explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

1749: Mushrooms

2016-10-21T20:03:02Z

Ladidootdoot: Edited the transcript to make it better formatted and added some description.

{{comic
| number = 1749
| date = October 21, 2016
| title = Mushrooms
| image = mushrooms.png
| titletext = Evolutionarily speaking, mushrooms are technically a type of ghost.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|First draft—need transcript, links, and more detailed explanation.}}

Cueball is looking at a mushroom, and Megan tells him that genetically, mushrooms are closer to animals than to plants - both animals and fungi are part of the {{w|Opisthokont}} group, while plants are in {{w|Archaeplastida}} with the algae. Megan then walks away, and Cueball, after a while, stops looking at the mushroom and walks away too. When Cueball has his back turned, the mushroom growls, and Cueball turns his head back to look at the mushroom. This is a bit of absurdist humor; while mushrooms are ''technically'' more animal-like than plant-like (eukaryotic organisms that resperate and don't photosynthesize) fungi are still so far removed from animals they wouldn't have any of the body parts needed to growl. Cueball's shock and astonishment is quite justified.

The title text takes this further, by stating that mushrooms are technically a type of ghost. Arguably, since they arise from decaying remains. The title text may refer to [[1475: Technically]].

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript}}
:[Cueball is squatting in front of a group of mushrooms, putting his hand to a larger mushroom. Megan is standing behind him.]
:Cueball: Mushrooms are ''so weird.''
:Megan: You know, evolutionarily, they're closer to being animals than to plants.

:[Megan starts walking away.]
:Cueball: ...Really?
:Megan: Yup!

:[Cueball is still squatting, alone, in a borderless panel.]

:[Cueball stands up]

:[Cueball starts walking away.]
:Mushroom: Grrrr

:[Cueball snaps his head around to look at the mushroom again.]
{{comic discussion}}

1748: Future Archaeology

2016-10-19T16:30:54Z

Ladidootdoot: Fixed the transcript i multiple ways.

{{comic
| number = 1748
| date = October 19, 2016
| title = Future Archaeology
| image = future_archaeology.png
| titletext = "The only link we've found between the two documents is that a fragment of the Noah one mentions Aaron's brother Moses parting an ocean. Is that right?" "... yes. Yes, exactly."
}}

==Explanation==
This comic is a continuation of the previous comic, [[1747: Spider Paleontology]], about a time-traveler from the future who has come to see spiders. See [[1747: Spider Paleontology]] for a more complete explanation. The idea is that history is filtered in similar fashion to fossils. What is contemporaneously important, like a spider's web, [http://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/newly-discovered-fossils-hint-all-dinosaurs-had-feathers/ dinosaur feathers], or the United States presidential election may not survive. Bandwidth limits may pass seemingly less important but much simpler features like chitin exoskeleton, [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mp5FaNe-zTM tooth bone], and flood meme.

The joke is that in the future the Biblical story of {{w|Genesis flood narrative|Noah's Flood}} is considered as valuable a historical document when researching humans as "{{w|That's How I Beat Shaq}}" ([http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/aaroncarter/thatshowibeatshaq.html lyrics], [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OfhhWA9GF0M video]), a pop song by {{w|Aaron Carter}} released in 2000.
The survival of both may have been aided by the chance one-degree-off relation to the name {{w|Aaron}}.

The title text expands on the joke by saying that the future archaeologists connected the two historical documents via the biblical story of Moses. Moses also had an older biological brother named Aaron; the future species has hastily concluded that Moses' brother and Aaron Carter are one and the same.

==Transcript==
:[A four-panel comic featuring Cueball, Megan, and a time-traveler from the distant future, possibly from somewhere other than Earth. The time-traveler is depicted as a solid, floating black dot surrounded by six outwardly-curved segments, surrounded by small dots. In the second panel, the depiction is slightly larger, implying greater focus by Megan and Cueball.]

:[Megan and Cueball walk casually alongside the floating Time-traveller, conversing as they do so.]
:Megan: Since you're from the future, do you know who wins the election?
:Time-traveller: Haven't the faintest idea. Hardly any text has been recovered from your era,
:so we know little about your history and culture.
:Time-traveller: [Quietly] We're mostly here for the spiders, anyway.

:[The Time-traveller stops. Megan and Cueball focus on the Time-traveller.]
:Time-traveller: There are only two written accounts we've reconstructed.
:Time-traveller: We don't know whether they describe real events or myths.

:[The Time-traveller drifts backward, Megan and Cueball, stop and look back toward the Time-traveller.]
:Time-traveller: One is a story about a man who built a boat to survive a great flood.
:Megan: Oh yeah. Noah.
:Cueball: We do like our flood narratives.

:[The Time-traveller drifts slowly further backward. Megan and Cueball, continue standing as they listen intently.]
:Time-traveller: The other is an account of how a man named Aaron Carter defeated a god named Shaq.
:Megan: That one may have been mangled a bit by the eons.
{{comic discussion}}

1746: Making Friends

2016-10-14T21:33:03Z

Ladidootdoot:

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

==Explanation==

{{incomplete|More on real problems with making friends? More on Cueball's crazy plan? Any reference to someone actually capturing vultures like this (maybe even a real animal)?}}

[[Ponytail]] is complaining to [[Cueball]] that it is hard to make new friends once you are out of school. She even has problems just meeting new people, let alone making those new people her friends.

This is a common problem, or maybe rather an advantage of going to school. In school you are forced together with a group of people you have to see everyday and work together with in groups. This is a great catalyst for making new friends. In the early grades the kids haven't had time to form many friendships so they are ready to make new friends, and later in college the young people often move away from their home town, and thus has no friends in their new town, and are again ready to make friends. Later in life it is rare to be put in a similar situation, and the people you do meet might already have several friends and for most people there is usually a rater low limit on how many friends it is possible to keep close. Thus many feel it is hard to make new friends compared to when they went to school.

Cueball has a solution, but it is very weird. He says he pretends to be injured, and then, like if he was a weak animal on the {{w|savanna}}, he expects other people to begin circling around him, not directly to eat him, but to take his ''food, shelter and nutrients''. This is a weird formulation as {{w|nutrients}} is what you get from your food, so either he is referring twice to his food, or he actually refers to his value as nutrient (i.e. food) for another being. Also it is unlikely for a person to steal his shelter, unless this refers to his clothing, as "the shelter" would usually be seen as normal peoples houses, which is rather hard to take {{Citation needed}}, especially if the person is renting and it belongs to someone else.

He then talks about these possible future friends as if they will descend on him, making it sound even more like they are birds hanging above him like {{w|vultures}}. But his plan is to start telling these people who are ready to rob him of his life support cool facts about {{w|Outer space|space}} before they get a chance to descend, and then make them like him based on this. And then before they knew what hit them, they are instantly his friends. If this was actually about vultures, his method could be used to trap said vultures, a trick that might be used to try and capture vultures by tricking them to come down in order to eat them your self (if stuck in a desert, etc).

Cueball seems to think this is a fantastic idea, as shown by his arm gestures. But Ponytail seems to think otherwise. Her comment ''this explains a lot'' is probably a reference to other strange habits of Cueball that she has observed. Or his lack of other friends...

In the title text Ponytail mentions that what Cueball has just described fits well with the behavior of {{w|turkey vultures}} rather than humans. Turkey vultures are a type of bird of prey which feeds on carrion. They are known to identify and circle weak, injured, or dying animals so they can eat them (take their nutrients).

As they are animals they would not care about cool facts about space, but Cueball did seem to talk about other humans in the main comic. The title text, however, goes even further out this line and have Cueball cite his mom: "My mom always told me a turkey vulture is just a friend you haven't met yet, usually because you don't smell enough like decaying meat." This is a reference to the old saying: "A stranger is just a friend you haven't met yet", and the action of the vultures eating dead animals.

Smelling of decaying meat would be likely to attract the vultures but it should be noted that this is likely to drive away most other potential (human) friends, as most people don't like decaying meat. {{Citation needed}} Also, there is very little reason to believe that you could become friends with vultures , although if you get up and show that you are not really injured, they are likely to give up and fly away rather than attack you.

Vultures hanging in the air over prey that is about to die, was also the subject of [[926: Time Vulture]]. Saying cool things about space, hoping that people like you, was the subject of [[1644: Stargazing]]. The comic [[1485: Friendship]], was not about friendship...

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is walking with Ponytail holding her arms out while talking.]
:Ponytail: Making friends is so much harder once you're out of school.
:Ponytail: Everyone's so busy. And how do you even ''meet'' people?

:[In this frame-less panel Cueball raises his arms in front of his chest while they walk on.]
:Cueball: Here's what I do:
:Cueball: I pretend to be weak and injured, and wait for others to start circling, hoping to take my food, shelter, and nutrients.

:[Cueball stop walking and lifts both arms straight out as Ponytail turns towards him.]
:Cueball: Then, before they can descend, I start telling them cool facts about space until they like me.
:Cueball: ''Bam'', friendship!
:Ponytail: This explains a lot.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Animals]]
[[Category:Food]]
[[Category:Space]]

1716: Time Travel Thesis

2016-08-06T19:07:15Z

Ladidootdoot:

{{comic
| number = 1716
| date = August 5, 2016
| title = Time Travel Thesis
| image = time_travel_thesis.png
| titletext = 'Hey, what are those futuristic goggles for, anyway?' 'Oh, this is just a broken Google Glass. It was 2010's night at the club.'
}}

==Explanation==

{{incomplete | Explanation can be scaled back to mention that closed loop and time paradoxes are not real since time travelers can predict outcome of conversation that may never take place}}

[[Cueball]] has apparently been reading about {{w|time travel}}. He tells [[Megan]] about this, and Megan excitedly remarks that she did her college thesis on time travel which basically means that she is supposed to know a lot more about time travel than a guy who has just been "reading" about it.

Cueball, however, continues to ask her if she knows basic facts about time travel, like he is investigating if he has discovered facets about it that she would have overlooked while writing a thesis about it. Megan keeps trying to say that since she wrote a '''Time Travel Thesis''', (hence the title of the comic), she already knows all of this and much, much more, and she is obviously getting frustrated by Cueball's attempts to impress her with his "knowledge".

At this point Megan's future-self arrives with a ''Bzzzzt'', having used time travel to arrive at this exact moment in time. It seem she has continued her research and has successfully managed to make a time machine (maybe in a collaboration with others, but with the ability to use it to her own end and needs.)

The reason she arrives is only to tell her younger self that this conversation with Cueball doesn't go anywhere and isn't important, and so present-Megan can leave and not waste her time anymore. Up till then, Megan was presumably reluctant to break off a conversation on the topic of time travel, since the conversation could potentially have improved, or maybe she was even at first attracted to Cueball and interested because he at least had read about time travel. But once the conversation began to run off track, it came as a relief to know that she could quit without the risk of missing out on anything important.

And then she just walks away with her future-self leaving Cueball hanging in the last panel, having invented a completely new way to get out of useless/boring conversations.

Alternatively, future-Megan just makes an excuse to haul present-Megan off in order to prevent the latter from disclosing some details of time travel science to Cueball, which could have unintended consequences. However, using very advanced technology, or even violating physics law, for ''very mundane'' ends is very common in xkcd, so using time travel to prevent useless conversation is not surprising from Megan.

In either case if future-Megan did not finish the conversation she would not know it was unimportant, thus indicating that she actually did. So by coming back she now changes her own (and Cueball's) future. But maybe she knows this will not change anything, just save her self from wasting time. Of course the general implications of being able to travel like this are enormous, and the {{w|Grandfather paradox|paradoxes arising}} from such a possibility endless. For instance the future Megan could now describe to the present Megan how to make the time machine. But why not have gone even further back making it possible to travel in time even earlier etc. (And of course the whole going back and killing one of parents before they even meet, like the idea in {{w|The Terminator}} movie). Generally time travel is a [[:Category:Time travel|recurring theme]] in xkcd. It is worth noting, however, that the comic does not inherently cause a paradox. Were Megan to actually finish the conversation originally and then travel back in time to interrupt it, so long as the Megan who ''didn't'' finish the conversation stills travels back in time with the ''knowledge'' that the conversation didn't actually go anywhere and still saves her younger self from wasting her time, a time loop can be logically sustained.

It is possible that [[Randall]] may have had some conversations like this, where after having spend a lot of time getting nothing out of it himself, would have wished his future self had come back to tell him to just leave the conversation now.

In the title text present-Megan asks future-Megan about her futuristic googles and what they are for, presumably assuming they are needed for the time travel (maybe it is the backpack?) However it turns out it's just some old and broken {{w|Google Glass}}. The only reason future Megan wears these is that she attended a party at the club that had a 2010's night theme.

This is an indication of how far from the future she has traveled, as Google Glass was first released in the 2010's. It is not clear whether she is wearing Google Glass because it became popular in the 2010's or because it was an esoteric piece of hardware that people would readily associate with the 2010's. Also a 90s party may be thrown today, but not a 2000's party. So it is safe to assume that Megan is at least from the 2030's. Also people attending retro dress-up parties frequently make mistakes and do not dress up exactly in-style, creating some anachronisms, especially if they dress up like they did many years ago.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is facing Megan, talking to her.]
:Cueball: I've been reading about time travel.
:Megan: Cool! I did my thesis on time travel!

:[Cueball is now gesturing toward Megan. An electrical charge of some sort is shown occurring outside the panel in the bottom right corner behind Megan.]
:Cueball: Nice! So you know about closed timelike curves?
:Megan: Yup. Thesis.
:Cueball: Apparently wormholes can use exotic matter to–
:Megan: I know. Like I said–
:Charge: <big>''Bzzzt!''</big>

:[Megan has turned away from Cueball to the right. Megan from the future, wearing sunglasses, a headset and a machine strapped to her back has entered the frame from the right where the charge appeared.]
:Future-Megan: You can skip this conversation. It doesn't turn out to be important.
:Megan: Oh, thank God.

:[Cueball is standing alone, the two Megans have left the panel.]

{{comic discussion}}

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

1713: 50 ccs

2016-07-29T17:13:34Z

Ladidootdoot:

{{comic
| number = 1713
| date = July 29, 2016
| title = 50 ccs
| image = 50_ccs.png
| titletext = There's been a raccoon accident at an accordion bacchanalia! Double doses!
}}

==Explanation==

In medicine, "cc" usually means "{{w|cubic centimeter}}", and is often called that by medical personnel. A cubic centimeter is equal to 1 ml (milliliter), so "50 CCs" usually means 50 ml of a certain medicine. In this case however, the doctor has not told the nurse to bring 50 ccs of any given medicine; she needs to write "hi'''cc'''up va'''cc'''ine" 25 times, with both words containing the letter combination "cc", so she needs to write those combination 50 times.

That is the joke, that the 50 ccs literally means the two letters c and c fifty times.
*50 cc would be:
**cc cc cc cc cc cc cc cc cc cc cc cc cc cc cc cc cc cc cc cc cc cc cc cc cc cc cc cc cc cc cc cc cc cc cc cc cc cc cc cc cc cc cc cc cc cc cc cc cc cc
*Which is just sufficient double c's to spell hiccup vaccine 25 times.

There's no {{w|vaccine}} against {{w|hiccup}}s.

The title text text refers to a fictional event with four words containing "cc" (ra'''cc'''oon, a'''cc'''ident, a'''cc'''ordion, ba'''cc'''hanalia), which means she needs to write "cc" 100 times. Referring to the 50 CCs from above, this would be a double dosage.

Although the words of the sentence has been chosen based on their CC's the sentence is quite interesting in itself:
*An {{w|accordion}} is a box-shaped musical instruments with tangents like on a piano. The instrument is played by compressing or expanding the bellows. It has sometimes been accused of being a [http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f193/ZenLunatic82/FarSide-Accordion.jpg hellish instrument]... It has not been used in xkcd before.
*The ''{{w|Bacchanalia}}'' were Roman festivals of {{w|Bacchus}} (Roman name for the equivalent Greek wine God Dionysus). The festivals were based on various ecstatic elements of the Greek {{w|Dionysia}}.
*The animal {{w|raccoon}}, has begun to appear in {{w|Raccoon#Urban_raccoons|urban areas}} which has given rises to increasing {{w|Raccoon#Conflicts|conflicts with humans}}. A dead raccoon had thus found it's way into Cueball's car in [[1565: Back Seat]] and already back in [[1025: Tumblr]] Megan has a raccoon sex dungeon in her attic!

So here there is talk of a wine festival with music played on accordions that has had an accident involving raccoons. On top of the need for vaccine against the hiccups.

==Transcript==
:[Ponytail in a doctor's coat, walks right while reading from a clipboard, passing Cueball walking the other way while she talks to Megan walking in front of her.]
:Ponytail: Nurse, bring me 50 ccs!
:Ponytail: I need to write "hiccup vaccine" 25 times!

{{comic discussion}}

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

1695: Code Quality 2

2016-06-18T15:07:08Z

Ladidootdoot:

{{comic
| number = 1695
| date = June 17, 2016
| title = Code Quality 2
| image = code_quality_2.png
| titletext = It's like you tried to define a formal grammar based on fragments of a raw database dump from the QuickBooks file of a company that's about to collapse in an accounting scandal.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Title text not explained, only some part of the contest is referenced. What would it mean with the scandal company... How likely it is that this should work...}}
The comic is a continuation of [[1513: Code Quality]], in which we see [[Ponytail]] being introduced to the {{w|source code}} [[Cueball]] has written, and where he is warning her that he is self-taught so his code probably won't be written the way she is used to. In the first comic she continues to describe poetically the total mess of a code she encounters, using references to a child building houses, recipes created by corporate lawyers or the transcript of a couple arguing at IKEA, as well as using emojis in the code (title text).

In this comic she continues this trend in four more abusive comments, after starting this sequel with a short remark on how she hates reading Cueball’s code. Cueball is not even shown in this comic, only replying twice off-panel, but as the title makes it clear this is a sequel there can be no doubt that it is Cueball. With the four remarks here as well as a fifth in the title text, she has now managed to make no less than a total of nine derogatory remarks on Cueballs skills in programming.

In the second panel Ponytail makes a reference to "OCR" ({{w|Optical Character Recognition}}), a technique for recognizing text in a picture using software. In this case she is referring to a picture of a {{w|Scrabble}} game, which is a popular word-making game in which players have a pseudo-randomized set of letters and must arrange them on a grid to form interlocking words. OCR software is notoriously imperfect at the time of writing, and the criss-crossing semi-random words on a Scrabble board fed through an OCR program would likely produce dubious results, certainly not fit for current code standards.

Ponytail observes that Cueball’s code includes the [https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Lexical_grammar#Keywords JavaScript reserved words] more often than a typical Scrabble board would, a concession that the code looks at least vaguely code-like. Reserved words such as ‘function’, ‘if’ and ‘return’ are fundamental building blocks of code, and most code uses them often. (They are called “reserved” because those words are reserved for their actual meanings such as defining a function – programmers may not create variables with those names.) As for why “triple points” translates to a prevalence of those words, Scrabble's point system is based on the value of individual letters, combined with certain modifier squares on the game board which can boost points. "Triple points" is the highest class of modifier available in the game (though it can be for triple points on a specific letter, or the entire word) and is highly-sought-after by players.

The third panel continues Ponytail's rant, this time referencing naval weather forecasts, avian interference and indentation. A weather forecast is a complex, multidimensional array of data used in predicting or assessing the atmospheric conditions of a geographical area over a set time. One such example of a "naval weather forecast" [https://www.fnmoc.navy.mil/wxmap_cgi/cgi-bin/wxmap_DOD_area.cgi?area=efs_nvg_nlant&set=EFS may be this one], which would generally be unreadable to an untrained individual. Transcribing it would be a long and typing-intensive process which could result in an even more unreadable product, further complicated by a {{w|woodpecker}} (a bird noted for its rapid successive pecking motions) "hammering" (pecking) the Shift key on the keyboard, which would result in many letters being randomly capitalized. Indentation is the practice of shifting a section of text further from the starting margin, which in coding is typically used to organize functions and statements, but if done "randomly" would only serve to scramble the code hierarchy.

The fourth panel references famous poet {{w|E. E. Cummings}} and user name suggestions. Edward Estlin Cummings was a poet (pseudonym "e e cummings" or "E. E. Cummings") who used capitalization, punctuation, and line breaks in unconventional ways. Websites that offer membership often also require that users create a pseudonym (known as a "username") for use in tracking/authenticating their actions on the site, as well as identifying them to the site's community. Many of these sites also require usernames be unique. On popular sites, many common words, phrases and names have already been reserved by users, so when signing up for them many people run into situations where the name they want has already been taken. On many sites where this happens, the site may suggest alternate usernames, usually based on the one that was entered to begin with. For example, if the username "Hedgeclipper" is already reserved, the site may recommend "Hedgeclipper1234" or "H3dg3clipp3r" instead, depending on the algorithm behind the suggestions. In other cases, websites requiring users to enter personal information such as their name may suggest a username based on their name with a string of digits after it, such as "Joshua1128". An E. E. Cummings poem written entirely out of these semi-random suggestions would make the resulting poem even more "unusual" than his work is already considered.

The last panel's simile involves {{w|Markov chain|Markov chaining}}, {{w|Chatterbot|chat-bots}} (presumably), bus schedules and potential gross vehicular negligence. Applied Markov chaining is a process used in many computer algorithms that try to simulate real-world concepts such as speech simulation and decisions-making. Its inherent randomness also makes it a candidate for unpredictable things such as stock market analysis and speech recognition. Bus schedules are [http://elb-jpinstances-1463028547.us-east-1.elb.amazonaws.com/ccg3/XSLT_STT_REQUEST?mode=direct&line=ccg:01065:%20:H:y15&sessionID=0&requestID=0&itdLPxx_template=tableResults&type_stt=any&language=en&coordOutputFormat=WGS84%5Bdd.ddddd%5D&outputFormat=0&name_stt=10111816&contentFilter=allstops often complicated and full of notation], and are notorious for confusing people who are not used to reading them. Chat-bots using applied Markov chains to recognize and respond to speech/text rely on the input being clear and well-organized in plain language. "Feeding" bus schedules to such a bot would likely result in the returns being complete gibberish and unreadable. The issue is further complicated when Ponytail suggests that the schedules are from a city where "the buses crash constantly", which would be horrifying if it happened so regularly that the schedules actually took crashes into account. Even more horrifying would be the further unpredictability of the output of the chat-bot from such unpredictable input.

Cueball finally comments that "… it runs fine for now" which indicates he knows the code has problems but it reluctant to fix them because it's more-or-less serving its function. Ponytail quips back that "So does a burning bus", which is technically true, but the "for now" part implies that disaster and injury could result at any moment, as would likely happen on a burning bus.

In the title text Ponytail makes a final remark. A formal grammar is a way of describing the structure of text such that computers can recognize or generate such text. A raw {{w|database dump}} is an export of the data from a database for the purposes of transferring it to another database or importing it into a program, viewed “raw” without processing to make it easy for humans to read. {{w|QuickBooks}} is an accounting software package.

==Transcript==
:[Zoom in on Ponytail sitting in front of a computer screen typing. Cueball speaks only off-panel, but since this is a direct continuation of comic 1513: Code Quality where Cueball is shown, there can be no doubt it is him.]
:Ponytail: Ugh, I hate reading your code.
:Cueball (off-panel): I know, I know.

:[Zoom out of Ponytail in an office chair in front of the computer on a desk.]
:Ponytail: It's like you ran OCR on a photo of a Scrabble board from a game where Javascript reserved words counted for triple points.

:[Zoom in on Ponytails head.]
:Ponytail: It looks like someone transcribed a naval weather forecast while woodpeckers hammered their shift keys, then randomly indented it.

:[Zoom out back to the setting of the second panel.]
:Ponytail: It's like an E E Cummings poem written using only the usernames a website suggests when the one you want is taken.

:[Zoom in to Ponytails head and the screen in a wider panel. Finally Cueball again answers off-panel]
:Ponytail: This looks like the output of a Markov bot that's been fed bus timetables from a city where the buses crash constantly.
:Cueball (off-panel): Whatever, it runs fine for now.
:Ponytail: So does a burning bus.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics sharing name|Code Quality 02]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]] 
[[Category:Language]] 
[[Category:Animals]] 
[[Category:Programming]]
[[Category:Computers]]

1685: Patch

2016-05-25T04:59:22Z

Ladidootdoot:

{{comic
| number = 1685
| date = May 25, 2016
| title = Patch
| image = patch.png
| titletext = My optimizer uses content-aware inpainting to fill in all the wasted whitespace in the code, repeating the process until it compiles.
}}

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

==Transcript==
:(A picture of some jumbled code is displayed.)
:Protip: If you don't have access to the GNU ''patch'' tool, you can use the Photoshop one.

{{comic discussion}}

1685: Patch

2016-05-25T04:58:35Z

Ladidootdoot:

{{comic
| number = 1685
| date = May 25, 2016
| title = Patch
| image = patch.png
| titletext = My optimizer uses content-aware inpainting to fill in all the wasted whitespace in the code, repeating the process until it compiles.
}}

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

==Transcript==
:(A picture of some jumbled code is displayed.)
:Protip: If you don't have access to the GNU patch tool, you can use the Photoshop one.

{{comic discussion}}

1682: Bun

2016-05-18T11:22:48Z

Ladidootdoot:

{{comic
| number = 1682
| date = May 18, 2016
| title = Bun
| image = bun.png
| titletext = If a wild bun is sighted, a nice gesture of respect is to send a 'BUN ALERT' message to friends and family, with photographs documenting the bun's location and rank. If no photographs are possible, emoji may be substituted.
}}

==Explanation==
{{Incomplete|This explanation is less than one paragraph. Doesn't explain what a Bun is or anything about whether they are real or not. Please expand..}}
In this comic, [[Ponytail]] explains how the majority of society is woefully ignorant of the facts about Buns. [[Megan]] plays the part of an ignorant student that hasn't yet learned the importance of Bun ranking to society, and her classmates inform her of that.

==Transcript==

:[Ponytail is holding a pointer to a picture of a rabbit on a board.]
:Ponytail/Teacher: Good morning class! Today, we will be learning about the bun.

:[Two rabbits are shown, one slightly smaller, and a greater than symbol is pointed at the smaller one.]
:Ponytail/Teacher: Buns have a hierarchy.
:Ponytail/Teacher: A bun's rank is determined by its size. Smaller buns are higher-ranking.

:[Two larger rabbits are around a very tiny rabbit. The smaller rabbit appears to give off a radiant light.]
:Ponytail/Teacher: Most buns you see are relatively low-ranking.
:Ponytail/Teacher: But this time of year, a lucky few may catch a glimpse of a ''king bun''.

:[Megan is sitting at a desk with a few books on it, pencil in hand.]
:Megan/Student: Ok, hang on.
:Megan/Student: We're talking about rabbits and hares, right? Lagomorphs?

:[Ponytail is holding her finger up on her left hand, and is holding her pointer at her side with the other.]
:Ponytail/Teacher: Informally, yes. But in this course, we use the ''scientific'' term, "bun".
:Megan/Student: (off-panel) Are we sure this is the right room for ''introductory mammalogy?''
:Student #2: (off-panel) I'll check online.
:Student #3: (off-panel) ''Shh!'' Show respect! We look upon the image of a king!

{{comic discussion}}

Talk:1682: Bun

2016-05-18T11:21:19Z

Ladidootdoot:

The transcript is almost done, but the setting/image of each frame has to be added, and someone may want to fix my possible typos. This is my first contribute to explain xkcd! [[Special:Contributions/108.162.250.158|108.162.250.158]] 10:51, 18 May 2016 (UTC)

:I added the explanations about the images. Thanks for contributing! [[User:Ladidootdoot|Ladidootdoot]] ([[User talk:Ladidootdoot|talk]]) 11:21, 18 May 2016 (UTC)

I assumed this was about hair buns, am I incorrect? [[Special:Contributions/173.245.54.25|173.245.54.25]] 11:10, 18 May 2016 (UTC)

I think it's "bun" short for "bunny", an informal term meaning a rabbit (especially a cute one such as the ones shown in the comic). [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.130|141.101.98.130]] 11:16, 18 May 2016 (UTC)

1682: Bun

2016-05-18T11:19:17Z

Ladidootdoot:

{{comic
| number = 1682
| date = May 18, 2016
| title = Bun
| image = bun.png
| titletext = If a wild bun is sighted, a nice gesture of respect is to send a 'BUN ALERT' message to friends and family, with photographs documenting the bun's location and rank. If no photographs are possible, emoji may be substituted.
}}

==Explanation==
{{Incomplete|This explanation is less than one paragraph. Doesn't explain what a Bun is or anything about whether they are real or not. Please expand..}}
In this comic, [[Ponytail]] explains how the majority of society is woefully ignorant of the facts about Buns. [[Megan]] plays the part of an ignorant student that hasn't yet learned the importance of Bun ranking to society, and her classmates inform her of that.

==Transcript==

:[Ponytail is holding a pointer to a picture of a rabbit on a board.]
:Ponytail/Teacher: Good morning class! Today, we will be learning about the bun.

:[Two rabbits are shown, one slightly smaller, and a greater than symbol is pointed at the smaller one.]
:Ponytail/Teacher: Buns have a hierarchy.
:Ponytail/Teacher: A bun's rank is determined by its size. Smaller buns are higher-ranking.

:[Two larger rabbits are around a very tiny rabbit. The smaller rabbit appears to give off a radiant light.]
:Ponytail/Teacher: Most buns you see are relatively low-ranking.
:Ponytail/Teacher: But this time of year, a lucky few may catch a glimpse of a ''king bun''.

:[Megan is sitting at a desk with a few books on it, pencil in hand.]
:Megan/Student: Ok, hang on.
:Megan/Student: We're talking about rabbits and hares, right? Lagomorphs?

:[Ponytail is holding her finger up on her left hand, and is holding her pointer at her side with the other.]
:Ponytail/Teacher: Informally, yes. But in this course, we use the ''scientific'' term, "bun".
:Megan/Student: (off-panel) Are we sure this is the right room for ''introductory mammalogy?''
:Student #2: I'll check online.
:Student #3: ''Shh!'' Show respect! We look upon the image of a king!

{{comic discussion}}

1682: Bun

2016-05-18T11:17:23Z

Ladidootdoot:

{{comic
| number = 1682
| date = May 18, 2016
| title = Bun
| image = bun.png
| titletext = If a wild bun is sighted, a nice gesture of respect is to send a 'BUN ALERT' message to friends and family, with photographs documenting the bun's location and rank. If no photographs are possible, emoji may be substituted.
}}

==Explanation==
{{Incomplete|This explanation is less than one paragraph. Doesn't explain what a Bun is or anything about whether they are real or not. Please expand..}}
In this comic, [[Ponytail]] explains how the majority of society is woefully ignorant of the facts about Buns. [[Megan]] plays the part of an ignorant student that hasn't yet learned the importance of Bun ranking to society, and her classmates inform her of that.

==Transcript==

:[Ponytail is holding a pointer to a picture of a rabbit on a board.]
:Ponytail/Teacher: Good morning class! Today, we will be learning about the bun.

:[Two rabbits are shown, one slightly smaller, and a greater than symbol is pointed at the smaller one.]
:Ponytail/Teacher: Buns have a hierarchy.
:Ponytail/Teacher: A bun's rank is determined by its size. Smaller buns are higher-ranking.

:[Two larger rabbits are around a very tiny rabbit. The smaller rabbit appears to give off a radiant light.]
:Ponytail/Teacher: Most buns you see are relatively low-ranking.
:Ponytail/Teacher: But this time of year, a lucky few may catch a glimpse of a ''king bun''.

:[Megan is sitting at a desk with a few books on it, pencil in hand.]
:Megan/Student: Ok, hang on.
:Megan/Student: We're talking about rabbits and hares, right? Lagomorphs?

:[Ponytail is holding her finger up on her left hand, and is holding her pointer at her side with the other.]
:Ponytail/Teacher: Informally, yes. But in this course, we use the ''scientific'' term, "bun".
:Megan/Student: (off-panel) Are we sure this is the right room for ''introductory mammalogy?''
:Student #2: I'll check online.
:Student #3: ''Shh!'' Show respect! We look upon the image of a king!

{{incomplete transcript}}

{{comic discussion}}

1682: Bun

2016-05-18T11:16:03Z

Ladidootdoot:

{{comic
| number = 1682
| date = May 18, 2016
| title = Bun
| image = bun.png
| titletext = If a wild bun is sighted, a nice gesture of respect is to send a 'BUN ALERT' message to friends and family, with photographs documenting the bun's location and rank. If no photographs are possible, emoji may be substituted.
}}

==Explanation==
{{Incomplete|This explanation is less than one paragraph. Doesn't explain what a Bun is or anything about whether they are real or not. Please expand..}}
In this comic, [[Ponytail]] explains how the majority of society is woefully ignorant of the facts about Buns. When the layperson sees a Bun, they usually think it's a rabbit, which is a separate species altogether. [[Megan]] plays the part of an ignorant student that hasn't yet learned the importance of Bun ranking to society, and her classmates inform her of that.

==Transcript==

:[Ponytail is holding a pointer to a picture of a rabbit on a board.]
:Ponytail/Teacher: Good morning class! Today, we will be learning about the bun.

:[Two rabbits are shown, one slightly smaller, and a greater than symbol is pointed at the smaller one.]
:Ponytail/Teacher: Buns have a hierarchy.
:Ponytail/Teacher: A bun's rank is determined by its size. Smaller buns are higher-ranking.

:[Two larger rabbits are around a very tiny rabbit. The smaller rabbit appears to give off a radiant light.]
:Ponytail/Teacher: Most buns you see are relatively low-ranking.
:Ponytail/Teacher: But this time of year, a lucky few may catch a glimpse of a ''king bun''.

:[Megan is sitting at a desk with a few books on it, pencil in hand.]
:Megan/Student: Ok, hang on.
:Megan/Student: We're talking about rabbits and hares, right? Lagomorphs?

:[Ponytail is holding her finger up on her left hand, and is holding her pointer at her side with the other.]
:Ponytail/Teacher: Informally, yes. But in this course, we use the ''scientific'' term, "bun".
:Megan/Student: (off-panel) Are we sure this is the right room for ''introductory mammalogy?''
:Student #2: I'll check online.
:Student #3: ''Shh!'' Show respect! We look upon the image of a king!

{{incomplete transcript}}

{{comic discussion}}