explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

2152: Westerns

2020-11-15T18:37:57Z

EntangledSpins: Canada was not part of the "wild west. Canada's expansion into indiginous lands was much more controlled than American expansion. The NWMP was created to enforce law while this happened.

{{comic
| number = 2152
| date = May 20, 2019
| title = Westerns
| image = westerns.png
| titletext = Sitting here idly trying to figure out how the population of the Old West in the late 1800s compares to the number of Red Dead Redemption 2 players.
}}

==Explanation==
The "{{w|Western (genre)|western}}" genre refers to narrative works set in the American "{{w|American frontier|Old West}}" west of the Mississippi River between the years of 1865 (when the Civil War ended) and 1895 (when the US Census officially declared the frontier to be closed). These dates are naturally somewhat arbitrary, but most works in the genre are set more or less in that relatively narrow window of time. This definition may be too narrow, however, as many events related to the American West took place before the Civil War. The {{w|North_American_fur_trade|fur trade}} was significant in the western frontier from the early 1800s to about 1845. The {{w|Oregon Trail|Oregon Trail}} saw its first wagon trail in 1836, and along with variants such as the California and Utah/Mormon trail, was regularly and heavily used beginning around 1845-1847. The {{w|California_Gold_Rush|California Gold Rush}} took place in 1849. Stories of fur trapping, wagon trains, and mining all feature heavily in the "western" genre, making the disparity between the length of real history and the length of historical fiction less great.

This era in American history was marked by aggressive settling of western lands. The US had pursued an expansionist policy known as "{{w|Manifest Destiny}}", which had the primary goal of extending US borders across the continent. This led to various strategies to increase the lands under US control (ranging from diplomatic efforts to expansionist wars), displacing, containing, and eliminating native peoples from the land, and encouraging American settlement in the western territories. Settlers were encouraged to go west with the promise of cheap or free land for agriculture, mineral riches, and freedom from the dangers of large cities.

These sparsely populated lands quickly gained a reputation for being dangerous, unpredictable, and violent. The men and women who settled them were admired as rugged individualists, civilizing a wild frontier through hard work, courage and persistence. The mythos of the "wild west" arguably continues to impact American culture to this day.

The timeline in this strip suggests that the Western genre began almost immediately after the frontier closed. This matches the "official" timeline. The first critically recognized Western novel, ''{{W|The Virginian (novel)|The Virginian}}'', was published in 1902, and one of the earliest silent films, ''{{W|The Great Train Robbery (1903 film)|The Great Train Robbery}}'', was made in 1903. However, it should be noted that pulp novels and magazines set in the frontier, as well as "Wild West Shows" that toured the eastern states and Europe had begun decades earlier. And the end of the "Wild West" era can be considered to have lasted into the 1910's, or even the 1920's. In other words, Westerns were an established genre while the real western frontier was still in existence. The genre transitioned from a contemporary setting to a historical one without significant disruption.

The Western genre has varied in popularity, but has never gone away, and continued to produce popular works throughout the 20th century and into the 21st. Artists who grew up admiring Western heroes have proceeded to use the genre for their own visions, and have reinterpreted the setting across multiple generations, and an evolving media landscape. Literature, music and live performances gave way to film, then television, and now video games. This strip points out the irony that the actual Old West took place over a fairly limited time and space, but the setting has managed to accommodate a genre that's maintained popularity for over a century (at least three times as long as the actual frontier era) and is consumed both throughout the US and across the world.

The title text is in reference to the popular video game ''{{w|Red Dead Redemption 2}}'', which takes place in an Old West setting. ''Red Dead Redemption 2'' has already sold in excess of 24 million copies, while at the 1890 census the entire West - even going by the widest definition, counting every state and territory west of the Mississippi - had a population of just 16.8 million. The region now counted by the US Census Bureau as the "Western United States" was even smaller, at just 3.64 million. Assuming every copy sold represents one player (some sold may not have been played, but others sold may account for multiple players), not only are there more RDR2 players than there were people in the Wild West at its height, there may be more than lived in the region ''at all'' during the frontier years.

A similar question was asked in [[what if?]] [https://what-if.xkcd.com/100/ WWII Films].

==Transcript==
:[A horizontal timeline spanning between the years 1840 and 2020. Every decade is indicated by a tick below the line, and labeled every 50 years. Two ranges are highlighted by brackets and labeled:]
:[1862-1898:]
:The "Wild West" era
:[1902-2019:]
:Western films, books, video games, etc

:[Caption below the panel:]
:It's weird to realize that the Western genre has now existed for three times longer than the period it's based on.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Timelines]]
[[Category:Fiction]]

455: Hats

2020-10-07T23:15:21Z

EntangledSpins: Hats are countable.

{{comic
| number = 455
| date = July 28, 2008
| title = Hats
| image = hats.png
| titletext = ...
}}

==Explanation==
[[Black Hat]] encounters a person who is wearing not one, but two black hats. Black Hat is not a person to be trifled with, but from his reaction, he apparently believes that Two Black Hats represents a considerable danger to him. Black Hat knows how dangerous he is to those with one fewer black hat than him, so he continues the logic and realises that one who has one ''more'' black hat must be proportionally dangerous to him.

If a black hat is assumed to be akin to a badge of rank, then Two Black Hats certainly is superior to him in the capacity and willingness to do evil. Alternatively, and even more worrying, Two Black Hats could be someone who has the desire and the ability to acquire black hats, which he then wears like a badge of honor. With all this in mind, Black Hat edges away, keeping Two Black Hats in sight at all times.

This comic is also a metatextual joke about xkcd itself. Because of the comic's simplistic art style and characterization, Black Hat has only one defining physical trait, his hat, and one defining personality trait, his malevolence. Randall then implies that the two traits must be correlated, so that a black hat signifies malevolence, and accordingly two hats must signify even more malevolence -- an idea that wouldn't make any sense in real life, where a person with two hats would just be making an odd fashion choice.{{Citation needed}}

The title text is simply "..." This may represent the slow-motion pause during which Black Hat's nefarious life flashes before his eyes, as he considers his impending doom. It may also emphasize how the usually witty Black Hat is, for once, speechless. Or the title text is similar to that in [[412: Startled]], where Black Hat also becomes the little one (and with much focus on the black hat, as in this comic). As mentioned there, such a short title text could be due to the fact that it's a somewhat surreal comic, and any further commentary might have detrimentally brought it down to Earth. See also [[82: Frame]], with the same title text, but no relation to black hats.

Two Black Hats makes a reappearance in [[826: Guest Week: Zach Weiner (SMBC)]], down by the restrooms.

==Transcript==
:[Black Hat is walking.]

:[Black Hat stops in front of another man with two Black Hats, the uppermost hat tilted backwards.]

:[After two panels, the original Black Hat steps backward, shuddering slightly.]

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Black Hat]]
[[Category:Characters with Hats]]

Talk:530: I'm An Idiot

2020-08-11T19:22:14Z

EntangledSpins:

Does this count as a self-nerd-snipe? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.218.101|108.162.218.101]] 02:44, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

Anyone have an idea how he made his Mac Mini speak? [[Special:Contributions/199.27.133.129|199.27.133.129]] 19:46, 24 September 2014 (UTC)
:Yes. Read the title text. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.83|108.162.216.83]] 03:36, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

osascript -e "set volume 7", if anybody is curious --[[User:Okofish|Okofish]] ([[User talk:Okofish|talk]]) 17:34, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

I like how the doorbell pops out real obviously in the last panel. like 0_0... [[Special:Contributions/173.245.54.24|173.245.54.24]]

Explanation seems a bit complicated for such a simple joke. Even the description of a beat panel seems convoluted. [[User:Flewk|flewk]] ([[User talk:Flewk|talk]]) 02:44, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

Why is this comic confused with Five Thirty? [[User:Halo422|Halo422]] ([[User talk:Halo422|talk]]) 05:16, 18 December 2017 (UTC)
:Because it's comic five hundred thirty or "five thirty". [[Special:Contributions/162.158.150.82|162.158.150.82]] 20:50, 9 March 2019 (UTC)

I could be wrong, but to connect to something via SSH, it needs a static ip, right? Why would their laptop have a static ip? 23:10, 5 August, 2020 EST
:No static IP necessary. A name will work just fine. However, if the device is on a LAN that is hidden behind a router, finding it could be hard.

1225: Ice Sheets

2020-08-10T17:30:29Z

EntangledSpins: Six times taller would be 553+(6*553)=3,871m. Six times as tall is 6*553=3,318m which is the correct value.

{{comic
| number = 1225
| date = June 14, 2013
| title = Ice Sheets
| image = ice sheets.png
| titletext = Data adapted from 'The Laurentide and Innuitian ice sheets during the Last Glacial Maximum' by A.S. Dyke et. al., which was way better than the sequels 'The Laurentide and Innuitian ice sheets during the Last Glacial Maximum: The Meltdown' and 'The Laurentide and Innuitian ice sheets during the Last Glacial Maximum: Continental Drift'.
}}

==Explanation==
The comic shows the ice levels at major {{w|North American}} cities at the {{w|Last_Glacial_Maximum|peak of the last ice age}}, 21,000 years ago. During this period, a vast amount of frozen water covered North America as well as other areas around the world. So much ice that it affected the global sea level (see {{w|Sea level rise}}) to lower it by more than a hundred meters.

{{w|Toronto}} and {{w|Montreal}} are both {{w|Canada|Canadian}} cities, while {{w|Boston}} and {{w|Chicago}} are in the {{w|United States}}. The skylines of each city are shown at the bottom of the ice sheet to scale. The tallest structure shown is the {{w|CN Tower}} in Toronto, the tallest free-standing structure in the {{w|Western Hemisphere}}, at a height of 553 m. The tallest ice sheet is 3.3 km tall, almost six times as tall as that tower. Although over Toronto the ice was "only" 2.1 km tall

The tallest ice sheet takes up 265 pixel so each pixel is about 12.4 meters and the height of the panels is 3.7 km with less than 200 m of the ground shown in black below the cities making the white "air" above ground reaching up to 3.5 km, leaving only 200 m of air above the highest ice sheet.

The title text references the "[https://notendur.hi.is//~oi/AG-326%202006%20readings/Canadian%20Arctic/Dyke_QSR2002.pdf The Laurentide and Innuitian ice sheets during the Last Glacial Maximum (PDF)]," an actual series of scientific papers about the ice sheet (see figure 4). But it also refers to the animated {{w|Ice_Age_(film_series)|''Ice Age''}} film series, specifically to ''{{w|Ice Age: the Meltdown}}'', and ''{{w|Ice Age: Continental Drift}}'' which are the second and fourth Ice Age film. Many agree that the first film/book in a series is better than its sequel(s).

Ice sheets over Boston during the last ice age was also referenced in [[1379: 4.5 Degrees]]. The image of Boston in this comic is reused at the top of the huge chart in [[1732: Earth Temperature Timeline]], and had already been reused earlier in the [[what if?]] post ''{{what if|63|Google's Datacenters on Punch Cards}}''. [[Randall]] lives in that area.

Although this comic doesn't mention (modern) climate change, it does show the difference climate can have on our surroundings. And in the two later comics mentioned above, Randall makes it clear that we are now heading as far in the opposite hotter direction compared to the "normal" temperature during the rise of human civilization, as the ice age temperature was colder.

==Transcript==
:[Caption above the four panels:]
:'''<big>Thickness of the ice sheets</big>'''
:at various locations
:<big>21,000 years ago</big>
:compared with modern skylines.
:[In four panels the skylines of four major metropolises are superimposed against a blue ice sheet of the proper thickness for the aforementioned time period. The panels are much taller than the skyline reaching about 3500 meter up above ground level. Below the gray skylines there is a black slab indicating this ground level, above the ice the air is white. Also above the ice sheet the hight of the ice is noted in light gray text. Inside the ice sheet the name of the city is written in black. Some clear landmarks can be seen in each skyline.]

:[The first skyline shows among other a tall TV tower. The ice reaches more than halfway to the top of the panel.]
:2100m
:'''Toronto'''

:[The second skyline shows several skyscrapers with specially one towering over the other. The ice reaches about a quarter of the way to the top. This is the lowest of the ice sheets only reaching about twice as high as the tallest building in the city.]
:900m
:'''Chicago'''

:[The third skyline shows only a few skyscrapers with two of them clearly taller than the rest of the skyline. The ice reaches a bit more than a third towards the top.]
:1250m
:'''Boston'''

:[The fourth skyline do not have many real skyscrapers but there are three buildings that are taller than the rest of the skyline. The ice reaches almost to the top, making it the tallest ice sheet. The name of the city clearly is written higher up in the ice than the other three. Even above the lowest ice sheet of the second panel.]
:3300m
:'''Montreal'''

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Climate change]]

1040: Lakes and Oceans

2020-08-10T13:45:02Z

EntangledSpins: Sunk is the past participle not the simple past.

{{comic
| number = 1040
| date = April 9, 2012
| title = Lakes and Oceans
| image = lakes and oceans.png
| titletext = James Cameron has said that he didn't know its song would be so beautiful. He didn't close the door in time. He's sorry.
}}

==Explanation==
[http://xkcd.com/1040/large Full size image (2.5MB — 2592×1728)]

This comic is a scale representation of our lakes and oceans, with an emphasis on how little we know about our oceans. It shows the depths and lengths to in relative scale. The ''{{w|Edmund Fitzgerald}}'' was a {{w|Great Lakes}} freighter which sank in 1975. The {{w|Russian submarine Kursk (K-141)|''Kursk'' (K-141)}} was a {{w|Russian}} nuclear submarine which sank in 2000 after an explosion. The {{w|RMS Lusitania|RMS ''Lusitania''}} was a {{w|British}} ocean liner which was famously sunk in 1915, eventually prompting the {{w|United States}} to enter {{w|World War I}}. All three of these ships were sunk in water that was shallower than they were long. The shortest was the ''Kursk'', which was 154 metres long, and sank in water only 100 metres deep.

Also on the diagram is the {{w|RMS Titanic|RMS ''Titanic''}}, which famously sank in 1912 after hitting an iceberg, and the ''{{w|Seawise Giant}}'', which is the largest ship ever built, at 485 metres. It was scrapped in 2010. The {{w|Deepwater Horizon}} is an offshore oil well which made headlines after an explosion in 2010 caused the {{w|Deepwater_Horizon_oil_spill|world's largest oil spill}}. The skyscraper the {{w|Burj Khalifa}} is also shown. The Burj Khalifa is the world's tallest manmade structure, and is located in the city of {{w|Dubai}}, in the {{w|United Arab Emirates}}. The {{w|Chilean}} mine showed on the far right is the {{w|San José Mine}}, which suffered a {{w|2010 Copiapó mining accident|collapse}} in 2010, trapping 33 men 700 metres underground for 69 days. The {{w|Kola Superdeep Borehole}} also shown on the right was a {{w|Soviet}} (and later Russian) research project attempting to drill as deep into the {{w|Crust (geology)|Earth's crust}} as possible. It was abandoned in 2005, after reaching a record of 12,262 metres deep.

Also shown are several notable bodies of water. There are the Great Lakes: {{w|Lake Superior}}, {{w|Lake Michigan}}, {{w|Lake Huron}}, {{w|Lake Erie}}, and {{w|Lake Ontario}}. {{w|Death Valley}} is a large, desert valley in {{w|California}}, named because the deadly climate and dry environment support very few life forms. {{w|Great Slave Lake}} is the deepest lake in {{w|North America}}, and is located in the {{w|North West Territories}}, in {{w|Canada}}. {{w|Crater Lake}} is located in {{w|Oregon}}, and is the deepest lake in the United States. {{w|Loch Ness}} is the {{w|Scotland|Scottish}} lake which is the location of the alleged "{{w|Loch Ness Monster}}". {{w|Lake Baikal}} is located in {{w|Russia}} and {{w|Mongolia}}, and is the world's deepest lake. On the far right side of the image is the {{w|Dead Sea}}, a lake near {{w|Jordan}} and {{w|Israel}} which is characterized for having such high salt levels that the waters are toxic to much marine life (hence a "dead" sea), although it does support a bacterial and algal ecosystem that is tolerant to high salt and magnesium concentrations.

In the water, the ''{{w|Andrea Gail}}'' was a ship that sunk in a {{w|1991 Perfect Storm|storm}} in 1991, and was later eulogized with a {{w|The_Perfect_Storm_(book)|book}} and {{w|The_Perfect_Storm_(film)|film}}. Several depth limits are shown, including the {{w|free-diving}} record (273 metres), the {{w|scuba diving}} record (330 metres), the depth bike tires go flat (approximately 100 metres), the depth at which water rushes in through a hole in a scuba tank instead of air rushing out (approximately 2000 metres), the pressure that would push a cork into a bottle (approximately 250 metres), the depth that would push water up a faucet (approximately 75 metres), the depth an {{w|emperor penguin}} can dive (535 metres), the depth limit of an {{w|Ohio-class submarine|''Ohio''-class submarine}} (240 metres), the depth limit of a {{w|Typhoon-class submarine|''Typhoon''-class submarine}} (400 metres), the depth limit of a {{w|blue whale}} (500 metres), and the depth a {{w|leatherback sea turtle}} can dive (1280 metres).

The small unlabeled mark under the "cork into a bottle" text is around {{w|leet|1337}} metres deep.

The comic also illustrates how {{w|sperm whales}} can dive as deep as 3000 metres (though don't frequently go deeper than 400 metres). It is presumed that they dive so deep to feed on {{w|giant squid}}, which can be found as deep as 3000 metres but, to our knowledge, are more commonly found in depths of 300 to 1000 metres. The fact that sperm whales can dive so deep and come up battered emphasizes Randall's point that we know so little about our oceans. Also shown are the depth limit of the {{w|DSV Alvin|DSV ''Alvin''}}, a deep-sea vessel, the {{w|mid-ocean ridge}}, an underwater mountain range which could be considered to be the largest mountain range in the world, the {{w|Puerto Rico Trench}} (and the included {{w|Milwaukee Deep}}), which is the deepest part of the {{w|Atlantic Ocean}}, at 8648 metres, and the {{w|Mariana Trench|Marianas Trench}}, the deepest point of the {{w|Pacific Ocean}} at 10,944 metres. At the bottom of the Mariana Trench, pressure is as high as 1086 {{w|bar (unit)|bars}} and {{w|Xenophyophore|life forms}} have been found at depths as low as 10,641 metres.

The marked {{w|abyssal plains}} are a deep-sea plain believed to hold a very diverse array of life forms, but are largely unexplored. The stick figures of {{w|David Bowie}} and {{w|Freddie Mercury}} are a reference to Bowie's and Queen's songs "{{w|Under Pressure}}". The label "the abyss" with its sublabel of "it's rude to stare" is a reference to the {{w|Friedrich Nietzsche}} quote, "when you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares back". There's also a movie from 1989 called {{w|The Abyss}}.

The door at the bottom of the {{w|Marianas Trench}} is fictional,{{Citation needed}} and is a reference to {{w|James Cameron}}'s attempt to reach the bottom of the trench in his ''{{w|Deepsea Challenger}}'' vessel, which he filmed with 3D cameras in 2012. Randall is implying Cameron went so deep specifically to reach this door, rather than just for the sake of going.

The title text implies that James Cameron has encountered some otherworldly, Lovecraftian being behind the door at the bottom of Challenger Deep; he thought he could access it briefly, however did not count on its hypnotic or entrancing song, which led to him leaving the door open long enough for it to enter the world and possibly precipitate some horrible calamity. This song is a reference to the {{w|Siren_(mythology)|sirens of Greek mythology}} whose singing was irresistible to sailors, who would sail toward them and crash into rock, wrecking their ships, until Odysseus survived by having his sailors plug their ears and tie him to the mast. The concept is also a reference to the sort of horror fiction popularised by {{w|H. P. Lovecraft}}, often called "[http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CosmicHorrorStory cosmic horror]", whose stories often contain godlike alien beings that are locked away or hidden in remote places, such as {{w|Cthulhu}} and {{w|Azathoth}}. There is no specific story with a door at the bottom of the ocean containing an entity that sings entrancingly, Randall is making a clever reference to the concepts popularised by this genre as whole. {{w|Pacific Rim (film)| Pacific Rim}}, a movie depicting the Earth under the attack of gigantic alien monsters (called Kaiju) emerging from an inter-dimensional portal at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, was released in 2013.

==Transcript==

{{incomplete transcript | bad table}}

:[A Map of lakes and oceans showing the depths of various lakes and ocean attributes.]

:Lakes and Oceans Depths and animal/ship/boat lengths are to scale; horizontal distance is not.

:Fun Fact: The ''Edmund Fitzgerald'', The Kursk, and The Lusitania all sank in water shallower than they were long.
{| class="wikitable"
| Edmund Fitzgerald
|-
| Lake Superior
|-
| Lake Michigan
|-
| Lake Huron
|-
| Lake Erie
|-
| Lake Ontario
|-
| Death Valley
|-
| Great Slave Lake Crater
|-
| Lake Loch Ness
|-
| Lake Baikal
|-
| Burj Khalifa
|-
| Kursk
|-
| Lusitania
|-
| Titanic
|-
| Seawise Giant (largest ship ever)
|-
| Free-diving depth record Andrea Gail (probably)
|-
| Scuba record
|-
| Bike tires go flat Pressure at this depth would force water up a household faucet
|-
| Emperor penguin
|-
| Ohio-class nuclear sub depth limit
|-
| Typhoon-class nuclear sub depth limit
|-
| Blue whale
|-
| Leatherback turtle
|-
| Deepwater horizion
|-
| Dead sea
|-
| Kola borehole aiolo| Soviet project to try to drill through the Earth's crust to the mantle just to see what would happen. Russians are awesome.
|-
| Chilean mine collapse
|-
| miner refuge Sperm whales dive this deep (they come up covered in wounds and sucker marks, so presumably there are big squid down here? ... man, we know nothing about the ocean.)
|-
| Mid-ocean ridge
|-
| Titanic (sunk bow & stern)
|-
| Abyssal plain
|-
| Alvin depth limit
|-
| David Bowie & Freddie Mercury
|-
| Puerto Rico
|-
| Trench Milwaukee
|-
| Deep Marianas
|-
| Trench Challenger
|-
| Deep Mysterious door which James Cameron built his sub to reach and open. He will not say what he found within.
|-
| Mauna Kea, Hawaii (accurate horizontal scale)
|-
| Marianas trench
|-
| Oil
|}

==Trivia==
*A print version of this comic is available in the [https://store.xkcd.com/products/lakes-oceans-poster xkcd store].

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Large drawings]]
[[Category:Fun fact]]
[[Category:Comics with xkcd store products]]