Talk:2800: Down

2023-07-13T02:35:24Z

Leafan101:

Shouldn't it be geolocated, to be rotated accordingly? [[Special:Contributions/172.71.160.110|172.71.160.110]] 12:35, 10 July 2023 (UTC)
:You need to know where ''and when'' you are. Taking the 220 degrees (why not 140?) currently in the transcript as correct, that means Mars is at 50° azimuth, which a versatile but overly-fiddly astronomy app I have (why ''doesn't'' it remember I do manual orientation? ...it's flat out wrong when it tries to do it from device settings/current orientation!) suggests that Mars will reach 50° 'up', for me, at about 16:30 local time (could have checked when it fell back down to that again, but I didn't) at which point I could easily be sat facing whichever direction puts "Mars down" at a similar angle to the one seen in the comic. But it will change throughout the day, every day that it applies. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.244|172.70.162.244]] 13:05, 10 July 2023 (UTC)
::I guess that's why Randall hates it so much, it changes continuously. Although he missed a great opportunity for a clever animated comic -- it could calculate the rotation of the scene based on the reader's location and time. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 14:20, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

Why didn't Orson Scott Card get cowriting props for this one?

I'm TenGolf and I started the explanation! [[Special:Contributions/172.70.131.6|172.70.131.6]] 15:03, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

I'm not so sure about the "relative to gravity in actuality" - there's no objective reason why "down" must follow gravity. (Take Ender's Game - "The enemy's gate is down") [[User:DownGoer|DownGoer]] ([[User talk:DownGoer|talk]]) 15:07, 10 July 2023 (UTC)
:That's not the directional sense of "down". When it's used as a direction, it's towards the center of whatever body currently exerts the most gravity -- if you're on Earth it's towards the Earth's center, if you're on the Moon it's towards the Moon's center, etc. "Down" has other senses, like "the computer is down" that just refers to whether it's functioning. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 17:16, 10 July 2023 (UTC)
::[[241:_Battle_Room]] Relevant here? —[[User:Purah126|Purah #126]] ([[User talk:Purah126|talk]]) 00:41, 11 July 2023 (UTC)
:For the case of Ender's Game, it isn't a matter of ignoring/spiting gravity, but the disorientattling lack of gravity in the arena makes tactics difficult to maintain when everyone has a different 'up' (when going concentrating on 'forward to the enemy').
:Rethinking it as being 'down to the enemy' (and perhaps revisualising as cylindrical/spherical coordinates as you are looking 'down that well') gives you a better resilience of comprehension whenever you get spun around and need to make sure you're still singing to the same (directional) hymnsheet as your team.
:Though, if I recall the film correctly, they re-established the "single orietation standard" whereby (whatever the script said) there seemed to be the obligatory common (and perpendicular to the line of attack/defence) 'up', just for the sake of the audience's own 2D-plane (with maybe 0.5d of 'elevation') sensibilities. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.109|172.70.162.109]] 07:54, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

This may be a reference to the band named Down Left Forte. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.154.156|172.71.154.156]] 23:37, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

When I first tried to access this comic, Explain XKCD's server didn't respond. For a second I thought it was some sort of joke page in the same vein as 404. --[[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.111|172.70.85.111]] 10:49, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

I am over 2 bottles of wine deep tonight. This comic looks like I feel.

explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Talk:2800: Down