explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

1698: Theft Quadrants

2025-11-13T23:47:26Z

Galaktos: /* Explanation */ fix Eisenhower link

{{comic
| number = 1698
| date = June 24, 2016
| title = Theft Quadrants
| image = theft quadrants.png
| titletext = TinyURL was the most popular link shortener for long enough that it made it into a lot of printed publications. I wonder what year the domain will finally lapse and get picked up by a porn site.
}}

==Explanation==
This is an {{w|Time management#Eisenhower method|Eisenhower box}} comparing how difficult it is to steal a specified object with the severity of the theft.

It is very hard to steal {{w|Gold Codes|nuclear launch codes}}. They are protected by many layers of federal security. That's a good thing, too, since if they were stolen, they could be used to start a {{w|Nuclear warfare|nuclear war}}, which would cause untold death and destruction. It is generally not a good idea to give thieves nuclear codes.{{Citation needed}}

It is also hard to steal the {{w|Crown Jewels of the United Kingdom|Crown Jewels}}, since they are protected by a complex security system. But if they were stolen, it wouldn't be so bad for most people; the only direct loss would be to its owners, the British royal family, who are well-insured for thefts and only use the Crown Jewels as a display piece for museumgoers. It would also be a loss to the public as a cultural and historical artifact, but would have little practical effect on the world.

It wouldn't be too hard to steal the {{w|Wienermobile}}{{Citation needed}} (a car shaped like a hot-dog, advertising the Oscar Mayer brand). There are several versions of this car, and it would not be more difficult to steal than any other car, although harder to hide. [[Randall]] seems to consider that such a stolen vehicle would not be too bad, although he has previously referred to a stolen Wienermobile in [[935: Missed Connections]], which is driven recklessly, almost hitting someone. But it is not bad enough to consider it a big problem in a context when it is compared with stolen nuclear launch codes.

It also wouldn't be hard (or at least, not as hard as stealing nuclear launch codes or the Crown Jewels) to steal the {{w|TinyURL|tinyurl.com}} domain name, but the consequences of that could be significant and is thus listed under very bad. The joke is of course that this is listed as just as bad as the risk of a nuclear war, and of course it is not as significant, but it could swiftly result in damage to a lot of important computers, and ruin references in journals etc.

TinyURL offers a URL shortening service. They provide short URLs that redirect to long ones. This is useful if you want to write down a very long URL as it saves typing and is more accurate. Other companies, including [https://bitly.com/ bit.ly], [https://goo.gl/ Google] (ultimately fully discontinued March 30, 2019), and [https://t.co/ Twitter] offer a similar service. TinyURL was, for a while, the most popular of these URL shortening services. If their domain name were stolen, all the redirects from short URLs could be changed to forward traffic to sites hosting, for example, malware. This would have significant effects on a large number of people, because TinyURL is used in many places both online and (as the title text notes) even sometimes offline.

In the title text Randall implies that stealing the tinyurl.com domain could happen when it next expires. A [https://reports.internic.net/cgi/whois?whois_nic=tinyurl.com&type=domain whois search] as of February 2021 finds that the tinyurl.com domain is next due for renewal in January 2029. However, [https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/expired-2013-05-03-en rule changes made by ICANN] (the organization in charge of domain name registrations) now make it effectively impossible to steal a domain name because the owner allowed its registration to lapse. Current rules for .com registrations now allow for the original owner to renew their domain name after it expires during a 0-45 day auto-renew grace period. The exact length of this grace period depends on what company the domain is registered with. All registrars are then required to give a 30 day redemption grace period during which the domain may be renewed with penalty. As a result, tinyurl.com would have a 30-75 day period after expiration during which the domain is not available for registration by a third party. ICANN rules state that DNS resolution must be stopped during the redemption grace period, which means that there will be a 30 day period during which tinyurl.com will no longer work but the company will have the ability to quickly restore ownership of their domain. It is very unlikely that any company that is still in business would not notice that their domain name has expired before the end of the 30 day redemption grace period.

Another way to steal a domain name would be through {{w|Domain hijacking|domain name hijacking}}. There have been some high profile cases of domain name hijacking, with one of the more notable domains being [http://www.computerworld.com/article/2595655/networking/companies-point-fingers-over-nike-web-site-hijacking.html nike.com in 2000]. However, whether or not this is a risk for any particular domain name is difficult to estimate. Additional security mechanisms such as domain name locking and private registrations have been introduced to mitigate the threat of domain name hijacking. Further, domain name hijacking relies on situation-specific attacks such as hacking email accounts, spoofing emails, and social engineering attacks against either the company who owns the domain name or the company who registers the domain name. For security-conscious companies, such attacks can be impossible, or at least an attacker's success may require security failures in more than one area. A summary of domain hijacking examples including an analysis of how they succeeded and what steps could have prevented them can be found [http://archive.icann.org/en/announcements/hijacking-report-12jul05.pdf here]. In short though, there is no way to say for sure how vulnerable any particular domain name might be to hijacking.

==Transcript==
:[A chart with an Eisenhower box, consisting of four labelled squares. To the left the rows are labelled hard and easy and two lines goes to from these labels to a description of what the labels refer to saying "how hard thing would be to steal". On the bottom the rows are labelled not that bad and very bad and two lines goes to from these labels to a description of what the labels refer to saying "how bad it would be if someone stole it". The top left box is labelled "the Crown Jewels". The top right box is labelled "the nuclear launch codes". The bottom left box is labelled "the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile. The bottom right box is labelled "the tinyurl.com domain name".]

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Nuclear weapons]]

1418: Horse

2025-09-16T11:45:29Z

Galaktos: /* Explanation */ rewrite pro-Russian forces/horses section to not parrot Russian propaganda so much (“civil unrest”, seriously?)

{{comic
| number = 1418
| date = September 8, 2014
| title = Horse
| image = horse.png
| titletext = Officer suspended from horse.
}}

==Explanation==
[[Cueball]] has set his browser to auto-replace the word "force" with the word "horse". Some of the humorous resulting news headlines are shown. This is probably a parody of the [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/cloud-to-butt-plus/apmlngnhgbnjpajelfkmabhkfapgnoai?hl=en Cloud to Butt Chrome Extension] (since it says ''new'' favorite browser text replacement). There has been several [[:Category:Substitutions|comics using substitutions]] before and also at least one after this one.

; Ukrainian town threatened by pro-Russian horses
:The {{w|Russo-Ukrainian War}} had begun some seven months earlier, but until the {{w|Russian invasion of Ukraine|2022 invasion}}, Russia mainly used soldiers without insignia and paramilitaries. These were often euphemistically referred to as "pro-Russian forces" by the media (rather than "Russian forces").

; Governor appoints task horse
:A {{w|Task force}} is a unit or formation established to work on a single defined task or activity, which makes it quite comical to picture a horse instead of a unit. A "task horse" would presumably be a horse performing tasks.

; Iraqi Air Horse growing
:The Air ''Force'' of Iraq may indeed be being up-armed, especially in light of the threat, at this time, of ISIS/ISIL/Islamic State forces across swaths of both Iraq and Syria. In mythology, Pegasus was a winged horse that could fly through the air, and might be considered an "air horse". In real life, "Air Horse One" is an airplane equipped for transporting horses.

; Quarks, which are bound together by the strong nuclear horse…
:{{w|Quark|Quarks}} are elementary particles. They form bound states e.g. the {{w|proton}} (two up + one down-quark) mediated by the {{w|Strong interaction|strong force}}, similarly as atoms are bound states of {{w|Electron|electrons}} and charged {{w|Nucleon|nucleons}} held together by the {{w|Electromagnetism|electromagnetic horse}}, and these forces are also referenced in [[474: Turn-On]], [[1621: Fixion]] and in [[1731: Wrong]]. There is a real Nuclear horse in a different sense, which is a racehorse born in 2017 and named Nuclear.

; Officer suspended from horse (title text)
:Being suspended from a police force (i.e. usually being forced upon mandatory leave pending resolution of the issue at hand; paid, part-paid or unpaid) is a common practice where wrongdoing of sufficiently serious nature is suspected of the police officer, and it may occur in some countries if the police officer gets to old for the job. A person could literally be suspended from a horse if they fall off the horse but got stuck in the stirrups. Unlike most of these "horse" terms, a police horse is a real thing.

==Transcript==
:[Headlines above the main frame of the comic:]
:New favorite browser text replacement:
:'''Force → Horse'''

:[In the comic frame Cueball is sitting in front of his PC reading the following headlines that are written above him in separate frames:]
:Ukranian towns threatened by pro-Russian horses
:Governor appoints task horse
:Iraqi air horse growing
:Quarks, which are bound together by the strong nuclear horse...

==Trivia==
In the comic, Randall spelled "Ukra'''i'''nian" incorrectly, forgetting the first 'i'.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Substitutions]]
[[Category:Language]]
[[Category:Animals]]

290: Fucking Blue Shells

2025-07-11T21:52:54Z

Galaktos: /* Explanation */ tweak wording and mention title

{{comic
| number = 290
| date = July 16, 2007
| title = Fucking Blue Shells
| image = fucking_blue_shells.png
| titletext = You can evade blue shells in Double Dash, but it is deep magic.
}}

==Explanation==

Sometimes, something suddenly goes wrong, and you can only shout obscenities at it. For instance, when the dog bites, when the bee stings, when one feels sad, or when a program crashes (e.g. a {{w|Segmentation fault|segfault}}), the victim often reacts by swearing.

For [[Randall]], however, profanities are caused mostly by the video game {{w|Mario Kart}}, specifically {{w|blue shell}}s according to the comic's title. These blue shells, when fired, target the player currently in first place and stop them cold. In a close game near the end of the race, a player can go from first to an unrecoverable last in one hit.

The title text refers to {{w|Mario_Kart:_Double_Dash!!|Mario Kart: Double Dash}}. This includes a technique to avoid being hit by a blue shell, but it requires skillful timing to accomplish. The term "{{w|deep magic}}" comes from computer programmer slang. Interestingly, with a boost mushroom in Mario Kart Wii and Mario Kart 8 (and the so-called "Super-Horn" in the latter), it is also possible (with accurate timing) to escape blue shells.

==Transcript==
:My Profanity Usage By Cause:
:[A pie chart is shown.]
:[Injury is about 2.5% of pie chart.]
:[Irony is about 2.5% of pie chart.]
:[Misc is about 2.5% of pie chart.]
:[Segfaults is about 10% of pie chart.]
:[Mario Kart is about 82.5% of pie chart.]

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Pie charts]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Video games]]
[[Category:Mario Kart]]

2239: Data Error

2025-05-07T21:13:46Z

Galaktos: /* Explanation */ fix redlink

{{comic
| number = 2239
| date = December 9, 2019
| title = Data Error
| image = data_error.png
| titletext = Cyanobacteria wiped out nearly all life on Earth once before, and they can do it again!
}}

==Explanation==
[[Megan]] is frustrated that a data error invalidates her research, which she was just ready to publish. [[Black Hat]] tells her not to panic and states there are two options.

Option one is to redo her analysis and share the correct results, even if negative. Negative results can be important, and although it would be disappointing, she would be trying to extract some value from the research.

Option two fits the [[72: Classhole|classhole]] expectation from Black Hat, as he suggests that she should destroy the evidence, use her research materials to build a superweapon, and use it to conquer the world and rule it with an iron fist.

Obviously familiar with [[Black Hat]]'s ways, she moves right into being a smart-aleck. Her research is about the productivity of {{w|algae}} -- a topic not likely to lead to conquering the world.{{cn}} Humorously she states that at least she can make people tremble before her and her anomalously productive algae, and then goes on to state it was the data error that made her algae look productive. She jokingly corrects herself and states ''Tremble before my normal algae!'' She is, of course, having some fun with [[Black Hat]] and his generally destructive behavior.

Destroying the evidence, hiding the error and publishing the wrong results as if they were right is what a dishonest scientist would do in such a situation. This behavior is what would be expected by a malevolent character such as Black Hat... But the unexpected turn is that Black Hat passes over {{w|scientific misconduct}} to go directly to pure supervillainhood. He obviously has some other ideas about what a researcher uses her time on, as he did not expect Megan to be frustrated about algae.

The title text refers to the {{w|Great Oxidation Event}}, when prokaryotic photosynthetic organisms built up oxygen in Earth's atmosphere for the first time and most organisms, which weren't adapted to oxygen, went extinct. It's extremely unlikely that algae could again be dangerous to all life on Earth, though Black Hat may wish they could be. (Note that {{w|cyanobacteria}}, which are colloquially referred to as "blue-green algae", are not considered to be true algae by many scientists, who restrict the term to {{w|eukaryotes}}.) On the other hand, algae and cyanobacteria {{w|Harmful algal bloom|can still be locally harmful}}.

Megan's data error could have been any number of things. Her data pipeline might have had a unit conversion error, or perhaps she mistyped the baseline productivity value that she was comparing her algae to, or perhaps her calculations used assumed or estimated values related to phenomena that were poorly understood at the time but have since been resolved in an unfavorable direction.

Whatever Megan's data error was, it seems harmless enough, but a similar data error spurred the development of nuclear weapons. In 1940, Otto Frisch and Rudolf Peierls wrote a memo "{{w|Frisch–Peierls memorandum|On the construction of a 'superbomb' based on a nuclear chain reaction in uranium}}". In this memo, Frisch and Peierls estimated that only 570 grams of uranium-235 would be required to construct a "superbomb" (what we now call a nuclear weapon), compared to many tons of natural uranium-238. This inspired the British and American governments to begin developing infrastructure for uranium enrichment through the {{w|Tube Alloys}} and {{w|Manhattan Project}} programs. Later experiments in these programs revealed that the values Frisch and Peierls had used for uranium's density and nuclear cross-section were overestimates (the true critical mass is actually around fifty kilograms), but by that time, the programs were far enough along that they could simply press on with enriching more material to eventually produce working weapons.

==Transcript==
:[Megan is talking to Black Hat.]
:Megan: I can't believe this data error invalidates a year and a half of my research.
:Megan: I was about to publish.

:[In a frame-less panel Black Hat replies while holding two fingers up one on either hand.]
:Black Hat: Don't panic. You have two options.
:Megan: Yeah?

:[Closeup shot of Black Hat holding one hand out with the palm up.]
:Black Hat: 1) Redo your analysis and share whatever results you can, whether positive or negative. It's disappointing, but these things happen.

:[Zoom out on Black Hat and Megan. Black Hat holds his closed fist up in front of him. Megan throws both arms up in the air.]
:Black Hat: 2) Destroy the evidence. Use your materials and research methods to build a superweapon. Conquer Earth and rule with an iron fist.
:Megan: '''''Tremble before my anomalously productive algae!'''''
:Megan: Except the anomaly was an artifact.
:Megan: '''''Tremble before my normal algae!'''''

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Black Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Biology]]
[[Category:Science]]
[[Category:Scientific research]]

1126: Epsilon and Zeta

2025-03-28T16:12:02Z

Galaktos: /* Explanation */ update links to Epsilon and Zeta as both of the old link targets now redirect to disambiguation pages

{{comic
| number = 1126
| date = October 26, 2012
| title = Epsilon and Zeta
| image = epsilon and zeta.png
| titletext = The average error in the NHC forecasted position of a hurricane three days in the future has shrunk to a third of what it was in 1990—a staggering accomplishment. However, as you may have gathered, forecasts of future storm *strength* have proved more difficult to improve.
}}

==Explanation==
The {{w|Atlantic hurricane season}} ''normally'' runs from June to November. [[Randall]] is imagining the situation in the {{w|National Hurricane Center}} when the {{w|2005 Atlantic hurricane season|2005 season}} was extended more than a month by the appearance of {{w|Hurricane Epsilon (2005)|Hurricane Epsilon}} and {{w|Tropical Storm Zeta (2005)|Tropical Storm Zeta}}. He imagines the situation as NOAA meteorologists watch with amazement (and increasing annoyance as they were presumably unable to move off to other things such as post-season analysis) as Hurricane Epsilon and Zeta continued to exist far beyond the normal end-of-season date (November 30).

The monospaced text in most of the panels is material taken from [http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2005/dis/al292005.discus.026.shtml actual] [http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2005/dis/al292005.discus.027.shtml NHC] [http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2005/dis/al292005.discus.028.shtml reports] from that season. The commentary has been edited to fit the comic's format, but it's otherwise faithful to the actual reports. While the only change to Forecaster 1 is when he's celebrating New Year's Eve, Forecaster 2 is visibly losing it after the appearance of Zeta in late December, with unkempt hair and an unshaven beard.

The [http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2005/dis/al302005.discus.030.shtml last report of the 2005 season] was issued on January 6, 2006.

A full analysis of the 2005 hurricane season can be found [http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/general/lib/lib1/nhclib/mwreviews/2005.pdf here].

NHC reports on Epsilion and Zeta:
*[http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2005/dis/al292005.discus.001.shtml 10 AM EST TUE NOV 29 2005 (Panel 1)]
*[http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2005/dis/al292005.discus.007.shtml 10 PM EST WED NOV 30 2005 (Panel 2a)]
*[http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2005/dis/al292005.discus.010.shtml 4 PM EST THU DEC 01 2005 (Panel 2b)]
*[http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2005/dis/al292005.discus.012.shtml 4 AM EST FRI DEC 02 2005 (Panel 3a)]
*[http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2005/dis/al292005.discus.013.shtml 10 AM EST FRI DEC 02 2005 (Panel 3b)]
*[http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2005/dis/al292005.discus.018.shtml 4 PM EST SAT DEC 03 2005 (Panel 4)]
*[http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2005/dis/al292005.discus.019.shtml 10 PM EST SAT DEC 03 2005 (Panel 5a)]
*[http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2005/dis/al292005.discus.020.shtml 4 AM EST SUN DEC 04 2005 (Panel 5b)]
*[http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2005/dis/al292005.discus.021.shtml 10 AM EST SUN DEC 04 2005 (Panel 6,7)]
*[http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2005/dis/al292005.discus.026.shtml 4 PM EST MON DEC 05 2005 (Panel 8)]
*[http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2005/dis/al292005.discus.027.shtml 10 PM EST MON DEC 05 2005 (Panel 9)]
*[http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2005/dis/al292005.discus.028.shtml 4 AM EST TUE DEC 06 2005 (Panel 10)]
*[http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2005/dis/al292005.discus.031.shtml 10 PM EST TUE DEC 06 2005 (Panel 11a)]
*[http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2005/dis/al292005.discus.032.shtml 4 AM EST WED DEC 07 2005 (Panel 11b)]
*[http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2005/dis/al292005.discus.037.shtml 10 AM EST THU DEC 08 2005 (Panel 12)]
*[http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2005/dis/al302005.discus.001.shtml NOON EST FRI DEC 30 2005 (Panel 14)]
*[http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2005/dis/al302005.discus.002.shtml 4 PM EST FRI DEC 30 2005 (Panel 15)]
*[http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2005/dis/al302005.discus.007.shtml 10 PM EST SAT DEC 31 2005 (Panel 16)]
*[http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2005/dis/al302005.discus.011.shtml 10 PM EST SUN JAN 01 2006 (Panel 17)]
*[http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2005/dis/al302005.discus.012.shtml 4 AM EST MON JAN 02 2006 (Panel 18a)]
*[http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2005/dis/al302005.discus.014.shtml 4 PM EST MON JAN 02 2006 (Panel 18b)]
*[http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2005/dis/al302005.discus.015.shtml 10 PM EST MON JAN 02 2006 (Panel 19a)]
*[http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2005/dis/al302005.discus.021.shtml 10 AM EST WED JAN 04 2006 (Panel 19b)]
*[http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2005/dis/al302005.discus.024.shtml 4 AM EST THU JAN 05 2006 (Panel 20)]
*[http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2005/dis/al302005.discus.025.shtml 10 AM EST THU JAN 05 2006 (Panel 21)]
*[http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2005/dis/al302005.discus.027.shtml 10 PM EST THU JAN 05 2006 (Panel 22)]
*[http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2005/dis/al302005.discus.030.shtml 4 PM EST FRI JAN 06 2006 (Panel 23)]

Randall [[453|has discussed]] the seemingly erratic nature of hurricanes before. This may, however, have been a response to the recent {{w|Hurricane Sandy}}.

The text also seems to be a parody of horror stories/movies, and their theme of writing.

==Transcript==
:'''THE SAGA OF EPSILON AND ZETA'''
:The 2005 Atlantic hurricane season saw devastating storms like Katrina and Rita. But less well-remembered is just how ''strange'' the season got toward the end.
:The forecasters at the National Hurricane Center are the best of the best.
:Their predictions are masterpieces of professional analysis. But in November 2005, out in the center of the Atlantic — far from any land — the atmosphere stopped making sense.
:And the forecasters — who'd expected the season to be long over by now — started to get a little...unhinged.
:This is their story, as seen through the actual 2005 NHC Advisories:

:[Two men, one bald and one not, sit looking at their respective computers, at separate desks, back to back. The advisory is printed above them in caps small-caps Courier type.]
:Tuesday, November 29th, 2005: Tropical Storm Epsilon ... The 26th named storm of the apparently never ending 2005 Atlantic hurricane season.

:[The same scene, different text.]
:10 PM Wed: The window of opportunity for strengthening should close in 12-24 hr. 4 PM Thu: Slow but steady weakening is expected to begin in 12-24 hours.

:[The man with hair now has questions marks above his head.]
:4 AM Fri: Epsilon does not appear weaker. 10 AM Fri: Epsilon has been upgraded to a 65-kt hurricane.

:[The two still sit back-to-back.]
:4 PM Sat: Epsilon has continued to strengthen against all odds ... [but] can not maintain the current intensity much longer since the environment is becoming increasingly unfavorable.

:[The two still sit back-to-back.]
:10 PM Sat: Epsilon might or might not still be a hurricane ... but in any case it likely will not be one on Sunday. 4 AM Sun: Epsilon is downgraded to a tropical storm.

:[The two still sit back-to-back. The man with hair's fists are clenched.] :10 AM Sun: Morning satellite images indicate that Epsilon has restrengthened.

:[A closer view of just the balding man at his desk.]
:There are no clear reasons ... and I am not going to make one up ... to explain the recent strengthening of Epsilon and I am just describing the facts. However ... I still have to make an intensity forecast and the best bet at this time is to predict weakening ... Epsilon will likely become a remnant low. I heard that before about epsilon ... haven't you?

:[The two men still sit back to back, but the man with hair is now turning his head toward the other man, with his arm resting on the back of his chair. The bald man is leaning forward in his seat, toward his computer while typing.]
:4 PM Mon: The cloud pattern continues to be remarkably well-organized for a hurricane at such high latitude in December.

:[The other man has turned back to his own screen.]
:10 PM Mon: We have said this before ... but Epsilon really does not appear as strong this evening as it did this afternoon.

:[Just the bald guy now.]
:4 AM Tue: I have run out of things to say.

:[The two of them again.]
:10 PM Tue: The end is in sight. It really really is. But in the meantime ... Epsilon continues to maintain hurricane status. 4 AM Wed: The end is in sight ... yes ... but not quiet yet. I thought I was going to find a weakening system and instead I found that Epsilon is still a hurricane.

:[The two of them still.]
:10 AM Thu: Convection has vanished and Epsilon is now a tight swirl of low clouds. I hope this is the end of the long lasting 2005 hurricane season.

:[This panel is blank and just reads: Nope.]
:'''NOPE.'''

:[The men are still at their desks. The bald man is leaning back on his chair and staring at his screen, taking his keyboard out of his desk; the other man's hair is noticeably disheveled, and he has started growing a five o'clock shadow.]
:Enter Tropical Storm Zeta.
:Friday, December 30th, 2005: An elongated area of low pressure ... which had its origins in an old frontal trough ... began developing organized convection overnight. Advisories are initiated on the 27th tropical storm of 2005.

:[The men are still at their desks, the man with hair is even more bedraggled-looking.]
:Any new storms would be in the 2006 season.
:4PM Fri: Although the atmosphere seems to want to develop tropical storms ad nauseam ... the calendar will shortly put an end to the use of the Greek alphabet to name them.

:[The bald man is now wearing a party hat and has a {{w|party horn}} in his mouth, and there is confetti in the air.]
:But 2005's wouldn't end until Zeta did.
:10 PM Sat: Zeta appeared on the verge of losing all of its deep convection a few hours ago ... but since about 21z the convection has been on somewhat of an increase again.

:[A close view of the man with hair at his desk.]
:10 PM Sun: This is like Epsilon all over again. Most of the conventional guidance suggested that zeta should have been dissipated by now ... well ... zeta is pretty much alive at this time. I have no choice but to forecast weakening again and again.

:[The two of them again.]
:4 AM Mon: By 24-36 hours ... a significant increase in westerly winds ... should act to shear away most of the associated convection ... and finally bring the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season to a merciful ending. 4 PM Mon: It is hard to conceive that a tropical cyclone will be able to survive for very long in such a hostile environment. therefore I have not backed off on the forecast of weakening.

:[The two of them again. Both men have clenched fists rested back from their keyboards, frustrated.]
:10 PM Mon: Zeta is stronger than yesterday.
:10 AM Wed: As you can see... I ran out of things to say.

:[Both men put up their keyboards...]
:4 AM Thu: Satellite intensity estimates have decreased. Zeta is downgraded to a 30 kt tropical depression.

:[...only to start typing on them again.]
:10 AM Thu: Shortly after the previous advisory had been issued ... regretfully ... the intensity ... increased to 35 kt and Zeta is a tropical storm once again.

:[The two of them again.]
:10 PM Thu: Although it seems as if Zeta will never die ... the forecast continues to show weakening.

:[Both men are now leaning back in their chairs, exhausted, their keyboards put away.]
:4 PM, Friday, January 6, 2006: Zeta no longer meets the criteria of a tropical cyclone... which means that both it and the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season have ended. This is the national hurricane center signing off for 2005.

:[The bald man still sits at his desk, the man with hair is no longer in his chair.]

:[Again, we see the bald man at his desk and the other guy's empty desk.]
:Bald guy: Actually, Zeta's cloud pattern is...
:Hair guy: (out of panel) '''''NO'''''.
:Bald guy: Ok.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Hurricanes]]

1559: Driving

2025-01-11T23:32:39Z

Galaktos: /* Explanation */ I think whether a future with self-driving cars is “idyllic” is debatable, so let’s avoid this whole issue by describing it neutrally (it’s not necessary to explain the comic at all)

{{comic
| number = 1559
| date = August 3, 2015
| title = Driving
| image = driving.png
| titletext = Sadly, it probably won't even have enough gas to make it to the first border crossing.}}

==Explanation==
A {{w|self-driving car}} is a car that requires no human interaction to navigate streets to a destination. Thus, when [[Black Hat]] places a rock that weighs "as much as a small adult" into the car's seat, he begins the process of fooling the car into thinking it has an occupant when it does not. His purpose in doing so appears to be to send the car to {{w|Anchorage}}, {{w|Alaska}}, which is presumably quite far from where Black Hat and [[Cueball]] are standing, thus taking the car far away from its owner with relatively little effort on the part of Black Hat. This is yet another evil prank from xkcd's resident [[classhole]].

The title text references the fact that driving to Alaska from the [[2394: Contiguous 41 States|contiguous lower 41 states]] requires two border crossings, once into {{w|Canada}} from the mainland, and once from Canada into Alaska. The car apparently begins some distance from the Canadian border, since it will likely run out of gas before reaching Canada. The title text expresses regret about this probable failure; perhaps Randall was looking forward to the encounter between the border guards and the vehicle's "occupant." However, even if the car does not get to Anchorage, Black Hat will have created a serious problem for its owner who will have to report the car as stolen.

Shortly after this comic appeared, Tesla released footage of a robotic charger that can [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-33794085 connect itself to a Tesla automatically.] If this kind of technology becomes common then a self-driving electric car might be able to make a transcontinental journey without human intervention.

At the time of the release of this comic there were no places where self-driving cars were for sale to individuals. However, several corporate-owned test cars are frequently seen on public roads (such as those operated by Google among others). {{w|Google_driverless_car|Nevada, Florida, California and Michigan}} were the first states to allow the testing of self-driving cars on public roads, and this legality is quickly spreading to many other states, as well as several countries in Europe. Alternatively, the comic may be set in a future where self-driving cars are common.

It could have been [[Beret Guy|Beret Guy's]] car - see [[1493: Meeting]]. Self-driving cars are a [[:Category:Self-driving cars|recurring topic]] on xkcd.

==Transcript==
:[Black Hat, carrying a rock, is walking toward Cueball, leaving a trail of sand.]
:Black Hat: Would you guess this weighs as much as a small adult?
:Cueball: What?
:Cueball: Uh, probably.

:[Black Hat walks past Cueball who turns to look after him.]
:Black Hat: Great!

:[Black Hat has walked out of the frame. Cueball is looking in the direction he left in. Several noises and voices are coming from off-panel.]
:Off-panel: <nowiki>*</nowiki>Thump*
:Car voice (off-panel): ''Please fasten your seatbelt.''
:Off-panel: <nowiki>*</nowiki>click*
:Black Hat (off-panel): Take me to Anchorage, Alaska.
:Car voice (off-panel): ''Navigating.''
:Off-panel: <nowiki>*</nowiki>slam*

:[Black Hat walks back in the panel towards Cueball.]
:Car driving off: ''Vrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr''
:Black Hat: I love self-driving cars.
:Cueball: ...Whose car ''was'' that?
:Black Hat: Dunno, but they shouldn't have left it running.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Black Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Self-driving cars]]
[[Category:Sabotage]]

1237: QR Code

2024-12-29T10:21:53Z

Galaktos: Undo revision 360533 by Galaktos (talk) – eh, apparently someone made a reference to it at the end of the explanation 🤷

{{comic
| number = 1237
| date = July 12, 2013
| title = QR Code
| image = qr code.png
| titletext = Remember, the installer is watching the camera for the checksum it generated, so you have to scan it using your own phone.
}}

==Explanation==
{{W|QR code}}s (quick response codes) are a type of 2D {{w|barcode}} that can be scanned using any of several apps on a smartphone. This comic illustrates installation of a new application that requires the smartphone to scan a QR code on its own screen. There is no conceivable purpose for such a step, so it would be completely silly. Even with two mirrors or a front-facing camera and mirror, most smartphones would be unable to simultaneously display the camera feed for the QR scanner and the QR code itself. The only way to do it would be to take a picture of the QR code with a digital camera and then scan the screen of the camera. The "12 seconds remaining" part indicates that there is a time limit for this, and thus a ''quick response'' is necessary.

If scanned, the QR code in the comic reads <tt>http://xkcd.com/1237/scan/</tt>, a link to a nearly identical image, but the line above the QR code reads, "To continue reading," and the caption reads, "How to trap a webcomic reader in an infinite loop". The QR code is identical to the previous one. So, if scanned again, it would simply return the scanner to the same image in an "infinite loop".

In the title text, it is revealed that not only is there a time limit, but that the QR code must be scanned using the same phone that's displaying the code. Doing this using the phone's own camera is impossible. The only way to scan the code using the same phone would be by taking a screenshot and opening it with an app that scans for QR codes in images, rather than using the camera. While such apps do exist, most smartphone users would have no need for such an app and are unlikely to have one installed.

==Transcript==
:[A smartphone. On the display, the following text:]
:"To continue installing, scan this code. 12 seconds remaining"
:[A particularly recursive QR code is displayed on the screen.]
:[Caption below the panel:]
:How to freak out a mobile app user.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Smartphones]]

1237: QR Code

2024-12-29T10:21:00Z

Galaktos: /* Explanation */ remove expansion of “QR code” acronym – adds zero clarity in this context and is readily available on the linked Wikipedia article if someone really wants it

{{comic
| number = 1237
| date = July 12, 2013
| title = QR Code
| image = qr code.png
| titletext = Remember, the installer is watching the camera for the checksum it generated, so you have to scan it using your own phone.
}}

==Explanation==
{{W|QR code}}s are a type of 2D {{w|barcode}} that can be scanned using any of several apps on a smartphone. This comic illustrates installation of a new application that requires the smartphone to scan a QR code on its own screen. There is no conceivable purpose for such a step, so it would be completely silly. Even with two mirrors or a front-facing camera and mirror, most smartphones would be unable to simultaneously display the camera feed for the QR scanner and the QR code itself. The only way to do it would be to take a picture of the QR code with a digital camera and then scan the screen of the camera. The "12 seconds remaining" part indicates that there is a time limit for this, and thus a ''quick response'' is necessary.

If scanned, the QR code in the comic reads <tt>http://xkcd.com/1237/scan/</tt>, a link to a nearly identical image, but the line above the QR code reads, "To continue reading," and the caption reads, "How to trap a webcomic reader in an infinite loop". The QR code is identical to the previous one. So, if scanned again, it would simply return the scanner to the same image in an "infinite loop".

In the title text, it is revealed that not only is there a time limit, but that the QR code must be scanned using the same phone that's displaying the code. Doing this using the phone's own camera is impossible. The only way to scan the code using the same phone would be by taking a screenshot and opening it with an app that scans for QR codes in images, rather than using the camera. While such apps do exist, most smartphone users would have no need for such an app and are unlikely to have one installed.

==Transcript==
:[A smartphone. On the display, the following text:]
:"To continue installing, scan this code. 12 seconds remaining"
:[A particularly recursive QR code is displayed on the screen.]
:[Caption below the panel:]
:How to freak out a mobile app user.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Smartphones]]

Talk:3003: Sandwich Helix

2024-10-25T14:12:32Z

Galaktos:

Sandwich presumably refers to {{w|compliment sandwich}}, but I don’t know what the helix is. --[[User:Galaktos|Galaktos]] ([[User talk:Galaktos|talk]]) 14:03, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

: Maybe {{w|Models of communication#Dance}}? --[[User:Galaktos|Galaktos]] ([[User talk:Galaktos|talk]]) 14:12, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

Talk:3003: Sandwich Helix

2024-10-25T14:03:33Z

Galaktos: shouldn’t be a list

Talk:3003: Sandwich Helix

2024-10-25T14:03:02Z

Galaktos:

* Sandwich presumably refers to {{w|compliment sandwich}}, but I don’t know what the helix is. --[[User:Galaktos|Galaktos]] ([[User talk:Galaktos|talk]]) 14:03, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

User talk:Galaktos

2024-10-04T10:12:32Z

Galaktos:

201: Christmas GPS

2024-08-24T14:50:07Z

Galaktos: /* Explanation */ add temporal context for GPS device (and fix a typo)

{{comic
| number = 201
| date = December 25, 2006
| title = Christmas GPS
| image = christmas gps.png
| titletext = If it's over water, and you can't get a boat or revise the rules to preserve the makeout, there is no helping you.
}}

==Explanation==
In the comic, Cueball has gotten a {{w|GPS navigation device|GPS device}} and asks Megan what to do with it. (It would be several more years before GPS-enabled smartphones displaced separate GPS devices on the market,<ref>https://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/15/technology/15iht-navigate.html</ref> so the device presents exciting new opportunities to the couple.) She suggests that they take their current coordinates and modify the latitude and longitude with a simple function based on their birthdays, thereby pointing to an arbitrary, non-random location. For example, if Cueball was born on, let's say, April 1, 1986 and Megan on August 12, 1988 and they are somewhere in New York ([https://toolserver.org/~geohack/geohack.php?pagename=New%20York%20City&params=40.768062_N_-73.98468_E_type:landmark 40.768062,-73.98468]), the coordinate they type could make ([https://toolserver.org/~geohack/geohack.php?params=40.040186_N_-73.081288_E_type:landmark 40.040186, -73.081288]) (assuming US date format), or ([https://toolserver.org/~geohack/geohack.php?params=40.860401_N_-73.880812_E_type:landmark 40.860401, -73.880812]) (assuming following [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_8601 ISO 8601]). The good thing about keeping the number before the decimal point is that the distance is still realistic to get to by car. Megan suggests to make out in this place. This procedure is somewhat of a precursor to [[Geohashing]].

The title text suggests that if the location you make for yourselves is over water (which the example above happens to be), you either need to find a boat or find some rule that you can change to preserve the promise of making out, and if you can't do either, then there is no way you'd get to make out.

From ''[[xkcd: volume 0]]'':
{{quote|We tried this and ended up on the grounds of the only particle accelerator for a hundred miles.}}

==Transcript==
:Cueball: Check it out - I got a GPS receiver for Christmas! What should we do with it?

:Megan: Let's take our latitude & longitude, put our birthdays after the decimal points, then go to that spot and make out.

:[Cueball is in love.]

:Merry Christmas from XKCD{{sic}}
:[Car driving off in to the distance.]

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

2931: Chasing

2024-05-11T13:30:14Z

Galaktos: /* Explanation */ aurora: happens to coincide → coincided – I see no reason to assume this is a coincidence, and IMHO “coincided” is more neutral; also link Wikipedia

{{comic
| number = 2931
| date = May 10, 2024
| title = Chasing
| image = chasing_2x.png
| imagesize = 462x474px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Certain hybrid events can only happen in certain locations where all the conditions are present; chasers flock to the area in and around Kansas known as tumbleweed-colliding-with-possum alley.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by an exciting BOT on the run - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This comic is a scatter plot comparing how exciting it is to see various things with how possible it is to chase those things using a convoy of coordinated vehicles.

The least chasable are stationary places like the {{w|Grand Canyon}} or {{w|International Date Line}}. It makes no sense to chase them because they don't move around, you just go to their known locations. At the other end of the chasability spectrum are animals that move around rapidly, and fleeting astronomical and atmospherical phenomena like {{w|clouds}}, {{w|meteors}}, and {{w|aurora}}. However, some of these are difficult to chase because they're small and hard to detect from a moving vehicle, e.g. {{w|gnats}}.

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Entity || Explanation
|-
| {{w|Grand Canyon|The Grand Canyon}}|| Stationary place in Arizona. It's the largest canyon in the US (but not the world). It's very beautiful due to its depth and the color changes from different geological strata. So it's exciting to see and one of the most popular tourist attractions in the country.
|-
| {{w|Niagara Falls}} || Stationary place on the border of US and Canada, between the state of New York and the province of Ontario. The waterfall is the largest in North America by width and water volume, making it very beautiful to watch.
|-
| {{w|Tourist attractions}} || Other stationary places that attract many tourists (e.g. national parks, monuments, and historic places)
|-
| {{w|Tourist traps}} || Stationary places that market themselves as tourist attractions, but don't really have much to offer and exist mainly to sell food and souvenirs.
|-
| {{w|Sand traps}} || Pits of sand in golf courses. If your golf ball lands in one, it's more difficult to hit it out to the grassy portions (fairways or greens), which is why it's a "trap".
|-
| The International Date Line || Jagged conceptual line running from the North to South poles around 180 degrees of longitude, used to separate the time zones that start and end each day. There's nothing to actually see at these locations, and it is intentionally mostly in oceans.
|-
| Meteors || Also called "shooting stars". These are fleeting streaks of light that are visible when bits of rock or dust enter the atmosphere and burn up. These are generally rare, making them exciting to see, but there are {{w|meteor showers}} when many are visible due to the Earth passing through a large cloud of dust (usually the remnants of a comet). To astronomy buffs, these can be like natural fireworks shows. Because each meteor streak lasts for a fraction of a second, it's not generally possible to chase them, although if the rock is large enough it may survive to the ground and become a {{w|meteorite}}, which chasers may be able to find by tracking its path through the sky.
|-
| {{w|Rainbows}} || A visual effect that occurs when sunlight is refracted by water droplets in the air, spreading the light into a spectrum of different colors. Their 'location' is relative to each observer, so long as the necessary components combine correctly in the first place, so any coordinated movement is restricted to finding the right sort of standpoint from which a rainbow is visible.
|-
| {{w|Comets}} || Comets are chunks of rock and ice that orbit the sun, usually in highly eccentric orbits that take them from the inner Solar System to the {{w|Kuiper Belt}} or {{w|Oort Cloud}} at the extreme outskirts of the Solar System. Few of them are visible to the naked eye. They're exciting to see because they're rare, and one of the few astronomical objects that looks like more than just a tiny dot because there's a glowing "tail". While they're moving very rapidly through the Solar System, from the Earth they don't appear to move much faster than planets. So there's no need to chase them; when near the Earth, they will be visible from much of the planet for days or weeks.
|-
| {{w|Sunsets}} || Disappearance of the Sun below the horizon, should happen usually once every 24 hours (except close to the poles). Depending on weather conditions, they can sometimes be very pretty. Traveling around the Earth from east to west is needed for a continuous view of a sunset.
|-
| {{w|The Moon}} || Earth's only natural satellite with a predictable orbit. Only 12 people (the {{w|Apollo astronauts}}) have actually visited it in person; the rest of us see it from about 250,000 miles away. Weather permitting, it's visible for about half of every day/night cycle (though may be more obvious when this occurs significantly in the night sky, for several reasons). It doesn't move quickly in the sky, by apparent movement, so little chasing is necessary. A 'supermoon' is when the Moon looks the largest and shiniest, occurring when a full moon appears closest to the Earth in its orbit, though Randall doesn't consider this phenomenon impressive.
|-
| Unusual clouds ||
|-
| Regular clouds || Aerosol consisting of a visible mass of miniature liquid droplets
|-
| {{w|Fog}} || Atmospheric condition where water droplets are very dense near the Earth's surface, resulting in a visible haze. Very few people will chase fog.{{cn}}
|-
| {{w|Rain}} || Water droplets falling from clouds. In most of the world, this is a pretty common occurrence. Unless the volume is extremely high, there's rarely much excitement due to them, but extreme cases may cause flooding that can be dangerous. The only people who typically chase them are weather reporters.
|-
| {{w|Gnats}} || Hardly anybody wants to track down gnats, but people could theoretically use advanced instruments to do so.
|-
| Aurora || Impressive light displays that result from excitement of the Earth's {{w|magnetosphere}} by charged particles in the {{w|solar wind}}. These are generally only visible in high latitudes, so most people do not live where they're visible. Their visibility can be tracked and forecasted via monitoring of solar wind output from the sun, and particularly intense episodes can be predicted (as well as locations for viewing) on the basis of the solar cycle and solar flare activity. The release of this comic coincided with the strongest geomagnetic storm warning forecasted by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in 20 years [https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/news/g4-watch-effect-may-11] ({{w|May 2024 solar storms}}).
|-
| Your favorite band's shows || Musical acts often plan tours, where they go around the country (or world) putting on shows every few days. Extreme fans with time on their hands may "chase" them by going to a series of their shows. Since the tour dates are planned and publicized well in advance, the shows are easy to find. However, depending on the popularity of your favorite band, this might be an expensive hobby, especially for optimal viewing.
|-
| Rare birds || Many birders will "twitch" to see rare birds, and this requires a fair amount of checking location, behavior, etc. Also, rare birds tend to be exciting to see.
|-
| Regular birds || These are easier to see than rare birds.{{citation needed}}
|-
| Regular balloons || Both children and adults accidentally let go of balloons, and may attempt to chase after them to retrieve them.
|-
| {{w|Tumbleweeds}} || A roughly spherical portion of certain plants that breaks off from its roots and rolls along the ground, propelled by winds. Most people don't find them very interesting to look at. They don't usually travel very quickly, so it would be possible to chase them if you were so inclined. (They may be of interest to plant biologists and ecologists.)
|-
| {{w|https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_limit_enforcement|Speed traps}} || A section of a road where police often wait for passing drivers who are exceeding the speed limit, so they can catch them and issue speeding tickets. Frequent drivers, especially truck drivers, have developed systems to warn each other of these locations. ({{w|Citizens band radio}} was once the most popular method; now this can be done on mobile phones using services like {{w|Waze}}.)
|-
| {{w|Tornadoes}} || Wanting to witness a tornado is a typical objective of {{w|storm chaser}}s.
|-
| {{w|Whales}} || Widely distributed and diverse group of marine mammals.
|-
| {{w|Icebergs}} || Piece of freshwater ice broken off a glacier or ice shelf.
|-
| Hot air balloons || An aircraft whose bag is filled with heated air.
|-
| {{w|Radiosondes}} || Small instruments carried in weather balloons to gather and transmit atmospheric parameters. There's not much to see in them, but they're easy to track with a proper receiver.
|-
| Neighborhood possums || "Possum" is a common term for {{w|Virginia opossum}}s, the only species of opossum found in North America. In urban areas they will get into human garbage, and may carry diseases, so many may consider them pests and hunt them. A coordinate group of hunters can track them.
|-
| {{w|Ice cream trucks}} || Small vans that sell ice cream. They're easy to chase because they often play music and/or ring a loud bell so customers will know they're coming, and make frequent stops to allow customers to make purchases. Young "chasers" also often scream loudly when they hear the trucks coming, so others nearby (particularly parents or caregivers who are needed to provide the money) will be aware.
|-
| Other chasers || May result in an awkward encounter if met in person.
|}

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[An X Y axis graph]
:[Y axis label:]
:Exciting to see in person
:[X axis label:]
:Possible to chase in a convoy of vehicles coordinating over radio and using instruments and data to find optimal viewing locations?
:[X and Y axis values (from bottom left):]
:No
:Yes

:[Top left quarter:]
:The Grand Canyon
:Meteors
:Rainbow
:Comets
:Niagara Falls
:Sunsets
:The Moon
:Tourist attractions
:Unusual clouds

:[Top right quarter:]
:Aurora
:Tornadoes
:Whales
:Your favorite band's shows
:Icebergs
:Rare birds
:Hot air balloons

:[Bottom left quarter:]
:Tourist traps
:Regular clouds
:Sand traps
:Fog
:Rain
:The International Date Line
:Gnats

:[Bottom right quarter:]
:Regular birds
:Radiosondes
:Neighborhood possums
:Regular balloons
:Ice cream trucks
:Tumbleweeds
:Speed traps
:Other chasers

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Charts]]

1441: Turnabout

2023-12-17T14:19:49Z

Galaktos: /* Explanation */ HTTPS \o/

{{comic
| number = 1441
| date = October 31, 2014
| title = Turnabout
| image = turnabout.png
| titletext = Whenever I miss a shot with a sci-fi weapon, I say 'Apollo retroreflector' really fast, just in case.
}}

==Explanation==
In the comic, two people are engaging in a battle with laser guns. One appears to gain the upper hand as he jumps on an obstacle, as the other's shot goes wide. He delivers the classic line {{tvtropes|Main/AnyLastWords|"Any last words?"}} and is answered with the confusing phrase "Apollo retroreflectors". The earlier wild shot, reflected off the Moon, promptly lances down from space and hits him in the back.

A {{w|retroreflector}} is a device or surface that reflects light back towards its source. Several such devices {{w|List of retroreflectors on the Moon|were placed on the Moon}} during the Apollo missions and have been used ever since by scientists on Earth to {{w|Lunar Laser Ranging experiment|measure the distance between the two bodies using laser ranging}}. Retroreflectors were placed by the American {{w|Apollo 11}}, {{w|Apollo 14|14}}, and {{w|Apollo 15|15}} missions. The Soviet {{w|Lunokhod 1}} and {{w|Lunokhod 2|2}} rovers also carried such reflectors; attempts to use them for laser ranging were unsuccessful from 1971 to 2010, but were successfully renewed after the rovers' positions were photographed by the {{w|Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter}}.

The title text may be a reference to the common practice of "calling bank" in the game of basketball. In basketball, the backboard may be used to deflect the ball into the hoop. This is called a "bank shot." In casual games, if the player using the backboard in this way does not indicate that it was intentional by "calling bank" before releasing the ball, the basket may not be counted in order to not give the player credit for a wild shot that happened to go in. When a player releases a shot that they realize is off the mark they sometimes quickly say "bank" to try and fool the other players into thinking that they were intentionally trying to "bank" the ball off the backboard into the hoop. In the title text scenario, "Apollo retroreflector" is used the same way "bank" is in basketball, i.e., the shooter meant to hit the target by reflection rather than directly.

[[Randall]] discussed the effect of hitting the Moon with lasers in [https://what-if.xkcd.com/13/ What If: Laser Pointer] and the likelihood of hitting a celestial object with a laser in [https://what-if.xkcd.com/109/ What If: Into the Blue].

The likelihood of the wild shot being aimed at the Moon is fairly low in itself, and the probability of accidentally hitting a retroreflector on the Moon is lower still. Even if it did, it is highly unlikely that a pistol-sized generator could produce a beam coherent enough to inflict damage after traveling to the Moon and back, as lasers built for the purpose of hitting retroreflectors on the Moon typically get a return around one quadrillionth of the original beam, and a visible light laser would need a very large lens or mirror in order to still be relatively concentrated upon hitting the reflectors.

==Transcript==
:[A guy and Cueball are engaged in a fight with laser pistols. The guy is standing behind a small box, firing his gun at Cueball.]
:[Cueball is kneeling behind a larger box, returning fire.]
:[The guy leaps on top of the larger box, knocking Cueball backwards and off balance. Cueball fires wildly into the air.]
:[Now the guy is standing on the box. Cueball is sprawled on the ground, laser pistol out of reach, at gunpoint.]

:Guy: Any last words?
:Cueball: "Apollo retroreflectors."
:Guy: What?

:[The guy gets shot in the back by the returning beam of Cueball's wild shot.]

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

81: Attention, shopper

2023-11-23T21:46:18Z

Galaktos: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 81
| date = March 27, 2006
| title = Attention, shopper
| image = attention_shopper.jpg
| titletext = There's a red convertible outside my building with the license plate 'DADS MNY'.
}}

==Explanation==
A common trope (often referenced in TV and film) is a loudspeaker announcement in which a store employee (or anyone else in charge somewhere where people gather, like church or a school) announces that a certain color and model of car has its lights on, or is blocking another car, or is about to be towed, or similar. A license plate is sometimes included to allow the owner to identify that it is specifically their car that is involved.

In this case, [[Black Hat]] is up to his old ways as, in addition to announcing that an SRT-10 has its lights on, he also announces that it has had its windshield smashed with a golf club. Black Hat is, of course, holding a golf club, frustrated at the owner’s revolting arrogance. The lights are probably on because the attack triggered the car's alarm system.

The {{w|Dodge Viper}} SRT-10 was a version of the Dodge Viper available on the third and fourth generations of Viper from 2003-2010. It was a very expensive sports car.

The two license plates in the comic are personalized license plates. The one in the comic-proper is clearly "My Toy"; the plate in the title text is most likely "Dad's Money," which [[Randall Munroe|Randall]] suggests is a real plate on a car outside his building, suggesting that the driver's father paid for the car, bragging about how rich their family is.

==Transcript==
:[Black Hat is holding a golf club and speaking into a P.A. system.]
:Black Hat: Attention,
:Black Hat: To the owner of a Dodge Viper SRT-10 with license plate "MYTOY," your lights are on and your windshield was just smashed with a golf club.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Black Hat]]
[[Category:Comics with lowercase text]]

2324: Old Days 2

2023-11-10T15:13:37Z

Galaktos: /* Explanation */ change “ago” to “earlier”, since it’s now been almost three and a half years since *this* comic came out

{{comic
| number = 2324
| date = June 24, 2020
| title = Old Days 2
| image = old_days_2.png
| titletext = The git vehicle fleet eventually pivoted to selling ice cream, but some holdovers remain. If you flag down an ice cream truck and hand the driver a floppy disk, a few hours later you'll get an invite to a git repo.
}}

==Explanation==
In this sequel to [[1755: Old Days]], which was released more than three and a half years earlier, the conversation continues, as if no time has passed, between (young) [[Cueball]] and (old) [[Hairbun]] about computer programming in the past. As in the first comic in [[:Category:Old Days|this series]], Cueball, having only a faint idea of just how difficult and byzantine programming was "in the old days", asks Hairbun to enlighten him on the specifics. Hairbun promptly seizes the opportunity to screw with his head.

The new claims:
* The cloud was smaller and called a "Mainframe" and was near Sacramento.
** This is a joke on many {{w|Cloud computing|cloud services}} replacing {{w|mainframe}}s. Both systems were or are used to provide an expansive quantity of computing capability by enabling users to use only some of the available resources, sharing with other users. In those early days, it is true that large mainframes would handle multiple people's jobs at once, using techniques like {{w|time-sharing}} (although they were not necessarily located near {{w|Sacramento}}, the capital of California.). What's more, the basic ideas behind how cloud computing used to go way back. {{w|Multics}} was an early time-sharing system designed to "support a computing utility similar to the telephone and electricity utilities". The idea was similar to the cloud, where anybody could just hook up and get computing service, as well as other services built into the mainframe. For this reason, many of the computer security concepts we have today - such as {{w|Kernel_(operating_system)|kernelized operating systems}} - come from early systems like Multics.
* It was on the state landline.
** In the days of mainframes, remote users often used {{w|landline}}s (i.e. hard-wired telephone connections) to communicate, via {{w|dial-up modem}}s, and so users would have to disconnect for making phone calls. Even in the age of all landlines, there was never such a thing as "the state landline", imagined as an immense shared {{w|Party line (telephony)|party line}} to which the governor would have priority access for making calls.
* No memory protection; instead, people would call around to ask whether anyone else using an address and Microsoft's early foothold in computing was because of {{w|Bill Gates}} lying about his usage of addresses.
** {{w|Memory protection}} protects storage from access by other programs or users. Many computer systems provide hardware and operating systems to support this. Hairbun is correct in that this sort of code was not well-developed early on. She claims that management of the memory was all done manually by agreement of the developers, and the only way to check if editing a particular address in the Mainframe was safe was physically asking all the other developers if they were already using it. In early PCs it was common to use specific memory locations, defined by the operating system or the hardware itself, to communicate with the operating system or perform particular functions such as direct graphical memory addressing rather than code compiling to pass through multiple Hardware Abstraction Layers. Her implication is that Bill Gates took advantage of this honor system to restrict people not working for {{w|Microsoft}} from making changes, allowing the company to take ownership of a lot of code - another fib with a grain of truth in it, based on Microsoft's excessive usage of limited standard-mandated pools. For example, out of 256 possible identifiers for {{w|partition type}} shared between all operating systems running on IBM PC compatible hardware, 65 entries are allocated to miscellaneous variants of FAT and NTFS systems, 38 of them originating from Microsoft itself - including esoteric variants like "Corrupted fault-tolerant FAT16B mirrored master volume."
* "Git" was a van that drove around gathering tapes to copy, and the term "pull request" came from the van physically pulling over when signaled with an air horn.
** {{w|Git}} is a {{w|distributed version control system}}, which manages copies of a coding project to prevent and resolve conflicts from multiple people editing the project at once. It works by having individual contributors {{w|Pull request|pull}} the project onto their device, make their changes, and then push those changes back to be integrated into the master copy. The term "pull request" is primarily used after a user has pushed their new code and is requesting that those changes be integrated into the primary codebase, i.e. that the primary developer would pull those changes into the main branch. Bulk data used to be stored on {{w|magnetic tape}}; in order for version control to exist at this time, there would have to be a master tape that was copied and physically distributed to each contributor, and then the edited tapes would be gathered afterward and conflicts resolved. Hairbun claims that Git provided this service back then using vans. In reality, Git did not exist until 2005, long after digital computers and networked servers became widely accessible and the "early internet" was history. Other systems for providing the same functionality existed for decades before this, with {{w|Source Code Control System}} (SCCS) having been released in 1972. Even this software was implemented primarily for multiple users accessing the same system, rather than users on separate, unconnected ones. Physically carrying storage devices around ({{w|sneakernet}}) has sometimes been used where electronic communication or bandwidth was not available. For example, motorcycle drivers on a regular route, carrying flash drives to remote communities (see {{w|delay-tolerant networking}}). This form of file transfer was also the subject of comic [[949: File Transfer]].
* Before terminals we all used punch cards, which were originally developed to control looms, and so the Mainframe would produce sweaters when code was run.
** Another initial truth going into complete nonsense. It is true that some looms were controlled by {{w|punch card}}s (dating back to 1745), and so were early computer precursors. At the same time {{w|Charles Babbage}} used them around 1830 to control his {{w|Analytical Engine}}. However, Hairbun's statement is that because of this, the ''same'' punch card machines would run both ''simultaneously'', such that feeding a set of cards to compile code would necessarily cause a sweater to be produced by the connected loom, which was then sent to the developer. For one: industrial looms don't produce sweaters, but fabrics (which is often patterned if punch cards are involved). And it's not likely that any punch patterns used in computer coding would be interpretable as a suitable pattern for a sweater. However, there is loom knitting which does produce patterns for sweaters.
* (From the title text) You can still hand in a floppy disk to an ice cream truck and get an invite to a git repo a few hours later.
** Git repo is short for Git {{w|Repository (version control)|repository}}, the place where all the files associated with a project are stored. Hairbun tries to convince Cueball that modern ice cream truck drivers service Git in the same way she says the vans did before and that it's still possible to give them a {{w|floppy disk}} (a magnetic storage device) in order to gain access to a repo. The ice cream industry has no connection to computing.{{Citation needed}}

==Transcript==
:[In a slim panel, Cueball and Hairbun are walking together to the right. Hairbun has her palm raised.]
:Cueball: What was the Internet like in the olden days, for a developer?
:Hairbun: Oh, things were very different.

:[Cueball and Hairbun have stopped walking. Zoomed in on Hairbun.]
:Hairbun: The cloud was a lot smaller. It was called a "mainframe" and it was near Sacramento.
:Hairbun: It was on the state landline, so the whole industry paused when the governor had to make a phone call.

:[Zoomed back out. Hairbun has her palm raised.]
:Hairbun: There was no memory protection. If you wanted to write to an address, you would call around to ask whether anyone else was using it.
:Hairbun: Often Bill Gates would say he was, even when he wasn't. That's how Microsoft got its early foothold.
:Cueball: Wow.

:[Zoomed back in Hairbun. Cueball responds off-screen.]
:Hairbun: "Git" was originally a van that circled around gathering data tapes to copy and distribute. We all took turns driving it.
:Hairbun: When you saw it coming you'd blow an air horn to request that it pull over.
:Hairbun: That's where "pull request" came from.
:Cueball (off-screen): Oh, neat!

:[Cueball and Hairbun continue walking to the right. Hairbun has her palm raised.]
:Hairbun: Before terminals, we all used punch cards, which were originally developed to control looms.
:Hairbun: Early mainframes would produce a sweater each time you ran your code.
:Hairbun: Eventually we got them to stop. We had enough sweaters.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairbun]]
[[Category:Old Days]]
[[Category:Comics sharing name|Old Days]]
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]]
[[Category:Programming]]
[[Category:Computers]]
[[Category:Version Control]]

2765: Escape Speed

2023-08-27T00:15:17Z

Galaktos: /* The Hyperdrive */ clarify that you aren’t supposed to look for the hyperdrive as the first thing

{{comic
| number = 2765
| date = April 19, 2023
| title = Escape Speed
| image = escape_speed_2x.png
| imagesize = 740x700px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Gotta go fast.
}}
{{TOC}}
*To experience the interactivity of the game, visit the {{xkcd|2765|original comic}}.

== Explanation ==
{{incomplete|[[#Celestial_Bodies_and_Collectable_Items|The table is incomplete, click here to see what to add]]}}

This interactive comic is similar to [[2712: Gravity]], which celebrated the release of ''[[What If? 2]]'', as you can visit different planets. Your fuel runs out and recharges slowly over time or instantly whenever you land. Like in Gravity, there is no "universal" point of view: the bottom of the window, "down", is oriented towards the object exerting the most gravity upon the player.

You begin on the Starting Planet, near Origin. To escape Origin's gravitational force, gain enough momentum by swinging a few times inside the large hidden tunnel that goes from the rollercoaster to the opposing side of the planet. To help you find other planets there are also many small circles surrounding the spaceship indicating the locations of nearby or distant planets depending on how transparent these points are. Collecting circles with a star outline will improve the performance of the spaceship, such as by making the engine more efficient or increasing the rate at which the fuel recharges, and sometimes make you find a new item. Collecting small grey circles will instead just make you find an item, such as a rock with neat stripes, a cool bug, and a pretty leaf.

Most planets and celestial objects are inside of a large Crystal Sphere in which there is a visible navigable crack. Halfway through the crack, gravity gets increasingly stronger as the spaceship feels the gravitational force of the parts of the Crystal Sphere it is leaving behind. Above the crack in the Crystal Sphere, there is the Star Destroyer from [[1608: Hoverboard]], and on the opposite side of the crack, there is a huge part of the world in [[1110: Click and Drag]] in the form of a round planet.

The title of the comic is likely a reference to the 1996 computer game {{w|Escape Velocity (video game)|Escape Velocity}}, which also featured a 2D map dotted with planets. The title text says, "Gotta go fast.", a reference to {{w|Sonic the Hedgehog (character)|Sonic the Hedgehog}}'s catchphrase, and the point of the game: getting able to go faster to escape larger and larger planets and leave the Crystal Sphere.

===The Hyperdrive===
The Hyperdrive is a powerful upgrade to the spaceship that massively boosts your thrusters. It is found at the center of the Boston Planet and is needed to explore the planets outside the Crystal Sphere and to escape from the black hole inside the Subway Planet. It can only be unlocked after deactivating the MIT Cloaking Device on the Subway Planet and collecting three of the four subway tokens found at different "Bostons". Subway tokens are circles with a T outline, and they have a distinct color: "blue", "red", "green", and "orange", the four colors of {{w|MBTA subway|Boston's subway system}}. The blue token on the Boston Planet is not strictly necessary to get the Hyperdrive, although it is the easiest to obtain.

Here's how to get the Hyperdrive:

* Get to the Subway Planet by launching from the bush where someone says "Shhh." on Origin. (Note that launching from here will require several other upgrades first. The hyperdrive should not be your first objective; see the table below for a more usual progression.) The Subway Planet features all the subways of North America except Boston, which has been ripped out and hidden by the MIT kids, leaving a big empty hole in the crust of the planet.

* Once on the Subway Planet, go to Morgantown, WV via Mexico City and Atlanta, and deactivate the MIT Cloaking Device to make the Boston Planet appear.

* Follow the two intangible grey lines that will first guide you to Origin and then the Roche Lobe Earth (one of the four Bostons) and collect the green subway token on it.

* Go back to Origin and collect the orange token on the Guitar Ship (see [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/2765:_Escape_Speed#Celestial_Bodies_and_Collectable_Items the table below] for instructions on how to find these planets).

* Get to the East Coast of the US on the Projection of Earth and collect the red token.

* Now that the center of the Boston Planet is accessible, go there and collect the Hyperdrive. The planet also contains the final blue token, but it's not necessary to get to the Hyperdrive.

===Extra Escape Speed pages===
*Since this comic is so big and complicated extra pages have been created to include much more information than is wished for on this main page (which is already of considerable size).
*These pages are listed here for convenience, but they are also listed in the relevant sections below:
**[[2765: Escape Speed/Transcript]] - The full transcript of the entire comic, as if you played the game can be found here. It is linked from the [[#Transcript|Transcript]] section.
**[[2765: Escape Speed/The whole image]] - A collection of different compilations of the whole Image.
**[[2765: Escape Speed/Screen-shots]] - Can be linked from several sections
**[[2765: Escape Speed/Tables]] - Tables used for explanation can be put on this page.

== Transcript ==
:'''[This transcript only covers the starting page as shown on {{xkcd|2765|xkcd.com}}. A full transcript of the entire comic can be found [[2765: Escape Speed/Transcript|here]].]'''

:[What is shown on xkcd it what is known as the Starting planet. It is a small planet. On top of it is a small spaceship standing on two legs. It has a circular shape on top of the legs with a round window. Next to it is a small tree which is higher than the spaceship. This is the spaceship to be controlled by the user. The planet has grass all around, and the entire planet is visible. But the ship is in the center, so most of the planet is in the lover part of the panel. The background around the planet is a star-studded black backdrop. Going around the planet to clockwise from the small tree, there are two more trees with some small bushes between the first small tree and the two next trees. A larger tree is on the opposite part of the planet. Between the two trees and this there is a small bush and the Beret Guy who looks and point up from his point of view (down as seen in the image as he is on the opposite side). He is exclaiming a word. After the largest tree next to him, come a small tree. Before that Cueball and Megan stand together. On the last part back to the spaceship there is another small bush. There are also four gray dots. One above the spaceship. One between the first three and the two. One above the largest of the two trees together. And the final near the bush to the left of the spaceship. Those four dots are part of the game and can be removed if the ship touches them. In the bottom right corner of the panel there is a small white square with a black house drawn upon it. There are two small black dots beneath it. A curved arrow goes below the house from the right to the left dot. This is the home button that will always take the player back to this starting window. To the very right of the panel on height with the spaceship there is a white bar about three times the height of the spaceship. This bar indicates how much energy the spaceship has. It always refuels immediately after landing anywhere.]
:Beret Guy: Wow!
:[As Beret Guy is upside down, so is his words. They can thus easily be read as MOM as they are written, as always, in all caps.]

:[As part of the game there are messages appearing the first time you enter the comic, and every time you return to home of to the comic from another comic. Although they are not part of the image, they do appear on the home image. These messages appear as black text in a rectangular white panel with a black border. The messages are only on screen for a short time. On a mobile phone browser "Use the arrow keys" is "Tap the sides of your screen". The three situations follow here:]

:[First time opening the game in a new browser there are two messages one appearing after the other:]
:Greetings!
:Use the arrow keys, pilot.

:[When pressing the home button only one message appears:]
:Welcome back, pilot.

:[When reloading or going to the page after having been in another page or having shut down the program and opening again, there will be two messages:]
:Welcome back! We saved your progress.
:Use the arrow keys, pilot.

:[When moving past the grey dots text is revealed in a similar manner to the greetings text. If it is items, then they are collected and listed beneath the panel under the heading "You've found:" A bulleted list will then start to grow beneath this as you play the game and collect items.]

:'''[For more transcripts from the rest of the game go to the [[2765: Escape Speed/Transcript|full transcript page]].]'''

== Trivia ==
* Since the comic came out on a Thursday instead of a Wednesday, it may have been timed to celebrate the test flight of the [https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/apr/20/elon-musks-spacex-launches-test-flight-for-rocket-that-could-bring-people-to-mars SpaceX Starship rocket], which was blown up four minutes after liftoff because its booster stage failed to separate. The large rocket found on the Click and Drag Planet has also been changed from the original look, possibly as a reference to SpaceX. It could also be a late [[:Category:April fools' comics|April fools' comic]], since for the second time in 12 years no such comic was published this year.
* If the spaceship has enough upgrades and is speeding through space fast enough, there is a glitch that lets the spaceship noclip through the Crystal Sphere without the Hyperdrive. The spaceship won't be able to stay in the air for more than one second without being pulled back, but it can move along its exterior edge.
* At (-945.399px, -694.381px), a person named Ryan is stuck in a small hole with a dog. This is a reference to a real event that happened to [https://www.polygon.com/2015/8/18/9173621/ryan-north-stuck-hole-twitter Dinosaur Comics author Ryan North]. Nearby is featured the T-rex from his iconic comic strip, in the pose of the last panel.

==Celestial Bodies and Collectable Items==
This is a table of all celestial bodies and items, in descending order of planet size (the Starting Planet, Origin, and the Hollow Planet are at the top for their relevance). Collectable items and messages are found in the "You found...", "Upgrades", "Messages" and "Subway tokens" columns. For more detailed and in-depth tables and lists, see [[2765: Escape Speed/Tables|here]]. Here are some other useful resources:
* A map of the entire universe created by the community can be found [https://aeromancer.dev/xkcd/escape_speed/ here]
* Screenshots of the entire world, planets, and celestial bodies made using this map can be found [[2765: Escape Speed/The whole image|here]]
* A spreadsheet of all items and messages from the game's source code can be found [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1hygJKdwjkufAU3ZYC4NELdCX7XgRdOIW68vPUidR9qA here]
* A spreadsheet of coordinates for all celestial bodies from the game's source code can be found [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1xhw3oVb4fMktZB_KEIF9fGkYCkfbpRMHKBLI63laTgc here]

{| class="wikitable sortable"
! rowspan="2"|Name

<code>codename</code>
! rowspan="2"|Tiles (X, Y)
! rowspan="2"|Explanation
! colspan="4"|Collectable items and messages
|-
! You found...
! Upgrades
! Messages
! Subway tokens
|-
| '''Starting Planet'''

<code>tiny-world</code>
| (6024, -8976)
| To get here, click the "Home" button in the lower right corner of the comic.

The planet is tiny, grassy, and has few trees. Beret Guy is saying "Wow!", but since he's on the other side of the planet, it looks like he is shouting "Mom!". This is a reference to the title text of [[1117: My Sky]], and it could also be a reference to [[502: Dark Flow]]. Pressing the "Home" button to go back to the starting planet shows the message, "Welcome back, pilot", which may be a reference to the greeting that plays when re-entering a Titan in the ''Titanfall'' video games.
|
* a rock with neat stripes

* a cool bug

* a pretty leaf
|
|
* Wheeee!
|
|-
| '''Origin'''

<code>origin</code>
| (3096, -5904)
| To get here, launch from Beret Guy saying "Wow!" on the Starting Planet.

The planet has a sign saying 'Welcome to Origin! You can never leave™'. A large hidden tunnel inside it leads from below the rollercoaster to the St. Louis Arch on the opposing side of the planet, which you can use to gain enough momentum to escape the gravitational force if you don't have many upgrades. There are lots of landmarks and signs that mark the directions to different planets.
|
* a secret glade
* a holographic Charizard business card
* a 5G seagull
* a DVD of The Core (2003)
* a normal-looking leaf
* a marsh wren
* an orb wren
* a single grain of salt
* 11 squares packed into a larger square
* a tumbleweed
|
* Nice flying! (Your tanks recharge faster now.)
|
* You found a tiny meteorite!
* Welcome to liminal space
* The St. Louis arch is also known as the gateway to space.
* Be careful; this roller coaster can be disorienting!
|
|-
| '''Hollow Planet'''

<code>hollow-shell</code>
| (-13952, 1848)
| To get here, launch from the St. Louis Arch on Origin.

The planet is just a shell with some gaps. On the outside, there are lots of landmarks and signs that mark the directions to different planets.
|
|
* You found a handful of the quantum foam that makes up the fabric of space! (Your tanks recharge much faster now.)

* You found a sixth lagrange point! (Your thrusters are more efficient now.)

* You found a glass of heavy water (Your engine gets a little more powerful.)
|
|
|-
| '''Star Destroyer'''

''from'' <code>star-destroyer-a</code> ''to'' <code>star-destroyer-i</code>
| (18192, -130000)
| To get here, launch from the crack in the Crystal Sphere.

The planet has been copied from [[1608: Hoverboard]], with the only difference being that Darth Vader's dialogue was changed from referencing {{w|Steven Universe}} to {{w|The Murderbot Diaries}}.
|
* an unread email
* a glass slipper with a glass foot in it
* a lymphocyte
* a forged resume
* a serif
* a Bursa of Fabricius
* a cluster of data points
* a premium subscription to food
* two goats and a new car
* an out-of-control trolley
* a helium-238 nucleus
* the Death Star plans
|
* You found a perpetual motion fidget spinner! (Your tanks recharge a bit faster now.)
* You found a vintage Juicero juicer! (Your thrusters are more efficient now.)
|
* Hmmm.
|
|-
| '''Click and Drag Planet'''

<code>clickdrag-nw</code>'','' <code>clickdrag-ne</code>'','' <code>clickdrag-sw</code>'', and'' <code>clickdrag-se</code>
| (-31808, 111808)
| To get here, launch from the bow or stern of the Star Destroyer tangentially to the Crystal Sphere to orbit it and keep the stars in the background moving horizontally on the screen until you see a dot around the spaceship guiding you.

The planet has mostly been copied from [[1110: Click and Drag]] and modelled to form a round planet, so the drawings are very tiny. The large rocket has been changed from the original look, possibly as a reference to SpaceX. Originally, it had no gravity, and the spaceship was only attracted by the gravity of the Crystal Sphere. This made navigating around the planet difficult, so a later update added gravity to it to make it easier for players to explore it.
|
* an ant the size of Rhode Island
* a pin with 17 angels dancing on it
|
* The vehicle below gives you a boost (Your launch speed has increased.)
* We should turn back (Your engine gets a bit more powerful.)
* You found an expert at underwater ropes. (Your thrusters are more efficient now.)
* You found a trisected angle! (Your launch speed has greatly increased.)
|
|
|-
| '''Subway Planet'''

<code>subway-planet</code> ''and'' <code>black-hole-3</code>
| (22000, 34000)
| To get here, launch from the bush where someone says "Shhh." on Origin.

The planet is a reference to [[1196: Subways]] and it's riddled with tunnels. Boston has been ripped out and hidden by the MIT kids, leaving a big empty hole in the crust of the planet, and there is a black hole at the center that can only be escaped with the Hyperdrive. You need to find the switch that turns off the MIT Cloaking Device to help you get the Hyperdrive. Once found, two intangible grey lines will appear (on the Subway Planet and on Origin), guiding you to one of the four Bostons.
|
* a relativistic bowling ball
* a Cybiko® wireless handheld computer for teens (2000)
* a handful of quantum foam
* a normal-sized apple
|
* You get the feeling you're not in Kansas anymore (Your tanks recharge a bit faster now.)
* There is no parking in the white zone (Your thrusters are more efficient now.)
* The next stop is Interplanetary Terminal G (Your engine gets a little more powerful.)
* You feel accomplished (Your engine gets a little more powerful.)
* You found a brightly-lit billboard (Your thrusters are more efficient now.)
* You found a hot dog (Your launch speed has increased.)
* You found a bottle of Coke Absolute Zero! (Your thrusters are more efficient now.)
* You found a beige electron! (Your engine gets a little more powerful.)
* You found $30 in Yahoo! cash! (Your engine gets a little more powerful.)
* You found a friendly cat! (Your engine gets a little more powerful.)
|
* Transfer here for Mornington Crescent
|
* MIT Cloaking Device deactivated! Boston detected. (Blue, red, green, and orange lines activated.)
|-
| '''Boston Planet'''

<code>mbta</code>
| (-42000, 8000)
| To get here, launch from the back of the Shuttle Skeleton.

The planet is the Boston subway system that was ripped out from the Subway Planet by the MIT kids. The Hyperdrive, needed to explore the planets outside the Crystal Sphere, is at the center of the planet, which is only accessible after getting the green, red and orange subway tokens. The blue token is not strictly necessary to get the Hyperdrive, although it is the easiest to obtain. If the player goes to the location of the Boston Planet before turning off the MIT Cloaking Device, they will only find an invisible region out in space that has gravity, at the center of which a "strangely heavy subway token" can be found. The gravitational force around it remains even after the token is collected. As hinted by Blondie on Andal, the MIT Cloaking Device doesn't affect gravity, therefore the cloaked Boston planet is intangible and invisible, but its mass still affects the gravitational field around it.
|
* a strangely heavy subway token
|
|
|
* Blue line deactivated!
* Welcome to MIT! You acquired a hyperdrive!
|-
| '''Projection of Earth'''

<code>earth-map</code>
| (-15808, 22192)
| To get here, launch from the Earth map landmark on Origin or the sign on the Hollow Planet.

The planet is a huge, distorted map of all land masses on Earth. The spaceship can fly where water would be, but it can't go over land.
|
* the Heart of the Ocean
* a whale shark
* some microbial life
* some tin from the pantai remis mine
* a sparkling gem
* a piece of pumice
|
* You found the Principality of Sealand! (Your engine gets a little more powerful.)

* You found a Rhode Island the size of an ant! (Your engine gets a little more powerful.)

* You found an icosahedral d10 (Your engine gets a little more powerful.)
|
|
* Red line deactivated!
|-
| '''What If? Planet'''

<code>gravity-earth</code>
| (-46000, -24000)
| To get here, launch from the two people explaining where Boston is on Origin, the left of Stonehenge on the Round Planet, or the left rim of the Guitar Ship.

The planet contains several scenes from ''[[What If? 2]]'' and [[2712: Gravity]]. Megan and Cueball are floating inside a small space in the center of the planet, which can be reached after getting the Hyperdrive. This is arguably the most remote object within the Crystal Sphere, since all the planets around it are very distant from it.
|
* an eye in the sky

* a stick

* an asterisk

* a sterile neutrino

* a secret leaf

* a pair of squirrel goggles

* a large hadron

* a smooth green snake
|
* You found a sunken treasure (Your thrusters are more efficient now.)

* The Yellowstone Super What? (Your launch speed has increased.)

* Nutritional Facts - Serving Size: 1 Cloud, Total Calories: 0 (Your engine gets a little more powerful.)

* You captured the flag! You decide to leave it there, but it's yours. (Your engine gets a little more powerful.)

* You found a steam calliope! (Your engine gets a little more powerful.)

* You found a dna base pair! (Your engine gets a little more powerful.)
|
|
|-
| '''Uzumaki'''

<code>uzumaki</code>
| (-3904, -26904)
| To get here, launch from Origin's spiral landmark, the sign on the Hollow Planet, or below the plane-towed banner on the Round Planet.

The planet is a large spiral of grass inspired by the manga ''{{w|Uzumaki}}'' by Junji Ito. A Roomba is loose, a reference to [[1558: Vet]].
|
* a golden radio tuned to 1.618 MHz

* a scroll lock key

* a primordial black hole

* a cool pair of shoes with flames on the side

* an ink cartridge

* a podcast episode

* a festive but somehow unnerving holiday card from Junji Ito

* a friendly bee

* a spiral-cut diamond

* a burrito
|
* You found a tree-filled grove and a nice spot for quiet contemplation (Your thrusters are significantly more efficient now.)

* You found a single caffeine molecule! (Your tanks recharge a bit faster now.)
|
* Exit Only

* You're going the wrong way!
|
|-
| '''Round Planet'''
<code>orb</code>
| (-19154, -7288)
| To get here, launch from the tower with an orb on it on Origin or the sign on the Hollow Planet.

The planet is moderately small with no vegetation and some architecture such as Stonehenge and the Great Wall of China.
|
* a swatch pop-out wristwatch
|
* You found a sensible cheese platter (Your tanks recharge a bit faster now.)

* ''[no message]'' (Your engine gets a little more powerful.)
|
|
|-
| '''Jurassic Park Planet'''

<code>gravity-qwantz</code>
| (20000, 11000)
| To get here, launch from the dinosaur on Origin or the Andalites on Andal.

The planet is covered in dinosaurs from [https://www.qwantz.com Dinosaur Comics] and has very weak gravity. It is an exact copy of the Dinosaur Planet from [[2712: Gravity]].
|
* a tiny pteranodon

* a baby hedgehog

* a tattered knapsack containing about $194,00 in $20 bills
|
* Today is a good day I think for space exploration (Your engine gets a little more powerful.)

* But what if gravity doesn't actually exist? (Your tanks recharge a bit faster now.)
|
|
|-
| '''Andal'''

<code>platform-planet</code>
| (12048, 14048)
| To get here, launch from the Andal landmark near the pyramids on Origin or below Saturn's equator, when the soccer ball is oriented to the bottom left compared to the spaceship.

The planet is small and has a T-shaped tower, mountains, and grass.
|
|
* You found two Andalites, one canonical! (Your thrusters are more efficient now.)

* What a nice place for a ship to sit! (Your tanks recharge a bit faster now.)

* You found a friend (Your thrusters are more efficient now.)

* You found baby shoes (and baby)! (Your engine gets a little more powerful.)
|
|
|-
| '''Comet 67P'''

<code>67p</code>
| (18048, -11152)
| To get here, launch from the duck next to the 'Caution: long vertical drop' sign on Origin.

The planet is a reference to the comet {{w|67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko}} and contains the crashed Rosetta spacecraft along with the Philae lander that landed on it in 2014.
|
|
* Some people believe that when the Earth appears in the sky, it's a harbinger of doom. (Your tanks recharge a bit faster now.)

* You found a broken smoke machine (Your engine gets a little more powerful.)

* Anyone for Scrabble later? (Your engine gets a little more powerful.)

* You found The Long Now Foundation's nickel paperweight containing an archive of every published Animorphs book! (Your launch speed has increased.)
|
|
|-
| '''Guitar Ship'''

<code>guitar-ship</code>
| (-12000, -30000)
| To get here, launch from near Uzumaki.

The planet is a huge guitar labeled 'Boston' with the city skyline under a dome on the back (a reference to the cover art of the album {{w|Boston (album)|''Boston''}}).
|
* a guitar pick
|
|
|
* Orange line deactivated!
|-
| '''Saturn'''

<code>saturn</code>
| (2600, 14000)
| To get here, launch from the pyramid with Saturn on it on Origin. If you see the Spacetime Soccer Field, you're too far left.

The planet has a soccer ball inside it, a reference to [[2513: Saturn Hexagon]].
|
* a really cool data point
|
* You found a pair of platonic solids, not quite touching! (Your engine gets a little more powerful.)

* You found a block of scandium! (Your engine gets a little more powerful.)
|
|
|-
| '''Roche Lobe Earth'''

<code>earth-roche</code> ''and'' <code>normal-moon</code>
| (-9952, -3952)
| To get here, launch from the landmark that looks like a very round cannon firing a cannon ball on Origin.

The planet is a distorted Earth being attracted by the gravity of the moon, which makes the Earth look like a giant drop of water. See ''{{w|Roche Lobe}}'' for more information.
|
* a curious humboldt squid

* a bathyscaphe

* a wayward Roomba full of moondust
|
|
|
* Green line deactivated!
|-
| '''Giant Spider'''

<code>spider</code>
| (26982, -8714)
| To get here, launch from the spider landmark on Origin.

The object is a giant spider floating in space with eight people standing on top of his legs.
|
* a spider-silk scarf
|
* You found a friendly jumping spider (Your engine gets a little more powerful.)
|
|
|-
| '''Dark Matter Planet'''

<code>dark-matter</code>
| (-2892, 2640)
| To get here, launch from the goal on the half of the field with just one person on it on Spacetime Soccer Field.

The planet is small and grey, and it has the words "Dark matter" inside. On its surface, there are two squirrels and Ponytail exclaiming "I found it!", a reference to [[2186: Dark Matter]]).
|
|
* You found a delicate music box. (Your engine gets a little more powerful.)
|
|
|-
| '''Shuttle Skeleton'''

<code>space-shuttle</code>
| (-30200, 14576)
| To get here, launch from the Shuttle Skeleton landmark on Origin or Northwest from Alaska on the Projection of Earth.

The object is a reference to the Space Shuttle Skeleton from [[2630: Shuttle Skeleton]].
|
* a piece of space shuttle food
|
* A little upgrade works wonders on fuel efficiency (Your thrusters are more efficient now.)
|
|
|-
| '''Diffraction Spikes Star'''

<code>diffraction</code>
| (-19944, 11240)
| To get here, launch from the back of the left "hand" of the Shuttle Skeleton or the north of Alaska.

The object is a very spiky star, a reference to [[2762: Diffraction Spikes]].
|
* a hydrogen ion

* a piece of coronium (iron)
|
|
|
|-
| '''SafetySat'''

<code>safetysat</code>
| (17024, 1024)
| To get here, launch from the cell tower on Origin.

The object is a reference to [[1992: SafetySat]].
|
* a first of its kind
|
* ''[no message]'' (Your thrusters are more efficient now.)

* The more refined oil had a dinner engagement (Your thrusters are more efficient now.)
|
|
|-
| '''Spacetime Soccer Field'''

<code>soccerfield</code>
| (6048, 4048)
| To get here, launch from the pyramid with a soccer ball on it on Origin.

The planet is reference to [[2705: Spacetime Soccer]] and consists of a central white body, goals on the poles, and intangible lines farther away.
|
|
* GOOOOOOOOAAAAA- AAAALLLLLLLLLLLLL!!! (Your thrusters are more efficient now.)

* GOOOOOOOOAAAAA- AAAALLLLLLLLLLLLL!!! (Your engine gets a little more powerful.)

* You found the 3 million point line (Your thrusters are more efficient now.)

* You found a sunspot! (Your launch speed has increased.)
|
|
|-
| '''Voyager 1'''

<code>voyager-1</code>
| (1606, -14282)
| To get here, launch from the "Receiving transmission" communication device near the spiral landmark on Origin.

The object is a satellite flying in space around Origin.
|
|
* You found Voyager 1! Some of its great speed rubs off on you. (Your engine thrust has increased significantly.)
|
|
|-
| '''Voyager 2'''

<code>voyager-2</code>
| (10682, -5172)
| To get here, launch from the "Receiving transmission" communication device near the spider landmark on Origin.

The object is a satellite flying in space around Origin.
|
|
* You found Voyager 2! Some of its great speed rubs off on you. (Your engine thrust has increased significantly.)
|
|
|-
| '''Crystal Sphere'''

''from'' <code>ring-1</code> ''to'' <code>ring-36</code>
|
| To get here, launch from anywhere and keep avoiding planets until you hit it.

Most planets and celestial objects are inside of a large Crystal Sphere in which there is a visible navigable crack. Halfway through the crack, gravity gets increasingly stronger as the spaceship feels the gravitational force of the entire Crystal Sphere. Despite a person on Origin saying that "there's no way you'd be able to escape [the Crystal Sphere's] gravitation pull. You'd need some kind of a Hyperdrive for that", it's actually possible to get out of the Crystal Sphere without the Hyperdrive (but the spaceship won't be able to stay in the air for more than a second without being pulled back). Above the crack, there is an arch made up of the repeating words "The End", which is reminiscent of the "Don't leave the play area" message in [[1608: Hoverboard]] that appeared when the player tried to get out of it.

|
* a necklace of element samples whose symbols spell out your name

* the platinum cylinder formerly used to define the kilogram
|
* A significant boost to the engines for a curious pilot (Your engine thrust has increased significantly.)

* You found the gold crown Archimedes stole! (Your engine thrust has increased significantly.)
|
|
|-
| '''Crack in the Crystal Sphere'''
|
| To get here, launch from the two characters talking about 'shooting for the moon' on Origin or the 'Exit' sign on the Hollow Planet.

This section of the Crystal Sphere was violently removed, similarly to how Boston was ripped out from the Subway Planet, leaving jagged edges and construction materials visible. Judging by the shape of the edges of the crack, it doesn't look like the Crystal Sphere is made of crystal. As noticed by Ponytail in the Hollow Planet, when the player is inside the Crystal Sphere, they don't feel a gravitational pull from the huge structure, but when they're outside, the spaceship feels the gravitational force of all the celestial bodies it is leaving behind, resulting in an very strong pull towards the interior of the Crystal Sphere. Above the crack, there is an arch made up of the repeating words "The End", which is reminiscent of the "Don't leave the play area" message in [[1608: Hoverboard]] that appeared when the player tried to get out of it. The Crystal Sphere may be a reference to {{w|The Crystal Spheres}}, a short story by science fiction author David Brin which suggests that each star with habitable planets in the universe is surrounded by a crystal sphere that can be broken only from the inside and is otherwise completely impenetrable.
|
|
* There is a way out (Your launch speed has increased.)
|
* Right lane must turn right

* Left lane must turn left
|
|-
| '''Open Space Outside the Crystal Sphere'''
|
|To get here, go through the crack in the crystal sphere
|
|
* It is very lonely out here (Your tanks recharge much faster now.)

* You found a needle in a haystack (Your engine gets a little more powerful.)

* From here you can view the source of it all. (Your thrusters are more efficient now.)
|
|}

==Hacks==
Some of the modes and hacks from [[2712: Gravity]] return in this comic and can be activated by opening the browser console (F12, Ctr+Shift+I or Cmd+Option+I to open your browser's developer tools, then choose the Console tab) and typing a command. <div class="mw-collapsible mw-collapsed leftAlign" style="width:100%">
 
* <code>ship.engines = "warp"</code> changes the spaceship into the USS Enterprise from Star Trek and massively boosts the power of your engines. Use <code>ship.engines = "standard"</code> to return to normal.
* <code>python("import antigravity")</code> flips the gravitational pull. It's a reference to comic [[353: Python]].
* <code>noclip = true</code> disables collision detection.
* <code>Comic.ship = "paperplane"</code> changes the spaceship into a paper plane. Other options include <code>"bubble"</code> (the default spaceship), <code>"small-bubble"</code> (a smaller version of the default), <code>"carriagereturn"</code> (the USS Enterprise, presumably a pun on 'Enter'), <code>"lamp"</code> (a lamp), <code>"lampacity"</code> (also a lamp?) and <code>"ship1"</code> (the spaceship from "Gravity").
* <code>Comic.gravityConstant = 0</code> turns gravity off (default is 100).
* <code>Comic.voyager.opts.speed = 0.1</code> increases engine power (default is 0.04).
* <code>Comic.voyager.opts.thrustDuration = 1000</code> provides extra fuel (default is 3.5).
* <code>Comic.voyager.opts.turnSpeed = 0.008</code> increases your turning speed (default is 0.002).
* <code>[Comic.voyager.pos.x, Comic.voyager.pos.y] = [1177, 6755]</code> teleports the spaceship to Saturn ([https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1xhw3oVb4fMktZB_KEIF9fGkYCkfbpRMHKBLI63laTgc Coordinates list].)
* <code>Comic.map.items</code> is an array of the findable items, and <code>Comic.map.locations</code> is an array of places.
* <code>ship.engines = "infinite improbability drive"</code> moves the spaceship to random locations, in a reference to the Heart of Gold from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
* <code>ze.goggles()</code> once again prints "they do nothing!"
* <code>ship.shields = false</code> turns the entire screen black when you collide with something.

[[User:CruseCtrl|CruseCtrl]]'s wayfinder adds a blue dot to show where the nearest collectable is.
Paste this into the JavaScript console:

const waypointDiv = document.createElement("div");
waypointDiv.style = "position: absolute; left: 50%; top: 50%; width: 6px; height: 6px; background: blue; border-radius: 99px;";
document.getElementById("comic").appendChild(waypointDiv);
const findClosestObject = (voyager, xPos, yPos) => {
let bestDist = Infinity;
let bestObject = null;
for (const object of voyager.objects.filter((o) => !voyager.gotObjects.has(o.id) && o.visible?.())) {
const dist = Math.sqrt((xPos - (object.x1 + object.x2) / 2) ** 2 + (yPos - (object.y1 + object.y2) / 2) ** 2);
if (dist < bestDist) {
bestDist = dist;
bestObject = object;
}
}
return { object: bestObject, dist: bestDist };
};
const everyFrame = function (state) {
const { object, dist } = findClosestObject(Comic.voyager, state.x, state.y);
if (!object) {
waypointDiv.style.display = "none";
return;
}
const objectX = (object.x1 + object.x2) / 2;
const objectY = (object.y1 + object.y2) / 2;
const angleToObject = Math.atan2(objectY - state.y, objectX - state.x);
const waypointAngle = angleToObject + Comic.voyager.cameraAngle;
const waypointDistance = 10 + 2 * dist ** (1 / 3);
const waypointX = Math.cos(waypointAngle) * waypointDistance;
const waypointY = Math.sin(waypointAngle) * waypointDistance;
waypointDiv.style.transform = `translate(${waypointX}px, ${waypointY}px)`;
};
const oldOnFrame = Comic.onFrame.bind(Comic);
Comic.onFrame = function (...args) { everyFrame(...args); oldOnFrame(...args); };

The following script stops the momentum of the spaceship, which can be useful after seeing a planet without being able to slow down in time:
window.onkeydown = function(e){if(e.key == 'p'){Comic.gameHandle.playerConfig.maxSpeed = 0; setTimeout(() => {Comic.gameHandle.playerConfig.maxSpeed = 100;},10)}}
</div>
 

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Large drawings]]
[[Category:Comics with animation]]
[[Category:Dynamic comics]]
[[Category:Interactive comics]]
[[Category:Comics with inverted brightness]]
[[Category:Space]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]
[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Black Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Beret Guy]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairbun]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Blondie]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Knit Cap]]
[[Category:Characters with hats]]
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]] 
[[Category:Video games]]
[[Category:Star Wars]]
[[Category:Animals]]
[[Category:Spiders]]
[[Category:Squirrels]]
[[Category:Dinosaurs]]
[[Category:Songs]]
[[Category:Soccer]]
[[Category:Robots]]
[[Category:Food]]
[[Category:Volcanoes]]
[[Category:Space probes]]
[[Category:Astronomy]]
[[Category:Maps]]
[[Category:Aviation]]
[[Category:Airplane banner]]
[[Category:Book promotion]]
[[Category:Animorphs]]
[[Category:Stilts]]
[[Category:What If?]]

1850: Air Force Museum

2023-03-29T17:26:18Z

Galaktos: /* Explanation */ let’s not assume that the reader is familiar with all US states and their capitals eh

{{comic
| number = 1850
| date = June 14, 2017
| title = Air Force Museum
| image = air_force_museum.png
| titletext = I had fun visiting the museum at Dover Air Force Base, unless they don't have a museum, in which case I've never been to Delaware in my life.
}}

==Explanation==
[[Megan]] asks [[Cueball]] about his day. He tells about his visit to a military {{w|Aviation museum|aircraft museum}} at the {{w|Military air base|air force base}} and lists some of the things he saw. It starts with things you would expect at a typical museum, such as a mix of aircraft from different eras, before revealing the fact that Cueball was able to watch missiles being loaded, which is something that would be out of place and potentially dangerous at a museum. Realizing this, Cueball remarks that he hopes that he was at a museum, and Megan asks him if he hears helicopters. The implication is that Cueball observed not an aircraft museum, but actual military operations at the base, and the military is now scrambling aircraft; either to pursue Cueball and arrest him, or to deploy for some battle nearby.

The mention of "planes from different eras" alludes to the fact that military aircraft are often still in use after a much longer time than they were originally designed for. An example of this are the US Air Force's {{w|Boeing B-52 Stratofortress|B-52}} bomber, first introduced in 1955 (62 years before the publication of this comic) and expected to serve into the 2040s. Additionally, aircraft museums typically house military aircraft from previous eras, such as from WWII and the Cold War, to show the evolution in aircraft design and to showcase technological advances.

The title text builds on this premise. [[Randall]] says that he had fun visiting another Air Force "museum" near Dover, the capital of Delaware, but he adds that if they don't have a museum (in which case he was trespassing on a military base) then he denies ever having been anywhere near it. Fortunately for Randall, there is in fact an Air Force museum nearby: the {{w|Air Mobility Command Museum}} about half a mile south of the {{w|Dover Air Force Base}}.

==Transcript==
:[Megan walks from left over to Cueball.]
:Megan: How was your day?
:Cueball: I visited the military aircraft museum over at the Air Force base. It was really neat!

:[Both walking together to the right.]
:Cueball: They have planes from different eras, all kinds of cool equipment, and you can even watch missiles being loaded.

:[Beat frameless panel. Cueball and Megan walking.]

:[Both still walking.]
:Cueball: ...at least, I ''hope'' that was a museum.
:Megan: Do you hear helicopters?

{{comic discussion}}

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

2168: Reading in the Original

2023-03-21T00:31:40Z

Galaktos: /* Explanation */ add information on placement of 'languages' box, which has moved since the comic was published

{{comic
| number = 2168
| date = June 26, 2019
| title = Reading in the Original
| image = reading_in_the_original.png
| titletext = The articles are much shorter, but I assume that's because this version predates the merger with the Hawaiian text that created the modern Hawaiian-Greek hybrid wiki-pedia.
}}

==Explanation==
Many academics and aficionados argue that studying texts in the original language is more valuable than reading translations. The argument is that translations are rarely able to fully capture all of the nuances, linguistic subtleties and intent of the original author, and may even alter the meaning in some way due to the translator's interpretation and word choices. The drawback to this is that it requires the reader to be sufficiently fluent in whatever language the text is written. Critically, a reader of the original source also needs to understand the cultural and historical context of the original work, something a professional translator might deal with much better. This can even happen when working with archaic texts in the same language, as certain references and phrases may have had a significance which was lost over time.

Cueball's commenting that he read works "in the original Greek" implies a high-level of literary scholarship, as this phrase is associated with scholars studying ancient Greek texts, which form a significant part of the foundational works of Western literature.

A similar thing happens with dubbed movies or TV series/anime, with many people remarking that they instead prefer to watch the original version (sometimes with subtitles), instead of the dubbed version.

The joke in this comic is that Cueball has apparently taken the time to learn Greek in order to read the [https://el.wikipedia.org Greek-language Wikipedia] in that language, believing it to be the "original" one. {{w|Wikipedia}} was originally launched as a single English-language edition encyclopedia, but Cueball apparently treats it as though it was originally written in Greek. (An [https://incubator.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wp/grc Ancient Greek Wikipedia test project] also exists, but is not nearly as large as the modern Greek one and isn't available through the languages box.) Wikipedia has editions in about 300 languages; the 'languages' box that Cueball mentions does link to the corresponding page in other languages when they are available, but such pages are not usually translations of each other, having been written separately. (The 'languages' box was indeed placed in the lower left of the page at the time the comic was published, but moved to the upper right in January 2023, when a [https://slate.com/technology/2023/01/wikipedia-redesign-vector-2022-skin.html new default Skin] was deployed.) Cueball's dedication to appearing to be a committed scholar is therefore contrasted with the ignorance of not understanding that Greek is not the original language of every text. Megan, recognizing that Wikipedia articles were not originally in Greek, exclaims that "That's not how that works!"

The movie ''Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country'' has a joke concerning someone speaking of a foreign "original" language of something that actually was originally written in English: Chancellor Gorkon says, "You have not experienced Shakespeare until you've read it in the [[wikia:w:c:klingon:Shakespeare|original Klingon]]." (In reality, Shakespeare lived in England, and wrote in English, not Klingon.){{Citation needed}}

The title text combines two jokes. First, the reference to pages being "much shorter" is because the English language Wikipedia has the most editors and is the most developed; outside of areas of intense interest to Greeks, most pages would be more complete on the English Wikipedia, which would normally be a sign to Cueball that his interpretation that Greek was the original text is incorrect. Second, the way he explains away this contradiction is an etymology joke, since "Wikipedia" was coined from two parts, "[[wikt:wiki#English|wiki]]", from Hawaiian, and "[[wikt:-pedia|pedia]]", from Greek. However, words having roots in different languages is common and does not signify any link between the separate languages; for example, while the word "Wikipedia" does have etymological roots in Hawaiian and Greek, it is not true that the site was originally composed of texts written in Hawaiian and Greek. In Hawaiian, [[wikt:wiki#Hawaiian|wiki]] means quick. In Greek, the suffix [[wikt:-pedia|pedia]] is related to learning, which makes Wikipedia mean "quick learning" when combining these two languages.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is addressing Megan. He is holding a hand with a thumb up out toward her. Megan is spreading her arms out as she replies.]
:Cueball: It's in the "Languages" box in the lower left. It took a while to learn, but I find I get so much more out of it by reading it as it was '''''intended'''''.
:Megan: That's not how that works!

:[Caption below the panel:]
:People get mad when I tell them I only read Wikipedia in the original Greek.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Language]]
[[Category:Wikipedia]]

2568: Spinthariscope

2023-03-14T22:07:59Z

Galaktos: /* Explanation */ clarify

{{comic
| number = 2568
| date = January 14, 2022
| title = Spinthariscope
| image = spinthariscope.png
| titletext = Other high scorers are melt-in-your-hand aluminum-destroying gallium and tritium-powered glowsticks. Lawn darts are toward the other end.
}}
*This was the third comic to come out after the [[Countdown in header text]] started.

==Explanation==
This is another comic with one of [[Randall|Randall's]] [[:Category:Fun fact|fun facts]].

As stated in the comic, a {{w|spinthariscope}} is a device with a small amount of radioactive material ({{w|americium}} or
{{w|thorium}}) and a screen. When one of the radioactive atoms decays, it emits an {{w|alpha particle}}, which strikes the screen, which emits a small flash of light. You can see these flashes by looking through a lens.

It was invented in 1903 initially as a scientific instrument, but was soon replaced by more accurate and quantitative devices. But the original device was still popular for some time as an educational toy for children, and you can still get them today.

The joke in the comic is that most people have little understanding of radiation, and overreact to any mention that something is radioactive. So when Cueball tells Megan, White Hat, and Ponytail that the toy contains radioactive material, they're shocked and scared. But the amount of radioactive material in the toy is very tiny and the radiation is itself so trivially contained that there's practically no risk from it. The short-ranged {{w|alpha particles}} are likely stopped by the lens through which the harmless flashes of light (from particles that instead hit and neutralise in the internal screen element) are seen. Alpha decay always leads to an unstable decay product, which results in further decay (always gamma decay, and sometimes beta decay as well) which are less easily blocked, but the amount of such radiation from these decay products is negligible.

The fun fact in the caption says that Spinthariscopes have the highest ratio of "that can't possibly be safe and legal" to actual safety and legality of any known toy. When people hear about Spinthariscopes for the first time, they often assume, due to the radioactive material inside, that they must be very dangerous. They thus also question if such a toy is at all legal to make or own in the first place. But the fact is that Spinthariscopes are both safe and legal to make, sell and own. So, the perceived danger and presumption that it must be illegal is at a very high number, and the actual danger and the actual illegality results in a very low number on the same scale. It is this ratio between perceived and actual danger and illegality that are the highest for Spinthariscopes, higher than for any other known toy.

The formulation, however, causes some confusion, because the caption uses actual safety and legality (high) instead of actual danger and illegality (low). Instead of a high ratio between perceived danger and actual danger, the result is an even ratio between perceived danger and actual safety, which are both high. The ratios for the other mentioned toys would also be even, as they have low perceived danger and low actual safety. This is obviously not the intended meaning, as the other toys are said to be toward the other end of the scale.

The title text mentions some other materials/toys that sound dangerous but aren't. {{w|Gallium}} is a metallic element with a low melting point of 29.76°C (85.568°F) so it will melt in your hand. Additionally, gallium has strange properties when it interacts with aluminum, causing aluminum to [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgXNwLoS-Hw "melt"] or become brittle. {{w|Tritium}} is a radioactive isotope of hydrogen, but {{w|Tritium radioluminescence|can be used}} to create {{w|glowstick}}s and other lighted objects. Though these two toys might seem dangerous, they are actually typically used perfectly safely.

At the opposite end of the spectrum is {{w|lawn darts}}, a toy containing large darts that are thrown into the air to fall back down onto a target that's placed or marked upon the ground quite near the players' positions. Unlike the spinthariscope, which sounds dangerous but is actually harmless, lawn darts sound relatively innocent but can cause severe injury if you accidentally hit a person (and a few children were even {{w|Lawn darts|killed}}), so they were {{w|Lawn_darts#Safety_and_bans_in_the_U.S._and_Canada|banned in the US and Canada}} in the 1980s. When sharpened, these toys even [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EFAVGIylqE compare] quite favorably to {{w|plumbata|antique weapons of war}}.

Today many houses have {{w|Smoke_detector|smoke detectors}} using {{w|Smoke_detector#Ionization|ionization}} caused by radioactive decay of {{w|Americium-241}} to detect the smoke. So having something with radioactive material in your house is quite common, and in this case increases the safety level for those houses.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is holding a small item up in on hand in front of his three friends. Megan has her arms lifted and bent in front of her, White Hat has his arms raised over his head and Ponytail is pointing at Cueball while her other hand, held down behind her, is balled into a fist.]
:Cueball: It's a spinthariscope, a 1940s toy with a radioactive isotope inside. If you let your eyes adjust to total darkness and look into the lens, you can see the flashes of individual atoms decaying.
:Megan: What??
:White Hat: ''Aaaaa!''
:Ponytail: Get it away!

:[Caption below the panel:]
:Fun fact: Spinthariscopes have the highest ratio of "that can't possibly be safe and legal" to actual safety and legality of any known toy.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Fun fact]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Chemistry]]
[[Category:Physics]]

1286: Encryptic

2022-12-12T00:41:05Z

Galaktos: /* Passwords */ add missing space and helpful wiktionary link

{{comic
| number = 1286
| date = November 4, 2013
| title = Encryptic
| image = encryptic.png
| titletext = It was bound to happen eventually. This data theft will enable almost limitless [xkcd.com/792]-style password reuse attacks in the coming weeks. There's only one group that comes out of this looking smart: Everyone who pirated Photoshop.
}}

==Explanation==
Web sites and other computers that authenticate users via passwords need to be able to know if the user typed in the right password. But storing the password itself on the computer has been known to be unnecessarily risky since the publication of [http://www.neurosecurity.com/articles/security/passwd.pdf Password Security: A Case History] in 1978. In that paper, Robert Morris and Ken Thompson demonstrated the practice of using a slow, cryptographically-secure one-way {{w|hash function}}, so that even if the password file is stolen, it will be very hard to figure out what the passwords are, so long as the passwords themselves are suitably complex. They also pioneered the use of {{w|Salt (cryptography)|a "salt"}} which makes each password hash completely different even if two users use the same password. See [http://security.blogoverflow.com/2011/07/a-tour-of-password-questions-and-answers/ A tour of password questions and answers] for background on salts and suitably slow hash functions.

Adobe, however, ignored these well-known principles, and instead stored over a hundred million passwords in a reversibly encrypted way, using a terrible choice of encryption methods which exposes a great deal of information about the passwords, and does not involve a salt. This password database was recently obtained by someone and released on the Internet.

In particular, Adobe used {{w|Triple DES}}, an older encryption algorithm which can still be relatively secure when properly used, but they used it improperly. It works on 64-bit (8 character) blocks. Assuming that the passwords are stored in plain ASCII, this means that a sequence of 8 characters in a password which starts on a character position which is a multiple of eight is always encrypted to the same result. Therefore, two passwords starting with "12345678" would start with the same block after being encrypted. Furthermore, this means that you can actually get a very good idea of the length of the password since anything with only one block is a password with length between 1 and 8 characters, and having two blocks implies it has between 9 and 16 characters, etc.

Adobe also stored hints users created for their passwords. That means that an attacker knows not only if the same 8 characters are used for multiple passwords but also has some hints for guessing them. That means that common password portions should be easy to recover and that any user may be "compromised" by someone else using a part of the same password and providing a good hint. As an example, a password having three hints "Big Apple", "Twin Towers" and "If you can make it there" is probably "New York" or a simple variation on that. The weakness here is that no decryption and therefore no hard cracking has to take place, you just group the passwords by their encrypted blocks and try to solve them like a crossword puzzle. These weaknesses have already been used to presumably identify a password used by {{w|Edward Snowden}}, as discussed at [http://7habitsofhighlyeffectivehackers.blogspot.com/2013/11/can-someone-be-targeted-using-adobe.html 7 Habits of Highly Effective Hackers: Can someone be targeted using the Adobe breach?].

The examples are not taken from the actual leaked file, since that [http://arstechnica.com/security/2013/11/how-an-epic-blunder-by-adobe-could-strengthen-hand-of-password-crackers/ uses a different format], and the examples are evidently cleverly crafted to make a nice crossword-like puzzle, which can be solved as shown in the Passwords section below.

As mentioned on http://filosottile.github.io/analyzing-the-adobe-leaked-passwords/ the data in the comic isn't real and contains a hidden message. If the "user password" hashes are Base64 encoded, they read:
<pre>ThiswasnotagooduseofyourtimeButthenagainitwasprobablynotagooduseofmytimeeith
erAndyethereweareXOXOXOLetsLiveHereInThisTinySecretEncodedTextWorldForever==</pre>

More readable:
<pre>This was not a good use of your time
But then again it was probably not a good use of my time either
And yet here we are
XOXOXO
Lets Live Here In This Tiny Secret Encoded Text World Forever==</pre>

E.g., with the initial unique hash blocks: <tt>python2 -c "print '4e18acc1ab27a2d6a0a2876eb1ea1fca'.decode('hex_codec').encode('base64')"</tt>

The last letter "r" is not fully encoded in the data shown, but any letter from "g" to "v" produces the same binary data.

===Title Text===
The title text makes a reference to a previous comic: [[792|Black Hat's trouble with what to do with stolen passwords]]. It also states that users of pirated Photoshop are the winners here. This is because in order to make Photoshop pirate-able, it was modified (cracked) by removing the requirement for registration so their passwords were not sent to Adobe and therefore are not present in the leaked file.

Soon after this comic was published, the most common 1000 passwords were actually compiled into [http://zed0.co.uk/crossword/ a set of 10 interactive online crosswords], inspired by the comic.

The title itself is a reference to {{w|cryptic crossword}}s.

===Passwords===
Note that characters in the passwords could be upper or lower case, and they may involve common substitutions like "0" (number zero) for "O" (letter O); therefore, the clues cannot guarantee that the answer shown here is precisely correct. Nevertheless, we have plenty of information for a brute force attack.

{|class="wikitable"
! Input
! Hint
! Password
! Explanation
|-
|<tt>4e18acc1ab27a2d6</tt>
|weather vane sword
|<tt>[http://redwall.wikia.com/wiki/Matthias matthias]</tt>
|In ''{{w|Redwall}}'', several characters are associated with a sword hung from a weather vane, but only Matthias shares the name of an apostle (6 lines down).
|-
|<tt>4e18acc1ab27a2d6</tt>
|
|<tt>matthias</tt>
|Although no hint was used, we know this password too, since it matches the previous one.
|-
|<tt>4e18acc1ab27a2d6 a0a2876eb1ea1fca</tt>
|name1
|<tt>matthias1</tt>
|Even without knowing the user's name, we already know how this starts, so the clue gives us a pretty good idea how it finishes (and another block useful 2 lines down)
|-
|<tt>8babb6299e06eb6d</tt>
|duh
|<tt>password</tt>
|Unfortunately, this is all too common, and the user practically told us that it's an easy one.
|-
|<tt>8babb6299e06eb6d a0a2876eb1ea1fca</tt>
|
|<tt>password1</tt>
|Although no hint was used, we know this by combining the previous two.
|-
|<tt>8babb6299e06eb6d 85e9da81a8a78adc</tt>
|57
|<tt>password57</tt>
|Since we know how this begins, this is a good guess.
|-
|<tt>4e18acc1ab27a2d6</tt>
|favorite of {{w|Apostle (Christian)|12 apostles}}
|<tt>{{w|Saint Matthias|matthias}}</tt>
|The hint suggests only 12 possibilities. Variant spellings, variant lists, and a replacement for Judas add to that number. But we already know which one by combining with the clue 6 lines up. (Surprise: it's the replacement!)
|-
|<tt>1ab29ae86da6e5ca 7a2d6a0a2876eb1e</tt>
|with your own hand you have done all this
|<tt>Judith1510</tt>
|This is a quotation from [http://www.biblestudytools.com/nrsa/judith/15-10.html Judith 15:10] in the Bible.
|-
|<tt>a1f9b2b6299e7a2b eadec1e6ab797397</tt>
|sexy earlobes
|<tt>{{w|Charlie Sheen|Charlie Sheen}}</tt>
|This refers to an episode of ''{{w|Two and a Half Men}}''. Other answers are possible, but only this one fits the next line.
|-
|<tt>a1f9b2b6299e7a2b 617ab0277727ad85</tt>
|best TOS episode
|<tt>{{w|Charlie X|Charlie X}}</tt>
|"{{w|Star Trek: The Original Series|TOS}}" refers to The Original Series (TOS) of ''{{w|Star Trek}}''. Although this had dozens of episodes, only one fits the previous line as well as the next line.
|-
|<tt>39738b7adb0b8af7 617ab0277727ad85</tt>
|Sugarland
|<tt>HoustonTX</tt>
|{{w|Sugar Land, Texas|Sugar Land}} is a suburb of {{w|Houston}}, {{w|Texas}}. This fits with the previous line. {{w|Sugarland}} is a band, but it does not fit well with the previous hint, and would not lead to our first guess.
|-
|<tt>1ab29ae86da6e5ca</tt>
|name + jersey#
|<tt>Judith15</tt>
|Even if we knew this user's name, we wouldn't know their jersey number. But the clue 4 lines up already gave us the answer.
|-
|<tt>877ab7889d3862b1</tt>
|alpha
|<tt>abc</tt>
|This password is also far too common, but this clue still isn't enough to narrow it down. Combine with the clue 4 lines below, however, and it's quite easy.
|-
|<tt>877ab7889d3862b1</tt>
|
|<tt>abc</tt>
|No hint, but the same as the surrounding passwords.
|-
|<tt>877ab7889d3862b1</tt>
|
|<tt>abc</tt>
|No hint, but the same as the surrounding passwords.
|-
|<tt>877ab7889d3862b1</tt>
|obvious
|<tt>abc</tt>
|Same as the surrounding passwords.
|-
|<tt>877ab7889d3862b1</tt>
|Michael Jackson
|<tt>abc</tt>
|{{w|Michael Jackson}} did many songs, but only one was {{w|ABC (The Jackson 5 song)|alphabetical}} (4 lines up).
|-
|<tt>38a7c9279cadeb44 9dca1d79d4dec6d5</tt>
|
|<tt>asdfghjkl</tt>
|No hint, but the same as the one below.
|-
|<tt>38a7c9279cadeb44 9dca1d79d4dec6d5</tt>
|he did the mash, he did the
|<tt>asdfghjkl</tt>
|Probably a "keyboard mash" (e.g. asdfghjkl), a common password. The hint is a reference to the song "{{w|Monster Mash}}" ("He did the mash/He did the monster mash").
|-
|<tt>38a7c9279cadeb44</tt>
|purloined
|<tt>asdfghjk</tt>
|A reference to the {{w|Edgar Allan Poe}} story "{{w|The Purloined Letter}}", this represents all the keys of the home row, or the keyboard mash password, but with one missing ("[[:wikt:purloin|purloin]]ed") letter.
|-
|<tt>a8ae5745a2b7af7a 9dca1d79d4dec6d5</tt>
|fav water-3 {{w|List_of_Pokémon|Pokemon}}
|<tt>[http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Tentacool_(Pok%C3%A9mon) Tentacool]</tt>
|This is the only [http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Water_3_%28Egg_Group%29 water-3] Pokémon with a 9 letter name ending in "l", so it must be this to fit with the password 'asdfghjkl'.
|-
|}

==Transcript==
:[Caption above the panel:]
:Hackers recently leaked '''''153 million''''' Adobe user emails, encrypted passwords, and password hints.
:Adobe encrypted the passwords improperly, misusing block-mode 3DES. The result is something wonderful:

<pre>
User password Hint
------------- ----

4e18acc1ab27a2d6 weather vane sword
4e18acc1ab27a2d6
4e18acc1ab27a2d6 a0a2876eb1ea1fca name1
8babb6299e06eb6d duh
8babb6299e06eb6d a0a2876eb1ea1fca
8babb6299e06eb6d 85e9da81a8a78adc 57
4e18acc1ab27a2d6 favorite of 12 apostles
1ab29ae86da6e5ca 7a2d6a0a2876eb1e with your own hand you
have done all this
a1f9b2b6299e7a2b eadec1e6ab797397 sexy earlobes
a1f9b2b6299e7a2b 617ab0277727ad85 best tos episode
39738b7adb0b8af7 617ab0277727ad85 sugarland
1ab29ae86da6e5ca name + jersey#
877ab7889d3862b1 alpha
877ab7889d3862b1
877ab7889d3862b1
877ab7889d3862b1 obvious
877ab7889d3862b1 Michael Jackson
38a7c9279cadeb44 9dca1d79d4dec6d5
38a7c9279cadeb44 9dca1d79d4dec6d5 he did the mash, he did the
38a7c9279cadeb44 purloined
a8ae5745a2b7af7a 9dca1d79d4dec6d5 fav water-3 pokemon
</pre>

:[Caption below the panel:]
:The greatest crossword puzzle in the history of the world

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Pokémon]]
[[Category:Cryptography]]
[[Category:Star Trek]]
[[Category:Redwall]]

2242: Ground vs Air

2022-10-02T11:01:14Z

Galaktos: /* Explanation */ move period into parentheses, it’s a complete sentence in there

{{comic
| number = 2242
| date = December 16, 2019
| title = Ground vs Air
| image = ground vs air.png
| titletext = Water is thinner than both, and fire is *definitely* thicker.
}}

==Explanation==

This comic depicts a map of the world using the {{w|Winkel tripel projection}}, comparing the thickness of the ground, which is defined as the {{w|lithosphere}}, to the "thickness" (or height) of the air above it, which refers to the {{w|atmosphere}}.

In an inserted figure, [[Randall]] defines the thickness using three boundaries. At the top is {{w|space}}, defined by the {{w|Kármán line}} at an altitude of 100 km (≈ 62 mi). (See the [[#Trivia|Trivia]] section below for a discussion of this definition of the beginning of space.) Below that is the atmosphere which goes down to the ground, where [[Cueball]] is standing, or the water. Beneath the surface is the lithosphere, comprised of the Earth's crust along with the rigid upper part of the mantle, and beneath this is the {{w|asthenosphere}}, the partially melted, highly viscous region of the {{w|upper mantle}} just below the lithosphere. The lithosphere is variable in thickness, averaging about 100 km, but the oceanic lithosphere is much thinner than the continental lithosphere (oceanic crust is thinner and denser than continental crust). The diagram also shows oceanic cross-section to the left-hand side and, though the diagram does not make it explicit, presumably the two measurements used are of the atmosphere down from 'space' to the surface of the ground, if dry, or to the surface of the water covering the ground (which is essentially sea level in the oceans, fluctuating slightly with the tides, but covers a broader range for inland water, from the Dead Sea, at 0.4 km below sea level, to Lake Titicaca, almost 4 km above sea level) and of rock descending from the solid interface down to the asthenosphere, as the sliver of liquid that can intervene between the two spans is referred to as a separate measurement elsewhere.

The map shades in the parts where the thickness of the ground is thicker than the thickness of the air. This almost only occurs directly over continents, and certainly only where the continental crust is located (which can stretch into the near-coast parts of oceans). Oceanic crust is much thinner than continental crust. It is also made of a different material; it is denser. Because it is denser, it floats lower in the liquid asthenosphere, causing it to be below sea level. Some parts of continental crust are also under sea level (the continental shelf). These are the areas on the map that are marked as having thicker ground that appear to be over the ocean (such as Northern Canada, or the Caribbean) - they are actually still continental crust. (There are still some exceptions, such as the Sea of Japan and the Philippines).

Randall has mainly used a work by Conrad and Lithgow-Bertelloni from 2006 to estimate the thickness of the "ground", and he gives the reference to the paper [https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2005GL025621 DOI.1029/2005GL025621]. Basically, Randall has taken their map and shaded the green and blue areas. It is the second comic in a row with a citation, after the footnote in [[2241: Brussels Sprouts Mandela Effect]].

The title text refers to the ancient four {{w|classical element}}s: earth, water, air, fire. The lithosphere, or ground, is earth, the oceans is water, the atmosphere is air, and fire would thus be the hot, plastic rock of the Earth's mantle, see [[913: Core]]. The mantle is not "on fire", but it is hot enough that it would ignite almost anything on the surface. The water layer on Earth is never more than 11 km deep, even at the deepest part of the ocean, the {{w|Mariana Trench}}, and thus cannot compare to the thickness of the atmosphere or the lithosphere. An expansive definition of "fire" to include the rest of the Earth below the lithosphere puts the fire layer at 6,000 km thick, the radius of the Earth, much thicker than the other layers, hence the ''and fire is *definitely* thicker'' comment at the end of the title text. Space or vacuum would in the classical element terminology have been called the {{w|Aether (classical element)|Aether}}.

In [[977: Map Projections]] the [[977:_Map_Projections#Winkel-Tripel|Winkel-Tripel projection]] is the fifth projection which is linked to the {{w|Hipster (contemporary subculture)|hipster}} subculture.

==Transcript==
:[Caption above the drawing]:
:Which is thicker—the ground or the air?

:[The drawing shows a Winkel tripel projection of the Earth. The features of the main map is unlabeled, with only the outlines of the landmasses present. Various parts of the map are labeled with "Air" (four times) or "Ground" (5 times). Areas marked as "Ground" are differentiated with gray shading. These are always over large landmasses or close to them. They cover most of North America (labeled), the northern part of South America (labeled), Northern Europe and most of Asia (labeled), Japan, most of Australia and part of the Indonesia, Western Africa, sub-equatorial Africa (labeled), and finally the central parts of Antarctica (labeled). Air is written on the West Coast of the United States, in the Atlantic Ocean, over the central part of Africa and in the Pacific Ocean, near the Philippines.]
:[Over West Coast of the United States]: Air
:[Over North America]: Ground
:[Over Atlantic Ocean]: Air
:[Over South America]: Ground
:[Over the central part of Africa]: Air
:[Over the southern part of Africa]: Ground
:[Over Asia]: Ground
:[Over Pacific Ocean]: Air
:[Over Antarctica ]: Ground

:[A small diagram is present in the Pacific Ocean left of South America. The diagram depicts several labeled layers of Earth and its atmosphere, listed below. Cueball, a body of water, and several mountains are shown on the flat surface part of the diagram, with the ocean floor lower than where Cueball stands. Above is a line representing the border to space. The line beneath the surface is much more curved going both up and down. Two double arrows representing the thickness of the atmosphere and the lithosphere are drawn between the surface and the layers above and below. Another curved double arrow is pointing to each of these distances and it is marked with a question mark in the middle of the line.]
:Space
:Atmosphere
:Lithosphere
:Asthenosphere
:?

:[In the bottom right corner of the comic with gray text is a reference:]
:Based mostly on Conrad and Lithgow-Bertelloni (2006) DOI.1029/2005GL025621

==Trivia==
*[[Randall]] always uses the {{w|Kármán line}} as the boundary between Earth's atmosphere and space.
**He has previously mocked the alternative definition of the atmosphere boundary (at 80 km ≈ 50 mi) used by {{w|US Air Force}} and {{w|NASA}} in the title text of [[1375: Astronaut Vandalism]].
***That definition would, of course, have resulted in a significantly different picture where the ''air'' is thicker than the ''ground'' only inside small areas around mid-ocean ridges. Mid-ocean ridges are where new crust is created and the plates are spreading apart; because the crust is new, it is hot and relatively less dense, causing it to float higher up than the surrounding crust. However, the lithosphere thickens over time as the crust cools, these areas have the thinnest "ground."
***Because the lithosphere is comprised only in part of the crust, and in part of a cool, solid layer of mantle, an alternate definition of "ground" including only the crust (and not the mantle lithosphere) could have led to an alternate version of this map where air was thicker in all locations. The crust is rarely more than 70 km thick, still less than even the 80 km Air Force definition of the atmosphere.
**Although most authorities use the FAI definition of the Kármán line since it is the international organization of record for aeronautics, there are good scientific reasons for the U.S. Air Force definition.{{Citation needed}}
**The Kármán line is named for {{W|Theodore von Kármán}}, who originally calculated the height at which a vehicle would have to travel faster than orbital velocity to generate lift from wings (therefore making the vehicle a spacecraft in orbit rather an "air"craft using aerodynamics for flight).
**Von Kármán originally calculated this height as 51.9 miles (83.6 km) - closer to the Air Force definition.
**Additionally, the boundary between the {{W|Mesosphere}} and the {{W|Thermosphere}} is traditionally taken to be 52.7 miles (85 km), also close to the Air Force definition.
**On the other hand, some newer research suggests the mesopause (the line between the mesosphere and thermosphere) may have peaks between 53 and 62 miles (85-100 km).
**Also the {{w|turbopause}} - the line where gas molecules cease mixing atmospherically and begin stratifying by molecular weight as if they are in orbit - is generally taken to be about 100 kilometers (62 miles), and as such, closer to the FAI definition.
**Regardless of which definition is used, the reality is that the transition from atmosphere to space takes place gradually over tens of kilometers.
***But the idea behind this comic is only funny if an atmosphere of 100 km thickness is used.

{{comic discussion}}


[[Category: Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Maps]]
[[Category:Geology]]
[[Category:Space]]

2567: Language Development

2022-09-17T12:25:53Z

Galaktos: /* Explanation */ remove duplicate “rapidly”

{{comic
| number = 2567
| date = January 12, 2022
| title = Language Development
| image = language_development.png
| titletext = The worst is the Terrible Twos, when they're always throwing things and shrieking, "forsooth, to bed thou shalt not take me, cur!"
}}
*This was the second comic to come out after the [[Countdown in header text]] started.

==Explanation==
[[Megan]] and [[Cueball]] are having what could appear to be a typical conversation about her child's ability to learn languages really fast. But the comic mixes up the concept of learning a language and the development of languages over time. The joke comes from the a conflation of two different things.

The conventional meaning of {{w|language development}} is the process by which infants begin to talk, that is to understand and produce intelligible speech. The field of {{w|language acquisition}} (sometimes called... language development) seeks to understand how baby humans are able to rapidly comprehend, internalize, and begin producing a new language.

Instead of starting with {{w|babbling}}, the first stage of normal language development, this baby's form of "language development" seems to be the linguistic form: going through all of the theoretical stages of the evolution of the English language, from Proto-Indo-European to Germanic to Old English.

In {{w|comparative linguistics}} and {{w|historical linguistics}}, {{w|Proto-Indo-European_language|Proto-Indo-European}} is a theorized common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. {{w|Proto-Germanic_language|Proto-Germanic}} is a reconstructed language formerly spoken in Iron Age Scandinavia. It developed out of Proto-Indo-European and is the proposed common ancestor for all {{w|Germanic languages}}. {{w|Old English}} would have developed out of Proto-Germanic. Modern English developed out of Old English with many additions from French (which comes from a different branch of the Indo-European language family). This parody of language development parallels the discredited {{w|theory of recapitulation}} in embryo development, sometimes expressed as "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny", in which a developing animal embryo (ontogeny) was once thought to go through stages resembling successive adult stages in the evolution of the animal's remote ancestors (phylogeny).

In linguistics, reconstructed words from proto-languages are commonly marked with an asterisk (*) to show that the word forms are not attested by any historical sources but created as a proposed ancestor word. The baby says the Proto-Indo-European roots that the words "milk" and "please" are derived from. Obviously, the speakers of Proto-Indo-European did not speak in roots, but used words made from the roots, so the way the baby talks does not reflect any stage of development of the proto-language.

Some sounds babies make are hard to interpret.{{citation needed}} However, humans have a tendency to recognize known things and patterns. They see what they want to see and hear what they want to hear. Thus, a parent familiar with Proto-Indo-European may falsely hear their baby speak Proto-Indo-European by misinterpreting unintelligible sounds.

Perhaps this is an alternate universe where every baby has to gradually develop their language skills along a historical path rather than a child-developmental one, until they reach the ultimately developed modern language of their parents (in this case Modern English).

There have been alleged {{w|language deprivation experiments}} where newborn infants were not exposed to any spoken language in order to find the "natural human language", in the days before ethics review boards would have forbidden such cruel treatments. Such experiments are known today to be a source for psychological problems at least. Alleged outcomes in the apocryphal sources range from the deprived children imitating other sounds in their environment, to them dying.

In the title text, Randall describes a 2-year-old child as speaking in {{w|iambic pentameter}} and in Elizabethan English, a meter and dialect of modern English used by {{w|Shakespeare}} more than 400 years ago. The [https://www.verywellfamily.com/terrible-twos-and-your-toddler-2634394 Terrible Twos] are a colloquialism referring to the developmental tendency of two-year-olds to have more temperamental behavior, as the child's developing assertion of autonomy and self-identity clash with other expectations of behaviour, before hopefully acceptably balancing their assertiveness with social normatism. The toddler's quote of "forsooth, to bed thou shalt not take me, cur!" would roughly be equivalent to "Indeed, you shall not take me to bed, you dog!" in less archaic English.

==Transcript==
:[Megan and Cueball are looking to the left at a baby with dark hair. The baby sits on the left side of a table in an elevated baby chair.]
:Megan: He's only 1, so he still mostly speaks proto-Indo-European.
:Megan: But we've heard a few Germanic words already, so Old English can't be far off.
:Baby: *Melg-
:Baby: *Pl(e)hk-
:Cueball: They progress so fast!

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Language]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring babies]]

2520: Symbols

2022-06-04T20:07:25Z

Galaktos: /* Symbols */ fix double text

{{comic
| number = 2520
| date = September 24, 2021
| title = Symbols
| image = symbols.png
| titletext = "röntgen" and "rem" are 20th-century physics terms that mean "no trespassing."
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by VERY EXPENSIVE EQUIPMENT - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon. A bare-bones explanation is in but needs much more detail.}}
This comic refers to elements of (mostly mathematical or engineering) notation commonly used in various fields of math and science. Each piece of notation is presented as "symbolizing" not what it specifically means, but a typical ''context'' in which it might be encountered, see [[#Symbols|below]].

Many of the individual descriptions look like verbiage that might be found on informational or warnings signs or placards, although typically with a silly edge.

The title text refers to two non-SI units of radiation measurement, {{w|Roentgen (unit)|röntgen}} and {{w|Roentgen equivalent man|rem}}. In the mid-20th century when they were in use, the dangers of radiation weren't as well understood as today, so an area with radiation that was noteworthy back then is [https://archive.md/v3dME probably dangerous], hence the no trespassing part.

Later [[Randall]] made a similar comic, [[2586: Greek Letters]], regarding the use of Greek letters in math.

===Symbols===
'''d⁄dx: An undergrad is working very hard''' d/dx is the symbol for a single-variable {{w|Derivative|derivative}}. This is one of the basic operations in {{w|calculus}} and consequently is ubiquitous in the work of undergraduates in the sciences. A hard-working undergraduate in the relevant fields would churn through exercises using this symbol.

'''∂⁄∂x: A grad student is working very hard''' The replacement of the standard "d" letters with the curly letters "∂" denotes the partial derivative, which generalizes the ordinary derivative to multi-variable calculus. Problems with partial derivatives, especially partial differential equations, can be extremely challenging. Although PDEs would typically be first taught at an undergraduate level, difficult partial derivatives would be encountered in graduate-level work.

'''ħ: Oh wow, this is apparently a quantum thing''' ħ (pronounced "h-bar") is a symbol used for (the reduced) {{w|Planck's constant}}, a universal, fundamental constant in quantum physics. ħ is equal to the energy of a photon divided by its frequency, and angular momentum in quantum mechanical systems is measured in quantized integer or half-integer units of ħ.
Classical physics appears as a limit of quantum physics if all "actions" (quantities of dimension energy * time, momentum * length, or angular momentum) are much larger than ħ. Conversely, you can also formally set ħ=0 to get classical results from quantum formulae. This means that effects that are proportional to some power of ħ cannot be explained classically, and instead are "a quantum thing".

'''Rₑ: Someone needs to do a lot of tedious numerical work; hopefully it's not you''' The {{w|Reynolds number}} (which is usually denoted by "Re," not "Re" as it appears in the comic) is the most important dimensionless group in fluid mechanics. Named for Osborne Reynolds, Re characterizes the relative sizes of inertial and viscous effects in a moving fluid. Large values of Re are indicative of turbulent flow, which cannot usually be retrieved analytically, and so numerical modeling is necessary. Accurate numerical studies of high-Reynolds-number flows are notoriously difficult to create and program.

Alternatively, Rₑ could stand for electronic {{w|transition dipole moment}} in a molecule. This appears in quantum-mechanical calculations of transition probabilities and also includes a lot of unpleasant numerical work. Rₑ is also a term used for the radius of the Earth at mean sea level, though this is not necessarily a complex term in and of itself.

Another alternative is that Rₑ could refer to Relative Error, a measurement of precision or accuracy. Used often in the analysis of scientific data and numerical analysis.

'''(Ta⁴ - Tb⁴): You are at risk of skin burns''' The {{w|Stefan-Boltzmann law}} says that a perfectly absorbing ("black body") source emits electromagnetic radiation with a power per unit area of σT4, where σ is a known constant and T is the absolute temperature. The quantity (Ta4 – Tb4) thus appears in any calculation of purely radiative energy transfer between two bodies, one at temperature Ta and the other at Tb. When the radiative transfer is large enough to be the most important form of heat interchange, it is normally also large enough to sear the skin with thermal or ultraviolet burns.

'''NA: You are probably about to make an incredibly dangerous arithmetic error''' NA, or {{w|Avogadro's number}}, is the number of molecules in a mole of a substance, approximately the number of carbon atoms in exactly 12 grams of carbon-12. This is an enormous number, exactly 6.022 140 76 × 10²³, or 602 214 076 000 000 000 000 000. Working with NA, it is easy to accidentally divide by it instead of multiplying or vice versa, leading to erroneous and nonsensical answers such as ~10-23 molecules (even though you can't have less than 1 whole molecule) or ~1046 moles (>1043 to to 1045 kilograms, depending on the chemical) of a substance.

'''µm: Careful, that equipment is expensive''' {{w|Micrometre|Micrometer}}s are a very small unit of distance. Micrometers are commonly used to measure wavelengths in the infrared, and infrared detectors are very expensive, compared with visible wavelength counterparts. Of course, micrometers are used as a measurement of distance in other contexts, but any distance-measuring device capable of accurately measuring micrometer distances would also be expensive. Similarly, tools used to create or calibrate items within micrometer tolerances can also be expensive.

'''mK: Careful, that equipment is very expensive''' {{w|Kelvin}} is a temperature scale roughly speaking similar to Celsius, but taking absolute zero as its zero point instead of the freezing point of water (rigorously speaking, its definition is now {{w|2019_redefinition_of_the_SI_base_units#Kelvin|based on the Boltzmann constant}}). {{w|Millikelvin}}s (1/1000 of a Kelvin) are used for high precision temperature work. Frequently this is used in processes of cooling temperatures to nearly absolute zero - such as superconductors or other quantum effects that occur when atoms are almost still. This is suggesting that the symbol appears on a sensitive experimental system probing quantum mechanical behavior that would likely only exist in an advanced laboratory. Any equipment that works down at mK temperatures, or at least to mK precision and accuracy, is likely to be very expensive.

'''nm: Don't shine that in your eye''' {{w|Nanometer}}s are frequently seen in the listed wavelengths for lasers. Pointing a visible or infrared laser at someone's eye is notoriously dangerous; the tightly-focused coherent light can cause permanent damage very quickly.

'''eV: Definitely don't shine that in your eye''' {{w|Electron volt}} energies are typical of moderate-energy particle beams, produced by accelerating electrons (or protons) over macroscopic voltages. These particle beams can be {{w|Anatoli Bugorski|even more damaging (and are probably a direct reference to Anatoli Bugorski)}} to soft tissues than optical-wavelength lasers.

'''mSv: You're about to get into an Internet argument''' The {{w|millisievert}} is a unit of radiation dose absorbed. It is a very small dosage, but the joke refers to Internet trolls debating the effects of low-dose radiation sources, such as 5G wireless networks. [[Randall|Randall's]] comment may also be referring to [https://xkcd.com/radiation/ this chart].

'''mg/kg: Go wash your hands''' This unit measures the dose of a drug or other chemical in milligrams per kilogram of body mass. If the appropriate dose - or worse, the lethal dose - is measured in mg/kg (parts per million), then the substance may be quite toxic.

'''µg/kg: Go get in the chemical shower''' A unit 1/1000 times the size of mg/kg. If a dosage is measured in micrograms per kilogram (parts per billion), any accident probably requires whole-body decontamination procedures.

'''π or τ: Whatever answer you get will be wrong by a factor of exactly two''' π is defined as the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter, while τ is defined as the ratio of a circle's circumference to its radius (and is therefore equal to 2π). {{w|pi|π}} has been used as the primary constant for describing the circumference and area of circles millennia ago, but proponents of {{w|Turn (angle)|τ}} claim that τ is more natural in most contexts since it makes working in radians more straightforward. The joke here is that whichever constant you use, it will probably be the wrong one (off by a factor of two, one way or the other) for the formula you are trying to use. The debate over Tau vs Pi was solved by Randall in this compromise: [[1292: Pi vs. Tau]].

==Transcript==
:[A list with 14 different scientific constants/symbols are shown. Next to each symbol is a description. Above the list is a heading and beneath that a subheading.]
:::::<big>Symbols</big>
::::And what they mean

:::d⁄dx    An undergrad is working very hard
:::∂⁄∂x    A grad student is working very hard
:::ħ       Oh wow, this is apparently a quantum thing
:::Rₑ     Someone needs to do a lot of tedious numerical work; hopefully it's not you
:(Ta⁴ - Tb⁴)    You are at risk of skin burns
:::NA    You are probably about to make an incredibly dangerous arithmetic error
:::µm    Careful, that equipment is expensive
:::mK    Careful, that equipment is very expensive
:::nm    Don't shine that in your eye
:::eV     '''''Definitely''''' don't shine that in your eye
:::mSv  You're about to get into an internet argument
::mg/kg      Go wash your hands
::µg/kg      Go get in the chemical shower
::π or τ      Whatever answer you get will be wrong by a factor of exactly two

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Math]]
[[Category:Physics]]
[[Category:Chemistry]]
[[Category:Biology]]
[[Category:5G]]

1924: Solar Panels

2022-04-10T09:38:59Z

Galaktos: /* Explanation */ remove excessive units that aren’t going to be useful to any reader

{{comic
| number = 1924
| date = December 4, 2017
| title = Solar Panels
| image = solar_panels.png
| titletext = This works for a surprising range of sunlit things, including rooftops (sure), highway surfaces (probably not), sailboats (maybe), and jets, cars, and wild deer (haha good luck).
}}

==Explanation==

This handy decision tree aims to help in finding out whether a given object should have {{w|solar panel}}s installed on it.

The root question is whether the object of choice moves. If it doesn't and has no nearby empty space that would be more practical for the solar panel installation, then yes, the object should be equipped with the solar panels. If the object is static, but you could more easily install the panels somewhere else nearby, probably that's the best place. An example of this is a slanted rooftop of a house or a field on a hillside: it's certainly possible to put solar panels there, but if a flat surface, like a flat-roofed house or a level field, is available, it would generally be easier to put them on that. This way, you can select the optimal direction for the panels to face, which might not be possible on a given incline, or even have them [https://www.linak.com/business-areas/energy move to track the sun]. However, if the house has a side that is turned towards the sun (south in the Northern hemisphere) then a house roof could be even better than on the ground, which is why the title text says "sure" for rooftops. For another example of things where "putting next to it" instead of "on it" is generally the easier (and arguably better) option, see the "highway surfaces" of the title text.

If the object moves, the next question is whether its batteries can be recharged or swapped with ease, in which case batteries may be a better option than solar panels, if the purpose of the panels is to power the object. The idea is that solar panels on a vehicle sound like an interesting idea, but batteries can be much more easily (and economically) recharged from a fixed electrical station than using solar panels on the vehicle as a power source. It may be possible to have solar panels ''on the electrical station'', but that is a separate device to consult the table on.

Finally, if the object moves and batteries are not an option, the last question is whether the object heats up during operation. If so, solar panels may not work well. [[Randall]] doubts it mockingly, see also the title text regarding his ''Haha Good luck'' final option.
Solar panels can only produce electrical power equal to about 20% of the solar radiation they receive. Thus, a device that heats up during use likely consumes much more power than the amount which could be produced by solar panels covering its surface - so "good luck". Obviously, many animals are also "moving objects" fitting this condition, and installing solar panels on them is bound to be a challenge.
Moreover, solar panels do not work effectively when excessively hot [http://news.energysage.com/solar-panel-temperature-overheating/] (solar panels are typically designed to operate in temperature ranges of 15-25 Celsius, or 59-77 Fahrenheit).

But if changing batteries is not an option, and heat production and power requirements are low, then solar panels can be an excellent solution on a moving object. An excellent case for this is on [[:Category:Space probes|space probes]] and satellites, which are typically powered entirely by solar panels (and reliably receive sunlight, because there are no clouds to interfere). Randall is well aware of this, as shown with the comics [[695: Spirit]] and [[1504: Opportunity]] about the two solar-powered [[:Category:Mars rovers|Mars rovers]], although in this comic he seems to have only been concerned with Earthbound objects.

The flow chart, however, does not mention if the thing in question actually ''needs'' solar panels, but according to the title text it works very well, and thus Randall implies that if the answer is ''sure'' then it is relevant to put solar panels there. The more solar panels in place, the fewer fossil fuels are needed, and this is in line with Randall's general interest in reducing [[:Category:Climate change|climate change]].

The title text suggests that this flow chart is very broadly applicable to anything the Sun hits.

Rooftops are classed as "sure", and those are, indeed, an active subject of solar installation (though, if there's suitable land nearby, it might not be the most efficient).

Highway surfaces are classed as "probably not". There have been proposals and experiments a concerning {{w|photovoltaic pavement covering roadways with solar panels}}, but these have proven to be impractically expensive and prone to damage. The flow chart suggests that, since many highways are near land that could be used for solar panels, that will usually be the more viable option.

Sailboats are classed as "maybe". Unlike boats with motors, sailboats don't consume enough power to heat up, only requiring enough power to provide electricity for whatever equipment and appliances are on board. Since some sailboats are at sea long enough that swapping or recharging batteries may be difficult, solar panels could be a viable option.

Multiple other moving objects, including jets, cars, and wild deer ends up on the ''haha good luck'' result. While these examples seem unrelated, they all have the same limitation: they consume far more power while moving than could realistically be harnessed from solar panels (as demonstrated by the fact that they noticeably heat up). There are some experimental solar-powered cars, but these tend to be exceptionally low power (and resultingly low-performance) vehicles. Wild deer are clearly a humorous option, as they'd have little use for the electricity from solar panels, and would likely resist any efforts to install them. Nonetheless, Randall includes them to make the point that the chart is effective, even with ridiculous examples.

==Transcript==

:[A flow chart that features four questions in bubbles. Each question has yes/no options in bubbles overlain to the left and right on the question bubble. Curved arrows points from the yes and no bubbles to either the next question or the result. The result written at the bottom is not inside bubbles. The chart has two main branches, that ends up in five places using only four different results, as the middle result is shared by both branches. Above the chart, there is a caption:]
:'''Should I put solar panels on it?'''

:Does it move around?
::Yes
:::Does it have regular chances to recharge or swap batteries?
::::Yes
:::::Probably not
::::No
:::::When running, is it hot to the touch?
::::::No
:::::::Maybe
::::::Yes
:::::::Haha good luck
::No
:::Is there an empty space nearby where it would be easier to put them?
::::Yes
:::::Probably not [Uses the same sentence as the one in the first branch.]
::::No
:::::Sure

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Flowcharts]]
[[Category:Animals]]
[[Category:Solar power]]

File:find you.jpg

2022-01-02T12:59:35Z

Galaktos: Galaktos uploaded a new version of File:find you.jpg

{{XKCD file}}

[[Category:Comic images]]

1043: Ablogalypse

2022-01-02T09:05:43Z

Galaktos: /* Explanation */ add date=all to google trends link to get a graph that can more easily be compared with the comic

{{comic
| number = 1043
| date = April 16, 2012
| title = Ablogalypse
| image = ablogalypse.png
| titletext = Plus the reaction in the Tumblverse is always 'repeatedly get hit by a dog and fall down the stairs'.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic plays with the [https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=tumblr,blog,wordpress,livejournal&date=all Google trends for the terms "blog", "tumblr", "wordpress", and "livejournal"].

*{{w|Blog}}: a website with opinions and comments
*{{w|Tumblr}}: a "micro-blogging" site, which has taken off due to the prevalence of animated gifs and funny photos.
*{{w|WordPress}}: a type of blog software, and a {{w|WordPress.com|blog-hosting website}} running on said software.
*{{w|LiveJournal}}: a sort of personal blog site that hasn't been very popular since 2004-2005. [[Randall]] published [[:Category:Comics posted on livejournal|his first comics]] there.

As you can see in the caption and then the title text, there is no way that newscasters will reference the "Tumblverse" because all the reactions will be filled with animated gifs of a person in [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-Zph323Dos a raptor suit falling over] or [http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/yes-this-is-dog a dog answering a phone].

This actually came to pass, with the change over occurring between October 30, 2011, and January 10, 2012, as can be seen using the link above. Since the end of 2013 both terms have been in steady decline, though "tumblr" has fallen more quickly. Consequently, since January 29, 2019, "tumblr" has returned to being less searched than "blog".

==Transcript==
:[A line graph with four lines, each representing 'Google Trends Search Volume' of different search terms over time from prior to 2005 to just after 2012. A blue line represents "blog," which trends gradually but significantly upwards from well before 2005 until it reaches a peak between 2008-2009, and starts to very slowly descend to today. A red line represents "Tumblr", which is at zero until it slowly starts to trend upward in early 2010, and then sharply increases in late 2010 and through 2011 and 2012. As of the date of this comic, 'blog' still beats 'Tumblr' in terms of search volume, but a dotted line projection of the trend shows that on October 12, 2012, the two lines will cross. A yellow line represents 'Wordpress,' which has very low volume until a very small and gradual increase in 2007, which gradually increases to this day but doesn't come close to meeting the volume of either 'blog' or 'Tumblr'. A green line represents 'LiveJournal,' which started out prior to 2005 at around the level 'Wordpress' is at now, but declined through 2005 and 2006 until it has plateaued until virtually nothing.]
:[Caption below the graph:]
:In about six months, the word "Tumblr" will eclipse "blog" in Google popularity.
:I doubt TV anchors will start talking about "reactions in the Tumblverse," but then again, I still can't believe we got them to say "blogosphere."

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Line graphs]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Extrapolation]]

2553: Incident Report

2021-12-11T13:08:52Z

Galaktos: /* Explanation */ typo

{{comic
| number = 2553
| date = December 10, 2021
| title = Incident Report
| image = incident_report.png
| titletext = Increasing-precision timestamps are the Jaws theme of incident reports.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by an OVERLY-PRECISE TEMPORAL SHARK. At approximately 12:29:26.6 p.m. EDT the shark initiated an acceleration, shortly thereafter mouth aperture increased from 0 to 100%. According to CCTV footage the first tooth touched victim 1 at 12:30:30.45 ± 1/29.997th of a second, at 12:30:30.48 blood, at 12:30:30.50 the title text emerged shortly followed by the first {{citation needed}} joke. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

An {{w|incident report}} describes the sequence of events when something goes wrong, including the lead-up as well as the aftermath. This usually involves describing at what time related events happen. In this comic, a report at a {{w|nuclear power plant}} on the day of the comic's publishing starts with particularly vague timestamps (that a package of fireworks arrived "roughly 18 hours prior" to it), then uses approximate minute-level precision ("14:00" and "14:20", which could reasonably be five minutes off in either direction), then minute-level precision ("14:28"), then second-level precision ("14:29:22" and "14:29:26").

This suggests that the ''clock'' time is really a proxy for the ''amount'' of time before one specific moment where everything falls apart, and when seconds start appearing, it implies that the recollection is within a few minutes of the disaster. Normally the increased level of precision reflects close monitoring capabilities of the affected system and/or detailed analysis by incident investigators.

In many situations, incident reports are anonymized as shown to protect the identities of those people involved in the incidents. This is often done to prevent unnecessary blaming of certain individuals, particularly when it hasn't yet been determined whether the incident was negligence or just an accident.

Examples of real-life incident reports with second-level precision timestamps showing the increasing precision around critical moments include:
* [https://spaceflightnow.com/challenger/timeline/ Explosion] of the Space Shuttle Challenger
* [https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/safety-and-security/safety-of-plants/appendices/chernobyl-accident-appendix-1-sequence-of-events.aspx Chernobyl explosion]

The report shown cuts off before reaching the actual incident, leaving it to the reader to imagine what happened next. If the birthday cake has lit candles, one possible sequence of events is that a dropped or badly thrown juggling pin could have hit one of them and then rolled over to the fireworks package, thus igniting the package. This would have caused the fireworks to go off underneath the reactor control's console.

Although the comic refers to {{w|Juggling club|juggling "pins"}}, jugglers commonly refer call those props as "clubs." It is possible Randall is confusing the {{w|Bowling pin|similarly shaped objects}} in 10-pin bowling to juggling clubs. "Pins" are another name for {{W|nuclear fuel rod}}s, which control the speed of a nuclear reaction within a nuclear power plant. No sane reactor staff would juggle these complex, heavy and expensive pieces of equipment.{{citation needed}}

The title text refers to the [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvCI-gNK_y4 theme music] from the 1975 film ''{{w|Jaws (film)|Jaws}}'', which has come to represent impending danger. The theme is well known for the increasing tempo during its intro, which might be paralleled here to the increasingly precise timestamps of the report.

9603120071 is an actual accession number for an [https://adamswebsearch2.nrc.gov/webSearch2/main.jsp?AccessionNumber=9603120071 incident] at San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station in 1996. Four slightly contaminated stray kittens were found, cleaned, and adopted. No clock times were mentioned in the report.

Real-world nuclear power stations have strictly regulated control rooms which would prevent the simultaneous presence of fireworks, juggling and birthday celebrations.{{Citation needed}} There is no East Valley nuclear power plant, but there are two reactor units at the nuclear power plant in Beaver Valley, Pennsylvania.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:Facility: East Valley Nuclear Plant
:Date: 12/10/2021
:Report ID: 9603120071
:Event description: Roughly '''18 hours''' prior to the incident, an Amazon package containing fireworks was mistakenly delivered to the reactor control room and left under the console.
:The next day, at approximately '''14:00''', Technician A arrived at the facility with a bag containing four juggling pins. At '''14:20''', Technician A entered the control room, and joined Technician B at the console.
:At '''14:28''', Technician C exited the elevator and approached the control room holding a birthday cake intended for Technician B.
:At '''14:29:22''', Technician A said "Hey [Technician B], check out this cool trick I learned" while taking out the juggling pins. Technician B turned to look just as, at '''14:29:26''', Technician C entered holding the cake.

:[Caption below the panel]:
:You know things are about to get bad when the incident report starts including seconds in the timestamps.

{{comic discussion}}

2553: Incident Report

2021-12-11T13:08:41Z

Galaktos: /* Explanation */ improve description of incident report, and mention that the actual incident is only implied

{{comic
| number = 2553
| date = December 10, 2021
| title = Incident Report
| image = incident_report.png
| titletext = Increasing-precision timestamps are the Jaws theme of incident reports.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by an OVERLY-PRECISE TEMPORAL SHARK. At approximately 12:29:26.6 p.m. EDT the shark initiated an acceleration, shortly thereafter mouth aperture increased from 0 to 100%. According to CCTV footage the first tooth touched victim 1 at 12:30:30.45 ± 1/29.997th of a second, at 12:30:30.48 blood, at 12:30:30.50 the title text emerged shortly followed by the first {{citation needed}} joke. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

An {{w|incident report}} describes the sequence of events when something goes wrong, including the lead-up as well as the aftermath. This usually involves describing at what time related events happen. In this comic, a report at a {{w|nuclear power plant}} on the day of the comic's publishing starts with particularly vague timestamps (that a package of fireworks arrived "roughly 18 hours prior" to it), then uses approximate minute-level precision ("14:00" and "14:20", which could reasonably be five minutes off in either direction), then minute-level precision ("14:28"), then second-level precision ("14:29:22" and "14:29:26").

This suggests that the ''clock'' time is really a proxy for the ''amount'' of time before one specific moment where everything falls apart, and when seconds start appearing, it implies that the recollection is within a few minutes of the disaster. Normally the increased level of precision reflects close monitoring capabilities of the affected system and/or detailed analysis by incident investigators.

In many situations, incident reports are anonymized as shown to protect the identities of those people involved in the incidents. This is often done to prevent unnecessary blaming of certain individuals, particularly when it hasn't yet been determined whether the incident was negligence or just an accident.

Examples of real-life incident reports with second-level precision timestamps showing the increasing precision around critical moments include:
* [https://spaceflightnow.com/challenger/timeline/ Explosion] of the Space Shuttle Challenger
* [https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/safety-and-security/safety-of-plants/appendices/chernobyl-accident-appendix-1-sequence-of-events.aspx Chernobyl explosion]

The report shown cuts off before reaching the actual incidents, leaving it to the reader to imagine what happened next. If the birthday cake has lit candles, one possible sequence of events is that a dropped or badly thrown juggling pin could have hit one of them and then rolled over to the fireworks package, thus igniting the package. This would have caused the fireworks to go off underneath the reactor control's console.

Although the comic refers to {{w|Juggling club|juggling "pins"}}, jugglers commonly refer call those props as "clubs." It is possible Randall is confusing the {{w|Bowling pin|similarly shaped objects}} in 10-pin bowling to juggling clubs. "Pins" are another name for {{W|nuclear fuel rod}}s, which control the speed of a nuclear reaction within a nuclear power plant. No sane reactor staff would juggle these complex, heavy and expensive pieces of equipment.{{citation needed}}

The title text refers to the [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvCI-gNK_y4 theme music] from the 1975 film ''{{w|Jaws (film)|Jaws}}'', which has come to represent impending danger. The theme is well known for the increasing tempo during its intro, which might be paralleled here to the increasingly precise timestamps of the report.

9603120071 is an actual accession number for an [https://adamswebsearch2.nrc.gov/webSearch2/main.jsp?AccessionNumber=9603120071 incident] at San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station in 1996. Four slightly contaminated stray kittens were found, cleaned, and adopted. No clock times were mentioned in the report.

Real-world nuclear power stations have strictly regulated control rooms which would prevent the simultaneous presence of fireworks, juggling and birthday celebrations.{{Citation needed}} There is no East Valley nuclear power plant, but there are two reactor units at the nuclear power plant in Beaver Valley, Pennsylvania.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:Facility: East Valley Nuclear Plant
:Date: 12/10/2021
:Report ID: 9603120071
:Event description: Roughly '''18 hours''' prior to the incident, an Amazon package containing fireworks was mistakenly delivered to the reactor control room and left under the console.
:The next day, at approximately '''14:00''', Technician A arrived at the facility with a bag containing four juggling pins. At '''14:20''', Technician A entered the control room, and joined Technician B at the console.
:At '''14:28''', Technician C exited the elevator and approached the control room holding a birthday cake intended for Technician B.
:At '''14:29:22''', Technician A said "Hey [Technician B], check out this cool trick I learned" while taking out the juggling pins. Technician B turned to look just as, at '''14:29:26''', Technician C entered holding the cake.

:[Caption below the panel]:
:You know things are about to get bad when the incident report starts including seconds in the timestamps.

{{comic discussion}}

2319: Large Number Formats

2021-11-20T16:05:51Z

Galaktos: /* Table of types */ use times sign instead of letter x for scientific notation

{{comic
| number = 2319
| date = June 12, 2020
| title = Large Number Formats
| image = large number formats-2.png
| titletext = 10^13.4024: A person who has come back to numbers after a journey deep into some random theoretical field
}}

==Explanation==
This comic shows what the way you write large numbers says about you. Different people use different methods to express large numbers. And this comic claims it can tell something about you based on the way you format large numbers. In this way, the comic is similar in idea to [[977: Map Projections]], where it was your choice of map projections that could tell something about you.

See the [[#Table of types|table]] below for each of the 10 different ways to express large numbers, plus the 11th mentioned in the title text.

The number used as an example is the [https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=Distance+to+Jupiter+in+inches approximate distance] from the planet {{w|Earth}} to the planet {{w|Jupiter}} as of the release day of the comic on June 12th 2020, in {{w|inch|inches}} (1 inch = 2.54 cm).

Two days after the release of the comic the following text could be found on [https://theskylive.com/jupiter-info Jupiter info] on [https://theskylive.com/ The Sky Live].
:The distance of Jupiter from Earth is currently 640,084,108 kilometers, equivalent to 4.278698 Astronomical Units. Light takes 35 minutes and 35.0908 seconds to travel from Jupiter and arrive on Earth.

64,008,410,800,000 cm / 2.54 cm/inches = 25,200,161,732,283 inches - much less than the number used in the comic. But Jupiter's distance to Earth changes quite quickly, and was decreasing at the time of the release of the comic.

According to a graph of the distance as a function of time on The Sky Live, the distance on the release day was 643.1 million km. This will give 25.3*1013 which the used number will round to.

The used number 25,259,974,097,204 is equivalent to 641.6 million km. On June 13th the distance is given as 641.7 million km in the graph on The Sky Live, very close to the number used. As this was the day after the release of this comic, it seems like [[Randall]] used a different distance than the exact one for the release day. He may have also used an average for June which would be 642 million km based on the average of the distance on June and July 1st.

==Table of types==
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Number
! Type of person
! Notes
|-
| 25,259,974,097,204
| Normal Person
| This is the full number, 25259974097204, written out in the normal fashion, with commas to indicate powers of 1000. Although writing out the number in full is indeed a common action for normal people, the specific comma convention depicted here is only considered normal in the anglophone world; conventions for writing large numbers in full vary considerably across cultures. For example, in countries where the period is used as a {{w|decimal separator}} (including Europe outside the UK), one would write the number as 25.259.974.097.204 (or 25'259'974'097'204 in Switzerland, or 25 259 974 097 204 in Poland, France and Estonia). Under the {{w|Indian numbering system}}, this number would be written as 2,52,59,97,40,97,204 or “two nil, fifty-two kharab, fifty-nine arab, ninety-seven crore, forty lakh, ninety-seven thousand, two hundred and four.”
|-
| 25 Trillion
| Normal Person
| This is the number, rounded to trillions in the normal fashion.
|-
| 25 Billion
| Old British Person
| In current English usage, across the Anglophonic world with some hold-outs, an n-illion means 10^(3n+3) as per the {{w|short scale}} system popularised by American influence in international trade, so a trillion means 10^12, as above. However, older British English use had an n-illion meaning 10^(6n) (i.e. the simpler calculation of ''million^n''), so a billion meant 10^12. The change stems from a 1974 commitment by Harold Wilson, the Prime Minister of the UK at the time, to change from the {{w|long scale}} (previously often described as the British system) to the short one for all official purposes.

Though not instantly widely adopted for common usage, the mid-'70s could therefore be considered the key turning point between when an older or younger British person learns (as the change filters through the system at various stages of education) what their "Billion"s and "Trillion"s are supposed to represent.

As well as 'traditionalist' British use, the long scale is widely used in the non-Anglophone world, in local language versions, though while the British system tended to infill n-and-a-half powers of the million with the term "thousand n-illion", the suffix "-illi''ard''", or equivalent, is often used for the thousands multiple directly atop the respective "-illion" point.
|-
|2.526×1013
|Scientist
|This number is formatted in {{w|scientific notation}}, using the exponent 1013.
|-
| 2.525997×1013
| Scientist trying to avoid rounding up
| Using as many decimal places as necessary until hitting a digit (0-4) that results in rounding down, even if it goes against the common scientific practice of reporting the correct amount of "significant figures". [[:File:large number formats.png|A previous version of the comic]] had a typo (the number was ''2.5997x1013''), but Randall updated the comic.
|-
| 2.526e13 or
2.526*10^13
| Software developer
| The first example is how the number would be expressed as a floating point number in scientific notation in [https://rosettacode.org/wiki/Literals/Floating_point most common programming languages]. The second example is a technically correct way of expressing the same thing in some programming languages in which exponentiation is indicated by the ^ operator. However writing it that way instead of the first way could be considered quirky, as it is written as an instruction to the computer to calculate the product of a number with 10 raised to power 13, instead of just writing the number (although in many situations the compiler or preprocessor would detect this and solve it correctly, making it functionally identical to the first case). A software developer might write it that way if they are a novice who is not familiar with the first notation, or they could simply have an personal preference that considers the second version easier to read. Perhaps an additional joke for the second version is that it is the standard scientific notation with the x for multiplication and superscript for raising to a power replaced with the notation used in many programming languages of * and ^, i.e., a software developer writing down a number in scientific notation, not necessarily while writing a program, would by habit write a * for multiplication and a ^ for exponentiation.
|-
| 25,259,973,541,888
| Software developer who forgot about floats
| The two most common computer {{w|Floating-point arithmetic|floating-point}} formats are the IEEE 754 {{w|Single-precision floating-point format|single-precision}} and {{w|Double-precision floating-point format|double-precision}} representations. These are ''binary'' floating-point formats, representing numbers as the quantity ''a'' × 2''e'', for some fractional number ''a'' and exponent ''e''. Both the values ''a'' and ''e'' have a fixed size in bits, and therefore a finite range. In single-precision, ''a'' and ''e'' have (effectively) 24 and 8 bits, respectively, while in double precision the effective sizes are 53 and 11 bits.

Fully representing the number 25,259,974,097,204 (in any format) requires at least 45 bits. Therefore this number cannot be represented exactly as a single-precision float. The closest possible representations are 0.717931628 × 245 and 0.717931688 × 245; these work out to 25,259,973,541,888 and 25,259,975,639,040, respectively. Of these, the one ending in 888 is considerably closer to the original, so is chosen due to {{w|rounding}}. (Naturally these numbers are represented internally in binary, not decimal; the actual representations, in {{w|hexadecimal}}, are <tt>0.b7ca5e</tt> × 2<tt></tt>2d and <tt>0.b7ca5f</tt> × 2<tt></tt>2d.)

In many programming languages, the keyword to request a single-precision floating-point variable is <tt>float</tt>, while the keyword to request double-precision is <tt>double</tt>. It is an easy mistake to make to forget about the limited precision available with type <tt>float</tt>, especially since its name sounds like what you want for "floating point". (Had the programmer remembered to use type <tt>double</tt>, the number 25,259,974,097,204 could have been represented exactly (still in hexadecimal), as <tt>0.b7ca5e43c9a000</tt> × 2<tt></tt>2d.)
|-
| 1013
| Astronomer
| For extremely large distances, astronomers typically only care about orders of magnitude, e.g. whether a number is 1013, as opposed to 1012 or 1014. Randall often jokes about the lack of precision needed by astronomers, such as in [[2205: Types of Approximation]] where the astronomer-cosmologist is equally willing to make pi equal to one, or ten. The original number is rounded to the nearest power of ten.
|-
| {∅,{∅},{∅,{∅}},{∅,{∅},{...
| Set theorist
| The natural numbers can be constructed in a {{w|set theory}} in various ways. In the most common of these, the {{w|Natural_number#Von_Neumann_ordinals|Von Neumann ordinals}}, the natural numbers are defined recursively by letting 0 = ∅ (the {{w|empty set}}), and ''n'' + 1 = ''n'' ∪ {''n''}. So, every natural number ''n'' is the set of all natural numbers less than ''n'', and since 0 is defined as the empty set, all numbers are nested sets of empty sets. Note that writing out a number in this form requires an exponential number of characters - that is, ''n'' + 1 requires over twice the characters as ''n'' does to write out. Thus, this method could not be finished, as it would require more data to be stored than there is matter in the universe to store it.
|-
| 1,262,998,704,860 score and four
| Abraham Lincoln
| In the {{W|Gettysburg Address}}, Lincoln speaks the number "87" as "four score and seven" ("score" meaning "20"). Base-20 or {{w|vigesimal}} numeral systems are or have been used in pre-Columbian-American, African and many other cultures. In French it is used only for higher numbers (e.g. 92 = quatre-vingt-douze). In English it can appear in certain archaic and classic contexts, such as the King James translation of the Bible ("threescore years and ten" to be the life expectancy of a human according to Psalm 90:10). In these cases, a number is written in "score" (multiples of 20) plus a remainder. In this case 1,262,998,704,860 * 20 + 4 yields the exact number.
|-
| 10^13.4024 ''(title text)''
| A person who has come back to numbers after a journey deep into some random theoretical field
| In some fields of mathematics, especially those dealing with very {{w|large numbers}}, numbers are sometimes represented by raising ten (or some other convenient base) to an oddly precise power, to facilitate comparison of their magnitudes without filling up pages upon pages of digits. An example of this is {{w|Skewes's number}}, which is formally calculated to be ''e''''e''''e''79, but is more commonly approximated as 10101034. 13.4024 is a rounded version of the {{w|common logarithm}} of 25,259,974,097,204 (log10 25,259,974,097,204 = 13.4024329009); thus, this "format" is still mathematically correct, but uncommon. However, only by using many more digits will the result get close enough to be rounded to the original number 10^13.40243290087302 = 25,259,974,097,203.5, which would round up to the correct number. The number from the title text, 10^13.4024 = 25,258,060,548,319.6, differs from the original number by over a billion.
|}

==Transcript==
:[A panel only with text. At the top there is four lines of explanatory text. Below that are 2 columns with 5 rows of number formats. Each numerical format is in red, with black text explaining the format below it.]

:<big>What the way you write large numbers says about you</big>
:(Using the approximate current distance to Jupiter in inches as an example)

:25,259,974,097,204
:Normal person

:25 trillion
:Normal person

:25 billion
:Old British person

:2.526x1013
:Scientist

:2.525997x1013
:Scientist trying to avoid rounding up

:2.526e13 or 2.526*10^13
:Software developer

:25,259,973,541,888
:Software developer who forgot about floats

:1013
:Astronomer

:{∅,{∅},{∅,{∅}},{∅,{∅},{...
:Set theorist

:1,262,998,704,860 score and four
:Abraham Lincoln

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Programming]]
[[Category:Math]]
[[Category:Astronomy]]
[[Category:Science]]
[[Category:Comics featuring politicians]]

2529: Unsolved Math Problems

2021-10-17T16:50:24Z

Galaktos: /* Explanation */ lowercase “conjecture”

{{comic
| number = 2529
| date = October 15, 2021
| title = Unsolved Math Problems
| image = unsolved_math_problems.png
| titletext = After decades of studying the curve and the procedure that generates it, the consensus explanation is "it's just like that."
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a EULER FIELD GÖDEL-ESCHER-KURT-HALSEY STRANGE "CURVE" WALKING RANDOMLY ON A HYPERDIMENSIONAL FOUR-SIDED QUANTUM KLEIN MANIFOLD. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

Math has many problems that remain "unsolved." This is not simply a matter of finding the correct numbers on both sides of an equal sign, but usually require proving or finding a counterexample to some conjecture, or explaining some property of some mathematical object. Sometimes this might involve extending a existing proof to a wider range of numbers like reals, complex numbers, or matrices.

A concrete problem is one that is very obviously connected to a real world process, while an abstract problem is one which seems unconnected to actual problems. In modern math, many problems tend to be very abstract, requiring complicated notation to adequately state the problem in the first place, like many of the {{w|millennium problems}}. On the other hand, many unsolved problems are very concrete; for example, there are very many problems related to packing objects into spaces that are very difficult to solve although quite easy to state, such as the {{w|Collatz conjecture}}. Finally, Randall describes a third category of "cursed problems," that have strange, seemingly random behavior, such as the behavior of turbulence or the distribution of prime numbers.

In the first panel, Ponytail describes a weird abstract problem. Her description seems to be a meaningless jumble of terms that are either mathematical or just ''sound'' mathematical. And the mathematical terms are from disparate branches of mathematics: group theory, topology, and calculus. It's full of what seem to be [[Malamanteau|malamanteaus]]: "quasimonoid" combines the prefix "quasi" (meaning "partially" or "seemingly") and "monoid" (an object from group theory) and is probably meant to evoke the character {{w|Quasimodo}} from ''The Hunchback of Notre-Dame'' (although quasimonoids are a type of algebraic object, namely a non-associative {{w|monoid}}); "Gödel-Klein" combines {{w|Kurt Gödel}}, a 20th-century mathematician who studied logic and philosophy (he's most well known for {{w|Gödel's incompleteness theorems}}) and {{w|Felix Klein}}, a 19th century mathematician who studied group theory and geometry, who probably never collaborated; "Sondheim Calculus" refers to {{w|Stephen Sondheim}}, one of the most successful composers and lyricists of American musical theatre -- the producer of his musical "Into the Woods" once [[https://www.indiewire.com/2015/01/watch-singing-sondheim-is-like-calculus-in-into-the-woods-behind-the-scenes-video-exclusive-189507/ remarked]] that "Singing Stephen Sondheim is like calculus for singers and actors."; and "conjection" may combine conjecture and conjunction, or be a joke on pros and cons plus projection. "ϵ<0" is a joke about how in analysis, ϵ is usually defined to be an arbitrarily small ''positive'' number. Finally she asks whether the problem statement is ill-formed; considering that it's mostly gibberish, this may be true.

Many real unsolved math problems appear similarly abstract. One example is the {{w|Hodge conjecture}}, a {{w|Millennium Prize Problems|Millenium Prize}} problem. It states "Let X be a non-singular complex projective manifold. Then every Hodge class on X is a linear combination with rational coefficients of the cohomology classes of complex subvarieties of X." These words may appear nonsensical to a layman.

In the second panel, Cueball describes a concrete {{w|random walk}} problem, and then mentions that this somehow has applications in three unrelated fields. This is actually not uncommon. The Wikipedia article says that "random walks have applications to engineering and many scientific fields including ecology, psychology, computer science, physics, chemistry, biology, economics, and sociology. Walking randomly on a grid never visiting any square twice is known as a {{w|self-avoiding walk}}." This panel may have been inspired by some of the tricky unsolved problems about self-avoiding walks. Many of these problems have to do with rigorously proving properties of random walks that have been guessed by physics intuition, so these problems are connected to physics. The part about the maximum number of points in a line is reminiscent of problems in combinatorial geometry, which often involve counting points lying on different lines.

In the final panel, Megan is looking at a strange curve that seems to have no consistent pattern. At the bottom it's mostly straight, with a few little wobbles. In the middle it looks like a wild, high-frequency wave that suddenly bursts and then dies down. And the top is a spiral that looks like a question mark or a Western-style {{w|Crosier}}. She wonders if this could even be mathematical. Considering the weird shapes that come from plotting some mathematical processes (e.g. the {{w|Mandelbrot set}}), it could well be.

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

The Three Types Of Unsolved Math Problem

:First: Weirdly Abstract
:[Ponytail stands in front of an equation]
:Is the Euler Field Manifold Hypergroup Isomorphic to a Gödel-Klein Meta-Algebreic ε<0 Quasimonoid Conjection under Sondheim Calculus?
:Or is the question ill-formed?
:⬙ℝंℤ/Eℵ₅ The Z is raised and underneath it is a double-ended arrow bent at a right angle. One points toward the R the other toward the Z. The ₅ is double-struck like the ℝ and ℤ

:Second: Weirdly Concrete
:[Cueball stands in front of a grid with 6 columns and 7 rows]
:If I walk randomly on a grid, never visiting any square twice, placing a marble every ''N'' steps, on average how many marbles will be in the longest line after N*K steps?
:Somehow the answer is important in like three unrelated fields.
:[The path starts in the 3rd row and 3rd column, a small circle indicates the start. It takes the path: North, East, North, East (a black dot representing the 1st marble is placed here, so N=4), South, East, South, South (2nd marble), West, South, West, North (3rd marble), West, South, South, South (4th Marble), West, North, West, West (this goes offgrid to the West. There is no visible line or marble outside the grid). The 1st, 3rd, and 4th marbles are colinear and there is a dotted line connecting them. The line's slope is 3.]

:Third: Cursed
:[A Megan with unkempt hair stands next to a curve]
:What in god's name is going on with this curve?
:Is it even math?
:[The curve starts at the bottom of the screen, rises straight upward, begins to wobble left and right a little. It lists to the left and the left-right motion increases, then decreases. It begins a large counter-clockwise arc, spiraling inwards twice, then ends]

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

1286: Encryptic

2021-10-06T21:08:18Z

Galaktos: /* Passwords */ update ABC wikipedia link, previous title now redirects to disambiguation

{{comic
| number = 1286
| date = November 4, 2013
| title = Encryptic
| image = encryptic.png
| titletext = It was bound to happen eventually. This data theft will enable almost limitless [xkcd.com/792]-style password reuse attacks in the coming weeks. There's only one group that comes out of this looking smart: Everyone who pirated Photoshop.
}}

==Explanation==
Web sites and other computers that authenticate users via passwords need to be able to know if the user typed in the right password. But storing the password itself on the computer has been known to be unnecessarily risky since the publication of [http://www.neurosecurity.com/articles/security/passwd.pdf Password Security: A Case History] in 1978. In that paper, Robert Morris and Ken Thompson demonstrated the practice of using a slow, cryptographically-secure one-way {{w|hash function}}, so that even if the password file is stolen, it will be very hard to figure out what the passwords are, so long as the passwords themselves are suitably complex. They also pioneered the use of {{w|Salt (cryptography)|a "salt"}} which makes each password hash completely different even if two users use the same password. See [http://security.blogoverflow.com/2011/07/a-tour-of-password-questions-and-answers/ A tour of password questions and answers] for background on salts and suitably slow hash functions.

Adobe, however, ignored these well-known principles, and instead stored over a hundred million passwords in a reversibly encrypted way, using a terrible choice of encryption methods which exposes a great deal of information about the passwords, and does not involve a salt. This password database was recently obtained by someone and released on the Internet.

In particular, Adobe used {{w|Triple DES}}, an older encryption algorithm which can still be relatively secure when properly used, but they used it improperly. It works on 64-bit (8 character) blocks. Assuming that the passwords are stored in plain ASCII, this means that a sequence of 8 characters in a password which starts on a character position which is a multiple of eight is always encrypted to the same result. Therefore, two passwords starting with "12345678" would start with the same block after being encrypted. Furthermore, this means that you can actually get a very good idea of the length of the password since anything with only one block is a password with length between 1 and 8 characters, and having two blocks implies it has between 9 and 16 characters, etc.

Adobe also stored hints users created for their passwords. That means that an attacker knows not only if the same 8 characters are used for multiple passwords but also has some hints for guessing them. That means that common password portions should be easy to recover and that any user may be "compromised" by someone else using a part of the same password and providing a good hint. As an example, a password having three hints "Big Apple", "Twin Towers" and "If you can make it there" is probably "New York" or a simple variation on that. The weakness here is that no decryption and therefore no hard cracking has to take place, you just group the passwords by their encrypted blocks and try to solve them like a crossword puzzle. These weaknesses have already been used to presumably identify a password used by {{w|Edward Snowden}}, as discussed at [http://7habitsofhighlyeffectivehackers.blogspot.com/2013/11/can-someone-be-targeted-using-adobe.html 7 Habits of Highly Effective Hackers: Can someone be targeted using the Adobe breach?].

The examples are not taken from the actual leaked file, since that [http://arstechnica.com/security/2013/11/how-an-epic-blunder-by-adobe-could-strengthen-hand-of-password-crackers/ uses a different format], and the examples are evidently cleverly crafted to make a nice crossword-like puzzle, which can be solved as shown in the Passwords section below.

As mentioned on http://filosottile.github.io/analyzing-the-adobe-leaked-passwords/ the data in the comic isn't real and contains a hidden message. If the "user password" hashes are Base64 encoded, they read:
<pre>ThiswasnotagooduseofyourtimeButthenagainitwasprobablynotagooduseofmytimeeith
erAndyethereweareXOXOXOLetsLiveHereInThisTinySecretEncodedTextWorldForever==</pre>

More readable:
<pre>This was not a good use of your time
But then again it was probably not a good use of my time either
And yet here we are
XOXOXO
Lets Live Here In This Tiny Secret Encoded Text World Forever==</pre>

E.g., with the initial unique hash blocks: <tt>python2 -c "print '4e18acc1ab27a2d6a0a2876eb1ea1fca'.decode('hex_codec').encode('base64')"</tt>

The last letter "r" is not fully encoded in the data shown, but any letter from "g" to "v" produces the same binary data.

===Title Text===
The title text makes a reference to a previous comic: [[792|Black Hat's trouble with what to do with stolen passwords]]. It also states that users of pirated Photoshop are the winners here. This is because in order to make Photoshop pirate-able, it was modified (cracked) by removing the requirement for registration so their passwords were not sent to Adobe and therefore are not present in the leaked file.

Soon after this comic was published, the most common 1000 passwords were actually compiled into [http://zed0.co.uk/crossword/ a set of 10 interactive online crosswords], inspired by the comic.

The title itself is a reference to {{w|cryptic crossword}}s.

===Passwords===
Note that characters in the passwords could be upper or lower case, and they may involve common substitutions like "0" (number zero) for "O" (letter O); therefore, the clues cannot guarantee that the answer shown here is precisely correct. Nevertheless, we have plenty of information for a brute force attack.

{|class="wikitable"
! Input
! Hint
! Password
! Explanation
|-
|<tt>4e18acc1ab27a2d6</tt>
|weather vane sword
|<tt>[http://redwall.wikia.com/wiki/Matthias matthias]</tt>
|In ''{{w|Redwall}}'', several characters are associated with a sword hung from a weather vane, but only Matthias shares the name of an apostle (6 lines down).
|-
|<tt>4e18acc1ab27a2d6</tt>
|
|<tt>matthias</tt>
|Although no hint was used, we know this password too, since it matches the previous one.
|-
|<tt>4e18acc1ab27a2d6 a0a2876eb1ea1fca</tt>
|name1
|<tt>matthias1</tt>
|Even without knowing the user's name, we already know how this starts, so the clue gives us a pretty good idea how it finishes (and another block useful 2 lines down)
|-
|<tt>8babb6299e06eb6d</tt>
|duh
|<tt>password</tt>
|Unfortunately, this is all too common, and the user practically told us that it's an easy one.
|-
|<tt>8babb6299e06eb6d a0a2876eb1ea1fca</tt>
|
|<tt>password1</tt>
|Although no hint was used, we know this by combining the previous two.
|-
|<tt>8babb6299e06eb6d 85e9da81a8a78adc</tt>
|57
|<tt>password57</tt>
|Since we know how this begins, this is a good guess.
|-
|<tt>4e18acc1ab27a2d6</tt>
|favorite of {{w|Apostle (Christian)|12 apostles}}
|<tt>{{w|Saint Matthias|matthias}}</tt>
|The hint suggests only 12 possibilities. Variant spellings, variant lists, and a replacement for Judas add to that number. But we already know which one by combining with the clue 6 lines up. (Surprise: it's the replacement!)
|-
|<tt>1ab29ae86da6e5ca 7a2d6a0a2876eb1e</tt>
|with your own hand you have done all this
|<tt>Judith1510</tt>
|This is a quotation from [http://www.biblestudytools.com/nrsa/judith/15-10.html Judith 15:10] in the Bible.
|-
|<tt>a1f9b2b6299e7a2b eadec1e6ab797397</tt>
|sexy earlobes
|<tt>{{w|Charlie Sheen|Charlie Sheen}}</tt>
|This refers to an episode of ''{{w|Two and a Half Men}}''. Other answers are possible, but only this one fits the next line.
|-
|<tt>a1f9b2b6299e7a2b 617ab0277727ad85</tt>
|best TOS episode
|<tt>{{w|Charlie X|Charlie X}}</tt>
|"{{w|Star Trek: The Original Series|TOS}}" refers to The Original Series (TOS) of ''{{w|Star Trek}}''. Although this had dozens of episodes, only one fits the previous line as well as the next line.
|-
|<tt>39738b7adb0b8af7 617ab0277727ad85</tt>
|Sugarland
|<tt>HoustonTX</tt>
|{{w|Sugar Land, Texas|Sugar Land}} is a suburb of {{w|Houston}}, {{w|Texas}}. This fits with the previous line. {{w|Sugarland}} is a band, but it does not fit well with the previous hint, and would not lead to our first guess.
|-
|<tt>1ab29ae86da6e5ca</tt>
|name + jersey#
|<tt>Judith15</tt>
|Even if we knew this user's name, we wouldn't know their jersey number. But the clue 4 lines up already gave us the answer.
|-
|<tt>877ab7889d3862b1</tt>
|alpha
|<tt>abc</tt>
|This password is also far too common, but this clue still isn't enough to narrow it down. Combine with the clue 4 lines below, however, and it's quite easy.
|-
|<tt>877ab7889d3862b1</tt>
|
|<tt>abc</tt>
|No hint, but the same as the surrounding passwords.
|-
|<tt>877ab7889d3862b1</tt>
|
|<tt>abc</tt>
|No hint, but the same as the surrounding passwords.
|-
|<tt>877ab7889d3862b1</tt>
|obvious
|<tt>abc</tt>
|Same as the surrounding passwords.
|-
|<tt>877ab7889d3862b1</tt>
|Michael Jackson
|<tt>abc</tt>
|{{w|Michael Jackson}} did many songs, but only one was {{w|ABC (The Jackson 5 song)|alphabetical}} (4 lines up).
|-
|<tt>38a7c9279cadeb44 9dca1d79d4dec6d5</tt>
|
|<tt>asdfghjkl</tt>
|No hint, but the same as the one below.
|-
|<tt>38a7c9279cadeb44 9dca1d79d4dec6d5</tt>
|he did the mash, he did the
|<tt>asdfghjkl</tt>
|Probably a "keyboard mash" (e.g. asdfghjkl), a common password. The hint is a reference to the song "{{w|Monster Mash}}" ("He did the mash/He did the monster mash").
|-
|<tt>38a7c9279cadeb44</tt>
|purloined
|<tt>asdfghjk</tt>
|A reference to the {{w|Edgar Allan Poe}} story "{{w|The Purloined Letter}}", this represents all the keys of the home row, or the keyboard mash password, but with one missing("purloined") letter.
|-
|<tt>a8ae5745a2b7af7a 9dca1d79d4dec6d5</tt>
|fav water-3 {{w|List_of_Pokémon|Pokemon}}
|<tt>[http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Tentacool_(Pok%C3%A9mon) Tentacool]</tt>
|This is the only [http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Water_3_%28Egg_Group%29 water-3] Pokémon with a 9 letter name ending in "l", so it must be this to fit with the password 'asdfghjkl'.
|-
|}

==Transcript==
:[Caption above the panel:]
:Hackers recently leaked '''''153 million''''' Adobe user emails, encrypted passwords, and password hints.
:Adobe encrypted the passwords improperly, misusing block-mode 3DES. The result is something wonderful:

<pre>
User password Hint
------------- ----

4e18acc1ab27a2d6 weather vane sword
4e18acc1ab27a2d6
4e18acc1ab27a2d6 a0a2876eb1ea1fca name1
8babb6299e06eb6d duh
8babb6299e06eb6d a0a2876eb1ea1fca
8babb6299e06eb6d 85e9da81a8a78adc 57
4e18acc1ab27a2d6 favorite of 12 apostles
1ab29ae86da6e5ca 7a2d6a0a2876eb1e with your own hand you
have done all this
a1f9b2b6299e7a2b eadec1e6ab797397 sexy earlobes
a1f9b2b6299e7a2b 617ab0277727ad85 best tos episode
39738b7adb0b8af7 617ab0277727ad85 sugarland
1ab29ae86da6e5ca name + jersey#
877ab7889d3862b1 alpha
877ab7889d3862b1
877ab7889d3862b1
877ab7889d3862b1 obvious
877ab7889d3862b1 Michael Jackson
38a7c9279cadeb44 9dca1d79d4dec6d5
38a7c9279cadeb44 9dca1d79d4dec6d5 he did the mash, he did the
38a7c9279cadeb44 purloined
a8ae5745a2b7af7a 9dca1d79d4dec6d5 fav water-3 pokemon
</pre>

:[Caption below the panel:]
:The greatest crossword puzzle in the history of the world

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Pokémon]]
[[Category:Cryptography]]
[[Category:Star Trek]]
[[Category:Redwall]]

2516: Hubble Tension

2021-09-16T12:39:48Z

Galaktos: /* Explanation */ remove extra “the”

{{comic
| number = 2516
| date = September 15, 2021
| title = Hubble Tension
| image = hubble_tension.png
| titletext = Oh, wait, I might've had it set to kph instead of mph. But that would make the discrepancy even wider!
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by Dave - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
[[Ponytail]] is telling [[Cueball]] about the {{w|expansion of the universe}} telling him that there are three main estimates of the rate of expansion, and that they all disagree. She then tells him of the two well known (and very complicated) methods, and finally the joke is that the third method is performed by a guy named Dave (who replies from off-panel), and he claims to measure the distances with a radar gun, as if the galaxies were speeding here on Earth.

The fact that most {{w|galaxies}} are receding from us, and that the distance to the galaxy is directly proportional to the speed (as measured by {{w|red-shift}}) was discovered in the 1920s by {{w|Edwin Hubble}} and others. This constant of proportionality is known as the {{w|Hubble Constant}}.

One way of measuring the Hubble Constant is to measure the distance to (relatively) nearby galaxies. Once distance is obtained, speed can be easily obtained by measuring the red-shift and thus the Hubble Constant calculated. Measuring the distance turns out to be fiendishly difficult because a distant bright star looks the same as a dim star that is closer, and localized movements can influence the speed of recession — though less significantly, for multiple reasons, the further away are the objects that you study.

In practice, astronomers have a number of ways of measuring distance that work at different scales, and they can be built upon to measure distance to far away galaxies. This is known as the {{w|Cosmic distance ladder}}.

The first rung is {{w|parallax}}. As the Earth orbits around the Sun, nearby stars appear to move slightly relative to distant stars; a star that moves by one second of arc is said to have a distance of 1 {{w|Parsec}} — about 3¼ light years or 30 trillion (3x1013) kilometers.

The next rung is {{w|Cepheid variables}}, which periodically brighten and dim. The frequency of variation is related to the absolute brightness of the star, and thus by comparing the absolute to the relative brightness (subject to the {{w|Inverse-square law}} where not otherwise obscured) the distance can be measured.

The final rung is {{w|Type Ia supernova}}, which occur when an accreting {{w|white dwarf}} exceeds 1.4 solar masses. Because the initial mass is always identical, the absolute brightness of the explosion is as well, so the distance can be similarly calculated.

Putting these together, the best measurement of the Hubble Constant is 73 km/s/Mparsec.

This is in conflict with the other main way of measuring the Hubble Constant, analyzing makeup of the {{w|Cosmic Microwave Background}} (CMB) radiation, which yields a value of 68 km/s/Mparsec. The difference is statistically significant, and well outside the error bounds of each measurement.

Since the CMB technique relies on our understanding and assumptions about the early universe, as well as on the cosmological effects of General Relativity on large scales, if this discrepancy proved real it could be the gateway to new discoveries in cosmology and gravity, as well as possibly shed light on the origin of the universe and a '{{w|Theory Of Everything}}'. Cosmologists got quite excited about this. It might also be that there was a previously unaccounted-for error in any of the rungs of the cosmological distance ladder, and that once that is fixed, the two results will be consistent.

The third method introduced in this comic is a guy named Dave who is trying to use a {{w|radar speed gun}} (as used by the police for detecting speeding cars) to try to measure the movement of astronomical bodies. A radar system works by sending electromagnetic radiation from the gun and then measuring the returned radiation to determine how far away or how fast a moderately distant object is moving. Because of the transmission and return times required (and the inverse-square law), a radar device will only be able to get information about the very closest objects, such as the Moon and other objects orbiting the Earth (or ''perhaps'' the Sun), where the influence of being in orbit utterly dominates over any possible Hubble-shift. And that still needs powerful radar systems like the former {{w|Arecibo Telescope}} to be able to get any useful information that far away, a hand-held radar gun would not be able to 'lock on' across even those distances.

Going by back-calculating grossly 'idealized' universe models, as suggested by the other two estimates, a receding velocity of 85 miles per hour ('mph'; about 137 kilometers per hour, 'kph' or 'km/h') should be seen at a distance of roughly 1700-1850 light-years, on the order of the thickness of our galactic disc. Much too far to use a radar gun on, also much too close to exclude any significant galactic stellar motions. Much the same is true if the figure is actually 85 kph (1050-1130 ly), as suggested it might be in the title text. It is also dimensionally wrong, as it is quoted as a straight "distance per time", not "distance per time ''per distance''".

Aside from being practically incorrect, that value of 85 kph relates to around 53 mph, which might be the normally observed traffic speed on certain roads (especially if someone is conspicuously using a radar gun!) if by 'all directions' you effectively mean 'both directions' of traffic flow that Dave could possibly be measuring. Dave may have been referring to the kind of {{w|Ford Galaxy|Galaxy}} that he ''can'' more easily find out the velocity of.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball and Ponytail are walking to the right. Ponytail has her palm raised.]
:Ponytail: There are three main estimates of the universe's expansion rate and they all disagree.

:[They keeping walking to the right.]
:Ponytail: Measurements of star distances suggest the universe is expanding at 73 km/s/megaparsec.

:[They are still walking to the right.]
:Ponytail: Measurements of the cosmic microwave background suggest it's expanding at 68 km/s/megaparsec.

:[They continue walking to the right. Ponytail points towards Dave who replies from off-panel to the right.]
:Ponytail: And Dave, who has a radar gun, says it's expanding at 85 mph in all directions.
:Dave (off-panel): ''Those galaxies are really booking it!''
:Ponytail: Thanks, Dave.

{{comic discussion}}

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

2426: Animal Songs

2021-09-11T15:46:27Z

Galaktos: add Category:Comics with lowercase text

{{comic
| number = 2426
| date = February 17, 2021
| title = Animal Songs
| image = animal_songs.png
| titletext = Dr. Fauci is not permitted to have a cat, because as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, his petting one would be considered giving aid and comfort to an allergen.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic is another in a [[:Category:COVID-19|series of comics]] related to the {{w|2019–20 coronavirus outbreak|2020 pandemic}} of the {{w|coronavirus}} {{w|SARS-CoV-2}}, which causes {{w|COVID-19}}.

Jokes about professionals not being so professional in private have been presented before, for example in [[2401: Conjunction]] and [[1463: Altitude]].

{{w|Dr. Anthony Fauci}} is the government medical science guy{{Citation needed}} (Director of the {{w|National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases}}) who was largely responsible for informing the public in the United States on how to avoid spreading {{w|SARS-CoV-2}} in the beginning of the {{w|COVID-19 pandemic}}. He was recently awarded a one million dollar prize for his recent work. This may be the press conference he is going to. The comic shows him singing a silly made-up song to his pet fish as he goes about his daily routine - a counterintuitively childlike (albeit delightful and relatable) habit for an authority figure who normally presents himself to the public in a professional and prosaic "grown-up" manner. Incidentally, this characterization of Dr. Fauci doesn't seem to be far from the truth: Fauci's daughter Jenny is [https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2007/09/28/anthony-fauci/ quoted in the Washington Post] as saying of her father: "He's a goofball[...] He works hard and he does his thing, but he comes home and he's singing opera in the kitchen and dancing around."

In [[231: Cat Proximity]], it's presented as 'normal' for people to make inane statements and use {{w|baby talk}} near {{w|cat|cats}}, but here, Dr. Fauci is singing to his fish. The title text explains that, as he is the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, he is forbidden from owning a pet cat, because petting the cat would be "giving aid and comfort" to an allergen, which is (a reference to) one definition of {{w|Treason laws in the United States|treason under the United States Constitution}}. The “allergen” refers to the hypothetical cat—some people are {{w|Allergy to cats|allergic to cats}}.

==Transcript==
:[A man with a bit of hair, later shown to represent Dr. Fauci, is putting on a white lab coat as he walks past his fish tank. The tank, on a small table, has one small fish in it, looking at him. Inside the tank there is also a seaweed-like plant and a small castle and an even smaller pyramid. Seven music notes, 4 double and 3 single notes, are scattered about Fauci's speech which is written with lower case letters (normal capitalization) as opposed to normal xkcd text with all small caps.]
:Dr. Fauci: ♫ ''Putting on my doctor coat'' ♫

:[Dr. Fauci is buttoning the coat. He is now standing to the right of the fish tank. The fish has turned towards him and has moved to the end of the tank near him. He still sings with the same letter type and six music notes, 3 double and 3 single notes, are scattered around the text.]
:Dr. Fauci: ♫ ''It's the coat I wear'' ♫

:[Dr. Fauci is back to the left of the fish tank, looking at himself in a mirror, and touching his face. There is a small shelf with three items on the wall beneath the mirror. The fish has swam back to its original position turned towards him. He is still singing, with one double and one triple note on either side of his lyrics. An off-panel voice addresses him from the right, and he replies. These exchanges are written in normal xkcd small caps style.]
:Dr. Fauci: ♫ ''so they know how good a doctor I am'' ♫
:Off-panel voice: Dr. Fauci? The press conference is in five.
:Dr. Fauci: Be right there!

:[Caption below the panel:]
:It's nice to think about how serious and important people probably ''also'' absentmindedly sing made-up songs to pets.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:COVID-19]]
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]]
[[Category:Animals]]
[[Category:Music]]
[[Category:Comics with lowercase text]]

2334: Slide Trombone

2021-09-05T14:06:36Z

Galaktos: /* Explanation */ use singular they

{{comic
| number = 2334
| date = July 17, 2020
| title = Slide Trombone
| image = slide_trombone.png
| titletext = Remember the CPS 2000, the super soaker that was discontinued because it was too powerful? Relatedly, can I borrow your tuba?
}}

==Explanation==
In this comic, [[Megan]] carries her "old" {{w|trombone}}, a brass musical instrument with a movable sliding piece used to change a musical note's pitch, which those offscreen apparently haven't caught sight of since the 90s (presumably the 1990s). These offscreen people don't suspect anything unusual of Megan's trombone until it turns out that it contains a water gun, which she uses to soak the other characters. It is unclear whether she has somehow hidden the water gun inside the trombone, has disassembled it to produce a hybrid trombone/Super Soaker device, or otherwise modified the trombone such that it can shoot water as a water gun would.

In the second panel, she is priming the water gun by pumping air into it, following the sequence of pump actions used for the Super Soaker. During the first "slide" action, the user pulls the grip towards themselves, increasing pressure within the water reservoir of the gun. During the second "hiss" action, this grip is pushed away; a valve prevents air leaving the chamber, though a small amount usually leaks out. Part of the joke here is that a slide trombone also has a slide mechanism, held in a similar way as that of the Super Soaker, but which serves a completely different purpose. In the case of the trombone, when the slide is extended, the total length of tubing between the mouthpiece and the bell is extended, thereby lowering the pitch of the sound that is produced (there is, however, no comparable air chamber). This similarity between the two devices enables Megan to use the trombone's slide as if it were a Super Soaker's.

In the third panel, she presses the trigger, causing the compressed air within the water reservoir to push water from it at high speed, hitting the off-screen targets. One cries out in surprise, while the other expresses the realization of what had happened to their lost Super Soaker (that Megan had taken it as an alteration to her trombone).

In the title text, Megan asks those offscreen about the [http://www.isoaker.com/Armoury/Analysis/1996/super_soaker_cps2000.php CPS 2000], a water gun which, as is mentioned, was powerful but ''too'' powerful, causing injuries to those shot by it and allegedly leading to its discontinuation. Megan then, in connection with her previous question about the Super Soaker, asks to borrow a tuba, most probably to hide the CPS 2000 water gun inside. Her reasoning behind needing this tuba seems to be that the CPS 2000 is seemingly larger than the Super Soaker originally stored in Megan's trombone and thus would require a larger vessel (this use of the tuba may be cause for loss of friendship with an experienced player).

The CPS 2000 referenced by Megan was developed primarily by {{w| Lonnie Johnson (inventor)}} and Bruce D'Andrade for {{w| Larami}}'s {{w| Super Soaker}} product line. The "CPS" within its name refers to the "{{w|Constant Pressure System}}" used in certain water guns (its technology can be seen in [https://patents.google.com/patent/US5799827 this patent] by Bruce D'Andrade). In this system, a rubber bladder within the water gun is pressurized by the user's pumping action, which draws water from a reservoir and pushes it into the pressure chamber, filling the bladder like a balloon. Once the desired volume of water is stored within the toy, the water can be released by means of a spring-loaded trigger and valve system. Upon release, the rubber bladder pushes the water out of the pressure chamber and out of the front nozzle, hitting whatever targets the user desires it to. The "constant pressure" of the CPS's name refers to the fact that the bladder will exert the same pressure on the water throughout the shot, ensuring consistent power and range, as opposed to air pressure Super Soakers, whose power will die off during the shot as the pressurized air within the pressure chamber expands, expelling the water but reducing the pressure in the toy.

The Super Soaker that Megan uses in this comic is also referenced in [[220: Philosophy]] and [[517: Marshmallow Gun]]. If the water gun featured in this comic is the same as that depicted in previous comics, it would likely be a [http://www.isoaker.com/Armoury/Analysis/1991/super_soaker_ss50.php Super Soaker 50], the first widely available pressurized water gun. It could also be the less common but earlier model the [http://www.isoaker.com/Armoury/Analysis/1990/power_drencher.php Power Drencher] or the later [http://www.isoaker.com/Armoury/Analysis/1992/super_soaker_ss50c.php SS 50 Classic Series], [http://www.isoaker.com/Armoury/Analysis/1992/super_soaker_se.php Super Soaker S.E.], or [http://www.isoaker.com/Armoury/Analysis/2009/super_soaker_ss50_20th.php the 20th anniversary SS 50 rerelease].

==Transcript==
:[Megan walking along carrying a trombone.]
:Offpanel voice #1: Hey, her old trombone.
:Offpanel voice #2: Cool, I haven't seen that thing since the 90s.

:[Four quick shots of Megan moving the trombone's slide back and forth. It makes sound, but not like an ordinary trombone.]
:FX: Slide
:FX: Hisss
:FX: Slide
:FX: Hisss

:[Megan does something else with the trombone, and it shoots water at the offpanel observers.]
:FX: Pshhhhh
:Offpanel voice #1: AUGH!
:Offpanel voice #2: So ''that's'' where my Super Soaker went.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]

1155: Kolmogorov Directions

2021-08-08T13:48:06Z

Galaktos: /* Explanation */ add some context for the GPS device

{{comic
| number = 1155
| date = January 2, 2013
| title = Kolmogorov Directions
| image = kolmogorov directions.png
| titletext = People get really grumpy when they realize you're giving them directions for how to go to the store and buy a GPS.
}}

==Explanation==
{{w|Andrey Kolmogorov}} was a mathematician who worked, among other things, on defining computational complexity. Roughly speaking, the {{w|Kolmogorov complexity}} of a string (of bits, words, symbols, etc.) is the shortest description that allows an accurate reconstruction — or, in some variants, the length of the smallest program which will output the original string.

[[Cueball]]'s method of giving directions is very reminiscent of Kolmogorov's method of determining complexity. However, it is unlikely they know all the presidents, nor can calculate prime numbers in their heads, and so will have trouble with certain parts. These directions may have minimal Kolmogorov complexity, but they are non-intuitive and are likely not the shortest or quickest way to get there, considering that they consist mostly of left turns.

This is [[783: I Don't Want Directions|not the first time]] Cueball has had difficulties with directions, and here we see he hates giving directions as much as he hates receiving them.

The joke in the title text is that Cueball just sent his friend to a store to buy a GPS device to give him the correct directions. (By the time this comic was published, GPS-enabled smartphones had already largely displaced dedicated GPS devices,<ref>https://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/15/technology/15iht-navigate.html</ref> but Cueball could be talking to a person who does not wish to own a smartphone.)

==Transcript==
:[Cueball on the phone.]
:Phone: How do I get to your place from Lexington?
:Cueball: Hmm...
:Cueball: Ok, starting from your driveway, take every left turn that doesn't put you on a prime-numbered highway or street named for a president.

:[Caption below the panel:]
:When people ask for step-by-step directions, I worry that there will be too many steps to remember, so I try to put them in minimal form.

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

1468: Worrying

2021-07-10T12:28:06Z

Galaktos: /* Explanation */ missing close-paren

{{comic
| number = 1468
| date = January 2, 2015
| title = Worrying
| image = worrying.png
| titletext = If the breaking news is about an event at a hospital or a lab, move it all the way over to the right.
}}

==Explanation==
This chart is a visual representation of how worried people should be by various events in real life compared to the same events in movies, based on the likelihood of the event causing serious harm. In effect, it's poking fun at various cliches and the emphasis on dramatic flair, regardless of realism. The chart's Y-axis indicates how worrying an event is in real life (from "not very worried" to "very worried"), while its X-axis shows how worrying the event is in movies. Nine events are shown in the chart, all of them cliches in the medium of film:

*'''Spilling a drink on your shirt''': In both real life and in movies, this just causes a stain and maybe a little embarrassment.
*'''Nosebleed''': Nosebleeds are common in real life, as they can result from even a mild impact to the face, or even dried out sinuses. There are some conditions where nosebleeds can indicate something more serious (such as a stroke, or radiation poisoning), but those are vastly outnumbered by bleeds that are relatively harmless. Unless there's a reason to believe that a nosebleed is connected to something else, they rarely even require medical attention. {{tvtropes|DeadlyNosebleed|Nosebleeds in movies}} are almost always a sign that something ''is'' seriously wrong - the common, mundane nosebleeds almost never come up.
*'''Breaking news''': People in real life commonly don't pay much attention to the news at all, so many breaking stories go unnoticed until much later. Most breaking news stories are also about non-threatening events (e.g. presidential addresses) or events that are far removed from the viewer. However, in movies, "breaking news" broadcasts are almost always a means to introduce a significant plot element which directly impact the protagonists, and are usually very serious events. XKCD has referenced [[1387|news reports as foreshadowing before]].
*'''Parking ticket''': Tickets in movies are almost always ignored, but in real life, they are moderately worrying because they cost money and can tarnish your driving record.
*'''Persistent cough''': In real life, coughing fits can be a sign of serious illness, and are worth having checked out, but the large majority of them indicate only minor and common illnesses. In movies, just like with nosebleeds, a {{tvtropes|IncurableCoughOfDeath|persistent cough}} almost always indicates a potentially deadly disease.
*'''"We need to talk."''': This phrase is a common, stereotypical lead-in to a serious conversation, usually about a couple's relationship status. In real life, as in the movies, prefacing a conversation with that phrase indicate that something serious, and possibly very upsetting, is about to be discussed. such conversations are rarely deadly, but are often upsetting.
*'''Getting knocked out by a punch''': In movies, a character who is {{tvtropes|TapOnTheHead|knocked out by a punch}} always wakes up sometime later with no lasting effects, making it less cause for concern than a spilled drink. In real life, being rendered unconscious by a physical impact is extremely serious, it can result in a variety of permanent impacts, up to and including brain damage and even death.
*'''Chest wounds''': The chart mentions wounds on both your right and left sides. In real life, a chest wound to either side is extremely worrying. But in movies, getting wounded on the right side of the chest will rarely deal lasting damage to the hero or primary villain, to show how badass they are. Wounds on the ''left'' side of the chest generally signify swift death. This is likely due to the common misconception that the heart is on the left side of the chest - it is actually in the center, with a slight tendency to the left. However, even left-side chest wounds in movies are apparently still less worrisome than coughs and nosebleeds. It must also be noted that the term "chest wound" is broader than what the author of the comic appears to mean. More narrow terms of "thoracic gunshot wound", "gunshot chest wound", "thoracic ballistic trauma" or "penetrating chest wound" (the latter is slightly broader and includes the damage inflicted by blades and other impaled objects) would be more appropriate because just a "chest wound" includes such insignificant events as minor skin cuts in the chest area.

The title text expands on the aforementioned breaking news reports. While already overly worrying whenever they occur in movies compared to real life, should the movie's news report cover an event at a hospital (usually an outbreak of some major disease) or a laboratory (a monster escaping, a toxic gas released, an explosion, etc.), these events are universally much more worrisome than any other type of news story since they are guaranteed to be important for the protagonists in short order. In real life, breaking news from such locations may be more likely to be serious, but are still very unlikely to impact the viewer directly.

==Table==
The comic shows an X-Y plot of events, showing how worried you should be ''in real life'' on the vertical axis and ''in movies'' on the horizontal axis. The axis goes from "not very worried" to "very worried".

Below is a table listing the coordinates for each event according to how worrying it is. The coordinates have been found by measuring each dot to the two axises and then assuming that the extremes are at 100%.
*Note that this gives two possible ways to interpret the Y-axis "In real life" coordinate.
**Either chest wound is at 100% - this is the first Y-axis coordinate given below under "In real life".
**But alternatively it could be the most worrisome event overall that should be set to 100% including also the most worrisome event on the X-axis for "In movies". In this case, the nosebleed event sets the 100% bar higher, thus lowering the percentage for the "In real life" events. Either way could be argued, and thus this other coordinate is given as In Real Life vs. Nose Bleed ('''IRL vs. NB''').
*For the "In movies" coordinate nosebleed is at 100%. However, since nosebleed is located past the end of the x-axis arrow it could be argued that it is this event that is off the chart in the movies. But this table will assume this as the 100% mark either overall or at least for the X-axis for "In Movies".

{| class="wikitable sortable"
! In real life !! IRL vs. NB !! In movies !! Event
|-
| 100% || 73% || 30% || Chest wound on your right side
|-
| 100% || 73% || 80% || Chest wound on your left side
|-
| 81% || 59% || 9% || Getting knocked out by a punch
|-
| 75% || 55% || 62% || "We need to talk."
|-
| 51% || 37% || 90% || Persistent cough
|-
| 28% || 20% || 8% || Parking ticket
|-
| 24% || 18% || 74% || Breaking news
|-
| 12% || 8% || 11% || Spilling a drink on your shirt
|-
| 11% || 8% || 100% || Nosebleed
|}

==Transcript==
:'''How worried should you be when various things happen to you:'''
:[A chart with a scatter plot on which 9 dots are labeled. Each axis has a title and a scale. Reading from the top to the bottom and then left to right along the axis are:]
:Very worried
:'''...In Real Life'''
:Not very worried

:Not very worried
:'''...In Movies'''
:Very worried

:[The labels in the chart from the top:]
:[This first entry is standing in the middle of a square bracket that points to the two next entires both of which are at the same level:]
:Chest wound
:...on your right side
:...on your left side
:Getting knocked out by a punch
:"We need to talk."
:Persistent cough
:Parking ticket
:Breaking news
:Spilling a drink on your shirt
:Nosebleed

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Scatter plots]]
[[Category:Rankings]]

2484: H-alpha

2021-07-03T12:05:02Z

Galaktos: /* Explanation */ add contemporary context for fireworks (not sure how to tie it in with the rest of the explanation)

{{comic
| number = 2484
| date = July 3, 2021
| title = H-alpha
| image = h_alpha.png
| titletext = "All the companies whose blimps I shot fireworks at are mad, but MetLife is especially miffed because I dressed up as the Red Baron."
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a RED BARON. Elaborate on title-text. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

[[Black Hat]] has acquired an {{w|H-alpha}} filter. As he explains to [[Cueball]], these filters are used to look at the Sun during scientific observations, as looking at the Sun bare-eyed will do damage to one's eyes {{Citation needed}}; a camera using such a filter was seen in [[1828: ISS Solar Transit]], and the consequences of not using such a filter were explored in [[2227: Transit of Mercury]].

Black Hat points out that the filter can also be used to look at {{w|nebula}}e, but doesn't see much further use for it; as the filter only transmits a very narrow bandwidth of light, one generated by hot hydrogen, it is not useful for looking at much else. This gives him an idea, and he leaves.

Upon returning, he shares with Cueball three seemingly unrelated observations which suggest what he got up to in the meantime: that most modern {{w|airship|blimps}} use helium to keep them aloft, that their household is out of fireworks, and that an advertising company (or several, going by the title text) is upset. Before the 1960s, most blimps used hydrogen as the lifting gas, which resulted in several catastrophic accidents when the highly flammable gas caught fire. Apparently, Black Hat was not aware that modern blimps use helium instead, and tried to set light to an advertising blimp using fireworks: he could then have used his H-alpha filter to look at the burning hydrogen. (Several companies use blimps for advertising, as they are an unusual and hence enticing sight in the sky, offer a large surface area that can be used to show a slogan or logo, and can stay aloft for a long time with comparatively little cost.) Cueball "responds" by holding whatever he's reading closer to his face, apparently hoping to avoid further conversation (or consequences).

The title text references how, until 2016, insurance company MetLife used the character Snoopy as an advertising mascot. In the ''Peanuts'' comics, Snoopy would frequently imagine himself as a fighter pilot in World War I in an aerial battle with the Red Baron, which he would frequently lose.

This comic was published shortly before {{w|Independence Day (United States)|Independence Day}} 2021, a US holiday that is often commemorated with fireworks. As parts of America were undergoing an extreme {{w|2021 Western North America heat wave|heat wave}} at the same time, several regions recommended against or banned the firing of fireworks, to reduce the risk of wildfires.

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

''(Black Hat is holding a device in his hand)''

Black Hat: I got an H-Alpha filter for looking at the sun.

''(non-bordered panel with Black Hat standing behind Cueball, who is reading on an armchair)''

Black Hat: It also works for nebulae. But that's about it. There just aren't that many hot blobs of hydrogen to look at, I guess.

''(Black Hat is now holding his empty hand to his chin)''

Black Hat: Unless...

''(Black Hat leaves, away from Cueball)''

''(beat panel)''

''(Black Hat re-enters; his black hat is somewhat out of shape; Cueball is now hunched further forward, with his face closer to his reading material)''

Black Hat: Huh, did you know blimps all use helium now? You learn something new every day! By the way, we're out of fireworks.

Black Hat: And some advertising company is ''real'' mad.

{{comic discussion}}

2484: H-alpha

2021-07-03T11:58:22Z

Galaktos: /* Explanation */ actually explain the comic (i.e. what action by Black Hat is implied without being shown) instead of just describing it with more words

{{comic
| number = 2484
| date = July 3, 2021
| title = H-alpha
| image = h_alpha.png
| titletext = "All the companies whose blimps I shot fireworks at are mad, but MetLife is especially miffed because I dressed up as the Red Baron."
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a RED BARON. Elaborate on title-text. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

[[Black Hat]] has acquired an {{w|H-alpha}} filter. As he explains to [[Cueball]], these filters are used to look at the Sun during scientific observations, as looking at the Sun bare-eyed will do damage to one's eyes {{Citation needed}}; a camera using such a filter was seen in [[1828: ISS Solar Transit]], and the consequences of not using such a filter were explored in [[2227: Transit of Mercury]].

Black Hat points out that the filter can also be used to look at {{w|nebula}}e, but doesn't see much further use for it; as the filter only transmits a very narrow bandwidth of light, one generated by hot hydrogen, it is not useful for looking at much else. This gives him an idea, and he leaves.

Upon returning, he shares with Cueball three seemingly unrelated observations which suggest what he got up to in the meantime: that most modern {{w|airship|blimps}} use helium to keep them aloft, that their household is out of fireworks, and that an advertising company (or several, going by the title text) is upset. Before the 1960s, most blimps used hydrogen as the lifting gas, which resulted in several catastrophic accidents when the highly flammable gas caught fire. Apparently, Black Hat was not aware that modern blimps use helium instead, and tried to set light to an advertising blimp using fireworks: he could then have used his H-alpha filter to look at the burning hydrogen. (Several companies use blimps for advertising, as they are an unusual and hence enticing sight in the sky, offer a large surface area that can be used to show a slogan or logo, and can stay aloft for a long time with comparatively little cost.)

The title text references how, until 2016, insurance company MetLife used the character Snoopy as an advertising mascot. In the ''Peanuts'' comics, Snoopy would frequently imagine himself as a fighter pilot in World War I in an aerial battle with the Red Baron.

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

''(Black Hat is holding a device in his hand)''

Black Hat: I got an H-Alpha filter for looking at the sun.

''(non-bordered panel with Black Hat standing behind Cueball, who is reading on an armchair)''

Black Hat: It also works for nebulae. But that's about it. There just aren't that many hot blobs of hydrogen to look at, I guess.

''(Black Hat is now holding his empty hand to his chin)''

Black Hat: Unless...

''(Black Hat leaves, away from Cueball)''

''(beat panel)''

''(Black Hat re-enters; his black hat is somewhat out of shape; Cueball is now hunched further forward, with his face closer to his reading material)''

Black Hat: Huh, did you know blimps all use helium now? You learn something new every day! By the way, we're out of fireworks.

Black Hat: And some advertising company is ''real'' mad.

{{comic discussion}}

276: Fixed Width

2021-06-27T21:53:47Z

Galaktos: /* Explanation */ change IM clients to *some* IM clients, since not all of them use fixed-width fonts

{{comic
| number = 276
| date = June 13, 2007
| title = Fixed Width
| image = fixed_width.png
| titletext = I wish I knew how to quit this so I wouldn't have to quit you.
| imagesize =
}}

==Explanation==
Fixed width or {{w|monospaced font}} refers to the font used in old teletype terminals and some {{w|instant messaging}} clients (often {{w|Courier (typeface)|Courier}}).

For two text lines to have the same length, it's easier if they are in a monospaced font. For example, the following sentences are the same length in a monospaced font, but since we are using a {{w|proportional font}}, those lengths are not exact (the third line is noticeably wider):

:<rob> last night was nice
:<emily> the best i've had
:<rob> yeah it was AMAZING


The title is possibly a double reference, both to a monospaced font and to lines of the same length.

Initially, by mere chance, Emily's and [[Rob]]'s lines were exactly the same length. This made Rob want to continue the pattern.

That Rob feels forced to change what he wants to type to continue the pattern could be a symptom of {{w|obsessive–compulsive disorder}}.

Because of the monospaced font, any reply with 19 characters (including space) would have continued the pattern. In particular, "definitely for real" or "i'm in love with you" would have worked.

==Transcript==
:[A man, Rob, is sitting at a computer. The text is an IRC-style transcript of a conversation, in a fixed-width font. He is text-messaging a girl he slept with named Emily; their messages read as follows:]
<pre>
<rob> hi
<emily> hey you
<rob> last night was nice
<emily> the best i've had
<rob> yeah it was AMAZING
<emily> ok, i have to ask
<emily> is this for real?
<emily> or is it just sex
<rob> definitely just sex
<emily> holy shit
<emily> are you serious?
<emily> you don't know how much that made
my stomach hurt
<emily> i want to cry
<rob> i'm sorry
<rob> i wanted to type 'i love you'
<rob> but our line lengths were syncing up
<emily> ...
<rob> and it would have broken the pattern
* emily has disconnected
</pre>

{{Comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Rob]]
[[Category:Romance]]
[[Category:Sex]]
[[Category:Social interactions]]

1503: Squirrel Plan

2021-05-29T11:02:58Z

Galaktos: /* Explanation */ missing T and also wikilink

{{comic
| number = 1503
| date = March 25, 2015
| title = Squirrel Plan
| image = squirrel plan.png
| titletext = [Halfway to the Sun ...] Heyyyy ... what if this BALLOON is full of acorns?!
}}

==Explanation==
These particular squirrels are ambitious but misguided, like the characters in the myth of {{w|Icarus}} and {{w|Daedalus}} (it should be noted that [[Randall]] does not see it that way, as seen in the bottom of {{what if|30|"Interplanetary Cessna"}}), or the {{w|Tower of Babel}}. The squirrels' understanding of astrophysics is lacking, regarding the distance to the sun and appropriate transportation to reach it in addition to the need to resist the sun's heat and exist in the vacuum of space. Their belief that the sun is made of acorns reflects their uniquely acorn-focused worldview, a reference to the tendency of real-life squirrels to gather and store acorns as winter food, as well as their single-minded dedication to overcoming obstacles (even [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFZFjoX2cGg elaborately-constructed obstacle courses]) for the sake of obtaining nuts.

The title text reveals that "halfway to the sun," 75 million kilometers from all known acorns in our universe, the airborne squirrel seems to jeopardize the entire mission because he wants to test if the balloon itself is full of acorns. Basic observational skills will tell anyone that acorns do not float{{Citation needed}}, but the idea follows the logic stated by the squirrels: If the sun, being so magnificent, must be full of acorns, then a balloon powerful enough to take a squirrel to the sun must also be powered by something amazing, like acorns. Obviously, neither the sun or balloons are filled with acorns{{Citation needed}}.

Usage of balloons for space travel is a prominent motif in early science fiction; see, for example, "{{w|The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall}}" by Edgar Allan Poe.

==Transcript==
:[There are three squirrels. One is suspended from a balloon. The other two are sitting on the ground, looking up at it.]

:Squirrel to the right: Once you've chewed a hole in the Sun, shoot the balloon to fall back to earth, then pull the parachute ripcord to land.

:Squirrel tied to balloon: Are you '''''sure''''' it's full of acorns?

:Squirrel to the right: Look how bright and magnificent it is! What ''else'' could be in there?

==Trivia==
*It is commonly believed that real squirrels use their ''tails'' as parachutes, although as yet [http://io9.com/5946627/squirrel-hurls-itself-through-a-fourth-story-window-scampers-off-unscathed "there have been no observational studies on the aerodynamics of free-falling squirrels."]
*In the real world [http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=1020.0 helium balloons cannot escape the stratosphere.] Perhaps the squirrel only ''thinks'' he's halfway to the sun. Or maybe the acorns in the balloon are pushing on the [[1404:_Quantum_Vacuum_Virtual_Plasma|quantum vacuum virtual plasma]].
*The "shooting a hole in the balloon" is based on Larry Walters, who actually flew in a lawn chair suspended below a large cluster of helium balloons, using a pellet gun to shoot out balloons to descend. Featured in {{what if|62|What If: Falling With Helium}}.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Squirrels]]

809: Los Alamos

2021-05-06T20:14:49Z

Galaktos: /* Explanation */ remove Robert Oppenheimer quote – not mentioned or referred to by the comic

{{comic
| number = 809
| date = October 22, 2010
| title = Los Alamos
| image = los_alamos.png
| titletext = The test didn't (spoiler alert) destroy the world, but the fact that they were even doing those calculations makes theirs the coolest jobs ever.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic refers to the {{w|Manhattan Project}} at {{w|Los Alamos, New Mexico}}, where in 1945 their development of the first nuclear weapon had progressed to the point that they were going to explode "The Gadget" at {{w|Trinity Site}}. There was genuine concern that some unexpected result was possible, including the scenario about the atmosphere igniting. The scientists were almost certain that it would either work as expected, or just be a dud, but were unable to rule out several other scenarios. The test proceeded, and it worked as expected.

The joke part at the end is a reference to a common {{w|mnemonic}} device for basic {{w|trigonometric}} functions, namely identifying the relationships of ''sine'', ''cosine'', and ''tangent'' with respect to the lengths of a right triangle's edges: '''s'''ine = '''o'''pposite over '''h'''ypotenuse, '''c'''osine = '''a'''djacent over '''h'''ypotenuse, and '''t'''angent = '''o'''pposite over '''a'''djacent (in other words, SOH CAH TOA.) "Steve" becomes concerned by the seriousness of the situation, and wants to make sure that he has not made a mistake on stuff that should be ''very'' elementary to a scientist in his position. (Steve is probably not a reference to any specific scientist in the real life Manhattan Project, see below).

The title text mentions that there are very few jobs where one can say that with seriousness, as normal jobs do not involve technology capable of destroying worlds.{{Citation needed}}

A Steve is referred to in a similar situation in comic [[1532: New Horizons]], where his miscalculations screw up the trajectory of the {{w|New Horizons}} space probe, sending it to Earth instead of Pluto. He would be at least 90 years old if it was to be the same Steve though. A person named Steve also comes up with an inappropriate suggestion in [[1672: Women on 20s]].

==Transcript==
:[Cueball raising a hand points to Steve (see later) drawn as another shorter Cueball-like guy, and behind Cueball stand Hairy also looking at Steve. Partly behind Steve's head is a piece of paper on the wall with a circle around a central dot and four arrows pointing in towards the circle from each corner of the paper. Behind Hairy's head is another paper with a graph that looks like a positive third degree polynomial with three non-zero solutions. Between Cueball and Hairy at the level of their hands is a small square with two small dots at the two top corners. Seems like a part of the wall rather than a paper. During the next images the two on either side of Cueball moves their head in front or away from these papers so at least once the hole drawing can be seen. Over the panels top frame there is a frame with a caption:]
:Los Alamos, 1945...
:Cueball: We have a decision. If we've done our math right, this test will unleash heaven's fire and make us as gods.

:[Cueball turns towards Hairy holding his arms out.]
:Cueball: But it's possible we made a mistake, and the heat will ignite the atmosphere, destroying the planet in a cleansing conflagration.

:[In a frame-less panel Steven takes a hand to his chin, while the other two turns towards him.]
:Steve: Wow. Um. Question: Just to double-check— although I'm 99% sure—

:[Cueball, still facing Steve, face-palms himself while Hairy turns away from Steve.]
:Steve: Is it "SOH CAH TOA" or "COH SAH TOA"?
:Cueball: ''Oh, for the love of...'' can someone redo Steve's work?
:Hairy: I don't want to do the test anymore.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]
[[Category:Math]]
[[Category:Physics]]
[[Category:Nuclear weapons]]

739: Malamanteau

2021-04-18T15:59:04Z

Galaktos: /* Explanation */ mention old Wikipedia look, since Wikipedia looks somewhat different these days, and a modern reader of the comic might never have seen the “old” Wikipedia

{{comic
| number = 739
| date = May 12, 2010
| title = Malamanteau
| image = malamanteau.png
| titletext = The article has twenty-three citations, one of which is an obscure manuscript from the 1490s and the other twenty-two are arguments on LanguageLog.
}}

==Explanation==
A {{w|malapropism}} is the use of an incorrect word in place of a word with a similar sound, resulting in a nonsensical utterance. An example of a {{w|malapropism}} is {{w|Yogi Berra}}'s statement: "Texas has a lot of electrical votes," rather than "electoral votes". A {{w|portmanteau}} is a word made up of two or more combined words. For example, motel is a portmanteau, from the words motor and hotel. A {{w|neologism}} is simply a newly coined word that is not yet in common use.

Here, Randall shows a hypothetical Wikipedia page of the word "malamanteau" which is both a portmanteau of "malapropism" and "portmanteau" and a neologism. The method used to create this new word is one of the very words used in the process. This is called a [[917|meta]] or "self-referential" joke.

"Malamanteau" was originally coined in 2007, when it was proposed by user [http://www.metafilter.com/user/17900 ludwig_van] on [http://www.metafilter.com Metafilter] as a term for language errors like "flustrated" (flustered & frustrated) and "misconscrewed" (misconstrued & screwed).

The bottom line of the comic (Ever notice how Wikipedia has a few words it ''really'' likes?) is a reference to a large number of Wikipedia pages that start by labeling their subject matter as a malapropism, a portmanteau, or a neologism.

In response to this comic, editors at Wikipedia created a {{w|malamanteau}} page. It was deleted multiple times and eventually turned into a redirect to the Wikipedia page for {{w|xkcd}}. Malamanteau and the controversy at Wikipedia got coverage at ''The Economist'' and ''The Boston Globe''.

The title text refers to Wikipedia's requirements of citations for a page on there to exist. It also refers to the wide range of places citations can be obtained from, showing a direct opposition due to the use of very different citations (The Language Log arguments are modern and informal, whereas the obscure manuscript is formal and much older). The title text also refers to the fact that [http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/ Language Log] is frequently used for Wikipedia citations.

Language Log is a blog that posts content relating to language and linguistics, including things like malapropisms and portmanteaus. While an informal source, it has produced new linguistic terms before, such as {{w|eggcorn}}. Its comments sections frequently contain discussions and arguments about English, whose participants are probably the same people who write Wikipedia articles about linguistic phenomena like malamanteaus. In actual fact, [http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2758 Malamanteau] did not appear on Language Log until after this strip. Malamanteau has since been referenced on the Language Log website, with a link to the comic in question. Language Log has referenced xkcd many times before, reposting the comics and linking to the xkcd website.

The title text jokingly refers to the "malamanteau" citations being Language Log references and a document from the 1490s, in reference to the fact that linguists, like those who post on Language Log, often use old documents as evidence, possibly to prove that construction is a longstanding feature of the language. The joke is that the only references to this word or concept are a 500-year-old document and linguists informally arguing about what it means. In reality, if these citations were the only evidence of the term's use, then it would be unlikely to be a notable feature worthy of a Wikipedia article. Most articles that are only cited by a single website tend to get deleted unless the subject has achieved significant coverage in outside news media.

The comic shows Wikipedia as it would have looked at the beginning of May 2010, using its then-current logo and the then-default “Monobook” skin. Incidentally, just a day after the comic’s publication, a new version of the {{w|Wikipedia logo}} was published, and the default skin was [[mw:Special:Code/MediaWiki/66383|switched]] to the “Vector” skin. Both of these still define the look of Wikipedia as of 2021 (though Vector undergoes continuous updates).

==Transcript==
:[The strip is set up as the top of a Wikipedia page.]
:[The Wikipedia logo.]
:Wikipedia
:The free encyclopedia
:[Side navigation options.]
:Navigation
:-Main Page
:-Contents
:-Featured Content
:-Current Events
:[Wikipedia header options.]
:Article Discussion Edit this page History
:[The article itself.]
:Malamanteau
:From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
:A malamanteau is a neologism for a portmanteau created by incorrectly combining a malapropism with a neologism. It is itself a portmanteau of [...the article cuts off.]
:[Below the panel.]
:Ever notice how Wikipedia has a few words it ''really'' likes?

==External links==
*[http://wiki.xkcd.com/irc/Malamanteau Malamanteau] at the xkcd wiki
*[http://malamanteaus.blogspot.com/ Malamanteaus], a blog dedicated to the creation and proliferation of malamanteaux
*[http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Malamanteau Malamanteau] at urbandictionary.com
*[http://wordsquirt.com/Word/View/Malamanteau/dbb34d48-e565-4012-bcc8-56718f351712 Malamanteau] at wordsquirt.com
*[http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/index.php?s=malamanteau Entries referencing "malamanteau"] at LanguageLog.com
*Malamanteau Talk Page Archives {{w|Talk:Malamanteau/Archive 1|1}} and {{w|Talk:Malamanteau/Archive 2|2}} at Wikipedia.com
*{{w|Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Malamanteau}}
*{{w|File:Malamanteau page history.jpg|Screen capture}} of the deleted history for the "Malamanteau" page from Wikipedia
*[//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&page=Malamanteau Wikipedia Log for "Malamanteau"]
*Beutler, William (May 5, 2010) "[http://thewikipedian.net/2010/05/18/much-ado-about-malamanteau/ Much Ado About Malamanteau]". ''The Wikipedian''
*McKean, Erin (May 30, 2010) "[http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2010/05/30/one_day_wonder/ One Day Wonder]". ''The Boston Globe''
*R.L.G (Nov 4th 2010) "[http://www.economist.com/blogs/johnson/2010/11/neologisms Eggcorn, mashup, malamanteau or other?]". ''The Economonist''
*July 17, 2007 "[http://ask.metafilter.com/67192/How-to-define-this-language-mistake How to define this language mistake?]" - MetaFilter thread with the first usage

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Wikipedia]]
[[Category:CC-BY-SA comics]]
[[Category:Portmanteau‏‎]]

75: Curse Levels

2021-04-17T14:42:34Z

Galaktos: /* Explanation */ link Wikipedia and expand on offensiveness of “cunt”

{{comic
| number = 75
| date = March 13, 2006
| title = Curse Levels
| image = curse levels.jpg
| titletext = I find so much fun in language.
}}

==Explanation==
In this fourth "[[My Hobby]]" strip, the hobby is mixing curse levels. Curse words (aka: swear words/profanities) are disrespectful words that are typically impolite to use in public. As noted in the strip, there are "levels" of curse words ranging from those "mild" words that are more acceptable to use, to those "severe" words that are considered very impolite (the milder curse words can be used on network television in the US, for example, while severe ones can not). One usually uses milder cursing because either they personally don't feel comfortable using the more severe words, or because it would not be appropriate in the context (such as on network television, in the presence of children, etc.) Thus, mixing mild and severe curses in one usage does not usually occur, as the effect achieved by keeping the one curse word mild is negated by using another that is severe.

In a mild curse, "gosh-darned" is typically used as a {{w|minced oath}} of "God-damned" when the latter would be inappropriate. This is mixed with "{{w|cunt}}" — a vulgar term for the female genitalia, considered the most offensive swear word in many English-speaking countries.

==Transcript==
:My hobby: mixing curse levels
:Cueball: What a gosh-darned cunt.

{{Comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:My Hobby]]
[[Category:Language]]

Template:w

2021-04-17T11:18:43Z

Galaktos: apply {{ucfirst:}} to link target, to make the “have I visited that page before” link style more accurate

<includeonly>[[wikipedia:{{#if:{{{1|}}}|{{ucfirst:{{{1}}}}}{{!}}{{{2|{{{1|}}}}}}]]|{{ucfirst:{{PAGENAME}}}}{{!}}{{PAGENAME}}]] at [[wikipedia:|Wikipedia]]}}</includeonly><noinclude>
A template to make a link to Wikipedia.

==Usage==
*<code><nowiki>{{w}}</nowiki></code> by itself links to the wikipedia page for the page you use the template on
**{{w}}
*<code><nowiki>{{w|Page}}</nowiki></code> links to the wikipedia article on "Page"
**{{w|Page}}
*<code><nowiki>{{w|Page|Display}}</nowiki></code> prints "Display" which links to the wikipedia article on "Page"
**{{w|Page|Display}}

The first character of the link target is automatically capitalized, such that e.g. <code><nowiki>{{w|xkcd}}</nowiki></code> ({{w|xkcd}}) and <code><nowiki>{{w|Xkcd|xkcd}}</nowiki></code> ({{w|Xkcd|xkcd}}) both link to the same URL. (Wikipedia page titles never start with a lowercase character, though {{w|WP:DISPLAYTITLE|they can display with alternative capitalization}}.)

[[Category:Templates]]
</noinclude>

1398: Snake Facts

2021-04-17T11:06:40Z

Galaktos: /* Explanation */ don’t capitalize “green anaconda”

{{comic
| number = 1398
| date = July 23, 2014
| title = Snake Facts
| image = snake facts.png
| titletext = Biologically speaking, what we call a 'snake' is actually a human digestive tract which has escaped from its host.
}}

==Explanation==
The comic lists a few ''{{w|Lie|factoids}}'' about snakes, ranging from the mildly informative to the strictly {{w|tongue-in-cheek}}.

The first factoid references the hypothesis that {{w|snake venom}} {{w|Evolution of snake venom|was an evolutionary development of}} {{w|saliva}} that, over time, gradually became more toxic as snakes with saliva that was able to assist in subduing their prey possessed an evolutionary advantage. It then posits that the evolutionary branch that developed into venomous snakes began with a snake whose mutation gave him a mouth that was 'slightly more gross than usual', probably in reference to {{w|bad breath}}.

Additionally, the comic illustration accompanying the second factoid colors in a '{{w|habitat}} range' on a map of South America that is snake-shaped, implying that when it states 'The longest snake is found in {{w|Brazil}}, {{w|Peru}}, and {{w|Chile}}' that this snake is so long that it literally stretches from Brazil, across part of Peru, into Chile, and that the 'habitat' shaded on the map is, in fact, this mammoth snake's {{w|silhouette}}. The age, length and location of the snake are so exaggerated that they are obviously untrue, but may be a reference to the {{w|green anaconda}}, one of the world's largest snakes, which inhabits this region.

The final factoid is entirely tongue-in-cheek. Many factoids come in the form "If you laid all the X end to end, Y would occur" (e.g. "If you laid all the veins and arteries in the human body end-to-end, they would stretch 60,000 miles"). The Y portion of the factoid is supposed to be surprising; therefore, it is ironic that the factoid in the comic, "If you laid all the bones in a snake end to end, you would have a snake.", is obvious and not at all exciting. Clearly, you would not have an entire snake, literally, but you would have a skeleton that was recognizably that of a snake and could reasonably be referred to as 'a snake'.

The title text presents the amusing idea that 'snakes' as we know them are not, in fact, a suborder of reptiles but are instead human {{w|digestive tract}}s that, rather than being a system of organs, are creatures capable of escaping from their 'host' human and living independently. The idea seems to follow from the superficial resemblance between snakes and the human digestive tract as long, roughly tubular collections of animal matter, which can process the food entering the top end, and get rid of the waste through the other end.

[[Randall]] had previously posted an [[Media:snake facts old.png|incorrect map]], that included the snake's habitat in {{w|Bolivia}} instead of Peru.

==Transcript==
:'''Snake Facts:'''
:Snake venom evolved from saliva, which means that it all started with a snake whose mouth was sliiiightly more gross than usual.
:[Picture of a snake below the text above.]
:Snake: Hi guys!
:Off-panel voice: Eww, it's Frank.
:[Map of South America with gray shade in the form of a snake. Text to the left of it.]
:The world's longest snake is found in Brazil, Peru, and Chile. It is believed to be over 60 years old.
:[Picture of a snake skeleton between the first and the second of the lines below.]
:If you laid all the bones in a snake end-to-end,
:you would have a snake

==Trivia==
Given the habitat listed for the second factoid, it is likely the comic is referring to the Green Anaconda ''({{w|Eunectes murinus}})''.
*The Green Anaconda's habitat range includes Colombia, Venezuela, the Guianas, Ecuador, Bolivia, Brazil, Peru, the island of Trinidad, and Paraguay.
*The Green Anaconda is one of the longest snakes in the world reaching more than 6.6 m long.
*Anacondas generally do not live beyond 20 years in captivity, and likely less in the wild.
*Since anacondas are reported to continue growing throughout their lives, a 60 year old specimen would likely be the longest snake in the world.
*The Reticulated Python ''({{w|Python reticulatus}})'' is recognized as the longest, but not heaviest, snake and grow to more than 6.95 m.
*The Reticulated Python's habitat is in Southeast Asia.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Animals]]
[[Category:Biology]]

2450: Post Vaccine Social Scheduling

2021-04-16T08:52:40Z

Galaktos: /* Explanation */ “both times” → “twice”

{{comic
| number = 2450
| date = April 14, 2021
| title = Post Vaccine Social Scheduling
| image = post_vaccine_social_scheduling.png
| titletext = As if these problems weren't NP-hard enough.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by an UNVACCINATED MOVIEGOER. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
The comic shows a timeline of a multitude of (presumably) friends and acquaintances getting two doses of SARS-CoV-2 vaccine. Due to the recommended delay between shots, as well as few weeks needed to build antibodies after the second shot, planning get-togethers becomes complicated by who is free to meet, or not yet.

The diagram is some form of Scheduling Diagram, maybe akin to a {{w|Gantt chart}}, which helps to coordinate the status of several individual 'processes' (personal vaccination schedules) and demonstrate where dependent activities (meet-ups) are mutually possible.

Eventually, everyone can start getting together, but during the time where some people have only received one dose, or neither dose, or their second dose recently, the scheduling is complicated. The complication is increased by the fact that people who have received one or two doses of vaccine, but haven't gone through the whole waiting period, can be expected to have some protection, but possibly not full protection (as represented by the dashed line). In that case, there's the added question of how important it is that the person be at an event, and how much risk the people involved are willing to tolerate. This may be the reason for the "movie" set, in which all participants will have received both doses, but one will not have completed the final waiting period.

The title text references NP-hardness, a theme that has come up in past comics. {{w|NP-hardness}} describes a particular level of computational difficulty. Scheduling problems are normally NP-hard. But when extra challenges such as having to deal with whether or not people are vaccinated they become even more difficult.

In this case though, {{w|Critical Path}} dependencies seem trivial enough. Events (vertical lozanges across the dot-marked timelines of those included) are trivial to validate as possible for those selected to attend. Fixed events in time can be scanned to show all those allowed to participate at that moment. Movable events can be rescheduled until (enough of) those hoped to be included are 'valid'. Complications may arise for those whose presence relies upon [[2441|the status of others]] potentially attending, or the need to maintain time between two events (in either order) with part-shared attendees as a precautionary 'cool-down' isolation. It is not obvious that either of these issues factor in, any more than basic scheduling conflicts would.

The third person being scheduled for a movie before being fully vaccinated may be a direct reference to [[2441: IMDb Vaccines]], discussing the number of people that needs to be vaccinated to record a particular scene. Other than each line's identifying portrait (which are not of the Throne Room characters) no explicit age/vulnerability information is given to justify this, presumably the chart's users are aware of the specifics.

The third person in the table is included in a movie viewing (for which masks could be worn) shortly after their second immunization, but not included in dinner group until full benefit of vaccine. CDC guidelines permit vaccinated individuals to visit inside a home or private setting without a mask with one household of unvaccinated people who are not at risk for severe illness. Therefore the movie gathering conforms to CDC recommendations provided that the single unvaccinated person is not at increased risk of severe illness and the movie is in a home or private setting.

The third person in the table appears to have received the second shot twice. This is possibly a reference to [[2422: Vaccine Ordering]].

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[From top to bottom, there are eleven people standing on the left side of the image: Danish, Cueball #1, Hairbun, Black Hat, Ponytail, Science Girl, White Hat, Hairy, Blondie, Cueball #2, and Megan, with even-numbered characters standing slightly further to the left. Each character’s first and second doses of the vaccine are labelled ① and ②, respectively. The time before each character’s first dose is drawn with a grey solid line; the time between their first dose and after they are fully vaccinated (two weeks after their second dose) is drawn with a grey dashed line; and the time after they are fully vaccinated is drawn with a black solid line. Black Hat, Science Girl, Blondie, Cueball #2, and Megan have all received their first doses prior to the comic’s time frame. Social activities are drawn with a ellipse around the top and bottom members, and each participating character is identified with a large filled-in circle on their timeline. The ellipses are labelled:]
: DINNER GAMES MOVIE BIRTHDAY DINNER CABIN

:[The events that happen, in chronological order (from left to right), are:

* Cueball #1 receives his first dose;
* Blondie receives her second dose;
* Ponytail receives her first dose;
* Hairy receives his first dose;
* White Hat receives his first dose;
* Danish receives her first dose;
* Black Hat receives his second dose;
* Blondie is fully vaccinated;
* Science Girl receives her second dose;
* Cueball #2 receives his second dose;
* Megan receives her second dose;
* Hairbun receives her first dose (erroneously labelled as ②);
* Ponytail receives her second dose;
* Black Hat is fully vaccinated;
* Black Hat and Blondie go to dinner;
* Danish receives her second dose;
* Cueball #1 receives his second dose;
* Science Girl is fully vaccinated;
* Cueball #2 is fully vaccinated;
* Megan is fully vaccinated;
* Hairy receives his second dose;
* White Hat receives his second dose;
* Science Girl, Blondie, Cueball #2, and Megan play games;
* Ponytail is fully vaccinated;
* Hairbun receives her second dose;
* Hairbun, Black Hat, and Ponytail go to the movies or make a movie (the label is just "Movie");
* Danish is fully vaccinated;
* Cueball #1 is fully vaccinated;
* Hairy is fully vaccinated;
* White Hat is fully vaccinated;
* Danish, Cueball #1, Ponytail, White Hat, and Hairy attend a birthday party;
* Hairbun is fully vaccinated;
* Hairbun and Blondie go to dinner;
* Black Hat, Science Girl, White Hat, Hairy, and Cueball #2 go to a cabin.

:[Caption below the panel:]
:Post-Vaccine Social Scheduling

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category: COVID-19]]
[[Category: COVID-19 vaccine]]
[[Category: Timelines]]
[[Category: Programming]]
[[Category: Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category: Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category: Comics featuring Hairy]]
[[Category: Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category: Comics featuring Hairbun]]
[[Category: Comics featuring Blondie]]
[[Category: Comics featuring Science Girl]]
[[Category: Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category: Comics featuring Danish]]
[[Category: Comics featuring Black Hat]]

1577: Advent

2021-04-10T11:46:09Z

Galaktos: /* Explanation */ clarify a few dozen

{{comic
| number = 1577
| date = September 14, 2015
| title = Advent
| image = advent.png
| titletext = The few dozen doors that have little Christmas trees on them are a nice touch.
}}

==Explanation==
An {{w|Advent calendar}} is usually a means of celebrating the days before Christmas. Each day on the calendar is represented by a "door" (a flap of card), behind which is usually a picture related to the Christian nativity, a picture of commercial Christmas (e.g. a present), a small chocolate, or a small gift. This comic satirizes the concept by proposing such a calendar that would have one gift for each day one is anticipated to live. Such a calendar would be very morbid and existential. This is especially disturbing when given as a gift because it implies someone has put extensive thought into when the recipient will die.

In [[Cueball|Cueball's]] case, assuming each square in the calendar represents one day, the wall he is facing is the entire present he received and the boxes just out of view follow the same pattern, the entire wall represents 16,800 days (a large grid of 12x20 smaller grids of 10x7 boxes: 12×20×10×7 = 16,800), i.e. just under 46 more years (16,800/365.25 = 45.99589).

Assuming that Cueball is a male from the US and the grid represents his life expectancy, according to American Official Social Security [http://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html Actuarial Life Table] for males, he is probably 31.9 years old [http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=32*x+%2B+y+%3D+45.9%3B+31*x+%2B+y+%3D+46.83%3B+z*x+%2B+y+%3D+45.99589]. This would make [[Cueball]] almost exactly one year older than [[Randall]], who was born October 17, 1984 making him 30.9 years old when he wrote this comic. Due to the non-linear shape of the mortality curve, the chance of Cueball making it to the end of his calendar is 57.7%, at which point he will need to get another calendar but with only 9.2 years worth of doors.

The title text refers back to a standard advent calendar by saying that the Christmases are specially marked; on a traditional Advent calendar, only the 1st to the 24th of December have doors, however in recent times, Advent calendars often also include an additional door for the day after Advent, Christmas Day. A few dozen may be any small number of dozens, and 3 5/6 dozens (46) is aptly described by ''a few dozen''; see [[1070: Words for Small Sets]]. Any dictionary (for example [http://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/dozen Oxford Learner's Dictionaries]) says that a dozen may be an approximate number, not exactly 12.

A completely different advent calendar was mentioned in [[994: Advent Calendar]].

Similar calendars have been mentioned in the blog ''Wait But Why'' in the 2014 post [http://waitbutwhy.com/2014/05/life-weeks.html Your Life in Weeks], and in equally geeky webcomic ''Abstruse Goose'', in the 2008 post [http://abstrusegoose.com/51 936 Little Blobs].

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is looking at a large wall subdivided into a rectangular 20 x 12 grid, with each grid subdivided into 10x7 small drawers. Below the frame there is a caption:]
:Unsettling gift: Life expectancy Advent calendar

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Philosophy]]
[[Category:Christmas]]
[[Category: Calendar]]

597: Addiction

2021-04-02T17:21:39Z

Galaktos: /* Explanation */ change “used a computer” to more general “used the internet” – I think an IRC-enabled phone would have been an option in 2009 already

{{comic
| number = 597
| date = June 15, 2009
| title = Addiction
| image = addiction.png
| titletext = But if you unplug everything, it gets so quiet you hear that high-pitched empty-room hum. And then the whispers begin.
}}

==Explanation==
[[Megan]] is attempting to stay a weekend at home without the {{w|Internet}} as she feels the constant exposure to novelty (from her {{w|internet surfing}}) saps her own initiative. She writes a "last" on-line message about her resolution to [[Cueball]], but he writes back that he doubts she can do it for even one hour.

She turns off her computer (or at least the screen) and stands up triumphantly next to it, however then she logs right back on to write to Cueball that it's not half bad being off-line, thus violating her original attempt as she clearly used the internet to send the message to Cueball. She doesn't even realize she did this until Cueball replies with the written sound ''Ahem?'' proving he was right about less than one hour.

Very typical of people having some kind of {{w|addiction}}, in this case for being on-line, they may not even realize when they indulge into it, which is the case with Megan here.

The title text elaborates on Megan's addiction, saying that when she turns off all of the machines in the room, it results in an "empty-room hum". This is a high pitched buzzing noise, which [http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_high_pitched_humming_sound_often_heard_in_an_otherwise_empty_and_silent_room it is suggested] results from the brain increasing its sensitivity to noises. This is a fairly normal experience, but the "{{w|Auditory hallucination|whispers}}" mentioned may be slightly more sinister, as this is frequently associated as a sign of {{w|schizophrenia}}. See also [[1590: The Source]].

==Transcript==
:[Close up of Cueball typing at his computer. Megan's text message to him can be seen coming from the screen with a zigzag line, and Cueball writes a response as seen from the line going from his hand on the keyboard up to his message.]
:Megan (through the computer): Constant novelty saps my initiative. I'm gonna try to spend a weekend at home without internet.
:Cueball (writing): I give you an hour.

:[Megan is standing up, she turns off the computer in front of her by clicking on a button on the screen. Her office chair has rolled back behind her.]
:Click

:[Megan stands in front of the computer arms in her sides. Beat panel.]

:[Zoom out with Cueball sitting in his office chair typing a reply on his computer to the message from Megan as in the first panel.]
:Megan (through the computer): So far, it's not actually too bad!
:Cueball (writing): Ahem?
:Megan (through the computer): Wait. Shit.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Computers]]
[[Category:Internet]]