934: Mac/PC

2014-01-06T12:15:13Z

Linuxman: fixed a Wikipedia link

{{comic
| number = 934
| date = August 5, 2011
| title = Mac/PC
| image = mac_pc.png
| titletext = It's fun to watch browsers fumblingly recapitulate the history of window management. Someday we'll have xmonad as a Firefox extension.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic is a parody of the "{{w|Get a Mac}}" (also known as "I'm a Mac" or "Mac vs. PC") ad campaign for the {{w|Mac}} brand of computers. The ads personified the Mac and their competitors, the PC. The ads poked fun at the PC's terrible function while paying attention to the Mac's unique features. Each ad started with the duo introducing themselves as "I'm a Mac..." "... and I'm a PC."

The comic, however, presents them as identical to each other, since very much everything nowadays is done through browsers due to the proliferation of cloud computing. In essence, using the same browser to visit the same website among different operating systems would give you an experience that is very much the same. Additionally, this comic could also be taken as a riff on xkcd's simplistic style, as they are ''literally'' identical in character design.

The title text refers to {{w|window management}}, which is software that controls windows on computers. {{w|xmonad}} is one such program, and [[Randall]] says that eventually it will be an extension usable with the browser {{w|Firefox}}. What makes it somewhat unusual (and thus worth mentioning) is that it is a [[wikipedia:Tiling window manager|tiling window manager]], meaning it automatically arranges and resizes newly opened program windows to fit a grid. This is especially useful on large screens.
==Trivia==
[[wikipedia:Chrome OS|Google Chrome OS]] is this concept taken literally: every program that can be installed by the default method actually is a "web app" running in, obviously, the Chrome browser. Though no direct reference is made, the release of the first [[wikipedia:Chromebook|Chromebooks]] predates this comic by only two months, and it's hard to believe that Randall could have missed it.

==Transcript==
:[Two adult humans stand facing out of the screen.]
:Mac: I'm a Mac
:PC: And I'm a PC.
:Mac & PC, together: And since you do everything through a browser now, we're pretty indistinguishable.

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

Talk:1255: Columbus

2013-08-25T18:44:41Z

Linuxman: fixed punctuation

Megan's version of the story is one big reference to the {{w|Silmarillion}}, in case you're wondering. [[Special:Contributions/100.40.49.22|100.40.49.22]] 06:00, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

I fail to see how the fact scholars and other educated people knew the Earth is round means he couldn't have difficulty getting sponsorship because of that. He wasn't asking scholars for sponsorship, did he? :-) Actually, according to {{w|Christopher_Columbus#Quest_for_support|wikipedia}}, "Columbus presented his plans to Queen Isabella, who, in turn, referred it to a '''committee'''" ... -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 09:14, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

Because it wasn't just scholars - ''everyone'' knew that the world was a sphere. Sailors, for example, took the monumental task of noticing that when objects appeared in the distance, they seemed to "rise up" over the horizon (hence the phrase). For that to happen, the sea (and by extension the rest of the world) had to be curved.
[[Special:Contributions/109.76.209.186|109.76.209.186]] 12:08, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

: Farmers were famous for believing the world was flat, but it might as well just be city prejudice or jokes on farmers behalf. They would anyway be in the worst position to know any better. [[Special:Contributions/62.220.2.194|62.220.2.194]] 12:30, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

:: I was trying to make a joke. According to wikipedia again, it is recorded that the committee denied the request because of distance to Asia, therefore shown much more intelligence that committees tend to have on average. Still, he asked for sponsorship multiple people, which might include some who believed earth is flat. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 11:07, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

Looking at the moon and at the earth's shadow during a lunar eclipse would probably make many realize the earth is round. [[User:Ghaller825|Ghaller825]] ([[User talk:Ghaller825|talk]]) 12:45, 23 August 2013 (UTC)
:Unless "round" as in "circular", rather than "spherical". A disc-like Earth could give the same effect. A ''non-tidally-locked moon'' would have been an interesting thing for early understanding of the universe, as it would have shown a clearly spherical ball rotating and let the layperson imagine sphericality under their own feet a lot easier in their own childhood, thus flat-earthing would have been culturally invalid, not just lazy/unthinking. Whether or not farmers 'knew'/cared/were-told-by-the-church that the world was flat isn't really relevent on the scale of farming where you need to worry more about localised hills on your land than global curvature on its actual order of magnitude. Of course, in the absence of any other clues you tend to think of everything as flat as your (crudely worked) kitchen tabletop by default. [[Special:Contributions/178.104.103.140|178.104.103.140]] 16:16, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

I am not sure what people knew and what they believed in earlier times. For example: {{w|M-Theory}} says that the space we live in has 11 dimensions. Assuming this is correct, what will people in 500 years say about us? Did we know it or did we not? Could we have expected what will hit us in a couple of years from out of one of the dimensions that we do not visually perceive?
To apply this to the quesion of whether they knew that the world was round: There is a {{w|Deep-sea_exploration#Milestones_of_deep_sea_exploration|story}} about Magellan (who certainly believed that the world was round because he tried to sail around it): He tried to measure the depth of the ocean with a 700m long rope. When the rope failed to reach the bottom, he concluded that the ocean was infinitely deep. Now how can a round object with a finite perimeter have and infinite radius? (I realize that wikipedia does not give any sources for the story and its origin is somewhat obscure, someone translated the story from the German wikipedia in July 2011; in the German wikipedia it had first appeared in 2006, but the story was around on German language websites since at least [http://www.scinexx.de/dossier-detail-40-11.html 2000]; I have no idea where it originally comes from, but it would be interesting to have a look at Magellan's ship's log if it had such a thing.)
[[User:Y4cy|Y4cy]] ([[User talk:Y4cy|talk]]) 13:41, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

:You suppose that the round earth is imbedded in flat 3-dimensional space. If it weren't, you could easily have infinitely deep oceans. Maybe Magellan was way ahead of his time by thinking in non-Euclidean categories.
:(Explanation for non-mathematicians: Draw a circle – it surely has a finite radius, but if you measure the depth perpendicular to the sheet of paper, you could go infinitely deep. Now apply this to a round sphere and measure perpendicular to the 3D space you put it in.)
:--[[Special:Contributions/188.102.28.80|188.102.28.80]] 09:41, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

::Your example fails. Magellan sailed in ship with keel pointing in the direction of the depth he tried to measure. His success depended on the fact that earth is round IN THAT DIMENSION. Sure, there are geometries where the earth can be round in that dimension AND ocean would still be infinite, but, as you correctly mentioned, they would be non-euclidean, while your example with sheet of paper is (almost) euclidean. Also, dimension which would make possible to measure infinite distances is {{w|Brane cosmology}} - {{w|M-Theory}} would work perfectly well even in case all of those "extra" dimensions would be extremely small. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 11:07, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

:[http://www.wdl.org/en/item/3082/ Journal of Magellan's Voyage] is an original source (in French) accessible online of this voyage, which could contain this story. Sebastian --[[Special:Contributions/178.26.118.249|178.26.118.249]] 19:36, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

[http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/a/arda.html Arda] was not [http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/b/bentworld.html bent] until the [http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/d/downfallofnumenor.html Downfall of Númenor] in [http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/chronicle.html?startyear=3319&startage=2 S.A. 3319]. When [http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/e/earendil.html Eärendil] sailed into [http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/w/west.html the West] in [http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/chronicle.html?startyear=538&startage=1 F.A. 538] he did so on a topologically flat earth. It was the [http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/i/istari.html Istari], the [http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/g/greyelves.html Sindarin] belatedly answering the [http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/g/greatjourney.html summons of the Valar], [http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/g/galadriel.html Galadriel] of the [http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/n/noldor.html Noldorin], [http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/e/elrond.html Elrond] [http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/h/halfelven.html half-Elven], and the [http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/r/ringbearers.html ring-bearers] of the [http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/t/thirdage.html third age] who took the [http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/s/straightroad.html straight road] to [http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/v/valinor.html Valinor]. --[[User:April_Arcus|April Arcus]] 01:44, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

934: Mac/PC

Talk:1255: Columbus