explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

985: Percentage Points

2019-07-03T19:38:51Z

KangaroOS: /* Explanation */ this is also not the way to use dashes

{{comic
| number = 985
| date = December 2, 2011
| title = Percentage Points
| image = percentage_points.png
| titletext = Grayton also proposed making college scholarships available exclusively to sexually active teens, amnesty for illegal immigrants who create room for themselves by killing a citizen, and a graduated income tax based on penis size. He has been endorsed by Tracy Morgan, John Wilkes Booth's ghost, and the Time Cube guy.
}}

==Explanation==
Senator Grayton is a fictional character, made up for this comic, which is unusual for xkcd, which typically uses real-world references.

The issues that Grayton supports:

*Tax Breaks to Drunk Drivers: Grayton proposes giving those who have been convicted of a {{w|DUI}} or DWI (i.e. Driving Under the Influence or Driving While Intoxicated) money back on their taxes, when those infractions are typically severely penalized, as drunk driving has resulted in numerous deaths.
*{{w|Predator Drones}} and the {{w|Christmas controversy|War on Christmas}}: The War on {{w|Christmas}} is not a real war; it is simply the perception by some {{w|Christian}}s that non-Christians are trying to replace traditional Christmas imagery with more inclusive and generic holiday customs. No politicians have explicitly announced their support of the "War on Christmas," and the idea that one would not only do so, but would also want to use drones—ostensibly to harm or possibly kill people—in the effort is an absurd exaggeration of a relatively harmless culture war.

The term {{w|percentage point}} is used to overcome an abiguity when comparing two percentages. Assuming an original sample of 1,000,000 people, where 20% approve of Senator Grayton. However, it could also refer to a lead of a 20% point margin.

'''Reduction of a stated number by a percentage'''
:When the original value is given as a number, there is no ambiguity. In the statement below the only possible conclusion is that now only 162,000 people approve of Grayton.
:''Previously 200,000 people approved of Senator Grayton, and then his approval rating dropped by 19%.''

'''Reduction of a percentage by a percentage'''
:When the original approval rating is given as a percentage (20% in the comic), then a reduction of 19% has two possible meanings:
:1) Of the 20% who previously approved (200,000 people), 19% no longer approve. In this case the result is 162,000 as in the above example.
:2) Compared to the original results, 19% fewer of the entire original sample of 1 million people approve. In this case only 1% of the original 1 million approve, equal to 10,000 people.

If using the second method of comparing percentages, the approvals rating should be described as having dropped by 19 percentage points. In reality, the distinction between the two methods is often overlooked, leading to confusion.

The caption's issue with "percentage" versus "percentage points" is that if Grayton's 20% approval rating drops by 19%, that means that his support has only dropped 3.8 percentage points since 19% of 20% is only 3.8%. That would mean that even after all his outrageous statements, his support dropped only from 20% to 16.2%. However, if the news reports that his 20% approval rating dropped 19 ''percentage points'', that means his support has dropped to 1%, which appears to be more accurate given Grayton's egregious policy decisions and the description of his campaign as having "imploded."

The punchline to all this is that Randall is more bothered by the "percent" ambiguity than by Grayton's appalling policy plans.

References in the title text:

*{{w|Tracy Morgan}} is an actor who plays Tracy Jordan in the TV Show ''{{w|30 Rock}}''. He has been reprimanded for controversial comments on homosexuals and {{w|Sarah Palin}} (in separate incidents).
*{{w|John Wilkes Booth}} is the person who assassinated {{w|Abraham Lincoln}}. He was a {{w|Confederate}} sympathizer and supported slavery.
*"The {{w|Time Cube}} Guy" would be Gene Ray, also known as Otis E. Ray. To put things ''very'' politely (as Mr. Ray is a very angry man with severe schizophrenia), he has a website known as Time Cube where he sets out his personal model of reality, which he calls Time Cube. He suggests that all of modern physics is wrong, in addition to claiming that religion is evil, specifically Christianity, and that the idea of family is poisoning children.
*College Scholarships to Sexually Active Teens: Many people think adolescents should not engage in sexual activity, let alone be encouraged to do so by college scholarships. This is the opposite of {{w|Abstinence-only sex education|abstinence programs}}, which encourage teens not to be sexually active until marriage.
*Illegal immigrants who create room for themselves by killing a citizen: {{w|Illegal immigration to the United States|Illegal immigration}} is a highly controversial topic in the United States. One argument against illegal immigration is that illegal immigrants are taking jobs away from American citizens. Proponents of immigration assert that this is not the case, since more people in the overall economy creates jobs and brings in more tax revenue. Neither group would be in favor of illegal immigrants murdering citizens even though it would not result in a net gain or loss in population.
*Graduated income tax based on penis size: Many men are sensitive about their penis size and would probably consider the measurement of their penises for tax assessment purposes an enormous embarrassment and invasion of privacy. Even the scenario in which those with relatively smaller penises would be levied less tax than those with larger penises would probably not be sufficient for them to accept this policy, and even if they did, those with larger penises would probably consider this policy to be unfair. And the alternative—a scenario in which ''larger'' penises pay less taxes—would be both unfair and incredibly demeaning.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is sitting in an armchair watching TV while listening to a news report coming from the TV as shown by a zigzag line.]
:Voice from TV: Senator Grayton's campaign has imploded following the candidate's promise to give tax breaks to drunk drivers and to authorize the use of unmanned Predator drones in the War On Christmas. Grayton had been polling at 20%, but his support has since plunged by 19%.

:[Caption below the panel:]
:I hate the ambiguity created when people don't distinguish between percentages and percentage points.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]] 
[[Category:Politics]]
[[Category:Math]]
[[Category:Penis]]

985: Percentage Points

2019-07-03T19:34:43Z

KangaroOS: /* Explanation */ there are two correct ways to use dashes, this is not one of them

{{comic
| number = 985
| date = December 2, 2011
| title = Percentage Points
| image = percentage_points.png
| titletext = Grayton also proposed making college scholarships available exclusively to sexually active teens, amnesty for illegal immigrants who create room for themselves by killing a citizen, and a graduated income tax based on penis size. He has been endorsed by Tracy Morgan, John Wilkes Booth's ghost, and the Time Cube guy.
}}

==Explanation==
Senator Grayton is a fictional character, made up for this comic, which is unusual for xkcd, which typically uses real-world references.

The issues that Grayton supports:

*Tax Breaks to Drunk Drivers: Grayton proposes giving those who have been convicted of a {{w|DUI}} or DWI (i.e. Driving Under the Influence or Driving While Intoxicated) money back on their taxes, when those infractions are typically severely penalized, as drunk driving has resulted in numerous deaths.
*{{w|Predator Drones}} and the {{w|Christmas controversy|War on Christmas}}: The War on {{w|Christmas}} is not a real war; it is simply the perception by some {{w|Christian}}s that non-Christians are trying to replace traditional Christmas imagery with more inclusive and generic holiday customs. No politicians have explicitly announced their support of the "War on Christmas," and the idea that one would not only do so, but would also want to use drones—ostensibly to harm or possibly kill people—in the effort is an absurd exaggeration of a relatively harmless culture war.

The term {{w|percentage point}} is used to overcome an abiguity when comparing two percentages. Assuming an original sample of 1,000,000 people, where 20% approve of Senator Grayton. However, it could also refer to a lead of a 20% point margin.

'''Reduction of a stated number by a percentage'''
:When the original value is given as a number, there is no ambiguity. In the statement below the only possible conclusion is that now only 162,000 people approve of Grayton.
:''Previously 200,000 people approved of Senator Grayton, and then his approval rating dropped by 19%.''

'''Reduction of a percentage by a percentage'''
:When the original approval rating is given as a percentage (20% in the comic), then a reduction of 19% has two possible meanings:
:1) Of the 20% who previously approved (200,000 people), 19% no longer approve. In this case the result is 162,000 as in the above example.
:2) Compared to the original results, 19% fewer of the entire original sample of 1 million people approve. In this case only 1% of the original 1 million approve, equal to 10,000 people.

If using the second method of comparing percentages, the approvals rating should be described as having dropped by 19 percentage points. In reality, the distinction between the two methods is often overlooked, leading to confusion.

The caption's issue with "percentage" versus "percentage points" is that if Grayton's 20% approval rating drops by 19%, that means that his support has only dropped 3.8 percentage points since 19% of 20% is only 3.8%. That would mean that even after all his outrageous statements, his support dropped only from 20% to 16.2%. However, if the news reports that his 20% approval rating dropped 19 ''percentage points'', that means his support has dropped to 1%, which appears to be more accurate given Grayton's egregious policy decisions and the description of his campaign as having "imploded."

The punchline to all this is that Randall is more bothered by the "percent" ambiguity than by Grayton's appalling policy plans.

References in the title text:

*{{w|Tracy Morgan}} is an actor who plays Tracy Jordan in the TV Show ''{{w|30 Rock}}''. He has been reprimanded for controversial comments on homosexuals and {{w|Sarah Palin}} (in separate incidents).
*{{w|John Wilkes Booth}} is the person who assassinated {{w|Abraham Lincoln}}. He was a {{w|Confederate}} sympathizer and supported slavery.
*"The {{w|Time Cube}} Guy" would be Gene Ray, also known as Otis E. Ray. To put things ''very'' politely (as Mr. Ray is a very angry man with severe schizophrenia), he has a website known as Time Cube where he sets out his personal model of reality, which he calls Time Cube. He suggests that all of modern physics is wrong, in addition to claiming that religion is evil, specifically Christianity, and that the idea of family is poisoning children.
*College Scholarships to Sexually Active Teens: Many people think adolescents should not engage in sexual activity, let alone be encouraged to do so by college scholarships. This is the opposite of {{w|Abstinence-only sex education|abstinence programs}}, which encourage teens not to be sexually active until marriage.
*Illegal immigrants who create room for themselves by killing a citizen: {{w|Illegal immigration to the United States|Illegal immigration}} is a highly controversial topic in the United States. One argument against illegal immigration is that illegal immigrants are taking jobs away from American citizens. Proponents of immigration assert that this is not the case, since more people in the overall economy creates jobs and brings in more tax revenue. Neither group would be in favor of illegal immigrants murdering citizens even though it would not result in a net gain or loss in population.
*Graduated income tax based on penis size: Many men are sensitive about their penis size and would probably consider the measurement of their penises for tax assessment purposes an enormous embarrassment and invasion of privacy. Even the scenario in which those with relatively smaller penises would be levied less tax than those with larger penises would probably not be sufficient for them to accept this policy, and even if they did, those with larger penises would probably consider this policy to be unfair. And the alternative - a scenario in which ''larger'' penises pay less taxes - would be both unfair and incredibly demeaning.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is sitting in an armchair watching TV while listening to a news report coming from the TV as shown by a zigzag line.]
:Voice from TV: Senator Grayton's campaign has imploded following the candidate's promise to give tax breaks to drunk drivers and to authorize the use of unmanned Predator drones in the War On Christmas. Grayton had been polling at 20%, but his support has since plunged by 19%.

:[Caption below the panel:]
:I hate the ambiguity created when people don't distinguish between percentages and percentage points.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]] 
[[Category:Politics]]
[[Category:Math]]
[[Category:Penis]]

1990: Driving Cars

2019-07-02T18:50:09Z

KangaroOS: /* Trivia */ add image

{{comic
| number = 1990
| date = May 7, 2018
| title = Driving Cars
| image = driving_cars.png
| titletext = It's probably just me. If driving were as dangerous as it seems, hundreds of people would be dying every day!
}}

==Explanation==
This comic is about how dangerous cars are. [[Cueball]] observes that it is a giant machine, and that he is able to accelerate it up to terrifying speeds simply because he once took a brief driving test. Note that the length and complexity of a driving test varies greatly per country. 20 minutes would be fairly normal for the USA, but much shorter than what is required on most other Western countries. However, it should be noted that you sometimes have to retake the test if your drivers license has expired, so the "just because I took a twenty minute test in high school" part is partially incorrect.

This is similar to other comics, such as [[1075: Warning]] and [[722: Computer Problems]], where Randall comments on how some of our routine, everyday tasks are quite unusual when viewed from a reductionist perspective. This subject has been covered in the many [[:Category:Self-driving cars|comics about Self-driving cars]]. Although this comic is not directly about such cars, the reference to Cueball steering with his hands could be seen as being in contrast with letting a computer drive (which is [http://money.cnn.com/2018/03/21/technology/self-driving-car-safety/index.html much safer]). The joke is that driving ''is'' in fact one of the top five most common causes of death, yet many (most?) people do not think of driving as an especially "scary" or "dangerous" activity.

The rest of the joke is in the title text, "It's probably just me. If driving were as dangerous as it seems, hundreds of people would be dying every day!" This statement is ironic, drawing attention to the fact that many people ([https://www.bestonlinetrafficschool.co/car-crash-statistics/ over 3,000 per day] world-wide, about 100 per day in the USA) do in fact die in car crashes. These statistics indicate that driving ''is'' as dangerous as Cueball thinks it seems; it is not just him perceiving it that way. As a matter of fact, in most regions of the US, automotive accidents are the leading cause of death for people aged 18 to 35. It's also worth noting that a difficult-to-estimate number of people die prematurely as a consequence of pollution caused by cars.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball stands in front of a car holding his hands together in front of him.]
:Cueball: Time to accelerate this giant machine up to terrifying speeds and steer it using my hands, which I am allowed to do because I took a 20-minute test in high school!

:[Caption below the panel:]
:Driving freaks me out.

== Trivia ==
[[File:Cueball's ghost.png|thumb|Color balance adjusted to bring out Cueball's ghost]]
* A faded Cueball is visible overlapping and to the left of Cueball in the comic picture. This may be a previous draft that Randall drew on top of.
{{clear}}

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]

File:Cueball's ghost.png

2019-07-02T18:46:03Z

KangaroOS: Cropped and color balance adjusted from https://www.xkcd.com/1990/ So you can see the faint outline of a Cueball sketch that made it in the final edit.

== Summary ==
Cropped and color balance adjusted from https://www.xkcd.com/1990/

So you can see the faint outline of a Cueball sketch that made it in the final edit.
== Licensing ==
{{XKCD file derived}}

2168: Reading in the Original

2019-06-26T15:01:21Z

KangaroOS: rewrite

{{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==
{{incomplete|Created by a HAWAIIAN-GREEK HYBRID. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

Many people, mainly snobs, feel that studying old texts in the original language is more valuable than studying them in translation, based on a variety of assumptions about the person reading the original language having a better grip on it than whoever wrote the translation, about the translation potentially having an agenda, etc.

Cueball claims that the English Wikipedia was originally in Greek, the original language of many famous old texts, like {{w|the Iliad}} and {{w|the New Testament}}.

The title text is an etomology joke, since "Wikipedia" was coined from two particles, "{{w|wiki#English|wiki}}", from Hawaiian, and "{{w|-pedia#English|pedia}}", from Greek.

==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]]

Talk:2168: Reading in the Original

2019-06-26T14:53:11Z

KangaroOS: other originals

I removed this line from the explanation: "The New Testament is often studied in the 'original' Greek, despite most of the protagonists actually speaking Aramaic." Reason: While the "protagonists" likely spoke Aramaic, the actual written text was in Koine Greek. The spoken language is a red herring in this case. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.126.118|162.158.126.118]] 14:34, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

There's also a [https://la.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vicipaedia:Pagina_prima Latin Wikipedia] and an [https://ang.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C4%93afodtramet Old English Wikipedia]. [[User:KangaroOS|Kangaro]][[User talk:KangaroOS|OS]] 14:53, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

454: Rewiring

2019-03-05T07:11:37Z

KangaroOS: /* Explanation */ link irc quote

{{comic
| number = 454
| date = July 25, 2008
| title = Rewiring
| image = rewiring.png
| titletext = My friend Finn tried to mail one end of the cable to me and thread the mail system.
}}

==Explanation==
At the time this comic was written, most residential buildings in North America were wired for {{w|Analog device|analog devices}} using the old {{w|plain old telephone service|landline telephone service}}s, although thanks to the growth of {{w|internet telephone}} and wireless telephone technologies, including {{w|cordless telephone|cordless}} and {{w|mobile phone|mobile}} phones, this in-house wiring was increasingly redundant. See also {{w|Wireless telephone#Use of mobile phones|Use of mobile phones}}.

At the time, people who took their internet access seriously would have preferred that at least some of the phone wiring and phone jacks in their residences were {{w|Ethernet}} ({{w|Cat-5}} or {{w|Cat-6}}) wiring and ({{w|Modular_connector#8P8C|RJ45}}) jacks for providing wired internet access throughout their home, or in this case, to their neighbour's home, so that they wouldn't have to resort to {{w|Wi-Fi}}, which was then slower and less reliable than a wired connection.

The title text suggests it shows a fanciful way of converting analog phone lines to {{w|digital}} ethernet lines by simply faxing an ethernet cable, since a fax machine is a tool for {{w|digitizing|converting}} analog content into digital.

Since the faxing of the ethernet cable is apparently successful, the comic is not really about the conversion, but is instead a subtle {{w|computer network}} joke about {{w|Tunneling protocol|tunneling}}, whereby you can embed one kind of network access protocol within a very different protocol. Herein lies the humour: [[Cueball]] and [[Megan]] are apparently under the impression that they can achieve a faster connection by tunnelling a high-speed protocol (ethernet) through a slower (landline telephone service) one. Generally speaking, this is not true. The only exception is when embedding a compressed data stream within a non-compressed standard. The performance boosts, however, are typically modest for {{w|lossless compression}}, and not the orders of magnitude difference our novices apparently hope for.

The title text, which is a reference to foonetic user relsqui, was changed to correct "Elizabeth" to "Finn" after they came out as agender. (This comic was presumably inspired by [http://www.xkcdb.com/2001 this conversation] they had over IRC.)

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is feeding cable into a device on a desk labeled "fax".]
:Fax: ''zzzzzz''
:[Outdoors, showing a plant and a lamp (indicates panels 1 and 3 are separate locations).]
:[Megan, laptop behind her, is pulling a cable out of a fax machine.]
:Fax: ''zzzzz''

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

Category:Playpen balls

2019-02-25T22:08:01Z

KangaroOS: + relsqui's calculator

'''Playpen balls''' are found in a {{w|Ball pit}} and are a symbol of childhood. Many people grew up playing in playpens filled with these balls. Unfortunately, many people believe that in order to "grow up" they have to cast off all of these fun items. [[Randall]] takes a different stance, growing up is merely being able to appreciate all the fun things better.

China currently holds the record for the worlds largest ballpit: a [http://www.mymodernmet.com/profiles/blogs/china-worlds-largest-ball-pit swimming pool filled with 1 million balls].

A friend of Randall's has made [http://www.chiliahedron.com/ballroom/ a web app] for calculating how many balls it would take to fill your apartment.

[[Category:Comics by topic]]

2116: .NORM Normal File Format

2019-02-25T22:05:53Z

KangaroOS: pretty sure "clip art" is not a trademark

{{comic
| number = 2116
| date = February 25, 2019
| title = .NORM Normal File Format
| image = norm_normal_file_format.png
| titletext = At some point, compression becomes an aesthetic design choice. Luckily, SVG is a really flexible format, so there's no reason it can't support vector JPEG artifacts.
}}

==Explanation==
Cueball's friend seem to have sent him a rather unusual datafile passed off as a new "normal" standard.

People who work with data, and need data sent to them electronically, typically need it sent in a way that they can easily use it -- either in a text format that can be copy-pasted, or as a spreadsheet or CSV file that can be imported into a spreadsheet program, or such. Information sent in this fashion -- a photograph of a spreadsheet embedded into a word processing file -- is absolutely useless for any purpose beyond being looked at. The recipient has no choice but to retype the entire data set, or attempt to use optical character recognition (OCR), and hope that no mistakes are made in the process.

Further, the size of the data is bloated by being converted first from text into graphics, and then from graphics to embedded graphics in a word processing document. This adds nothing to the content, and only adds steps to the process of retrieving the data.

The comic image links to a [https://twitter.com/openelex/status/853977391747801088 tweet by OpenElections] that displays an Excel file produced by the City of Detroit that contains a lookup table for the city's absentee precincts in 2016. The data had been input as clip art (images) of the values, instead of being entered in the spreadsheet cells.

This comic is reminiscent of the comic [[763:_Workaround|Workaround]], which also describes convoluted formats.

The title text suggests that eventually compression (or at least compression with data/quality loss) will be unnecessary as technology improves in the future. SVG is a vector graphic format that is fundamentally a lossless format. Randall suggests that some people in the future may choose to include JPEG artifacts to SVG vector graphics for its "aesthetics", perhaps as a throwback to when lower quality JPEG images were commonplace. It is possible that some in the future will view JPEG artifacts as giving their images a quaint/retro feel, much the way that some people today use sepia-tone filters on their images.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[Cueball is at a computer. Someone is talking to him from off-panel.]
:Voice: I sent you the data.
:Cueball: Thanks!
:Cueball: …this is a Word document containing an embedded photo you took of your screen with the spreadsheet open.
:Voice: Yeah? Does your computer not support .NORM files? Maybe you need to update.

:[Caption below the panel:]
:Since everyone sends stuff this way anyway, we should just formalize it as a standard.

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

{{comic discussion}}

1083: Writing Styles

2018-11-02T06:51:38Z

KangaroOS: /* Explanation */ link to quote

{{comic
| number = 1083
| date = July 18, 2012
| title = Writing Styles
| image = writing_styles.png
| titletext = I liked the idea, suggested by h00k on bash.org, of a Twitter bot that messages prominent politicians to tell them when they've unnecessarily used sms-speak abbreviations despite having plenty of characters left.
}}

==Explanation==
Sms-speak is a style of communication which involves substituting numbers for letters and shortening phrases to get a longer idea across in fewer characters at the cost of readability. The practice began first with text messages, also known as {{w|Short Message Service|SMS}}, or Short Message Service, which limited messages to 160 characters. Twitter has adopted a 140 character limit since its inception, which allowed any given tweet to be received as an SMS message with enough room for the user's Twitter handle (15 characters max).

Randall is poking fun at both the stereotypical Senator and at teenagers supporting Ron Paul.

The dig at the senator refers to poor use of sms-style abbreviations by older, less tech-savvy politicians who are hoping to appear more in tune with the modern world. Many politicians use sms-speak in cases when their message isn't in danger of the character limit, but where they are appealing to a younger demographic, thinking it makes them appear to be "modern" to their target audience. In reality, it may do the opposite, showing that they do not understand why sms-speak is used at all.

Conversely modern teenagers, often stereotyped as lacking proper writing skills due to character limits on services such as SMS and twitter, instead here produce coherent sentences expressing a political view (this is later discussed in [[1414: Writing Skills]]). There is a subtle dig that being drawn to [[:Category:Comics featuring Ron Paul|Ron Paul]] is a stereotypical political position for a teenager, as Paul is ideologically libertarian, and the implication is that libertarianism is a position held while younger and politically or economically naive. Randall has also poked fun at libertarianism on several other occasions, such as [[610: Sheeple]], [[1026: Compare and Contrast]], [[1049: Bookshelf]] and [[1277: Ayn Random]]. The teenager's tweet is almost identical to the stereotypical Paul-ite comment made fun of in the title text to [[1026]]: "Only Ron Paul offers a TRUE alternative!"

A few years ago, the sentence attributed to the teenager is the sort of thing that would stereotypically be assigned to a senator, while the sentence attributed to the senator would be stereotypically assigned to a teenager - however, now the situation has changed and so Randall comments that the internet has ended up in "kind of a weird place".

The title text discusses an idea that Randall approves of, [http://bash.org/?946687 originally suggested] by a user on bash.org called h00k, where a twitter bot be created to message politicians when they use sms-speak unnecessarily. This would presumably embarrass said politicians, which might in turn lead to a decrease in their use of sms-speak. Randall evidently considers this a good thing, suggesting he finds the unnecessary use of sms-speak annoying.

==Transcript==
:[This is a chart with the above two labeled columns. The rows will be represented below in the same format.]
:If you post: you sound like
:"Ron Paul is the only candidate who offers us a real choice!": A teenager
:"its gettin l8 so ill b here 4 prob 2 more hrs tops": A senator
:The internet has wound up in kind of a weird place.

==Trivia==
When this comic came out in 2012, the twitter limit was actually 140 characters. It has since doubled to 280, to allow longer messages, and due to the declining popularity of SMS.
{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Ron Paul]]
[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Language]]
[[Category:Politics]]
[[Category:Computers]]
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]]
[[Category:Comics featuring politicians]]

Talk:James Zetlen

2018-11-02T06:41:09Z

KangaroOS: james zetlen?

This may also be the same James in the title text of [[950:_Mystery_Solved]] where it is jokenly suggested it may be an alias for {{w|Jimmy Hoffa}} -- or is the explanation simpler, like Jimmy is actually 'short' for James?
:I do not think so. There is valid reason for using the real Jimmy, and he has nothing to do with Randall's friend.--[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 12:08, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

== Identity of James ==
I think I may have figured this mystery out: "James" is [http://www.jameszetlen.com/ James Zetlen]. He's an "old friend" of Randall's according to his [http://www.jameszetlen.com/about/ about page]. On the xkcd IRC channel (which you can read about [http://wiki.xkcd.com/irc/XKCD here]) he goes by "zetlen"; he used to go by "khmer" (or "khmer_at_work"), as evidenced by his hostname recorded [http://www.xkcdb.com/568 in this xkcdb entry] (among others). ([http://www.xkcdb.com/about About the xkcdb].) Check out quotes of [http://www.xkcdb.com/?search=zetlen "zetlen"] and [http://www.xkcdb.com/?search=khmer "khmer"]; also take note of [http://www.xkcdb.com/633 this quote], where he claims that he is the source of half of Randall's ideas. [[User:KangaroOS|Kangaro]][[User talk:KangaroOS|OS]] 06:41, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

Talk:2067: Challengers

2018-11-02T06:25:09Z

KangaroOS: predictive rhymes.

''Calling it now'': lots of complaining about campaigning, by folks who prefer jokes. [[User:KangaroOS|Kangaro]][[User talk:KangaroOS|OS]] 06:25, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

353: Python

2017-01-19T20:25:19Z

KangaroOS: straight quotes

{{comic
| number = 353
| date = December 5, 2007
| title = Python
| image = python.png
| titletext = I wrote 20 short programs in Python yesterday. It was wonderful. Perl, I'm leaving you.
}}

==Explanation==
{{w|Python (programming language)|Python}} is a programming language designed specifically to make it easy to write clear, readable programs. Flying is often used as a metaphor for freedom and ease, and here Randall shows Cueball literally flying in response to using Python.

A {{w|"Hello, World!" program}} is a very simple program that prints the phrase "Hello, World!", used in textbooks to illustrate a given programming language. While this sounds simple, it can be nontrivial in some programming languages where you need to explicitly import a library that contains the <code>print</code> function (for instance, in C you need to begin with <code>#include <{{w|stdio.h}}></code>) or do complicated things with classes and variables (see [https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Computer_Programming/Hello_world#Java the Java "Hello, World!"] for one example). Python doesn't need any of that: <code>print "Hello, world!"</code> (or in Python 3.0, <code>print("Hello, world!")</code>) really is all you need to do.

{{w|Dynamic typing}} and {{w|significant whitespace}} are two controversial features of Python, which make some people—like Cueball's friend—hesitant to use the language.

Dynamic typing means that variables do not have types (like "list of short integers" or "a bunch of letters"); any value of any type can be placed in any variable. Dynamic typing allows for more flexible languages, but it means that certain kinds of errors (like trying to subtract a letter from a number) can't be caught until a program is run, and some people think this is too dangerous for the tradeoff to be acceptable.

Whitespaces are invisible text characters, like spaces or tabs. In programming, blocks of code controlled by a statement are usually indented under that statement. Most languages require you to use braces (<code>{…}</code>) or special keywords (<code>BEGIN…END</code>) to delimit these blocks; in Python, the indentation itself is the delimiter. Many Python programmers find that this makes code more readable, but many other programmers find it too "magical" and don't trust it.

Classes, functions and constants in Python are packed into modules. To use a module, you write "<code>import ''module''</code>" at the top of your source file. Python comes with a very powerful standard library of modules to do everything from parsing XML to comparing two sets of files for differences, and new modules can be easily installed from the PyPI repository, which has more than 79,000 more to choose from (as of April 2016). [[Cueball]] can fly because he imported the <code>antigravity</code> module. Python still works for Cueball in [[482: Height]].

In the final panel, Cueball admits that his ability to fly may actually be because he has "sampled everything in the medicine cabinet", though he's sure it is the Python anyway. An implication of this is that ingesting everything in the medicine cabinet has given him the feeling of freedom and ease that "flying" represents - or that he is hallucinating himself flying and having a conversation with the other character about it. Here, the metaphor of "feeling like you're flying" while using Python is transformed back from being literal (Cueball is actually flying) to being metaphorical (Randall feels like he is flying because Python is so easy to use... or because he had too many strange drugs).

{{w|Perl}}, mentioned in the title text, is another programming language with the same target audience as Python, as both are {{w|High-level programming language|high-level}}, {{w|General-purpose programming language|general-purpose}}, {{w|Interpreter (computing)|interpreted}}, {{w|dynamic programming language}}s.
However they strongly oppose each other in their language design:
* Perl’s philosophy for its syntax is "{{w|There's more than one way to do it}}", so each coder can choose his own coding style to do exactly the same thing,
* Python’s {{w|Zen of Python|philosophy}} for its syntax is "There should be one— and preferably only one —obvious way to do it", so the written code is more consistent.
Since he has discovered Python [[Randall]] doesn't like Perl anymore, probably because its syntax is less consistent.

==Transcript==
:[A Friend is talking to Cueball, who is floating in the sky.]
:Friend: You're flying! How?
:Cueball: Python!
:Cueball: I learned it last night! Everything is so simple!
:Cueball: Hello world is just 'print "Hello, World!"'
:Friend: I dunno... Dynamic typing? ''Whitespace?''
:Cueball: Come join us! Programming is fun again! It's a whole new world up here!
:Friend: But how are you flying?
:Cueball: I just typed 'import antigravity'
:Friend: That's it?
:Cueball: ...I also sampled everything in the medicine cabinet for comparison.
:Cueball: But I think this is the python.

==Trivia==
*In response to this comic, the Python developers implemented the module <code>antigravity</code> in version 2.7+. When you <code>import</code> it, the default web browser will open this comic. Also, in version 3+, the module contains a [[426: Geohashing|geohashing]] function.
*As Perl could also be the name of a girl the title text of leaving Perl has double meaning. Also, ''being'' with the other program was wonderful. He has not only been unfaithful he is actually leaving!

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Programming]]

1758: Astrophysics

2016-11-11T15:17:18Z

KangaroOS: emdashes

{{comic
| number = 1758
| date = November 11, 2016
| title = Astrophysics
| image = astrophysics.png
| titletext = DEPARTMENT OF NEUROSCIENCE / Motto: "If I hear the phrase 'mirror neurons' I swear to God I will flip this table."
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|What is the flip the table over reference in title text. To make other do the same through mirror neruons? Still new explanation. Add more if you can}}

The theory of gravity produced by {{w|general relativity}} is generally very accurate—it predicts the orbits of planets precisely, even details like the {{w|Two-body problem in general relativity#Anomalous precession of Mercury|precession of Mercury}} which Newton couldn't explain. However, the predictions for the behavior of galaxies are wrong—{{w|Galaxy rotation curve|the galaxies seem to spin at the wrong rates}}.

The standard explanation is that there is something else filling these galaxies, which has mass (and therefore exerts a gravitational pull) but which can't be seen with current telescopes. This is called {{w|dark matter}}.

However, an alternative theory which gets proposed regularly is {{w|modified Newtonian dynamics}} (MOND). In MOND, gravity doesn't simply follow the {{w|inverse square law}} but has more complicated behavior. Usually, the extra behavior is either to say that gravitational force can be affected by the acceleration of the particle, or that it goes from inverse-square to just inverse at large distances. It "sounds good" because it's relatively simple—it just changes our understanding of Newton's law of gravitation, rather than requiring entirely new forms of matter or unknown stars to exist—and because it has some nice side-effects, such as explaining why there seems to be a limit on the density of galaxies.

Unfortunately, as the sign says, MOND doesn't fit all the scientific data. One famous counterexample is the {{w|Bullet Cluster}}—two colliding galaxy clusters that are ripping through each other, and from which the mass distribution can be inferred through gravitational lensing. The collision, and the differing ways that ordinary and dark matter interact, have separated the dark matter from ordinary matter to a certain extent, which can be seen in the mass distribution. Even if MOND ''is'' correct in some way, we still need dark matter to explain the Bullet Cluster. In addition, MOND is incompatible with observations of the motion of galaxies in galaxy clusters. More generally, MOND isn't compatible with general relativity—which has a huge amount of experimental data in its favour—and a MOND-compatible general relativity would be very complicated and ugly.

The specific impetus for this comic may be [https://arxiv.org/abs/1611.02269 this] recent publication by {{w|Erik Verlinde}} (see popular description of the paper [http://phys.org/news/2016-11-theory-gravity-dark.html here]). It was released on-line three days before the release of this comic. Verlinde's theory ({{w|entropic gravity}}) isn't MOND—rather, it's derived from {{w|thermodynamics}} and {{w|quantum information theory}}—but it has a lot in common with it. The paper got a lot of "This will prove Einstein wrong" coverage (see [[1206: Einstein]]), even though it's just a {{w|pre-print}} and hasn't been peer-reviewed or experimentally verified yet. Verlinde's theory also doesn't match the data—[http://motls.blogspot.de/2010/01/erik-verlinde-why-gravity-cant-be.html it disagrees with experimental results showing how particles interact with gravity].

Apparently, whoever put up this sign was getting tired of news agencies stating that dark matter has been "disproven".

The title text lists the text on a similar sign standing outside the Department of {{w|Neuroscience}}. Their motto is: "If I hear the phrase 'mirror neurons' I swear to God I will flip this table." {{w|Mirror neurons}} are brain cells which trigger when watching someone else do something. Experiments claim to have found mirror neurons in humans and other apes, and there are theories that make mirror neurons the foundation of learning, empathy, language and consciousness itself. However, {{w|mirror neurons#Doubts concerning mirror neurons|the evidence for mirror neurons is still patchy}}, and even if they exist, it's very simplistic to try and attribute so much of human behavior to a single type of relatively simple cell.

Two days before the release of this comic the YouTube channel Space Time from PBS Digital Studios released a new video with the title [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UNLgPIiWAg Did Dark Energy Just Disappear?]. This was based on the press coverage the paper [http://www.nature.com/articles/srep35596 Marginal evidence for cosmic acceleration from Type Ia supernovae] got, which relates to the one referenced in this comic for dark matter.

==Transcript==
:[A sign on two posts, in the grass in front of a building with windows and double doors, a window on each door, and bars facing outwards. There is a cement walk leading to the doors. On the sign is the text:]
:<big>'''Department of Astrophysics'''</big>
:'''Motto:'''
:''Yes, everybody has already had the idea, "Maybe there's no dark matter—Gravity just works differently on large scales!" It sounds good but doesn't really fit the data.''

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Astronomy]]
[[Category:Science]]

1025: Tumblr

2016-10-27T00:27:45Z

KangaroOS: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1025
| date = March 5, 2012
| title = Tumblr
| image = tumblr.png
| titletext = Dot Tumblr Dot Com, on the other hand, would be an awful name for a band, if only because of how hard it would be to direct people to your band's website.
}}

==Explanation==
{{w|Tumblr}} is a {{w|microblogging}} service, which has become a home for lots of animated {{w|Graphics Interchange Format|gif}}s and other internet {{w|Internet meme|memes}}, as well as other assorted novelties.

The phrase that [[Cueball]] used to use when he heard a random phrase was "would be a good name for a band." With the advent of Tumblr, his go-to response has shifted because of the proliferation of Tumblr blogs with strange names.

[http://raccoonsexdungeon.tumblr.com Raccoon Sex Dungeon] is an actual Tumblr page. See [[#Trivia|trivia]] below.

In the title text he muses on the fact that ''Dot Tumblr Dot Com'' would be an awful band name. There could be several reasons for this, but he mentions that it would be hard to direct fans to the band's website. As an example, someone who hears "www.thedottumblrdotcom.com" might instead write it out as "www.the.tumblr.com.com" since '.' is often pronounced as "dot." If the band's website was hosted on Tumblr, then their website would be "dottumblrdotcom.tumblr.com".

Raccoons are also feature in a disgusting situations in [[1565: Back Seat]].

==Transcript==
:[Megan and Cueball are talking.]
:Megan:
::You know those weird noises from my attic?
::Turns out some raccoons got in and were operating this, like, raccoon sex dungeon.
:Cueball: ...dot tumblr dot com.

:[Caption below the panel:]
:For me, "...Dot tumblr dot com" has been gradually replacing "...would be a good name for a band."

==Trivia==
* Randall ''did'' register a tumblr page called "[http://raccoonsexdungeon.tumblr.com Raccoon Sex Dungeon]" to coincide with this comic. He had already done the same with [http://wetriffs.com Wetriffs.com] (archive [http://web.archive.org/web/20130518191217/http://wetriffs.com/ here]) to coincide with Megan registering that domain in [[305: Rule 34]]. The Raccoon Sex Dungeon website should not be confused with the similarly named 'Racoon Sex Dungeon'.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Social networking]]
[[Category:Animals]]
[[Category:Substitutions]]

1746: Making Friends

2016-10-14T05:53:29Z

KangaroOS: /* Transcript */ add transcript

{{comic
| number = 1746
| date = October 14, 2016
| title = Making Friends
| image = making_friends.png
| titletext = "This seems more like a way to attract turkey vultures." "My mom always told me a turkey vulture is just a friend you haven't met yet, usually because you don't smell enough like decaying meat."
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a BOT - Please change this comment when editing this page.}}

==Transcript==
:[Cueball and Ponytail walking]
:Ponytail: Making friends is so much harder once you're out of school. Everyone's so busy. And how do you even ''meet'' people?
:[Cueball raises his arms]
:Cueball: Here's what I do: I pretend to be weak and injured, and wait for others to start circling, hoping to take my food, shelter, and nutrients.
:[They stop walking. Cueball raises his arms, Ponytail turns to him]
:Cueball: Then, before they can descend, I start telling them cool facts about space until they like me. ''Bam'', friendship!
:Ponytail: This explains a lot.

{{comic discussion}}

1708: Dehydration

2016-10-10T22:40:49Z

KangaroOS: one cites a site

{{comic
| number = 1708
| date = July 18, 2016
| title = Dehydration
| image = dehydration.png
| titletext = I don't care what the research says. Everybody knows you should drink 3,000 glasses of water a day and change your oil every 8 miles.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic plays on the idea that there is little to no consensus in the scientific community with regard as to the amount of water a person should drink per day. In the first panel [[White Hat]] presents us with an innocent and sensible suggestion (although controversial) that people should drink six glasses of water per day. In the second panel, more characters joins the discussion, an off-panel voice claims the most {{w|Drinking_water#Requirements|common misconception}} of eight glasses a day, a number which is not supported by scientific research. [[Ponytail]] again goes two higher with ten highlighting the existence of a wide range of so-called 'optimum' liquid consumption 'rule-of-thumb'. Implied here is the variety of health-related books, articles, blogs or other literature published that self-proclaims an optimum drinking formula.

The first sign of absurdity also arises here in the second panel when [[Black Hat]] posits that we need 5 glasses of water every minute. This equates to 7200 glasses of water a day, and using an often cited "standard definition of a glass"[https://www.quora.com/One-glass-of-water-is-how-many-ounces], [https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20061002110517AAltamZ], [http://www.sparkpeople.com/ma/How-many-ounces-is-a-glass-of-water?/7/1/27943956] being equal to 8 oz (236 ml), Black Hat is suggesting that we should each drink 1.7 cubic meters (1700 liters) of water a day, not only curing {{w|dehydration}} but also causing {{w|water intoxication}}. This is a typical Black Hat kind of statement that he uses to further emphasizes the absurdity of the problem at hand.

Some time later [[Megan]], despite having read through all studies on dehydration (or low-grade dehydration in particular), still has not come to a solid conclusion. She becomes dizzy, admitting that she's been so focused on her work, she has ironically [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ForgetsToEat forgotten to eat or drink]. Her personal experience with dehydration prompts someone off-panel to get some water, but since she couldn't find any consensus in her research, she asks how many glasses they should bring her. Presumably to avoid the question of "how many glasses" entirely, [[Cueball]] finally suggests that she should drink straight from the tap, a (tenuously) sincere suggestion seeing her dehydration and following the good advice to drink when you are thirsty until that state has been absolved.

The title text contains a mix-up between two often stated intervals; drinking eight glasses of water per day (which makes no sense, see above) and changing the engine oil every {{w|3,000_mile_myth|3000 miles}} (almost 5000 km) which may be a good rule, but not a necessity. Obviously it's impossible to drink 3000 glasses of water, and changing the oil every eight miles (about 13 km) would make driving a car very impractical.

The subject of this comic has been graphed in [[715: Numbers]] and mentioned in the what if? ''{{what if|74|Soda Planet}}'':
<blockquote>
The question of how much water we should drink per day is the subject of furious debate—the "8 glasses" thing seems to be a myth—but the amount of water we actually drink per day seems to be about a liter.
</blockquote>

Later, in the what if? ''{{what if|91|Faucet Power}}'', [[Randall]] comments on the preference for even numbers in the graph, and writes:
<blockquote>
The only real solid advice I've heard is that if you're thirsty, you should drink some water.
</blockquote>
''How many glasses is "some water"'' remains an open question...

[[Beret Guy]] and Megan are participants of a thought experiment concerning glasses of water and vacuum in the [[what if?]] ''{{what if|6|Glass Half Empty}}''.

This comic is a rare example where a normal few panel comic manages to use five of the seven [[Template:navbox characters|major characters]] who actually interact. It is the [[:Category:Characters with Hats|first comic]] where Black Hat has spoken (or directly interacted) with White Hat. They have until this comic only appeared together in complicated/large drawings where the two would not need to interact anyway.

==Transcript==
:[White Hat and Cueball standing together.]
:White Hat: Many people are mildly dehydrated. And don't realize it. You should drink at least six glasses of water per day.

:[A voice comes from off-panel to the left as Ponytail enters from the left and Black Hat from the right in this frameless panel.]
:Off-panel voice: No, ''eight'' glasses!
:Ponytail: I heard ten.
:Black Hat: You need to drink at least five glasses of water per minute.

:[Megan is standing to the left holding a book or a thick binder along her side while holding up a finger with the other hand. A question comes from off-panel to the right. Above her a caption is written in a small frame that breaks the top of this panel's frame:]
:Later:
:Megan: Okay, I just read through every study I could find to try to figure out whether low-grade dehydration is even a real thing.
:Off-panel voice: What did you learn?

:[Megan looking downwards, has two starbursts a circles and two dots above her head signifying dizziness. Cueball stands to the right as another voice comes from off-panel to the right.]
:Megan: If you spend all day doing research and forget to eat or drink, you start to feel pretty bad.
:Off-panel voice: I'll get some water.
:Megan: ''But how many glas'' - Whoa, feeling dizzy.
:Cueball: Maybe you should just drink straight from the tap.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Black Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]

1356: Orbital Mechanics

2016-09-27T20:42:36Z

KangaroOS: dashes

{{comic
| number = 1356
| date = April 16, 2014
| title = Orbital Mechanics
| image = orbital_mechanics.png
| titletext = To be fair, my job at NASA was working on robots and didn't actually involve any orbital mechanics. The small positive slope over that period is because it turns out that if you hang around at NASA, you get in a lot of conversations about space.
}}

==Explanation==
[[Randall]] roughly plots how high school physics, undergraduate-level physics and a job at {{w|NASA}} somewhat increased his knowledge of {{w|orbital mechanics}}. But this learning was apparently nothing compared to the "direct" experience of playing with the ''{{w|Kerbal Space Program}}'', a rocket building and piloting {{w|open world|sandbox game}}.

Orbital mechanics can be somewhat counterintuitive. The art of changing orbits involves relative velocities, positions, and times in complex interactions. As soon as you try deviating from a perfectly regular orbit, or start having to deal with {{w|N-body problem}}s and {{w|orbital resonances}}, you have to coordinate your movements in possibly counterintuitive ways. One example is that if you want to reach an object ahead of you, on the same orbit, you actually have to 'brake' to reach a lower orbit. Once at that lower orbit, your angular velocity is faster, and you can start to overtake your target. After that manoeuver, you then have to accelerate to increase your orbital altitude again, which will end up reducing your angular speed so that you intercept your target.

At the title text Randall admits that at the time when he did work at NASA he was not involved in orbital mechanics—which is also true for the most other NASA employees—but everybody was talking about this which in the end did increase his knowledge a little, as can be seen in the curve after the ''Job at NASA'' arrow.

==Transcript==
:How Well I Understand Orbital Mechanics:
:[There is a graph with the x-axis labeled as 'time' increasing to the right. The y-axis is unlabeled but it can be assumed that it could be labeled 'understanding'.]
:The line stays flat until the first bump, which is annotated "Took High School Physics".
:The line decreases, then grows to a higher maximum with the annotation "Got Physics Degree".
:There is a small amount of decrease until a gradual bump in the graph labeled "Actual Job At NASA".
:It gradually decreases to pre-NASA levels, but then begins to increase exponentially. The annotation reads "Started Playing Kerbal Space Program".

==Trivia==
*The {{w|Kerbal Space Program}} was featured as one of the frames in the [[1350: Lorenz]] April Fools project, in [[1244: Six Words]], in the title text of [[1106: ADD]] and in [http://what-if.xkcd.com/85/ What If? 85: Rocket Golf].

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Line graphs]]
[[Category:Space]]
[[Category:Video games]]

Talk:541: TED Talk

2016-09-10T16:15:54Z

KangaroOS: Unicode magic

It's not the first time Randall gets banned from conventions, see [[153: Cryptography]].
[[User:Xylon|Xylon]] ([[User talk:Xylon|talk]]) 13:10, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

: There are enough of these that it should probably be a category. (Anon) 12 August 2013 {{unsigned ip|24.142.134.100}}

How about "Linux(or BSD (: )"? Actually, that looks just as weird. Oh well. [[User:Alcatraz ii|Alcatraz ii]] ([[User talk:Alcatraz ii|talk]]) 05:10, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

What about "Linux (or BSD :D)"? That looks great! 05:54, 1 December 2013 (UTC) {{unsigned ip|199.27.128.120}}

Or "(Linux (or BSD ( :) )))"...nope! [[User:Squirreltape|Squirreltape]] ([[User talk:Squirreltape|talk]]) 18:19, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

"Every talk has a length of 18 minutes and is supposed to be as captivating as possible." this is just wrong(first part of the statement). someone should edit it out. {{unsigned ip|108.162.219.24}}

Use an asian smiley. So you'd write Linux (or BSD ^_^) instead. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.101|108.162.216.101]] 04:25, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

... LINUX (OR BSD 😀 ) WOULD ... [[Special:Contributions/162.158.255.187|162.158.255.187]] 19:16, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

LInux (: or BSD :) would...? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.217.179|108.162.217.179]] 22:51, 27 March 2016 (UTC)

... Linux (or BSD ͜ ¨ ) would ... [[User:KangaroOS|Kangaro]][[User talk:KangaroOS|OS]] 16:15, 10 September 2016 (UTC)

1731: Wrong

2016-09-09T04:09:51Z

KangaroOS: /* Transcript */ fmt

{{comic
| number = 1731
| date = September 9, 2016
| title = Wrong
| image = wrong.png
| titletext = Hang on, I just remembered another thing I'm right about. See...
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a BOT - Please change this comment when editing this page.}}

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript}}

:[White Hat and Megan are walking.]

:White Hat: Really, we're all made of antimatter. A proton consists of two quarks and an antiquark.

:Megan: ...I don't think that's right.

:White Hat: Sure it is. Neutrons are, too.

:Megan: Do you mean "up" and "down" quarks? I think antiquarks are a different thing.

:White Hat: No, let me show you...

:[White Hat takes out a cell phone.]

:SFX: tap tap

:White Hat [thinking]: I'm...wrong?

:["I'm...wrong?" is scribbled out]

:White Hat [thinking]: ...

:White Hat: Really, the whole idea of "particles" is inaccurate. These are abstractions arising quantum field theory, but what most people don't realize is...

:Megan: *sigh*

{{comic discussion}}

1731: Wrong

2016-09-09T04:09:14Z

KangaroOS: /* Transcript */ add transcript

{{comic
| number = 1731
| date = September 9, 2016
| title = Wrong
| image = wrong.png
| titletext = Hang on, I just remembered another thing I'm right about. See...
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a BOT - Please change this comment when editing this page.}}

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript}}
[White Hat and Megan are walking.]

:White Hat: Really, we're all made of antimatter. A proton consists of two quarks and an antiquark.

:Megan: ...I don't think that's right.

:White Hat: Sure it is. Neutrons are, too.

;Megan: Do you mean "up" and "down" quarks? I think antiquarks are a different thing.

:White Hat: No, let me show you...

[White Hat takes out a cell phone.]

:SFX: tap tap

:White Hat [thinking]: I'm...wrong?

["I'm...wrong?" is scribbled out]

:White Hat [thinking]: ...

:White Hat: Really, the whole idea of "particles" is inaccurate. These are abstractions arising quantum field theory, but what most people don't realize is...

:Megan: *sigh*
{{comic discussion}}

1301: File Extensions

2016-08-21T22:03:35Z

KangaroOS: /* Explanation */ justification

{{comic
| number = 1301
| date = December 9, 2013
| title = File Extensions
| image = file_extensions.png
| titletext = I have never been lied to by data in a .txt file which has been hand-aligned.
}}

==Explanation==
Computer file names often end in {{w|file extension}}s like ".ppt" or ".exe". These extensions are a holdover from early operating systems like {{W|DOS}} in which filenames had a maximum eight characters followed by a period and the three-character extension. The extension was used by the operating system to determine filetype so that the system would know how to handle the file (e.g. which program could open the file). Newer operating systems and file systems now accept longer-than eight-character filenames, and extensions of greater than three characters; although most extensions remain three characters.

Most extensions are created as proprietary to certain pieces of software, although software by other developers may later be designed to be able to read the format. For example, .doc is a Microsoft Word document, although because of that software's popularity, many word processors include the ability to open .doc files. Some common file extensions are not proprietary to a piece of software and may be handled by various programs; .jpg or .gif images are examples. In either case, a file's extension is generally a good indicator of what type of data the file contains.

Certain file types are more prevalent for certain uses, with some being almost exclusive to one use, while other are in general use and might contain almost anything. Here, [[Randall]] presents a series of file extensions which often contain information, and he is rating the reliability of the information they generally contain from most reliable to least.

*{{w|.tex}} files are source files for the programs {{w|TeX}} and {{w|LaTeX}}, which are used often and almost exclusively by academics, especially in mathematics and the hard sciences. .tex pretty much means serious business, and Randall does not anticipate that anyone would use such a format other than for reliable information.
*{{w|.pdf}} files are a document format by Adobe, frequently used for publication. Companies use them for official documentation. Thus, a .pdf file is likely to be some type of final product or polished work. Further, .tex files are generally compiled into .pdf files in order to make them readable. It would be strange to trust a .tex file without trusting the .pdf to which it compiles. For example, when submitting to academic journals in math and the hard sciences, the journal accepts the .tex file, but then compiles it and publishes the resulting .pdf.
*{{w|.csv}} are comma-separated values: tables of information delimited by commas, and often consist of computer-generated raw data (from, say, a scientific experiment or a database).
*{{w|.txt}} files contain only plain text, no "rich text" or anything fancy. Programmers often use them for README files.
*{{w|.svg}} files are a (scalable) vector graphics format used a lot for diagrams, such as on Wikipedia.
*{{w|.xls}} and {{w|.xlsx}} files are spreadsheets used and created by the program Microsoft Excel, part of a bundle of applications known as Microsoft Office (also supported by compatible free software such as LibreOffice). These applications are very commonly used, especially for business, finance and data analysis tasks. {{w|.xls}} is a binary format used for Excel versions up to 2003, while {{w|.xlsx}} is a ZIPped XML-based format used for Excel versions 2007 and later.
*{{w|.doc}} files are a rich-text document format used and created by the program {{w|Microsoft Word}}, another application in the Microsoft Office bundle. As with .xls, almost anyone with access to Microsoft Office could easily make one of these. While Excel is generally used for creating tables and presenting data, Word could be used for any text-based document. Thus, Word documents tend to be far more prevalent and casually created than Excel documents, which is presumably why Randall doesn't trust them as much.
*{{w|.png}} files are a bitmap image format designed for the Internet. They enjoy wide popularity for providing crisp, full-color images with lossless (reversible) compression. Almost all xkcd comics, this diagram included, use PNG. But since he rates the format so low, is Randall saying we shouldn't trust this chart?
*{{w|.ppt}} files are used and created by the program {{w|Microsoft PowerPoint}}; as with the other two Office applications, almost anyone could easily make one of these. As they are usually used for presentations rather than documents, the information in them may be arranged differently, possibly to "dumb down" the content, or in marketing materials or talks in which the author may not be very objective. Further, several years ago, PowerPoint presentations were sometimes included instead of plain images as attachments in e-mail forwards containing inaccurate information. These emails still occasionally circulate, and may be the source of Randall's distrust.
*{{w|.jpg}} files are another image format with high compression capabilities, good for storing photos and not so good for many other things. Photographs in general are prone to image manipulation, hence Randall's low score for this file format.
*{{w|.jpeg}} files are the same thing as .jpg files, but these are more likely to have been created manually rather than automatically, making them even less reliable.
*{{w|.gif}} files are yet another bitmap image format, notable for supporting short animations. GIF was once ''the'' Internet image file format until PNG gradually replaced it. Since GIF is the only common image format capable of animation, it is often used to contain things like silly clips of cats falling into boxes, or annoying, blinking advertisements claiming that you're the '''[[570|100,000,000]]th VISITOR!'''. GIFs are also created by Internet trolls, such as on 4chan.org, to feed misinformation to gullible gamers and computer users. For example, a recent [http://mashable.com/2013/12/09/xbox-one-hoax-4chan-backward-compatible/ Xbox One Hoax GIF] contained supposed instructions for making the Xbox One backwards compatible. The instructions instead make the console inoperable.

Note that while the extensions .xls/.xlsx, .doc, and .ppt were originally exclusive only to Microsoft Office and users of Windows, there now exist a number of open source programs such as Open Office, Libre Office, and some Android apps that are capable of editing such files. These programs can run on systems other than just Windows, such as Linux, perhaps contributing to making them even more widespread and easy to make than before.

The title text refers to how .txt files contain only plain text and nothing else, meaning that any alignment (such as for indentation, tables, or {{w|Justification (typesetting)|justification}}) would have to be performed manually by adding in spaces or tabs. Anyone who would go through such an effort to improve their text's readability is likely to be trustworthy.

==Transcript==
:[Caption above the bar chart:]
:Trustworthiness of Information by File Extension

:[A line is going down and from that gray bars is charting the trustworthiness in a bar graph that goes both left and right of the line. No units or figures are given. For ease of comprehension this transcript will arbitrarily designate the highest score as [+100]; subsequent scores are estimates based on the size of their bars.]
:[+100]: .tex
:[+89]: .pdf
:[+85]: .csv
:[+67]: .txt
:[+65]: .svg
:[+49]: .xls/.xlsx
:[+21]: .doc
:[+15]: .png
:[+14]: .ppt
:[+3]: .jpg
:[-8]: .jpeg
:[-36]: .gif

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Bar chart]]

1719: Superzoom

2016-08-12T19:00:29Z

KangaroOS: cleanup

{{comic
| number = 1719
| date = August 12, 2016
| title = Superzoom
| image = superzoom.png
| titletext = *click* Let him know he's got a stain on his shirt, though.
}}

==Explanation==
In this comic, [[Cueball]] is showing off his new superzoom camera to [[White Hat]]. These are cameras with large zoom lenses, often up to 25× or higher magnification. He is very excited and starts by exclaiming how they can take detailed photos of the moon, and (on better models) relatively large photos of Jupiter. He then uses it for bird watching, which is a popular use for these cameras. He also is able to photograph an airplane, and make out the airline, both possible on these cameras, though it is unlikely he would be able to make out the registration number.

Finally, White Hat decides to buy a superzoom camera like Cueball's, and [[Cueball]] tells him about shop in town that sells them. This is where it takes a turn for the unlikely; as [[Cueball]] points the camera in the direction of this store, he is able to make out not only the worker inside but also (in the title text) the stain on his shirt. Even with the ability of these cameras, it would be unlikely for Cueball to be able to make out a specific worker inside the store, let alone a stain on their shirt.

It could also be implied that since Cueball knows an employee in the store, and knows that there are cameras in stock, he is in fact advertising for this store, and his over-enthusiasm is an attempt to convince White Hat to buy a camera. While this tactic is reminiscent of many commercials and advertisements on television, it is not common in real life.

==Transcript==
[White Hat and Cueball are walking. Cueball is playing with a camera]

Cueball: I love these superzoom cameras. For a few hundred dollars you can take pictures of moon craters and Jupiter's clouds.

Cueball: And birds! See that speck up there?

[Camera clicking]

Cueball: Peregrine falcon!

[*click*]

Cueball: It's banded, too. Want the number?

Cueball: And see that plane?

[*click*]

Cueball: 787 Dreamliner

[*click*]

Cueball: Japan Airlines.

[*click*]

Cueball: Registration is—

White Hat: OK, I'm sold—I want one.

[*click*]

Cueball: They're in stock at the place on Union Road.

[*click*]

Cueball: Hey, Kevin's working today! He's great.

{{comic discussion}}

1715: Household Tips

2016-08-05T01:46:28Z

KangaroOS: cleanup

{{comic
| number = 1715
| date = August 3, 2016
| title = Household Tips
| image = household_tips.png
| titletext = To make your shoes feel more comfortable, smell better, and last longer, try taking them off before you shower.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic is a continuation of [[1567: Kitchen Tips]], which had four kitchen tips and then a household tip in the title text.

The comic shows [[Cueball]] explaining many things one should already know and are likely already doing without needing to be told, but telling them like most people usually never does it like this to comedic effect. Below is a list of the five household tips given:

=== In the bathroom ===

'''To conserve water, try turning off your shower before leaving home''': Implies that the shower would "normally" be on at all times, which would be very wasteful, since any excess water (or if the bath tub plug is not in place or in a shower stall, all water) would be drained away. The [[what if?]] article "{{what if|91|Faucet Power}}" illustrates similar wasteful and destructive water use. This may be a reference to the common recommendation that people should unplug appliances when they are not in use.

=== Extinguishing fires ===

'''Sick of changing those smoke detector batteries? Eliminate any fires in your home and the batteries can last for months or years!''': A smoke detector on standby consumes much less power than one constantly ringing, since standing by only requires that a detection circuit (which draws little current) be on and an LED flashes a few times a minute (which also consumes very little power), while a buzzer used to sound the alarm uses much energy by comparison. The sentence implies that some people keep their fire alarms beeping at all times, due to their ongoing fires, and then stop up to change the batteries when they stop working.

Of course, keeping one's house fire-free at (mostly) all times is usually done because of other benefits than just saving on batteries, such as preventing fire damage to valuable property, infrastructure, and human bodies. On top of the problems with smoke and fire, this would be a really noisy place to live, given how loud fire alarms usually are.

=== Toilet bowls ===

'''Tired of clogged toilets? Try leaving the lid on the upper chamber and use only the lower bowl!''': The "upper chamber", the toilet's cistern, delivers plain water to the lower bowl at speed to flush the latter. As such, the pipes that direct the water down are not wide enough for waste to pass. There is typically a lid on the upper cistern because it isn't intended to be used, but access is occasionally needed to fix or replace the flushing mechanisms. The lower bowl, as one should be familiar with, is the one intended to receive solid waste or defecation and is connected to the plumbing by pipes wide enough for this purpose. The comic seems to imply that some people defecate both on the "upper chamber" and the lower bowl and recommends to only do it in the lower bowl.

=== Near the window ===

'''Fresh air doesn't have to be expensive. Many windows can be slid up to create a temporary hole without the usual cost and cleanup!''': This suggests that the people he appeals to typically smash a window (or a wall) to get fresh air, hence the clean up and expensive replacement of the window once enough fresh air has been obtained.

=== Title text ===

'''To make your shoes feel more comfortable, smell better, and last longer, try taking them off before you shower.''': This talks about shoes lasting longer and being more comfortable when they are not worn into a shower. People typically remove all their clothing, including and/or especially shoes (except perhaps for some lightweight sandals to protect the feet in public showers), when showering, so while it is certainly true that removing one's shoes before showering will allow them to last longer and stink less (since getting them wet without methods of getting them fully dry would produce malodorous molds), this is not in any way a novel idea.

This comic is clearly related to the [[:category:Protip|Protip category]], but as the exact word is not mentioned in this comic so it cannot itself be given this category.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is standing outside a bathtub with the shower curtains partly drawn aside hanging outside the tub. The shower head is dripping water as Cueball reaches in turning the closest of the two taps. Below these there is a faucet. There is water on the floor at the bottom of the tub and a pool of water behind Cueball.]
:Cueball: Hi everyone! I'm back with more household tips. To conserve water, try turning off your shower before you leave home.

:[Cueball is holding a bucket and pours water out of it to the right. The water still hangs in the air over a small fire with four flames on the floor. A similar fire is behind him to the left, except it seems thre is a burning item in this fire, and a single flame is on the floor between that and Cueball. A smoke detector (off-panel) goes off in the background as indicated with lines and sounds.]
:Cueball: Sick of changing those smoke detector batteries? Eliminate any fires in your house and the batteries can last for months or years!
:Smoke detector (off panel): Beep beep beep

:[A frame-less panel shows a a toilet with the toilet seat up and also the lid has been removed from the cistern at the top. It is hanging in the air above and behind the cistern. There is an X with an arrow pointing towards the cistern and a checkmark with an arrow pointing towards the toilet bowl.]
:Cueball (off-panel): Tired of clogged toilets? Try leaving the lid on the upper chamber and use only the lower bowl!
:X
:✔

:[Cueball holding a hand up is standing next to an open window where the bottom part has been slid almost up to the top.]
:Fresh air doesn't have to be expensive. Many windows can be slid up to create a temporary hole without the usual cost and cleanup!

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]

1715: Household Tips

2016-08-03T21:31:47Z

KangaroOS: I believe this is more standard indentation

{{comic
| number = 1715
| date = August 3, 2016
| title = Household Tips
| image = household_tips.png
| titletext = To make your shoes feel more comfortable, smell better, and last longer, try taking them off before you shower.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic shows [[Cueball]] explaining many things one should already know and are likely already doing without needing to be told. This is a continuation of [[1567: Kitchen Tips]].

Below is a table:

'''To conserve water try turning off your shower before leaving home''': Implies that the shower would "normally" be on at all times, which would be very wasteful, since any excess water (or if the bath tub plug is not in place or in a shower stall, all water) would be drained away. The [[what if?]] article "{{what if|91|Faucet Power}}" illustrates similar wasteful and destructive water use. This may be a reference to the common recommendation that people should unplug appliances when they are not in use.

'''Sick of changing those smoke detector batteries? Eliminate any fires in your home and the batteries can last for months or years!''': A smoke detector on standby consumes much less power than one constantly ringing, since standing by only requires that a detection circuit (which draws little current) be on and and an LED (which also consumes little power) flashes, while a buzzer used to sound the alarm uses much energy by comparison. Of course, keeping one's house fire-free at (mostly) all times is usually done because of other benefits than just saving on batteries, such as preventing fire damage to valuable property, infrastructure, and human bodies.

'''Tired of clogged toilets? Try leaving the lid on the upper chamber and use only the lower bowl!''': The "upper chamber", the toilet's cistern, delivers plain water to the lower bowl at speed to flush the latter. As such, the pipes that direct the water down are not wide enough for waste to pass. There is typically a lid on the upper cistern because it isn't intended to be used, but access is occasionally needed to fix or replace the flushing mechanisms. The lower bowl, as one should be familiar with, is the one intended to receive solid waste or defecation and is connected to the plumbing by pipes wide enough for this purpose. The comic seems to imply that some people defecate both on the "upper chamber" and the lower bowl and recommends to only do it in the lower bowl.

'''Fresh air doesn't have to be expensive. Many windows can be slid up to create a temporary hole without the usual cost and cleanup!''': This suggests that the people he appeals to typically smash a window or smash holes in their walls to get fresh air, hence the expensive clean up. Alternatively this may refer to air fresheners sold in stores, which would cost money compared to opening a window and letting in fresh air from outdoors.

The title text talks about shoes lasting longer and being more comfortable when they are not worn into a shower. People typically remove all their clothing, including and/or especially shoes (except perhaps for some lightweight sandals to protect the feet in public showers), when showering, so while it is certainly true that removing ones shoes before showering will allow them to last longer and stink less (since getting them wet without methods of getting them fully dry would produce malodorous molds), this is not in any way a novel idea.

==Transcript==

:[Cueball is standing outside a shower, reaching in and turning the taps]
:Cueball: Hi everyone! I'm back with more household tips. To conserve water, try turning off your shower before you leave home.
:[Cueball is pouring water on several small fires while a smoke detector goes off in the background.]
:Smoke detector: BEEP BEEP BEEP
:Cueball: Sick of changing those smoke detector batteries? Eliminate any fires in your home and the batteries can last for months or years!
:[A picture of a toilet. There is an X with an arrow pointing towards the upper chamber and a checkmark with an arrow pointing towards the toilet bowl.]
:Cueball (offscreen): Tired of clogged toilets? Try leaving the lid on the upper chamber and use only the lower bowl!
:[Cueball standing next to an open window.]
:Fresh air doesn't have to be expensive. Many windows can be slid up to create a temporary hole without the usual cost and cleanup!

{{comic discussion}}

1715: Household Tips

2016-08-03T18:35:16Z

KangaroOS: complete transcript

{{comic
| number = 1715
| date = August 3, 2016
| title = Household Tips
| image = household_tips.png
| titletext = To make your shoes feel more comfortable, smell better, and last longer, try taking them off before you shower.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic shows a person explaining many things one should already know and are likely already doing without needing to be told. This is a continuation of [[1567: Kitchen Tips]].

Below is a table:

'''To conserve water try turning off your shower before leaving home''': Implies that the shower would "normally" be on at all times, which would be very wasteful, since any excess water (or if the bath tub plug is not in place or in a shower stall, all water) would be drained away. The [[what if?]] article "{{what if|91|Faucet Power}}" illustrates similar wasteful and destructive water use.

'''Sick of changing those smoke detector batteries? Eliminate any fires in your home and the batteries can last for months or years!''': A smoke detector on standby consumes much less power than one constantly ringing, since standing by only requires that a detection circuit (which draws little current) be on and and an LED (which also consumes little power) flashes, while a buzzer used to sound the alarm uses much energy by comparison. Of course, keeping one's house fire-free at (mostly) all times is usually done because of other benefits than just saving on batteries, such as preventing fire damage to valuable property, infrastructure, and human bodies.

'''Tired of clogged toilets? Try leaving the lid on the upper chamber and use only the lower bowl!''': The upper chamber, or water bowl, delivers plain water to the lower bowl at speed to flush the latter. As such, the pipes that direct the water down are not wide enough for waste to pass. There is typically a lid on the upper bowl because it isn't intended to be used, but access is occasionally needed to fix or replace the flushing mechanisms. The lower bowl, on the other hand, is the only one intended to receive solid waste or defecation and is connected to the plumbing by pipes wide enough for this purpose.

'''Fresh air doesn't have to be expensive. Many windows can be slid up to create a temporary hole without the usual cost and cleanup!''': This suggests that the people he appeals to typically smash a window or smash holes in their walls to get fresh air, hence the expensive clean up. Alternatively this may refer to air fresheners sold in stores, which would cost money compared to opening a window and letting in fresh air from outdoors.

The title text talks about shoes lasting longer and being more comfortable when they are not worn into a shower. People typically remove all their clothing, including and/or especially shoes (except perhaps for some lightweight sandals to protect the feet in public showers), when showering, so while it is certainly true that removing ones shoes before showering will allow them to last longer and stink less (since getting them wet without methods of getting them fully dry would produce malodorous molds), this is not in any way a novel idea.

==Transcript==

[Cueball is standing outside a shower, reaching in and turning the taps]
:Cueball: Hi everyone! I'm back with more household tips. To conserve water, try turning off your shower before you leave home.
[Cueball is pouring water on several small fires while a smoke detector goes off in the background.]
:Smoke detector: BEEP BEEP BEEP
:Cueball: Sick of changing those smoke detector batteries? Eliminate any fires in your home and the batteries can last for months or years!
[A picture of a toilet. There is an X with an arrow pointing towards the upper chamber and a checkmark with an arrow pointing towards the toilet bowl.]
:Cueball (offscreen): Tired of clogged toilets? Try leaving the lid on the upper chamber and use only the lower bowl!
[Cueball standing next to an open window.]
:Fresh air doesn't have to be expensive. Many windows can be slid up to create a temporary hole without the usual cost and cleanup!

{{comic discussion}}

1712: Politifact

2016-07-27T18:07:17Z

KangaroOS: kleen

{{comic
| number = 1712
| date = July 27, 2016
| title = Politifact
| image = politifact.png
| titletext = "Ok, I lit the smoke bomb and rolled it under the bed. Let's see if it--" ::FWOOOSH:: "Politifact says: PANTS ON FIRE!"
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Basic, please expand.}}

This comic presents the website [http://www.politifact.com/ Politifact.com] as a person, who rates every statement they hear based on how true it is, as the website does with political claims.

The rulings from the Truth-O-Meter™ at PolitiFact are:
*True
*Mostly True
*Half-True
*Mostly False
*False
*Pants on Fire!

[[Megan]] says she had trouble sleeping. The Politifact person appears and says "''Mostly True!''" Megan appears distressed, and [[Cueball]] appears, hinting that this has happened before, and tells Politifact to get out. Politifact refuses, and hides under the bed. Megan remarks that no one likes Politifact, and Politifact replies "''Mostly True!''"

The comic may be commenting on the fact that many people become very defensive when claims they make in political discussions are debunked by Politifact. There is a phenonomenon where the people most influenced by an erronous claim are the least likely to believe a fact checker. For example, The Washington Post [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2015/12/18/what-was-fake-on-the-internet-this-week-why-this-is-the-final-column/ shut down their internet rumor fact checker] because, "institutional distrust is so high right now, and cognitive bias so strong always, that the people who fall for hoax news stories are frequently only interested in consuming information that conforms with their views — even when it's demonstrably fake." Many people like the idea of a fact checker, until they disagree with it. Politfact has been accused of being both [http://www.breitbart.com/big-journalism/2015/03/14/mostly-true-ted-cruz-attack-proves-politifact-is-run-by-gigantic-assholes/ liberally biased] and [http://www.rifuture.org/politifact-ri-once-again-shows-right-wing-bias.html conservatively biased] at various times and has angered politicians on both sides of the aisle. Hence, the statement that no one likes Politifact is "mostly true".

The title text makes a play on "Pants on fire" being Politifact's most untrue rating, but in this case it is an actual statement that Politifact's pants have caught fire because of the smoke bomb.

==Transcript==
:[Megan walks around and rubs her eyes.]
:Megan: I did ''not'' sleep well last night.

:[A person with long hair wearing a hat crawls through the window, PolitiFact, Megan looks at the person.]
:PolitiFact: PolitiFact says ''mostly true!''
:Megan: Oh no...

:[PolitiFact has entered the room and Megan chases after that person with Cueball walking behind of them.]
:Cueball: Not again. Get out of here, PolitiFact!
:Megan: I ''swear'' I locked that window.
:PolitiFact: PolitiFact says: ''False!''

:[Cueball and Megan standing in a bedroom, PolitiFact hides under the bed.]
:Cueball: You can't stay under there forever.
:Politifact: PolitiFact says: ''False!''
:Megan: Nobody likes you, Politifact.
:PolitiFact: PolitiFact says: ''Mostly true!''

{{comic discussion}}

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

1711: Snapchat

2016-07-25T20:23:36Z

KangaroOS: /* Explanation */ +

{{comic
| number = 1711
| date = July 25, 2016
| title = Snapchat
| image = snapchat.png
| titletext = For obvious reasons, the prize is awarded at a different time of year from the others, while it's still fresh in the committee's memory.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Maybe there's more to it.}}
The {{w|Pulitzer Prize}} is awarded for spectacular writing (there are many categories; see {{w|Pulitzer Prize#Categories|here}}). {{w|Snapchat}} is a photo-sending app that allows the receiving user to only view the photo (known as a "snap") for a few seconds before it is deleted.

[[Cueball]] reads about the prize but then when [[Megan]] states the she heard the picture was really good Cueball becomes disappointed because he has missed out on the chance to see the prize winning photo due to the temporary nature of Snapchat.

The title text extends this ephemeral nature of Snapchat's content to the prize awarded for it: The other Pulitzer prizes are announced annually in April and awarded in May (except for 2016, the centennial year, when an awards dinner will be held in October). The Snapchat Pulitzer alone must be awarded as quickly as possible after the winner has been decided, or the prize committee will forget the winner's name—as well as the picture itself.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball and Megan standing together. He holds a smartphone in his left hand and looks at it.]
:Cueball: Oh, the Pulitzer Prize for Snapchat was just awarded.
:Megan: Yeah.
:Megan: I hear the photo was really good.
:Cueball: Aw, ''maaaan''...

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Smartphones]]
[[Category:Social networking]]

234: Escape Artist

2016-07-25T20:21:30Z

KangaroOS: /* Explanation */ <code>

{{comic
| number = 234
| date = March 12, 2007
| title = Escape Artist
| image = escape_artist.png
| titletext = Easier to escape: n-layered nested quotes or an iron maiden?
}}

==Explanation==
{{w|Harry Houdini}} (born Erik Weisz/Ehrich Weiss) was a famous escape artist, whose more famous routines included escaping straitjackets and switching places with an assistant while locked inside a box.

The word "escape" also has a meaning {{w|Escape character|in computer science}}. To "escape" something in programming means to replace a character or character sequence which would usually have a special meaning with another character sequence that doesn't have this special meaning. One common way of escaping is to have a special escape character which removes the special meaning from whatever character follows it. For instance, many programming languages enclose text strings in quotation marks (e.g. <code>"this is a string"</code>). If you tried to directly put a quotation mark inside the string, the compiler would interpret it as the end of the string. To avoid this, the quotation mark is ''escaped'' with a backslash: <code>"He said, \"Goodbye!\", and went away."</code>

The problem [[Cueball]] is having is related to the fact that {{w|Bash (Unix shell)|the Bash shell}} interprets spaces as a special syntactic marker, when he actually just wants the spaces to be literal space characters. In this case, escaping the spaces with \ would force Bash to interpret his script in this way.

(There is one other way the escape character is sometimes used, but we'll ignore it for the sake of explaining the comic.)

The person talking to Cueball is having a separate conversation about Houdini as Cueball thinks aloud about his script issue, which results in diverging conversations. This eventually leads Cueball to suggest that Houdini might have "escaped" (freed himself from) handcuffs by "escaping" (removing the special meaning from) them with backslashes.

Sometimes, escape characters need to be "nested" - the backslash character itself can be escaped as \\ to produce a literal backslash, so if, for example, one needs to produce a literal quotation mark to output to a script file, and that script file ''also'' needs to have the quotation mark escaped, one would need to type it out as \\\", which would be output as \". If I needed to actually output that \\\", one would need to type it as \\\\\\\". The number of backslashes needed grows, and can be very hard to keep track of (see [[1638: Backslashes]]). This behavior is a type of n-level nested quotation mentioned in the title text.

An {{w|iron maiden (torture device)|iron maiden}} is supposedly a medieval torture device, currently believed to have been invented for tourism purposes much later than the time period when it was said to have been used.
Harry Houdini's escapes include an escape from a purported "iron maiden," although it only vaguely resembles the "medieval" torture device.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball sits before a computer on a desk while another man stands behind him.]
:Man: I was fascinated by locks as a kid. I loved how they turned information and patterns into physical strength.
:Cueball: Why does my script keep dying?

:[Closeup on Cueball sitting at the computer.]
:Man: And a lock invites you to try and open it. It's the hacker instinct. Only your ignorance stands in the way.
:Cueball: Wait it's passing bad strings.

:[Returns to the two shot of both men.]
:Man: I admired Harry Houdini, how he could open any lock and free himself from any restraint.
:Cueball: Ah - Bash is parsing the spaces.

:Man: Sure some of it was fakery and showmanship. But I still wonder how he so consistently escaped handcuffs.
:Cueball: Backslashes?
:Man: Huh?
:Cueball: Never mind.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Programming]]
[[Category:Computers]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]
[[Category:Puns]]

1711: Snapchat

2016-07-25T13:10:37Z

KangaroOS: /* Explanation */ correction

{{comic
| number = 1711
| date = July 25, 2016
| title = Snapchat
| image = snapchat.png
| titletext = For obvious reasons, the prize is awarded at a different time of year from the others, while it's still fresh in the committee's memory.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Don't remove this tag too fast. Links are missing and maybe much more.}}
The Pulitzer Prize is awarded for spectacular writing (there are many categories; see {{w|Pulitzer Prize#Categories|here}}). Snapchat is a photo-sending app that allows the recieving user to only view the photo (known as a "snap") for a few seconds before it is deleted. Cueball is disappointed that he missed out on the chance to see the prize winning photo due to the temporary nature of snapchat.

It is worth noting that in spite of the intent of snapchat, many users will take a screen shot of "snaps" that are sent to them creating a permanent copy of the image. This has led to embarrassment when users expected their sexually explicit snaps to only be seen by the recipient, but those images end up being seen by many more people especially if the copy gets posted on the internet.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball and Megan standing together. He holds a smartphone in his left hand and looks at it.]
:Cueball: Oh, the Pulitzer Prize for Snapchat was just awarded.
:Megan: Yeah.
:Megan: I hear the photo was really good.
:Cueball: Aw, ''maaaan''...

{{comic discussion}}

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

761: DFS

2016-07-23T12:30:11Z

KangaroOS: /* First step */ ce

{{comic
| number = 761
| date = July 2, 2010
| title = DFS
| image = dfs.png
| titletext = A breadth-first search makes a lot of sense for dating in general, actually; it suggests dating a bunch of people casually before getting serious, rather than having a series of five-year relationships one after the other.
}}

==Explanation==
In this comic [[Hairy]] is preparing for his date with [[Ponytail]], and has just finished with a shower, as seen from the fact that he is wearing a towel around his waist. (Ironically this makes him more "dressed" than at any other time). Ponytail is even-more-ironically wearing nothing at all.

He is also preparing mentally by thinking about which [[#Situations|situations]] he might encounter during the date. Since he cannot know for sure he is performing a "blind search" in his head. When doing a blind search in computing, there are two main tactics—{{w|depth-first search}} (DFS), and {{w|breadth-first search}} (BFS).

Hairy uses the '''DFS''' technique, as indicated in the comic title, which means going as far as you possibly can down one path before looking at other possibilities. This turns out to be a bad idea, as Hairy's searches takes him out of a tangent. Instead of preparing for his date, Hairy instead spent the whole time [[#Snake venom|doing research]] on {{w|snake venom}}, to the exclusion of even getting dressed in time for the arrival of his date. The way the last panel is the only panel and at the far right in the second row vs. four panels in the top row, indicates all the time he has used on DFS. And although he may realize his mistake, throwing up his arms, he has to tell [[Ponytail]] the fact he has found out that the {{w|inland taipan}}'s has the deadliest venom of any snake (see [[#Snake venom|more]] below).

By contrast, a breadth-first search will look only minimally into a topic before moving on to another; any new depth exposed by this minimal check will be added to a list of stuff to do later. This would have allowed Hairy to briefly check many more things within the time allotted, and probably still have been able to get dressed.

The relationship advice given in the title text on using breadth-first search may not be meant too seriously. However, one might be more sure about what kind of person one is looking for after already having dated a few people. But then the right one, might have slipped by. It is by no means certain that you can return to one of the first persons you dated after having dated another dozen.

It is, however, not very useful, if you wish to have a stable family life, to "only" be with a person for five years. So DFS is for sure a bad way to find out who you wish to spend you life with. One might conclude that blind search is not a good way to find your significant other. But for most people, there is no other way to search.

Hairy also has a situation where he goes out of a tangent in [[1518: Typical Morning Routine]].

==Situations==
Hairy begins to think of several situations to prepares for.

===First step===
In the first panel there are four situations:
#Medical emergency
##This is the situation he continues with in the second step.
#Dancing
##He probably doesn't think he is good enough at dancing, or simply do not like it.
##It could also be because he is uncertain what she expects, of if she wishes to dance with him at all.
#Food too expensive
##It probably means that he is expected to pay (at least for himself, but probably also for his date)
##This is a simple problem, if he does his search first. He just has to choose a restaurant he can afford.
#Bee eating contest (?)
##This situation is cut off, so it is hard to be certain what it says.
##The above is the best guess so far.
##It could be a joke on {{w|Spelling bee}} contests and "normal" {{w|Competitive eating|eating contest}}.

===Second step===
In the second panel there are also four situations continuing the first option from the first panel:
#Medical emergency
##Snakebite
###This is the situation he continues with in the third step.
##{{w|Lightning strike}}
###Very unlikely event to happen on any given date.
##Fall from chair
###This could happen, especially if he is clumsy when holding the chair for her...
##Tracheal bowing (?)
###This situation is cut off very much. The above is just a good guess.

===Third step===
In the third panel there are four types of snakes with questions marks as to whether they are dangerous. This is a continuation of the first option from the second panel:
#Medical emergency
##Snakebite
###Corn snake
###Garter snake
###Copperhead
###Coral snake (?)
####This situation is cut off very much. The above is just a good guess.

This third step takes him to his computer in the fourth panel where he does lots of research on [[#Snake venom|snake venom]].

===Snake venom===
{{w|Median lethal dose|LD50}}, or median lethal dose, is the dose of a toxin required to kill 50% of the population studied, usually expressed in milligrams of toxin per kilogram of body mass, and most often for {{w|rats}} or another type of {{w|guinea pig}}.

The {{w|inland taipan}}'s venom does, indeed, have the lowest median lethal dose among snake venoms. (Fortunately, it is extremely shy in temperament, and will always escape danger rather than bite if it can, which is why it isn't considered to be a particularly dangerous snake.)

Incidentally, {{w|Corn snake|corn snakes}} and {{w|garter snakes}} are not even remotely dangerous to humans (in fact they're the most popular pet snakes), and of the four different species commonly known as "{{w|agkistrodon|copperheads}}," the only dangerously venomous one is ''{{w|deinagkistrodon acutus}}'' or sharp-nosed viper that only lives in Southeast Asia. In the US the snake going by the name of ''copperhead'' is the {{w|agkistrodon contortrix}}.

The item that is almost entirely cut off by the thought bubble seems to be "{{w|coral snake}};" coral snakes are in a similar position as the inland taipan: extremely venomous, but also extremely reclusive.

==Transcript==
:[In a frame that breaks the top of the first panels frame:]
:Preparing for a date:

:[Hairy with wet hair and a towel around his waist thinks with his hand to his chin. There are four situations, but it is not possible to read the fourth line.]
:Hairy: What situations might I prepare for?
::1) Medical emergency
::2) Dancing
::3) Food too expensive

:[Close-up on Hairy's face, who is still thinking. There are again four situations, but again it is not possible to read the fourth line.]
:Hairy: Okay, what kind of emergencies can happen?
::1) A) Snakebite
::: B) Lightning strike
::: C) Fall from chair

:[Zoooming out again to full figure of Hairy. He is still thinking... There are four snakes, but again it is not possible to read the fourth line. The word Danger stands beneath the three dots above the "?" after each snake.]
:Hairy: Hmm. Which snakes are dangerous? Let's see...
:::::::Danger
::1)A)a) Corn snake ?
::: b) Garter snake ?
::: c) Copperhead ?

:[Hairy is sitting down in a chair with a laptop in his lap, while still wearing the towel.]
:Hairy: The research comparing snake venoms is scattered and inconsistent. I'll make a spreadsheet to organize it.

:[Bottom panel is larger than top four, and aligned to right. Ponytail meets Hairy on his front stoop. She is carrying a purse, and looks down at the towel he is still wearing. Hairy holds his arms in the air.]
:Ponytail: I'm here to pick you up. You're not dressed?
:Hairy: By LD50, the inland taipan has the deadliest venom of any snake!

:[Below this last panel are the following caption:]
:'''I really need to stop using depth-first searches.'''

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Romance]]

761: DFS

2016-07-23T12:28:23Z

KangaroOS: /* Explanation */ c/e

{{comic
| number = 761
| date = July 2, 2010
| title = DFS
| image = dfs.png
| titletext = A breadth-first search makes a lot of sense for dating in general, actually; it suggests dating a bunch of people casually before getting serious, rather than having a series of five-year relationships one after the other.
}}

==Explanation==
In this comic [[Hairy]] is preparing for his date with [[Ponytail]], and has just finished with a shower, as seen from the fact that he is wearing a towel around his waist. (Ironically this makes him more "dressed" than at any other time). Ponytail is even-more-ironically wearing nothing at all.

He is also preparing mentally by thinking about which [[#Situations|situations]] he might encounter during the date. Since he cannot know for sure he is performing a "blind search" in his head. When doing a blind search in computing, there are two main tactics—{{w|depth-first search}} (DFS), and {{w|breadth-first search}} (BFS).

Hairy uses the '''DFS''' technique, as indicated in the comic title, which means going as far as you possibly can down one path before looking at other possibilities. This turns out to be a bad idea, as Hairy's searches takes him out of a tangent. Instead of preparing for his date, Hairy instead spent the whole time [[#Snake venom|doing research]] on {{w|snake venom}}, to the exclusion of even getting dressed in time for the arrival of his date. The way the last panel is the only panel and at the far right in the second row vs. four panels in the top row, indicates all the time he has used on DFS. And although he may realize his mistake, throwing up his arms, he has to tell [[Ponytail]] the fact he has found out that the {{w|inland taipan}}'s has the deadliest venom of any snake (see [[#Snake venom|more]] below).

By contrast, a breadth-first search will look only minimally into a topic before moving on to another; any new depth exposed by this minimal check will be added to a list of stuff to do later. This would have allowed Hairy to briefly check many more things within the time allotted, and probably still have been able to get dressed.

The relationship advice given in the title text on using breadth-first search may not be meant too seriously. However, one might be more sure about what kind of person one is looking for after already having dated a few people. But then the right one, might have slipped by. It is by no means certain that you can return to one of the first persons you dated after having dated another dozen.

It is, however, not very useful, if you wish to have a stable family life, to "only" be with a person for five years. So DFS is for sure a bad way to find out who you wish to spend you life with. One might conclude that blind search is not a good way to find your significant other. But for most people, there is no other way to search.

Hairy also has a situation where he goes out of a tangent in [[1518: Typical Morning Routine]].

==Situations==
Hairy begins to think of several situations to prepares for.

===First step===
In the first panel there are four situations:
#Medical emergency
##This is the situation he continues with in the second step.
#Dancing
##He probably doesn't think he is good enough at dancing, or simply do not like it.
##It could also be because he is uncertain what she expects, of if she wishes to dance with him at all.
#Food too expensive
##It probably means that he is expected to pay (at least for himself, but probably also for his date)
##This is a simple problem, if he does his search first. He just have to choose a restaurant he can afford.
#Bee eating contest (?)
##This situation is cut off, so it is hard to be certain what it says.
##The above is the best guess so far.
##It could be a joke on {{w|Spelling bee}} contests and "normal" {{w|Competitive eating|eating contest}}.

===Second step===
In the second panel there are also four situations continuing the first option from the first panel:
#Medical emergency
##Snakebite
###This is the situation he continues with in the third step.
##{{w|Lightning strike}}
###Very unlikely event to happen on any given date.
##Fall from chair
###This could happen, especially if he is clumsy when holding the chair for her...
##Tracheal bowing (?)
###This situation is cut off very much. The above is just a good guess.

===Third step===
In the third panel there are four types of snakes with questions marks as to whether they are dangerous. This is a continuation of the first option from the second panel:
#Medical emergency
##Snakebite
###Corn snake
###Garter snake
###Copperhead
###Coral snake (?)
####This situation is cut off very much. The above is just a good guess.

This third step takes him to his computer in the fourth panel where he does lots of research on [[#Snake venom|snake venom]].

===Snake venom===
{{w|Median lethal dose|LD50}}, or median lethal dose, is the dose of a toxin required to kill 50% of the population studied, usually expressed in milligrams of toxin per kilogram of body mass, and most often for {{w|rats}} or another type of {{w|guinea pig}}.

The {{w|inland taipan}}'s venom does, indeed, have the lowest median lethal dose among snake venoms. (Fortunately, it is extremely shy in temperament, and will always escape danger rather than bite if it can, which is why it isn't considered to be a particularly dangerous snake.)

Incidentally, {{w|Corn snake|corn snakes}} and {{w|garter snakes}} are not even remotely dangerous to humans (in fact they're the most popular pet snakes), and of the four different species commonly known as "{{w|agkistrodon|copperheads}}," the only dangerously venomous one is ''{{w|deinagkistrodon acutus}}'' or sharp-nosed viper that only lives in Southeast Asia. In the US the snake going by the name of ''copperhead'' is the {{w|agkistrodon contortrix}}.

The item that is almost entirely cut off by the thought bubble seems to be "{{w|coral snake}};" coral snakes are in a similar position as the inland taipan: extremely venomous, but also extremely reclusive.

==Transcript==
:[In a frame that breaks the top of the first panels frame:]
:Preparing for a date:

:[Hairy with wet hair and a towel around his waist thinks with his hand to his chin. There are four situations, but it is not possible to read the fourth line.]
:Hairy: What situations might I prepare for?
::1) Medical emergency
::2) Dancing
::3) Food too expensive

:[Close-up on Hairy's face, who is still thinking. There are again four situations, but again it is not possible to read the fourth line.]
:Hairy: Okay, what kind of emergencies can happen?
::1) A) Snakebite
::: B) Lightning strike
::: C) Fall from chair

:[Zoooming out again to full figure of Hairy. He is still thinking... There are four snakes, but again it is not possible to read the fourth line. The word Danger stands beneath the three dots above the "?" after each snake.]
:Hairy: Hmm. Which snakes are dangerous? Let's see...
:::::::Danger
::1)A)a) Corn snake ?
::: b) Garter snake ?
::: c) Copperhead ?

:[Hairy is sitting down in a chair with a laptop in his lap, while still wearing the towel.]
:Hairy: The research comparing snake venoms is scattered and inconsistent. I'll make a spreadsheet to organize it.

:[Bottom panel is larger than top four, and aligned to right. Ponytail meets Hairy on his front stoop. She is carrying a purse, and looks down at the towel he is still wearing. Hairy holds his arms in the air.]
:Ponytail: I'm here to pick you up. You're not dressed?
:Hairy: By LD50, the inland taipan has the deadliest venom of any snake!

:[Below this last panel are the following caption:]
:'''I really need to stop using depth-first searches.'''

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Romance]]

1508: Operating Systems

2016-07-23T12:25:20Z

KangaroOS: /* Explanation */ tweek

{{comic
| number = 1508
| date = April 6, 2015
| title = Operating Systems
| image = operating systems.png
| titletext = One of the survivors, poking around in the ruins with the point of a spear, uncovers a singed photo of Richard Stallman. They stare in silence. "This," one of them finally says, "This is a man who BELIEVED in something."
}}

==Explanation==
In this comic, [[Randall]] gives an {{w|Gantt chart|overview}} of past, present and (speculatively) future of the {{w|operating system}}s running in his house at any given time. Notably, because Randall is fascinated by technology, he has had more than one OS running in his household since the mid '90's. The timeline tracks how Operating Systems have come and gone over the years, and the gradual shift from desktop Operating Systems to mobile can be observed. Beyond the present day, we see some of Randall's humorous predictions as to which technologies and companies will dominate the Operating System landscape in the future.

It may be that the OS that is closest to the time-line is also the one he mainly uses during these extended periods.

Previous and current systems:
*{{w|MS-DOS}} (Microsoft Disk Operating System): The default, command-line-based OS on most IBM PC-compatible computers. Early versions of Windows operated as shells on top of MS-DOS rather than stand-alone OSes in their own right, which may explain part of the overlap in those two bars.
*Apple's {{w|Mac OS}} (Macintosh Operating System): The OS of Apple's Macintosh line of computers. Randall's bar indicates that he stopped using Macs in 2001, after Mac OS had been superseded by the new and then-buggy {{w|Mac OS X}}.
*{{w|Linux}}: An open-source (typically free) Unix-like OS. Randall's bar indicates that he likely used it on one or two PCs starting from 1999 while still using Windows on other PCs, or perhaps was dual-booting one or more PCs with Windows, until abandoning Windows in 2007 to use Linux full-time. This timing coincides with the release of Microsoft's controversial {{w|Windows Vista}} and the advent of more user-friendly Linux distributions.
*{{w|OS X}} (Macintosh Operating System v10): The successor OS of Apple's Macintosh line of computers. Although it was sometimes marketed as merely the 10th version of the earlier Mac OS, it was largely a new product. The bar indicates Randall's renewed use of Macintosh computers in 2009 after the OS had matured and Macs had transitioned to Intel processors.
*{{w|Android (operating system)|Android}}: The upper layers of the OS running on Android phones and tablets, above the Linux {{w|Kernel (operating system)|kernel}}. Randall is indicating that he has at least one of these devices.
*Apple's {{w|iOS}}: The OS of {{w|iPhone}}, {{w|iPad}}, {{w|iPad mini}}, {{w|iPad Air}}, {{w|iPod Touch}} and {{w|Apple TV}}. Randall is indicating that he also has at least one of these devices.

His predictions for the future include:
*2018: That {{w|OS X}} and {{w|iOS}} will merge. There is frequent speculation on technology blogs as to whether or not this merging will come to pass in the future. The two OSes have a common origin, share a lot of software, and are maintained by the same company that would benefit from the efficiency of maintaining a single unified OS. Opposing this is the fact that interaction patterns are very different between traditional computers and tablets/phones and a one-size-fits-both solution may not be feasible, and the fact that Apple spends some time in each of its recent keynotes mocking computers like the Microsoft Surface Pro which use both standard computer and touch control.
*2019: That an operating system designed with and for {{w|JavaScript}} will become attractive, perhaps along the lines of [http://node-os.com/ NodeOS] and/or [http://runtimejs.org/ Runtime.js].
*2022: That there'll be an OS based on the {{w|Tinder (application)|Tinder}} dating app.
*2024: That there'll be an OS from {{w|Nest Labs}}, presumably oriented towards home automation and the {{w|Internet of things}}.
*2029: That {{w|Elon Musk}} will come up with an operating system.
*2030: That {{w|Disk operating system|DOS}} would make a comeback, but only in an ironic fashion (maybe because there would be no more disks left for it to operate from).
*2034: That Randall will be deploying an [http://geneticliteracyproject.org/2014/07/genetically-engineered-red-blood-cells-could-be-drug-delivery-drones/ autonomous drug-delivery drone] in his body.
*2042: Human civilization comes to a fiery end, maybe due to some unholy combination of the above innovations. Another possible explanation is that human civilization will be wiped out by an artificial super-intelligence, superior to human intelligence, as Elon Musk, Ray Kurzweil, Bill Gates and many tech pundits foresee that 2045 will be the year to see such technology becoming real, and as Elon Musk, Bill Gates and many other tech pundits fear that it will be the extinction of all life on earth, as explained [http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/01/artificial-intelligence-revolution-2.html on this page].
*2059: At this time his operating system will be {{w|GNU}}/{{w|Hurd}}. This infamously and perennially late [http://www.gnu.org/software/hurd/hurd.html GNU/Hurd] OS will finally make it in to Randall's home after human civilization has been wiped out. The joke is that GNU/Hurd began to be developed in 1990, and while it was expected to be released in a relatively short time, even now only unstable builds have been released. So Randall is saying that he will finally run it in his house a decade or two after the end of civilization. GNU/Hurd will presumably have an advantage as humanity rebuilds civilization due to the widespread availability of its code and development tools, and perhaps also because of Stallman's depth of belief, based on the title text. Alternatively, GNU/Hurd might be finished by the same force that finished humankind, for instance {{w|Skynet (Terminator)|Skynet}}, in case of {{w|Cybernetic revolt|AI Apocalypse}}. (Interestingly, although still far from completion, [http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/hurd/hurd.git/commit/?id=b8ffab7c38f3ede424b8a07553d6ee6b16abb85b a new version of GNU/Hurd] was released less than a week after this comic.)

The title text refers to {{w|Richard Stallman}}, the founder of the {{w|Free Software movement}} and the GNU and Hurd projects. A survivor of the fire that ended the human civilization has uncovered a slightly burned ({{w|Singe|singed}}) picture of him. Those gathered can see, either directly from the picture or because they already know of Stallman, that this was a man that really believed in something. In this case it was ''free software''. Inspired by his image, they rebuild their lost civilization and finish Hurd development.

The GNU/Hurd reference might also be a pun, as in a "herd" of {{w|Wildebeest|Gnus}} "running" in his living room, as wild animals reclaim the Earth after the end of human civilization.

GNU is a collection of free software utilities, particularly the system utilities used with the Linux Kernel to form the Linux operating system (often called GNU/Linux by those who wish to emphasize the contribution of the GNU project). Hurd is an operating system kernel designed as part of GNU project that could be used in place of the Linux kernel to produce a complete GNU operating system. Hurd has a microkernel architecture, which has many perceived advantages over Linux's monolithic kernel, and is thought by many to be technically superior, despite its low adoption rate compared to the Linux kernel.

Randall has made several comics about free software and also about Stallman. See this list of [[:Category:Comics featuring Richard Stallman|comics featuring Richard Stallman]]. Most of these are also about free software in some form.

==Transcript==
:[At the top of the panel:]
::'''Operating Systems'''
::running in my house

:[At the bottom there is time-line that runs from 1990 to 2066. It has small indicators for every year, larger for every 5 years and largest for every 10 years. Below the 10 year indicators are written the years. Also the year 2015 is marked:]
:1990 2000 2010 Now 2020 2030 2040 2050 2060

:[Bars above the time-line in four levels are labeled with operating system names, representing the time period for that OS. Below is a list of the bars on the time-line in order of first appearance (with approximate year ranges given). Also the level from 1-4 is indicated, with level 1 just above the time-line and level 4 the highest level above the line:]

:[Level 1 from 1988 to 1998 (extends a little left past the beginning of the time-line but not off panel):]
::MS DOS
:[Level 2 from 1993 to 2007:]
::Windows
:[Level 3 from 1994 to 2001:]
::Mac OS
:[Level 1 from 1999 to 2018:]
::Linux
:[Level 2 from 2009 to 2023. On the way the bar merges with iOS around 2019:]
::OS X
:[Level 3 from 2009 to 2016:]
::Android
:[Level 4 from 2013 to 2023. On the way to 2023 the bar moves down past Android to merge with OS X around 2019:]
::iOS
:[Level 1 from 2018 to 2028. The text is written in square brackets:]
::[Something].js
:[Level 3 from 2022 to 2029:]
::TinderOS
:[Level 2 from 2023 to 2032:]
::Nest
:[Level 1 from 2028 to 2041:]
::Elon Musk Project:
:[Level 3 from 2030 to 2036:]
::DOS, but ironically
:[Level 2 from 2034 to 2041:]
::Blood Drone
:[This is not a bar, but the text (in three lines) is in a, double bar-height (level 1-2), square bracket. The bracket extends from 2042 to 2051:]
::[Human civilization ends in fire]
:[Level 1 from 2059 going past the end of the panel past 2066:]
::GNU/Hurd

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Timelines]]
[[Category:Computers]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Richard Stallman]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Elon Musk]]

1508: Operating Systems

2016-07-23T12:24:02Z

KangaroOS: /* Explanation */ c/e

{{comic
| number = 1508
| date = April 6, 2015
| title = Operating Systems
| image = operating systems.png
| titletext = One of the survivors, poking around in the ruins with the point of a spear, uncovers a singed photo of Richard Stallman. They stare in silence. "This," one of them finally says, "This is a man who BELIEVED in something."
}}

==Explanation==
In this comic, [[Randall]] gives an {{w|Gantt chart|overview}} of past, present and (speculatively) future of the {{w|operating system}}s running in his house at any given time. Notably, because Randall is fascinated by technology, he has had more than one OS running in his household since the mid '90's. The timeline tracks how Operating Systems have come and gone over the years, and the gradual shift from desktop Operating Systems to mobile can be observed. Beyond the present day, we see some of Randall's humorous predictions as to which technologies and companies will dominate the Operating System landscape in the future.

It may be that the OS that is closest to the time-line is also the one he mainly uses during these extended periods.

Previous and current systems:
*{{w|MS-DOS}} (Microsoft Disk Operating System): The default, command-line-based OS on most IBM PC-compatible computers. Early versions of Windows operated as shells on top of MS-DOS rather than stand-alone OSes in their own right, which may explain part of the overlap in those two bars.
*Apple's {{w|Mac OS}} (Macintosh Operating System): The OS of Apple's Macintosh line of computers. Randall's bar indicates that he stopped using Macs in 2001, after Mac OS had been superseded by the new and then-buggy {{w|Mac OS X}}.
*{{w|Linux}}: An open-source (typically free) Unix-like OS. Randall's bar indicates that he likely used it on one or two PCs starting from 1999 while still using Windows on other PCs, or perhaps was dual-booting one or more PCs with Windows, until abandoning Windows in 2007 to use Linux full-time. This timing coincides with the release of Microsoft's controversial {{w|Windows Vista}} and the advent of more user-friendly Linux distributions.
*{{w|OS X}} (Macintosh Operating System v10): The successor OS of Apple's Macintosh line of computers. Although it was sometimes marketed as merely the 10th version of the earlier Mac OS, it was largely a new product. The bar indicates Randall's renewed use of Macintosh computers in 2009 after the OS had matured and Macs had transitioned to Intel processors.
*{{w|Android_(operating_system)|Android}}: The upper layers of the OS running on Android phones and tablets, above the Linux {{w|Kernel_(operating_system)|kernel}}. Randall is indicating that he has at least one of these devices.
*Apple's {{w|iOS}}: The OS of {{w|iPhone}}, {{w|iPad}}, {{w|iPad mini}}, {{w|iPad Air}}, {{w|iPod Touch}} and {{w|Apple TV}}. Randall is indicating that he also has at least one of these devices.

His predictions for the future include:
*2018: That {{w|OS X}} and {{w|iOS}} will merge. There is frequent speculation on technology blogs as to whether or not this merging will come to pass in the future. The two OSes have a common origin, share a lot of software, and are maintained by the same company that would benefit from the efficiency of maintaining a single unified OS. Opposing this is the fact that interaction patterns are very different between traditional computers and tablets/phones and a one-size-fits-both solution may not be feasible, and the fact that Apple spends some time in each of its recent keynotes mocking computers like the Microsoft Surface Pro which use both standard computer and touch control.
*2019: That an operating system designed with and for {{w|Javascript}} will become attractive, perhaps along the lines of [http://node-os.com/ NodeOS] and/or [http://runtimejs.org/ Runtime.js].
*2022: That there'll be an OS based on the {{w|Tinder_(application)|Tinder}} dating app.
*2024: That there'll be an OS from {{w|Nest Labs}}, presumably oriented towards home automation and the {{w|Internet of things}}.
*2029: That {{w|Elon Musk}} will come up with an operating system.
*2030: That {{w|Disk_operating_system|DOS}} would make a comeback, but only in an ironic fashion (maybe because there would be no more disks left for it to operate from).
*2034: That Randall will be deploying an [http://geneticliteracyproject.org/2014/07/genetically-engineered-red-blood-cells-could-be-drug-delivery-drones/ autonomous drug-delivery drone] in his body.
*2042: Human civilization comes to a fiery end, maybe due to some unholy combination of the above innovations. Another possible explanation is that human civilization will be wiped out by an artificial super-intelligence, superior to human intelligence, as Elon Musk, Ray Kurzweil, Bill Gates and many tech pundits foresee that 2045 will be the year to see such technology becoming real, and as Elon Musk, Bill Gates and many other tech pundits fear that it will be the extinction of all life on earth, as explained [http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/01/artificial-intelligence-revolution-2.html on this page].
*2059: At this time his operating system will be {{w|GNU}}/{{w|Hurd}}. This infamously and perennially late [http://www.gnu.org/software/hurd/hurd.html GNU/Hurd] OS will finally make it in to Randall's home after human civilization has been wiped out. The joke is that GNU/Hurd began to be developed in 1990, and while it was expected to be released in a relatively short time, even now only unstable builds have been released. So Randall is saying that he will finally run it in his house a decade or two after the end of civilization. GNU/Hurd will presumably have an advantage as humanity rebuilds civilization due to the widespread availability of its code and development tools, and perhaps also because of Stallman's depth of belief, based on the title text. Alternatively, GNU/Hurd might be finished by the same force that finished humankind, for instance {{w|Skynet (Terminator)|Skynet}}, in case of {{w|Cybernetic revolt|AI Apocalypse}}. (Interestingly, although still far from completion, [http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/hurd/hurd.git/commit/?id=b8ffab7c38f3ede424b8a07553d6ee6b16abb85b a new version of GNU/Hurd] was released less than a week after this comic.)

The title text refers to {{w|Richard Stallman}}, the founder of the {{w|Free Software movement}} and the GNU and Hurd projects. A survivor of the fire that ended the human civilization has uncovered a slightly burned ({{w|Singe|singed}}) picture of him. Those gathered can see, either directly from the picture or because they already know of Stallman, that this was a man that really believed in something. In this case it was ''free software''. Inspired by his image, they rebuild their lost civilization and finish Hurd development.

GNU/Hurd might also be a pun, as in a "herd" of {{w|Wildebeest|Gnus}} "running" in his living room, as wild animals reclaim the Earth after the end of human civilization.

GNU is a collection of free software utilities, particularly the system utilities used with the Linux Kernel to form the Linux operating system (often called GNU/Linux by those who wish to emphasize the contribution of the GNU project). Hurd is an operating system kernel designed as part of GNU project that could be used in place of the Linux kernel to produce a complete GNU operating system. Hurd has a microkernel architecture, which has many perceived advantages over Linux's monolithic kernel, and is thought by many to be technically superior, despite its low adoption rate compared to the Linux kernel.

Randall has made several comics about free software and also about Stallman. See this list of [[:Category:Comics featuring Richard Stallman|comics featuring Richard Stallman]]. Most of these are also about free software in some form.

==Transcript==
:[At the top of the panel:]
::'''Operating Systems'''
::running in my house

:[At the bottom there is time-line that runs from 1990 to 2066. It has small indicators for every year, larger for every 5 years and largest for every 10 years. Below the 10 year indicators are written the years. Also the year 2015 is marked:]
:1990 2000 2010 Now 2020 2030 2040 2050 2060

:[Bars above the time-line in four levels are labeled with operating system names, representing the time period for that OS. Below is a list of the bars on the time-line in order of first appearance (with approximate year ranges given). Also the level from 1-4 is indicated, with level 1 just above the time-line and level 4 the highest level above the line:]

:[Level 1 from 1988 to 1998 (extends a little left past the beginning of the time-line but not off panel):]
::MS DOS
:[Level 2 from 1993 to 2007:]
::Windows
:[Level 3 from 1994 to 2001:]
::Mac OS
:[Level 1 from 1999 to 2018:]
::Linux
:[Level 2 from 2009 to 2023. On the way the bar merges with iOS around 2019:]
::OS X
:[Level 3 from 2009 to 2016:]
::Android
:[Level 4 from 2013 to 2023. On the way to 2023 the bar moves down past Android to merge with OS X around 2019:]
::iOS
:[Level 1 from 2018 to 2028. The text is written in square brackets:]
::[Something].js
:[Level 3 from 2022 to 2029:]
::TinderOS
:[Level 2 from 2023 to 2032:]
::Nest
:[Level 1 from 2028 to 2041:]
::Elon Musk Project:
:[Level 3 from 2030 to 2036:]
::DOS, but ironically
:[Level 2 from 2034 to 2041:]
::Blood Drone
:[This is not a bar, but the text (in three lines) is in a, double bar-height (level 1-2), square bracket. The bracket extends from 2042 to 2051:]
::[Human civilization ends in fire]
:[Level 1 from 2059 going past the end of the panel past 2066:]
::GNU/Hurd

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Timelines]]
[[Category:Computers]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Richard Stallman]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Elon Musk]]

356: Nerd Sniping

2016-07-23T12:17:33Z

KangaroOS: more dashes, quote

{{comic
| number = 356
| date = December 12, 2007
| title = Nerd Sniping
| image = nerd sniping.png
| titletext = I first saw this problem on the Google Labs Aptitude Test. A professor and I filled a blackboard without getting anywhere. Have fun.
}}

==Explanation==
{{w|Nerd}}s have a way of getting distracted easily and focusing on one thing and ignoring the rest, when they feel their specific skills are challenged by an interesting problem. [[Black Hat]] has decided to make this into a disturbing game of getting nerds, in this case a physicist, to stop in the middle of a street and get crushed by traffic by showing them an interesting problem to solve. (This may be based on a real event—see the [[#Trivia|trivia]] section).

The problem Black Hat shows is an electronics engineering thought experiment to find the resistance between two points. In normal wiring, a one-ohm resistor would result in one ohm of resistance. Two resistors connected in a series, where electricity has to go through each, has two ohms of resistance. Two one-ohm resistors in parallel give the circuit only half an ohm since you average the resistance of the path (1 ohm of resistance over 2 paths). With an infinite grid of equal resistors, you have an infinite number of paths to take, and for each path an infinite number of both series and parallel paths to consider, so much more advanced methods are needed. The exact answer to the question is 4/π − 1/2 ohms, or about 0.773 ohms. See [http://www.mathpages.com/home/kmath668/kmath668.htm Infinite Grid of Resistors].

Black Hat explains the concept of his new sport, '''Nerd Sniping''', to [[Cueball]] while killing the physicist, but Cueball is appalled and will have no part in this sport, which doesn't make Black Hat give up on him as he suggest it would be fun if he made his own sign. Black Hat finally suggest that "physicists are two points, mathematicians three." This may indicate that he considers a mathematician to be a more difficult target for his game than a physicist would be. It is unclear whether this is meant as a dig on physicists or on mathematicians; it might be because physicists are interested in a wider range of problems, or because mathematicians require a higher-quality problem to hold their interest. Alternatively he just dislikes mathematicians more, and is thus willing to award more points for sniping one of them.

In the title text [[Randall]] explains that he saw this problem in a [http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2004/09/pencils-down-people.html Google Labs Aptitude Test]. This is a collection of puzzles published by {{w|Google}} as a parody of tests such as the {{w|SAT}}. Google is known for using logic & math puzzles in their job interviews.

Randall explained in [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJOS0sV2a24 a speech at Google] five days before this comic was released, that he was nerd sniped, in a way, by that problem in this test (see problem 10 on [https://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Ap14FtNN91w/Rll5oF8Px0I/AAAAAAAAAHo/cHG6a83cmlI/s1600-h/GLAT_3.jpg page 2]), and got quite irritated when he ultimately found that it was actually a modern physics research problem, requiring very advanced math, far more complicated than the other puzzles. Putting such a problem in an aptitude test, can be a way of testing if someone might realize when they cannot solve a problem and remember to move along to the other problems. If they fail to do this, they will never reach the easier problems that comes later, and will fail due to their ability to realize when they will come up short. This is also an important knowledge to have about yourself. Seen in this context it is not necessarily a bad idea to have such an impossible problem in an aptitude test, as it is not interesting to have someone who is easily nerd sniped working for you.

Note that the truck should have stopped no matter what since the nerd was walking on a zebra crossing. But the driver may have seen him walking, an then estimated that he would be safe before reaching him, and then realizing too late that he stopped in the street. Alternatively the truck driver is part of Black Hat's sport.

Randall has later referred back to the concept of ''Nerd Sniping'' several times in the past, such as in the title text of [[730: Circuit Diagram]], and in the [[what if?]] blog. In [http://what-if.xkcd.com/113/ Visit Every State] (7 years after this comics release) the entire comic was shown at the top and the truck again further down the post—Randall has again been nerd sniped by a paper he read. This also happens to him in [https://what-if.xkcd.com/124/ Lunar Swimming]—see the title text for the second to last picture.

==Transcript==
:[Black Hat is sitting on a chair, Cueball is standing next to him. Across the street another Cueball-like guy is coming from a building walking towards the zebra crossing across from Black Hat.]
:Black Hat: There's a certain type of brain that's easily disabled.
:Black Hat: If you show it an interesting problem, it involuntarily drops everything else to work on it.

:[The Cueball-like man across the street is about to enter a crosswalk, which is seen from right behind Black Hat in his chair, holding on to the sign which is still pointing down. Cueball is looking on.]
:Black Hat: This has led me to invent a new sport: Nerd Sniping.
:Black Hat: See that physicist crossing the road?

:[Black Hat lifts up the sign when the physicist is in the middle of the street, halfway across the zebra crossing.]
:Black Hat: Hey!

:[A close up of Black Hat's sign is shown in a frame less panel. There is text above and below an image of a four by five grid of nodes with resistors (shown as wiggly lines) between every node and also continuing away from the 16 outer nodes. A total of 5 columns with 5 and 4 rows with 6 resistors for a total of 20 nodes and 49 resistors. Two nodes, a knight's move apart, are marked with red circles in the 3rd row 2nd column and the 2nd row 4th column.]
:Sign: On this infinite grid of ideal one-ohm resistors,
:Sign: what's the equivalent resistance between the two marked nodes?

:[The Cueball-like physicist has stopped pondering the questions a hand to his chin.]
:Physicist: It's... Hmm. Interesting. Maybe if you start with... No, wait. Hmm... You could—

:[In another frame less panel a ten wheeled truck is zooming past from the right, apparently going through the spot where the physicist just stood.]
:Truck: <big>''Foooom''</big>

:[Cueball looks down on Black Hat who looks back up from his chair at the curb, again holding the sign down. He lifts one hand up while replying.]
:Cueball: I will have no part in this.
:Black Hat: C'mon, make a sign. It's fun! Physicists are two points, mathematicians three.

==Trivia==
*It could be that Randall was inspired by a story from {{w|John Horton Conway|John H. Conway}} about when he was involved in a "near" nerd snipe event that was a perfect match for this comic.
**The story can be read in the book ''[https://books.google.ca/books?id=aFHyUfFUVIwC&printsec=frontcover&hl=da#v=onepage&q&f=false Candid Science Five]'' from 2005 (two years before this comics release), specifically on [https://books.google.ca/books?id=aFHyUfFUVIwC&pg=PA22&lpg=PA22&dq=Coxeter+came+to+Cambridge+and+he+gave+a+lecture,+then+he+had+this+problem+...++Ileft+the+lecture+room+thinking.+As+I+was+walking+through+Cambridge,+suddenly+theidea+hit+me,++but+it+hit+me+while+I+was+in+the+middle+of+the+road.++When+the+ideahit+me+I+stopped+and+a+large+truck+ran+into+me+...++So+I+pretended+that+Coxeter+hadcalculated+the+difficulty+of+this+problem+so+precisely+that+he+knew+that+I+would+getthe+solution+just+in+the+middle+of+the+roa&source=bl&ots=CgmxTG2n0w&sig=ohqqBGtJrpuQFeiCPPusMVsQUV4&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CB0Q6AEwAGoVChMIy4KdnPakyAIV0ZeICh2OGghP#v=onepage&q=%22in%20the%20middle%20of%20the%20road%22&f=false page 22]:
::"{{w|Harold Scott MacDonald Coxeter|[Donald] Coxeter}} came to Cambridge and he gave a lecture, then he had this problem ... I left the lecture room thinking. As I was walking through Cambridge, suddenly the idea hit me, but it hit me while I was in the middle of the road. When the idea hit me I stopped and a large truck ran into me ... So I pretended that Coxeter had calculated the difficulty of this problem so precisely that he knew that I would get the solution just in the middle of the road ..."

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Black Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]
[[Category:Math]]
[[Category:Physics]]

1518: Typical Morning Routine

2016-07-23T12:13:49Z

KangaroOS: /* Explanation */ dashes

{{comic
| number = 1518
| date = April 29, 2015
| title = Typical Morning Routine
| image = typical_morning_routine.png
| titletext = Hang on, I've heard this problem. We need to pour water into the duct until the phone floats up and ... wait, phones sink in water. Mercury. We need a vat of mercury to pour down the vent. That will definitely make this situation better and not worse.
}}

==Explanation==
Waking up to an alarm can be annoying, especially when it is your partner's alarm, and they are slow to wake up and even then have difficulty figuring out how to turn the alarm off. This comic takes this situation to a ridiculous extreme, from whence the comic derives its humor, especially when paired with the title describing this situation as a "Typical Morning Routine". Of course the typical could refer only to the part of the "routine" until the phone is dropped into an air vent.

In this comic, [[Hairy]] with morning hair is shown using his phone as his alarm clock. Another unseen person is sharing the bed with Hairy and growing more irate as Hairy's alarm continues beeping.

Even simple actions like turning off a {{w|smartphone}} alarm can be easily fumbled by a just-awakened groggy person. In this case, Hairy accidentally exited the alarm app without stopping the alarm. In some OSes, simply exiting the app doesn't close it, requiring you to use the app switcher to close it.

After giving up on shutting down the alarm the usual way, Hairy, in annoyance, decides to remove the battery, which will disable the phone's entire operation. However, while trying to remove the battery in the dark, he accidentally drops his device down a floor {{w|air vent}} (most likely part of {{w|forced air}} {{w|central heating}} common in North America) next to the bed. While the vent is covered by a grille, it is apparently coarse enough (or perhaps missing a few pieces, creating a large hole) to allow the phone to pass through if it falls at a particular location and angle. Also, the vent apparently does not descend very far before bending, allowing the phone to survive the fall intact.

As of when this comic was posted, [[Randall]] uses both iOS and Android according to [[1508: Operating Systems]]—although there is no reason to be certain that the character in this comic is using the same operating systems as Randall. However, the fact that Hairy tries to remove the battery strongly suggests it cannot be an iOS device, given that all iOS devices have non-removable batteries.

If he were a little handy, Hairy might be able to open the vent and retrieve the phone—or perhaps not, if the phone slid further into the ventwork or Hairy lacked the necessary tools. Instead of trying to physically recover the phone, Hairy attempts to remotely {{w|Brick (electronics)|brick}} the phone from his laptop, permanently disabling all its functions (including the alarm app).

This attempt fails because Hairy had accidentally put the device into {{w|airplane mode}} before dropping his phone, thereby cutting off all {{w|wireless}} communications with the device and preventing any attempt at remote control. Airplane mode also has the unfortunate (in this situation) side effect of increasing the phone's battery life (though playing loud sounds incessantly should still limit it to a day or so, notwithstanding the pessimistic assessment of Hairy's companion).

Rather than finding a solution to the problem with the phone, Hairy proposes that they just move out instead.

Relevant for the title text: There is a semi-common logic puzzle involving a ping-pong ball falling down a pipe with a kink in it. In this puzzle, the solution is to pour water into the pipe until the ping-pong ball floats up.

In the title text, one of the two characters remembers this problem and attempts to apply it to this situation. Since phones do not float in water, a modified version is proposed using {{w|Mercury (element)|mercury}} instead. The phone would certainly float on mercury, as it is a very dense liquid (the only metal that is liquid at room temperature).

The extremely toxic nature of mercury makes pouring it into the air supply a very dangerous idea. Also the required amount of mercury would be extremely expensive. The weight of the mercury would also be substantial (1 gallon = 113 lb), and would likely break something in the air duct system. Both mercury and water could also push the phone further into the duct system instead of bringing it back. The end of the title text, declaring that the mercury idea would ''definitely make this situation better and not worse'' could be either a sarcastic commentary on these problems or a desperate attempt to bolster confidence that this extreme solution will work when everything else has failed.

Given that Hairy was willing to sacrifice the phone anyway (by attempting to brick it), he would probably be better off pouring water down the vent—it wouldn't bring the phone within reach, but it would disable and thereby silence it (unless the phone is completely waterproof, which most phones aren't, especially those where the battery can be removed).

Of course, Hairy probably wouldn't have gotten into this mess if he had not just been awakened brutally by a very loud alarm, making it difficult to think clearly (or, alternatively, if he just had a standard alarm clock that he could have unplugged or even a mechanical one that he could, say, hit with a hammer until it broke; or just flip the off switch).

This comic follows a similar storyline to [[349: Success]] and [[530: I'm An Idiot]], as [[Cueball]], like Hairy here, encounters an issue and attempts progressively more absurd solutions to the issue. Hairy, himself, has also tried to go out of such a tangent before in [[761: DFS]].

==Transcript==
:[The panel is completely black, with white text. Small lines indicate from where the two voices are coming, and also from where the alarm goes off. A small broken square surrounds the first word spoken.]
:Alarm: '''Bleep Bleep'''
:Voice (right): Urgh
:Voice (left): Your alarm is going off
:Voice (right): Huh?
:Voice (left): Make it stop.
:Voice (right) Urrgh

:[The panel is completely black, with white text. Small lines indicate from where the two voices are coming. Several small lines surrounds the last "sound" which is not spoken. The alarm noise is continued from the previous panel and continues over the top of the frame directly into the next panel.]
:Alarm: '''Bleep Bleep Bleep B'''
:Voice (left): Hit snooze.
:Voice (right): I'm ''trying''. I closed the alarm app and I can't... I'll just pop out the battery.
:Voice (right): Whoops!
:Clang

:[The lights have turned on so it is now a white panel with black text. The voice to the right came from Hairy with morning hair. He is leaning over the side of the bed, looking down the air vent through which he has dropped the phone. The other person to the left is not shown. The alarm noise (now coming from the air vent as visualized by the lines coming out of the vent) still continues from the previous panel and continues over the top of the frame directly into the next panel.]
:Alarm: '''eep Bleep Bleep Ble'''
:Off-Screen voice: Make it stop!
:Hairy: It... fell down the vent.

:[Hairy is sitting in his bed with a laptop. The person to the left is still off-screen. The alarm noise still continues from the previous panel and continues over the top of the frame out of the comic the the right.]
:Alarm: '''ep Bleep Bleep Bleep Ble'''
:Off-Screen voice: Can you brick it remotely?
:Hairy: Trying... I think I fumbled it into airplane mode?
:Off-Screen voice: The battery could last for weeks.
:Hairy: You know, maybe we should just move.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Sarcasm]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]

356: Nerd Sniping

2016-07-23T12:08:47Z

KangaroOS: /* Explanation */ mdash

{{comic
| number = 356
| date = December 12, 2007
| title = Nerd Sniping
| image = nerd sniping.png
| titletext = I first saw this problem on the Google Labs Aptitude Test. A professor and I filled a blackboard without getting anywhere. Have fun.
}}

==Explanation==
{{w|Nerd}}s have a way of getting distracted easily and focusing on one thing and ignoring the rest, when they feel their specific skills are challenged by an interesting problem. [[Black Hat]] has decided to make this into a disturbing game of getting nerds, in this case a physicist, to stop in the middle of a street and get crushed by traffic by showing them an interesting problem to solve. (This may be based on a real event—see the [[#Trivia|trivia]] section).

The problem Black Hat shows is an electronics engineering thought experiment to find the resistance between two points. In normal wiring, a one-ohm resistor would result in one ohm of resistance. Two resistors connected in a series, where electricity has to go through each, has two ohms of resistance. Two one-ohm resistors in parallel give the circuit only half an ohm since you average the resistance of the path (1 ohm of resistance over 2 paths). With an infinite grid of equal resistors, you have an infinite number of paths to take, and for each path an infinite number of both series and parallel paths to consider, so much more advanced methods are needed. The exact answer to the question is 4/π − 1/2 ohms, or about 0.773 ohms. See [http://www.mathpages.com/home/kmath668/kmath668.htm Infinite Grid of Resistors].

Black Hat explains the concept of his new sport, '''Nerd Sniping''', to [[Cueball]] while killing the physicist, but Cueball is appalled and will have no part in this sport, which doesn't make Black Hat give up on him as he suggest it would be fun if he made his own sign. Black Hat finally suggest that "physicists are two points, mathematicians three." This may indicate that he considers a mathematician to be a more difficult target for his game than a physicist would be. It is unclear whether this is meant as a dig on physicists or on mathematicians; it might be because physicists are interested in a wider range of problems, or because mathematicians require a higher-quality problem to hold their interest. Alternatively he just dislikes mathematicians more, and is thus willing to award more points for sniping one of them.

In the title text [[Randall]] explains that he saw this problem in a [http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2004/09/pencils-down-people.html Google Labs Aptitude Test]. This is a collection of puzzles published by {{w|Google}} as a parody of tests such as the {{w|SAT}}. Google is known for using logic & math puzzles in their job interviews.

Randall explained in [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJOS0sV2a24 a speech at Google] five days before this comic was released, that he was nerd sniped, in a way, by that problem in this test (see problem 10 on [https://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Ap14FtNN91w/Rll5oF8Px0I/AAAAAAAAAHo/cHG6a83cmlI/s1600-h/GLAT_3.jpg page 2]), and got quite irritated when he ultimately found that it was actually a modern physics research problem, requiring very advanced math, far more complicated than the other puzzles. Putting such a problem in an aptitude test, can be a way of testing if someone might realize when they cannot solve a problem and remember to move along to the other problems. If they fail to do this, they will never reach the easier problems that comes later, and will fail due to their ability to realize when they will come up short. This is also an important knowledge to have about yourself. Seen in this context it is not necessarily a bad idea to have such an impossible problem in an aptitude test, as it is not interesting to have someone who is easily nerd sniped working for you.

Note that the truck should have stopped no matter what since the nerd was walking on a zebra crossing. But the driver may have seen him walking, an then estimated that he would be safe before reaching him, and then realizing too late that he stopped in the street. Alternatively the truck driver is part of Black Hat's sport.

Randall has later referred back to the concept of ''Nerd Sniping'' several times in the past, such as in the title text of [[730: Circuit Diagram]], and in the [[what if?]] blog. In [http://what-if.xkcd.com/113/ Visit Every State] (7 years after this comics release) the entire comic was shown at the top and the truck again further down the post - Randall has again been nerd sniped by a paper he read. This also happens to him in [https://what-if.xkcd.com/124/ Lunar Swimming] - see the title text for the second to last picture.

==Transcript==
:[Black Hat is sitting on a chair, Cueball is standing next to him. Across the street another Cueball-like guy is coming from a building walking towards the zebra crossing across from Black Hat.]
:Black Hat: There's a certain type of brain that's easily disabled.
:Black Hat: If you show it an interesting problem, it involuntarily drops everything else to work on it.

:[The Cueball-like man across the street is about to enter a crosswalk, which is seen from right behind Black Hat in his chair, holding on to the sign which is still pointing down. Cueball is looking on.]
:Black Hat: This has led me to invent a new sport: Nerd Sniping.
:Black Hat: See that physicist crossing the road?

:[Black Hat lifts up the sign when the physicist is in the middle of the street, halfway across the zebra crossing.]
:Black Hat: Hey!

:[A close up of Black Hat's sign is shown in a frame less panel. There is text above and below an image of a four by five grid of nodes with resistors (shown as wiggly lines) between every node and also continuing away from the 16 outer nodes. A total of 5 columns with 5 and 4 rows with 6 resistors for a total of 20 nodes and 49 resistors. Two nodes, a knight's move apart, are marked with red circles in the 3rd row 2nd column and the 2nd row 4th column.]
:Sign: On this infinite grid of ideal one-ohm resistors,
:Sign: what's the equivalent resistance between the two marked nodes?

:[The Cueball-like physicist has stopped pondering the questions a hand to his chin.]
:Physicist: It's... Hmm. Interesting. Maybe if you start with... No, wait. Hmm... You could—

:[In another frame less panel a ten wheeled truck is zooming past from the right, apparently going through the spot where the physicist just stood.]
:Truck: <big>''Foooom''</big>

:[Cueball looks down on Black Hat who looks back up from his chair at the curb, again holding the sign down. He lifts one hand up while replying.]
:Cueball: I will have no part in this.
:Black Hat: C'mon, make a sign. It's fun! Physicists are two points, mathematicians three.

==Trivia==
*It could be that Randall was inspired by a story from {{w|John Horton Conway|John H. Conway}} about when he was involved in a "near" nerd snipe event that was a perfect match for this comic.
**The story can be read in the book ''[https://books.google.ca/books?id=aFHyUfFUVIwC&printsec=frontcover&hl=da#v=onepage&q&f=false Candid Science Five]'' from 2005 (two years before this comics release), specifically on [https://books.google.ca/books?id=aFHyUfFUVIwC&pg=PA22&lpg=PA22&dq=Coxeter+came+to+Cambridge+and+he+gave+a+lecture,+then+he+had+this+problem+...++Ileft+the+lecture+room+thinking.+As+I+was+walking+through+Cambridge,+suddenly+theidea+hit+me,++but+it+hit+me+while+I+was+in+the+middle+of+the+road.++When+the+ideahit+me+I+stopped+and+a+large+truck+ran+into+me+...++So+I+pretended+that+Coxeter+hadcalculated+the+difficulty+of+this+problem+so+precisely+that+he+knew+that+I+would+getthe+solution+just+in+the+middle+of+the+roa&source=bl&ots=CgmxTG2n0w&sig=ohqqBGtJrpuQFeiCPPusMVsQUV4&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CB0Q6AEwAGoVChMIy4KdnPakyAIV0ZeICh2OGghP#v=onepage&q=%22in%20the%20middle%20of%20the%20road%22&f=false page 22]:
::"{{w|Harold Scott MacDonald Coxeter|[Donald] Coxeter}} came to Cambridge and he gave a lecture, then he had this problem ... I left the lecture room thinking. As I was walking through Cambridge, suddenly the idea hit me, but it hit me while I was in the middle of the road. When the idea hit me I stopped and a large truck ran into me ... So I pretended that Coxeter had calculated the difficulty of this problem so precisely that he knew that I would get the solution just in the middle of the road ...

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Black Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]
[[Category:Math]]
[[Category:Physics]]

Talk:206: Reno Rhymes

2016-07-23T12:02:13Z

KangaroOS: re

my Lai may also be a reference to Lai's definition, " a lyrical, narrative poem written in octosyllabic couplets that often deals with tales of adventure and romance." Can anyone tell if the poem in the comic fits the Lai's definition? If so, then Black Hat might also be saying "I shot a man in Reno, and a bunch more in my poem", referencing the poem they're saying. ---- {{unsigned|‎Bluewin}}
:Interesting idea, but unfortunately the rhymes are not octosyallbic, which means to contain eight syllables. [[User:Bbruzzo|Bbruzzo]] ([[User talk:Bbruzzo|talk]]) 17:06, 6 March 2016 (UTC)

The "Now, I don't mean to pry" is a reference to "The Princess Bride" (Inigo says that to Westley). [[Special:Contributions/108.162.231.56|108.162.231.56]] 21:44, 15 February 2015 (UTC) {{unsigned|‎Idanbhk}}

Reno: where poets go to satisfy their homocidal urges. The murder rate is through the roof. {{unsigned ip|RedHatGuy68}}

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't My Lai pronounced similar to melee? Would that not prevent it from rhyming in the comic? [[Special:Contributions/173.245.54.24|173.245.54.24]] 07:42, 22 July 2016 (UTC)
:{{w|My Lai Massacre|Wikipedia}} gives three pronunciations: /ˌmiːˈlaɪ/ (me-LIE), /ˌmiːˈleɪ/, (me-LAY) and /ˌmaɪˈlaɪ/ (my-LIE). I guess Randall was using the last one. [[User:KangaroOS|Kangaro]][[User talk:KangaroOS|OS]] 12:02, 23 July 2016 (UTC)

1703: Juno

2016-07-06T20:12:46Z

KangaroOS: c/e

{{comic
| number = 1703
| date = July 6, 2016
| title = Juno
| image = juno.png
| titletext = "The name wasn't a tip-off?" "Honestly, at first I thought you were saying 'Juneau'. A gravity assist seemed like a weird way to get to Alaska, but I figured it must be more efficient or something."
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Title text disputed.}}

This comic was written in honor of the {{w|Juno (spacecraft)|Juno space probe}}, which made headlines the day before this comic aired when it fired its engines and successfully entered into orbit around {{w|Jupiter}}.

It was reported on the day of this comic's release that Juno arrived at its orbit [http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/nation-now/2016/07/06/how-juno-arrived-jupiter-one-second-off-schedule/86745128/ one second off schedule]. Since the comic is based on such reports this may explain why the comic was released rather late on this day after the arrival and also why it was not the subject of the previous comic which where released on the day (fourth of July) where the space probe officially reached Jupiter.

Speaking at a {{w|NASA}} press conference a blonde woman standing behind a [[Podium|lectern]] announces that Juno has arrived at Jupiter within one second of its scheduled arrival. After traveling 1.7 billion miles (2.8 billion km) such a precision is very impressive which is acknowledged by someone from the press.

The joke is that one of the NASA engineers, [[Megan]], reveals that they actually intended for Juno to arrive at {{w|Saturn}}, but actually arrived at Jupiter with a timing that was still apparently the same within one second. Given the reaction from the spokesperson she knew this but it was not supposed to slip out.

This is of course ridiculous because if Saturn had been the intended target, Juno would have been off course by 10.25 AU when it arrived at Jupiter. Randall might be making a subtle (or not so subtle) reference to {{w|Mars Climate Orbiter|past difficulties}} NASA has had with [[Converting to Metric|converting to metric]]—in July 2016, Jupiter was 870 million '''kilometers''' (540 million miles) from Earth, while Saturn was 850 million '''miles''' (1.37 billion km) from Earth (and half the distance traveled by Juno). A similar measurement coincidence was noted in [[what if?]] ''{{what if|4|A Mole of Moles}}''. Also Saturn is a [http://www.space.com/18477-how-far-away-is-saturn.html maximum of 1.7 billion '''kilometers'''] (1.1 billion miles) away from the Earth. For Jupiter [http://www.space.com/18383-how-far-away-is-jupiter.html this distance] is 968 million km (601 million miles) away. But when traveling between planets long detours are necessary to reach the goal with a velocity that enables the space craft to go into orbit. So it is just a coincidence that Juno has traveled a distance to get to Jupiter in miles that fits with a possible distance to Saturn in kilometres.

The mix-up of Jupiter and Saturn could be a reference to the {{w|2001: A Space Odyssey (novel)|book}} and the {{w|2001: A Space Odyssey (film)|film}} ''2001: A Space Odyssey'' that were written simultaneously. In the book solely written by {{w|Arthur C. Clarke}} they go to Saturn. In the film (from 1968), however, they found it impossible to make Saturns rings well enough for director (and co-writer) {{w|Stanley Kubrick}} so there they ended up at Jupiter instead. (Athur C. Clarke later made the film canonical when he wrote the sequel ''{{w|2010 (film)|2010}}'', where the plot would only work with Jupiter, mainly because of its size and partly due to its {{w|Galilean moons|four big moons}} especially {{w|Europa (moon)|Europa}}).

==Title text==
Currently there is a disagreement about who says what in the title text. Maybe they will need to be listed as alternatives.

It should be noted that Juno is mostly linked to Jupiter and not to Saturn (the probe was sent to Jupiter in the real world), which fit best with the press speaks first explanation. Also this fits with the order of speaking. NASA, press, NASA and then in the title text press again.

===Press speaks first===
In the title text someone from the press asks if the name of the space probe, ''{{w|Juno (mythology)|Juno}}'', wasn't a tip of given the relation to Jupiter? The goddess Juno was the wife of {{w|Jupiter (mythology)|Jupiter}} the chief deity in the {{w|Roman mythology}}. However her father is {{w|Saturn (mythology)|Saturn}} so there are relations to both Gods/planets. Her relationship to Jupiter, however, is most likely more common knowledge explaining the naming of the probe.

However, instead of mentioning this dual relationship one of the three NASA representatives say that at first they even believed it was for {{w|Juneau, Alaska|Juneau}}, the capital of {{w|Alaska}}, showing that the engineers did not have a clue about the object of the mission. They did wonder why a {{w|gravity assist}} was planned to get there but guessed it was a more efficient method. Given that gravity assist is only relevant for interplanetary missions requiring a flyby of a planet it would never make sense to use to get between two destinations on Earth. Even though {{w|Cape Canaveral Air Force Station}} in Florida, from where the probe was launched, is about as long away from Juneau as it is possible to get inside the borders of the United States.

The mixup of Juno the Goddess and the capital city of Alaska could be a reference to the film ''{{w|Juno (film)|Juno}}'' where the title character is [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0467406/quotes?item=qt0455671 named after the Goddess] as her father is into Roman and Greek mythology (although she calls her {{w|Zeus}}'s wife, Zeus being the equivalent of Jupiter in {{w|Greek mythology}} where Juno would be called {{w|Hera}}). Later a man asks her "[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0467406/quotes?item=qt0455636 Like the city in Alaska?]" to which she simply replies "No!"

Scenarios similar to the likely outcome of Juno using its gravity assist (from Earth) to arrive in Juneau (with unchanged orbital energy) have been discussed in [[what if?]] ''{{what if|137|New Horizons}}'', ''{{what if|82|Hitting a comet}}'', and ''{{what if|58|Orbital Speed}}''.

===NASA speaks first===
In the title text someone, likely a member of the NASA team, asks if the name of the space probe, ''{{w|Juno (mythology)|Juno}}'', wasn't a tip off. In {{w|Roman mythology}} the goddess Juno was the daughter of {{w|Saturn (mythology)|Saturn}} (though also the wife of {{w|Jupiter (mythology)|Jupiter}}). However, instead of mentioning this, someone (presumably a member of the press) replies that at first they had thought the probe was named for {{w|Juneau, Alaska|Juneau}}, the capital of {{w|Alaska}}. They had wondered why NASA wanted to use {{w|gravity assist}} to get there, but had guessed that it must be more efficient.

===Megan continues speaking===
The title text might also be continued discussion amongst the NASA representatives. After being shushed, Megan begins needling the spokeswoman about the huge error NASA made. The spokeswoman then admits to being confused about why the mission was so complicated.

==Transcript==
:[At a NASA press conference stands a blonde woman behind a lectern with the NASA logo. To the left stands Megan to the right Cueball, both looking towards the blonde woman.]
:Blonde woman: After traveling 1.7 billion miles, the ''Juno'' spacecraft reached Jupiter within one ''second'' of its scheduled arrival time.
:Logo: NASA

:[A person off-panel to the left comments and all three turns towards the speaker.]
:Off-panel voice: Very impressive!
:Blonde woman: Thank you.
:Logo: NASA

:[All three look straight out as Megan comments on the praise.]
:Megan: I mean, we were ''aiming'' for Saturn. Still, nailed the time.
:Blonde woman: ''Shhhh.''
:Logo: NASA

{{comic discussion}}

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

538: Security

2016-07-03T23:06:15Z

KangaroOS: hacker != cracker

{{comic
| number = 538
| date = February 2, 2009
| title = Security
| image = security.png
| titletext = Actual actual reality: nobody cares about his secrets. (Also, I would be hard-pressed to find that wrench for $5.)
}}

==Explanation==
The "crypto nerd" would be concerned with strongly encrypting data on their personal machine. This would conceivably come in handy when "villains" attempt to steal information on his computer. The crypto nerd imagines that due to his advanced encryption, the crackers will be ultimately defeated. [[Randall]] suggests that in the real world, people with the desire to access this information would simply {{w|Rubber-hose cryptanalysis|use torture}} to coerce the nerd to give them the password. Both panels also reference the amount of money used to access the data. In the first the villain is willing to use millions of dollars to construct a {{w|TWIRL|super computer}}, while in the second, he simply uses a $5 wrench. The comic effectively states, completely accurately, that the weakest part of computer security is not the computer, but the user.

{{w|RSA (algorithm)|RSA}} is a commonly used, public key encryption method. Current standards typically use 1024, 2048, and (more recently) 4096 {{w|Key size|bit keys}}. These encryption methods are not yet (feasibly) breakable. A 4096-bit key will remain unbreakable for the foreseeable future.

The title text pokes fun at typical users, who do not have data that would be worth anything to anyone but themselves. Therefore, it is unlikely that the above situation would ever occur. Additionally, the wrench used in the second panel is large, and presumably more than the $5 referenced by the thug.

==Transcript==
:A Crypto nerd's imagination:
:[Cueball is holding a laptop, and his friend is examining it.]
:Cueball: His laptop's encrypted. Let's build a million-dollar cluster to crack it.
:Friend: No good! It's 4096-bit RSA!
:Cueball: Blast! Our evil plan is foiled!

:What would actually happen:
:[Cueball is holding a piece of paper and giving his friend a wrench.]
:Cueball: His laptop's encrypted. Drug him and hit him with this $5 wrench until he tells us the password.
:Friend : Got it.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Cryptography]]

1701: Speed and Danger

2016-07-01T22:17:59Z

KangaroOS: /* Explanation */ actually, c/e

{{comic
| number = 1701
| date = July 1, 2016
| title = Speed and Danger
| image = speed_and_danger.png
| titletext = NASCAR removed the passenger seats because drivers hated how astronauts kept riding along with them and loudly announcing "Ahh, what a nice and relaxing drive."
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|More on the speed of sport cars and the race cars. How much faster does it feel for a human to see a regular sports car on a high way and then a formula one car. More on why a rocket seems slow?}}

In this {{w|scatter plot}} [[Randall]] makes the observation that the danger of a crash is greatly influenced by its speed and highlights the concept of relativity between what we perceive as 'fast', normal sports and two different types of racing cars, vs. a much faster vehicle, a rocket during launch. A rocket may appear to ascend slowly (and of course it begins its ascent slowly), but on the way to orbit it ends up moving very fast. But before it reaches the more extreme speed regime it will be far away from the ground (and the casual observer), where there is nothing to compare this speed to as opposed to a race car speeding by a spectator during a race. (Of course rockets are slow compared to the speed of light...)

Apart from the high speed, there is also the altitude to take into account for the rocket launch, and the vast amount of fuel needed to get into orbit, and any sort of failure is almost certainly fatal.

Racing cars are often involved in crashes, but at that speed it is possible to construct them so even serious crashes may not be fatal. Although rockets are also made as safe as possible, it is a completely different regime of ''speed and danger'', and the risk of something going wrong during a take off is much higher, and it is impossible to prevent a lethal disaster if the launch fails during the ascent. This results in a much higher mortality rate for each crashed rocket (probably 100%) vs. crashed sports/race cars.

Rocket launches is compared to normal {{w|sports}}, {{w|NASCAR}} (which reaches speeds of 320 km/h (200 mph)), and {{w|Formula One}}, where the fastest race cars go 380 km/h (240 mph).

A rockets launched to reach the {{w|ISS}} needs to eventually match the speed of the space station which moves at 27,600 km/h (17,100 mph), and a rocket that needs to {{w|Escape velocity|escape}} from Earth (like in going to the Mars) needs to reach 40,270 km/h (25,020 mph). The lowest of these speeds divided by the highest of the cars is still more then 70 times as fast...

The title text serves to further emphasize the point, as an astronaut (used to the several G's of acceleration during takeoff and overall much higher speeds) would likely find a NASCAR car moving at ~200mph paltry compared to what they're acclimated to and has supposedly aggravated NASCAR drivers by making a point of saying so. And thus this is used to explain why there is no passenger seats in NASCARS, to prevent astronauts in joining the drivers for a nice slow ride.

Of the many [[:Category:Charts|charts in xkcd]] this one is notable for containing the fewest samples of point of any [[:Category:Scatter plots|scatter plots]] in xkcd.

==Transcript==
:[A two-axis diagram with two double headed arrows centered in the middle of the panel. Each arrow is labeled. There are four large dots in the diagram, three close together in the top left corner and one in the bottom right corner. Each dot is labeled.]

:[Y axis:]
:Top: Crashes are safe
:Bottom: Crashes are dangerous

:[X axis:]
:Left: Slow
:Right: Fast

:[Dots from top left to bottom right:]
:Normal sports
:NASCAR
:Formula One
:Rocket launches

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Scatter plots]]
[[Category:Sport]]
[[Category:Space]]

1701: Speed and Danger

2016-07-01T22:17:01Z

KangaroOS: dashes, my dear wiki

{{comic
| number = 1701
| date = July 1, 2016
| title = Speed and Danger
| image = speed_and_danger.png
| titletext = NASCAR removed the passenger seats because drivers hated how astronauts kept riding along with them and loudly announcing "Ahh, what a nice and relaxing drive."
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|More on the speed of sport cars and the race cars. How much faster does it feel for a human to see a regular sports car on a high way and then a formula one car. More on why a rocket seems slow?}}

In this {{w|scatter plot}} [[Randall]] makes the observation that the danger of a crash is greatly influenced by its speed and highlights the concept of relativity between what we perceive as 'fast', normal sports and two different types of racing cars, vs. a much faster vehicle, a rocket during launch. A rocket may appear to ascend slowly (and of course it begins its ascent slowly), but on the way to orbit it ends up moving very fast. But before it reaches the more extreme speed regime it will be far away from the ground (and the casual observer), where there is nothing to compare this speed to as opposed to a race car speeding by a spectator during a race. (Of course rockets are slow compared to the speed of light...)

Apart from the high speed, there is also the altitude to take into account for the rocket launch, and the vast amount of fuel needed to get into orbit, and any sort of failure is almost certainly fatal.

Racing cars are often involved in crashes, but at that speed it is possible to construct them so even serious crashes may not be fatal. Although rockets are also made as safe as possible, it is a completely different regime of ''speed and danger'', and the risk of something going wrong during a take off is much higher, and it is impossible to prevent a lethal disaster if the launch fails during the ascent. This results in a much higher mortality rate for each crashed rocket (probably 100%) vs. crashed sports/race cars.

The rockets launch is compared to normal {{w|sports}}, {{w|NASCAR}}—reaching speeds of 320 km/h (200 mph)—and {{w|Formula One}}, the fastest race cars going 380 km/h (240 mph).

A rockets launched to reach the {{w|ISS}} needs to eventually match the speed of the space station which moves at 27,600 km/h (17,100 mph), and a rocket that needs to {{w|Escape velocity|escape}} from Earth (like in going to the Mars) needs to reach 40,270 km/h (25,020 mph). The lowest of these speeds divided by the highest of the cars is still more then 70 times as fast...

The title text serves to further emphasize the point, as an astronaut (used to the several G's of acceleration during takeoff and overall much higher speeds) would likely find a NASCAR car moving at ~200mph paltry compared to what they're acclimated to and has supposedly aggravated NASCAR drivers by making a point of saying so. And thus this is used to explain why there is no passenger seats in NASCARS, to prevent astronauts in joining the drivers for a nice slow ride.

Of the many [[:Category:Charts|charts in xkcd]] this one is notable for containing the fewest samples of point of any [[:Category:Scatter plots|scatter plots]] in xkcd.

==Transcript==
:[A two-axis diagram with two double headed arrows centered in the middle of the panel. Each arrow is labeled. There are four large dots in the diagram, three close together in the top left corner and one in the bottom right corner. Each dot is labeled.]

:[Y axis:]
:Top: Crashes are safe
:Bottom: Crashes are dangerous

:[X axis:]
:Left: Slow
:Right: Fast

:[Dots from top left to bottom right:]
:Normal sports
:NASCAR
:Formula One
:Rocket launches

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Scatter plots]]
[[Category:Sport]]
[[Category:Space]]

81: Attention, shopper

2016-06-30T20:02:11Z

KangaroOS: /* Explanation */ c/e

{{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 stereotypical loudspeaker announcement (often referenced in TV and film) is one in which a store employee (or anyone else in charge somewhere where people gather, like church or a school) announces that a certain colour and model of car has its lights on, or is blocking another car, or is about to be towed. A licence plate is sometimes included for greater clarity.

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.

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. He clearly only knows what instrument was used because he is holding the golf club, and presumably was the one who smashed the windshield. Thus, Black Hat is making an announcement which is, ironically, only useful after damage has been done to the car. The lights are probably on because the attack triggered the car's alarm system, which usually makes a car's lights flash repeatedly and sound either its horn or a programmed alarm sound.

The two license plates in the comic are personalized license plates, which are plates with a custom set of characters which you can pay for if you desire. They typically are intended to represent words but often have vowels missing to save characters, or numbers in place of letters. The one in the comic-proper is clearly "My Toy" – suggesting that the owner was bragging about his car and perhaps that he has lots of money which may have irritated Black Hat; 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. Not something the average person would want to brag about, as it seems fairly cocky, and also suggests that the person can't afford the car on their own.

==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]]

72: Classhole

2016-06-30T19:57:24Z

KangaroOS: cleanup

{{comic
| number = 72
| date = March 6, 2006
| title = Classhole
| image = classhole.jpg
| titletext = A term coined by my friend Beth
}}

==Explanation==
The subject of this comic is [[Black Hat]] himself. He admits to being an asshole, a profanity that describes someone who does things that antagonize, irritate or anger others (either intentionally or incidentally). While a common example might be someone who weaves in and out of traffic, or someone who parks across two parking spaces, Black Hat is "more creative". This also suggests that, while most people described as assholes are either ignorant or selfish, Black Hat seems to intentionally behave this way strictly to be an asshole, and not for any self-benefit. He claims to be a "classy asshole", or as he coins the {{w|portmanteau}}, a "class-hole". He seems to equate creativity with class, although that seems like a leap. In any event, this is another early Black Hat strip which, for the first time, explicitly sets out that he goes out of his way to wreak havoc.

Among his "pranks", he suggests poking holes in grocery noodle cups. These are pre-packaged cups filled with dried noodles and dried soup mix (either in a separate pouch, or loose in the cup) to which one adds boiling water, which both boils the pasta and dissolves the soup mix to become the soup/broth. By poking holes in the cup, Black Hat ensures that someone pouring boiling water in the cup would have it leak all over them, causing them great surprise and pain.

He also suggests poking holes in {{w|condoms}}, which could cause even more serious consequences. This form of {{w|Reproductive coercion#Birth control sabotage|contraceptive sabotage}} is a way to cause unintended pregnancy or sexually transmitted disease infection. Sabotage may be by someone acting maliciously at random (such as poking holes at the store pre-purchase) or by one of the participants to attempt to cause a pregnancy when the other partner does not want it, often occurring as part of reproductive abuse.<ref name=ACOG>Committee on Health Care for Underserved Women. American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. February 2013
[https://www.acog.org/Resources-And-Publications/Committee-Opinions/Committee-on-Health-Care-for-Underserved-Women/Reproductive-and-Sexual-Coercion Committee Opinion No. 554: Reproductive and Sexual Coercion] Obstet Gynecol 2013;121:411–5. PMID 23344307</ref> The 2013 movie {{w|The Priest's Children}} describes a similar campaign.

The title text explains that the word was first introduced to [[Randall]] (and probably to the world) by a friend of his named Beth.

==Transcript==
:Cueball: How did you spend your morning?
:Black Hat: Feeding rocks to children in the park.
:Cueball: Your sociopathic abuse of random strangers staggers me.
:Black Hat: I aspire to have more creativity than the common asshole.
:Black Hat: I'm more of a classy asshole -- A class-hole, if you will. For example, I like poking tiny holes in styrofoam noodle cups at the grocery store --
:Black Hat: Thanks to me, someone gets surprise boiling water in the lap.
:Cueball: I am in awe.
:Black Hat: It's even more fun to do to condoms.

==References==

<references />

{{Comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Black Hat]]
[[Category:Language]]

68: Five Thirty

2016-06-30T19:51:35Z

KangaroOS: cleanup

{{comic
| number = 68
| date = February 24, 2006
| title = Five Thirty
| image = five_thirty.jpg
| titletext = The 8th panel is my favorite
}}

==Explanation==
At 5:30 AM, one's sleep-deprived mind sometimes comes up with things that seem like nonsense later.

None of the twelve panels in this comic seem to have any correlation with one another, each one being its own "story," and none of them really make any sense. It is unknown whether Randall really wrote this comic while awake at 5:30 in the morning, or if he wrote it while completely alert and is trying to pass off his rejected ideas by saying what one's mind may experience when trying to process information at an hour when the person is not used to being awake.

===Explanations of the individual panels (numbered left to right, top to bottom)===
# "80s night" is a special theme many nightclubs hold, inviting their guests to wear fashions that were popular in the 1980s while playing dance music from the same period.
# {{w|Jack the Ripper}} was an infamous serial killer in Victorian {{w|England}}. {{w|Jack Black}} is a rock star and actor. "There is no Tuesday" is likely a reference to ''{{w|The Matrix}}''.
# There doesn't seem to be too much to this panel that isn't self-explanatory, but it's possible that there's a reference to the ''{{w|Civilization (video game)|Civilization}}'' series of video games, in which it's possible (albeit unlikely) for medieval soldiers to attack and destroy 20th-century military helicopters.
# Stick figures standing upright are indeed drawn without any thought as to which section of their legs are the shins.
# It's hard to tell what the two stick figures are actually doing, but the most common guess it that they're both wearing watches. In that case they likely forgot to adjust their clocks for a time change (shortly before this comic was released, {{w|Daylight Savings Time}} had just begun in the United States) and were off in their schedules as a result. Alternately, he could be alarmed by the third arm ''growing out of his torso''.
# "Ointment" may be a reference to the infamous lotion scene in ''{{w|Silence of the Lambs}}'', as the panel appears to be invoking horror movie visuals.
# The farthest left angle is labeled theta. The joke is that finding the cosine, the length of the adjacent leg divided by the length of the hypotenuse, would be difficult as the adjacent leg is poorly drawn and does not resemble a straight line to be measured.
# Lots of jokes have been made out of the template "does liking X make you gay?", where the speaker is afraid that he may be a homosexual. Here, the speaker has apparently transformed into a {{w|mermaid}} at some point. His friend seems to be eager to both turn into a mermaid himself, and confirm himself for a homosexual. Another explanation may be that the friend thinks that a man who was a mermaid for five minutes, should be homosexual afterwards, because he simply can't imagine something else about it. In this explanation the friend has no interest in others being gay or not, he just thinks that this may be a realistic progress.
# Waving a gun around and declaring that things you hate are "for pussies" is stereotypical "{{w|macho}}" behavior. Possibly, the man with the gun is going to cut the other man's hair with bullets because it's more "macho" than going to the barber.
# This doesn't seem to mean anything whatsoever. However, both of the characters say something irrational: "My hair is bleeding" is irrational because strands of hair can't bleed, and "√3" is an {{w|irrational number}}.
# A bachelor party is traditionally raucous party that is thrown for a groom on the night before his wedding. Because these parties can be wild, (involving drinking and such) this may explain why the figure is upside down.
# Likely a reference to the "{{w|ant on a rubber rope}}" thought experiment. Apparently in Randall's mind the experiment does not end well for the ant.

----

The title text could actually refer to two different panels. If a person chooses to read the comic left-to-right, top-to-bottom (which is more likely given that this is the order in the official transcript), the eighth panel could be the one with where Cueball asks "Does being a mermaid for five minutes make you gay?" However, if a person chooses to read the comic top-to-bottom, left-to-right, the eighth panel will instead be the one with Cueball hanging upside down shouting "Bachelor party!"

==Transcript==
:Comics from 5:30 AM
:[A succession of unrelated and completely random panels.]

:Cueball: It's 80's night at the club. Wanna go?

:Friend: There is no Tuesday.
:Cueball: Jack the Ripper or Jack Black?

:[Cueball in this panel is holding a glinting sword.]
:Friend: You crashed my helicopter!
:Cueball: Verily!

:[A small figure is talking with a larger figure.]
:Figure 1: Basically, neither of us have shins.
:Figure 2: Over and out.

:[Two men are shown: one with three arms, and another with just two. All arms have round appendages at their ends.]
:Men: shitshitshitshitshitshitdaylightsavingsshitshitshitshitsh

:[Two figures with pumpkins (carved with faces) for heads.]
:Figure 1: You're out of ointment and out of time!

:[A diagram of a right-angled triangle, with a theta at the smallest angle.]
:FUCK THE COSINE

:Friend: Does being a mermaid for five minutes make you gay?
:Cueball: I hope so!

:[The friend is holding a gun to Cueball's head.]
:Friend: Barbershops are for pussies.

:Friend: My hair is bleeding.
:Cueball: √3

:[Cueball seems to be walking on the ceiling.]
:Cueball: Bachelor party!

:[Warning sign with picture of an ant.]
:WARNING: STRETCHY DEATH

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

41: Old Drawing

2016-06-28T21:31:01Z

KangaroOS: /* Explanation */ dash

{{comic
| number = 41
| date = November 23, 2005
| title = Old Drawing
| image = unspeakable_pun.jpg
| titletext = I don't want to talk about it
}}

==Explanation==

This comic plays off the pun between [http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/stumped stumped], to stump someone is to confuse someone, and {{w|Tree stump|a stump}}, which is the remnants of a tree that has been cut down.

Anyone snooping into his journal would be punished by such a terrible pun. The pun is so terrible that even [[Randall]] does not want to talk about it as he mentioned in the title text.

In the original quote he explains this old comic by way of him being at home on vacation—see [[#Trivia|Trivia]].

==Transcript==
:[A tree holding a chainsaw over a recently cut-down tree. The first text is in a frame at the top of the panel.]
:I found this in one of my high-school notebooks. I think I drew it just to take revenge on people snooping through my stuff.
:Tree stump: Well, you stumped me...

==Trivia==
*This was the 36th comic originally posted to [[LiveJournal]].
**The previous was [[33: Self-reference]].
**The next was [[35: Sheep]].
*Original title: "Wednesday's Drawing - Old Notebook".
*Original [[Randall]] quote: "I'm on vacation! At home. Fresh drawings when I return!"
*This comic was posted on [[xkcd]] when the web site opened on Sunday the 1st of January 2006.
**It was posted along [[:Category:First day on xkcd|with all 41 comics]] posted before that on LiveJournal as well as a few others.
**The latter explaining why the numbers of these 41 LiveJournal comics ranges from 1-44.
*One of the original drawings drawn on [[:Category:Checkered paper|checkered paper]].

{{Comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics posted on livejournal| 36]]
[[Category:First day on xkcd]]
[[Category:Checkered paper]]
[[Category:Language]]
[[Category:Puns]]

641: Free

2016-06-28T21:27:17Z

KangaroOS: dashes

{{comic
| number = 641
| date = September 25, 2009
| title = Free
| image = free.png
| titletext = Asbestos is bad; definitely get the one on the right. Wait -- this one over here has no swine flu! Now I can't decide.
}}

==Explanation==
{{w|Asbestos}} is a fibrous material most commonly used for its heat-resistant properties. It was commonly used in housing insulation until its astonishingly destructive effects on human lungs were known. The use of asbestos in housing is now banned, but it is still quite common in laboratory hot pads, as well as in concrete industrial buildings where the risk of it getting into the air is minimal.

The comic depicts a common advertising trick taken to an absurd extreme; quite clearly all of the cereal products depicted are asbestos-free, but most have opted not to advertise the fact because it should be obvious. A more realistic example can be found in {{w|Confectionery|confectionery}} products, wherein the term "fat free" might be applied when it's clear that sugar, gelatin, and other ingredients involved in the product are in no way related to, or contain, fat.

Ironically, the "asbestos-free" disclaimer could also cause a customer to ''distrust'' the product on the grounds of {{w|Damning with faint praise|damning by faint praise}}—if the best thing they can say about a product is that it doesn't contain a toxic building material, do we really want to know what actually ''is'' in this stuff?

The claim in the title text—that the product has no {{w|swine flu}}—is equally superfluous, as any food product containing disease-causing viruses would be subject to recalls, severe fines, and quite a few people losing their jobs; the fact that the product is actually on a supermarket shelf implies that it already has a stellar reputation for not causing serious illness. The use of it here could also be a reference to [[574: Swine Flu]].

[http://ghostbusters.wikia.com/wiki/Stay_Puft_Marshmallows Stay Puft] is also the company that produces marshmallows in the movie franchise [[wikipedia:Ghostbusters_%28franchise%29| Ghostbusters]].

[http://redfarmnyc.com/ RedFarm] is a Chinese restaurant in NYC.

Misleading advertising is also the subject of the previous comic [[624: Branding]], and of subsequent comics [[870: Advertising]] and [[993: Brand Identity]].

==Transcript==
:[A shelf holds 3 boxes of cereal. Each box shows a bowl of cereal.]
:GenCo Ⓞat Cereal
:StayPuft Oat Cereal
:RedFarm Oat Cereal (with additional text in a star) Asbestos-free!
:I hate whatever marketer first realized you could do this.

{{comic discussion}}

1104: Feathers

2016-06-27T20:36:58Z

KangaroOS: c/e

{{comic
| number = 1104
| date = September 05, 2012
| title = Feathers
| image = feathers.png
| titletext = Click to see a video of a modern bird using stability flapping during predatory behavior. It all fits! Also, apparently Microraptor had *four* wings? The past keeps getting cooler! (And there's more of it every day!)
}}

==Explanation==
{{w|Dinosaur}}s have been a fascinating topic in popular science and have captivated children's interest since the first fossils were discovered in modern times, around the 1700s; prior discoveries in China and elsewhere were thought to be the bones of dragons or other mythical creatures. The success of the ''{{w|Jurassic Park (film)|Jurassic Park}}'' movies perpetuated an erroneous understanding of the physical characteristics of dinosaurs. Since the first movie of that series, scientific evidence has emerged suggesting that {{w|Dromaeosauridae}}, or "raptors", the main antagonists of that movie, looked quite different from their animatronic and CGI versions. In particular, they are now known to have been much smaller, and are believed to have had feathers and even wings, as evidenced by quill nobs observed on the arms of raptors.

[[File:Deinonychus (Raptor Prey Restraint).jpg|thumb|upright=1.5|Artist's impression of a "raptor prey restraint" as suggested by Fowler et al. (2011), and described by the child in the comic. (from Wikimedia Commons)]]
[http://denverfowler.com/ Denver W. Fowler] is among the scientists who support this hypothesis. (incidentally, a "{{w|Fowler}}" is a hunter of wildfowl/birds) The comic refers to [http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0028964 a publication by him and his colleagues] ("{{Wiktionary|et al.}}"), in the ''{{w|PLoS ONE}}'', an online scientific journal ("PLoS" stands for "Public Library of Science").

[[Megan]] believes this new model of the appearance of raptors makes them much less cool, but the way in which the child reformulates the facts to make them seem like even more vicious predators re-ignites her interest and makes the new raptors seem like at least as good a candidate for a good action thriller movie like the original version, if not better. Thus the phrase "the past keeps getting cooler".

Clicking on the original cartoon links to [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qpdk-U8fI0 a YouTube video] of a bird of prey (in this case a {{w|Secretarybird}}) using its wings for stability while standing on top of a struggling prey, from which one can easily envision instead a raptor upon its prey—especially in case of some kind of "raptorphobia", as for [[Randall]] (see [[87: Velociraptors]] and [[135: Substitute]]). This video is now defunct, but you can still access it via the [http://web.archive.org/web/20120905203614/http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qpdk-U8fI0&gl=US&hl=en Wayback Machine]. {{w|Microraptor}} was a small raptor with four wings, which lets you imagine even scarier scenes.

The same idea is later explored from a different perspective in [[1527: Humans]].

==Transcript==
:[Megan is walking up to a child who has a stack of books and is reading one of them on the floor.]
:Megan: What are you reading about?
:Child: Dinosaurs!
:Megan: Oh, yeah.

:Megan: They've gotten all weird since when I was a kid.
:Megan: They used to be awesome, but now they all have dorky feathers, right?
:Child: Yup!

:Child: This says they now think raptors used their wings for stability, flapping to stay on top of their prey while hanging on with their hooked claws and eating it alive.
:Footnote: *Fowler et. al., PLoS ONE 6(12), 2011

:[Megan stands staring at the child.]

:[Megan is now on the floor flipping through another book from the pile.]

==Trivia==
*In the comic it says "et. al." instead of the correct "et al.", this is a common mistake.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Dinosaurs]]

1647: Diacritics

2016-06-25T17:17:09Z

KangaroOS: some minor changes

{{comic
| number = 1647
| date = February 24, 2016
| title = Diacritics
| image = diacritics.png
| titletext = Using diacritics correctly is not my forté.
}}

==Explanation==
A {{w|diacritic}} (or a diacritical mark) is a {{w|glyph}} added to a letter. The main use of diacritical marks in the {{w|latin script}} is to change the sound-values of the letters to which they are added, typically vowels.

[[Cueball]] is writing an e-mail (maybe for a job application) and notes in the mail that he attaches his {{w|résumé}}. The word ''résumé'' uses two ''e''s with an {{w|acute accent}} so they look like this: é.

While diacritics can be common in several languages, English is an example of a language that rarely ever has any at all. This occurs to such an extent that words and expressions borrowed from other languages (such as "résumé" or "piñata") are frequently written in English with the diacritics omitted, as in "resume" or "pinata".

Randall may be poking fun at people who use Zalgo, a form of spam where

T̯̙̻̼̠͕̙̬̬̜̼̊ͥͦͬͤ̇̎̆̌ͭ͢͠͡o̡̲̩̟̲̬̰̪̜̝͙̺̦̙͍̳ͬͯͯ͋͒̍ͨ̓̇́̚̚̕ ̸̢̬̘̦͕̯̱̜̲̼̤ͬͧͤͨǐ̷̷̯̼̝̹̫ͪ̀̋̿̄̓n̿͂ͩ͂ͮ̔̆͏͎͍͕̜͎̺̯͈̼̩̣̥̬͡͞ͅͅv̴̨̙̼̤̼͙͖̫̖̺̹̠̹̦́͌͑̓̆̂ͯ̑̈̏ͭo̢̫̲̙̺̬̤̲̳ͨ̐ͦ̽͛ͮ͛́͂ͣ͂ͮ͆͑̍̀ͯ̕͟k̵̨̫̙̤͙̹̫͚͈̪͇͓͈̫̬̥͕̱͎̜̉̔ͬͭͦ̓͐ͫ̋̋ͥ̋̀̕͟è̢̛͑͋͐̀̏ͣ̏ͬ̒̌͌́̚͘͝͏̟̞͇̘̤̼̮̤͍͚̫̤͚̰ ̶̧̮̗̣̫͇̦͎̮̤̗͙̗̳͎̺͆̉̈ͭ̽̈́̌̽ͥ̾͑̀̚̚͘͟ͅͅt̸͓͉̩́̓̓ͮ̇̈̆ͣ̀ͪͬ͑̅ͣ̍h̸̡̧ͧ͑̐̂ͥ̄̃̂̄́͋ͨ͑̓̆͋̚͏̸̟̣̤̺͔̘̞̦̖͖̣̺̱̜͔̗̫̰ͅȇ̡͇͎͎̩̮̟̖̖̤̦̜͍̱̇ͨ̃̈́̄̑ͦͭ̚͞ͅ ̛̼̤̟̩̦̻̤̙̥̬̠̩̙̙̱͚͕ͫ͐̏ͥ̄ͧͧͭ̔̆͐̋͘h̶̵̜̤͓̹̰ͣ̄͗́́i̝͕̘̗͉͚̰͓̮͕̣͒̂̒ͨ̽ͫ̎ͪͦ́̕͝ͅv̧̙̞̣̳͍̟̖͚̻̝͈ͧ͊ͫ͋ͩͫ̍͋̏̽ͤ̀͝͞ͅẻ̢͓̣̰͔̟͎̥̻̤̲̟̣̜̄̈́̌͛̌̄͢͞ͅ-̨̡͆̓̌̎̉̑҉͚̝̗m̨̛͎̬͉̯̽ͥͫ̇ͦ̒̿̎́͒́̚͡͠ỉ̧̡͖͙̙͕͔̲ͩ́ͣ͐ͧ͑̊̾̒͑̅͗̊́̎̚n̠̮̜̝̜̤̰̻̘͖̦͚̼ͫ̄͐͗ͣ́͢͜d̡̛̳͕̬̫̯̩͕̰̖̟̲͕͙ͭ̅̓ͥ͛ͨ͒ͯ͌̚ͅͅ ̟̜̳̫͕̺͎̺̲̗̋̐̀͛͑̅̅͛̾̈́̀̚͞͠r̸̯̥͚̟̰͉͎͓̖͉͂̎̅̐ͫͧ͛ͯ͜ë́̎͂̆ͥͩ͟͏̰̤̳͓̩͉̲̣̠͍͔̗̦̬̱̯p̽ͧ͒͗ͣ̿̆̄̑͏̘̜̥̠̜̥̘̲̮̹̤̪̦͕͇͓͞r̴͓̼̺̰̹͙͉̦͚̞̤͕̭̦̈́ͫ̔̂̓̆̒͗͛̿̑̉̿̓ͤ̏̇̀̚͘͘͢é̴̢̛̖̗̖̤ͧ̽͑ͨ̒̌̍ͭ̑̋̃̒ͫ̀͡ş̶͉͚̠̠͇͓̬̙͚̖̝͓͕̤̟́̂̏ͧͩ͌͑͐ͣ͌͌̄̾̿ȩ̢͈̗̝͍ͨ̒͗ͭ̔̈͆ͫ̔ͨ̈́́̊ͣ̃̎̀͝͝n̸̟͔̺̠̺̓̑̏͐ͩͬ̏̈́̌͒́̏ͥ̌̍͊ͧ̀̚͜͞͞tͮ̾͒̇̐ͩ͆̓ͣ҉̢̤͖̩͕̬̮͚͙̖͕̬̘̙͘͠ͅĩ̡̬̙̙̯̩͋̋̄n̡̡̊̐͌ͣ̍̒̽ͩͫ͌ͦ̚͝͏̳̻̞͓̗̹̪̜̘̰̠̟͈̮̲̳̜g̵̎̓́̃ͮ̍̏̈̄ͧ̈́̐̔̏ͤͭͨ҉̛̘̰̘̟̬̝̰̜̗̼ͅͅ ̸̦̞͓̟͉̫͔̦̰̝͈̩̳̞̼̮̩̬͕̿ͩ͗̂̌̐ͭ͟͞c̳̻͚̻̩̻͉̯̄̏͑̋͆̎͐ͬ͑͌́͢h̵͔͈͍͇̪̯͇̞͖͇̜͉̪̪̤̙ͧͣ̓̐̓ͤ͋͒ͥ͑̆͒̓͋̑́͞ǎ̡̮̤̤̬͚̝͙̞͎̇ͧ͆͊ͅo̴̲̺͓̖͖͉̜̟̗̮̳͉̻͉̫̯̫̍̋̿̒͌̃̂͊̏̈̏̿ͧ́ͬ̌ͥ̇̓̀͢͜s̵̵̘̹̜̝̘̺̙̻̠̱͚̤͓͚̠͙̝͕͆̿̽ͥ̃͠͡.̔̈́ͤͣͪ̅̎̄̽ͩͪ͛̓̂̂̑͒҉̤͍͔̲̣̜͕̺͕͇̖͓̺̦̺́̀͢

people continuously spam diactrics in chat messages.

As Cueball/[[Randall]] is a native English-speaker, it is thus naturally that he often forgets (or just doesn't bother) to add these diacritics (hence the title of the comic).

When he occasionally remembers them, for instance when he types a word where he knows they should be included, like résumé, he then makes up for all those he must have forgotten since last time he thought of it, and thus adds a whole bunch at once. This reason is somewhat nonsensical.

The first diacritic he uses is the normal acute accent for the e to make it an é which does belong in ''résumé''. But the second diacritic he uses is a {{w|Diaeresis (diacritic)|diaeresis}} (or umlaut) on the u making it into ü, which is not part of the word. (Although in French the ''u'' is pronounced like a {{w|Close front rounded vowel|[y]}}, which is also the sound of a German or Turkish ''ü'', and in German the word is spelt using this as ''Resümee'', but then the meaning is not the same but rather conclusions or abstracts).

Cueball then goes all in on the last e which, like the first e, is supposed to have an acute accent. This e has a {{w|cedilla}} (as in ȩ), a {{w|Ring (diacritic)|ring}} (as in e̊), three acute accents, and is topped off by a {{w|breve}} (as in ĕ). In total, six diacritics are used on this e alone.

Some languages—notably Vietnamese—{{w|Vietnamese alphabet|can use more than one diacritic per letter}}, but usually only two (for example, ṏ). Using them in this fashion makes little sense though it is reminiscent of [http://stackoverflow.com/q/6579844/256431 Zalgo text].

To make sure everyone gets it, there are three acute accents over the last period. This is not something that is ever used.

So for a word that is supposed to have two diacritics, Cueball uses eight, plus three for the period.

In the title text "not my forté" is supposed to mean that it is not one of Randall's strength or talent. However, to obtain this meaning [https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/forte forte] should not have an acute diacritic over the e, thus proving Randall's point that it is not his forte to use diacritics.

The title text may be a reference to the [[what if?]] released a week before this comic, {{what if|145|''Fire from moonlight''}}, in which note 9 reads "My résumé says étendue is my forté." (With the same error on "forte") It is possible that noticing his mistake was the inspiration for this comic. Also [https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%C3%A9tendue étendue] can be written without the accent as [https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/etendue#English etendue] and the meaning is only written on this page in the Wiktionary. It means property of the light in an optical system which makes sense in the context of the note. However, it means something different in French where it either refers to size or range as a noun or as a verb is an alternative form of [https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%C3%A9tendre#French étendre] meaning stretch or spread. The most correct way of writing the sentence he tried to write would only have involved the accent on résumé: "My résumé says etendue is my forte." Thus again making it clear that Randall has it right when he writes: "Using diacritics correctly is not my forté."

If there actually has been someone who corrected Randall's mistake in the what if?, then there could be an extra pun hidden in the title. Those who criticized Randall's use of accents, would thus become dia''critics''!

Comic [[1209: Encoding]] also references an absurd use of diacritics.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball sitting in front of his lap top typing. The text above him is the one he is typing. The last word résumé has too many diacritics. The u has an umlaut (as in ü) and the last é has no less than six diacritics; a cedilla below (as in ȩ), a ring above (as in e̊ ), then three acute accents above the ring (as in é), and finally they are topped off by a breve (as in ĕ). Also the last full stop has three accents "´" above it:]
 
:Cueball (typing): Attached please fīnd my résümȩ̊́́́̆.́́́

:I usually leave out diacritics when I type, so I make up for it by occasionally adding a whole bunch at once.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Language]]

1209: Encoding

2016-06-25T17:13:56Z

KangaroOS: minor changes

{{comic
| number = 1209
| date = May 8, 2013
| title = Encoding
| image = encoding.png
| titletext = I don't see how; the C0 block is right there at the beginning.
}}

==Explanation==
{{w|Skywriting}} is using an airplane to write words in the sky with controlled releases of smoke. {{w|Unicode}} is a standard for digitally encoding text which supports a huge variety of characters and modifiers.

[[Cueball]] and [[Megan]] hired a skywriter to write some text which they provided in Unicode, but now they are dissatisfied with the result and Cueball is using one of their {{w|walkie-talkies}} to tell the pilot about his mistake—with the result that the pilot seems to lose control (presumably control of the plane, not the text).

An {{w|interrobang}} (‽) is a combination question mark and exclamation mark. A {{w|diacritic}} is any symbol added to a character (for instance ´, ˘, ˇ, ¨), usually an accent mark added to a letter. In Unicode, {{w|Combining character|combining diacritics}} are represented as separate characters, but computer programs that render text graphically treat them as modifications to the previous character. The request to modify the interrobang is strange, given that diacritics are supposed to modify ''letters'', not punctuation marks, and given that in interrobang is already conceptually a character combination.

The skywriter's errors and the phrase "Unicode support" play off the common issue of {{w|Mojibake|software rendering Unicode symbols incorrectly}}. But here the error does not seem to make the text unintelligible: all the skywriter has apparently done is put a diacritic ''underneath'' (or perhaps next to) the interrobang instead of above it. If this is the only problem with the text (which is likely, given that an interrobang would probably be at the end), then the comment that the skywriter has "terrible Unicode support" makes Cueball and Megan seem fastidious and unforgiving. The comic points up computer users' tendency to use hyperbole when describing minor problems, exaggerating their relative seriousness. Here Cueball and Megan seem concerned more about their incorrectly rendered text than about the skywriter's safety.

The title text refers to the {{w|C0 and C1 control codes|C0 Block}}, the name for the first 32 character codes in Unicode (and {{w|ASCII}}), traditionally called control characters. Cueball wonders how the plane could possibly have lost "control", when the "control characters" are so clearly in the conventional location.

Comic [[1647: Diacritics]] also references an absurd use of diacritics.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball and Megan are both holding walkie-talkies. Cueball is talking into his, Megan is holding hers down. Both are looking up in the sky.]
:Cueball: No, the combining diacritics go '''''over''''' the interrobang!
:Megan: Oh jeez, I think he's lost control.

:[Caption below the panel:]
:The skywriter we hired has terrible Unicode support.

{{comic discussion}}

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