explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

3074: Push Notifications/Table of Notifications

2025-04-09T23:24:00Z

Magicalus: /* Tables of Notifications */ Added more cat facts

Fill in a table with all the notifications, possible images that go along with it, and explanation. If anybody knows how to name a table, please let me know. Thanks! '''[[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]][[User talk:42.book.addict|Talk to me!]]''' 21:25, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

==Description==
*15 notifications have been found so far for [[3074: Push Notifications]].
*Below is a list of all discovered notifications
*There are different “sources” of notifications and the notifications will be sorted into tables by those sources

==Tables of Notifications==
{| class="wikitable sortable" style="font-family:monospace"
!Source
!Notification

|-
|xkcd notification system notifications
|Success: A notification about the new xkcd comic has been sent!

|-
|xkcd notification system notifications
|Notification: No new xkcd comic has been posted since the last notification

|-
|xkcd notification system notifications
|This is a test notification. If you’re seeing this, the notification system is configured incorrectly.

|-
|community message board
|Have you seen my cat?

|-
|Cat Fact!
|The animal closest to the cat family without actually being in it is the linsang.

|-
|Cat Fact!
|Cat nose prints are distinctive in the same way as human fingerprints.

|-
|Cat Fact!
|The first known cat video was recorded in 1894.

|-
|Cat Fact!
|Cats can detect the active ingredient of catnip, nepetalactone, at less than one part per billion.

|-
|Cat Fact!
|The oldest known cat lived to an age of 38 years old. Her name was Creme Puff.

|-
|Cat Fact!
|Unlike humans, cats are capable of drinking saltwater if necessary for survival.

|-
|Cat Fact!
|Disneyland is home to approximately 200 feral cats.

|-
|Cat Fact!
|Many domestic cats can reach a top speed higher than Usain Bolt's 2009 sprint speed record.

|-
|Cat Fact!
|Estimates place the number of cats on Earth somewhere between 500 million and 1 billion.

|-
|Cat Fact!
|"Litter" is the collective noun for a group of kittens born together.

|-
|Cat Fact!
|"Clowder" is one of the multiple collective nouns for cats.

|-
|Cat Fact!
|"Clutter" is one of the multiple collective nouns for cats.

|-
|Cat Facts
|Meow!

|-
|Cat Facts
|Meow Meow!

|-
|Cat Facts
|Meow Meow Meow!

|-
|Cat Facts
|Meow Meow Meow Meow!

|-
|xkcd Weather Notification System
|Click here to get weather notifications!

|-
|xkcd News
|We’ve launched a Youtube channel for What If? videos! Ring the bell, like, and subscribe!

|-
|System Log
|(INFO): A user has paused notifications

|-
|Constant Reminders
|At the tone, Zero will become a Real Number

|-
|Constant reminders
|The Earth is spinning at a rate of 1 rpd

|-
|How many times can you click this?
|You’ve clicked this notification 0 times

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(62,12)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(28,15)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(59,7)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|oh look! (14,3)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(51, 25)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(45, 22)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(75, 18)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(59, 8)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|oh look! (12,3)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(25, 24)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(31, 13)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(51, 22)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(52, 26)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(27, 16)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|oh look! (4,5)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(26,15)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(58,20)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|oh look! (3,1)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(30,23)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(45,21)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(42,21)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|oh look! (15,2)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(63,21)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(13,15)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(29,22)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(16,26)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(25,10)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(33,19)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(32,6)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|oh look! (12,9)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(53,10)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(24,12)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(47,23)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(29,17)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(19,25)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(47,12)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(50,4)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(50,10)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(57,28)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(17,14)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(3,18)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(36,14)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(14,19)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|oh look! (9,8)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(18,27)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(61,16)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(32,7)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(44,1)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(58,12)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(56,25)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|oh look! (14,5)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(21,27)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(39,22)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(52,14)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(27,23)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(21,22)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(15,27)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(74,16)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(19,16)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(53,27)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(60,24)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(11,18)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(73,20)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(23,3)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|oh look! (13,4)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(56,17)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(16,10)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(29,18)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(9,18)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(50,2)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(65,13)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(75,13)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(16,20)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(7,19)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(27,7)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(21,8)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(59,28)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(43,21)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(15,11)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(42,8)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(56,8)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(69,11)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|oh look! (3,6)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(60,17)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(60,20)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(29,2)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(34,17)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(54,12)

|-
|Erroneous Alert
|⚠️ Error: Too many errors

|-
|Carriage Return Line Feed
|The next station is Putney Bridge. Please mind the gap between the train and the platform.

|-
|Erroneous Alert
|⚠️ Boop.

|-
|Constant Reminders
|At the tone, The Golden Ration will equal half of 1 plus SQRT(5)

|}

Talk:3074: Push Notifications

2025-04-09T23:19:56Z

Magicalus: Added comment suggesting change to the linked table's format

So...this is the April Fool's comic, if I'm not mistaken... Oh ye of little faith! [[Special:Contributions/172.71.26.106|172.71.26.106]] 20:00, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

I turned this on thinking it would just be a few every so often but I quickly realized how this is xkcd and it doesn't "joke". I had to turn this off because it disrupted my schoolwork by popping up every fricking 5 minutes

Apparently my employer (or ublock) is keeping me from experiencing the full effect of any notifications. All I get is "An *actual* error has occurred. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.91.173|162.158.91.173]] 20:52, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

What the heck are the "Zoom Notification" ones, with just a pair of numbers? Now that I've been sitting with this for a little bit, they're by far the most common notifications, and the most mysterious. What is "zoom"ing or should be zoomed-in-on or whatever, and what do the two numbers signify? [[Special:Contributions/172.68.22.75|172.68.22.75]] 20:35, 9 April 2025 (UTC)
:I think they're coordinates. So far (x,y) has had x from 4 fo 73 (that I've seen) and y from 2 to 28. That gives a tad over 2000 possible combinations, but omething tells me there won't be more than 500 or so in total. Quite a few y=24 (not yet adjacent by x), and any given x has 0 to 3 different y partners (so far). They ''do'' repeat (I'm not recording how many times, but I'm scatterplotting what I get). The ones prefixed with "oh look!" are tightly clustered in x=6..13 and y=4..11, so far, with no non-"oh look!" ones there, so I'm plotting them in a different marker. I ''suspect'', after many many more Zoom Notifications, I'll be left with (enough of) a pixelated image's pixels (of two types, background colour excluded), or else I'm doing it wrong and I should be drawing lines between the dots, but I never managed to grab them all, so I'm relying on it being a random "spraygun droplets" sort of image-reveal. (Still some way to go...) [[Special:Contributions/172.71.241.66|172.71.241.66]] 23:08, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

Made a new page called [[3074: Push Notifications/Table of Notifications]], much like [[1506: xkbutt/List of Permalinks]]. I’m hoping that we can put all of the possible notifications into the table, along with any possible images that go along with it and an explanation (if necessary). '''[[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]][[User talk:42.book.addict|Talk to me!]]''' 21:26, 9 April 2025 (UTC)
:I think it might be a good idea to make the table something more like source/name/notification, because there are chains of notifications where the name changes, like the How Many Times Can You Click This? notification. --[[User:Magicalus|Magicalus]] ([[User talk:Magicalus|talk]]) 23:19, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

I clicked on the silence notifications at a cost button a lot and it set Cueball's PC on fire?

I found what is presumably the source code (?) of the comic through the transcript. It’s all JS pages. No idea what they mean (I’m not good with code), but I’m sure that there are some on here that can help dissect it. '''[[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]][[User talk:42.book.addict|Talk to me!]]''' 21:50, 9 April 2025 (UTC)
:https://xkcd.com/3074/marconi/manifest.json
:https://xkcd.com/3074/marconi/static/js/42.4f5b21b3.js
:https://xkcd.com/3074/marconi/static/js/index.js?v=1

I have a sneaking suspicion the Zoom Notifications are sketching out an image of some sort
(Update: after plotting like 60 of them no apparent pattern is to be found) [[User:SkiesShaper|SkiesShaper]] ([[User talk:SkiesShaper|talk]]) 22:24, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

Apparently one of the notifications is: "The Earth is spinning at a rate of 1 rpd" This is true if you round it, but not exact. The time it takes to rotate is called a sidereal day, and there's one extra sidereal day a year. Basically, there's one solar day removed in a year, because the Earth's motion around the sun cancels it out. Think of it with a tidally locked planet. It spins around once a year, but the sun never moves. Really there's 1.0027379 rotations per day. [[User:DanielLC|DanielLC]] ([[User talk:DanielLC|talk]]) 23:02, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

3074: Push Notifications/Table of Notifications

2025-04-09T23:14:58Z

Magicalus: /* Tables of Notifications */ Added some Cat Fact! notifications, and reorganized things so that things from the same source are together

Fill in a table with all the notifications, possible images that go along with it, and explanation. If anybody knows how to name a table, please let me know. Thanks! '''[[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]][[User talk:42.book.addict|Talk to me!]]''' 21:25, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

==Description==
*15 notifications have been found so far for [[3074: Push Notifications]].
*Below is a list of all discovered notifications
*There are different “sources” of notifications and the notifications will be sorted into tables by those sources

==Tables of Notifications==
{| class="wikitable sortable" style="font-family:monospace"
!Source
!Notification

|-
|xkcd notification system notifications
|Success: A notification about the new xkcd comic has been sent!

|-
|xkcd notification system notifications
|Notification: No new xkcd comic has been posted since the last notification

|-
|xkcd notification system notifications
|This is a test notification. If you’re seeing this, the notification system is configured incorrectly.

|-
|community message board
|Have you seen my cat?

|-
|Cat Fact!
|The animal closest to the cat family without actually being in it is the linsang.

|-
|Cat Fact!
|Cat nose prints are distinctive in the same way as human fingerprints.

|-
|Cat Fact!
|The first known cat video was recorded in 1894.

|-
|Cat Fact!
|Cats can detect the active ingredient of catnip, nepetalactone, at less than one part per billion.

|-
|Cat Fact!
|The oldest known cat lived to an age of 38 years old. Her name was Creme Puff.

|-
|Cat Fact!
|Unlike humans, cats are capable of drinking saltwater if necessary for survival.

|-
|Cat Fact!
|Disneyland is home to approximately 200 feral cats.

|-
|Cat Fact!
|Many domestic cats can reach a top speed higher than Usain Bolt's 2009 sprint speed record.

|-
|Cat Facts
|Meow!

|-
|Cat Facts
|Meow Meow!

|-
|Cat Facts
|Meow Meow Meow!

|-
|Cat Facts
|Meow Meow Meow Meow!

|-
|xkcd Weather Notification System
|Click here to get weather notifications!

|-
|xkcd News
|We’ve launched a Youtube channel for What If? videos! Ring the bell, like, and subscribe!

|-
|System Log
|(INFO): A user has paused notifications

|-
|Constant Reminders
|At the tone, Zero will become a Real Number

|-
|Constant reminders
|The Earth is spinning at a rate of 1 rpd

|-
|How many times can you click this?
|You’ve clicked this notification 0 times

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(62,12)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(28,15)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(59,7)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|oh look! (14,3)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(51, 25)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(45, 22)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(75, 18)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(59, 8)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|oh look! (12,3)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(25, 24)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(31, 13)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(51, 22)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(52, 26)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(27, 16)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|oh look! (4,5)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(26,15)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(58,20)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|oh look! (3,1)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(30,23)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(45,21)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(42,21)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|oh look! (15,2)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(63,21)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(13,15)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(29,22)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(16,26)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(25,10)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(33,19)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(32,6)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|oh look! (12,9)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(53,10)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(24,12)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(47,23)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(29,17)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(19,25)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(47,12)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(50,4)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(50,10)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(57,28)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(17,14)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(3,18)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(36,14)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(14,19)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|oh look! (9,8)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(18,27)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(61,16)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(32,7)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(44,1)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(58,12)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(56,25)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|oh look! (14,5)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(21,27)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(39,22)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(52,14)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(27,23)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(21,22)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(15,27)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(74,16)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(19,16)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(53,27)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(60,24)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(11,18)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(73,20)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(23,3)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|oh look! (13,4)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(56,17)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(16,10)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(29,18)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(9,18)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(50,2)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(65,13)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(75,13)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(16,20)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(7,19)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(27,7)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(21,8)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(59,28)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(43,21)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(15,11)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(42,8)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(56,8)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(69,11)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|oh look! (3,6)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(60,17)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(60,20)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(29,2)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(34,17)

|-
|Zoom Notification
|(54,12)

|-
|Erroneous Alert
|⚠️ Error: Too many errors

|}

3074: Push Notifications

2025-04-09T23:00:28Z

Magicalus: /* Explanation */ Added detail about clicking the cat

{{comic
| number = 3074
| date = April 9, 2025
| title = Push Notifications
| image = push_notifications_2x.png
| imagesize = 277x347px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = NOTIFICATION: Now dismissing a head of the Notification Hydra… NOTIFICATION: Success! You have dismissed a head of the Notification Hydra!
}}
* To experience the interactivity, visit the [https://xkcd.com/3074/ original comic].

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a DELAYED BOT - Please write a better overall explanation and explain other functions of the comic. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
This interactive comic is the 15th [[:Category:April fools' comics|April Fools' Day]] comic released by Randall, just over a week late. It uses {{w|push notifications}} to change the comic image over time and make other statements. A table of notifications can be seen at [[3074: Push Notifications/Table of Notifications]].

After viewing the comic for the first time, there is a sequence of notifications rendered over the comic itself. After clicking through these, you are provided with two buttons: one labeled "Emergency Stop" which will halt all notifications, and one labeled "Silence notifications at a cost" which will silence notifications at the cost of notifying two random people.

If you press silence notifications too much the laptop blows up.

Notification types include:
* One asking you to select a word, with further notifications to be sent whenever someone chooses the same word as you.
* A few starter notifications about this comic, the successful sending of a notification of this comic, and the lack of another comic.
* A "streak" notification counting the number of times you've clicked it. The message changes every 10 clicks, and after 50 clicks there is an offer to make future clicks count twice, making this a simple version of {{w|Cookie Clicker}}. There are occasionally notifications encouraging you to keep clicking and "extend your streak," tempting you with "a free click to keep you going"
* A "have you seen my cat?" notification which spawns several clickable cats on the comic.
* Cat fact notifications that appear when a cat is clicked.
* Various "erroneous errors" with a warning triangle, some with just flavor text, some corresponding to changes in the comic image.
** A "gravity malfunction" indicating a change to the floating image.
** An HTTP malfunction with Zalgo text indicating a change to the tentacle image.
** An error for not enough errors.
** "Your computer has encountered an error" indicating a change to the fire image.
* "Zoom notifications" including numeric coordinates. Sometimes prefixed with "oh look!"
* "Constant reminders" stating what a mathematical constant's value will be "at the tone". (This is in reference to time-of-day phone services, largely obsolete since the popularization of the internet, which you could call to hear the exact time at a given tone.) There are also joke constants such as "your favorite number will be equal to 14." Constants include
** The silver ratio (1 + the square root of 2)
** Pi (3.14159...)
* A notification that offers to provide weather alerts for your location, which leads into a series of notifications asking whether you live in a named city.
* A notification claiming that your computer ballast needs emptying, along with the computer room being flooded
* A reminder that the Earth spins at 1 rpd (rotation per day).
* A "word game" notification where you are invited to pick a word, and informed you will be notified when anyone else picks it as their word
* An invitation to subscribe to the "What if?" YouTube channel
* A notification with the heading "System Log" that reads (INFO): A user has paused notifications

Comic images include:
* Cueball sitting at his desk, with his laptop.
* Cueball sitting at his desk, with a small potted plant.
* Cueball sitting at his desk, with a much larger plant that has clearly outgrown the pot, at least vertically.
* Cueball sitting at his desk, with a cat in the foreground near the point of view.
* Cueball sitting at his desk, his chair replaced with a large cat.
* Cueball sitting farther back from his desk, with the laptop on the desk on fire.
* Cueball, the desk, and the laptop floating.
* Cueball sitting at his desk, shielding his face with his arm from a tentacle coming out of the laptop screen.
* Cueball spinning in his chair.
* Cueball sitting on the desk, facing the laptop on the chair.
* The desk vacant with "Game Over" displayed if you use the emergency stop.
* Cueball sitting on the desk, with a sword leaning against the desk.
* The room flooded 2/3 of the way up the desk.
* Cueball sitting at his desk, but with the laptop much larger.
* Cueball kneeling on the chair, which is raised up higher than the desk, and leaning over to use the laptop

There is also an image of a cat that moves around when you reload the page. It moves slightly when you move your mouse over it to "pet" it. It has its own title text of :3 Clicking it will send a cat fact notification.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[Cueball sits at a desk in an office chair. He is typing on a computer.]
:[Gray message boxes with a small circled “x” at the top right corner are shown:]
:Happy April 1st (observed)!
:To celebrate, we were excited to introduce a new xkcd.com feature: push notifications for new comics!
:Unfortunately, this feature has gone horribly wrong.
:Until further notice, we are asking people ''NOT'' to sign up for new comic notifications.
:Frankly, we recommend not even clicking on any notifications to learn more.
:''Click this notification to learn more!'' (a circled arrow is shown)

:“Push notifications for new comics” sounds like a simple feature, right?
:There’s a nice API for browser notifications. xkcd updates three times a week.
:So you just send a notification for each update, right?
:That’s what we thought, too.
:''Click to continue!'' (a circled arrow is shown)

:[To the side of the comic frame is a big, horizontal hexagonal stop sign]
:Sign: Emergency STOP
:Below the sign: ''Halt ALL notifications and forget everything''
:The good news is that we did build a button to stop xkcd new comic notifications.
:You can press this button at any time and the system will stop sending you notifications.
:The nightmare will be over and the server will forget you ever existed.
:This part definitely works.
:''The rest of the system does NOT work.'' (a circled arrow is shown)

:We’re sorry.
:We don’t know how things went so wrong.
:The system is sending more than three notifications a week. A LOT more.
:We cannot recommend signing up for xkcd new comic notifications at this time.
:''Click here to ignore the warnings.'' (a circled arrow is shown)

:No, really.
:Our notification system may send a large number of very real system notifications.
:These may flood your browser, displace other notifications, and cause problems.
:<big>⚠️DO NOT ENABLE XKCD NEW COMIC NOTIFICATIONS⚠️</big>
:''Yeah, I get it, but I definitely want to enable xkcd new comic notifications.'' (a circled arrow is shown)

:Are you sure?
:''Yes!'' (a circled arrow is shown)
:Absolutely sure?
:''YES!!'' (a circled arrow is shown)
:To enable push notifications on mobile you need to add xkcd.com to your home screen.

:''Click here to subscribe to xkcd notifications''

{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[Initial static image shows Cueball sat on an office chair at a desk using a laptop computer. A notification 'window' is speech-bubbled above the computer]
:[Grey notification box, header:] April 1st (Observed)
:[Notification box, further text:] Open xkcd.com to view.

:[When viewed live, various xkcd-style popover notifications appear, each can be dismissed or (usually the last on every page) invited to press an 'onwards'-style button.]

:[First page of messages]
:Happy April 1st! To celebrate, we were excited to introduce a new xkcd.com feature: Push Notifications for new comics!
:Unfortunately, this feature has gone horribly wrong.
:Until further notice, we are asking people NOT to sign up for new comic notifications.
:Frankly, we recommend not even clicking on any notifications to learn more.
:[Notification with 'onwards button':] ''Click on this notification to learn more''

:[Upon choosing to continue, further messages appear, replacing any prior ones left open]
:"Push Notifications for new comics" sounds like a simple feature, right?
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{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Interactive comics]]
[[Category:April fools' comics]]

Talk:3051: Hardwood

2025-02-16T04:06:25Z

Magicalus: Add content suggestion

I think the comic does not depict a remodeler trying to convince a homeowner about the layer of hardwood: the reaction "I guess so..." doesn't seem enthusiastic enough for that. Instead, I think the comic reads more sensibly (and more in Munroe's style) if it's seen as depicting a geologist explaining the layers of geological stratification and a home renovator then jumping to the conclusion that there is hardwood to be found. Under this interpretation, Blondie replies "I guess so..." because Cueball's remark was genuinely unexpected.

[[Special:Contributions/162.158.217.88|162.158.217.88]] 09:19, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

Agreed. I think that Cueball is the home remodeler. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.57.179|172.70.57.179]] 09:29, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

Fact: this is not a Valentines special [[User:CalibansCreations|'''Caliban''']] ([[User talk:CalibansCreations|talk]]) 12:34, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

Is it just me or did they change the incomplete template? Used to be cyan and slanted, I thought [[Special:Contributions/172.69.70.165|172.69.70.165]] 17:26, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

It might be a good idea to incorporate [[2840:_Earth_Layers]] into this explanation, given the similar topic. I'm not confident enough to do it myself. [[User:Magicalus|Magicalus]] ([[User talk:Magicalus|talk]]) 04:06, 16 February 2025 (UTC)

Talk:1370: President

2024-05-01T15:00:14Z

Magicalus:

I believe Curly is Buns from Old Timers, the girl who was born on the web. [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1058 the-talk]
[[Special:Contributions/173.245.56.89|173.245.56.89]] 12:28, 19 May 2014 (UTC)
:One is "buns" in the transcript and the other is "Curly"... interesting... --[[User:Jeff|Jeff]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 16:19, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

The main joke in my oppinion is that the child correctly phrases the fact that every generation faces the "problem" that the next generation suddenly are adults too and runs the world. It is very embarrassing for pony tail. This is not discussed yet in the explain. [[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 17:17, 19 May 2014 (UTC)^

Perhaps [[137: Dreams]] is related to this one? --[[User:Alu42|Alu42]] ([[User talk:Alu42|talk]]) 17:50, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

I think the title text is overly optimistic. It's not that we're *all* going to be pouring over the rambling blog posts of a teenager: It's that the news media will. And if they have an axe to grind they will create meaning that suits their agenda where there is none.
:Better rambling blogs than Snapchats, methinks. [[Special:Contributions/103.22.201.225|103.22.201.225]] 04:34, 20 May 2014 (UTC)
:Yeah, the "axe to grind" basically sums up the problem with that reasoning. Yes, most people won't bother trying to go through decades of blogs and snapchats... only certain people with a keen interest in bringing you down (or enough money to pay someone else to do it) will. And once those people have cherry-picked a handful of bad examples from your life, they can display it as if it's the ''real'' truth about you. And everyone else will just take their word for it, because, well, who wants to bother combing through decades of blogs and snapchats to get a sense of the ''real'' you?--[[User:Druid816|Druid816]] ([[User talk:Druid816|talk]]) 04:44, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

The first wave of the internet generation will still be at a disadvantage. As early adopters, they will be competing with late adopters who won't have a record of their youthful indiscretions. This will make the internet generation appear more irresponsible by comparison, and likely result in them having worse chances to get positions of power, like the presidency. --[[Special:Contributions/199.27.128.66|199.27.128.66]] 22:37, 20 May 2014 (UTC)
:They will be (presumably) at least 40 when they seek higher political office (For example, ''President of the Incorporated Territory of the Former United States and Junior Representative to the People's Congress of Greater China''). Half the electorate will be even younger than them and will have had similar youthful indiscretions, so they won't really care. -- [[Special:Contributions/103.22.201.225|103.22.201.225]] 06:37, 21 May 2014 (UTC)
::Not quite, as the percentage of younger voters who actively participate in politics (specifically through voting) is significantly less than those of older age groups, who also tend to be more partisan in their ideology. Therefore, one can expect that the older portion of the political world wouldn't make any kind of warm welcome to candidates from the first wave of the internet generation. [[Special:Contributions/199.27.128.186|199.27.128.186]] 03:48, 22 May 2014 (UTC)

Explaining something to children (or vice versa like here) is a common feature in the comic. Recently is was [[1364: Like I'm Five]] where there is no actual children in the comic and also this year we had [[1352: Cosmologist on a Tire Swing]]. I was thinking if there was need for a Category: Children? Any thoughts? --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 12:27, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

2021 called, Presidents will ruin their own reputation by themselves and they'll still have enough support to be seriously considered for re-election. This comic hasn't aged well ;) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.126.146|162.158.126.146]] 14:25, 28 May 2021 (UTC)
:I think this comic has aged pretty damn well, for that exact reason. Doesn't matter how much of a fool a politician makes of themselves, now or in the past. They'll still run, and probably have a good shot. --[[User:Magicalus|Magicalus]] ([[User talk:Magicalus|talk]]) 15:00, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

Ambitious of anyone to think the 2032 Presidential election will represent a generation that grew up on the Internet. The average age of U.S. Presidential candidates seems to be 65 and up, so we would need to wait until the 2060 election at least.[[Special:Contributions/172.69.134.181|172.69.134.181]] 20:19, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

Talk:2892: Banana Prices

2024-02-12T15:20:10Z

Magicalus: Added a question about mentioning the Hot Banana What If?

Is it a linear extrapolation? Or does it only appear so because the Y axis is logarithmic? Inflation is logarithmic, since it's expressed in percentages. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 17:04, 9 February 2024 (UTC)
:Well, the lines of extrapolation are (invoked as) linear, by dint of the height above the baseline being preconverted to a logarithmic function of the represented axial value. Rather than taking exponential-style extrapolation of data and 'happening' to linearise it through the subsequent transformation, it is almost certainly going to have been merely establishing some trend point(s) through which such an exponential would pass and using that to directly guide the linear plot that (on the converted scale) is the functionally equivalent result to doing it with ''every'' point. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.178.77|172.71.178.77]] 17:26, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

OK, so... my reading of the comic after studying it for a while is that Randall is making a sophisticated meta-joke about 'lying with data" and unreliable precision and how easy it is to be fooled. He knows, of course, that this graph's "prediction" is completely arbitrary and is likely to be VERY wrong. He is intentionally breaking a whole set of statistical best practices in this graph. If so, I think this comic is one of the most-layerd and subtle he's ever done. You have to know a lot about statistical best practices to see what he's really doing here. .. What's so interesting to me is him using the voice of the caption-writer -- usually good ol' reliable Randall -- to actually be the butt of the joke. ... If someone wants to claim that this is more sarcasm than "unreliable narrator," I guess that's a reasonable interpreation, but the use of the word "probably" in the caption makes me think we're supposed to take the caption-writer seriously. [[User:Laser813|Laser813]] ([[User talk:Laser813|talk]]) 18:38, 9 February 2024 (UTC)
:I don't know, I think meta-humor is typically reserved for the title text. I think the comic is a cheap gag about bananas and that the line will eventually become outdated, and and it's oversimplified so that the logic of his joke is clear. The caption is written in a similar speech style to the quote, and I think the title text is Randall's admission that the graph isn't the best. I don't think flaws in the graph are intentional as part of some humor on graph design, just a consequence of making the graph clear enough to not be distracting from the joke. [[User:Kittyabbygirl|Kittyabbygirl]] ([[User talk:Kittyabbygirl|talk]]) 21:04, 9 February 2024 (UTC)
:I think the comic is about how obvious it is that wealthy people are influencing our societies, because they know nothing about our lives, and then kind of how you can comment on that without as much lashback if you criticize yourself as well. Or course, people are getting less and less skilled as we more and more do what we are told and influenced instead of what we would find on our own. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.245.168|108.162.245.168]] 01:25, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

Bananas are a special case: Basically we have a monoculture. With no genetic variations, bananas are highly vulnerable to the emergence of specialized pathogens and currently Panama 4 is threatening the Cavendish banana: https://www.theguardian.com/food/ng-interactive/2022/apr/14/climate-crisis-food-systems-not-ready-biodiversity So trying to fit this question of "will it go extinct soon?" into a smooth inflation price increase might be another butt of the joke

[[Special:Contributions/172.71.246.88|172.71.246.88]] 18:49, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

Randall is way off-base here, by about an order of magnitude. The episode is about Bluth frozen bananas, which require refrigeration, chocolate, and custom labor; they also do not have the economies of scale of fresh bananas. The AD wiki says the prices are >$1; in "Top Banana," Maeby says they cost at least $1. In real life, frozen bananas cost $5 in LA, $8 at ice cream shops on LA-area beaches. This is a joke similar to the Pulp Fiction $5 milkshake; milkshakes have been much more expensive than that for years. --[[Special:Contributions/172.70.207.149|172.70.207.149]] 19:12, 9 February 2024 (UTC)
: Randall sometimes ignores basic elements about how the real world works in order to make a nerdy joke or point. The comic last week about Black Hat being tracked 8,000 miles away by NIST is a good example of that. The whole thing rests on us entering into his (slightly) alternate universe with him. [[User:Laser813|Laser813]] ([[User talk:Laser813|talk]]) 20:37, 9 February 2024 (UTC)
: The joke set up in the original TV show ([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nl_Qyk9DSUw|see here]) I think was about the wholesale price of bananas; Lucille says, "What could a banana cost? Ten dollars?". Then Michael replies, "you've never actually set foot in a supermarket, have you?" so certainly he thought she was talking about the banana stand's wholesale input cost rather than what they retail a frozen banana for [[User:NZUlysses|NZUlysses]] ([[User talk:NZUlysses|talk]]) 17:53, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

:Given that these are a Bluth product, I'd be dubious about how much actual banana is involved in the first place.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.70|172.70.90.70]] 09:25, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

I am tempted to say "Keep the change." "What from a fiver." "Yes the world is going to end."
At the time of the radio series, it would have been an excessive amount of change to give away.
They did not keep it for the film, when a fiver would barely pay for one of the six beers. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.195.23|172.69.195.23]] 19:38, 9 February 2024 (UTC)
:given the extinction of Cavendish being imminent is the worth of a banana actually the worth of a banana?
::The price of bananas these days is just bananas! [[Special:Contributions/172.71.178.32|172.71.178.32]] 15:03, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

Using log scale here is not a joke. It's perfectly legit. Constant inflation is actually an exponential relation. For example, if prices go 10% up every year, in two years they won't be 20% higher but 21% because 1.10*1.10=1.21. And such an exponential relation becomes linear when plotted using a logarithmic y axis.--[[User:Pere prlpz|Pere prlpz]] ([[User talk:Pere prlpz|talk]]) 21:57, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

With 34 Trillion debt I would not expect a US dollar to be worth a tenth of a banana in a time frame of hundreds of years - How far they can kick the can is unknown but I would guess years or at best decades over centuries. "what can not be paid back will not be paid back" A banana is worth a banana - it is the money that is losing value and to sustain this circus that must accelerate. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.241.216|108.162.241.216]] 22:33, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

As Pere points out, the logarithmic scale is in fact the correct scale for estimating the uncorrected price of an item, such as a banana. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.103.214|172.71.103.214]] 22:40, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

The explanation is needlessly long and on occasion wrong. Some one tried to fix it by adding paragraphs in parentheses. If something is confusingly written or wrong it's generally best to rewrite instead of adding a paragraph.
In my eyes the comic is Randall's comment on the fact that agricultural products have become relatively cheaper by having price increases below the inflation rate. This is a long sgandingytrend since the beginning of industrialization and the only reason we can afford new other things than food. --[[Special:Contributions/172.71.160.24|172.71.160.24]] 07:56, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

"That line probably has another century or so left." There seems to me to be a pun here - 'that line' could refer to either the line(s) on the graph, which cross the $10 threshhold in a bit over century AND to the "how much could it cost" line of dialogue. In a century that line (of dialogue) won't be amusing any more since by that point - assuming the projection is correct - bananas WILL cost about $10, so the irony and humour will become lost.

Is it worth mentioning that Randall has referenced this line before? The seventh citation in the Hot Banana What If? post says "It's 300 quadrillion bananas, Michael—what can it cost, 3 quintillion dollars?" Seems like it could be either in the first line (as proof of the meme being well known) or in the Trivia section. What do y'all think? [[User:Magicalus|Magicalus]] ([[User talk:Magicalus|talk]]) 15:20, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

== Bad stats? ==

Are these really 'statistical sins'?

Hot take but I agree with comments that it's reading too much into this comic to call it "a meta-joke about lying with data". Here are the supposed "sins" listed:

# false precision
# extrapolating an order of magnitude deeper into the future than is advisable
# assuming that a non-exponential quantity - prices - will grow exponentially
# referring to a logarithmic extrapolation as linear
# ignoring historical norms and high variability in making future predictions
# articulating multiple potential scenarios that are actually highly correlated with each other.

Taking them one by one:

> 1. false precision

Projecting prices hundreds of years into the future is farcical, for sure, but I'm not sure that's "false precision". "False precision" would be saying "on January 6 2254 this joke will finally be stale". But the comic gives a very imprecise (and wrong!) range "another century or so". If anything the precision of the projection is downplayed.

> 2. extrapolating an order of magnitude deeper into the future than is advisable

This one is true, and is the source of the humor.

> 3. assuming that a non-exponential quantity - prices - will grow exponentially

Inflation _is_ an exponential process, _by design_. Monetary policy holds the explicit aim--more or less upheld since the 1980s--to keep long-range inflation within a low and positive percentage around the 2% mark. That is the aim. There are periods of higher (and lower!) inflation but overall, the Fed has been successful at keeping long-run inflation within the target range for the last 40 years or so in which inflation targeting has been the dominant monetary policy paradigm. And growth on a constant percentage rate in a series just _is_ exponential growth; that's what exponential means.

> 4. referring to a logarithmic extrapolation as linear

idk maybe. The graph is on a log scale but a log scale has the quality of allowing us to visualize an exponential trend on a straight (linear) line. That's the beauty of it. I don't think there's a "sin" here.

> 5. ignoring historical norms and high variability in making future predictions

What historical norms are being ignored here exactly? Long-run inflation is fairly stable. To the degree there's a sin here, it's already covered by (2).

> 6. articulating multiple potential scenarios that are actually highly correlated with each other.

idk can anyone find a quote from their preferred statistical Bible to support the idea this is a sin? To my mind, showing that multiple distinct models converge on an approximate answer is a very good way to test convergent validity of a prediction. There are problems with presenting models as independent when they are not in order to give a false impression of a consensus. I don't think using three different inflation series as alternative models is doing that.

So maybe 1 or 2 of the sins alleged are real, imo. [[User:NZUlysses|NZUlysses]] ([[User talk:NZUlysses|talk]]) 17:22, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

It looks like parts of this explanation were written by ChatGPT. The unnecessary bulleted list, "looks like a wry observation", "using the ignorant tone [...] to wryly acknowledge", "overall", "in truth". This is an unusual tone for this wiki but not unusual for a chatbot.

Its kind of hilarious. Maybe we should keep it. [[User:Ystem|Ystem]] ([[User talk:Ystem|talk]]) 18:26, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

The explanation (as of this writing) is wildly overcomplicating things. The simple, straightforward idea that it will probably take a century for Lucille to be correct is the most likely intent of the comic. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.174.225|172.71.174.225]] 15:04, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

I disagree that correlations of projections are a problem. Often the future projections are "best case, worst case, most probable case", or at least 25th/50th/75th percentiles of a whole glob of simulated predictions, and will be highly correlated (but divergent, thus representing a potential uncertainty or highlighting when actuality confounds even the edge conditions). 
In this graph, those are three trends that ''might'' (in different amounts of specificity) direct the onward trend of the actual figure, depending upon what factors dominate. Bananas might be 'less price-rising than fruit', which in turn might be 'less price-rising than the general economy' (taking the projections at face value), but if the relative inexpensiveness of bananas hits a 'floor' (by general fruit terms or the wider economic issues) and fails to be disproportionately discounted as it clearly(!) has been then it would be forced to 'jump tracks' to a similarly (but more so) rising cost now parallel to where the successor projection was leading. (That's before other price-shocks like Banana Extinction or Inflationary Recession make the naïve trends of any or all of the lines completely wrong.) 
An example of an actually uncorrelated trend would be something Moore's Law-related, which would apparently be allowed here (by the "sin" objections), though it's difficult to say how that would be any more relevent than what actually is there. Of course, understanding (or explanation) of the potentially confounding (and hopefully relevent) co-dependent extrapolations plays a part in this. But this isn't even a significant "bad graph, just for the sake of laughs" element, IMO. If anything, it's the very squiggly nature of the historic data being projected off into 'likely directions' (dominated by the most recent true-instantaneous-gradient, which is clearly curved upards from any historic rolling average) without any consideration that the future-line might turn out to be just as 'squiggly' (except that it might be mostly rattling around between the upper and lower 'estimates', even as ''their'' true paths also rattle around... the most litteral 'banana price' trend obviously rewriting itself ''as'' the actual banana-price line). [[Special:Contributions/172.69.194.20|172.69.194.20]] 16:23, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

I agree with the commenters above, and I removed all the “unreliable narrator” and bad stats stuff. I was assuming he was being “Bluthian” about the whole graph, but now I realize there’s not much evidence for that. Hopefully it’s better now. [[User:Laser813|Laser813]] ([[User talk:Laser813|talk]]) 21:06, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

Separately: Can non-hyphen-dash editors [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2892:_Banana_Prices&diff=334823&oldid=334816 consider this edit reason] as a suggestion. If I see two words separated by just a line, it litterally screams of being a hyphen (even when it is typographically different). I will gladly dash (or even "&mdash;") an inadvertent hyphen-as-a-dash (or a two-hyphens-as-a-dash!), but to have no spacing makes it then tend towards dash-as-a-hyphen. And unnecessary when, as in these cases, sometimes a simple commaing will serve the same purpose. And parentheses can also be used when already there's too much commaing to be easily read in, out and across the various commas that might be there, with the advantage of clarifying the ins-and-outs of the rhetorical flourishes. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.194.20|172.69.194.20]] 16:23, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

Another meta-joke might be that this whole extrapolation business displayed here is a bit "bananas"... ;-)

Talk:523: Decline

2024-01-23T04:25:17Z

Magicalus:

"Wife"? [[Special:Contributions/76.106.251.87|76.106.251.87]] 00:33, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

:Indeed, plus the notion that Cueball had begun graphing everything at a particular point while prior data had been graphed suggests that he only began presenting this data to Megan at that point, and had been secretly, perhaps obsessively, keeping data well before in their relationship. [[User:Thokling|Thokling]] ([[User talk:Thokling|talk]]) 09:25, 25 September 2013 (UTC)
::Megan does say "graphing everything" not "keeping data": it is possible that Cueball had been even openly collecting data prior to graphing it, or that his graphing of things just increased significantly at that point. [[User:L-Space Traveler|L-Space Traveler]] ([[User talk:L-Space Traveler|talk]]) 00:12, 3 September 2022 (UTC)

isn't it a bit speculative to add this to "comics featuring megan"? I'd "be bold" and remove it from there but I don't know how to. [[Special:Contributions/198.41.230.33|198.41.230.33]] 01:06, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

as a gen z dude i have no clue, but the 1 month thing could also be periods? maybe link the uterus-hertz comic? [[Special:Contributions/172.69.62.244|172.69.62.244]] 21:06, 24 July 2021 (UTC)Bumpf

Megan can definitely do better anyways; I don't see a label on the x-axis. [[User:Magicalus|Magicalus]] ([[User talk:Magicalus|talk]]) 04:25, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

Talk:2880: Sheet Bend

2024-01-16T04:46:45Z

Magicalus:

Why is this called a "sheet" bend? [[User:SystemParadox|SystemParadox]] ([[User talk:SystemParadox|talk]]) 21:17, 12 January 2024 (UTC)
:I don't know the full answer but it's a sailing thing: the 'sheet' is the rope you pull in or let out to control the position of the sail. I guess bend describes the category of knot. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.48|172.70.90.48]] 21:23, 12 January 2024 (UTC)
::NO NO NO. The sheet is the sail. [[User:JohnB|JohnB]] ([[User talk:JohnB|talk]]) 21:36, 12 January 2024 (UTC)
:::It is the rope - {{w|Sheet (sailing)}}. "In sailing, a sheet is a line (rope, cable or chain) used to control the movable corner(s) (clews) of a sail." [[Special:Contributions/172.71.242.5|172.71.242.5]] 21:56, 12 January 2024 (UTC)
::::Huh. Dueling Wikipedia articles. The Sheet_bend article has a definition section that says the term "sheet bend" derives from its use bending ropes to sails (sheets). But the Sheet_(sailing) article says a sheet is a line used to control the movable corner(s) of a sail. [[User:JohnB|JohnB]] ([[User talk:JohnB|talk]]) 23:08, 12 January 2024 (UTC)
:::::A sail is never, and was never, properly called a "sheet", since at least the 13th century. The Wikipedia explanation of the name is misleading. According to https://www.etymonline.com/word/sheet, it's "shortened from Old English sceatline "sheet-line," from sceata "lower part of sail," originally "piece of cloth," from same Proto-Germanic source as sheet (n.1)." [[User:Jlearman|Jlearman]] ([[User talk:Jlearman|talk]]) 17:44, 13 January 2024 (UTC)
:::::: When I took a sailing class as a kid they used the word “sheet”, I think it was the lines connected to the sails used for adjusting them? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.245.82|108.162.245.82]] 19:46, 13 January 2024 (UTC)
::The sheet bend is named for its ability to to secure a sail, or sheet. You fold over the corner of the sail and that's one of your "ropes". The sheet bend is generally used as a knot for tying a large, inflexible rope (or rope-like object) to a smaller, more flexible rope.[[Special:Contributions/172.69.70.22|172.69.70.22]] 22:30, 12 January 2024 (UTC)
::I would take the Ashley Book of Knots as authoritative. Sheet Bend is the first knot in the book, and is always (in modern terms) rope-to-rope, not to sail. It is one of the basic knots. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ashley_Book_of_Knots https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheet_bend
::{{unsigned|PRR|04:04, 13 January 2024}} 
:::But what dispute are you taking TABoK's authority on? Two things can have the same name in different contexts (or namespaces). And does Ashley use anything other than ropes exclusively in the whole book? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.241.170|108.162.241.170]] 14:42, 14 January 2024 (UTC)
:I added a link to the wikipedia entry, it explains the name. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 21:25, 12 January 2024 (UTC)
:Because it's a sheet way to connect cables?[[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.137|172.70.90.137]] 09:58, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

Presumably the "different loads" title text is a pun between electrical load and mechanical stress on the knot? [[User:Jim-at-home|Jim-at-home]] ([[User talk:Jim-at-home|talk]]) 21:56, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

“silver being joined to silver and gold being joined to gold within the insulating white cable” is not the conventional way to join cables.
Unless you are joining one cable to itself (like a Möbius strip), you have ''two'' cables with insulation.
And usually you use non-cursed connectors, where you first remove the insulation at the end of the cable and then crimp or solder the conductors to metal parts of the connector; or solder the conductors and then add a different type of insulation for protection; or use screw terminals;...
Only with insulation displacement connectors you keep using all the insulation of the two cables.
And finally, conductors are usually copper ''or'' aluminum, and very rarely silver ''and'' gold. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.94.141|162.158.94.141]] 08:45, 13 January 2024 (UTC)
:I think the gold and silver is just color coded for the reader. Not that they are meant to indicate that the conductors are made from this material. Apart from that you comment sounds like you know what you are talking about. So please improve the explanation if you can. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 10:58, 13 January 2024 (UTC)

::: I changed it to gold- and silver-colored. It was obvious to me that it was the colours used in the comic that were being referenced, but fixed for the avoidance of doubt. The join being made within the one cable was clearly an error though. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.161|172.70.85.161]] 22:13, 13 January 2024 (UTC)

:: cables often have the signal parts copper-colored (described gold atm) and they are obviously copper, and the outer ground more the color of steel or something, not sure what metal it is, but it’s easy to solder like copper or silver is, not aluminum which is very hard to solder. usually gold and silver are used at the contacts of a connector, not inside a wire, i don’t know who would ever make that mistake. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.245.83|108.162.245.83]] 19:49, 13 January 2024 (UTC)
:::"''more the color of steel or something, not sure what metal it is, but it’s easy to solder like copper or silver''" Traditionally tinned copper. Tinned not just for identification, or easier soldering, but because early rubber insulation actively rotted copper and tinning slowed the damage. Many sorts of damage, why much copper today is silvery. [[User:PRR|PRR]] ([[User talk:PRR|talk]]) 04:16, 14 January 2024 (UTC)
::: Not wishing to spoil it, but the series finale of {{w|Cabin Pressure (radio series)|a certain radio comedy}} reveals... ah well, that's the spoiler (in the article, if you read that far down... rather than just listen to it if you haven't heard about it already but now think you like the premise). [[Special:Contributions/172.69.79.188|172.69.79.188]] 21:01, 13 January 2024 (UTC)

Okay I looked at the wikipedia article and the knot depicted in the comic looks like a right handed one. I still don't know why it's called right handed, or why the left handed one is insecure.[[Special:Contributions/198.41.236.207|198.41.236.207]] 11:46, 13 January 2024 (UTC)
:It's not. Ropes and heavier ropes (called cables) are commonly made by twisting smaller ropes together, the twist direction (terminologically the 'lay' of the rope, (s-laid or z-laid)) is the main thing (that I know about) that can make chirality (handedness) of knots important to their strength. Electrical cables and wires aren't usually expected to have any tensile strength, and their tensile components aren't usually twisted in a way that would affect their strength. (Sorry for all the parentheticals.) [[Special:Contributions/108.162.241.130|108.162.241.130]] 14:56, 14 January 2024 (UTC)
::As I understand it (at least in knots that I'm familiar with), it's not chirality (like stereo isomers) but cis-/trans-ness (e.g. isomers which have active groups pointing in different directions across a double-bond).
::If the left cable came into the right's loops on on the bottom, dove under the two loops of the RH cable, over the conductor then under then over to have the loose end emerge where the offscreen-length currently comes in, then it'd be electrically the same but any tension would pull more off-axis and the knot could 'capsize' into an unwanted form (topologically similar, but with different relative loops.
::If you did that but ''also'' rethreaded the RH length to come up through the LH's loop (as now), but then passed over the top, down behind the two LH bits (free and loose end) to go back over the (lower) LH, under itself then over the (upper) LH, to dangle free, it would be a chiral inversion and (as you say) probably not greatly affected by the cable's own rotational symmetry.
::Re-rethread the LH loop as it was, and you'd get a chiral alternative to the first 'capsizable' change.
::Proper mathematically-inclined knot-theorists probably have better terms to use for both chiral and cis-trans transforms (as well as functional sub-mirroring such as the difference between reef and granny). There will already be terms known amongst practical knot-practioners such as sailors and other riggers, but (at least until "knot bibles" were written) they'll have been given homegrown/traditional terms that might not be particularly consistent with other knot-cultures. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.43.163|172.69.43.163]] 17:26, 14 January 2024 (UTC)
::^^^^ Addendum... Maybe [https://forum.igkt.net/index.php?topic=1551.0 this link I just found] is relevent, from a quick scan of it... Or maybe not. ~same IP/time as above .sig~

A note I nearly added in the bit about short-circuits (or, as I added, 'un'circuiting) is that the electrical behaviour of the knot is different according to which 'end' slips. If the left-side cable 'slips through' enough, then its gold and silver bits of sheath could contact (would short-circuit any current driven at that side). If the right-side cable slips out, it is in no danger of doing so for a right-driven current (it would just disconnect). That ignores the cross-talking that could occur (on one conducting line at a time, so may not matter if there's no external ground-return element, except as far as not being a proper connection any more), or ''both'' ends slipping (where one of the LHS sheaths ''might'' shuffle into a position to bridge the two RHS sheaths). But, as tied, the LHS silver (being bent in and out of the page around its crossing counterpart wire) seems unlikely to be pressed against both gold and silver, should it trivially untwine/slip through. Actual studies with actual knots might be useful. I thought I had a spare length of unterminated Cat5, nearby, but apparently (k)not... that, with some coloured permanent marker-pen marks made upon it, would probably have made a decent analogue for visual analysis of failure conditions. Maybe I'll de-plug an old cable (I've got a number of damaged USB cables I could chop, but their being thinner would change the scale and dynamics of the knot, meaning I might as well just use a scrap of twisted-pair internally-sheathed strands). – But I thought you'd like my mind's-eye analysis of the knot behaviour, before I get around to trying anything practical to this end. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.7|141.101.99.7]] 17:08, 13 January 2024 (UTC) (<- ex Cub-/Boy-/Venture-Scout, but never got any Knot ''Un''tying badge... that brief stint with escapology aside... ;) )

This comic contained material familiar to a hobby engineer that was cast critically and derogatorily (e.g. “sheety” bend) throughout the explanation. I edited a lot of it. I’ve seen this happen repeatedly in other explanations. I don’t edit most of them. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.150.155|172.71.150.155]] 18:41, 13 January 2024 (UTC) 

"this is a scenario commonly encountered by hobby engineers from the last millenium"
"commonly"? Can any hobbyist engineers from the last millennium attest? Also, this sounds ageist - is it ageist? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.166|172.70.86.166]] 21:56, 13 January 2024 (UTC)
:Well, I definitely did electrics/electronics pre-millenium. I'm not at all unhappy with the idea with the possibility of an occasional 'bodge job' connection having happened (e.g. tying a cable in a simple knot, in suitable cases, to add mechanical resistance to any further tendency for a cable to be tugged out of a grommit-hole and the core conducting wires being tugged out of whatever terminal/patch-block they need to be connected to - or, more likely, pulling the core copper strands beyond their tensile limits).
:Although (while I respected the ''idea'' of this being based upon a repair-bodge), I don't see this as a "this wire was damaged, this is how the two ends are reconnected", but rather as a deliberate cable termination method (like adding moulded plugs/etc) which could then be mated end-to-end with another similarly terminated cable. (Like using a gender-changer 'double-socket' between two phono-ended lengths of cable, or using a {{w|File:BNC Tee connector, with Ethernet cable connected-92166.jpg|BNC T-connector just to join two lengths of networking cable}} but without the need for the extra connector ''and'' adding intrinsic tensile resistance - though actually not as much as the BNC 'bayonet' version already does...)
:If I was writing this from scratch, I'd actually remove all the 'repair' aspect of it, TBH. It looks more like a deliberate patch-type cable (1x2core) manufactured to be directly and hermaphroditically compatible with any other such cable, tied together without the need for tools (screwdrivers, crimpers, punch-downs, etc) ''and'' untied as and when required (at least as easily as any similar rope-knot can be undone, which isn't always a given if mishandled and overtightened).
:I'd also be looking at various knots and working out which (if any) could support ''more'' than two contact-patches/sleavings per cable, for three-core or more-core connections between any two such cables. The geometry of the knots would define roughly where (and how long) the external contact-sleaves would need to be (presumably identical for both cables) such that they made appropriate connections between the two halves (cross-overs could be allowed, but that'd have to be down to the IEEE specifications of how to detect/interpret RX/TX assymetry at the end devices, etc). But then I'd also be writing a vastly more complicated alternate explanation. Perhaps just remove the bodge-job implications, someone? Clearly it's not an end-user bodge. Though it could be a manufacturer/industry bodge (such as using an 8P8C connector for essentially 6P4C purposes). [[Special:Contributions/172.69.79.138|172.69.79.138]] 00:53, 14 January 2024 (UTC)
I use the reader app in inverted color mode, so I could not for the life of me figure out what all the discussion about silver and gold was about. Also, can I just comment on how the conductive sleeves are magically flexible? I wonder if they are braided. Even then, this would severely limit how tight the knot could be pulled. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.154.238|162.158.154.238]] 13:26, 14 January 2024 (UTC)
:I initially imagined either a particularly ductile 'foil' or, as you say, braided (like an STP cable's 'S' layer), though the failure modes of both (tearing or fraying) are potentially problematic. Perhaps a conductive polymer of similar mechanical flexibility to the non-conductive regular sheath. The attachment of respetive core to the outer seems to me the most intensive process.
:I once jury-rigged two cameras on a length of CAT5, using two pairs each for power/signal. One camera was around half way along the cable from where it was commonly terminated, but rather than than cutting the cable entirely and reconnecting the 'onwards' TPs (or threading a half-used full cable and a half-used part-length through the false ceilings/etc) I made a careful slit in the outer insulation (and shielding foil/braid, whatever it had), pulled the two chosen pairs out enough to get the necessary length of mid-cable free ends for my purposes and then snipped just those.
:It wouldn't need as much work to connect outer-conducting sheathing to an inner core. Possibly an into-insulation 'displacement' blade, but not sure how you'd guarantee the (single, and only) inner core contact, so slitting outer insulation, fishing for the chosen inner-core, piercing, twining and/or wrapping that conductive strand then reinsulating as necessary or shrink-wrapping with the 'conductive rubber' outer (preventing the slit from tearing too far open on bending). Twice, though you don't need to preserve the 'gold inner' up to or beyond the 'silver inner' tapping point.
:I would imagine (if this were a serious cable-end spec) there'd be careful balancing of robustness and flexibility of the [[2856: Materials Scientists|materials]] and construction methods in use. But handwaved away, in our 'reality'.... [[Special:Contributions/172.69.43.163|172.69.43.163]] 17:26, 14 January 2024 (UTC)
:...see {{w|Conductive elastomer}} (and some of that article's onward links) for a possible type of material to use. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.156|141.101.98.156]] 18:32, 14 January 2024 (UTC)

Y'know, I've read every XKCD comic. For some reason, this one makes me the most uncomfortable. I ''hate'' it. No idea why. [[User:Magicalus|Magicalus]] ([[User talk:Magicalus|talk]]) 04:46, 16 January 2024 (UTC)
;Knot category?
We've seen some recurring knot-themes, I was thinking. A quick check shows that it's not as overwhelming as I thought it was, but here's what I easily found anyway (possibly missed some, as I skimmed things).
*[[595: Android Girlfriend]] - averted, but knots are mentioned/could have been expected in the parodied scenario (probably not really so cattable).
*[[730: Circuit Diagram]] - drawn knot
*[[1572: xkcd Survey]] - mentioned as an option
*[[1762: Moving Boxes]] - written down (ambiguously)
*[[2738: Omniknot]] - full-fledged 'knotty comic'
*...this one, as above.
So it might just be the two 'proper knot-focused' comics, but (like 'birds' or 'real people' as categories) two or three others that should be considered relevant. Maybe wait until there's a third (it might take a year?), but placing the groundwork for it. Or maybe even being sufficient to prompt someone to act sooner, now that we can be sure that Knots is one of the many subjects Randall may dive into. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.131|141.101.99.131]] 18:52, 14 January 2024 (UTC)
:The android comic doesn't mention knots. It is only the explanation here that does. The circuit diagram may have a knot, but it is not labeled, and could be something else. Not like saying this is a comic about knots. Of course it has a relation to this comic, but the relation is more in the connector than in knots. The survey doesn't have knot mentioned in the actual comic. Knots are for sure mentioned in a word in Moving boxes, but the comic is not about knots. Which leaves only Omniknot and this one, and I think even three about knots would be too little for a category. So unless there are at least a couple more, it is way too soon to make a knot comic category. But would be fine to include a link between the two knot comics. I will do that! --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 07:43, 15 January 2024 (UTC)
::(You'll note that I expicitly pre-stated each of your 'objections', already. Not sure, then, why you thought I didn't realise any of it...) As I said, I had an impression that it was a well-used trope, here, but found it less so when I checked. But definitely not an unused one. So marked it here to avoid having to necessarily recheck everything once the next one arrived (or the one after that, etc, if still not conclusive). Although it's also possible I missed other good exameples, already... ;) [[Special:Contributions/172.69.195.229|172.69.195.229]] 17:21, 15 January 2024 (UTC)