explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

2609: Entwives

2022-04-20T17:29:09Z

Knarf:

{{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.
}}

==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. Part of the backstory of the Ents is that all of the women of their species (the Entwives that this comic is named for) left many years ago over a dispute with the male Ents, who have since been searching for them in an attempt to make amends and preserve the future of their species. The loneliness of the Ents' all-male society is considered a great tragedy in their culture.

This comic uses that plot point to satirically comment on the extreme gender imbalance of the cast of Lord of the Rings; when presented with the all-male Fellowship of the Ring, the Ent assumes that they must come from a culture afflicted by a similar tragedy. In reality, of course, the dwarves (to an extent), elves, hobbits, and men all have a roughly even gender ratio, and the lack of women in the Fellowship is due not to cultural tragedy, but to strict gender roles excluding women from an adventuring party. Or the author simply neglected to include any female characters.

The clickable link on the image leads to a [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mt2qCjL6-n4 video claiming to show the singular scene where two women interact], which is there to emphasize how few women there are in the franchise. The inclusion of this clip may be a reference to the {{w|Bechdel test}}, a metric for judging 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 two-and-a-half-word exchange is sufficient to pass the test is debatable.

The title-text most likely refers to the character of Arwen; while somewhat important to the story, she is nowhere near on the level of the Fellowship, and even if she were, 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 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 the United States' two neighboring countries, making it a potentially plausible place for some American's long-distance girlfriend to live, and presumably the Fellowship consider the Elf kingdom to be sufficiently distant to allow the Ent to accept the plausibility of the statement without any further delving into potentially awkward details.

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

[Ent Man stands to the left, facing right. Aragorn, Gimli, Legolas, and three hobbits stand to the right of Ent Man, facing him.]

Ent Man: Alas, there are no Ent women. The Entwives all vanished in the second age, during Sauron's war.

Aragorn: I'm so sorry.

Ent Man: And what about you all? Same story, I assume?

Aragorn: Huh? No, what do you mean?

{{comic discussion}}

2609: Entwives

2022-04-20T17:28:30Z

Knarf:

{{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.
}}

==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. Part of the backstory of the Ents is that all of the women of their species (the Entwives that this comic is named for) left many years ago over a dispute with the male Ents, who have since been searching for them in an attempt to make amends and preserve the future of their species. The loneliness of the Ents' all-male society is considered a great tragedy in their culture.

This comic uses that plot point to satirically comment on the extreme gender imbalance of the cast of Lord of the Rings; when presented with the all-male Fellowship of the Ring, the Ent assumes that they must come from a culture afflicted by a similar tragedy. In reality, of course, the dwarves (to an extent), elves, hobbits, and men all have a roughly even gender ratio, and the lack of women in the Fellowship is due not to cultural tragedy, but to strict gender roles excluding women from an adventuring party. Or the author simply neglected to include any female characters.

The clickable link (not visible for at least some Desktop browsers) leads to a [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mt2qCjL6-n4 video claiming to show the singular scene where two women interact], which is there to emphasize how few women there are in the franchise. The inclusion of this clip may be a reference to the {{w|Bechdel test}}, a metric for judging 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 two-and-a-half-word exchange is sufficient to pass the test is debatable.

The title-text most likely refers to the character of Arwen; while somewhat important to the story, she is nowhere near on the level of the Fellowship, and even if she were, 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 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 the United States' two neighboring countries, making it a potentially plausible place for some American's long-distance girlfriend to live, and presumably the Fellowship consider the Elf kingdom to be sufficiently distant to allow the Ent to accept the plausibility of the statement without any further delving into potentially awkward details.

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

[Ent Man stands to the left, facing right. Aragorn, Gimli, Legolas, and three hobbits stand to the right of Ent Man, facing him.]

Ent Man: Alas, there are no Ent women. The Entwives all vanished in the second age, during Sauron's war.

Aragorn: I'm so sorry.

Ent Man: And what about you all? Same story, I assume?

Aragorn: Huh? No, what do you mean?

{{comic discussion}}

2586: Greek Letters

2022-03-01T10:38:19Z

Knarf:

{{comic
| number = 2586
| date = February 25, 2022
| title = Greek Letters
| image = greek_letters.png
| titletext = If you ever see someone using a capital xi in an equation, just observe them quietly to learn as much as you can before they return to their home planet.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by '''''O R B S''''' PRO®- Missing explanations for some letters. The text for each letter should be in the explanation with an attempt at explaining it. This has not been included and many of the letters have no explanation of the given text, only for what they actually are used for. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
Mathematics uses lots of Greek letters, typically using {{w|Greek_letters_used_in_mathematics,_science,_and_engineering|the same letter consistently}} to represent a particular constant or type of variable. This comic gives a (non-)explanation of what they typically mean, see [[#Greek letters|below]].

In the title text the joke about capital Xi from the main comic is continued. In the main comic those using Ξ (capital xi) greets us as Earth mathematicians, indicating they are not from Earth, but have come here to learn what we know of math. In the title text the idea that any one using Ξ must be aliens is made clear. So if you ever meet someone using this letter while doing math, then learn as much as you can by quietly observing them, before they return to their home planet. Either learn from their possible advanced math (that allowed them to construct a way to get from one star system to another), or learn about them as the aliens species they represent.

Previously [[Randall]] made a similar comic, [[2520: Symbols]], about math symbols.

===Greek letters===

* '''π (lowercase pi): This math is either very simple or impossible.''' — Typically used to refer to the constant ratio between a circle’s circumference and its diameter (approximately 3.14). In a common school curriculum, this constant first shows up in introductory geometry classes, which would be considered "simple" by advanced mathematicians. But often, pi can show up seemingly randomly in advanced equations that have nothing to do with a circle at first glance, such as in infinite series. And because pi is transcendental, it can sometimes be difficult to work with pi in those situations. The comic may also be a reference to the impossibility of squaring the circle.
* An alternate explanation is that the comic refers to how the symbol can sometimes be used as a variable where the 'p' sound might make sense, such as in the prime-counting function where it stands for "prime" or the Buckingham π theorem where it stands for "parameter." These uses can be confusing to students who have only ever seen a lowercase pi used for the circle constant. This has pushed college courses to use it less and less frequently for anything other than the circle constant, so that now you are only likely to see π as something else in higher math. (More confusing still is the variant lowercase pi ϖ sometimes used for angular frequency instead of the more common (and very similar-looking) lowercase omega ω.)

* '''Δ (capital delta): Something has changed.''' — Typically prefixes a variable to refer to a macroscopic change in or finite difference of that variable. For instance, Δ'''v''' may be the finite change in velocity '''v''' over some finite time span, while Δ[''f''](''x'') represents the forward difference of ''f'' at ''x'', defined as Δ[''f''](''x'') = ''f''(''x''+1) - ''f''(''x'').

* '''δ (lowercase delta): Something has changed and it's a mathematician's fault.''' — Typically prefixes a variable to refer to a microscopic change in or inexact differential of that variable. The distinction between an "exact differential" using the symbol d and an "inexact differential" using the symbol δ is often obscured in education and is rather technical. The formal definition for a derivative can be easily modified to define exact differentials of state functions but not inexact differentials of process functions where the fundamental theorem of calculus is less useful. Since inexact differentials show up most often in physics (especially thermodynamics), where the finer points of mathematical formalism are rarely important, this distinction between d and δ is practically meaningless for most students and is "a mathematician's fault." It may also refer to the fact that a derivative is the rate of change at a single instant, and because an instant is infinitely small, the change is completely meaningless. And thus, the mathematician's fault refers to how no one but a mathemetician would care about or use a derivative as, outside of mathematics, the concept of "rate of change at an instant" has no meaning.

* '''θ (lowercase theta): Circles!''' — Typically used to refer to an angle, and is notably used in the polar coordinate system. The text refers to its close relationship with circles, on which the polar coordinate system is based. In European handwriting, the variant form ϑ is commonly used with the same meaning.

* '''φ (lowercase phi): ''ORBS''''' — Typically used to refer to another angle other than one referred to by theta. It's used in spherical coordinates, and the text refers to how spheres, or orbs, are important in spherical coordinates. Lowercase phi has two forms in modern typography which are confused by this website's default font. In the comic, it has a complete circle with a vertical line passing through it, which is what Knuth called "phi." The alternate form, ϕ, is what Knuth called "variant phi" and can be written in a single stroke. Most fonts reverse the way these symbols are rendered. There is no difference in meaning between the symbols.

* '''ϵ (lowercase epsilon): Not important, don't worry about it.''' — Typically used to refer to a very small quantity. ϵ may be an error term in a statistical model (which is usually small if the model is useful), a remainder term in an approximation (same), or an arbitrarily small quantity in analysis. Although a total cumulative change of "ϵ" is negligible, in analysis, ϵ is most often applied in a context of an infinitesimal change occurring with infinite frequency. The study of ratios of quantities that approach zero gives rise to infinitesimal calculus. Also used for a sequence of transfinite numbers that are unreachable from ω by finite application of addition, multiplication, and exponentiation. This Greek lowercase letter has two common modern variants, ϵ and ε. ϵ is called the "lunate epsilon" and may be more common in the U.S. A stylized version (∈) is used as the mathematical symbol for "is an element of." ε is what Knuth called the "variant epsilon" and is never used for the "element of" symbol but otherwise has identical meaning. Because epsilon represents an arbitrarily small quantity, there's no reason for anyone to worry about it from a practical standpoint.

* '''υ,ν (lowercase upsilon and nu): Is that a v or a u? Or...oh no, it's one of ''those''.''' — Common in college level physics and engineering equations. ν commonly represents wavenumber in physics as well as a wide variety of other variables, often with names starting in N (e.g. neutron) or V (e.g. viscosity). Lowercase upsilon is rarely used, probably to avoid confusion. The symbols look remarkably similar to Latin u and v, to the point that they are nearly indistinguishable in some fonts; Randall has complained about this before in [[2351: Standard Model Changes]].

* '''μ (lowercase mu): This math is cool but it's not about anything that you will ever see or touch, so whatever.''' — Used broadly in the abstract mathematical fields of category theory and measure theory. Physicists use Latin letters for the indices of the 3-vectors of classical physics and Greek indices, including μ, for the 4-vectors of special relativity. This leads to μ being ubiquitous in a field which is very far from everyday experience (where speeds approach the speed of light). It is also employed in statistics for the population mean, which is a quantity that the statistician never actually knows and frequently wants to estimate. Equations requiring a μ are thus impossible to apply directly. However, μ is used in physics for the coefficient of friction in the Coulomb model, typically used to approximate resistive forces between dry solids of different material sliding past each other. A very common use of μ in science and engineering is as the symbol of the SI prefix ''micro-'' for a millionth. Unicode has officially added a point for μ as the "micro sign," distinct from its usual codepoint as the lowercase Greek letter mu.

* '''Σ (capital sigma): Thank you for purchasing ''Addition Pro''®!''' — Typically used as a symbol for the sum of a series of numbers. The comic is making fun of summation, pointing out that it's essentially a complicated, "pro" version of simple addition. The capital sigma is often used as the icon for the all-important "sum" button in spreadsheet software. However, the sigma operator is often necessary for explicitly defining infinite sums, avoiding ambiguous notation like an ellipsis (...).

* '''Π (capital pi): ...and the ''Multiplication''® expansion pack!''' — Typically used as a symbol for the product of a sequence of numbers. The joke is the same as for summation. Here, it is advertised as an "expansion pack," a term used for a piece of software that cannot stand alone but adds features to some existing software. Any paid spreadsheet or database program should already have the ability to perform products. The ® symbol indicates that ''Multiplication'' is a registered trademark somewhere, which is unlikely, as the term is not unique. However, common words are registered as trademarks rather often.

* '''ζ (lowercase zeta): This math will only lead to more math.''' — Frequently used for the {{w|Riemann zeta function}} in analytic number theory, a function of complex numbers which is challenging even to define and which is the focus of a famously unsolved problem in highly advanced mathematics. Zeta is used much less often in other contexts, such as the ζ-potential in colloidal chemistry, and even there it is likely to just lead to more math.

* '''β (lowercase beta): There are just too many coefficients.''' — This could be a reference to the typical usage of beta to represent coefficients of independent variables in the {{w|Ordinary_least_squares#Linear_model|ordinary least squares regression model}}. Regression can potentially have a large number of independent variables, hence potentially many different betas (differentiated by subscript, or compacted into matrix notation) would be used, while there is only ever a single zeroth-order coefficient α in these models. Alternatively, the comic might suggest whatever source this equation is from has run out of Latin letters to use as symbols, and is now going through the Greek letters.

* '''α (lowercase alpha): Oh boy, now ''this'' is math about something real. This is math that could ''kill'' someone.''' — As the first Greek letter, α is used for a tremendous variety of purposes in math. For example, it is used to represent the probability of a Type-I error (false positive) occurring in a hypothesis test. It could also possibly refer to the {{w|fine-structure constant}} which shows up in high energy physics, atomic physics, quantum electrodynamics, and at least [[1047|one other xkcd comic]]. Alpha could also refer to {{w|angular acceleration}}, and a rapidly-rotating system is capable of killing people in a number of [[123|interesting ways]]. Another dangerous meaning for α comes from ionising α-radiation: while it can be easily blocked by even a sheet of paper, it has been {{W|Alexander Litvinenko#Poisoning and death|used for assassinations}} through ingestion.

* '''Ω (capital omega): Oooh, ''some'' mathematician thinks their function is cool and important.''' — The last letter of the Greek alphabet and thus often seen as momentous (the end, the final word, death). The capital letter has been used as the symbol for a {{w|Omega_function|variety of mathematical functions}} and for the {{w|first uncountable ordinal}}. It is commonly used in physics and electrical engineering as the symbol for {{w|ohms}}, a unit for electrical resistance. Capital omega has produced a fascination in common culture, perhaps due to God describing himself as "the alpha and the omega" in the Book of Revelation or due to its highly distinctive shape. It is often used to represent something of grave or transcendent significance. So using it to name your function (instead of a conventional symbol like ''f'' or ''g'') may mean you think the function is particularly important.

* '''ω (lowercase omega): A lot of work went into these equations and you are going to die here among them.''' — Used for the {{w|Transfinite_number|least transfinite ordinal number}}, the order type of the natural numbers under '<'. The line about dying here among the transfinite equations may be in reference to the "eternity" of the infinite set it represents. It is also used in physics and electrical engineering for angular frequency, equal to 2π times the frequency, and thus it is ubiquitous in equations dealing with all sorts of wave phenomena. '''ω''' is also used for the angular velocity of a rotating system, defined by '''v''' = '''r'''×'''ω'''.

* '''σ (lowercase sigma): Some poor soul is trying to apply this math to real life and it's not working.''' — In statistics, σ commonly refers to the population standard deviation of a distribution. Many simplified statistical equations substitute the population standard deviation σ for the sample standard deviation s for simplicity, even when this is not justifiable. A common example is using the normal distribution to model the mean of several identically-normally-distributed variables instead of the T distribution. The variant ς is used at the end of Greek words (called the "final sigma") but is rarely used in math or science.

* '''ξ (lowercase xi): Either this is terrifying mathematics or there was a hair on the scanned page.''' — Randall comments that this looks like a strand of curly hair. Xi is used in the {{w|Riemann Xi function}} and sometimes as a variable or function symbol in higher math. It is famously difficult to write in a way that is consistent and clearly distinct from other symbols.

* '''γ (lowercase gamma): ''Zoom'' pew pew pew [space noises] ''zoooom!''''' — Lowercase gamma is used for the Lorentz factor, an important variable in special relativity calculations. Its use implies that you are dealing with speeds approaching the speed of light and therefore with spaceships or other moving objects not confined to Earth. γ-rays are also the highest energy photons, so a space opera might have ships flying near the speed of light firing gamma-ray weapons that go PEW PEW. γ is also used as the symbol for the Euler-Mascheroni constant and occasionally as a variable or function name.

* '''ρ (lowercase rho): Unfortunately, the test vehicle suffered an unexpected wing separation event.''' — Lowercase rho often represents volumetric mass density, such as the density of air that a wing might be travelling through. The density of a fluid is directly proportional to the Reynold's number which dictates the sort of physics used to model motion through the fluid. Flying a plane in conditions with a Reynold's number well outside of what it was designed for could have catastrophic consequences. A variant symbol ϱ with the same meaning is common in European handwriting.

* '''Ξ (capital xi): Greetings! We hope to learn a great deal by exchanging knowledge with your Earth mathematicians.''' — Probably the least used Greek letter in math and physics despite being easy to write and to recognize. According to the comic, anyone using this letter is likely a being from another planet. It does see very occasional use, such as in the Riemann xi function or as the symbol for a class of heavy baryons in particle physics. It resembles, but is not to be confused with a "hamburger button" or a triple equals sign ≡. Randall thinks it most closely resembles alien writing.

* '''ψ (lowercase psi): You have entered the domain of King Triton, ruler of the waves.''' — Both capital and lowercase psi are shaped like tridents. In quantum mechanics, either psi is used to represent the wave function of a particle, leading to a pun. (Psi is also used in mathematics to represent the sum of the inverse of the Fibonacci numbers, the division polynomials, and the supergolden ratio, and other purposes.)

==Transcript==
:[A list with 21 explanations of different Greek letters. To the left the letter (on in one case two letters) are shown, and then the explanation is written to the right in one or two lines (and in one case on three lines). Above these explanations there is a header in a slightly larger font:]
:<big>What Greek letters mean in equations</big>
:π This math is either very simple or impossible.
:Δ Something has changed.
:δ Something has changed and it's a mathematician's fault.
:θ Circles!
:Φ '''''ORBS'''''
:ϵ Not important, don't worry about it.
:υ,ν Is that a v or a u? Or...oh no, it's one of ''those''.
:μ This math is cool but it's not about anything that you will ever see or touch, so whatever.
:Σ Thank you for purchasing ''Addition Pro''®!
:Π ...and the ''Multiplication''® expansion pack!
:ζ This math will only lead to more math.
:β There are just too many coefficients.
:α Oh boy, now ''this'' is math about something real. This is math that could ''kill'' someone.
:Ω Oooh, ''some'' mathematician thinks their function is cool and important.
:ω A lot of work went into these equations and you are going to die here among them.
:σ Some poor soul is trying to apply this math to real life and it's not working.
:ξ Either this is terrifying mathematics or there was a hair on the scanned page.
:γ ''Zoom'' pew pew pew [space noises] ''zoooom!''
:ρ Unfortunately, the test vehicle suffered an unexpected wing separation event.
:Ξ Greetings! We hope to learn a great deal by exchanging knowledge with your Earth mathematicians.
:ψ You have entered the domain of King Triton, ruler of the waves.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Math]]
[[Category:Aliens]]

2586: Greek Letters

2022-03-01T10:37:50Z

Knarf:

{{comic
| number = 2586
| date = February 25, 2022
| title = Greek Letters
| image = greek_letters.png
| titletext = If you ever see someone using a capital xi in an equation, just observe them quietly to learn as much as you can before they return to their home planet.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by '''''O R B S''''' PRO®- Missing explanations for some letters. The text for each letter should be in the explanation with an attempt at explaining it. This has not been included and many of the letters have no explanation of the given text, only for what they actually are used for. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
Mathematics uses lots of Greek letters, typically using {{w|Greek_letters_used_in_mathematics,_science,_and_engineering|the same letter consistently}} to represent a particular constant or type of variable. This comic gives a (non-)explanation of what they typically mean, see [[#Greek letters|below]].

In the title text the joke about capital Xi from the main comic is continued. In the main comic those using Ξ (capital xi) greets us as Earth mathematicians, indicating they are not from Earth, but have come here to learn what we know of math. In the title text the idea that any one using Ξ must be aliens is made clear. So if you ever meet someone using this letter while doing math, then learn as much as you can by quietly observing them, before they return to their home planet. Either learn from their possible advanced math (that allowed them to construct a way to get from one star system to another), or learn about them as the aliens species they represent.

Previously [[Randall]] made a similar comic, [[2520: Symbols]], about math symbols.

===Greek letters===

* '''π (lowercase pi): This math is either very simple or impossible.''' — Typically used to refer to the constant ratio between a circle’s circumference and its diameter (approximately 3.14). In a common school curriculum, this constant first shows up in introductory geometry classes, which would be considered "simple" by advanced mathematicians. But often, pi can show up seemingly randomly in advanced equations that have nothing to do with a circle at first glance, such as in infinite series. And because pi is transcendental, it can sometimes be difficult to work with pi in those situations. The comic may also be a reference to the impossibility of squaring the circle.
* An alternate explanation is that the comic refers to how the symbol can sometimes be used as a variable where the 'p' sound might make sense, such as in the prime-counting function where it stands for "prime" or the Buckingham π theorem where it stands for "parameter." These uses can be confusing to students who have only ever seen a lowercase pi used for the circle constant. This has pushed college courses to use it less and less frequently for anything other than the circle constant, so that now you are only likely to see π as something else in higher math. (More confusing still is the variant lowercase pi ϖ sometimes used for angular frequency instead of the more common (and very similar-looking) lowercase omega ω.)

* '''Δ (capital delta): Something has changed.''' — Typically prefixes a variable to refer to a macroscopic change in or finite difference of that variable. For instance, Δ'''v''' may be the finite change in velocity '''v''' over some finite time span, while Δ[''f''](''x'') represents the forward difference of ''f'' at ''x'', defined as Δ[''f''](''x'') = ''f''(''x''+1) - ''f''(''x'').

* '''δ (lowercase delta): Something has changed and it's a mathematician's fault.''' — Typically prefixes a variable to refer to a microscopic change in or inexact differential of that variable. The distinction between an "exact differential" using the symbol d and an "inexact differential" using the symbol δ is often obscured in education and is rather technical. The formal definition for a derivative can be easily modified to define exact differentials of state functions but not inexact differentials of process functions where the fundamental theorem of calculus is less useful. Since inexact differentials show up most often in physics (especially thermodynamics), where the finer points of mathematical formalism are rarely important, this distinction between d and δ is practically meaningless for most students and is "a mathematician's fault."
It may also refer to the fact that a derivative is the rate of change at a single instant, and because an instant is infinitely small, the change is completely meaningless. And thus, the mathematician's fault refers to how no one but a mathemetician would care about or use a derivative as, outside of mathematics, the concept of "rate of change at an instant" has no meaning.

* '''θ (lowercase theta): Circles!''' — Typically used to refer to an angle, and is notably used in the polar coordinate system. The text refers to its close relationship with circles, on which the polar coordinate system is based. In European handwriting, the variant form ϑ is commonly used with the same meaning.

* '''φ (lowercase phi): ''ORBS''''' — Typically used to refer to another angle other than one referred to by theta. It's used in spherical coordinates, and the text refers to how spheres, or orbs, are important in spherical coordinates. Lowercase phi has two forms in modern typography which are confused by this website's default font. In the comic, it has a complete circle with a vertical line passing through it, which is what Knuth called "phi." The alternate form, ϕ, is what Knuth called "variant phi" and can be written in a single stroke. Most fonts reverse the way these symbols are rendered. There is no difference in meaning between the symbols.

* '''ϵ (lowercase epsilon): Not important, don't worry about it.''' — Typically used to refer to a very small quantity. ϵ may be an error term in a statistical model (which is usually small if the model is useful), a remainder term in an approximation (same), or an arbitrarily small quantity in analysis. Although a total cumulative change of "ϵ" is negligible, in analysis, ϵ is most often applied in a context of an infinitesimal change occurring with infinite frequency. The study of ratios of quantities that approach zero gives rise to infinitesimal calculus. Also used for a sequence of transfinite numbers that are unreachable from ω by finite application of addition, multiplication, and exponentiation. This Greek lowercase letter has two common modern variants, ϵ and ε. ϵ is called the "lunate epsilon" and may be more common in the U.S. A stylized version (∈) is used as the mathematical symbol for "is an element of." ε is what Knuth called the "variant epsilon" and is never used for the "element of" symbol but otherwise has identical meaning. Because epsilon represents an arbitrarily small quantity, there's no reason for anyone to worry about it from a practical standpoint.

* '''υ,ν (lowercase upsilon and nu): Is that a v or a u? Or...oh no, it's one of ''those''.''' — Common in college level physics and engineering equations. ν commonly represents wavenumber in physics as well as a wide variety of other variables, often with names starting in N (e.g. neutron) or V (e.g. viscosity). Lowercase upsilon is rarely used, probably to avoid confusion. The symbols look remarkably similar to Latin u and v, to the point that they are nearly indistinguishable in some fonts; Randall has complained about this before in [[2351: Standard Model Changes]].

* '''μ (lowercase mu): This math is cool but it's not about anything that you will ever see or touch, so whatever.''' — Used broadly in the abstract mathematical fields of category theory and measure theory. Physicists use Latin letters for the indices of the 3-vectors of classical physics and Greek indices, including μ, for the 4-vectors of special relativity. This leads to μ being ubiquitous in a field which is very far from everyday experience (where speeds approach the speed of light). It is also employed in statistics for the population mean, which is a quantity that the statistician never actually knows and frequently wants to estimate. Equations requiring a μ are thus impossible to apply directly. However, μ is used in physics for the coefficient of friction in the Coulomb model, typically used to approximate resistive forces between dry solids of different material sliding past each other. A very common use of μ in science and engineering is as the symbol of the SI prefix ''micro-'' for a millionth. Unicode has officially added a point for μ as the "micro sign," distinct from its usual codepoint as the lowercase Greek letter mu.

* '''Σ (capital sigma): Thank you for purchasing ''Addition Pro''®!''' — Typically used as a symbol for the sum of a series of numbers. The comic is making fun of summation, pointing out that it's essentially a complicated, "pro" version of simple addition. The capital sigma is often used as the icon for the all-important "sum" button in spreadsheet software. However, the sigma operator is often necessary for explicitly defining infinite sums, avoiding ambiguous notation like an ellipsis (...).

* '''Π (capital pi): ...and the ''Multiplication''® expansion pack!''' — Typically used as a symbol for the product of a sequence of numbers. The joke is the same as for summation. Here, it is advertised as an "expansion pack," a term used for a piece of software that cannot stand alone but adds features to some existing software. Any paid spreadsheet or database program should already have the ability to perform products. The ® symbol indicates that ''Multiplication'' is a registered trademark somewhere, which is unlikely, as the term is not unique. However, common words are registered as trademarks rather often.

* '''ζ (lowercase zeta): This math will only lead to more math.''' — Frequently used for the {{w|Riemann zeta function}} in analytic number theory, a function of complex numbers which is challenging even to define and which is the focus of a famously unsolved problem in highly advanced mathematics. Zeta is used much less often in other contexts, such as the ζ-potential in colloidal chemistry, and even there it is likely to just lead to more math.

* '''β (lowercase beta): There are just too many coefficients.''' — This could be a reference to the typical usage of beta to represent coefficients of independent variables in the {{w|Ordinary_least_squares#Linear_model|ordinary least squares regression model}}. Regression can potentially have a large number of independent variables, hence potentially many different betas (differentiated by subscript, or compacted into matrix notation) would be used, while there is only ever a single zeroth-order coefficient α in these models. Alternatively, the comic might suggest whatever source this equation is from has run out of Latin letters to use as symbols, and is now going through the Greek letters.

* '''α (lowercase alpha): Oh boy, now ''this'' is math about something real. This is math that could ''kill'' someone.''' — As the first Greek letter, α is used for a tremendous variety of purposes in math. For example, it is used to represent the probability of a Type-I error (false positive) occurring in a hypothesis test. It could also possibly refer to the {{w|fine-structure constant}} which shows up in high energy physics, atomic physics, quantum electrodynamics, and at least [[1047|one other xkcd comic]]. Alpha could also refer to {{w|angular acceleration}}, and a rapidly-rotating system is capable of killing people in a number of [[123|interesting ways]]. Another dangerous meaning for α comes from ionising α-radiation: while it can be easily blocked by even a sheet of paper, it has been {{W|Alexander Litvinenko#Poisoning and death|used for assassinations}} through ingestion.

* '''Ω (capital omega): Oooh, ''some'' mathematician thinks their function is cool and important.''' — The last letter of the Greek alphabet and thus often seen as momentous (the end, the final word, death). The capital letter has been used as the symbol for a {{w|Omega_function|variety of mathematical functions}} and for the {{w|first uncountable ordinal}}. It is commonly used in physics and electrical engineering as the symbol for {{w|ohms}}, a unit for electrical resistance. Capital omega has produced a fascination in common culture, perhaps due to God describing himself as "the alpha and the omega" in the Book of Revelation or due to its highly distinctive shape. It is often used to represent something of grave or transcendent significance. So using it to name your function (instead of a conventional symbol like ''f'' or ''g'') may mean you think the function is particularly important.

* '''ω (lowercase omega): A lot of work went into these equations and you are going to die here among them.''' — Used for the {{w|Transfinite_number|least transfinite ordinal number}}, the order type of the natural numbers under '<'. The line about dying here among the transfinite equations may be in reference to the "eternity" of the infinite set it represents. It is also used in physics and electrical engineering for angular frequency, equal to 2π times the frequency, and thus it is ubiquitous in equations dealing with all sorts of wave phenomena. '''ω''' is also used for the angular velocity of a rotating system, defined by '''v''' = '''r'''×'''ω'''.

* '''σ (lowercase sigma): Some poor soul is trying to apply this math to real life and it's not working.''' — In statistics, σ commonly refers to the population standard deviation of a distribution. Many simplified statistical equations substitute the population standard deviation σ for the sample standard deviation s for simplicity, even when this is not justifiable. A common example is using the normal distribution to model the mean of several identically-normally-distributed variables instead of the T distribution. The variant ς is used at the end of Greek words (called the "final sigma") but is rarely used in math or science.

* '''ξ (lowercase xi): Either this is terrifying mathematics or there was a hair on the scanned page.''' — Randall comments that this looks like a strand of curly hair. Xi is used in the {{w|Riemann Xi function}} and sometimes as a variable or function symbol in higher math. It is famously difficult to write in a way that is consistent and clearly distinct from other symbols.

* '''γ (lowercase gamma): ''Zoom'' pew pew pew [space noises] ''zoooom!''''' — Lowercase gamma is used for the Lorentz factor, an important variable in special relativity calculations. Its use implies that you are dealing with speeds approaching the speed of light and therefore with spaceships or other moving objects not confined to Earth. γ-rays are also the highest energy photons, so a space opera might have ships flying near the speed of light firing gamma-ray weapons that go PEW PEW. γ is also used as the symbol for the Euler-Mascheroni constant and occasionally as a variable or function name.

* '''ρ (lowercase rho): Unfortunately, the test vehicle suffered an unexpected wing separation event.''' — Lowercase rho often represents volumetric mass density, such as the density of air that a wing might be travelling through. The density of a fluid is directly proportional to the Reynold's number which dictates the sort of physics used to model motion through the fluid. Flying a plane in conditions with a Reynold's number well outside of what it was designed for could have catastrophic consequences. A variant symbol ϱ with the same meaning is common in European handwriting.

* '''Ξ (capital xi): Greetings! We hope to learn a great deal by exchanging knowledge with your Earth mathematicians.''' — Probably the least used Greek letter in math and physics despite being easy to write and to recognize. According to the comic, anyone using this letter is likely a being from another planet. It does see very occasional use, such as in the Riemann xi function or as the symbol for a class of heavy baryons in particle physics. It resembles, but is not to be confused with a "hamburger button" or a triple equals sign ≡. Randall thinks it most closely resembles alien writing.

* '''ψ (lowercase psi): You have entered the domain of King Triton, ruler of the waves.''' — Both capital and lowercase psi are shaped like tridents. In quantum mechanics, either psi is used to represent the wave function of a particle, leading to a pun. (Psi is also used in mathematics to represent the sum of the inverse of the Fibonacci numbers, the division polynomials, and the supergolden ratio, and other purposes.)

==Transcript==
:[A list with 21 explanations of different Greek letters. To the left the letter (on in one case two letters) are shown, and then the explanation is written to the right in one or two lines (and in one case on three lines). Above these explanations there is a header in a slightly larger font:]
:<big>What Greek letters mean in equations</big>
:π This math is either very simple or impossible.
:Δ Something has changed.
:δ Something has changed and it's a mathematician's fault.
:θ Circles!
:Φ '''''ORBS'''''
:ϵ Not important, don't worry about it.
:υ,ν Is that a v or a u? Or...oh no, it's one of ''those''.
:μ This math is cool but it's not about anything that you will ever see or touch, so whatever.
:Σ Thank you for purchasing ''Addition Pro''®!
:Π ...and the ''Multiplication''® expansion pack!
:ζ This math will only lead to more math.
:β There are just too many coefficients.
:α Oh boy, now ''this'' is math about something real. This is math that could ''kill'' someone.
:Ω Oooh, ''some'' mathematician thinks their function is cool and important.
:ω A lot of work went into these equations and you are going to die here among them.
:σ Some poor soul is trying to apply this math to real life and it's not working.
:ξ Either this is terrifying mathematics or there was a hair on the scanned page.
:γ ''Zoom'' pew pew pew [space noises] ''zoooom!''
:ρ Unfortunately, the test vehicle suffered an unexpected wing separation event.
:Ξ Greetings! We hope to learn a great deal by exchanging knowledge with your Earth mathematicians.
:ψ You have entered the domain of King Triton, ruler of the waves.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Math]]
[[Category:Aliens]]

2586: Greek Letters

2022-03-01T10:35:50Z

Knarf:

{{comic
| number = 2586
| date = February 25, 2022
| title = Greek Letters
| image = greek_letters.png
| titletext = If you ever see someone using a capital xi in an equation, just observe them quietly to learn as much as you can before they return to their home planet.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by '''''O R B S''''' PRO®- Missing explanations for some letters. The text for each letter should be in the explanation with an attempt at explaining it. This has not been included and many of the letters have no explanation of the given text, only for what they actually are used for. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
Mathematics uses lots of Greek letters, typically using {{w|Greek_letters_used_in_mathematics,_science,_and_engineering|the same letter consistently}} to represent a particular constant or type of variable. This comic gives a (non-)explanation of what they typically mean, see [[#Greek letters|below]].

In the title text the joke about capital Xi from the main comic is continued. In the main comic those using Ξ (capital xi) greets us as Earth mathematicians, indicating they are not from Earth, but have come here to learn what we know of math. In the title text the idea that any one using Ξ must be aliens is made clear. So if you ever meet someone using this letter while doing math, then learn as much as you can by quietly observing them, before they return to their home planet. Either learn from their possible advanced math (that allowed them to construct a way to get from one star system to another), or learn about them as the aliens species they represent.

Previously [[Randall]] made a similar comic, [[2520: Symbols]], about math symbols.

===Greek letters===

* '''π (lowercase pi): This math is either very simple or impossible.''' — Typically used to refer to the constant ratio between a circle’s circumference and its diameter (approximately 3.14). In a common school curriculum, this constant first shows up in introductory geometry classes, which would be considered "simple" by advanced mathematicians. But often, pi can show up seemingly randomly in advanced equations that have nothing to do with a circle at first glance, such as in infinite series. And because pi is transcendental, it can sometimes be difficult to work with pi in those situations. The comic may also be a reference to the impossibility of squaring the circle.
* An alternate explanation is that the comic refers to how the symbol can sometimes be used as a variable where the 'p' sound might make sense, such as in the prime-counting function where it stands for "prime" or the Buckingham π theorem where it stands for "parameter." These uses can be confusing to students who have only ever seen a lowercase pi used for the circle constant. This has pushed college courses to use it less and less frequently for anything other than the circle constant, so that now you are only likely to see π as something else in higher math. (More confusing still is the variant lowercase pi ϖ sometimes used for angular frequency instead of the more common (and very similar-looking) lowercase omega ω.)

* '''Δ (capital delta): Something has changed.''' — Typically prefixes a variable to refer to a macroscopic change in or finite difference of that variable. For instance, Δ'''v''' may be the finite change in velocity '''v''' over some finite time span, while Δ[''f''](''x'') represents the forward difference of ''f'' at ''x'', defined as Δ[''f''](''x'') = ''f''(''x''+1) - ''f''(''x'').

* '''δ (lowercase delta): Something has changed and it's a mathematician's fault.''' — Typically prefixes a variable to refer to a microscopic change in or inexact differential of that variable. The distinction between an "exact differential" using the symbol d and an "inexact differential" using the symbol δ is often obscured in education and is rather technical. The formal definition for a derivative can be easily modified to define exact differentials of state functions but not inexact differentials of process functions where the fundamental theorem of calculus is less useful. Since inexact differentials show up most often in physics (especially thermodynamics), where the finer points of mathematical formalism are rarely important, this distinction between d and δ is practically meaningless for most students and is "a mathematician's fault."
*It may also refer to the fact that a derivative is the rate of change at a single instant, and because an instant is infinitely small, the change is completely meaningless. And thus, the mathematician's fault refers to how no one but a mathemetician would care about or use a derivative as, outside of mathematics, the concept of "rate of change at an instant" has no meaning.

* '''θ (lowercase theta): Circles!''' — Typically used to refer to an angle, and is notably used in the polar coordinate system. The text refers to its close relationship with circles, on which the polar coordinate system is based. In European handwriting, the variant form ϑ is commonly used with the same meaning.

* '''φ (lowercase phi): ''ORBS''''' — Typically used to refer to another angle other than one referred to by theta. It's used in spherical coordinates, and the text refers to how spheres, or orbs, are important in spherical coordinates. Lowercase phi has two forms in modern typography which are confused by this website's default font. In the comic, it has a complete circle with a vertical line passing through it, which is what Knuth called "phi." The alternate form, ϕ, is what Knuth called "variant phi" and can be written in a single stroke. Most fonts reverse the way these symbols are rendered. There is no difference in meaning between the symbols.

* '''ϵ (lowercase epsilon): Not important, don't worry about it.''' — Typically used to refer to a very small quantity. ϵ may be an error term in a statistical model (which is usually small if the model is useful), a remainder term in an approximation (same), or an arbitrarily small quantity in analysis. Although a total cumulative change of "ϵ" is negligible, in analysis, ϵ is most often applied in a context of an infinitesimal change occurring with infinite frequency. The study of ratios of quantities that approach zero gives rise to infinitesimal calculus. Also used for a sequence of transfinite numbers that are unreachable from ω by finite application of addition, multiplication, and exponentiation. This Greek lowercase letter has two common modern variants, ϵ and ε. ϵ is called the "lunate epsilon" and may be more common in the U.S. A stylized version (∈) is used as the mathematical symbol for "is an element of." ε is what Knuth called the "variant epsilon" and is never used for the "element of" symbol but otherwise has identical meaning. Because epsilon represents an arbitrarily small quantity, there's no reason for anyone to worry about it from a practical standpoint.

* '''υ,ν (lowercase upsilon and nu): Is that a v or a u? Or...oh no, it's one of ''those''.''' — Common in college level physics and engineering equations. ν commonly represents wavenumber in physics as well as a wide variety of other variables, often with names starting in N (e.g. neutron) or V (e.g. viscosity). Lowercase upsilon is rarely used, probably to avoid confusion. The symbols look remarkably similar to Latin u and v, to the point that they are nearly indistinguishable in some fonts; Randall has complained about this before in [[2351: Standard Model Changes]].

* '''μ (lowercase mu): This math is cool but it's not about anything that you will ever see or touch, so whatever.''' — Used broadly in the abstract mathematical fields of category theory and measure theory. Physicists use Latin letters for the indices of the 3-vectors of classical physics and Greek indices, including μ, for the 4-vectors of special relativity. This leads to μ being ubiquitous in a field which is very far from everyday experience (where speeds approach the speed of light). It is also employed in statistics for the population mean, which is a quantity that the statistician never actually knows and frequently wants to estimate. Equations requiring a μ are thus impossible to apply directly. However, μ is used in physics for the coefficient of friction in the Coulomb model, typically used to approximate resistive forces between dry solids of different material sliding past each other. A very common use of μ in science and engineering is as the symbol of the SI prefix ''micro-'' for a millionth. Unicode has officially added a point for μ as the "micro sign," distinct from its usual codepoint as the lowercase Greek letter mu.

* '''Σ (capital sigma): Thank you for purchasing ''Addition Pro''®!''' — Typically used as a symbol for the sum of a series of numbers. The comic is making fun of summation, pointing out that it's essentially a complicated, "pro" version of simple addition. The capital sigma is often used as the icon for the all-important "sum" button in spreadsheet software. However, the sigma operator is often necessary for explicitly defining infinite sums, avoiding ambiguous notation like an ellipsis (...).

* '''Π (capital pi): ...and the ''Multiplication''® expansion pack!''' — Typically used as a symbol for the product of a sequence of numbers. The joke is the same as for summation. Here, it is advertised as an "expansion pack," a term used for a piece of software that cannot stand alone but adds features to some existing software. Any paid spreadsheet or database program should already have the ability to perform products. The ® symbol indicates that ''Multiplication'' is a registered trademark somewhere, which is unlikely, as the term is not unique. However, common words are registered as trademarks rather often.

* '''ζ (lowercase zeta): This math will only lead to more math.''' — Frequently used for the {{w|Riemann zeta function}} in analytic number theory, a function of complex numbers which is challenging even to define and which is the focus of a famously unsolved problem in highly advanced mathematics. Zeta is used much less often in other contexts, such as the ζ-potential in colloidal chemistry, and even there it is likely to just lead to more math.

* '''β (lowercase beta): There are just too many coefficients.''' — This could be a reference to the typical usage of beta to represent coefficients of independent variables in the {{w|Ordinary_least_squares#Linear_model|ordinary least squares regression model}}. Regression can potentially have a large number of independent variables, hence potentially many different betas (differentiated by subscript, or compacted into matrix notation) would be used, while there is only ever a single zeroth-order coefficient α in these models. Alternatively, the comic might suggest whatever source this equation is from has run out of Latin letters to use as symbols, and is now going through the Greek letters.

* '''α (lowercase alpha): Oh boy, now ''this'' is math about something real. This is math that could ''kill'' someone.''' — As the first Greek letter, α is used for a tremendous variety of purposes in math. For example, it is used to represent the probability of a Type-I error (false positive) occurring in a hypothesis test. It could also possibly refer to the {{w|fine-structure constant}} which shows up in high energy physics, atomic physics, quantum electrodynamics, and at least [[1047|one other xkcd comic]]. Alpha could also refer to {{w|angular acceleration}}, and a rapidly-rotating system is capable of killing people in a number of [[123|interesting ways]]. Another dangerous meaning for α comes from ionising α-radiation: while it can be easily blocked by even a sheet of paper, it has been {{W|Alexander Litvinenko#Poisoning and death|used for assassinations}} through ingestion.

* '''Ω (capital omega): Oooh, ''some'' mathematician thinks their function is cool and important.''' — The last letter of the Greek alphabet and thus often seen as momentous (the end, the final word, death). The capital letter has been used as the symbol for a {{w|Omega_function|variety of mathematical functions}} and for the {{w|first uncountable ordinal}}. It is commonly used in physics and electrical engineering as the symbol for {{w|ohms}}, a unit for electrical resistance. Capital omega has produced a fascination in common culture, perhaps due to God describing himself as "the alpha and the omega" in the Book of Revelation or due to its highly distinctive shape. It is often used to represent something of grave or transcendent significance. So using it to name your function (instead of a conventional symbol like ''f'' or ''g'') may mean you think the function is particularly important.

* '''ω (lowercase omega): A lot of work went into these equations and you are going to die here among them.''' — Used for the {{w|Transfinite_number|least transfinite ordinal number}}, the order type of the natural numbers under '<'. The line about dying here among the transfinite equations may be in reference to the "eternity" of the infinite set it represents. It is also used in physics and electrical engineering for angular frequency, equal to 2π times the frequency, and thus it is ubiquitous in equations dealing with all sorts of wave phenomena. '''ω''' is also used for the angular velocity of a rotating system, defined by '''v''' = '''r'''×'''ω'''.

* '''σ (lowercase sigma): Some poor soul is trying to apply this math to real life and it's not working.''' — In statistics, σ commonly refers to the population standard deviation of a distribution. Many simplified statistical equations substitute the population standard deviation σ for the sample standard deviation s for simplicity, even when this is not justifiable. A common example is using the normal distribution to model the mean of several identically-normally-distributed variables instead of the T distribution. The variant ς is used at the end of Greek words (called the "final sigma") but is rarely used in math or science.

* '''ξ (lowercase xi): Either this is terrifying mathematics or there was a hair on the scanned page.''' — Randall comments that this looks like a strand of curly hair. Xi is used in the {{w|Riemann Xi function}} and sometimes as a variable or function symbol in higher math. It is famously difficult to write in a way that is consistent and clearly distinct from other symbols.

* '''γ (lowercase gamma): ''Zoom'' pew pew pew [space noises] ''zoooom!''''' — Lowercase gamma is used for the Lorentz factor, an important variable in special relativity calculations. Its use implies that you are dealing with speeds approaching the speed of light and therefore with spaceships or other moving objects not confined to Earth. γ-rays are also the highest energy photons, so a space opera might have ships flying near the speed of light firing gamma-ray weapons that go PEW PEW. γ is also used as the symbol for the Euler-Mascheroni constant and occasionally as a variable or function name.

* '''ρ (lowercase rho): Unfortunately, the test vehicle suffered an unexpected wing separation event.''' — Lowercase rho often represents volumetric mass density, such as the density of air that a wing might be travelling through. The density of a fluid is directly proportional to the Reynold's number which dictates the sort of physics used to model motion through the fluid. Flying a plane in conditions with a Reynold's number well outside of what it was designed for could have catastrophic consequences. A variant symbol ϱ with the same meaning is common in European handwriting.

* '''Ξ (capital xi): Greetings! We hope to learn a great deal by exchanging knowledge with your Earth mathematicians.''' — Probably the least used Greek letter in math and physics despite being easy to write and to recognize. According to the comic, anyone using this letter is likely a being from another planet. It does see very occasional use, such as in the Riemann xi function or as the symbol for a class of heavy baryons in particle physics. It resembles, but is not to be confused with a "hamburger button" or a triple equals sign ≡. Randall thinks it most closely resembles alien writing.

* '''ψ (lowercase psi): You have entered the domain of King Triton, ruler of the waves.''' — Both capital and lowercase psi are shaped like tridents. In quantum mechanics, either psi is used to represent the wave function of a particle, leading to a pun. (Psi is also used in mathematics to represent the sum of the inverse of the Fibonacci numbers, the division polynomials, and the supergolden ratio, and other purposes.)

==Transcript==
:[A list with 21 explanations of different Greek letters. To the left the letter (on in one case two letters) are shown, and then the explanation is written to the right in one or two lines (and in one case on three lines). Above these explanations there is a header in a slightly larger font:]
:<big>What Greek letters mean in equations</big>
:π This math is either very simple or impossible.
:Δ Something has changed.
:δ Something has changed and it's a mathematician's fault.
:θ Circles!
:Φ '''''ORBS'''''
:ϵ Not important, don't worry about it.
:υ,ν Is that a v or a u? Or...oh no, it's one of ''those''.
:μ This math is cool but it's not about anything that you will ever see or touch, so whatever.
:Σ Thank you for purchasing ''Addition Pro''®!
:Π ...and the ''Multiplication''® expansion pack!
:ζ This math will only lead to more math.
:β There are just too many coefficients.
:α Oh boy, now ''this'' is math about something real. This is math that could ''kill'' someone.
:Ω Oooh, ''some'' mathematician thinks their function is cool and important.
:ω A lot of work went into these equations and you are going to die here among them.
:σ Some poor soul is trying to apply this math to real life and it's not working.
:ξ Either this is terrifying mathematics or there was a hair on the scanned page.
:γ ''Zoom'' pew pew pew [space noises] ''zoooom!''
:ρ Unfortunately, the test vehicle suffered an unexpected wing separation event.
:Ξ Greetings! We hope to learn a great deal by exchanging knowledge with your Earth mathematicians.
:ψ You have entered the domain of King Triton, ruler of the waves.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Math]]
[[Category:Aliens]]

2586: Greek Letters

2022-02-26T22:13:57Z

Knarf:

2586: Greek Letters

2022-02-26T22:03:56Z

Knarf:

2512: Revelation

2021-09-07T05:15:36Z

Knarf: Mention that "Revelation 6:12" is from the bible in the text, so users don't need to click (or look at) the link to know that.

{{comic
| number = 2512
| date = September 6, 2021
| title = Revelation
| image = revelation.png
| titletext = And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together, but then more heaven kept appearing to replace it, as if the scroll was infinite.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by an INFINITE SCROLLING HEAVEN. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
A user with a profile picture of {{w|John of Patmos}} posts the bible text from [https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation%206%3A12&version=KJV Revelation 6:12] on a social media website. A news channel mistakes this for an actual natural disaster and asks for permission to use the account in a broadcast. The joke is that often "breaking news" organizations care very little about the story in itself, its victims, or its survivors. They care only about the views and ad revenue that they think the story will generate, as evidenced by the offhand manner in which Channel 9 news expresses concern for John's family's safety.

The title text modifies verse 14 from "And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places." to instead reference infinite scrolling.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[A twitter-like page is displayed with a post and a comment nested beneath it. The top poster's profile image is a stick figure standing on an island. The bottom poster's profile image is a person's face with the logo "9 News" at the bottom right.]
:John: And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood.
:Channel 9 News: Hi John, incredible story, hope you and your family are safe. Can Channel 9 News share your account in broadcast and print?
{{comic discussion}}

2390: Linguists

2020-11-26T08:54:09Z

Knarf:

{{comic
| number = 2390
| date = November 25, 2020
| title = Linguists
| image = linguists.png
| titletext = "Do you feel like the answer depends on whether you're currently in the hole, versus when you refer to the events later after you get out? Assuming you get out."
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by A LINGUIST IN A HOLE. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

Ponytail hears the cries of an unidentified person who has become trapped in a hole. She rushes over and asks whether the trapped person's chosen phrasing for their predicament - "fell down a hole" - is equivalent to "fell in a hole."

For the case "fell down a hole", most people would likely understand "fell" (action) "down" (direction) "a hole" (place), while it could also be understood as "fell" (action) "down a hole" (place). Since "down a hole" is about the same as "in a hole" (barring being completely inside or not), Ponytail would like to know of "fell down a hole" is meant as "fell in a hole" or not. This phrase, on the other hand, has the same problem of being ambiguous, but with the additional problem that it is not clear what the majority of people would understand [citation needed]. "Fell down into a hole" would likely solve the problem, but isn't mentioned in the comic.

In the caption, Randall comments that linguists' desire to extract exact meaning from phrases is, in fact, done with the best of intentions. He also claims that this is worse than if they were pedants browbeating their audience, possibly because a pedant could prioritize the elements a situation better than Ponytail is doing here.

The title text introduces the additional dimension of tense.

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

:[Ponytail is walking to the left. A voice calls out from behind her (at the right of the panel):]
:Off-panel voice: Help!
:Off-panel voice: I fell down a hole!

:[Ponytail runs to the right, toward the hole.]

:[Ponytail, kneeling down next to the hole, calls out:]
:Ponytail: Hey!
:Ponytail: Is "fell down a hole" exactly equivalent to "fell in a hole," in your usage? Or do they have slightly different implications?

:[Caption below the panel]
:There's a myth that linguists are pedants who love correcting people, but they're actually just enthusiastic about understanding language in all its infinite varieties, which is much worse.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Language]]

2390: Linguists

2020-11-26T08:51:25Z

Knarf:

{{comic
| number = 2390
| date = November 25, 2020
| title = Linguists
| image = linguists.png
| titletext = "Do you feel like the answer depends on whether you're currently in the hole, versus when you refer to the events later after you get out? Assuming you get out."
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by A LINGUIST IN A HOLE. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

Ponytail hears the cries of an unidentified person who has become trapped in a hole. She rushes over and asks whether the trapped person's chosen phrasing for their predicament - "fell down a hole" - is equivalent to "fell in a hole."

For the case "fell down a hole", most people would likely understand "fell down" (action) "a hole" (place), while it could also be understood as "fell" (action) "down a hole" (place). Since "down a hole" is about the same as "in a hole" (barring being completely inside or not), Ponytail would like to know of "fell down a hole" is meant as "fell in a hole" or not. This phrase, on the other hand, has the same problem of being ambiguous, but with the additional problem that it is not clear what the majority of people would understand [citation needed].

In the caption, Randall comments that linguists' desire to extract exact meaning from phrases is, in fact, done with the best of intentions. He also claims that this is worse than if they were pedants browbeating their audience, possibly because a pedant could prioritize the elements a situation better than Ponytail is doing here.

The title text introduces the additional dimension of tense.

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

:[Ponytail is walking to the left. A voice calls out from behind her (at the right of the panel):]
:Off-panel voice: Help!
:Off-panel voice: I fell down a hole!

:[Ponytail runs to the right, toward the hole.]

:[Ponytail, kneeling down next to the hole, calls out:]
:Ponytail: Hey!
:Ponytail: Is "fell down a hole" exactly equivalent to "fell in a hole," in your usage? Or do they have slightly different implications?

:[Caption below the panel]
:There's a myth that linguists are pedants who love correcting people, but they're actually just enthusiastic about understanding language in all its infinite varieties, which is much worse.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Language]]

Talk:2390: Linguists

2020-11-26T08:43:11Z

Knarf:

"Fell in a hole" sounds wrong, from a (possibly) Rightpondian perspective. If it was "...into...", then that'd be better. (Falling down a hole would probably imply total inholation, while into one might mean no more than a foot getting snagged. Though the former also separately implies starting from partial or imminent holedness, the latter indicates the hole was not previously a problem but then became a novel issue to deal with. Falling 'in' a hole could mean "I was already at the bottom of a hole, minding my own business, and then I tripped on something/lost my balance and fell over..." ''Edit: as it might also be for "Fell down a hole", thinking more about it. A comma after "Fell" would make that more definite.'') I also have problems with "Lit on fire", for something that is set fire to, but I know that's definitely a transatlantic issue. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.155.216|162.158.155.216]] 02:01, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

I suppose "in a hole" is probably ''technically'' wrong (except for those cases where the individual in question was in a hole and then fell), but I would probably use it in speech (though maybe not more formal writing). There ''is'' a distinction between 'in' and 'down' however. When something falls down a hole, no part of it remains outside the hole. If it falls in(/to) a hole, at least some -- possibly most -- of the object remains outside the hole. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.191|108.162.216.191]] 02:26, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

Did anyone else notice that this comic seems to have significantly higher resolution than others? It’s especially noticeable on mobile browsers, but I haven’t tested it on PC. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.154|108.162.219.154]] 02:36, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

I fell down a hole, and while in the hole I fell.[[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.42|108.162.216.42]] 03:17, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

I guess you could fall "in" a hole without falling "down" a hole if you like...tripped into a sideways hole, like a doorway...
[[Special:Contributions/162.158.75.138|162.158.75.138]] 07:50, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

I'd say if you mean the act of falling into the hole, you can indicate that with either 'into' or 'down' (or even both) and you could argue when to use which, but if you mean the place where you have fallen, you would use 'in'. Informally, I have heard people use 'in' as short of 'into'. On the other hand, the place where you have fallen could be "down a hole" (I have been down that hole). It now depends whether the "down" is connected to "I fell" or to "the hole". In theory, you could say "I fell down a hole down the hole" to indicate you fell down a second hole while being inside the first one.

2304: Preprint

2020-05-11T15:29:39Z

Knarf: Don't use PDF as in "PDF format", which would mean "portable document format format".

{{comic
| number = 2304
| date = May 8, 2020
| title = Preprint
| image = preprint.png
| titletext = DOWNSIDES: Adobe people may periodically email your newsroom to ask you to call it an 'Adobe® PDF document,' but they'll reverse course once they learn how sarcastically you can pronounce the registered trademark symbol.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by an ADOBE® PDF DOCUMENT. Explain the different terminology used by the newscaster, expand upon benefit points. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This comic is about how media reports non-{{w|peer-review}}ed research papers. The newscaster depicted is attempting to report breaking news based on information in a study; however, the study in question has not been formally published. This leads to uncertainty on the part of either the newscaster, [[Blondie]], or her scriptwriters as they try to determine how to refer to this study, represented here by alternative introduction lines being scribbled out.

[[Randall]] suggests that, instead of explaining that the paper was in {{w|preprint}}, or unpublished or submitted to a preprint server and not peer-reviewed, the newscaster could simply say it was a {{w|PDF}}. PDF (Portable Document Format) is a file format for documents developed by Adobe to be used independent of application software, hardware and operating systems.
Randall proceeds to lists several benefits of using "PDF":
* The use of terms such as "preprint" makes statement about its publication status, which might be based on inaccurate information or even be in the process of changing as the news goes out; in contrast, proclaiming it to be a PDF document is an unambiguously factual statement. Additionally, "preprint" and "peer review" and related terminology are not familiar to most people, who are not academics.
* Referring to the PDF document directly also prevents individuals from making assumptions that the one responsible knows and has verified what they're doing - or, in contrast, that the information is automatically false based on the grounds that it hasn't yet been officially published.
* The comic finishes with a jab at PDF itself, proclaiming that no ordinary person would ''voluntarily'' choose a PDF file as their medium of communication. Ordinary people use the default file format of whatever word processor or text editor they use, but PDF files are not very convenient to edit, so they're generally only used for final versions of documents that are ready to print or distribute, following a dedicated export or conversion process.
** This is similar to Randall's declaration in the comic [[1301: File Extensions]] that ".pdf" is the second-most-trustworthy file extension. As it happens, the ''most'' trustworthy file extension is ".tex", so perhaps the news anchor could specify that the PDF was "compiled from {{w|LaTeX}}" (if this is true) to imply additional legitimacy.

The title text makes fun of what is incorrectly believed to be the official name of PDF; it is now an open international standard (ISO 32000-1), and the only PDF files that are "Adobe Acrobat files" or "Adobe PDF" files are those created using Adobe Systems' software. Further, Adobe does not use the ® designation in conjunction with PDF. (See [https://www.adobe.com/content/dam/cc/en/legal/documents/Adobe_Trademark_Guidelines_11012014.pdf Adobe Trademark Guidelines, 1 Nov. 2014])

Since so many applications can create and even edit PDF files, implying a connection with Adobe every time someone talks about one is preposterous, and one could sarcastically pronounce the registered trademark symbol to show contempt for the fact that it is a registered trademark.

==Transcript==
:[Blondie as a newscaster is sitting at a desk. To the right is a screen with text, the bottom word is a thin line making the letters white. Just above her head is what she says as her opening line for her news story. But above this text, is more text which have been grayed out and scribbled over. This are three other alternative opening lines which she did not use, indicating revisions to her script.]
:Blondie [gray and scribbled out]: According to a new preprint…
:Blondie [gray and scribbled out]: …An unpublished study…
:Blondie [gray and scribbled out]: According to a new paper uploaded to a preprint server but which has not undergone peer review…
:Blondie: According to a new PDF…

:Inset graphic: Breaking ''news''

:[Beneath the panel is a long caption consisting of an underlined headline with three bulleted points beneath it:]
::Benefits of just saying "a PDF":
:* Avoids implications about publication status
:* Immediately raises questions about author(s)
:* Still implies "this document was probably prepared by a professional, because no normal human trying to communicate in 2020 would choose this ridiculous format."

==Trivia==
*This comic made Blondie the character that has most often presented a [[:Category:News anchor|news anchor]], as this became her ninth appearance in this role.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Blondie]]
[[Category:News anchor]]
[[Category:Research Papers]]

2242: Ground vs Air

2019-12-18T07:05:40Z

Knarf: Expand on the atmosphere definition, mostly copied from #1375

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

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a THICK FIRE. More on the general thickness of the "ground", especially on the oceans and at the thickest parts. Needs more about the actual data portrayed.}}
This comic depicts a map of the world using the {{w|Winkel tripel projection}}, comparing the thickness of the ground, which refers to the {{w|lithosphere}}, to the "thickness" (or height) of the air above it, which refers to the {{w|atmosphere}}.

In an inserted figure, Randall defines the thickness using three boundaries. At the top is {{w|space}}, defined by the {{w|Kármán line}} at an altitude of 100 km (≈ 62 mi). Below that is the atmosphere which goes down to the ground, where [[Cueball]] is standing, including the ocean down to the seafloor as indicated on the left side. Beneath the surface is the lithosphere, comprised of the Earth's crust along with the rigid upper part of the mantle, and beneath this is the {{w|asthenosphere}}, the partially melted, highly viscous region of the {{w|upper mantle}} just below the lithosphere. The lithosphere is variable in thickness, averaging about 100 km, but the oceanic lithosphere is much thinner than the continental lithosphere (oceanic crust is thinner and denser than continental crust). The two measurements are between space and the surface, and the surface to the asthenosphere.

The map shades in the parts where the thickness of the ground is thicker than the thickness of the air. This almost only occurs over continents, and certainly only where the continental plates are located (which can stretch into the shallow parts of the oceans). But there are several sections, such as in the Caribbean, northernmost Canada, and the Sea of Japan, where the ground is thicker even being below sea level.

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

[[Randall]] always uses the Kármán line as the boundary between Earth's atmosphere and space. He has previously mocked the alternative definition of the atmosphere boundary (at 80 km ≈ 50 mi) used by US Air Force and NASA in the title text [[1375: Astronaut Vandalism]]. That definition would, of course, have resulted in a significantly different picture where the ''air'' is thicker than the ''ground'' only inside small areas around mid-ocean ridges. Although most authorities use the FAI definition of the Kármán line since it is the international organization of record for aeronautics, there are good scientific reasons for the U.S. Air Force definition. The Kármán line is named for {{W|Theodore von Kármán}}, who originally calculated the height at which a vehicle would have to travel faster than orbital velocity to generate lift from wings (therefore making the vehicle a spacecraft in orbit rather an "air"craft using aerodynamics for flight). Von Kármán originally calculated this height as 51.9 miles (83.6 km) - closer to the Air Force definition. Additionally, the boundary between the {{W|Mesosphere}} and the {{W|Thermosphere}} is traditionally taken to be 52.7 miles (85 km), also close to the Air Force definition. On the other hand, some newer research suggests the mesopause (the line between the mesosphere and thermosphere) may have peaks between 53 and 62 miles (85-100 km). Also the turbopause - the line where gas molecules cease mixing atmospherically and begin stratifying by molecular weight as if they are in orbit - is generally taken to be about 100 kilometers (62 miles), and as such, closer to the FAI definition. Regardless of which definition is used, the reality is that the transition from atmosphere to space takes place gradually over tens of kilometers.

The title text refers to the ancient four {{w|classical element}}s: earth, water, air, fire. The lithosphere, or ground, is earth, the oceans is water, the atmosphere is air, and fire would thus be the hot, plastic rock of the Earth's mantle. (Randall is likely referring to how the mantle is frequently represented in drawings as fiery red molten rock, even though the mantle is solid--none of it is magma or otherwise "on fire" except in small volumes at locations very close to the crust.) See [[913: Core]]. The water layer on Earth is never more than 11 km deep, even at the deepest part of the ocean in the {{w|Mariana Trench}}, and thus cannot compare to the thickness of the atmosphere or the lithosphere. An expansive definition of "fire" to include the rest of the Earth below the lithosphere puts the fire layer at 6000 km thick, much thicker than the other layers.

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

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

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

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

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

{{comic discussion}}


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

2100: Models of the Atom

2019-01-18T07:24:21Z

Knarf:

{{comic
| number = 2100
| date = January 18, 2019
| title = Models of the Atom
| image = models_of_the_atom.png
| titletext = J.J. Thompson won a Nobel Prize for his work in electricity in gases, but was unfairly passed over for his "An atom is plum pudding, and plum pudding is MADE of atoms! Duuuuude." theory.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a CONFUSED ATOM. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This comic humorously describes the changing view of how atoms work.

The first model shown, in 1810, is said to be a "small hard ball model." Around this time, {{w|John Dalton}} came up with the most famous maxim of chemistry: "All stuff is made of atoms." Dalton used the idea to explain what is today known as stoichiometry. Thus humans thought up the idea of atoms-- but in lieu of any ideas of how they work, the scientific community likely thought of them as "hard round balls"; thus the name described here.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the study of these "atom" things faced a crisis: where would the newly discovered "electrons" go? In 1904, physicist {{w|J. J. Thomson}}, who discovered electrons, had an idea: maybe the electrons were small point charges moving around in a big mass of positive charge. This was the "plum pudding model," the second model on the comic, called this because people imagined the positively charged mass as a "plum pudding." (The title text references Thomson as well, along with the humorous observation that plum puddings themselves are made of atoms.)

This was one of many competing ideas in the formative years of what-are-atoms-made-of-ology, where Randall claims a 1907 "tiny bird model" (the third model shown) would fit in well. But ultimately, the tentative winner in the battle was the model of Thomson's student {{w|Ernest Rutherford}}, who discovered that the positive charge seemed to be in the center of the atom, and put down his Rutherford model, or "planetary model," in 1911, where electrons orbit a positive charge. This is the fourth model put down.

But there were a few problems; {{w|Maxwell's equations}} complained, for instance, saying that the electrons would quickly orbit into the nucleus, emitting light in the process. Niels Bohr patched the model up with the newfangled idea of quantum mechanics, creating his "Bohr model," the fifth model shown here, in 1913.

If this sounds like today's model, you didn't pay enough attention; note that at this time, nobody thought of splitting up the nucleus into protons and neutrons. But pretty soon people noticed that protons and neutrons existed; Randall facetiously suggests a "nunchuck model," the sixth model shown, of a packet of protons swinging a packet of electrons around. But more seriously, {{w|James Chadwick}}, who discovered the neutron, figured that the atom had a nucleus of neutrons and protons, along with a bunch of electrons orbiting around it in a Bohrish manner. This is what the layman today often thinks of as an atom, and is the the seventh model shown here.

(The eighth model shown is a "538 model" in 2008. 538 is a statistical analysis website that gained fame in 2008 for predicting every race but 2 correctly in the presidential election. It has since been known for making mathematical models for everything; the model jokingly suggests that 538 has modeled and presumably made predictions about the atom.) The pie chart shows the composition of neutrons, protons and electrons, 38%, 31%, and 31% respectively. This could represent gallium-69, the most abundant isotope of gallium, with 31 protons, 31 electrons and 38 neutrons.

But is the Chadwick model what scientists endorse today? No! Today physicists subscribe to a quantum model, which is the ninth model shown here. Instead of electrons, there are quantum clouds, or more simply, the parts of the atom aren't in any particular point, but rather a probability field of possible locations. This is very abstract, and in the last model, the model is postulated to get so abstract that it is just a "small hard ball surrounded by math" model, the last model shown. This then is remarkably similar to the model we started out from, the "small hard ball model" (without the math).

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

{{comic discussion}}

Talk:1957: 2018 CVE List

2018-02-19T11:33:48Z

Knarf:

[[First]] post!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Anyway, the explanation looks like a train wreck, and I'm not sure if a rearranging it into a table or just adding bullet points to everything is better. I'm guessing that a table would be better, but I don't know how I can rearrange it. Can somebody help? [[User:Herobrine|Herobrine]] ([[User talk:Herobrine|talk]]) 06:35, 19 February 2018 (UTC)
: Added a table layout to the [[explain_xkcd:Sandbox|sandbox]]. Might be of some use to another editor. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.45|162.158.74.45]] 07:32, 19 February 2018 (UTC)
:: Thanks, I think a table is a good way to go. I'm adding it to the article as a place to start. Rather than format the original explanation into the table, I'm leaving the cells blank. The original poorly formatted text can be a starting point, but isn't directly adaptable. --[[User:Quantum7|Quantum7]] ([[User talk:Quantum7|talk]]) 09:55, 19 February 2018 (UTC)
Never ever have I heard anyone pronounce SQL as "sequel" - Is that a reqional dialect? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.93.15|162.158.93.15]] 07:41, 19 February 2018 (UTC)
: I heard it's common among MS-SQL users.--[[Special:Contributions/162.158.91.137|162.158.91.137]] 08:02, 19 February 2018 (UTC)
:: Oh BTW, look at our IPs. Are you an easybell customer? :-) --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.91.137|162.158.91.137]] 08:09, 19 February 2018 (UTC)
: Some people pronounce it that way, yes. Don't know if it is "common among MS-SQL users", though. The only person I encountered saying "sequel" never used MS-SQL. [[User:LordHorst|LordHorst]] ([[User talk:LordHorst|talk]]) 09:54, 19 February 2018 (UTC)

I want to take a moment to congratulate the dedication of whomever wrote the original explanation. Second languages are hard, bro. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.215.10|108.162.215.10]] 07:48, 19 February 2018 (UTC)

Has someone tried contacting Randall about "extploit"? If not, what would be the best way? [[User:Fabian42|Fabian42]] ([[User talk:Fabian42|talk]]) 08:22, 19 February 2018 (UTC)
:Hack his computer to display a message demanding he fix it if he wants his hard drive decrypted.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.155.26|162.158.155.26]] 09:24, 19 February 2018 (UTC)
::Thanks, will do.

::how to hack complooter
::why does google not work
::how to delete text
::[[User:Fabian42|Fabian42]] ([[User talk:Fabian42|talk]]) 09:44, 19 February 2018 (UTC)

Regarding "Factor a prime": Factoring a prime is easy: The prime itself is the only factor, so it's sufficient to use [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AKS_primality_test AKS] or whatever to check that. Public-key encryption relies on how hard it is to factor the product of two primes, which is a much harder problem. Maybe this is a typo in the comic?
: I don't think it is a typo. It's exactly the type of "inside-joke" I would expect from XKCD. :)
--[[Special:Contributions/162.158.134.214|162.158.134.214]] 10:09, 19 February 2018 (UTC)

Can I edit some spelling errors? There seems to be some spelling errors here and there.Boeing-787lover 10:19, 19 February 2018 (UTC)

I think the explanation of the one about injecting arbitrary text onto a page with the comments box is overthinking the joke. I think it really is just about the fact that you can write whatever you like in a comment. Look, I just hacked this page to display the word "penguin". [[User:Jeremyp|Jeremyp]] ([[User talk:Jeremyp|talk]]) 10:26, 19 February 2018 (UTC)

Talk:1957: 2018 CVE List

2018-02-19T11:33:22Z

Knarf:

[[First]] post!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Anyway, the explanation looks like a train wreck, and I'm not sure if a rearranging it into a table or just adding bullet points to everything is better. I'm guessing that a table would be better, but I don't know how I can rearrange it. Can somebody help? [[User:Herobrine|Herobrine]] ([[User talk:Herobrine|talk]]) 06:35, 19 February 2018 (UTC)
: Added a table layout to the [[explain_xkcd:Sandbox|sandbox]]. Might be of some use to another editor. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.45|162.158.74.45]] 07:32, 19 February 2018 (UTC)
:: Thanks, I think a table is a good way to go. I'm adding it to the article as a place to start. Rather than format the original explanation into the table, I'm leaving the cells blank. The original poorly formatted text can be a starting point, but isn't directly adaptable. --[[User:Quantum7|Quantum7]] ([[User talk:Quantum7|talk]]) 09:55, 19 February 2018 (UTC)
Never ever have I heard anyone pronounce SQL as "sequel" - Is that a reqional dialect? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.93.15|162.158.93.15]] 07:41, 19 February 2018 (UTC)
: I heard it's common among MS-SQL users.--[[Special:Contributions/162.158.91.137|162.158.91.137]] 08:02, 19 February 2018 (UTC)
:: Oh BTW, look at our IPs. Are you an easybell customer? :-) --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.91.137|162.158.91.137]] 08:09, 19 February 2018 (UTC)
: Some people pronounce it that way, yes. Don't know if it is "common among MS-SQL users", though. The only person I encountered saying "sequel" never used MS-SQL. [[User:LordHorst|LordHorst]] ([[User talk:LordHorst|talk]]) 09:54, 19 February 2018 (UTC)

I want to take a moment to congratulate the dedication of whomever wrote the original explanation. Second languages are hard, bro. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.215.10|108.162.215.10]] 07:48, 19 February 2018 (UTC)

Has someone tried contacting Randall about "extploit"? If not, what would be the best way? [[User:Fabian42|Fabian42]] ([[User talk:Fabian42|talk]]) 08:22, 19 February 2018 (UTC)
:Hack his computer to display a message demanding he fix it if he wants his hard drive decrypted.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.155.26|162.158.155.26]] 09:24, 19 February 2018 (UTC)
::Thanks, will do.

::how to hack complooter
::why does google not work
::how to delete text
::[[User:Fabian42|Fabian42]] ([[User talk:Fabian42|talk]]) 09:44, 19 February 2018 (UTC)

Regarding "Factor a prime": Factoring a prime is easy: The prime itself is the only factor, so it's sufficient to use [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AKS_primality_test AKS] or whatever to check that. Public-key encryption relies on how hard it is to factor the product of two primes, which is a much harder problem. Maybe this is a typo in the comic?
: I don't think it is a typo. I's exactly the type of "inside-joke" I would expect from XKCD. :)
--[[Special:Contributions/162.158.134.214|162.158.134.214]] 10:09, 19 February 2018 (UTC)

Can I edit some spelling errors? There seems to be some spelling errors here and there.Boeing-787lover 10:19, 19 February 2018 (UTC)

I think the explanation of the one about injecting arbitrary text onto a page with the comments box is overthinking the joke. I think it really is just about the fact that you can write whatever you like in a comment. Look, I just hacked this page to display the word "penguin". [[User:Jeremyp|Jeremyp]] ([[User talk:Jeremyp|talk]]) 10:26, 19 February 2018 (UTC)

1957: 2018 CVE List

2018-02-19T11:25:25Z

Knarf: more info on UTC+14

{{comic
| number = 1957
| date = February 19, 2018
| title = 2018 CVE List
| image = 2018_cve_list.png
| titletext = CVE-2018-?????: It turns out Bruce Schneier is just two mischevious kids in a trenchcoat.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by HACKING THIS WIKI VIA THE EDIT BOX - The explanation looks like a list. Explain the comic and put the security vulnerabilities in a table. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

{|class="wikitable"
!Security vulnerability
!Notes
|-
|Apple products crash when displaying certain Telugu or Bengali letter combinations.
|This refers to a real vulnerability in iOS and MacOS publicized a few days before the comic released <ref>https://techcrunch.com/2018/02/15/iphone-text-bomb-ios-mac-crash-apple/</ref>.
|-
|An attacker can use a timing attack to extploit[sic] a race condition in garbage collection to extract a limited number of bits from the Wikipedia article on Claude Shannon.
|Timing Attack to exploit a race condition in garbage collection refers to Meltdown and Spectre CPU flaws that can be exploited in cloud server like the ones in Wikipedia. Claude Shannon was an early and highly influential information scientist whose work underlies compression, encryption, security, and the theory behind how information is encoded into binary digits - hence the pertinence of extracting just some of the bits from his Wikipedia entry.
|-
|At the cafe on third street, the post-it note with the wifi password is visible from the sidewalk.
|Writing passwords in a visible place is a major security flaw. For instance, following the [[wikipedia:2018 Hawaii false missile alert|2018 Hawaii false missile alert]] the agency received criticism for a press photo showing a password written on a sticky note attached to a monitor.<ref>http://uk.businessinsider.com/hawaii-emergency-agency-password-discovered-in-photo-sparks-security-criticism-2018-1?r=US&IR=T</ref> However, if a cafe posts their wifi password for customers then having it visible through the window as well presents a very minor reduction in security.
|-
|A remote attacker can inject arbitrary text into public-facing pages via the comments box.
|Describes a common feature on news sites or social media sites like Facebook. The possibility for users to "inject" text into the page is by design. This is a humorous reference to the relatively common security vulnerability "[[Wikipedia:Cross-site_scripting|persistent cross-site scripting]]", where input provided by the user is displayed to other users in a dangerous fashion that allows attackers to inject arbitrary HTML or Javascript code into e.g. a comment section. It might also be a humorous reference to the events before, during and after the 2016 US Presidential elections where Internet Research Agency employees based remotely in St. Petersburg, Russia, but disguised as US citizens, "injected" arbitrary text in the form of political propaganda into comments on multiple web sites, according to an indictment returned by a federal grand jury on February 16, 2018.
|-
|MySQL server 55.45 secretly runs two parallel databases for people who say "S-Q-L" and "sequel."
|Some people pronounce "SQL" like "sequel", after SQL's predecessor "SEQUEL (Structured English Query Language)". MySQL is an open-source relational database management system, the latest GA version (at the time of writing) is MySQL 5.7.
|-
|A flaw in some x86 CPUs could allow a root user to de-escalate to normal account privileges.
|This vulnerability refers to DOM0 attacks on Virtualization CPUs, regulary escalate from normal(few privileges) to root (full privileges), this is the inverse.
|-
|Apple products catch fire when displaying emoji with diacritics.
|Diacritics are the accents found on letters in some languages (eg. č, ģ ķ, ļ, ņ, š, ž). These would not be found on emojis. It is also a reference to a common problem of modern gadgets catching fire.
|-
|An oversight in the rules allows a dog to join a basketball team.
|This likely refers to the movie Air Bud. It's a movie about a dog playing basketball {{w|Air Bud}}. This has been a common theme in xkcd comics, see [[115: Meerkat]], [[1439: Rack Unit]], [[1819: Sweet 16]], [[1552: Rulebook]]
|-
|Haskell isn't side-effect-free after all; the effects are all just concentrated in this one. Computer in Missouri that no one's checked on in a while.
|Haskell is a functional programming language, functional programming is characterized by using functions that dont have side effects in other parts of the program.
|-
|Nobody really knows how hypervisors work.
|Virtualization programing is hard, Meltdown and Specter are related to this
|-
|CRITICAL: Under Linux 3.14.8 on System/390 in a UTC+14 time zone, a local user could potentially use a buffer overflow to change another user's default system clock from 12-hour to 24-hour.
|Jokes about arcane systems that are running linux, that have bugs that nobody can replicate because there are no more machines on this type where reproduce the bug to fix it. UTC+14 is also a time zone used only on some islands in the Pacific Ocean, i.e., [[Wikipedia:Line_Islands|the Line Islands]], and is also the earliest time zone on earth.
|-
|x86 has way too many instructions.
|The x86 architecture is considered "CISC" (a "complex instruction set computer"), having many instructions originally provided to make programming by a human simpler; other examples include the 68000 series used in the first Apple Mac. In the 1980s, this design philosophy was countered by the "RISC" ("reduced instruction set computer") design movement exemplified by SPARC, MIPS, PowerPC (previously used by Apple) and the ARM chips common in mobile phones - based on the observation that computer programs were increasingly generated by compilers (which only used a few instructions) rather than directly by people, and that the chip area dedicated to extra instructions could be better dedicated to, for example, cache. At the time, there was an internet war about the merits of each approach (with the Mac and PC being on different sides, at one time; owners of other competing systems such as the Archimedes and Amiga had similar arguments on usenet in the early 1990s); this "issue" may be posted by someone who still recalls these debates. Technically, the extra instructions do slightly complicate the task of validating correct chip behaviour and complicate the tool chains that manage software, which could be seen as a minor security risk; however, the 64-bit architecture introduced by AMD and since adopted by Intel does rationalise things somewhat, and all recent x86 chips break down instructions into RISC-like micro-operations, so the complication from a hardware perspective is localised. Recent security issues such as the speculative cache load issue in Meltdown and Spectre depend more on details of implementation rather than instruction set, and have been exhibited both by x86 (CISC) and ARM (RISC) processors.
|-
|Numpy 1.8.0 can factor primes in O(log n) time and must be quietly deprecated before anyone notices.
|NumPy is the fundamental package for scientific computing with Python. If something can find the prime factors of a number this quickly, there are attacks to break many crypto functions used in internet security. However, prime numbers have only a single factor, and "factoring primes" quickly is a simpler problem.
|-
|Apple products grant remote access if you send them words that break the "I before E" rule.
|Another joke on the first CVE and a common English writing rule of thumb, which fails almost as often as it succeeds.
|-
|Skylake x86 chips can be pried from their sockets using certain flathead screwdrivers.
|Skylake x86 chips are a line of microprocessors, yes, you can remove forcefully any processor from his socket with a screwdriver, there are many reports from people not using common sense.
|-
|Apparently Linus Torvalds can be bribed pretty easily.
|Linux Torvals is the benevolent dictator of the Linux kernel codebase, normally it is hard to pass a change because he has the last word about what merge to the code base because that code is replicated in all linux installations, but apparently he is easy to bribe, that is a severe critical vulnerability to all linux server and machines
|-
|An attacker can execute malicious code on their own machine and no one can stop them.
|The point of an attack is to make someone else's machine perform actions against the owner's will. Anyone can make their own machine execute any code, but this would usually not be described as an attack.
|-
|Apple products execute any code printed over a photo of a dog with a saddle and a baby riding it.
|This could refer to a CVE vulnerability of JPG files where javascript is executed by some application, only this time is in a printed photo instead of a file .
|-
|Under rare circumstances, a flaw in some versions of Windows could allow Flash to be installed.
|This is another common CVE description, Flash was discontinued because is abismal security record. All security experts advise against install.
|-
|Turns out the cloud is just other people's computers.
|This refers to a computer meme where replace "cloud" with "other people's computers" must be used in all marketing presentation to CEOs and not computer literate persons to evaluate the security impact of using "Cloud services"
|-
|A flaw in Mitre's CVE database allows arbitrary code insertion.[~~CLICK HERE FOR CHEAP VIAGRA~~]
|Mitre's CVE database is the database where all CVE are listed, this is a joke between the 4th CVE in this list pointing that the site is also vulnerable
|-
|It turns out Bruce Schneier is just two mischievous kids in a trenchcoat. (title text)
|Bruce Schneier is a conceptual fictional character, who is a security researcher. His work is produced by a loose collective of anonymous contributors.
|}

== References ==
<references/>

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

LEAKED LIST OF MAJOR 2018 SECURITY VULNERABILITIES

CVE-2018-????? Apple products crash when displaying certain Telugu or Bengali letter combinations.

CVE-2018-????? An attacker can use a timing attack to extploit[sic] a race condition in garbage collection to extract a limited number of bits from the Wikipedia article on Claude Shannon.

CVE-2018-????? At the cafe on third street, the post-it note with the wifi password is visible from the sidewalk.

CVE-2018-????? A remote attacker can inject arbitrary text into public-facing pages via the comments box.

CVE-2018-????? MySQL server 55.45 secretly runs two parallel databases for people who say "S-Q-L" and "sequel."

CVE-2018-????? A flaw in some x86 CPUs could allow a root user to de-escalate to normal account privileges.

CVE-2018-????? Apple products catch fire when displaying emoji with diacritics.

CVE-2018-????? An oversight in the rules allows a dog to join a basketball team.

CUE-2018-????? Haskell isn't side-effect-free after all; the effects are all just concentrated in this one. Computer in Missouri that no one's checked on in a while.

CVE-2018-????? Nobody really knows how hypervisors work.

CVE-2018-????? CRITICAL: Under Linux 3.14.8 on System/390 in a UTC+14 time zone, a local user could potentially use a buffer overflow to change another user's default system clock from 12-hour to 24-hour.

CVE-2018-????? x86 has way too many instructions.

CVE-2018-????? Numpy 1.8.0 can factor primes in O(log n) time and must be quietly deprecated before anyone notices.

CVE-2018-????? Apple products grant remote access if you send them words that break the "I before E" rule.

CVE-2018-????? Skylake x86 chips can be pried from their sockets using certain flathead screwdrivers.

CVE-2018-????? Apparently Linus Torvalds can be bribed pretty easily.

CVE-2018-????? An attacker can execute malicious code on their own machine and no one can stop them.

CVE-2018-????? Apple products execute any code printed over a photo of a dog with a saddle and a baby riding it.

CVE-2018-????? Under rare circumstances, a flaw in some versions of Windows could allow Flash to be installed.

CVE-2018-????? Turns out the cloud is just other people's computers.

CVE-2018-????? A flaw in Mitre's CVE database allows arbitrary code insertion.[~~CLICK HERE FOR CHEAP VIAGRA~~]

{{comic discussion}}

1820: Security Advice

2017-04-05T17:35:03Z

Knarf: /* Security Tip Explanations */

{{comic
| number = 1820
| date = April 5, 2017
| title = Security Advice
| image = security_advice.png
| titletext = Never give your password or bank account number to anyone who doesn't have a blue check mark next to their name.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Incomplete. TBD:Complete tip explanations Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

The comic depicts a conversation between [[Cueball]] and [[Ponytail]], discussing the fact that giving people security advice in the past has failed to improve their internet security, and in some cases even made things worse. One such example is telling people to create complicated passwords containing numbers and symbols, which not only made the passwords harder to remember (leading people to create huge security risks by [https://arstechnica.com/security/2015/04/hacked-french-network-exposed-its-own-passwords-during-tv-interview/ leaving post-it notes with their passwords on their computer monitor]), but did not actually make those passwords harder to crack (see [[936: Password Strength]]).

As a result, Cueball suggests using {{w|reverse psychology}} and give out bad advice instead, in hopes of a positive effect. The last panel contains a list these security tips, which are parodies of actual security tips.

The list header includes an instruction to "print out this list and keep in in your bank safe deposit box", which is a standard recommendation for documents that must be kept secure because they are irreplaceable and/or contain sensitive information. Putting a list of tips in a safe deposit box would be counterproductive, since the purpose of such a list is to serve as a ready reminder.

The last tip on the image is most likely a reference to Ingmar Bergman's film [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seventh_Seal#Synopsis The Seventh Seal].

===Security Tip Explanations===
{| class="wikitable"
!Security Tip
!Explanation
|-
|Don't click links to websites
|The usual tip is "Don't click on ''suspicious'' website links." The comic's variation instead implies don't click on any links to any websites, or don't use the internet.
|-
|Use prime numbers in your password
|Long prime numbers are an essential part of modern cryptography and security systems, but don't have any effect when being used in passwords, except for maybe being harder to remember. In addition, if people were to regularly use prime numbers in their passwords, it would actually make passwords ''easier'' to guess, as it would substantially shrink the search space.
|-
|Change your password manager monthly
|It is often recommended to change passwords on a regular basis. However, changing password managers monthly would be quite impractical.
|-
|Hold your breath while crossing the border
|This in itself wouldn't do anything, but if you hold your breath for too long you could pass out when crossing, or look stressed/suspicious. Overall, this would not help you.
|-
|Install a secure font
|A real tip might be "Install a secure browser" especially when many people used [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Explorer_6 Internet Explorer 6]. Using a different font on a computer would not help one's internet security. Reference to Turing-complete kerning specification language in OpenType fonts. May also refer to [https://www.proofpoint.com/us/threat-insight/post/EITest-Nabbing-Chrome-Users-Chrome-Font-Social-Engineering-Scheme Google Chrome "Install missing font" malware].
|-
|Use a 2-factor smoke detector
|{{w|Multi-factor authentication|Two factor authentication}} describes the practice of using two different identification factors (such as a password and a code from a secure token) to authenticate the user. A two factor smoke detector presumably uses two or more factors to identify ''smoke'' (such as {{w|Smoke_detector#Ionization|ionization}} and {{w|Smoke_detector#Photoelectric|photoelectric}}). Such devices [https://web.archive.org/web/20120416013553/http://www.systemsensor.com/lifesafety/2011/05/sophisticated-strategic-fire-and-life-safety-in-mission-critical-applications/| actually exist], but, while improving the users general safety, they do nothing to improve their internet security.
|-
|Change your maiden name regularly
|The usual tip is to change your passwords regularly. Some password recovery procedures ask for a security question, like "what is your maiden name" (which is the family name that you were born with). Sometimes, maiden name of a parent of yours is asked instead of one of yours. Since it acts as a second password, it should also be changed regularly. Changing it, however, would be very difficult or even impossible, even more so on a regular basis. Also, maiden names and other trivia typically asked by security questions are not secret, so they are inherently not secure.
A real tip for dealing with security questions would be to enter false data.
|-
|Put strange USB drives in a bag of rice overnight
|The usual security tip is "Don't plug strange USB drives into your computer," because sometimes attackers put viruses that infect your system when plugged in. This tip implies that you should "put USB drives in a bag of rice overnight" which is a common technique for drying out water damaged devices, due to rice's absorbent qualities. This would not clean the drive of viruses, and unless the drive was wet (perhaps because you found it outside due to it being called "strange") it would not do anything.
|-
|Use special characters like & and %
|You can use special characters to increase the entropy/strength of your password, though as describe in [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/936:_Password_Strength xkcd 936], that often leads to passwords that are hard to remember but not particularly strong. The password context is missing here, and in everyday situations the characters & and % are not special.
|-
|Only read content published through Tor.com
|[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tor_(anonymity_network) Tor] is a software solution to provide anonymity on the web for its users. The website [https://tor.com Tor.com] is the website of fantasy and sci-fi book publisher Tor, which has no relation to the Tor-network.
|-
|Use a burner's phone
|A play on using a burner phone (a cheap/disposable cell phone like those purchased at 7-11, often used for drug deals or other activity one might not want traced), and using the cell phone of a burner, i.e. a person who goes to the the Burning Man festival.
|-
|Get an SSL certificate and store it in a safe place
|SSL/TLS is a protocol for securing connections on the internet. To check if someone is who he claims to be you can check the individuals certificate. Such a certificate has to be public, storing it in a safe place makes the certificate useless. You have to store the private key that matches the certificate in a safe place, else someone could steal the identity.
|-
|If a border guard asks to examine your laptop, you have a legal right to challenge them to a chess game for your soul.
|This tip is likely a reference to Ingmar Bergman's film [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seventh_Seal#Synopsis The Seventh Seal]
|-
|Never give your password or bank account number to anyone who doesn't have a blue check mark next to their name. (Title Text)
|The usual security tip here is ''"only trust accounts claiming to be legitimate if they have a blue check mark next to their name"'', which means that the account is verified as legitimate. This tip suggests only giving your ''password'' to verified accounts, although you shouldn't give your password to ''any'' account. It also refers to problems especially visible in the US banking system, where there is very little security for direct account drafts, and because of that it is advised there to keep the account number as secret as possible. In contrast, in Europe giving your account number to someone is one of the most common ways to get paid.
|}

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

:Ponytail: We've been trying for decades to give people good security advice.
:Ponytail: But in retrospect, lots of the tips actually made things worse.

:Cueball: Maybe we should try to give ''bad'' advice?
:Ponytail: I guess it's worth a shot.

:Security tips
:(Print out this list and keep it in your bank safe deposit box.)
* Don't click links to websites
* Use prime numbers in your password
* Change your password manager monthly
* Hold your breath while crossing the border
* Install a secure font
* User a 2-factor smoke detector
* Change your maiden name regularly
* Put strange USB drives in a bag of rice overnight
* Use special characters like & and %
* Only read content published through Tor.com
* Use a burner's phone
* Get an SSL certificate and store it in a safe place
* If a border guard asks to examine your laptop, you have a legal right to challenge them to a chess game for your soul.

{{comic discussion}}

1806: Borrow Your Laptop

2017-03-03T14:33:32Z

Knarf:

{{comic
| number = 1806
| date = March 3, 2017
| title = Borrow Your Laptop
| image = borrow_your_laptop.png
| titletext = If used with software that could keep up, a scroll wheel mapped to send a stream of 'undo' and 'redo' events could be kind of cool.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Close to being finished?}}
In this comic [[White Hat]] asks if he can borrow [[Cueball|Cueball's]] laptop to load something. Cueball has no problem with this, but before White Hat can use his laptop he needs to know a "short" list of very unusual configurations Cueball has applied to his laptop.

In the caption it is revealed that Cueball represents [[Randall]] who claims that once he has used a computer for a while he will have made so many of these special configurations that no one else will ever be able to (or wish to) use it again.

Like many other computer users Randall likes to customize his PC. Of the three items in Cueball's list of customizations only one seems like a real and relevant setting. That is the first, which is that hitting both shift keys simultaneously will change the keyboard back to QWERTY. The {{w|QWERTY}} keyboard is the standard in the US (as well as some other places using the roman alphabet). It has been a [[:Category:Dvorak|recurrent theme]] for Randall to refer to the {{w|Dvorak Simplified Keyboard|Dvorak}} keyboard layout, and, although he doesn't say so, it seems safe to assume that this is the current setting, as it is one of the most common QWERTY competitors, and has been repeatedly mentioned in the comic. Supporters claim that typing speed is faster on a Dvorak keyboard, although this is still contentious, and this is a reason Randall often makes jokes about it. (See more details [[:Category:Dvorak|here]]). The laptop has most likely a standard QWERTY keyboard, but if Cueball can type blindly in Dvorak he would not be troubled by the fact that the keys typed a different letter than what is on the keyboard's key. This relation was also the pun in the recent comic [[1787: Voice Commands]]. The same problem would arise if the computer is set to another language than what the keyboard was meant for.

The next point on the list makes little sense as Cueball has changed his keyboard layout so that caps lock acts as the {{w|control key}} and then he has moved {{w|capslock}} so that is activated when hitting {{w|spacebar}}. While using Caps Lock for Control is a common thing in the unix world, this method is impractical, as the spacebar is the largest key, and one which would likely not normally be used for anything other than spaces, making accidental application of caps lock more likely. Most people do not use capslock enough to justify giving it the largest key on the board, as whichever key Randall now chooses for space will be harder to reach, making him more likely to make mistakes in typing, such as pressing a letter key, or tab, or alt, for example, when trying to type a space. What's worse, he doesn't tell White Hat where he has hidden the space bar, although it could of course be the two ctrl keys, which would at least give him two possible (but much smaller) spacebars to use, one on either side of the keyboard.

People have more reason to change their keyboard layouts on laptops, due to the reduced keyboard, which can leave vital keys out, especially if it was bought in a foreign keyboard layout. Rather than change the keyboard layout all the time in order to access keys which are not accessible in one of the layouts, one can take advantage of text substitution and keyboard remapping programs to set shortcuts for keys they use often.

Finally he goes out on a limb with an impossible setting, which is that his scroll wheel moves through time instead of through "space" (as in up and down on the screen), but only when using {{w|Touchpad#Operation_and_function|two-finger scroll}}, which often used on {{w|Touchpad|touchpads}}/track pads for laptops as a gesture for scrolling. Time travel is also a [[:Category:Time travel|recurrent theme]] on xkcd. Quite likely Randall has chosen this example because of the inconsistency of some systems interpreting two-finger scrolling opposite of others (two-finger scrolling in the up-direction on some systems moves the content up, on others down.) This is often configurable, but is further complicated by the fact that "inverted scrolling" is used in opposite meanings on different systems.

Finally it becomes clear these three settings are not the only important points, as Cueball's list continues with at least one other point which is not in the comic.

In the title text it is revealed that Cueball actually did not mean moving in real time, in the sense of time travel, but rather that the two-finger scroll would act as an undo-redo button. In the title text Randall says that he would actually find such a feature cool, but that he doesn't think that the programs on his laptop could keep up if his scroll wheel was mapped to send a stream of undo/redo commands to them as he used it. It would also interfere with the normal use of the scroll key for scrolling or zooming.

==Transcript==
:[White Hat walks toward Cueball's desk pointing at his laptop while looking back at Cueball standing behind him.]
:White Hat: Can I load it up on your laptop?
:Cueball: Sure!
:Cueball: Oh, just hit both shift keys to change over to QWERTY.
:Cueball: Caps lock is control. And spacebar is capslock.
:Cueball: And two-finger scroll moves through time instead of space.
:Cueball: And-

:[Caption below the panel:]
:Once I've used a computer for a while no one else will ever use it again.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:Computers]]
[[Category:Time travel]]
[[Category:Time]]

1767: US State Names

2016-12-03T19:38:30Z

Knarf:

{{comic
| number = 1767
| date = December 2, 2016
| title = US State Names
| image = us_state_names.png
| titletext = Technically DC isn't a state, but no one is too pedantic about it because they don't want to disturb the snakes.
}}

==Explanation==
[[Randall]] has taken a {{w|map}} of {{w|the United States of America}} labeled "Geography Challenge: Name all 50 States" and filled in the states with words that sound similar to the states' names. The joke is that Randall is apparently terrible at remembering states by heart, or else that he interpreted "name" as "give a name to" and is giving each state a name similar to but different from its previous name. Songs such as the [https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=fifty+nifty+united+states+song 50 Nifty United States] make these issues seem rarer, thus making it funnier. Below is the table.

This also may be a play on the ambiguity of the phrase "Name all 50 states". When you are asked to "name" something, it can be a request to supply its given name or to come up with a new name for it. Randall has apparently taken the latter interpretation. He also may be playing with the distinction between an object's identity and its label, e.g., "The state of Texas (identity) is named Hexxus (label)", though you can argue that "Texas" is also a label.

This comic is similar to [[1759: British Map]]. Also note that the text at the top of the comic is not in all caps.

===Table of States===
{{incomplete|Some states unfinished. Make wikipedia links.}}
{| class="wikitable sortable"
|-
! Fictional State
! Actual State
! Explanation
|-
| Wilwheaton
| {{w|Washington_State|Washington}}
| {{w|Wil Wheaton}} is an actor and writer.
|-
| Organs
| {{w|Oregon}}
| Could refer to either {{w|Organ (anatomy)|body parts}} that perform vital functions, or large {{w|Organ (music)|musical instruments}} having rows of tuned pipes. Also a reference to {{w|Organ Trail}}, a retro survival video game that parodies {{w|The Oregon Trail (video game)|The Oregon Trail}}.
|-
| Cafeteria
| {{w|California}}
| A cafeteria is both a kind of restaurant and a name for a lunch room that serves food. California is large and diverse, offering a wide variety of choices. California also grows a large proportion of common vegetables available in the US ([http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/explainer/2013/07/california_grows_all_of_our_fruits_and_vegetables_what_would_we_eat_without.html Source]), making it a 'Cafeteria' for the country.
|-
| Fallout New Vegas
| {{w|Nevada}}
| {{w|Fallout New Vegas}} is a video game set in Nevada.
|-
| Idolatry
| {{w|Idaho}}
| {{w|Idolatry}} is the worship of a physical object as a god, forbidden in many religions.
|-
| mount -a
| {{w|Montana}}
| A command to {{w|Mount (computing)|mount}} all disk volumes in fstab (except for ones with the noauto flag).
|-
| Wysiwyg
| {{w|Wyoming}}
| Acronym for "{{w|What You See Is What You Get}}". A reference to [[Types of Editors]].
|-
| Uhaul
| {{w|Utah}}
| {{w|U-Haul}} is a company where you can rent vans.
|-
| Verizona
| {{w|Arizona}}
| {{w|Verizon}}, a telecommunications company, has the shared text "Rizon" with Arizona (Ve''rizon'', A''rizon''a).
|-
| Namaste
| {{w|New Mexico}}
| {{w|Namaste}} is a Hindu greeting.
|-
| Hexxus
| {{w|Texas}}
| The antagonist of Ferngully. {{w|FernGully:_The_Last_Rainforest|FernGully}} is said to be the model for the later film "Avatar". This is the second time Hexxus was mentioned in xkcd, the first occurrence being in [[1750: Life Goals]]. May allude to the Texas oil industry and the state's general reputation for a lack of environmental protection.
|-
| Okay
| {{w|Oklahoma}}
| OK is the state's abbreviation. Okay is a spelling of another abbreviation O.K., which means "yes" or "good", and has {{w|OK#Proposed etymologies|quite a few possible origins}}.
|-
| Candice
| {{w|Kansas}}
| Candice is a girl's name of Latin origin, meaning "clarity, whiteness" ("canditia").
|-
| Colocated
| {{w|Colorado}}
| Refers to computer servers located in a {{w|Colocation Center}}.
|-
| Nebrunswick
| {{w|Nebraska}}
| {{w|New Brunswick}}, a Canadian province. People sometimes write "NB" as the postal abbreviation for Nebraska; in reality, Nebraska is "NE", and while there is no "NB" in the U.S. postal system, New Brunswick is "NB" in the Canadian postal system.
|-
| Dakota
| {{w|South Dakota}}
| Randall seems to have forgotten his directions, so he drops the normal "South" and "North". He may also be teasing that this doesn't matter.
|-
| More Dakota
| {{w|North Dakota}}
| Probably just reference to the fact that there are two Dakotas, but mishearing/misrepresenting "North" as "More" (leaving South Dakota as just "Dakota"). Might be a reference to [http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/more-dakka "More Dakka"], a catchphrase by Orks from the Warhammer 40000 universe, though WH40K isn't a usual XKCD touchstone.
|-
| Minestrone
| {{w|Minnesota}}
| {{w|Minestrone}} is a thick vegetable soup, originating in Italy.
|-
| Wainscot
| {{w|Wisconsin}}
| {{w|Panelling#Wainscot_panelling|Wainscot}} is a type of wood {{w|panelling}} covering only the lower half of a wall.
|-
| Iota
| {{w|Iowa}}
| {{w|Iota}} is the ninth letter of the Greek alphabet. It was derived from the Phoenician letter Yodh. Also colloquially used to mean a very small quantity.
|-
| Sk8rbois
| {{w|Illinois}}
| "Skater Boys" or just "Skater Boy" if the '-ois' is pronounced the same as it is in "Illinois". {{w|Sk8er Boi}} is a song by Avril Lavigne.
|-
| Mossouri
| {{w|Missouri}}
| The single different letter represents probably a typo (O is adjacent to I in a keyboard). This typo has about 22,000 results on Google. Alternatively, this could be an attempt to "correct" the spelling of the state name to match its non-intuitive postal abbreviation, MO, which is sometimes used as a pronounceable acronym. Or it could be a reference to [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katie_Moussouris Katie Mossouris].
|-
| Arkanoids
| {{w|Arkansas}}
| {{w|Arkanoid}} is an arcade game, developed by Taito in 1986.
|-
| Louisa
| {{w|Louisiana}}
| Louisa, feminine of Louis, is an Old German name meaning "famous warrior". Louisiana was named after King Louis XIV when it was founded as a French colony.
|-
| Misstate
| {{w|Mississippi}}
| The word "misstate" means to state improperly. "Mis-" is also a prefix meaning "wrong," "incorrect," or simply negating. "Misstate" could be a non-state. {{w|Mississipi State University|Miss State}} is a university in Mississippi. This may also be a joke on the fact that Mississippi is one of the most commonly misspelled state names.
|-
| Bandana
| {{w|Alabama}}
| A {{w|Kerchief|bandana}} is a large handkerchief cloth, worn either around the head or neck. Often used in Westerns.
|-
| Thennessy
| {{w|Tennessee}}
| {{w|Hennessy}} is a brand of cognac.
|-
| Kennedy
| {{w|Kentucky}}
| {{w|Kennedy Fried Chicken}} is New York City–based fast food brand that shares its initials with KFC, which was formerly (and still conventionally) Kentucky Fried Chicken.
|-
| That Other One
| {{w|Indiana}}
| 'That Other One' is something someone might say if they were trying to name all the states from memory, and knew where a state was but not what it was called. Appropriate for Indiana, due to being a state with relatively few distinguishing features.
|-
| Mishy
| {{w|Michigan}}
| According to the Urban Dictionary, "mishy" means "[http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Mishy mushy and horny at the same time]". Or it could just be a nickname, the way a lot of people's names, often children, get shortened with a trailing y (Bobby, Becky, Johnny, Missy, Davey, Tony, etc.), with the "ee" sound in the middle of Michigan being the same "ee" sound at the end of the nickname.
|-
| Oh Hi
| {{w|Ohio}}
| Oh (expression of surprise), Hi (greeting). A common utterance upon meeting an acquaintance unexpectedly.
|-
| Pencilmania
| {{w|Pennsylvania}}
| [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0151935/ Pencil Mania] is a 1932 Tom and Jerry cartoon in which they pull out a pencil and proceed to draw figures in the air.
|-
| Newark
| {{w|New York}}
| The city of Newark is a suburb of New York City, and many people who live in Newark commute the 14 miles to work in New York City, however it is actually located in the state of New Jersey rather than New York. Other references: Newark Liberty International Airport is a major flight hub serving the New York metropolitan area, the village of Newark, New York (near Lake Ontario), and Newark element14 (or simply "Newark"), the official distributor of Raspberry Pi. Possible reference to William Gibson's works. A mispronunciation of New York.
|-
| Vermouth
| {{w|Vermont}}
| {{w|Vermouth}} is an Italian alcoholic beverage.
|-
| New Hamper
| {{w|New Hampshire}}
| A {{w|hamper}} is a large basket, often with lid, used for laundry. Also another name for a picnic basket.
|-
| Spanish Maine
| {{w|Maine}}
| The {{w|Spanish Main}} was the mainland Spanish colonial possessions around the Gulf of Mexico.
|-
| Masseuses
| {{w|Massachusetts}}
| Women who give {{w|massage}}s professionally. A contentious term in the therapeutic massage industry due to its appropriation by prostitutes.
|-
| Roald Dahl
| {{w|Rhode Island}}
| A {{w|Roald Dahl|British writer}}, famous for child novels such as {{w|Charlie and the Chocolate Factory}}.
|-
| Connectfour
| {{w|Connecticut}}
| {{w|Connect Four}} is a two-player game, in which the objective is to connect four of your checkers in a row while preventing your opponent from doing the same. It has already been mentioned in [[1002: Game AIs]].
|-
| Nude Juggalos
| {{w|New Jersey}}
| {{w|Juggalo}} is a name given to fans of the group Insane Clown Posse or any other Psychopathic Records hip hop group. Also shares the same initials as New Jersey.
|-
| Delorean
| {{w|Delaware}}
| A {{w|DeLorean_DMC-12|car}} made famous as the {{w|DeLorean_time_machine|time machine}} in the {{w|Back to the Future}} movies.
|-
| Maybelline
| {{w|Maryland}}
| {{w|Maybelline}} is a make-up brand.
|-
| District of Colubrids
| {{w|District of Columbia}}
| The {{w|Colubridae}} are the biggest family of snakes, accounting for about two thirds of the world's species. As the title text mentions, the {{w|Washington,_D.C.|District of Columbia}}, although not part of any state, is technically not a state itself, but is usually labeled on the maps like the 50 others for practical reasons. Here, Randall humorously explains the reason as people not wanting to upset the aforementioned snakes by dismissing their district for this pedantic reason.
|-
| Wyvern
| {{w|West Virginia}}
| A {{w|Wyvern}} is a mythical creature.
|-
| Virjayjay
| {{w|Virginia}}
| Virginia is similar to vagina. Vajayjay is slang for vagina.
|-
| Sweet Caroline
| {{w|North Carolina}}
| A {{w|Sweet_Caroline|song}} by Neil Diamond.
|-
| South Caroline
| {{w|South Carolina}}
| A further reference to {{w|Sweet_Caroline|song 'Sweet Caroline'}} by Neil Diamond, similar to 'Dakota' and 'More Dakota.' Plays on similarity between the names 'Caroline' and 'Carolina'.
|-
| George
| {{w|Georgia}}
| Georgia was named for {{w|George II of Great Britain}}.
|-
| Fyoridor
| {{w|Florida}}
| Possibly derived from the Russian name Fyodor, as in {{w|Fyodor Dostoyevsky}}.
|-
| Alberta
| {{w|Alaska}}
| {{w|Alberta}} is a Canadian province.
|-
| Kawaii
| {{w|Hawaii}}
| A {{w|Kawaii|Japanese term}} for cute, commonly romanized similar to Hawaii. Not to be confused with {{w|Kauai}}, a Hawaiian island.
|}

==Transcript==

[A map of the United States, with incorrect state names. A title:]

Geography challenge:

'''Name all 50 States'''

| Alabama => Bandana |

| Alaska => Alberta |

| Arizona => Verizona |

| Arkansas => Arkanoids |

| California => Cafeteria |

| Colorado => Colocated |

| Connecticut => Connect Four |

| Delaware => Delorean |

| District of Columbia => District of Colubrids |

| Florida => Fyoridor |

| Georgia => George |

| Hawaii => Kawaii |

| Idaho => Idolatry |

| Illinois => SK8RBOIS |

| Indiana => That Other One |

| Iowa => Iota |

| Kansas => Candice |

| Kentucky => Kennedy |

| Louisiana => Loisa |

| Maine => Spanish Maine |

| Maryland => Maybelline |

| Massachusetts => Masseuses |

| Michigan => Mishy |

| Minnesota => Minestrone |

| Mississippi => Misstate |

| Missouri => Mossouri |

| Montana => mount -a |

| Nebraska => Nebrunswick |

| Nevada => Fallout New Vegas |

| New Hampshire => New Hamper |

| New Jersey => Nude Juggalos |

| New Mexico => Namaste |

| New York => Newark |

| North Carolina => Sweet Caroline |

| South Carolina => South Caroline |

| Ohio => Oh Hi |

| Oklahoma => Okay |

| Oregon => Organs |

| Pennsylvania => Pencilmania |

| Rhode Island => Roald Dahl |

| South Dakota => Dakota |

| /North Dakota => More Dakota |

| Tennessee => Thennessy |

| Texas => Hexxus |

| Utah => Uhaul |

| Vermont => Vermouth |

| Virginia => Virjayjay |

| Washington => Willwheaton |

| West Virginia => Wyvern |

| Wisconsin => Wainscot |

| Wyoming => WYSIWYG |

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Maps]]

1763: Catcalling

2016-11-23T18:14:23Z

Knarf: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1763
| date = November 23, 2016
| title = Catcalling
| image = catcalling.png
| titletext = Effect strength => [unstoppable] / Effect range => [2 miles] / Effect duration => [1 year]
}}

==Explanation==
"{{w|Street harassment|Catcalling}}" refers to the act of whistling or shouting to attract the attention of an attractive woman, and in some cultures carries connotations of harassment. Annoyed by this practice, Megan alters the Universe Control Console to create a setting in which catcalling actually attracts cats (as the name implies), thus resulting in the catcaller being harassed by the overwhelming feline presence, instead of the other way around, likely in an attempt to discourage the act.

The "Universe Control Console" was introduced in [[1620: Christmas Settings]] as the "Universe Control Panel", where it was used to control aspects of reality related to Christmas. Based on the name, it is presumed all aspects of reality could be altered using this fictitious device. The pointer arrow and menu options shown above Megan appear to depict aspects of the user interface that Megan is seeing.

Furthermore, the title text suggests that catcalling now calls ''all'' cats within two miles for an entire year. This would encourage people to stop catcalling altogether to prevent cats running away for a year or being piled in cats from a 2 mile radius for a year. [[1156: Conditioning]] also persuades people to change behavior related to wildlife.

Also, the title text suggests that the Universe Control Console runs on the Perl programming language.

The redefining of terms related to sexual harassment as more innocent things has also been discussed in [[1178: Pickup Artists]].

==Transcript==
:Offscreen: "''Hey! Are you messing with the Universe Control Console!?''"

:Megan: [standing at a control panel with a small lever and what appears to be a display] "It's cool. Just gotta fix one thing."

:[Megan still at the control panel; now a mouse pointer appears]

:[Megan still at the control panel; "Catcalling" appears written at the top of the panel above a dropdown menu that says "Harasses women"; the pointer is hovering over the arrow]

:[Megan still at the control panel; The dropdown menu is expanded to show two elements: "Harasses women" and "Attracts cats". The pointer is hovering over "Attracts cats", which is highlighted]

{{comic discussion}}

1763: Catcalling

2016-11-23T18:11:18Z

Knarf:

{{comic
| number = 1763
| date = November 23, 2016
| title = Catcalling
| image = catcalling.png
| titletext = Effect strength => [unstoppable] / Effect range => [2 miles] / Effect duration => [1 year]
}}

==Explanation==
"{{w|Street harassment|Catcalling}}" refers to the act of whistling or shouting to attract the attention of an attractive woman, and in some cultures carries connotations of harassment. Annoyed by this practice, Megan alters the Universe Control Console to create a setting in which catcalling actually attracts cats (as the name implies), thus resulting in the catcaller being harassed by the overwhelming feline presence, instead of the other way around, likely in an attempt to discourage the act.

The "Universe Control Console" was introduced in [[1620: Christmas Settings]] as the "Universe Control Panel", where it was used to control aspects of reality related to Christmas. Based on the name, it is presumed all aspects of reality could be altered using this fictitious device. The pointer arrow and menu options shown above Megan appear to depict aspects of the user interface that Megan is seeing.

Furthermore, the title text suggests that catcalling now calls ''all'' cats within two miles for an entire year. This would encourage people to stop catcalling altogether to prevent cats running away for a year or being piled in cats from a 2 mile radius for a year. [[1156: Conditioning]] also persuades people to change behavior related to wildlife.

The redefining of terms related to sexual harassment as more innocent things has also been discussed in [[1178: Pickup Artists]].

==Transcript==
:Offscreen: "''Hey! Are you messing with the Universe Control Console!?''"

:Megan: [standing at a control panel with a small lever and what appears to be a display] "It's cool. Just gotta fix one thing."

:[Megan still at the control panel; now a mouse pointer appears]

:[Megan still at the control panel; "Catcalling" appears written at the top of the panel above a dropdown menu that says "Harasses women"; the pointer is hovering over the arrow]

:[Megan still at the control panel; The dropdown menu is expanded to show two elements: "Harasses women" and "Attracts cats". The pointer is hovering over "Attracts cats", which is highlighted]

{{comic discussion}}

1609: Food Combinations

2015-11-28T03:40:45Z

Knarf: added a missing word

{{comic
| number = 1609
| date = November 27, 2015
| title = Food Combinations
| image = food_combinations.png
| titletext = If anyone tries this on you, the best reply is a deadpan "Oh yeah, that's a common potato chip flavor in Canada."
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Needs fact checking and some expansion. - Please change this comment when editing this page.}}

[http://www.rd.com/funny/21-weird-food-combinations-and-obsessions/ Unusual food combinations] are often counter-intuitive and can vary wildly by individual taste. Real-world examples of unusual food pairings, such as [http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/24/dining/making-a-meal-out-of-peanut-butter-and-pickles.html pickles and peanut butter], french fries in chocolate shake, or even the comfort-food pairing of {{w|chicken and waffles}}, pair sweet, sour, or salty foods with a food or condiment from a different group. In many "normal" food pairings, though, the cross-over between sweet, savory and salty foods also exists, such as ketchup, a very sweet condiment being regularly applied to hamburgers and french fries, both savory and salty foods.

In this comic, [[Randall]] lists twelve somewhat random food items. He then suggests that by using the right tone of voice, you can put any pair of these foods together as an "actually really good" food combination, no one will challenge you on it. This can either be because they have likely heard, or tried other unexpected combinations that are highly recommended or liked. But it could also just be because they are polite, or did not really think about what you said due to you tone of voice. Or maybe they are like {{w|Joey Tribbiani|Joey}} from {{w|Friends}} who love any combination as long as it is something he think is good by it self - see [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSFgDZJVYbo this clip].

The title text extends the joke by recommending countering such a bizarre proposal with an assertion that the random pairing announced is an actual potato chip flavor popular in Canada. This plays on the fact that in different countries and regions, cultural tastes can vary wildly. For instance, [http://www.buzzfeed.com/tanyachen/americans-taste-canadian-ketchup-all-dressed-chips ketchup flavored potato chips] are quite popular in Canada, but are almost never offered in US markets. {{w|Loblaws}} and {{w|Lay's}} have run potato chips flavor competition in Canada in 2013-15 with flavors such as Maple Moose, Bacon Poutine, Jalapeño Mac N' Cheese, Cowboy BBQ Beans.

===Table of traditional pairings===
{| class="wikitable"
|+ Traditional pairings found in the list of combinations
!
! Ice Cream
! Ham
! Relish
! Pancakes
! Ketchup
! Cheese
! Eggs
! Cupcakes
! Sour Cream
! Hot Chocolate
! Avocado
! Skittles
|-
| {{w|Ice Cream}}
| x
|
|
| ✓
|
|
|
| ✓
|
| ✓
| ✓
| ✓
|-
| {{w|Ham}}
|
| x
|
| ✓
| ✓
| ✓
| ✓
|
|
|
| ✓
|
|-
| {{w|Relish}}
|
|
| x
|
| ✓
| ✓
| ✓
|
|
|
|
|
|-
| {{w|Pancakes}}
| ✓
| ✓
|
| x
|
| ✓
| ✓
|
|
| ✓
|
|
|-
| {{w|Ketchup}}
|
| ✓
| ✓
|
| x
| ✓
| ✓
|
|
|
|
|
|-
| {{w|Cheese}}
|
| ✓
| ✓
| ✓
| ✓
| x
| ✓
|
|
|
| ✓
|
|-
| {{w|Egg (food)|Eggs}}
|
| ✓
| ✓
| ✓
| ✓
| ✓
| x
|
| ✓
|
| ✓
|
|-
| {{w|Cupcakes}}
| ✓
|
|
|
|
|
|
| x
|
| ✓
|
| ✓
|-
| {{w|Sour Cream}}
|
|
|
|
|
|
| ✓
|
| x
|
| ✓
|
|-
| {{w|Hot Chocolate}}
| ✓
|
|
| ✓
|
|
|
| ✓
|
| x
|
|
|-
| {{w|Avocado}}
| ✓
| ✓
|
|
|
| ✓
| ✓
|
| ✓
|
| x
|
|-
| {{w|Skittles (confectionery)|Skittles}}
| ✓
|
|
|
|
|
|
| ✓
|
|
|
| x
|}

==Transcript==
:[Megan is talking with Ponytail and Cueball, who has his hand to his chin. Above them in 4x3 black boxes different kind of food is written in white text].

:Ice cream Ham Relish
:Pancakes Ketchup Cheese
:Eggs Cupcakes Sour cream
:Hot chocolate Avocado Skittles

:Megan: You know what's actually really good?
:Megan: ____ and ____.
:Megan: food and food

:Cueball: Huh. I Guess I can see it.

:[Caption below the panel.]
:Fun fact: if you say "you know what's
:actually really good?" in the right
:tone of voice, you can name any
:two individually-good foods here
:and no one will challenge you one it.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Fun fact]]

1285: Third Way

2013-11-01T14:27:58Z

Knarf: missing word

{{comic
| number = 1285
| date = November 1, 2013
| title = Third Way
| image = third way.png
| titletext = 'The monospaced-typewriter-font story is a COMPLETE FABRICATION!  WAKE UP, SHEEPLE' 'It doesn't matter! Studies support single spaces!' 'Those results weren't statistically significant!' 'Fine, you win. I'm using double spaces right now!' 'Are not!  We can all hear your stupid whitespace.'
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete}}
This comic refers to the debate about the {{w|Sentence spacing|correct number of spaces after the end of a sentence}}.

While text written on typewriters traditionally had two spaces between sentences, this is becoming less common and many sources now recommend having only one space, although this topic is still {{w|Sentence spacing#Controversy|controversial}}.

[[Cueball]] is advocating a line break after every sentence, the titular "third way", and sometimes called "semantic linefeeds". This is particularly useful when plain text files (such as HTML or TeX) are edited by multiple people using a {{w|Revision_control|Version control system}} where it helps to avoid merge conflicts.

So far, however, his approach has not yet widely caught on.

The tooltip text uses single spaces between the back-and-forth quotations; but within each quotation, the quoted speaker's preferred spacing is used.

In particular, when the single-spacing advocate claims to be using double spacing, this is indeed a lie.

(You have to look at the page HTML to see this, since a single space and a double space render identically.)

This is not the first time Randall has proposed a [[690|controversial]] [[1167|third way]].

==Transcript==
:[Two angry mobs, each holding signs, with Cueball standing off to the side with another sign.]
:[The first mob's sign says "'''Two''' spaces after a period," The second mob's sign says "'''One''' space after a period," and Cueball's sign says "Line break after every sentence."]

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

1285: Third Way

2013-11-01T14:26:45Z

Knarf: Merge argument for the third way.

{{comic
| number = 1285
| date = November 1, 2013
| title = Third Way
| image = third way.png
| titletext = 'The monospaced-typewriter-font story is a COMPLETE FABRICATION!  WAKE UP, SHEEPLE' 'It doesn't matter! Studies support single spaces!' 'Those results weren't statistically significant!' 'Fine, you win. I'm using double spaces right now!' 'Are not!  We can all hear your stupid whitespace.'
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete}}
This comic refers to the debate about the {{w|Sentence spacing|correct number of spaces after the end of a sentence}}.

While text written on typewriters traditionally had two spaces between sentences, this is becoming less common and many sources now recommend having only one space, although this topic is still {{w|Sentence spacing#Controversy|controversial}}.

[[Cueball]] is advocating a line break after every sentence, the titular "third way", and sometimes called "semantic linefeeds". This is particularly useful when plain text files (such as HTML or TeX) are edited by multiple people using {{w|Revision_control|Version control system}} where it helps to avoid merge conflicts.

So far, however, his approach has not yet widely caught on.

The tooltip text uses single spaces between the back-and-forth quotations; but within each quotation, the quoted speaker's preferred spacing is used.

In particular, when the single-spacing advocate claims to be using double spacing, this is indeed a lie.

(You have to look at the page HTML to see this, since a single space and a double space render identically.)

This is not the first time Randall has proposed a [[690|controversial]] [[1167|third way]].

==Transcript==
:[Two angry mobs, each holding signs, with Cueball standing off to the side with another sign.]
:[The first mob's sign says "'''Two''' spaces after a period," The second mob's sign says "'''One''' space after a period," and Cueball's sign says "Line break after every sentence."]

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

1285: Third Way

2013-11-01T14:22:47Z

Knarf: Explain why "the third way" isn't as awkward as you might think

{{comic
| number = 1285
| date = November 1, 2013
| title = Third Way
| image = third way.png
| titletext = 'The monospaced-typewriter-font story is a COMPLETE FABRICATION!  WAKE UP, SHEEPLE' 'It doesn't matter! Studies support single spaces!' 'Those results weren't statistically significant!' 'Fine, you win. I'm using double spaces right now!' 'Are not!  We can all hear your stupid whitespace.'
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete}}
This comic refers to the debate about the {{w|Sentence spacing|correct number of spaces after the end of a sentence}}.

While text written on typewriters traditionally had two spaces between sentences, this is becoming less common and many sources now recommend having only one space, although this topic is still {{w|Sentence spacing#Controversy|controversial}}.

[[Cueball]] is advocating a line break after every sentence, the titular "third way", and sometimes called "semantic linefeeds". This is particularly useful when documents are edited by multiple people using a revision control system where it helps to avoid merge conflicts.

Unsurprisingly, his approach has not caught on.

The tooltip text uses single spaces between the back-and-forth quotations; but within each quotation, the quoted speaker's preferred spacing is used.

In particular, when the single-spacing advocate claims to be using double spacing, this is indeed a lie.

(You have to look at the page HTML to see this, since a single space and a double space render identically.)

This is not the first time Randall has proposed a [[690|controversial]] [[1167|third way]].

The third approach is actually used in practice when a {{w|Revision_control|Version control system}} is used to manage plain text files (such as HTML or TeX).

Many VCS are line based, and using one line per sentence makes it easier to automatically merge concurrent changes.

==Transcript==
:[Two angry mobs, each holding signs, with Cueball standing off to the side with another sign.]
:[The first mob's sign says "'''Two''' spaces after a period," The second mob's sign says "'''One''' space after a period," and Cueball's sign says "Line break after every sentence."]

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