explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Talk:884: Rogers St.

2020-08-25T06:50:01Z

HumaneEngineer: Comment

In the UK, "Rogers" is also a verb. Added to this, "Mr Rogers" does not carry the same cultural references.
All in all Mr Rogers sounds like a great name for a UK Porn Star. {{unsigned ip|188.29.119.251}}
:Oh wow, I didn't know that. Not only is "rogers" a verb, but it's a verb which means to have sexual intercourse.{{unsigned ip|98.203.241.55}}
::Absolutely! It's a perfect British porn name. It's a legitimately normal name, but also very clearly means "Mr. Furiously-Bones". A friend of a friend had the double-barrelled surname "Rogers-England", which is a bit like being called "... Does-Dallas". [[User:YorkshirePudding|YorkshirePudding]] ([[User talk:YorkshirePudding|talk]]) 22:13, 12 July 2019 (UTC)
::To be honest ''most'' verbs mean "to have sexual intercourse", given the chance. Google it! *fnar fnar* (And most nouns mean naughty bits of the body. In fact, I've just been listening to a radio programme about (Doctor) David Livingston, explorer of Africa. There arose the question of "Is it ''really'' true that he took his wife up the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zambezi Zambezi]?" Momentary mental boggle ensues.) [[Special:Contributions/178.99.81.144|178.99.81.144]] 18:58, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
:::That observation is so true. That's why banning words is counterproductive. It leads to people talking unintentionally about the banned subject all the time. And a hilarious example! [[User:Mumiemonstret|Mumiemonstret]] ([[User talk:Mumiemonstret|talk]]) 15:39, 4 December 2014 (UTC)
Wait, does this mean Randall had a child with Mrs. Roberts? {{unsigned ip|199.27.128.145}}

The character's hair is reminiscent of Ron Jeremy [[Special:Contributions/108.162.237.64|108.162.237.64]] 05:50, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

Bobbys last appearance before this one was in 345 and in fact in 327 he is not seen IIRC --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.89.235|162.158.89.235]] 14:59, 18 December 2019 (UTC)
:You're correct, IP address, Little Bobby was not present at his first mention in #327. [[User:HumaneEngineer|HumaneEngineer]] ([[User talk:HumaneEngineer|talk]]) 06:50, 25 August 2020 (UTC)
:It's logical that he has changed, since his other appeareance was chronologically before BitTorrent was first imagined. {{unsigned ip|162.158.93.225|11:05, 3 March 2020}}

Talk:984: Space Launch System

2018-09-27T02:01:39Z

HumaneEngineer:

But then we built a whole pile of rockets after that. Apollo, moon landing, mars rover, etc. Boo Black Hat.06:53, 2 February 2013 (UTC)
:"Apollo, moon landing" -- that is, in fact, the Saturn V, built by von Braun, captured Nazi scientist, and his team, largely captured Nazi scientists. Yes, other rockets were built after the Saturn V, but as pointed out in the strip, none have been bigger or more powerful. "Finally, rockets that improve on the ones we had 40 years ago."
:The first Mars lander (true, not a rover), Viking I, was launched on an Titan/Centaur. The Centaur was a co-creation of Krafft A. Ehricke, nazi scientist.
:Mars Sojourner, a rover, part of the Mars Pathfinder mission, was launched on a Delta II rocket. The Delta family of rockets are based on the Thor ballistic missile. The Thor was originally co-developed by Dr. Adolph K. Thiel, Nazi scientist.
:You see where this is going? {{unsigned|212.149.48.43}}

Technically, von Braun wasn't captured. He voluntarily defected. He was wandering Germany because he had chosen to no longer support Hitler, so to stay at the concentration camp where he worked, or anywhere where a Nazi soldier could find him was suicide, so he escaped and was wandering out alone. He surrendered and defected to the first allied troops he saw, which just happened to be American. This is why he worked on the space programme instead of being shot on sight. By the time he was building American rockets, he hadn't been a Nazi for years.[[Special:Contributions/76.29.225.28|76.29.225.28]] 14:40, 4 July 2013 (UTC)
:You're way off the mark. He was never opposed to the Nazis per se, but did understandably start grumbling a bit when he realized this Endsieg thing wasn't really working out. He and his team left the base because they, again understandably, did not want to be prisoners of the Red Army and Soviet Russia. Then, when the Americans finally caught up with them, he surrendered himself, avoiding execution by guards at the same time. --[[User:Qwach|Qwach]] ([[User talk:Qwach|talk]]) 02:19, 1 September 2013 (UTC)
:"He hadn't been a Nazi for years" -- really, this is begging the question of how you determine whether someone "is a Nazi" or not. Would you say that anyone who ever joined the Nazi party "is a Nazi," despite the fact that many of them probably did so for social expedience rather than because they actually agreed with Nazi philosophy? And would you then ignore the fact that many modern-day skinheads or neo-nazi's aren't formally registered with any national-socialist party? And, if you get around this problem by ignoring party registration altogether, and you simply say that someone "is a Nazi" if they hold views which concur with the views of the Nazi party, then how do you measure someone's views? How do you determine whether someone's views are sufficiently-similar to the Nazi party's to call them a Nazi? If someone were to say "sure, I hate Jews, but we probably shouldn't murder them all," would they be sufficiently Nazi-esque to "be a Nazi" or would their dissent make them "not a Nazi?" In conclusion, to say conclusively that von Braun "was a Nazi" or "wasn't a Nazi" at any particular point in time is probably nearly impossible, and not worth our time. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.249|108.162.221.249]] 19:12, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

So he was one of the good guys?
Not like the other guards and related personnel who didn't want anyone to know they were intimately involved in any of what they were so intimately involved with?
Someone tell me how the USA isn't a working example of Nazi Germany.[[User:Weatherlawyer| I used Google News BEFORE it was clickbait]] ([[User talk:Weatherlawyer|talk]]) 08:01, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

:This may be quite late but I'd like to point out that von Braun was not just member of the NSDAP (the Nazi party) but of the SS as well which goes beyond simple opportunism or group pressure. And he actually visited concentration camps and even selected "workers" (for V2 production) personally, so there is no doubt that von Braun was a Nazi war criminal. He was just never convicted because he was too useful (which was unfortunately the rule rather than an exception at the time). --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.90.78|162.158.90.78]] 19:45, 18 April 2018 (UTC)

;Incomplete

Oh, this comic is one of the "more complex" ones. The time line (not the comic sequence) is starting with the US failures to archive space flight in the 1950's, then referring to Nazis, and by the end we are on the current US space policy, which is also highly questionable.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 19:51, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Not sure what you mean by one of the "more complex" ones, it is actually pretty straightforward. Some nitpicking though: there was no US failure to achieve space flight in the 50s; both the US and the USSR did it within 4 months of each other at the end of 1957/beginning of 1958. A little history lesson:
The Space Race didn't begin until July of 1955, when the US announced its intention to launch Earth-orbiting satellites sometime between July 1st 1957 and December 31st 1958. The USSR followed suit shortly afterwards, and by the end of August 1955 the Soviet Academy of Sciences created a commission (i.e. offered support and possibly some sort of incentive) for the sole purpose of beating the US into space - which they ended up doing with Sputnik 1 (10/04/57) and 2 (11/03/57). The creation of that commission is considered the start of the space race. The US launched its first successful satellite a few months after the Sputniks, the Explorer 1, on February 1, 1958, well within what most people would call the 1950s. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.80|108.162.216.80]] 19:53, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Which is not to say that Maria Cary is a rocket scientist or not, as the case may be.[[User:Weatherlawyer| I used Google News BEFORE it was clickbait]] ([[User talk:Weatherlawyer|talk]]) 08:21, 22 January 2015 (UTC)
Doh Shania Twain. (It's amazing what you can learn when you check your spelling.)[[User:Weatherlawyer| I used Google News BEFORE it was clickbait]] ([[User talk:Weatherlawyer|talk]]) 08:21, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Amazing how Randall can take heinous ideas of which any rational person would be ashamed to even think, put them in the mouth of Blackhat, and it's not only fine, but hilarious. Bravo. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.236|108.162.219.236]] 18:41, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

"Once the rockets go up, who cares where they come down? That's not my department..."[[Special:Contributions/173.245.50.174|173.245.50.174]] 04:40, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Personally, I don't get why using Nazi scientists is considered abhorrent. The fuckers who gassed Jews just for the hell of it? Yes, they're despicable. But the rocket scientists who built spacecraft? Fact is, they knew what they were doing, and were good to further our technology. They're ability to advance science is a positive quality, which does not in any way diminish their horrible qualities. Like all human beings, they had a good part, even if their bad vastly overshadows it. [[User:HumaneEngineer|HumaneEngineer]] ([[User talk:HumaneEngineer|talk]]) 02:01, 27 September 2018 (UTC)

Talk:1731: Wrong

2018-09-27T00:11:19Z

HumaneEngineer: First discussion I've ever joined

I wrote up a first explanation of the comic. Someone else also added in a sentence, which nicely merged in to the explanation. Still needs revision and links to articles, as well as an explanation of the title text [[Special:Contributions/172.68.35.81|172.68.35.81]] 04:38, 9 September 2016 (UTC)

Uh... what do you mean by "just a few sentences to kick this off"??? I don't know how to fix this because I don't understand what you mean. [[User:JayRulesXKCD|JayRulesXKCD]] ([[User talk:JayRulesXKCD|talk]]) 7:52, 9 September 2016 (EDT)
: Oh, sorry. While I was writing up an explanation, KangaroOS put in the sentence "Some people are just too prideful to admit that they are inherently fallible. White Hat is one of those people." and put in that tag. When I went to save it, it told me I had to merge our revisions, which worked fine, but I just forgot to merge the tags. [[User:Yosho27|Yosho27]] ([[User talk:Yosho27|talk]]) 13:01, 9 September 2016 (UTC)
: Also, if anyone's looking at the article history "172.68.35.81" and "Yosho27" are both me (I signed in halfway through) [[User:Yosho27|Yosho27]] ([[User talk:Yosho27|talk]]) 13:12, 9 September 2016 (UTC)

mansplaining much? --[[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.84|141.101.98.84]] 11:55, 9 September 2016 (UTC)
: I don't think so. [[User:Elektrizikekswerk|Elektrizikekswerk]] ([[User talk:Elektrizikekswerk|talk]]) 12:29, 9 September 2016 (UTC)
: I would dispute that Megan isn't sure what she's talking about. It seems to me that she only sounds uncertain because she is trying to be polite; this is a common strategy for women in particular. (As evidence, note that I started the previous sentence with "it seems to me" instead of an assertion of fact, and the one before that is in the subjunctive mood.) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.214.222|162.158.214.222]] 18:01, 19 September 2016 (UTC)
:Worth pointing out that other comics that could be interpreted as mansplaining have had this potential explanation purged. It is my understanding that alternative possible explanations/ of the jokes were encouraged, and many explanations include what seem to be relatively unlikely alternatives. Manplaining is apparently the only one that is verboten. I won't speculate as to why. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.75.39|162.158.75.39]] 22:59, 24 September 2016 (UTC)
::Couldn't you imagine a woman behaving like White Hat? If you can, then that shows gender has nothing to do with the joke. [[User:HumaneEngineer|HumaneEngineer]] ([[User talk:HumaneEngineer|talk]]) 00:11, 27 September 2018 (UTC)

Any reference to "Somebody's WRONG on the Internet!"? [[386: Duty Calls]] [[User:KieferSkunk|KieferSkunk]] ([[User talk:KieferSkunk|talk]]) 18:51, 9 September 2016 (UTC)
: Went ahead and added it. :) [[User:KieferSkunk|KieferSkunk]] ([[User talk:KieferSkunk|talk]]) 19:15, 9 September 2016 (UTC)

Hope someone can comment on the theory of the abstraction of particles White Hat gets into in the last panel. Seems like the only part missing so far. I like this comic! ;-) --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 20:34, 9 September 2016 (UTC)

Not really a Quantum physicist, but I read that it's *theoretically* possible (and seen in some particle expierements at the LHC) for a very specific arrangement of quarks to make a (superheavy) "Proton" that contains Antimatter (Anti-quarks)... A Pentaquark. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentaquark [[Special:Contributions/108.162.242.133|108.162.242.133]] 23:56, 9 September 2016 (UTC)

While not really part of objects, there are plenty of {{w|positron}}s (antielectrons) around: they are produced by radioactive decay, can appear in thunderstorms, are used in nuclear medicine. There is enough radioactive isotope of potassium in average human body to produce thousands of positrons per second. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 22:26, 10 September 2016 (UTC)

Is there a technical definition of "object" I am unaware of that excludes hypothetical and abstract objects? What is it that makes a flux capacitor not an object? Or public opinion? Or indeed a sphere made of antimatter? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.52|108.162.219.52]] 15:36, 12 September 2016 (UTC)larK

It doesn't sound like the title text is literally what White Hat is saying, but rather someone else summarizing their statements in a mocking way. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.212.92|108.162.212.92]] 23:28, 10 September 2016 (UTC)

I wonder if his thought (I'm wrong) ended up annihilated as if matter came into contact with antimatter...a bit of irony considering he WAS wrong about the antimatter assertion. Add if you think it makes sense. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.34.124|172.68.34.124]]

I just wanted to comment on the nature of particles being abstractions from quantum field theory. Look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_field_theory in the section marked "Implications". It contains references to "particle-like" and "field-like" objects. The mathematics demonstrate artifacts that appear to correspond to the particles. However, does that mean that particle is a result of the mathematics or the mathematics represent the particle. If a particle is something that can be observed, how can it be an abstraction? The particle is a real object whose behavior can be described more or less accurately by the mathematics. Now, if you had a virtual world inside a computer where Quantum Field Theory is used to determine the location of particles, then particles would be abstract data arising from Quantum Field Theory. I realize that this sounds confusing, and I am trying to think of how to word this more clearly. [[User:BradleyRoss|BradleyRoss]] ([[User talk:BradleyRoss|talk]]) 15:58, 13 June 2017 (UTC)
:I'm not a particle physicist, so my understanding is just that of a layman. I believe what this part of QFT tries to deal with is literally HOW the particle can exist (I don't think anyone is trying to say it doesn't exist). So QFT is a mathematical theory that attempts to describes a field (similar to electromagnetic field) that is underlying the particles, the excitations in this field are thought to give rise to the particle, I believe this is why the term 'abstraction' is used. [[User:WamSam|WamSam]] ([[User talk:WamSam|talk]]) 10:08, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

What if his thoughts were erased retroactively after him "observing" he was wrong? A la the result of that double-field experiment where observing the electrons changes the result (can't remember the name as of now)? [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.77|141.101.99.77]] 12:15, 16 June 2017 (UTC)
: You're thinking of the double-slit experiment, where light changes behavior from a particle to a wave after a measuring device recorded its motion. Here's a great animation explaininng it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfPeprQ7oGc [[User:HumaneEngineer|HumaneEngineer]] ([[User talk:HumaneEngineer|talk]]) 00:11, 27 September 2018 (UTC)