: If Randall is going to use Farenheit why don't we stick with Rankine, thus -452 F works out at about 8 R? (Saves all the messing about with multiplication and division) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.34.147|162.158.34.147]] 13:15, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the conversions to degrees C as being a 58 year old Brit I have never understood degrees F (I know what they are just I have no idea whether 60F is cold, cool or comfortable). I have always used 5, 10 and 21, Winter, Spring and Summer sun - well works for Middle Brittan) [[User:RIIW - Ponder it|RIIW - Ponder it]] ([[User talk:RIIW - Ponder it|talk]]) 19:09, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

: FYI 60 degrees F outside is quite pleasant, a little cool, but inside your feet get cold. 15.5 degrees C [[User:NotLock|NotLock]] ([[User talk:NotLock|talk]]) 09:12, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

: Yes thank you for the conversions, _most_ readers of this comic use metric units: http://daretorant.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/metric-system.jpg [[User:Martin|Martin]] ([[User talk:Martin|talk]]) 21:52, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

:: As a younger Brit (56) I grew up with Farenheit, I'm not sure where in the UK our 58-year old grew up, but I don't remember a concerted effort to use SI units until the mid seventies. For me it's the other way 'round: 60F sort of OK as long as it isn't windy, 70F quite warm, 80F Phew! What a scorcher! All the centigrade equivalents are just too small! :) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.34.147|162.158.34.147]] 13:15, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

::: Perhaps the original Brit is only 58F, and was born c. 2000.[[Special:Contributions/108.162.238.87|108.162.238.87]] 21:09, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

There will be ambient starlight in addition to the 2.7K background which should raise the temperature slightly. However, the 2.7K background will also redshift to a lower temperature as time goes on: T propto 1/a where a is the scale factor of the Universe. Would be a good assignment for a cosmology class. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.54.48|173.245.54.48]] 13:07, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

Aha, what will last longer than stars etc is the silly Fahrenheits.
[[Special:Contributions/162.158.91.165|162.158.91.165]] 17:49, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

There are five columns. Either the first column is "today" and one should not speak of predictions after five (m/b/trillion) years (as is currently the case a couple of times), or the first column is "tomorrow (etc.)" and then the prediction of "A bright yellow sun; 38°F" for one trillion years would be very strange. [[User:Jkrstrt|Jkrstrt]] ([[User talk:Jkrstrt|talk]]) 18:39, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

Randall lives in a cold climate! [[Special:Contributions/188.114.97.127|188.114.97.127]] 21:37, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

If the "red giant" temperature measures the sun's core, how do you explain the last panels showing decidedly non-white-dwarf temperatures? --[[Special:Contributions/199.27.130.234|199.27.130.234]] 03:48, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

Regarding the 5-year-predicion: It seems to me that the temperature is in average rising a bit across the year, maybe a reference to the slow process of global warming? This would not be the first time, there are even whole comics just about global warming, especially about the noticeable speed and the "in average"-importance (e.g. 1379, 1321) {{unsigned ip|162.158.92.118}}
: I don't believe so. Five years is probably too short a period for discussing global warming. Limit it to a single place and even more so. Limit it to a sample of one day per year, and I believe you can't bother looking at the p-values. --[[User:Ahyangyi|Ahyangyi]] ([[User talk:Ahyangyi|talk]]) 15:56, 29 March 2016 (UTC)

;Image with °C

I hope someone will find my low-effort edited version useful: http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/File:five_day_forecast_Celsius.png --[[User:Asdf|Asdf]] ([[User talk:Asdf|talk]]) 18:15, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
:Nice work. It's mentioned above the explanation section. I'm hoping the values are correct. ;-) --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 18:39, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
::Thanks, I thought it'd be forgotten. I rounded the last value down from -269.44... to -270 degrees C to keep the joke though.
::Edit: Of course someone had thought of this before. See [https://www.reddit.com/r/xkcd/comments/3tk0ar/xkcd_1606_fiveday_forecast/cx71f7o/ this Reddit thread] to see a better image and conversion to kelvins. --[[User:Asdf|Asdf]] ([[User talk:Asdf|talk]]) 20:56, 26 June 2017 (UTC)

I’m thinking that maybe the flying saucers arrived to help us evacuate the planet (using tractor beams), before it was too late. [[User:Brenda|Brenda]] ([[User talk:Brenda|talk]]) 12:17, 21 May 2019 (UTC)

Talk:1601: Isolation

2019-05-18T10:41:00Z

Brenda:

The title text is referring to Yudkowsky's [http://www.yudkowsky.net/singularity/aibox/ AI-Box Experiment], which was already mentioned in [http://www.xkcd.com/1450/ xkcd.com/1450] and explained [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1450:_AI-Box_Experiment here]. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.153.11|162.158.153.11]] 09:03, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

If I remember correctly, there's a letter by an Ancient Roman writer complaining that people always write stories down now instead of just telling them to each other. So this mindset has existed for much longer than two centuries. --[[Special:Contributions/141.101.106.191|141.101.106.191]] 09:08, 9 November 2015 (UTC)
:But there had been little update in the technology behind books/writing since then and the news paper! --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 09:51, 9 November 2015 (UTC)
:Except for Gutenberg, moveable type, et al. I do wonder why 1840 was chosen for the first panel, maybe that is about when 'penny dreadfuls' became popular? [[User:Miamiclay|Miamiclay]] ([[User talk:Miamiclay|talk]]) 02:22, 12 November 2015 (UTC)
:Do you perhaps have a link to the Roman letter? I can't seem to find it. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.91.223|162.158.91.223]] 07:31, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

There is someone (not logged in) that believes that the last panel indicates that it is the same Cueball through 175 years that are ignored by his friends, instead of just a jab at generic people who complains about technology. Cueball being this generic person. I highly disagree with this, but the second I changed it to something else the same IP address changed it right back. I have now made two versions of this explanation. And made it clear that it would mean Cueball and his friends were about 200 years old. Then I will leave it to someone else to choose if both of these explanations should be left in, or maybe even a third be added...? --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 10:42, 9 November 2015 (UTC)
:I'm the one who initially made that edit. I only made the edit once, I didn't revert any edits you or anyone else made. I still think my explanation is the correct one, too. The "Take a hint" comment makes a lot more sense if Cueball has a long history of blaming others not socializing with him on technology. The "It's been two centuries" comment only makes sense in the context of it being the same Cueball in all six panels, because people have been making that comment for a lot more than two centuries, and even if they hadn't, any random person is unlikely to know when people first started making that sort of observation. This explanation also fits in more with xkcd's style. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.218.17|108.162.218.17]] 22:33, 9 November 2015 (UTC)
:Your explanation is correct and [[Special:Contributions/108.162.218.17|108.162.218.17]] is behaving like a child. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.17|108.162.221.17]] 13:41, 9 November 2015 (UTC)
::It's neither! Part of the humor is the bizarre reframing that occurs in the last few panels as you suddenly begin to consider that instead of just being a representative sampling of generic people's complaints throughout the years, you suddenly consider that maybe this IS just one guy, riding his hobby-horse relentlessly throughout the decades without letup -- Dude! Take a hint! For me, especially the way he is hanging on a strap in the penultimate panel suddenly makes him seem like he's been stalking these people, following them with his opinions... {{unsigned ip|108.162.218.142}}
:::We will have to wait until the official transcript appears. That might settle the question. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.17|108.162.221.17]] 15:03, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

it says "sims" not "The Sims". "sim" is just short for "simulator". there are other things that simulate things beyond "The Sims". --[[Special:Contributions/141.101.106.233|141.101.106.233]] 12:16, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

:The word "sim" is used extensively by the massive, immersive, online multiuser virtual world of Second Life to describe the different simulations of the network of lands. Maybe Randall was thinking of that? [[User:Brenda|Brenda]] ([[User talk:Brenda|talk]]) 10:38, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

I would rather say that the main explaination of the joke is a third way:
-Cueball represent the kind of person that complains about people ignoring each other. The contemporaries of such kind of person are clearly annoyed by his behavior and ignore him willingly. The complainer should understand the hint that people prefer isolation much better than having to interact with him. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.135.57|162.158.135.57]] 12:27, 9 November 2015 (UTC)
:I'm pretty sure that this is the joke. It's not that society is becoming more isolated, it's that everybody is intentionally trying to ignore Cueball, ''and he's not taking the hint'' [[Special:Contributions/162.158.60.11|162.158.60.11]] 14:54, 9 November 2015 (UTC)
::Agreed --[[Special:Contributions/173.245.54.66|173.245.54.66]] 15:04, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

I think that "dude, it's been 2 centuries" refers to the actual notion of people complaining about social isolation due to the current relavant "media" at the time rather than cueball himself- this might be other people, but these guys are all stick figures... It's also very unlikely that someone would live this long. {{Citation needed}} --[[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.5|108.162.216.5]] 12:57, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

I don't think those people are supposed to be Cueballs friends. They may be strangers, and the idea is that people don't WANT to be social with strangers. Using technology to isolate may be reaction to fact that cities force us into bigger groups that we are comfortable socializing with. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 13:40, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

I thought that Cueball being centuries old WAS the joke - it looks like this is just a montage along the lines of [[1227]], but it was actually Cueball saying the same thing for two solid centuries.
:I am inclined to agree that it's one of the jokes. I have never heard "take a hint" used to refer to things someone hadn't personally experienced. While people don't really live 2 centuries, it is a comic, not reality, and the implication he is the same Cueball makes a fun twist at the end of an obvious joke. He's poked at the history of this before, and the joke "maybe it's not technology, maybe it's your personality" has been done at least as far back as the Walkman example, probably much further. [[User:GonzoI|GonzoI]] ([[User talk:GonzoI|talk]]) 15:44, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

Also, this is clearly a lowercase-s-sim, not The Sims. Possibly inspired by the Infinite Fun Space of Ian M Banks' Culture novels, but that's not definite enough to put it.--[[Special:Contributions/162.158.38.207|162.158.38.207]] 14:16, 9 November 2015 (UTC)
:Yeah, that struck me as odd too. Anyone care to reformat? [[Special:Contributions/173.245.56.60|173.245.56.60]] 17:06, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

Anyone else think these might be actual quotes from the relevant times? Quick Google search doesn't support that (but then Google seems to skew its results towards recent more "relevant" responses, to the detriment of historical references -- give me what some random blogger has to say over the historical context! (Google obviously hasn't incorporated this strip yet, because then this strip will be the top result for all searches, and pages like this one will be the rest...)), but maybe Randall deliberately choose obscure references. Against this idea is that when he's done this in the past [citation needed], he's put in the references. But then, maybe he's mixing it up a little.... Thoughts? {{unsigned ip|108.162.218.142}}
:I could find nothing to support it either. I doubt it is specific quotes because some are very generic, and because the cartoonist uses the same internet as the audience. If we can't find it, I doubt that would be the joke. [[User:GonzoI|GonzoI]] ([[User talk:GonzoI|talk]]) 15:44, 9 November 2015 (UTC)
::Whether or not these are real quotes or not was never an issue with regard to the joke -- it makes no real difference, it's just an interesting aside. And it depresses me that the Internet -- let alone Google's subset index thereof -- is quietly assumed to be the sum of all knowledge. The author *might* use the same internet as the rest of us (or maybe none of us use the exact same internet, each having access to parts inaccessible to other users), but even if the statement is taken as given, the internet is not the sum total of all knowledge. Go to the stacks of any well stocked university library, for example, to see a whole wealth of information largely not on the the internet. I know Google is trying to address the issue, but really, if you want any information from before roughly 1995, the internet is not the place to find it. What library stacks does Randall have access to? What recent cache of old Collier's magazines did he acquire at a yard sale? Do we all have access to those? {{unsigned ip|108.162.218.142}}
:The style and pace and lexicon of the comments seems classically consistent with the ages being depicted. Mind you, that's what a clever person like Randall would ''try'' to do, with his dialogue. I was a little unsure about the age of "Bookworm", for the first panel, but {{w|The Bookworm|a painting by that name}} was painted circa 1850, so if that was its original title then it might well be an era-accurate term for bibliophiles. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.152.125|162.158.152.125]] 16:47, 9 November 2015 (UTC)
:I feel like I have actually seen at least a few of these quotes before but like you guys I don't have a source. Yet. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.22|108.162.221.22]] 17:19, 9 November 2015 (UTC)
::Additionally, the results of [https://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=%22we+even+read+as+we+walk%22&meta=&gws_rd=ssl a Google search for "we even read as we walk"], which I thought might be the easiest thing worth trying to track down, ''currently'' displays just two results. And those are [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page this site's explicit Main Page] and [http://www.explainxkcd.com/ this site's ''implicit'' main page] - technically something very close to a self-referential Googlewack! (This will doubtless change, if this page's transcript is also indexed, plus the XKCD original's transcript, plus other places chatting about this even including the XKCD Sucks blog, I'm sure. If it isn't already different for other, non-UK, Google front-ends...) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.152.125|162.158.152.125]] 20:54, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

This is quite a hobby horse for Randall. [[Special:Contributions/198.41.238.33|198.41.238.33]] 22:03, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

I am totally in camp "It's the same people in all panels". That's what I thought it was after reading the comments, and I'm sticking with it because it's funnier to me. -Pennpenn [[Special:Contributions/108.162.250.162|108.162.250.162]] 03:40, 10 November 2015 (UTC)
:Well the other characters are not the same from panel to panel... And there is even an extra Cueball in the last panel. But if the version with one Cueball should make any sense, will the title then reefer to the people isolating them selves, or is it actually Cueball who is put in isolation by all other people...? I still think he just (as always) represents a generic person, thus not the same from panel to panel. (And if you think he is always the same is Cueball then twice in the last panel!) --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 12:42, 10 November 2015 (UTC)
:: Would you keep the same hairstyle for 200 years? -Pennpenn [[Special:Contributions/108.162.250.162|108.162.250.162]] 22:35, 10 November 2015 (UTC)
::IMHO, it's pretty clear. The joke is that for the first 5 panels, you're expected to think of this as 5 unrelated groups of people having discussions on a similar theme. But in the 6th panel, you're expected to question that assumption, and think that it's the same Cueball who has been ranting about this same topic (and being studiously ignored by everyone around him) for 200 years. [[User:Stevage|Stevage]] ([[User talk:Stevage|talk]]) 23:33, 12 November 2015 (UTC)
I thought the joke was, that people who complain about other people isolating themselves with technology are actually just annoying people, that nobody likes to talk to. So it is not the same person in all the panels, but always the same ''type'' of person that other people do not wish to engage in conversation with. They think the people being distant is due to new technology and behave like that towards everybody, when in fact only the ones complaining are shunned. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.91.190|162.158.91.190]] 18:42, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

I think that the statement "IT´S BEEN TWO CENTURIES" pretty much kills the option were there are several Cueballs (and yes, that would make cueball 200 years old but weirder thing happen daily in XKCD) {{unsigned ip|198.41.226.203]}

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LD0x7ho_IYc Relevant Vsauce]. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.84.117|141.101.84.117]] 06:45, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

To me, "It's been two centuries" doesn't preclude the idea that the commenting Cueballs are different people. I took it to mean "People have been saying that for two centuries, maybe you should learn some history and give up on that idea." I wanted to avoid political example, but it's the only one I could think of: "It's been 3 decades, Mr. President. Trickle-down economics doesn't work!" -- I could say that, and it doesn't mean that the current president has been president for 3 decades. I'm just implying that the idea has existed a long time. 16:20, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

Talk:1601: Isolation

2019-05-18T10:38:53Z

Brenda: Added comment

The title text is referring to Yudkowsky's [http://www.yudkowsky.net/singularity/aibox/ AI-Box Experiment], which was already mentioned in [http://www.xkcd.com/1450/ xkcd.com/1450] and explained [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1450:_AI-Box_Experiment here]. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.153.11|162.158.153.11]] 09:03, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

If I remember correctly, there's a letter by an Ancient Roman writer complaining that people always write stories down now instead of just telling them to each other. So this mindset has existed for much longer than two centuries. --[[Special:Contributions/141.101.106.191|141.101.106.191]] 09:08, 9 November 2015 (UTC)
:But there had been little update in the technology behind books/writing since then and the news paper! --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 09:51, 9 November 2015 (UTC)
:Except for Gutenberg, moveable type, et al. I do wonder why 1840 was chosen for the first panel, maybe that is about when 'penny dreadfuls' became popular? [[User:Miamiclay|Miamiclay]] ([[User talk:Miamiclay|talk]]) 02:22, 12 November 2015 (UTC)
:Do you perhaps have a link to the Roman letter? I can't seem to find it. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.91.223|162.158.91.223]] 07:31, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

There is someone (not logged in) that believes that the last panel indicates that it is the same Cueball through 175 years that are ignored by his friends, instead of just a jab at generic people who complains about technology. Cueball being this generic person. I highly disagree with this, but the second I changed it to something else the same IP address changed it right back. I have now made two versions of this explanation. And made it clear that it would mean Cueball and his friends were about 200 years old. Then I will leave it to someone else to choose if both of these explanations should be left in, or maybe even a third be added...? --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 10:42, 9 November 2015 (UTC)
:I'm the one who initially made that edit. I only made the edit once, I didn't revert any edits you or anyone else made. I still think my explanation is the correct one, too. The "Take a hint" comment makes a lot more sense if Cueball has a long history of blaming others not socializing with him on technology. The "It's been two centuries" comment only makes sense in the context of it being the same Cueball in all six panels, because people have been making that comment for a lot more than two centuries, and even if they hadn't, any random person is unlikely to know when people first started making that sort of observation. This explanation also fits in more with xkcd's style. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.218.17|108.162.218.17]] 22:33, 9 November 2015 (UTC)
:Your explanation is correct and [[Special:Contributions/108.162.218.17|108.162.218.17]] is behaving like a child. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.17|108.162.221.17]] 13:41, 9 November 2015 (UTC)
::It's neither! Part of the humor is the bizarre reframing that occurs in the last few panels as you suddenly begin to consider that instead of just being a representative sampling of generic people's complaints throughout the years, you suddenly consider that maybe this IS just one guy, riding his hobby-horse relentlessly throughout the decades without letup -- Dude! Take a hint! For me, especially the way he is hanging on a strap in the penultimate panel suddenly makes him seem like he's been stalking these people, following them with his opinions... {{unsigned ip|108.162.218.142}}
:::We will have to wait until the official transcript appears. That might settle the question. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.17|108.162.221.17]] 15:03, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

it says "sims" not "The Sims". "sim" is just short for "simulator". there are other things that simulate things beyond "The Sims". --[[Special:Contributions/141.101.106.233|141.101.106.233]] 12:16, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

The word "sim" is used extensively by the massive, immersive, online multiuser virtual world of Second Life to describe the different simulations of the network of lands. Maybe Randall was thinking of that? [[User:Brenda|Brenda]] ([[User talk:Brenda|talk]]) 10:38, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

I would rather say that the main explaination of the joke is a third way:
-Cueball represent the kind of person that complains about people ignoring each other. The contemporaries of such kind of person are clearly annoyed by his behavior and ignore him willingly. The complainer should understand the hint that people prefer isolation much better than having to interact with him. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.135.57|162.158.135.57]] 12:27, 9 November 2015 (UTC)
:I'm pretty sure that this is the joke. It's not that society is becoming more isolated, it's that everybody is intentionally trying to ignore Cueball, ''and he's not taking the hint'' [[Special:Contributions/162.158.60.11|162.158.60.11]] 14:54, 9 November 2015 (UTC)
::Agreed --[[Special:Contributions/173.245.54.66|173.245.54.66]] 15:04, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

I think that "dude, it's been 2 centuries" refers to the actual notion of people complaining about social isolation due to the current relavant "media" at the time rather than cueball himself- this might be other people, but these guys are all stick figures... It's also very unlikely that someone would live this long. {{Citation needed}} --[[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.5|108.162.216.5]] 12:57, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

I don't think those people are supposed to be Cueballs friends. They may be strangers, and the idea is that people don't WANT to be social with strangers. Using technology to isolate may be reaction to fact that cities force us into bigger groups that we are comfortable socializing with. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 13:40, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

I thought that Cueball being centuries old WAS the joke - it looks like this is just a montage along the lines of [[1227]], but it was actually Cueball saying the same thing for two solid centuries.
:I am inclined to agree that it's one of the jokes. I have never heard "take a hint" used to refer to things someone hadn't personally experienced. While people don't really live 2 centuries, it is a comic, not reality, and the implication he is the same Cueball makes a fun twist at the end of an obvious joke. He's poked at the history of this before, and the joke "maybe it's not technology, maybe it's your personality" has been done at least as far back as the Walkman example, probably much further. [[User:GonzoI|GonzoI]] ([[User talk:GonzoI|talk]]) 15:44, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

Also, this is clearly a lowercase-s-sim, not The Sims. Possibly inspired by the Infinite Fun Space of Ian M Banks' Culture novels, but that's not definite enough to put it.--[[Special:Contributions/162.158.38.207|162.158.38.207]] 14:16, 9 November 2015 (UTC)
:Yeah, that struck me as odd too. Anyone care to reformat? [[Special:Contributions/173.245.56.60|173.245.56.60]] 17:06, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

Anyone else think these might be actual quotes from the relevant times? Quick Google search doesn't support that (but then Google seems to skew its results towards recent more "relevant" responses, to the detriment of historical references -- give me what some random blogger has to say over the historical context! (Google obviously hasn't incorporated this strip yet, because then this strip will be the top result for all searches, and pages like this one will be the rest...)), but maybe Randall deliberately choose obscure references. Against this idea is that when he's done this in the past [citation needed], he's put in the references. But then, maybe he's mixing it up a little.... Thoughts? {{unsigned ip|108.162.218.142}}
:I could find nothing to support it either. I doubt it is specific quotes because some are very generic, and because the cartoonist uses the same internet as the audience. If we can't find it, I doubt that would be the joke. [[User:GonzoI|GonzoI]] ([[User talk:GonzoI|talk]]) 15:44, 9 November 2015 (UTC)
::Whether or not these are real quotes or not was never an issue with regard to the joke -- it makes no real difference, it's just an interesting aside. And it depresses me that the Internet -- let alone Google's subset index thereof -- is quietly assumed to be the sum of all knowledge. The author *might* use the same internet as the rest of us (or maybe none of us use the exact same internet, each having access to parts inaccessible to other users), but even if the statement is taken as given, the internet is not the sum total of all knowledge. Go to the stacks of any well stocked university library, for example, to see a whole wealth of information largely not on the the internet. I know Google is trying to address the issue, but really, if you want any information from before roughly 1995, the internet is not the place to find it. What library stacks does Randall have access to? What recent cache of old Collier's magazines did he acquire at a yard sale? Do we all have access to those? {{unsigned ip|108.162.218.142}}
:The style and pace and lexicon of the comments seems classically consistent with the ages being depicted. Mind you, that's what a clever person like Randall would ''try'' to do, with his dialogue. I was a little unsure about the age of "Bookworm", for the first panel, but {{w|The Bookworm|a painting by that name}} was painted circa 1850, so if that was its original title then it might well be an era-accurate term for bibliophiles. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.152.125|162.158.152.125]] 16:47, 9 November 2015 (UTC)
:I feel like I have actually seen at least a few of these quotes before but like you guys I don't have a source. Yet. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.22|108.162.221.22]] 17:19, 9 November 2015 (UTC)
::Additionally, the results of [https://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=%22we+even+read+as+we+walk%22&meta=&gws_rd=ssl a Google search for "we even read as we walk"], which I thought might be the easiest thing worth trying to track down, ''currently'' displays just two results. And those are [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page this site's explicit Main Page] and [http://www.explainxkcd.com/ this site's ''implicit'' main page] - technically something very close to a self-referential Googlewack! (This will doubtless change, if this page's transcript is also indexed, plus the XKCD original's transcript, plus other places chatting about this even including the XKCD Sucks blog, I'm sure. If it isn't already different for other, non-UK, Google front-ends...) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.152.125|162.158.152.125]] 20:54, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

This is quite a hobby horse for Randall. [[Special:Contributions/198.41.238.33|198.41.238.33]] 22:03, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

I am totally in camp "It's the same people in all panels". That's what I thought it was after reading the comments, and I'm sticking with it because it's funnier to me. -Pennpenn [[Special:Contributions/108.162.250.162|108.162.250.162]] 03:40, 10 November 2015 (UTC)
:Well the other characters are not the same from panel to panel... And there is even an extra Cueball in the last panel. But if the version with one Cueball should make any sense, will the title then reefer to the people isolating them selves, or is it actually Cueball who is put in isolation by all other people...? I still think he just (as always) represents a generic person, thus not the same from panel to panel. (And if you think he is always the same is Cueball then twice in the last panel!) --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 12:42, 10 November 2015 (UTC)
:: Would you keep the same hairstyle for 200 years? -Pennpenn [[Special:Contributions/108.162.250.162|108.162.250.162]] 22:35, 10 November 2015 (UTC)
::IMHO, it's pretty clear. The joke is that for the first 5 panels, you're expected to think of this as 5 unrelated groups of people having discussions on a similar theme. But in the 6th panel, you're expected to question that assumption, and think that it's the same Cueball who has been ranting about this same topic (and being studiously ignored by everyone around him) for 200 years. [[User:Stevage|Stevage]] ([[User talk:Stevage|talk]]) 23:33, 12 November 2015 (UTC)
I thought the joke was, that people who complain about other people isolating themselves with technology are actually just annoying people, that nobody likes to talk to. So it is not the same person in all the panels, but always the same ''type'' of person that other people do not wish to engage in conversation with. They think the people being distant is due to new technology and behave like that towards everybody, when in fact only the ones complaining are shunned. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.91.190|162.158.91.190]] 18:42, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

I think that the statement "IT´S BEEN TWO CENTURIES" pretty much kills the option were there are several Cueballs (and yes, that would make cueball 200 years old but weirder thing happen daily in XKCD) {{unsigned ip|198.41.226.203]}

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LD0x7ho_IYc Relevant Vsauce]. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.84.117|141.101.84.117]] 06:45, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

To me, "It's been two centuries" doesn't preclude the idea that the commenting Cueballs are different people. I took it to mean "People have been saying that for two centuries, maybe you should learn some history and give up on that idea." I wanted to avoid political example, but it's the only one I could think of: "It's been 3 decades, Mr. President. Trickle-down economics doesn't work!" -- I could say that, and it doesn't mean that the current president has been president for 3 decades. I'm just implying that the idea has existed a long time. 16:20, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

Talk:1535: Words for Pets

2019-04-20T11:36:26Z

Brenda: Simple comment

I skipped the first step by naming my cat "Cat". On the plus side, even in the third year I was still mostly calling her by her name. --[[Special:Contributions/108.162.254.134|108.162.254.134]] 08:06, 8 June 2015 (UTC)
:My cat is also named "Cat". Then again, I call all cats "Cat". [[Special:Contributions/108.162.210.138|108.162.210.138]] 19:00, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

Not sure this is relevant enough to include, but there's [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ADogNamedDog a trope about that] [[Special:Contributions/188.114.111.224|188.114.111.224]] 11:39, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

I interpreted this slightly differently. In the first year, the pet is fresh and new, and you put the effort in to call it by its name. As time goes on, you get sloppier about it. In addition, I believe he missed a ring from it: Expletives. Within a year of having a new cat, I was calling it more by expletives than its name. [[User:Drmouse|Drmouse]] ([[User talk:Drmouse|talk]]) 14:24, 8 June 2015 (UTC)
:I thought expletives were deliberately implied, so I'm very surprised they are not mentioned in the explanation. [[Special:Contributions/198.41.239.231|198.41.239.231]] 23:50, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

I disagree with the explanation. The comic is about words used to refer to the pet, i.e. to name the pet when talking to someone else, not to talk to the pet. For instance "I forgot to feed Lassie" might later become "I forgot to feed the dog", then "I forgot to feed the damn thing" or whatever. Am I the only one to understand "refer" like this?
Zetfr 16:53, 8 June 2015 (UTC)
:In my household at least, we use the animal's species as its name. For example, instead of "Have you fed Lassie?", we may say " Have you fed Dog?". I think is what Randall is implying. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.29|141.101.98.29]] 17:00, 8 June 2015 (UTC)
::Since he begins to refer to the animal in the animals language, I would say that only makes sense if he talks to the animal. However the way the caption is phrased it could be understood the way he talks about the animal. So I think it is impossible to say that one explanation is correct and the other is wrong. Maybe that should be mentioned in explain. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 18:14, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

:::Agreed. [[Special:Contributions/188.114.97.151|188.114.97.151]] 23:24, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

I got a completely different idea to this, the relationship is one of friendship, not parentage, so the moving from name to associated to other words to sounds would be more like Hey Lassie -> Hey Dog -> Hey Fatso -> Ugh, Oi. This shows more the common friendship trope of insulting one another in a humorous way, which seems far more likely than transitioning into some kind of hybrid language for all bar the most "maternal" of owners. [[User:Hackerjack|Hackerjack]] ([[User talk:Hackerjack|talk]]) 22:40, 8 June 2015 (UTC)
:I agree here. With our cat it was Hi Blaser -> Hi Cat -> You little **** -> Oi, you -> "Maw?" [[User:Drmouse|Drmouse]] ([[User talk:Drmouse|talk]]) 09:08, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

The "You little ****" is something I can definitely attest to. A friend of mine keeps calling his cats assholes and similar words, so often that I have a hard time remembering their actual names. "come here" isn't how one "refers to" a pet, it's how one might call a pet, which isn't what the comic is about at all... [[User:Maplestrip|Maplestrip]] ([[User talk:Maplestrip|talk]]) 09:15, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

:I call my dog "plague" (makes more sense in our dialect of Portuguese). [[Special:Contributions/188.114.97.151|188.114.97.151]] 23:24, 28 December 2015 (UTC)
:: Was it a black dog, by any chance? [[User:Brenda|Brenda]] ([[User talk:Brenda|talk]]) 11:36, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

I wouldn't say Randall is restricting this comic to either of the two major possibilities: speaking to the pet, or speaking about the pet. It could well be a mixture of both.
We have a cat whose name is "Pwca" (Welsh spelling, same as "Pooka" as in the Jimmy Stewart movie "Harvey") but the name varies between "Pwca" and "Picklebean" and just "Bean" right along with "silly kitty" and "funny girl" and other descriptive words. She has a typical little short chirp that she uses to get our attention or to complain about something, and we often chirp back to her, so that would be "the pet's own language." My daughter's cat "Minnie" is "Minners" or "Minimum" or "Min-Min" or again, descriptive terms. You could certainly argue that some of those words are borderline incoherent. In most cases, they can be used while speaking either /to/ the pet, or /of/ the pet to a third party (or sometimes to the universe at large.)
Note that the phrase "pet name" has a double meaning, with 'pet' either a noun or an adjective, and in the latter case usually not actually referring to a pet.[[User:Taibhse|Taibhse]] ([[User talk:Taibhse|talk]]) 00:43, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

Randall talks to cats: [http://xkcd.com/231/ 231] {{unsigned ip|108.162.219.83}}

I thought it is Vienn diagram not Euler diagram {{unsigned ip|108.162.254.47}}

I call my kitty "foofy butt," "foofbutt," "fluffbutt," "plushbutt," "puffbutt," "squishy," [gibberish cooing], "meow meow," "hairy baby" (BH6 is my favorite animated movie), identical meows to his, and sometimes, occasionally, his actual name Mitu. Or Mittu My mom spells it differently than me. For the longest time, autocorrect autocorrected his name to MIT. xD Now all I can picture is me stroking the dome of one of the best schools in the entire world like it's a kitty. KITTY.

I miss him. He has lung cancer, and is at home, and I'm away at college. My poor little foofehbutt :c
[[User:International Space Station|International Space Station]] ([[User talk:International Space Station|talk]]) 05:20, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

If you just listened to what my mother called her cats throughout the day you'd think their names were "Trouble" "You Ratbag" and "Get down off that!" -Pennpenn [[Special:Contributions/108.162.250.162|108.162.250.162]] 01:22, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

By the time my parents' dog died her name had expanded from 'Lucy' to 'Lucius Germanicus P. Codwagon the Great' and my dad would talk about how she got lost up in the frozen spruce country and saw the Wendigo. To be fair she was like 14 by that point, so it's possible that we had reached past talking to her in her language to achieve complete screaming psychosis. She seemed to enjoy being told spooky stories about herself, though, so that was okay. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.59.142|162.158.59.142]] 04:44, 7 August 2017 (UTC)

Maybe it's just me, but I interpreted it as referring to the gradual transition where the pets name is gradually morphed into something else and/or it's given a nickname, which also eventually morphs. I once had a cat named "Smoky", which became "Swiss Mocha", and eventually "Bin-Bin" (I forget how exactly". My dog "Rasta" eventually became "Googer" or "Biggur" (I think that was "Good girl" and "Big girl" originally; "Biggoogurl" was also used sometimes). "Pupplet" and "Dogalog" also saw use. Her actual name is reserved for when she is bad or I'm trying to get her attention when she's running around outside. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.54.22|172.68.54.22]] 06:52, 7 January 2018 (UTC)

Talk:1284: Improved Keyboard

2018-12-17T09:31:59Z

Brenda: Added sig

Black hat has done something similar [[156|here]].[[User:Guru-45|Guru-45]] ([[User talk:Guru-45|talk]]) 13:17, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
: Nice find Guru. I've moved that into the explanation. --[[User:Jeff|Jeff]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 13:23, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
Gosh, Black Hat did something useful and constructive. Hurrah! (I'm such a dinosaur, I read "installing a keyboard" as "plugging in a physical keyboard". Have people got so short of time that even the word "app" gets dropped nowadays?)[[Special:Contributions/108.162.249.114|108.162.249.114]] 23:33, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

:I still remember that word being "application". Seems it was getting shorter and shorter and now it disappeared completely :-) -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 10:44, 1 November 2013 (UTC)
::Given that the person is talking about text messages (ostensibly from the phone he is holding), they probably just didn't need to add that it was an app since that would be self evident. -Pennpenn [[Special:Contributions/108.162.249.205|108.162.249.205]] 04:17, 21 January 2015 (UTC)
:The word "App" only really came into prominence once Apple started using it as a word to describe applications on their iPhones. As a result, many people still have no idea that “app” is short for “application” or what an application is. [[User:Brenda|Brenda]] ([[User talk:Brenda|talk]]) 09:31, 17 December 2018 (UTC)

Reminds me of the invisible Fleksy keyboard.[[User:Deyesed|Deyesed]] ([[User talk:Deyesed|talk]]) 07:31, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

You know, can [[Cueball]] uninstall it if there's no keyboard? [[User:SilverMagpie|SilverMagpie]] ([[User talk:SilverMagpie|talk]]) 19:54, 14 June 2017 (UTC)

Talk:1284: Improved Keyboard

2018-12-17T09:30:08Z

Brenda: Expansion on App name

Black hat has done something similar [[156|here]].[[User:Guru-45|Guru-45]] ([[User talk:Guru-45|talk]]) 13:17, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
: Nice find Guru. I've moved that into the explanation. --[[User:Jeff|Jeff]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 13:23, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
Gosh, Black Hat did something useful and constructive. Hurrah! (I'm such a dinosaur, I read "installing a keyboard" as "plugging in a physical keyboard". Have people got so short of time that even the word "app" gets dropped nowadays?)[[Special:Contributions/108.162.249.114|108.162.249.114]] 23:33, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

:I still remember that word being "application". Seems it was getting shorter and shorter and now it disappeared completely :-) -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 10:44, 1 November 2013 (UTC)
::Given that the person is talking about text messages (ostensibly from the phone he is holding), they probably just didn't need to add that it was an app since that would be self evident. -Pennpenn [[Special:Contributions/108.162.249.205|108.162.249.205]] 04:17, 21 January 2015 (UTC)
:The word "App" only really came into prominence once Apple started using it as a word to describe applications on their iPhones. As a result, many people still have no idea that “app” is short for “application” or what an application is.

Reminds me of the invisible Fleksy keyboard.[[User:Deyesed|Deyesed]] ([[User talk:Deyesed|talk]]) 07:31, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

You know, can [[Cueball]] uninstall it if there's no keyboard? [[User:SilverMagpie|SilverMagpie]] ([[User talk:SilverMagpie|talk]]) 19:54, 14 June 2017 (UTC)

Talk:1260: LD50

2018-12-07T01:06:34Z

Brenda:

There's one toxicology paper that's facing us instead of laying flat. Is it just me, or is there a funny "concerned" face on it? --[[User:Druid816|Druid816]] ([[User talk:Druid816|talk]]) 05:58, 4 September 2013 (UTC)
:I think that's just pareidolia at work [[Special:Contributions/199.27.133.127|199.27.133.127]] 20:56, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Oh my, when I checked the comic this morning I didn't even see Cueball lying underneath the stack of toxicology papers... --[[User:Buggz|Buggz]] ([[User talk:Buggz|talk]]) 06:17, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

Is there any way to move this page from LD50 to LD50? [[Special:Contributions/208.120.153.144|208.120.153.144]] 06:31, 4 September 2013 (UTC)
:We try to stay as faithful to the main xkcd comics as possible when referencing xkcd materials. If the comic title on xkcd.com is LD50, it's LD50 here too. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 06:51, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

Wait, that's just one scientist out of three that died of toxicity data. Doesn't that mean, that they've only determined LD33? Is there any way to estimate LD50 from LD33? Imho the exact distribution of death rate / dose would have to be known up to one free parameter for such an estimate... -- [[User:Xorg|Xorg]] ([[User talk:Xorg|talk]]) 10:56, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

:I tried to address this with an edit. Betwixt the ultimate and penultimate ("...he/she weighs.") sentences I started to add:
::Presumably, for every recorded death a statistically matched second person survived the same load. In this case ''perhaps'' this is the Cueball scientist behind the Megan scientist, although he is now obviously unencumbered.

:::But what do we know, maybe Cueball is only half dead.{{unsigned ip|189.186.105.168}}

:...although it started to run away with me. Was also going to say something about saving paper by re-using the 'test dose', or something, but it's already getting too long. But someone might be able to edit it (and even re-arrange it) better than I. [[Special:Contributions/178.106.190.241|178.106.190.241]] 11:42, 4 September 2013 (UTC)
:Second-thoughts edit! The person beneath the documentation isn't ''necessarily'' the dead one (in any given pair)! He lacks any obvious signs of being deceased (e.g. "a cross for an eye", by common cartoon standards, albeit that cueballs generally don't have eyes, or signs of bodily breakage or presumably vital fluids slowly seeping across the floor, or...). Thus maybe this is one of the (uncomfortable!) survivors from the cohort of testees, being observed. If only Randall would have added a sign of death (or life, like a "groan") then we could get on with our lives! (Unlike fully half of those tested upon.) [[Special:Contributions/178.106.190.241|178.106.190.241]] 11:51, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

A third edit from me: Regular printing paper's density (according to Wiki) is 800kg/m³, with the human body being slightly less than 1000kg/m³ as a ready reckoner (oh, go on then... wiki says... oh, it doesn't, obviously at least... well, given how we float in water, I'd estimate it at 850-950kg/m³). Doesn't that pile of literature (even assuming air gaps, and possibly some lamination/plastic covering of perhaps even less dense nature) look a ''little'' more than than twice-and-a-bit the volume of the typical Cueball beneath, even unflattened and unstickified? Right, that was my last edit. Honest. [[Special:Contributions/178.106.190.241|178.106.190.241]] 12:02, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

Could it be that by "administered orally", Randall means "verbally" (i.e. read out loud)? I think that could be quite a funny interpretation... :-) [[User:Gregatar|Gregatar]] ([[User talk:Gregatar|talk]]) 18:56, 4 September 2013 (UTC)
:Aurally? [[Special:Contributions/79.45.204.116|79.45.204.116]] 16:55, 5 September 2013 (UTC)APB
::YA RLY!!! [[Special:Contributions/173.245.55.67|173.245.55.67]] 14:06, 1 April 2014 (UTC)BK201

I totally agree with this 'verbally' thing, I was thinking the same, that a too large set of data read out loud would be fatal after a few 100 pages :) Include in explanation?
[[User:Flekkie|Flekkie]] ([[User talk:Flekkie|talk]]) 23:50, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

Laughing my ass off!!! But nothing to contribute other than laughter. :¬D [[User:ExternalMonolog|ExternalMonolog]] ([[User talk:ExternalMonolog|talk]]) 20:14, 4 September 2013 (UTC)ExternalMonolog

Something is very wrong here. The LD50 is the dose required to kill HALF of the test population, but here we see only one guy, and he's presumably either dead or not-dead. The "2kg/kg" figure suggests that if you drop 2x each person's weight in paper on an entire population, *half* of them will die. {{unsigned ip|58.28.131.238}}

:I don't think it's wrong, Randall just didn't draw all the experiments (like in [http://xkcd.com/882/ Significant]), but just the last one. The humour is just to show how the experiment is performed, not how many people it kills. The LD50 term just adds fun by using toxicology jargon.--[[Special:Contributions/92.231.34.227|92.231.34.227]] 14:25, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

When I first read this, I thought it was referring to a [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fork_bomb| fork bomb], saying that the data was toxic to the computer and that the data's mass is twice its own mass, i.e. its size doubles before you know it. The toxicology explanation does seem more convincing though. [[Special:Contributions/98.237.178.64|98.237.178.64]] 01:37, 6 September 2013 (UTC) edited [[Special:Contributions/98.237.178.64|98.237.178.64]] 01:42, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

The explanation of subcutaneous injection mentions blood clots in vessels. Subcutaneous injection in used in the medical field to refer to injections under the skin, but not inside muscle (intramuscular) or inside the veins (intravenous). IV would clearly be more lethal at a lower dose than subcutaneous and I would imagine Randall's intent was to describe an IV injection. I would expect the cause of death from paper particles injected under the skin to be infection if a small to moderate amount of paper was used to hemorrhage due to mechanical tearing of the skin and underlying tissues in a high dose.[[Special:Contributions/99.126.226.212|99.126.226.212]] 05:25, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

Why is the image missing?--[[Special:Contributions/108.162.250.8|108.162.250.8]] 10:32, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

The pockets in the scientists' coats are too low for them to reach with their short arms. Just sayin'. [[User:Brenda|Brenda]] ([[User talk:Brenda|talk]]) 01:05, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

Talk:1260: LD50

2018-12-07T01:05:36Z

Brenda:

There's one toxicology paper that's facing us instead of laying flat. Is it just me, or is there a funny "concerned" face on it? --[[User:Druid816|Druid816]] ([[User talk:Druid816|talk]]) 05:58, 4 September 2013 (UTC)
:I think that's just pareidolia at work [[Special:Contributions/199.27.133.127|199.27.133.127]] 20:56, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Oh my, when I checked the comic this morning I didn't even see Cueball lying underneath the stack of toxicology papers... --[[User:Buggz|Buggz]] ([[User talk:Buggz|talk]]) 06:17, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

Is there any way to move this page from LD50 to LD50? [[Special:Contributions/208.120.153.144|208.120.153.144]] 06:31, 4 September 2013 (UTC)
:We try to stay as faithful to the main xkcd comics as possible when referencing xkcd materials. If the comic title on xkcd.com is LD50, it's LD50 here too. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 06:51, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

Wait, that's just one scientist out of three that died of toxicity data. Doesn't that mean, that they've only determined LD33? Is there any way to estimate LD50 from LD33? Imho the exact distribution of death rate / dose would have to be known up to one free parameter for such an estimate... -- [[User:Xorg|Xorg]] ([[User talk:Xorg|talk]]) 10:56, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

:I tried to address this with an edit. Betwixt the ultimate and penultimate ("...he/she weighs.") sentences I started to add:
::Presumably, for every recorded death a statistically matched second person survived the same load. In this case ''perhaps'' this is the Cueball scientist behind the Megan scientist, although he is now obviously unencumbered.

:::But what do we know, maybe Cueball is only half dead.{{unsigned ip|189.186.105.168}}

:...although it started to run away with me. Was also going to say something about saving paper by re-using the 'test dose', or something, but it's already getting too long. But someone might be able to edit it (and even re-arrange it) better than I. [[Special:Contributions/178.106.190.241|178.106.190.241]] 11:42, 4 September 2013 (UTC)
:Second-thoughts edit! The person beneath the documentation isn't ''necessarily'' the dead one (in any given pair)! He lacks any obvious signs of being deceased (e.g. "a cross for an eye", by common cartoon standards, albeit that cueballs generally don't have eyes, or signs of bodily breakage or presumably vital fluids slowly seeping across the floor, or...). Thus maybe this is one of the (uncomfortable!) survivors from the cohort of testees, being observed. If only Randall would have added a sign of death (or life, like a "groan") then we could get on with our lives! (Unlike fully half of those tested upon.) [[Special:Contributions/178.106.190.241|178.106.190.241]] 11:51, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

A third edit from me: Regular printing paper's density (according to Wiki) is 800kg/m³, with the human body being slightly less than 1000kg/m³ as a ready reckoner (oh, go on then... wiki says... oh, it doesn't, obviously at least... well, given how we float in water, I'd estimate it at 850-950kg/m³). Doesn't that pile of literature (even assuming air gaps, and possibly some lamination/plastic covering of perhaps even less dense nature) look a ''little'' more than than twice-and-a-bit the volume of the typical Cueball beneath, even unflattened and unstickified? Right, that was my last edit. Honest. [[Special:Contributions/178.106.190.241|178.106.190.241]] 12:02, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

Could it be that by "administered orally", Randall means "verbally" (i.e. read out loud)? I think that could be quite a funny interpretation... :-) [[User:Gregatar|Gregatar]] ([[User talk:Gregatar|talk]]) 18:56, 4 September 2013 (UTC)
:Aurally? [[Special:Contributions/79.45.204.116|79.45.204.116]] 16:55, 5 September 2013 (UTC)APB
::YA RLY!!! [[Special:Contributions/173.245.55.67|173.245.55.67]] 14:06, 1 April 2014 (UTC)BK201

I totally agree with this 'verbally' thing, I was thinking the same, that a too large set of data read out loud would be fatal after a few 100 pages :) Include in explanation?
[[User:Flekkie|Flekkie]] ([[User talk:Flekkie|talk]]) 23:50, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

Laughing my ass off!!! But nothing to contribute other than laughter. :¬D [[User:ExternalMonolog|ExternalMonolog]] ([[User talk:ExternalMonolog|talk]]) 20:14, 4 September 2013 (UTC)ExternalMonolog

Something is very wrong here. The LD50 is the dose required to kill HALF of the test population, but here we see only one guy, and he's presumably either dead or not-dead. The "2kg/kg" figure suggests that if you drop 2x each person's weight in paper on an entire population, *half* of them will die. {{unsigned ip|58.28.131.238}}

:I don't think it's wrong, Randall just didn't draw all the experiments (like in [http://xkcd.com/882/ Significant]), but just the last one. The humour is just to show how the experiment is performed, not how many people it kills. The LD50 term just adds fun by using toxicology jargon.--[[Special:Contributions/92.231.34.227|92.231.34.227]] 14:25, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

When I first read this, I thought it was referring to a [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fork_bomb| fork bomb], saying that the data was toxic to the computer and that the data's mass is twice its own mass, i.e. its size doubles before you know it. The toxicology explanation does seem more convincing though. [[Special:Contributions/98.237.178.64|98.237.178.64]] 01:37, 6 September 2013 (UTC) edited [[Special:Contributions/98.237.178.64|98.237.178.64]] 01:42, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

The explanation of subcutaneous injection mentions blood clots in vessels. Subcutaneous injection in used in the medical field to refer to injections under the skin, but not inside muscle (intramuscular) or inside the veins (intravenous). IV would clearly be more lethal at a lower dose than subcutaneous and I would imagine Randall's intent was to describe an IV injection. I would expect the cause of death from paper particles injected under the skin to be infection if a small to moderate amount of paper was used to hemorrhage due to mechanical tearing of the skin and underlying tissues in a high dose.[[Special:Contributions/99.126.226.212|99.126.226.212]] 05:25, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

Why is the image missing?--[[Special:Contributions/108.162.250.8|108.162.250.8]] 10:32, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

The pockets in the scientists' coats are to low for them to reach with their short arms. Just sayin'. [[User:Brenda|Brenda]] ([[User talk:Brenda|talk]]) 01:05, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

Talk:863: Major in the Universe

2018-07-10T08:22:57Z

Brenda:

If all else fails, you could always become an artist. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|purple|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 10:03, 9 March 2013 (UTC)
:What does that mean? That art is a "backup" field that anyone can do? Art is one of the only things I think I would be unable to succeed at, no matter how hard I tried. Like saying "you could always become a professional basketball player." You just can't. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.7|108.162.219.7]] 23:58, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

::On the contrary, art is a form of self expression, therefore anyone can do it (according to my old art teacher). It’s like singing. Anyone can sing, although the results may not be the same as a person who can sing "better" than you, but if you can make a noise with your mouth then you can still claim you're singing. [[User:Brenda|Brenda]] ([[User talk:Brenda|talk]]) 08:21, 10 July 2018 (UTC)

I thought if all else fails you become a teacher? ~JFreund

Talk:863: Major in the Universe

2018-07-10T08:21:10Z

Brenda: Art can be done by everyone.

If all else fails, you could always become an artist. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|purple|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 10:03, 9 March 2013 (UTC)
:What does that mean? That art is a "backup" field that anyone can do? Art is one of the only things I think I would be unable to succeed at, no matter how hard I tried. Like saying "you could always become a professional basketball player." You just can't. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.7|108.162.219.7]] 23:58, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

On the contrary, art is a form of self expression, therefore anyone can do it (according to my old art teacher). It’s like singing. Anyone can sing, although the results may not be the same as a person who can sing "better" than you, but if you can make a noise with your mouth then you can still claim you're singing.
[[User:Brenda|Brenda]] ([[User talk:Brenda|talk]]) 08:21, 10 July 2018 (UTC)

I thought if all else fails you become a teacher? ~JFreund

Talk:854: Learning to Cook

2018-07-09T14:00:50Z

Brenda:

It only looks like I got takeout at Pizza Hut. I made this pizza! Legit! I made the box too! '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 07:09, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

The current explanation is "a person who cannot cook and can't quite find the time to learn", but I interpreted this as someone who thinks they want to cook more, but ends up buying pre-made food often enough to cause the ingredients to go bad. Such as buying a loaf of bread, deli meat and toppings, making a sandwich (or sudoing someone else), but then eating at restaurants until discovering the bread has gone bad... I may be biased, though, since this is what usually happens to me. [[User:Tryc|Tryc]] ([[User talk:Tryc|talk]]) 17:49, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

I did this same thing. I bought pots and pans and everything I could use. Tried making noodles and cheese and it did NOT work! ~JFreund

In most case cooking definitely need some level of passion, as there are some learning - involving trial and error - required to be able to cook good tasting food. Almost all cooking recipes have some ambiguity or omitted details about the cooking process which need to be found to produce good result. [[User:Arifsaha|Arifsaha]] ([[User talk:Arifsaha|talk]]) 20:05, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

In most case cooking definitely need some level of passion, as...

...in getting married to someone that can cook. Kissing don't last, cookery do.
https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/g/george_meredith.html

[[User:Weatherlawyer| I used Google News BEFORE it was clickbait]] ([[User talk:Weatherlawyer|talk]]) 17:53, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

The text also refers to the use of leftovers to create another meal which itself will create leftovers. This is similar to the Hobo's Cigarette Butt Puzzle.
http://goodriddlesnow.com/riddles/view/673/index.htm
[[User:Brenda|Brenda]] ([[User talk:Brenda|talk]]) 14:00, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

Talk:854: Learning to Cook

2018-07-09T13:59:16Z

Brenda:

Talk:848: 3D

2018-07-07T19:19:57Z

Brenda: Added extra info.

As of August 3, 2013, the title text has not been explained. Could someone explain it, please?[[Special:Contributions/108.28.72.186|108.28.72.186]] 23:50, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

:6241509647120.4 MeV = 1 joule = one ampere through a resistance of one ohm for one second.
Presumably they were unable to deal with the energy output of the film.

[[User:Weatherlawyer| I used Google News BEFORE it was clickbait]] ([[User talk:Weatherlawyer|talk]]) 19:24, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Someone should add somewhere that this comic appears 2D on http://xk3d.xkcd.com/848/. {{unsigned ip|173.245.48.107}}

And also that the second panel of this strip is in (a pretty good, shaded 2D approximation of) 3D.
Hence, "presented in 3D", could refer to the perplexed audience at the presentation. {{unsigned ip|108.162.219.65}}

And the "ant on a tightrope" analogy was used in the TV series Stranger Things, to explain the other dimensions of the "Upside Down". [[User:Brenda|Brenda]] ([[User talk:Brenda|talk]]) 19:19, 7 July 2018 (UTC)

Talk:834: Wikileaks

2018-07-06T11:43:17Z

Brenda: Julian isn't being held hostage. He can leave whenever he likes,

The third paragraph sounds awkward to me, and I couldn't figure out anything to do about it. Could somebody fix that, please? [[User:Kyt|Kyt]] ([[User talk:Kyt|talk]]) 03:15, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Had a crack, not sure its any less awkward, but it is more balanced [[User:Plm-qaz snr|Plm-qaz snr]] ([[User talk:Plm-qaz snr|talk]]) 10:21, 17 August 2014 (UTC)
:This could be Randall's criticism of Wikileaks for betraying the United States Government. Such a criticism would imply that Wikileaks gains allies, but needs betrayal and secrets in order to continue working. Randall could be implying that Wikileaks can only survive by betraying its supporters, as total declassification of the Government would render them useless. Equally, it could be just for laffs or a reflection on the risks of allying with a dispassionate organisation with a single agenda that could be as readily used against you as against its current target of the government.

I don't think it is a crack. The students making a nuisance of themselves in the Johnson era turned out to be heroic. Who denies that, these days?
: ummm ...my australianism may have been confusing "Had a crack" was an abbreviation of "i had a crack at it" meaning "i have had a go at fixing the third paragraph". No reference to cracks in the content or fracturing generally [[User:Plm-qaz snr|Plm-qaz snr]] ([[User talk:Plm-qaz snr|talk]]) 11:59, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

It's a paradox though and a joke in what Wikileaks does (in the comic.) Currently Julian Assange is being "held hostage" by the British government over a Swedish case the Swedes have no interest in. The FBI (ostensibly) unmasked the culprits in Anonymous' DDoS of the US government. Wikileaks have never given identities away. Shoddy security has seen it hacked though.

Who knows what else went on with heartbleed and the like. It is a sack of shit all around.

[[User:Weatherlawyer| I used Google News BEFORE it was clickbait]] ([[User talk:Weatherlawyer|talk]]) 20:48, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

I feel like we need an explanation for that IP address in the address bar. Incomplete? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.218.35|108.162.218.35]] 14:04, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

Talk:821: Five-Minute Comics: Part 3

2018-07-01T10:03:30Z

Brenda: Spelling correction

Regarding Lucy, Peter, et al, the four children in The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe... They're not ''foster'' children (except in the broadest possible parallel), but ''Evacuees''. A huge number of children from many of the major cities of the UK were packed off in WW2 to be temporarily housed in more rural places, to escape The Blitz. (Many more, but a minor fraction, had been packed off to British Overseas Territories, and other friendly territories... Some part of this overseas cohort were children of richer parents who could afford to send their kids on 'holiday' well out of harm's way when things looked like they may get "a bit sticky", quite a lot of the rest were mostly orphans and the like, possibly ''including'' children currently in provisional foster-care, with few links to real family to keep them in the UK who were basically herded off to The Colonies, e.g. Australia, Canada...) From personal reading of the Narnia books I'd definitely say that the children (and their contemporaries) are upper-middle class at worst (not inner-city ne'er-do-wells... the classic quote apparently being of a city teacher saying as how his kids had left him for Evacuation saying "We is...", but returned after the general threat had lessened saying the rural variation of "Us be..."... The Pevensies, Eustace Scrub and Jill Pole were definitely of a higher-class than these stereotypes, although Prof. Kirke, in his youth and Polly Plummer sound at least ''financially'' lower in class... yet above the status King Frank the First had, whilst still a hansom-cab driver in our world), and there's most definitely living parents in the picture (see The Last Battle for how things ''stood''). And it just occurs to me that a family of four kids, in fact, would have been dreadfully lucky to have been either fostered ''or'' Evacuated to to the same place... Good job Prof. Diggory was there with space for them, eh? ;) ...Anyhow, just saying. Don't even know if it's worth changing this one word in the explanation, but FYI. [[Special:Contributions/31.110.91.76|31.110.91.76]] 00:01, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

A further note on the Narnia panel:
At an earlier point in xkcd (#665), a woman (who appears to be Megan) discovers the wardrobe and begins conducting experiments. So Randall could be refering to her, and not the original children of the story, thus making some of these points arbitrary. On the other hand, in neither drawing are the subjects clearly identified, though the presence of computing would indicate a later time period than WWII. [[Special:Contributions/75.101.102.252|75.101.102.252]] 09:58, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

And a final one on Narnia: SETI is looking for signs of extraterrestrial life. Doing your computation in a whole other world full of non-human sentients is...ironic, to say the least. [[Special:Contributions/209.6.194.68|209.6.194.68]] 21:18, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

I think the centrifuge panel could also be a reference to sperm washing or sperm washing for gender selection, which are used in methods like IVF to select certain sperm for insemination. {{unsigned|213.203.138.251}}
:I think it's just a silly reference to centrifuges, not a reference to a specific centrifuge based procedure. -Pennpenn [[Special:Contributions/108.162.250.162|108.162.250.162]] 06:43, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

I don't know what languages Randal speaks but would it be coincidence that the wolf asks "What is this shit?" while referring to strontium while stront is a Dutch word for shit? [[User:Tharkon|Tharkon]] ([[User talk:Tharkon|talk]]) 00:57, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

: That's really interesting and needs to be said in the explanation, although it looks more like "SHTT". {{unsigned ip|198.41.238.16}}

::Added that. [[User:Herobrine|Herobrine]] ([[User talk:Herobrine|talk]]) 13:19, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

804: Pumpkin Carving

2018-06-30T19:55:38Z

Brenda: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 804
| date = October 11, 2010
| title = Pumpkin Carving
| image = pumpkin carving.png
| titletext = The Banach-Tarski theorem was actually first developed by King Solomon, but his gruesome attempts to apply it set back set theory for centuries.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic is a reference to the American custom of making {{w|Jack-o'-lantern|Jack-O'-Lantern}}s to set out on porches and front steps for the holiday of {{w|Halloween}}, which occurs on October 31. Typically they are made with {{w|pumpkins}} by emptying the inside leaving a hollow shell, carving a face or design on the side, then placing a light or candle inside. The Jack-O'-Lantern in the 3rd frame is the typical and standard design for a carved pumpkin.

The comic is set up as a typical TV program where an off-screen interviewer asks four (very) different people what they have made out of their Halloween pumpkin. In the [http://xkcd.com/804/info.0.json official transcript] the interviewer that talks in three of the panels is called an Interlocutor: "a person who takes part in dialogue or conversation."

In the first frame, [[Beret Guy]], naturally, stays oddly on-topic by physically carving an image of a pumpkin in his pumpkin. This means his answer, "I carved a pumpkin," could apply to either the image or the medium of his artwork.

In the second frame, [[Black Hat]] is shown with a container of {{w|nitroglycerin}} next to his pumpkin. Nitroglycerin is a highly explosive liquid that may explode violently with just a small bump. Black Hat has not carved a hole for his lamp, but it seems he has emptied the inside of the pumpkin as the stem at the top has been removed. This will make it possible to fill up the pumpkin with nitroglycerin. Teenagers are a rather impulsive and rebellious lot; as Halloween is a night with lots of meticulously erected decorations and more lax parental supervision, troublemaker teens see it as an enticing time to engage in rampant vandalism, including but not limited to pumpkin-smashing. Hence, the off-panel character presumes that Black Hat is setting up a trap to get back at these ne'er-do-wells. To top it off, Black Hat plans to put up a sign warning passers-by to not smash the pumpkin. This would only serve to tempt impulsive teenagers to disturb it, which is very likely what the sadistic and chaos-loving [[Classhole]] is hoping for. If he succeeds with his plan, with a completely hollowed out pumpkin of the shown size filled with nitroglycerin, it would seem likely that the resulting explosion would leave a largish crater, flatten wood-framed buildings nearby, shatter windows for blocks in all directions, and be more than sufficient to kill the vandal along with others in the surrounding area. This is clearly overkill for such a petty crime.

Black Hat, rather unconvincingly, insists that his pumpkin is suffering from chest pains, and that the nitroglycerin is merely intended for medical treatment. While it is true that this chemical is used to treat {{w|angina}} (chest pain due to blocked arteries in the heart), nitroglycerin used for this purpose is dispensed in the form of small pills containing only trace amounts, and controlled by prescription. Also, pumpkins are a vegetable and do thus not contain nervous or circulatory systems of mammalian complexity; even if they did, the process of pumpkin carving involves hollowing them out, making it a moot point.

In the third frame, [[Megan]] is our typical emotional xkcd comic character. She is the only one out of the four who actually carved a typical jack-o'-lantern; however, she is projecting herself onto it, and has named it Harold. Her dialogue suggests it (or he) is suffering from typical holiday depression, with symptoms such as using a lot of time daydreaming, worrying, and trying to distract herself with holiday traditions, but she already knows that it won't work. This is a possible reference to the classic {{w|Internet meme|meme}} [http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/hide-the-pain-harold Hide The Pain Harold.]

In the fourth frame, [[Cueball]] is shown in front of two un-carved pumpkins exclaming that this is the result of carving one pumpkin. He is referencing the {{w|Banach-Tarski paradox}} (which is made clear in the title text), a theorem which states that it is possible to split a three-dimensional ball, in this case a pumpkin, into a finite number of "pieces," and then reassemble these "pieces" into two distinct balls both identical to the original. This paradox has been proven for theoretical shapes, but requires infinitely complicated pieces which are impossible for anything made of physical {{w|atomic theory|atoms}} rather than mathematical {{w|point (geometry)|points}}.

The off-screen interviewer in that frame references the {{w|Axiom of Choice}}. This axiom is the foundation for many theorems (including the Banach–Tarski paradox) and is extremely influential to modern mathematics; however, it has been historically controversial precisely because it enables this kind of weirdness. It is called an "axiom" because it is a statement that is not meant to be proven or disproven—only accepted or rejected depending on the theoretical framework one wishes to work with. Rejecting the Axiom of Choice results in a perfectly coherent alternate form of set theory. Since the proof for the Banach–Tarski paradox relies on accepting the axiom of choice, the interviewer is suggesting Cueball's unexpected result would not have happened without using the axiom.

The title text references a biblical story involving {{w|Solomon|King Solomon}}. In the story, known as the {{w|Judgment of Solomon}}, two women were brought before him both claiming that a particular child was their own. Solomon tested the women by saying the only solution was to cut the baby in half and give each woman one of the halves, knowing only the real mother would fight to save her child's life even if the price was giving up the whole child to the other woman. The joke is that if Solomon had developed the Banach–Tarski theorem first, then he could have actually believed cutting the baby into pieces was a valid solution. In that scenario, he would have tried to make two whole children from the original and given one to each woman. However, since babies are not infinitely divisible, his attempt would have failed miserably and set back set theory for centuries due to the appearance that he has "proved" the theorem wrong.

The axiom of choice and set theory was later referenced in [[982: Set Theory]] and, much later, the axiom of choice was mentioned again in the title text of [[1724: Proofs]].

This comic was released 20 days before Halloween in 2010, possibly to inspire people with some great ideas for their pumpkins. It has been known (particularly by Randall) that people copy his ideas, for instance this earlier [http://xkcd.com/chesscoaster/ post] on xkcd based on [[249: Chess Photo]]. Soon after he even made a comic, [[254: Comic Fragment]], that was supposed to be impossible to copy, which he mentioned himself later (see the explanation).

==Transcript==
:[Beret Guy, holding his arms out, stands behind a large orange pumpkin with the stem on top. It is sitting on a table. The pumpkin has been carved out as a lamp with large hole, and a lit candle is visible in the hole. The hole is in the shape of another carved out pumpkin. An interviewer speaks from off panel.]
:Interviewer (off-panel): So what did you—
:Beret Guy: I carved a pumpkin!
:Interviewer (off-panel): ...

:[Black Hat stands behind a large orange pumpkin which has not been carved out as a lamp, but the stem at the top has been removed and is placed tilting on the side of the pumpkin. It is sitting on a table. A gray box stands next to and partly in front of the pumpkin. On the end of the box there is a label at the top with unreadable text and below that some kind of drawing with a circle at the top. The interviewer speaks from off panel.]
:Interviewer (off-panel): Taking on teen vandals, I see.
:Black Hat: Heavens, no. My pumpkin simply has chest pains. In fact, I'll leave a note ''warning'' them not to smash it.
:Text on box:
::Nitro-
::glycerin
::Do Not
::Shake

:[Megan stands next to a large orange pumpkin with the stem on top. It is sitting on a table. The pumpkin has been carved out as a typical Halloween lamp. The bottom part of a white candle stick is visible in the mouth shaped hole. The hole is in the shape of a typical jack-o' lantern, with two slanted eyes, double slit nose and a smiling mouth with a tooth sticking out from both upper and lower lip, on either side of the candle stick.]
:Megan: My pumpkin's name is Harold. He just realized that all the time he used to spend daydreaming, he now spends worrying. He'll try to distract himself later with holiday traditions, but it won't work.

:[Cueball stands next to a two orange pumpkins with their stems on top, the left pumpkin is slightly larger than the right which is partly in front of the larger pumpkin. They have not been carved out even though a knife lies next to them to the right in front of Cueball on the table where they both stand. The interviewer speaks from off panel.]]
:Cueball: I carved and carved, and the next thing I knew I had ''two'' pumpkins.
:Interviewer (off-panel): I ''told'' you not to take the axiom of choice.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Beret Guy]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Black Hat]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Math]]
[[Category:Logic]]

Talk:801: Golden Hammer

2018-06-29T00:39:40Z

Brenda:

What is the title referencing? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.45|108.162.216.45]] 05:25, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

Isn't that one of the original intents of Java, that is embedded systems? Presumably Java does run in several PLC type devices, but I have no first had account on this; Java certainly is not popular or common there. I checked the Wikipedia page and smart TV's were mentioned, this for 1991. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.230.131|108.162.230.131]] 21:49, 12 December 2014 (UTC)
:Not all embedded systems are single-purpose hardware. Smart TVs use Java, so other developers can also easily create additional applications for them. [[User:Condor70|Condor70]] ([[User talk:Condor70|talk]]) 12:40, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

Does anybody know why Randall choose Wolf Blitzer for this comic? Does he have some relation to boats? [[User:Condor70|Condor70]] ([[User talk:Condor70|talk]]) 12:40, 15 July 2015 (UTC)
:Presumably Randall knows, though it could be something as simple as "He's wealthy enough to have a boat and most people would know who he is". -Pennpenn [[Special:Contributions/108.162.250.162|108.162.250.162]] 06:39, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

Nobody outside America has heard of Wolf Blitzer. Just sayin'. [[User:Brenda|Brenda]] ([[User talk:Brenda|talk]]) 00:39, 29 June 2018 (UTC)

Talk:745: Dyslexics

2018-06-20T08:19:03Z

Brenda:

Can someone explain this sentence: "I kept doing 'doing 'doing it wrong' wrong' wrong."? Other than the 3 nested quotes, I don't get the point. [[User:Djbrasier|Djbrasier]] ([[User talk:Djbrasier|talk]]) 16:10, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

He's expanding the "it" in "doing it wrong." The joke of the comic itself is that the dyslexics are having difficulty making a mistake--they're doing "doing it wrong" wrong. In the title-text, Randall reveals he was having difficulty doing that wrong--he was doing "doing "doing it wrong" wrong" wrong. --[[User:Hatkirby|Hatkirby]] ([[User talk:Hatkirby|talk]]) 07:17, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

It's a nested statement. Perhaps made clearer with parenthesis. He's {doing [doing (doing it wrong) wrong] wrong}. In other words. He's incorrectly executing the incorrect execution of "doing it wrong" [[Special:Contributions/199.27.128.112|199.27.128.112]] 03:27, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

A := "doing it wrong" 
This is referring to the mispelling of 'unite' as 'untie' by the dyslexic designer of the T-shirt.
B := "doing A wrong" == "doing 'doing it wrong' wrong" 
This refers to Randall's purposefully mispelling 'untie' as 'unite' to parody the The Far Side comic (which spelled 'unite' as 'untie').
C := "doing C wrong" == "doing 'doing 'doing it wrong' wrong' wrong" 
This refers to Randall getting confused and writing out 'untie' instead of 'unite'. He is messing up his parody of the The Far Side joke.
Steven Chartis [[Special:Contributions/108.162.237.124|108.162.237.124]] 22:48, 26 December 2014 (UTC)
:I think you meant to say "doing B wrong" at the end instead of C. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.210.232|108.162.210.232]] 18:41, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

"an invresion" is likely a typo but it's on-topic so I'm totally leaving it there [[Special:Contributions/188.114.97.133|188.114.97.133]] 00:54, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

I actually saw "untie" on first glance... that sukcs... [[User:Flewk|flewk]] ([[User talk:Flewk|talk]]) 10:09, 9 January 2016 (UTC)
: Same here, it took me a few times to get it straight. [[User:Dontknow|Dontknow]] ([[User talk:Dontknow|talk]]) 05:09, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

Once when Thelonius Monk wanted a retake during a recording session of one of his compositions he explained, "I played the wrong wrong notes."

Or, as Eric Morecambe would say... "He's playing all the right notes, but not necessarily in the right order."
[[User:Brenda|Brenda]] ([[User talk:Brenda|talk]]) 08:19, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

Talk:702: Snow Tracking

2018-06-16T09:15:58Z

Brenda: Higgs boson represents a cloud chamber, not tracks in snow.

The title-text could also be a reference to Bugs Bunny, many episodes had such play-on-words as title.
("A witch's tangled hare", "A Feather in his Hare", "Compressed Hare", many more...) {{unsigned|‎Gegueure}}

It could be mentioned that the Higgs signature shown is probably a Higgs->top anti-top/bottom anti-bottom->jet-jet signature, and most certainly not the clearest observed channel right now of Higgs->gamma gamma (as there is no neutral signature, which would be a track appearing some space from the center, and there are clearly two jets to be seen). This is a difficult channel to observe, and is much more important in higher Higgs mass regions than the now observed, where b-bbar is present, but gamma gamma is much easyer to observe.[[Special:Contributions/85.164.251.29|85.164.251.29]] 13:11, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

Velociraptors are suspiciously missing from this comic... [[User:SuperSupermario24|Just some random derp]] 19:18, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

I first thought of the Beverly Cleary mouse books too, but Ralph S. Mouse rode a motorcycle, not a bicycle. {{unsigned ip|162.158.74.106}}
: Could it be a reference to Biker Mice From Mars? --[[Special:Contributions/141.101.105.31|141.101.105.31]] 08:05, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

I don't understand the knight tracks. They appear to move the same distance forward as they do to the side. Knights can't move like that.

The Higgs Boson frame is significantly different from all the others because it represents an image from a cloud chamber not tracks in snow. [[User:Brenda|Brenda]] ([[User talk:Brenda|talk]]) 09:15, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

Talk:687: Dimensional Analysis

2018-06-15T09:55:25Z

Brenda: Update

{{cot}}
Is it customary to just slap a new contributor after 5 minutes because the page was not done perfectly on the first editing? Now I will NOT research and add the actual numbers you would have to plug into the equation and I will leave this to Dave22. Genius. [[User:Stamfest|Stamfest]] ([[User talk:Stamfest|talk]]) 09:36, 1 April 2013 (UTC)
:We do put those fields there for a reason. Most editors just make a page and leave them incomplete with fields deleted or blank, oftentimes leaving admins with heaps of maintenance work to deal with. I probably *should* have waited for you to finish, but prior experience and me being busy with two simultaneous continuously updating comics led me to treat it like most other incomplete pages. Will wait in the future though, since I know how you edit now. Discussion hidden, as it covers matters outside of the comic. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 10:01, 1 April 2013 (UTC)
::And I added the comment of a (very) initial explanation to the initial version. If you only want immediately perfect content, then just say so at page creation-time. This is totally against all wiki rules I have ever experienced. It is also against basic netiquette to call new contributors names upon their first submission. You might consider to change your attitude if you run or are involved with such a project. OTOH, if this is YOUR project, you are free to treat contributors all the way you want, but do not expect them to add more content if you behave like that. But the good thing is: your reaction shifted my attention back to work. Thanks for that. This won't help the page, though. Bad luck, I guess. Also, I only found out now that it is not possible to delete accounts on a wikimedia wiki... [[User:Stamfest|Stamfest]] ([[User talk:Stamfest|talk]]) 13:10, 1 April 2013 (UTC)
:Someone posted that I've been wasting electrons on here. I didn't quite know how to take that, it being true and all. I had the impression that it was the whole point of comics that you waste time on them. Some of us just have too many electrons; obviously. [[User:Weatherlawyer| I used Google News BEFORE it was clickbait]] ([[User talk:Weatherlawyer|talk]]) 16:33, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

:: Then they should stop being so negative and get some grounding. [[User:Promethean|Promethean]] ([[User talk:Promethean|talk]]) 13:26, 27 February 2018 (UTC)
This comments should be removed from this topic. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 20:22, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

I am not sure if this is relevant but I laughed more reading Stamfest vs Daviddy22 then Randall :D but Dgbrt may have a point of removing it. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.62.83|173.245.62.83]]ck
{{cob}}

Made a minor addition to the explanation as it relates to the "Buckingham Pi" formalization. This may be a 2nd order pun in the comic.[[User:Tardyon|Tardyon]] ([[User talk:Tardyon|talk]]) 15:05, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

The units only check out if mileage is given in the form liters/100 km. If you use miles/gallon you end up with units of length^-4.[[Special:Contributions/108.162.217.5|108.162.217.5]] 22:17, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

Or, maybe the Plank Energy will decrease... [[User:Danshoham|Mountain Hikes]] ([[User talk:Danshoham|talk]]) 04:01, 17 December 2015 (UTC)

Why is he breaking from his usual black and white style? The green was a suprise [[Special:Contributions/162.158.39.207|162.158.39.207]] 22:06, 27 November 2016 (UTC)Davy

England is part of the mainland of Britain and can't float anywhere on its own without tearing itself away from the rest of the land. It's like suggesting that California can float away from America. (Maybe that wasn't a good example, what with the San Andreas Fault, and all...) [[User:Brenda|Brenda]] ([[User talk:Brenda|talk]]) 09:52, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

Talk:687: Dimensional Analysis

2018-06-15T09:52:21Z

Brenda: Fault line

{{cot}}
Is it customary to just slap a new contributor after 5 minutes because the page was not done perfectly on the first editing? Now I will NOT research and add the actual numbers you would have to plug into the equation and I will leave this to Dave22. Genius. [[User:Stamfest|Stamfest]] ([[User talk:Stamfest|talk]]) 09:36, 1 April 2013 (UTC)
:We do put those fields there for a reason. Most editors just make a page and leave them incomplete with fields deleted or blank, oftentimes leaving admins with heaps of maintenance work to deal with. I probably *should* have waited for you to finish, but prior experience and me being busy with two simultaneous continuously updating comics led me to treat it like most other incomplete pages. Will wait in the future though, since I know how you edit now. Discussion hidden, as it covers matters outside of the comic. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 10:01, 1 April 2013 (UTC)
::And I added the comment of a (very) initial explanation to the initial version. If you only want immediately perfect content, then just say so at page creation-time. This is totally against all wiki rules I have ever experienced. It is also against basic netiquette to call new contributors names upon their first submission. You might consider to change your attitude if you run or are involved with such a project. OTOH, if this is YOUR project, you are free to treat contributors all the way you want, but do not expect them to add more content if you behave like that. But the good thing is: your reaction shifted my attention back to work. Thanks for that. This won't help the page, though. Bad luck, I guess. Also, I only found out now that it is not possible to delete accounts on a wikimedia wiki... [[User:Stamfest|Stamfest]] ([[User talk:Stamfest|talk]]) 13:10, 1 April 2013 (UTC)
:Someone posted that I've been wasting electrons on here. I didn't quite know how to take that, it being true and all. I had the impression that it was the whole point of comics that you waste time on them. Some of us just have too many electrons; obviously. [[User:Weatherlawyer| I used Google News BEFORE it was clickbait]] ([[User talk:Weatherlawyer|talk]]) 16:33, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

:: Then they should stop being so negative and get some grounding. [[User:Promethean|Promethean]] ([[User talk:Promethean|talk]]) 13:26, 27 February 2018 (UTC)
This comments should be removed from this topic. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 20:22, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

I am not sure if this is relevant but I laughed more reading Stamfest vs Daviddy22 then Randall :D but Dgbrt may have a point of removing it. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.62.83|173.245.62.83]]ck
{{cob}}

Made a minor addition to the explanation as it relates to the "Buckingham Pi" formalization. This may be a 2nd order pun in the comic.[[User:Tardyon|Tardyon]] ([[User talk:Tardyon|talk]]) 15:05, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

The units only check out if mileage is given in the form liters/100 km. If you use miles/gallon you end up with units of length^-4.[[Special:Contributions/108.162.217.5|108.162.217.5]] 22:17, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

Or, maybe the Plank Energy will decrease... [[User:Danshoham|Mountain Hikes]] ([[User talk:Danshoham|talk]]) 04:01, 17 December 2015 (UTC)

Why is he breaking from his usual black and white style? The green was a suprise [[Special:Contributions/162.158.39.207|162.158.39.207]] 22:06, 27 November 2016 (UTC)Davy

England is part of the mainland of Britain and can't first anywhere on its own. It's like suggesting that California can float away from America. (Maybe that wasn't a good example, what with the San Andreas Fault, and all...) [[User:Brenda|Brenda]] ([[User talk:Brenda|talk]]) 09:52, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

Talk:680: December 25th

2018-06-13T10:25:03Z

Brenda: What's so bad about women's early 80s haircuts?

Trust me. Even being within 30 days of Christmas affects ones birthday. You get fewer presents they're usually not very spectacular (those are reserved for the 25th) and parties are sparse or non existent. (Due to weather concerns and people are doing their Christmas shopping and can't be bothered.)

Here's the thing though if the only thing you do for your birthday is sharing a ce then you can complain [[Special:Contributions/172.68.47.6|172.68.47.6]] 00:39, 9 November 2017 (UTC)

My advice to parents is don't "do it" in March. Okay?[[User:Jakee308|Jakee308]] ([[User talk:Jakee308|talk]]) 18:27, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

My birthday is December 22nd so I get a small overlap. {{unsigned|Thejohnfan}}

The Hungarian version is "Imagine being born on the 24th of December, and being called Adam or Eve." In Hungary people celebrate Name Day, the day of the year associated with their given name. Evening of the 24th is the usual time of giving presents here. Also the day of Adam and Eve. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.215.86|172.68.215.86]] 12:27, 6 December 2017 (UTC)
q

Hey! What's so bad about women's early 80s haircuts? [[User:Brenda|Brenda]] ([[User talk:Brenda|talk]]) 10:25, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

Talk:645: RPS

2018-06-12T10:12:23Z

Brenda: Didn't Yoda speak in Reverse Polish?

I know exactly what RPN is but I have no idea what a Polish Sausage is, nor what the "postfixins" joke is about (is a fixin a thing? I've never heard of them). If someone could explain these presumably American terms I'd appreciate it. [[Special:Contributions/82.6.250.231|82.6.250.231]] 14:34, 17 September 2013 (UTC)
:Read the explanation, everything is there.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 15:45, 17 September 2013 (UTC)
:No it isn't. Anon, the US refers to Kielbasa as Polish Sausage, and "fixins" are condiments such as mustard and chopped onions. I'll update the explanation. [[User:Yomikoma|Yomikoma]] ([[User talk:Yomikoma|talk]]) 17:55, 17 September 2013 (UTC)
::I didn't know that. Thanks for your help. Further investigations at [http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=fixins&defid=5919829 urbandictionary] gave me this: "A Southern (USA) word for the supplemental food...". It does belong only to the south of the US.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 19:13, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

I think we should explain the "comic today's you confuses here click if" thing. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.215.79|108.162.215.79]] 12:27, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

I think RPS is Rock Paper Scissors.
[[User:Pickaxe24|Pickaxe24]] ([[User talk:Pickaxe24|talk]]) 01:36, 12 January 2017 (UTC)
:Disagree, I see no relation to Rock Paper Scissors. RPS most likely simply means Reverse Polish Sausage. [[Special:Contributions/198.41.242.88|198.41.242.88]] 08:34, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

The phrase "fixins" may originate in the South, but I would not say that it "belongs" to them, as I have heard it used by people from several Western states. I cannot say how prevalent it is outside of there, but I would venture to say that it is a common American colloquialism used by at least the South and West. {{unsigned|Highlander}}
:I don't know about like the Great Plains region, If that's what you mean by West, but up here in the Pacific Northwest, I've never heard fixins. Only ever in connection with the Southern dialect.[[Special:Contributions/199.27.133.75|199.27.133.75]] 18:18, 26 November 2014 (UTC)

There is also a level of amusement for the American English speaker owing to confusion on first reading, because "postfix" has its stress (vocal emphasis) on the first syllable, as does "fixins". So when combined, it's not clear how to parse the whole "word". --[[User:Bedunkel|BD]] ([[User talk:Bedunkel|talk]]) 04:24, 21 November 2014 (UTC)
:I personally read it along the lines of 'post ,fix ins; that is, with strong emphasis on post and a minor emphasis on fix. Dunno about anyone else. [[Special:Contributions/199.27.133.75|199.27.133.75]] 18:18, 26 November 2014 (UTC)

Didn't Yoda speak in Reverse Polish? [[User:Brenda|Brenda]] ([[User talk:Brenda|talk]]) 10:12, 12 June 2018 (UTC)