explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

File:All gauge theory equations.png

2024-12-21T12:18:04Z

Kapostamas: Reupload of a rendering of “all gauge theory equations” from #2034.

Reupload of a rendering of “all gauge theory equations” from #2034.

1647: Diacritics

2022-08-14T23:09:32Z

Kapostamas: ''Étendue'' written with an accent is not objectively erroneous, and citing Wiktionary favoring a particular variant is amateurish (the full meaning of ''résumé'', for example, is also only detailed under the headword ''resume'').

{{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 {{w|vowels}}.

[[Cueball]] is writing an e-mail (maybe for a job application) and notes in the mail that he attaches his {{w|résumé}}, or {{w|curriculum vitae}}. 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". As Cueball/[[Randall]] is a native English speaker, it is thus natural 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.

Randall may be poking fun at people who use {{w|Zalgo text|Zalgo}}, a form of spam where people continuously spam diacritics in chat messages. For example:

T̯̙̻̼̠͕̙̬̬̜̼̊ͥͦͬͤ̇̎̆̌ͭ͢͠͡o̡̲̩̟̲̬̰̪̜̝͙̺̦̙͍̳ͬͯͯ͋͒̍ͨ̓̇́̚̚̕ ̸̢̬̘̦͕̯̱̜̲̼̤ͬͧͤͨǐ̷̷̯̼̝̹̫ͪ̀̋̿̄̓n̿͂ͩ͂ͮ̔̆͏͎͍͕̜͎̺̯͈̼̩̣̥̬͡͞ͅͅv̴̨̙̼̤̼͙͖̫̖̺̹̠̹̦́͌͑̓̆̂ͯ̑̈̏ͭo̢̫̲̙̺̬̤̲̳ͨ̐ͦ̽͛ͮ͛́͂ͣ͂ͮ͆͑̍̀ͯ̕͟k̵̨̫̙̤͙̹̫͚͈̪͇͓͈̫̬̥͕̱͎̜̉̔ͬͭͦ̓͐ͫ̋̋ͥ̋̀̕͟è̢̛͑͋͐̀̏ͣ̏ͬ̒̌͌́̚͘͝͏̟̞͇̘̤̼̮̤͍͚̫̤͚̰ ̶̧̮̗̣̫͇̦͎̮̤̗͙̗̳͎̺͆̉̈ͭ̽̈́̌̽ͥ̾͑̀̚̚͘͟ͅͅt̸͓͉̩́̓̓ͮ̇̈̆ͣ̀ͪͬ͑̅ͣ̍h̸̡̧ͧ͑̐̂ͥ̄̃̂̄́͋ͨ͑̓̆͋̚͏̸̟̣̤̺͔̘̞̦̖͖̣̺̱̜͔̗̫̰ͅȇ̡͇͎͎̩̮̟̖̖̤̦̜͍̱̇ͨ̃̈́̄̑ͦͭ̚͞ͅ ̛̼̤̟̩̦̻̤̙̥̬̠̩̙̙̱͚͕ͫ͐̏ͥ̄ͧͧͭ̔̆͐̋͘h̶̵̜̤͓̹̰ͣ̄͗́́i̝͕̘̗͉͚̰͓̮͕̣͒̂̒ͨ̽ͫ̎ͪͦ́̕͝ͅv̧̙̞̣̳͍̟̖͚̻̝͈ͧ͊ͫ͋ͩͫ̍͋̏̽ͤ̀͝͞ͅẻ̢͓̣̰͔̟͎̥̻̤̲̟̣̜̄̈́̌͛̌̄͢͞ͅ-̨̡͆̓̌̎̉̑҉͚̝̗m̨̛͎̬͉̯̽ͥͫ̇ͦ̒̿̎́͒́̚͡͠ỉ̧̡͖͙̙͕͔̲ͩ́ͣ͐ͧ͑̊̾̒͑̅͗̊́̎̚n̠̮̜̝̜̤̰̻̘͖̦͚̼ͫ̄͐͗ͣ́͢͜d̡̛̳͕̬̫̯̩͕̰̖̟̲͕͙ͭ̅̓ͥ͛ͨ͒ͯ͌̚ͅͅ ̟̜̳̫͕̺͎̺̲̗̋̐̀͛͑̅̅͛̾̈́̀̚͞͠r̸̯̥͚̟̰͉͎͓̖͉͂̎̅̐ͫͧ͛ͯ͜ë́̎͂̆ͥͩ͟͏̰̤̳͓̩͉̲̣̠͍͔̗̦̬̱̯p̽ͧ͒͗ͣ̿̆̄̑͏̘̜̥̠̜̥̘̲̮̹̤̪̦͕͇͓͞r̴͓̼̺̰̹͙͉̦͚̞̤͕̭̦̈́ͫ̔̂̓̆̒͗͛̿̑̉̿̓ͤ̏̇̀̚͘͘͢é̴̢̛̖̗̖̤ͧ̽͑ͨ̒̌̍ͭ̑̋̃̒ͫ̀͡ş̶͉͚̠̠͇͓̬̙͚̖̝͓͕̤̟́̂̏ͧͩ͌͑͐ͣ͌͌̄̾̿ȩ̢͈̗̝͍ͨ̒͗ͭ̔̈͆ͫ̔ͨ̈́́̊ͣ̃̎̀͝͝n̸̟͔̺̠̺̓̑̏͐ͩͬ̏̈́̌͒́̏ͥ̌̍͊ͧ̀̚͜͞͞tͮ̾͒̇̐ͩ͆̓ͣ҉̢̤͖̩͕̬̮͚͙̖͕̬̘̙͘͠ͅĩ̡̬̙̙̯̩͋̋̄n̡̡̊̐͌ͣ̍̒̽ͩͫ͌ͦ̚͝͏̳̻̞͓̗̹̪̜̘̰̠̟͈̮̲̳̜g̵̎̓́̃ͮ̍̏̈̄ͧ̈́̐̔̏ͤͭͨ҉̛̘̰̘̟̬̝̰̜̗̼ͅͅ ̸̦̞͓̟͉̫͔̦̰̝͈̩̳̞̼̮̩̬͕̿ͩ͗̂̌̐ͭ͟͞c̳̻͚̻̩̻͉̯̄̏͑̋͆̎͐ͬ͑͌́͢h̵͔͈͍͇̪̯͇̞͖͇̜͉̪̪̤̙ͧͣ̓̐̓ͤ͋͒ͥ͑̆͒̓͋̑́͞ǎ̡̮̤̤̬͚̝͙̞͎̇ͧ͆͊ͅo̴̲̺͓̖͖͉̜̟̗̮̳͉̻͉̫̯̫̍̋̿̒͌̃̂͊̏̈̏̿ͧ́ͬ̌ͥ̇̓̀͢͜s̵̵̘̹̜̝̘̺̙̻̠̱͚̤͓͚̠͙̝͕͆̿̽ͥ̃͠͡.̔̈́ͤͣͪ̅̎̄̽ͩͪ͛̓̂̂̑͒҉̤͍͔̲̣̜͕̺͕͇̖͓̺̦̺́̀͢

Which reads (without the diacritics) as 'To invoke the hive mind representing chaos.'

The first diacritic in the comic is a macron over the ''i'' in "find". In English, this modifies a vowel to be "long". The second diacritic is the normal acute accent for the e in résumé, to make it an é which does belong in ''résumé''. However, the third diacritic he uses is an {{w|Umlaut (linguistics)|umlaut}} on the u making it into ü, which is not part of the word. ''Ü'' typically represents the {{w|close front rounded vowel}} /y/, pronounced similar to the <ee> in "See" but with rounded lips. Ü can be found in languages such as {{w|German language|German}} and {{w|Turkish language|Turkish}}; however, in French ''ü'' is not used in this way since the diacritic-less ''u'' already represents this sound. German has a word spelt as ''Resümee'', but 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). This is because in Vietnamese diacritics can serve two functions: the aforementioned modifying sound values as well as to indicate {{w|Tone (linguistics)|tone}}. Using multiple diacritics in the comic's fashion makes little sense though it is reminiscent of (the aforementioned) [http://stackoverflow.com/q/6579844/256431 Zalgo text].

There are also three acute accents over the last period. Diacritics over punctuation 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 {{Wiktionary|forte}} should not have an acute diacritic over the e, thus proving Randall's point that it is not his forte to use diacritics. This is a form of {{w|hyperforeignism}}, where people spell loan words or use pronunciations that they believe is more faithful to the language it comes from instead of the "English" one, even though the "English" one is actually more correct. Due to its similarity with other words from French such as café, some people believe that forte is also spelled with a diacritic on the ending E (also note that the word was independently borrowed twice: from French as "a strength" and from Italian as a musical term. Neither usage requires diacritics).

The title text may be a reference to the ''[[what if|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. (Note: ''{{w|étendue}}'', borrowed from French ''{{Wiktionary|étendue}}'' 'spread, expanse', refers to the extent of how much the light from a particular source “spreads out” by the time it reaches the target.)

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, and later a possible movie called ''Combining Diacritical Marks'' was mentioned in [[1857: Emoji Movie]], a direct reference to this comic.

==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). In addition, ''find'' is spelled ''fīnd'' with a macron over the ''i''. Also, the last full stop has three accents "´" above it:]

:Cueball (typing): Attached please fīnd my résümȩ̊́́́̆.́́́

:[Caption below the panel:]
: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]]

2657: Complex Vowels

2022-08-14T22:00:28Z

Kapostamas: /* Explanation */ square root overline

{{comic
| number = 2657
| date = August 10, 2022
| title = Complex Vowels
| image = complex_vowels.png
| titletext = Pronouncing [ṡṡċċḣḣẇẇȧȧ] is easy; you just say it like the 'x' in 'fire'.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a ROUNDED TONGUE. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
[[File:Ipa-chart-vowels.png|thumb|200px|The standard IPA vowel chart.]]
This is another one of Randall's [[:Category:Tips|Tips]], this time a Linguistics Tip. The curly-haired linguist, [[:Category:Comics featuring Gretchen McCulloch|Gretchen McCulloch]], manages to produce a cursed sound using complex vowels, that cannot be comprehended by normal humans like [[Cueball]] and [[Megan]], who both seem to get a headache from listening to the sound. The sound she makes was produced by extending the IPA vowel plane along an imaginary axis to form the complex vowels.

In phonetics based on the {{w|International Phonetic Alphabet}} (IPA), the space of {{w|vocal tract}} articulators determining {{w|vowel}}s  is represented as three dimensional, from the position of the tongue and lips. The vertical axis represents vowel height or ''closedness'' (i.e., how close or far the tongue is from the top of the mouth), and the horizontal axis represents front-to-back ''place'' (i.e., how close or far the top of the tongue is from the teeth.) The position of the tongue, along with the frequency of the {{w|vocal cords}} vibrating in the larynx from air being exhaled by the diaphragm, are the primary determinants of the fundamental and second {{w|formant}} frequencies of vowel sounds. A third dimension of vowel sounds is the "roundedness" of the lips, represented on the IPA vowel chart to the right by pairs of vowel phoneme {{w|glyph}}s. Other higher-dimensional vowel representations include {{w|diphthong}}s, which are simply two different sequential vowels slurred together; diphones, which represent the last half of one phoneme followed by the first half of the next; {{w|vowel shift}} mappings delineating different accents[https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/47086396.pdf][https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0095447010000562] and long-term evolution of voiced phone sounds; and {{w|cepstrum|cepstral}} representations such as {{w|Mel-frequency cepstrum|mel-frequency cepstral coefficients}}.

[[Randall]] suggests increasing the range of vowel sounds available by using complex notation to indicate an additional dimension with an "imaginary" axis. In mathematics, {{w|complex number}}s are numbers including both real numbers and {{w|imaginary number}}s. A complex number can be expressed as, "''a'' + ''b''i," where ''a'' and ''b'' are real numbers, but the latter imaginary part is combined with 'i,' the square root of negative one, as depicted in the central expression in the comic by √–1 indicating a further dimension of coordinates. When expanding the one-dimensional number line with an imaginary axis, it becomes two-dimensional with the "''b''i" component {{w|orthogonal}} to the original "real" number line. Linguists never use the {{w|complex plane}} to represent vowel roundedness or any other higher-dimensional features of phonemes, although the properties of complex numbers could conceivably support representing physiological features of the vocal tract, such as prior position of the articulators.{{cn}}

This comic conflates complex numbers in mathematics with "complex vowels" in linguistics. Such complex vowels are implied to create sounds which cannot be properly processed by the human brain, represented graphically as {{w|Zalgo text}} IPA, similarly to the cliché of "black speech" in {{w|Lovecraftian horror}}, a language created by alien beings with different vocal patterns than humans. In reality, people find Zalgo text amusing, thus the humor of the comic, but not particularly insanity-inducing or even more than mildly confusing.{{cn}} This is also funny because unadorned IPA shares some characteristics with Zalgo text, such as extremely uncommon glyphs and weird {{w|diacritics}}.

In linguistics, 'ə' is the {{w|schwa}} symbol, referred to in the title text and the depiction of complex phonemes, the most common vowel sound in English polysyllabic words (the 'a' in "comma" or the second 'e' in "letter.") Production of the schwa sound takes place with the tongue, jaw, and lips all in a relaxed, central position. The pronunciation of "[ṡṡċċḣḣẇẇȧȧ]" in the title text is said to sound like the x in the word fire. In fact, there is no x in fire. This is perhaps in line with the idea that complex sounds are incomprehensible to most humans, and likely also impossible to pronounce by anyone other than experts such as [[:Category:Comics featuring Gretchen McCulloch|Gretchen]].

Another example of weird diacritics is in [[2619: Crêpe]], and with Zalgo text in [[1647: Diacritics]]. The use of typography to create psychological stress is explored in [[859: (]].

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

:[A diagram shows the extrusion of the trapezoidal IPA vowel chart upwards into three dimensions. A point near the center is labeled with an equation that shows "ə + ½√-1 " as being equivalent to a made-up symbol that looks like two schwas mirroring each other with other markings above and below.]

:[Below the diagram, a character with shoulder-length dark wavy hair pronounces the new vowel in a speech bubble with unstable lines surrounding it. Two bystanders to her right are bent over slightly, clutching their heads in apparent anguish.]

:[Caption below the panel:]
:Linguistics tip: Extend the IPA vowel plane along the imaginary axis to produce the ''complex vowels'', cursed sounds which the human mind cannot comprehend.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Tips]]
[[Category:Language]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Gretchen McCulloch]]

2657: Complex Vowels

2022-08-10T22:22:08Z

Kapostamas: restoring the discussion section

{{comic
| number = 2657
| date = August 10, 2022
| title = Complex Vowels
| image = complex_vowels.png
| titletext = Pronouncing [ṡṡċċḣḣẇẇȧȧ] is easy; you just say it like the 'x' in 'fire'.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a ṡṡċċḣḣẇẇȧȧ - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
In mathematics, complex numbers are numbers including both real numbers and imaginary numbers. A complex number can be expressed as "''a'' + ''b''i" where ''a'' is a real number and i, the imaginary part, is the square root of negative one. When expanding the one-dimensional number line with an imaginary axis, it becomes two-dimensional.

[[File:Ipa-chart-vowels.png|thumb|200px|The IPA vowel chart]]
In phonetics, the vowelspace is represented as two-dimensional. This is non-abstract: the y axis represents vowel height (i.e. how close or far the tongue is from the top of the mouth) and the x axis represents frontness/backness (i.e. how close or far the tongue is from the teeth). In an analogy to the addition of a new dimension in mathematics, two-dimensional vowelspace becomes '''three'''-dimensional with a new axis.

In linguistics ə is the schwa symbol, the most common vowel sound in English polysyllabic words (the a in comma or the e in letter). The schwa symbol looks like a reversed e symbol (the base of natural logarithms).

This comic conflates complex numbers in mathematics with "complex vowels" in linguistics. This creates a series of sounds which cannot be properly processed by the human brain. This is similar to the cliche of "black speech" in Lovecraftian horror, a language created by alien beings with different vocal patterns than humans.

The linguist in the comic appears to be {{w|Gretchen McCulloch}}, as previously depicted in [[2421: Tower of Babel]] and [[2381: The True Name of the Bear]].

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

The comic shows the creation of a cursed vowel by adding 1/2 i to the normal vowel a, thus creating a very odd looking symbol.

A linguist appears to be saying said cursed vowel, causing two people nearby to put their hands to their heads

{{comic discussion}}

2657: Complex Vowels

2022-08-10T22:11:10Z

Kapostamas: /* Explanation */ Added chart

{{comic
| number = 2657
| date = August 10, 2022
| title = Complex Vowels
| image = complex_vowels.png
| titletext = Pronouncing [ṡṡċċḣḣẇẇȧȧ] is easy; you just say it like the 'x' in 'fire'.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a ṡṡċċḣḣẇẇȧȧ - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
In mathematics, complex numbers are numbers including both real numbers and imaginary numbers. A complex number can be expressed as "''a'' + ''b''i" where ''a'' is a real number and i, the imaginary part, is the square root of negative one. When expanding the one-dimensional number line with an imaginary axis, it becomes two-dimensional.

[[File:Ipa-chart-vowels.png|thumb|200px|The IPA vowel chart]]
In phonetics, the vowelspace is represented as two-dimensional. This is non-abstract: the y axis represents vowel height (i.e. how close or far the tongue is from the top of the mouth) and the x axis represents frontness/backness (i.e. how close or far the tongue is from the teeth). In an analogy to the addition of a new dimension in mathematics, two-dimensional vowelspace becomes '''three'''-dimensional with a new axis.

In linguistics ə is the schwa symbol, the most common vowel sound in English polysyllabic words (the a in comma or the e in letter). The schwa symbol looks like a reversed e symbol (the base of natural logarithms).

This comic conflates complex numbers in mathematics with "complex vowels" in linguistics. This creates a series of sounds which cannot be properly processed by the human brain. This is similar to the cliche of "black speech" in Lovecraftian horror, a language created by alien beings with different vocal patterns than humans.

The linguist in the comic appears to be {{w|Gretchen McCulloch}}, as previously depicted in [[2421: Tower of Babel]] and [[2381: The True Name of the Bear]].

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

==Comic Discussion==
Because vowelspace is often represented in books, on screens, etc., it '''is''' often represented as two-dimensional, but this is actually insufficient. Vowels can also be rounded (i.e. the lips are round to pronounce them), although in English and other languages, roundedness correlates mostly (but not fully) with backness. (This means the back vowels [u, o] are also the round ones, but [a], as in "Say 'ah'," is back but unrounded.) French and German, though, have front and back round vowels (as well as unrounded front ones) and languages like Turkish have the full paradigm: eight vowels—one for each combination of high/low, back/front, round/unrounded—that can easily be represented on the vertices of a cube. Some vowel harmony processes in Turkic languages even only operate along one dimension. Roundedness will thus spread from one vowel to another, so the existence of a front round high vowel will trigger the round version of another nearby vowel.

2644: fMRI Billboard

2022-07-12T22:45:40Z

Kapostamas: /* Transcript */ another missing word

{{comic
| number = 2644
| date = July 11, 2022
| title = fMRI Billboard
| image = fmri_billboard.png
| titletext = [other side] If the first word of an instruction you're given starts with the same letter as your crush's name, for that step imagine the experimenter is your crush.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by YOUR SCARIEST MEMORY - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

{{w|Functional magnetic resonance imaging}}, or fMRI, is a method of {{w|4DCT|four-dimensional computed tomography}} able to record animated multi-layered images of animal brain activity by detecting blood flow changes apparent from magnetic differences between oxygenated and deoxygenated {{w|hemoglobin}}. Scientists use fMRI to try to detect deception and false memories,[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0149763419301873] plan brain surgery,[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2213158217303133] and understand the relationship between brain structures and cognition,[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0149763419300879] among many other investigations. Volunteer research subjects participate in such studies by laying inside large toroidal scanners and following instructions projected on a screen or played through loudspeakers.

This comic shows a billboard erected by a neuroscience department in an attempt at sabotaging a rival department's volunteer subject compliance with their fMRI study instructions, by suggesting behaviors which would likely produce unexpected results, such as recalling a frightening memory after seeing similar stimulus slides, or imagining the lab technician is a romantic interest when reading words that begin with the same letter as their name. This is funny because academic department rivalries do not usually lead to sabotage,{{citation needed}} and in the rare cases that they do, it's usually clandestine instead of so absurdly blatant.

Following such suggestions or even inadvertently remembering them during an fMRI could very well interfere with its results. fMRI experiments are often criticized because they have low {{w|statistical power}} and can easily be confounded by experiment subject error in following instructions, among many other variables. In a famous 2009 study, a dead fish was shown to have apparent evidence of brain activity when scanned with ordinary fMRI techniques.[http://prefrontal.org/files/posters/Bennett-Salmon-2009.pdf] In 2015, discovery of a statistical error invalidated at least 40,000 fMRI studies.[https://www.sciencealert.com/a-bug-in-fmri-software-could-invalidate-decades-of-brain-research-scientists-discover] Subsequently in 2017, many more fMRI results were further discredited due to poor software parameter selection.[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5487467]

The title text indicates that the sabotaging instructions are printed on both sides of the billboard, suggesting that it might have been erected on the grounds of the targeted rival department. Alternately, the instructions on the other side may be intended to disrupt research in the other institution.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[A large, building-sized billboard rises over what appears to be a college campus. It reads:]
: ⚠ Student fMRI study volunteers ⚠
: Remember, when you're in the scanner, if you see a slide that's similar to one they already showed you, think as hard as you can about your scariest memory.

:[Caption below panel:] A rival neuroscience department keeps trying to sabotage our experiments.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category: Science]]
[[Category: Psychology]]
[[Category: Biology]]

2644: fMRI Billboard

2022-07-12T03:56:35Z

Kapostamas:

2644: fMRI Billboard

2022-07-12T03:54:44Z

Kapostamas:

Talk:2628: Motion Blur

2022-06-04T16:47:44Z

Kapostamas:

Personally, I'm animated on twos but make up for it with good smear frames. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.135.98|172.70.135.98]] 14:07, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

== Randall has got this issue backwards: ==
Too *low* a framerate causes choppiness when panning (or on objects in motion). ''Too low'' a framerate causes the human eye to perceive multiple images of a mouse cursor; a higher framerate can exceed the perceptual latency of human vision, causing the moving cursor to be perceived as a continuous blur, whereas a lower framerate merely exacerbates the issue of seeing the cursor jump from position to position.

To that point, the current explanation exemplifies this confusion, also getting it backward: ''"If the shutter speed is too high, this blurring will not occur, and the motion will look unnaturally crisp – if something is too small and/or too quick, the illusion of motion may disappear altogether; the object instead will appear as a brief flash of multiple objects standing still,"~'' '''This is incorrect.''' Human visual blur is ''not'' dependent on the displayed frames being blurred: With panning in high framerate video, unblurred footage ''appears blurred'' to the human eye, due to persistence of vision; whereas with low framerate video we may ''not'' perceive blurred motion & instead view each frame individually & perceive it as choppy.

Point being, you need a framerate ''at least as high as 60 FPS'' to avoid choppy appearance when panning, & for some people's vision the minimum framerate to ensure motion blur is 100 FPS. 24 FPS is used in cinema ''to preserve the choppy look of old 24 FPS film projection'', as an aesthetic choice.

Higher framerates look ''less'' choppy. ''Low'' framerates are what appears choppy when viewed.
[[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 14:10, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

:Yes, at high framerates, ''when the subject is perfectly sharp'', the blurring is done by human vision. At lower framerates, this natural blurring is mostly lost, and this effect must be counteracted by correspondingly lower shutter speeds so that motion appears blurry again. That's the whole point of the comic. [[User:Kapostamas|Kapostamas]] ([[User talk:Kapostamas|talk]]) 14:30, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

In order to explain this, and prove that the explanation is correct (or prove that Randall is either correct or incorrect), there needs to be a link to two videos showing the error and the corrected version without the error. In other words, citation needed. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.126.65|172.70.126.65]] 15:35, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

:How's this: [https://youtu.be/i9bv00ZA-ao]? [[User:Kapostamas|Kapostamas]] ([[User talk:Kapostamas|talk]]) 16:47, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

2628: Motion Blur

2022-06-04T16:26:33Z

Kapostamas: Undo revision 286207 by 108.162.246.178 (talk)

{{comic
| number = 2628
| date = June 3, 2022
| title = Motion Blur
| image = motion_blur.png
| titletext = I can't speak for your other subjects, but MY motion was as smooth and natural as the framerate allowed.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a bBboOotTt - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
[[White Hat]] is recording a video while rotating (''panning'') the camera. [[Cueball]] notices that the camera's shutter speed is too fast, which could cause the result to look unnatural or too sharp when turning the camera. Cueball decides to solve this problem by making himself blurrier than normal, counteracting the problems of the high shutter speed.

The title text refers to the fact that only ''one'' object - in this case, Cueball - appearing blurred while everything else in the frame is sharp would probably look even more unnatural.

This is similar to a trick actually 'used' by {{w|Flash (DC Comics character)#Jay_Garrick|some fictional characters}} who have the power to make themselves unclear to observers or cameras alike.

When light hits a human's retina, it is perceived for a short while even after the light has ceased. This means that objects moving across a human's field of vision at a sufficient speed will naturally appear blurry – in our perception, the light arriving right now from the trailing part of the object will mix with the light that arrived a moment earlier, from the leading part of the object.

A camera's shutter speed is the amount of time that the shutter is open for each frame, allowing the image sensor to capture light. If the shutter speed is too high, this blurring will not occur, and the motion will look unnaturally crisp – if something is too small and/or too quick, the illusion of motion may disappear altogether; the object instead will appear as a brief flash of multiple objects standing still, like in the case of a fast-moving mouse cursor on a screen{{citation needed}}. In cinema, the shutter speed is generally set to double the framerate, e.g. 1/48 s for footage shot at 24 fps (one of the standard framerates, a remnant from the age of mechanical motion picture cameras and film projectors).

An opposing problem is that of a camera not sufficiently matching the relative motion of a moving object, with a shutter speed that is too slow (and may need to be, given the choice of aperture and lighting conditions). Sports photographers must learn how to scan-and-pan their subjects (runners, horses, vehicles, etc) with enough synchronicity to capture them sharply, and possibly seemingly hanging frozen in mid-air against an artistically-blurred background.

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

:[A strip of three panels, featuring White Hat, Cueball and Ponytail. Cueball and Ponytail stand next to each other and White Hat stands to the left of them.]

:[White Hat is facing away from Cueball and Ponytail, and holds a camera.]
:White Hat: Okay, I'm going to pan around.
:Cueball: No, wait, your shutter speed is too fast, it will look choppy if—

:[White Hat turns towards Cueball and Ponytail, now pointing the camera away from the viewer. Cueball clenches his fists and hunches his shoulders.]

:Cueball: ''Hnnnnngh''

:[White Hat is now facing Cueball and Ponytail. Cueball now appears blurry while the others appear similar as to in previous panels.]

:[Caption below panel:]
:Expert photographers can learn to generate their own motion blur to compensate for other people's bad camera settings.
{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]

2628: Motion Blur

2022-06-04T15:42:31Z

Kapostamas:

Talk:2628: Motion Blur

2022-06-04T14:30:03Z

Kapostamas: /* Randall has got this issue backwards: */

2628: Motion Blur

2022-06-04T03:18:21Z

Kapostamas: /* Explanation */ slight rewording

{{comic
| number = 2628
| date = June 3, 2022
| title = Motion Blur
| image = motion_blur.png
| titletext = I can't speak for your other subjects, but MY motion was as smooth and natural as the framerate allowed.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a bBboOotTt - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
[[White Hat]] is recording a video while rotating (''panning'') the camera. [[Cueball]] notices that the camera's shutter speed is too fast, which could cause the result to look unnatural or too sharp when turning the camera. Cueball decides to solve this problem by making himself blurrier than normal, counteracting the problems of the high shutter speed.

This is similar to a trick actually 'used' by {{w|Flash (DC Comics character)#Jay_Garrick|some fictional characters}} who have the power to make themselves unclear to observers or cameras alike.

When light hits a human's retina, it is perceived for a short while even after the light has ceased. This means that objects moving across a human's field of vision at a sufficient speed will naturally appear blurry – in our perception, the light arriving right now from the trailing part of the object will mix with the light that arrived a moment earlier, from the leading part of the object.

A camera's shutter speed is the amount of time that the shutter is open for each frame, allowing the image sensor to capture light. If the shutter speed is too high, this blurring will not occur, and the motion will look unnaturally crisp – if something is too small and/or too quick, the illusion of motion may disappear altogether; the object instead will appear as a brief flash of multiple objects standing still, like in the case of a fast-moving mouse cursor on a screen. In cinema, the shutter speed is generally set to double the framerate, e.g. 1/48 s for footage shot at 24 fps.

The opposing problem is that of a camera not sufficiently matching the relative motion of a moving object, with a shutter speed that is too slow (and may need to be, given the choice of aperture and lighting conditions). Sports photographers must learn how to scan-and-pan their subjects (runners, horses, vehicles, etc) with enough synchronicity to capture them sharply, and possibly seemingly hanging frozen in mid-air against an artistically-blurred background.

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

:[A strip of three panels, featuring White Hat, Cueball and Ponytail. Cueball and Ponytail stand next to each other and White Hat stands to the left of them.]

:[White Hat is facing away from Cueball and Ponytail, and holds a camera.]
:White Hat: Okay, I'm going to pan around.
:Cueball: No, wait, your shutter speed is too fast, it will look choppy if—

:[White Hat turns towards Cueball and Ponytail, now pointing the camera away from the viewer. Cueball clenches his fists and hunches his shoulders.]

:Cueball: ''Hnnnnngh''

:[White Hat is now facing Cueball and Ponytail. Cueball now appears blurry while the others appear similar as to in previous panels.]

:[Caption below panel:]
:Expert photographers can learn to generate their own motion blur to compensate for other people's bad camera settings.
{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]

2628: Motion Blur

2022-06-04T02:59:11Z

Kapostamas: /* Explanation */ It's a video, not a photo. Added explanation to that effect; existing explanation may not be applicable.

{{comic
| number = 2628
| date = June 3, 2022
| title = Motion Blur
| image = motion_blur.png
| titletext = I can't speak for your other subjects, but MY motion was as smooth and natural as the framerate allowed.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a bBboOotTt - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
[[White Hat]] is recording a video while rotating (''panning'') the camera. [[Cueball]] notices that the camera's shutter speed is too fast, which could cause the result to look unnatural or too sharp when turning the camera. Cueball decides to solve this problem by making himself blurrier than normal, counteracting the problems of the high shutter speed.

This is similar to a trick actually 'used' by {{w|Flash (DC Comics character)#Jay_Garrick|some fictional characters}} who have the power to make themselves unclear to observers or cameras alike.

When light hits a human's retina, it is perceived for a short while even after the light has ceased. This means that objects moving across a human's field of vision at a sufficient speed will naturally appear blurry – in our perception, the light arriving right now from the trailing part of the object will mix with the light that arrived a moment earlier, from the leading part of the object. If the camera's shutter speed is too high, this blurring will not occur, and the motion will look unnaturally crisp – if something is too small and/or too quick, the illusion of motion may disappear altogether; the object instead will appear as a brief flash of multiple objects standing still, like in the case of a fast-moving mouse cursor on a screen. In cinema, the shutter speed is generally set to double the frame rate, e.g. 1/48 s for footage shot at 24 fps.

The opposing problem is that of a camera not sufficiently matching the relative motion of a moving object, with a shutter speed that is too slow (and may need to be, given the choice of aperture and lighting conditions). Sports photographers must learn how to scan-and-pan their subjects (runners, horses, vehicles, etc) with enough synchronicity to capture them sharply, and possibly seemingly hanging frozen in mid-air against an artistically-blurred background.

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

:[A strip of three panels, featuring White Hat, Cueball and Ponytail. Cueball and Ponytail stand next to each other and White Hat stands to the left of them.]

:[White Hat is facing away from Cueball and Ponytail, and holds a camera.]
:White Hat: Okay, I'm going to pan around.
:Cueball: No, wait, your shutter speed is too fast, it will look choppy if—

:[White Hat turns towards Cueball and Ponytail, now pointing the camera away from the viewer. Cueball clenches his fists and hunches his shoulders.]

:Cueball: ''Hnnnnngh''

:[White Hat is now facing Cueball and Ponytail. Cueball now appears blurry while the others appear similar as to in previous panels.]

:[Caption below panel:]
:Expert photographers can learn to generate their own motion blur to compensate for other people's bad camera settings.
{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]

2627: Types of Scopes

2022-06-01T23:29:12Z

Kapostamas: Some context for NPR

{{comic
| number = 2627
| date = June 1, 2022
| title = Types of Scopes
| image = types_of_scopes.png
| titletext = An x-ray gyroscope is used to determine exactly which toppings they included in the pita.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a BOT WHO DIDN'T REMEMBER TO STOP TROLLS FROM SPAMMING THE WRONG IMAGE AND THIS EDITOR IS REALLY SALTY ABOUT THAT- Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
''{{w|Electron microscopes}}'', ''{{w|Calorimetric Electron Telescope|electron telescopes}}'' and ''{{w|radio telescopes}}'' are special forms of {{w|microscopes}} and {{w|telescopes}}, respectively. This comic explores what you could do with a hypothetical "electron ___-scope" and "radio ___-scope" for other "regular" items whose name also ends in -scope (namely: {{w|periscope}}, {{w|stethoscope}}, {{w|kaleidoscope}}, {{w|gyroscope}} and {{w|horoscope}}).

The third column with "radio" often plays on different meanings of the word ''radio:'' 1) related to radiation and 2) a device for receiving radio communication or broadcasts.

The title text makes a pun on "gyroscope" and a middle-eastern pita wrap called a "gyro".
===Table with scopes===
{| class="wikitable"
|+ What the words could mean according to the comic
|-
! Word !! Regular ___ !! Electron ___ !! Radio ___
|-
| Microscope || A laboratory instrument used for magnifying small objects. || ''Really exists:'' A microscope that uses a beam of accelerated electrons as a source of illumination, has a higher resolution than a conventional microscope. || Simply a microscope that one would use when repairing a radio.
|-
| Telescope || An optical instrument used for observing distant objects. || ''{{w|Calorimetric Electron Telescope|''Really exists''}}'': A type of telescope used to detect electrons and other high-energy particles, such as cosmic rays. || ''Really exists:'' A directional antenna used to detect radio waves from astronomical radio sources in the sky.
|-
| Periscope || Periscopes allow submarine crews to watch what happens above the water surface, without exposing the submarine to enemy observers, or enemy radars. In practice, periscope use is minimized because periscopes are still observable, but to a lesser degree. || An electron microscope seemingly mounted on a periscope. Examining enemy boats like a periscope, with the detail of an electron microsope. This would not be useful in combat. || In principle, the German navy has invented radio periscopes during World War 2. The {{w|Metox radar detector}}'s early antenna had to be built up after surfacing, and dismantled before diving. Later, the fixed ''Bali'' antenna could act like a true periscope, in order to detect aircraft and ships that were using radar to hunt submarines.

Radio signals do not propagate well in water, so raising a radio receiver above the water would be necessary for listening to {{w|NPR}} (National Public Radio, a popular public radio network in the United States) or any radio station which is not in the {{w|extremely low frequency}} band.
|-
| Stethoscope
|| A medical device for listening to sounds made by a patient's body, for example the heart. Has a disc-shaped resonator that is placed against the patient's skin.
|| If the resonator is emitting electromagnetic radiation, it could burn the skin due to its close proximity.
|| Normally, the sounds are transmitted to an earpiece that the examiner wears. There are also recording stethoscopes. A radio stethoscope would transmit the sound either directly via radio waves, or send it to a radio station such as NPR where it could then be broadcasted.
|-
| Kaleidoscope || A optical instrument which uses two or more tilted reflectors to show a regular symmetrical pattern || Seemingly a pun of electron "collide"-oscope, as electron collisions generate {{w|Bremsstrahlung}}. || The scan button on a radio scans through many frequencies, and the radio station changes a lot, depending on the frequency. The rapid change is reminiscent of a normal kaleidoscope.
|-
| Gyroscope || Gyroscopes are used for {{w|inertial navigation}}, for example. || Gyroscopes make stuff point in certain directions by spinning. An {{w|Electromagnet}} uses sometimes-spinning electric fields to induce a magnetic field, moving magnetic stuff and, in some instances, making it point in a certain direction. || A music turntable spins a vinyl record to stimulate an electromagnetic needle, which plays music. Such devices are common in radio stations.

In theory, radio waves could be sent around in a triangular pattern, thus replicating the existing {{w|ring laser gyroscope}}.
|-
| Horoscope
|| In common usage, predictions or advice given based on the position of stars and planets. Proven to be unscientific junk.
|| Predicting the position of a particle, such as an electron (possibly based on the position of stars and planets). In a funny twist, the exact location of an electron cannot be determined, due to Heisenberg's uncertainty principle.
|| Predictions or advice given based on the radiation emitted by exploding stars or galaxies.
|}

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
Content is a table, with column headings "Regular ''Blank'' Scope", "Electron ''Blank'' Scope", and "Radio ''Blank'' Scope". Row headings are "Micro", "Tele", "Peri", "Stetho", "Kaleido", "Gyro", and "Horo".

;Regular Microscope
:Look at small stuff
;Electron Microscope
:Look at ''really'' small stuff
;Radio Microscope
:Figure out why your radio broke
;Regular Telescope
:Look at stuff that's far away
;Electron Telescope
:Detect cosmic rays
;Radio Telescope
:Look at distant high-energy stuff
;Regular Periscope
:Look for enemy ships
;Electron Periscope
:Examine the hull of an enemy ship for structural flaws
;Radio Periscope
:Let the crew of your submarine listen to NPR
;Regular Stethoscope
:Listen to a patient's chest
;Electron Stethoscope
:Burn a patient's skin
;Radio Stethoscope
:Play the noises from a patient's chest on NPR
;Regular Kaleidoscope
:See cool shapes and colors
;Electron Kaleidoscope
:See cool Bremsstrahlung
;Radio Kaleidoscope
:Another word for the "Scan" button
;Regular Gyroscope
:Balance by spinning
;Electron Gyroscope
:Another word for electromagnet
;Radio Gyroscope
:Another word for turntable
;Regular Horoscope
:Get random life advice
;Electron Horoscope
:Predict a particle's quantum state
;Radio Horoscope
:Get random life advice from exploding galaxies

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Food]]
[[Category:Science]]
[[Category:Space]]

2614: 2

2022-06-01T23:12:21Z

Kapostamas: Undo revision 285465 by 172.70.131.128 (talk)

<noinclude>:''This page refers to the comic named "2". For comic #2, see [[2: Petit Trees (sketch)]].''</noinclude>
{{comic
| number = 2614
| date = May 2, 2022
| title = 2
| image = 2.png
| titletext = It's like sigma summation notation, except instead of summing the argument over all values of i, you 2 the argument over all values of 2.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by A VERY JEALOUS NUMBER ₃½ⁿ₇₇₇ⅥⅣ₆⁸⁴⁴½⅔⅜ↆ↉↉∂, WHO DEMANDS TO HAVE THEIR OWN WEBCOMIC NEXT - Please change this comment when editing this page. Everything is in there but some categories might need explanation and examples.}}

This demonstrates the different ways in which the number 2 can be typeset in various scientific fields. While these ways of typesetting are used with any number, using the number 2 in this instance provides a clear illustration how adding numbers can significantly alter a feature of a concept (such as the number of electrons in an atom) or perform a mathematical operation on it (such as raising a value to its second power).

The dotted box represents any character (a number, letter, or bigram of letters, as appropriate to the various signifiers). All the other notation consists only of the digit 2, with occasional additional punctuation, in various locations in relation to this character. Each of these is labelled as to what its 'purpose' might normally be with respect to the general term:
;Regular Math
:Precedes the term. "2x" indicates two times the value of ''x'' in normal {{w|algebra|algebraic}} use that should be familiar for many people.
;Physics
:A preceding superscript. "2H" would indicate the particular {{w|isotope}} of hydrogen with the atomic weight of two, namely deuterium, which is most often encountered when working with the atomic level of matter where the total number of neutrons and protons in the atom is important. It can also represent {{w|tetration}}, which is iterated exponentiation.
;Chemical Physics
:A preceding subscript, as in "2He", indicates the atomic number of an atom, which is the number of protons it contains. It is thus a guide to the number of electrons its unionised form usually has and hence is meaningful for its potential chemical interactions with other atoms. This number of protons should be invariant for any particular named element, but is usually given simultaneously with the presuperscripted mass number for which it can indicate the applicable nuclear physics. {{w|Chemical physics}} is a subdiscipline of physics and chemistry. It can also represent {{w|pentation}}, which is iterated tetration.
;Regular Math or Footnotes
:A trailing superscript is typical of a {{w|Exponentiation|power value}}; in this case "x²" would be ''x'' multiplied by itself - a common mathematical standard.
:Additionally, superscripted numbers are one common way to mark words in a line of text in a way to refer to a {{w|Note (typography)|footnote}}, typically placed at the bottom of the page and containing additional information that would distract from the main text itself. The ambiguity between footnotes and exponents was used in [[1184: Circumference Formula]].
;Chemistry
:A trailing subscript is used in chemistry to indicate a multiple of the element (or group of elements, in brackets) in a {{w|chemical formula}}. "H2O" indicates two hydrogen atoms bond with a single oxygen atom in a molecule of water.
;Matrices! ("2,2")
:Extending the trailing subscript with a comma-separated value usually indicates a multidimensional array (e.g., establishing a 2-by-2 square of numbers, or this particular position in such an array), which is in the realm of {{w|Matrix (mathematics)|matrix mathematics}}. This is a little bit beyond 'everyday algebra' for many people, as seemingly indicated by the exclamation of the mere mention of matrices.
;The Physicists Are At It Again ("2;2")
:This label encompasses a mark that turns the prior comma into a semicolon, as part of the trailing subscript. This is a common notation for the {{w|Covariant derivative}} of a tensor field, which is commonly used in the mathematics of general relativity.
;Either High School Math Function or Incomprehensible Group Theory
:The number 2 in parentheses that follow a term would normally be the argument to a {{w|Function (mathematics)|function}}. For example, "f(2)" means that you should take the value 2, and find the result if manipulated by the predefined function ''f''. It is generally taught as part of algebraic mathematics in {{w|Secondary school|high school}}.
:In {{w|group theory}}, however, the number 2 in parentheses could indicate a special kind of group, such as an an element of a symmetry group that keeps 2 fixed, or some kind of group of 2x2 matrices. For instance, {{w|SU(2)}} is a 3-dimensional {{w|Lie group}} of {{w|unitary matrices}}. These concepts are taught in graduate or advanced undergraduate mathematics courses.
;Oh no. Whatever this is, it's cursed.
:A symbol centered underneath another larger symbol is normally reserved for doing summations or products, where the big symbol is Σ or Π, or some other operation applied to a sequence of numbers. It does not make sense to have a single number on top of a smaller one. As with [[2529: Unsolved Math Problems|other things]] where something appears to have gone wrong in Randall's comic universe, the explanation for this particular anomaly is that it is 'Cursed'.
:Two numbers may be stacked directly on top of one another in parentheses as {{w|binomial coefficient}}s: ( <table style="display: inline-table; line-height: 0.6em; vertical-align: middle; font-size:7pt; text-size-adjust: none;"><tr><td>2</td></tr><tr><td>2</td></tr></table>), but those are always the same size, denoting a {{w|combination}}. In this case, ''2 choose 2'' is equal to one combination.
:The usage mentioned in the alt text is an operation (e.g. Σ for summation) over a variable, usually indicated by a letter such as i, where the operation is performed over all values of the variable (i.e., you Σ (sum) the argument over all values of i). In the "2" case, the alt text says "you 2 the argument over all values of 2" (i.e., the Σ operation has been replaced by the "2" operation and the i variable has been replaced by the "2" variable). 2 is usually not an operation, though the definition of 2 under {{w|Church_encoding#Church_numerals|Church encoding}} is a function that takes in and produces functions. 2 applied to 2 in the church encoding is 4. However, the title text implies that 2 is treated like a variable,which it is not (and it's definitely not a operator and variable at the same time).
: Things being cursed is a common trope within recent xkcd comics, which have mentioned items including [[2332:_Cursed_Chair|Cursed chairs]] and [[:Category:Cursed_Connectors|cursed connectors]]. This notation is one of the few occasions where the supernatural has demonstrable implications for science and mathematics for those foolhardy enough to use it.

==Transcript==
:[An apparent generalisation of a scientific expression consisting of a dotted rectangular 'box' outline, left empty, and various commonly-themed symbology around it:]

:[as normal text, to the left of all the rest:] 2
:[superscript to the immediate left of the box:] 2
:[subscript also to the immediate left of the box:] 2
:[superscript to the immediate right of the box:] 2
:[subscript also to the immediate right of the box:] 2;2 [i.e. separated by a semicolon]
:[as normal text, to the right of almost all the rest:] (2) [i.e. enclosed in standard parentheses]
:[smaller subscript, centered immediately beneath the 2 within the parentheses:] 2

:[Further details are drawn in grey tone, around or near various of the elements of the expression:]
;[Captions above the numbers]
:[with an arrow pointing to the leftmost 2:] Regular Math
:[with an arrow pointing to the leftwards superscript 2:] Physics
:[with an arrow pointing to the rightwards superscript 2:] Regular math or footnotes
:[with an arrow pointing to the parenthetical 2 at the right:] Either high school math functions or incomprehensible group theory

;[Captions below the numbers]
:[with an arrow pointing to the leftwards subscript 2:] Chemical Physics
:[with an arrow pointing to just the rightwards subscript 2:] Chemistry
:[with an arrow pointing to a distorted grey ring snaking around only the comma of the semicolon and the following 2 of the rightmost subscript:] Matrices!
:[with an arrow pointing to a larger grey ring that passes fully around the whole semicolon and final 2 of the rightmost subscript:] The physicists are at it again
:[with an arrow pointing to the small 2 placed below the parenthetical 2:] Oh no. Whatever this is, it's cursed.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Math]]
[[Category:Physics]]
[[Category:Chemistry]]
[[Category:Comics featuring cursed items]]

User:Kynde

2022-06-01T22:58:11Z

Kapostamas: Undo revision 285481 by 162.158.107.52 (talk)

*I have been promoted to [[Special:ListUsers/sysop|Admin]] by [[User:Jeff|Jeff]] on [[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'s [[explain_xkcd:Community_portal/Coordination#New_admins|suggestion]].
**It is an honor so hope I can live up to the responsibility.
**I may not see all notes in the admin board, but if you need me to read something, then post a note in my [[User talk:Kynde|Talk page]].
*A big fan of anything xkcd :)
*Discovered xkcd through the "new" ''[[what if?]]'' section
**Then proceeded to reading the weekly xkcd strip and started reading from the beginning of the xkcd comic.
*I found that I needed this page to fully understand and appreciate many of the comics.
**And now I'm one of the biggest contributors and have made it my specialty to do huge transcripts like this one for [[980: Money/Transcript|980: Money]] and this one for [[1608: Hoverboard/Transcript|1608: Hoverboard]] (as well as basically all on these [[1608:_Hoverboard#Extra_Hoverboard_pages|extra hoverboard pages]] and the [[1608:_Hoverboard#Table_with_references|table]]!)
*At the moment of writing this I'm working on a table for describing the 1000 characters in [[1000: 1000 Comics]].
**To complete that I first needed to [[1000: 1000 Comics/Numbered images|number the images]] which was also a big task...
**By the way given that I may still miss seeing several of the comics between 600-1000 I may no be the best to recognize these 1000. But with the table maybe others will help.
*Recently the physically tallest comic in xkcd history [[1732: Earth Temperature Timeline]] also took me some time:
**Made both the transcript and the table.
**And is now in the process of filling out said table, so the 1000 project has been halted for now.
*For a couple of years my activity has been quite low, as I got to be caught up in this nonsense: [[1705: Pokémon Go]].
**It has taken the time I spend here, but at least I get more fresh air and exercise. :-)
**I have not quite editing here, but the projects above will not be finished by me anytime soon.

==Favorites==
I have so far (May 2014) only progressed through the first 400 comics (+ references) but have read all the new since October 2013. So there may be many favorites waiting for me. (Reached no. 400 on May 28th 2014, then 480 September 15th 2014 - slow progress at the moment. 500 in November. 530 reached in January 2015. 540 march 2015. 550 June 2015. 560 mid June 2015. 570 end of July 2015. 582 September 1st 2015. 585 October 20th. 591 February 14th 2016. Finally reaching 600 on 2016-07-30 - the problem is that every time I open a new comic, there seems to be so much to improve on the explanations, especially the transcript and the details missing).

This is just a list of some comics I really appreciate:
*[[1314: Photos]]
*[[289: Alone]]
*[[1024: Error Code]]
*[[505: A Bunch of Rocks]]
*[[355: Couple]]
*[[356: Nerd Sniping]]
*[[372: To Be Wanted]]
*[[420: Jealousy]]
*[[435: Purity]] (Hey - I'm a physicist - what would you expect?)
*[[438: Internet Argument]]
*[[482: Height]]
*[[562: Parking]]
*[[150: Grownups]]
*[[540: Base System]]
*[[1141: Two Years]]
*[[1123: The Universal Label]]
*[[1515: Basketball Earth]]
*[[1519: Venus]]
*[[1520: Degree-Off]]
*[[1534: Beer]]. (I do not like beer!)
*[[551: Etch-a-Sketch]]
*[[926: Time Vulture]]
*[[1608: Hoverboard]]
*[[1633: Possible Undiscovered Planets]] (Hey I guessed he would post a comic about this [[Talk:1632: Palindrome|the day before]] the release :-)
*[[1644: Stargazing]] (This is how I feel about astronomy ;-)
*[[980: Money]]
*[[872: Fairy Tales]] - I do that when I try to read for my children while very sleepy (talk on that is. I do not know what I say :-)
*[[260: The Glass Necklace]]
*[[1731: Wrong]]
*[[1732: Earth Temperature Timeline]] (and basically anything in the new Category [[:Category:Climate change]] about global warming).
*[[1576: I Could Care Less]]
*[[388: Fuck Grapefruit]] (Was just looking for a quick link to this comic from my favorites only to discover it was missing from the list! Fuck Coconuts! ;-)
*[[2287: Pathogen Resistance]] - Fuck Corona - I love pasta.

2627: Types of Scopes

2022-06-01T22:55:59Z

Kapostamas: Image fixed

{{comic
| number = 2627
| date = June 1, 2022
| title = Types of Scopes
| image = types_of_scopes.png
| titletext = An x-ray gyroscope is used to determine exactly which toppings they included in the pita.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a BOT WHO DIDN'T REMEMBER TO STOP TROLLS FROM SPAMMING THE WRONG IMAGE AND THIS EDITOR IS REALLY SALTY ABOUT THAT- Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
''{{w|Electron microscopes}}'', ''{{w|Calorimetric Electron Telescope|electron telescopes}}'' and ''{{w|radio telescopes}}'' are special forms of {{w|microscopes}} and {{w|telescopes}}, respectively. This comic explores what you could do with a hypothetical "electron ___-scope" and "radio ___-scope" for other "regular" items whose name also ends in -scope (namely: {{w|periscope}}, {{w|stethoscope}}, {{w|kaleidoscope}}, {{w|gyroscope}} and {{w|horoscope}}).

The third column with "radio" often plays on different meanings of the word ''radio:'' 1) related to radiation and 2) a device for receiving radio communication or broadcasts.

The title text makes a pun on "gyroscope" and a middle-eastern pita wrap called a "gyro".
===Table with scopes===
{| class="wikitable"
|+ What the words could mean according to the comic
|-
! Word !! Regular ___ !! Electron ___ !! Radio ___
|-
| Microscope || A laboratory instrument used for magnifying small objects. || ''Really exists:'' A microscope that uses a beam of accelerated electrons as a source of illumination, has a higher resolution than a conventional microscope. || Simply a microscope that one would use when repairing a radio.
|-
| Telescope || An optical instrument used for observing distant objects. || ''{{w|Calorimetric Electron Telescope|''Really exists''}}'': A type of telescope used to detect electrons and other high-energy particles, such as cosmic rays. || ''Really exists:'' A directional antenna used to detect radio waves from astronomical radio sources in the sky.
|-
| Periscope || Periscopes allow submarine crews to watch what happens above the water surface, without exposing the submarine to enemy observers, or enemy radars. In practice, periscope use is minimized because periscopes are still observable, but to a lesser degree. || An electron microscope seemingly mounted on a periscope. Examining enemy boats like a periscope, with the detail of an electron microsope. This would not be useful in combat. || In principle, the German navy has invented radio periscopes during World War 2. The {{w|Metox radar detector}}'s early antenna had to be built up after surfacing, and dismantled before diving. Later, the fixed ''Bali'' antenna could act like a true periscope, in order to detect aircraft and ships that were using radar to hunt submarines.

Radio signals do not propagate well in water, so raising a radio receiver above the water would be necessary for listening to NPR or any radio station which is not in the {{w|extremely low frequency}} band.
|-
| Stethoscope
|| A medical device for listening to sounds made by a patient's body, for example the heart. Has a disc-shaped resonator that is placed against the patient's skin.
|| If the resonator is emitting electromagnetic radiation, it could burn the skin due to its close proximity.
|| Normally, the sounds are transmitted to an earpiece that the examiner wears. There are also recording stethoscopes. A radio stethoscope would transmit the sound either directly via radio waves, or send it to a radio station such as NPR where it could then be broadcasted.
|-
| Kaleidoscope || A optical instrument which uses two or more tilted reflectors to show a regular symmetrical pattern || Seemingly a pun of electron "collide"-oscope, as electron collisions generate {{w|Bremsstrahlung}}. || The scan button on a radio scans through many frequencies, and the radio station changes a lot, depending on the frequency. The rapid change is reminiscent of a normal kaleidoscope.
|-
| Gyroscope || Gyroscopes are used for {{w|inertial navigation}}, for example. || Gyroscopes make stuff point in certain directions by spinning. An {{w|Electromagnet}} uses sometimes-spinning electric fields to induce a magnetic field, moving magnetic stuff and, in some instances, making it point in a certain direction. || A music turntable spins a vinyl record to stimulate an electromagnetic needle, which plays music. Such devices are common in radio stations.

In theory, radio waves could be sent around in a triangular pattern, thus replicating the existing {{w|ring laser gyroscope}}.
|-
| Horoscope
|| In common usage, predictions or advice given based on the position of stars and planets. Proven to be unscientific junk.
|| Predicting the position of a particle, such as an electron (possibly based on the position of stars and planets). In a funny twist, the exact location of an electron cannot be determined, due to Heisenberg's uncertainty principle.
|| Predictions or advice given based on the radiation emitted by exploding stars or galaxies.
|}

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
Content is a table, with column headings "Regular ''Blank'' Scope", "Electron ''Blank'' Scope", and "Radio ''Blank'' Scope". Row headings are "Micro", "Tele", "Peri", "Stetho", "Kaleido", "Gyro", and "Horo".

;Regular Microscope
:Look at small stuff
;Electron Microscope
:Look at ''really'' small stuff
;Radio Microscope
:Figure out why your radio broke
;Regular Telescope
:Look at stuff that's far away
;Electron Telescope
:Detect cosmic rays
;Radio Telescope
:Look at distant high-energy stuff
;Regular Periscope
:Look for enemy ships
;Electron Periscope
:Examine the hull of an enemy ship for structural flaws
;Radio Periscope
:Let the crew of your submarine listen to NPR
;Regular Stethoscope
:Listen to a patient's chest
;Electron Stethoscope
:Burn a patient's skin
;Radio Stethoscope
:Play the noises from a patient's chest on NPR
;Regular Kaleidoscope
:See cool shapes and colors
;Electron Kaleidoscope
:See cool Bremsstrahlung
;Radio Kaleidoscope
:Another word for the "Scan" button
;Regular Gyroscope
:Balance by spinning
;Electron Gyroscope
:Another word for electromagnet
;Radio Gyroscope
:Another word for turntable
;Regular Horoscope
:Get random life advice
;Electron Horoscope
:Predict a particle's quantum state
;Radio Horoscope
:Get random life advice from exploding galaxies

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Food]]
[[Category:Science]]
[[Category:Space]]

2626: d65536

2022-05-30T22:09:11Z

Kapostamas: /* Transcript */

{{comic
| number = 2626
| date = May 30, 2022
| title = d65536
| image = d65536.png
| titletext = They're robust against quantum attacks because it's hard to make a quantum system that large.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a DICER - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
In binary computing, 16 bit numbers range from 0 to 65535 (or 1 to 65536). Generating large numbers randomly is a recurring problem in cryptography.

In board games and other tabletop games, dice are referred to as d[number] according to their number of sides. A traditional six-sided die would be a d6. Dice larger than a d20 are rare specialty dice, and are often nicknamed "golf balls" to emphasize how unwieldy they are.

Here, Cueball has somehow constructed a d65536 for generating random 16 bit numbers. It has solved the problem of being secure from a cryptography standpoint, but presents a new set of challenges from it's sheer size, dwarfing an average human.

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

[Drawing of a large die with many sides, about ten meters in diameter; Cueball is standing next to it as a size reference.]

[Text below the drawing:]
The hardest part of securely generating random 16-bit numbers is rolling the d65536.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Cryptography]]

1052: Every Major's Terrible

2022-05-30T22:02:10Z

Kapostamas: Undo revision 284634 by 162.158.107.198 (talk)

{{comic
| number = 1052
| date = May 7, 2012
| title = Every Major's Terrible
| before = [[#Explanation|↓ Skip to explanation ↓]]
| image = every_majors_terrible.png
| titletext = Someday I'll be the first to get a Ph. D in 'Undeclared'.
}}

==Explanation==
[[Randall]] has written a song called ''Every Major's Terrible'' and this comic illustrates the song. In this song the term {{w|Major (academic)|Major}} refers to the US version of an academic major. The point of the song is that it makes no sense to pick any major since they are all terrible!

The header notes that the song is written to the tune of the satirical {{w|Major-General's Song}} from {{w|Gilbert and Sullivan's}} 1879 comic opera ''{{w|The Pirates of Penzance}}''. The song satirizes the idea of the "modern" educated British Army officer of the latter 19th century. {{w|Major general}} is a military rank in the United Kingdom and many other countries. (As of August 2018, the title text has been changed to [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhaEjgnmy3c a link to the said song]). The meter in the Major-General's Song is {{w|iambic octameter}}, which means that in each line there are eight iambs, where an iamb is two syllables in an unstressed-stressed pattern. Therefore, each line contains 16 syllables.

The panels show Randall's rewritten lyrics to the song. Below each of the three verses are described in detail (go to [[#Verse 1|Verse 1]], [[#Verse 2|Verse 2]] or [[#Verse 3|Verse 3]]). Each verse ends with "Just put me down as 'Undecided' - Every Major's Terrible", which gives the song its name — and "Major's Terrible" is similar enough to "Major General", the corresponding lyrics in the original version, to serve as a callback. The last line of the first verse in each song goes as follows:
*Original: I am the very model of a modern Major-General
*Randall's: Just put me down as undecided- every major's terrible

The lyrics are commonly rewritten, the most famous rewrite likely being {{w|The Elements (song)}} by {{w|Tom Lehrer}} which is also mentioned below the main header. This song is also [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcS3NOQnsQM available on-line].

His last suggestion, "{{w|Supercalifragilisticexpialadocious}}", from ''{{w|Mary Poppins}}'', is another fast-paced patter-song with a somewhat similar tune, though it doesn't fit quite so well, and the match falls apart at the end of the fourth line, when the "Um-diddly"s start up — still, it's better than nothing.

There are at least two performances of this xkcd song online where the transcription is shown to make it easier to understand the text:
*A video with each major acted out by the [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=seGpYa8UO0E SFU Choir - Every Major's Terrible].
*A solo with piano: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRexBMPeRTo Every Major's Terrible' by Ben Miller].
**See also this article [http://www.uproxx.com/gammasquad/2012/08/ben-miller-xkcd-every-majors-terrible/ Xkcd's 'Every Major's Terrible' Is Now A Real Song].

Regarding the title text: "Undeclared" is sometimes called "General Studies". Most U.S. universities will not let you get a degree in this, let alone an advanced degree such as a {{w|Ph.D.}} Also, it should probably be noted that this song refers to U.S.-like university systems, in other countries, one will study little to nothing outside your major, making it more-or-less impossible to be undecided as to major.

It should also be noted that the title text fits the cadence of the first line of the song, possibly teasing a fourth verse. As to what that consists of, only Randall knows.

===Verse 1===
;Panel 1, ''Philosophy's just math sans rigor, sense, and practicality'': [[Cueball]] is posing as {{w|Rodin}}'s {{w|The Thinker}}, a common symbol for {{w|philosophy}}. The equation in the background (two plus light bulb equals sailboat) is nonsense, hence "{{w|math}} sans rigor, sense or practicality" ([http://www.thefreedictionary.com/sans sans] meaning without).

;Panel 2, ''And math's just physics unconstrained by precepts of reality.'': A cannon is firing. However, instead of going in the normal parabolic arc (a precept of reality and thus {{w|physics}}), the cannonball splits and splits again, so that it looks like a {{w|bifurcation diagram}} from {{w|chaos theory}}. The dashed line indicates the cannonball's trajectory, which bifurcates twice, although the sum of the momentums of the four resulting (1/4 sized?) cannonballs is presumably mathematically identical to the original.

;Panel 3, ''A business major's just a thing you get so you can graduate'': {{w|Business education|Business}} is the most common major, often seen as a practical choice applicable to a wide variety of careers, or, as the comic illustrates, preferred by those who just want an easy way to graduate. Cueball gets his diploma and runs away from the dean on the podium while shedding both his robe and his {{w|square academic cap}} (or Mortarboard).

;Panel 4, ''And chemistry's for stamp collectors high on methylacetate.'': Stamp collecting refers to the [https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ernest_Rutherford famous quote] by {{w|Ernest Rutherford}}, "All science is either physics or stamp collecting." {{w|Methyl acetate}} is a solvent that for instance can be used to remove stamps from their envelope (although water will do the same). The stamps in the background form the {{W|periodic table}} of the chemical elements. And since {{w|chemistry}} is not physics, according to the quote, {{w|chemists}} must be stamp collectors (as, the high on methylacetate, [[Ponytail]] wearing goggles and holding an {{w|Erlenmeyer flask}}).

;Panels 5 and 6, ''Why anyone who wants a job would study lit's a mystery'', ''Unless their only other choice were something like art history.'': These lines, both sung by Cueball, refer to subjects where a majority of graduates will end up unemployed or eventually working in a field outside their majors. Topics such as {{w|Literature}} or {{w|Art History}} are often and historically said to be in this category — although from [http://www.studentsreview.com/unemployment_by_major.php3?sort=Rate actual statistics], it is clear that there are far worse majors these days.

;Panels 7 and 8, ''A BA in communications guarantees that you'll achieve'', ''A little less than if you'd learned to underwater basket-weave'': Here Cueball first has a major in {{w|Communication studies|Communications}} and next he is seen underwater with a basket. {{w|Underwater basket weaving}} is a commonly used metaphor for any college major that is easy and/or worthless. "Communications" is a major chosen by people interested in news broadcasting or other media. Note that, if following the original music exactly, the line "A little less than if you'd learned to underwater basket-weave." will be repeated three times by the chorus after these panels.

;Panel 9, ''I'd rather eat a Fowler's toad than major in biology,'': We see Cueball holding a frog out in front of him while taking his hand to his head (in disgust?). A {{w|Fowler's toad}} is a relatively common toad in the eastern US, and a stereotype of studying {{w|biology}} is a frog {{w|dissection}}, which is likely part of the reference, albeit oblique. Fowler's Toad emits a {{w|Bufo_fowleri#Behavior|noxious secretion}} that [http://www.nwf.org/wildlife/wildlife-library/amphibians-reptiles-and-fish/toads.aspx irritates skin] and thus probably also the mucous membranes in the mouth. It would thus be rather painful to eat, making it very bad for Cueball to major in biology since he would rather eat such a toad.

;Panel 10, ''And social psych is worse than either psych ''or'' sociology.'': {{w|Social psychology}} is compared to {{w|sociology}} (study of humans in society) and {{w|psychology}} (study of human minds). Psychology is represented by a {{w|serial killer}} with a chainsaw, and sociology is represented by a {{w|zombie}}. These are to the left of [[Megan]]. To her right is a zombie serial killer with chainsaw. She is standing between them undecided as to take one, the other or both. They are all terrible options...

;Panels 11 and 12, ''The thought of picking any one of these is too unbearable,'' ''Just put me down as "Undecided"—Every major's terrible.'': End of the first verse where Cueball tells his academic advisor that he is undecided as every major's terrible. He even throws away his {{w|study guide}}. Every verse ends with some variation of this couplet, and in the original tune, each of these couplets are repeated by the chorus afterwards.
:''Unbearable'' and ''terrible'' rhyme for people who have the {{w|English-language vowel changes before historic /r/#Mary–marry–merry merger|Mary-merry merger}}.

===Verse 2===
;Panel 13, ''Now, if you can't prognosticate, that's OK in seismology,'':[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/prognosticate Prognosticate] means "to predict". This refers to the inability of {{w|seismology}} to reliably predict catastrophic {{w|earthquake}}s, even after centuries of extensive research. The panel shows {{w|Seismic wave|seismic waves}} from a {{w|seismograph}}. The seismograph chart has four traces and about halfway across one trace begins oscillating vigorously indicating an earthquake. Five months after this comic was published several seismologists in Italy were [http://www.nature.com/news/italian-court-finds-seismologists-guilty-of-manslaughter-1.11640 convicted of crimes] that effectively stemmed from an inability to predict an earthquake. This does not go down well for the message of this panel... Their conviction was [http://www.nature.com/news/italian-seismologists-cleared-of-manslaughter-1.16313 overturned on appeal] in 2014.

;Panel 14, ''But if your hindsight's weak as well, you'd best stick to theology.'': The bearded [https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/theologist theologist] represents {{w|Theology}} by stating the formal logic proposition shown in the illustration: "X ∴ ∃X". This says "I can describe this thing called X, therefore X exists". This is what Anselm’s {{w|ontological argument}} for God boils down to. Briefly, it asks you to imagine the best possible deity, which, by definition, would be God. A God which exists in both reality and theory would be greater than one who exists in merely the latter. Therefore, this proposition concludes that God exists. The fatal flaw of this argument is that it can be used to prove the existence of anything (e.g. a vacuum cleaner which exists in both reality and theory is greater than one which exists merely in theory). Just because a perfect God would exist does not mean he does. Thus it has been largely rejected. (See [[1505: Ontological Argument]].)

;Panel 15, ''CS will make each day a quest to find a missing close-paren.'': "CS" is short for "{{w|Computer Science}}." Most programming languages use parentheses as part of their syntax, and often have multiply-nested parenthetical expressions. This is especially true of {{w|Lisp (programming language)|Lisp}}. It is often difficult for a programmer to determine where the unbalanced parenthesis begins or ends when the code and parentheses are not properly formatted and indented. In the panel there is one more left "(" parenthesis (13) than right ")" or ''close-paren'' (12).

;Panel 16, ''Virology will guarantee you'll never get a hug again.'': {{w|Virology}} is the study of {{w|infectious diseases}}. The green symbol above the central figure is the {{w|Hazard_symbol#Biohazard_sign|biohazard symbol}}, implying that people who study infectious diseases, and are therefore located near them at some points in time, will be shunned like the plague, because they're probably carrying it. Thus no hugs to Megan as three Cueballs and Ponytail lean back away from her.

;Panel 17, ''I.T. prepares you for a life of fighting with PCs nonstop.'': "I.T." is short for "{{w|Information Technology}}", a degree for people who maintain computer systems. If there is a need for an I.T. position (in which I.T. professionals are employed) there are computers which need fixing — hence the I.T. Professional is always fixing (or fighting) computers, which may or may not have been [http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=19980506 "broken" by users]. In the panel Megan, wielding an axe, is in a real fight with a PC.

;Panel 18, ''As Pratchett said, "Geography's just physics slowed with trees on top."'': This is a slightly amended quote from {{w|Discworld}} author {{w|Terry Pratchett}}, from his book "{{w|Feet of Clay (novel)|Feet of Clay}}". The actual quote is "{{w|Geography}} is just physics slowed down, with a couple of trees stuck in it." But the meaning is the same, that physics also describes geography - a similar quote to the one about physics vs. stamp collections mentioned under panel 4.

;Panel 19, ''Though physics seems to promise you a Richard Feynman-like career,'': {{w|Richard Feynman}} was a 20th-century {{w|Nobel Prize|Nobel}}-laureate {{w|physicist}} known for his great sense of humor, including being photographed for one of his books while holding a {{w|bongo drum}}. Here he is depicted with the drum and with both a blond woman and Megan looking admiringly upon him. Feynman made physics seem cool, and many a young fan might choose the subject in the hope of obtaining a Feynman-like career. This is, however, very unlikely for most people as is also shown in the next panel.

;Panel 20, ''The wiki page for "Physics major" redirects to "Engineer."'': A redirect on Wikipedia is a page which immediately sends the visitor to a different page. This implies that the title of the first is either a synonym or a sub-topic of the second. Physics majors usually learn to code, and the standard joke is that they invariably get hired as {{w|computer programmers}} after graduation, but here in this comic they get hired as {{w|engineers}}. This relates back to the previous panel, as it is here shown that most of those that major in physics end up as engineers and not like Feynman. The Wikipedia page physics major didn't actually exist when this comic was published. It was created the same day, but as a [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Physics_major&redirect=no redirect] to {{w|physics education}}. It is such a redirect page that is shown in the panel. In the subsequent days, there were dozens of instances of people changing it to redirect to engineer, usually reverted within minutes. The redirect page was ''fully protected'' and locked for editing. As with the underwater basket-weaving line in the first verse, after the soloist sings this, the line would be repeated three times by the chorus.

;Panels 21 and 22, ''They say to study history or find yourself repeating it,'' ''But all that it prepares you for is forty years of teaching it.'': This uses a version of a quote by {{w|George Santayana}} (although often attributed to others as well), ''Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it'' as a reason to study {{w|history}} — only to be followed by an indication that by studying history as a major, you will only be prepared to become a history teacher, and you will then spend the rest of your life teaching history. The first panel shows a flow chart that will lead you to repeat your sad past if you cannot remember it, and only move on to happier times if you can. In the next panel we see a [[Hairbun]] as a history teacher, with glasses and her gray hair tied up in a bun, standing in front of a green {{w|blackboard}} with three important years for her current history class.

:One connection between these years could be pivotal points in Jewish history concerning the formation of nationality: the Nurenberg Laws of 1935 removing citizenship from Jews in Germany, Israel's claims on Jerusalem, and the UN Security Council's condemnation of the treatment of Palestines by Israel.

:A more lighthearted connection, more in line with the message of learning from history, is the collapse of three notable communications towers: the wooden radio tower in Langenberg in 1935 (by tornado), a TV mast at Emley Moor in 1969 (due to ice build-up), and the Warsaw radio mast in 1991 (due to construction errors). This demonstrates various attempts and failures to learn from engineering mistakes from the past, connecting this with the earlier mentioning of physicists becoming engineers, and perhaps not taking real-world practical considerations into account (such as storms or ice build-up).

:Of course, in practice, with a narrow enough subject, there are likely to be many more examples fitting these three years. The two examples above were from general world history.

;Panels 23 and 24, ''I recognize my four-year plan's at this point not repairable,'' ''But put me down as "Undecided"—Every major's terrible.'': End of the second verse where Cueball again talks to his academic advisor saying that he is undecided. In the last of the two panel he says almost the same as at the end of the first verse. In the first, however, he mentioned his "four-year plan" which is the list of all the courses a student plans to include in their degree program. If you change majors every semester, or do not decide on one until too late, this list gets really difficult to turn into any one degree. Again these lines would be repeated by the chorus afterwards.

===Verse 3===
;Panel 25, ''Astronomers all cringe when they hear "supermoon" or "zodiac".'': {{w|Supermoon}} is a term invented by {{w|astrologers}} in the 1970s, with no significance in {{w|astronomy}} other than being the co-occurrence of orbital {{w|perigee}} and full-moon. But it comes up often in the press, linked to supernatural behavior. That also Randall dislikes seems realistic and he also "mocked" the term soon after in [[1080: Visual Field]] and then finally confirmed what he thought about the term directly when he published [[1394: Superm*n]]. This was the first comic referencing supermoon, here is [[:Category:Supermoon|a list]] of all such comics. The {{w|zodiac}} is the circular band in the sky containing the apparent path of the sun, moon and planets. Most often when people talk about it, they're referring to {{w|astrology}} and {{w|horoscopes}} and other pseudo-scientific notions which often lead to conversations which are frustrating to astronomers, like the bearded one from the panel.

;Panel 26, ''Agronomy's a no-go; I'm a huge agorophobiac.'': {{w|Agronomy}} is the science of farming, while {{w|agoraphobia}} is the fear of wide open spaces. Fields, where most farming happens, are wide open spaces. In the panel an anxious Cueball is standing near a fence on an open field with a tractor. Presumably he may be OK inside the tractor, but once he gets outside he becomes anxious.

;Panel 27, ''I'm too ophiophobic to consider herpetology,'': {{w|Herpetology}} is the study of {{w|reptiles}} and {{w|amphibians}}, while {{w|ophiophobia}} is the fear of {{w|snakes}} (a reptile). The panel shows sweating Cueball holding his hands to his mouth while looking at a green snake asking for his love? It is possible that Cueball is afraid of the snake, who is harmless and just wants to be friends.

;Panel 28, ''And I can't stomach any part of gastroenterology.'': As the pun suggests, {{w|gastroenterology}} is the study of the human digestive system and the image shows the human {{w|stomach}}. To [http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/cannot+stomach not be able to stomach something] means you can't stand or tolerate this thing.

;Panel 29, ''While pre-med gives you twitchy-eyed obsession with your GPA,'': {{w|Pre-med}} (pre-medical) is a major chosen by students hoping to go on to {{w|medical school}} to study {{w|medicine}} and eventually become {{w|Doctor of Medicine|doctors}}. Medical school is extremely competitive and usually requires a very high undergraduate {{w|GPA}} for prospective students. Hence we see a pre-med student holding all his grades.

;Panel 30, <tt>a poetry degree bespeaks bewildering naïveté.</tt>: The text is in all lower-case, a different font and strangely laid out compared to the text in all the other panels. All-lower-case and "free" layout are both associated with 20th century "{{w|Modernist}}" {{w|poetry}}, especially the works of {{w|E. E. Cummings}}. Ponytail is actually reciting this line of the song.

;Panels 31 and 32, ''TV's behind the rush into forensic criminology'', ''(Or so claims meta-academic epidemiology).'': This refers to how {{w|forensic}}-{{w|criminology}} shows, specifically {{w|CSI: Miami}} (Crime Scene Investigation: Miami) as shown on the TV screen in both panels, often dramatize, exaggerate or otherwise confuse the science behind forensics; this gives people unrealistically glamorous views of the career, thus encouraging them to join it. {{w|Epidemiology}} is the study of causes and effects of events and trends. We see a pipe smoking epidemiologist standing with Ponytail and watching CSI - presumably making wild claims on cause and effect based only on what they see on TV. This is, again, the point where the chorus joins in three times, as in the previous two verses.

;Panels 33 and 34, ''By dubbing econ "dismal science" adherents exaggerate;'' ''The "dismal"'s fine - it's "science" where they patently prevaricate.'': "Econ" is short for "{{w|economics}}". {{w|Thomas Carlyle}} declared economics "{{w|the dismal science}}" in the {{w|Victorian era}} as a derogatory alternative name. {{w|Economists}} often claim that economics is a {{w|science}} like any other; however, as the predictive powers of all economic theories are exceedingly weak compared to those of any science, this is disputed by those outside the field at times. It is of course also disputed by this song, in which Cueball "clearly" (see below) states that economics should not call itself a science - that is the ''dismal science'' is not derogatory enough for him.
*The sentences uttered by Cueball in these two panels are extremely difficult English for non-native English speakers.
*Here is some help in understanding the sentences:
**[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/dub Dubbing] something means ''giving it a nickname''.
**[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/dismal Dismal] science means (in this context) ''the disappointingly inadequate science''.
**[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/adherent Adherents] means ''supporters''.
**[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/patently Patently] means ''in a clear and unambiguous manner''
**[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/prevaricate Prevaricate] means to ''evade the truth''.
*Using these meanings of the words the two sentences can be re-written as:
**By giving economics the nickname "the inadequate science" the supporters [of economics] exaggerate;
**The "inadequate" is fine - it's "science" where they evade the truth in a clear and unambiguous manner.
*That is, Cueball is saying that "inadequate science" is too nice of a term for economics, he thinks it's not even science at all.

;Panel 35, ''In terms of choices, I'd say only Sophie's was comparable.''
;Panel 36, ''Just put me down as "Undecided"—Every major's terrible!'': End of the third verse, with yet another variant on the closing couplet. Choosing a major is compared to {{w|Sophie's Choice}}, which is any {{w|dilemma}} where choosing one cherished person or thing over the other will result in the death or destruction of the other, derived from the theme of the {{w|Sophie's Choice (novel)|novel}} of the same name, which has also been turned into a {{w|Sophie's Choice (film)|romantic drama film}}. So Cueball tells the academic advisor that choosing any of the majors over any other is as horrible as to have to choose which cherished person should die to save the other. Although in his case, it is the other way around, since he thinks all choices suck. Again these lines would be repeated by the chorus.

==Transcript==

:[The entire comic is a 4 by 9 grid. Left-justified headings above the 36 panels:]
:<big><big>Every Major's Terrible</big></big>
:to the tune of Gilbert & Sullivan's
:<big>Modern Major-General Song</big>
:(Which you may know from Tom Lehrer's ''Elements''.
:If not, just hum ''Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious''.)

:[To make it easier to read the lyrics, the lyrics text is double indented. If no one says the line it is just written after the description. Unless otherwise stated, the text is inside the frame of the panel above the drawing. If any other text is present it will be written after the lyrics.]

:[Panel 1: Cueball sitting with his chin on fist on a square, gray rock. Next to him is a mathematical expression "2 + a picture of yellow glowing light bulb = picture of Cueball in sailboat on a blue sea".]
::Philosophy's just math sans rigor, sense, and practicality
:Expression: 2+[lightbulb]=[sailboat]

:[Panel 2: A black and brown cannon standing on a green hill fires and a dashed line indicates the cannonball's trajectory. The line splits in two twice ending up at 4 cannonballs.]
::And math's just physics unconstrained by precepts of reality.

:[Panel 3: A student in robes and square academic cap receives a diploma from a dean on a brown podium, while Cueball, diploma in hand, runs away on the green lawn, arms in the air, shedding both robe and cap.]
::A business major's just a thing you get so you can graduate

:[Panel 4: Ponytail wearing goggles and holding a flask with the periodic table in the background. Three stars and circle lines around her head indicates that she is dizzy.]
::And chemistry's for stamp collectors high on methylacetate.

:[Panel 5: Cueball holds up his hands questioningly, in a shrugging pose.]
::Cueball: Why anyone who wants a job would study lit's a mystery

:[Panel 6: Cueball holding his chin.]
::Cueball: Unless their only other choice were something like art history.

:[Panel 7: The text is above this panels frame, which is only about two third of the other frames. In the frame is a close-up of Cueball as a graduate wearing yellow embroidered robe and yellow tasseled mortarboard.]
::A BA in communications guarantees that you'll achieve

:[Panel 8: The text is above this panels frame, which is only about two third of the other frames. In the frame is the same Cueball graduate, only now he is submerged in blue water. A wicker basket flows to the left, where air bubbles escape from Cueball. To the right are two black fish.]
::A little less than if you'd learned to underwater basket-weave

:[Panel 9: Cueball holding a gray frog at arm's length.]
::Cueball: I'd rather eat a Fowler's toad than major in biology,
:Frog: Ribbit

:[Panel 10: Megan indicating to the left a scruffy individual and an individual holding a chainsaw, and to the right a single scruffy individual holding a chainsaw.]
::Megan: And social psych is worse than either psych or sociology.

:[Panel 11: Cueball stands in front of a brown desk holding a gray course catalog. Behind the desk sits a man with glasses and hair at the back of his head. He sits on his gray office chair. There is a stack of papers on the desk.]
::Cueball: The thought of picking any one of these is too unbearable.

:[Panel 12: Same picture as panel 11, only now Cueball tosses the course catalog over his shoulder.]
::Cueball: Just put me down as "Undecided"—Every major's terrible.

:[Panel 13: The text is above this panels frame, which is only about two third of the other frames. In the frame is a seismograph chart with four traces; about halfway across one trace begins oscillating vigorously.]
::Now, if you can't prognosticate, that's OK in seismology,

:[Panel 14: A bearded man with white hair states a formula with his left arm lifted.]
::But if your hindsight's weak as well, you'd best stick to theology.
:Bearded man: X ∴ ∃X

:[Panel 15: Two lines with gray parenthesis.]
::CS will make each day a quest to find a missing close-paren.
:(((()((((()(
:))))())())())

:[Panel 16: Megan with a green biohazard symbol floating above her head stands alone; to the left and right three Cueball-like guys and Ponytail shun her.]
::Virology will guarantee you'll never get a hug again.

:[Panel 17: Megan running at a PC on a brown table at the left of the frame, with a brown and black axe raised over her head.]
::I.T. prepares you for a life of fighting with PCs nonstop.

:[Panel 18: The frame is a little smaller than the other frames. Above the frame is the first part of the text. In the frame is an image of a bearded man with glasses who says the rest of the text. ]
::As Pratchett said,
::Pratchett: "Geography's just physics slowed with trees on top."

:[Panel 19: A man with black hair plays on brown bongo drums while Blondie and Megan lean into the frame and look at him from left and right respectively.]
::Though physics seems to promise you a Richard Feynman-like career,

:[Panel 20: The text is above this panels frame, which is only about two third of the other frames. In the frame is screenshot of a wiki redirect page. Below the title is the normal text for such a page. This is unreadable though, although it is possible to imagine it is possible to read the first line which would say: ''From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia''. But not the other line which would be ''Redirect page''. Below this line is an arrow down to the page the redirect points to. This is written in blue underlined letters.]
::The wiki page for "Physics major" redirects to "Engineer."
:Wiki page:
::Physics major
:: Engineer

:[Panel 21: Flowchart: a gray-brown box with a sad face chains to a decision diamond reading simply "?"; the "yes" branch leads to a yellow happy-face box while the "no" branch loops back to the initial sad face.]
::They say to study history or find yourself repeating it,
:Flow chart:
::?
::No
::Yes

:[Panel 22: The text is above this panels frame, which is only about two third of the other frames. In the frame is Hairbun as a teacher with boxy spectacles and a bun in front of a green chalkboard with three years in white. She is holding a rod and using it to point at the board.]
::But all that it prepares you for is forty years of teaching it.
:Chalkboard:
::1935
::1969
::1991

:[Panel 23: Cueball at his adviser's desk again as in panel 12, but now without any catalog and holding his arms down.]
::Cueball: I recognize my four-year plan's at this point not repairable,

:[Panel 24: Same as panel 23 except Cueball has raised a first and the adviser has his hand to his mouth.]
::Cueball: But put me down as "Undecided"—Every major's terrible.

:[Panel 25: Image of a bald man with beard and glasses. He raised both hands one as a fist the other pointing up. There are lines out from his head to the left and lightning lines out from his head to the right.]
::Astronomers all cringe when they hear "supermoon" or "zodiac".

:[Panel 26: Silhouette of Cueball, agitated, in an open field near a fence and a tractor.]
::Agronomy's a no-go; I'm a huge agorophobiac.

:[Panel 27: Cueball looking aghast at a green snake on the ground, both hands at his mouth and sweat jumping from his head. The snake is "saying" a red heart with a black question mark next to it.]
::I'm too ophiophobic to consider herpetology,
:Snake: ♥ ?

:[Panel 28: Anatomical image of a stomach in pink and red.]
::And I can't stomach any part of gastroenterology.

:[Panel 29: A man with wild hair, glasses askew, clutching folders and papers (green, blue and white), and dropping several.]
:Man:
::While pre-med gives you twitchy-eyed obsession with your GPA,

:[Panel 30: Ponytail reciting poetry; her poem is this panel's line, in a lighter, lower-case font.]
::Ponytail: <tt>a poetry degree bespeaks bewildering naïveté.</tt>

:[Panel 31: The text is above this panels frame, which is only about two third of the other frames. The frame is a TV screen with the ''CSI: Miami'' logo, CSI in yellow.]
::TV's behind the rush into forensic criminology
:TV screen:
::''' CSI: '''
::'''Miami'''

:[Panel 32: A balding man wearing glasses and holding a smoking pipe together with Ponytail holding a notebook watch a wall-mounted flat-screen TV on which the ''CSI: Miami'' logo from the previous panel is showing.]
::(Or so claims meta-academic epidemiology).
:TV screen:
:: CSI:
::Miami

:[Panel 33: Cueball is talking with his left arm raised, palm up.]
::Cueball: By dubbing econ "dismal science" adherents exaggerate;

:[Panel 34: Close-up on Cueball with right arm up and one finger in the air.]
::Cueball: The "dismal"'s fine—it's "science" where they patently prevaricate.

:[Panel 35: As panel 23 with Cueball at his adviser's desk once more though with both hands held out in front of him. The adviser is holding his hand to the side of his head.]
::Cueball:In terms of choices, I'd say only Sophie's was comparable.

:[Panel 36: Same as panel 35 except that Cueball makes a final dramatic flair spreading both arms out.]
::Cueball:Just put me down as "Undecided"—Every major's terrible!

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Songs]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball‏‎]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan‏‎]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail‏‎]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairbun]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]
[[Category:Comics featuring real people‏‎]]
[[Category:Supermoon]]
[[Category:Astronomy‏‎]]
[[Category:Biology‏‎]]
[[Category:Chemistry‏‎]]
[[Category:Computers‏‎]]
[[Category:Geography]]
[[Category:Geology]]
[[Category:Math‏‎]]
[[Category:Philosophy‏‎]]
[[Category:Physics‏‎]]
[[Category:Psychology‏‎]]
[[Category:Science‏‎ ]]
[[Category:Flowcharts]]
[[Category:Puns]]
[[Category:Animals]]
[[Category:Engineering]]

370: Redwall

2022-05-30T22:01:14Z

Kapostamas: Undo revision 284635 by 162.158.107.198 (talk)

{{comic
| number = 370
| date = January 14, 2008
| title = Redwall
| image = redwall.png
| titletext = My Redwall/Jurassic Park crossover fanfic is almost complete!
}}

==Explanation==
This comic references {{w|Brian Jacques|Brian Jacques'}} series of books, ''{{w|Redwall}}'', which star sapient woodland animals in various high fantasy adventures.

The first panel shows the similarity between the story of Martin the Warrior (from the book ''{{w|Mossflower}}'') and {{w|Aragorn}} from ''{{w|The Lord of the Rings}}'' by {{w|J. R. R. Tolkien}}. The joke is that while Martin and Aragorn introduce themselves separately, they then go on to describe their particular story, which turns out to be exactly the same for both of them. Subsequently Martin jinxes Aragorn. {{w|Jinx (children's game)|Jinx}} is a common children's game that is initiated by shouting "Jinx" after somebody speaks the same word or sentence at the same time as you. That person is then jinxed, with one form of the rules dictating that they are then not permitted to speak until unjinxed by some specific action (usually somebody saying their name). For a similar children’s game, see [[392: Making Rules]].

In ''LOTR'', orcs are unequivocally and without exception the bad guys, capable only of hate and violence (although to be fair, in some of Tolkien's unpublished writing, orcs are corrupted elves, so it is clear that they are not intrinsically bad). Similarly, Redwall's rats, foxes, ferrets, ermine, and weasels are mostly evil manipulators, while mice, rabbits, squirrels, hedgehogs, and badgers are always the good guys. On several occasions, characters explicitly state that "vermin stays vermin." This is the overarching rule, notwithstanding the rare exception (e.g. Grubbage from {{w|Triss}}). Conversely, one of the so-called "good species" has never become evil in this book series. Though it is more likely than not that this is simply the result of a {{tvtropes|PlanetOfHats|planet of hats}} - where a single species all share the same characteristics and personality, so that authors / readers don't have to spend time fleshing out / getting to know every new character - Randall nevertheless indicates that this "moral absolute" is problematic and has some "racist undertones," regardless if it's intentional or not. (Note that Tolkien's work is probably not actually racist—the Easterlings are portrayed as non-evil people who were deceived by Sauron. The Orcs are evil by definition, thus being incapable of doing good.)

The second panel deals with the fact that ''Redwall'' mentions the name of {{w|Satan}} or {{w|The Devil}} 4 times, while it never mentions {{w|God}} or {{w|Jesus}}--somewhat surprisingly, given that the book is set in an abbey, and many of the inhabitants are religious brothers and sisters. [[Randall Munroe|Randall]] then points out that people who {{w|Religious debates over the Harry Potter series|protest against Harry Potter because of the series' witchcraft}}, should take note that Redwall explicitly mentions Satan, although it has had little to no negative feedback from more conservative readers.

In the third panel, Randall comments on ''Redwall'''s often-used theme of critical messages being left in riddles throughout the Abbey for the occupants to find when they are in need. Randall suggests that he would use {{w|Public-key cryptography|public-key cryptography}} to encode the messages, instead of the elaborate riddles used in the books (some of which are ridiculously easy, which doesn't exactly make for good security when dealing with sensitive information).

In the title text, Randall jokes that he is making a crossover {{w|Fan fiction|fan-fiction}} with ''Redwall'' and ''{{w|Jurassic Park}}''.

Redwall was also referenced in [[1688: Map Age Guide]] and [[1722: Debugging]].

==Transcript==
:Notes from reading Redwall books for the first time since childhood.

:Some of this feels familiar.
:Aragorn: Hi, I'm Aragorn.
:Martin: I'm Martin.
:Aragorn and Martin: I'm here to reforge my broken sword so I can lead an army against the tyrant threatening my people. I live in a world of moral absolutes and racist undertones.
:Martin: Jinx!

:It startled me when characters mentioned Satan.
:Redwall: "By Satan's whiskers..."
:Redwall mentions God/Jesus 0 times.
:Redwall mentions Satan/The Devil 4 times.
:(Harry Potter protesters, take note.)

:Even as a kid this bothered me: Why does everyone leave critical secret messages as simple riddles? It's silly to assume the intended recipient will be the only one to find and solve them. I would do things differently.
:Matthias: The inscription is a message from Martin!
:Brother Methuselah: What does it say?
:Matthias: Hang on, it's encrypted with my public key.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Bar charts]]
[[Category:LOTR]]
[[Category:Religion]]
[[Category:Cryptography]]
[[Category:Animals]]
[[Category:Fiction]]
[[Category:Harry Potter]]
[[Category:Redwall]]

2374: 10,000 Hours

2022-05-30T21:57:03Z

Kapostamas: Undo revision 284621 by 108.162.246.154 (talk)

{{comic
| number = 2374
| date = October 19, 2020
| title = 10,000 Hours
| image = 10000_hours.png
| titletext = I'm proud to announce that as of this year I've become a world-class expert at chewing.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic references a common refrain that [https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2019/8/23/20828597/the-10000-hour-rule-debunked one must do something for 10,000 hours] to become an expert on it.

The linked article states:
<blockquote>Practice matters, yes. But at the same time, it’s unlikely to bridge the gap between natural superstars and your average player.</blockquote> This is a classic expression of a [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mindset#Fixed_and_Growth_Mindset fixed mindset]; they leave out the role of effort put in, access to educational, community, health and training resources, and many other things, that people can leverage to become experts at new tasks.

Popular smartphone operating systems automatically record the amount of time the user spends using their phone, broken down by time spent in each app. This feature is supposed to allow users to analyze their own habits. On iOS, this feature is called [https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208982 Screen Time]. On Android, it is called [https://www.android.com/digital-wellbeing/ Digital Wellbeing].

In this comic, [[Cueball]]'s phone tells him that, assuming that the 10,000-hour idea is correct, he is now a master of a task, because of the amount of time he has spent on his phone. The 10,000-hour refrain usually pertains to the arts or sports, because they require a certain level of skill; learning to spend time on one's phone does not require this level of training{{Citation needed}}, so this stretch of time does not bring Cueball closer to achieving any goal. Furthermore, it is not clear exactly what task (or possibly tasks) Cueball is supposed to have mastered.

Randall often pokes fun at his extensive screen time, such as in [[2223: Screen Time]]. Cueball's phone wants to delicately approach the topic so as not to make Cueball feel bad, so the euphemism about expertise is meant to distract him from realizing how much time he actually spends on his phone. Also, the phone tells Cueball that he was become a "world-class expert", when really he is just someone who checks his phone way too much. It is interesting that his phone decides to be kind to him, even when he has neglected it before ([[1668: Singularity]]).

The title text refers to the fact that people eat a lot, [https://www.statista.com/chart/13226/where-people-spend-the-most-time-eating-drinking/ 1-2 hours a day], though not all of this time is spent chewing. At the time of this comic's publication, [[Randall]] was just over 36 years old (13,151 days), so he has spent a large amount of time eating, well over 10,000 hours. It could also be a reference to the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes, in which Calvin refers to routines he has created to improve at chewing.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is staring at his phone. A report from the phone is shown above his head]
:If you buy into the "10,000 hours" thing, you are now a world-class expert!

:[Caption below comic]
:My screen time reports have started trying to put a positive spin on things.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Screen Time]]

2223: Screen Time

2022-05-30T21:56:17Z

Kapostamas: Undo revision 284622 by 108.162.246.154 (talk)

{{comic
| number = 2223
| date = November 1, 2019
| title = Screen Time
| image = screen_time.png
| titletext = These new Bluetooth socks are great, but it's troubling to learn that I average almost 14 hours of Shoe Time a day.
}}

==Explanation==
[[Cueball]] is reading the report from a smartphone app showing the average time each day that he was NOT looking at his phone during the hours he was awake this last week. This is a reversal of the more expected behavior for a {{w|screen time|screen-time}} app, which would normally report the amount of time spent looking at the screen. The point is that as mobile phone usage becomes more prevalent, it may be easier to comprehend to report non-screen time.

People in the US spent an average of 24 hours of non-work/education screen time per week in 2015, compared to 10 hours of active leisure, according to one estimate.[[https://www.brookings.edu/blog/social-mobility-memos/2016/09/13/how-free-time-became-screen-time/ How free time became screen time]] Averaged per day that comes to 3.4 hours screen time and 1.4 hours active leisure.

Screen time may be associated with various undesirable conditions, such as mental health difficulties like depression, decreased activity, reduced sleep quality and quantity.

In Cueball's particular case, if we assume that he is awake 17 hours a day (the average for most people in USA), then his non-screen time average of 2 hours 48 minutes means that he spent more than 84% of his awake time last week looking at a screen. This means that while his 6% improvement is positive, he still has quite a significant habit. His previous non-screen-time would have been 2 hours 38 minutes, so he has managed to shave 10 minutes off. Increased screen time often comes at the expense of decreased sleep time, so it may not be fair to assume a constant amount of sleep.<ref>[[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5279707 Digital media use in the 2 h before bedtime is associated with sleep variables in university students]]</ref><ref>[[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1389945717303507 Decreases in self-reported sleep duration among U.S. adolescents 2009–2015 and association with new media screen time]]</ref>

Ironically, in order for Cueball to use the app, he has to be looking at his mobile screen. The increasing use of mobile devices in modern society has been a cause for concern, with many people arguing this leads to addiction, other health risks, or people simply not talking to each other.

The title text parodies the idea of a screen time app by describing a "shoe time" app, which would track the amount of time a person spends wearing shoes. It's unclear what the practical use for this would be, as there is little controversy about the prevalence of shoes in our society. Possibly an app that tracks the amount of time wearing ''specific'' shoes could be useful; for example, a person suffering medical problems from wearing the wrong footwear could track the amount of time they spend wearing particular shoes, and correlate this with their health to figure out which ones are causing problems.

Possibly, the point being made is that use of phones have become so constant in our lives that using them for many hours a day is as unremarkable as using shoes for many hours a day. Or, since it's the socks that are Bluetooth-enabled, they may be reporting negatively about almost constant obstruction by shoes, whereas the socks would prefer to report a much lower "Shoe Time" score.

Some cultures have the custom of taking shoes off when in the house, so those people would boast lower (and presumably more favorable) "Shoe Time" scores. It may also be a reference to the "{{w|shoe phone}}" on the television show ''{{w|Get Smart}}''. (If {{w|Maxwell Smart}} wore these socks, they could track his phone usage, because his phone was in his shoe).

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is looking down at his phone. The text is what he reads on the screen, as shown by a zigzag line emanating from a starburst at the top of the phone.]
:Phone: Screen time report:
:Phone: While awake, you averaged 2H 48M per day looking at things other than your phone. That's up 6% from last week!

:[Caption below the panel]
:At some point, it starts making more sense to track '''''non'''''-screen time.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category: Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Smartphones]]
[[Category:Screen Time]]

User:Jacky720

2022-05-30T21:55:58Z

Kapostamas: Undo revision 284623 by 108.162.246.154 (talk)

You don't need to know. I exist. I do things. I edit pages. I know a lot about wikitext and basically just enforce my personal view of the cleanest way to use it.

1021: Business Plan

2022-05-30T21:55:29Z

Kapostamas: Undo revision 284628 by 108.162.246.154 (talk)

{{comic
| number = 1021
| date = February 24, 2012
| title = Business Plan
| image = business_plan.png
| titletext = The investor elevator pitch is "Wheeeeeeee! Elevators are fun!"
}}

==Explanation==

This one has the art and feel of very early xkcd comics, even when those stick figures did not appear by that time.

[[Beret Guy]] has developed (or spontaneously implemented) a "business plan" whereby he lures seagulls to an area of a beach utilizing breadcrumbs. Once the gulls converge on the area, he sets up a sign reading "GULLS FOR SALE" with a jar for money. Though Beret Guy probably expects to profit, the confused reactions of other people in the last panel indicate nobody is buying, and the limited number of gulls, four, is low enough that their sale might not even finance the breadcrumbs. In real life, there is no market for seagulls, nor will there ever be in the foreseeable future. {{Citation needed}}

The title text is a reference to the phrase "{{w|Elevator pitch}}", which is also similar to "investor pitch". The point of an elevator pitch is to have a synopsis of your idea that you are capable of delivering on a moment's notice in the time it takes to ride the elevator, about 30 seconds. This way, when you get that once-in-a-career opportunity to pitch your plan to the one person who can make it happen because you just happened to catch the same elevator, you are ready. The reason the elevator pitch is so simplistic is because the same sort of person that would think selling seagulls is a viable business model is likely the same sort of person to make a childish elevator pitch. This also pokes fun at the idea of people sweating over their pitch with such seriousness, when Beret Guy's pitch is literally a childish exclamation. Wheeee!

==Transcript==
:[6 small panels extend across the width of the comic...]

:[Beret Guy stands on a shoreline and takes in the environment in silent contemplation.]

:[In a frame-less panel, Beret Guy heads off with an idea fresh in his head.]

:[Beret Guy saunters back with a jar, some bread, and a signboard.]

:[Beret Guy tears the bread off into pieces.]

:[Beret Guy sets up the signboard, with its contents yet to be revealed.]

:[Beret Guy heads off and waits for the plan to unfold.]

:[A large full-width panel below the first 6 small panels shows the same beach, this time with Megan and Cueball standing in front of and reading the sign. Cueball scratches his head. The bread has attracted quite a few gulls. There is a label on the jar.]
:Jar label: $
:Sign: Gulls for sale

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Beret Guy]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Beret Guy's Business]]

1151: Tests

2022-05-30T21:55:02Z

Kapostamas: Undo revision 284631 by 108.162.246.154 (talk)

{{comic
| number = 1151
| date = December 24, 2012
| title = Tests
| image = tests.png
| titletext = In fact, one of the boxes is full of Staphylococcus. The wrapping paper is coated in E. coli, though, so it's an understandable mistake. You know, we should really stop accepting gifts from that guy.
}}

==Explanation==
The first present [[Megan]] opened contained a home biology lab kit, including the equipment needed to perform a Gram stain. {{w|Gram staining}} is a technique used in microbiology to separate bacteria into two broad categories based on the structure of their cell walls. The sample is treated with two different dyes: first a purple dye, then secondly a pink one. When subsequently examined under a microscope, "Gram-positive" bacteria retain the purple color of the first dye, whereas "Gram-negative" bacteria do not, allowing the second pink stain to show. All Megan's presents have been stained pink, and are presumably therefore Gram-negative.

In the process, she has damaged the other presents, hence Cueball's wish that she had opened another present first.

The title text refers to two bacteria commonly used as controls to confirm that the technique has been correctly performed: {{w|Staphylococcus aureus}} (Gram-positive) and {{w|Escherichia coli}} (Gram-negative). Neither are bacteria you want to be coming into contact with in any substantial quantities{{Citation needed}}, hence the need to stop accepting presents from "[[Black Hat|That Guy]]".

==Transcript==
:[Megan pouring a bucket of purple liquid on the presents at the base of a Christmas tree.]

:[Megan pouring a bucket of pink liquid on the presents at the base of a Christmas tree.]

:[Megan looking at the soaked presents.]

:Megan: All my presents appear to be Gram-negative.
:Cueball: I wish you hadn't opened the home bio lab kit first.
{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Biology]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Christmas]]

User:While False

2022-05-30T21:54:20Z

Kapostamas: Undo revision 284626 by 108.162.246.154 (talk)

2626: d65536

2022-05-30T21:46:00Z

Kapostamas: Undo revision 284620 by 108.162.246.154 (talk)

Talk:2622: Angular Diameter Turnaround

2022-05-20T23:00:00Z

Kapostamas: Undo revision 271874 by Explain xkcd server admin (talk)

Slightly creepy, NGL[[Special:Contributions/172.69.34.10|172.69.34.10]]
: Warning, horrible content: The universe was created by the severed bloody hands of google employees convincing phone manufacturers to ditch the previous phone backends and explode the google play store throughout reality in a mess of intergalactic gore. Our planet developed from an angrybirds download, nourished by the decaying corpse of the owner who played it all their life. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.110.209|172.70.110.209]] 20:37, 20 May 2022 (UTC)

So apparently this is a real thing, which I never knew [[wikipedia:Angular_diameter_distance#Turnover_Point]] [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.81|108.162.221.81]] 20:46, 20 May 2022 (UTC)

Could be related to comic 1422, what with both containing expanding phones analogous to some cosmic structure. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.130.105|172.70.130.105]] 21:46, 20 May 2022 (UTC)
:[[1422]] has been crapped. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.126.221|172.70.126.221]] 21:50, 20 May 2022 (UTC)

So confusing…I thought that 13 billion years ago they had flip phones. [[User:JohnHawkinson|JohnHawkinson]] ([[User talk:JohnHawkinson|talk]]) 22:32, 20 May 2022 (UTC)

== Hooray! ==

Something good is happening!!!!!! [[Special:Contributions/172.70.126.215|172.70.126.215]] 21:22, 20 May 2022 (UTC)

2608: Family Reunion

2022-05-20T22:25:16Z

Kapostamas: Undo revision 270836 by Explain xkcd server admin (talk)

{{comic
| number = 2608
| date = April 18, 2022
| title = Family Reunion
| image = family_reunion.png
| titletext = Grandma says that because of differences in primate and feline lifespans, the cat is actually my 17,000,000th cousin 14,000,000 times removed.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by THE PERSON WHOSE RELATIVE IS A CAT AND A HUMAN (WHOOPS) - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

Because all humans are descended from a {{w|Mitochondrial Eve|common ancestor}}, every human is, at some point, related to every other human, albeit distantly. Similarly, all life forms on Earth are presumed (with good reasons) to be descended from a single {{w|Most recent common ancestor|even more distant relative}} whose ultimate lineage {{w|Last universal common ancestor|became more relevant}} than any from its own 'cousins' at the time, and thus ''all'' life forms are distantly related. This makes every interaction with another life-form, technically, a family reunion, if not in the traditional sense.

The general English definition of a {{w|cousin}}, which is a person sharing an ancestor who is not a direct parent of either party, can be qualified by two numbers. There is the ''n''th-ness of the relationship (the fewest generations you need to go beyond one's parentage, "a first cousin" implies that a grandparent is the key link) - for example, [[Cueball|this Cueball's]] relation to [[White Hat]] is via a great-grandparent, whilst that with [[Hairbun]] is through a great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandparent. A "removed" number is any difference in this number between the two individuals, such that a child of a direct cousin invokes a "once removed" relationship between the two (without individually qualifying who is the 'senior' generation, from whom the 'nth' count is determined). You would normally only qualify "first cousin" if this fact is considered important, and "zero times removed" would also be considered implicit.

As pointed out in the title text, cat lifespans (or, more importantly, inter-generational breeding cycles) are somewhat different from those of humans. Although they would have still been very similar immediately after the divergence from the appropriate most recent common ancestor (MRCA), the differences will have built up to a generational-count displacement of a similarly extreme nature. i.e. that while the shared ancestor is Cueball's 17-million-or-so-Great Grandparent, the cat is in turn the 31-million-or-so-Great Grandchild. Exactly how accurate, or even precise, Randall considers these numbers is unknown, but it is the kind of fact that we know he likes to research and use expert opinion for.

According to [https://www.quora.com/How-many-generations-of-human-beings-recognizably-the-same-as-us-have-there-been this Quora page], there have been about 13,000 generations of modern humans, so the people at this party would be quite closely related, all things considered.

[https://www.evogeneao.com/en/learn/tree-of-life The Evogeneao Tree of Life diagram] indicates that humans and cats diverged around 90 million years ago and humans and plants diverged around 1.8 billion years ago.

If we presume that generations of humans (including proto-humans, pre-humans, etc) since the divergence from cathood (including proto-cats, pre-cats, and the rest, back to the common ancestral form) have averaged around 5 years, then a 17 millionth cousin may be about right. Many of our (and cats') early ancestors will have necessarily been small burrowing mammals — to have been amongst the ones who survived the asteroid around 66 million years ago that killed off most of the dinosaurs — with contemporary equivalents having breeding cycles in terms of a year at the most. But we currently have a large feasible range of generational cycle (15-50 years, ''very'' roughly, with or without technical/social help or hinderances), that may have started to drag our long-term average upwards since at least the age of the early hominids, if not the age of our primate forebears or earlier.

To get a 50 billionth cousin from the potted plant, then the generations of (eventually) humans since we were of the same form as that time's ancestral plants (or vice-versa) would need to average two weeks. This is possible, but difficult to be precise about due to the lack of much of the required evidence in the known fossilized remains. Any reasonable estimate, however, should be heavily weighted towards generation spans common for unicellular eukaryotes, rather than the longer generations common for multicellular eukaryotes: the general consensus on the most recent common ancestor for of animals and plants identifies it as a unicellular eukaryote.
Given the above analysis of eukaryotes as cousins one wonders why Randal Monroe didn't include that every lack of gathering is also a family reunion.

==Transcript==
:[Megan, White Hat, Cueball, Hairy, Danish, a white cat with black patches on its back, Hairbun, a chair with a half-full wine-glass on the seat, and a potted plant on a cabinet are "standing" in a line. White Hat is holding a glass and Hairy has his hands to the side in a "shrug" position. Megan and Cueball are facing right and everything/one else is facing left (except for the potted plant, which is not facing any direction). There are arrows pointing to each of the living creatures.]

:14th cousin [Megan]
:2nd cousin [White Hat]
:Me [Cueball]
:12th cousin [Hairy]
:35th cousin [Danish]
:17,000,000th cousin [cat]
:9th cousin [Hairbun]
:50,000,000,000th cousin [potted plant]

:[Caption below the panel:]
:Really, ''every'' gathering is a family reunion.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Danish]] 
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairbun]]
[[Category:Cats]]
[[Category:Biology]]

2609: Entwives

2022-05-20T22:25:05Z

Kapostamas: Undo revision 271031 by Explain xkcd server admin (talk)

{{comic
| number = 2609
| date = April 20, 2022
| title = Entwives
| image = entwives.png
| titletext = No, we actually do have a woman who's basically part of our fellowship. She lives in Rivendell, you wouldn't know her.
}}
*The comic is a link to a YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mt2qCjL6-n4 video].

==Explanation==
In {{w|The Lord of the Rings}}, the {{w|Ent|Ents}} are a species of tree-like humanoids, such as the one depicted in this comic. The comic shows an Ent, presumably {{w|Treebeard}}, meeting with some of the nine from the {{w|Fellowship_of_the_Ring_(characters)|Fellowship of the Ring}}. The image is inaccurate inasmuch as it shows three {{w|hobbits}}: during the Ents' interactions with the Fellowship, two of the four hobbits ({{w|Frodo Baggins|Frodo}} and {{w|Samwise Gamgee|Sam}}) were elsewhere in {{w|Middle Earth}}, so it was only {{w|Merry Brandybuck|Merry}} and {{w|Pippin Took|Pippin}} who met the ents. The other three in the image are the human {{w|Aragorn}}, the Dwarf {{w|Gimli (Middle-earth)|Gimli}} and the Elf {{w|Legolas}}. The last two of the nine, not depicted, were the wizard {{w|Gandalf}} and the human {{w|Boromir}}.

Part of the backstory of the Ents is that all the females of their species (the Entwives that this comic is named for) had disappeared thousands of years before during {{w|Sauron}}'s war of the {{w|History_of_Arda#Second_Age|second age}}. The Ents and the Entwives lived in separate locations, and eventually, when the Ents went to visit the Entwives, the latter were seemingly nowhere to be found. The Ents have been searching for their lost mates ever since. The loneliness of the Ents' all-male society is considered a great tragedy in their culture. It is several thousands years ago in the time of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and the Ents have all but forgotten how the Entwives even looked. They live for many thousands of years.

This comic uses that backstory to satirically comment on the extreme gender imbalance of the protagonists of Lord of the Rings; when presented with the all-male Fellowship, the Ent assumes that they must come from a race afflicted by a similar tragedy. In a broader sense, this can be read as a commentary on how few female characters there are in the trilogy overall. In reality, the general lore presents, or at least mentions, the existence of at least multiple (if not numerous) female characters of almost all races that make up the fellowship (dwarf, man, elf, hobbit), and does not suggest that what happened with the Ents and their Entwives happened to any other race.

The clickable link on the image leads to the satirical video ''[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mt2qCjL6-n4 Lord of the Rings Trilogy but it's EVERY scene where two female characters interact]''. The creator claims that this shows all the scenes from the trilogy where two female characters interact (but later admits in the Youtube comments that there are indeed a few more). There is only one 3 second long scene, which only emphasizes how few female characters there are in the trilogy. The inclusion of this clip may be a reference to the {{w|Bechdel test}}, a baseline indicator of the representation of women in a piece of media that requires two women to have a conversation about something other than a man. Whether this three-and-a-half-word exchange is sufficient to pass the test is debatable. Later versions of the test suggest that the two women should be named (i.e. not just two incidental characters that have very few lines), whereas this scene is between {{w|Éowyn}} and an unnamed girl. There is debate as to if there are other scenes with women speaking with women, and if we are only talking about human women, or if other races females would also count. There are at least three important female characters, but they do not meet/speak much if at all. But they have several scenes where they talk, even a long monologue... But if they speak to someone it is male characters.

The title text most likely refers to the character of {{w|Arwen}}, an elf woman and, later, wife of Aragorn; while somewhat important to the story, she is nowhere near as significant as the males of the Fellowship, despite being used more prominently in the movies than in the books. Even if she were part of the Fellowship, a single important woman wouldn't counterbalance the heavily male-centric storytelling.

The way that the title text is phrased is a reference to the proverbial (and implicitly imaginary) "{{tvtropes|GirlfriendInCanada|Girlfriend in Canada}}," a trope in which a single American character claims to have a girlfriend that their friends wouldn't know "because she lives in Canada" (or some other sufficient separation such as "goes to another school"), when in reality the reason that nobody else has met her is because she doesn't exist. {{w|Canada}} is one of only two countries with which the United States has land borders, making it a potentially plausible place for some American's long-distance girlfriend to live, and presumably the Fellowship consider the Elf kingdom of {{w|Rivendell}} to be sufficiently distant to allow the Ent to accept the plausibility of the statement without any further delving into potentially awkward details.

==Transcript==
:[A large treelike person (an Ent, maybe Treebeard) is holding one of his arms out towards six characters that are all looking at him. A man (Aragorn) with beard stubble and long hair, a dwarf (Gimli) with a helmet and a very large beard, an elf (Legolas) with long blonde hair (holding a bow down), and three short persons, hobbits, two with dark hair, and the middle one with blonde hair.]
:Ent: Alas, there are no Ent women. The Entwives all vanished in the second age, during Sauron's war.
:Aragorn: I'm so sorry.
:Ent: And what about you all? Same story, I assume?
:Aragorn: Huh? No, what do you mean?

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:LOTR]]

2610: Assigning Numbers

2022-05-20T22:24:50Z

Kapostamas: Undo revision 271271 by Explain xkcd server admin (talk)

{{comic
| number = 2610
| date = April 22, 2022
| title = Assigning Numbers
| image = assigning_numbers.png
| titletext = Gödel should do an article on which branches of math have the lowest average theorem number.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by YÖDA'S COMPLETENESS THEOREM - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

'''This explanation is by mathematical necessity either incomplete or incorrect.'''

[[Cueball]] is falling into a common trap, because a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Faced with some sort of information, of an unknown kind but seemingly not intrinsically mathematical in nature, he has decided that one possible way to proceed is to somehow translate everything into values which can be combined and compared numerically.

This is a very common thing to do, in fields as diverse as {{w|computational linguistics}} or {{w|sports analytics}}, and can be a powerful tool for understanding and learning new things about a subject as {{w|Data science}} tries to extract knowledge and insights from potentially noisy and disordered facts. But it is also used to implement bad science by using incorrect or misguided ideas about how to represent the source material. While it's possible to casually assign numeric values to random pieces of data, these numbers are generally not meaningful enough to compute with and draw any useful inferences from. It is generally possible to perform statistical analysis only on actual measurements, not on what may effectively be arbitrarily-assigned values.

Machine learning algorithms, which are commonly used by data scientists, typically require all their inputs to be numerical. However, most datasets contains categorical features (e.g. the description of a piece of furniture: chair, table, ...). Data scientists therefore use encoding techniques to convert these categorical features to a numerical form so they can be used as inputs to a machine learning model. For instance, label encoding consists of arbitrarily assigning an integer to a category (chair=0, table=1, ...) which may appear meaningless to most observers. In various cases, they may be right.

So, as well as being the mechanism that underlies one of the most profound theorems of 20th century mathematics, it can be mis-used for all kinds of bad or misguided science. From Cueball's attitude, it is far from clear that his attempt will reliably translate his project into a numerical system, nor that his attempt to "do math on it!" will be any more competent.

One of the major characters who looked at the concept is Kurt Gödel. He introduced the idea of {{w|Gödel numbering}} with his landmark {{w|incompleteness theorems}}. In it a unique natural number is assigned to each axiom, statement, and proof, which might otherwise be difficult to accurately process in any other kind of approach. Instead, it is now possible to create metamathematical statements in the language of mathematics.

This allowed Gödel to make the statement "This statement cannot be proven based on the axioms provided" in a mathematically rigorous way. A simple proof by contradiction shows that the statement cannot be false, and therefore (in most logical systems) must be true. The proof goes as follows: 1. Assume that "This statement cannot be proven from the axioms" (Call this statement G) is false.<ref>Call this assumption A.</ref> 2. Therefore G can be proven from the axioms.<ref>Because the negation of the negation is an affirmation. Based only on A.</ref> 3. The axioms exist.<ref>Call this assumption B</ref> 4. Therefore, G is true.<ref>via {{w|Modus ponens}} applied to 2 and 3, based on A and B</ref> 5. Therefore, G and also not G.<ref>via {{w|Conjunction introduction}} applied to 1 and 4, based on A and B</ref> 6. This is a contradiction, and therefore A (that is, 'not G') or B (ZFC) must be wrong. We are not willing to sacrifice assumption B, so we must conclude that A is false, given B.<ref>{{w|Reductio ad absurdum}} applied to 1,3, and 5</ref> 7. Therefore, G.

===Explanatory footnotes for the above===
<references />

Notice that the truth of Gödel's statement does not depend on any particular set of axioms, and adding axioms (such as "Gödel's particular statement is true") only opens up new iterations of the statement which cannot be proven based on the expanded set of axioms (A statement such as "All statements of a similar nature to Gödel's particular statement" is not precise enough to serve as an axiom.). As such, with a little more legwork, it can be proven that any logical system robust enough to accommodate arithmetic must necessarily contain facts that are true within the system but cannot be proven or disproven within the system. The importance of this result cannot be understated, as it upended the entire philosophy of mathematics. {{w|David Hilbert}}'s famous proclamation "We must know, we will know" is simply incorrect. ... Either that, or (ironically) Gödel used an "inconsistent" or "incomplete" system to produce his result.

The title text suggests that Gödel should perform such an analysis on different branches of mathematics, by calculating the average of all the fields' theorems' Gödel numbers. This is nonsensical for a number of reasons:
:1) Gödel is long dead, and dead people can't write articles;{{Dubious}} - see [[599: Apocalypse]]
:2) Gödel numbers grow very large very quickly, and depend heavily on the specific values assigned to each logical operator. Therefore the results could be manipulated simply by changing the numbering order of each operator;
:3) It may be very hard to gather all theorems in a field, or even a representative sample;
:4) Different fields of science, like biology or human behaviour, may not be able to write their theorems in the mathematical language of Gödel's incompleteness theorem
If anyone were to attempt this form of analysis, it would be an example of the bad data science described in the caption.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball holds a hand up to his chin while he ponders the contents of what may be a whiteboard. There are five general lines of unreadable scribbling on the board, and between the two bottom lines, there is a square frame to the right with another scribble to the left. Cueball's thoughts are shown above him in a large thought bubble.]
:Cueball's thinking: If I assign numbers to each of these things, then it becomes '''''data''''', and I can do '''''math''''' on it!

:[Caption beneath the panel:]
:The same basic idea underlies Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem and all bad data science.

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

2612: Lightsabers

2022-05-20T22:12:55Z

Kapostamas: Undo revision 271515 by Explain xkcd server admin (talk)

<noinclude>''For the comic named "Lightsaber", see [[1433: Lightsaber]].''</noinclude>
{{comic
| number = 2612
| date = April 27, 2022
| title = Lightsabers
| image = lightsabers.png
| titletext = A lot of Jedi romances start with this turning into a Lady and the Tramp spaghetti situation.}}
A {{w|lightsaber}} is a fictional beam-like sword weapon used by members of the {{w|Jedi}} order and the {{w|Sith}} in the ''{{w|Star Wars}}'' franchise. This comic shows a lightsaber fight starting between two [[Cueball]]-like Jedi, one already presenting their blade in challenge and the second activating theirs in response. When the first strike is made between the two lightsabers, they meld together with a bloop sound, like the beams are made of a liquid. The two light beams then remain stuck to each other. In in-universe "technical documents", lightsabers are said to be made from magnetically-confined plasma, so perhaps the magnetic fields which were projected from each hilt have merged instead of repelling (or presenting as mutually impervious) as is usually expected.

(This scene actually looks a lot like what happens between Harry Potter and Voldemort's wands in the end of the fourth book, the {{w|Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire|''Goblet of Fire''}}. Here two spells hit each other and connect the two wands, the wand holders then unable to release or disconnect the wands.)

First the left Jedi, then the right, shakes the hilt, trying to break the bond. When this does not succeed, the right Jedi then deactivates his lightsaber in an attempt to end the connection. This causes the retraction of the entire double-sized light beam into the handles (as seen in the movies), causing both of the Jedi to be drawn together until their heads bonk, forcefully enough to render them both unconscious. The connected lightsaber handles lie next to them on the ground.

The title text implies that such events are how {{w|Jedi}} romances start, comparing it to the famous "spaghetti scene" from the 1955 Disney animated movie ''{{w|Lady and the Tramp}}'' where the two titular characters unintentionally kiss after sharing a strand of spaghetti. In the Old Republic, Jedi were forbidden from entering into romantic relationships (and discouraged from forming attachments in general), but in the pre-Disney ''Star Wars Legends'' continuity of the {{w|Star Wars in other media|Expanded Universe}}, {{w|Luke Skywalker}} and {{w|Mara Jade}} first met while fighting in the aftermath of the fall of the Empire, and then developed a romantic relationship.

Star Wars is a [[:Category:Star Wars|recurring theme]] on xkcd, and lightsabers have been prominently featured before in, for instance, [[1397: Luke]] and [[1433: Lightsaber]], where the problem with the physics of a light beam as a sword is shown. But in general light does not interact with light as {{w|photons}} are {{w|bosons}} and can thus pass through each other. Interference, yes, but two pure light beams cannot collide and bounce back as when two lightsabers collide. Also as the comic Lightsaber mentioned above shows, there is no compatible real-world way of confining a beam of light, making it stop after about a meter (or anywhere){{Dubious}} - see {{w|Optical cavity}}.

==Transcript==
:[Two Cueball like Jedi are engaging each other in a duel using lightsabers over 12 panels of equal size, with sound effects as the only sound. In the first panel the left Jedi has his lightsaber extended holding it in both hand pointing towards the other, who at this time is just turning his lightsaber on.]
:''Tssssss''
:Click

:[Almost same position of the Jedi, but the right Jedi's lightsaber has now extended, making a sound. He is holding it up near his head in both hands]
:''Tsss''

:[Then they run towards each other and swing their lightsabers towards each other, two small arcs indicating the swing of the lightsabers.]

:[The two beams hit each other and connects at the middle in a big bloop of light, with drops of "light" jumping off both above and below the connected lightsabers. Both Jedi still holds on to their handles with both hands. A loud sound comes out of the connection:]
:''Bloop''

:[The Jedi stands still holding their handles. The beam is now forming a bow between the two handles.]

:[The left Jedi violently shakes his handle causing a wave to travel down the beam towards the right Jedi.]
:Shake shake

:[The right Jedi shakes his handle and well and another wave travels the opposite direction towards the left Jedi.]
:Shake shake

:[Back to the bow of light between them, but the beam is visibly still shaking, but no wave is traveling any longer.]

:[Same setting but the shaking has stopped. The right Jedi turns his lightsaber off on his handle with a sound:]
:Click

:[The beam of light is retracted quickly into the handle of the Jedi turning his lightsaber off. So quickly that the two Jedi, still holding on to their handles are pulled up in the air and towards each other as the sound of the beam turning off is heard. Lines indicate their movement and shadows on the ground beneath them indicate they are in the air.]
:''Zhhhiiiip''

:[When the beam is completely retracted the two handles collide and so do the heads of the two Jedi with a loud sound. They still hold on to their handles with both hands. They still hang in the air with shadows on the ground beneath them.]
:''Bonk''

:[In the final panel the two Jedi lie unconscious on the ground with their heads towards each other and with their arms stretched out towards each other. The connected handles lie between them.]

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]
[[Category:Star Wars]]
[[Category:Fiction]]

2613: Bad Map Projection: Madagascator

2022-05-20T22:12:36Z

Kapostamas: Undo revision 271182 by Explain xkcd server admin (talk)

{{comic
| number = 2613
| date = April 29, 2022
| title = Bad Map Projection: Madagascator
| image = bad_map_projection_madagascator.png
| titletext = The projection's north pole is in a small lake on the island of Mahé in the Seychelles, which is off the top of the map and larger than the rest of the Earth's land area combined.
}}

==Explanation==
This is the fifth comic in the series of [[:Category:Bad Map Projections|Bad Map Projections]] displaying Bad Map Projection #248: Madagascator. It came about 10 months after the fourth [[2489: Bad Map Projection: The Greenland Special ]] (#299).

This time, [[Randall]] used the classic {{w|Mercator projection}} but instead of placing the North Pole on top and the South Pole on the bottom it is oriented so that the top is the island of {{w|Mahé, Seychelles|Mahé}}. The map projection is technically a {{w|Oblique Mercator projection}}, with an unusual choice of the cylinder's axis. Since the Mercator projection tends to visually distort areas near the top and bottom of the resulting map, this gives some areas, notably Madagascar, very unusual shapes, hence the name the ''Madagascator'' — a portmanteau of "Madagascar" and "Mercator"!

The Mercator projection became the standard projection for world maps during the 1800s, because a straight line (or {{w|rhumb line}}) in a Mercator map represents a constant bearing relative to true north. Historically, when navigation was performed by compass, this was a very valuable feature, since one (adjusting for the differences between true and magnetic north) could plot a constant-bearing course between two locations by simply looking at their relative direction on the map.

However, in the mid-20th century, the Mercator was {{w|Mercator_projection#Criticism|criticized}} because it causes distortion near the north and south poles of the map, giving an inaccurate impression of relative sizes. The most commonly given example of this is the size of Greenland — although on the Mercator it appears to be larger than Africa in area, Africa in reality covers an area 14 times that of Greenland.

Randall turns this example on its head by making Madagascar, rather than Greenland, appear larger in the ''Madagascator'' than in reality. By contrast with Greenland, the world's largest non-continent island, Madagascar is only the fourth-largest island in the world, behind Greenland, New Guinea, and Borneo.

To accomplish this, instead of placing the north pole of the map at the geographic North Pole, Randall places the north pole of the map on the island of Mahé in Seychelles. As Madagascar is relatively close to Mahé (around 650 mi (1050 km) distant), placing the north pole of the Mercator projection at Mahé significantly distorts the size of Madagascar, making it appear comparable in size to Europe on the map.

But this distortion is even more pronounced when it comes to the island of Mahé itself, as Randall notes in the title text.
Although Mahé, the largest island in Seychelles with an area of 60.7 square mi (157.2 square km), is minuscule even compared to Madagascar, the claim in the title text that it appears "larger than the rest of the Earth's land area combined" is an understatement.

No part of Mahé is visible in the comic, but clicking on the actual comic will open a [https://mrgris.com/projects/merc-extreme/#a4739c9b@-4.64274,55.45253 website] that displays Mercator projections with a pole in any chosen location, with the location of the one opened set to Mahé. The chosen pole is (infinitely far to) the right of the screen, while its {{w|antipodes|antipode}} is on the left. With this, it is possible to see that the island is indeed larger than the rest of the map's land area combined. A single national park within the island rivals Africa in size, and the narrow dirt road closest to the pole appears thicker than Panama. This also reveals that the location of the map's north pole (the "small lake" mentioned by Randall) is the lake impounded by the Rochon Dam, a popular tourist location in Mahé.

Unlike previous Bad Map Projections, Morocco and Western Sahara are drawn as one unlabelled country.

===Comparison of actual/mapped areas===
{| class="wikitable sortable"
! Landmass
! Status
! data-sort-type="number"|Actual Area<ref name="act">Major contiguous land areas that should exclude all islands, ''especially'' major ones, '''''especially''''' especially those listed separately</ref> (Millions of Km²)
! data-sort-type="number"|Proportion Land Area
! data-sort-type="number"|Proportion Image Area<ref name="pri">Of only these listed areas listed</ref>
! data-sort-type="number"|Distortion<ref name="dis">NB. Difference between percentages, rather than percentage difference</ref>
|-
| Africa<ref name="suez">Edge at Suez Canal</ref> || data-sort-value="C2"|Continent 2nd largest || 29.7 || 19.95% || 35% || +15.1%
|-
| Eurasia<ref name="suez" /> || data-sort-value="C1"|Continent Largest || 53.4 || 35.83% || 30% || -5.83%
|-
| North America<ref name="pan">Edge at Panama Canal</ref> || data-sort-value="C3"|Continent 3rd largest || 19.3 || 12.96% || 15% || +2.04%
|-
| South America<ref name="pan" /> || data-sort-value="C4"|Continent 4th largest || 17.8 || 11.96% || 7.8% || -4.16%
|-
| Antarctica<ref name="ice">Significant ice-sheets may complicate mapped/actual 'land' areas</ref> || data-sort-value="C5"|Continent 5th largest || 14.2 || 9.53% || 5.3% || -4.23%
|-
| Madagascar || data-sort-value="I04"|Island 4th largest || 0.592 || 0.40% || 2.9% || +2.50%
|-
| Australia || data-sort-value="C7"|Continent Smallest || 7.55 || 5.07% || 2.5% || -2.57%
|-
| Greenland<ref name="ice" /> || data-sort-value="I01"|Island Largest || 2.17 || 1.45% || 0.87% || -0.58%
|-
| Borneo || data-sort-value="I03"|Island 3rd largest || 0.749 || 0.50% || 0.37% || -0.13%
|-
| New Guinea || data-sort-value="I02"|Island 2nd largest || 0.786 || 0.53% || 0.32% || -0.21%
|-
| Japan<ref name="hon">Honshu only</ref> || data-sort-value="I07"|Island 7th largest || 0.228 || 0.15% || 0.10% || -0.05%
|-
| Mainland Britain || data-sort-value="I09"|Island 9th largest || 0.209 || 0.14% || 0.10% || -0.04%
|-
| Island of Ireland || data-sort-value="I20"|Island 20th largest || 0.082 || 0.05% || 0.03% || -0.02%
|}

<references/>

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
Bad map projection #248: Madagascator

Mercator projection but with the North Pole in the Indian Ocean so it exaggerates the size of Madagascar instead of Greenland. Various countries and oceans are labeled, and country borders are shown.
{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Bad Map Projections]]

2614: 2

2022-05-20T22:11:27Z

Kapostamas: Undo revision 271456 by Explain xkcd server admin (talk)

2619: Crêpe

2022-05-14T22:12:54Z

Kapostamas: /* Explanation */ ⮝ outline

{{comic
| number = 2619
| date = May 13, 2022
| title = Crêpe
| image = crepe.png
| titletext = A medicine that makes you put two dots over your letters more often is a diäretic.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a ÇRÊPË - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
[[File:crêpe.png|thumb|The word “crêpe” in the comic]]
[[Cueball]] has made a {{w|crêpe}}, a thin pancake known for its legendary status in French cuisine. When he says the word "crêpe," however, the {{w|circumflex}} above the "e" comes out odd. Instead of the usual simple angle (^), it looks more like the outline of a flattened arrowhead (⮝). [[Megan]], who can apparently see the text inside speech bubbles, comments on the odd shape with an appropriate pun. The comic is thus a play on the expression "Weird flex but OK" as defined in this ([https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Weird%20flex%20but%20ok Urban Dictionary]).

Her answer could also be applied to the shape of the crêpe, as circumflex means "bent around".

In some dialects of English (e.g. British English), and in the original French pronunciation, "crêpe" is said so that the ê is pronounced as in "get", i.e. "cr-eh-p", but American English speakers pronounce it like an "A", i.e. "cr-ay-p".

The title text continues the wordplay by saying that "A medicine that makes you put two dots over your letters more often is a diäretic".

The word diäretic is a pun on {{w|diuretic}} (a substance promoting increased urine production), {{w|Diaeresis (diacritic)|diaeresis}} (a symbol in the form of two dots placed above a vowel, as the ä in the made up word diäretic; the adjective form of diaeresis can be spelled "[https://www.thefreedictionary.com/Diaresis dieretic]") and {{w|diacritic}} (a glyph added to a letter to distinguish its sound from the normal version, what both the circumflex and the diaeresis are). See also the comic [[1647: Diacritics]] about the use of these. Taking a diäretic medicine would supposedly cause you to use diaeresis (also known as umlaut) över möre lëtters thän wöuld üsuallÿ bë thë cäse.

Diacritics are rarely used in English, potentially because of the diverse set of origin languages it developed from, or the wide variation of pronunciations within a same nation, but are a common feature of other languages. In English, they are normally only seen in specific loanwords, such as crêpe, or used for emphasis for example the {{w|Metal umlaut}} seen in rock bands such as {{w|Spın̈al Tap}}.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is holding a plate up in both hand, showing Megan the crepe lying on the plate. His word for crêpe has a different diacritic over the "e" than the normal circumflex (^). Instead it looks more like an open arrow head.]
:Cueball: Check out this crêpe I made!
:Megan: Weird circumflex, but okay.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Language]]
[[Category:Puns]]
[[Category:Food]]

File:All truly deep physics equations.png

2022-05-13T22:33:23Z

Kapostamas: Reupload of a rendering of “all truly deep physics equations” from #2034.

Reupload of a rendering of “all truly deep physics equations” from #2034.

2619: Crêpe

2022-05-13T22:25:55Z

Kapostamas: /* Explanation */ added image

{{comic
| number = 2619
| date = May 13, 2022
| title = Crêpe
| image = crepe.png
| titletext = A medicine that makes you put two dots over your letters more often is a diäretic.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a ÇRÊPË - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
[[File:crêpe.png|thumb|The word “crêpe” in the comic]]
This comic is a play on the expression "Weird flex but OK" ([https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Weird%20flex%20but%20ok definition at Urban Dictionary]). [[Cueball]] has made a {{w|crêpe}}, a thin pancake known for its legendary status in French cuisine. When he says the word "crêpe," however, the {{w|circumflex}} above the "e" comes out odd. Instead of the usual simple angle (^), it looks more like a flat, empty arrowhead (⮝). [[Megan]], who can apparently see the text inside speech bubbles, comments on the odd shape with the appropriate pun.

In some dialects of English (e.g. British English), and in the original French pronunciation, "crêpe" is said such that the ê is pronounced as in "get", i.e. "cr-eh-p", but American English speakers pronounce it like an "A", i.e. "cr-ay-p".

The title text continues the wordplay by punning on {{w|diuretic}} (a substance promoting increased urine production), {{w|Diaeresis (diacritic)|diaeresis}} (a symbol in the form of two dots placed above a vowel; the adjective form can be spelled "diæretic"), and {{w|diacritic}} (what both the circumflex and the diaeresis are).

Diacritics are rarely used in English, potentially because of the wide variation of pronunciations even within the same nation, but are a common feature of other languages. In English, they are normally only seen in loanwords, such as crêpe, or used for emphasis for example the {{w|Metal umlaut}} seen in rock bands such as {{w|Spın̈al Tap}}.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[Cueball is holding a plate with a crepe on it, conversing with Megan.]
:Cueball: Check out this crêpe I made!
:Megan: Weird circumflex, but okay.

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

File:crêpe.png

2022-05-13T22:23:17Z

Kapostamas: The word “crêpe” from #2619, enlarged.

== Summary ==
The word “crêpe” from #2619, enlarged.
== Licensing ==
{{XKCD file derived}}

2619: Crêpe

2022-05-13T22:03:08Z

Kapostamas: /* Explanation */ not an A

2615: Welcome Back

2022-05-05T15:08:52Z

Kapostamas:

{{comic
| number = 2615
| date = May 4, 2022
| title = Welcome Back
| image = welcome_back.png
| titletext = 'We're shocked by the Notre Dame fire. Click for our tribute to--' [okay] 'Now that we're all staying at home these past few weeks thanks to this new coronavirus, we--' [okay]
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a COOL LEAF SHAPED LIKE A SPIDER ''- Please change this comment when editing this page.'' The page needs an explanation and transcript.}}
Cueball is opening an app called TornadoGuard, which was the subject of comic [[937: TornadoGuard]] and described there as "plays a loud alert sound when there is a tornado warning for your area". In the background, a tornado is approaching, so presumably a loud alert sound has just played and Cueball has opened the app. It is also possible that the app didn't play any alert (see reviews of the app in comic 937), Cueball saw the Tornado and opened the app to check whether it had any news. However, before he can interact with the app and learn more about the tornado, he has to click through various old messages from the app, since he hasn't opened the app in a while. The comic is possibly poking fun at the obtrusiveness of these kind of messages by presenting a scenario where they make it more difficult to read sometimes very urgent information about current tornados.

The messages include a description of a big update, a response to certain user feedback, and a social post unrelated to the app. In the title text are two messages that refer to specific world events and can therefore be dated, to a few years before this comic was published. These events in the title text are [[wikipedia:Notre-Dame_de_Paris_fire|the fire in the church of Notre Dame in Paris April 15th 2019]] and the spread of the Covid-19 disease, which [[wikipedia:COVID-19_pandemic|was declared a pandemic March 11th 2020]], about three and two years before the comic was published respectively. Neither of these are important to know right now, whereas an announcement about an [[2224: Software Updates|update]] that [[1172: Workflow|changes its functionality]] could be [[1328: Update|important to know about]].

Although it is possible that there are no more messages to click through, if nothing of significance has happened [[2459: March 2020|since the latter]], the reader can easily imagine that the development team has posted further historic 'real time' messages (subsequent to the title text ones) that Cueball will still have to scroll through and/or dismiss, with very little immediate importance.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript}}
[A large cloud (indicated by curved lines at the bottom of an empty space) fills the upper 3/4 of the panel. Paragraphs of text fills most of this space, connected by a series of lines leading down to Cueball's phone.]
:Hi! The TornadoGuard™ team is proud to announce a big update! We've added-
[In a rounded box right and below the text:] ''OKAY''

:Note to users of sentinel mode: We've heard your feedback, and the controls are now-
[In a rounded box right and below the text:] ''GOT IT''

:The TornadoGuard™ team saw this cool leaf shaped like a spider; do you want to see...

[Below the cloud line is a tornado in the background that is throwing up dust and creating a dust cloud. In the foreground Cueball is standing holding his phone, which is on (indicated by light lines).]

[Caption below the panel:] When you open an app for the first time in a while, you have to wait around while it tells you about all the cool adventures it's had.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Tornadoes]]

Talk:2613: Bad Map Projection: Madagascator

2022-05-03T13:44:09Z

Kapostamas: /* holave */

Anyone else want to play this (and the other bad map projections) as maps in a 4X/Grand Strategy game? [[User:Mazz0|Mazz0]] ([[User talk:Mazz0|talk]]) 18:02, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

Clicking on the original comic brings up the actual projection used, it looks like.

I'm on an old machine here (because it usually doesn't matter), and clicked on the image on the xkcd site to get the image, to be told that ''Your browser does not support WebGL :'('' by the URL https://mrgris.com/projects/merc-extreme/#-4.64274,55.45253 - I will have to check from a less 'primitive' device, but it looks like it's got a special click-through, which might be worth mentioning in the Explanation. I can check myself in a few minutes, but noting here first in case I get delay. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.11|141.101.98.11]] 19:38, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

I have added the click. It opens an website app showing a Mercator with the North Pole set to wherever you want, with this one in particular set Mahé just as Randall said. [[User:Mapron01|Mapron01]] ([[User talk:Mapron01|talk]]) 19:40, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

Added a table, based upon some rapid pixel-analysis I did. No, I didn't include Indonesia, etc, and the "Africa size probably includes Madagascar" sort of thing could need sorting, but I mentioned that below so nobody is under misapprehension. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.34.221|162.158.34.221]] 22:04, 29 April 2022 (UTC)
: I think having the official size also be a percent of the world (or at least another column like that) would make it easier to see how the distortion affects the size. And/or distortion from a normal Mercator projection {{unsigned ip|172.70.230.143}}
:: That was my initial intention, or at least a percentage-of-reality column alongside (plus adding sorting to the columns), and maybe a differential between the two percentages just for fun. But I wanted to take time to make sure I was correctly counting how much area was (say) Eurasia but without Japan, etc. Maybe I'll actually get around to that shortly. There are other (formatting) tweaks I wasn't overly happy with in my original. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.11|141.101.98.11]] 19:00, 30 April 2022 (UTC)
::Okey dokey. New table. Sortable, extra columns and 'real world' figures improved on. (e.g. "North America" is land-areas of Canada through to Panama minus all significant islands (though some of the Canadian archipelago might have been drawn in as contiguous, etc, etc, and I ''think'' I only included Alaska in my sums just the once). Which took a lot more effort than I'd have prefered, like including Peninsula Malaysia and not the offshore bits. I wish I could say I spent as much time on the initial image-analysis (at least include NZ N+S Islands as an entry, right?) and the raw data is now archived elsewhere.
::I also augmented with footnote references, but not sure if I've done it right. Readable (defined in first instance, where used multiple times) in the source if anyone thinks there's any better ways of doing it (had my heart set on dagger/double-dagger/etc, but never mind). But there you are.
::Enjoy! [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.63|172.70.90.63]] 23:11, 30 April 2022 (UTC)

Should there be another column on the table that describes the fold-change of the actual to displayed area? I think it would help emphasize the distortion of Madagascar. [[User:Dextrous Fred|Dextrous Fred]] ([[User talk:Dextrous Fred|talk]]) 16:35, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

Hopefully the vandal won't bother this one. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.211.18|172.70.211.18]] 17:23, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

:Looks like they did, but they seem to be done because someone gave them the emoticon. --[[Special:Contributions/172.70.126.87|172.70.126.87]] 22:36, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

::A mistake. We already know it's likely they'll be back at a later date with some other stunt to stroke their supremely fragile ego. (Whether or not things like this comment provokes them, I definitely consider my conscience clear in this regard.) But what happens, happens. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.79.223|172.69.79.223]] 22:43, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

:::Is it any surprise they're already back? The emoticon was a cheap excuse for the infantile, childish behaviour of someone without a life that gets their shits and giggles out of being nothing more than a pest.[[User:Mapron01|Mapron01]] ([[User talk:Mapron01|talk]]) 23:01, 29 April 2022 (UTC)
this page is kinda sussy tbh [[Special:Contributions/172.70.214.81|172.70.214.81]] 18:11, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

[spam]

I have looked at the Wikipedia pages, and there is _no_ reference to Among Us on any map-related pages (and vice versa). What is your problem? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.242.195|172.70.242.195]] 18:43, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

[spam]

I take it you're the vandal... [[User:Something|Something]] ([[User talk:Something|talk]]) 19:00, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

ID does imply they are the vandal, they were adding the lyricis earlier today...[[User:Mapron01|Mapron01]] ([[User talk:Mapron01|talk]]) 19:23, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

I fixed the redirect they made of Danish going to the main page. I think some other pages got redirected into a redirect loop that should now be fixed. [[User:Flumnble|Flumnble]] ([[User talk:Flumnble|talk]]) 15:24, 1 May 2022 (UTC)

Concerning the so called compromise of vandalising this page to make the vandal satisfied: That’s not a compromise but letting ourselves be exhorted by and obeying the vandal. That’s absolutely the worst we could do and would fuel the vandal enormously.
[[User:While False|While False]] ([[User talk:While False|talk]]) 05:04, 2 May 2022 (UTC)
::I agree with this. It ruins the article. Can't they just ban him? Or lock the article like wikipedia? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.130.161|172.70.130.161]] 05:48, 2 May 2022 (UTC)
:::The people trying to compromise with the vandal have to stop. They were vandalizing the last comic, the same thing was tried and they did stop... only to move on to vandalizing not just this comic but also other, older ones. It does not work. All it does is give them a free pass on their vandalizing and give them more satisfaction than they would otherwise, and it's not constructive in any way to the article, especially if the demand is something as absurd as having a Doug Walker image in an page for a comic that has zero relationship to him. And this time it didn't even get them to stop. [[User:Mapron01|Mapron01]] ([[User talk:Mapron01|talk]]) 14:33, 2 May 2022 (UTC)
::Please note that the user https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/User:WhiIe_FaIse ("whiie faiise") has made contributions and signed them with my signature. Do not take any comment apparently from a known user for being made by its signed sender without checking history. [[User:While False|While False]] ([[User talk:While False|talk]]) 05:04, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

== holave ==

exclamacioneve holave inefe eguntapre omoce uedope ayudareve ave esteve itiose inefe [[Special:Contributions/108.162.245.43|108.162.245.43]] 02:53, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
:Does anyone know what language this is written in? I have no idea what this person is saying (asking?) and Google Translate wasn't much help. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.246.178|108.162.246.178]] 03:09, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
::eclaracionde oye one hablove ingleseve erope oye ieroque ayudareve esteve ikiwe inefe [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.143|108.162.216.143]] 04:01, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
:::My first thought was esperanto (or ido or interlingua, given lack of accents), certainly a latinesque-based language or conlang, but given the edits put onto this effort, it's possibly even sabotaged, or was written by someone for whom it most definitely not was their first language. (I even thought it was "Pig-esperanto"... This is that idiot who changed entire Explanations to Pig-Latin, I'm sure.)
:::I've got no real affinity to languages but I can recognise the possible roots of a lot of that. Some use of "...speak(ing) English..." is obvious in the latter post, for example, at an educated guess.
:::But I would say this is a prelude to some "I want you to wear bunny-ears when you revert stuff" thing, which I for one won't try to solve this puzzle for. (I'll just revert and revert and revert, if I'm around, and ignore the "trying to be clever" stuff. Nearly deleted this, actually, but restrained myself.) Otherwise, I leave it to those who know their conlangs better than me. Once it strays too far beyond technical English and its classical roots, I'm not really a linguistics person as I said, so it's useless to me whether it's an international message of friendship or extortion instructions. "Holave", whoever you are, but no thanks. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.155|172.70.162.155]] 10:10, 1 May 2022 (UTC)

How will they shut down all their ports?

::::Yeah, it definitely looks like a conlang based on a Latinesque language, probably Spanish. "exclamacioneve" is probably "exclamacion" = "exclamation" (not sure why a sentence would begin with "exclamation"), holave=hola=hello, ayudareve=ayudar=help, hablove=hablo="I speak" (could actually be a different conjugation, but this is the most likely), and ingleseve=ingles=English. They seem to be saying "I speak English" (or "I don't speak English" if "one" means "no"). [[Special:Contributions/172.70.130.5|172.70.130.5]] 14:11, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
:::::"I don't speak English" seems more likely, so it's probably a good guess that "one" does mean "no." [[Special:Contributions/172.70.178.199|172.70.178.199]] 14:15, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
::::::It seems to be some sort of pig-Spanish, with punctuation written out. Decoded, it's “exclamacion hola fine pregunta como puedo ayudar a este sitio fine” and “declaracion yo no hablo ingles pero yo quiero ayudar este wiki fine”, meaning “exclamation hi end question how can i help on this site end” and “statement i dont speak english but i want to help this wiki end”. [[User:Kapostamas|Kapostamas]] ([[User talk:Kapostamas|talk]]) 15:15, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
How will they shut down all their ports?
:::::::(Somehow the thread got duplicated; I merged the threads) That makes sense. It seems like if someone wanted to help, they would at least use a real language. Do you think this is the vandal? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.178.33|172.70.178.33]] 15:31, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
::::::::Definitely the vandal. These were some of the vandal edit summaries on the last comic: "Orpe avorfe one andalizarve esteve aginape" "ise eviertere estove eve incluyeve unve emojive ede a'rbolve ede avidadne enve use esumenre ede edicio'nve, one ole olvere've ave acerehve" "one incluyesteve uneve emojive ede a'rboleve ede avidadene" @Kapostamas can you understand those? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.178.33|172.70.178.33]] 15:42, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
:::::::::“Por favor no vandalizar este pagina”; “Si revierte esto e incluye un emoji de árbol de navidad ne su resumen de edición, no lo volveré a hacere”; “No incluyeste un emoji de árbol de navidad”.
:::::::::That is, “Please do not vandalize this page”; “If you revert this and include a Christmas tree emoji in the edit summary, I will not do it again”; “You haven't included a Christmas tree emoji”. Must be some earlier version of this “dialect”, since there is punctuation and diacritics are marked by apostrophes, making it somewhat easier to recognize as mangled Spanish. [[User:Kapostamas|Kapostamas]] ([[User talk:Kapostamas|talk]]) 16:08, 1 May 2022 (UTC)

::::::::(Written before 172.70.178.33 got posted, just above.) I'd stake my bottom dollar/peso/euro/whatever on it. Still, marginally entertaining, but not in the intended way (which is good).
::::::::As for the "Exclamation" start, two basic theories:
::::::::* It's word-literal of "¡Some punctuation!" (partnered eith "inefe"=>"end), because the encoding system doesn't have punctuation, it reads it out (maybe literally, e.g. via screen-reader) and it's like a telegram convention "HAVE REACHED NORTH POLE STOP PLEASE ADVISE WHICH DIRECTION NOW STOP" (i.e. full-stop/period in word form).
::::::::* It's a start that says "I exclaim (that)...", and the other "I declare (that)..." in a sort of grammatical necessity for this particular lingo. Similar to "Statement: I am a computer. Question: Are you a computer?" in (deliberately-?)bad scifi dialogue.
::::::::Possibly a mix of both, and also some tertiary ideas I have. And the word-for-word translations make a sort of sense in either/both/all these contexts. Not that I'd respond to them, but I'll gladly talk about them and actually do something intellectually interesting with the mess. Silk purse from sow's ear, etc. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.63|172.70.90.63]] 15:55, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
:::::::::What's the rule for "translating" into this "dialect"? It seems like it is very similar to pig Latin, but with a few changes? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.17|108.162.216.17]] 16:27, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
::::::::::As far as I know:
::::::::::# Write your message in Spanish.
::::::::::# Enclose each of your sentences between ''declaración/exclamación/pregunta'' at the front (according to closing punctuation – ./!/? respectively) and ''fine'' at the end. Remove original punctuation. Probably do something about commas as well.
::::::::::# Remove diacritics.
::::::::::# For each word, move the initial consonant cluster to the end. If there is no initial consonant (or if it's silent, like H), instead add a V to the end of the word. Then append a final E to each word.
::::::::::[[User:Kapostamas|Kapostamas]] ([[User talk:Kapostamas|talk]]) 17:29, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
:::::::::::Okay, that makes sense, thank you! It also looks like if the word ends in a consonant, you add an e to the end both before and after the moved/new consonant (group), because otherwise exclamación would become "exclamacionve" when it is actually "exclamacioneve." It also looks like we've been successfully [[356]]ed by the vandal. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.126.65|172.70.126.65]] 17:50, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
::::::::::::That supposes that they always applied their own rules perfectly. There are many places where this rule seems to be in effect and many where it doesn't; sometimes even the same word is transcribed in two different ways. Since my Spanish is rudimentary at best, I've simply included some of these E's in the transcription without noticing them. [[User:Kapostamas|Kapostamas]] ([[User talk:Kapostamas|talk]]) 19:28, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
:::::::::::::It looks like they added the e-between-consonants rule in later messages. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.131.106|172.70.131.106]] 19:40, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
::::::::::::::That explains many of them, but there's still “eclaracionde” in the second message. [[User:Kapostamas|Kapostamas]] ([[User talk:Kapostamas|talk]]) 20:54, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
::::::::::::::: eclaracionede esaseve eglasere eque ese esele ocurrieroneve onese orrectasece inefe eclaracionede itace eclaracionde inefe uefe uneve erroreve ipograficote yve eberiade erese itace eclaracionede inefe inefe [[Special:Contributions/172.70.126.65|172.70.126.65]] 21:04, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
::::::::::::::::Hmm, more pig-Spanish.

::::::::::::::::After undoing the word changes, but leaving the grammar as-is, it says: "declaracion esas reglas que se les ocurrieron son correctas fine declaracion cita declaracion fine fue un error tipografico y deberia ser cita declaracion fine fine"

::::::::::::::::The first sentence appears to mean "Those rules that (either "they" or plural "you") came up with are correct."

::::::::::::::::The rest of it doesn't make much sense; there are even two "fine"s in a row. @Kapostamas do you know what this message means? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.130.161|172.70.130.161]] 02:57, 2 May 2022 (UTC)
:::::::::::::::::I did not even try to parse it, but it occured to me it was like "I used, quote, 'quotes', endquote..." as a deliberately obtuse nesting (especially when ripped of its additional punctuation). So under the system in which start and end words are used, the start and end of a sentence that contains those words (perhaps not paired), the ambiguity arises. That said, the self-referential nature of it also indicates quite clearly that they are thinking they are being clever. They aren't, but it's interesting to watch. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.77|172.70.162.77]] 09:05, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

::::::::::::::::::Translated, it's something like “statement quote eclaracionde end was a typing error and should have been quote eclaracionede end end”. It's just another kind of punctuation.
::::::::::::::::::Two-deep nesting is not that complicated to parse. Now, using “declaración” or “fine” as words on their own right – ''that'' would really be confusing. [[User:Kapostamas|Kapostamas]] ([[User talk:Kapostamas|talk]]) 10:33, 2 May 2022 (UTC)
:::::::::::::::::::Okay, that makes sense. "eclaracionde" was a typing error and should have been "eclaracionede."
::::::::::::::::::::More pig-Spanish (replaced with [spam] in the "Current vandalism elsewhere" discussion):
::::::::::::::::::::"exclamacioneve holave inefe eguntapre omoce estaseve inefe eclaracionde ete oyese inefe"
::::::::::::::::::::"exclamacion hola fine pregunta como estas fine declaracion te soy fine"
::::::::::::::::::::"Hello! How are you? I am you."
::::::::::::::::::::The last sentence ("ete oyese"/"te soy"/"I am you") doesn't make much sense; @Kapostamas is it right? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.178.199|172.70.178.199]] 21:50, 2 May 2022 (UTC)
:::::::::::::::::::::Considering the name, I'd say it's correct. [[User:Kapostamas|Kapostamas]] ([[User talk:Kapostamas|talk]]) 22:49, 2 May 2022 (UTC)
::::::::::::::::::::::Possibly meant to be "te oyes fine" - an attempted joke using the 'fine' as part of the sentence - "You sound fine"? Although 'oyes' ought to encode as 'oyeseve'.[[Special:Contributions/172.69.79.223|172.69.79.223]] 11:37, 3 May 2022 (UTC)
:::::::::::::::::::::::It was <code>oyese ute</code> originally, which unambiguously means “I am you”. <code>inefe</code> may be ''fin'' or ''fine'', neither of which means “fine” in English. To spell out the name thing: the message was written under the username [[User:Whilе Falsе|Whilе Falsе]] (with Cyrillic Е's), to [[User:While False|While False]]. [[User:Kapostamas|Kapostamas]] ([[User talk:Kapostamas|talk]]) 13:44, 3 May 2022 (UTC)

===Current vandalism elsewhere===
Someone with an account needs to unvandalise what I am fairly certain is our pig-Spaniards work, in another of their incarnations.
16:32, 2 May 2022 X K C D (talk | contribs) moved page Talk:1014: Car Problems to Talk:1014: Trouser Problems
16:32, 2 May 2022 X K C D (talk | contribs) moved page 1014: Car Problems to 1014: Trouser Problems
...those two alterations, as listed in the Move Log, easy to find. (I already reverted the text within.) Naturally, I assume we'll see more of the same in future. In this instance I'm putting this note in the (for the moment) latest entry rather than the Admin area, as I think it's linked to the above. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.44|172.70.86.44]] 17:27, 2 May 2022 (UTC)
:Second change made, trying to invert the "WhiieFaise" impersonation and make it look like "WhiLeFaLse" is in the wrong. Also much messing with everything. Please someone check that this edit restored only what was necessary and didn't remove anything at least plausibly genuine. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.5|172.70.162.5]] 17:47, 2 May 2022 (UTC)
::Thank you. [[User:While False|While False]] ([[User talk:While False|talk]]) 18:08, 2 May 2022 (UTC)
:::I just happened to check and saw 'things' happening, so dove in to mitigate what I could (and unfold further as I was doing that). Then I saw that you were active too. I hope we didn't clash much in our individual efforts. And with the confluence of vandalising techniques in this latest episode, I think we have confirmation that a number of recent outbreaks under different guises ''were'' by just one idiot. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.36|172.70.91.36]] 18:40, 2 May 2022 (UTC)
::::Yep. Thank you. [[User:While False|While False]] ([[User talk:While False|talk]]) 18:51, 2 May 2022 (UTC)
:::::[Spam] [[User:Whilе Falsе|Whilе Falsе]] ([[User talk:Whilе Falsе|talk]]) 20:54, 2 May 2022 (UTC)
:::::Well, there it goes. One more impostor account, this time with “Ｗ” instead of “W”. [[User:While False|While False]] ([[User talk:While False|talk]]) 21:00, 2 May 2022 (UTC)
:The same person now also uses [[User:Ｗhile False|Ｗhile False]] with “Ｗ” instead of “W” and ”е” instead of “e” to vandalise in my name. [[User:While False|While False]] ([[User talk:While False|talk]]) 21:08, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

Talk:2613: Bad Map Projection: Madagascator

2022-05-02T22:49:47Z

Kapostamas:

Anyone else want to play this (and the other bad map projections) as maps in a 4X/Grand Strategy game? [[User:Mazz0|Mazz0]] ([[User talk:Mazz0|talk]]) 18:02, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

Clicking on the original comic brings up the actual projection used, it looks like.

I'm on an old machine here (because it usually doesn't matter), and clicked on the image on the xkcd site to get the image, to be told that ''Your browser does not support WebGL :'('' by the URL https://mrgris.com/projects/merc-extreme/#-4.64274,55.45253 - I will have to check from a less 'primitive' device, but it looks like it's got a special click-through, which might be worth mentioning in the Explanation. I can check myself in a few minutes, but noting here first in case I get delay. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.11|141.101.98.11]] 19:38, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

I have added the click. It opens an website app showing a Mercator with the North Pole set to wherever you want, with this one in particular set Mahé just as Randall said. [[User:Mapron01|Mapron01]] ([[User talk:Mapron01|talk]]) 19:40, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

Added a table, based upon some rapid pixel-analysis I did. No, I didn't include Indonesia, etc, and the "Africa size probably includes Madagascar" sort of thing could need sorting, but I mentioned that below so nobody is under misapprehension. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.34.221|162.158.34.221]] 22:04, 29 April 2022 (UTC)
: I think having the official size also be a percent of the world (or at least another column like that) would make it easier to see how the distortion affects the size. And/or distortion from a normal Mercator projection {{unsigned ip|172.70.230.143}}
:: That was my initial intention, or at least a percentage-of-reality column alongside (plus adding sorting to the columns), and maybe a differential between the two percentages just for fun. But I wanted to take time to make sure I was correctly counting how much area was (say) Eurasia but without Japan, etc. Maybe I'll actually get around to that shortly. There are other (formatting) tweaks I wasn't overly happy with in my original. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.11|141.101.98.11]] 19:00, 30 April 2022 (UTC)
::Okey dokey. New table. Sortable, extra columns and 'real world' figures improved on. (e.g. "North America" is land-areas of Canada through to Panama minus all significant islands (though some of the Canadian archipelago might have been drawn in as contiguous, etc, etc, and I ''think'' I only included Alaska in my sums just the once). Which took a lot more effort than I'd have prefered, like including Peninsula Malaysia and not the offshore bits. I wish I could say I spent as much time on the initial image-analysis (at least include NZ N+S Islands as an entry, right?) and the raw data is now archived elsewhere.
::I also augmented with footnote references, but not sure if I've done it right. Readable (defined in first instance, where used multiple times) in the source if anyone thinks there's any better ways of doing it (had my heart set on dagger/double-dagger/etc, but never mind). But there you are.
::Enjoy! [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.63|172.70.90.63]] 23:11, 30 April 2022 (UTC)

Should there be another column on the table that describes the fold-change of the actual to displayed area? I think it would help emphasize the distortion of Madagascar. [[User:Dextrous Fred|Dextrous Fred]] ([[User talk:Dextrous Fred|talk]]) 16:35, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

Hopefully the vandal won't bother this one. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.211.18|172.70.211.18]] 17:23, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

:Looks like they did, but they seem to be done because someone gave them the emoticon. --[[Special:Contributions/172.70.126.87|172.70.126.87]] 22:36, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

::A mistake. We already know it's likely they'll be back at a later date with some other stunt to stroke their supremely fragile ego. (Whether or not things like this comment provokes them, I definitely consider my conscience clear in this regard.) But what happens, happens. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.79.223|172.69.79.223]] 22:43, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

:::Is it any surprise they're already back? The emoticon was a cheap excuse for the infantile, childish behaviour of someone without a life that gets their shits and giggles out of being nothing more than a pest.[[User:Mapron01|Mapron01]] ([[User talk:Mapron01|talk]]) 23:01, 29 April 2022 (UTC)
this page is kinda sussy tbh [[Special:Contributions/172.70.214.81|172.70.214.81]] 18:11, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

[spam]

I have looked at the Wikipedia pages, and there is _no_ reference to Among Us on any map-related pages (and vice versa). What is your problem? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.242.195|172.70.242.195]] 18:43, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

[spam]

I take it you're the vandal... [[User:Something|Something]] ([[User talk:Something|talk]]) 19:00, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

ID does imply they are the vandal, they were adding the lyricis earlier today...[[User:Mapron01|Mapron01]] ([[User talk:Mapron01|talk]]) 19:23, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

I fixed the redirect they made of Danish going to the main page. I think some other pages got redirected into a redirect loop that should now be fixed. [[User:Flumnble|Flumnble]] ([[User talk:Flumnble|talk]]) 15:24, 1 May 2022 (UTC)

Concerning the so called compromise of vandalising this page to make the vandal satisfied: That’s not a compromise but letting ourselves be exhorted by and obeying the vandal. That’s absolutely the worst we could do and would fuel the vandal enormously.
[[User:While False|While False]] ([[User talk:While False|talk]]) 05:04, 2 May 2022 (UTC)
::I agree with this. It ruins the article. Can't they just ban him? Or lock the article like wikipedia? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.130.161|172.70.130.161]] 05:48, 2 May 2022 (UTC)
:::The people trying to compromise with the vandal have to stop. They were vandalizing the last comic, the same thing was tried and they did stop... only to move on to vandalizing not just this comic but also other, older ones. It does not work. All it does is give them a free pass on their vandalizing and give them more satisfaction than they would otherwise, and it's not constructive in any way to the article, especially if the demand is something as absurd as having a Doug Walker image in an page for a comic that has zero relationship to him. And this time it didn't even get them to stop. [[User:Mapron01|Mapron01]] ([[User talk:Mapron01|talk]]) 14:33, 2 May 2022 (UTC)
::Please note that the user https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/User:WhiIe_FaIse ("whiie faiise") has made contributions and signed them with my signature. Do not take any comment apparently from a known user for being made by its signed sender without checking history. [[User:While False|While False]] ([[User talk:While False|talk]]) 05:04, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

== holave ==

exclamacioneve holave inefe eguntapre omoce uedope ayudareve ave esteve itiose inefe [[Special:Contributions/108.162.245.43|108.162.245.43]] 02:53, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
:Does anyone know what language this is written in? I have no idea what this person is saying (asking?) and Google Translate wasn't much help. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.246.178|108.162.246.178]] 03:09, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
::eclaracionde oye one hablove ingleseve erope oye ieroque ayudareve esteve ikiwe inefe [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.143|108.162.216.143]] 04:01, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
:::My first thought was esperanto (or ido or interlingua, given lack of accents), certainly a latinesque-based language or conlang, but given the edits put onto this effort, it's possibly even sabotaged, or was written by someone for whom it most definitely not was their first language. (I even thought it was "Pig-esperanto"... This is that idiot who changed entire Explanations to Pig-Latin, I'm sure.)
:::I've got no real affinity to languages but I can recognise the possible roots of a lot of that. Some use of "...speak(ing) English..." is obvious in the latter post, for example, at an educated guess.
:::But I would say this is a prelude to some "I want you to wear bunny-ears when you revert stuff" thing, which I for one won't try to solve this puzzle for. (I'll just revert and revert and revert, if I'm around, and ignore the "trying to be clever" stuff. Nearly deleted this, actually, but restrained myself.) Otherwise, I leave it to those who know their conlangs better than me. Once it strays too far beyond technical English and its classical roots, I'm not really a linguistics person as I said, so it's useless to me whether it's an international message of friendship or extortion instructions. "Holave", whoever you are, but no thanks. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.155|172.70.162.155]] 10:10, 1 May 2022 (UTC)

How will they shut down all their ports?

::::Yeah, it definitely looks like a conlang based on a Latinesque language, probably Spanish. "exclamacioneve" is probably "exclamacion" = "exclamation" (not sure why a sentence would begin with "exclamation"), holave=hola=hello, ayudareve=ayudar=help, hablove=hablo="I speak" (could actually be a different conjugation, but this is the most likely), and ingleseve=ingles=English. They seem to be saying "I speak English" (or "I don't speak English" if "one" means "no"). [[Special:Contributions/172.70.130.5|172.70.130.5]] 14:11, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
:::::"I don't speak English" seems more likely, so it's probably a good guess that "one" does mean "no." [[Special:Contributions/172.70.178.199|172.70.178.199]] 14:15, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
::::::It seems to be some sort of pig-Spanish, with punctuation written out. Decoded, it's “exclamacion hola fine pregunta como puedo ayudar a este sitio fine” and “declaracion yo no hablo ingles pero yo quiero ayudar este wiki fine”, meaning “exclamation hi end question how can i help on this site end” and “statement i dont speak english but i want to help this wiki end”. [[User:Kapostamas|Kapostamas]] ([[User talk:Kapostamas|talk]]) 15:15, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
How will they shut down all their ports?
:::::::(Somehow the thread got duplicated; I merged the threads) That makes sense. It seems like if someone wanted to help, they would at least use a real language. Do you think this is the vandal? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.178.33|172.70.178.33]] 15:31, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
::::::::Definitely the vandal. These were some of the vandal edit summaries on the last comic: "Orpe avorfe one andalizarve esteve aginape" "ise eviertere estove eve incluyeve unve emojive ede a'rbolve ede avidadne enve use esumenre ede edicio'nve, one ole olvere've ave acerehve" "one incluyesteve uneve emojive ede a'rboleve ede avidadene" @Kapostamas can you understand those? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.178.33|172.70.178.33]] 15:42, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
:::::::::“Por favor no vandalizar este pagina”; “Si revierte esto e incluye un emoji de árbol de navidad ne su resumen de edición, no lo volveré a hacere”; “No incluyeste un emoji de árbol de navidad”.
:::::::::That is, “Please do not vandalize this page”; “If you revert this and include a Christmas tree emoji in the edit summary, I will not do it again”; “You haven't included a Christmas tree emoji”. Must be some earlier version of this “dialect”, since there is punctuation and diacritics are marked by apostrophes, making it somewhat easier to recognize as mangled Spanish. [[User:Kapostamas|Kapostamas]] ([[User talk:Kapostamas|talk]]) 16:08, 1 May 2022 (UTC)

::::::::(Written before 172.70.178.33 got posted, just above.) I'd stake my bottom dollar/peso/euro/whatever on it. Still, marginally entertaining, but not in the intended way (which is good).
::::::::As for the "Exclamation" start, two basic theories:
::::::::* It's word-literal of "¡Some punctuation!" (partnered eith "inefe"=>"end), because the encoding system doesn't have punctuation, it reads it out (maybe literally, e.g. via screen-reader) and it's like a telegram convention "HAVE REACHED NORTH POLE STOP PLEASE ADVISE WHICH DIRECTION NOW STOP" (i.e. full-stop/period in word form).
::::::::* It's a start that says "I exclaim (that)...", and the other "I declare (that)..." in a sort of grammatical necessity for this particular lingo. Similar to "Statement: I am a computer. Question: Are you a computer?" in (deliberately-?)bad scifi dialogue.
::::::::Possibly a mix of both, and also some tertiary ideas I have. And the word-for-word translations make a sort of sense in either/both/all these contexts. Not that I'd respond to them, but I'll gladly talk about them and actually do something intellectually interesting with the mess. Silk purse from sow's ear, etc. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.63|172.70.90.63]] 15:55, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
:::::::::What's the rule for "translating" into this "dialect"? It seems like it is very similar to pig Latin, but with a few changes? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.17|108.162.216.17]] 16:27, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
::::::::::As far as I know:
::::::::::# Write your message in Spanish.
::::::::::# Enclose each of your sentences between ''declaración/exclamación/pregunta'' at the front (according to closing punctuation – ./!/? respectively) and ''fine'' at the end. Remove original punctuation. Probably do something about commas as well.
::::::::::# Remove diacritics.
::::::::::# For each word, move the initial consonant cluster to the end. If there is no initial consonant (or if it's silent, like H), instead add a V to the end of the word. Then append a final E to each word.
::::::::::[[User:Kapostamas|Kapostamas]] ([[User talk:Kapostamas|talk]]) 17:29, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
:::::::::::Okay, that makes sense, thank you! It also looks like if the word ends in a consonant, you add an e to the end both before and after the moved/new consonant (group), because otherwise exclamación would become "exclamacionve" when it is actually "exclamacioneve." It also looks like we've been successfully [[356]]ed by the vandal. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.126.65|172.70.126.65]] 17:50, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
::::::::::::That supposes that they always applied their own rules perfectly. There are many places where this rule seems to be in effect and many where it doesn't; sometimes even the same word is transcribed in two different ways. Since my Spanish is rudimentary at best, I've simply included some of these E's in the transcription without noticing them. [[User:Kapostamas|Kapostamas]] ([[User talk:Kapostamas|talk]]) 19:28, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
:::::::::::::It looks like they added the e-between-consonants rule in later messages. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.131.106|172.70.131.106]] 19:40, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
::::::::::::::That explains many of them, but there's still “eclaracionde” in the second message. [[User:Kapostamas|Kapostamas]] ([[User talk:Kapostamas|talk]]) 20:54, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
::::::::::::::: eclaracionede esaseve eglasere eque ese esele ocurrieroneve onese orrectasece inefe eclaracionede itace eclaracionde inefe uefe uneve erroreve ipograficote yve eberiade erese itace eclaracionede inefe inefe [[Special:Contributions/172.70.126.65|172.70.126.65]] 21:04, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
::::::::::::::::Hmm, more pig-Spanish.

::::::::::::::::After undoing the word changes, but leaving the grammar as-is, it says: "declaracion esas reglas que se les ocurrieron son correctas fine declaracion cita declaracion fine fue un error tipografico y deberia ser cita declaracion fine fine"

::::::::::::::::The first sentence appears to mean "Those rules that (either "they" or plural "you") came up with are correct."

::::::::::::::::The rest of it doesn't make much sense; there are even two "fine"s in a row. @Kapostamas do you know what this message means? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.130.161|172.70.130.161]] 02:57, 2 May 2022 (UTC)
:::::::::::::::::I did not even try to parse it, but it occured to me it was like "I used, quote, 'quotes', endquote..." as a deliberately obtuse nesting (especially when ripped of its additional punctuation). So under the system in which start and end words are used, the start and end of a sentence that contains those words (perhaps not paired), the ambiguity arises. That said, the self-referential nature of it also indicates quite clearly that they are thinking they are being clever. They aren't, but it's interesting to watch. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.77|172.70.162.77]] 09:05, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

::::::::::::::::::Translated, it's something like “statement quote eclaracionde end was a typing error and should have been quote eclaracionede end end”. It's just another kind of punctuation.
::::::::::::::::::Two-deep nesting is not that complicated to parse. Now, using “declaración” or “fine” as words on their own right – ''that'' would really be confusing. [[User:Kapostamas|Kapostamas]] ([[User talk:Kapostamas|talk]]) 10:33, 2 May 2022 (UTC)
:::::::::::::::::::Okay, that makes sense. "eclaracionde" was a typing error and should have been "eclaracionede."
::::::::::::::::::::More pig-Spanish (replaced with [spam] in the "Current vandalism elsewhere" discussion):
::::::::::::::::::::"exclamacioneve holave inefe eguntapre omoce estaseve inefe eclaracionde ete oyese inefe"
::::::::::::::::::::"exclamacion hola fine pregunta como estas fine declaracion te soy fine"
::::::::::::::::::::"Hello! How are you? I am you."
::::::::::::::::::::The last sentence ("ete oyese"/"te soy"/"I am you") doesn't make much sense; @Kapostamas is it right? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.178.199|172.70.178.199]] 21:50, 2 May 2022 (UTC)
:::::::::::::::::::::Considering the name, I'd say it's correct. [[User:Kapostamas|Kapostamas]] ([[User talk:Kapostamas|talk]]) 22:49, 2 May 2022 (UTC)
===Current vandalism elsewhere===
Someone with an account needs to unvandalise what I am fairly certain is our pig-Spaniards work, in another of their incarnations.
16:32, 2 May 2022 X K C D (talk | contribs) moved page Talk:1014: Car Problems to Talk:1014: Trouser Problems
16:32, 2 May 2022 X K C D (talk | contribs) moved page 1014: Car Problems to 1014: Trouser Problems
...those two alterations, as listed in the Move Log, easy to find. (I already reverted the text within.) Naturally, I assume we'll see more of the same in future. In this instance I'm putting this note in the (for the moment) latest entry rather than the Admin area, as I think it's linked to the above. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.44|172.70.86.44]] 17:27, 2 May 2022 (UTC)
:Second change made, trying to invert the "WhiieFaise" impersonation and make it look like "WhiLeFaLse" is in the wrong. Also much messing with everything. Please someone check that this edit restored only what was necessary and didn't remove anything at least plausibly genuine. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.5|172.70.162.5]] 17:47, 2 May 2022 (UTC)
::Thank you. [[User:While False|While False]] ([[User talk:While False|talk]]) 18:08, 2 May 2022 (UTC)
:::I just happened to check and saw 'things' happening, so dove in to mitigate what I could (and unfold further as I was doing that). Then I saw that you were active too. I hope we didn't clash much in our individual efforts. And with the confluence of vandalising techniques in this latest episode, I think we have confirmation that a number of recent outbreaks under different guises ''were'' by just one idiot. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.36|172.70.91.36]] 18:40, 2 May 2022 (UTC)
::::Yep. Thank you. [[User:While False|While False]] ([[User talk:While False|talk]]) 18:51, 2 May 2022 (UTC)
:::::[Spam] [[User:Whilе Falsе|Whilе Falsе]] ([[User talk:Whilе Falsе|talk]]) 20:54, 2 May 2022 (UTC)
:::::Well, there it goes. One more impostor account, this time with “Ｗ” instead of “W”. [[User:While False|While False]] ([[User talk:While False|talk]]) 21:00, 2 May 2022 (UTC)
:The same person now also uses [[User:Ｗhile False|Ｗhile False]] with “Ｗ” instead of “W” and ”е” instead of “e” to vandalise in my name. [[User:While False|While False]] ([[User talk:While False|talk]]) 21:08, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

Talk:2613: Bad Map Projection: Madagascator

2022-05-02T10:33:22Z

Kapostamas:

Anyone else want to play this (and the other bad map projections) as maps in a 4X/Grand Strategy game? [[User:Mazz0|Mazz0]] ([[User talk:Mazz0|talk]]) 18:02, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

Clicking on the original comic brings up the actual projection used, it looks like.

I'm on an old machine here (because it usually doesn't matter), and clicked on the image on the xkcd site to get the image, to be told that ''Your browser does not support WebGL :'('' by the URL https://mrgris.com/projects/merc-extreme/#-4.64274,55.45253 - I will have to check from a less 'primitive' device, but it looks like it's got a special click-through, which might be worth mentioning in the Explanation. I can check myself in a few minutes, but noting here first in case I get delay. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.11|141.101.98.11]] 19:38, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

I have added the click. It opens an website app showing a Mercator with the North Pole set to wherever you want, with this one in particular set Mahé just as Randall said. [[User:Mapron01|Mapron01]] ([[User talk:Mapron01|talk]]) 19:40, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

Added a table, based upon some rapid pixel-analysis I did. No, I didn't include Indonesia, etc, and the "Africa size probably includes Madagascar" sort of thing could need sorting, but I mentioned that below so nobody is under misapprehension. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.34.221|162.158.34.221]] 22:04, 29 April 2022 (UTC)
: I think having the official size also be a percent of the world (or at least another column like that) would make it easier to see how the distortion affects the size. And/or distortion from a normal Mercator projection {{unsigned ip|172.70.230.143}}
:: That was my initial intention, or at least a percentage-of-reality column alongside (plus adding sorting to the columns), and maybe a differential between the two percentages just for fun. But I wanted to take time to make sure I was correctly counting how much area was (say) Eurasia but without Japan, etc. Maybe I'll actually get around to that shortly. There are other (formatting) tweaks I wasn't overly happy with in my original. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.11|141.101.98.11]] 19:00, 30 April 2022 (UTC)
::Okey dokey. New table. Sortable, extra columns and 'real world' figures improved on. (e.g. "North America" is land-areas of Canada through to Panama minus all significant islands (though some of the Canadian archipelago might have been drawn in as contiguous, etc, etc, and I ''think'' I only included Alaska in my sums just the once). Which took a lot more effort than I'd have prefered, like including Peninsula Malaysia and not the offshore bits. I wish I could say I spent as much time on the initial image-analysis (at least include NZ N+S Islands as an entry, right?) and the raw data is now archived elsewhere.
::I also augmented with footnote references, but not sure if I've done it right. Readable (defined in first instance, where used multiple times) in the source if anyone thinks there's any better ways of doing it (had my heart set on dagger/double-dagger/etc, but never mind). But there you are.
::Enjoy! [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.63|172.70.90.63]] 23:11, 30 April 2022 (UTC)

Hopefully the vandal won't bother this one. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.211.18|172.70.211.18]] 17:23, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

:Looks like they did, but they seem to be done because someone gave them the emoticon. --[[Special:Contributions/172.70.126.87|172.70.126.87]] 22:36, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

::A mistake. We already know it's likely they'll be back at a later date with some other stunt to stroke their supremely fragile ego. (Whether or not things like this comment provokes them, I definitely consider my conscience clear in this regard.) But what happens, happens. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.79.223|172.69.79.223]] 22:43, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

:::Is it any surprise they're already back? The emoticon was a cheap excuse for the infantile, childish behaviour of someone without a life that gets their shits and giggles out of being nothing more than a pest.[[User:Mapron01|Mapron01]] ([[User talk:Mapron01|talk]]) 23:01, 29 April 2022 (UTC)
this page is kinda sussy tbh [[Special:Contributions/172.70.214.81|172.70.214.81]] 18:11, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

[spam]

I have looked at the Wikipedia pages, and there is _no_ reference to Among Us on any map-related pages (and vice versa). What is your problem? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.242.195|172.70.242.195]] 18:43, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

[spam]

I take it you're the vandal... [[User:Something|Something]] ([[User talk:Something|talk]]) 19:00, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

ID does imply they are the vandal, they were adding the lyricis earlier today...[[User:Mapron01|Mapron01]] ([[User talk:Mapron01|talk]]) 19:23, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

I fixed the redirect they made of Danish going to the main page. I think some other pages got redirected into a redirect loop that should now be fixed. [[User:Flumnble|Flumnble]] ([[User talk:Flumnble|talk]]) 15:24, 1 May 2022 (UTC)

Concerning the so called compromise of vandalising this page to make the vandal satisfied: That’s not a compromise but letting ourselves be exhorted by and obeying the vandal. That’s absolutely the worst we could do and would fuel the vandal enormously.
[[User:While False|While False]] ([[User talk:While False|talk]]) 05:04, 2 May 2022 (UTC)
::I agree with this. It ruins the article. Can't they just ban him? Or lock the article like wikipedia? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.130.161|172.70.130.161]] 05:48, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

== holave ==

exclamacioneve holave inefe eguntapre omoce uedope ayudareve ave esteve itiose inefe [[Special:Contributions/108.162.245.43|108.162.245.43]] 02:53, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
:Does anyone know what language this is written in? I have no idea what this person is saying (asking?) and Google Translate wasn't much help. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.246.178|108.162.246.178]] 03:09, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
::eclaracionde oye one hablove ingleseve erope oye ieroque ayudareve esteve ikiwe inefe [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.143|108.162.216.143]] 04:01, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
:::My first thought was esperanto (or ido or interlingua, given lack of accents), certainly a latinesque-based language or conlang, but given the edits put onto this effort, it's possibly even sabotaged, or was written by someone for whom it most definitely not was their first language. (I even thought it was "Pig-esperanto"... This is that idiot who changed entire Explanations to Pig-Latin, I'm sure.)
:::I've got no real affinity to languages but I can recognise the possible roots of a lot of that. Some use of "...speak(ing) English..." is obvious in the latter post, for example, at an educated guess.
:::But I would say this is a prelude to some "I want you to wear bunny-ears when you revert stuff" thing, which I for one won't try to solve this puzzle for. (I'll just revert and revert and revert, if I'm around, and ignore the "trying to be clever" stuff. Nearly deleted this, actually, but restrained myself.) Otherwise, I leave it to those who know their conlangs better than me. Once it strays too far beyond technical English and its classical roots, I'm not really a linguistics person as I said, so it's useless to me whether it's an international message of friendship or extortion instructions. "Holave", whoever you are, but no thanks. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.155|172.70.162.155]] 10:10, 1 May 2022 (UTC)

How will they shut down all their ports?

::::Yeah, it definitely looks like a conlang based on a Latinesque language, probably Spanish. "exclamacioneve" is probably "exclamacion" = "exclamation" (not sure why a sentence would begin with "exclamation"), holave=hola=hello, ayudareve=ayudar=help, hablove=hablo="I speak" (could actually be a different conjugation, but this is the most likely), and ingleseve=ingles=English. They seem to be saying "I speak English" (or "I don't speak English" if "one" means "no"). [[Special:Contributions/172.70.130.5|172.70.130.5]] 14:11, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
:::::"I don't speak English" seems more likely, so it's probably a good guess that "one" does mean "no." [[Special:Contributions/172.70.178.199|172.70.178.199]] 14:15, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
::::::It seems to be some sort of pig-Spanish, with punctuation written out. Decoded, it's “exclamacion hola fine pregunta como puedo ayudar a este sitio fine” and “declaracion yo no hablo ingles pero yo quiero ayudar este wiki fine”, meaning “exclamation hi end question how can i help on this site end” and “statement i dont speak english but i want to help this wiki end”. [[User:Kapostamas|Kapostamas]] ([[User talk:Kapostamas|talk]]) 15:15, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
How will they shut down all their ports?
:::::::(Somehow the thread got duplicated; I merged the threads) That makes sense. It seems like if someone wanted to help, they would at least use a real language. Do you think this is the vandal? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.178.33|172.70.178.33]] 15:31, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
::::::::Definitely the vandal. These were some of the vandal edit summaries on the last comic: "Orpe avorfe one andalizarve esteve aginape" "ise eviertere estove eve incluyeve unve emojive ede a'rbolve ede avidadne enve use esumenre ede edicio'nve, one ole olvere've ave acerehve" "one incluyesteve uneve emojive ede a'rboleve ede avidadene" @Kapostamas can you understand those? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.178.33|172.70.178.33]] 15:42, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
:::::::::“Por favor no vandalizar este pagina”; “Si revierte esto e incluye un emoji de árbol de navidad ne su resumen de edición, no lo volveré a hacere”; “No incluyeste un emoji de árbol de navidad”.
:::::::::That is, “Please do not vandalize this page”; “If you revert this and include a Christmas tree emoji in the edit summary, I will not do it again”; “You haven't included a Christmas tree emoji”. Must be some earlier version of this “dialect”, since there is punctuation and diacritics are marked by apostrophes, making it somewhat easier to recognize as mangled Spanish. [[User:Kapostamas|Kapostamas]] ([[User talk:Kapostamas|talk]]) 16:08, 1 May 2022 (UTC)

::::::::(Written before 172.70.178.33 got posted, just above.) I'd stake my bottom dollar/peso/euro/whatever on it. Still, marginally entertaining, but not in the intended way (which is good).
::::::::As for the "Exclamation" start, two basic theories:
::::::::* It's word-literal of "¡Some punctuation!" (partnered eith "inefe"=>"end), because the encoding system doesn't have punctuation, it reads it out (maybe literally, e.g. via screen-reader) and it's like a telegram convention "HAVE REACHED NORTH POLE STOP PLEASE ADVISE WHICH DIRECTION NOW STOP" (i.e. full-stop/period in word form).
::::::::* It's a start that says "I exclaim (that)...", and the other "I declare (that)..." in a sort of grammatical necessity for this particular lingo. Similar to "Statement: I am a computer. Question: Are you a computer?" in (deliberately-?)bad scifi dialogue.
::::::::Possibly a mix of both, and also some tertiary ideas I have. And the word-for-word translations make a sort of sense in either/both/all these contexts. Not that I'd respond to them, but I'll gladly talk about them and actually do something intellectually interesting with the mess. Silk purse from sow's ear, etc. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.63|172.70.90.63]] 15:55, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
:::::::::What's the rule for "translating" into this "dialect"? It seems like it is very similar to pig Latin, but with a few changes? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.17|108.162.216.17]] 16:27, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
::::::::::As far as I know:
::::::::::# Write your message in Spanish.
::::::::::# Enclose each of your sentences between ''declaración/exclamación/pregunta'' at the front (according to closing punctuation – ./!/? respectively) and ''fine'' at the end. Remove original punctuation. Probably do something about commas as well.
::::::::::# Remove diacritics.
::::::::::# For each word, move the initial consonant cluster to the end. If there is no initial consonant (or if it's silent, like H), instead add a V to the end of the word. Then append a final E to each word.
::::::::::[[User:Kapostamas|Kapostamas]] ([[User talk:Kapostamas|talk]]) 17:29, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
:::::::::::Okay, that makes sense, thank you! It also looks like if the word ends in a consonant, you add an e to the end both before and after the moved/new consonant (group), because otherwise exclamación would become "exclamacionve" when it is actually "exclamacioneve." It also looks like we've been successfully [[356]]ed by the vandal. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.126.65|172.70.126.65]] 17:50, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
::::::::::::That supposes that they always applied their own rules perfectly. There are many places where this rule seems to be in effect and many where it doesn't; sometimes even the same word is transcribed in two different ways. Since my Spanish is rudimentary at best, I've simply included some of these E's in the transcription without noticing them. [[User:Kapostamas|Kapostamas]] ([[User talk:Kapostamas|talk]]) 19:28, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
:::::::::::::It looks like they added the e-between-consonants rule in later messages. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.131.106|172.70.131.106]] 19:40, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
::::::::::::::That explains many of them, but there's still “eclaracionde” in the second message. [[User:Kapostamas|Kapostamas]] ([[User talk:Kapostamas|talk]]) 20:54, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
::::::::::::::: eclaracionede esaseve eglasere eque ese esele ocurrieroneve onese orrectasece inefe eclaracionede itace eclaracionde inefe uefe uneve erroreve ipograficote yve eberiade erese itace eclaracionede inefe inefe [[Special:Contributions/172.70.126.65|172.70.126.65]] 21:04, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
::::::::::::::::Hmm, more pig-Spanish.

::::::::::::::::After undoing the word changes, but leaving the grammar as-is, it says: "declaracion esas reglas que se les ocurrieron son correctas fine declaracion cita declaracion fine fue un error tipografico y deberia ser cita declaracion fine fine"

::::::::::::::::The first sentence appears to mean "Those rules that (either "they" or plural "you") came up with are correct."

::::::::::::::::The rest of it doesn't make much sense; there are even two "fine"s in a row. @Kapostamas do you know what this message means? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.130.161|172.70.130.161]] 02:57, 2 May 2022 (UTC)
:::::::::::::::::I did not even try to parse it, but it occured to me it was like "I used, quote, 'quotes', endquote..." as a deliberately obtuse nesting (especially when ripped of its additional punctuation). So under the system in which start and end words are used, the start and end of a sentence that contains those words (perhaps not paired), the ambiguity arises. That said, the self-referential nature of it also indicates quite clearly that they are thinking they are being clever. They aren't, but it's interesting to watch. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.77|172.70.162.77]] 09:05, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

:::::::::::::::::Translated, it's something like “statement quote eclaracionde end was a typing error and should have been quote eclaracionede end end”. It's just another kind of punctuation.
:::::::::::::::::Two-deep nesting is not that complicated to parse. Now, using “declaración” or “fine” as words on their own right – ''that'' would really be confusing. [[User:Kapostamas|Kapostamas]] ([[User talk:Kapostamas|talk]]) 10:33, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

Talk:2613: Bad Map Projection: Madagascator

2022-05-01T20:54:08Z

Kapostamas: /* holave */

Talk:2613: Bad Map Projection: Madagascator

2022-05-01T19:28:25Z

Kapostamas: /* holave */

Talk:2613: Bad Map Projection: Madagascator

2022-05-01T17:30:46Z

Kapostamas: /* holave */

Talk:2613: Bad Map Projection: Madagascator

2022-05-01T17:29:30Z

Kapostamas: /* holave */

2611: Cutest-Sounding Scientific Effects

2022-05-01T17:04:43Z

Kapostamas: /* Effects */ Some etymology

{{comic
| number = 2611
| date = April 25, 2022
| title = Cutest-Sounding Scientific Effects
| image = cutest_sounding_scientific_effects.png
| titletext = The Stroop-YORP number of a scientific paper is how many of the 16 finalist names (sans 'effect') it manages to casually sneak into the text.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by A GUY WITH A Stroop-YORP Effect NUMBER OF 16! - Fill in the [[#Result of the twitter polls|Result of the twitter polls]] as it comes in! Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
[[Randall]] has compiled [[:Category:Tournament bracket|yet another]] {{w|Tournament bracket|single-elimination tournament bracket}} for a knock-out competition between 16 different scientific effect names that Randall considers cute-sounding.

As of the release day, he is determining the result in a [https://twitter.com/xkcd/status/1518701311763570689 series of Twitter polls]. These results are shown [[#Result of the Twitter polls|here]].

See [[#Effects|below]] for explanations for what each of the 16 effects are.

Several unrelated scientific effects were previously combined in [[1531: The BDLPSWDKS Effect]], which also included the Stroop effect (the last S).

In the title text, Randall coins the term "Stroop-YORP number" as a count of how many 'casual' references a future publication can sneak into it from the 16 finalist names for cutest effect. It specifies that it should be without the word effect after the words (sans 'effect').

Tongue-in-cheek 'counting scores' are familiar in the likes of the {{w|Erdős_number|Erdős}} and {{w|Bacon_number|Bacon}} numbers, both of which are being referenced by [[599: Apocalypse]] (the latter only in the title text). Albeit in these cases the ideal is to get the ''lowest'' number as opposed to here where higher is better. The cross-field hybrid {{w|Erdős–Bacon number}} is one in which the desired score is the lowest sum of both values (neither being undefinable) by dint of having participated in both arenas of respective achievement, but not necessarily (or practically) in a single combined presentation.

For instance the Stroop-YORP number could be high for a wildlife paper. That could possibly use "butterfly" and "rabbit" (possibly needing the latter to be specifically 'cutaneous', to count), which may both be found in "little parks" with some "popcorn" seen littered around without too much "oddity"; and of course a (Dr.?) "fox" could be in the area, getting a score of 6. But other words may be a stretch, with an imaginative reference to a "woozle" possibly easier to employ than to evoke anything of the "nocebo".

On the other hand, for a space-science paper there may be more obvious (mis)uses for physics-related terms, and mentioning YORP might well be expected. But it may need creative thinking to introduce the rabbit or the more psychological idea of Stroopicity, etc, without reason to discuss the responses of animal or human payloads being sent there.

It is not actually obvious whether Randall intends the score to only be valid if the insertions are off-field and/or undetected, such as when someone is wagered that they can slip unrelated song lyrics into a public speech without the rest of the audience twigging.

A search of google scholar indicates many articles with a score of 2, eg [https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/87559129.2012.714435 this paper] which refers to butterfly shaped popcorn, but 3 or more seems to not be attested.

==Effects==
;{{w|YORP effect}}: The YORP effect is the effect of sunlight on an asteroid with variations of shape and/or albedo, which can increase its rotation rate and/or modify its axis of rotation. It can cause objects to eventually spin apart or drastically change their orbit.
:It is an acronym of the names Yarkovsky, O’Keefe, Radzievskii and Paddack, who were instrumental in its discovery. More than a century ago, Yarkovsky determined that heat applied to a symmetrical rotating body would be asymmetrically re-emitted and apply a small but continuous thrust, and this was added to by considering the forces to non-symmetrical bodies.
;{{w|Nocebo effect}}: An effect in which a recipient of medication who believes that it will have negative side-effects is more likely to experience those negative side-effects, whether they can be really caused by the medication or not. Opposite of the {{w|placebo effect}}, which focuses on positive side-effects that arise beyond the true efficacy of a given treatment.
:''Nocēbō'' is Latin for “I shall harm”, coined to oppose ''placēbō'', “I shall please”.
;{{w|Woozle effect}}: If a study gets repeatedly cited and otherwise disseminated, then people will start to believe it regardless of whether it has any evidence behind it. And if there is not any evidence, it becomes an urban myth.
:Named after a Winnie-the-Pooh story in which Winnie-the-Pooh and Piglet try to catch an imaginary animal called a woozle, and accidentally follow their own tracks in circles.
:A similar effect was discussed in [[978: Citogenesis]], wherein a sourceless statement on Wikipedia can become apparently credible via simple repetition.
;{{w|Stroop effect}}: The Stroop effect (referenced in [[1531: The BDLPSWDKS Effect]]) is a psychological phenomenon in which it is easier to name the visual color of a word when the word refers to its own color, than when the word refers to a different color; i.e. the fact that saying that '''Red''' is red is easier than to say that '''Blue''' is green.
:Named after {{w|John Ridley Stroop}}.
;{{w|Pockels effect}}: A phenomenon where an electric field passed through a medium can cause the medium's refractive index to depend upon the polarization and propagation direction of the refracted light, a property known as {{w|birefringence}}.
:Named after {{w|Friedrich Carl Alwin Pockels}}.
;{{w|Cheerios effect}}: A phenomenon where objects floating in a liquid appear to attract or repel each other.
:Named after the cereal Cheerios, which are an everyday demonstration of this phenomenon because many eat Cheerios in a bowl of milk.
;{{w|Hot chocolate effect}}: A phenomenon where the sound created by tapping a cup of hot liquid rises in pitch as a soluble powder is added.
;{{w|Perky effect}}: An experiment in which participants were asked to visualize an object while staring at a screen on which the outline of that object was subtly projected. Participants believed the projected shape to be only a product of their imaginations.
:Named after {{w|Cheves Perky}}.
;{{w|Bouba/kiki effect}}: An observation that people, despite different native languages, will relatively consistently assign names with certain sounds to blobby or spiky shapes, suggesting the association of sound and shape is non-arbitrary. ''Bouba'' and ''kiki'' were two of the words used in the experiment.
;{{w|Cutaneous rabbit effect}}: A phenomenon where, when tapped on one part of the body in rapid succession and then switching to another, the subject feels the tapping at locations in between the two.
:For example, if rapidly tapping the wrist then switching to the elbow, the subject will subjectively feel as if they are being tapped at progressive intervals between the wrist and elbow, when they are not.
;[https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/smallfirmeffect.asp Small firm effect]: An economic theory that small firms usually perform better than larger ones
;{{w|Little–Parks effect}}: A phenomenon where a fluctuating magnetic field passed through a superconductor can slightly suppress its superconductivity, inducing small fluctuations in its electrical resistance.
:When juxtaposed against the "small firm effect", as in the bracket, one might get the impression that it is somehow related to urban architecture or civil engineering.
;{{w|Dr. Fox effect}}: A disputed theory that student evaluations of their teachers are likely unreliable, because they are largely based on the teacher's charisma instead of the quality of their content.
;{{w|Oddity effect}}: A theory that when fish assemble in shoals (large social groups), any that stand out appearance-wise will be attacked by a predator, explaining why shoals tend to have similar-looking members.
;{{w|Butterfly effect}}: The butterfly effect is the sensitivity of chaotic systems to small changes in initial conditions. The weather system of Earth is chaotic, and so an arbitrarily small change in air patterns (such as could be caused by the flapping of a butterfly's wing) could ultimately change the weather for the whole world.
;{{w|Popcorn effect}}: A phenomenon exhibited by crushed ore placed on a vibrating screen for separation in mineral processing, in which larger particles tend to bounce higher than smaller particles.

==Transcript==
:[A tournament bracket tree is shown with 16 scientific effect names, with 8 on the left and 8 on the right side. From both sides toward the middle the brackets reduce from eight to four, to two, then to one line where the latter join to a rectangle in the middle for the winners name of the final match. Above the bracket there is a title:]
:<big>Cutest-Sounding Scientific Effects</big>

:[Left side:]
:YORP effect
:Nocebo effect

:Woozle effect
:Stroop effect

:Pockels effect
:Cheerios effect

:Hot chocolate effect
:Perky effect

:[Right side:]
:Bouba/kiki effect
:Cutaneous rabbit effect

:Small firm effect
:Little Parks effect

:Dr. Fox effect
:Oddity effect

:Butterfly effect
:Popcorn effect

==Trivia==
* Randall has created [https://twitter.com/xkcd/status/1518701311763570689 Twitter polls] to determine the outcome of this version of his [[1819: Sweet 16|sweet 16]]:

===Result of the [https://twitter.com/xkcd/status/1518698708824727554 Twitter polls]===
====First wave====
The first wave ran from April 25, 2022 at 5:19pm ET to the next day at 5:42pm ET.
* [https://twitter.com/xkcd/status/1518701311763570689 '''YORP effect (67.7%)''' vs Nocebo effect (32.3%)], 8,996 votes
* [https://twitter.com/xkcd/status/1518702773075943425 '''Woozle effect (74.4%)''' vs Stroop effect (25.6%)], 8,517 votes
* [https://twitter.com/xkcd/status/1518704819720044544 Pockels effect (42.4%) vs '''Cheerios effect (57.6%)'''], 7,513 votes
* [https://twitter.com/xkcd/status/1518705352342228998 '''Hot chocolate effect (56.2%)''' vs Perky effect (43.8%)], 7,379 votes
* [https://twitter.com/xkcd/status/1518705724737662977 '''Bouba/kiki effect (64%)''' vs Cutaneous rabbit effect (36%)], 7,563 votes
* [https://twitter.com/xkcd/status/1518706168440541194 Small firm effect (18.4%) vs '''Little Parks effect (81.6%)'''], 7,209 votes
* [https://twitter.com/xkcd/status/1518706772999118848 '''Dr. Fox effect (67.5%)''' vs Oddity effect (32.5%)], 7,852 votes
* [https://twitter.com/xkcd/status/1518707180320481280 '''Butterfly effect (56.5%)''' vs Popcorn effect (43.4%)], 7,825 votes

====Second wave====
The second wave started on April 26, 2022 at 5:56pm ET and ended around 11:56am ET.
* [https://twitter.com/xkcd/status/1519073013781647365 YORP effect (35.7%) vs '''Woozle effect (64.3%)'''], 7,026 votes
* [https://twitter.com/xkcd/status/1519074868637147138 Cheerios effect (49.5%) vs '''Hot chocolate effect (50.5%)'''], 6,672 votes
* [https://twitter.com/xkcd/status/1519077131376074754 '''Bouba/Kiki effect (72.8%)''' vs Little parks effect (27.2%)], 7,466 votes
* [https://twitter.com/xkcd/status/1519079116993183749 Dr. Fox effect (47.9%) vs '''Butterfly effect (52.1%)'''], 6,752 votes

====Third wave====
The third wave started on April 27, 2022 at 6:54pm ET and ended around 12:54pm ET.
* [https://twitter.com/xkcd/status/1519450011674759169 '''Woozle effect (71.2%)''' vs Hot chocolate effect (28.8%)], 8,237 votes
* [https://twitter.com/xkcd/status/1519455938096373761 '''Bouba/Kiki effect (77.6%)''' vs Butterfly effect (22.4%)], 7,223 votes

====Fourth wave====
The fourth wave started on April 28, 2022 at 4:30pm ET and ended around 10:30pm ET.
* [https://twitter.com/xkcd/status/1519776107821740033 Woozle effect (46.1%) vs '''Bouba/Kiki effect (53.9%)'''], 10,774 votes

====Bonus wave====
* [https://twitter.com/xkcd/status/1520109683503161344 '''Bouba (57%)''' vs Kiki (43%)], 9,723 votes

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Science]]
[[Category:Tournament bracket]]

Talk:2613: Bad Map Projection: Madagascator

2022-05-01T16:08:22Z

Kapostamas: /* holave */