explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

2995: University Commas

2024-10-08T14:32:40Z

Brycemw: Add some more explanation to the comma possibilities

{{comic
| number = 2995
| date = October 7, 2024
| title = University Commas
| image = university_commas_2x.png
| imagesize = 580x273px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = The distinctive 'UCLA comma' and 'Michigan comma' are a long string of commas at the start and end of the sentence respectively.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by an OXFORD-TRAINED BOT COMMA - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

The use of commas in the English language is {{w|Comma#Uses in English|famously disputed}}, most relevantly among publishers and academics. This comic imagines that all possible (and impossible) comma positions in an example sentence are associated with different universities. This applies to commas which should ''always'' be present in a list, optional commas elsewhere in the sentence (which have nothing to do with a list, such as after the word "please") and blatantly erroneous commas (which should ''never'' be present in a sentence, e.g. immediately prior to the {{w|full stop}}/period).

The Oxford comma (a.k.a. {{w|Serial comma}} or, despite how this comic represents it, the ''actual'' Harvard comma) is a comma between the penultimate item in a list and its conjunction (typically ''and'' or ''or''), to echo all the commas (at least one) that act as {{w|Comma#List separator and the serial (Oxford) comma|placeholders for the conjunction}} in-between all prior members of the list. For instance, you might write "red, white, and blue" (with the Oxford comma) or "red, white and blue" (without it). Some style guides, such as ''{{w|The Oxford Style Manual}}'' published by {{w|Oxford University Press}}, (unsurprisingly) recommend using it, while other similarly authoritative guides recommend against it. Though even those with either recommendation may suggest its (non-)use in situations where this avoids an ambiguity arising from the normally recommended choice.

One {{w|Serial comma#Ambiguity|common example}} showing the need for an Oxford comma is "To my parents, Ayn Rand''',''' and God". Without the comma (as in: "To my parents, Ayn Rand and God"), it may read that the author's parents are Ayn Rand and God. If such confusion is to be avoided, reordering the list is a common way to avoid ambiguity, for example, "To Ayn Rand, God and my parents" is one such reordering. However, the use of an Oxford comma in this version might imply the deification of Ayn Rand.

Conversely, if the sentence was instead to be "To my mother, Ayn Rand, and God", with such a comma, there arises the possibility of an assertion that one's mother is Ayn Rand, whereas "To my mother, Ayn Rand and God" does not let one fall into that trap.

In the most common interpretation the example sentence reads (with proper punctuation and bracketed Oxford comma): "Please buy apples, mac and cheese, milk[,] and bread."

However, most of the commas are possible punctuation marks in a specific pragmatic reading of the sentence:

{| class="wikitable" style="margin:auto"
|-
! Comma name !! Notation !! Explanation
|-
| Harvard comma || Please, buy apples, mac and cheese, milk[,] and bread. || Emphatic plea, marked by a sub-clause separator. (Note that "Harvard comma" is already a common synonym for the Oxford comma, in its context.)
{{w|Harvard University}} is one of eight {{w|Ivy League}} universities in the United States.
|-
| Yale comma || Please buy, apples, mac and cheese, milk[,] and bread. || A merchant's plea to their customer, marked by a sub-clause separator. This makes the sentence a sentence fragment but this is not uncommon in speech. The implication may be that the list of items are those for sale or that there is a promotion around those items specifically.
{{w|Yale University}} is one of eight Ivy League universities in the United States.
|-
| Stanford comma || Please buy apples, mac and cheese, milk[,] and bread. || Mandatory separator in a list. Without this comma, "apples" could be interpreted as an adjective to "mac and cheese".
{{w|Stanford University}} is one of the prominent universities in the United States.
|-
| Columbia comma || Please buy apples, mac, and cheese, milk[,] and bread. || A plea to buy apples, cheese, milk and bread, directed at a person called Mac, whose name is stylized as "mac".
{{w|Columbia University}} is one of eight Ivy League universities in the United States.
|-
| Cambridge comma || (Please buy apples, mac, and, cheese being unavailable, milk[,] and bread.) || Valid with a qualifying sub-clause; invalid in the example sentence. Also requires "mac" to be an item of its own, not a part of "mac and cheese".
The {{w|University of Cambridge}} is one of the two eponymous {{w|Oxbridge}} universities in the United Kingdom. Not to be confused with {{w|Cambridge, Massachusetts#Higher education|other establishments}} in (or originally in) Cambridge, Massachusetts.
|-
| Cornell comma || Please buy apples, mac and cheese, milk[,] and bread. || Mandatory separator in a list.
{{w|Cornell University}} is one of eight Ivy League universities in the United States.
|-
| Oxford comma || Please buy apples, mac and cheese, milk, and bread. || {{w|Oxford comma}} is a comma often used in lists with more than 2 elements to separate the last two elements in case of ambiguity. In this case, it is unlikely that there would be confusion as to how to interpret the list with or without this comma.
The {{w|University of Oxford}} is the other eponymous Oxbridge university in the United Kingdom.
|-
| Princeton comma || (Please buy apples, mac and cheese, milk[,] and, bread being out of stock, oats.) || Valid with a qualifying sub-clause; invalid in the example sentence.
{{w|Princeton University}} is one of eight Ivy League universities in the United States.
|-
| MIT comma || (Please, buy, apples, mac, and, cheese, milk, and, bread,.) || Possible reference to [https://stackoverflow.com/questions/11597901/why-are-trailing-commas-allowed-in-a-list trailing commas sometimes used in programming], which would be associated with a university highly specialized in technology. If each of these words were identifiers, then including all commas would be a valid way to express a list in some languages (though using a period to indicate the end of a list is uncommon).
The {{w|Massachusetts Institute of Technology}} is one of the prominent universities in the United States.
|-
| UCLA/Michigan comma(s) || (,,,…,,,Please, buy, apples, mac, and, cheese, milk, and, bread,.,,,…,,,) || '''Title text proposal''', each establishment being perhaps responsible for both or either sets of commas. Can perhaps relate to rather specific quotation or quote-separation contexts not in common use.
The {{w|University of California, Los Angeles}} and the {{w|University of Michigan}} are two more well known universities in the United States.
|}

Depending upon who you talk to, the two establishments referenced by the title text may not be considered quite as prominent or outstanding as the Ivy League universities, or others mentioned here, hence their relegation to title text punchline. But (actual Ivy Leaguers) {{w|Brown University}}, {{w|Dartmouth College}} and the {{w|University of Pennsylvania}} were not referenced at all, for one reason or another; for example, the very idea of a "Brown comma" might more readily resonate with the concept of the {{w|Brown note}}.

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

:[A sentence is written in greyed-out text, with the commas in black and each labeled with an arrow.]
:Please''',''' buy''',''' apples''',''' mac''',''' and''',''' cheese''',''' milk''',''' and''',''' bread''','''.

:[The labels are as follows, in order from left to right:]
:Harvard comma
:Yale comma
:Stanford comma
:Columbia comma
:Cambridge comma
:Cornell comma
:Oxford comma
:Princeton comma
:MIT comma

:[Caption below the panel:]
:The Oxford one is the most famous, but many major universities have their own comma.

==Trivia==
[[Randall]] appears to be a fairly regular user of the Serial/Oxford Comma, himself, with the most recent example being in the title text of [[2985: Craters]]. This is clearly out of habit or preference, as it is not required for clarification purposes. Yet it seems he also appreciates the conflicting viewpoints inherent to such a style opinion. He later completely avoided the use of list-commas in a (three-part) list within the comic text of the successive [[2986: Every Scientific Field]], possibly for rhetorical reasons.

This very wiki currently reminds anyone editing a page that their contributions "may be edited, altered, or removed", which is also not a syntactical necessity beyond adherence to the Oxford styling. Later, in the same paragraph of text, it also uses structure of "…, or … or …", but for different grammatical reasons that are unrelated to serial/list commas.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics with lowercase text]]
[[Category:Language]]

1337: Hack

2024-06-17T21:57:05Z

Brycemw: Add archive link to citation and add real citations for fun since this page already had a reflist

<noinclude>:''"1337", this comic's number, redirects here. For the series of the same name, see [[:Category:1337]].''</noinclude>
{{comic
| number = 1337
| date = March 3, 2014
| title = Hack
| image = hack.png
| titletext = HACK THE STARS
}}

==Explanation==
This comic is an imagined project to re-position the {{w|International Cometary Explorer|ISEE-3/ICE}} probe, and a parody of the 1995 movie ''{{w|Hackers (film)|Hackers}}''. The first row (four panels) explains the history of the probe, and the true story about how the probe was coming back into signal range and seemed capable of being controlled. NASA declined to attempt to regain control of the probe, but a group of enthusiasts assembles the equipment and attempts to re-purpose the probe.

The following two rows (eight panels) set up a fictional scenario: the enthusiasts have been locked out of the system, someone else is controlling the probe, and the message "Mess with the best, die like the rest" is communicated from the probe. This is a catch phrase of the protagonist, Crash, from ''Hackers''.

The final row is a reference to the ending of the movie, where Crash romances Burn, his romantic interest, in a rooftop pool. In the movie, while Crash and Burn swim in a rooftop pool, several buildings light up with the words "CRASH AND BURN". This was at the end of a contest and is Crash's latest hack and romantic gesture which he indicates by saying 'Beat that!'. In the comic the transmitter being used to communicate with ISEE-3 was hacked by Burn to make the probe burn up over Crash and Burn swimming in the pool providing a "shooting star" for romantic effect.

The comic number is 1337, which stands for "leet", short for "elite hacker" and "leetspeek" in {{w|leetspeak}}. Leetspeak is a form of symbolic writing that substitutes various numbers and {{w|ASCII}} symbols for letters. It originates from the hacker subculture, where words were converted to leetspeek e.g., to avoid filters and triggers on chat rooms. "1337" for "leet" can most likely be explained as {{w|calculator spelling}}.

The title text "Hack the stars" is also an allusion to ''Hackers'', where the phrase "Hack the planet!" is used on multiple occasions.

This project since [http://spacecollege.org/isee3/ became reality], as [[Randall]] noted in a [http://blog.xkcd.com/2014/05/30/isee-3/ blag post]. See [[#Background for ISEE-3/ICE|details below]].

==Transcript==
:[A black image shows an image of the ISEE-3/ICE spacecraft in white. Text is written in white above it]
:The ISEE-3/ICE probe was launched in 1978.
:Its mission ended in 1997 and it was sent a shutdown signal.

:[The text continues, black on white, without a frame around it, between the first frame and the next.]
:In 2008, we learned-to our surprise-that the probe didn't shut down.
:It's still running and it has plenty of fuel.
:...and in 2014, its orbit brings it near earth.

:[Megan holding up one hand and Ponytail are talking to each other.]
:Megan: We could send it on a new mission...
:Megan: Except we no longer have the equipment to send commands to it.
:Ponytail: Can't we—

:[Zoom in on Megan's head and torso as she looks towards Ponytail off-panel to the right.]
:Megan: NASA won't rebuild it. "Too Expensive"
:Ponytail (off-panel): ''Seriously?''
:Megan: I know, right?
:Megan: So the internet found the specs
:Megan: And we went to work.

:[Megan and Ponytail are walking towards right, between Hairbun facing left and Cueball (with head phones) facing right. They are sitting at desks working on their laptops. Megan speaks, as indicated both by the story line and by her hand which is lifted up, but there is not speech line from her to the text.]
:Megan: We've convinced them to give us time on the Madrid DSN transmitter and hacked the maser to support the uplink.
:Megan: And today's the big day.

:[Zoom in on Cueball's head and torso, he holds a hand up to his speaker on his head phones and watches his lit screen (as indicated by lines emanating from it).]
:Cueball: Transmitting...
:Cueball: We have a signal!
:Cueball: We have control!

:[Zoom in on Megan's head and torso. She has turned away from Cueball to the right towards Hairbun.]
:Megan: OK, transmit the new comet rendezvous maneuver sequen—
:Cueball (off panel): What ''the hell?''
:Megan: What?

:[Same setting as when Megan and Ponytail entered the control-room, but Ponytail just stands there and Megan puts a hand out towards Cueball.]
:Cueball: My console went dead!
:Hairbun: ''Mine too!''
:Megan: What's happening?!

:[Another zoom in on Cueball's head and torso and glowing screen. He has both hands down.]
:Cueball: There's a new signal going out over the transmitter!
:Megan (off panel): A bug?
:Cueball: ''Someone else is in the system!''

:[Zoom in on Hairbun's head and torso. She is also working on her laptop, with the glowing screen visible.]
:Hairbun: Kill the connection!
:Cueball (off panel): ''I can't find it!''
:Hairbun: ''They're firing the probe's engines!''
:Cueball (off panel): ''No!!''

:[Back to a zoom in on Cueball. He points at his screen.]
:Megan (off panel): ''Who's '''doing''' this??'' Stop them!
:Hairbun (off panel): ''I'm trying!''
:Cueball: ''Look! My screen!''

:[Same setting as when Megan and Ponytail entered the control-room, but Ponytail has a hand to her mouth and she and Megan stand close to Cueball who has taken his hands off the keyboard. The text on Cueball's laptop screen is shown above the setting, indicated with zigzag lines:]
:M-E-S-S-W-I-T-H-
:T-H-E-B-E-S-T

:D-I-E-L-I-K-E-
:T-H-E-R-E-S-T

:[The last four panels is outside night scenes with a black sky above. In the first of these a woman (Burn) with long hair (Megan like) and a hairy man (Crash) is seen in a swimming pool with blue water.]

:[A zoom out reveals that the pool is on top of a skyscraper in a vertically developed, downtown setting with lots of light in all the skyscrapers, one of which is even taller than the one with the pool. From the top of the central skyscraper speech lines come which indicate that the two from the pool is up there speaking, and we get their names from this panel.]
:Burn: Crash?
:Crash: Yeah, Burn?

:[Same setting but only one speech line.]
:Burn: Make a wish.

:[The last panel shows the same setting, but with the spacecraft streaking across the sky as it enters the Earths atmosphere and burns up in a way that is indistinguishable from a meteoroid.]

==Trivia==

===Background for ISEE-3/ICE===
The {{w|International Cometary Explorer|ISEE-3/ICE}} probe was launched in August 12, 1978 and tasked to study Earth's magnetic field and the solar wind. Before completing its original mission the probe was repurposed on June 10, 1982 to study the interaction between the solar wind and a cometary atmosphere. By flying through the comet {{w|21P/Giacobini–Zinner|Giacobini-Zinner}}'s tail, it became the first probe to do so. This put ISEE-3 in a {{w|heliocentric orbit}}. Its trajectory will bring it close to Earth on August 2014.

The Deep Space Network (DSN) detected the probe again in 2008 because NASA mistakenly left its transmitters on. However, the probe was only transmitting the carrier signal at that time. A status check of the spacecraft has revealed that many of its instruments are still working and that it contains plenty of fuel.<ref>Lakdawalla, Emily (2014-02-07). [https://www.planetary.org/articles/02070836-isee-3 "ICE/ISEE-3 to return to an Earth no longer capable of speaking to it"]. ''The Planetary Society''. Retrieved 2024-06-17.</ref>

It was reported that the hardware to communicate with ISEE-3/ICE had been decommissioned. The Madrid DSS complex still has the special filter required to communicate with the ICE satellite, but because of frequency conflicts S-band uplink is not supported.<ref>{{W|Jet Propulsion Laboratory}}. [https://deepspace.jpl.nasa.gov/dsndocs/810-005/101/101E.pdf "70-m Subnet Telecommunications Interfaces"] (PDF). {{w|Deep Space Network}}. 810-005, 101, Rev. E.</ref>

On March 1 and 2, 2014 radio amateurs were able to detect the beacon signal from the retired NASA deep space probe ICE (International Cometary Explorer) using the 20 m radio telescope at the Bochum Observatory (Germany).<ref>[https://amsat-uk.org/2014/03/09/radio-amateurs-receive-nasa-isee-3ice-spacecraft/ "Radio amateurs receive NASA ISEE-3 / ICE Spacecraft"]. ''AMSAT-UK''. 2014-03-09. Retrieved 2024-06-17./</ref>

===Updates for ISEE-3/ICE===
After this comic was published, it was established that an 18-meter satellite dish at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory does still have the right hardware.
*April 4, 2014: Volunteers started a crowdfunding project on RocketHub to contact the probe and put it back into a {{w|halo orbit}} orbit around {{w|Lagrangian point}} L1.<ref>Wingo, Dennis; Cowing, Keith. [https://web.archive.org/web/20140417052853/https://www.rockethub.com/42228 "ISEE-3 Reboot Project"]. ''RocketHub''. Space College, Skycorp, and SpaceRef. Archived from [https://www.rockethub.com/42228 the original] on 2014-04-17. Retrieved 2024-06-17.</ref>
*May 23, 2014: First contact to the probe was established.
*May 29, 2014: NASA gave them approval to try to achieve contact.
*May 30, 2014: The project, led by [http://www.rockethub.com/profiles/68340-dennis-wingo Dennis Wingo] and {{w|Keith Cowing}}, had taken control of the spacecraft.
*July 2, 2014: The reboot project successfully fired the thrusters for the first time since 1987. The engines on ISEE-3 performed a successful spin-up burn. The spin rate was changed to 19.76 rpm which is inside of the original mission specifications at 19.75 +/- 0.2 rpm.
**Further attempts to change the trajectory into an earth bound orbit did fail. Despite the effort from experts and amateurs via the internet<ref>[https://spacecollege.org/isee3/we-are-borg-crowdsourced-isee-3-engineering-and-the-collective-mind-of-the-internet.html "We Are Borg: Crowdsourced ISEE-3 Engineering and the Collective Mind of the Internet"]. ''Space College''. 2014-07-14. Retrieved 2024-06-17.</ref> it was determined that the spacecraft had run out of nitrogen pressurant.
*Since the device was still communicating, and many of the instruments were still working, the ISEE-3 was intended to be used for the first citizen science, crowd funded, crowd sourced, interplanetary space science mission.<ref>[https://spacecollege.org/isee3/announcing-the-isee-3-interplanetary-citizen-science-mission.html "Announcing the ISEE-3 Interplanetary Citizen Science Mission"]. ''Space College''. 2014-07-24. Retrieved 2024-06-17.</ref>
*{{w|International_Cometary_Explorer#Contact_lost|Contact was finally lost}} on 2014-09-16.

See [http://spacecollege.org/isee3/ Space College: ISEE-3 Reboot Project Archives] for the coverage of this amazing project.

== References ==
{{reflist}}

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics with inverted brightness]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairbun]]
[[Category:Space probes]]
[[Category:Astronomy]]
[[Category:Computers]]

2944: Magnet Fishing

2024-06-10T20:08:40Z

Brycemw: Add some more about magnetic monopoles

{{comic
| number = 2944
| date = June 10, 2024
| title = Magnet Fishing
| image = magnet_fishing_2x.png
| imagesize = 522x356px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = The ten-way tie was judged a ten-way tie, so no one won the grand prize, a rare fishing monopole.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a GUY DRAGGING A MAGNET ACROSS AN UNDERWATER KEYBOARD - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

{{w|Magnet fishing}} is an activity where a powerful magnet on a rope is lowered into a body of water, with the intent being to grab magnetic items from the bottom.

A World Magnet Fishing Championship was apparently only held once, because of the contestants' magnets getting stuck together. This resulted in the fishing lines becoming tangled together, or "tied", for a pun on the competition being declared "tied".

Magnet fishing is the act of using a magnet to find ferrometallic objects in a body of water. It can be used to recover specific lost items, or simply to see what interesting or valuable items can be found. This is reminiscent of magnetic fishing games (such as [https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/13166/lets-go-fishin "Let's Go Fishing"] and [https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/172530/go-fishing "Go Fishing"]) where players use fishing rods with small magnets on the ends to "catch" fish.

The title text states that the competition's prize would have been a "fishing monopole" which could refer to a {{w|fishing rod}}, also called a fishing pole, with only a single rod rather than multiple. Most fishing rods only have a single pole so this would not be considered rare. It could also refer to a magnet fishing rod where the magnet is a {{w|magnetic monopole}} rather than a {{w|magnetic dipole}} like all known magnets. This would certainly be rare since no magnetic monopoles have been found and thus would be a valuable prize for a competition. The currently known laws of physics require that if magnetic monopoles exist, electric charge must be quantized. Electric charge ''is'' quantized which is consistent with (but does not prove) magnetic monopoles existing. It also looks like a tautology, though the first "ten-way tie" depicts how the ten lines are 'knotted' together, and the second indicates the equality of the final score. This suggests that nobody 'fished' anything ''other'' than "all the other nine magnets", prior to the inevitable conclusion.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[10 characters are stood on a bridge over a river or another body of water. They have all cast fishing magnets over the edge and are holding their ropes. However, their magnets have all stuck together due to being too close and none have reached the water below. All 10 characters appear confused or inconvenienced. The characters from left to right are: Hairbun, Ponytail, Cueball, Megan, another Cueball, White Hat, another Megan, Hairy, another Ponytail, and another Hairy.]

:[Caption below the panel:]
:The first, and last, World Magnet Fishing Championship

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Hairbun]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]
[[Category:Physics]]

2941: Cell Organelles

2024-06-04T14:18:00Z

Brycemw: I think this is a good idea but maybe should be worded differently or put in a different place

{{comic
| number = 2941
| date = June 3, 2024
| title = Cell Organelles
| image = cell_organelles_2x.png
| imagesize = 563x451px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = It's believed that Golgi was originally an independent organism who was eventually absorbed into our cells, where he began work on his Apparatus.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a GOLGI ENDOPLASMIC RETICULUM. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This comic depicts a {{w|Cell (biology)|biological cell}} diagram with a mix of real and fictional {{w|organelle}}s, blending accurate {{w|Cell biology|cell biology}} terms with misplaced or absurd labels. While it includes actual cell components like the nucleus, mitochondria, and Golgi apparatus, it also includes unrelated concepts from various fields such as geology, engineering, software, and pop culture. Labels like "evil endoplasmic reticulum" and "sticky endoplasmic reticulum" make fun of scientific terms. The comic plays on the complexity and diversity of cell structures by mixing in unrelated and humorous terms, highlighting the often confusing and intricate nature of scientific diagrams with clever wordplay and cross-disciplinary jokes.

The title text adds a humorous fictional backstory to the {{w|Golgi apparatus}}, an essential cell organelle involved in processing and packaging proteins. It playfully suggests that {{w|Camillo Golgi}}, the scientist who discovered the Golgi apparatus, was originally an independent organism. This organism was supposedly absorbed into our cells, where it then started working on what is now known as the Golgi apparatus. The joke is a satirical take on {{w|Symbiogenesis|endosymbiotic theory}}, which posits that certain organelles within {{w|Eukaryote|eukaryotic}} cells, like {{w|mitochondria}} and {{w|chloroplasts}}, originated from independent symbiotic {{w|Prokaryote|prokaryotic organisms}} that were absorbed by a host {{w|germ cell}}. Golgi appears to be depicted in the comic as a tiny alien being.

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Label
! Meaning
! Real?
! Cell organelle?
! Explanation
|-
| {{w|Carbonation}}
| {{w|Carbon dioxide}} dissolved in a liquid.
| Yes
| No
| Carbonation causes soda pop and similar liquids to bubble, fizz, foam, and {{w|effervesce}}. The little dots look a bit like carbonation bubbles.
|-
| {{w|Cellophane}}
| A thin, transparent sheet made of regenerated {{w|cellulose}}.
| Yes
| No
| A type of packaging material. A {{w|cell wall}} is indeed made of cellulose, though not in the form of cellophane. Also, this drawing looks more like an animal cell, which (unlike plants and fungi) should not have a cell wall.
|-
| {{w|Chloroplast}}s if you're lucky
| Organelles in plant cells responsible for photosynthesis.
| Yes
| Yes
| Actual cell organelles, only found in plant cells. The phrase "if you're lucky" implies you'd be privileged if you could truly conduct photosynthesis using your cells, simply gaining energy from sunlight, or it could potentially suggest that of all foreign objects that Randall could have added to an animal cell, chloroplasts are one of the least dangerous.
|-
| Drain plug
| A stopper for a drain.
| Yes
| Conceivably
| A plumbing term, which could refer to a {{w|porosome}}. Even small, temporary damage to the integrity of the {{w|cell membrane}} puts the cell at immediate and great risk of death.
|-
| Evil endoplasmic reticulum
| Not a real term.
| No
| No
| A humorous twist on the different types of actual {{w|endoplasmic reticulum|endoplasmic reticula}}, implying a malevolent version.
|-
| Golgi
| {{w|Camillo Golgi}} (1843–1926) was an Italian biologist and {{w|pathologist}} who discovered the Golgi apparatus; known also for his works on the central nervous system.
| Yes
| No
| The real Golgi was not and is not a tiny alien being who merged with our cells, as the comic and title text imply.
|-
| {{w|Golgi apparatus}}
| A complex of {{w|vesicles}} and folded membranes involved in secretion and intracellular transport.
| Yes
| Yes
| Actual cell organelle, which takes {{w|polypeptide}} chains from the rough endoplasmic reticulum (carried via transport vesicle) and processes them into their ultimate protein structure before sending them (via vesicles) to their destination (such as an organelle or outside of the cell).
|-
| Human skin
| The outer covering of the human body.
| Yes
| No
| Skin cells aren't normally inside other cells, but dead skin cell fragments can be inside {{w|phagocyte}}s. The label, however, is drawn connected to the outer {{w|cell membrane}} or the {{w|extracellular matrix}}. This may be a reference to the idea that almost everything in the human environment is coated with invisible skin cells.
|-
| {{w|Hypoallergenic}} filling
| Materials that cause relatively fewer allergic reactions.
| Yes
| No
| Consumer product term.
|-
| {{w|Lithosphere}}
| The rigid outer part of the earth, consisting of the crust and upper mantle. Both labeled diagrams of cells and of the layers of the Earth are commonly found in science textbooks.
| Yes
| No
| Term from geology; part of the Earth's crust.
|-
| {{w|Mantle}} 
| The layer of the earth between the crust and the core.
| Yes
| No
| Misplaced geological term with many other meanings.
|-
| {{w|Midichlorians}}
| Fictional microorganisms in the {{w|Star Wars}} universe, which confer Force sensitivity and thereby {{w|Jedi}} associated powers.
| No
| Fictional
| It's unclear whether {{w|George Lucas}} intended for "midi-chlorians" to be {{w|Symbiogenesis|endosymbiotic organelles}} or internal {{w|Symbiosis|symbionts}}. Might also be referring to {{w|chromoplasts}} or {{w|nitroplasts}}
|-
| {{w|Mitochondria}}
| Organelles that generate energy for the cell.
| Yes
| Yes
| Actual cell organelles, widely known as the "powerhouse of the cell."
|-
| Natural flavor
| Flavoring derived from natural sources.
| Yes
| Conceivably
| A common ingredient on labels, usually meaning any substance to add flavor, aroma, or both, other than synthetic chemicals which are referred to as artificial flavors.
|-
| {{w|Norton AntiVirus}}
| A software product designed to protect computers from malware.
| Yes
| No
| Computer viruses and biological viruses are completely different, and systems designed to counter one generally don't work for the other. Many cell types do have antiviral mechanisms, notably the {{w|CRISPR}} (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats) DNA sequences in prokaryotes, which resist viral (bacteriophage) infection. However, the cell shown is not prokaryotic, since it contains a nucleus.
|-
| {{w|Nucleolus}}
| A small dense spherical structure in the nucleus of a cell during {{w|interphase}}.
| Yes
| Yes
| Actual cell organelle, involved in {{w|ribosome}} production.
|-
| Nucleoloulous
| Not a real term.
| No
| No
| A humorous continuation of the terms "nucleus" and "nucleolus."
|-
| {{w|Cell nucleus|Nucleus}}
| The central and most important part of an object, forming the basis for its activity and growth.
| Yes
| Yes
| Actual cell organelle which houses genetic material.
|-
| {{w|Nucleon}}s
| Protons and neutrons in the nucleus of an atom.
| Yes
| No
| The depicted circles are far too big to be actual nucleons.
|-
| {{w|O-ring}}
| A mechanical gasket in the shape of a torus; used to seal connections.
| Yes
| No
| Engineering term. Both the o-ring and pith are drawn connected to the inner cell membrane. Made famous in pop culture for being the failure mode for the Challenger Shuttle disaster.
|-
| {{w|Pith}}
| The central tissue in plants, used for nutrient transport.
| Yes
| No
| Botanical term. See immediately above. Generally encountered as the white stuff between a citrus fruit, like an orange, and the peel.
|-
| {{w|Pleiades}}
| A cluster of stars in the constellation Taurus.
| Yes
| No
| Even a single star is far too big to fit in a cell.
|-
| {{w|Rough endoplasmic reticulum}}
| Endoplasmic reticulum with {{w|ribosomes}} attached, involved in protein synthesis.
| Yes
| Yes
| Actual cell organelle. "Rough" refers to the presence of ribosomes covering its membrane, which translate {{w|messenger RNA}} into polypeptide chains. Normally the endoplasmic reticulum would wrap around the cell nucleus.
|-
| {{w|Seed}}s
| Plant embryos used for reproduction.
| Yes
| No
| Seeds are multicellular, and sometimes contain small proportions of non-cellular tissue. Seeds are found inside fruit, not cells.
|-
| {{w|Slime}}
| A moist, soft, and slippery substance.
| Yes
| Conceivably
| Could refer to the texture and appearance of {{w|cytoplasm}}, but not specific to cells.
|-
| {{w|Smooth endoplasmic reticulum}}
| A network of tubular membranes within the cytoplasm of the cell, involved in the transport of materials.
| Yes
| Yes
| A standard term for the smooth (i.e., not ribosome-covered) portion of the endoplasmic reticulum.
|-
| Sticky endoplasmic reticulum
| Not a real term, although parts of the reticula have sticky pockets.[https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcell.2023.1156152/full]
| No
| No
| Another humorous twist on the actual types of endoplasmic reticula.
|-
| {{w|Ventricle}}
| A chamber of the heart that pumps blood out.
| Yes
| No
| Ventricles are actually part of the body, and they are composed of many cells. Possibly a pun on {{w|vesicle}} (or {{w|vacuole}}), a small membrane-enclosed vessel, such as the transport vesicles that carry polypeptides from the rough endoplasmic reticulum to the Golgi apparatus for processing.
|-
| {{w|Vitreous humour}}
| The clear gel that fills the space between the lens and the retina in the eyeball.
| Yes
| No
| The vitreous humor is in eyes, not cells.
|-
| Weak spot
| A vulnerable point.
| Yes
| Conceivably
| {{w|Cell membrane}} surfaces do indeed vary in strength, often due to the presence of organelles such as {{w|ion channel pore}}s or {{w|porosome}}s, both of which can be leveraged by viruses to enter cells.
|}

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

Cell Organelles

[A cell is shown with the following structures and areas labeled, counter-clockwise from upper left:]

* Smooth endoplasmic reticulum
* Lithosphere
* O-Ring
* Pith
* Nucleus
* Nucleolus
* Nucleoloulous
* Nucleons
* Drain plug
* Evil endoplasmic reticulum
* Hypoallergenic filling
* Weak spot
* Mitochondria
* Midichlorians
* Chloroplasts if you're lucky
* Human skin
* Carbonation
* Golgi
* Golgi apparatus
* Norton AntiVirus
* Sticky endoplasmic reticulum
* Pleiades
* Natural flavor
* Cellophane
* Rough endoplasmic reticulum

[These labels are inside the cell:]

* Ventricle
* Mantle
* Slime
* Vitreous humour
* Seeds

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Biology]]

1779: 2017

2024-05-22T21:36:43Z

Brycemw: For fun

<noinclude>:''This page refers to the comic named "2017". For comic #2017, see [[2017: Stargazing 2]].''</noinclude>
{{comic
| number = 1779
| date = December 30, 2016
| title = 2017
| image = 2017.png
| titletext = Things are looking good for the eclipse--Nate Silver says Earth will almost definitely still have a moon in August.
}}

==Explanation==
In this [[:Category:New Year|New Year comic]], [[Cueball]] and [[Megan]] share some of their (or [[Randall|Randall's]]) thoughts about the ending 2016 and the new year 2017 (hence the title). 2016 was a year which many people eagerly awaited the end of because of its increased turmoil (terrorist attacks, controversial political events in numerous countries including the election of [[Donald Trump]] for president in the United States and the United Kingdom {{w|2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendum|voting for Brexit}}) as well as the deaths of an unusually large number of well-known and beloved celebrities (several of these died in the first few days after Christmas).

Instead of simply condemning 2016 as a terrible year and expecting 2017 to be significantly better, Megan observes that much of what made 2016 bad is the effect that it will have upon future years rather than the actual events themselves (for instance, a divisive {{w|United States presidential election, 2016|U.S. presidential election}} has caused significant controversy in 2016, but President Donald Trump actually took office and began to affect the world as President in 2017). Megan specifically states that ''2016 was bad was because of the things it sent us into 2017 without.'' As it is known that Randall is a {{w|Hillary Clinton}} supporter (as shown in the [[1756: I'm With Her]] comic), an additional reading of that line could be that we are headed into 2017 "without" a Hillary Clinton presidency. It can also refer to the many {{w|2016#Deaths|dead celebrities}} passing in 2016, (at least three famous musicians/actors so recent that they died after Christmas Eve), as we would be without all of them in 2017.

Cueball claims that they should still have hope for the future, but Megan states that people had claimed that many of the bad things that did happen in 2016, could not happen (for instance Trump and Brexit). And as these things did happen, she foresees even worse events occurring in 2017, that we did not even think would be possible.

However, Randall also offers a glimpse of hope in the last few panels when Cueball observes that, just as all of the bad things in 2016 were unexpected, good things in 2017 that are unexpected could also happen, which should make us less sure what good may come of 2017. As such, he argues that we should hold on to our hope even though things seem difficult right now.

As the conversation unfolds, Megan and Cueball encounter an uprooted tree and cross it like a balance beam. This is a visual metaphor; the dead tree represents the end of the old year, while the crossing represents the transition into the new year. This is similar to the magical toboggan from {{w|Calvin and Hobbes}} that serves as a metaphor for their conversations, mentioned in [[529: Sledding Discussion]] and [[409: Electric Skateboard (Double Comic)]].

In the last panel Cueball mentioned that 2017 will also have a cool {{w|solar eclipse|eclipse}}, going through the central parts of North America. This may also serve as a reminder that the Earth continues to spin on despite all of the human turmoil going on on its surface. This is literally true, as the eclipse Randall is excited about is caused by the orbits of three celestial bodies lining up just right (the Sun, the Earth, and the Moon).

Cueball then also notes that 2017 is a {{w|prime number}} and states that prime-numbered years (prime years) have always been good to him. He thus illustrates the positive attitude that people can choose to take in order to see all that which is good and to spread a little bit more cheerfulness, and Megan is ready to take this positive view, although she may not totally buy in to it. This could also be a pun referencing the saying "being in his prime years".

It should be noted that Cueball is working with a relatively small sample size. If Cueball is roughly the same age as Randall Munroe, prime-numbered years he was alive in would include 1987, 1993, 1997, 1999, 2003, and 2011.

The title text is a reference to [[Nate Silver]] who is well-known (in the United States) as an election polling analyst on {{w|FiveThirtyEight}}. His model allowed for a higher chance that Donald Trump would win the presidency compared to other similar models — though the fact that he still favored a Clinton win may be contributing to getting humor from the idea that he may be "wrong" again, and the Moon could possibly vanish in 2017, making the year definitely worse than 2016. (Earth and Moon are so close in the space order of things, that any event affecting Moon orbit seriously will almost certainly end our civilization too.) This is accentuated by the qualifier "almost definitely", which is of humorously low confidence for presenting a fact as certain as the Moon not somehow disappearing within the next year.

In the background of the first few panels of this comic, we see a fallen tree, but a sapling growing in its place. This may be a subtle message by Randall that there is still hope, and that things will be alright in the end.

Randall previously mentioned his excitement for the {{w|Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017|2017 eclipse}} exactly three years earlier in [[1302: Year in Review]], where Megan complains about not having seen an aurora during 2013, and she really hopes they don't cancel the 2017 eclipse. So this comic is the second time Randall has expressed concern that he will miss the eclipse. Leading up to and after the eclipse Randall released six more comics on the subject: [[1868: Eclipse Flights]], [[1876: Eclipse Searches]], [[1877: Eclipse Science]], [[1878: Earth Orbital Diagram]], [[1879: Eclipse Birds]], and [[1880: Eclipse Review]].

There have been three previous New Year's comics with only the year used as the title: [[998: 2012]] in 2012, [[1311: 2014]] in 2014 and [[1624: 2016]] in 2016. This is the first odd-numbered year (and thus of course the first prime year) using only the new year as the title.

===Things in 2016 that some people might describe as bad===
Obviously, anything in this list is controversial so I've {{w|Hedge (linguistics)|hedged}} the section title. Also, I'm writing this in 2024 so everything seems not so bad compared to 2020.
* The World Health Organization announced an outbreak of the Zika virus.
* An earthquake of magnitude 6.6 struck southern Taiwan, killing 117 people.
* North Korea launched a reconnaissance satellite that was condemned internationally as a long-range ballistic missile test.
* Suicide bombing attacks at Brussels' Zaventem airport and Maalbeek metro station kill 35 people and injure 300 more.
* A 7.8 earthquake struck northwestern Ecuador killing 676 people and injuring over 6,000.
* EgyptAir Flight 804 crashes into the Mediterranean Sea en route from Paris to Cairo, killing all 66 people on board.
* Gorilla Harambe was shot and killed at the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden in an incident involving a child leading to a global meme.
* A gunman claiming allegiance to the Islamic State opened fire at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, killing 49 people and injuring 53 others.
* The United Kingdom voted in a referendum to leave the European Union.
* The augmented reality mobile game Pokémon Go was released.
* 86 people were killed and more than 400 others injured in a truck attack in Nice, France, during Bastille Day celebrations.
* In Turkey, an unsuccessful coup against resulted in the deaths of at least 240 people.
* A 6.2 earthquake hit central Italy, killing 299 people.
* The government of North Korea conducted its fifth and reportedly biggest nuclear test.
* Global CO2 levels exceeded 400 ppm at the time of year normally associated with minimum levels.
* U.S. intelligence agencies publicly accused the Russian government of using computer hacking to interfere with the U.S. election process.
* The Washington Post released a videotape showing candidate Donald Trump privately bragging about sexual improprieties.
* WikiLeaks released thousands of private emails from inside the political campaign of candidate Hillary Clinton.
* Donald Trump was elected the 45th President of the United States. (Let's not start on this; at least some people consider it bad)
* LaMia Flight 2933 crashed into a mountain killing 71 of the 77 people on board.
* A Tupolev Tu-154 jetliner crashed into the Black Sea shortly after taking off. All 92 people on board were killed.
* The term ghost kitchen is coined to describe deceptive alternate names for restaurants on food delivery apps to garner more orders.

===Things in 2017 that some people might describe as good===
Same disclaimer that not everyone will consider all of these things good.
* Millions of people worldwide joinrf the Women's March becoming the largest single-day protest in American history.
* An annular solar eclipse was visible from Pacific, Chile, Argentina, Atlantic, Africa.
* Nintendo released the Switch worldwide.
* The Eurovision Song Contest took place in Kyiv, Ukraine.
* Montenegro joined NATO as the 29th member.
* The 2017 World Expo opened in Astana, Kazakhstan.
* The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons was voted for by 122 states.
* The first observation of a collision of two neutron stars occurred with both gravitational and electromagnetic waves from the event detected.
* The Great American Eclipse was visible within across the entire contiguous United States of America.
* The International Olympic Committee awarded Paris and Los Angeles the right to host the 2024 and 2028 Summer Olympics, respectively.
* Cassini–Huygens ended its 13-year mission by plunging into Saturn, becoming the first spacecraft to enter the planet's atmosphere.
* A new species of orangutan was identified, becoming the third known species of orangutan and the first great ape discovered in almost a century.
* A paper was published recognizing a high-velocity asteroid as originating from outside the Solar System, the first known interstellar object.
* The Walt Disney Company announced that it would acquire most of 21st Century Fox.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball and Megan walking outdoors]
:Cueball: Can't wait for this stupid year to be over.

:[The two approach a fallen tree]
:Megan: I can. This year made the future scarier. So much of why 2016 was bad was because of the things it sent us into 2017 without.

:[Megan has hopped up onto the tree trunk and begins to walk along it]
:Cueball: You gotta have hope, though.
:Megan: You say that, but you also said all this awful stuff couldn't happen, and it did. You're as clueless as the rest of us.

:[Cueball also walks along the tree trunk as Megan stops and turns to look at him]
:Cueball: Well, if we're wrong about which bad things can happen, it's got to make us at least a ''little'' less sure about which good things can't.

:[Closeup of Megan hopping down from the tree]
:Megan: I guess.

:[A distant shot of Megan and Cueball walking along again]
:Cueball: Plus, 2017 has a cool eclipse in it.
:Megan: Ooh, yeah!
:Cueball: And it's prime. Prime years have always been good for me.
:Megan: Sure, I'll take it.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:New Year]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Nate Silver]]
[[Category:Comics sharing name|2017]]
[[Category:Astronomy]]
[[Category:Number theory]]
[[Category:Total Solar Eclipse 2017]]
[[Category:Solar eclipses]]

Talk:2075: Update Your Address

2024-05-22T16:17:04Z

Brycemw:

Just a clarification, the Barclays PIN didn't have anything to do with cheques. You used it to validate a plastic punched card so that the machine would dispense a £20* note in a plastic clip. The card was posted back in a few days. * Ok it might have been £10, a long time ago, even though I was a teenager at the time. BTW in UK we often call ATMs Cashpoints after Lloyds Banks ATM that was the first to use (in UK at least) a returned, Mag stripe card, that contacted the Mainframe in real time : no funds - no cash [[User:RIIW - Ponder it|RIIW - Ponder it]] ([[User talk:RIIW - Ponder it|talk]]) 19:12, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

Living in a town where the core is 30-60th Street and most live on XXXX or XXXXX 10-271 Street/Avenue/Road/Drive/Place has made average US addresses like Cueballs' seem quaint and unscientific.. Also the 5 Main Streets are very minor and not at First or "Zeroth" Street or the center of town. {{unsigned ip|162.158.63.166}}
:Queens? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.131.65|172.70.131.65]] 03:51, 27 October 2023 (UTC)

Given that I'm of the generation born in 1970 whose parents were likely to have both debit cards and pin codes (in fact, I remember begging my mother to let me type the pin code into the "Beep-a-deep machine" when I was very young) and many of my friends and even my wife now have deceased parents, inheriting a pin code sounds plausible to me. Inheriting a bank account is harder, but if the child is a joint account owner, it would be relatively easy to just never tell the bank that the other family member died, as you're still legal owner and have access to all the funds within; and thus, yes, might pass down a pin number to successive generations.[[User:Seebert|Seebert]] ([[User talk:Seebert|talk]]) 16:25, 22 November 2018 (UTC)
:I find the most remarkable thing about this comic strip that a "4-digit" pin is treated as being completely outdated. I know a bank that requires you to change your pin every 3? 6? 12? months. I know that one bank for a time used a 6-digit pin instead of a 4-digit one. And I know of a person who has talked his bank into accepting 16-digit pins for him causing aprehension on all kinds of cashiers. But by the definition of this comic nearly all pins in the world are outdated.--[[User:Gunterkoenigsmann|Gunterkoenigsmann]] ([[User talk:Gunterkoenigsmann|talk]]) 07:22, 23 November 2018 (UTC)
::I'm betting that bank actually just put a note on his account "use first four digits of PIN" & let him spiel out the 12 unused digits afterwards just to placate him. A bank changing their systems to accept longer PINs would likely be quite expensive for them, while most of their users hate remembering even 4 digits at all. And yeah, 4 digits is not enough security for financial transactions; the PIN system is more about maintaining a perception of security than actual fraud prevention, these days. [[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 17:01, 23 November 2018 (UTC)
::I interpreted the title text as a commentary on the difficulty of changing a PIN rather than on them being outdated. Not all banks require their customers to change theirs regularly. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.131.65|172.70.131.65]] 03:51, 27 October 2023 (UTC)
::Most banks in Canada (at least all the ones I've used), allow you to set a 6 digit pin on debit cards only but they warn you that doing this means that you can't use the card in the US and recommend a 4 digit pin instead. I think credit cards are limited to 4 digits but I haven't checked. My assumption is that the limitation is set by the card network. Generally {{w|Interact}} for debit cards and Visa or Mastercard for credit cards but some debit cards are co-branded with Interact and Visa or Mastercard. One of my US credit cards doesn't even have a pin, it does chip and signature which is very weird to me. Banking is for sure a case of {{xkcd|927}} [[User:Brycemw|Brycemw]] ([[User talk:Brycemw|talk]]) 16:17, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

1570: Engineer Syllogism

2024-05-16T14:01:20Z

Brycemw: I could elaborate a lot more but I figure we don't need too many paragraphs about the finance industry

{{comic
| number = 1570
| date = August 28, 2015
| title = Engineer Syllogism
| image = engineer_syllogism.png
| titletext = The less common, even worse outcome: "3: [everyone in the financial system] WOW, where did all my money just go?"
}}

==Explanation==
A {{w|syllogism}} is a {{w|logic|logical}} argument where two or more propositions lead to a conclusion through {{w|deductive reasoning}}. For example, one of the best-known syllogisms is:
#All men are mortal
#Socrates is a man
#Therefore, Socrates is mortal

In this comic, [[Cueball]] is an engineer who is attempting to make the following syllogism:
#I am good at understanding "numbers" (i.e., mathematics)
#The stock market is made of numbers
#Therefore, I am good at understanding the stock market

Since most engineers are purportedly good at math, proposition 1 seems to be true. It is also loosely true that the {{w|stock market}} is made of numbers, but only in the sense that every system can be given a post-hoc numeric characterization; the dynamics of the stock market are primarily human-driven. In this comic Cueball thinks that his skill at math will help him beat the stock market. Little does he know that the system can be unpredictable, so he ends up losing money as the financial instrument he's invested in loses value. This is due to the financial markets being largely controlled by humans making emotional decisions and not some calculable reason or logic.

High frequency trading does make use of computer software to determine trades (and thus is a lot closer to being "just numbers") but being successful relies on direct low-latency access to financial exchanges that an individual can't get access to. Many engineers (generally software and computer) work at these companies but wouldn't be able to make money trading on their own. Fundamental analysis is also a number-oriented way to determine the value of a company (and thus whether the current price of a stock is good or bad) and can be done by an individual, but requires making qualitative decisions on what data to use and how to do the analysis so it is not "just numbers".

Even if the propositions "I am good at understanding numbers" and "The stock market is made of numbers" were true in Cueball's interpretation, Cueball would still be wrong to conclude that "I am good at understanding the stock market": this would be a {{w|fallacy of the undistributed middle}} (with the first premise being more accurately stated as "I'm good at understanding things made of numbers") and a {{w|fallacy of composition}} (with the implicit third premise "if I'm good at understanding the components of a system, then I'm good at understanding the system"). The problem is that proposition 1 seems to say "I am good at understanding all math". However, the "all" is not present, so Cueball may not necessarily understand the math underlying the stock market.

This comic is also related to the 1998 movie {{W|Pi (film)|Pi}} where the main character repeats to himself several times his assumptions that the world is all numbers, and thus he, a great mathematician, should be able to predict the stock market, which is all numbers. He believes that maybe his work on patterns in pi will provide some deeper insight into the patterns in the stock market, a project that drove his mentor crazy and may in fact be making his computer self-aware.

The title text talks of the scenario where it was Cueball who causes everyone involved in the financial system to lose their money. This could refer to a scenario in which Cueball figures out a way to extract large quantities of money from the stock market, causing a sudden, major decline in everybody else's wealth, or that his involvement has caused literally everyone, including his own, stock market assets to lose their value. This is possible since there is no conservation of value for the stock market. The value of a particular stock is determined by a majority that is willing to trade it at a given price.

The release date of this comic makes it highly likely that it refers at least in part to the {{w|2015 Chinese stock market crash}} which largely affected most other world financial markets, particularly during the week of August 24–28, during which this comic was published.

Two, less likely, interpretations of the title text have been suggested:
#It could also be understood as if everyone makes the fallacy of Cueball and this leads to a much worse global situation - i.e. a stock market crash.
#Alternatively, Cueball could cause a global stock market crash if he is an engineer responsible for vital stock-market-related software and/or hardware. An example of a situation where the action of engineers was implicated in just such a crash is the {{w|2010 Flash Crash}}. High-frequency quantitative trading, which relies more on financial technology engineering than sophisticated financial knowledge, was heavily involved in this particular crash.

This scenario has been mentioned before, in the title text of [[592: Drama]].

A similar fallacy is presented in [[2933: Elementary Physics Paths]].

==Transcript==
:[An white frame with text inside an underbrace and an overbrace.]
:An engineer syllogism

:[Cueball is at his desk in front of his computer, with his hands on his knees, thinking.]
:Cueball (thinking): 1: I am good at understanding numbers.

:[Cueball takes one hand to his chin, still thinking.]
:Cueball (thinking): 2: The stock market is made of numbers.

:[Cueball lifts both arms from his legs, still thinking.]
:Cueball (thinking): 3: Therefore I– '''''Wow''''', where did all my money just go?

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Computers]]
[[Category:Math]]
[[Category:Logic]]
[[Category:Stock Market]]
[[Category:Engineering]]

Talk:2933: Elementary Physics Paths

2024-05-16T13:31:08Z

Brycemw:

First comment, heh. [[User:Psychoticpotato|Psychoticpotato]] ([[User talk:Psychoticpotato|talk]]) 20:27, 15 May 2024 (UTC)
:See also [[1258: First]]. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.159.7|162.158.159.7]] 23:21, 15 May 2024 (UTC)
::Let me have my first "first" moment, man. [[User:Psychoticpotato|Psychoticpotato]] ([[User talk:Psychoticpotato|talk]]) 12:46, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

I assume the cosmology comment from the alt text is related to the speculative nature of dark matter and dark energy, but I am too ignorant of of cosmology to know if there is something more specific being referenced.[[Special:Contributions/172.69.23.203|172.69.23.203]] 22:27, 15 May 2024 (UTC)
:I think its more jokinly questioning the knowlege of the cosmos, saying "space is big, so are we 100% that EVERYTHING is made of these complicated little things, or just the parts we can see?" [[User:Apollo11|Apollo11]] ([[User talk:Apollo11|talk]]) 00:26, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

::I thought it was a reference to the incompatibility of the leading cosmological theory (Relativity) with Quantum theory. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.210.117|172.68.210.117]] 02:49, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

Am I the only one where it seems like the explanation was written by an AI? It seems like obvious things are left out, like the presence of dark matter in astronomy, or saying “quantum physics” instead of “quantum field theory”. It’s like in some areas it could be convincingly explaining without knowing, a little like chatgpt does. However, I’m thinking a lot of the explanations are like that and I’ve probably participated in it myself … [[Special:Contributions/172.68.23.215|172.68.23.215]] 00:46, 16 May 2024 (UTC)
:The reason we're using "Quantum Theory" (at least my reason) is because thats what the comic used [[User:Apollo11|Apollo11]] ([[User talk:Apollo11|talk]]) 00:59, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

According to the Copenhagen Interpretation, it's not determined whether a physicist studies Condensed Matter or Quantum Field Theory until we open his box. [[User:Doctorhook|Doctorhook]] ([[User talk:Doctorhook|talk]]) 02:45, 16 May 2024 (UTC)
:According to the Communist Russia Interpretation, the Universe studies physicists.[[Special:Contributions/172.71.178.172|172.71.178.172]] 08:22, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

you guys really need to solve your chatgpt problem
--[[Special:Contributions/172.70.143.28|172.70.143.28]] 03:59, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

Schrodinger's 'cat box thought experiment' is more complex than even Schrodinger realised, since for the duration of the experiment the cat assumes EVERY possible quantum state, including 'not actually in the box' and 'suddenly not being a cat any more'.
[[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.231|172.70.91.231]] 05:09, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

Schrodinger did not argue against QM; he argued against a certain interpretation of it. Specifically, he argued that QM does not tell us how things really are; at most, it tells us what we can detect about those things. His cat in a box idea aims to make clear that we do not know what happens between observations and that using QM to describe this leads to nonsense.
[[Special:Contributions/172.70.46.13|172.70.46.13]] 06:44, 16 May 2024 (UTC)
:I removed the "further examples" and the mentioning of Schrödinger. Interesting for sure, but not relevant for the explanation of the comic. Schrödinger isn't even mentioned in the comic... [[User:Elektrizikekswerk|Elektrizikekswerk]] ([[User talk:Elektrizikekswerk|talk]]) 07:26, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

It feels like Randall has gone down the same Wikipedia rabbit hole that I have (spurred on by another comic). The universe is full of extremely weird things on every level. Even the Copenhagen Interpretation of QM isn't actually one interpretation. Everyone has different ideas because it's all so weird. I remember my physics teacher telling me about the time before QM was discovered when it seemed like we had figured out most of physics and now it seems like we barely know anything. [[User:Brycemw|Brycemw]] ([[User talk:Brycemw|talk]]) 13:31, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

2929: Good and Bad Ideas

2024-05-07T15:40:13Z

Brycemw: Note about people in Chicago liking square-cut pizza (and some Wikipedia markup on how bad my own claim is for fun)

{{comic
| number = 2929
| date = May 6, 2024
| title = Good and Bad Ideas
| image = good_and_bad_ideas_2x.png
| imagesize = 595x522px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = While it seemed like a fun prank at the time, I realize my prank fire extinguishers full of leaded gasoline were a mistake.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD- Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This is a scatter plot comparing how good an idea sounds to how good the idea actually is. For example, leaded gasoline sounds like a good idea due to the anti-knocking effects, but is actually a bad idea due to lead toxicity. Fake prank fire extinguishers however sound bad and are bad as they can result in a dangerous situation in an emergency. Putting mold on infections sounds like a bad idea, but this could be referring to Penicillin, an antibiotic.

The title text combines leaded gasoline and a fake prank fire extinguisher into something that is worse than either. Not only is the fire extinguisher fake, it also releases flammable material onto the fire, and there is the additional lead toxicity.

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Idea !! What it means !! How good it sounds !! How good it actually is !! Explanation
|-
|Leaded gasoline||Adding {{w|Tetraethyllead|tetraethyl lead}} as an antiknocking agent to allow for increased performance||++||---||Leaded gasoline was introduced in the early 1920s to allow higher pressures and temperatures in an engine without causing {{w|Engine_knocking|detonation (knocking)}}, allowing for increased fuel efficiency and engine performance; it also works to prevent engine valve wear. Lead, however, is both toxic and bioaccumulative, meaning that lead released into the air over decades built up to harmful levels in people (as well as other animals) and almost certainly contributed to a host of health issues. (It should be noted that this only "[sounded] like a good idea" due to deliberate campaigns to obscure the known dangers).
|-
|Bloodletting||Releasing "bad blood" from the veins||---||---||You need (most of) your blood. Losing [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK542273/#:~:text=In%20a%20healthy%20adult%2C%20there,deviations%20in%20their%20vital%20signs. more than 15%] of a person's total blood volume results in adverse effects. Bloodletting has been performed as a medical procedure for at least 2000 years until the 19th century. The idea was to withdraw blood to balance the body's "humors". Despite this long history, the notion that bleeding someone is bad seems like basic common sense, and it's now well-understood that blood-letting (outside of certain rare and specific cases) does no good, causes significant harm, and quite certainly caused many deaths when it was used.
|-
|{{w|Asbestos}}||Mineral which does not burn, tolerates extremely high temperatures, and forms small fibers. These qualities make it excellent for insulation and fire protection||+++||---||Asbestos was used extensively in ships and buildings throughout most of the 20th century. Unfortulately, the microscopic fibers which make up asbestos greatly increase the risk of cancer when inhaled, causing its use to be banned in most countries.
|-
|Extension cords with prongs on both ends||allows easy connection between 2 female connectors||0 (neutral)||---||Prongs on both ends would make it easier to plug the extension cord in on either side. But once plugged into an outlet, the other end becomes a serious shock hazard, as seen in [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L08LjkN1k70 this Backyard Scientist video].
|-
|Stair kayaking||Riding down a flight of stairs in a {{w|kayak}}||--||---|| Stair kayaking is a stunt where a person positions a kayak at the top of a flight of stairs and then, using their paddle to push off, rides the kayak down the stairs. This poses significant easily foreseeable risks of injury or death, as well as being very bad for the kayak, which is designed to ride on water, not stairs.{{Citation needed}}
|-
|Fake prank fire extinguishers||||---||---|| The idea of placing fake fire extinguishers as a prank, presumably so that a person who thinks they are grabbing a real fire extinguisher will instead find a decoy, sounds very dangerous and potentially life-threatening for many people, and it would, in fact, be highly dangerous. In the United States, (and presumably most countries), this would also be a felony in most, if not all, jurisdictions. An example of a similar situation, although not intended as a prank, can be found [https://twitter.com/ThatSamWinkler/status/1657154071051239424 here].
The title text expands this idea by having the prank fire extinguishers filled with (leaded) gasoline. This is literally adding fuel to the fire.
|-
|Always saying what you think||...regardless of the feelings of others or other considerations||++||--||Openness and honesty are seen as positive character traits in people. However, taken to the extreme of ''always'' telling people what you think about them, they can lead to awkward or unpleasant situations. It may harm your relationship with the other person if they don't like what you think, or they may reply without concern for ''your'' feelings or other considerations. Keeping negative thoughts to yourself or telling "white lies" can be considered a better alternative in some situations.
|-
|Replying to spammers||Clicking on the "Reply" button from spam mails and writing (and sending) a reply (or worse, clicking on the links in these mails)||--||--||At best, you confirm your email address and identify yourself as someone likely to respond to such unsolicited messages, and so encourage the spammers to deluge you with even more messages. At worst, the spammer may use your correspondence to extract sensitive information about you, or make you victim to a scam.
|-
|Solar cars||Having {{w|Solar panel|solar panels}} on the car's surface (mostly hood and roof) for power generation||+++||-||Powering electric vehicles with solar panels seems like an excellent idea: it would provide free power with no increased land use, and theoretically could allow a vehicle to operate indefinitely without being fueled or charged. However, such vehicles couldn't operate without batteries (due to power requirements, weather and shade conditions, and nighttime driving), so they'd have increased complexity compared to plug-in or hybrid cars. Adding solar panels would add cost, weight, manufacturing complexity, and maintenance requirements. Solar panels on moving cars are less efficient than in stationary installations, and subject to damage from both collisions and road debris. Solar cars do exist (the {{w|World Solar Challenge}} is a competition for such cars), but as a practical form of transportation, the negatives likely outweigh the positives.
|-
|Heelies||{{w|Heelys}} are shoes with a inline skate wheel embedded in the sole, at the heel. ||+||-||Heelys allow the wearer (usually children) to shift between normal walking and rolling like a roller skate. This sounds like fun but has led to numerous injuries.<ref>Childs, Dan (2009-02-10) [2007-06-04]. [https://web.archive.org/web/20221001021115/https://abcnews.go.com/Health/Exercise/story?id=3242181&page=1 "Heelys Hazardous for Kids, Study Finds"]. ''ABC News Medical Unit''. Archived from [https://abcnews.go.com/Health/Exercise/story?id=3242181&page=1 the original] on 2022-10-01. Retrieved 2024-05-07.</ref>
|-
|Prequels||A work of fiction (mostly movie) telling the "story before the story" of another work of fiction.||+++||-||More of a good story sounds great on the surface, and audiences who are invested in a set of characters and/or a setting often love the idea of finding out what led up to certain events. But there are a number of pitfalls. Any spin-off of a popular property risks becoming a low-quality cash grab. Prequels, specifically, are constrained by the fact that they have to lead to the story that's already been released, which can lead to contrived storytelling. There's less room for suspense, since the future of the storyline has already been established. There's a tendency to invent or fill in detailed backstories, which can undermine character arcs, and/or destroy the mystery and nuance of certain characters. It's not impossible for prequels to be good, of course, but there are a lot of ways they can go wrong.
|-
|Transitions® lenses||A brand name for {{w|Photochromic_lens|photochromic lenses}} in glasses, which get darker (like sunglasses) in bright light.||+||-||Photochromic lenses are clear lenses that darken when exposed to UV light, then turn clear again when the exposure is removed. The advantage is that wearers of glasses don't need to buy separate (prescription) sunglasses. However, the process is relatively slow (about a minute) so not so useful when there is a quick succession of shade and bright light, perhaps in a forest or when driving. Also, car windscreen filter out UV light to some degree, which prevents the glasses from darkening as required. Finally, the process is temperature dependent, so in hot weather the glasses don't become as dark and in cold weather they might stay dark for too long.
|-
|Cutting pizza in squares||Cutting (a presumably round) pizza in squares||-||-||Most people cut pizza into wedges and hold it by the crust. Cutting it into squares allows for more pieces to be shared, but pieces near the center will have no crust to hold it by, getting cheese and sauce all over your fingers. There will also be lots of leftover tiny pieces. While hardly a disaster like the other items in its quadrant, square pizza pieces are just not very useful and rather inefficient. Cutting a rectangular pizza into squares might not suffer from the problems above, but, unless the pizza itself is square and cut only into four squares, some people will end up with a higher crust-to-topping ratio than others. Cutting a round pizza into squares is popular in Chicago and is sometimes called tavern-style or party-cut and some<nowiki>[</nowiki>''{{w|Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Words_to_watch#Unsupported_attributions|who?}}''<nowiki>]</nowiki> consider it the real Chicago style pizza rather than deep dish pizza<nowiki>[</nowiki>''{{w|Wikipedia:Accuracy_dispute#Disputed_statement|dubious}}''<nowiki>]</nowiki>.
|-
|{{w|Project Orion (nuclear propulsion)|Project Orion}}||Study by the U.S. government looking into nuclear pulse propulsion for spacecraft.||---||-||Using repeated nuclear explosions to generate motion sounds bad for both the spacecraft and everything else, especially with a ground launch, but there are ways to address a lot of the concerns, so it isn't as bad as it sounds. Project Orion's theorized specific impulse and thrust would also be far higher than anything chemical rockets can accomplish. The efficiency of Project Orion is extremely low, however.

See also [[2423:_Project_Orion | comic 2423: Project Orion]].
|-
|Soup||{{w|Soup}}||0 (neutral)||0 (neutral)||Soup is probably one of the oldest foods created by prehistoric cooks. Many people enjoy it, though some consider many soups somewhat lacking as a meal on their own, or bland.
|-
|Combo washer dryers||A device which combines washing machine and laundry dryer into one device||+++||+||Better at space efficiency, but worse at each task than separate devices.
|-
|Cutting sandwiches diagonally||Cutting sandwiches diagonally||+||+||[https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/math/a32690399/triangles-rectangles-best-way-cut-sandwich-math/ Generally] [https://www.npr.org/2009/11/28/120914097/rectangles-vs-triangles-the-great-sandwich-debate regarded] as the superior way to slice a sandwich, providing more aesthetically pleasing display of the contents, better support in the hand and fewer all-crust bites. Required in the assembly of a club sandwich,{{actual citation needed}} where the diagonal components are stacked again.
|-
|{{w|Diverging diamond interchange}}s||Road junction where the two (sets of) lanes cross over to switch sides (so if you normally drive on the right, now you drive on the left), then switch back to normal after the junction||-||+||Highway engineers believe the shape improves safety and traffic flow through the interchange because switching to the other side facilitates merging to and from the other road in the junction. However the shape appears to be insanity to an unfamiliar driver.
|-
|Toasting sandwiches||Making a sandwich first and then cooking it, as in a dedicated {{w|Pie_iron|sandwich toaster}}, a {{w|toaster oven|toaster oven}} or frying pan, or under a grill.||++||++||The grilled cheese sandwich is a familiar form to most people, and many other sandwiches are improved by toasting as a final step. Others, such as the {{w|western sandwich|Western}} or {{w|club sandwich|club}} are prepared using toast. The {{w|peanut butter, banana and bacon sandwich|Elvis}} is a specific case of a sandwich that normally wouldn't be toasted, but is improved by it - peanut butter, bacon, banana, and jelly, with the assembly lightly fried.
|-
|Crumple zones||Designated areas of a car that crumple in case of a crash. ||--||++||Most peoples' intuition would be that stronger cars are safer, and intending parts of a vehicle to collapse ''by design'' might seem crazy. But engineered crumple zones are designed to absorb the kinetic energy in a vehicle collision, and do so in such a way as to protect the passenger cabin. This significantly reduces the danger of injury or death from crashes.
|-
|Sliced bread||Bread, sliced by the baker before packaging for sale||+++||++||It's far more convenient for making sandwiches or toast, but unfortunately pre-sliced bread will go stale faster and some applications may be better off thicker or thinner than the slices provided. Sliced bread is often used as a comparator for how good something is in the phrase 'the best thing since sliced bread'.
|-
|Pizza||{{w|Pizza}}||++||++||Pizza is a widely popular dish throughout much of the world, uncontroversial {{w|Anchovies_as_food|except}} {{w|Pineapple|certain}} [https://www.taste.com.au/recipes/nutty-choc-pizza-fresh-berries/2c0220a4-8463-45ff-b2ba-ac7e5012a006 toppings].
|-
|Eating citrus fruit while at sea||Having a supply of {{w|citrus fruit}} on long sea journeys, especially during the {{w|Age of Sail}} ||0 (neutral)||+++||For a long time, {{w|Scurvy|scurvy}} was a serious danger to sailors, who generally subsisted on a monotonous diet with low vitamin content while on ships. Most citrus fruits are rich in vitamin C, which prevents scurvy. Eating orange or lemons doesn't seem like a significant activity one way or the other, but it's an easy way to prevent a disease that causes serious ill-health and possibly a painful death.
|-
|Putting mold on infections||Seemingly a reference to ancient practice of pressing moldy bread against infected wounds||---||++||While this sounds like a good way to get a fungal infection, with the correct mold this is a primitive antibiotic, and led to the discovery of penicillin.
|-
|Wheels on luggage||Some luggage bags have small wheels inset on their frame and a carrying handle.||+++||+++||A relatively simple fitting for rigid or semi-rigid luggage that substantially eases its transport over long distances on flat surfaces such as travel terminals.
|-
|{{w|Heat pump}}s||Refrigeration (or air conditioning) technology operated in reverse to heat an area instead.||++||+++||Because refrigeration is a very efficient way to move heat (as long as the cold side's temperature is high enough) this is often far more energetically efficient than directly heating a space. Reversible heat pumps also exist which can take care of both temperature needs in some climates.
|-
|Laser eye surgery||Surgical techniques using lasers for precision cutting in the eyeball.||-||+++||In the popular imagination, lasers are often thought of as something used for destroying their target. Firing them into people's eyes, then, does not sound a great idea. However. this technology has substantially improved the eyesight of millions of people worldwide by allowing treatment of eye problems otherwise only corrected by lenses, or entirely untreatable. Randall has previously commented on laser eye surgery, amongst other ideas both good and bad, in [[1681: Laser Products]].
|-
|Fecal transplants||Transfer of gut microbiome of healthy person to sterilised gut of ill person.||---||+++||The gut microbiome is a collection of bacteria that lives in our guts. It can influence our health. It is responsible for last stages of digesting our food. It can also produce neurotransmitters that are carried by blood to our brain influencing our behaviour. A healthy microbiome can be destroyed by bad eating habits, unhealthy lifestyle, infections or antibiotics. The important part is a composition of different species of bacteria that compromise the biome. Sometimes it may be necessary to completely sterilise the gut and then take a sample of a healthy biome from another person. A sample is enough as the bacteria will multiply. As long as the patient eats correctly, the microbiome after transplant should develop correctly.

It sounds bad because we tend to think of our feces as something gross, to be discarded. It is called fecal transplant as our feces contain about 50% of gut bacteria, but nowadays the sample usually takes the form of a coated pill that is applied rectally.
|-
|}

==Trivia==
A much leaner version of this comic appeared in the first [[What If? (book) | "What If?" book]], chapter "Weird (and Worrying) Questions from the What If? Inbox, #9".

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[A graph of X Y axes with arrows at both ends.]
:[X axis from left to right:]
:Sounds like a good idea
:Sounds like a bad idea
:[Y axis from top to bottom:]
:Actually a bad idea
:Actually a good idea

:[Top left quadrant (sounds like a good idea, actually a bad idea):]
:Leaded gasoline
:Asbestos
:Always saying what you think
:Solar cars
:Heelies
:Prequels
:Transitions® lenses

:[Top middle (actually a bad idea):]
:Extension cords with prongs on both ends

:[Top right quadrant (sounds like a bad idea, actually a bad idea):]
:Bloodletting
:Fake prank fire extinguishers
:Stair kayaking
:Replying to spammers
:Cutting pizza in squares
:Project Orion

:[Center (neutral):]
:Soup

:[Bottom left quadrant (sounds like a good idea, actually a good idea):]
:Combo washer dryers
:Cutting sandwiches diagonally
:Toasting sandwiches
:Sliced bread
:Pizza
:Wheels on luggage
:Heat pumps

:[Bottom middle (actually a good idea):]
:Eating citrus fruit while at sea

:[Bottom right quadrant (sounds like a bad idea, actually a good idea):]
:Diverging diamond interchanges
:Crumple zones
:Putting mold on infections
:Laser eye surgery
:Fecal transplants

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Scatter plots]]

Talk:2929: Good and Bad Ideas

2024-05-07T15:10:41Z

Brycemw: Citation comment lol

Lots of bread/food in the "good" quadrant; I think Randall is hungry. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.154.73|162.158.154.73]] 05:33, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

Soup always seems like a very good idea to me. I guess I like soup. --[[Special:Contributions/172.69.79.182|172.69.79.182]] 07:15, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

I remember something like this in what if. [[Special:Contributions/SectorCorruptor|SectorCorruptor]] 07:21, 7 May 2024 (UTC)
:The title immediately reminded me on the Animaniacs shorts "Good Idea / Bad Idea" [[User:Elektrizikekswerk|Elektrizikekswerk]] ([[User talk:Elektrizikekswerk|talk]]) 07:33, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

Does anybody know why solar cars and transitions lenses are actually a bad idea? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.160.173|172.70.160.173]] 09:11, 7 May 2024 (UTC)
:Transitions lenses are misplaced. The only caveat is that if you like outdoor photography (landscapes, wildlife, etc.) you should get grey lenses rather than brown ones, because the brown ones make a blue sky seem overcast. [[User:Pjt33|Pjt33]] ([[User talk:Pjt33|talk]]) 09:22, 7 May 2024 (UTC)
::The precise opposite is true. Grey lenses make ''all'' things - blue sky included - look greyer, as is perhaps unsurprising. Brown tints involve a degree of orange, which means the overall impression is of a "warmer" colour pallette, rather than simply a duller one. There is a reason that "grey skies" and "overcast" mean ''exactly'' the same thing - an overcast sky ''is'' a grey tinted filter. [[User:Yorkshire Pudding|Yorkshire Pudding]] ([[User talk:Yorkshire Pudding|talk]]) 09:48, 7 May 2024 (UTC)
:I think the Transition lens issue is primarily that the bright light that can turn them dark need not be heading into the eye. With the Sun (say) off at an angle, it could be 'reacting' your lenses to dark needlesly, and reducing your ability to discern the things in front of you (which may be in shadow), working against the basic ability of the eye to adjust itself as per observed illumination.
:Conversely, a small bright light would not sufficiently darken the lenses but be still damaging to the spot(s) it falls upon in your retina (or do the "whole lens go dark" thing and ''still'' be too bright even as you can't see anything else beyond it). This might also be combined with the general secondary problem of potentially all regular sunglasses/goggles, that aren't industrial-grade or specific solar-specs, in that it might make it ''look'' safe to stare at bright things/skies through them but you cannot tell how much UV/etc is also being filtered out (some brands do have notable UV protection, but you really have to trust their claims/certifications – unless you have your own testing kit and knowledge of how much is good/bad anyway).
:I'd add that, but it needs a sharper explanation than I just gave. I'd like to make what's already there snappier, before that, plus correct the numerous typos and funny formatting (and lack of useful wikilinks), but will probably leave that to others with the time. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.242.204|172.71.242.204]] 10:08, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

Just as a note while we're here: "fecal transplant" is one of the most spectacular branding failures in the history of medical science, in my opinion. I mean, don't put the word "fecal" in anything you want people to feel positively about. And "microbiome transplant" is sitting right there, ready to serve.[[Special:Contributions/108.162.242.37|108.162.242.37]] 10:44, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

Double plug cords are VERY MUCH a bad idea. Used mostly to plug generators into an outlet to power a house, it tends to harm people working on the power lines who were not expecting them to be charged when the power was out. The statement about them being hard to use, is quite the understatement. OSHA, written in blood. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.115.103|172.70.115.103]]

How can soup be bland? There are bland soups, spicy soups, sweet soups, savory soups ... you can't call an entire very broad category of food "bland" like that. It makes no sense.[[User:Nitpicking|Nitpicking]] ([[User talk:Nitpicking|talk]]) 11:46, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

Citation format needed. (heelies) {{unsigned ip|172.70.178.103|12:57, 7 May 2024}}
:''Summary: (I don't know how to format correctly.)'' - no, you don't...
:For a link to an external URL, writting <code>[the_url]</code> will give you a "linked number", but a better format is using <code>[the_url text to replace]</code> (with a space betwixt the URL and the text that will link to it. e.g. [https://google.com a link to google] from <code><nowiki>[https://google.com a link to google]</nowiki></code>.
:There are full on citation/reference methods, but mostly I wouldn't bother with <nowiki><cite> and <ref> tags</nowiki> at all.
:Internal links, with [[]]s, and template-based ones, with {{}}s (e.g. the nicely-linking shortcut to wikipedia pages), use a pipe (the "|") between the sections. But you should be able to work that out by looking at what is already in the edit-source.
:If in doubt, Preview your intended change and see if it looks right. I'll let you correct your contribution. Or whoever else wants to shake up the whole article, as it has multiple problems from spelling mistakes to inconsistent style to repeating information and it needs a lot of rationalising that I can't even think of doing right now. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.195.113|172.69.195.113]] 14:09, 7 May 2024 (UTC)
::I didn't realize we actually have no citation templates. Quite a few pages have the actual citation needed template but not many of them ever get those citations. I think a lot of citations get put in just as external links. I probably should've done that but I was like oh I know how to do this from my small amount of Wikipedia editing, I'll just use the cite web template... oh we don't have that. So rather than just do an ad-hoc link I created the citation in my Wikipedia sandbox then manually recreated the formatting. But now it feels weird and out of character for this wiki so maybe someone should just change it to a link. idk, maybe being inconstant is exactly what is in-character for this wiki. [[User:Brycemw|Brycemw]] ([[User talk:Brycemw|talk]]) 15:10, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

As a Columbus native, I am HIGHLY offended by this anti–rectangular pizza slice speech. Rectangular pizza is by far the BEST shape that a pizza can be. (I'm not really offended, but I really do think rectangular pizza is superior.) [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.229|108.162.216.229]] 14:04, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

Leaded gasoline isn't to reduce *noise*. The noise is a symptom of detonation (aka knock), which is the real problem. Knock is caused by pressures and temperatures high enough and for long enough to detonate the fuel/air mixture (as opposed to the deflagration initiated by the spark plug at a set time), and can result in engine damage. Leaded gasoline (through complicated chemistry) increases the pressure/temperature required to get that detonation, and thus allows the engine to be designed to run at higher temperatures and compression ratios, which is where the efficiency improvements come from. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.39.41|172.70.39.41]] 14:38, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

2929: Good and Bad Ideas

2024-05-07T15:06:02Z

Brycemw: I didn't realize that we don't even have real citation templates...

{{comic
| number = 2929
| date = May 6, 2024
| title = Good and Bad Ideas
| image = good_and_bad_ideas_2x.png
| imagesize = 595x522px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = While it seemed like a fun prank at the time, I realize my prank fire extinguishers full of leaded gasoline were a mistake.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD- Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This is a scatter plot comparing how good an idea sounds to how good the idea actually is. For example, leaded gasoline sounds like a good idea due to the anti-knocking effects, but is actually a bad idea due to lead toxicity. Fake prank fire extinguishers however sound bad and are bad as they can result in a dangerous situation in an emergency. Putting mold on infections sounds like a bad idea, but this could be referring to Penicillin, an antibiotic.

The title text combines leaded gasoline and a fake prank fire extinguisher into something that is worse than either. Not only is the fire extinguisher fake, it also releases flammable material onto the fire, and there is the additional lead toxicity.

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Idea !! What it means !! How good it sounds !! How good it actually is !! Explanation
|-
|Leaded gasoline||Adding {{w|Tetraethyllead|tetraethyl lead}} as an antiknocking agent to allow for increased performance||++||---||Leaded gasoline was introduced in the early 1920s to allow higher pressures and temperatures in an engine without causing {{w|Engine_knocking|detonation (knocking)}}, allowing for increased fuel efficiency and engine performance; it also works to prevent engine valve wear. Lead, however, is both toxic and bioaccumulative, meaning that lead released into the air over decades built up to harmful levels in people (as well as other animals) and almost certainly contributed to a host of health issues. (It should be noted that this only "[sounded] like a good idea" due to deliberate campaigns to obscure the known dangers).
|-
|Bloodletting||Releasing "bad blood" from the veins||---||---||You need (most of) your blood.{{Citation needed}} Bloodletting has been performed as a medical procedure for at least 2000 years until the 19th century. The idea was to withdraw blood to balance the body's "humors". Despite this long history, the notion that bleeding someone is bad seems like basic common sense, and it's now well-understood that blood-letting (outside of certain rare and specific cases) does no good, causes significant harm, and quite certainly caused many deaths when it was used.
|-
|{{w|Asbestos}}||Mineral which does not burn, tolerates extremely high temperatures, and forms small fibers. These qualities make it excellent for insulation and fire protection||+++||---||Asbestos was used extensively in ships and buildings throughout most of the 20th century. Unfortulately, the microscopic fibers which make up asbestos greatly increase the risk of cancer when inhaled, causing its use to be banned in most countries.
|-
|Extension cords with prongs on both ends||allows easy connection between 2 female connectors||0 (neutral)||---||Prongs on both ends would make it easier to plug the extension cord in on either side. But once plugged into an outlet, the other end becomes a serious shock hazard, as seen in [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L08LjkN1k70 this Backyard Scientist video].
|-
|Stair kayaking||Riding down a flight of stairs in a {{w|kayak}}||--||---|| Stair kayaking is a stunt where a person positions a kayak at the top of a flight of stairs and then, using their paddle to push off, rides the kayak down the stairs. This poses significant easily foreseeable risks of injury or death, as well as being very bad for the kayak, which is designed to ride on water, not concrete.{{Citation needed}}
|-
|Fake prank fire extinguishers||||---||---|| The idea of placing fake fire extinguishers as a prank, presumably so that a person who thinks they are grabbing a real fire extinguisher will instead find a decoy, sounds very dangerous and potentially life-threatening for many people, and it would, in fact, be highly dangerous. In the United States, (and presumably most countries), this would also be a felony in most, if not all, jurisdictions. An example of a similar situation, although not intended as a prank, can be found [https://twitter.com/ThatSamWinkler/status/1657154071051239424 here].
The title text expands this idea by having the prank fire extinguishers filled with (leaded) gasoline. This is literally adding fuel to the fire.
|-
|Always saying what you think||...regardless of the feelings of others or other considerations||++||--||Openness and honesty are seen as positive character traits in people. However, taken to the extreme of ''always'' telling people what you think about them, they can lead to awkward or unpleasant situations. It may harm your relationship with the other person if they don't like what you think, or they may reply without concern for ''your'' feelings or other considerations. Keeping negative thoughts to yourself or telling "white lies" can be considered a better alternative in some situations.
|-
|Replying to spammers||Clicking on the "Reply" button from spam mails and writing (and sending) a reply (or worse, clicking on the links in these mails)||--||--||At best, you confirm your email address and identify yourself as someone likely to respond to such unsolicited messages, and so encourage the spammers to deluge you with even more messages. At worst, the spammer may use your correspondence to extract sensitive information about you, or make you victim to a scam.
|-
|Solar cars||Having {{w|Solar panel|solar panels}} on the car's surface (mostly hood and roof) for power generation||+++||-||Cars require large amounts of energy in short periods of time and portable solar panels generally do not produce enough, nor are they as efficient as fixed installations on the power grid.
There are competitions for solar powered cars, though, like the {{w|World Solar Challenge}}.
|-
|Heelies||{{w|Heelys}} are shoes with a inline skate wheel embedded in the sole, at the heel. ||+||-||Heelys allow the wearer (usually children) to shift between normal walking and rolling like a roller skate. This sounds like fun but has led to numerous injuries.<ref>Childs, Dan (2009-02-10) [2007-06-04]. [https://web.archive.org/web/20221001021115/https://abcnews.go.com/Health/Exercise/story?id=3242181&page=1 "Heelys Hazardous for Kids, Study Finds"]. ''ABC News Medical Unit''. Archived from [https://abcnews.go.com/Health/Exercise/story?id=3242181&page=1 the original] on 2022-10-01. Retrieved 2024-05-07.</ref>
|-
|Prequels||A work of fiction (mostly movie) telling the "story before the story" of another work of fiction.||+++||-||More of a good story sounds great on the surface, but the constraints of a prequel's ending needing to create the starting conditions of the original work often precludes organic development and causes contrived plots.
|-
|Transitions® lenses||A brand name for {{w|Photochromic_lens|photochromic lenses}} in glasses, which get darker (like sunglasses) in bright light.||+||-||Photochromic lenses are clear lenses that darken when exposed to UV light, then turn clear again when the exposure is removed. The advantage is that wearers of glasses don't need to buy separate (prescription) sunglasses. However, the process is relatively slow (about a minute) so not so useful when there is a quick succession of shade and bright light, perhaps in a forest or when driving. Also, car windscreen filter out UV light to some degree, which prevents the glasses from darkening as required. Finally, the process is temperature dependent, so in hot weather the glasses don't become as dark and in cold weather they might stay dark for too long.
|-
|Cutting pizza in squares||Cutting (a presumably round) pizza in squares||-||-||Most people cut pizza into wedges and hold it by the crust. Cutting it into squares allows for more pieces to be shared, but pieces near the center will have no crust to hold it by, getting cheese and sauce all over your fingers. There will also be lots of leftover tiny pieces. While hardly a disaster like the other items in its quadrant, square pizza pieces are just not very useful and rather inefficient. Cutting a rectangular pizza into squares might not suffer from the problems above, but, unless the pizza itself is square and cut only into four squares, some people will end up with a higher crust-to-topping ratio than others.
|-
|{{w|Project Orion (nuclear propulsion)|Project Orion}}||Study by the U.S. government looking into nuclear pulse propulsion for spacecraft.||---||-||Using repeated nuclear explosions to generate motion sounds bad for both the spacecraft and everything else, especially with a ground launch, but there are ways to address a lot of the concerns, so it isn't as bad as it sounds. Project Orion's theorized specific impulse and thrust would also be far higher than anything chemical rockets can accomplish. The efficiency of Project Orion is extremely low, however.

See also [[2423:_Project_Orion | comic 2423: Project Orion]].
|-
|Soup||{{w|Soup}}||0 (neutral)||0 (neutral)||Soup is probably one of the oldest foods created by prehistoric cooks. Many people enjoy it, though some consider many soups somewhat lacking as a meal on their own, or bland.
|-
|Combo washer dryers||A device which combines washing machine and laundry dryer into one device||+++||+||Better at space efficiency, but worse at each task than separate devices.
|-
|Cutting sandwiches diagonally||Cutting sandwiches diagonally||+||+||[https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/math/a32690399/triangles-rectangles-best-way-cut-sandwich-math/ Generally] [https://www.npr.org/2009/11/28/120914097/rectangles-vs-triangles-the-great-sandwich-debate regarded] as the superior way to slice a sandwich, providing more aesthetically pleasing display of the contents, better support in the hand and fewer all-crust bites. Required in the assembly of a club sandwich,{{actual citation needed}} where the diagonal components are stacked again.
|-
|{{w|Diverging diamond interchange}}s||Road junction where the two (sets of) lanes cross over to switch sides (so if you normally drive on the right, now you drive on the left), then switch back to normal after the junction||-||+||Highway engineers believe the shape improves safety and traffic flow through the interchange because switching to the other side facilitates merging to and from the other road in the junction. However the shape appears to be insanity to an unfamiliar driver.
|-
|Toasting sandwiches||Making a sandwich first and then cooking it, as in a dedicated {{w|Pie_iron|sandwich toaster}}, a {{w|toaster oven|toaster oven}} or frying pan, or under a grill.||++||++||The grilled cheese sandwich is a familiar form to most people, and many other sandwiches are improved by toasting as a final step. Others, such as the {{w|western sandwich|Western}} or {{w|club sandwich|club}} are prepared using toast. The {{w|peanut butter, banana and bacon sandwich|Elvis}} is a specific case of a sandwich that normally wouldn't be toasted, but is improved by it - peanut butter, bacon, banana, and jelly, with the assembly lightly fried.
|-
|Crumple zones||Designated areas of a car that crumple in case of a crash... ||--||++||...to absorb the energy of the crash to prevent damage to the passengers. This goes against the intuition that having a section of the vehicle deliberately collapse during a collision appears to reduce the protection for the occupants.
|-
|Sliced bread||Bread, sliced by the baker before packaging for sale||+++||++||It's far more convenient for making sandwiches or toast, but unfortunately pre-sliced bread will go stale faster and some applications may be better off thicker or thinner than the slices provided. Sliced bread is often used as a comparator for how good something is in the phrase 'the best thing since sliced bread'.
|-
|Pizza||{{w|Pizza}}||++||++||Pizza is a widely popular dish throughout much of the world, uncontroversial {{w|Anchovies_as_food|except}} {{w|Pineapple|certain}} [https://www.taste.com.au/recipes/nutty-choc-pizza-fresh-berries/2c0220a4-8463-45ff-b2ba-ac7e5012a006 toppings].
|-
|Eating citrus fruit while at sea||Having a supply of {{w|citrus fruit}} on long sea journeys, especially during the {{w|Age of Sail}} ||0 (neutral)||+++||The vitamin C present in some citrus fruits prevents one from developing {{w|Scurvy|scurvy}}.
|-
|Putting mold on infections||Seemingly a reference to ancient practice of pressing moldy bread against infected wounds||---||++||While this sounds like a good way to get a fungal infection, with the correct mold this is a primitive antibiotic, and led to the discovery of penicillin.
|-
|Wheels on luggage||Some luggage bags have small wheels inset on their frame and a carrying handle.||+++||+++||A relatively simple fitting for rigid or semi-rigid luggage that substantially eases its transport over long distances on flat surfaces such as travel terminals.
|-
|{{w|Heat pump}}s||Refrigeration (or air conditioning) technology operated in reverse to heat an area instead.||++||+++||Because refrigeration is a very efficient way to move heat (as long as the cold side's temperature is high enough) this is often far more energetically efficient than directly heating a space. Reversible heat pumps also exist which can take care of both temperature needs in some climates.
|-
|Laser eye surgery||Surgical techniques using lasers for precision cutting in the eyeball.||-||+++||In the popular imagination, lasers are often thought of as something used for destroying their target. Firing them into people's eyes, then, does not sound a great idea. However. this technology has substantially improved the eyesight of millions of people worldwide by allowing treatment of eye problems otherwise only corrected by lenses, or entirely untreatable. Randall has previously commented on laser eye surgery, amongst other ideas both good and bad, in [[1681: Laser Products]].
|-
|Fecal transplants||Transfer of gut microbiome of healthy person to sterilised gut of ill person.||---||+++||The gut microbiome is a collection of bacteria that lives in our guts. It can influence our health. It is responsible for last stages of digesting our food. It can also produce neurotransmitters that are carried by blood to our brain influencing our behaviour. A healthy microbiome can be destroyed by bad eating habits, unhealthy lifestyle, infections or antibiotics. The important part is a composition of different species of bacteria that compromise the biome. Sometimes it may be necessary to completely sterilise the gut and then take a sample of a healthy biome from another person. A sample is enough as the bacteria will multiply. As long as the patient eats correctly, the microbiome after transplant should develop correctly.

It sounds bad because we tend to think of our feces as something gross, to be discarded. It is called fecal transplant as our feces contain about 50% of gut bacteria, but nowadays the sample usually takes the form of a coated pill that is applied rectally.
|-
|}

==Trivia==
A much leaner version of this comic appeared in the first [[What If? (book) | "What If?" book]], chapter "Weird (and Worrying) Questions from the What If? Inbox, #9".

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[A graph of X Y axes with arrows at both ends.]
:[X axis from left to right:]
:Sounds like a good idea
:Sounds like a bad idea
:[Y axis from top to bottom:]
:Actually a bad idea
:Actually a good idea

:[Top left quadrant (sounds like a good idea, actually a bad idea):]
:Leaded gasoline
:Asbestos
:Always saying what you think
:Solar cars
:Heelies
:Prequels
:Transitions® lenses

:[Top middle (actually a bad idea):]
:Extension cords with prongs on both ends

:[Top right quadrant (sounds like a bad idea, actually a bad idea):]
:Bloodletting
:Fake prank fire extinguishers
:Stair kayaking
:Replying to spammers
:Cutting pizza in squares
:Project Orion

:[Center (neutral):]
:Soup

:[Bottom left quadrant (sounds like a good idea, actually a good idea):]
:Combo washer dryers
:Cutting sandwiches diagonally
:Toasting sandwiches
:Sliced bread
:Pizza
:Wheels on luggage
:Heat pumps

:[Bottom middle (actually a good idea):]
:Eating citrus fruit while at sea

:[Bottom right quadrant (sounds like a bad idea, actually a good idea):]
:Diverging diamond interchanges
:Crumple zones
:Putting mold on infections
:Laser eye surgery
:Fecal transplants

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Scatter plots]]

Talk:599: Apocalypse

2024-04-26T14:47:52Z

Brycemw:

Imagine the result if the ressurected Erdős also appears in that proposed short film with Bacon. They'd both immediately get Erdős–Bacon numbers of 1, for themselves, and then every traditionally Erdős-numbered person ''and'' every single Bacon-numbered person would be guaranteed to end up with an Erdős–Bacon number of no more than their existing (Erdős|Bacon) number plus one! It would make a mockery of the entire system!!! ...and ''that's'' why the end of the world is a Bad ThingTM [[Special:Contributions/178.105.100.250|178.105.100.250]] 18:42, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
:(Because there are pedants out there, I wish to immediately acknowledge the intrinsic error in such a statement... Anyone who hasn't acted XOR hasn't co-authored a paper can't get a finite Bacon||Erdős number to add to their finite Erdős||Bacon number, and someone who co-authored a paper with someone who acted with a second Baconised person cannot count that particular link as part of either chain, unless otherwise qualified, and therefore would count for both... Although the intermediary person might get a chance to connect to both if the original guy gets Erdős-connected by a different route. But way to ruin my own joke.)
:((Oh, and my Bacon number is no more than 3, by way of an uncredited film appearance alongside Ian McKellan. I haven't checked to see if anyone else that's relevent has less than his presumed value of 2, but I'm not Erdőlised at all yet. Maybe that's my next goal in life. I know someone with an E-number of <=3, but obviously that's not enough to be ''worthy'' of geting an EB# of 7 or less for myself. [[Special:Contributions/178.105.100.250|178.105.100.250]] 19:15, 23 May 2013 (UTC) ))

Without the title text it could be seen as a reference to Erdös' signature. Erdős used to sign things pgom (poor great old man) then ld (living dead) then ad (archaeological discovery) then ld again (legally dead) then cd (counts dead) so it could be them trying to see if he'd sign living dead. FlyingPiggy {{unsigned|FlyingPiggy}}

Because this website does not usually take a position regarding religion or the lack of religion, it may be that the moderator has failed to realize that the explanation section pertaining to the biblical concept of Apocalypse is not universally accepted. Not even close to being universally accepted. There are a number of other theological views from those who believe in the authenticity of the Bible's message which would disagree with this "explanation." [[Special:Contributions/162.158.122.120|162.158.122.120]] 17:40, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

I got [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/356:_Nerd_Sniping nerd sniped] trying to figure out what the summation in panel 5 (<big>∑</big>ni=0ik1/i) is supposed to be. It turns out the first term (where i = 0) comes out to 0k/0, which is undefined for all k. It follows that the sum itself is only defined when n < 0, i.e. when it's an [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empty_sum empty sum]. However, if we cancel the 1/i with a factor of i, we get <big>∑</big>ni=0ik-1, which is defined when n < 0 or k ≥ 1. Here's an [https://www.desmos.com/calculator/ayacpkgqd3 interactive version] I made in Desmos. [[User:Hhhguir|Hhhguir]] ([[User talk:Hhhguir|talk]]) 23:47, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

What's funny to me about the combined Erdős–Bacon numbers are that because Kevin Bacon is still alive, it's much easier to have a low Bacon number than a low Erdős number. There are a number of scientists that are well-known enough to have appeared as cameos on TV shows and movies that have given them lower Bacon numbers than Erdős numbers. Some actors have Erdős numbers but {{w|Erdős–Bacon_number|the Wikipedia page}} doesn't list any with a lower Erdős number than Bacon number (though surely there are at least some). I don't think any of my professors had particularly low Erdős numbers so even if I had gotten one of my papers published in undergrad, I wouldn't have gotten a decent one. But if I go to grad school and get back into acting then maybe someday I could at least have a defined Erdős–Bacon number. [[User:Brycemw|Brycemw]] ([[User talk:Brycemw|talk]]) 14:47, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

Talk:2919: Sitting in a Tree

2024-04-24T15:49:24Z

Brycemw:

Meh, they're just dropping burning pine cones on the wargs. [[User:BunsenH|BunsenH]] ([[User talk:BunsenH|talk]]) 04:06, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

I hope I did this right, seeing as this was my first ever edit! [[User:Name of User|Name of User]] ([[User talk:Name of User|talk]]) 04:15, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

Did Randall mean e-filing as in submitting your tax return on the web, and how is that more alarming than ironing sitting on a branch? Or is there some other meaning to efiling? [[Special:Contributions/172.68.243.77|172.68.243.77]] 06:46, 13 April 2024 (UTC)
:Could be that they're sitting in a ''data tree'', selectively traversing it to find [[2918: Tick Marks|a fraudulent subset of transactional records]] to 'declare'... [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.74|141.101.99.74]] 10:18, 13 April 2024 (UTC)
:To me it seems "efiling" could be supporting/enacting efilism? Definitely more disturbing. {{unsigned ip|172.70.42.235|12:38, 13 April 2024}}
:I assumed it was a reference to the tax filing deadline in the USA. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.154.207|162.158.154.207]] 14:15, 13 April 2024 (UTC)
::I don't think "efiling" (electronically filing tax returns) should be considered any more alarming than "banking". --[[Special:Contributions/172.70.131.87|172.70.131.87]] 20:55, 13 April 2024 (UTC)
:::Yeah - I can't see why banking, e-filing, or posting while in a tree would really be of any concern, in and of themselves. You might have some concern over the security of your connection, particularly if you're using a random wifi hotspot to do it, but that doesn't really have anything to do with the tree per se.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.163.30|172.70.163.30]] 09:04, 15 April 2024 (UTC)
::::When dealing with my bank, I still do prefer to go to my nearest branch... [[Special:Contributions/172.69.43.165|172.69.43.165]] 12:09, 15 April 2024 (UTC)
:::::Chapeau. :o) (Preferably a hard hat.)[[Special:Contributions/172.71.178.33|172.71.178.33]] 08:03, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

So, "whaling" can mean hitting (usually in the form "whaling on"), but "whaling" also means spending a lot of money, such as when gambling or in a video game. {{unsigned ip|172.71.222.210|11:05, 13 April 2024}}
:Personally, I just automatically thought they would be ''actually'' hunting marine mammals![[[731: Desert Island|''cetacean]] [[1402: Harpoons|needed'']]] [[Special:Contributions/172.69.194.204|172.69.194.204]] 11:30, 13 April 2024 (UTC)
::Absolutely - in the hierarchy "what words mean", I'd say "what the word literally means" has a good argument for being at the top. "Whaling" ''also'' means "hitting", and even then, only phrasally: it's surely only ever "whaling on + object". "Whaling", in isolation, is hunting whales.[[User:Yorkshire Pudding|Yorkshire Pudding]] ([[User talk:Yorkshire Pudding|talk]]) 11:54, 13 April 2024 (UTC)
::I believe it only applies to Ishmael and Queequeg, I guess. They're quite homosexual. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.241.170|108.162.241.170]] 20:04, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

Do "perish/carriage" actually rhyme in (perhaps) the Bostonian accent? I'm drawn back to the state of the Edmund Fitzgerald lyrical rhyming scheme. It might work better using something like "pillage/carriage", with ''only'' the vowel-problem. At which point I could imagine it sort of working in a (bad) Kiwi or Africaans 'iccint'. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.195.121|172.69.195.121]] 11:42, 13 April 2024 (UTC)
:I think they come quite close in a "general" North American accent. The "pairish" and "cairidge" sounds, stretched out a little to fit the tune, sit well enough together.[[User:Yorkshire Pudding|Yorkshire Pudding]] ([[User talk:Yorkshire Pudding|talk]]) 11:48, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

I came here looking for explanations of "efiling", and I have to say "efilism", which I'd never heard of before, certainly sounds more in keeping with that frame than "e-filing", which just sounds tedious, even if the first result DuckDuckGo offers me is for [https://secure.sarsefiling.co.za/landing something called SARS] which [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SARS seems an unfortunate name]. - [[User:IMSoP|IMSoP]] ([[User talk:IMSoP|talk]]) 13:31, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

How do Cueball and Megan iron without a power cord? --[[User:1234231587678|1234231587678]] ([[User talk:1234231587678|talk]]) 03:03, 14 April 2024 (UTC)
:Presumably they’re using Apple iPhones with handles attached so they can be safely handled even though they get hot enough to iron clothes. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.210.218|172.70.210.218]] 05:52, 14 April 2024 (UTC)
:They could be using a flat iron, which is simply a solid piece of metal that is heated over a fire before use. (It does look like they may be using steam irons, though.) [[Special:Contributions/172.69.6.7|172.69.6.7]] 14:20, 14 April 2024 (UTC)
::See also "box irons". You put hot embers (or fire-heated stones, or whatever is handy or the 'box' is best designed for) into them as the 'heat powerpack'. It'll cool, much like the 'solid iron' iron, but then you empty it and put another 'heat battery' in that you've had waiting in the actual fire. May be trickier than just sitting the 'solid state' version on/over the fire every now and then, but removes a lot of the enforced pause between subsequent applications if you need more than one 'heatings-worth' of iron, per laundry job.
::Obviously, for any actual super-arborial ''applicationem caloris'', one would expect something like a bucket (or heat-safe basket) on a rope, to facilitate some ground-based assistance (beyond the fairly trivial initial porting of the ironing board up there, which they {{w|Extreme ironing|relatively easily do themselves}}... [[Special:Contributions/172.71.242.70|172.71.242.70]] 19:04, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

"cetacean needed" is absolutely beautiful, well done![[Special:Contributions/108.162.241.171|108.162.241.171]] 15:06, 14 April 2024 (UTC)
:: Agreed. A+ handiwork. [[User:Laser813|Laser813]] ([[User talk:Laser813|talk]]) 14:35, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

Feels like a worthy spiritual successor to one of my favorites, [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/696:_Strip_Games Strip Games]. We need more charts about alternative children's activities. [[User:Phil Srobeighn|Phil Srobeighn]] ([[User talk:Phil Srobeighn|talk]]) 10:56, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

Cueball and Megan, sitting in a tree, F-
wait no
W-O-R-K-I-N-G
R-U-N-N-I-N-G
W-A-L-K-I-N-G
C-A-L-L-I-N-G
D-R-A-W-I-N-G
[[Special:Contributions/172.70.127.58|172.70.127.58]] 16:17, 15 April 2024 (UTC)
:Were you about to swear?!?

Blood, fire, DEATH!!!! YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES ANARCHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY [[User:Z1mp0st0rz|Z1mp0st0rz]] ([[User talk:Z1mp0st0rz|talk]]) 19:37, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

I was surprised when I moved to the US to find out that they also use the word e-file for submitting taxes online. In Canada, it's efile without a hyphen. It also seems that the IRS dosen't send you a confirmation that it was correctly submitted. [[User:Brycemw|Brycemw]] ([[User talk:Brycemw|talk]]) 19:38, 15 April 2024 (UTC)
:I don't even ''know'' what they call it, over here in the UK. Most people (certainly most people like me) do not have to personally submit annual paperwork. PAYE gets dealt with as an intrinsic part of your wages. VAT is included in the price-tags of store items (a business-sales place may quote ex-VAT prices ''as well'', but your £499.99 pricetag for some home-electrical item typically doesn't need any further form of Sales Taxes adding to it before you can take it away).
:Big tax-relevent things (selling a house, anything else that might invoke Capital Gains Tax) are generally rare enough and the estate agent/solicitors involved should get you through the one-off declarations without fuss. Unless you're running your own business or have some other kind of self-earned income (e.g. personal share-trading portfolio), there's not the need for the whole industry of "Personal tax declarations" cropping up every year.
:Taxes still get collected, of course, and doubtless there's room for making adjustments (need expensive boots particularly for work? - you can claim back some of this necessary expense), but asking every person to do as much work as (from popular media) it looks like everyone from Homer Simpson to Jack Bauer needs to spend a frantic few weeks every year to find time to do (or set aside enough regular time to keep ahead of that so that it isn't quite so onerous) just seems odd to me, who has never had to do anything like this over several decades in various jobs and types of employment. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.194.36|172.69.194.36]] 13:16, 16 April 2024 (UTC)
::I definitely have to agree with you there. With my dad being an accountant, I certainly know a lot of situations where you'd need to do special things with your taxes but the vast majority of people work standard jobs that report their income to the government anyway. Even in the case of personal stock trading or special types of accounts like retirement accounts, the broker or bank still has to report that information to the government. My tax return this year was complicated due to moving countries but other than the one year that I did some remote contracting work for a US company, my Canadian tax returns have been opening the tax software, logging into CRA (Canadian Revenue Agency), downloading all of the data from there, then checking that it's correct. I guess I made one decision of whether or not to use my deduction from contributing to an RRSP but overall there's no reason that it has to be that much work.
::There are definitely a lot more complicated interactions between things in the US so it's not quite so simple. My understanding is that the main reason why it's so much work is that the companies that make the tax software lobby the government to ensure that it doesn't change. The current system requires you to buy a new copy of the software every year (or pay an accountant) which obviously makes them a ton of money. [[User:Brycemw|Brycemw]] ([[User talk:Brycemw|talk]]) 15:49, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

I'm gonna miss "PAIR OF BOTS SITTING IN A TREE E-D-I-T-I-N-G - ♫First come comments, ♫Then these made neat, ♫But ONLY when it's accurate, then should you the tag delete!♫" when this page is "complete." May be a bit too Meta, but should we consider adding it to a "Trivia" section of the page? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.154.99|162.158.154.99]] 16:39, 16 April 2024 (UTC)
:Go for it! [[User:Laser813|Laser813]] ([[User talk:Laser813|talk]]) 17:56, 16 April 2024 (UTC)
:You've preserved it for posterity here. {{unsigned ip|172.68.210.117|21:57, 19 April 2024}}

Cueball and Megan, sitting in a tree, B-R-A-K-I-N-G [[Special:Contributions/172.70.131.63|172.70.131.63]] 18:55, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

195: Map of the Internet

2024-04-24T15:30:56Z

Brycemw: IPv6 note and links to updated maps

{{comic
| number = 195
| date = December 11, 2006
| title = Map of the Internet
| image = map of the internet.jpg
| titletext = For the IPv6 map just imagine the XP default desktop picture.
}}

==Explanation==
On the map, all allocated {{w|IPv4}} address blocks (as of 2006) are shown using a fractal mapping. (The {{w|Hilbert curve}} is used: the pattern is demonstrated at the bottom of the image.) In February 2011, the final remaining IPv4 blocks were allocated to the {{w|Regional Internet registry|Regional Internet registries}}, and so today there would no longer be any green spaces outside of Class E addresses (above 240 through 255, excluding the Broadcast address of 255.255.255.255).

In the early 1990s, corporations and governments could register an entire {{w|Classful network|class A}} segment (one 256th of the total space), but later it was divided into smaller parts because of a lack of space.

This leads to the title text, which mentions {{w|IPv6}}. This protocol has so many addresses that only a [[865: Nanobots|swarm of nanobots]] could exhaust them. The default desktop picture in Windows XP is a green landscape, and the joke is that since barely any of the addresses are allocated yet, the IPv6 map would just be a green landscape. There are large ([https://observablehq.com/@vasturiano/hilbert-map-of-ipv6-address-space enough to be visible]) blocks of IPv6 space that have been allocated for special purposes and to RIRs. However, the amount of IPv6 space allocated to end users is only a tiny portion of that.

Later, Randall actually drew some "real" maps of the Internet, or at least its online Communities (see [[256: Online Communities]] and [[802: Online Communities 2]]).

A large number of updated Hilbert curve maps inspired by this comic have been created. Many also use data obtained by {{w|Ping_(networking_utility)|pinging}} IP addresses to see which addresses are accessible. Here are maps with images from [https://www.caida.org/archive/id-consumption/census-map/ 2003-2006], [https://iepg.org/2007-12-ietf70/3dheatmaps.pdf 2007] (which has a few different maps), [https://corte.si/geohilbert/index.html 2009] (showing country codes), [https://ant.isi.edu/address/index.html 2010], [https://census2012.sourceforge.net/hilbert.html 2012] (collected by the Carna Botnet), a [https://ant.isi.edu/address/census_2006_2014.html 2006-2014 animation], [https://blog.benjojo.co.uk/post/scan-ping-the-internet-hilbert-curve 2018], and [https://observablehq.com/@vasturiano/hilbert-map-of-ipv4-address-space 2023].

==Transcript==
:Map of the Internet The IPv4 Space, 2006 This chart shows the IP address space on a plane using a fractal mapping which preserves grouping--any consecutive string of IPs will translate to a single, compact, contiguous region on the map. Each of the 256 numbered blocks represents one 8 subnet (containing all IPs that start with that number). The upper left section shows the blocks sold directly to corporations and goverments in the 1990's before the RIRs took over allocation.
:Diagram showing IP ownership:
:0: Local
:1-2: Unallocated
:3: General Electric
:4: BB&N INC
:5: Unallocated
:6: Army AISC
:7: Unallocated
:8: BB&N INC
:9: IBM
:10: VPNs
:11: DoD Intel
:12: Bell Labs
:13: Xerox
:14: Public data nets
:15: HP
:16: DEC
:17: Apple
:18: MIT
:19: Ford
:20: CSC
:21: DDN-RYN
:22: DISA
:23: Unallocated
:24: Cable TV
:25: UK MoD
:26: DISA
:27: Unallocated
:28: DSI
:29-30: DISA
:31: Unallocated
:32: NORSK
:33: DLA
:34: Halliburton
:35: Merit
:36-37: Unallocated
:38: PSI
:39: Unallocated
:40: Eli Lily
:41: ARINIC
:42: Unallocated
:43: Japan INET
:44: HAM Radio
:45: INTEROP
:46: BB&N INC
:47: Bell North
:48: Prudential
:49-50: Unallocated
:51: UK Social Security
:52: duPont
:55: Boeing
:56: USPS
:57: SITA
:58-61: Asia-Pacific
:62: Europe
:63-76: USA & Canada (contains: UUNET, Google, Digg, Slashdot, Ebay, Craigslist, XKCD, Flickr)
:77-79: Europe (unused)
:80-91: Europe
:92-95: Unallocated
:96-99: North America
:100-120: Unallocated
:121-125: Asia-Pacific
:126: Japan
:127: Loopback
:128-132: Various Registrars
:133: Japan
:134-172: Various Registrars
:173-189: Unallocated
:188: Various
:189-190: Latin America & Caribbean
:191-192: Various (contains Private (RFC 1918))
:193-195: Europe
:196: Africa
:197: Unallocated
:198: US & Various
:199: North America
:200-201: Latin America & Caribbean
:202-203: Asia-Pacific
:204-209: North America (contains Suicide Girls, BoingBoing)
:210-211: Asia-Pacific
:212-213: Europe
:214-215: U.S. Department of Defense
:216: North America (Contains Myspace, SomethingAwful)
:217: Europe
:218-222: Asia-Pacific
:223: Unallocated
:224-239: Multicast
:240-255: Unallocated

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Internet]]
[[Category:Maps]]

Talk:1050: Forgot Algebra

2024-04-23T21:31:19Z

Brycemw:

Actually, I always use Megan's argument whenever I'm in World History Class.--[[User:Castriff|Jimmy C]] ([[User talk:Castriff|talk]]) 21:34, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
:Yes, because what intelligent people did in the past when faced with complex decisions can have NO bearing on anything in my own life. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.223|108.162.219.223]] 08:17, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
::If history actually repeats itself if you don't study it, then the best way to study history is to not study it, because then it will happen to yourself and you will be able to experience it first hand! [[User:Firestar233|guess who]] ([[User talk:Firestar233|if you want to]] | [[Special:Contributions/Firestar233|what i have done]]) 17:12, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

It allways seems strange to me that there are places in the world where preparing your own meals is not an everyday task to most people. Living in Norway it just seems extremely decadent![[Special:Contributions/85.164.251.29|85.164.251.29]] 20:44, 30 August 2013 (UTC)
:I don't think that by "learning to cook" he means to prepare food, but to do it well and to enjoy it. Many people can prepare very limited food, causing them to not enjoy cooking and to believe that they cannot cook. [[User:Theo|Theo]] ([[User talk:Theo|talk]]) 21:06, 30 August 2013 (UTC)
::No, he meant "learning to cook". We learn math, not necessarily so we can enjoy it but so that we can function as a modern human being. You don't have to enjoy cooking, but by god's sake you should at least learn the basics. We can't all be generation Y, you know; things would cease to function. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.223|108.162.219.223]] 08:17, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
::I think the point is that being able to cook, play an instrument, or speak a foreign language is generally seen as positive even if it doesn't benefit the person judging (they aren't expecting to eat the cooking or need an interpreter). "I can do integral calculus" will not get you the same sort of reaction. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.187.178|162.158.187.178]] 20:54, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Fortunately for mathophiles, it appears that this sentiment fades with age. In an August 2013 Gallup survey of American adults, respondents were asked which school subject they considered most valuable in their daily lives, and Math took the top spot. http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/curriculum/2013/09/math_viewed_as_most_valuable_s.html [[User:Frijole|Frijole]] ([[User talk:Frijole|talk]]) 23:39, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

A google search of "when am I ever going to use X?" reveals that "math" and "algebra" get tens of thousands of hits, physics gets hundreds, while just about everything else is under 100. I think the extreme dislike of math (edweek survey notwithstanding, and probably self-serving) is in a different league from what others have discussed here. The explanation should reflect. [[User:Jd2718|Jd2718]] ([[User talk:Jd2718|talk]]) 03:16, 16 September 2013 (UTC)
:It was a Gallup survey, and how can the choice of "math" be self-serving anyway?? It is an educational journal, for pete's sake! The only choices were school subjects.
:My own reasoning is that people have an unnatural fear of math simply because it *is* a pure science, it *is* abstract. The idiotic thing is that people use math all the time, they just don't call it that. Trying to work out how many drinks you can buy and still have cab fare? Algebra, b*tches! [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.223|108.162.219.223]] 08:17, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

Counterpoint: Unlike music and foreign language, math is a required course throughout school, which must be infuriating for those who struggle with it. My belief for what are currently the core classes is that students should be taught the material that will help them "in real life" and in a variety of jobs, and probably a bit of extra knowledge beyond that; but the much more complex and abstract topics should be optional. [[User talk:AgentMuffin|~AgentMuffin]]

Counter-counterpoint: You have to balance the 'need' for abstract topics with the advantage that young minds have in learning. Generally speaking, as you get older it becomes more difficult to learn new things. So the most advantageous time to learn those difficult/abstract topics is when your mind is (statistically) best capable of learning them.

Counter-counter-counterpoint: abstract topics are actually specifically the sorts of things that "young minds" (up through middle school, at least, and sometimes into high school) struggle to learn (or comprehend) more than more older minds. It's why teaching algebra to middle schoolers (in general and on average) is generally avoided. (Source: professional development as a middle school teacher)
On an unrelated note, the depressing thing about this comic is that I have heard students make the same complaint (i.e. when am I ever going to need this) about music, cooking, AND speaking a foreign language.
[[User:Who, me?|Who, me?]] ([[User talk:Who, me?|talk]]) 01:14, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

Is it weird that I do use algebra on a somewhat regular basis? Maybe once a month or so. Not even as a part of my job (which requires far less math than most people think). Even something like finding the percentage discount when you are just given the initial and final price is technically algebra. One of the weirdest things that happened on a date was a girl asking me to solve an algebra question. I feel like I even had a derivative come up at some point in my life. I'm definitely not getting into the argument of if math should be taught in schools in the way it currently is though. [[User:Brycemw|Brycemw]] ([[User talk:Brycemw|talk]]) 21:31, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

Talk:1605: DNA

2024-04-23T16:13:48Z

Brycemw: Forgot my signature

The source for Google.com can be found at `<nowiki>view-source:https://www.google.com/</nowiki>` for Firefox and Chrome. Also [http://pastebin.com/raw.php?i=u8SMf7G6 here]. —[[User:Artyer|Artyer]] <big>([[User Talk:Artyer|talk]]<big>'''|'''</big>[[Special:Contributions/Artyer|ctb]])</big> 16:06, 18 November 2015 (UTC)
:Should there be a link to the code in the explain. I do not understand these links or the source code, and would not like to place these links in the explanation. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 18:43, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

I really like this comic. IMHO, just another good example of intelligent design. Google's dev had to design, plan and carefully code. If that is seemingly simple compared to DNA and biology then how much more intelligence and thought was needed for the coding of all living things?--[[User:R0hrshach|R0hrshach]] ([[User talk:R0hrshach|talk]]) 17:18, 18 November 2015 (UTC)
:With all the stupid things going on in our bodies (rendered useless by natural selection but staying put anyway like the {{w|Appendix (anatomy)|Appendix}} or our {{w|tailbone}}) then it is to me just a clear example that there has been no intelligence behind our genome, but just trial and error, and then 4 billion years to get it right enough that it works but not smart. And don't get me started on how our air and food/drink has to go in the same way with the risk of being (nearly) killed by a pretzel...([http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-94567/I-feel-great-President-Bush-declares-pretzel-incident.html even if you are the president of the US] ;-) That is just plain stupid design. But few enough dies from this, that it was necessary for nature to change it once it was working. Humans and the genes survived long enough to reproduce. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 18:43, 18 November 2015 (UTC)
::Without an appendix how would our gut immune system develop properly? Without a tail bone how would we stand upright? It's a fallacy to think that just because we don't understand something it must have no purpose. [[Special:Contributions/198.41.238.32|198.41.238.32]] 00:53, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

::I think it somewhat illogical and incomprehensible that someone could point to the human body and call it just plain stupid design. So stupid that humans cannot replicate it on a mechanical or software level - yet it's complex design works independently of our conscious thought and exists for the most part on its own. When you look at it from an evolutionary standpoint you spot design flaws; however, we don't even fully understand the full scope of our own biology and we still run trial and error studies. My profession is in aircraft parts design and manufacture. When I look at the parts we create and build to put on aircraft and how much time, engineering, design, testing and ultimately still discovering small errors in tolerance stack-ups and cascading events and still these parts are considerably crude in nature compared to living cells and the entire ecosystem that is - us. It is mind blowing. Believe me. The fact that surgeons can go in move things around, cut things out, insert things for goodness sake and still the body operates is a wonderful testament to the truly awe-inspiring mechanical design that is our bodies.--[[User:R0hrshach|R0hrshach]] ([[User talk:R0hrshach|talk]]) 22:31, 23 November 2015 (UTC)
:::Without a pretzel-choking mechanism, how could we ever hope to weed out less-desirable presidents?
[[Special:Contributions/162.158.180.215|162.158.180.215]] 21:59, 19 November 2015 (UTC)
::::Nothing to do with choking; the pretzel interfered with the vagus nerve, interfering with his heart rate [[User:Gearoid|Gearóid]] ([[User talk:Gearoid|talk]]) 08:05, 20 November 2015 (UTC).
:I am sure you are right about intelligent design being involved: clearly DNA's tangled structure is a deliberate nod to a plate of spaghetti, proof indeed that the Flying Spaghetti Monster has had a hand (well, a noodly appendage) in all of creation. [[User:Martin|Martin]] ([[User talk:Martin|talk]]) 00:16, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

Apologies, when I saved my comments it blitzed someone else's that must have been being written at the same time :'-( [[User:RIIW - Ponder it|RIIW - Ponder it]] ([[User talk:RIIW - Ponder it|talk]]) 19:13, 18 November 2015
(UTC)
:Yeah it was my two comments above? I have now moved the one right her above back in place from the bottom where Davidy22 had placed it when he tried to fix it. No harms done but as he says: ''Read error messages, I know mediawiki gives them to you''. You can always see in the history what you have changed. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 21:08, 18 November 2015 (UTC)
::I, for my part read the edit conflict (with Kynde, 18:43) like a good little boy, re-edited in light of that, resubmitted and... forgot to answer the security question. For completeness I wrote the following. If it's still helpful...
Had the same thought. Although I just use "View | Source" from the menu or right-click and "View Page Source", or whatever that browser tends to want to give me. And, having had that same thought: For reference, in case anybody wants it, the source of the google.co.uk main page (assumed not far off google.com in its nature) is 51 lines. But that's 51 ''long'' lines of mostly javascript, with much of the unnecessary whitespace (including line-feeds) taken out of it, overwhelmingly single-character variable names, over 150 'if' statements (including 'else if' ones, in continuation to a prior one) and perhaps 56 'for' loops, at first glance. Whether 'optimised' or obfuscated, it certainly could be a challenge to fully understand.
:: HTH, HAND [[Special:Contributions/141.101.106.161|141.101.106.161]] 21:43, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

::: I don't think that Google's homepage is only optimized. I'm sure part of obfuscation is deliberate. That said, just removing comments and changing variable names is usually enough to make program unreadable. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 13:18, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

IMHO DNA with its redundant sections for things not currently used and the bodges in biological design are a good example of unintelligent design. For example the blood supply to the retina is between the iris and the retina, so it is in the way. An intelligent designer would do an eye mark II. But this has nothing to do with the comic. [[User:RIIW - Ponder it|RIIW - Ponder it]] ([[User talk:RIIW - Ponder it|talk]]) 19:07, 18 November 2015 (UTC)
: Sigh. Another of the "I could do a better job" brigade. Go ahead. Try it. Post back here after you learn enough about the existing eye design that you recognise just how incredible it is. [[Special:Contributions/198.41.238.32|198.41.238.32]] 00:57, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

::Eye mark II is used in octopuses: {{w|Cephalopod eye}}. Solves multiple problems of our eyes. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 13:15, 19 November 2015 (UTC)
:::Cephalopod vs Vertebrate eyes is a classic example of convergent evolution, therefore eye structure proves evolution not intelligent design. [[User:Martin|Martin]] ([[User talk:Martin|talk]]) 00:16, 20 November 2015 (UTC)
::::Eye structure disproves intelligent design BECAUSE no intelligent designer would use two things which are so similar and yet so different. Disproving intelligent design is easy. The real content is between evolution and STUPID design. Or, well ... Cephalopod vs Vertebrate eyes looks EXACTLY like something which would happen if {{w|Polytheism|two designers}} try to compete without directly copying from each other. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 13:34, 20 November 2015 (UTC)
:::::Nothing about Intelligent Design leads one to assume that the human anatomy would have been designed foolproof and without any inherent weak points. Why would you design a superhuman?--[[User:R0hrshach|R0hrshach]] ([[User talk:R0hrshach|talk]]) 22:37, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

White Hat is showing the hubris often seen by people who think their (often limited) knowledge in one field can be used as an anology for something very different. Megan only manages to showchim his error by showing that a "simple" web page, which has only been evolving for a few years is more complex than he thinks, and the role of any one line/command in the page is probably far from clear without deep analysis [[User:RIIW - Ponder it|RIIW - Ponder it]] ([[User talk:RIIW - Ponder it|talk]]) 19:07, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

The evolution of life is composed exclusively of copy-paste programming on top of legacy code, global variables, and hacks on hacks on hacks at every level, from telomeres and DNA looping, to the structure of the human hip (childbirth), to our breathing tract, optic nerve, and brain structure and cognition. --[[Special:Contributions/199.27.130.234|199.27.130.234]] 21:47, 18 November 2015 (UTC)
: That's what you get when you hack the universe together with perl. {{unsigned|Dsollen}}

: Or C. Reminds me of a joke going around in the 90s ... http://www.gnu.org/fun/jokes/dna.en.html [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.38|141.101.98.38]]

So much for Gattaca then... [[User:Martin|Martin]] ([[User talk:Martin|talk]]) 00:16, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

I wasn't quite sure what was meant by a comprehensive language in this line:
"What makes this even worse with DNA is that although it can be thought of 'source code' it isn't for a comprehensive language"
Whether it meant that the language of DNA is incomplete in some way (e.g. relies on other linguistic components), or what. I changed it to:
"What makes this even worse with DNA is that although it can be thought of as 'source code' it isn't for a language we fully understand"
Which I think is clearer, and I hope captures the intended meaning. If not, please clarify. Thanks. [[Special:Contributions/199.27.129.155|199.27.129.155]] 20:54, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

To maintain historical context, it would be prudent to add links to the current version of the Google homepage, both as it appears in a web browser, and Google's current code for the page (e.g. via the Wayback machine). Google could change the page to make it visually more complex, or change the code to make it simpler. Preserving samples of both would futureproof this explanation.
Here is a link to the archive for the Google homepage on the day this comic was posted [[https://web.archive.org/web/20151118000129/http://www.google.com/ Archive of www.google.com homepage, on 18 Nov 2015]]

I do not know how to easily provide either an image of what this page looks like in a web browser from this time period, or how to provide a link to just the google code from the archived page, without violating copyright. [[Special:Contributions/199.27.129.155|199.27.129.155]] 20:54, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

I thought it notable that the source code for the wiki page for 'Minification (programming)' [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minification_(programming)], itself contained minified code. [[User:These Are Not The Coments You Are Looking For|These Are Not The Coments You Are Looking For]] ([[User talk:These Are Not The Coments You Are Looking For|talk]]) 00:12, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

I do not think DNA is 'source' code. A more apt comparison would be compiled (binary) code of a self-modifying program for which no source code is available. Anyone who've dabbled in reverse engineering is probably familiar with the Chinese-crossword level of confusion when first reading an unannotated binary (although it does get better with experience). Now imagine you also don't know most of the assembly language, multiply by at least 1000, and you've got the genetic engineering problem. Biologists who study it now are at least as hardcore as programmers in 60's. Probably more. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.98.193|172.71.98.193]] 13:29, 27 June 2022 (UTC)

Being a programmer (and especially one that works with hardware a lot), I love to try to make analogies of biology to computers. Of course that really really only goes so far. Having done the briefest amount of research into DNA, it's definitely not "source code". It's machine code for the worst ISA in the world that has no documentation and the code uses every single quirk to its extreme. Talk about self-modifying code, this is a self-modifying processor! Multiple "instructions" seem to code for the same thing except they actually impact the "performance" significantly. The interactions between every part of the system is so wild and sensitive that not only is the outcome different "run to run" but even when replicating the code exactly, environmental conditions make the outcome possibly very different. Not to mention that every single "processor" is slightly different and will run the same thing differently! The fact that we can be sure about almost anything is wild to me but clearly we know way less about complex organisms than simple ones. IIRC, we've managed to "compile" a simple bacterium gnome and get it to work at least somewhat, but not as well as the original! [[User:Brycemw|Brycemw]] ([[User talk:Brycemw|talk]]) 16:13, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

Talk:1605: DNA

2024-04-23T16:13:28Z

Brycemw:

Talk:2919: Sitting in a Tree

2024-04-15T19:38:40Z

Brycemw:

Talk:2879: Like This One

2024-01-11T14:17:42Z

Brycemw:

i'm very confused what "this gas molecule" or "this skin microbe" is meant to be; it doesn't seem like there would contextually be an obvious specific instance of either of those classes? looking forward to seeing the conjecture given in the explanation when it settles down - [[User:Vaedez|Vaedez]] ([[User talk:Vaedez|talk]]) 02:48, 11 January 2024 (UTC)
:I believe it's referring to her holding her hand out to signify a (large number of) gas molecules. --[[Special:Contributions/172.69.34.49|172.69.34.49]] 02:55, 11 January 2024 (UTC)
::ahh, what she meant was "like these ones"--ok, I understand what both would mean now. - [[User:Vaedez|Vaedez]] ([[User talk:Vaedez|talk]]) 03:02, 11 January 2024 (UTC)
:::She's pointing at one molecule. Just because you can't pick it out of the mass doesn't change that. [[User:Nitpicking|Nitpicking]] ([[User talk:Nitpicking|talk]]) 03:55, 11 January 2024 (UTC)
:::: Indeed. And one wouldn't want to get the wrong idea about ''which'' molecule she might study. Obviously, there are a lot of N2 ones, and a few O2s, but they're not necessarily of interest. The odd noble gas atom (if that counts as a molecule-of-one) or CO2 would probably be the more useful, along with SO2 / O3 / other trace ones as what she might be indicating. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.79|141.101.99.79]] 05:34, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

Other possible instances would include "Hominids" and "False vacuums". I was sure it was going to end with, "Cartoons like this one." [[User:Nitpicking|Nitpicking]] ([[User talk:Nitpicking|talk]]) 03:55, 11 January 2024 (UTC)
: Also, neutrinos would go on the list [[Special:Contributions/172.68.144.217|172.68.144.217]] 10:25, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

"I'm a researcher studying potential apocalyptic events..." [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.115|172.70.90.115]] 09:40, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

Hmm. I’m a criminologist studying the behavior patterns of psychopaths.

"I'm a researcher studying computer simulations…" (sadly, not actually the kind we are (maybe) living in but close enough) [[User:Brycemw|Brycemw]] ([[User talk:Brycemw|talk]]) 14:17, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

Talk:2851: Messier Objects

2023-11-07T15:31:18Z

Brycemw:

addededededded transcript [[User:Certified_nqh|Me]][[[285: Wikipedian Protester|''citation needed'']]][[Category:Pages using the "citation needed" template]] 17:34, 6 November 2023 (UTC)
: meow [[User:SomeoneIGuess|someone, i guess]]([[User talk:SomeoneIGuess|talk i guess]]|[[Special:Contributions/SomeoneIGuess|le edit list]]) 17:54, 6 November 2023 (UTC)
Is M30712050 that specific squirrel, or just the general category of squirrels? [[Special:Contributions/172.69.247.56|172.69.247.56]] 17:57, 6 November 2023 (UTC)
:The debate about the Ship of Theseus suggests that every ship gets its own number, so why not every squirrel? Although then the numbers would be much larger. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 18:04, 6 November 2023 (UTC)
::...and the list would be much messier. [[User:Yorkshire Pudding|Yorkshire Pudding]] ([[User talk:Yorkshire Pudding|talk]]) 18:32, 6 November 2023 (UTC)
:::*fwap* [[Special:Contributions/172.69.43.143|172.69.43.143]] 00:47, 7 November 2023 (UTC)
:It can't be all squirrels, CM could not have seen *all* squirrels. In fact, he would have been dead long before *that* squirrel was born. [[User:SDSpivey|SDSpivey]] ([[User talk:SDSpivey|talk]]) 21:20, 6 November 2023 (UTC)
::Presuming that Messier is alive in this panel, then this panel isn't the present, and the squirrel was alive when Messier was alive. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.155.162|162.158.155.162]] 21:58, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

could the numbers have been picked to represent something rather than be entirely random? like 41592 coming from pi and 137 being FSC... idk maybe i'm just reading too much into it... [[Special:Contributions/162.158.186.11|162.158.186.11]] 18:09, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

Between the Messier catalog and the Marvel multiverse, we've got a well-defined numbering system that indexes all objects in all universes. (Or, I guess at least those universes with Messier catalogs. Damn.) [[Special:Contributions/172.69.58.18|172.69.58.18]] 19:03, 6 November 2023 (UTC)
:You should also number all Messier catalogues (and intermediate versions of them), then, to make sure we know which ones we're talking about. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.43.143|172.69.43.143]] 00:47, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

Wait a minute... this is just the wikidata QID system again[[User:AtaraxianAscendant|ataraxianAscendant]] ([[User talk:AtaraxianAscendant|talk]]) 19:34, 6 November 2023 (UTC)
:Yes, it's like Wikidata. Not sure if it's worth mentioning. Unfortunately, the numbers don't match those Wikidata for equivalent objects.
:Furtermore, Wikimedia Commons ID use an M and a number. For example, https://commons.wikimedia.org/entity/M205.--[[User:Pere prlpz|Pere prlpz]] ([[User talk:Pere prlpz|talk]]) 19:39, 6 November 2023 (UTC)
:I added a section about Wikidata because the first thing that I wanted to do when I read this comic was look up what the IDs were for all of the objects mentioned. It certainly could be written better. [[User:Brycemw|Brycemw]] ([[User talk:Brycemw|talk]]) 15:31, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

The existence of a Messier catalog implies the existence of a Neater catalog. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.134.130|172.69.134.130]] 19:42, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

The explanation suggests that we might number every grain of sand. But the comic just has a single number for "Earth". Would the catalog have separate entries for an object and all its constituents? It doesn't seem like it, since Randall didn't label the wings of the butterfly, limbs of the squirrel or human, or branches and leaves of the tree. Of course, how we distinguish distinct objects in the world is an even thornier philosophical problem than the Ship of Theseus. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 20:36, 6 November 2023 (UTC)
:I deleted that portion as non-explanatory wild speculation. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.159.64|172.71.159.64]] 21:03, 6 November 2023 (UTC)
::The same would apply to the real Messier Objects too - do you label a star cluster, and then label the individual stars within it as well?[[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.228|172.70.90.228]] 10:04, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

Shouldn't Earth (or Messier) be object #0? [[User:SDSpivey|SDSpivey]] ([[User talk:SDSpivey|talk]]) 21:20, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

How messy are they? 🥁 [[Special:Contributions/172.70.100.211|172.70.100.211]] 22:00, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

Earth number might be influenced by [https://rickandmorty.fandom.com/wiki/Dimension_C-137 Dimension C-137] from Rick and Morty, which often is used to refer to the "Earth" location from early easons. --
[[Special:Contributions/172.70.200.145|172.70.200.145]] 22:27, 6 November 2023 (UTC) (edit [[Special:Contributions/172.68.146.17|172.68.146.17]] 22:33, 6 November 2023 (UTC))

For the numbering of the ships of Theseuses, why not just use the numbers from a particular type of prime number? ----

In the UK, the Ship of Theseus problem is sometimes referred to as Trigger's Broom, after a character from one of our most popular sitcoms ("Only Fools And Horses"). Trigger is a mentally-deficient road sweeper who is proud of the fact that he's still got his original broom that he was given when he started work 20 years ago. He's looked after it in that time: it's had 17 new heads and 14 new handles...
[[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.189|172.70.86.189]] 06:21, 7 November 2023 (UTC)
:To be fair (and, unfortunately, historically unfair to the Irish), that's just a transplant of the older "Irishman's Broom". And it's just one of many variations like "grandfather's axe", etc. Depends on whether you're going for fairly recent pop-culture (lovely-jubbley!), falling back on old stereotypes (to be sure, to be sure) or whatever else you have in mind. (I'm sure I actually heard "Ship of Theseus" said on the street, just the other day, by a conversing couple. And this wasn't even an Oxbridge street!)
:To be fair ''to Trigger'', the council for whom the character worked was also as blind/far-sighted regarding the philosophical (dis)continuity of existence, given the award in which they were citing the broom as one of the outstanding features... Much as the US Government treats the 'modern' USS Constitution as the same as the 'original', maybe? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.231|172.70.90.231]] 09:02, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

2851: Messier Objects

2023-11-07T15:30:03Z

Brycemw: Add a section about Wikidata

{{comic
| number = 2851
| date = November 6, 2023
| title = Messier Objects
| image = messier_objects_2x.png
| imagesize = 293x294px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = The debate over the correct Messier number for the Ship of Theseus is ongoing.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a BUNCH OF PEOPLE ARGUING OVER WHAT TO LABEL THE SHIP OF THESEUS - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This comic is a play on the {{w|Messier object|Messier Catalog}}, which is a famous list of astronomical objects compiled by the French astronomer Charles Messier in the 18th century. The real Messier Catalog includes 110 objects, which are all deep-space objects like nebulae and galaxies.

In the comic, it's humorously suggested that the catalog includes not just these distant celestial objects, but also very ordinary things found here on Earth. Each ordinary object is labeled with an "M" followed by a number, just as the real Messier objects are numbered (like M1, M31, etc.). However, the numbers are much higher than the 110 included in the actual catalog, and they point to mundane things such as the Earth, Charles Messier himself, a tree, a butterfly and a squirrel.

The numbers increase as the objects go from large and significant to humans (the Earth, Charles Messier) to those that are smaller and less significant (a tree, a butterfly, and a squirrel). However, this pattern isn't strictly numerical (i.e., there's no clear mathematical sequence), but rather a conceptual one where the numbers arbitrarily become larger for things that are commonly considered less monumental or noteworthy than celestial objects.

So, the comic is a playful take on a piece of astronomical history, suggesting that everything in the universe is part of the Messier Catalog, not just the deep sky objects Messier originally listed.

The title text refers to the {{w|Ship of Theseus}}, which is a thought experiment. If a ship is repaired and/or modified such that it has ''all'' of its parts replaced over the years, is it the same ship as the original? The title text suggests that this leads to a debate as to whether the original ship and the new ship (with all of its parts replaced) should be considered the same object and therefore given the same Messier number, or the two ships should be considered different objects with different Messier numbers, and if so, which of them should retain the original number.

==About the Messier Catalog==
The Messier Catalog was devised as a tool for comet hunters to differentiate between permanent, blurry celestial objects and the transient, moving comets that appear similar at first glance. Such blurry objects, unlike comets, remain fixed against the stellar backdrop, and their inclusion in the catalog ensures that astronomers could avoid mistaking these for newly visible comets, when systematically looking for unfixed 'fuzzy' objects to start to track. The catalog excludes terrestrial objects, as they pose no risk of confusion with comets. Following the creation of the Messier Catalog, other catalogs like the New General Catalogue ({{w|New General Catalogue|NGC}}) and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey ({{w|Sloan Digital Sky Survey|SDSS}}) emerged, expanding the documentation of astronomical bodies.

==Similar Numbering Systems==
This numbering system is somewhat reminiscent of Wikidata which also gives objects a number starting with a letter. Numbers starting with Q refer to concepts including specific physical objects (like the Earth) and more abstract ideas (butterflies as organisms known by a particular common name). Here are some of the objects mentioned in the comic:
:[https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2 Q2] (Earth) (The normal one)
:[https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q14524 Q14524] (Charles Messier) (The astronomer)
:[https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q10884 Q10884] (tree) (The plants known by that common name)
:[https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q11946202 Q11946202] (butterflies) (The Lepidoptera known by that common name)
:[https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q9482 Q9482] (squirrel) (The taxon of rodents)
:[https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q14530 Q14530] (Messier object) (The astronomical catalog)

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

:[Multiple objects are labelled with M followed by a number.]
:[There is a tree, a butterfly, a squirrel, a man with a powdered wig labeled Charles Messier, a squirrel, and ground.]
:M137 (Earth) (pointing to the ground)
:M205 (Charles Messier) (pointing to Charles Messier)
:M21860 (pointing to a tree on the left of the panel)
:M41592 (pointing to a butterfly above Charles)
:M30712050 (pointing to a squirrel)

:[Caption below the panel:]
:People usually focus on the first 110, but the Messier Catalog actually includes '''''all''''' objects.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Astronomy]]
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]]
[[Category:Animals]]
[[Category:Squirrels]]
[[Category:Philosophy]]