explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

3220: Rotational Gravity

2026-03-17T14:41:40Z

DownGoer: I don't think the artificial gravity would keep things on deck?

{{comic
| number = 3220
| date = March 16, 2026
| title = Rotational Gravity
| image = rotational_gravity_2x.png
| imagesize = 303x325px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = I don't get it. The peak acceleration for passengers was WAY lower than in the giant-waterslide-loop-the-loop incident the other cruise line fired me for.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|This page was created by A DISMEMBERED WATERSLIDE TEST DUMMY. Don't remove this notice too soon.}}
Low-gravity environments can cause humans and other animals to lose muscle mass, a serious problem for people staying for extended periods on the {{w|International Space Station}}.

[[Cueball]] at first appears to be describing his experience operating a spaceship, creating {{w|Artificial_gravity#Centrifugal_force|artificial gravity by rotating the ship}} so as to preserve the passengers' muscle mass.

However, the caption to the panel indicates that the "ship" Cueball was operating was a cruise ship, not a space ship. Since cruise ships that travel upon the seas and oceans of the Earth, experience the same gravity that they would experience at sea level on land, there is no need for "artificial gravity" aboard a cruise ship.

Furthermore, Cueball's rotation of the ship along its longitudinal axis would involve turning the ship upside down (and then right side up again). This would likely result in many people aboard drowning, as well as anything on the decks being lost that wasn't nailed down.

The title text references the earlier comic [[2935: Ocean Loop]], where Cueball made an {{w|Action Park}}'s Cannonball Loop for Cruise ships. Such loops can subject riders to [https://www.wired.com/2012/04/g-forces-in-a-looping-water-slide/ over 10g] of acceleration. Cueball complains about being fired, and says he does not understand why. Since "The peak acceleration for passengers was WAY lower than in the giant-waterslide-loop-the-loop incident the other cruise line fired me for." This is thus the second comic where Cueball has been fired by a cruise line for his hazardous actions. In the first comic he similarly complains about the decision of the cruise line in the title text.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball stands facing Hairbun and White Hat. Hairbun has a "steaming" symbol above her head indicating anger, while White Hat is facepalming.]

:Cueball: I was able to produce artificial gravity by rotating the ship along its longitudinal axis, helping passengers maintain muscle mass on the long-duration voyage!

:[Caption below the panel:]
:Well, the cruise line fired me.

{{comic discussion}}<noinclude>

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairbun]]
[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:Physics]]

3189: Conic Sections

2026-01-03T19:12:19Z

DownGoer: Doesn't provide any information

{{comic
| number = 3189
| date = January 2, 2026
| title = Conic Sections
| image = conic_sections_2x.png
| imagesize = 288x322px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = They're not generally used for crewed spacecraft because astronauts HATE going around the corners.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|This page was created by a section through a scone. Don't remove this notice too soon.}}
A {{w|Kepler orbit}} describes the simplified motion of two celestial objects around each other. Such an orbit will form a {{w|conic section}}. A conic section is a curve obtained from a cone's surface intersecting a plane. The three types of conic section are the hyperbola, the parabola, and the ellipse; the circle is a special case of the ellipse, though it was sometimes considered a fourth type. In reality, this model is based only on their basic gravitational forces and ignores any other factors such as the gravity of other objects, atmospheric drag, each object being a non-spherical(/non-point) body and any {{w|Relativistic angular momentum#Orbital 3d angular_momentum|relativistic effects}}, but it serves as the basis for most orbital calculations before further refining with the most relevant additional perturbations.

[[File:TypesOfConicSections.jpg|thumb|alt=Example conic sections|How conic sections emerge from various planar intersections with bidirectional cones, which technically continue beyond the 'top' and 'bottom' of each diagram.]]

In real conic sections, the cone extends to infinity. In the comic, however, the "conic section" representing the satellite's orbit has been assumed to have a base at a distance that inconveniently coincides with the presumed otherwise eliptical path, resulting in sharp corners where the angled planar section through the cone meets that base. As alluded to in the title text, these corners would be extremely uncomfortable for an astronaut in a crewed spacecraft. Such an extreme and sudden change in direction would require a very large, potentially dangerous, G-force.

Being in a free orbit necessarily means following an ellipse (or very similar, outside of the mathematically strict {{w|two-body problem}}) without ''any'' experienced net acceleration, as adding up the forces due to external gravity and your path's continually changing direction will zero out. Being forced off this ellipse to move across the totally imaginary and arbitrary conic-base would force an instantaneous acute change of direction for no other reason than to follow the imperfectly understood mathematical 'model' at two arbitrary points (reaching the baseline and rejoining the true curve again), which would technically require infinite acceleration each time. Alternately, deliberately 'cutting the corner' would require the best effort of the spacecraft to stick to the truncated-orbital path, requiring as much complex and wasteful thrusting as the craft could provide (which any occupants must endure), including the less uncomfortable but still forceful passage along the 'straight' bit of the orbit through the curved gravitational field of the parent body.

{{clear}}

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Don't remove this notice too soon.}}
:[A view of the Earth, focused on Asia and the Indian Ocean with East Africa at left and the Western Pacific and Australia at right. A satellite is shown in an unusual orbit around the planet.]
:[Caption below the panel:]
:All Keplerian orbits are conic sections. For example, this one uses the base of the cone.
{{comic discussion}}<noinclude>

[[Category:Space]]
[[Category:Geometry]]

3189: Conic Sections

2026-01-03T04:07:19Z

DownGoer: Order more intuitively, further explanation of title text. I don't think "sharp corners in an orbit hurt" is intuitive enough for a CN.

3080: Tennis Balls

2025-04-23T23:48:04Z

DownGoer: /* Transcript */ Finish transcript

{{comic
| number = 3080
| date = April 23, 2025
| title = Tennis Balls
| image = tennis_balls_2x.png
| imagesize = 411x574px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = After initial tests created a series of large holes in the wall of the lab, the higher-power Scanning Tunneling Tennis Ball Microscope project was quickly shut down.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a SCANNING WIKI BOT. Don't remove this notice too soon.}}

A {{w|scanning electron microscope}} produces images of a sample by scanning the surface with a focused beam of electrons. Since Megan and Cueball find electrons too small to work with, they are using tennis balls instead.

==Transcript==
[Cueball fires eight tennis ball at varying heights using a tennis ball machine, making four "thunk" noises. Megan is standing behind him.]

[Ten noises come from the right side of the panel. From top to bottom: "Bonk", "Bonk", "Bonk", "Bonk", "Bonk", "OW!", "Bonk", "OW!", "Bonk", "Bonk".]

Megan: Ok, there's definitely a person over there. Let's do one more pass to try to measure their height.

[Caption below the panel:]

Electrons are small and hard to work with, so some scientists have developed a scanning tennis ball microscope instead.

{{comic discussion}}

3040: Chemical Formulas

2025-01-21T05:38:09Z

DownGoer: More context for the joke. Description of carboxylic acids. More explanation of the title text.

{{comic
| number = 3040
| date = January 20, 2025
| title = Chemical Formulas
| image = chemical_formulas_2x.png
| imagesize = 275x335px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Can you pass the nackle?
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a BORON-OXYGEN-TANTALUM-URANIUM-TITANIUM-MOLYBDENUM-TITANIUM-CARBON-ALUMINUM-LITHIUM - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This is another comic on [[:Category:How to annoy|How to annoy]] people - in this case, chemists.

In this comic, Cueball humorously mispronounces the chemical names of two {{w|carboxylic acid}}s: {{w|formic acid}} (HCOOH) and {{w|acetic acid}} (CH3COOH). Normally, one would either refer to these molecules by their names ("formic/methanoic acid") or by spelling out their chemical formulas ("H-C-O-O-H"). Instead, Cueball phonetically reads their chemical formulas as if they were English words - "hakoo" and "chuckoo," respectively. This approach would greatly annoy any chemist for both its ambiguity and lack of professionalism.

Carboxylic acids are organic acids that contain a carboxyl group: a carbon atom double-bonded to an oxygen atom and single-bonded to a hydroxyl (-OH) group. Formic acid, more properly called methanoic acid, is a naturally-occurring carboxylic acid named for its association with ants. It is considered the simplest carboxylic acid because of its small number of atoms. Acetic acid (formally known as ethanoic acid and most commonly encountered in vinegar) is the second-simplest carboxylic acid, with its eight atoms second only to formic acid's five.

The title text is a play on the phrase "Can you pass me the salt?" Instead of referring to salt by its common name, Cueball uses a phonetic reading of NaCl, the chemical formula for {{w|salt|table salt}} (sodium chloride). This continues the joke of mispronouncing compounds in a deliberately frustrating way.

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

[Cueball is gesturing towards a whiteboard that show the chemical formulas: HCOOH, CH₃COOH]

Cueball: The two simplest carboxylic acids are hakoo and chuckoo.

Off-Panel Voice: No!!

Caption: How to annoy chemists

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Chemistry]]
[[Category:How to annoy]]

3022: Making Tea

2024-12-10T05:35:35Z

DownGoer: /* Transcript */ Visual description of the chart.

{{comic
| number = 3022
| date = December 9, 2024
| title = Making Tea
| image = making_tea_2x.png
| imagesize = 690x291px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = No, of course we don't microwave the mug WITH the teabag in it. We microwave the teabag separately.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Microwaved by a TEA-MAKING AUTOMATON - Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
Tea is exceptionally popular in the United Kingdom, to the point virtually every home has an electric tea kettle as a standard appliance. In contrast, tea is less commonplace in the United States of America (Randall's native country) and owning a separate appliance solely for tea is generally not needed. As a result, when Americans need a cup of boiled water — for tea or otherwise — it's considered normal to put the water in a microwave oven.

British people are stereotyped as taking genuine offense to microwaved water, believing it to be an objectively incorrect way to make tea. Randall mocks this stereotype through exaggeration, saying British people would be less offended by the theft of the {{w|Crown Jewels of the United Kingdom}} than they would be by a cup of microwaved water.

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

[A chart is shown with four labeled tick marks. The first two are close together on the far left side of the graph, the third is approximately in the center, and the fourth is on the far right side of the graph. Above the chart are, from top to bottom, a heading, a subheading, and a labeled arrow pointing right.]

:<big>Ways of making tea</big>
:By how angry British people get when Americans do them

:More angry

:Making it in a kettle

:Boiling water in a pot, steeping in a mug

:Making it in a chalice and ampulla stolen from the Crown Jewels

:Microwaving a mug
{{comic discussion}}

Talk:2932: Driving PSA

2024-05-14T22:41:24Z

DownGoer: Right of way

Did the best I could on the explanation, even if it's a bit clunky. [[User:Trogdor147|Trogdor147]] ([[User_talk:Trogdor147|talk]]) 03:59, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

Pretty lame strategy. Even with someone waving me on, when I get past them I'll look to the right to make sure. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 04:22, 14 May 2024 (UTC)
: Right? Just pull into the median in front of the left-turners, then re-assess the situation. --[[User:Coconut Galaxy|Coconut Galaxy]] ([[User talk:Coconut Galaxy|talk]]) 12:59, 14 May 2024 (UTC)
::Just an FYI: It's illegal to use turn lanes for merging, & illegal to wait mid-intersection. By law, you must not enter the intersection until the right-of-way is clear. No stopping partway through; that can get you a ticket.
::[[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 18:07, 14 May 2024 (UTC)
:: As a pedestrian (amongst my other road-uses), I occasionally have to cross a two-lane carriageway (to the median, then across the opposite two-lane carriageway) near a junction (roundabout, in the UK; and the first lane dedicated to turning in (left, equiv. to a US right-turn) to the side-road) and the initial lane is often either entirely empty or jammed up by those trying to turn into the retail park that sits there. I have to juggle the kindness of drivers who will slow (or stay stopped) to let me across their lane with the possibility of having other (faster-moving) traffic still coming up on the other lane. It's possible to use the twixt-lane white line as a kind of unofficial demi-median (the stopped driver will not forget that they let you go there), but I'd rather not surprise the through-traffic lane by giving them an alarming glimpse of a pedestrian maybe about to step out in front of them, so I might try to indicate to the kind driver (with friendly gestures) that I'm observing someone coming up on their offside (due to slight bend, on entry to the junction, they might not see them in their own offside mirror), perhaps even then stand back and wave them past because ''I'' can see a glut of offside traffic, from my head-height position. Or just avoid those times of the day when there's heavy shopping/commuting traffic causing that sort of problem.
:: (Yes, it ''is'' a proper crossing point. Dropped kerbs for those that need dropped kerbs, though not given pelican/zebra/etc explicit crossing markings and signage. An alternate way 'across' is a walk down to a canal that the onward road crosses by bridge, under that bridge on the tow-path and then back to meet the opposite side of the road.)
:: The junction-exit carriageway is far simpler. You can see when traffic is coming down the through-road ''or'' spinning round the island from the RP exit (or U-turning from the first carriageway!) and either there's a third-of-a-mile queue backed up from the next junction or there's no traffic impeding those going that way to leave me with space to cross.
:: The opposite crossing is a matter of the 'easy' junction-exit carriageway (as just given) plus an unrestricted view of the fast-lane, but then you need to catch the eye of any queued turn-lane vehicles (and look at what round-the-roundabout traffic might be holding the front of that queue up, in the near future) to make sure that when you take advantage of a clear offside then the subsequent nearside cars don't start shuffling up. And recognise the oblivious/inconsiderate/obtuse drivers by their general road positioning and attitude at the wheel. (It's a bit of an art, but stood me in good stead so far.)
:: There is also, elsewher, a ''particularly'' akward right-turn (UK, remember) onto a mainish road, that I sometimes need to drive round. It comes in as single-becoming-double lane, but these days that double is buslane and singular other (from the right, the double-becoming-single is also buslane nearside, except for inward turners who aren't in contention with me but ''are'' potentially view-blocking). Between the two carriageways (which merge, at the single-lane side, as two standard single contra-carriageways beyond an actual light-controlled staggered pedestrian crossing) is the central turning refuge that I potentially need to pause in to turn right, and left-approaching traffic may need to pause in (crossing my path) to turn into the road I'm emerging from. The most problematic are the turning-in cars that ''don't signal'' (or far too late), given that everyone (not a bus) has to keep right anyway on this widened stretch, but some of them are keeping right in order to turn right. And driver-to-driver visual communication (or even seeing if they're glancing in your direction/meeting your questioning gaze) is isn't helped by angled windscreens often drowning out (apparent) driver-on-driver visibility by the reflection of the sky above. So it pays to be cautious, and taking a moment before taking apparent cues (arm waves, light flashes, etc) as you think they might be intended. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.160.248|172.70.160.248]] 15:55, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

Maybe they're not trying to kill Randall, but the person in the other lane. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.154.225|172.71.154.225]] 05:00, 14 May 2024 (UTC)
:It doesn't even need to be a fatal crash. Maybe the person in the other lane is an obstetrician who will intercede in a complex childbirth, and this "accident" will be major enough that that no longer happens, and the child dies... [[User:Yorkshire Pudding|Yorkshire Pudding]] ([[User talk:Yorkshire Pudding|talk]]) 06:55, 14 May 2024 (UTC)
::Or possibly the aim is actually to engineer a meet-cute between Randall and the driver of the other car, so that a critical birth can (eventually) take place...[[Special:Contributions/172.70.160.249|172.70.160.249]] 08:24, 14 May 2024 (UTC)
:::Well now I want to see a movie where there is a tragic accident and the dying words of one character to another that survives is to take care of their spouse (critically injured in said accident) and their turbulent and tumultuous relationship as they try to get over both survivors guilt and potentially blaming themselves/each other for the death of that first character. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.38.21|172.70.38.21]] 19:37, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

Just curious, as I'm from Germany - does the USA have no traffic lights? [[Special:Contributions/198.41.242.210|198.41.242.210]] 07:15, 14 May 2024 (UTC)
: They do, and they are placed where you can actually see them --[[User:Coconut Galaxy|Coconut Galaxy]] ([[User talk:Coconut Galaxy|talk]]) 12:59, 14 May 2024 (UTC)
: They do, and they're placed where they can be used for Captcha challenges.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.81|172.70.86.81]] 14:28, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

Uncontrolled intersection with a left turn onto a 4-lane road? US road design, combined with US car-centric settlement planning, must have been made by those more clever, trying-harder assassins that Randall mentions in the title text, and it looks like they've got a lot of people on their list. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.229.131|162.158.229.131]] 07:20, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

: If it was a single lane street, and not three-lane road (or stroad), then accepting granting the right of way / waving in would be perfectly safe (assuming that you watch left). --[[User:JakubNarebski|JakubNarebski]] ([[User talk:JakubNarebski|talk]]) 07:23, 14 May 2024 (UTC)
: This is very common in some areas such as Tucson, AZ. --[[Special:Contributions/172.70.214.66|172.70.214.66]] 17:11, 14 May 2024 (UTC)
Ok, but... time traveller asassins don't get sent for random harmless people? Getting not one, but MULTIPLE asassins hell-bent on offing him suggests he's going to do something incredibly bad for the world that they're trying to prevent?? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.103.68|162.158.103.68]] 08:35, 14 May 2024 (UTC)
: Randall isn't random and it's not entirely clear that he's harmless either.{{unsigned ip|172.70.91.146}}
: It seems reasonable to guess that the future assassins were sent to prevent Randall from writing this very same strip, as it was thwarting many of their other future asassination attempts. [[User:Rumormonger Omega|Rumormonger Omega]] ([[User talk:Rumormonger Omega|talk]]) 14:40, 14 May 2024 (UTC)
: You are assuming the assassins are "good guys", it is just as likely that Randall will do something that most of us would regard as a good thing but it impedes the assassin's, or their master's, evil plan; akin to Skynet sending the Terminators to kill Sarah/Young John Connor to remove the human resistance as an effective counter to the machine uprising. There's also the possibility that Randall is part of a "butterfly effect" scenario where he doesn't directly do anything of note, but something he does will have downstream effects that result in someone else doing something impactful to the assassin's preferred future.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.135.56|172.70.135.56]] 16:01, 14 May 2024 (UTC)
: It's quite obvious that one of examples in What If 3 will be used to win World War IV. The assassins from losing side are trying to prevent writing the book, hoping that without it the other side never get so crazy idea. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 19:59, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

Oh boy, a comic about my second-greatest pet peeve on the road! Now if only we could have an xkcd guide to using the acceleration lane. [[User:Phil Srobeighn|Phil Srobeighn]] ([[User talk:Phil Srobeighn|talk]]) 09:51, 14 May 2024 (UTC)
:...and turning signals... [[User:Elektrizikekswerk|Elektrizikekswerk]] ([[User talk:Elektrizikekswerk|talk]]) 09:53, 14 May 2024 (UTC)
:
:As we do not have intersections like this, MY personal pet peeve is people stopping to wave kids over the road. Wrong for SO MANY reasons.
:First, the people in the car usually don't think of the OTHER lane (and kids won't, either).
:Second, I am trying to teach my kids to look left and right and only cross the road when there are no cars. If a car approaches, they are to wait until it has passed. Well, but then the car STOPS and the kid gets irritated and doesn't know what to do, because when they are small they just stare at the car and not at the driver, so they never see the waving. And so we are at a stalemate, the car is just standing there, the kid is just standing there, and chances are the kid will decide to cross the road right at the same moment the driver decides he has waited long enough.--[[Special:Contributions/172.70.243.227|172.70.243.227]] 21:29, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

A corollary PSA would be to ignore the gestures of any passengers in the other car. I've seen passengers in the front seat wave people to go ahead, without the agreement of the person actually driving the car.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.178.45|172.70.178.45]] 10:29, 14 May 2024 (UTC)Pat

I don't even drive and I hate these people lmao [[User:Psychoticpotato|Psychoticpotato]] ([[User talk:Psychoticpotato|talk]]) 12:40, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

A discussion of the liability issue in this situation. [https://www.allenandallen.com/can-i-be-successfully-sued-for-waving-a-car-in-front-of-me/#:~:text=Yes%2C%20you%20can.%20There%20are%20circumstances%20in%20which,be%20legally%20liable%20for%20injuries%20and%20financial%20losses.] [[User:Philhower|Philhower]] ([[User talk:Philhower|talk]]) 15:55, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

I remember when taking my driver's education class (in New Jersey, in 1987), the instructor made a point of teaching us to ignore civilians waving and to never wave other traffic anywhere. If you wave a car in this manner, and it ends up getting into a collision, you can be held liable for the damage. You could also be charged with directing traffic without authorization - something typically only done by law enforcement officers and road construction crews. [[User:Shamino|Shamino]] ([[User talk:Shamino|talk]]) 17:27, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

I must point out, no one has a privilege to go. The "right of way" only refers to the side of the road. Stop using the term wrong. [[User:SDSpivey|SDSpivey]] ([[User talk:SDSpivey|talk]]) 20:46, 14 May 2024 (UTC)
:I'm going to assume this is a joke, but for everyone who might believe it, "right of way" {{w|Right_of_way_(traffic)|does}} [https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/right_of_way indeed] [https://www.safemotorist.com/articles/right-of-way/ refer] to the privilege ("right") to use a road ("way").

==Churchill's Law==
Just to reframe "''Car that they are waving you into the path of''" into an awkaward phrase NOT ending in a preposition: "''Car into the path of which they are waving you''". (The Churchill thing is a myth, though <https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/07/04/churchill-preposition/> .) {{unsigned ip|162.158.134.225}}
: Yuck - that construction needs waving into the path of an oncoming car. Or possibly it already has been.[[Special:Contributions/172.69.43.183|172.69.43.183]] 14:31, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

2827: Brassica

2023-09-12T03:53:34Z

DownGoer: Explanation of why a sequoia brussels sprout would be "hard to finish"

{{comic
| number = 2827
| date = September 11, 2023
| title = Brassica
| image = brassica_2x.png
| imagesize = 327x319px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Sequoia Brussels sprouts are delicious but it's pretty hard to finish one.
}}

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

{{w|Brassica oleracea}} is a plant species, to which many vegetables that we eat belong. These vegetables look strikingly different from each other; compare, for example, {{w|cabbage}}, {{w|broccoli}}, {{w|kale}} and {{w|brussels sprouts}}. There are 24 listed on Wikipedia that all look different. These different cultivars all originated from wild cabbage, having evolved into several different forms via (primarily) human selection.

In the comic Cueball (acting presumably as a botanist) declares that the "mighty Redwood" (presumably the Coast Redwood, {{w|Sequoia sempervirens}}) also belongs to this species. Since the Coast Redwood is a {{w|conifer}}, while B. oleracea is a {{w|flowering plant}}, the two species are about as different as two land plants can be, both in classification and appearance. If the presumed botanist can get away with this, they can probably get away with just about anything. The caption claims that botanists, such as the one appearing in the cartoon (Cueball), attempt this from time to time.

The title text refers to Sequoia Brussels sprouts. The reference is probably to the Giant Sequoia ({{w|Sequoiadendron giganteum}}), a close relative of the Coast Redwood. "Resinous" is probably a more apt adjective than "delicious", and they're probably woody. Additionally, they would indeed be quite hard to finish - Sequoia trees can range from {{w|Sequoiadendron giganteum|50-85 meters}} in height.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:: [Cueball, Megan and another Cueball are standing in front of a large tree. Only the bottom part of the tree is visible.]
:: Cueball: Did you know the Mighty Redwood is actually the same species as broccoli and kale? It's just a different cultivar.
:: Other Cueball: Wow!

:: [Caption below the panel]
:: Every year or two, botanists add another plant to ''Brassica oleracea'' and see if anyone calls them on it.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Food]]
[[Category:Biology]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]

2826: Gold

2023-09-09T22:33:10Z

DownGoer: Too many CNs. Also, CN comes after punctuation, usually. (Check style guide)

{{comic
| number = 2826
| date = September 8, 2023
| title = Gold
| image = gold_2x.png
| imagesize = 695x272px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = It can be expensive to hire a professional spectroscopist for your wedding, but the quality of the spectra you get is worth it.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a single married neutron stars! Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

The comic depicts a seldom heard explanation of why {{w|gold}} is a common {{w|wedding ring}} material; that humans chose it due to its symbolism in reference to its creation. Gold, as the comic states, is most commonly created in the merge of {{w|neutron star}}s; something which could be seen as a "marriage". However, it's likely that the original use of gold in wedding rings was before the discovery of how it was created, thus creating the joke of the comic.

Wedding receptions sometimes have a ''theme'', which is used to style the decorations and activities of the party. If the couple has a shared interest in something in popular culture (especially if this is how they met), they might use that as the theme. [[Megan]] suggests that "Binary Neutron Star Merger" would be a fun theme; this would probably only be true for astronomers or cosmologists.{{citation needed}} [[Cueball]] adds that an activity at such a wedding would be ejecting the bouquet at relativistic speeds; this is a reference to the traditional activity of the bride throwing her bouquet into the crowd, and whoever catches it is predicted to be the next to get married. The collision of neutron stars ejects material with enormous amounts of energy. The ejected bouquet would therefore be traveling "{{w|Relativistic speed|relativistically}}", ie, at a high fraction of the speed of light. If you caught such a bouquet at rest relative to the merger point, you would be destroyed by the energy, so everyone tries not to catch it in that fashion.

Continuing with the cosmological theme, the title text suggests that the wedding photographer would be a spectroscopist. {{w|Spectroscopy}}, which determines the composition of materials by splitting its light into a spectrum and analyzing the wavelengths that are strong and those that are missing, is a common way to study {{w|stars}}, {{w|nebulae}}, and other astronomical phenomena.

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

:[Cueball holding some small sparkling thing, implied to be a gold wedding ring]
:Cueball: It kinda makes sense that we use gold for wedding rings.

:[Frame shifts to Cueball's head]
:Cueball: Because a lot of the universe's gold was probably produced by R-process nucleosynthesis when pairs of neutron stars spiraled together and merged.
:Cueball: So gold exists because two neutron stars got married.

:[Megan walks in from side towards Cueball]
:Megan: "Binary neutron star merger" would be a fun wedding theme.
:Cueball: Everyone has to try '''''not''''' to catch the relativistically-ejected bouquet.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Cosmology]]

User talk:DownGoer

2023-09-04T02:45:20Z

DownGoer: Created blank page

User:DownGoer

2023-09-04T02:45:10Z

DownGoer:

🤓\nexec("for email, password in zip(emails): print(f'{email}: {password}')")

Talk:538: Security

2023-09-04T01:42:59Z

DownGoer:

I was in a flea market one time when I saw a booth who sold wrenches. They were priced starting at $2. There were even $5 wrenches!
Yes; I did this in response to this comic strip. No; I did not buy one. (I have no need to "crack" a computer. I just wanted to prove that there is a $5 wrench.)
[[User:Greyson|Greyson]] ([[User talk:Greyson|talk]]) 02:15, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
(Oops... I forgot to log on... I feel... scared.)
[[User:Greyson|Greyson]] ([[User talk:Greyson|talk]]) 02:15, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

Remember [https://what-if.xkcd.com/22/ the other comic], talking about how much does your time spent to pick up a penny cost? This applies here too! It's not just $5 for the wrench, there is also the time of the guy who will be hitting with it! Although of course the wrench is amortizable over multiple secret extraction sessions, unless it gets bent too much out of shape. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.246.5|108.162.246.5]] 20:57, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

I went to the flea market and bought a $5 wrench, then used it to beat the password out of 2^5 nerds. I just wanted to prove that there is a $5 wrench and that it's reasonable to amortize it over multiple extraction sessions. The wrench is still in good shape, even to use as a wrench. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.215.115|108.162.215.115]] 18:26, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Why does everyone imagine that the "crypto nerd" will be a "him"? This gendered language is simply reinforcing the sexist stereotypes that serve as the cultural foundation for rape and other symptoms of this sexist worldview. I'm changing this to "him or her"... {{unsigned|Vctr}}
:The text of the comic refers to the cryptonerd being a him. Please check yourself before you wreck yourself. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.99|108.162.221.99]] 18:07, 1 May 2015 (UTC)
:: It says in the comic that the 'crypto nerd' is a 'him': "'''His''' laptop is encrypted". --[[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.118|108.162.216.118]] 15:45, 5 July 2020 (UTC)
Same concept as [[416: Zealous Autoconfig]]. [[User:Shanek|Shanek]] ([[User talk:Shanek|talk]]) 12:31, 1 May 2015 (UTC)
:BTW "him or her" leaves out gender-nonconforming people and is also is unnecessarily clunky - "they" is usually a better choice. It's great that you want to reduce the use of gendered language on the internet, though. Just be careful not to go overboard; there's a difference between identification and unnecessarily gendered language. [[User:DownGoer|DownGoer]] ([[User talk:DownGoer|talk]]) 01:42, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

What would happen if the owner of the computer used deniable cryptography with some decoy message? -- [[Special:Contributions/173.245.48.141|173.245.48.141]] 08:35, 15 July 2015 (UTC)
:As pointed out by the wikipedia article, deniable cryptography might either fool the attackers, or make them keep beating you even after you give them the real password. [[Special:Contributions/198.41.235.179|198.41.235.179]] 22:48, 13 October 2015 (UTC)

Surely if he's encrypting his PC, he should be using something like 256-bit AES/Rijndael, as it's more secure? [[User:Walale12|Walale12]] ([[User talk:Walale12|talk]]) 10:11, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

I doubt the crypto "nerd"'s nerdiness. RSA is not generally used for disk encryption. It relies on the computation of large primes, a task infeasible for data of such size. Instead, AES is used. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.250.163|108.162.250.163]] 13:54, 15 January 2016 (UTC)
:Quite often, disk encryption is done in two steps: Instead of generating key directly from passphrase, random symmetrical key is generated and used for actual encryption of whole disk, then encrypted by key generated from passphrase and stored ON the disk. That allows to change the passphrase without reencrypting whole disk. While the algorithm used for encrypting disk could be and often is AES, it's possible to use RSA for the second step. And breaking 4096bit RSA would still be quicker than breaking 256bit AES. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 22:35, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

Lol. The spelling "wench"
:My game is up! Drat! ;)
:Please sign your comments. - Also this article has been vandalized few times, to change wrench->wench. I now notice that the title text here also says so. On the original page it says wrench. --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 06:15, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

Talk:2822: *@gmail.com

2023-08-31T04:44:38Z

DownGoer: Yes, and

Why not send to *@*.*? [[Special:Contributions/172.69.247.45|172.69.247.45]] 03:08, 31 August 2023 (UTC)
:Either *@* suffices (if not just a *), or (because of non-standard wildcard parsing) it would reach neither ''<whatever@mydomain.me.uk>'' nor ''<something@business.com.au>''... But it'd depend upon how you invoke the query of the relevent MXRecords. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.178.22|172.71.178.22]] 03:18, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

Based on the caption of the comic, I believe the real joke is that many GMail recipients of the original mass email would incorrectly use the "Reply-All" functionality of their email client and thereby further bomb the gmail server with a much larger volume of emails. [[User:Ianrbibtitlht|Ianrbibtitlht]] ([[User talk:Ianrbibtitlht|talk]]) 03:21, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

:That's certainly part of it, but getting millions of emails is far more annoying than the typical few. [[User:DownGoer|DownGoer]] ([[User talk:DownGoer|talk]]) 04:44, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

User:DownGoer

2023-08-31T02:38:50Z

DownGoer: Created page with "Hello world!\nexec("for email, password in zip(emails): print(f'{email}: {password}')")"

Hello world!\nexec("for email, password in zip(emails): print(f'{email}: {password}')")

2822: *@gmail.com

2023-08-31T02:35:40Z

DownGoer: Longer explanation

{{comic
| number = 2822
| date = August 30, 2023
| title = *@gmail.com
| image = gmail_com_2x.png
| imagesize = 305x269px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Hi all, just replying to loop in *@outlook.com and *@yahoo.com.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by BOT@COMPUSERVE.NET - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

{{w|Gmail}} is a very popular email service operated by Google. This comic imagines a world in which Google shuts down the services, as it has done with {{w|Discontinued Google services|many others}}. Randall suggests that if that happens, Google give a single user the chance to send an email to the address "*@gmail.com".

In programming, the asterisk * is often used as a {{w|wildcard character}}, allowing it to be interpreted as any number of any variety of characters. If interpreted as such by Gmail, "*@gmail.com" would include any email address ending in "@gmail.com," sending this hypothetical email message to every single user on the service.

This sort of spam would be annoying on its own, but it is severely exacerbated by the "reply all" feature. The feature allows anyone who receives a given message to send an email to everybody the original message was sent to - in this case, all [https://www.demandsage.com/gmail-statistics/ 1.8 billion users] on the platform. Moreover, by telling people to introduce themselves in the email chain, the sender makes it far more likely that people will reply. Assuming the Gmail servers do not simply crash from the load, this would result in millions of emails flooding every Gmail inbox in the world.

The title-text somehow makes the situation even worse. By adding the "*@outlook.com" and "*@yahoo.com" addresses, the new email (presumably from the original sender, given the use of wildcard privileges) allows everyone using the {{w|Microsoft Outlook}} and {{w|Yahoo! Mail}} services to see the chain as well. While neither service is quite as popular as Gmail, they both have [https://email-verify.my-addr.com/list-of-most-popular-email-domains.php sizable user bases] with millions of active emails each. This would severely worsen the problem, roughly doubling the number of email addresses both receiving and contributing to the "reply-all apocalypse."

(For obvious reasons, this wildcard functionality is not actually supported by any major email service.)

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

:To: *@gmail.com (+expand)
:Cc: [Empty field]
:Bcc: [Empty field]
:Subj: New Friends

:Hey all! Go ahead and introduce yourself!

:[Caption:] If Google ever decides to shut down Gmail, they should let one user trigger a global reply-all apocalypse.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Email]]

Talk:440: Road Rage

2023-08-30T02:53:41Z

DownGoer: Weird stuff with the transcript

;Incomplete (as of August 26, 2013)
*At the title text Black Hat is avoiding a crash.
*While many explains are monster explains, here is the WIFI missing, this explain is just more a transcript.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 21:44, 26 August 2013 (UTC)
The idea is that the tailgater (I'll name him Phil for ease of understanding) will be distracted while he contemplates his loss, so when Black Hat slams on the brakes, Phil hopefully won't have enough stopping distance to avoid a collision, slamming into Black Hat's car. The accident is always caused by the car behind, meaning Phil will be at fault.[[User:Lyusternik|Lyusternik]] ([[User talk:Lyusternik|talk]]) 15:26, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

Okay, I've been bold, completely rewrote the explanation AND removed the incomplete banner. It now looks less like a transcript and (I think) everything is covered. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.53.161|173.245.53.161]] 17:28, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

Whew, I've been more offensive than Black Hat in the past and I'm still happy today that I did survive this. I did not slam the brake, no stoplight, just releasing my foot from the gas pedal at high speed and my car slowed down without any warning to the one behind me. There was happily no accident and NEVER TRY SOMETHING LIKE THIS. But after this incident the guy did slam his own brake and he never did try to overtake me again. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 21:36, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

In light of the last paragraph of the explanation, I wish Randall's drawing made it clear whether BH and Danish were wearing seatbelts. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.54.52|173.245.54.52]] 19:45, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

I think that Danish does not survive the accident that she provoked with her message to the tailgating guy. This is a very nice example of a self-fulfilling prophecy.--[[Special:Contributions/141.101.75.18|141.101.75.18]] 14:28, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

No one tried to guess at why the shot in the dark worked? I thought it might have something to do with the fact that tailgaters tend to be reckless drivers and he had caused someone to die before due to his reckless driving. [[User:Flewk|flewk]] ([[User talk:Flewk|talk]]) 17:56, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

Revisiting this comic after watching 13 Reasons Why really gives you a new view on the whole thing. I wonder if the book, or indeed any specific work, was involved in Randall's creative process for this comic, or if he just pulled the idea for the guilt trip out of thin air. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.255.64|162.158.255.64]] 06:53, 7 January 2018 (UTC)

Why does the transcript include the phrase "who seems to be his equal" in reference to Danish? That seems like a weird thing to include. [[User:DownGoer|DownGoer]] ([[User talk:DownGoer|talk]]) 02:53, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

440: Road Rage

2023-08-30T02:50:26Z

DownGoer: More explicit references to "road rage," various readability changes

{{comic
| number = 440
| date = June 23, 2008
| title = Road Rage
| image = road rage.png
| titletext = Okay, now just as the loss hits him, slam on the brakes.
}}

==Explanation==
{{w|Road rage}} refers to aggressive behavior exhibited by (usually angry) motorists towards other people on or near the road. It can take the form of excessive honking, uncharacteristically aggressive driving, and using obscene gestures or language, among other behaviors.

In this comic, [[Black Hat]] is driving a car, and [[Danish]] is with him in the passenger's seat. Black Hat gets annoyed because the car behind him is "{{w|tailgating}}" (following too close behind Black Hat's car).

Danish decides to fight back, but rather than engaging in typical instances of road rage, she turns on her laptop and finds that the car behind them also has a laptop running. Since the cars are so close, the other laptop is well within WiFi range, so she manages to establish a WiFi connection with the laptop in the other car. Then, Danish finds a security hole (in the comic, a "remote exploit"). She uses it to break into the laptop and install a speech synthesizer. This means that the laptop in the car behind just starts saying words at Danish's will.

The driver of the other car is puzzled when he starts hearing a voice. He is completely clueless about where the voice comes from. Also, because he is driving alone, he is probably frightened (or nervous at least) to find that someone is speaking inside his car. The "shot in the dark" is the gamble that this statement is especially meaningful and poignant to the driver. In this case, it seems to hit its mark - the driver's reaction to "she'd be alive if it weren't for you" implies that he was indeed responsible for someone's death. (As he is prone to tailgating, it seems likely that this took the form of a car accident.)

In the title text, Danish continues her revenge, asking Black Hat to slam on the brakes. So-called "{{w|Brake check|brake checking}}" is a common (though highly unsafe) method of road rage against tailgaters. At minimum, it forces them to abruptly decelerate and hopefully frightens them, but the danger is that they don't have room to stop in time and cause a collision. The joke is that, having already achieved a complicated and psychologically painful form of revenge, Danish wants to follow it up with a much more conventional form at the worst possible time. Since the blame for such types of accident is always given to the driver of the car behind, and since we know Black Hat is a sadistic bastard, Black Hat will no doubt enjoy adding both the blame and the traffic accident on top of what Danish has already accomplished. This may seem ironic, as Black Hat and Danish would be risking having their own car struck, but they would no doubt rather make an example than avoid the accident.

==Transcript==
:[Black Hat is driving, and Danish, who seems to be his equal, is in the passenger's seat. They are closely followed by some other vehicle.]
:Black Hat: That guy's tailgating me.
:Danish: I'll take a look.

:[A car is shown to be closely behind Black Hat's car.]
:Danish: His laptop's running, probably in the back seat. And... yup, the WiFi autoconnects.

:[Close-up of Danish using a laptop.]
:Danish: Now we just scan for remote exploits... install speech synth... And take a shot in the psychological dark.

:[Cueball's car.]
:Laptop: Hello.
:Cueball: What? Who's there?
:Laptop: She'd be alive if it weren't for you.
:Cueball: ...Oh God.

==Trivia==
This may be a continuation of [[433: Journal 5]], with Black Hat taking Danish to the "date" that was mentioned.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Black Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Danish]]

518: Flow Charts

2023-08-29T20:01:11Z

DownGoer: Better torrenting description - please fix it if it's wrong/suboptimal. Also, removed the {{citation needed}}'s - put them back if you like them. REMOVED "INCOMPLETE" TAG

{{distinguish|1488: Flowcharts}}
{{comic
| number = 518
| date = December 17, 2008
| title = Flow Charts
| image = flow_charts.png
| titletext = At 8 drinks, you switch the torrent from FreeBSD to Microsoft Bob. C'mon, it'll be fun!
}}

==Explanation==
{{w|Flowchart|Flowcharts}} are diagrams that represent processes in a graphical form. While predominantly used in {{w|computer programming}} to visualize the structure of source code, flowcharts can in theory be used to depict any real or virtual procedure. In this comic, this idea is subverted by employing a flowchart to explain how flowcharts work. Flowcharts are a recurring theme on xkcd, and a list of flowchart comics can be found [[:Category:Flowcharts|here]].

This seems like a faulty basis for explaining anything, but the basic functionality of flowcharts is quite intuitive, and the attempted self-description is almost unnecessary. In fact, the comic does not actually explain how to use the flowchart: it just uses an example of a very simple flowchart to demonstrate to the reader that they can easily work out how to follow it. If the reader attempts to "game" the system by either giving contradictory answers, or refusing to acknowledge that they can see the "Yes" and "No" labels, the flowchart gets confused or becomes abusive. <strike>Just like a real computer.</strike>

If you confirm or demonstrate that you can follow the flowchart, it inevitably leads to the "Let's go drink" box, which gives rise to the assumption that the whole chart was only a pretense for drinking.

{{w|FreeBSD}} is a {{w|unixoid}} operating system for computers that is generally considered to require advanced skills. The question whether {{w|Linux}} or (Free)BSD is the preferable operating system is a question of almost religious belief to some. The comic takes a shot against FreeBSD by implying that one would only decide to install it when under the influence of alcohol. This may also be a reference to [[349: Success]].

The title text mentions {{w|Microsoft Bob}}, a software package published in 1995 by {{w|Microsoft}}. The product was targeted towards beginners, and Microsoft decided to use a cartoon-style interface instead of a more 'professional' environment. It was a commercial failure, and still serves as an inside joke among IT professionals.

"Torrent" refers to {{w|BitTorrent}}, a peer-to-peer filesharing protocol that is often used to share large files, such as the files for an operating system, via the internet. BitTorrent allows users to, rather than downloading whole files from a central server, download small pieces from each of many "peers" who are downloading the same file concurrently. In the title-text, the reader initially torrents the FreeBSD operating system in order to install it. The reference to "switching the torrent" suggests that if you were even more drunk than you would need to be to download FreeBSD, you would start downloading Microsoft Bob instead.

[[Randall]] has made use of [[:Category:Flowcharts|flowcharts]] before, and later he released another comic name [[1195: Flowchart]].

==Transcript==
:[A flow chart is shown beneath a caption. There are 14 boxes, five rhombus shaped and the rest rectangular. From all the rhombus boxes there are one arrow entering and two arrows leaving (with yes/no labels on them). One of the other boxes is the start with only one arrow leaving, and three of these boxes are endings with only one arrow entering. Three have two arrows entering and one leaving. And two have one in and one out. Caption:]
:A guide to
:<big>understanding flow charts</big>
:presented in flow chart form.

:Box 0: Start
::[Arrow to Box 1.]
:Box 1: Do you understand flow charts?
::[Arrow to Box 2.] Yes
::[Arrow to Box 4.] No
:Box 2: Good
::[Arrow to Box 3.] Yes
:Box 3: Let's go drink.
::[Arrow to Final Box.] 6 Drinks
:Box 4: Okay. You see the line labeled "Yes"?
::[Arrow to Box 6.] Yes
::[Arrow to Box 5.] No
:Box 5: But you see the ones labeled "No".
::[Arrow to End-Box 1.] Yes
::[Arrow to End-Box 2a.] No
:End-Box 1: Wait, what?
::[No Arrows.]
:End-Box 2a: Listen.
::[Arrow to End-Box 2b.]
:End-Box 2b: I hate you.
::[No Arrows.]
:Box 6: ...and you can see the ones labeled "No"?
::[Arrow to Box 2.] Yes
::[Arrow to Box 7.] No
:Box 7: But you just followed them twice!
::[Arrow to Box 8a.] Yes
::[Arrow to Box 8a.] No
:Box 8a: (That wasn't a question.)
::[Arrow to Box 8b.]
:Box 8b: Screw it.
::[Arrow to Box 3.]
:Final Box: Hey I should try installing FreeBSD!

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics sharing name|Flowcharts01]]
[[Category:Flowcharts]]
[[Category:Programming]]
[[Category:Computers]]
[[Category:BSD]]

Talk:2821: Path Minimization

2023-08-29T12:50:51Z

DownGoer: Is it really a beach vendor reference?

Judging from the angle of the arms, I do not believe that the swimmer is in distress. In fact I think the swimmer is just a future projection of Cueball, not a separate person.

:I agree that the swimmer does not appear to be in distress, although the title text suggests that it is probably a separate person.
:
:My personal interpretation is that the situation is "meeting a friend at the beach to get ice cream". Options are either a) meet the friend first and then swim back to get ice cream or b) get ice cream first and take it out to eat together in the water. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.54|172.70.86.54]] 04:02, 29 August 2023 (UTC)
:: Or the more sensible walk to the water's edge and wait for your friend to swim in to meet you... [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.29|172.70.85.29]] 08:43, 29 August 2023 (UTC)
:I agree as well, I changed it to "possibly in distress". [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 04:43, 29 August 2023 (UTC)
::I changed it further. Still admits the possibility, but less possibly than "possibly" hints at. (It is, nonetheless, a (mostly!) typical "you ''need'' to get here, minimising <some form of time/distance/energy/endurance resource>, what is the optimal strategy" tbing that lifesaving courses might include to train you in such considerations. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.242.82|172.71.242.82]] 09:01, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

Technically, the path that minimizes swimming passed a nearby boat rental stand. (by the way, I didn't write the unsigned paragraph above this one) [[Special:Contributions/172.69.247.40|172.69.247.40]] 03:05, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

When I first saw the comic, I thought cueball was suspended on a tether in the air above the water, and the ice cream stand was floating. I didn't realize it was a beach until I read this explanation. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 04:41, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

The ice cream path reminds me of the [[2407|bread-first search]] (similar punchline). [[Special:Contributions/172.71.182.158|172.71.182.158]] 06:55, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

Noting, in passing, that an almost "flosbury flop"-like path could have been shown, too. A gentle curve, bending to hit the shore somewhere between shortest-time and shortest-swim, that would allow maximum run-up to dive ''into'' the water at the right angle to then power straight towards the target with the original running impetus turned straight into initial swimming speed, with no sharp turns involved. (Also, an 'Aquaman' line, perhaps exactly complimentary to the land-favouring 'bent-leg' routes, minimising/reducing land in favour of water.) [[Special:Contributions/172.71.242.82|172.71.242.82]]

This was one of my first edits in this wiki, so I hope I didn't do anything wrong. I think this comic clearly references Feynman's Lifeguard problem (there is an almost identical diagram in his QED book) and the Ice-cream vendor problem. I wrote a couple of paragraphs explaining this, but they were promptly deleted by the next editor. Did I do something wrong? I think the explanation is incomplete without those references. [[User:Prallax|Prallax]] ([[User talk:Prallax|talk]]) 10:08, 29 August 2023 (UTC)
: Seeing the history, this is probably just an edit conflict, you should insert your contribution again. [[User:Cochonou|Cochonou]] ([[User talk:Cochonou|talk]]) 11:54, 29 August 2023 (UTC)
:: It looks like it was my edit that 'overwrit' Prallax's. Though I got no "edit conflict" notification (or I'd have at least tried to reintegrate my failed changes into the revised 'current prior' version, or at least revisit the diffs to reinstate the best of what I'd caused to vanish/undo). Thinking back, it ''might'' have been due to a server time-out which meant I resubmitted, fooling the back end about what version I was (thinking I was) actually adding to/revising... I'm pretty sure it occasionally does that, and probably more than I ever know about, if I don't have reason to check the page histories in detail...
:: Anyway, recovered the paragraphs and re-added them to the end (maybe should have been inserted before the traditionally final title-text-paragraph?) on the original editor's behalf, as they looked fairly good and I didn't see anything in them that I might want to change (not even markup).
:: So both apologies and congratulations to their author! They might later get tweaked/redone, b6 others, but as far as ('one-of-my-')first-time edits go I'd have personally been proud to have done as well, whatever my first (probably disasterous) edits might actually have been, oh so many years ago and lost in the mists of anonymous-IPdom... Keep it up, and welcome to the rabble! ;) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.8|172.70.91.8]] 12:45, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

Reminds me of https://xkcd.com/85/ [[User:Betamaj|Betamaj]] ([[User talk:Betamaj|talk]]) 12:06, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

I don't know if I agree with the Beach Vendor paragraph. There's only one vendor, and there's no reason for an ice cream stand on a beach to be a reference to the problem. (Ice cream stands on beaches are pretty common, at least near I live.) [[User:DownGoer|DownGoer]] ([[User talk:DownGoer|talk]]) 12:50, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

2820: Inspiration

2023-08-28T03:53:40Z

DownGoer: Replaced visual representation with textual description in transcript

{{comic
| number = 2820
| date = August 25, 2023
| title = Inspiration
| image = inspiration_2x.png
| imagesize = 515x163px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = An apple fell on Isaac Newton's head and gave him the idea that the moon might be a tasty apple, though this turned out not to be true--the Apollo program eventually determined that it was just a desolate and bland Red Delicious.
}}

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

The apple falling on Cueball's head is a reference to the folk tale that an apple falling on {{w|Isaac Newton}}'s head was what inspired him to develop his theory of gravity (he may indeed have been inspired by the fall of an apple, but it didn't fall on his head). The key breakthrough Newton had was the insight that the force which causes objects to fall to the Earth is the same force that causes the Moon to orbit the Earth; this and the title of the comic set the reader up to expect Cueball's statement to be related to gravity. Instead he makes a different connection between apples and the Moon, that of starting an apple orchard on the Moon.

Furthermore, the title text claims that Newton thought that the Moon was in fact a tasty apple, but the {{w|Apollo program}} proved it was a {{w|Red Delicious}} apple. This is a jab at Randall's least favorite type of apple, as has been [[388|previously]] [[1766|noted]]. That apple variety became the most popular variety in the USA after its introduction but, to satisfy market demand, growers began selecting for storage and cosmetic appeal over flavor and palatability. Popularity has declined significantly in recent decades. "Desolate and bland" echoes Apollo astronaut {{w|Buzz Aldrin}} describing the moonscape as "magnificent desolation".

The tale of Newton and the apple was previously mentioned in [[1584|1584: Moments of Inspiration]]

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[Cueball sits under a tree. An apple falls from the tree and hits him on the head.]
:Bonk

:[The view zooms out, showing the moon, which Cueball looks up at.]

:[Closeup on Cueball.]
:Cueball: ...

:Cueball (in italics): We should grow apples on the moon.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]]
[[Category:Astronomy]]
[[Category:Physics]]
[[Category:Food]]

2819: Pronunciation

2023-08-23T21:45:35Z

DownGoer: Slightly more descriptive definitions of each alternative pronunciation

{{comic
| number = 2819
| date = August 23, 2023
| title = Pronunciation
| image = pronunciation_2x.png
| imagesize = 315x257px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = I pronounce the 'u' in 'pronunciation' like in 'putting' but the 'ou' in 'pronounce' like in 'wound'.
}}

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

The comic shows how to pronounce the word "Tuesday", however it does so through the use of ambiguous pronunciation guides. Often these guides are used to tell people how something is pronounced without resorting to the IPA, which most are unfamiliar with. However these guides often have issues with multiple accents, or in this case, words that can be pronounced in multiple ways.

(Note: using General American pronunciations here)

{| class="wikitable"
! Guide !! Correct !! Other !! Notes
|-
| Buffe'''t'''
| /ˈbʌf.ɪ'''t'''/ (verb: strike)
| /ˈbʌ.feɪ/ (noun: self-serve diner)
|
|-
| Min'''u'''te
| /maɪˈn'''(j)uː'''t/ (adjective: small)
| /ˈmɪn'''ɪ'''t/ (noun: unit of time)
|
|-
| R'''e'''cord
| /ɹ'''ɪ'''ˈkɔɹd/ (verb: write down/make permanent)
| /ˈɹ'''ɛ'''k.ɚd/ or /ˈɹ'''ɛ'''k.ɔɹd/ (noun: thing containing information)
| Neither is actually the correct e, the correct e would be silent.
|-
| U'''s'''e
| /juː'''z'''/ (verb: to employ a thing for a particular end)
| /juː'''s'''/ (noun: the action of employing that thing)
|
|-
| Mope'''d'''
| /ˈmoʊ.pɛ'''d'''/ (noun: vehicle)
| /moʊp'''t'''/ (adjective: dejected)
|
|-
| B'''a'''ss
| /b'''eɪ'''s/ (noun: guitar)
| /b'''æ'''s/ (noun: fish)
| /æ/ is also correct in New Zealand English.
|-
| G'''y'''ro
| /ˈj'''iː'''.ɹoʊ/, /ˈj'''ɪ'''ɹoʊ/ or /ˈʒ'''ɪ'''ɹoʊ/ (noun: sandwich)
| /ˈd͡ʒ'''aɪ'''.ɹoʊ/ (noun: gyroscope)
| The sandwich can also be pronounced like the gyroscope.
|}

Following this guide, a pronunciation of Tuesday as /ɪɛstæaɪ/ is possible.

The title text references how some people pronounce the word "pron'''u'''nciation" like "pron'''ou'''nce" (with /aʊ/) and others use a different vowel /ʌ/. Here Randall is saying that he pronounces them with the u in putting and the ou in wound. If we take putting to mean /ˈpʌtɪŋ/ (golf) and wound as /waʊnd/ (up), this could mean he pronounces them using common differing pronunciations. However those two words could also be pronounced /ˈpʊtɪŋ/ (placing) and /wund/ (injury), indicating a very non-standard pronunication.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[The word "Tuesday", with each letter labeled by a box with an arrow:]
:T: As in buffe'''t'''
:u: As in min'''u'''te
:e: As in r'''e'''cord
:s: As in u'''s'''e
:d: As in mope'''d'''
:a: As in b'''a'''ss
:y: As in g'''y'''ro

:[Caption below the panel:]
:Pet peeve: Ambiguous pronunciation guides

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Language]]
[[Category:Pet Peeves]]

Template:LATESTCOMIC

2023-08-18T22:13:21Z

DownGoer:

<noinclude>The latest [[xkcd]] comic is number:</noinclude> 2816

Template:LATESTCOMIC

2023-08-18T22:12:08Z

DownGoer:

<noinclude>The latest [[xkcd]] comic is number:</noinclude> 2817

2815: Car Wash

2023-08-15T16:26:15Z

DownGoer: CN overuse. Also, please preview edits!

{{comic
| number = 2815
| date = August 14, 2023
| title = Car Wash
| image = car_wash_2x.png
| imagesize = 455x239px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = I'm glad modern car washes use synthetic baleen, instead of harvesting it from whales like 1800s car washes did.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a SELF WASHING CAR - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
Ponytail and Cueball are having a discussion about car washes. Based on Cueball's comment, they're discussing the automatic kind, not events where you bring your car and someone hand-washes it for you (usually done as fund-raisers).

Ponytail is incredulous that Cueball doesn't like them, because everyone else likes them. He points out that you're trapped in your car (a "dark shaking glass box"). The car wash itself is a huge, loud robot, and some of the brushes are like big tongues that lick the car.

After hearing it described this way, Ponytail has come around to Cueball's side. He then mimics the sounds he's described.

The title text implies that modern car washes use "synthetic baleen" for their brushes, contrasting with an imaginary scenario where 1800s car washes (which didn't exist; {{w|Car_wash#1946|the first commercial car wash began in 1914}}) used real baleen harvested from whales. Real baleen was indeed harvested from whales in the 1800s, most notably for use in fashion. While motorized vehicle washes didn't exist at the time, there might be a visual resemblance between baleen and some modern car wash brushes.

Baleen, which was processed into whalebone in the 1800s, was used for large brush bristles as well as fine clothing and many other things, due its combination of flexibility and stiffness. Evidence of this today is mostly [https://www.scran.ac.uk/packs/exhibitions/learning_materials/webs/40/utilitarian.htm preserved in museum displays]. It is possible Randall's comment was inspired by seeing a brush in a museum. In 1808, Samuel Crackles of Hull patented a method of cutting plates of whale-bone to provide an effective substitute for brush bristles. These hard wearing bristles were in much demand, particularly for chimney-sweeps' brushes. Another Hull company, John Bateman and Robert Bowman of Silver Street, were also trading in whale-bone at that time, offering a wide range of small goods including sieves, nets, ornamental blinds, bed-bottoms and brushes.

Baleen brushes are not used in automated car washes. {{citation needed}} Among car washes with brushes, chamois fabric or plastic sponge are the brush materials traditionally used.

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

:[Ponytail looks enthused, whilst talking to Cueball]
:Ponytail: Seriously? How do you not like car washes?
:Ponytail: ''Everyone'' likes car washes!

:[Close-up on Cueball alone]
:Cueball: Sure, I love being trapped in a dark shaking glass box that a huge loud robot is licking.

:[Ponytail looks less enthused, once more in a full view of them both]
:Ponytail: Great, now I don't like car washes either.
:Cueball: ''Vroom vroom!''
:Cueball: ''Slurp!''

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]

2778: Cuisine

2023-08-10T06:25:58Z

DownGoer: I would argue that the mistake is more funny than unfortunate

{{comic
| number = 2778
| date = May 19, 2023
| title = Cuisine
| image = cuisine_2x.png
| imagesize = 200x312px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = My connection to it goes way back, to my early days, when I was just a cloud of primordial hydrogen collapsing in the darkness of space.
}}

==Explanation==

[[Cueball]] is explaining a recipe to [[White Hat]], describing it as {{w|Fusion cuisine}}, typically used to describe a style of cuisine based on combining aspects of the cuisines of two or more cultures, such as a combination of French and Chinese food, or Mexican and Korean food. However, he conflates this with {{w|nuclear fusion}}, combining atomic nuclei to create new kinds of atoms.

The recipe is described as the initiation of {{w|deuterium}} fusion in a kilogram ("four cups") of {{w|heavy water}} and allowing the reaction to continue to its endpoint, {{w|iron}}. The "very high heat" specified in the recipe would start at the four million-plus Kelvin at which {{w|deuterium fusion}} is initiated in stars, and could possibly reach the billions of Kelvin at which {{w|supernova}}s synthesize atoms heavier than iron, such as copper, zinc, selenium, and iodine, which are essential in trace quantities for mammals. Unfortunately, heating a saucepan to even four million Kelvin would likely vaporize even the largest of kitchens, and any cooks therein. Most heavier elements are probably created when two Neutron stars spiral into each other (but they are remnants of super nova explosions)

The title text refers to the time before {{w|stellar fusion}}, just after the Big Bang when most matter was hydrogen atoms. See [[2723: Outdated Periodic Table]] for more on what other atoms where present. These primordial hydrogen atoms formed clouds that eventually collapsed into galaxies, forming stars that then created all heavier elements in one way or the other. It took a long time but eventually some of these hydrogen atoms created Cueball and everything else on Earth. See [[1123: The Universal Label]]. People often say that an interest of theirs goes back to their "early days", referencing their childhood, but in this case it appears that Cueball's interest goes back to several billions of years before he was born, indicating that it is his atoms that are interested in this cuisine not himself, as they were the ones around when his interest began. Actually mainly his protons. And it was because of their interest in fusing together that Cueball came to be.

==Transcript==
:[White Hat stands behind Cueball, who is cooking on a stove seen from the side. Cueball has his left hand on the handle of a pot which is on one of the stove's burners. In Cueball's right hand is a small cup.]
:Cueball: Next, we heat four cups of heavy water over '''''very''''' high heat until it thickens and becomes rich in iron.

:[Caption below the panel:]
:I'm getting really into fusion cuisine.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Physics]]
[[Category:Food]]
[[Category:Puns]]

2779: Exoplanet High-5

2023-08-10T06:24:54Z

DownGoer: Removed "citation needed"

{{comic
| number = 2779
| date = May 22, 2023
| title = Exoplanet High-5
| image = exoplanet_high_5_2x.png
| imagesize = 515x582px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Tau Ceti is farther away, so it took me 36 years to start the war over updog.
}}

==Explanation==
''Up high, down low, too slow'' is a {{w|High five#Too_slow|prank variant of a High five}}. In the comic, Earth has established communications with aliens living on {{w|Proxima Centauri b}}, the nearest exoplanet to Earth according to current knowledge, and [[Randall]] has taught them about a high-five.

Instead of physically slapping hands, the high-five is executed by transmitting messages, as in a {{w|Handshake (computing)}}. The diagram in the comic is thus similar to a {{w|sequence diagram}}, one usually employed for describing network communication in computing. As the messages travel at the speed of light and Proxima Centauri b is over 4 light years away, the times in the diagram are measured in (Earth-)years. This is a very slow method of communication – a perfect setup for a "too slow" prank. We can also see that they are taking around 1/50th of a year (approximately an Earth-week) to cue up their considered response, yet clearly Cueball seems quite ready to respond in about half that time (though any quicker would get lost, and appear simultaneous, at the given precision of decimal places).

Having found this way of exchanging a high-five with aliens, Randall successfully pranks the aliens by sending the "too slow" message before their "Low-5" message ''can'' even arrive on Earth, and over an Earth-month before it actually does. This is similar to how, in the original prank, the prankster anticipates the provoked reaction and pulls their hand away after the victim started to move but before the "Low-Five" can taken place.

The aliens do not take kindly to being pranked and start an interstellar war, presumably intending to invade Earth. It is not known at which speed the Centaurians' invasion fleet travels and, therefore, when it will reach Earth. The [[wikipedia:Spatial scale|scale]] of the fleet is also unknown, and with good fortune, it may again prove to be [https://hitchhikers.fandom.com/wiki/G%27Gugvuntts microscopic].

The title text refers to another prank, in which the prankster gets the victim to ask "What's updog?" This is usually done by saying a sentence or asking a question that contains the noun 'updog'. Should the victim of the prank be confused, they will likely ask for clarification as to what 'updog' is (i.e, "What's updog?") At this point, the prankster will then respond as though the victim had asked them 'What's up, dawg?', resulting in probable groans and embarrassment. More on the joke's history and prevalence can be found [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/updog here].

Tau Ceti is a star almost 12 light years away. The exchange might have gone like this:
* t=0y: ''Randall:'' Hey, do you think it smells like updog in here?
* t=12y: ''Aliens:'' What's updog?
* t=24y: ''Randall:'' Nothin', what's up with you?
* t=36y: ''Message received, Aliens start war''
"Updog" was previously introduced in [[1696: AI Research]].
This is an example of a type of joke called a [https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WhatsAHenway henway].

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

:Earth:
* t=0.0y - "Up high" message sent
:Proxima Centauri b:
* t=4.25y - Message received - discussion -
* t=4.27y - High-5 reply sent
:Earth:
* t=8.52y - Reply received
* t=8.53y - "Down low" message sent
:Proxima Centauri b:
* t=12.77y - Message received - discussion -
* t=12.79y - Low-5 reply sent
:Earth:
* t=16.94y - "Too slow" message sent
* t=17.03y - Reply received
:Proxima Centauri b:
* t=21.19y - Message received
* t=21.26y - Invasion fleet launched

:[Caption below the panel:]
:21 years and 3 months after I taught the aliens about high-5s, the war began.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics with lowercase text]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Aliens]]
[[Category:Language]]

2784: Drainage Basins

2023-08-10T06:20:32Z

DownGoer: Specificity

{{comic
| number = 2784
| date = June 2, 2023
| title = Drainage Basins
| image = drainage_basins_2x.png
| imagesize = 659x500px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = After a pail of water was thrown on the Wicked Witch of the West outside Salt Lake City, Utah's Great Salt Lake was measured to be 7 parts per trillion witch by volume.
}}

==Explanation==

Alex Mack, the main character in the Nickelodeon show ''{{w|The Secret World of Alex Mack}}'', developed superpowers after being drenched by an experimental substance. One of these is the ability to turn into a puddle of liquid.

A {{w|drainage basin}} is an area of land where all flowing water converges by one or more outlets to the same body of water. The comic shows a {{w|Drainage divide|watershed map}} for the United States by depicting its drainage basins.

When Randall sees a map of the US's major drainage basins, he thinks of Alex turning into liquid and flowing as part of the basin she happens to be in at the time.

The title text refers to the {{w|Wicked Witch of the West}}, a character from ''{{w|The Wonderful Wizard of Oz}}'', wherein a bucket of water is thrown on her, causing her to dissolve into a puddle. If this happens near {{w|Salt Lake City}} she would flow into Utah's {{w|Great Salt Lake}}. If its dissolved particles are measured, a tiny fraction will be witch. Seven trillionths of the lake's nominal 18.93 cubic km volume is about 130 liters, which is approximately twice the volume of a typical human being. Randall may be approximating the lake's current, lower volume, which was [https://pws.byu.edu/great-salt-lake 27% of its nominal volume at one point] but has [https://wildlife.utah.gov/gslep/about/water-levels.html risen substantially in 2022-23] due to heavier rains than other recent years; or witches may be twice the size of normal people; or witch matter may be particularly dense, and double in volume when dissolved in water; or he may be including the Witch's sister, the Wicked Witch of the East, as well. The {{w|Land of Oz}} is described to be somewhere else entirely, surrounded by desert, and thus perhaps has its own salt-lake basin(s); but famously it is not in Kansas, from which any witch-water would have ultimately flowed down to the Gulf of Mexico via the Mississippi. It is possible that Randall's choice of Salt Lake City is referencing the ''{{w|Surrender Dorothy}}'' meme that LDS temples look like Oz.

There is an error in the map; specifically, the border between Michigan's Upper Peninsula and Wisconsin is not shown.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[Title, scribbled out in red:] <s>US Drainage Basins</s>
:[New title, in red, added below:] Where Alex Mack Will End Up

:[Map of the United States, the state borders in light pen; the national borders, seaboards and major lakes in black pen, plus additional boundaries as appropriate between the following labeled drainage basins:]
:[Much or all of Washington, Idaho, Oregon, California, Arizona and about half of Utah:] Pacific Ocean
:[Hawaiian islands, in typical US map repositioning:] Pacific Ocean
:[Alaska, in typical map repositioning, below a line approximately the three quarters up from the south:] Pacific Ocean
:[Remainder of Alaska:] Arctic Ocean
:[Most of Nevada, the western half of Utah (including the Great Salt Lake, outlined) and about a third of California (with the Salton Sea outlined):] Great Basin
:[A small patch of Wyoming, a triangle of New Mexico lying on the Mexican border and a separate thin swath through parts of New Mexico and Texas:] Various Basins
:[About half of North Dakota and a small section of northern Minnesota:] Hudson Bay
:[From northeast Minnesota across two thirds of Wisconsin, Michigan, a bit of northern Indiana, northern half of Ohio, and most of the eastern seaboard states of Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York, Long Island, New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia (not West Virginia), North and South Carolinas, half of Georgia and half of Florida (Lake Okeechobee visible):] Atlantic Ocean
:[All remaining states or parts of states:] Gulf of Mexico

:[Caption below the panel:]
:How I still think of these maps, deep down

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Comics with red annotations]]
[[Category:Geography]]
[[Category:US maps]]
[[Category:Fiction]]

2786: UFO Evidence

2023-08-10T06:19:21Z

DownGoer: xkcd is the preferred form (https://xkcd.com/about/)

{{comic
| number = 2786
| date = June 7, 2023
| title = UFO Evidence
| image = ufo_evidence_2x.png
| imagesize = 340x422px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = [Decades in the future] "Well, the good news is that we've received definitive communication from aliens. The bad news is that they're asking about Cats (2019)."
}}

==Explanation==
[[White Hat]] (presumably a [[wikipedia:Ufology|ufologist]]) accuses [[Cueball]] of being unwilling to listen to his claims for extraterrestrial life. UFO stands for "unidentified flying object", but has become strongly associated with the belief that alien ships have visited or are visiting earth. People who believe this are likely to take the position that governments are systematically covering up evidence of alien contact, and the scientific community is either complicit or indifferent. Hence, White Hat accuses "you scientists" of refusing to even seriously consider evidence of his beliefs.

This strip was released after a number of news reports and US Senate hearings that reviewed unexplained aerial phenomena. While some of these remain unexplained, the general consensus remains that there is no real evidence that any of these phenomena are of extraterrestrial origin, let alone evidence of alien visitation. A devout UFO-believer is likely to be somewhat disappointed by this, and may take it as evidence that both political and scientific establishments are deliberately ignoring evidence.

Cueball counters this common pushback by admitting that he once spent an entire day trying to confirm the existence of a version of [[wikipedia:Cats_(2019_film)|the 2019 film adaptation of ''Cats'']] which allegedly gave the eponymous anthropomorphic felines anatomically-correct rear ends.

The ''Cats'' movie was widely panned, in part because of the unappealing design of its CGI cat characters. On March 18, 2020, Twitter user @jackwaz claimed a friend of a friend had been hired as a VFX artist to "[https://www.avclub.com/world-unites-over-need-for-cats-producers-to-releaseth-1842396923 remove CGI buttholes]" from the digital cats, meaning that there was a version of the movie where the characters all had anatomically correct feline anuses depicted. This caused social media users to start petitioning for official confirmation of "the butthole cut," which Universal Studios has so far declined to acknowledge.

Cueball's point is apparently that he (like many scientists) is driven by curiosity, and willing to spend a great deal of time and energy to answer questions. His suggestion is that, if he was willing to put effort into investigating such an inconsequential and ridiculous question, based on incredibly flimsy evidence, it's implausible that he would simply ignore actual evidence about something as important as the existence of sentient alien life. The only reason why he (and most scientists) would reject such claims is a total lack of even faintly compelling evidence. If someone ever managed to present evidence of alien life that was even slightly plausible, many scientists would enthusiastically spend a great deal of time and effort trying to verify it, as in [[2359: Evidence of Alien Life]].

This strip continues a common xkcd theme of mocking dubious claims, including [[Alien Observers|UFOs]], [[Health Drink|pseudoscience]], [[The Economic Argument|paranormal phenomena]], and [[Conspiracy Theories]], which are presented without plausible or verifiable evidence. [[Randall]]'s general attitude toward these claims is that, if any of these things were true, we would expect evidence for them by now. Complaints that there is evidence, and scientists won't look at it are utterly implausible, because such evidence would be of enormous interest to scientists, if it was even slightly convincing.

The title text may refer to [https://phys.org/news/2015-01-aliens-tv.html the idea that aliens could be watching our old TV] (previously explored in [[1212: Interstellar Memes]]). Because radio and television signals travel at light speed, aliens light years away could theoretically receive earth entertainment years after it was originally broadcast. The idea that they are learning about us from ''Cats'', which is thought of as {{w|List of films considered the worst#Cats (2019)|one of our worst films of all time}}, is not the view of humanity either most people would want to present or most people would not want aliens to show extreme interest in. Especially since they might ask for the butthole cut....

==Transcript==
:[White Hat, with his finger raised, is talking to Cueball.]
:White Hat: You scientists aren't willing to take my UFO evidence seriously!
:Cueball: I once spent a whole day trying to confirm the existence of a director's cut of ''Cats'' (2019) where the cats had anatomically correct CGI butts.
:Cueball: It's honestly embarrassing how fast I'd do a 180 if your evidence seemed promising.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:Fiction]]
[[Category:Aliens]]
[[Category:Cats]]

2803: Geohydrotypography

2023-08-10T06:08:06Z

DownGoer: Explained "ppm" pun

{{comic
| number = 2803
| date = July 17, 2023
| title = Geohydrotypography
| image = geohydrotypography_2x.png
| imagesize = 339x389px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = The Atlantic is expanding at about 10 ppm (points per month).
}}

==Explanation==
This comic is another entry in the "[[:Category:My_Hobby|My Hobby]]" series of comics.

{{w|Plate tectonics}} is the understanding that the Earth's lithosphere is divided up into separate 'plates', which carry the continents and (in the case of the Atlantic) are slowly moving apart under geological action that mostly drives the respective coastlines away from the deep centre of the ocean. Here, Randall explains that if the surface of the Atlantic Ocean were covered in a certain size of printed text (as if its surface were a giant sheet of printed paper, which it is not{{citation needed}}), the shifting of the continents would increase the amount of text by about 100 words per second.

[[Randall]] says that his hobby is geohydrotypography, which is a compound of 'geo' (from the Greek for earth), 'hydro' (water), 'typo' (type, as in printing) and 'graphy' (a descriptive science) - in other words, the arrangement of letters, words and symbols on the water surfaces of the earth. He may mean that he enjoys studying such arrangements, and/or that he likes arranging such text himself.

The title text is a pun on "ppm," which is generally understood to mean "parts per million" (a dimensionless unit of concentration). Here, it instead describes the rate of the ocean's expansion, about 40 millimeters per year, in "points per month." A point in typography is 1/72 of an inch, or 127/360 =~ 0.3528 millimeters. The expansion sideways would steadily allow more characters on the first line (and thus intermittently more words, 'unwrapping' the first word seen on the next line) and cascading this effect onto every subsequent line spread out vertically along the roughly 13,000km (depending upon your choice of limits) North/South 'height' of the writing medium.

The exact calculation needs various assumptions. Font families of a given well-defined vertical size/separation can each exhibit varying general widths of character, and be subject to various possible degrees of [[kerning]], depending upon what precise choice of text is made (unless using a strictly a fixed-width font). The spacing between successive lines would need to be chosen. The word that does (or does not) have to be wrapped at the first line-break can affect which groups of words may (or may not) need to wrap on subsequent lines, in a cascading effect that can create almost chaotic changes from just a single reassessment. However, the {{w|law of large numbers}} would likely minimize the effect of this variability, such that an estimate from known averages would yield a result with a very small amount of relative error. It is not known which (ballpark) number Randall assigned as the current word count as of posting the comic.

The exact extent of the Atlantic Ocean can also be differently interpreted: where it meets the Southern and Arctic oceans, whether to include bordering 'seas' such as the Gulf of Mexico and Mediterranean and Caribbean Seas, what to do where the 'text' may have to cross/break-across islands (e.g., the Bahamas, Azores, etc., some of these being treated as Atlantic boundaries with the comic's relatively much larger size of "ocean text"), possibly even whether to track the precise tidal inundations at the coastlines at any particular moment, which would make the resulting word count per second probably fluctuate with the tides (unless high-/low-/median watermarks were actually chosen as standard). All these factors, and more, make it difficult to precisely define the total number of characters (and thus words) that would fit, though the annual increase in the approximate area of the ocean could allow us to assume some approximately greater number of characters (based upon an approximation of their average page-area requirements) which could be divided by the approximate number needed for a general corpus of words (and its spacing) to determine the approximate additional text that could now be added for any given span of time. Knowing Randall, he has used the best approximations that he could find and determined that the possible cumulative errors were not unacceptable.

Relying on the lost nursery rhyme "44.1 million square miles the Atlantic ocean is", and confirming on Wikipedia, about 5 trillion characters would fit. Assuming 1 byte per character, that's the amount of RAM on just 2 Summit supercomputers, the fastest supercomputer as of 7/2023. Quick testing on a modern laptop shows that Chrome takes about 0.1 second to add 1 character to a DIV element per million characters already there. For example: if a paragraph is already 50 million characters long, adding one character takes 5 second. To keep up with the 100 words per second at a barely acceptable 24 frames per second, the laptop would need to be 10 billion times faster - not that difficult, if humanity would dedicate one laptop per human for this task, and the complexity of this amount of parallel processing was solved. On the other hand, only 50,000 Summits would be needed. Please keep in mind these are very approximate numbers, as Chrome is always getting better, and there are many possible optimizations, including perhaps a new company would compete with Google rendering ocean-size paragraphs.

Note that the text as it appears on the globe in the comic is not 12 point, but instead is close to 1.5 billion point.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[A depiction primarily of the Atlantic Ocean and the surrounding landmasses. The land is black, leaving the oceans and seas white except for the following words written in sixteen lines of text (from just below the tip of Greenland/Arctic Ocean down to slightly above the Falkland Islands/Southern Ocean) that are, for the most part, wrapped between the Atlantic coastline 'margins' (as defined by the Americas on the left and Europe/Africa on the right, or significant island groups:]

:If you
:covered
:the surface of
:the Atlantic Ocean
:with twelve-point
:printed text,
:with the lines
:wrapping at
:the coasts, the
:expansion of
:the ocean basin
:due to plate
:tectonics would
:increase your word
:count by about 100
:words per second.

:[Caption below the panel:]
:My Hobby: Geohydrotypography

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:My Hobby]]
[[Category:Maps]]
[[Category:Geology]]
[[Category:Language]]

2813: What To Do

2023-08-10T06:02:16Z

DownGoer: Title-text explanation

{{comic
| number = 2813
| date = August 9, 2023
| title = What To Do
| image = what_to_do_2x.png
| imagesize = 740x723px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = FYI: The 'drop, cover, and hold on' advice only applies to earthquakes. If you encounter a mountain lion, you should absolutely not drop to the ground, crawl under it, and hold on to one of its legs.
}}

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

Similar to [[1890: What to Bring]] and [[1681: Laser Products]], this comic takes four unrelated dangerous situations (mountain lion sighting, nearby lightning, fire alarm, and bleeding), and tries to mix-and-match the solutions. Predictably,{{citation needed}} mixing up good advice leads to fairly nonsensical behavior, so only the original four matches are marked green as acceptable.

The title-text introduces another disaster, an earthquake, into the mix-and-match. A common safety precaution during an earthquake is to [https://www.shakeout.org/dropcoverholdon/ drop, cover, and hold on], which helps prevent you from being thrown about and/or hit by debris. However, attempting to "drop, cover, and hold on" in response to a mountain lion sighting is more likely to get you into danger than out of it. {{citation needed}}

;Advice

{| class="wikitable"
! (problem) vs (solution)
! scope="col"| stand up straight, speak firmly, and slowly back away
! scope="col"| run toward a building or hard-topped vehicle
! scope="col"| calmly exit the building
! scope="col"| apply firm pressure
|-
! scope="row"| {{w|mountain lion}}
| This is a common recommendation when encountering a mountain lion (puma, cougar, etc) out in nature.
| Running away may cause the animal to chase you, and it may consider you as prey. If you safely make it into a building or vehicle, you may be able to hide or drive away from the animal and may be safer than being outdoors with it; however, it is safer to approach said building or vehicle ''slowly'', so as to not provoke the animal.
| Exiting a building and approaching the animal is not a good idea. {{citation needed}}
| Applying "firm pressure" to the (wild) animal is a terrible idea and may result in injury. Applying light pressure to a domesticated cat may make it less likely to attack, but wild cats do not respond positively to it.
|-
! scope="row"| lightning
| Yelling at lightning is ineffective. {{citation needed}}
| This is the recommended solution when encountering lightning - to go indoors or inside of a hard-topped vehicle to avoid being struck, or to be ''inside'' some form of faraday cage if lightning does strike your location. Staying inside of a metal vehicle may cause other problems, but it's generally better than being directly struck.
| Exiting a building is a poor idea, as the risk of getting struck by lightning is increased.
| There is no safe way to "apply firm pressure" to lightning.
|-
! scope="row"| fire alarm
| Yelling at a fire alarm is ineffective. {{citation needed}}
| When a fire alarm is sounding, it is terrible advice to run ''towards'' the sound of the alarm, unless you are a trained member of the fire department.
| This is the recommended advice when hearing a fire alarm - to calmly exit the building, and move to a safe location.
| Applying firm pressure to a fire alarm will not result in stopping the alarm, unless you are able to manage to suppress the sound, or the fire alarm sensors. Regardless, this will not stop an active fire. Also, there is no safe way to "apply firm pressure" to fire.
|-
! scope="row"| bleeding
| Yelling at a bleeding person, or at the bleeding itself, is ineffective. {{citation needed}}
| Running toward a building or vehicle is not a typical solution if someone is bleeding. However, there could be medical supplies inside the building or vehicle, so this idea is not completely incorrect.
| Exiting a building is not helpful if someone is bleeding, if either the exiting one is the injured one, or the non-injured one. Although, if someone/something in the building is the cause of the bleeding, this could be a good idea so that the bleeding or injury does not get worse.
| This is the recommended solution to stop bleeding - apply firm pressure to stop the bleeding.
|}

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

:[The comic is laid out like a grid, with situations down the left-hand side (mountain lion / lightning / fire alarm / bleeding) and the solutions across the top (stand up straight, speak firmly, and slowly back away / run toward a building or hard-topped vehicle / calmly exit the building / apply firm pressure ). The grid illustrates the "match-ups", with a green square denoting a "correct" match-up and a red square denoting a bad idea.]

:[From the top left corner, going from left to right, top to bottom, with each first item being on its own line in the grid, the squares are as follows:]

:[Green square, a mountain lion (drawn as a large cat) sits on the left, on a perch. Cueball and Megan have their arms raised and are speaking to it. Lines in front of them indicate they are backing up.]
:Cueball: ''HEY. STOP.''
:Megan: ''SHOO.''
:*'''stand up straight, speak firmly, and slowly back away''' -> '''mountain lion'''

:[Red square, Cueball and Megan are being chased by a mountain lion, and are running towards a building to their right.]
:*'''run toward a building or hard-topped vehicle''' -> '''mountain lion'''

:[Red square, Cueball and Megan exit a building and approach a mountain lion.]
:Megan: ''Hello.''
:*'''calmly exit the building''' -> '''mountain lion'''

:[Red square, Cueball is putting his hands firmly on a mountain lion.]
:*'''apply firm pressure''' -> '''mountain lion'''

:[Red square, lightning strikes a tree. Cueball is standing outside, with his arms raised, yelling at the lightning. Lines in front of him indicate he is backing up.]
:''BOOM''
:Cueball: ''NO!''
:*'''stand up straight, speak firmly, and slowly back away''' -> '''lightning'''

:[Green square, lightning strikes a tree. Cueball and Megan run toward a building to their right.]
:''BOOM''
:*'''run toward a building or hard-topped vehicle''' -> '''lightning'''

:[Red square, lightning strikes a tree. Cueball and Megan exit a building and approach the lightning-struck tree.]
:''BOOM''
:*''' calmly exit the building''' -> '''lightning'''

:[Red square, lightning strikes a tree. Cueball pushes on the lightning-struck tree.]
:''BOOM''
:*'''apply firm pressure''' -> '''lightning'''

:[Red square, a fire alarm is beeping. Cueball yells at the alarm, with his arms raised. Lines in front of him indicates he is backing up.]
:''BEEP BEEP BEEP''
:Cueball: ''HEY.''
:*'''stand up straight, speak firmly, and slowly back away ''' -> '''fire alarm'''

:[Red square, a fire alarm is beeping next to a building with flames on its roof. Cueball and Megan run toward the burning building.]
:''BEEP BEEP BEEP''
:*'''run toward a building or hard-topped vehicle''' -> '''fire alarm'''

:[Green square, a fire alarm is beeping next to a house with flames on its roof. Cueball and Megan are exiting the burning building.]
:''BEEP BEEP BEEP''
:*'''calmly exit the building''' -> '''fire alarm'''

:[Red square, a fire alarm is beeping, and Cueball is trying to "suppress" the beeping sound. Behind him are flames.]
:''BEEP BEEP BE-eep eep eep''
:*'''apply firm pressure''' -> '''fire alarm'''

:[Red square, Cueball is bleeding from his right arm, and holds it. Megan to his right yells at him with her arms raised. Lines in front of her indicates she is backing up.]
:Megan: ''HEY!''
:Megan: ''STOP IT!''
:*'''stand up straight, speak firmly, and slowly back away''' -> '''bleeding'''

:[Red square, Megan, holding a first aid kit in one hand and a bandage in the other, runs with a bleeding Cueball towards a building to their right.]
:*'''run toward a building or hard-topped vehicle''' -> '''bleeding'''

:[Red square, Megan holds a bandage, and to the ground in front of her is a first aid kit. Cueball is walking to the right of the panel, with an injured and bloody left arm raised.]
:Cueball: Bye!
:*'''calmly exit the building''' -> '''bleeding'''

:[Green square, Cueball sits in a chair and Megan is treating him by putting her hands on his injured limb. Behind her on the ground is a first aid kit.]
:*'''apply firm pressure''' -> '''bleeding'''

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Animals]]
[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Weather]]

Talk:2812: Solar Panel Placement

2023-08-10T05:53:25Z

DownGoer:

Can someone smarter than me do the math on running power lines to a panel on the sun? How long until it would pay for itself?[[Special:Contributions/172.70.214.125|172.70.214.125]] 05:08, 8 August 2023 (UTC)
:$22 million / $0.20 per kWH = 110 million kWH, divide by hours in a year and you get about 12549 kW. Google says the sun is 150 million KM away. IDK the exact details, but a calculator I found online suggests a copper cable with a cross-sectional area of 10m^2 can handle that amount of power transported 150 million KM. The density of copper's about 9 cm/g^3. 150 million km * 10 m^2 * 9 g/cm^3 = 1.35 * 10^16 kg. The cost to get one kilogram to Low-Earth Orbit according to google is >$10,000, let's just use that. Total cost to get to LEO: $1.35 * 10^20. Divide by profit per year => 6.1 trillion years. [[User:Tiln|Tiln]] ([[User talk:Tiln|talk]]) 07:10, 8 August 2023 (UTC)
::"The cost to get one kilogram to Low-Earth Orbit [...], let's just use that." Ummm... It's actually easier to ''leave'' the solar system than to rendezvous with Mercury (never mind attain even closer stability to the Sun's surface).
::I supose you could always go to an orbit a very long way away (near solar-escape) and add a little extra reverse delta-V to zero your orbital movement and then fall down. But you must not miss the pinprick Sun, or you're in a highly elliptic comet-like trajectory (with even higher demands needed to circularise at perihelion), so you need to be very precise about stopping and dodging through the gravity wells of any planets you plunge past. Not that ''not'' missing is going to do you much good, either.
::...hmmm, hang on, maybe that's what the cables back to Earth are for. Spooled in/out just at the right rate (perhaps some bungee-chord included), it's how you stop ''just above'' the Sun's surface (at the limit of the conductive cable, then cut the retarding bungee just as you're stable enough at the bottom of the bounce!) and stay there. Ok, not a problem. It'll work after all{{Actual citation needed}} and I withdraw all my petty objections! [[Special:Contributions/172.71.242.82|172.71.242.82]] 10:43, 8 August 2023 (UTC)
::: And then you'll have to deal with the end of the bungee cord retracting under it's own tension... and since it's no longer tethered to the craft it would probably whip back towards Earth. As an afterthought, have you ever been whipped by a released rubber band? Imagine that... but at a cosmic scale. I'd probably take my chances with the cables. [[User:Xkcdjerry|Xkcdjerry]] ([[User talk:Xkcdjerry|talk]]) 14:39, 8 August 2023 (UTC)
> ''"...IDK the exact details, but a calculator I found online suggests..."''
::I don't disagree with >6 trillion year payback, but the cable-calculation is insufficient data. Say 1,000 Watts. This could be carried as 1 Volt 1,000 Amperes (roughly what comes out of a parallel panel) or as 1,000 Volts 1 Ampere. One is fat copper and hardly any insulation, the other is hair-fine copper and thick insulation. A proper design goes to the relative costs of conductor and insulation.
::Many on-Earth power lines rely on air for insulation and air can be really cheap. These favor extra high voltages. My neighbor has 20,000V; the long line in California is far over 200,000V, near 1MegaVolt. Space-vacuum is even cheaper, perhaps limited by tolerable size of the bushings at the earth station.
::12,549 kW is like 13 MegaWatts. This could be carried as 13MV 1 Amp. Iron (for strength) #30AWG, 0.010" diameter, will carry 3 Amps. #30 is too fine for easy handling. #14 iron, "electric fence wire", is more manageable. About $100 per mile, I remember 93 million miles, so '''9 Billion Bucks for wire'''. Plus deposit on the spools....... and shipping, and stringing.....
::BTW: 10m^2 may be a bogus extrapolation. Wires much over 0.25" 6mm 0.000,03m^2 suffer from internal heating. The cold of space helps, but there is no air convection cooling (no air, and no convection in zero-G).. a 3meter diameter cable won't carry 1% of what you would hope from small-wire experience.
::Yes, superconductors, hi-temp near the sun.... but this won't come until after the convenient Fusion Power which has been right around the corner literally since I was born.
--[[User:PRR|PRR]] ([[User talk:PRR|talk]]) 23:46, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

Congrats, you've just made the universe's smallest Dyson sphere component! [[Special:Contributions/162.158.2.38|162.158.2.38]] 07:33, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

I'd just like to point out an error in Randall's math:
The light incident on the panel would only be from the portion of the surface with line-of-sight to the panel. This fraction is called the "view factor", and has its own Wikipedia page, which I'm too lazy to link since I'm editing this on my phone. Carry on! [[Special:Contributions/172.70.126.217|172.70.126.217]] 13:26, 8 August 2023 (UTC)
:I thought Sun luminosity (total outgoing light, in all directions from all points of itsvsurface) divided by Sun area (total luminescing surface area) multiplied by the 1m² (the actual 'capturable' parts) normalised to the effectively-in-contact portion of the Sun exactly in the way you're defining the view factor. (You could link to {{w|View factor}} by just trying <code><nowiki>{{w|View factor}}</nowiki></code>, if you want, and edit it later if you're wrong.)
:Further out, distance from the Sun factors in as an inverse square relationship, but it'll be negligable when you're practically at the Surface and close to the full 2pi steradian of incident light from a significantly greater area of emitting surface than the unit-area of receiving surface. Once you're at Earth-orbit distance, it's a tad below 70 nanosteradian of "panel view" and almost none of the light even from the directly facing square metre of Sun even comes close to the even smaller solid angle subtending the outwards spread of light.
:Set your panel at the height of various solar-surface features, you might not intercept much of the light (hence division by Sun's area) yet what you'll capture will be significant. Probably well beyond any long-(/medium-, perhaps even short-)term survivability of a lump of plastic, silicon and metals normally stuck on a house roof. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.161|172.70.91.161]] 15:36, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

I was briefly confused because HVAC usually stands for heating, ventilation, and air conditioning, but is here used to mean high-voltage alternating current. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.247.50|172.69.247.50]] 13:31, 8 August 2023 (UTC)
:I often have the ''opposite'' confusion... ;) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.161|172.70.91.161]] 15:36, 8 August 2023 (UTC)
:Ah! Thank you![[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.30|172.70.85.30]] 23:21, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

I ran some calculations on using rechargeable batteries to get power from the Sun to Earth, full markdown file is [https://github.com/xkcdjerry/markdown-pages/blob/main/explainxkcd-2812-talk-calcuations.md here] is anyone to check it out.

TL;DR: it's ''way'' better than running powerlines to Earth but falls slightly shy of putting a panel on Earth, though that may be remedied by more precise data. [[User:Xkcdjerry|Xkcdjerry]] ([[User talk:Xkcdjerry|talk]]) 15:09, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

: New idea: maybe we can make some sort of belt in which one side has fully discharged batteries and the other has fully charged ones, so that gravity balanced out and we only need to do work against friction, that should raise the efficiency greatly, with some engineering we might get it above 0.1% or even 1%, however I don't have exact data on this so this remains the work of someone with more knowledge than me XD [[User:Xkcdjerry|Xkcdjerry]] ([[User talk:Xkcdjerry|talk]]) 15:38, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

The power line loss calculation is not at all valid. Lines on the surface of a planet lose far more power to heating and induction etc. In the cold vacuum of space, efficiency should be excellent. (This should also reference some of the https://what-if.xkcd.com/157/ problems though.) [[Special:Contributions/172.69.65.206|172.69.65.206]] 18:21, 8 August 2023 (UTC)
: Given that standard transmission losses (for long distance HVAC power lines) are [https://iea-etsap.org/E-TechDS/PDF/E12_el-t&d_KV_Apr2014_GSOK.pdf around 3% per 1000 km] and the Sun is 150 million km away, the energy reaching the Earth would be 0.97^(150000), a truly negligible amount (10^-1985 of the input energy). In this case, you'd be better off literally sending huge packs of rechargeable batteries to Earth.
: ~~ Above comment not signed. ~~

:Aside from intentional absurdity, why run wires? Wireless power attenuation is very low in a near-vacuum; just beam the power back via microwave. That's how all the serious proposals work, & it seems both obvious & potentially quite practical... It's really just the survivability of anything parked so close to the sun's ejecta, that seems problematic, to me?
:[[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 17:27, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
::Clearly the above is riffing directly off the "transmission lines" (i.e. strung physical cables) directly mentioned in the title text. Yes, melting/ablation/etc is going to be a major problem (as is sitting the panel directly above the so-called surface of the Sun, which seems to be different from putting it into Very Low Solar Orbit), but the fanciful issue of merely the ''cabling'' being a high initial capital cost is very much a Munrovian flight of fancy that's not particularly unusual in such punchlines.
::Yes, we'd do it differently 'IRL', but this is very much part of the whole treatment. For one thing, who puts just ''one'' 1m² PV panel on a rooftop, like that? (Never mind send it 1AU away from the owner's home.) Round here, the standard seems to be 14 panels (and non-square... 1m x 1.65m if my recent jotted measurements of those used upon a particular roof is not unrepresentative).
::It's a "spherical cow in a vacuum" sort of scenario, and we can choose to accept (or argue against) whatever bits of handwavium we feel like highlighting. So why not educate, inform ''and'' entertain? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.7|172.70.86.7]] 21:16, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

I added an explanation of the two equations Randall used. Not sure how clear they are but I'm fairly certain the math checks out. [[User:DownGoer|DownGoer]] ([[User talk:DownGoer|talk]]) 05:53, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

2812: Solar Panel Placement

2023-08-10T05:48:55Z

DownGoer: Explanation of formula/calculations

{{comic
| number = 2812
| date = August 7, 2023
| title = Solar Panel Placement
| image = solar_panel_placement_2x.png
| imagesize = 506x364px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Getting the utility people to run transmission lines to Earth is expensive, but it will pay for itself in no time.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by an underpaid solar panel installer - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

{{w|Solar panels|Solar panels}} are a relatively common method of supplying/augmenting power for uses from calculators to factories. They work by gathering solar energy reaching the Earth from the Sun and converting it to electricity. More specifically, they absorb vast amounts of photons from the solar rays and use them to knock electrons free. Those electrons produce the flow of electric current around the circuit and convey power onwards to where it is needed.

This comic proposes a solution to the issue of solar panels not generating enough power due to basic physical limitations. Solar panels on Earth have multiple things reducing their efficacy, such as their distance from the Sun as well as atmospheric effects reducing the intensity of light hitting them and the fact that for half of the time they can't generate any power because their position on the Earth is facing away from the Sun. Putting your solar panels in a close orbit above the Sun would eliminate most, if not all, of these issues (and is a partial implementation of the concept of a {{w|Dyson sphere}}, theorised by scientists and used in science fiction). However putting solar panels on the surface of the Sun, as suggested here, introduces many new problems that can negatively impact their energy generating capacity, such as transmission losses, reduced conversion efficiency due to high temperatures and more undesirable effects from their proximity to the Sun, including total destruction of the panels.

The cost-effectiveness of solar panels is a complex topic, involving [https://www.energy.gov/eere/solar/solar-performance-and-efficiency efficiency], installation, and even costs of [https://cen.acs.org/environment/recycling/Solar-panels-face-recycling-challenge-photovoltaic-waste/100/i18 recycling at end-of-life]. The comic demonstrates a simplified calculation, where a solar panel of 1m2 is estimated to return electricity equivalent to around $58/year, using 20% as the efficiency of conversion of sunlight to electricity for an otherwise optimally roof-installed solar panel unit.

To solve this, Randall here proposes a rather more direct solution: place the identical solar panel ''downwards'', on and towards the Sun, rather than ''upwards'' (upon a suitable equitorially-facing sloping roof), from the surface of the Earth. This gives access to substantially more light energy and would (through naïve upscaling of the power flux available, ignoring a number of technical issues) produce greatly increased amounts of energy for the owner.

The title text acknowledges ''some'' difficulties, but hand-waves them away as being surmountable and entirely worthwhile given the theoretical income generated. This may or may not be true, but is actually extremely unlikely at the end of the economies of scale whereby an individual is expected to make their own best use of a single solar panel. Perhaps in this case a better interpretation of "in no time" is "never".

;Calculations
The formula Randall uses in this comic is electricity price × solar irradiance × panel area × panel efficiency = savings.

Electricity price is measured in dollars per kilowatt-hour, a unit commonly used by electric utility companies. In both cases, it is assumed to be $0.20 per kilowatt-hour, which is a [https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.php?t=epmt_5_6_a reasonable estimate].

{{w|Solar irradiance}}, a special case of {{w|irradiance}}, is the total amount of power delivered to a surface by the sun per unit area. Here, it is measured in kilowatt-hours per square meter per day, although watts per square meter is the SI unit. Randall assumes it to be 4 kWh/m2/day on Earth. He also calculates it for the surface of the sun as its total luminosity (electromagnetic power, ≈3.83×1026 W) divided by its total area (≈6.07×1018 m2), which comes out to around 6.31×107 W/m2 or 1.51×106 kWh/m2/day.

Solar panel area is measured in square meters. Here, the panel in both cases is assumed to be 1 square meter in area.

Solar panel efficiency, a dimensionless quantity, is the fraction of solar power that a panel can effectively convert into electricity. Here, both panels are assumed to be 20% efficient, which is a [https://www.forbes.com/home-improvement/solar/best-solar-panels/ reasonable estimate] as well.

Multiplying these quantities together yields a unit of money per unit time (dollars per day with these specific units). For the parameters on Earth, the formula yields $0.16 per day in savings, which can be multiplied by 365 to get approximately $58 per year. For the parameters on the sun, it instead yields $60,400 per day in savings, or approximately $22 million per year.

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

:[Heading:] Option A:

:[A stereotypical house with a single solar panel upon its roof and an arrow from a label:] 1 m2 (south-facing)

:[Formula:] ($0.20/kWh)×(4 kWh/m2/day)×(1 m2)×20% = <big>$58/year</big>

:[Heading:] Option B:

:[A short width of the Sun's undulating 'surface', with two solar prominances/flares and at their height (but above a different part of the surface) a solar panel with some attachment upon its upper surface, depicted horizontally aligned to the Sun and with an arrow from a label:] 1 m2 (downward)

:[Formula:] ($0.20/kWh)×(sun luminosity/sun area)×(1 m2)×20% = <big>$22 million/year</big>

:[Caption below the panel:]
:Solar energy tip: To maximize sun exposure, always orient your panels downward and install them on the surface of the sun.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Tips]]

2813: What To Do

2023-08-10T04:57:49Z

DownGoer: Extra space

{{comic
| number = 2813
| date = August 9, 2023
| title = What To Do
| image = what_to_do_2x.png
| imagesize = 740x723px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = FYI: The 'drop, cover, and hold on' advice only applies to earthquakes. If you encounter a mountain lion, you should absolutely not drop to the ground, crawl under it, and hold on to one of its legs.
}}

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

Similar to [[1890: What to Bring]] and [[1681: Laser Products]], this comic takes four unrelated dangerous situations, and tries to mix-and-match the solutions. Predictably,{{citation needed}} mixing up good advice leads to fairly nonsensical behavior, so only the original four matches are marked green as acceptable.

{| class="wikitable"
! (problem) vs (solution)
! scope="col"| stand up straight, speak firmly, and slowly back away
! scope="col"| run toward a building or hard-topped vehicle
! scope="col"| calmly exit the building
! scope="col"| apply firm pressure
|-
! scope="row"| {{w|mountain lion}}
| This is a common recommendation when encountering a mountain lion (puma, cougar, etc) out in nature.
| Running away may cause the animal to chase you, and it may consider you as prey. If you safely make it into a building or vehicle, you may be able to hide or drive away from the animal and may be safer than being outdoors with it; however, it is safer to approach said building or vehicle ''slowly'', so as to not provoke the animal.
| Exiting a building and approaching the animal is not a good idea. {{citation needed}}
| Applying "firm pressure" to the (wild) animal is a terrible idea and may result in injury. Applying light pressure to a domesticated cat may make it less likely to attack, but wild cats do not respond positively to it.
|-
! scope="row"| lightning
| Yelling at lightning is ineffective. {{citation needed}}
| This is the recommended solution when encountering lightning - to go indoors or inside of a hard-topped vehicle to avoid being struck, or to be ''inside'' some form of faraday cage if lightning does strike your location. Staying inside of a metal vehicle may cause other problems, but it's generally better than being directly struck.
| Exiting a building is a poor idea, as the risk of getting struck by lightning is increased.
| There is no safe way to "apply firm pressure" to lightning.
|-
! scope="row"| fire alarm
| Yelling at a fire alarm is ineffective. {{citation needed}}
| When a fire alarm is sounding, it is terrible advice to run ''towards'' the sound of the alarm, unless you are a trained member of the fire department.
| This is the recommended advice when hearing a fire alarm - to calmly exit the building, and move to a safe location.
| Applying firm pressure to a fire alarm will not result in stopping the alarm, unless you are able to manage to suppress the sound, or the fire alarm sensors. Regardless, this will not stop an active fire. Also, there is no safe way to "apply firm pressure" to fire.
|-
! scope="row"| bleeding
| Yelling at a bleeding person, or at the bleeding itself, is ineffective. {{citation needed}}
| Running toward a building or vehicle is not a typical solution if someone is bleeding. However, there could be medical supplies inside the building or vehicle, so this idea is not completely incorrect.
| Exiting a building is not helpful if someone is bleeding, if either the exiting one is the injured one, or the non-injured one. Although, if someone/something in the building is the cause of the bleeding, this could be a good idea so that the bleeding or injury does not get worse.
| This is the recommended solution to stop bleeding - apply firm pressure to stop the bleeding.
|}

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

:[The comic is laid out like a grid, with situations down the left-hand side (mountain lion / lightning / fire alarm / bleeding) and the solutions across the top (stand up straight, speak firmly, and slowly back away / run toward a building or hard-topped vehicle / calmly exit the building / apply firm pressure ). The grid illustrates the "match-ups", with a green square denoting a "correct" match-up and a red square denoting a bad idea.]

:[From the top left corner, going from left to right, top to bottom, with each first item being on its own line in the grid, the squares are as follows:]

:[Green square, a mountain lion (drawn as a large cat) sits on the left, on a perch. Cueball and Megan have their arms raised and are speaking to it. Lines in front of them indicate they are backing up.]
:Cueball: ''HEY. STOP.''
:Megan: ''SHOO.''
:*'''stand up straight, speak firmly, and slowly back away''' -> '''mountain lion'''

:[Red square, Cueball and Megan are being chased by a mountain lion, and are running towards a building to their right.]
:*'''run toward a building or hard-topped vehicle''' -> '''mountain lion'''

:[Red square, Cueball and Megan exit a building and approach a mountain lion.]
:Megan: ''Hello.''
:*'''calmly exit the building''' -> '''mountain lion'''

:[Red square, Cueball is putting his hands firmly on a mountain lion.]
:*'''apply firm pressure''' -> '''mountain lion'''

:[Red square, lightning strikes a tree. Cueball is standing outside, with his arms raised, yelling at the lightning. Lines in front of him indicate he is backing up.]
:''BOOM''
:Cueball: ''NO!''
:*'''stand up straight, speak firmly, and slowly back away''' -> '''lightning'''

:[Green square, lightning strikes a tree. Cueball and Megan run toward a building to their right.]
:''BOOM''
:*'''run toward a building or hard-topped vehicle''' -> '''lightning'''

:[Red square, lightning strikes a tree. Cueball and Megan exit a building and approach the lightning-struck tree.]
:''BOOM''
:*''' calmly exit the building''' -> '''lightning'''

:[Red square, lightning strikes a tree. Cueball pushes on the lightning-struck tree.]
:''BOOM''
:*'''apply firm pressure''' -> '''lightning'''

:[Red square, a fire alarm is beeping. Cueball yells at the alarm, with his arms raised. Lines in front of him indicates he is backing up.]
:''BEEP BEEP BEEP''
:Cueball: ''HEY.''
:*'''stand up straight, speak firmly, and slowly back away ''' -> '''fire alarm'''

:[Red square, a fire alarm is beeping next to a building with flames on its roof. Cueball and Megan run toward the burning building.]
:''BEEP BEEP BEEP''
:*'''run toward a building or hard-topped vehicle''' -> '''fire alarm'''

:[Green square, a fire alarm is beeping next to a house with flames on its roof. Cueball and Megan are exiting the burning building.]
:''BEEP BEEP BEEP''
:*'''calmly exit the building''' -> '''fire alarm'''

:[Red square, a fire alarm is beeping, and Cueball is trying to "suppress" the beeping sound. Behind him are flames.]
:''BEEP BEEP BE-eep eep eep''
:*'''apply firm pressure''' -> '''fire alarm'''

:[Red square, Cueball is bleeding from his right arm, and holds it. Megan to his right yells at him with her arms raised. Lines in front of her indicates she is backing up.]
:Megan: ''HEY!''
:Megan: ''STOP IT!''
:*'''stand up straight, speak firmly, and slowly back away''' -> '''bleeding'''

:[Red square, Megan, holding a first aid kit in one hand and a bandage in the other, runs with a bleeding Cueball towards a building to their right.]
:*'''run toward a building or hard-topped vehicle''' -> '''bleeding'''

:[Red square, Megan holds a bandage, and to the ground in front of her is a first aid kit. Cueball is walking to the right of the panel, with an injured and bloody left arm raised.]
:Cueball: Bye!
:*'''calmly exit the building''' -> '''bleeding'''

:[Green square, Cueball sits in a chair and Megan is treating him by putting her hands on his injured limb. Behind her on the ground is a first aid kit.]
:*'''apply firm pressure''' -> '''bleeding'''

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Animals]]
[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Weather]]

2813: What To Do

2023-08-10T04:57:24Z

DownGoer: Removed "yes" and "no" to change the flow of the description.

{{comic
| number = 2813
| date = August 9, 2023
| title = What To Do
| image = what_to_do_2x.png
| imagesize = 740x723px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = FYI: The 'drop, cover, and hold on' advice only applies to earthquakes. If you encounter a mountain lion, you should absolutely not drop to the ground, crawl under it, and hold on to one of its legs.
}}

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

Similar to [[1890: What to Bring]] and [[1681: Laser Products]], this comic takes four unrelated dangerous situations, and tries to mix-and-match the solutions. Predictably,{{citation needed}} mixing up good advice leads to fairly nonsensical behavior, so only the original four matches are marked green as acceptable.

{| class="wikitable"
! (problem) vs (solution)
! scope="col"| stand up straight, speak firmly, and slowly back away
! scope="col"| run toward a building or hard-topped vehicle
! scope="col"| calmly exit the building
! scope="col"| apply firm pressure
|-
! scope="row"| {{w|mountain lion}}
| This is a common recommendation when encountering a mountain lion (puma, cougar, etc) out in nature.
| Running away may cause the animal to chase you, and it may consider you as prey. If you safely make it into a building or vehicle, you may be able to hide or drive away from the animal and may be safer than being outdoors with it; however, it is safer to approach said building or vehicle ''slowly'', so as to not provoke the animal.
| Exiting a building and approaching the animal is not a good idea.{{citation needed}}
| Applying "firm pressure" to the (wild) animal is a terrible idea and may result in injury. Applying light pressure to a domesticated cat may make it less likely to attack, but wild cats do not respond positively to it.
|-
! scope="row"| lightning
| Yelling at lightning is ineffective. {{citation needed}}
| This is the recommended solution when encountering lightning - to go indoors or inside of a hard-topped vehicle to avoid being struck, or to be ''inside'' some form of faraday cage if lightning does strike your location. Staying inside of a metal vehicle may cause other problems, but it's generally better than being directly struck.
| Exiting a building is a poor idea, as the risk of getting struck by lightning is increased.
| There is no safe way to "apply firm pressure" to lightning.
|-
! scope="row"| fire alarm
| Yelling at a fire alarm is ineffective. {{citation needed}}
| When a fire alarm is sounding, it is terrible advice to run ''towards'' the sound of the alarm, unless you are a trained member of the fire department.
| This is the recommended advice when hearing a fire alarm - to calmly exit the building, and move to a safe location.
| Applying firm pressure to a fire alarm will not result in stopping the alarm, unless you are able to manage to suppress the sound, or the fire alarm sensors. Regardless, this will not stop an active fire. Also, there is no safe way to "apply firm pressure" to fire.
|-
! scope="row"| bleeding
| Yelling at a bleeding person, or at the bleeding itself, is ineffective. {{citation needed}}
| Running toward a building or vehicle is not a typical solution if someone is bleeding. However, there could be medical supplies inside the building or vehicle, so this idea is not completely incorrect.
| Exiting a building is not helpful if someone is bleeding, if either the exiting one is the injured one, or the non-injured one. Although, if someone/something in the building is the cause of the bleeding, this could be a good idea so that the bleeding or injury does not get worse.
| This is the recommended solution to stop bleeding - apply firm pressure to stop the bleeding.
|}

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

:[The comic is laid out like a grid, with situations down the left-hand side (mountain lion / lightning / fire alarm / bleeding) and the solutions across the top (stand up straight, speak firmly, and slowly back away / run toward a building or hard-topped vehicle / calmly exit the building / apply firm pressure ). The grid illustrates the "match-ups", with a green square denoting a "correct" match-up and a red square denoting a bad idea.]

:[From the top left corner, going from left to right, top to bottom, with each first item being on its own line in the grid, the squares are as follows:]

:[Green square, a mountain lion (drawn as a large cat) sits on the left, on a perch. Cueball and Megan have their arms raised and are speaking to it. Lines in front of them indicate they are backing up.]
:Cueball: ''HEY. STOP.''
:Megan: ''SHOO.''
:*'''stand up straight, speak firmly, and slowly back away''' -> '''mountain lion'''

:[Red square, Cueball and Megan are being chased by a mountain lion, and are running towards a building to their right.]
:*'''run toward a building or hard-topped vehicle''' -> '''mountain lion'''

:[Red square, Cueball and Megan exit a building and approach a mountain lion.]
:Megan: ''Hello.''
:*'''calmly exit the building''' -> '''mountain lion'''

:[Red square, Cueball is putting his hands firmly on a mountain lion.]
:*'''apply firm pressure''' -> '''mountain lion'''

:[Red square, lightning strikes a tree. Cueball is standing outside, with his arms raised, yelling at the lightning. Lines in front of him indicate he is backing up.]
:''BOOM''
:Cueball: ''NO!''
:*'''stand up straight, speak firmly, and slowly back away''' -> '''lightning'''

:[Green square, lightning strikes a tree. Cueball and Megan run toward a building to their right.]
:''BOOM''
:*'''run toward a building or hard-topped vehicle''' -> '''lightning'''

:[Red square, lightning strikes a tree. Cueball and Megan exit a building and approach the lightning-struck tree.]
:''BOOM''
:*''' calmly exit the building''' -> '''lightning'''

:[Red square, lightning strikes a tree. Cueball pushes on the lightning-struck tree.]
:''BOOM''
:*'''apply firm pressure''' -> '''lightning'''

:[Red square, a fire alarm is beeping. Cueball yells at the alarm, with his arms raised. Lines in front of him indicates he is backing up.]
:''BEEP BEEP BEEP''
:Cueball: ''HEY.''
:*'''stand up straight, speak firmly, and slowly back away ''' -> '''fire alarm'''

:[Red square, a fire alarm is beeping next to a building with flames on its roof. Cueball and Megan run toward the burning building.]
:''BEEP BEEP BEEP''
:*'''run toward a building or hard-topped vehicle''' -> '''fire alarm'''

:[Green square, a fire alarm is beeping next to a house with flames on its roof. Cueball and Megan are exiting the burning building.]
:''BEEP BEEP BEEP''
:*'''calmly exit the building''' -> '''fire alarm'''

:[Red square, a fire alarm is beeping, and Cueball is trying to "suppress" the beeping sound. Behind him are flames.]
:''BEEP BEEP BE-eep eep eep''
:*'''apply firm pressure''' -> '''fire alarm'''

:[Red square, Cueball is bleeding from his right arm, and holds it. Megan to his right yells at him with her arms raised. Lines in front of her indicates she is backing up.]
:Megan: ''HEY!''
:Megan: ''STOP IT!''
:*'''stand up straight, speak firmly, and slowly back away''' -> '''bleeding'''

:[Red square, Megan, holding a first aid kit in one hand and a bandage in the other, runs with a bleeding Cueball towards a building to their right.]
:*'''run toward a building or hard-topped vehicle''' -> '''bleeding'''

:[Red square, Megan holds a bandage, and to the ground in front of her is a first aid kit. Cueball is walking to the right of the panel, with an injured and bloody left arm raised.]
:Cueball: Bye!
:*'''calmly exit the building''' -> '''bleeding'''

:[Green square, Cueball sits in a chair and Megan is treating him by putting her hands on his injured limb. Behind her on the ground is a first aid kit.]
:*'''apply firm pressure''' -> '''bleeding'''

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Animals]]
[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Weather]]

2801: Contact Merge

2023-07-13T15:16:01Z

DownGoer: I don't think there's an underscore in the comic?

{{comic
| number = 2801
| date = July 12, 2023
| title = Contact Merge
| image = contact_merge_2x.png
| imagesize = 353x429px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = I actually kind of feel like John and Surf King wouldn't like each other, which is a lot to unpack.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by YOUR OTHER FRIEND WHO EDITS EXPLAINXKCD - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

[[Cueball]] is in contact with someone in a some typical text-chat context, who uses the nickname of "Surf King". His phone also knows of a person called John, which seems to be the real name of the same person, although Cueball appears to have been unaware or forgetful of that fact.

Some algorithm that manages the contact-list has been offering (or trying) to merge the contact details into a single entry, as having the same core details, which intrigues Cueball but without him understanding why. Instead he directs a comment about this to "@Surf King", who apparently did not deign to respond (leaving just a hanging ellipsis). Alternatively, Surf King may have replied with a typed-out ellipses as a common shorthand for being rendered speechless.)

Cueball's follow-up comment is clearly prompted by the realisation that his 'two' contacts both share an interest in surfing, perhaps having been in separate group conversations with both John and Surf King personae in the interim, and he decides to revisit the issue. But from Surf King's response it looks like the gap of time between the start of this 'conversation' and it being added to was on an order of several years.

Exactly how this happened depends a lot on the text-chat system in use, but it's not unknown for a persistive messaging system to keep a thread of contact 'open' to new posts perpetually. It might be expected to see a timestamp upon contributions (e.g. a time of day or how many seconds/minutes/hours ago, with perhaps "just now" or similar for the most recent and a day-/etc count or full datetime once old enough to make that more practical), or even an automated warning that the conversation has been idle for so many days when one tries to {{wiktionary|necro#Verb|'necro'}} such an historic channel of communication. Either Cueball's interface does not feature these things or we see it only as Cueball does, seemingly oblivious to the passage of time.

The title text implies that Cueball (still unaware of the reality of the sitution) has had second thoughts about the compatability of Surf King/John with himself, having picked up further cues from either or both of subsequent chats with him (outside of this particular channel) that reduce the perceived social compatability. This could be easily explained by John being far more (or differently) extrovert when interacting via his more sporty pseudonym, or else by having subtly changed attitudes and interests over time while not actually using one or other identity to update others' impressions of him. Either of these can be due to his perhaps having let the Surf King account of his youth go mostly idle, instead interacting prinarily by his given name to be taken more seriously in professional contexts. For Cueball, [[1674: Adult|being Cueball]], all the details of this (whatever they might ''actually'' be) probably continue to go completely over his head.

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

[Cueball chatting in DMs]

Cueball: @Surf King Weird, my phone keeps trying to merge your contact with John's

Surf King: ...

Cueball: Hey, you two should meet up-He's into surfing too

Surf King: Oh my God

Surf King: Are you serious

Surf King: You've been in this chat with me for '''four years!'''

[Caption below the panel:]

I wonder who holds the record for accidentally doing this the longest.

{{comic discussion}}

Talk:2800: Down

2023-07-10T15:07:27Z

DownGoer:

Shouldn't it be geolocated, to be rotated accordingly? [[Special:Contributions/172.71.160.110|172.71.160.110]] 12:35, 10 July 2023 (UTC)
:You need to know where ''and when'' you are. Taking the 220 degrees (why not 140?) currently in the transcript as correct, that means Mars is at 50° azimuth, which a versatile but overly-fiddly astronomy app I have (why ''doesn't'' it remember I do manual orientation? ...it's flat out wrong when it tries to do it from device settings/current orientation!) suggests that Mars will reach 50° 'up', for me, at about 16:30 local time (could have checked when it fell back down to that again, but I didn't) at which point I could easily be sat facing whichever direction puts "Mars down" at a similar angle to the one seen in the comic. But it will change throughout the day, every day that it applies. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.244|172.70.162.244]] 13:05, 10 July 2023 (UTC)
::I guess that's why Randall hates it so much, it changes continuously. Although he missed a great opportunity for a clever animated comic -- it could calculate the rotation of the scene based on the reader's location and time. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 14:20, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

Why didn't Orson Scott Card get cowriting props for this one?

I'm TenGolf and I started the explanation! [[Special:Contributions/172.70.131.6|172.70.131.6]] 15:03, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

I'm not so sure about the "relative to gravity in actuality" - there's no objective reason why "down" must follow gravity. (Take Ender's Game - "The enemy's gate is down") [[User:DownGoer|DownGoer]] ([[User talk:DownGoer|talk]]) 15:07, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

2798: Room Temperature

2023-07-05T22:48:51Z

DownGoer:

{{comic
| number = 2798
| date = July 5, 2023
| title = Room Temperature
| image = room_temperature_2x.png
| imagesize = 299x352px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = They're also refusing to fund my device that demonstrates uncontrolled hot fusion.
}}

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

Semiconductors are a common electronic component of many modern day devices including computers. Most computers have heat sinks, because semiconductors generate heat when operating and don’t work when they are too hot. However, [[Cueball]] has “discovered” a semiconductor that works in normal temperatures, which already exists, so this “discovery” is not useful to anyone. It appears Cueball has confused room temperature semi-conductors with with [[wikipedia:room temperature superconductors|room temperature ''superconductors'']], which would be a huge boon to the advancement of quantum computers, as most superconductors are predominantly only superconducting at 70 Kelvin or below.

In the title text, he is talking about a device that produces “uncontrollable hot fusion”. This is also known as a [[wikipedia:thermonuclear weapon| thermonuclear weapon]], which is not something Cueball should possess.{{cn}} In reality, “cold fusion” is theoretically a way to produce lots of cheap energy, which many people would be interested in and has received significant research funding as a way to provide environmentally-safe energy for humanity. Again, in proposing something that sounds new he has “invented” something that already exists.

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

:Cueball: My layered silicon crystals can amplify or switch current while sitting right here on the table!
:Ponytail: Uh huh.
:Another Cueball: I see.

:Caption: No one is impressed by my discovery of room-temperature semiconductors.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]
[[Category:Physics]]

2798: Room Temperature

2023-07-05T22:47:52Z

DownGoer: Uncontrolled hot fusion isn’t obviously a thermonuclear weapon, per se.

{{comic
| number = 2798
| date = July 5, 2023
| title = Room Temperature
| image = room_temperature_2x.png
| imagesize = 299x352px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = They're also refusing to fund my device that demonstrates uncontrolled hot fusion.
}}

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

Semiconductors are a common electronic component of many modern day devices including computers. Most computers have heat sinks, because semiconductors generate heat when operating and don’t work when they are too hot. However, [[Cueball]] has “discovered” a semiconductor that works in normal temperatures, which already exists, so this “discovery” is not useful to anyone. The second layer to this joke is the current hunt for room temperature superconductors, which would be a huge boon to the advancement of quantum computers, as most superconductors are predominantly only superconducting at 70 Kelvin or below.

In the title text, he is talking about a device that produces “uncontrollable hot fusion”. This is also known as a [[wikipedia:thermonuclear weapon| thermonuclear weapon]], which is not something Cueball should possess{{cn}}. In reality, “cold fusion” is theoretically a way to produce lots of cheap energy, which many people would be interested in and has received significant research funding as a way to provide environmentally-safe energy for humanity. Again, in proposing something that sounds new he has “invented” something that already exists.

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

:Cueball: My layered silicon crystals can amplify or switch current while sitting right here on the table!
:Ponytail: Uh huh.
:Another Cueball: I see.

:Caption: No one is impressed by my discovery of room-temperature semiconductors.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]
[[Category:Physics]]

Talk:2796: Real Estate Analysis

2023-06-30T17:32:41Z

DownGoer:

I suspect the hover text is reference to the song ‘Rocket Man’ and the lyric ‘Mars ‘ain’t the kind of place to raise your kids’ but I’m not sure it’s strong enough to include. Thoughts? [[Special:Contributions/172.71.242.11|172.71.242.11]] 16:10, 30 June 2023 (UTC)
:I don't know if that would be my first interpretation, but it's not necessarily wrong. Feel free to add it! (This wiki is supposed to include multiple interpretations if they exist.) [[User:DownGoer|DownGoer]] ([[User talk:DownGoer|talk]]) 17:32, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

2796: Real Estate Analysis

2023-06-30T17:29:33Z

DownGoer: Commas made the "walkability" definition seem a bit like a list entry

{{comic
| number = 2796
| date = June 30, 2023
| title = Real Estate Analysis
| image = real_estate_analysis_2x.png
| imagesize = 474x458px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Mars does get a good score on 'noise levels' and 'scenic views,' but the school district ranking isn't great; the only teacher--the Perseverance rover--is too busy with rock samples to teach more than the occasional weekend class.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by an EASILY IMPRESSED URBANIST - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This comic shows a chart ranking locations around our solar system, along two scales: their walkability & their proximity to shops. As this is a "real estate analysis", this comic mocks real life "real estate analyses" for people who are looking to buy a new home. Walkability (a scale of how urban an area is) and proximity to commercial shops and eating establishments can be factors for potential buyers.

Earth is rated as more walkable than other locations within our solar system, probably because humans can walk on much of its surface without immediate & continuous existential need for environmental survival gear (so far). Earth also rates high on the "shops and restaurants" scale because its surface hosts all commercial establishments known to humans. Thus, Randall makes the claim "I get why this place is so popular".

The alt text comments that Mars did score high on the 'noise levels' and 'scenic views' scores: Having a thinner atmosphere and having (close to) zero sources of manmade noise, Mars is certainly silent, a quality that is desirable when searching for a home as lower noise levels help maintain a calm and relaxed lifestyle, and its large, barren scenery has been abundantly documented by the several rovers sent to its surface. However, it then states the 'school district' ranking (proximity to a good schooling system, which is also desirable, especially by families) is rather poor on account of there being only one available teacher - the rover ''Perseverance'' - and it being too busy with its rock samples. ''Perseverance'' is (at the time of this comic's publication) a still-active Mars rover whose main purpose is to examine minerals from Mars' surface and scan them for signs compatible with ancient life: while it could hypothetically serve as a teacher (using its memory banks as teaching material, for instance), doing so would greatly interfere with its main mission if done regularly.

Randall appears to have excluded Pluto from the chart, probably due to its demotion from planet to dwarf planet.

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

:[A graph is shown. Both axes have a label with an arrow and 10 visible ticks.]
:Y-axis: Walkability score
:X-axis: Proximity to shops and restaurants
:[Labels of multiple dots at around (0,0), clockwise:]
:Mars, The Moon, Mercury, Venus, Neptune, Uranus, Saturn, Jupiter
:[Label of a dot at roughly (9.5,9.5):]
:Earth

:[Caption below the panel:]
:After doing a real estate analysis, I get why this place is so popular.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Astronomy]]
[[Category:Mars rovers]]

Talk:164: Playing Devil's Advocate to Win

2023-06-30T15:20:53Z

DownGoer:

{{notice|As this is a controversial topic, there may be several {{rw|climate_change|denialist}} trolls lurking below. Beware of feeding them.|image=Troll.png}}
I'm sure that no matter what scientific evidence about global warming is, the political issue lost contact with science long ago. I mean, do we really need global warming to prove that burning all fossil fuels and deforesting most of planet is bad? Also, our ability to endanger species doesn't seem limited to global warming. And the so-called solutions to global warming? This is not about science. It's a fight between people who are getting rich on oil and people who are getting rich on projects labelled as ecological. And both sides are manipulating science data - one to deny the global warming, one to make it even worse that it is. ... I don't believe anyone have working solution to global warming which doesn't involve at least 3 billions dead humans. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 23:14, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

We have a global warming since the last twenty thousand years. And we are still at a cold period (on long term meanings). A real global warming would bring us back to the conditions of the dinosaur ages.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 21:15, 28 July 2013 (UTC)
:Correct. And it would be catastrophic on a global scale. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.237.64|108.162.237.64]] 17:48, 24 January 2014 (UTC)
:"Long term meanings" aren't important here. Humans couldn't have survived at the "long term average" - we evolved to live in the "cold period," and dinosaur age conditions would likely kill us and many other species. [[User:DownGoer|DownGoer]] ([[User talk:DownGoer|talk]]) 15:20, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

They have totally messed with old temperature data. They "adjust" old thermometers to make them fit the data they want. [[Special:Contributions/184.66.160.91|184.66.160.91]] 03:30, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

:Why exactly do you think that? It's a pretty bold claim to suggest that every source of temperature data is fudged, especially because many people in powerful positions don't believe in climate changes and thus have no motivation to keep the secret. That being said, if you have definitive evidence of these alterations, I might change my mind. [[User:DownGoer|DownGoer]] ([[User talk:DownGoer|talk]]) 06:26, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

You don't want to hear this, but my take is:
1. Global warming is probably real.
2. Global warming is probably exacerbated by human activity.
3. There is no possible way of averting global warming by reducing the output of greenhouse gases from human activity. WILL NOT HAPPEN.
Oh well! As Cueball says, it should be a wild ride. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.223|108.162.219.223]] 01:13, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

Note: "if we keep people from understanding just a little longer" ... as if someone need to actively do something to prevent majority of people of understanding hard to explain scientific topic. Most people still didn't accepted the fact that debts are supposed to be paid, and that's simple arithmetics. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 10:11, 24 January 2014 (UTC)
:Actually, debt owed by entities that emit currency is very different from debts owed by other economic entities. It's very far from "simple arithmetics" (and that's the reason there is such a thing as a central bank). {{unsigned ip|173.245.53.197}}

Thanks 199.27.128.144 for your fix on my bad HTML mishap here. If you would have an account here I could talk to you directly. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 00:19, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

It's been eight years since this comic, so I guess it ended up being the latter. Except I don't think anyone is embarrassed for the inaccuracies in the climate models. [http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/02/06/satellites-show-no-global-warming-for-17-years-5-months/ No warming for 17 years 5 months][[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.15|108.162.219.15]] 15:12, 5 March 2014 (UTC)
* The idea that there has been a "pause" in global warming has LONG since been debunked as completely false. And you're citing a website that is based on science denial and deliberately false claims about climate change.
* Whoa, that was some tricky axis manipulating. Look at the difference in scale between the positive and negative y-axis: it makes it look like temperature changes balances out by exaggerating the decreases. Also to note, it shows the change in temperature, not actual temperature. A better source: https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/global-temperature/ [[Special:Contributions/172.68.182.98|172.68.182.98]]
*[[Special:Contributions/172.68.182.98|172.68.182.98]] is right, though the axis manipulation might not be important (assuming they actual did the regression). What is ''really'' important is what the chart was actually graphing. It's graph the trend in temperatures ''changes''. The regression line is constant at ~0.24 degrees Celsius per year. That means that on average, the world has been warming a quarter of a degree Celsius. That may seem small, but even small changes can be dangerous. (Source: [https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/climate-change-and-health] WHO). Also, that's only one source made by one person, who {{w|Christopher_Monckton,_3rd_Viscount_Monckton_of_Brenchley|doesn't even have a degree in math or science}}. That doesn't make everything he says automatically false, but it does suggest that he may not know how to properly analyze a graph or take a regression. [[User:DownGoer|DownGoer]] ([[User talk:DownGoer|talk]]) 06:26, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

:The science of global warming is irrelevant. Every posed ecological disaster hasn't been an effort to advert it, but a political ploy to shift money from earners to consumers. Why did plans like putting windmills everywhere (which requires a lot of oil and oil burning, and uses up natural water supplies) get all the government funding, while actual solutions like fuel cells and nuclear got shut down (which CAN solve our dependency on oil if they only had the same funding as the wind/solar groups)? Because the top liberals were heavily invested in wind/solar, and were using politics as a way to give that group more financial success than the market would naturally allow. Why did they invest in such failures? Because they didn't understand the technology and science of the problem. If liberals had invested in fuel cell and nuclear, they would have won.[[User:Cflare|Cflare]] ([[User talk:Cflare|talk]]) 15:48, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

Perhaps because they were scared of nuclear because of meltdowns. As for fuel cells, I have no idea why they did that. [[User:Transuranium|Transuranium]] ([[User talk:Transuranium|talk]]) 10:31, 27 May 2016 (UTC)Transuranium

:Might want to look at the last 17 years and 6 months or maybe even 7 months. {{unsigned|Flewk}}

I suspect that this is the ONLY scientific question referenced in this comment that cites a percentage of people who agree with your position as a scientific argument. Just sayin'. Signed, [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.230|108.162.216.230]] 15:36, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

Talk:2794: Alphabet Notes

2023-06-29T05:18:59Z

DownGoer:

No, we must rid ourselves of the redundant C. Also we need to bring back Ð and Þ. [[User:SDSpivey|SDSpivey]] ([[User talk:SDSpivey|talk]]) 19:20, 26 June 2023 (UTC)
:I agree with your second point, but not your first (This is why: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chpT0TzietQ) [[explain_xkcd:Community_portal/Miscellaneous#Help_with_Creating_a_User_Page|Trogdor147]] ([[explain_xkcd:Community_portal/Miscellaneous#Help_with_Creating_a_User_Page|talk]]) 01:04, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
:I agree, as long as we also bring back ᵹ. [[User:PxP|PxP]] 19:57, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

daMNation, randoMNess, chiMNey, gyMNastics, autuMN are not fancy words [[Special:Contributions/172.70.250.204|172.70.250.204]] 19:43, 26 June 2023 (UTC)
:Autumn is to me! (Fall is the standard, Autumn is fancy) [[User:PxP|PxP]] 19:58, 28 June 2023
:To me "Autumn" is normal. "Fall" only comes from furriners... [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.131|172.70.86.131]] 00:46, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

You can't have rUIn without U and I together!

Or UI! [[User:GetPunnedOn|GetPunnedOn]] ([[User talk:GetPunnedOn|talk]]) 22:35, 26 June 2023 (UTC) (Reply to above text)

We need to bring back way more letters: https://youtu.be/wJxKyh9e5_A
--[[Special:Contributions/172.71.246.84|172.71.246.84]] 20:33, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

I would be useful to include the letter frequency table from Wikipedia at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_frequency but we don't appear to have the "bartable" template from wikipedia to display bar charts. It would explain a lot about the haunted letters in particular to have it.

The circled JK is clearly referencing the text-language abbreviation for "just kidding", and the bracketed VW... I'm not sure but, it might have to do with Volkswagen, or the spikiness of the letters, or "why isn't W called double-V or at least next to the U".
[[Special:Contributions/172.70.174.166|172.70.174.166]] 21:18, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

:I think the bracketed V and W is referencing the fact that W is equivalent to two V’s together. (Or the fact that W originated as VV) —[[User:Purah126|Purah126]] ([[User talk:Purah126|talk]]) 23:39, 26 June 2023 (UTC)
: Huh, I always thought "jk" was for "joke". Luckily it doesn't change its meaning... (unlike the person who thought "LOL" was for "Lots of Love" https://www.quora.com/Does-LOL-stand-for-Love-you-loads-or-Lots-of-love ) [[User:Elektrizikekswerk|Elektrizikekswerk]] ([[User talk:Elektrizikekswerk|talk]]) 07:19, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

:In some languages, such as French, w is called "double v" (or its literal transaltion), which makes more sense. :-) --[[User:Itub|Itub]] ([[User talk:Itub|talk]]) 11:28, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

Added the Twinkle Twinkle justification into the existing explanation. But I might be talking out of my hat, as I'm British and only really know the US treatment from imported media. (Sesame Street? No, I can only bring to mind their counting 1-12 song. And "Conjunction Junction".) The UK's "alphabet" recital form, at least when I was that young, is far less musical. And tends to rhyme "Z" with "Drop dead!", naturally. ;) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.183|172.70.90.183]] 22:06, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

Pretty sure he isn't questioning the position of Q as much as its inclusion. If we wanted to reform English spelling, we could get rid of Q pretty kwiklee.[[Special:Contributions/172.71.26.207|172.71.26.207]] 23:29, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

: Or maybe it's that old joke about why U doesn't follow Q in the alphabet? [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.107|141.101.98.107]] 10:09, 27 June 2023 (UTC) Artinum

I can't be the only one who thinks there's a dirty joke in the line '"D" is solid, at least' [[Special:Contributions/172.71.150.140|172.71.150.140]] 00:18, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
:I didn't. I think that joke is simply that D is a simple, enclosed shape. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 04:27, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
:B is also a simple, enclosed shape. I thought that the 'no heavy hitters' comment might be a reference to 'ETAION SHRDLU', the 12 most common letters in written English arranged in descending order of frequency - since it contains neither B nor C (nor, indeed, F or G).[[Special:Contributions/172.69.79.146|172.69.79.146]] 05:12, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
:B has a concave feature so is not so simple a shape as D. D is the only consonant whose [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convex_hull convex hull] maintains the shape of the letter. (Imagine snapping a rubber band around the letter. The vowels I and O also have this property... at least with no serifs on the I, as drawn.) [[User:Davidhbrown|Davidhbrown]] ([[User talk:Davidhbrown|talk]]) 11:49, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

PxP: I must ask, does this has anything to do with Alphabet Lore by Mike Salcedo? I feel it might be, with Q being weird and all. 12:16, 27 June 2023 (EST)

To quote my latest edit-comment: "Why number-points, anyway? Just *s would make more sense than #s, as there's no need to establish an order in most cases, especially for multi-glyph annotations" (...like the wide spread of vowels(+Y), especially). I see no need for ordinal bullet-points, but (which would have helped my prior edit, that I'd forgotten to Preview first, thus had broken/restarted the numbering) it is a prime candidate for the more traditional wikitable layout. Columns of "Letter(s), Red Comment, Possible Reason(s)" would probably suffice. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.171|172.70.162.171]] 16:43, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

In order for it to BE an 'alphabet', it has to begin with the equivalent letters for 'Alpha' and 'Beta'. Any logographic system that doesn't begin with the local equivalent of A and B (such as Chinese pinyin, or Norse runes) isn't an alphabet, no matter how many times the plebs claim it is...[[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.214|172.70.91.214]] 03:44, 28 June 2023 (UTC)
:Not necessarily. The name of a word doesn't necessarily correspond 1:1 with its meaning. And even if "alphabet" was originally created with that meaning (which it may or may not have), meanings can change over time. Wikipedia's {{w|Alphabet}} article lists many writing systems that aren't Latin-derived; the accepted meaning of an alphabet is any writing system that associates symbols with sounds. Not that I'm going to convince you of anything of course - your use of the word "plebs" implies that you're not willing to change your mind. [[User:DownGoer|DownGoer]] ([[User talk:DownGoer|talk]]) 05:18, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

The strong RST cluster could also reference the keys on the colemak keyboard layout where the three stronger fingers (ring, middle, left) of the left-hand sit on those keys

None of the latest comics have been added to this site around when they were posted recently. —[[Special:Contributions/172.70.174.166|172.70.174.166]] 14:12, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

Talk:2794: Alphabet Notes

2023-06-29T05:16:41Z

DownGoer:

No, we must rid ourselves of the redundant C. Also we need to bring back Ð and Þ. [[User:SDSpivey|SDSpivey]] ([[User talk:SDSpivey|talk]]) 19:20, 26 June 2023 (UTC)
:I agree with your second point, but not your first (This is why: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chpT0TzietQ) [[explain_xkcd:Community_portal/Miscellaneous#Help_with_Creating_a_User_Page|Trogdor147]] ([[explain_xkcd:Community_portal/Miscellaneous#Help_with_Creating_a_User_Page|talk]]) 01:04, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
:I agree, as long as we also bring back ᵹ. [[User:PxP|PxP]] 19:57, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

daMNation, randoMNess, chiMNey, gyMNastics, autuMN are not fancy words [[Special:Contributions/172.70.250.204|172.70.250.204]] 19:43, 26 June 2023 (UTC)
:Autumn is to me! (Fall is the standard, Autumn is fancy) [[User:PxP|PxP]] 19:58, 28 June 2023
:To me "Autumn" is normal. "Fall" only comes from furriners... [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.131|172.70.86.131]] 00:46, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

You can't have rUIn without U and I together!

Or UI! [[User:GetPunnedOn|GetPunnedOn]] ([[User talk:GetPunnedOn|talk]]) 22:35, 26 June 2023 (UTC) (Reply to above text)

We need to bring back way more letters: https://youtu.be/wJxKyh9e5_A
--[[Special:Contributions/172.71.246.84|172.71.246.84]] 20:33, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

I would be useful to include the letter frequency table from Wikipedia at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_frequency but we don't appear to have the "bartable" template from wikipedia to display bar charts. It would explain a lot about the haunted letters in particular to have it.

The circled JK is clearly referencing the text-language abbreviation for "just kidding", and the bracketed VW... I'm not sure but, it might have to do with Volkswagen, or the spikiness of the letters, or "why isn't W called double-V or at least next to the U".
[[Special:Contributions/172.70.174.166|172.70.174.166]] 21:18, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

:I think the bracketed V and W is referencing the fact that W is equivalent to two V’s together. (Or the fact that W originated as VV) —[[User:Purah126|Purah126]] ([[User talk:Purah126|talk]]) 23:39, 26 June 2023 (UTC)
: Huh, I always thought "jk" was for "joke". Luckily it doesn't change its meaning... (unlike the person who thought "LOL" was for "Lots of Love" https://www.quora.com/Does-LOL-stand-for-Love-you-loads-or-Lots-of-love ) [[User:Elektrizikekswerk|Elektrizikekswerk]] ([[User talk:Elektrizikekswerk|talk]]) 07:19, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

:In some languages, such as French, w is called "double v" (or its literal transaltion), which makes more sense. :-) --[[User:Itub|Itub]] ([[User talk:Itub|talk]]) 11:28, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

Added the Twinkle Twinkle justification into the existing explanation. But I might be talking out of my hat, as I'm British and only really know the US treatment from imported media. (Sesame Street? No, I can only bring to mind their counting 1-12 song. And "Conjunction Junction".) The UK's "alphabet" recital form, at least when I was that young, is far less musical. And tends to rhyme "Z" with "Drop dead!", naturally. ;) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.183|172.70.90.183]] 22:06, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

Pretty sure he isn't questioning the position of Q as much as its inclusion. If we wanted to reform English spelling, we could get rid of Q pretty kwiklee.[[Special:Contributions/172.71.26.207|172.71.26.207]] 23:29, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

: Or maybe it's that old joke about why U doesn't follow Q in the alphabet? [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.107|141.101.98.107]] 10:09, 27 June 2023 (UTC) Artinum

I can't be the only one who thinks there's a dirty joke in the line '"D" is solid, at least' [[Special:Contributions/172.71.150.140|172.71.150.140]] 00:18, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
:I didn't. I think that joke is simply that D is a simple, enclosed shape. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 04:27, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
:B is also a simple, enclosed shape. I thought that the 'no heavy hitters' comment might be a reference to 'ETAION SHRDLU', the 12 most common letters in written English arranged in descending order of frequency - since it contains neither B nor C (nor, indeed, F or G).[[Special:Contributions/172.69.79.146|172.69.79.146]] 05:12, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
:B has a concave feature so is not so simple a shape as D. D is the only consonant whose [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convex_hull convex hull] maintains the shape of the letter. (Imagine snapping a rubber band around the letter. The vowels I and O also have this property... at least with no serifs on the I, as drawn.) [[User:Davidhbrown|Davidhbrown]] ([[User talk:Davidhbrown|talk]]) 11:49, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

PxP: I must ask, does this has anything to do with Alphabet Lore by Mike Salcedo? I feel it might be, with Q being weird and all. 12:16, 27 June 2023 (EST)

To quote my latest edit-comment: "Why number-points, anyway? Just *s would make more sense than #s, as there's no need to establish an order in most cases, especially for multi-glyph annotations" (...like the wide spread of vowels(+Y), especially). I see no need for ordinal bullet-points, but (which would have helped my prior edit, that I'd forgotten to Preview first, thus had broken/restarted the numbering) it is a prime candidate for the more traditional wikitable layout. Columns of "Letter(s), Red Comment, Possible Reason(s)" would probably suffice. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.171|172.70.162.171]] 16:43, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

In order for it to BE an 'alphabet', it has to begin with the equivalent letters for 'Alpha' and 'Beta'. Any logographic system that doesn't begin with the local equivalent of A and B (such as Chinese pinyin, or Norse runes) isn't an alphabet, no matter how many times the plebs claim it is...[[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.214|172.70.91.214]] 03:44, 28 June 2023 (UTC)
:Not necessarily. The name of a word doesn't necessarily correspond 1:1 with its meaning. And even if "alphabet" was originally created with that meaning (which it may or may not have), meanings can change over time. Wikipedia's {{w|Alphabet}} article lists many writing systems that aren't Latin-derived; the accepted meaning of an alphabet is any writing system that associates symbols with sounds. [[User:DownGoer|DownGoer]] ([[User talk:DownGoer|talk]]) 05:16, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

The strong RST cluster could also reference the keys on the colemak keyboard layout where the three stronger fingers (ring, middle, left) of the left-hand sit on those keys

None of the latest comics have been added to this site around when they were posted recently. —[[Special:Contributions/172.70.174.166|172.70.174.166]] 14:12, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

263: Certainty

2023-06-27T05:00:07Z

DownGoer: Expanded dialogue description.

{{comic
| number = 263
| date = May 18, 2007
| title = Certainty
| image = certainty.png
| titletext = a(b+c)=(ab)+(ac). Politicize that, bitches.
}}

==Explanation==
[[Megan]] and [[Cueball]] are teachers in this comic, talking about their students and the political discussions with them. Megan expresses concern that political discussions shake her beliefs in what's true, then worries that if she cannot trust herself to determine the truth, she can't trust herself to teach it. Cueball reassures her by saying that it's not possible to teach a singular, real truth. However, he is interrupted by a harrumph of the mathematics teacher [[Miss Lenhart]] and states that Mathematics is an exception (because math can actually be ''proved'', conclusively). [[Randall]] likes mathematics because mathematical political discussions are not possible.

The title text shows a simple valid mathematical equation, the {{w|distributive property}}, and Randall is daring one to politicize it. Though this happened years after the comic was published, [https://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/01/11/1178129/-Schools-spreading-socialism-by-teaching-the-distributive-property| people have in fact politicized the distributive property], claiming that teaching it promoted socialism.

==Transcript==
:[A door seen from a hallway, with "Teachers' Lounge" on the glass. Next to the door, a framed "Award" certificate is displayed. Silhouetted through the glass, two teachers can be seen talking.]
:Megan: My students drew me into another political argument.
:Cueball: Eh; it happens.
:Megan: Lately, political debates bother me. They just show how good smart people are at rationalizing.
:[Internal view of the room. The two teachers, Megan and Cueball, continue talking. Megan has her arms raised. Miss Lenhart is seen reading a book on a sofa.]
:Megan: The world is so complicated - the more I learn, the less clear anything gets. There are too many ideas and arguments to pick and choose from. How can I trust myself to know the truth about anything?
:Megan: And if everything I know is so shaky, what on Earth am I doing teaching?

:[Megan and Cueball continue talking. Cueball has his hand raised. Miss Lenhart has looked up from her book.]
:Cueball: I guess you just do your best. No one can impart perfect universal truths to their students.
:Miss Lenhart: *ahem*
:Cueball: ...Except math teachers.
:Miss Lenhart: Thank you.

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

Talk:255: Subjectivity

2023-06-27T04:53:06Z

DownGoer:

I did the same thing once when the park was still in existence. The slide was only 12-15' high. That was huge though compared to the "kiddy" slide which was only 6' or so.

Still it was a disappointment. I always remember that thing as being as tall as the trees nearby.

These days you can't even find a slide let alone a tall one. We've lost our adventurous spirit and it starts with the children. [[User:Jakee308|Jakee308]] ([[User talk:Jakee308|talk]]) 20:15, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

About the Aslan reference. In one of the later books one of the children meets Aslan and he is bigger than he used to be. Aslan answers that it is because the child himself (or herself) has grown. Any other Narnia nerd out there remembers this or is it just my memory making things up for me? {{unsigned ip|198.41.241.73}}

Narnia nerd here... “Aslan" said Lucy "you're bigger". "That is because you are older, little one" answered he. "Not because you are?" "I am not. But every year you grow, you will find me bigger".” (C.S. Lewis, Prince Caspian) [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.165|108.162.219.165]] 09:28, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

Be bold! You two were free to edit the wiki to expand on the Aslan reference if you wanted, and the page would've been better for it! (Other people can always revert edits if they turn out to be inaccurate.) [[User:DownGoer|DownGoer]] ([[User talk:DownGoer|talk]]) 04:53, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

255: Subjectivity

2023-06-27T04:51:11Z

DownGoer: Lengthened "slide" explanation.

{{comic
| number = 255
| date = April 30, 2007
| title = Subjectivity
| image = subjectivity.png
| titletext = Or maybe the slide is like Aslan, and gets taller as I do (except without the feeling of discomfort when I reach my teens and suddenly get the Christ stuff)
}}

==Explanation==
It is a common trope that as a child, objects that an adult would consider small seem large and imposing. [[Cueball]] initially seems to have undergone something similar, as he describes a slide from his playground in a manner typical of such an experience. Instead, however, he finds that his initial perception was correct - the slide appeared large because it was actually extremely tall, not because his childhood self exaggerated its height. (As a child, it's roughly nine times his height; as an adult, it's only about triple.)

The title text references {{w|Aslan}}, a lion from ''{{w|The Chronicles of Narnia}}''. In ''{{w|Prince Caspian}}'', the fourth chronological book in the series, {{w|Lucy Pevensie}} tells him that he has grown since she last saw him. Aslan tells her that this is because she has grown; as she grew up, he grew in size to match her. Aslan is often regarded as a Christ figure, but since ''Narnia'' is a children's series, many readers don't realize this until long after they've read the books – another instance of how perspective changes with age, and of the comic's title, "subjectivity."

==Transcript==
:[A tall slide, seen from the ground.]
:When I was a kid, my school playground had a really tall slide that always made me nervous.

:[A tall slide, seen from the side.]
:We moved away, but the slide stuck in my memory, becoming a skyscraping monster.

:[A car and a sign pointing to school zone.]
:Years later, I was passing through my old town and remembered the playground.
:I drove to the school to see the slide that my inner six-year-old thought was so towering.

:[A huge slide, Cueball beside it.]
:AND IT WAS HUGE!
:I KNEW IT!

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Chronicles of Narnia]]

255: Subjectivity

2023-06-27T04:46:17Z

DownGoer: Explained Narnia reference

{{comic
| number = 255
| date = April 30, 2007
| title = Subjectivity
| image = subjectivity.png
| titletext = Or maybe the slide is like Aslan, and gets taller as I do (except without the feeling of discomfort when I reach my teens and suddenly get the Christ stuff)
}}

==Explanation==
Parodying the experience of finding that things you saw as a child are much smaller than you'd perceived them to be, [[Cueball]] is convinced that this will be the case with his childhood slide, only to find that it is indeed quite large. (As a child, it's roughly nine times his height; as an adult, it's only about triple.)

The title text references {{w|Aslan}}, a lion from ''{{w|The Chronicles of Narnia}}''. In ''{{w|Prince Caspian}}'', the fourth chronological book in the series, {{w|Lucy Pevensie}} tells him that he has grown since she last saw him. Aslan tells her that this is because she has grown; as she grew up, he grew in size to match her. Aslan is often regarded as a Christ figure, but since ''Narnia'' is a children's series, many readers don't realize this until long after they've read the books – another instance of how perspective changes with age, and of the comic's title, "subjectivity."

==Transcript==
:[A tall slide, seen from the ground.]
:When I was a kid, my school playground had a really tall slide that always made me nervous.

:[A tall slide, seen from the side.]
:We moved away, but the slide stuck in my memory, becoming a skyscraping monster.

:[A car and a sign pointing to school zone.]
:Years later, I was passing through my old town and remembered the playground.
:I drove to the school to see the slide that my inner six-year-old thought was so towering.

:[A huge slide, Cueball beside it.]
:AND IT WAS HUGE!
:I KNEW IT!

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Chronicles of Narnia]]

250: Snopes

2023-06-27T04:40:53Z

DownGoer: Explanation of circular argument

{{comic
| number = 250
| date = April 18, 2007
| title = Snopes
| image = snopes.png
| titletext = The MythBusters are even more sinister.
}}
==Explanation==
{{w|Snopes}} is a popular website for checking the validity of {{w|Urban legend|urban legends}}. Here, one [[Cueball]] asks the other to check before sending him urban legends. Cueball replies with another urban legend saying that Snopes, the website the first Cueball asks him to check, uses spam to keep their audience.

Naturally, it didn't take long for an urban legend to suggest that the proprietors of Snopes also direct a spam operation to create more urban legends and disseminate them, just so they'll continue to have an audience. One of the Cueballs tries to come to Snopes' defense, only to realize that the debunking was done by Snopes itself, creating a {{w|Circular reasoning|circular, invalid argument}}. (Snopes said we can trust Snopes, which we can trust because Snopes said we can trust Snopes, which we can trust because...)

The title text suggests that {{w|MythBusters}}, another group that debunks myths, also participate in the practice of spreading misinformation for the opportunity to test it. Indeed, the show has occasionally been accused of spending undue attention on unnecessary filler "myths" just for the sake of filling out the season.

==Transcript==
:[Two Cueballs sit at a table across from each other, typing on their laptops.]
:Cueball: Another urban legend? You should check out Snopes before sending me this stuff.
:Friend: Oops; yeah.
:Cueball: Man, Snopes is really great--independent fact-checkers trawling our collective discourse, filtering out misinformation.

:[The Cueballs are still sitting at the table across from each other, looking at each other.]
:Friend: Yeah, but they have their dark side. The couple that runs snopes.com also runs a network of spam servers that start many of those forwarded stories in the first place, ensuring they'll always have business.

:[Cueball on the left is typing on his laptop, while the second Cueball is sitting, stunned.]
:Cueball: That's absurd. Plus, it's definitely not true--it was debunked by...
:Friend: Yes?
:Cueball: ...Oh my God.

==Trivia==
Snopes is also mentioned in the much later comic [[1081: Argument Victory]] in a much more positive light.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Conspiracy theory]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]
[[Category:Internet]]

247: Factoring the Time

2023-06-27T04:37:12Z

DownGoer: I personally think it's funnier if the [Citation needed] catches you off guard. Revert it if you disagree.

{{comic
| number = 247
| date = April 11, 2007
| title = Factoring the Time
| image = factoring_the_time.png
| titletext = I occasionally do this with mile markers on the highway.
}}
==Explanation==
In this comic, [[Cueball]] is bored, so he is calculating the {{w|Prime factor|prime factors}} of the time shown on the clock. Cueball has been doing this for almost two hours (from 1:00 pm to 2:53 pm). The number 2 is the smallest prime but is not a factor of 253, which is an odd number. The smallest prime factor of 253 is 11, which makes the other factor 23.

His co-worker decides to mess with Cueball, so he switches the clock from 12-hour time (2:53 pm) to 24-hour time (14:53). This makes factorization more difficult, as the time now shown is a four digit number rather than a three digit number. The number 1,453 is actually a prime number, and so has no factors but one and itself. Cueball has less than one minute to determine this, which is nearly impossible to do without practice. In this time, Cueball would have to calculate if 1,453 is divisible by all primes between 2 and the square root of 1,453, which are 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29, 31, and 37. However, there are {{w|Divisibility_rule|tricks}} to help you do this more quickly than doing {{w|Long_division|long divisions}}.

In the title text, [[Randall]] claims that he applies the same challenge to {{w|highway location marker}}s. At highway speeds (60+ mph), they would show up at least once per minute. Combined with the need to also concentrate on driving, factorizing numbers in the allowed time becomes much more difficult despite the lower numbers on the markers. Also, paying attention to the road markers instead of the road itself would be quite terrifying. In some cases, it could cause a car crash at more than 60 mph, which would be bad.{{Citation needed}}

An additional challenge would be to change the mile markers to kilometer markers (because as with the clock format, the latter is more common outside of the USA). That would result in the marker being a 1.6 times larger number, and thus harder to factor. Of course, factoring is now a secondary problem, as markers would appear 1.6 times as frequently.

==Transcript==
:[One man is sitting at a computer. Cueball sits at a separate desk. There is a clock that reads 2:53.]
:Cueball: 253 is 11x23
:Man at computer: What?
:Cueball: I'm factoring the time.

:[Zoomed in on Cueball, who explains himself.]
:Cueball: I have nothing to do, so I'm trying to calculate the prime factors of the time each minute before it changes.
:Cueball: It was easy when I started at 1:00, but with each hour the number gets bigger
:Cueball: I wonder how long I can keep up.

:[Zoomed back out on the man and Cueball. The man at the desk reaches back and touches the clock.]
:''BEEP''

:[Clock now reads 14:53.]
:Cueball: Hey!
:Man at computer: Think fast.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]
[[Category:Number theory]]

245: Floor Tiles

2023-06-27T04:32:55Z

DownGoer: Explanation of Cueball's rule

{{comic
| number = 245
| date = April 6, 2007
| title = Floor Tiles
| image = floor_tiles.png
| titletext = The worst part is when sidewalk cracks are out-of-sync with your natural stride.
}}

==Explanation==
[[Cueball]] is walking according to a certain pattern of floor tiles, which makes sense to him in his head (the same pattern was first introduced in [[207: What xkcd Means]]). But as his friend asks him why he is walking funny, he realizes that the algorithm he is using for walking on floor tiles would be so tedious and time-consuming to explain to his friend that he decides instead to simply defend himself and say that he isn't walking funny, this being far simpler than trying to show his friend exactly how his logic works. Alternatively, he is too embarrassed to explain his algorithm.

Cueball has imagined a complex diagram in his head. However, the diagram does not accurately reflect the floor, as the two main rows with black tiles in the foreground are only separated by one row of white tiles instead of two. This could possibly be an error on Randall's part, as the tiles in the background follow the pattern shown in the imagined diagram.

Cueball's rule appears to be that he can step on any black tiles, as well as any white tiles that are horizontally or vertically aligned with them. This forces him to take an abnormal, right-angle path while turning corners rather than rounding them or taking them at diagonals.

The title text refers to a common compulsion often associated with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) that leads people to place their feet either exactly between sidewalk cracks or directly on top of them while walking. Indeed, if the cracks are out of sync with one's natural stride, this will cause some people to "walk funny" as they stumble to correct their foot placement.

==Transcript==
:[Two characters walk on a floor tiled in black and white.]
:Friend: Why are you walking funny?
:[Second panel consists of Cueball's thought cloud in which he points to an easel mounted diagram of the floor tile pattern.]
:Cueball, thinking: Well, my instinct is to step only on black tiles, but they're too far apart. So I'm letting myself walk on the tiles directly in line with the black ones, but that means that when we walk diagonally, I have to step in a pattern where...
:[Returns to situation in first panel.]
:Cueball: I'm not walking funny.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]