explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

2661: Age Milestone Privileges

2022-08-20T01:42:53Z

DontBeAJerk:

{{comic
| number = 2661
| date = August 19, 2022
| title = Age Milestone Privileges
| image = age_milestone_privileges.png
| titletext = If you reach 122, you get complete unrevertible editorial control over Jeanne Calment's Wikipedia article.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a BABY GOD-EMPRESS MAKING THE PRESIDENT'S LETTER R-RATED - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This is a list of "age milestones" in the United States. As usual for Randall, he has added many fictional entries to supplement some real life ones.

{| class="wikitable"
! Age || Privilage || Desription
|-
| 16 || Drive || Legal driving age varies by state in the US, but 16 is the highest age to qualify for a learner's permit.
|-
| 17 || Attend R-Rated movies Alone ||
|-
| 18 || Vote ||
|-
| 21 || Buy Alcohol || In the US, the legal drinking age is 21 years, although other countries have a lower drinking age - Japan in particular wants even younger people to drink.
|-
| 25 || Rent a car ||
|-
| 30 || Run for Senate || This entry is incorrect: one must be at least 30 years old in order to ''become'' Senator, not ''run'' for Senate. Joe Biden was 29 years old when he was elected to Senate but turned 30 before being sworn in.
|-
| 32 || Rent a Senator's Car || The first joke entry in the table.
|-
| 35 || Run for president ||
|-
| 40 || Rent a flying car ||
|-
| 45 || Learn about the God-empress ||
|-
| 50 || Join AARP || Full AARP (formerly called the American Association of Retired Persons) membership is available to anyone age 50 and over. {{w|AARP}}
|-
| 52 || Click to skip captchas ||
|-
| 55 || Vote for God-empress ||
|-
| 62 || $80 national parks lifetime pass ||
|-
| 65 || Eligible for medicare ||
|-
| 68 || See "Skip ads" button on live tv || 68 refers to a "Skip ads" button on live TV. Some DVRs and streaming applications have a feature to skip over commercial breaks in recorded programs, but this could not be available in live TV, since it would require jumping forward in time. Time travel is currently impossible.{{citation needed}}
|}

In the UK you get a telegram from the Queen on your 100th birthday. In the US you also get congratulated by the weatherman on the {{w|Today Show}}.

Bilbo Baggins Farewell Birthday Party took place on his eleventy-first (111th) birthday.

Obviously, the god-empress does not actually exist because this comic is visible to people under 45 years old.{{citation needed}}

128 is a reference to computers, though 128 would become either -128 or -0 (depending upon implementation) in signed 8-bit, which means you would have a weird experience of your next phase of life. For unsigned integers, the correct rollback number would be 256.

The title text mentions {{w|Jeanne Calment}}, who holds the record for the oldest person ever (there are biblical references to older people, such as {{w|Methuselah}}, who supposedly lived to 969, but their ages haven't been verified); she was age 122 when the died in 1997. Randall claims that if you match her age you get editorial control over her Wipedia page. Although if anyone managed to exceed her age, presumably they would get their own page (albeit that they should not be encouraged to {{w|Wikipedia:Editing Your Own Page|edit it}} themselves) and hers would cease to be as interesting, although that might depend on what use is made of the unparalleled editorial control now granted.

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

<big>Age Milestones</big> 
and associated privileges

16  Drive 
17  Attend R-rated movies alone 
18  Vote 
21  Buy alcohol 
25  Rent a car 
32  Run for senate 
35  Run for president 
40  Rent a flying car 
45  Learn about the God-Empress 
50  Join AARP 
52  Click to skip captchas 
55  Vote for God-Empress 
62  $80 National parks lifetime pass 
65  Eligible for Medicare 
67  Collect Social Security 
68  See "Skip Ads" button on live TV 
70  Run for God-Empress 
75  Ride any animal in a national park 
80  Eligible for MegaCare 
85  Click to toggle whether any ad is positive or negative about the product 
90  Click to make any movie R-rated 
100  Get a letter from the president 
102  (35+67) Collect a presidential pension 
105  Get a birthday card from the God-Empress 
111  Leave your own birthday party early by putting on a magic ring 
118  Vote 100 times 
120  Collect the pensions of all elected officials 
125  Drink alcohol in an R-rated movie while getting a shingles vaccine from the president 
128  Age rolls over, become a baby again

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Politics]]
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]] 
[[Category:Wikipedia]]

2652: Proxy Variable

2022-07-30T04:42:58Z

DontBeAJerk:

{{comic
| number = 2652
| date = July 29, 2022
| title = Proxy Variable
| image = proxy_variable.png
| titletext = Our work has produced great answers. Now someone just needs to figure out which questions they go with.
}}

__NOTOC__

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a PROXY BOT IN NO WAY CORRELATED WITH THE ORIGINAL BOT - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

In this comic, [[Hairy]] is discussing use of a proxy variable with [[Cueball]]. In statistics, a {{w|proxy variable}} is one used as a stand-in for one or more other variables that are difficult to measure. In order to be useful as such, proxy variables must be correlated with what they are intended to represent. For example, a drug might aim to reduce deaths from a slow-acting disease. But testing if it reduces deaths might take many years, so you might test for a "proxy outcome" instead, like whether it prevents loss of bone density or damage to cells, to see if the drug is making a difference.

Hairy is dismissing the question of whether this is the right variable to study as too expensive to answer.

Choosing the wrong proxy variable might make the research irrelevant, or as the title text suggests, answer the wrong question. Separating correlation from {{w|causation}} is necessary when interpreting proxy variable results to make sure the question they answer is known. Mere correlation instead of {{w|Causal analysis|authentic causation}} yields weaker results.

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

:[Hairy is showing Cueball a poster of a graph]
:Hairy: We want to study this variable, but it's too hard to observe.

:[Cut the panel in half so you can only see Hairy and the poster]
:Hairy: So we're studying this proxy variable.

:[Cueball and Hairy are standing with the poster out of frame]
:Cueball: Is it correlated with the other variable?
:Hairy: Look, we don't have the funding to answer every little question.

{{comic discussion}}

2652: Proxy Variable

2022-07-30T04:37:53Z

DontBeAJerk:

{{comic
| number = 2652
| date = July 29, 2022
| title = Proxy Variable
| image = proxy_variable.png
| titletext = Our work has produced great answers. Now someone just needs to figure out which questions they go with.
}}

__NOTOC__

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a PROXY BOT IN NO WAY CORRELATED WITH THE ORIGINAL BOT - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

In statistics, a {{w|proxy variable}} is one used as a stand-in for one or more other variables that are difficult to measure. In order to be useful as such, proxy variables must be correlated with what they are intended to represent.

For example, a drug might aim to reduce deaths from a slow-acting disease. But testing if it reduces deaths might take many years, so you might test for a "proxy outcome" instead, like whether it prevents loss of bone density or damage to cells, to see if the drug is making a difference. Hairy is dismissing the question of whether this is the right variable to study as too expensive to answer.

Choosing the wrong proxy variable might make the research irrelevant, or as the title text suggests, answer the wrong question. The title text indirectly bemoans the difficulty of separating correlation from causation when interpreting proxy variable analysis.

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

:[Hairy is showing Cueball a poster of a graph]
:Hairy: We want to study this variable, but it's too hard to observe.

:[Cut the panel in half so you can only see Hairy and the poster]
:Hairy: So we're studying this proxy variable.

:[Cueball and Hairy are standing with the poster out of frame]
:Cueball: Is it correlated with the other variable?
:Hairy: Look, we don't have the funding to answer every little question.

{{comic discussion}}

2652: Proxy Variable

2022-07-30T04:32:48Z

DontBeAJerk:

{{comic
| number = 2652
| date = July 29, 2022
| title = Proxy Variable
| image = proxy_variable.png
| titletext = Our work has produced great answers. Now someone just needs to figure out which questions they go with.
}}

__NOTOC__

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a PROXY BOT IN NO WAY CORRELATED WITH THE ORIGINAL BOT - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

In statistics, a {{w|proxy variable}} is one used as a stand-in for one or more other variables that are difficult to measure. In order to be useful as such, proxy variables must be correlated with what they are intended to represent.

For example, a drug might aim to reduce deaths from a slow-acting disease. But testing if it reduces deaths might take many years, so you might test for a "proxy outcome" instead, like whether it prevents loss of bone density or damage to cells, to see if the drug is making a difference. Hairy is dismissing the question of whether this is the right variable to study as too expensive to answer.

Choosing the wrong proxy variable might make the research irrelevant, or as the title text suggests, answer the wrong question. The title text indirectly bemoans the difficulty of separating correlation from causation when interpreting proxy variable analysis.

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

:[Hairy is showing Cueball a poster of a graph]
:Hairy: We want to study this variable, but it's too hard to observe.

:[Cut the panel in half so you can only see Hairy and the poster]
:Hairy: So we're studying this proxy variable.

:[Cueball and Hairy are standing with the poster out of frame]
:Cueball: Is it correlated with the other variable?
:Hairy: Look, we don't have the funding to answer every little question.

{{comic discussion}}

2652: Proxy Variable

2022-07-30T04:08:29Z

DontBeAJerk:

{{comic
| number = 2652
| date = July 29, 2022
| title = Proxy Variable
| image = proxy_variable.png
| titletext = Our work has produced great answers. Now someone just needs to figure out which questions they go with.
}}

__NOTOC__

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a PROXY BOT IN NO WAY CORRELATED WITH THE ORIGINAL BOT - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

In statistics, a {{w|proxy variable}} is one used as a stand-in for one or more other variables that are difficult to measure. In order to be useful as such, proxy variables must be correlated with what they are intended to represent.

For example, a drug might aim to reduce deaths from a slow-acting disease. But testing if it reduces deaths might take many years, so you might test for a "proxy outcome" instead, like whether it prevents loss of bone density or damage to cells, to see if the drug is making a difference. Hairy is dismissing the question of whether this is the right variable to study as too expensive to answer.

Choosing the wrong proxy variable might make the research irrelevant, or as the title text suggests, answer the wrong question. The title text indirectly bemoans the difficulty of separating correlation from causation when interpreting proxy variable analysis.

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

:[Hairy is showing Cueball a poster of a graph]
:Hairy: We want to study this variable, but it's too hard to observe.

:[Cut the panel in half so you can only see Hairy and the poster]
:Hairy: So we're studying this proxy variable.

:[Cueball and Hairy are standing with the poster out of frame]
:Cueball: Is it correlated with the other variable?
:Hairy: Look, we don't have the funding to answer every little question.

{{comic discussion}}

2652: Proxy Variable

2022-07-30T04:05:34Z

DontBeAJerk:

{{comic
| number = 2652
| date = July 29, 2022
| title = Proxy Variable
| image = proxy_variable.png
| titletext = Our work has produced great answers. Now someone just needs to figure out which questions they go with.
}}

__NOTOC__

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a PROXY BOT IN NO WAY CORRELATED WITH THE ORIGINAL BOT - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

In statistics, a {{w|proxy variable}} is one used as a stand-in for one or more other variables that are difficult to measure. In order to be useful as such, proxy variables must be correlated with what they are intended to represent.

For example, a drug might aim to reduce deaths from a slow-acting disease. But testing if it reduces deaths might take many years, so you might test for a "proxy outcome" instead, like whether it prevents loss of bone density or damage to cells, to see if the drug is making a difference. Hairy is dismissing the question of whether this is the right variable to study as too expensive to answer.

Choosing the wrong proxy variable might make the research irrelevant, or as the title text suggests, answer the wrong question. The title text indirectly bemoans the difficulty of separating correlation from causation when interpreting proxy variable analysis.

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

:[Hairy is showing Cueball a poster of a graph]
:Hairy: We want to study this variable, but it's too hard to observe.

:[Cut the panel in half so you can only see Hairy and the poster]
:Hairy: So we're studying this proxy variable.

:[Cueball and Hairy are standing with the poster out of frame]
:Cueball: Is it correlated with the other variable?
:Hairy: Look, we don't have the funding to answer every little question.

{{comic discussion}}

2652: Proxy Variable

2022-07-30T04:04:02Z

DontBeAJerk: Replaced content with "{{comic | number = 1337 | date = July 30, 2022 | title = Proxy Variable | image = | titletext = }}"

{{comic
| number = 1337
| date = July 30, 2022
| title = Proxy Variable
| image =
| titletext =
}}