explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

1709: Inflection

2016-09-14T14:55:47Z

Flaccinator: /* Explanation */ latin conjugations (apologies for the scrappy table)

{{comic
| number = 1709
| date = July 20, 2016
| title = Inflection
| image = inflection.png
| titletext = "Or maybe, because we're suddenly having so many conversations through written text, we'll start relying MORE on altered spelling to indicate meaning!" "Wat."
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|More on Latin conjugation...?}}

While walking, [[Megan]] tells [[Cueball]] that in {{w|inflected languages}} -- such as {{w|German language|German}} -- changes in the spelling of a word changes its meaning, in a predictable way. Megan exemplifies this with how {{w|plural}} forms of {{w|nouns}} are created by sticking an 's' at the end, and {{w|past tense}} of a {{w|verb}} is done by the suffix 'ed'. Megan then explains that this works well in {{w|languages}} which build on {{w|alphabets}}.

She continues to explain that their {{w|Indo-European languages|language family}} belongs to those that are inflected, but the {{w|Modern English|English branch}} is becoming less inflected than it used to be. Specifically this explains why English does not have so many {{w|Latin conjugations}}. A conjugation is a pattern of inflections, describing how a particular group of verbs is altered from it's root form to represent different grammatical cases. Only verbs have conjugations (are ''conjugated''), nouns and adjectives are described by declensions (and are ''declined''). All inflected languages can be described by conjugations and declensions, although Latin is one of the most commonly cited, perhaps because Latin grammar was taught for centuries by monotonous rote learning of the conjugations and declensions.

A typical Latin conjugation would be the verb '''amare''', to love

{|
! Present, Active, Indicative
|-
! Singular
!
!
! Plural
|-
!
! Latin
! English
!
! Latin
! English
|-
! 1st person
! 'amo'
! ''I love''
!
! 'amamus'
! ''we love''
|-
! 2nd person
! 'amas'
! ''thou lovest''
!
! 'amatis'
! ''you love''
|-
! 3rd person
! 'amat'
! ''he/she/it loveth''
!
! 'amant'
! ''they love''
|-
|}

(The English singular uses archaic forms to highlight the number and person.) A complete conjugation includes all the tenses (Present, Imperfect, Future, ...), both voices (Active & Passive), and both moods (Indicative & Subjunctive). Other parts of speech - infinitive, participles, gerunds, and so forth - are needed to completely define the verb, but are not usually considered to be part of the conjugation.

Cueball then asks ''Could that mean that English writing might be ripe to become more pictographic?'' Instead of using traditional words, Megan replies with three {{w|emojis}} "Thumbs up" (like), "Applause", and a smiley -- thus showing a pictographic version of the writing which has become more popular in the last years. Emoji has become a [[:Category:Emoji|recurrent theme]] on xkcd.

The writing systems of many languages have both {{w|pictographic}} and {{w|ideographic}} origins. "Pictographic" means that they are pictures of some thing that will remind the reader of either the pronunciation or the meaning of the word. The letter 'A', for example, originated from a word meaning "ox", but was meant to remind readers of the glottal stop (it wasn't until the Ancient Greeks, who didn't have the glottal stop as a distinct phoneme, got a hold of the Phoenician version that it was transferred to the vowel(s) it is today). 'Ideographic' means that they are designed, through pictures, to illustrate some idea. In fact, the three emojis used in the third panel of this cartoon are all ideographic, not pictographic, under this definition. "Thumbs up" (like), "Applause", and the smiley, are all emojis that remind us of a concept of approval.

{{w|Egyptian hieroglyphics}} contain many pictorial elements, some of which are pictographic in the sense that they are meant to represent the thing that they picture, but many are more abstract (ideographic) or are used for their {{w|phonetic}} value (as 'A' was used in early alphabetic systems). Similarly, in the {{w|Chinese character}} writing system, many of the elements have pictographic or ideographic origins; but they are often, and even usually combined in ways that are phonetic and not related to the pictures that were the origins of the characters.

Early modern English (think Shakespeare or the {{w|King_James_Version|KJV}} Bible) used more forms for the tenses than we do today, which can help illustrate the trend away from inflected forms. In contrast, verbs in English today are often conjugated with auxiliary verbs. See below for a details on [[#Modern verb conjugation in English|modern verb conjugation in English]].

The title text points out that some intentional misspelling are used in Internet slang to alter the meaning of a word: "what" becomes "[https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=wat wat]" to [http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/wat express] confusion, disgust or disbelief. The title text also uses typographical variation to emphasize the word MORE by using all capital letters. Such emphasis is difficult to show with inflected language alone.

This comic is referenced at 4500 BCE in huge chart of [[1732: Earth Temperature Timeline]]. Acording to that comic it was at that time inflection was invented but just to tease future students so they have to remember a [[#Modern verb conjugation in English|zillion verb endings]].

==Transcript==
:[Cueball and Megan, holding a hand up, are seen walking together from afar in silhouette.]
:Megan: Inflected languages change words to add meaning, like "-s" for plurals or "-ed" for past tense.
:Megan: Alphabets—where symbols stand for sound instead of words—work well for them, since you can show the changes through spelling.

:[Zoom in on the two as Megan turns her head back towards Cueball and spreads her arms out.]
:Megan: Our language family is inflected, but the English branch has lost most of its inflection over the millennia. It's why we don't have all those Latin conjugations.

:[Cueball speaks as they walk on and Megan replies with three orange-yellow emoji: Thumbs Up Sign pointing right, Clapping Hands Sign pointing up left with two times three small lines to indicate the clapping and Smiling Face With Blushing (red) Cheeks and Smiling Eyes. Below given the closest match possible as of the release of the comic.]
:Cueball: Could that mean English writing is ripe to become more pictographic?
:Megan: 👍 👏 😊

==Trivia==
===Modern verb conjugation in English===
In the table below is a sample of a modern verb conjugation in English.

In all of these conjugations, the only inflections on the main verb "walk" are "-s", "-ed", and "-ing". (The highly irregular helper verbs, "be" and "have", have somewhat more interesting inflections.) And although this table shows only the third person, the first and second person would not introduce any additional words whatsoever; similarly, the table shows only the indicative mood, but the subjunctive and imperative moods would not introduce any additional words, and the conditional mood would only introduce the helper verb "would" (an inflection of the irregular helper verb "will") without any additional inflections on the main verb "walk". If instead we made this table in Spanish (for example), then there would be many more inflections on the main verb (12 in the third-person indicative alone, 45 including all persons and moods, if I didn't miscount).

{| class="wikitable"
|+ Verb: Walk
!Voice->
!colspan="2"|Active
!colspan="2"|Passive
|-
!Tense
!Singular (he/she/it)
!Plural (they)
!Singular (he/she/it)
!Plural (they)
|-
|Present
|walks
|walk
|is walked
|are walked
|-
|Present progressive
|is walking
|are walking
|is being walked
|are being walked
|-
|Present perfect
|has walked
|have walked
|has been walked
|have been walked
|-
|Present perfect progressive
|has been walking
|have been walking
|has been being walked
|have been being walked
|-
|Past
|walked
|walked
|was walked
|were walked
|-
|Past progressive
|was walking
|were walking
|was being walked
|were being walked
|-
|Past perfect
|had walked
|had walked
|had been walked
|had been walked
|-
|Past perfect progressive
|had been walking
|had been walking
|had been being walked
|had been being walked
|-
|Future
|will walk
|will walk
|will be walked
|will be walked
|-
|Future progressive
|will be walking
|will be walking
|will be being walked
|will be being walked
|-
|Future perfect
|will have walked
|will have walked
|will have been walked
|will have been walked
|-
|Future perfect progressive
|will have been walking
|will have been walking
|will have been being walked
|will have been being walked
|-
|Conditional
|would walk
|would walk
|would be walked
|would be walked
|-
|Conditional progressive
|would be walking
|would be walking
|would be being walked
|would be being walked
|-
|Conditional perfect
|would have walked
|would have walked
|would have been walked
|would have been walked
|-
|Conditional perfect progressive
|would have been walking
|would have been walking
|would have been being walked
|would have been being walked
|}

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Language]]
[[Category:Emoji]]

1702: Home Itch Remedies

2016-07-05T03:43:04Z

Flaccinator: /* Explanation */ grammar and spelling only

{{comic
| number = 1702
| date = July 4, 2016
| title = Home Itch Remedies
| image = home_itch_remedies.png
| titletext = In my experience, mosquitos and poison ivy are bad, but the very worst itch comes from bites from chiggers (Trombicula alfreddugesi). They're found across the American south and great plains, so the best home remedy is to move to Iceland.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Basic transcript. Please improve on it.}}

Bug bites, such as mosquito bites, are itchy. Home remedies are often ineffective, and in some cases very complicated -- think of the number of suggestions on how to cure hiccups. In this case [[Cueball]]'s suggestion turns out to be insanely complicated, involving finding rare French orchids. [[Megan]] is not actually interested in trying out a complex home remedy, she really just wants sympathy.

The suggested remedy is a mix of many popular home remedies such as :
* Taking a hot shower: supposed to stimulate nerve endings, it can also destroy some toxins.
* Applying vinegar: supposedly effective on mosquito bites.
* Applying ice: numbs the pain, more commonly used on bruises.
* Using aspirin: as an anti-inflammatory drug aspirin may have an effect on itches, although it may cause more itches than provide relief.
* Tea and a "rare French orchid": orchids, like many other plants, are commonly used in traditional medicine to cure various ailments, and tea is a common route of administration.

Megan's answer is a {{w|sarcastic}} comment stating that her own family home remedy is to keep scratching until the skin falls off -- which is a natural tendency, although not until the skin literally falls off; hence it is not really a home remedy, just a natural reaction.

The title text refers to {{w|chigger|chiggers}} or {{w|Trombicula alfreddugesi}} as the worst source for itches; in fact only in the larval stages are these mites parasitic. A move to a more northerly region of the world like Iceland would be a perfect cure, because those parasites are only found in warmer southern regions (similarly, since mosquitoes lay their eggs in water, moving to a dry place with no water usable by mosquitoes would be a "cure" for mosquito bites). ''Chigger'' can also refer to the chigoe flea or "jigger", {{w|Tunga penetrans}}, a parasitic flea which also causes bad itching. But [[Randall]] explicitly mentions the mite ''Trombicula alfreddugesi''.

==Transcript==
:[Megan and Cueball stand together while Megan scratches her itches.]
:Megan: Argh, bug bites are the ''worst''. I shouldn't scratch, but... so itchy.
:Cueball: Oh, you know what's great for that?

:[Zoom-in to Megan's head. Cueball is off-panel.]
:Megan: No, don't tell me. Everyone always has weird home remedies that never work. I just want sympathy.
:Cueball: No, this one isn't weird, I promise. It really helps!

:[Zoom-out to Megan and Cueball. Megan is still scratching.]
:Cueball: First, take a hot shower. Then dip some ice cubes in vinegar and use them to crush one baby aspirin. Then make some tea, and...

:[Megan walks away while Cueball looks at her.]
:Cueball: ...then, you need a rare French orchid-
:Megan: I'm going to try a different home remedy where I complain a lot and scratch until my skin comes off.
:Cueball: Sounds effective.
:Megan: It's an old family trick.

{{comic discussion}}

1700: New Bug

2016-06-29T08:35:11Z

Flaccinator: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1700
| date = June 29, 2016
| title = New Bug
| image = new_bug.png
| titletext = There's also a unicode-handling bug in the URL request library, and we're storing the passwords unsalted ... so if we salt them with emoji, we can close three issues at once!
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|What is a resolvable URL? what is salting of passwords? Explain why the three issues can be closed with emoji salting}}

[[Cueball]] asks if an off-panel character can look at his bug report. The person asks if it's a "normal one" and not a "horrifying" one which "proves that the whole project is broken beyond repair and should be burnt to the ground". This implies that there have been reports of the "horrifying" variety in the past.

Cueball promises that it is a normal one but it turns out that the server crashes when a user's password is a resolvable URL, which implies that the server is in some way attempting to resolve passwords as if they were URLs. A resolvable URL is one that is syntactically correct and in particular includes a valid IP address or name, for instance "www.explainxkcd.com", in the <server-name> field; some might claim that it should also have a <path> field that is recognised by the server.

There is no reason for the code that processes passwords to attempt to resolve the input string as a URL, so any bug provoked by such input suggests a fundamental error in the way the server handles passwords. Realizing this, the off-panel person resigns and decides that burning the project to the ground is the only solution, telling Cueball ''I'll get the {{w|Butane|lighter fluid}}''.

In the title text another two issues with Cueballs program are mentioned together with a possible solution that would fix all three problems at once. The second problem is unicode-handling bug in the URL request library, and the third is that the passwords are stored unsalted. {{w|Salt (cryptography)|Salting}} passwords increases security by adding random data to the passwords which primarily helps defend against dictionary attacks.

The proposed solution is to salt the passwords with {{w|emoji}}, which is claimed to solve all three issues at once.

When the passwords are salted with emoji, the URL request library will fail to resolve any (salted) passwords due to its lack of unicode support. Since the server only crashes on ''resolvable'' URls, this should mean the server won't crash anymore. In addition, the passwords will now be salted. But it is not clear how this solves the issue with the unicode-handling bug in the URL request library. As it rather seems to use this bug to resolve the one mentioned in the main comic.

Given that this comic comes only five comics after [[1695: Code Quality 2]] is seems likely that the off-panel person is [[Ponytail]] and as could be seen in the first of those two comics, [[1513: Code Quality]], the perpetrator is indeed Cueball. In the title text of this first one, using emoji in variable names is mentioned.

In [[1349: Shouldn't Be Hard]] Cueball is also programming and finding it very difficult in-spite that he thinks is should be easy. An off-panel person suggest burning the computer down with a blowtorch much like the off-panel person in this one suggest burning the whole project (including the computer) to the ground with lighter fluid. In the very next comic, the multi storyline [[1350: Lorenz]], one [http://xkcd.com/1350/#p:2ed958de-badf-11e3-8001-002590d77bdd story line] results in a computer being [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/images/a/a6/lorenz_-_laptop_9.png burned with a blow torch].

==Transcript==
:[Cueball sits at his desk in front of his computer leaning back and turning away from it to speak to a person off-panel.]
:Cueball: Can you take a look at the bug I just opened?
:Off-panel voice: Uh oh.

:[Zoom out and pan to show only Cueball sitting on his chair facing away from the computer, which is now off-panel. The person speaking to him is still of panel even though this panel is much broader.]
:Off-panel voice: Is this a '''normal''' bug, or one of those horrifying ones that prove your whole project is broken beyond repair and should be burned to the ground?

:[Zoom in on Cueballs head and upper torso.]
:Cueball: It's a normal one this time, I promise.
:Off-panel voice: OK, what's the bug?

:[Back to a view similar to the first panel where Cueball has turned towards the computer and points at the screen with one hand.]
:Cueball: The server crashes if a user's password is a resolvable URL.
:Off-panel voice: I'll get the lighter fluid.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Computers]]
[[Category:Programming]]

1692: Man Page

2016-06-11T05:30:24Z

Flaccinator: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1692
| date = June 10, 2016
| title = Man Page
| image = man_page.png
| titletext = For even more info, see blarbl(2)(3) and birb(3ahhaha I'm kidding, just Google it like a normal person.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic shows a {{w|Unix}} manual page, i.e. a ''{{w|man page}}'' (hence the title), for a fictional program called "[http://da.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=blerp blerp]". Unix man pages are meant to provide a brief reference on the usage of a command, not extended explanations with tutorials as may be found in many hardcopy product manuals. Unfortunately, Unix commands tend to be very bloated and include lots of optional behavior that is often irrelevant to the command and can be done much more easily using shell features like piping and redirection, and thus the manpage grows to explain all of the features. This example exaggerates the obscurity and terseness found in many man pages, making fun of the typical style of the genre.

It follows the prescribed format for a man page, with the following sections:
* Command Name: self-explanatory
* Synopsis: details of the valid command line formats
* Description: summary account of the purpose and operation of the command
* Options: detailed description of all the available command line arguments
* See Also: references to other man pages with relevance
* Bug Reports: contact details for the support group (if any)
* Copyright: details of the ownership and rights status of the man page (not the program)

However most the contents of these sections are not very meaningful, or even obey the correct syntax.

The Synopsis section is supposed to be in a {{w|Regular Expression|regex}}-like language called {{w|Wirth Syntax Notation}}, with structures like

* {<list of valid alternatives>}, e.g. blerp {A,B,C}
* [<optional element>], e.g. blerp [-o [<output file>]]
* <something> ... meaning repeat <something> as many times as you need

But the two Synopsis lines given do not have valid syntax; they randomly mix objects and syntactic characters, and the curly and square brackets are not properly nested or paired.

The Description section provides a somewhat unhelpful summary that could apply to almost any Unix command. Processing input files (or output of other commands in a pipeline) is a generic function for Unix shell tools, as is specifying their behaviour with command line arguments, environment variables and flags.

The options are in alphabetical order (putting lower case before upper case and with an em-dash inserted between b and c the only exception to this order).

{{w|Command-line_interface#Command-line_option|Command-line options}}, also known as flags, are typed following a program name to change how the program runs. The following is an example usage.

<code>blerp -a -d -t -p "AVIGNON"</code>

This would run blerp in attack mode, outputting to DEBUG.EXE, with tumble dry, and with POPE set to AVIGNON. In most cases, any number of flags can be used in any order, and applicable flags can be followed by arguments (such as "AVIGNON" in this example).

For a walk through of all possible flags see the '''[[#Table of flags|table of flags]]''' below.

Below the flags there is a ''see also'' list with other stupid program names. Apart from two more blerbs there is also blirb, [http://da.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Blarb blarb] and [http://da.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Blorp blorp], with chapter references. The last blorp(501)(c)(3) is not a valid chapter reference for a man page, it is however a slightly covert reference to {{w|501(c)_organization#501.28c.29.283.29|501(c)(3)}} which is an organization that is {{w|Tax exemption|tax-exempt}}.

Then follows a bug report site. http://www.inaturalist.org is a site working to extend biological research, and the exact address given, http://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/47744-Hemiptera, points to the same page as http://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/Hemiptera. {{w|Hemiptera}} is the order classifying ''true bugs'', making it a good place to report any biological bugs discovered while running a program (such as certain insects that got into certain early computers, causing the computers to malfunction and giving the name "bug" to computer malfunctions).

Finally there is a "{{w|copyright}}" line which references several variously open-source content licenses which is also a recurring theme on xkcd (see [[225: Open Source]]). For instance GPL references {{w|GNU General Public License}} and the (2) and (3+) refers to {{w|GNU_General_Public_License#Version_2|GPL 2}} and {{w|GNU_General_Public_License#Version_3|GPL 3 or higher}}. ''CC'' refers to {{w|creative commons}} where ''BY'' is the {{w|Creative_Commons_license#Types_of_licenses|type of license}}, ''5.0'' refers to the attribution and ''RV 41.0'' refers to revision 41.0. However there were no higher attribution than [https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode 4.0] at the time of this comics release. xkcd is released under [http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.5/ CC BY-NC 2.5] as can be seen at the bottom of the {{xkcd}}  homepage. A few comics have been released under the [[:Category:CC-BY-SA comics|CC-BY-SA license]] or [http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ 3.0]. BSD refers to {{w|BSD licenses}} a [[:Category:BSD|recurring theme]] in xkcd. "Like Gecko" is a reference to a web browser user-agent string; modern user-agent strings include a lot of text designed{{Citation needed}} to let the browser pretend to be several different browsers/renderers, and "(like Gecko)" is the standard text for a browser that wants to be treated as if it were {{w|Gecko (software)|Gecko}} while admitting, if you look closely, that it isn't really Gecko. This copyright line, which includes a lot of mashed-together text that might appear to match any of several different licenses, resembles a {{w|user agent}} string.

"Or best offer" is a reference to an auction where the person who bids the highest gets to buy the item. In context, it suggest the person who has the highest offer for ''blerp'' will be sold the rights to the program. Since the other licenses mentioned would allow for free usage without paying royalties, it would usually be pointless to buy the rights to the program. The owner could possibly revoke the other licenses though.

In the title text there is a list with even more info, again with crazy names like [http://blarbl.blogspot.dk/ blarbl] and [http://da.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=birb birb]. Again there are page references, but for the last the person writing this stops writing the reference and begins to laugh at whom ever still reads this man page and telling them that he is kidding and suggest that they ''just Google it like a normal person''. Seems like [[Randall]] does not believe much in man pages anymore... The writer of this text thus also stops finishing the brackets as the ending ")" for the last chapter is missing.

Man pages were part of the subject of [[293: RTFM]] and were mentioned in [[456: Cautionary]].

===Table of flags===
*There are 28 flags.
**Only these five letters are not used: l, m, w, x, z.
**j and k are used together as jk.
**The following seven capital letters are used: D, I, O, R, S, U, V.
***That makes it one capital letter for every lower case letter that is not used by itself.
**Finally the em dash "—" is used as the only non-letter character. Also the only that breaks the strict alphabetical sorting of the list, with lower case before upper case letters.
{| class="wikitable"
!Flag!!Description!!Explanation
|-
| -a||ATTACK MODE||This sounds like a command for a robot or something similar. Strange for a command line program. Possibly this is designed to break something?
|-
| -b||SUPPRESS BEES||Nonsensical option. This is a word play, meaning either to suppress {{w|Bee|Bees}} (the insects) or the letter '''B'''. A possible implication is that running the program without this flag would somehow result in the user being attacked by bees. This is also a possible {{w|Discworld}} reference, as the ''{{W|Hex_(Discworld)#Structure_and_technology|long-term storage}}'' of the only recurring computer in the series, ''{{w|Hex (Discworld)|Hex}}'', is composed of a beehive. (Note that the actual computer runs on ants.)
|-
| -—||FLAGS USE EM DASHES||Command line options (flags) typically use {{w|Hyphen|hyphens}} (short horizontal lines largely used within words). {{w|Dash#Em_dash|Em dashes}} (longer, with the same length as the letter "m") can't always be easily typed into a command line interface, so switching flags from hyphens to em dashes is excessively difficult and nonsensical.

This may be a play on how a lot of commands accept both single-dash options, like -h for help, as well as double-dash options like --help also for help. In word processors, a double-dash (--) is often replaced with the longer em dash (—), making them kind of synonymous.

Also implies a paradox where if flags were to use em dashes, this flag itself would be invalid.
|-
| -c||COUNT NUMBER OF ARGUMENTS||Most likely not useful.
|-
| -d||PIPES OUTPUT TO DEBUG.EXE||{{w|DEBUG.EXE}} is the old 16-bit debugger that came with MS-DOS. On a Unix system it is much more likely that one would use the {{w|GNU Debugger}} (GDB). A debugger is usually called by calling the debugger with the program (or script) to be debugged as parameter.
{{w|Pipeline (Unix)|Piping}} in Unix means that the output of one program serves as input for another program.
|-
| -D||DEPRECATED||Many programs contain legacy options to avoid breaking scripts that use them. While the option should still work, the documentation is changed to say "deprecated" to discourage further use. Eventually such options usually get removed. (However, given the nature of this comic, it's likely that -D has always stood for "deprecated".)
|-
| -e||EXECUTE SOMETHING||Vague. Also a possible pun on a kill-switch.
|-
| -f||FUN MODE||Strange and slightly ominous, given some of the other options. See under -O.
|-
| -g||USE GOOGLE||As an actual program flag, a bit hackjob-ish, but it is possible it is telling the user to use Google to find out what this tag does.
|-
| -h||CHECK WHETHER INPUT HALTS||Completely impossible, by the {{w|Halting problem}} which is the problem of determining, from a description of an arbitrary computer program and an input, whether the program will finish running or continue to run forever. {{w|Alan Turing}} proved in 1936 that a general algorithm to solve the halting problem for all possible program-input pairs cannot exist.

Note that most commands reserve -h for help, so using it for a different function is non-standard. Such is common for many Unix and Linux commands.
|-
| -i||IGNORE CASE (LOWER)||Usually, ignoring case means that a program will run without differentiating between upper- and lowercase. This flag suggests that blerp will run ignoring all the lowercase characters completely, or ignoring all the uppercase characters with the next flag "-I". Note that using this may make it ignore the difference for flags like -i and -I...
|-
| -I||IGNORE CASE (UPPER)||See above. Also possible that all text is converted to upper case, or that upper-case requirements only are ignored
|-
| -jk||KIDDING||A common acronym for [http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=jk Just Kidding], not a program flag. Also note that standard behavior of Unix command line options is that a single "-" can be followed by multiple one-letter options, making -jk equivalent to -j -k.
|-
| -n||BEHAVIOR NOT DEFINED||Possibly mathematically ominous? Otherwise useless.(Possible debug/unstable feature flag)
|-
| -o||OVERWRITE||Standard program flag, usually meaning that the program will overwrite a file rather than make a new one when data is output.May work strangely with -d.
|-
| -O||OPPOSITE DAY||Strange flag, possibly means that all other flags (or maybe even including this one!) have the opposite effects - if so, a lot of strange things would happen. (Especially with -b, -e, -f, -jk, -O...). This may be a reference to the SpongeBob SquarePants episode [http://spongebob.wikia.com/wiki/Opposite_Day "Opposite Day"].
|-
| -p||SET TRUE POPE; ACCEPTS "ROME" OR "AVIGNON"||This refers to a {{w|Western_Schism|historical schism}} in the {{w|Catholic Church}}. In the 14th century, the Pope briefly ruled from Avignon, France, instead of Rome. After the Papacy was returned to Rome in 1377, the Church split (the so-called Western Schism) as not everyone accepted the move and the Pope who ordered it. This flag apparently allows the user to select a preferred Pope. There is actually a possible feature request here, as "PISA", a third Pope, should also be an option. It is the second time this week that Popes have been mentioned, last time was two comics before in [[1690: Time-Tracking Software]] regarding the Popes sexual activity.
|-
| -q||QUIET MODE; OUTPUT IS PRINTED TO STDOUT INSTEAD OF BEING SPOKEN ALOUD||In most cases, a program will output basic information to the console, and running it in quiet mode will make it run without outputting anything. Blerp, on the other hand, outputs information through audio, and the quiet flag causes it to run like a normal program. "STDOUT" is short for "standard output".
|-
| -r||RANDOMIZE ARGUMENTS||Pointless and possibly damaging.
|-
| -R||RUN RECURSIVELY ON <nowiki>http://*</nowiki>||The star (*) symbol is often used as a wildcard to match any string of characters. "<nowiki>http://*</nowiki>" suggests that blerp will be run on every (unsecured) webpage on the internet, or on each page recursively. What it might do in order to make this valid is also ominous.
|-
| -s||FOLLOW SYMBOLIC LINKS SYMBOLICALLY||A {{w|symbolic link}} is a filesystem feature that allows the creation of "fake" files which when accessed redirect to another file path. Many commands offer an option to follow filesystem links and operate on the actual file rather than the fake pointer; this option however seems to suggest that it will only politely pretend to do so.
|-
| -S||STEALTH MODE||Similar to -a, in that it sounds more like an option for some kind of robot.
|-
| -t||TUMBLE DRY||Perhaps useful for a program that runs on a clothes dryer. Refers to [https://img1.etsystatic.com/000/0/5254504/il_570xN.184726893.jpg directions like these]. Many clothing items are marked "do not tumble dry" in the care instructions, but this would be extremely difficult to make relevant to a program. Given the other flags, this may be less nonsensical than it would first appear..
|-
| -u||UTF-8 MODE; OTHERWISE DEFAULTS TO ANSEL||{{w|ANSEL}} is an old and obscure character encoding that predates ASCII. Using ANSEL as a default would be strange and largely incompatible with most modern systems. On the other hand, UTF-8 is rather standard. Similar in this regard to -q, blerp does something non-standard by default. The problem with using different modes (where the original was also UTF-8) is shown in the title text of [[1683: Digital Data]].
|-
| -U||UPDATE (DEFAULT: FACEBOOK)||Update usually refers to replacing an old software with a newer version. The default here suggests posting a status update to Facebook, sourcing an update form Facebook, or updating Facebook itself.
|-
| -v||VERBOSE; ALIAS TO find / -exec cat {}||Almost standard flag, in ordinary programs the opposite of -q - instead of silencing output, it makes it more specific, usually to help with debugging. Instead, this flag gets replaced with a command that prints the contents of all files in the filesystem tree. However, it will never complete, as certain device files never end (/dev/urandom contains random bytes). Note that the "find" command is missing <code>\;</code> and will not run, instead complaining <code>find: missing argument to `-exec'</code> .
|-
| -V||SET VERSION NUMBER||Many programs will have a flag to view the version number. This flag changes the version number instead.
|-
| -y||YIKES||[[wiktionary:yikes|yikes]] is an interjection which can express fear or empathy with unpleasant or undesirable circumstances. It is unclear how this would influence the program.
|}

==Transcript==
:[A terminal screen; the background is black and the text is white.]
:{| class="wikitable"
|style="background-color:black;"|
;NAME
:blerp

;SYNOPSIS
:blerp {[ OPTION | ARGS ]...[ ARGS ... -f [FLAGS] ...}
:blerp {... DIRECTORY ... URL | BLERP} OPTIONS ] -{}

;DESCRIPTION
:blerp FILTERS LOCAL OR REMOTE FILES OR RESOURCES USING PATTERNS DEFINED BY ARGUMENTS AND ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES. THIS BEHAVIOR CAN BE ALTERED BY VARIOUS FLAGS.

;OPTIONS
:{|
! scope="row" | -a
| ATTACK MODE
|-
! scope="row" | -b
| SUPPRESS BEES
|-
! scope="row" | -—
| FLAGS USE EM DASHES
|-
! scope="row" | -c
| COUNT NUMBER OF ARGUMENTS
|-
! scope="row" | -d
| PIPES OUTPUT TO DEBUG.EXE
|-
! scope="row" | -D
| DEPRECATED
|-
! scope="row" | -e
| EXECUTE SOMETHING
|-
! scope="row" | -f
| FUN MODE
|-
! scope="row" | -g
| USE GOOGLE
|-
! scope="row" | -h
| CHECK WHETHER INPUT HALTS
|-
! scope="row" | -i
| IGNORE CASE (LOWER)
|-
! scope="row" | -I
| IGNORE CASE (UPPER)
|-
! scope="row" | -jk
| KIDDING
|-
! scope="row" | -n
| BEHAVIOR NOT DEFINED
|-
! scope="row" | -o
| OVERWRITE
|-
! scope="row" | -O
| OPPOSITE DAY
|-
! scope="row" | -p
| SET TRUE POPE; ACCEPTS "ROME" OR "AVIGNON"
|-
! scope="row" | -q
| QUIET MODE; OUTPUT IS PRINTED TO STDOUT INSTEAD OF BEING SPOKEN ALOUD
|-
! scope="row" | -r
| RANDOMIZE ARGUMENTS
|-
! scope="row" | -R
| RUN RECURSIVELY ON <nowiki>http://*</nowiki>
|-
! scope="row" | -s
| FOLLOW SYMBOLIC LINKS SYMBOLICALLY
|-
! scope="row" | -S
| STEALTH MODE
|-
! scope="row" | -t
| TUMBLE DRY
|-
! scope="row" | -u
| UTF-8 MODE; OTHERWISE DEFAULTS TO ANSEL
|-
! scope="row" | -U
| UPDATE (DEFAULT: FACEBOOK)
|-
! scope="row" | -v
| VERBOSE; ALIAS TO find / -exec cat {}
|-
! scope="row" | -V
| SET VERSION NUMBER
|-
! scope="row" | -y
| YIKES
|}

;SEE ALSO
:blerp(1), blerp(3), blirb(8), blarb(51) blorp(501)(c)(3)

;BUG REPORTS
:<nowiki>http://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/47744-Hemiptera</nowiki>

;COPYRIGHT
:GPL(2)(3+) CC-BY/5.0 RV 41.0 LIKE GECKO/BSD 4(2) OR BEST OFFER

|}

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Programming]]
[[Category:Computers]]
[[Category:BSD]]
[[Category:Animals]]

1692: Man Page

2016-06-10T16:12:46Z

Flaccinator: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1692
| date = June 10, 2016
| title = Man Page
| image = man_page.png
| titletext = For even more info, see blarbl(2)(3) and birb(3ahhaha I'm kidding, just Google it like a normal person.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|The two synopsis lines has not been explained, including the fact that there seems to be missing ending "]" and "}" in both lines (although taken together as one line they actually have the correct amount of brackets, but that would not make sense - I guess?) Someone seems to think the explanation for the copyright is lacking and has left a [text in square bracket] above that explanation. Please improve of delete that text if explanation now OK. Needs fact-checking of the table etc. and needs explanation of symbolic link}}

This comic shows a {{w|Unix}} manual page, i.e. a ''{{w|man page}}'' (hence the title), for a fictional program called "blerp". Unix man pages are meant to provide a brief reference on the usage of a command, not extended explanations with tutorials as may be found in many hardcopy product manuals. This example exaggerates the obscurity and terseness found in many man pages, making fun of the typical style of the genre.

It follows the prescribed format for a man page, with the following sections:
* Command Name: self-explanatory
* Synopsis: details of the valid command line formats
* Description: summary account of the purpose and operation of the command
* Options: detailed description of all the available command line arguments
* See Also: references to other man pages with relevance
* Bug Reports: contact details for the support group (if any)
* Copyright: details of the ownership and rights status of the man page (not the program)

However most the contents of these sections are not very meaningful, or even obey the correct syntax.

The Synopsis section is supposed to be in a {{w|Regular Expression|regex}}-like language called {{w|Wirth Syntax Notation}}, with structures like

* {<list of valid alternatives>}, e.g. blerp {A,B,C}
* [<optional element>], e.g. blerp [-o [<output file>]]
* <something> ... meaning repeat <something> as many times as you need

But the two Synopsis lines given do not have valid syntax; they randomly mix objects and syntactic characters, and the curly and square brackets are not properly nested or paired.

The options are in alphabetical order (putting lower case before upper case and with an em-dash inserted between b and c the only exception to this order).

{{w|Command-line_interface#Command-line_option|Command-line options}}, also known as flags, are typed following a program name to change how the program runs. The following is an example usage.

<code>blerp -a -d -t -p "AVIGNON"</code>

This would run blerp in attack mode, outputting to DEBUG.EXE, with tumble dry, and with POPE set to AVIGNON. In most cases, any number of flags can be used in any order, and applicable flags can be followed by arguments (such as "AVIGNON" in this example).

For a walk through of all possible flags see the [[#Table of flags|table]] below.

Below the flags there are a ''see also'' list with other stupid program names. Apart from two more blerbs there is also blirb, blarb and blorb, with chapter references. The last blorp(501)(c)(3) is not a valid chapter reference for a man page, it is however a slightly covert reference to {{w|501(c)_organization|501(c)(3)}} which is an organization that is tax-exempt.

Then follows a bug report site. inaturalist.org is a site working to extend biological research, and http://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/47744-Hemiptera points to the same page as http://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/Hemiptera. {{w|Hemiptera}} is the order classifying True Bugs, making it the perfect place to report any new bug you have discovered...

[Copyright is a mishmash, "or best offer" is humorous, needs better explanation of individual parts.]

Finally there is a "{{w|copyright}}" line which references several variously open-source content licenses which is also a recurring theme on xkcd (see [[225: Open Source]]). For instance GPL references {{w|GNU General Public License}} and the (2) and (3+) refers to {{w|GNU_General_Public_License#Version_2|GPL 2}} and {{w|GNU_General_Public_License#Version_3|GPL 3 or higher}}. ''CC'' refers to {{w|creative commons}} where ''BY'' is the {{w|Creative_Commons_license#Types_of_licenses|type of license}}, ''5.0'' refers to the attribution and ''RV 41.0'' refers to revision 41.0. However there were no higher attribution than [https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode 4.0] at the time of this comics release. xkcd is released under [http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.5/ CC BY-NC 2.5] as can be seen at the bottom of the {{xkcd}} homepage. A few comics have been released under the [[:Category:CC-BY-SA comics|CC-BY-SA license]] or [http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ 3.0]. BSD refers to {{w|BSD licenses}} a [[:Category:BSD|recurring theme]] in xkcd . "LIKE GECKO" is a reference to a web browser user-agent string; modern user-agent strings include a lot of text designed{{Citation needed}} to let the browser pretend to be several different browsers/renderers, and "(like Gecko)" is the standard text for a browser that wants to be treated as if it were {{w|Gecko (software)|Gecko}} while admitting, if you look closely, that it isn't really Gecko. This copyright line, which includes a lot of mashed-together text that might appear to match any of several different licenses, resembles a user-agent string.

"OR BEST OFFER" is a reference to an auction where the person who bids the highest gets to buy the item. In context, it suggest the person who has the highest offer for blerp will be sold the rights to the program. Since the other licenses mentioned would allow for free usage without paying royalties, it would usually be pointless to buy the rights to the program.

In the title text there is a list with even more info, again with crazy names like blarbl and birb. Again there are page references, but for the last the person writing this stops writing the reference and begins to laugh at who ever still reads this man page and telling them that he is kidding and suggest that they ''just Google it like a normal person''. Seems like [[Randall]] does not believe much in man pages anymore... The writer of this text thus also stops finishing the brackets as the ending ")" for the last chapter is missing.

Man pages were part of the subject of [[293: RTFM]] and were mentioned in [[456: Cautionary]].

===Table of flags===
*There are 28 flags.
**Only these five letters are not used: l, m, w, x, z.
**j and k are used together as jk.
**The following seven capital letters are used: D, I, O, R, S, U, V.
***That makes it one capital letter for every lower case letter that is not used by itself.
**Finally the em dash "—" is used as the only non-letter character. Also the only that breaks the strict adiabatically sorting of the list, with lower case before upper case letters.
{| class="wikitable"
!Flag!!Description!!Explanation
|-
| -a||ATTACK MODE||This sounds like a command for a robot or something similar. Strange for a command line program. Possibly this is designed to break something?
|-
| -b||SUPPRESS BEES||Nonsensical option. This is a word play, meaning either to suppress {{w|Bee|Bees}} (the insects) or the letter '''B'''. This is also a possible {{w|Discworld}} reference, as the ''{{W|Hex_(Discworld)#Structure_and_technology|long-term storage}}'' of the only recurring computer in the series, ''{{w|Hex (Discworld)|Hex}}'', is composed of a beehive. (Note that the actual computer runs on ants.)
|-
| -—||FLAGS USE EM DASHES||Command line options (flags) typically use {{w|Hyphen|hyphens}} (short horizontal lines largely used within words). {{w|Dash#Em_dash|Em dashes}} (longer, with the same length as the letter "m") can't easily be typed into a command line interface, so switching flags from hyphens to em dashes is excessively difficult and nonsensical.

This may be a play on how a lot of commands accept both single-dash options, like -h for help, as well as double-dash options like --help also for help. In word processors, a double-dash (--) is often replaced with the longer em dash (—), making them kind of synonymous.

Also implies a paradox where if flags were to use em dashes, this flag itself would be invalid.
|-
| -c||COUNT NUMBER OF ARGUMENTS||Most likely not useful.
|-
| -d||PIPES OUTPUT TO DEBUG.EXE||{{w|DEBUG.EXE}} is the old 16-bit debugger that came with MS-DOS. On a Unix system it is much more likely that one would use the {{w|GNU Debugger}} (GDB). A debugger is usually called by calling the debugger with the program (or script) to be debugged as parameter.
{{w|Pipeline (Unix)|Piping}} in Unix means that the output of one program serves as input for another program.
|-
| -D||DEPRECATED||Many programs contain legacy options to avoid breaking scripts that use them. While the option should still work, the documentation is changed to say "deprecated" to discourage further use. Eventually such options usually get removed. (However, given the nature of this comic, it's likely that -D has always stood for "deprecated".)
|-
| -e||EXECUTE SOMETHING||Vague. Also a possible pun on a kill-switch.
|-
| -f||FUN MODE||Strange and slightly ominous, given some of the other options. See under -O.
|-
| -g||USE GOOGLE||As an actual program flag, a bit hackjob-ish, but it is possible it is telling the user to use Google to find out what this tag does.
|-
| -h||CHECK WHETHER INPUT HALTS||Completely impossible, by the {{w|Halting problem}} which is the problem of determining, from a description of an arbitrary computer program and an input, whether the program will finish running or continue to run forever. {{w|Alan Turing}} proved in 1936 that a general algorithm to solve the halting problem for all possible program-input pairs cannot exist.

Note that most commands reserve -h for help, so using it for a different function is non-standard. Such is common for many Unix and Linux commands.
|-
| -i||IGNORE CASE (LOWER)||Usually, ignoring case means that a program will run without differentiating between upper- and lowercase. This flag suggests that blerp will run ignoring all the lowercase characters completely, or ignoring all the uppercase characters with the next flag "-I". Note that using this may make it ignore the difference for flags like -i and -I...
|-
| -I||IGNORE CASE (UPPER)||See above. Also possible that all text is converted to upper case, or that upper-case requirements only are ignored
|-
| -jk||KIDDING||A common acronym for [http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=jk Just Kidding], not a program flag. Also note that standard behavior of Unix command line options is that a single "-" can be followed by multiple one-letter options, making -jk equivalent to -j -k.
|-
| -n||BEHAVIOR NOT DEFINED||Possibly mathematically ominous? Otherwise useless.(Possible debug/unstable feature flag)
|-
| -o||OVERWRITE||Standard program flag, usually meaning that the program will overwrite a file rather than make a new one when data is output.May work strangely with -d.
|-
| -O||OPPOSITE DAY||Strange flag, possibly means that all other flags (or maybe even including this one!) have the opposite effects - if so, a lot of strange things would happen. (Especially with -b, -e, -f, -jk, -O...) Possible reference to the [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zEGjlHZMiM Cyanide and Happiness Short: Opposite Day]
|-
| -p||SET TRUE POPE; ACCEPTS "ROME" OR "AVIGNON"||This refers to a {{w|Western_Schism|historical schism}} in the {{w|Catholic Church}}. In the 14th century, the Pope briefly ruled from Avignon, France, instead of Rome. After the Papacy was returned to Rome in 1377, the Church split (the so-called Western Schism) as not everyone accepted the move and the Pope who ordered it. This flag apparently allows the user to select a preferred Pope. There is actually a possible feature request here, as "PISA", a third Pope, should also be an option. It is the second time this week that Popes have been mentioned, last time was two comics before in [[1690: Time-Tracking Software]] regarding the Popes sexual activity.
|-
| -q||QUIET MODE; OUTPUT IS PRINTED TO STDOUT INSTEAD OF BEING SPOKEN ALOUD||In most cases, a program will output basic information to the console, and running it in quiet mode will make it run without outputting anything. Blerp, on the other hand, outputs information through audio, and the quiet flag causes it to run like a normal program. "STDOUT" is short for "standard output".
|-
| -r||RANDOMIZE ARGUMENTS||Pointless and possibly damaging.
|-
| -R||RUN RECURSIVELY ON <nowiki>http://*</nowiki>||The star (*) symbol is often used as a wildcard to match any string of characters. "<nowiki>http://*</nowiki>" suggests that blerp will be run on every (unsecured) webpage on the internet, or on each page recursively. What it might do in order to make this valid is also ominous.
|-
| -s||FOLLOW SYMBOLIC LINKS SYMBOLICALLY||[Needs explanation of symbolic links] Many commands offer an option to follow filesystem links, this option however seems to suggest that it will only politely pretend to do so.
|-
| -S||STEALTH MODE||Similar to -a, in that it sounds more like an option for some kind of robot.
|-
| -t||TUMBLE DRY||Perhaps useful for a program that runs on a clothes dryer. Refers to [https://img1.etsystatic.com/000/0/5254504/il_570xN.184726893.jpg directions like these]. Many clothing items are marked "do not tumble dry" in the care instructions, but this would be extremely difficult to make relevant to a program. Given the other flags, this may be less nonsensical than it would first appear..
|-
| -u||UTF-8 MODE; OTHERWISE DEFAULTS TO ANSEL||{{w|ANSEL}} is an old and obscure character encoding that predates ASCII. Using ANSEL as a default would be strange and largely incompatible with most modern systems. On the other hand, UTF-8 is rather standard. Similar in this regard to -q, blerp does something non-standard by default. The problem with using different modes (where the original was also UTF-8) is shown in the title text of [[1683: Digital Data]].
|-
| -U||UPDATE (DEFAULT: FACEBOOK)||Update usually refers to replacing an old software with a newer version. The default here suggests posting a status update to Facebook, sourcing an update form Facebook, or updating Facebook itself.
|-
| -v||VERBOSE; ALIAS TO find / -exec cat {}||Almost standard flag, in ordinary programs the opposite of -q - instead of silencing output, it makes it more specific, usually to help with debugging. Instead, this flag gets replaced with a command that prints the contents of all files in the filesystem tree. However, it will never complete, as certain device files never end (/dev/urandom contains random bytes). Note that the "find" command is missing <code>\;</code> and will not run, instead complaining <code>find: missing argument to `-exec'</code> .
|-
| -V||SET VERSION NUMBER||Many programs will have a flag to view the version number. This flag changes the version number instead.
|-
| -y||YIKES||[[wiktionary:yikes|yikes]] is an interjection which can express fear or empathy with unpleasant or undesirable circumstances. It is unclear how this would influence the program.
|}

==Transcript==
:[A terminal screen; the background is black and the text is white.]
:{| class="wikitable"
|style="background-color:black;"|
;NAME
:blerp

;SYNOPSIS
:blerp {[ OPTION | ARGS ]...[ ARGS ... -f [FLAGS] ...}
:blerp {... DIRECTORY ... URL | BLERP} OPTIONS ] -{}

;DESCRIPTION
:blerp FILTERS LOCAL OR REMOTE FILES OR RESOURCES USING PATTERNS DEFINED BY ARGUMENTS AND ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES. THIS BEHAVIOR CAN BE ALTERED BY VARIOUS FLAGS.

;OPTIONS
:{|
! scope="row" | -a
| ATTACK MODE
|-
! scope="row" | -b
| SUPPRESS BEES
|-
! scope="row" | -—
| FLAGS USE EM DASHES
|-
! scope="row" | -c
| COUNT NUMBER OF ARGUMENTS
|-
! scope="row" | -d
| PIPES OUTPUT TO DEBUG.EXE
|-
! scope="row" | -D
| DEPRECATED
|-
! scope="row" | -e
| EXECUTE SOMETHING
|-
! scope="row" | -f
| FUN MODE
|-
! scope="row" | -g
| USE GOOGLE
|-
! scope="row" | -h
| CHECK WHETHER INPUT HALTS
|-
! scope="row" | -i
| IGNORE CASE (LOWER)
|-
! scope="row" | -I
| IGNORE CASE (UPPER)
|-
! scope="row" | -jk
| KIDDING
|-
! scope="row" | -n
| BEHAVIOR NOT DEFINED
|-
! scope="row" | -o
| OVERWRITE
|-
! scope="row" | -O
| OPPOSITE DAY
|-
! scope="row" | -p
| SET TRUE POPE; ACCEPTS "ROME" OR "AVIGNON"
|-
! scope="row" | -q
| QUIET MODE; OUTPUT IS PRINTED TO STDOUT INSTEAD OF BEING SPOKEN ALOUD
|-
! scope="row" | -r
| RANDOMIZE ARGUMENTS
|-
! scope="row" | -R
| RUN RECURSIVELY ON <nowiki>http://*</nowiki>
|-
! scope="row" | -s
| FOLLOW SYMBOLIC LINKS SYMBOLICALLY
|-
! scope="row" | -S
| STEALTH MODE
|-
! scope="row" | -t
| TUMBLE DRY
|-
! scope="row" | -u
| UTF-8 MODE; OTHERWISE DEFAULTS TO ANSEL
|-
! scope="row" | -U
| UPDATE (DEFAULT: FACEBOOK)
|-
! scope="row" | -v
| VERBOSE; ALIAS TO find / -exec cat {}
|-
! scope="row" | -V
| SET VERSION NUMBER
|-
! scope="row" | -y
| YIKES
|}

;SEE ALSO
:blerp(1), blerp(3), blirb(8), blarb(51) blorp(501)(c)(3)

;BUG REPORTS
:<nowiki>http://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/47744-Hemiptera</nowiki>

;COPYRIGHT
:GPL(2)(3+) CC-BY/5.0 RV 41.0 LIKE GECKO/BSD 4(2) OR BEST OFFER

|}

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Programming]]
[[Category:Computers]]
[[Category:BSD]]
[[Category:Animals]]

1691: Optimization

2016-06-08T09:09:37Z

Flaccinator: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1691
| date = June 8, 2016
| title = Optimization
| image = optimization.png
| titletext = Premature optimization is the root of all evil, so to start this project I'd better come up with a system that can determine whether a possible optimization is premature or not.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|No title-text explanation}}
This comic is a flowchart making fun of the difference between prematurely optimizing and just doing things right. Since you're consulting a flowchart to answer, you're prematurely optimizing.

Donald Knuth in his paper "Structured Programming with Goto statements" said:
<blockquote>
"There is no doubt that the grail of efficiency leads to abuse. Programmers waste enormous amounts of time thinking about, or worrying about, the speed of noncritical parts of their programs, and these attempts at efficiency actually have a strong negative impact when debugging and maintenance are considered. We should forget about small efficiencies, say about 97% of the time: '''premature optimization is the root of all evil'''. Yet we should not pass up our opportunities in that critical 3%."
</blockquote>

Source: http://web.archive.org/web/20130731202547/http://pplab.snu.ac.kr/courses/adv_pl05/papers/p261-knuth.pdf (Computing Surveys, Vol 6, No 4, December 1974)

The title text describes another time-wasting behaviour common in obsessively perfectionist coders: developing tools to analyse aspects, such as performance, of the software actually required. In the some fields, such as compilers or database design for instance, such tools are useful and productive, but the usage suggested here is more appropriately covered by instinct and common sense.

==Transcript==
:[A flow chart is shown with three boxes connected with two arrows. The first box rectangular:]
:Are you prematurely optimizing or just taking time to do things right?

:[From the first box there is a short arrow straight down to a diamond shaped box:]
:Are you consulting a flowchart to answer this question?

:[An arrow labeled "Yes" continues down to the last box, which is rectangularly shaped.]
:You are prematurely optimizing

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Flowcharts]]

1684: Rainbow

2016-05-25T03:32:27Z

Flaccinator: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1684
| date = May 23, 2016
| title = Rainbow
| image = rainbow.png
| titletext = Listen, in a few thousand years you'll invent a game called 'SimCity' which has a 'disaster' button, and then you'll understand.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic about {{w|rainbows}} coincided with the first release of a [[what if?]] in almost two months. It was called ''{{what if|150|Tatooine Rainbow}}'' about rainbows if Earth had two suns like the fictive planet {{w|Tatooine}} from Star Wars.

In this comic the patriarch {{w|Noah}}, from the {{w|Abrahamic religions}} represented by [[Cueball]], talks to {{w|God}} after {{w|Genesis flood narrative|the biblical flood}}. He asks what the coloured band across the sky is, and God tells him it is a {{w|rainbow}}. According to the Book of Genesis, God placed {{w|Rainbows in mythology|a rainbow}} in the sky, giving it significance for the first time, as a promise to humanity that he would never again make a flood to cleanse the world of sin ([https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=genesis%209:2-9:17&version=KJV Genesis 9:2–17]). A {{w|rainbow}} is an {{w|optical phenomena|optical phenomenon}} caused by reflection, refraction and dispersion of light in water droplets resulting in a {{w|spectrum}} of light appearing in the sky, one of many light phenomena caused by sunlight and precipitation.

Then Noah notices a {{w|Rainbow#Variations|double rainbow}} outside the original ''promise rainbow''. Secondary rainbows are caused by double reflection of sunlight inside the raindrops. When asked about this God seems to falter, but recovers and claims he made it to show that he will never again set the Earth on fire. As an afterthought he says sorry about that, although it was a while back. This may refer to the early Earth being a liquid ball of molten rock (the {{w|Hadean|Hadean period}}), or later global fire catastrophes caused by asteroid impacts and volcanic eruptions. That God promises to never again burn the earth goes against the idea of {{w|Armageddon}} where everything will be destroyed in fire etc.

Noah begins to notice some other optical phenomena, first he spots a {{w|Halo (optical phenomenon)|halo}}. Halos can appear around the Sun (as is the case here) or the Moon. The one he spots is most likely the {{w|22° halo|circular 22° halo}}, which is a halo forming a circle with a radius of approximately 22° around the Sun, or occasionally the Moon. God promptly claims it is a promise to never again make {{w|raccoons}} {{w|Immortality|immortal}} as it destroyed the Earth's {{w|ecosystem}}. Although today these animals can be a pest, see [[1565: Back Seat]], they are luckily not immortal. Randall is likely referring to an unkillable form of immortality rather than {{w|Biological Immortality|biological immortal}} as while that would likely cause some issues, the raccoons can still fall to predation and disease. Should raccoons have been rendered unkillable by predation or disease as well as {{w|Senescence|aging}} then the combination of an average gestational period of 65 days, a litter size of 2-5 individuals, and an omnivorous appetite makes for a creature that could easily dominate any and all ecological niches.

Noah continues by noticing two {{w|sun dogs}} (or parahelia) which often co-occur with the 22° halo. These consist of a pair of bright spots either side on the Sun, intersected by the halo. God gets tired of this and tries to stop Noah by saying that he has said sorry, and asks him to drop the subject. That is probably sensible because there are 23 different {{w|Optical_phenomena#Atmospheric_optical_phenomena|atmospheric optical phenomena}} listed on Wikipedia alone. Following the logic of the comic and the evasive answer of God, it could mean there are some more skeletons in the closet.

There are also "tertiary rainbow" (and even higher orders), which forms a ring around the sun, but this is normally lost in the glare of the sunlight passing through raindrops. These higher order rainbow (up to fifth order) are mentioned in the what if? referenced above. As it is halos that have sun dogs, and as these higher order rainbows are almost impossible to see with the naked eye, it is highly unlikely that it was supposed to be such a tertiary rainbow that Noah sees in the third panel.

The title text is a continuation where God tells Noah that in the future humanity will invent a game called {{w|SimCity}}. This is a strategy computer game in which the player creates and manages an environment wherein ''sims'' autonomously build a city (or in later versions a country, or a planet). The sims are simple AI processes that "build" residential, commercial and industrial structures within the game space, according to the topography and zoning choices made by the player, then use them to create more wealth to expand their city. The sims have to contend with traffic jams, social problems, and ecological impacts of their own activity, and occasional natural disasters ranging from earthquakes to Godzilla.

The player has God-like control of the world, including a [http://www.ign.com/wikis/simcity/Disasters disaster button], for when the player doesn't want to wait for a disaster to happen by chance. God suggests that it is too tempting to push the disaster button once a civilization has been built up, if just to see what happens.

Overall the comic pokes fun at the idea of explaining natural phenomena as messages from a deity.

==Transcript==
:[Noah, here represented as Cueball, is looking up on a rainbow band going through the top right corner of the panel. The band displays the following colors from outward and in: Red, yellow, green, blue and purple. A black blob in the bottom of the panel right of Noah, has white text with the reply from God to Noah's questions. This continues through the rest of the comic.]
:Noah: Wow, God- What's that band of color?
:God: A ''rainbow''.
:God: It is a sign of my promise that I will never again flood the Earth.

:[In this frameless panel Noah is not looking so much up. God's reply is split in two black blobs with a small connection between them.]
:Noah: Oh, good! Hey, what about that second bow above the first one?
:God: Oh, uh, sign of my promise not to set the earth on fire.
:God: Sorry for doing that a while back.

:[Noah points left, God's black reply blob hangs higher, only above Noah's shoulders]
:Noah: What about that third faint bow near the sun?
:God: My promise to never again destroy Earth's ecosystem by making raccoons immortal.

:[Noah points even higher up towards left, with God's reply situated as before]
:Noah: And the little rainbow clouds on either side of-
:God: Look, I ''said'' I'm sorry. Can we just drop it?

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Religion]]
[[Category:Video games]]
[[Category:Animals]]

1684: Rainbow

2016-05-24T13:36:27Z

Flaccinator: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1684
| date = May 23, 2016
| title = Rainbow
| image = rainbow.png
| titletext = Listen, in a few thousand years you'll invent a game called 'SimCity' which has a 'disaster' button, and then you'll understand.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic about {{w|rainbows}} coincided with the first release of a [[what if?]] in almost two months. It was called ''{{what if|150|Tatooine Rainbow}}'' about rainbows if Earth had two suns like the fictive planet {{w|Tatooine}} from Star Wars.

In this comic the patriarch {{w|Noah}}, from the {{w|Abrahamic religions}} represented by [[Cueball]], talks to {{w|God}} after {{w|Genesis flood narrative|the biblical flood}}. He asks what the coloured band across the sky is, and God tells him it is a {{w|rainbow}}. According to the Book of Genesis, God placed the {{w|Rainbows in mythology|worlds first rainbow}} in the sky as a promise to humanity that he would never again make a flood to cleanse the world of sin ([https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=genesis%209:2-9:17&version=KJV Genesis 9:2–17]). A {{w|rainbow}} is an {{w|optical phenomena|optical phenomenon}} caused by reflection, refraction and dispersion of light in water droplets resulting in a {{w|spectrum}} of light appearing in the sky, one of many light phenomena caused by sunlight and precipitation.

Then Noah notices a {{w|Rainbow#Variations|double rainbow}} outside the original ''promise rainbow''. Secondary rainbows are caused by double reflection of sunlight inside the raindrops. When asked about this God seems to falter, but recovers and claims he made it to show that he will never again set the Earth on fire. As an afterthought he says sorry about that, although it was a while back. This may refer to the early Earth being a liquid ball of molten rock (the {{w|Hadean|Hadean period}}), or later global fire catastrophes caused by asteroid impacts and volcanic eruptions. That God promises to never again burn the earth goes against the idea of {{w|Armageddon}} where everything will be destroyed in fire etc.

Noah begins to notice some other optical phenomena, first he spots a {{w|Halo (optical phenomenon)|halo}}. Halos can appear around the Sun (as is the case here) or the Moon. The one he spots is most likely the {{w|22° halo|circular 22° halo}}, which is a halo forming a circle with a radius of approximately 22° around the Sun, or occasionally the Moon. God promptly claims it is a promise to never again make {{w|raccoons}} {{w|Immortality|immortal}} as it destroyed the Earth's {{w|ecosystem}}. Although today these animals can be a pest, see [[1565: Back Seat]], they are luckily not immortal. Randall is likely referring to an unkillable form of immortality rather than {{w|Biological Immortality|biological immortal}} as while that would likely cause some issues, the raccoons can still fall to predation and disease. Should raccoons have been rendered unkillable by predation or disease as well as {{w|Senescence|aging}} then the combination of an average gestational period of 65 days, a litter size of 2-5 individuals, and an omnivorous appetite makes for a creature that could easily dominate any and all ecological niches.

Noah continues by noticing two {{w|sun dogs}} (or parahelia) which often co-occur with the 22° halo. These consist of a pair of bright spots either side on the Sun, intersected by the halo. God gets tired of this and tries to stop Noah by saying that he has said sorry, and asks him to drop the subject. That is probably sensible because there are 23 different {{w|Optical_phenomena#Atmospheric_optical_phenomena|atmospheric optical phenomena}} listed on Wikipedia alone. Following the logic of the comic and the evasive answer of God, it could mean there are some more skeletons in the closet.

There are also "tertiary rainbow" (and even higher orders), which forms a ring around the sun, but this is normally lost in the glare of the sunlight passing through raindrops. This third rainbow is mentioned in the what if? mentioned earlier. As it is halos that have sun dogs, and as these higher order rainbows are almost impossible to see with the naked eye, it is highly unlikely that it was supposed to be such a tertiary rainbow that Noah sees in the third panel.

The title text is a continuation where God tells Noah that in the future humanity will invent a game called {{w|SimCity}}. This is a strategy computer game in which the player creates and manages an environment wherein ''sims'' autonomously build a city (or in later versions a country, or a planet). The sims are simple AI processes that "build" residential, commercial and industrial structures within the game space, according the topography and zoning choices made by the player, then use them to create more wealth to expand their city. The sims have to contend with traffic jams, social problems, and ecological impacts of their own activity, and occasional natural disasters ranging from earthquakes to Godzilla.

The player has God-like control of the world, including a [http://www.ign.com/wikis/simcity/Disasters disaster button], for when the player doesn't want to wait for a disaster to happen by chance. God (in the xkcd comic) is suggesting that it is too tempting, once a civilization has been built up, to push the disaster button just to see what happens.

Overall the comic pokes fun at the idea of explaining natural phenomena as messages from a deity.

==Transcript==
:[Noah, here represented as Cueball, is looking up on a rainbow band going through the top right corner of the panel. The band displays the following colors from outward and in: Red, yellow, green, blue and purple. A black blob in the bottom of the panel right of Noah, has white text with the reply from God to Noah's questions. This continues through the rest of the comic.]
:Noah: Wow, God- What's that band of color?
:God: A ''rainbow''.
:God: It is a sign of my promise that I will never again flood the Earth.

:[In this frameless panel Noah is not looking so much up. God's reply is split in two black blobs with a small connection between them.]
:Noah: Oh, good! Hey, what about that second bow above the first one?
:God: Oh, uh, sign of my promise not to set the earth on fire.
:God: Sorry for doing that a while back.

:[Noah points left, God's black reply blob hangs higher, only above Noah's shoulders]
:Noah: What about that third faint bow near the sun?
:God: My promise to never again destroy Earth's ecosystem by making raccoons immortal.

:[Noah points even higher up towards left, with God's reply situated as before]
:Noah: And the little rainbow clouds on either side of-
:God: Look, I ''said'' I'm sorry. Can we just drop it?

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Religion]]
[[Category:Video games]]
[[Category:Animals]]

1684: Rainbow

2016-05-24T13:30:40Z

Flaccinator: expanded the SimCity explanation

{{comic
| number = 1684
| date = May 23, 2016
| title = Rainbow
| image = rainbow.png
| titletext = Listen, in a few thousand years you'll invent a game called 'SimCity' which has a 'disaster' button, and then you'll understand.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete| More details needed, for instance is there a specific reference to the burning of the Earth in the bible before Noah, or is this just the meteor(s) in the past? And what about the planned Armageddon, is that then off? More about issues with raccoons and what immortality would do to an ecosystem. More about the sims for the title text explanation. Are there other hidden meanings/interpretations?}}

In this comic the patriarch {{w|Noah}}, from the {{w|Abrahamic religions}} represented by [[Cueball]], talks to {{w|God}} after {{w|Genesis flood narrative|the biblical flood}}. He asks what the coloured band across the sky is, and God tells him it is a {{w|rainbow}}. According to the Book of Genesis, God placed the {{w|Rainbows in mythology|worlds first rainbow}} in the sky as a promise to humanity that he would never again make a flood to cleanse the world of sin ([https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=genesis%209:2-9:17&version=KJV Genesis 9:2–17]). A {{w|rainbow}} is an {{w|optical phenomena|optical phenomenon}} caused by reflection, refraction and dispersion of light in water droplets resulting in a {{w|spectrum}} of light appearing in the sky, one of many light phenomena caused by sunlight and precipitation.

Then Noah notices a {{w|Rainbow#Variations|double rainbow}} outside the original ''promise rainbow''. Secondary rainbows are caused by double reflection of sunlight inside the raindrops. When asked about this God seems to falter, but recovers and claims he made it to show that he will never again set the Earth on fire. As an afterthought he says sorry about that, although it was a while back. This may refer to the early Earth being a liquid ball of molten rock (the {{w|Hadean|Hadean period}}), or later global fire catastrophes caused by asteroid impacts and volcanic eruptions.

Noah begins to notice some other optical phenomena, first he spots a {{w|Halo (optical phenomenon)|halo}}. Halos can appear around the Sun (as is the case here) or the Moon. The one he spots is most likely the {{w|22° halo|circular 22° halo}}, which is a halo forming a circle with a radius of approximately 22° around the Sun, or occasionally the Moon. God promptly claims it is a promise to never again make {{w|raccoons}} {{w|Immortality|immortal}} as it destroyed the Earth's {{w|ecosystem}}. Although today these animals can be a pest, see [[1565: Back Seat]], they are luckily not immortal. Randall is likely referring to an unkillable form of immortality rather than {{w|Biological Immortality|biological immortal}} as while that would likely cause some issues, the raccoons can still fall to predation and disease. Should raccoons have been rendered unkillable by predation or disease as well as {{w|Senescence|aging}} then the combination of an average gestational period of 65 days, a litter size of 2-5 individuals, and an omnivorous appetite makes for a creature that could easily dominate any and all ecological niches.

Noah continues by noticing two {{w|sun dogs}} (or parahelia) which often co-occur with the 22° halo. These consist of a pair of bright spots either side on the Sun, intersected by the halo. God gets tired of this and tries to stop Noah by saying that he has said sorry, and asks him to drop the subject. That is probably sensible because there are 23 different {{w|Optical_phenomena#Atmospheric_optical_phenomena|atmospheric optical phenomena}} listed on Wikipedia alone. Following the logic of the comic and the evasive answer of God, it could mean there are some more skeletons in the closet.

There are also "tertiary rainbow" (and even higher orders), which forms a ring around the sun, but this is normally lost in the glare of the sunlight passing through raindrops. This third rainbow is mentioned in the [[what if?]] ''{{what if|150|Tatooine Rainbow}}'' about rainbows if Earth had two suns like the the fictive planet {{w|Tatooine}}. (It was the first what if? to be release for quite some time). As it is halos that have sun dogs, it was not such a tertiary rainbow Noah saw in the third panel.

The title text is a continuation where God tells Noah that in the future humanity will invent a game called {{w|SimCity}}. This is a strategy computer game in which the player creates and manages an environment wherein ''sims'' autonomously build a city (or in later versions a country, or a planet). The sims are simple AI processes that "build" residential, commercial and industrial structures within the game space, according the topology and zoning choices made by the player, then use them to create more wealth to expand their city. The sims have to contend with traffic jams, social problems, and ecological impacts of their own activity, and occasional natural disasters ranging from earthquakes to Godzilla.

The player has God-like control of the world, including a [http://www.ign.com/wikis/simcity/Disasters disaster button], for when the player doesn't want to wait for a disaster to happen by chance. God (in the xkcd comic) is suggesting that it is too tempting, once a civilization has been built up, to push the disaster button just to see what happens.

Overall the comic pokes fun at the idea of explaining natural phenomena as messages from a deity.

==Transcript==
:[Noah, here represented as Cueball, is looking up on a rainbow band going through the top right corner of the panel. The band displays the following colors from outward and in: Red, yellow, green, blue and purple. A black blob in the bottom of the panel right of Noah, has white text with the reply from God to Noah's questions. This continues through the rest of the comic.]
:Noah: Wow, God- What's that band of color?
:God: A ''rainbow''.
:God: It is a sign of my promise that I will never again flood the Earth.

:[In this frameless panel Noah is not looking so much up. God's reply is split in two black blobs with a small connection between them.]
:Noah: Oh, good! Hey, what about that second bow above the first one?
:God: Oh, uh, sign of my promise not to set the earth on fire.
:God: Sorry for doing that a while back.

:[Noah points left, God's black reply blob hangs higher, only above Noah's shoulders]
:Noah: What about that third faint bow near the sun?
:God: My promise to never again destroy Earth's ecosystem by making raccoons immortal.

:[Noah points even higher up towards left, with God's reply situated as before]
:Noah: And the little rainbow clouds on either side of-
:God: Look, I ''said'' I'm sorry. Can we just drop it?

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Religion]]
[[Category:Video games]]
[[Category:Animals]]