explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

2003: Presidential Succession

2018-06-06T15:22:19Z

D4:

{{comic
| number = 2003
| date = June 6, 2018
| title = Presidential Succession
| image = presidential_succession.png
| titletext = Ties are broken by whoever was closest to the surface of Europa when they were born.
}}

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

The {{w|United States presidential line of succession}} is the order of people who serve as president if the current incumbent president is incapacitated, dies, resigns, or is removed from office.

The {{w|Presidential_Succession_Act#Presidential_Succession_Act_of_1947|Presidential Succession Act of 1947}} was an act by the U.S. Congress that revised the presidential order of succession to its current order. This act, though never challenged in the courts, may not be constitutional for two reasons. First, it is unclear whether members of Congress can be designated in the line of succession. Secondly, the act allows for a cabinet officer to be "replaced" as acting President by a new Speaker of the House or a new President Pro Tempore of the Senate.

An additional concern regarding the Act is that after the President Pro Tempore of the Senate, the line of succession list the members of the Cabinet in the order that their department was established with the oldest departments first, irrespective of the Secretary's personal fitness or appropriateness of the office. The Department of Homeland Security is in charge of the security and protection of the United States and its citizens and would probably already be privy to sensitive intelligence and briefings related to national security, but because it is the latest of the Departments to have been established (in 2003) the Secretary of Homeland Security is all the way at the bottom of the current Presidential line of succession at 18th, behind other Secretaries such as that of Agriculture (9th) and Education (16th).

The full text of the Second Report of the Continuity of Government Commission can be found here: https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/06_continuity_of_government.pdf

The first 6 members of Randall's list are included in the current line of succession. After the top 6, his list ranges from politicians, to actors who have played Presidents, to athletes.

Randall's list omits the Speaker of the House and the President Pro Tempore of the Senate, as well as many other cabinet positions. Perhaps he does not find those people qualified to become President of the United States, or is concerned about the constitutionality of lawmakers becoming President. However, he does not seem to be concerned about constitutionality, because he included the entire line of succession to the British throne, most of whom are do not meet the requirement to be a natural-born citizen of the United States.{{Citation needed}}

Randall's list includes several other people who also might not be eligible to become President either because they are not natural-born U.S. citizens (e.g., as of the time of the comic's publishing, {{w|Serena Williams}} had withdrawn from her last match in the {{w|French Open}} to {{w|Maria Sharapova}}, who is Russian) or they are under 35 years of age ({{w|Russell Westbrook}}, the reigning NBA Most Valuable Player at the time of the comic's publishing, was only 29 years old). These would mainly be athletes due to the relatively global reach of the four major professional sports leagues in North America and the fact that 35 is quite old for a professional athlete, let alone one who is good enough to win the league MVP. Presumably, those who wouldn't qualify for the office of President would be skipped over like in real life -- at comic's publishing, {{w|Elaine Chao}} was the Secretary of Transportation and would normally be 14th in line, but because she is a naturalized citizen of the US (she was born in Taiwan) she would not qualify for the office if the line came to her.

This is another comic in the continuing line of comics about American politics, especially after the election of Donald Trump as President in 2016.

==Order of succession==
{| class="wikitable sortable"
!#
!Randall's order
!Current order by the 1947 Act
!Notes
|-
|1
|President
|President
|Not generally considered part of the line of succession, as incumbents cannot "succeed" to their own post.
|-
|2
|Vice president
|Vice president
|No change
|-
|3
|Secretary of State
|Speaker of the House of Representatives
|Moved up from 5th position. This is likely a serious suggestion. Existing rules of succession hand Executive power to the leaders of the Legislative branch if the President and Vice-President are both killed or removed from power. This is troubling for a number of reasons. One is that the Executive and Legislative branches are supposed to act as independent checks on one another's power, and so are supposed to be kept separate. Another issue is that the Executive and Legislative branches are frequently controlled by political rivals from different political parties. In such a case, assassins could effectively reverse the results of Presidential elections if they managed to kill the President and Vice-President in a short period of time. Additionally, leaders of the House and Senate aren't as deeply connected to the military and diplomatic missions of the country, and so would have a hard time maintaining continuity, particularly if an attack or disaster killed multiple national leaders at once. These problems could all be addressed by keeping the initial Line of Succession confined to the Executive branch of government.
|-
|4
|Secretary of Defense
|President pro tempore of the Senate
|Moved up from 7th position
|-
|5
|Secretary of Homeland Security
|Secretary of State
|Moved up from 19th position, possibly to highlight the Attorney General's place in the current order
|-
|6
|Attorney General
|Secretary of the Treasury
|Moved up from 8th position
|-
|7
|Five people who do not live in Washington DC, nominated at the start of the President's term and confirmed by the Senate
|Secretary of Defense
|{{w|Washington, D.C.}} is the capital of the United States, and is where the {{w|White House}}, the President's residence, is located. Presumably this provision covers the case where much of the government, including positions 1–6 here, are killed by a natural disaster or attack in Washington, D.C.

It's unclear whether this suggestion is serious, as it establishes no qualifications for these people, but the fact that they'd need to be confirmed by the Senate suggests that they would be chosen to be competent for the role. It is also unclear if an order is determined among these 5 or if they take up a joint presidency.
|-
|8
|{{w|Tom Hanks}}
|Attorney General
|Academy Award-winning American actor. This is the first unambiguously unserious suggestion. Tom Hanks is very popular and considered exceptionally likeable by many Americans, but has never served in public office or displayed any particular affinity for politics. The implication is that Mr. Hanks would be easily accepted as a leader, based solely on his personal charm.
|-
|9
|State Governors, in descending order of state population at last census
|Secretary of the Interior
|At the time of publishing, the last {{w|United States Census}} was the 2010 Census. {{w|2010_United_States_Census#State_rankings|Link}} to state populations.
|-
|10
|Anyone who won an Oscar for playing a governor
|Secretary of Agriculture
|Oscars, or {{w|Academy Awards}}, are annual film awards awarded by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. May be a reference to the {{w|Political career of Arnold Schwarzenegger}}: a highly-lauded actor who became governor of California, but did not win an Oscar or play a governor before being elected.
|-
|11
|Anyone who won a Governor's award for playing someone named Oscar
|Secretary of Commerce
|The {{w|Governors Awards}} are an annual award ceremony hosted by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to present lifetime achievement awards within the film industry. As this award is a lifetime achievement award, it does not seem possible that an actor could win this award for simply playing someone named Oscar. Obviously, the joke is that changing the order of the words from the previous proposal produces something that actually exists.
|-
|12
|{{w|Kate McKinnon}}, if available
|Secretary of Labor
|Comedic actress famous for being a cast member on {{w|Saturday Night Live}}. She is known for her character work and celebrity impressions. She has recently done impersonations of members of the Trump administration including Spokeswoman Kellyanne Conway and Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
|-
|13
|Billboard Year-End Hot 100 Singles artists #1 through #10 (for groups, whoever is credited first in name, liner notes, etc)
|Secretary of Health and Human Services
|The {{w|Billboard Hot 100}} is the music industry standard record chart in the United States for singles, published weekly by Billboard magazine.
|-
|14
|The top 5 US astronauts in descending order of total spaceflight time
|Secretary of Housing and Urban Development
|Astronauts are highly respected and rigorously selected. The top 5 US astronauts with the most space time are: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Kelly_(astronaut) Scott Kelly] (879 total days), [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peggy_Whitson Peggy Whitson] (665), [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_L%C3%B3pez-Alegr%C3%ADa Michael López-Alegría] (215)
|-
|15
|{{w|Serena Williams}} (or, if she lost her most recent match, whoever beat her)
|Secretary of Transportation
|As of the time of publishing, Serena Williams was the top female tennis player (though not the world #1 ranking, because she took time off for pregnancy). She is arguably the greatest female tennis player of all-time, winning 39 {{w|Grand Slam (tennis)|Grand Slam}} titles, including 23 women's singles titles. At the time of publication Serena Williams did win her most recent match (third round French Open 2018 on June 2nd), although she withdrew from her next match against Maria Sharapova.

If her most recent defeat was to a non-US player, it is unclear whether that person would still qualify for President (the current succession list skips over anyone who would not normally qualify for not being a natural-born US citizen).
|-
|16
|The most recent season NBA, NFL, MLB, and NHL MVPs
|Secretary of Energy
|MVP stands for {{w|Most Valuable Player}}. The 4 listed leagues are the major sports leagues in the United States, the {{w|National Basketball Association}} (NBA), the {{w|National Football League}} (NFL), {{w|Major League Baseball}} (MLB), and the {{w|National Hockey League}} (NHL).

As of the time of publishing, the most recent MVPs for the listed sports are {{w|Russell Westbrook}} (NBA), {{w|Tom Brady}} (NFL), {{w|José Altuve}} and {{w|Giancarlo Stanton}} (MLB has two, one for the American League and one for the National League), and {{w|Connor McDavid}} (NHL). Of these, only Brady would qualify for the list - Altuve and McDavid are not US citizens (the former is from Venezuela and the latter from Canada), and Westbrook (29) and Stanton (28) are too young.
|-
|17
|{{w|Bill Pullman}} and his descendants by absolute primogeniture
|Secretary of Education
|American actor, known for playing President Thomas J. Whitmore in the 1996 film ''{{w|Independence Day (1996 film)|Independence Day}}''.

Absolute primogeniture is a form of succession where the oldest direct descendant regardless of gender receives the title. This is contrasted to {{w|Male-preference primogeniture}}, in which males come before females in the order of the throne, whether the males were born first or not. This may be a reference to the British law {{w|Succession to the Crown Act 2013}}, which changed the order of the throne from male-preference primogeniture to absolute primogeniture. This act allows {{w|Princess Charlotte of Cambridge|Princess Charlotte}} to retain her place in line before {{w|Prince Louis of Cambridge|Prince Louis}}.

As of the present, Pullman's immediate descendants consist of three children, with Maesa Pullman being the oldest at age 29 and hence ineligible for the presidency.

|-
|18
|The entire line of succession to the British throne
|Secretary of Veterans Affairs
|According to the Constitution, only a natural-born citizen of the United States can become President, which means that at least most of the line of succession to the British throne is ineligible. However, it is possible that someone in the line of succession to the British throne either is a dual citizen (especially one who is a U.S. citizen based on place of birth and a British citizen based on having a parent who was a British citizen descended from Sofia of Hanover) or is not British (a person from outside of Britain can become King; for example, some, including George the First, were from what is now Germany). The first 57 names on the list are {{w|Succession_to_the_British_throne#Current_line_of_succession|here}}, as of the time of publishing. [https://lineofsuccession.co.uk/?date=2018-06-06 British Line of Succession on 6 June 2018] shows the list as it was at the comic's publication. In theory this entry includes several thousand people, although most or all are ineligible due to not being natural born citizens of the United States. The humor here derives from the fact that the United States was established by declaring independence from the United Kingdom, with rejection of the British monarchy being a basic founding principle, and a core principle of US governance. To appoint the British monarchy to the American presidency would contradict the basic goals of American independence.
|-
|19
|The current champion of the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating contest
|Secretary of Homeland Security
|The {{w|Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest}} is an annual American hot dog competitive eating competition sponsored by {{w|Nathan's Famous}} held on July 4th. As of the time of publishing, the most recent men's winner is {{w|Joey Chestnut}} and the women's winner is {{w|Miki Sudo}}.
|-
|20
|All other US citizens, chosen by a 29-round single-elimination Jousting tournament
|''None''
|Effective for a population up to 536,870,912 individuals (2^29) which would be enough to cover the entire US population (estimated at around 325 million at time of publication), although additional rounds can be added should the population grow further.

This is probably a reference to {{w|The Sword in the Stone (film)}}, where, after being unable to determine the successor to the throne of England for years, it is decided that the winner of a jousting tournament shall be crowned.
|}

The title text mentions whoever was closest to the surface of {{w|Europa}} when they were born. Europa is a moon of Jupiter, so most people would be very far from its surface when they were born. However, the depending on the relative positions of Earth and Jupiter when you were born, you could easily have been tens of millions of kilometers closer. Alternatively, Randall could be playing on how Europa sounds like Europe.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
: A proposal for a new presidential line of succession
: Current politics aside, most experts agree the existing process is flawed. The Presidential Succession Act of 1947 is probably unconstitutional on several counts, and there are many practical issues with the system as well.
: <span style="color:gray">(For more, see the surprisingly gripping ''Second Report of the Continuity of Government Commission'', June 2009.)</span>
: Proposed line of succession:
:# President
:# Vice president
:# Secretary of State
:# Secretary of Defense
:# Secretary of Homeland Security
:# Attorney General
:# Five people who do not live in Washington DC, nominated at the start of the president's term and confirmed by the Senate
:# Tom Hanks
:# State Governors, in descending order of state population at last census
:# Anyone who won an Oscar for playing a governor
:# Anyone who won a Governor's award for playing someone named Oscar
:# Kate McKinnon, if available
:# Billboard year-end hot 100 singles artists #1 through #10 (for groups, whoever is credited first in name, liner notes, etc)
:# The top 5 US astronauts in descending order of total spaceflight time
:# Serena Williams (or, if she lost her most recent match, whoever beat her)
:# The most recent season NBA, NFL, MLB, and NHL MVPs
:# Bull Pullman and his descendants by absolute primogeniture
:# The entire line of succession to the British throne
:# The current champion of the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating contest
:# All other US citizens, chosen by a 29-round single-elimination Jousting tournament

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Politics]]

2000: xkcd Phone 2000

2018-05-30T17:43:23Z

D4: /* Explanation */ Corrected PCB reference to likelier explanation.

{{comic
| number = 2000
| date = May 30, 2018
| title = xkcd Phone 2000
| image = xkcd_phone_2000.png
| titletext = Our retina display features hundreds of pixels per inch in the central fovea region.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by an XKCD PHONE 2000 USER - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

*'''Dockless:''' It was common practice for older standard cellphones (i.e. non-smartphones) to use a docking station for charging. "Dockless" could be a catchy marketing term for wireless charging.
*'''Silent:''' Implying perhaps that the phone is unable to produce sound entirely. Labelled at the location where a headphone socket would traditionally be, although some recent phones have discarded the traditional headphone jack in place of wireless headphones.
*'''Mouse Cursor''' Most recent Android phones have external mouse support and will display a mouse cursor. However, this is typically disabled by default. This mouse cursor seems to always be present, even when the touch screen is in use.
*'''Quad Camera Takes Four Copies of Every Picture:''' Recent phones have added up to three rear-facing cameras, offering different fields of view, monochrome cameras for low light, and a wider base for emulating depth of field effects. At the time of writing no phone on the market has four rear-facing cameras. However, YouTube personality nigahiga created a parody of the iPhone (iFhone 8) that has four cameras structured similarly, e.g. taking a picture of a letter K gives 4K.
*'''Front-Facing Camera Obscura:''' A [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camera_obscura camera obscura] is a dark room or box with a small hole allowing light to enter. The size of the hole causes light travelling in straight lines to project a dim inverted image on the back of the room or box; the concept is the predecessor to a modern camera, which uses a lens to allow more light to enter. A camera obscura is not strictly speaking a camera as in an image capture device (although there are pin-hole cameras which use the same mechanism). Actual phones have front-facing conventional cameras, allowing selfies, video calling, etc.
*'''3D Facial Contour Analysis Shows You a Realistic Preview of Your Death Mask:''' Recent computational photography effects implemented on mobile phones support facial analysis, allowing for artificial relighting or the creation of avatars. A death mask would be a new take on this.
*'''Sponsored Pixels:''' Presumably this means that parts of the screen (pixels) can be bought in a sponsoring deal. If enough pixels are sold, your screen would be rendered unusable.
*'''Front and Rear Pop-Out Grips:''' There are accessories that stick to the rear of a phone and can be "popped out", offering a grip, a stand, or somewhere to store headphone cables. Integrating such a feature into the phone design is novel, although some phones have incorporated kick stands. Pop-out grips are normally placed on the back of the phone to make it easier to hold with one hand. Having a second grip to the front of the phone does nothing except block part of the screen. There could be a small screen on the top of the grip since the grip is shown to contain "Sponsored Pixels".
*'''Humidity-Controlled Crisper:''' A crisper is a drawer in a refrigerator meant to control the humidity to keep vegetables from drying out and getting limp.
*'''Antikythera Mechanism:''' The [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism Antikythera Mechanism] is an ancient Greek clockwork device for predicting astronomical positions. It is one of the earliest known analogue computers.
*'''New York Times Partnership: All Photos Taken with Camera App are Captioned in Real Time by Reporter Maggie Haberman:''' Modern phones can use machine learning techniques (usually in the cloud) to identify and tag camera content - this makes it possible to search, for example, for photos containing a particular person or subject without requiring user input. Cellphone photos are often used in contributions to social media with some form of user-provided caption. This phone appears to combine the two, using Maggie Haberman to provide automatic captions for photos taken by the phone's owner (although whether this is explicitly for social media use or internal to the phone is unclear).
*'''Spit Valve:''' A spit valve is used for emptying saliva out of wind instruments, particularly large brass instruments. It is to be hoped that less saliva accumulates in a smart phone than a wind instrument. (best not to think about it){{Citation needed}}
*'''Standard USB Connector:''' a USB 3.0 A port is displayed. Unfortunately, a "standard" USB connector, according to the USB standard, would be a USB B port as a phone typically acts as the "slave" device, rather than the "host" as a USB A port would imply.
*'''Coin Purse-Style Squeeze Access:''' presumably, the casing is flexible in this region, and when squeezed at the sides (a bad idea, considering the next design item) reveals the USB A port and spit valve.
*'''Hollow-Ground:''' a [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grind#Typical_grinds hollow grind] is a type of knife (or similar sharp tool) edge noted for sharpness and general fragility, often seen in razors and certainly not what you'd want on the edge of a phone.
*'''Absorbent:''' Many modern phones are designed to be waterproof, to avoid accidents and allow use in the rain. It's also common to have some form of oleophobic coating on the screen to reduce smearing as fingers are used on the touchscreen. This phone seems to have the reverse feature, and be explicitly designed to absorb things (presumably liquids).
*'''Keyboard Supports Dynamic Typing:''' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_system#Dynamic_type_checking_and_runtime_type_information dynamic typing] is a computer programming concept, and has nothing to do with typing on a keyboard.
*'''Backflow Preventer:''' A [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backflow_prevention_device backflow prevention device] is a mechanism that avoids the possibility of liquid (usually water) travelling in the opposite direction from the normal intent if the expected pressure is inverted. Since there is not normally any liquid flowing through a phone (unless in this case relating to the spit valve), this would not normally be a useful feature. However, some smart phones do contain pressure measuring devices such as barometers (which can also be used in some cases to detect the phone being squeezed), so maybe this phone is intended to be resilient to such conditions.
*'''Swiss Army Partnership: Folding Knife (Unlocks Only if Switzerland is Invaded):''' A [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_Army_knife Swiss Army knife] is a folding knife, traditionally with many secondary "blades" for multiple uses such as can openers and files. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switzerland Swizerland] is known for remaining neutral (and not being invaded) in both of the World Wars of the 20th century despite war raging across surrounding countries, suggesting that it is unlikely that the knife would ever been unlocked. While such a feature on a phone (or phone case) may be useful, it is likely to be a safety concern, and a phone does not provide the ideal grip for a knife blade - especially if force is to be applied to it.
*'''100% BPA-Free PCB Construction:''' {{w|Bisphenol A}} (BPA) is a chemical used in plastics such as waterbottles. Recent studies show that BPA can leech estrogen-like compounds into liquids, so BPA-free waterbottles have become popular. {{w|Polychlorinated biphenyl}} (PCB) is a category of persistent organic pollutants which are not used very much any more; it would be far worse than BPA for anyone concerned with the issue.
*'''AMOLCD Display (7-Segment):''' [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMOLED AMOLED] is a display technology often used in cell phones, providing thin and emissive displays. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid-crystal_display LCD] is another display technology used in phones, and works by blocking light from a separate backlight. A [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven-segment_display 7-segment display] is a device made of seven independently-controlled segments (usually either LCD or LED) which can be used to display a single digit; as such the technology is common in traditional digital watches. In contrast most phone displays are made of a uniform high-resolution pixel grid that allows arbitrary content to be displayed, although some very old (pre-smart) cellphones and land lines did use this technology in displaying a phone number. The technology cannot represent the entire alphabet without modification, so it is inappropriate for text messages, let alone graphics.
*'''Runs on Battery for the First 6 Hours, then Uses Gasoline:''' A nod to the increased popularity of gas-electric hybrid vehicles. This would be a fantastic breakthrough for fuel cells. There have been many attempts to create a highly portable fuel cell that can be used to power phones. Although having to use gasoline instead of a USB cord would likely cause more problems for the average consumer a fuel cell does have some notable advantages over a standard lithium-ion battery. A fuel cell of equal size as any battery would, in some cases, be capable of powering the phone many times longer than if you had used a normal battery. It would also mean that there would also mean users would not have to rely on a working power grid (useful for disaster situations where thousands of people would no longer be capable of staying in contact with others or people who are stranded and alone) or having to use a bulky generator to convert the gasoline into electricity first. This is not the first time Randall has talked about this before, with much of the information here coming from what-if #128: Zippo Phone [https://what-if.xkcd.com/128/].
*'''Sharpie® Dual Stylus (Dry-Erase + Permenant)''' "Permenant" is curiously spelled incorrectly, perhaps comically highlighting that the permanent portion of the dual stylus would be unable to correct any typos that a dry-erase marker would allow.
*'''Mouse Cursor:''' A feature of Blackberry smartphones which has gone out of favor due to the popularity of touch screens.

The tagline for the phone says that the marketing team hopes that 2000 still sounds like a futuristic number. It was common for a time to have futuristic science-fiction take place on or around the year 2000 (e.g. 2001: A Space Odyssey). However, since the year 2000 was 18 years ago at the time of this comic's publication, this is no longer the case.

The title text refers to {{w|Retina Display}}, a term used to describe Apple products with higher pixel densities. The XKCD Phone marketing team would be unable to use the term due to Apple's having registered it as a trademark. Additionally, the {{w|Fovea centralis|Central fovea region}} is a portion of your eye's retina (confusing the biological retina with the electronics display of the same name).

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

{{comic discussion}}