explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

528: Windows 7

2022-05-04T02:11:22Z

Musi: Undo revision 233225 by X. K. C. D. (talk)

{{comic
| number = 528
| date = January 9, 2009
| title = Windows 7
| image = windows_7.png
| titletext = Disclaimer: I have not actually tried the beta yet. I hear it's quite pleasant and hardly Hitler-y at all.
}}

==Explanation==
This Comic came out 2 weeks after the beta version of the at that time not yet released {{w|Windows 7}} got leaked on the internet, and 2 days after a trojan-infected version got leaked as well.

[[Megan]] is observing [[Cueball]] use a laptop on which he has installed the Windows 7 beta. However, the alleged Windows 7 beta is showing nothing but a picture of {{w|Adolf Hitler}} and Cueball is unable to do anything. This could hint at the version containing malware. Cueball then presses {{w|Control-Alt-Delete}} (the well-known Windows Secure Attention Sequence which opens Task Manager or displays a list of options which includes 'Shut Down' and 'Restart') as suggested by Megan, but {{tvtropes|AdolfHitlarious|only manages to make the picture's eyes flash}}.

The fourth panel shows Megan commenting that this Windows 7 beta is better than {{w|Windows Vista}}, to which Cueball agrees. The joke is that Megan deems a mostly non-functional and vaguely sinister OS, which is likely malware, better than Windows Vista, which was generally perceived as one of the worst Windows OSes.

The title text is a disclaimer stating that [[Randall]] has not tried the beta at the time this comic was written, but what he has heard about it he regards as at least mildly positive. However, he also damns it by faint praise, referring to it as hardly Hitler-y at all, a statement that could raise warning flags, as one would not generally expect an operating system to be able to be described as Hitler-y to any degree at all. "Hitler-y" is implied to mean pertaining to or having qualities similar to Adolf Hitler, the late German Nazi Party leader and perhaps the most notorious mass-murderer in history.

==Transcript==
:[Megan is standing behind Cueball sitting at a desk using his laptop.]
:Megan: What are you doing?
:Cueball: Trying the Windows 7 beta.
:Megan: Why is it showing a picture of Hitler?
:[The laptop's screen is shown with Adolf Hitler's face on it, drawn in regular ''xkcd'' style with no facial features other than his hairstyle and mustache.]
:Cueball: I don't know. I can't get it to do anything else.
:Megan: There's no UI?
:Cueball: No, just Hitler.
:[Return to the original scene, except Megan is now scratching her head in confusion.]
:Megan: Did you try Ctrl-Alt-Delete?
:Cueball: It just makes Hitler's eyes flash.
:Megan: Huh.
:[Scene remains basically the same, except Megan is no longer scratching her head and Cueball is no longer typing on the laptop.]
:Megan: Well, it's better than Vista.
:Cueball: True.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hitler]]
[[Category:Computers]]
[[Category:Cueball Computer Problems]]

1578: Squirrelphone

2022-05-04T02:10:23Z

Musi: Undo revision 234310 by X. K. C. D. (talk) I think I've stylized this both "decrapping" and "de-crapping" -- how are we going to decide on the canonical way to stylize it???!?

{{comic
| number = 1578
| date = September 16, 2015
| title = Squirrelphone
| image = squirrelphone.png
| titletext = After a while, the squirrel starts making that beeping noise and doesn't stop until it hops back up onto the stump.
}}

==Explanation==
"Squirrelphone" is a {{w|Compound (linguistics)|compound word}} combining "{{w|squirrel}}" and "{{w|phone}}".

In this comic, we see a squirrel pretend to be a telephone, only to bite [[Cueball]] when he tries to pick it up and use it as one. This is humorous because a living squirrel is not an appropriate creature to maintain a phone call{{Citation needed}}. This could be seen as an example of {{w|mimicry}} in nature, or parasitism where one creature gains a benefit from another.

It may be an allusion to the {{w|Tufted ground squirrel|vampire squirrel}} which was [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2015/09/11/vampire-squirrel-caught-on-camera-for-the-first-time-ever/ documented recently] that allegedly 'attacks and kills' deer. The comic follows the absurd conclusion that the squirrel uses mimicry to 'attack and kill' humans. Cueball may be lucky to still be alive{{Citation needed}}. Another possibility is that the squirrel thought that Cueball was trying to eat it because Cueball picked it up and put it near his mouth, so it bit Cueball in self-defense. If this is the case, then biting Cueball can be said to have worked, as Cueball did relase the squirrel, as shown in panel four. However, this fails to explain why the squirrel was imitating a phone, which would make a human more likely to pick the squirrel up, so Randall was more likely trying to reference the recent vampire squirrel documentation.

The sounds the squirrel makes correspond to the tones that the terminals make when you use the POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service) in the US:
*When someone else calls you and the receiver of your phone is on the hook, the phone makes loud and long "riiing riiiing" tones. This is the case in the first frame of the comic.
*When you pick the receiver up, the phone call is established and no extra noises are made.
*When no phone call is established and you pick up, a continuous humming tone is heard, meaning the service is up and you can dial someone else's number (A {{w|dial tone}}).
*If a phone is left off hook for too long, a loud {{w|Off-hook tone|howler-tone}} is played. This is to alert anyone present that the phone is off-hook. In this case, you should hang up so that you can receive calls. Once on-hook, the receiver can be picked up again to dial. Many cordless phones will also beep if left off their cradles for too long, to warn that their rechargeable batteries are getting drained.

[[:Category:Squirrels|Squirrels]] have been used frequently in xkcd, also in [[what if]], where it has for instance been used as a cute animal to replace a drawing of something scary or unpleasant like in [http://what-if.xkcd.com/98/ Blood Alcohol] or [http://what-if.xkcd.com/105/ Cannibalism]. So this is some twist for the cuteness factor of squirrels in xkcd.

It may also be the case that "squirrelphone" is a reference to the popular web-mail software [http://squirrelmail.org/ SquirrelMail].

The title text takes the joke further by showing the squirrel possesses another phone feature: that cordless phones need to recharge frequently, either by setting them at their cradles or by connecting them to a charger, in the case of mobile phones. When they sense the battery is low, they emit a beeping noise every few minutes. In this case, the stump is the squirrel's cradle. However, the reason that cordless phones beep when they are getting low on battery is in order to alert humans to move them to the charging cradle because the phones cannot move themselves. On the other hand, squirrels can move on their own without needing humans to pick them up,{{Citation needed}} so the squirrel likely only does it in order to trick people into picking it up, which further suggests that it is a vampire squirrel.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is approaching a stump with a squirrel perched on it. A ringing noise is coming from the squirrel's back.]
:Squirrel: Riiiiing
:Squirrel: Riiiiiing

:[Cueball has picked up the squirrel and is holding it to his left ear.]
:Cueball: Hello?

:[The squirrel bites Cueball's head.]
:Squirrel: Chomp!
:Cueball: Ow!

:[Cueball holds his hand to his cheek while the squirrel leaps away, fleeing.]
:Cueball: ???

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Squirrels]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Phones]]

2109: Invisible Formatting

2022-05-04T02:09:34Z

Musi: Undo revision 233372 by X. K. C. D. (talk) decrapping

{{comic
| number = 2109
| date = February 8, 2019
| title = Invisible Formatting
| image = invisible_formatting.png
| titletext = To avoid errors like this, we render all text and pipe it through OCR before processing, fixing a handful of irregular bugs by burying them beneath a smooth, uniform layer of bugs.
}}

==Explanation==

In various word processor programs, when highlighting text, whether by clicking-and-dragging or double-clicking, it is easy to highlight characters which have no visible effects when markup is applied (ie ''italics'' or''' bold'''), such as a space or the end-of-paragraph passage. Since in most fonts the word space looks identical between the bold, the italicized, and the regular, this has no effect on how the end user will read the document, but could theoretically cause a problem in certain occasions, most notably in computers which might parse a bold space differently or incorrectly. This problem is compounded if the text cursor does not indicate clearly the space is in bold or italics when a user hovers their mouse over it. [[Randall]] worries about this.

In the pictured case, Randall does not appear to have selected the word by double-clicking, since the cursor is depicted past the end of the word instead of on top of it; rather, he has clicked-and-dragged the mouse cursor to select it. The space character is a relatively thin character, which makes it hard to avoid and to notice, but even so most people don’t worry if they've selected it and tend not to bother fixing. Randall later uses the same click-and-drag method to have the bold removed, but this time omits the space, retaining its bold formatting on that character. Since it is a blank character, there is no easy way to tell it is still bold — even if it is slightly longer in the bold font, this may be hard to notice. This is the situation the comic is highlighting, [[559: No Pun Intended|no pun intended]].

Usually, if one were to highlight a word via double-clicking, the word and the space following would both become highlighted. Therefore, this problem could have been avoided if Randall had used this method to highlight, as the space would have been automatically included both times, thus removing markup on the space character as well.

Though Randall is likely thinking of computer-related problems caused by his invisible formatting, there is also a chance that his bold space would cause other, non-computer-related issues. As Randall has bolded the word "not" but then changed his mind, it indicates that he believes writing '''not '''is too strongly-worded. With an invisible bold space, whoever the document was intended for could notice Randall's bold space and figure that the word "not" was originally bolded. Depending on the context, a bolded "not" could be enough to change the tone of the text from polite and formal to dismissive (eg. "We believe you are not suitable for this position." vs "We believe you are '''not '''suitable for this position.")

In the title text, Randall says that he “fixes” this by running the text through {{w|Optical character recognition|OCR}}, which turns physical copies or images into text. Although this would "fix" the invisible formatting (since the OCR is unable to detect it), this would usually ruin even more formatting, and add inaccuracies to the text. This way, no one can tell which bugs were introduced by him and which ones by the OCR, which he facetiously suggests is better somehow.

As the title text explains, Randall finds it very important to control all information he publishes. Real-world examples are governments changing the impact of reports for political reasons. Attempted tampering of this kind can be revealed by bold spaces. Another example would be a casual and short one-sentence reply e.g. to a romantic interest, which one takes one hour to formulate to sound as natural as possible.

There are also other occasions where a hidden bold space may be a problem for later editors (see the [[#Trivia|Trivia]] section below). Randall’s background in {{w|computer programming}} could also make him more attentive to these types of technical problems, and therefore add this as a reason for his worries about invisible formating.

==Transcript==

:[A text editor, with some options. They are superscript in one section, bold, italic and underscore in another section and alignments in the third section. The word "not ", including the following space, is highlighted in blue. There is a cursor below it.]
:Text: ...ere, but would not have to mo...
:Action: Select

:[The cursor is on the "bold" option and the selected word is bolded.]
:Text: ...ere, but would '''not '''have to mo...
:Action: Click

:[The cursor is next to the "to". No text is highlighted.]
:Thought bubble: ...Nah, the bold is too much.
:Text: ...ere, but would '''not '''have to mo...

:[The word "not" is now highlighted in blue again, but the following space is not.]
:Text: ...ere, but would '''not '''have to mo...
:Action: Select

:[The cursor is on the "bold" option and the selected word is not bolded.]
:Text: ...ere, but would not''' '''have to mo...
:Action: Click

:[The cursor and the blue highlighting are gone. The space after "not" has a dashed box around it, and an arrow points to it.]
:Text: ...ere, but would not''' '''have to mo...
:Arrow: Hidden bold space

:[Caption below the panels:]
:When editing text, in the back of my mind I always worry that I'm adding invisible formatting that will somehow cause a problem in the distant future.

==Trivia==
There are also other occasions where a hidden bold space may be a problem for later editors etc. These include:
*Editing that adds some text at the location of the space will make this text bold.
*Exporting to plain text files. If for example a {{w|markdown}} style is used, there will be characters in the output that do not make sense.
*Scraping, data mining, and linguistics processing by computer algorithms. Often (although not always) these algorithms are written based on samples of training or testing text that may not have spurious formatting present, and may misprocess something when encountering the spurious formatting.
*Wikis. In''' '''this''' '''sentence,''' '''every''' '''space''' '''is''' '''a''' '''hidden''' '''bold''' '''space. From the editing view, all the spaces look <code><nowiki>like''' '''this</nowiki></code>. This will annoy all future editors of this article, due to the hidden apostrophes which are formatting the spaces. They may also accidentally introduce bold words.
**By default, MediaWiki attempts to prevent this by not including the trailing spaces in the bold formatting when you click the “bold” button, so someone has to manually type the formatting apostrophes to do this.
*A situation where formatted text is not allowed, and is rejected, but the user failed to strip formatting from the spaces, and this is noticed.
*If a font has the word space look different between the bold and the regular, perhaps to make it so bold words are spaced closer to each other, the spacing will look inconsistent if there is a hidden bold space.
*Unnecessary extra formatting will usually unnecessarily increase file size, which may put the document above some maximum file size threshold.
*Bold (or italic or non-breaking) spaces are also popular in {{w|Steganography|steganography}}. By using bold spaces in some places and not in others it is possible to hide secret information in a public text, that will not be visible to the casual reader, who does not explicitly search for the hidden information. Additionally if such a document is found with a person, that person can {{w|Plausible_deniability|plausibly deny}} all knowledge of the encoded information.

Popular modern word processing programs have features which may make it easier to notice improperly formatted invisible characters. In the tutorials linked here, one may learn how to view invisible characters in [https://support.office.com/en-us/article/show-or-hide-formatting-marks-c2d8a607-5646-4165-8b08-bd68f9d172a0 Microsoft Word], [https://support.apple.com/kb/PH23650?locale=en_US&viewlocale=en_US Pages] and [https://help.libreoffice.org/Writer/Nonprinting_Characters LibreOffice Writer], however even with this on it would be difficult to spot a bolded space (which looks like a bolded dot – now visible but so small it's still hard to tell if it's bold or not). In the older word processor {{w|WordPerfect}}, one could do this with the “Reveal Codes” feature, which showed you character codes, separate from the characters themselves, around the characters. For example, a bolded space would look something like "[BOLD≻&ensp;≺BOLD]".

Web sites which allow content to be edited by users but generate the formatting code automatically often have versions of the invisible formatting problem; for example, eBay listings which use anything other than the default font rapidly accumulate hard spaces, font end and begin transitions, and other invisible formatting if they are subsequently edited, which can slow page loading and cause other problems. This is also seen in blogs etc.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics with color]]

158: Six Months

2022-05-04T02:09:07Z

Musi: Undo revision 234059 by X. K. C. D. (talk) btw; they filled each page with exactly 50000 instances of "crap" if you're curious about the number

{{comic
| number = 158
| date = September 18, 2006
| title = Six Months
| image = six_months.png
| titletext = But then she does that thing with her tongue and I remember why I left you.
}}

==Explanation==

[[Cueball]] is addressing his ex-partner, telling her that six months after their split-up, he still has dreams of their being together. In the moment after waking up, he is sometimes unable to tell reality and dream apart. However, the third panel reveals the punchline: His confusion results from the likeness between his ex and her mother, next to whom he apparently wakes up every morning. It becomes clear that he has left the girl six months ago in order to live with her mother instead. The comic lampshades at the state of emotional confusion after a break-up that is prominently featured in many films and books.

The title text furthers the joke, saying the confusion of why he left her is gone once the older woman does "that thing with her tongue," possibly referring to fellatio.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is standing.]
:Cueball: It's been six months and I still have those dreams where you're pressed tight against me, where you look into my eyes and give me that grin and it's like you've forgotten everything.

:Cueball: And something in the back of my head says it's wrong, it's not like this anymore, but I push it down. In the morning, I tell myself I can't control my dreams, but there's a part of me that doesn't want them to stop.

:Cueball: And honestly, waking up would be a lot easier if your mom didn't look so much like you.
:Cueball: There's always that moment of confusion.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Romance]]
[[Category:Sex]]
[[Category:Your Mom]]

2305: Coronavirus Polling

2022-05-04T02:07:58Z

Musi: Undo revision 234647 by X. K. C. D. (talk) vaguely worried I might accidentally undo the most recent edit on a non-crapped page

{{comic
| number = 2305
| date = May 11, 2020
| title = Coronavirus Polling
| image = coronavirus_polling.png
| titletext = If you want to see the polling questions we agree on MOST, you can check out Chapter 24 of my book How To, where I got the Roper Center on Public Opinion Research to help me design the world's least electable political campaign platform.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic is another comic in a [[:Category:COVID-19|series of comics]] related to the {{w|COVID-19 pandemic}}.

The comic compares opinion polling of COVID-19 related topics to polling of other, mostly unrelated topics. The American public often tends to be sharply divided about major political and social issues, but polling shows that the country is remarkably united about the dangers posed by the COVID-19 and the measures necessary to prevent its spread. This is notable, because responses to this pandemic have significant political and economic implications, which usually results in major division and distrust. The poll results also contradict the extensive news coverage of notable anti-lockdown protests prominent in many major cities; by implication, this comic is arguing that such protests are unrepresentative and disproportionately covered. Or else that this vocal and demonstrative minority is [https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2020/apr/20/photograph-healthcare-workers-confronted-anti-lockdown-protesters-denver almost] the only group making their opinion public in such a newsworthy manner.

To put these majority opinions in perspective, polls on other topics are shown with similar but slightly smaller high percentages of likemindedness but on extremely uncontroversial questions{{Citation needed}} such as liking apple pie or Tom Hanks, or the importance of elections to democracy.

The title text refers to the chapter "How To Win an Election" in Munroe's book ''[[How To|How To: Absurd Scientific Advice for Common Real-World Problems]]'', in which a similar set of near-unanimous survey questions are shown for prospecting candidates to support, or, alternately, oppose, thus guaranteeing their popularity or lack thereof. To see what this politician's speeches might have looked like, we can look at FiveThirtyEight's "perfect stump speeches" that espouse only opinions held by a majority of [https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/republican-stump-speech/ Republicans] or [https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/democratic-stump-speech/ Democrats].

The polls cited in this comic are all linked at [http://xkcd.com/2305/sources http://xkcd.com/2305/sources].

{|class = "wikitable"
|+Polls
|-
!Percentage
!Poll question
!Explanation
|-
! colspan="3" | COVID-19 related polls
|-
|86%
|"Stay-at-home orders are responsible government policies that are saving lives" rather than "an over-reaction"
|Due to the easy spread of COVID-19, many US states enacted "{{w|stay-at-home order}}s", which require residents to stay at home, except for "essential" tasks or working in "essential" businesses. The specifics of these orders, and how they are enforced, vary from state to state. Some Americans have protested these orders as being "an over-reaction" (e.g. believing that the adverse effects of business closures are worse than they believe COVID-19 to be), and some of their protests have received lots of media attention, but according to this poll, they are in the minority, and the general concept that the stay-at-home orders are necessary appears to have broad support.
|-
|85%
|Opposition to reopening schools
|Most primary and secondary schools {{w|Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on education|have been closed}} due to the pandemic, with some of them instead using online/virtual instruction. Many universities have also had limited in-person instruction, and some have closed dormitories and other facilities. This poll indicates that most Americans agree with the school closures for the sake of public health, and are concerned about reopening schools too early.
|-
|91%
|Opposition to resuming big sporting events
|{{w|Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on sports|Sporting events have been largely cancelled}}, with only a few sporting leagues remaining open. Some have attempted to transition into [[2291: New Sports System|online or virtual leagues]].
|-
|85%
|Trust in local health officials and health care workers
|Health officials have been providing guidelines for how to "reopen" the United States. Most Americans seem to trust their local health officials to understand the situation in their area and make good decisions, although [https://www.ipsos.com/en-us/news-polls/axios-ipsos-coronavirus-index according to the same poll], they do not trust the federal government nearly as much (66% of Republicans, 28% of Democrats). Meanwhile, health care workers have been lauded as heroes for their work to save people affected by COVID-19, often at their own risk of infection.
|-
|93%
|Trying to maintain 6-foot distances while in public
|A six-foot distance between people has been recommended by the CDC, as a way to prevent the spread of the virus. The "social distance zone" has also been referenced in [[2286: 6-Foot Zone]].
|-
|81%
|Americans should continue to social distance even if it means continued damage to the economy
|Due to various factors, the world economy has entered a {{w|Coronavirus recession|global economic recession}}. This poll question indicates that many Americans are more concerned with defeating the virus, even at the expense of the American economy.
|-
! colspan="3" | Other polls
|-
|81%
|Enjoy apple pie
|{{w|Apple pie}} is an unofficial symbol of the United States and is considered one of America's favorite desserts.
|-
|76%
|Feel positively about kittens
|Kittens are almost universally considered to be adorable. 76% approval is actually lower than most of these possibly due to the responsibility involved in caring for kittens, and the fact that they grow into adult cats (which some people don't like).
|-
|84%
|Have a favorable impression of Tom Hanks
|{{w|Tom Hanks}} is an American actor, widely regarded as being both talented and highly likeable. He is famous for his many starring film roles over a long career, including in ''{{w|Forrest Gump}}'', ''{{w|Apollo 13}}'', and ''{{w|Saving Private Ryan}}''. xkcd has referred to Mr. Hanks' near universal popularity in [[2003: Presidential Succession]]. In March 2020, Hanks announced that he and his wife had tested positive for COVID-19, making them among the first public figures to acknowledge being infected (they have since recovered).
|-
|89%
|Fair elections are important to democracy
|Public elections are one of America's foundational values. (Though there is disagreement about whether the American system should be termed a "democracy" or a "republic"). Agreeing that elections should be fair is fundamental enough to the American mindset that few people would openly disagree with.
|-
|86%
|Feel positively toward Betty White
|{{w|Betty White}} is an American comedic actress who was 98 years old at the time of publishing. She has been a fixture in American television since the 1950's, and continues to act, well into her 90's. Her career has included primary roles multiple well-regarded series, including ''{{w|The Mary Tyler Moore Show}}'', ''{{w|The Golden Girls}}'', and many others. The combination of her very long career and appealing personality has made her widely beloved in the US, and very few people have a negative opinion of her.
|-
|86%
|Do not trust Kim Jong-Un to do the right thing
|{{w|Kim Jong-Un}} is the dictator of {{w|North Korea}} at the time of publishing. North Korea is known as an exceptionally repressive society with little respect for human rights, scoring at or near the bottom of most indices for human rights and freedom. Kim, like his predecessors, is considered to be both unpredictable and brutal in his leadership. Additionally, North Korea tends to be a wily political operator, and the United States, in particular, tends to view Kim's actions with a great deal of suspicion.
|-
|64%
|Concerned about "murder hornets"
|The {{w|Asian giant hornet}}, nicknamed the "murder hornet", is a large hornet native to Asia. It was found in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States in late 2019, but its discovery was widely publicized May 2020. The murder hornet was given its nickname due to its painful sting, and its predation of honey bees. Some have criticized the media coverage as [https://agr.wa.gov/departments/insects-pests-and-weeds/insects/hornets/trapping excessive and possibly harmful] to the native hornets and other pollinators in other parts of the US, so maybe Randall is including this poll to show that the population generally has its concerns correctly prioritized (i.e. less concerned about "murder hornets" than they are concerned about COVID-19 or endeared towards kittens).
|}

==Transcript==
:[A panel only with text. At the top there is three paragraphs of explanatory text. Below that is a paragraph in smaller gray font with link to sources. Below that there are two columns of poll results, each with a heading. There are six polls in the left and seven polls in the right column. Instead of a bulleted list, each poll has its percent that agrees given to the left of the statement, which is thus aligned to the right of this percentage. At the end of each statement there is a reference in brackets in gray font.]
:It's hard to get people to agree on '''''anything''''' in polls.
:But we agree about the coronavirus.
:Here's how Americans feel about COVID-19, along with other topics that get similar levels of agreement for comparison.
:Compiled with help from HuffPost polling editor Ariel Edwards-Levy. Sources: xkcd.com/2305/sources

:[Left column:]
:Recent coronavirus polls
:'''86%''' say "stay-at-home orders are responsible government policies that are saving lives" rather than "an over-reaction" (ABC/Ipsos)
:'''85%''' oppose reopening schools (NPR/Marist)
:'''91%''' oppose resuming big sporting events (NPR/M.)
:'''85%''' trust local health officials and health care workers (Axios/Ipsos)
:'''93%''' are trying to maintain 6-foot distances while in public (Axios/Ipsos)
:'''81%''' say Americans should continue to social distance for as long as is needed to stop the Coronavirus even if it means continued damage to the economy (Politico/Morning Consult)

:[Right column:]
:Other polls
:'''81%''' enjoy apple pie (HuffPost/YouGov)
:'''76%''' feel positively about kittens (HuffPost/YouGov)
:'''84%''' have a favorable impression of Tom Hanks (Ipsos 2018)
:'''89%''' say fair elections are important to democracy (Pew)
:'''86%''' feel positively toward Betty White (Ipsos 2011)
:'''86%''' do not trust Kim Jong-Un to do the right thing (Pew 2019)
:'''64%''' are concerned about the emergence of "murder hornets" (YouGov)

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:COVID-19]]
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]]
[[Category:Comics featuring politicians]]
[[Category:Food]]
[[Category:Animals]]
[[Category:How To]]

1370: President

2022-05-04T02:07:30Z

Musi: Undo revision 233415 by X. K. C. D. (talk) de-crapping

{{comic
| number = 1370
| date = May 19, 2014
| title = President
| image = president.png
| titletext = Anyone who thinks we're all going to spend the 2032 elections poring over rambling blog posts by teenagers has never tried to read a rambling blog post by a teenager.
}}

==Explanation==
This strip shows a discussion between an adult and a teenager about an aspect of the future. [[Randall]] likes this setup, allowing to put in perspective the various "decay" predictions and shows his optimism.

Here, the subject is scandal. How will a generation that is documenting and leaving behind a permanent public record of its juvenile misadventures - immature and impolitic writings, photographs of inebriation at parties posted on Facebook, Twitter posts about breakups, etc. - produce successful future politicians? Won't future opposition researchers and reporters have enough embarrassing material to destroy any Millennial's public reputation? In previous generations, juveniles were freer to go through this phase of development without leaving behind a digital record, making it easier to sidestep or paper over rumors of youthful misbehavior. See, e.g., George W. Bush, who dismissed questions about his rumored use of drugs in his youth by saying only, "When I was young and irresponsible, I was young and irresponsible."

The child's answer, in addition to teasing the adult about her generation's coming obsolescence, is that the next generation will be fine because in the future no one will care. The title text amplifies this optimistic message, suggesting that old blog posts by former teenagers will just seem boring, not salacious. [[Randall]] offers no explanation for this upbeat spin, but it is a recurring topic and some have argued elsewhere that the potential power of Internet-chronicled youthful indiscretions will be defused because everyone will be in the same boat, making future voters (and, in another context, employers) more tolerant of such things.

The strip also contains an existential twist, as shown in the child's answer. It alludes to every generation's dismissal of the next, as actually being due to psychological insecurities. We may disguise our dismissals by attacking their faults & different lifestyles. But in truth, these dismissals are actually rooted in our innate fear of becoming obsolete, useless, surpassed, and lost in a bewildering world that has passed us by.

==Transcript==
:[Ponytail and Science Girl are walking together.]
:Ponytail: I can't imagine anyone who grew up on the Internet being able to run for President.

:[Closeup of Science Girl.]
:Science Girl: Why? Because it'd mark the handover of a world that no longer needs you to a generation you don't understand?

:[Ponytail and Science Girl have stopped walking and are facing each other.]
:Science Girl: ...Or because there would be embarrassing pictures of us as teenagers?

:[Closeup of Ponytail.]
:Ponytail: Um. The pictures one?
:Science Girl (off-screen): Pictures of teens! How will we even survive??

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Internet]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Science Girl]]

1094: Interview

2022-05-04T02:07:15Z

Musi: Undo revision 233285 by X. K. C. D. (talk)

{{comic
| number = 1094
| date = August 13, 2012
| title = Interview
| image = interview.png
| titletext = Hey, before you go, can you explain to me what job I now have?
}}

==Explanation==
This comic is based on a common annoyance when job hunting, being told that they'll "keep you in mind", but don't offer you a job. A job interviewer tells [[Black Hat]] exactly that.

Black Hat offers a briefcase to his interviewer. From the vague phrasing "this" and the context, one would expect the briefcase to contain money to bribe the interviewer into hiring Black Hat. Instead, it contains a portal or gateway into an impossibly deep chasm.

After falling through the chasm, the interviewer lands in the interviewee's seat, and Black Hat is now sitting in the interviewer's seat, effectively switching their roles.

The former interviewer tries to pull the same trick on Black Hat, creating a momentary illusion of an {{w|infinite loop}} through {{w|recursion}}, a common theme in xkcd comics.

When Black Hat opens the briefcase, however, he reveals another common annoyance when job hunting, being told that the opening has already been filled. Black Hat's statement works on two levels, one meaning that "the job opening has been filled", and the second meaning "the opening to the briefcase's chasm has been filled". In the latter sense, opening may also be used as a synonym of vulnerability, in which case filled would mean patched.

The title text is said by Black Hat. It refers to the fact that, even though Black Hat now has the interviewer's job, he has no idea what his function is.

Other Job interviews have been portrayed in [[125: Marketing Interview]], [[1088: Five Years]], [[1293: Job Interview]] and [[1545: Strengths and Weaknesses]].

==Transcript==
:[Black Hat is interviewed by Hairy.]
:Hairy: ...but thank you for applying. We'll keep your résumé on file.

:[Black Hat pushes a suitcase over the table.]
:Black Hat: Perhaps ''this'' could change your mind?

:[Hairy opens the suitcase.]
:''Click''

:[Hairy lifts open the top.]

:[Camera pans over the suitcase to reveal a deep hole.]

:[Camera zooms into the hole.]

:[Hairy is falling into the hole.]
:Hairy: AAAAAA

:[Hairy falls into a chair with the suitcase falling on his lap.]
:''THUMP''

:[Hairy is dazed, and is being interviewed by Black Hat.]
:Black Hat: ...but thank you for applying. We'll keep your résumé on file.

:[Hairy looks confused.]
:Hairy: !??!

:[Hairy looks at the suitcase.]

:[Hairy pushes the suitcase over the table.]
:Hairy: Perhaps ''this'' could change your mind?

:[Black Hat opens the suitcase.]
:''Click''

:[Black Hat looks inside.]

:[Black Hat turns the suitcase around.]
:Black Hat: I'm sorry—

:[The suitcase is now filled with paper.]
:Black Hat: —that opening has been filled.

{{Comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Black Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]
[[Category:Recursion]]
[[Category:Job interviews]]

1929: Argument Timing

2022-05-04T02:06:49Z

Musi: Undo revision 234477 by X. K. C. D. (talk) de-crapping

{{comic
| number = 1929
| date = December 15, 2017
| title = Argument Timing
| image = argument_timing.png
| titletext = Of course, everyone has their own profile. There are morning arguers, hangry arguers, meal-time arguers, late-night arguers, and people who get in a meta-argument over what their argument timing is, dredge up examples of past arguments, and end up fighting over THOSE again as well.
}}

==Explanation==

This comic comments on how (a) the prevalence of using mobile devices in bed, combined with (b) burgeoning use of social media, especially {{w|Facebook}}, has increased the potential for conflict by encouraging early morning and late night communications, when those involved may not be at their most clear-headed.

Before mobile devices were common, the ability to argue on-line usually ended when a person left their computer to go to bed. Before social media was common, arguments with friends would mostly occur in person or during a phone call. The 'old-fashioned' cycle for arguing suggests that the odds start at near zero, because most people didn't interact with others immediately after waking up unless they lived together, and even then were unlikely to get in arguments first thing in the morning. The frequency increased as the day went on, with peaks at breakfast, lunch and dinner, and a final peak in the evening. This likely indicates that people would frequently share meals with friends and loved ones, then spend time together in the evenings, meaning those times had the most potential for conflict. As the evening ended, the odds fell away dramatically, becoming very low by bedtime, and effectively zero immediately afterward.

The red line, indicating argument frequency with mobile devices and social media, has a similar trend, but is distorted by massive peaks between waking up and getting out of bed, and then between going to bed and going to sleep. This suggests that, in Munroe's experience, most relationship-ending arguments in modern times happen over social media and electronic communication, while still in bed. It's not clear whether this indicates people primarily using their devices in bed, or just that people tend to get into arguments more while posting in bed (possibly making less inhibited and diplomatic comments due to fatigue). It could also be that people objecting to their partners using social media in bed is also contributing to the number of arguments. Interestingly, this line indicates the chances of conflict in the mobile/Facebook era remains above zero for a short time after one goes to sleep. This may suggest that Randall sometimes falls asleep while writing a social media post but finishes it while sleep-typing, or it may be that he is prone to sending out ill-considered messages just before going to sleep, which are only later picked up, unwelcomed, by the recipient.

The title text talks about different types of arguers, saying that some people argue more at certain times, or in certain states. "Hangry" is a portmanteau of "hungry" and "angry", meaning bad-tempered or irritable as a result of hunger.

[[490: Morning Routine]] covers similar ground to this comic.

==Transcript==
:[Shown is a curved time plot. There is a black line, marked "Before Smartphones and Facebook" and a red line marked "After." On the y-axis the label reads "Odds of getting in a friendship-ending argument." while there is no scale shown. On the x-axis, at uneven intervals some times of the day are marked as "Wake up", "Get out of bed", "Breakfast", "Lunch", "Dinner", "Go to bed", and "Fall asleep."]

:[With the exception of "Waking up" and "Falling asleep", the red line is slightly lower than the black line. Directly after "Waking up" and during the interval between "Going to bed" and "Falling asleep", the black line is near zero while the red line peaks.]

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Social networking]]
[[Category:Smartphones]]

1104: Feathers

2022-05-04T02:06:32Z

Musi: Undo revision 234686 by X. K. C. D. (talk) anyway kudos to the admin who blocked this person

{{comic
| number = 1104
| date = September 05, 2012
| title = Feathers
| image = feathers.png
| titletext = Click to see a video of a modern bird using stability flapping during predatory behavior. It all fits! Also, apparently Microraptor had *four* wings? The past keeps getting cooler! (And there's more of it every day!)
}}

==Explanation==
{{w|Dinosaur}}s have been a fascinating topic in popular science and have captivated children's interest since the first fossils were discovered in modern times, around the 1700s; prior discoveries in China and elsewhere were thought to be the bones of dragons or other mythical creatures. The success of the ''{{w|Jurassic Park (film)|Jurassic Park}}'' movies perpetuated an erroneous understanding of the physical characteristics of dinosaurs. Since the first movie of that series, scientific evidence has emerged suggesting that {{w|Dromaeosauridae}}, or "[[:Category:Velociraptors|raptors]]", the main antagonists of that movie, looked quite different from their animatronic and CGI versions. In particular, they are now known to have been much smaller, and are believed to have had feathers and even wings, as evidenced by quill nobs observed on the arms of raptors.

[http://denverfowler.com/ Denver W. Fowler] is among the scientists who support this hypothesis. (incidentally, a "{{w|Fowler}}" is a hunter of wildfowl/birds) The comic refers to [http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0028964 a publication by him and his colleagues] ("{{Wiktionary|et al.}}"), in the ''{{w|PLoS ONE}}'', an online scientific journal ("PLoS" stands for "Public Library of Science").

[[Megan]] believes this new model of the appearance of raptors makes them much less cool, but the way in which [[Science Girl]] reformulates the facts to make them seem like even more vicious predators re-ignites her interest and makes the new raptors seem like at least as good a candidate for a good action thriller movie like the original version, if not better. Thus the phrase "the past keeps getting cooler". (Or that Megan, like Randall, has an irrational fear of raptors and is updating her knowledge of them.)

Clicking on the original cartoon links to [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJKBPyavWlI&t=87s a YouTube video] of a bird of prey (in this case a {{w|Secretarybird}}) using its wings for stability while standing on top of a struggling prey, from which one can easily envision instead a raptor upon its prey—especially in case of some kind of "raptorphobia", as for [[Randall]] (see [[87: Velociraptors]] and [[135: Substitute]]). {{w|Microraptor}} was a small raptor with four wings, which lets you imagine even scarier scenes.

The same idea is later explored from a different perspective in [[1527: Humans]].

==Transcript==
:[Megan is walking up to Science Girl with a bow in her hair bun. Science Girl has a stack of three books in front of her, is reading another book and a fifth book lies behind her on the floor.]
:Megan: What are you reading about?
:Science Girl: Dinosaurs!
:Megan: Oh, yeah.

:[Zoom out of the same scene, with Megan standing and Science Girl looking up at her.]
:Megan: They've gotten all weird since when I was a kid.
:Megan: They used to be awesome, but now they all have dorky feathers, right?
:Science Girl: Yup!

:[Same scene in a frame-less panel. Science Girl looks down and below the two characters there is a footnote.]
:Science Girl: This says they now think raptors used their wings for stability, flapping to stay on top of their prey while hanging on with their hooked claws and eating it alive.
:*Fowler et. al., PLoS ONE 6(12), 2011

:[Zoom in on the same scene, the book on the floor is outside the panel. Megan just stands staring at Science Girl who reads on. Beat panel.]

:[Megan is now on the floor next to Science Girl flipping through the top book she has taken from the pile.]

==Trivia==
*In the comic it says "et. al." instead of the correct "et al.", this is a common mistake.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Science Girl]]
[[Category:Dinosaurs]]
[[Category:Velociraptors]]
[[Category:Science]]
[[Category:Animals]]

2181: Inbox

2022-05-04T02:05:14Z

Musi: Undo revision 232941 by X. K. C. D. (talk) de-crapping

{{comic
| number = 2181
| date = July 26, 2019
| title = Inbox
| image = inbox.png
| titletext = Rome's declaration of war against Carthage was sent from a no-reply address, so Hannibal had to cross the Alps to deliver his "UNSUBSCRIBE" response in person.
}}

==Explanation==
{{w|Email}} differs from "snail" mail, in that people often expect a prompt reply. Replying to an email may lead to another email response, thus leading to a "loop" of constant replies and responses. Since an individual email is quick and cheap to send, people send lots of them. Thus people get a lot of emails, and may spend a large portion of their day dealing with email.

Megan observes that maybe the Romans got a lot done because they did not spend time on email. In doing this she plays on the email handling strategy named Inbox Zero, which they might not have had because the Roman number system had no symbol for zero. This is of course redundant, as email did not exist at the time.{{Citation needed}}

[https://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/inbox-zero Inbox Zero] is an approach to email inbox management espoused by Merlin Mann, with the idea that people should spend as little time as possible in their email inbox. To achieve this, one should check one's inbox as few times as practical, and quickly deal with all new emails by deleting, delegating, sending a short reply where possible or categorizing them for later tasks. Basically it's a continuation of the "touch it once" strategy for dealing with physical mail.

The {{w|ancient Romans}} are one of the model historical societies, well revered for their culture and life. A common misconception is that Romans did not have a concept of the number zero. The Romans were aware of the concept of zero, but there is no {{w|numeral}} for 0 in the {{w|Roman numeral}} system, as Roman numerals do not have place values like Arabic numerals. A value of ten or greater is represented in Arabic numerals using 0 as a placeholder for empty place values. Roman numerals do not have such a placeholder digit, and so did not have a numeral for zero; the word ''nulla'' was used to refer to "zero" in the sense of "nothing". Various sources indicate that this eventually gave use to '''N''' as a Roman numeral for "zero", and such is the case for modern users of Roman numerals.

The title text refers to {{w|Hannibal's crossing of the Alps}}, a famous military campaign by Hannibal against the Romans. Randall claims that Hannibal needed to invade Rome to tell them to stop sending him so many emails. The reason for this was that Rome's email was sent from a "[https://www.mailjet.com/blog/news/the-noreply-dilemma-going-from-no-to-yes/ no-reply]" email address, so Hannibal had no way of replying by email, and had to tell them in person. The real reason for Hannibal to cross the Alps was because he wanted to conquer Rome. He did not conquer Rome, so he never sent his "unsubscribe" message.

==Trivia==
* This is not the first time Randall has imagined strange "unsubscribe" messages; see [[1675: Message in a Bottle]].

==Transcript==
:[Megan and Cueball are sitting at a desk, facing each other, each working on their laptop computers.]
:Megan: Answering email is the worst. It just leads to getting more email.
:Cueball: Yeah, email is a trap.

:[Beat panel.]

:[Megan looks up from her work on the computer.]
:Megan: I bet the reason the Ancient Romans got so much done was that they had no concept of Inbox Zero.
:Cueball: '''''That''''' explains it.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Computers]]
[[Category:Email]]

1269: Privacy Opinions

2022-05-04T02:04:26Z

Musi: Undo revision 233424 by X. K. C. D. (talk) I'm vaguely worried that making this many large edits will get me automatically banned

{{comic
| number = 1269
| date = September 25, 2013
| title = Privacy Opinions
| image = privacy opinions.png
| titletext = I'm the Philosopher until someone hands me a burrito.
}}

==Explanation==

This comic is about opinions on internet privacy in general. Six positions are offered as options. Four of the positions are tagged negatively by [[Randall]] by their subtitles alone: the Crypto Nut, the Conspiracist, the Nihilist, and the Exhibitionist, all of which have negative meanings in contemporary English. That the viewer is encouraged to identify negatively with these four positions is further encouraged by the content of the panels, as those characters are depicted either as having such boring lives that they have no need for privacy (the Crypto Nut, the Nihilist), or as being crazy (the Conspiracist, the Exhibitionist).

A fifth position, the Philosopher, is tagged somewhat ambivalently by Randall: Megan, or possibly a look-alike, is depicted as boring her interlocutor, yet in the title text, Randall admits that he is usually the Philosopher. Also, “Philosopher” in vernacular English is neutrally valenced, potentially having the ability to expound either wisdom ("sophia") or {{w|Sophist#Modern_usage|sophistry}}. It is also a synonym for Sage, the sixth position. As Randall condones his own movement from Philosopher to Sage, he thus indicates that the Philosopher is to be viewed negatively, even if it is a tempting position to hold.

The title of the sixth position, the “Sage”, is positively valenced in contemporary English, and the author in the title text states that once he obtains a “burrito” — i.e., a “real” thing, he switches from the Philosopher to the Sage. The internal evidence presented thus far therefore is entirely consistent; Randall encourages the reader to identify with the Sage. However, the choice of [[Beret Guy]] to represent the Sage undercuts this somewhat as Beret Guy is frequently seen as bizarrely disconnected from reality in a way that is maladaptive (e.g. [[1030: Keyed]]) and overly obsessed with food to the point of creating trouble and potential self-harm (e.g. [[452: Mission]]).

By presenting five negatively tagged positions followed by a positively tagged sixth and final one, the author follows a rhetorical commonplace of listing and refuting a number of positions one by one, concluding with the favored and best one, which is not refuted and should be accepted both on its own merits and by virtue of being the last one standing. The comic therefore implies that no other (significant) positions exist.

Having completed the rhetorical analysis of the comic, we are now in a position to understand the meaning of “Internet Privacy”.

Panels #3 and 5 directly reference the American NSA. Panel #5's “exhibitionist” also references Google, but the characters in the panel appear to be NSA agents (one wears an official cap and they are viewing the exhibitionist on an official, government-looking monitor). Likewise, the focus of the “Nihilist” is that the joke is on the people who gather the data, rather than those who are subsequently able to make use of it (such as Facebook's users rather than “Facebook” itself; i.e., Facebook's employees and, by extension, its advertisers). The content of the actual data is only mentioned in panels #2, 4, and 5, and in each panel, it is suggested that it is meaningless or trivial. The Sage underscores the notion that any data known about him does not bother him, and therefore must be meaningless or trivial. The reader is thus encouraged to believe that it does not actually matter whether others discover personal data about him/her.

The comic is therefore what social theorists call '''reductive''', because it reduces the range of possibilities of “Opinions on Internet Privacy” to an artificially and simplistically narrow subset; in this case, individuals concerned with government or corporate agencies using data that they have gathered on individuals, and the futility of worrying about such things. The comic does not admit the possibility of other “opinions on internet privacy” – namely, that individuals might have legitimate concerns with governmental or corporate uses of their data, let alone other individuals' access to data that is assembled and distributed by corporations such as Facebook. The comic likewise does not consider the possibility of individuals having more interesting lives than the characters depicted, and therefore very real concerns about their privacy due to the activities that they engage in that are potentially more career limiting (should they be discovered) than obsessing about cryptography or eating a burrito.

The comic is “functionally” reductive, as opposed to “intentionally” reductive, because the reduction is the function or effect of the comic for readers who read it straightforwardly. There is not enough internal evidence in the comic to maintain that the author intentionally excluded other viable opinions on internet privacy; it could be that they are just not on his radar. For example, we do not have enough information in the comic to claim that Randall is against civil rights; it could be simply that he doesn't often think about them. Likewise, it would exceed the evidence of the comic to claim that the author believes that schoolteachers who use the internet to facilitate legal but frowned-upon sexual behaviors should lose their jobs if they are found out due to internet privacy breaches; it could be that Randall simply hasn't bothered to worry about these matters if they don't affect him personally. This adjudication – whether the comic is “intentionally” reductive or not – may only be made on the basis of external evidence; that is, data known about [[Randall]] from sources beyond this comic.

An alternative interpretation of the title text is that it is not Randall speaking his own opinion, but instead represents Beret Guy's (i.e. the “Sage's”) perspective. Randall may indeed have some concern with internet privacy, which would be consistent with the views on open-source security expressed in [[463: Voting Machines]], for example. In other cases, such as [[1490: Atoms]] and [[1419: On the Phone]], the title text has been used as additional, farcical statements made by characters in the strip, rather than as Randall expressing his own views. Under this interpretation, Beret Guy would be prone to philosophizing about security, but then be easily distracted by a burrito; this is consistent with Beret Guy's general behavior.

Additional observations about the comic follow.

*The {{w|Philosopher}} - the intellectual who likes to talk about the topic, often boring those around him who don't think or worry much about privacy.
*The {{w|Cryptography|Crypto Nut}} - the one who goes crazy with security, even for things needing none.
:Since a large percentage of people and companies present in the internet don't have the ability or intention to do strong cryptography, the crypto nut's communication is limited to talking with other crypto nuts - which indicates cryptography as a topic. A real crypto nut will encrypt not just the important stuff because otherwise the attacker (in this context, assumed to be a government agency, network operator or corporation) will know which mails contain stuff that was secret enough to warrant encrypting, thus giving them information about whom he's doing secret business with.
*The {{w|Conspiracist}} - the one who sees super-secret data-gathering agencies everywhere.
:The (data) warehouse mentioned is the {{w|Utah Data Center}} which seems to be of impressive size. The punchline is created by taking the iceberg and warehouse analogies literally.
*The {{w|Nihilism|Nihilist}} - Nihilists believe that life lacks purpose and meaning. Someone who espouses this philosophy would think that a life spent spying someone else's meaningless life is hence doubly lacking in meaning.
*The {{w|Exhibitionist}} - Assumes people are invading his privacy, and using it to show off.
:This type is predominantly associated with twitter, but other social networks as well. This archetype is humorously combined with a ''sexual'' exhibitionist, who gets a sexual rise from the knowledge that others are spying on him/her.
:The awkwardness of the spying officials is magnified by the fact that they appear to be of opposite sexes, increasing the discomfort of the seated male.
*The {{w|Wisdom|Sage}} - Seems to know the difference between the real and the imaginary - or does he?
:The monologue alludes to a scene in {{w|The Matrix}} in which Cypher arranges with the evil machines to become a traitor.
:The Sage is apparently immediately satisfied when he has food and prosperity. He does not need privacy or other democratic rights as long as he does not individually suffer from their absence.

The release of the comic on this date could be to coincide with the premiere of {{w|South Park}}'s 17th season on the same date, which starts with an episode ({{w|Let Go, Let Gov}}) in which Cartman discovers that the NSA has been spying on him.

The title text is to suggest that he enjoys burritos so much that being handed one even while philosophizing (his natural state) would stop him in his tracks to eat the burrito, thus becoming a ''pseudo-sage'' concerned only with the burrito at the exclusion of the topic of internet security. The burrito is later mentioned as a way to stay connected to the real word (compared to the world of art) in [[1496: Art Project]].

==Transcript==
:'''Opinions on Internet Privacy'''
:The Philosopher:
::Megan: "Privacy" is an impractical way to think about data in a digital world so unlike the one in which our soci--
::Ponytail: ''' ''So bored.'' '''
:The Crypto Nut:
::Cueball: My data is safe behind six layers of symmetric and public-key algorithms.
::Friend: What data is it?
::Cueball: Mostly me emailing with people about cryptography.
:The Conspiracist:
::Cueball talks to Megan.
::Cueball: These leaks are just the tip of the iceberg. There's a warehouse in Utah where the NSA has the ''entire'' iceberg. I don't know how they got it there.
:The Nihilist:
::Megan: Joke's on them, gathering all this data on me as if anything I do means anything.
:The Exhibitionist:
::Cueball is watching a surveillance console, Officer Ponytail stands behind him.
::Console: ''Mmmm,'' I sure hope the NSA isn't watching me bite into these juicy strawberries!! ''Oops,'' I dripped some on my shirt! Better take it off. Google, are you there? Google, this lotion feels soooo good.
::Cueball: Um.
:The Sage:
::Beret Guy and Cueball sitting at a table.
::Beret Guy: I don't know or care what data ''anyone'' has about me. Data is imaginary. This burrito is real.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Beret Guy]]
[[Category:Cryptography]]
[[Category:Philosophy]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]
[[Category:Internet]]
[[Category:Computers]]

298: Tesla Coil

2022-05-04T02:04:11Z

Musi: Undo revision 234056 by X. K. C. D. (talk) then again the vandal didn't get banned automatically, so...

{{comic
| number = 298
| date = August 3, 2007
| title = Tesla Coil
| image = tesla_coil.png
| titletext = For scientists, this can be the hardest thing about dreams.
}}

==Explanation==

[[Cueball]] diligently creates a {{w|Tesla coil}}, a device that produces {{w|high voltage}} alternating currents.

After that show by Cueball, [[Black Hat]] magically shoots electricity from his fingertips. When Cueball asks how he did that, he says that science doesn't really work, then hovers in mid-air, further proving his point. There is simply no apparent explanation for Black Hat's abilities, which means science is still woefully incomplete or, as Black Hat said, simply doesn't work.

The title text indicates that this was all actually a dream, explaining Black Hat's abilities and pointing out how dreams can be difficult for scientists as they will attempt to analyse and understand everything in the dream according to the laws of science, which wouldn't apply in dreams.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball and Black Hat stand near a tesla coil mounted on a table.]
:Cueball: I finally finished my Tesla Coil!

:[The room is dark; the characters appear as faint blue outlines on black background. Cueball turns on the Tesla Coil and it sparks white static electricity.]
:''click''
:Black Hat: Cool, but—

:[Lightning shoots out of Black Hat's hands, Cueball appears to be in shock  and awe.]
:Black Hat: Check this out!

:[The lights are back on, Cueball's arms are raised in amazement.]
:Cueball: How did you do that?
:Black Hat: The world doesn't actually make any sense. Science doesn't work. No one told you because you're so cute when you get into something.

:[Black Hat floats up the frame, and Cueball is pointing towards Black Hat.]
:Black Hat: Still, neat toy.
:Cueball: Now you're hovering!
:Black Hat: I guess you're still not getting this.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Black Hat]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Comics with inverted brightness]]

485: Depth

2022-05-04T02:02:15Z

Musi: Undo revision 234859 by X. K. C. D. (talk) de-crapping

{{comic
| number = 485
| date = October 6, 2008
| before = [[#Explanation|↓ Skip to explanation ↓]]
| title = Depth
| image = depth.png
| titletext = The Planck length is another thousand or two pixels below the comic.
}}

==Explanation==
The comic is a companion piece to [[482: Height]], which explored a {{w|logarithmic scale}} from the edge of the observable universe down to the Earth's surface. ''Depth'' continues the process, viewing logarithmically smaller scales from Earth's atmosphere down to the interior of a single {{w|proton}}. This combination is reminiscent of Charles and Ray Eames' 1977 short film [http://youtu.be/0fKBhvDjuy0 Powers of Ten].

Here's a walk through the entire comic:

* At the top, we see a cutaway view of a story apartment complex. From left to right, different activities can be seen in the apartments; [[Megan]] and [[Cueball]] playing in a ball pit, Megan {{w|exorcising}} {{w|Windows Vista}}, [[Ponytail]] and Megan playing ''{{w|Guitar Hero}}'' or a similar game, Cueball at a desk, and what appear to be some sexytimes.
* The view descends into Cueball's tower PC.
* Entering the computer's internals, we see a mouse plugged into the PS/2 (6-pin mini-DIN) connector. This is a visual pun, since the mouse is an actual rodent and not a handheld device.
* Next, we dive into the CPU. We see a multi-layered pun on the question "how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?" There may be a pun with a chip's connector pin, but the more obvious reference is Randall's answer of 32,767 = 215 - 1, the largest possible value of a signed 16-bit integer. Adding one rolls back over to -32,768, which is 32,768 devils or "negative angels." (See [[571: Can't Sleep]] for a similar joke and a more elaborate explanation.)
* A blood-sucking mosquito appears to be "leeching" a torrent.
* A {{w|segfault}} is a problem with memory access.
* We zoom in on a memory unit on the CPU. Cueball is being {{w|rickrolled}}, as indicated by the label "pixel on {{w|Rick Astley|Rick Astley's}} shoulder."
* A "fork();" command points at one of several unlabeled spermatazoa. Forking and sperm are capable of spawning "child processes."
* {{w|Peter Norton}} is the founder of {{w|Norton Antivirus}}. He is shown fighting a biological virus, rather than informatic malware.
* Showing the relative scale of {{w|carbon nanotubes}}, the suggestion is that these then lead on to a more megastructural {{w|Space Elevator}}, for which carbon nanotubes are often cited as a suitably strong component needed for the cable.
* We soon zoom in on a silicon atom in the CPU. In the {{w|electron cloud}}, the squiggles made out of arrows are {{w|Feynman diagram}}s. A Feynman diagram in the shape of a stick figure is saying "Sup?", a pun on the "Sup" particle (supersymmetric partner 'squark' to the Up quark) and an abbreviation of the greeting "What's up?"
* An 'iPod Femto' is shown, as a pun on the '{{w|iPod Nano}}' (both are {{w|SI prefixes}}), both of which refer to units far smaller than any iPod that has ever, or likely will ever, be created.
* {{w|Brian Greene}} is a theoretical physicist and {{w|Popular science|pop scientist}} who discusses the nature of the universe. The picture of him knitting is a pun on {{w|string theory}} and PBS miniseries, {{w|The Fabric of the Cosmos}}. The term 'knitting furiously' shows up in the 1857 Volume 14, page 46 of {{w|The Monthly Packet}}.
* The {{w|Planck length}} (<big>ℓ</big>P) is the smallest theoretically measurable distance, defined by three fundamental constants in physics: the {{w|speed of light}} in a vacuum (c), {{w|Planck constant|Planck's constant}} (h), and the {{w|gravitational constant}} (G). The Planck length is vastly smaller than any known particle that isn't a point mass, and modern physics is a long way from being able to investigate such a scale.

==Transcript==
:Sizes Accurate on a vertical log scale
:[Series of images of characters doing various things. The things they are doing are listed in left to right order.]
:Cueball and Megan playing in a ball pen
:Megan using witchcraft to ban vista "Out, Vista!"
:Ponytail and Megan play Rock Band
:A couple is having sex under the cover in bed.
:[Below this series of images, an image of a man on the computer.]
:Cueball is on a computer and the image expands as it goes down. Here are the labels from left to right, up to down:
:CD
:DVD
:Case
:North Bridge
:PS/2
:Mouse (rodent)
:RAM
:CPU Socket Pin
:32,767 Angels Dancing (one more and they'd roll over and become {{w|Two's complement|32,768 Devils}}), Rice, Torrent (a bug), CPU, upcoming segfault
:dust mite
:hair
:OVUM
:Data (a pixel on Rick Astley's shoulder), rust mite, fork();
:Peter Norton fighting a baxteriophage
:memory
:carbon nanotubes
:space elevator
:a line of silicon (Si), Electron Cloud, a man made out of arrows saying "sup?"
:silicon nucleus
:IPod femto
:Brian Greene knitting furiously [next to his knitting needles there is text saying ''clink, clink'']

==Trivia==
*The ballpit inside the apartment is a reference to [[150: Grownups]], in which Megan filled her apartment with playpen balls.
*The structure next to the couple in bed could be an elliptical dish to increase the sound from their [[Loud Sex]].
*[[1162: Log Scale]] and [[482: Height]] are other comics about the use of log scales.
*[[271: Powers of One]] mocks the concept of getting cool effects by zooming in/out by, instead of a log scale, using powers of one.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Large drawings]]
[[Category:Illustrations of scale]]
[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Physics]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]]
[[Category:Rhythm Games]]
[[category:Sex]]

1899: Ears

2022-05-04T02:01:19Z

Musi: Undo revision 232881 by X. K. C. D. (talk) de-crapping

{{comic
| number = 1899
| date = October 6, 2017
| title = Ears
| image = ears.png
| titletext = My theory is that most humans have been colonized with alien mind-control slugs that hold the earbuds for them, and the ones who can't wear earbuds are the only surviving free ones.
}}

==Explanation==
[[Cueball]] and [[Megan]] are sitting in a park together and appear to be cloudwatching. Cueball asks if Megan has ever looked up in the sky and wondered, suggesting that he is thinking deep thoughts while allowing his mind to wander, what "normal" people's ears are shaped like; that their earbuds stay fitted inside their ears instead of falling off. It is possible, but not evident, that Cueball is listening to some audio device through {{w|Headphones#Ear-fitting headphones|earbuds}}, and his wondering is caused because he looked up at the sky and they fell out, leading to his thoughts about what it would be like to have "normal shaped ears" that would allow him to wear earbuds without this happening. (This joke is directed towards a large group of people who cannot use earbuds successfully because they fall out.) Megan's response could either be making fun of Cueball (whatever goes on in his head with the random conversation points he tends to bring up) or agreeing with him that earbud wearers' ears are mysterious.

The comic appears to be a variation on a famous and often-quoted fragment from {{w|Voltaire}}'s satirical novella ''{{w|Candide}}'', wherein Dr. Pangloss states that we live in '{{w|the best of all possible worlds}}', among other reasons because '…noses were made to wear spectacles, and so we have spectacles'.

The title text is a play on conspiracy theories wherein the human race is being assimilated by aliens, and the person coming up with the conspiracy theory thinks he is one of the few "free" survivors. The use of "brain slugs" in particular may be a reference to the ''{{w|Animorphs}}'' book series, a nostalgic favorite of Randall's, in which humanity is being colonized by parasitic alien slugs called [http://animorphs.wikia.com/wiki/Yeerk Yeerks], that enter a human's brain through the ears and can control them. Randall/Cueball here is suggesting that the reason most humans can wear earbuds is because the Yeerks hold the earbuds in place.

Another possibility, given the earbud/music reference, is that Randall is making a joke about {{w|earworm}}s.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is sitting with his back towards Megan who is lying on her back on a grassy hill. Both are looking up at a sky with small puffy clouds (one large, two small, and four tiny). In the background fields are visible below their vantage point.]

:[Same setting, but with the clouds removed, to make room for Cueball's text.]
:Cueball: Do you ever just look up at the sky and wonder...

:[Same setting, zoomed a bit out to make more of the background fields visible, still with the clouds missing due to the text from the two people.]
:Cueball: "What are normal peoples' ears shaped like, that earbuds stay in without falling out?"
:Megan: Man, who ''knows'' what's going on in there.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Animorphs]]

1569: Magic Tree

2022-05-04T02:00:46Z

Musi: Undo revision 234028 by X. K. C. D. (talk) de-crapping

{{comic
| number = 1569
| date = August 26, 2015
| title = Magic Tree
| image = magic_tree.png
| titletext = Since people rarely try to cut down cell phone towers, after millions of years, as cell phone towers have gotten more treelike, trees have started growing fake cell phone tower attachments and shiny gray bark to protect themselves. This is a standard textbook example of convergent evolution.
}}

==Explanation==
{|style="float: right; border:1px solid dimgray; color:white" border="0" align="right" valign="top" cellpadding=10px cellspacing=0px
|+style="background:white; color:black"|'''Examples of camouflaged cell towers'''
|-align="center"
|[[Image:PalmCellTower.jpg|194x259px]]
|[[Image:AnotherCellTower.jpg]]
|}

This comic features a running theme in the xkcd comics, [[Beret Guy]]'s naive and/or odd ways of thinking. In the beginning of the comic, Beret Guy shows [[Megan]] what he believes to be a tree, and explains that it grew there because he placed magic beans in that spot yesterday. This is a reference to the fable "{{w|Jack and the Beanstalk}}", where the protagonist plants several magical beans he acquired, resulting in a beanstalk growing which ascends into the atmosphere. Megan, however, tells Beret Guy that the "tree" is actually a {{w|cell site|cell phone tower}}. Beret Guy disagrees, pointing out that it has branches, to which Megan tries to explain that this was in an attempt to make the [https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Camouflaged_antenna_towers_and_masts towers look like trees]. She gives up, however, as Beret Guy has already begun climbing the tower.

Later, Megan complains that her {{w|mobile phone signal|cell reception}} has disappeared. Beret Guy responds by saying that he had to cut down his "tree" because there were "scary giants with yellow helmets" in it. This mirrors, again, the "Jack and the Beanstalk" fable, where the protagonist has to cut down his beanstalk to prevent the giant, whose lands the beanstalk connects to, from climbing down and chasing him. In reality, the "giants" were probably utility workers.

The title text suggests that, over time, trees will evolve to start looking more like cell phone towers in a form of {{w|mimicry}} in order to avoid people cutting them down. Mimicry is where a creature copies the appearance or behavior of another in order to confuse predators. In this scenario, the more defenseless trees attempt to mimic cell phone towers, which have the defense of people not wanting to cut them down or they would lose cell service (and likely a significant amount of money through fines) and because of society's general respect for the property of others, as well as the dangers of electrocution or radiation. This is similar to the [https://web.archive.org/web/20190429134054/https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FFlora_and_fauna_of_the_Discworld%23Counting_pines counting pine], a tree in {{w|Terry Pratchett|Terry Pratchett's}} {{w|Discworld}} series that evolved to display its age with numbers on the outside (in the bark) in the hope that humans would not cut it down and count its rings. Of course now humans hunted it down trying to find a tree with numbers that would fit their house number instead, thus quickly rendering the trees almost completely extinct. (See the tribute to Terry in [[1498: Terry Pratchett]]).

{{w|Convergent evolution}} deals with multiple species acquiring similar characteristics to fulfill their role (such as dolphins and sharks both having a streamlined shape to swim fast) due to the species' common need to adapt to similar environments or tasks. [[Randall]] uses the term to describe the convergence in the appearances of cell towers whose design has "evolved" to include tree-like branches and trees which he predicts will evolve to resemble cell phone towers. Each of these "evolutions" would be for the purposes of camouflage, although the cell towers "evolve" by human design for purely aesthetic reasons and the trees would evolve naturally for self-preservation. This would therefore not be a true example of convergent evolution. It more closely resembles Batesian mimicry, or the evolutionary process by which a species remains noticeable, but treated as something it is not.

==Transcript==
:[Beret Guy and Megan stand next to a large pole with a note on it. Beret Guy points at the pole.]
:Beret Guy: Check it out! I threw my magic beans on the ground here yesterday, and this big tree appeared!

:[Zoom out, the pole is revealed to have branches. Around the pole are trees about 1/9th of the height of the pole.]
:Megan: That's a cell tower.
:Beret Guy: No way - it has branches!
:Beret Guy: See?
:Beret Guy: I'm gonna climb it!

:[Same as frame as the first. Beret Guy starts climbing the pole.]
:Megan: No, they just put those there to make it look-
:Megan: ...Never mind.

:[There is a caption in a small frame inlaid at the top of the last frame:]
:Later...
:[Megan looks at her phone while Beret Guy walks towards her holding an axe.]
:Megan: Why do I have no signal?
:Beret Guy: There were scary giants with yellow helmets in that tree! Luckily I cut it down before they ate me.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Beret Guy]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Biology]]
[[Category:Phones]]

1590: The Source

2022-05-04T02:00:27Z

Musi: Undo revision 233517 by X. K. C. D. (talk) de-crapping

{{comic
| number = 1590
| date = October 14, 2015
| title = The Source
| image = the_source.png
| titletext = Why did we even have that thing?
}}

==Explanation==
This comic is about experiencing a high pitched hum in an empty room. An "empty-room hum" is a high pitched buzzing noise, often caused by {{w|tinnitus}}, which is a medical condition causing high-pitched noise when there is no other noise around. Tinnitus is normally a hearing condition, not a disease. It may result from the brain [http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_high_pitched_humming_sound_often_heard_in_an_otherwise_empty_and_silent_room increasing its sensitivity to noises.]

Sometimes not everyone can hear "empty-room hum"; however, those who can hear it usually find it immensely annoying. If you do hear the noise, you would like to locate '''The Source''' – hence the title of the comic. Hopefully when you find the source, you can do something about it. Or if you don't find it, you can at least be at ease knowing that others experience the empty-room hum, it having been referenced in two xkcd comics now and [http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_high_pitched_humming_sound_often_heard_in_an_otherwise_empty_and_silent_room elsewhere] on the internet.

This comic alludes to the perspective of an outside observer who doesn't hear the hum but is watching someone who can hear it: because the sound isn't written out in text, the comic reader at first is confused by Cueball's inexplicable searching.

In the first two frames of the comic we see [[Cueball]] trying to locate the direction of the sound, by standing in the middle of the room, turning his head from one to the other side. Finally he walks down a flight of stairs (probably to the basement) and here he locates the source: A machine whose only function is to generate a high pitched hum. The title text asks why on Earth they had such a machine in the first place, which is somewhat difficult to explain and likely the crux of the title text's joke.

Luckily it was thus easy for Cueball to get rid of this sound at the source. But in real life most electronics generate hums and cannot reasonably be turned off without losing functionality. For instance fluorescent lights, phone chargers and computer modems are common culprits, refrigerators and washing machines less commonly. It could also come from outside the house, in which case it will be much harder either to locate the source or to do anything about it. Power lines and transformers are common outside sources.

There do, however, exist devices that are meant to create a high pitched hum, that people might wish to install in their house. These will be humming in the {{w|ultrasound|ultrasonic}} regions, although cheap versions can often be heard by young people. They are typically used for {{w|Electronic_pest_control#Ultrasonic|electronic pest control}}, while slightly lower frequencies which can typically be heard only by young people are sometimes used to {{w|The Mosquito|repel children}}. It is possible that someone tried to get rid of Cueball.

There do exist {{w|white noise}} generators (which make equal volume noise on every frequency) and {{w|pink noise}} generators (which make noise that sounds equally loud to the human ear at every frequency) which are used to test recording studios to see if they have good sound quality. It seems unlikely that the device is one of these, as it seems to be designed to generate a high-pitched hum: pink/white noises are categorically and perceptually different from a hum.

The sound wave spectrum in [[273: Electromagnetic Spectrum]] also contains a line for "that high-pitched noise in empty rooms".

The empty white room also could be a reference to a scene from [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Matrix_Reloaded The Matrix Reloaded] in which Neo searches for "The Source," though this is likely just a coincidence.

There is a story by A.E. Van Vogt in "The War Against the Rull" where an all-pervasive vibration leads to a coming of age for the youthful protagonist.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is standing in an empty room looking in the direction of the next frame.]

:[Cueball turns his head and looks the other way.]

:[Three smaller panels with the same total height as the first two frames follows. In the first frame Cueball walks on a grey surface.]

:[In the next Cueball is standing between two doors, looking over his shoulder towards the one to the left, but choosing the one to the right behind which a stair is. He is waking towards this door with his hand out towards the knob.]

:[In the last of these smaller panels Cueball has just walked down to the bottom of the stairs.]

:[Cueball walks towards a machine that is standing near a wall connected to a socket in the wall. On the machine it says:]
:High pitched hum generator

:[Cueball kneels behind the machine and unplugs it from the socket in the wall.]
:High pitched hum generator

:[Cueball walks away from the machine, the plug now lying on the floor between the wall and the machine.]
:High pitched hum generator

==Trivia==

'Empty room hum' is also referred to in [[273:_Electromagnetic_Spectrum#The comic in detail|other waves]] in [[273: Electromagnetic Spectrum]] and the title text in comic [[597: Addiction]].

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

509: Induced Current

2022-05-04T02:00:03Z

Musi: Undo revision 234296 by X. K. C. D. (talk) de-crapping

{{comic
| number = 509
| date = November 26, 2008
| title = Induced Current
| image = induced current.png
| titletext = The MythBusters need to tackle whether a black hole from the LHC could REALLY destroy the world.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic is exaggerating the effects of the physics stated. Solar flares eject, among other things, ions, electrons, and radiation. The charged particles reach Earth after a day or two, and in history has knocked the power out in some areas during a large flare. They can marginally affect the magnetic field of the Earth, or dent it, as [[Cueball]] says. A voltage occurs in a conductor (the wire) when subjected to a changing magnetic field. However, this change is small and influences only very long conductors, such as telephone lines.

Interestingly, phenomena as described by Cueball have occurred several times in recorded history, with effects quite nearly like those described, most notably the Carrington event of 1859. In 1859, a {{w|Solar storm of 1859|solar storm}} produced a series of powerful geomagnetic storms across the world, and many telegraph operators reported electrical phenomena (electric shock from the apparatus, messages sent and received despite disconnect from power sources, and pylons carrying telegraph lines sparking and arcing with current) all across North America. For this to occur in shorter conductors, (e.g., Beret guy's extension cord,) a solar storm would have to be so destructively large as to pose far more danger than just fires. The chances of such a solar event occurring again are not prohibitively small, though quite infrequent, and the last one, of comparative size and strength, was recorded in {{w|Solar storm of 2012|2012}}.

''{{w|Mythbusters}}'' is a show that tests urban legends or myths that viewers submit. They have a classic style of scaling up myths to comical sizes. By starting the myth that a fire would be formed from the large voltage across the wire induced by the Earth's magnetic field, Cueball hopes to see it tested on ''Mythbusters'', and perhaps then scaled up to astronomical proportions. This comic may also reference how ''Mythbusters'' was running out of urban legends to test, and has resorted to testing the feasibility of viral videos, movie scenes, proverbs, and the like, plus occasionally making up urban legends.

The title text refers to the {{w|Large Hadron Collider|Large Hadron Collider (LHC)}}, the most powerful particle collider in the world and the fear of some people of the production of stable {{w|Micro black hole|microscopic black holes}} destroying the Earth. Of course, testing something like this would be outside the scope of a show like ''MythBusters''. Additionally, if the myth was confirmed, the planet would be destroyed, and nobody would like the ''MythBusters'' anymore. However, that wouldn't be much of a problem, seeing that there would be no one around to like anything.

==Transcript==
:[Beret Guy, extension cord in hand, approaches Cueball as he works at his computer.]
:Beret Guy: Can I plug my extension cord over here?
:Cueball: No.
:Beret Guy: Why?
:Cueball: Solar Flares.
:[A diagram is displayed, illustrating the Earth's magnetic field being permanently impacted by a large solar flare (represented by a large arrow).]
:[A second diagram is presented, illustrating the Earth's rotation and the resulting impact that the solar flare would have on the earth's magnetic field.]
:Cueball: A large solar flare could dent the Earth's magnetic field inwards. The Earth's spin could then induce a strong current in any long conductors, melting them and starting fires. By extending your cord, you could kill us all.
:[Stunned, Beret Guy looks down at the cord he carries.]
:Beret Guy: Really?
:Cueball: Warn your friends.
:[Dejected, Beret Guy walks away, cord in tow.]
:[Cueball looks up from his computer as he is braced by Megan, a stern look in her face.]
:Megan: That was mean.
:Cueball: Listen, ''somebody'' has to keep Mythbusters in business. Next season should be fun.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Beret Guy]]
[[Category:Physics]]

2601: Instructions/Images

2022-05-04T01:58:42Z

Musi: Undo revision 233107 by X. K. C. D. (talk) de-crapping

*Below, you will find images relevant for comic [[2601: Instructions]].
==Dynamic part of the comic==
:Radio off:
:[[File:instructions.png]]
:Radio on:
:[[File:2601 Instructions Radio on.png]]
:Radio on muted:
:[[File:2601 Instructions Radio on muted.png]]

==Turtle picture==
:[[File:2601 Crawling turtle.png]]

{{DEFAULTSORT:2601}}
[[Category: Comic subpages]]

909: Worst-Case Shopping

2022-05-04T01:58:18Z

Musi: Undo revision 232898 by X. K. C. D. (talk) de-crapping

{{comic
| number = 909
| date = June 8, 2011
| title = Worst-Case Shopping
| image = worst case shopping.png
| titletext = Wait a minute. If I'm escaping from a submarine at 50 meters, then I'll *definitely* need a flashlight to find air pockets for gradual decompression on the way up. Time to start shopping professional dive lights.
}}

==Explanation==
For most people, under most circumstances, a flashlight's water-resistance is a completely moot point, as most flashlight use occurs on dry land. But, [[208|as Randall has shown before]], there is a tendency for people to imagine elaborate scenarios in which an extra edge would be useful.

In the dream sequence over the first 2 and a half frames, [[Cueball]] appears to be diving to find a key underwater, which he spots using his flashlight when he is at 8 meters. His flashlight goes out at 10 meters because he bought the "Hi-Brite" model. The dream sequence also references a "radio shed", which were only really used in the past for {{w|amateur radio}}s or some other military style bases/compounds—which would align with his "warn the President" line. He thus suggests the more water-resistant flashlight. However, this is seen as ridiculous from his friend, since the more durable model costs over $25 more in return. He replies that "you never know" what situation you'll be in.

The title text takes Cueball's thought process to the next level. If he is getting a flashlight that works to 40 meters (worst-case), he should probably be prepared for even deeper waters as well (even worse-case).

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is diving in very deep, dark blue water. He shines a flashlight at the sea floor.]
:Cueball (thinks): Eight meters. There's the wreckage... Yes! I see the key!

:[As he swims further toward it, his flashlight starts to cut out.]
:Cueball (thinks): Gotta grab it, surface, get in to the radio shed, and warn the President! Just a few more...
:Flashlight: BZZT FIZZ

:[This panel has no border like the others, and is divided in half diagonally by a thought bubble.]
:[The left half of it is a dark blue thought bubble with the diver inside it. On the right hand side are packaged flashlights hanging on a shelf. The one called Hi-Brite is $24.95 and is labeled "water resistant to 10 meters." The one called "FenStar G6" is $49.95 and says "water resistant to 40 meters."]
:Cueball (thinks): Oh no.

:[Cueball and a friend stand in front of a flashlight display in a store. Cueball looks down at the packages with his hand on his chin in thought. The thought bubble from the previous panel leads from his head. The friend stands behind him.]
:Cueball: ...maybe I should spring for the deeper water resistance.
:Friend: Why on earth would you care about that?
:Cueball: Look, you never know.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]

1572: xkcd Survey

2022-05-04T01:52:53Z

Musi: Undo revision 234715 by X. K. C. D. (talk) reverting vandalism -- not sure whether I'm violating some sort of etiquette by not waiting for someone to rollback it but

{{comic
| number = 1572
| date = September 2, 2015
| title = xkcd Survey
| image = xkcd_survey.png
| titletext = The xkcd Survey: Big Data for a Big Planet
}}
*The original comic links to [http://goo.gl/forms/B5RaBeZ6nw The xkcd survey] at Google, which is closed now.

==Explanation==
As the comic image states, it links to a survey created with [https://www.google.com/forms/about/ Google Forms], containing a series of questions. The questions range from mundane typical survey questions such as “Do you have any food allergies?”, to rather strange, such as “Fill this text box with random letters by randomly mashing keys on your leopard.” (See [[1530: Keyboard Mash]]).

The stated goal of the survey is to “create an interesting and unusual data set for people to play with”. A strange data set is a ripe opportunity for a sampling of readers. It's also supposed to be “a search for weird correlations” – presumably the goal is to be able to say things like “people who have been skydiving are (more/less) likely than average to dislike cilantro”. (See also [[882: Significant]] about finding presumably-spurious correlations between unrelated data.)

If the data is ever released, this explanation will be updated, but as of April 2022, this has not happened.

{{w|Image_map#Client-side_image_map|HTML image maps}} is a technique for marking up areas of an image on a web page, such that each area can be a link without the whole image being a link. [[Randall]] could have used this type of image map to make only the “Click here to take the survey” button be a link, and none of the rest of the image. But he cannot get the hang of it (or knowing his skills, does not wish to take the time to learn it). Not getting the hang of HTML image maps was also referenced on the banner for his [[xkcd_Header_text#2014-07-23_-_what_if.3F_book_tour|book tour]] for the [[what if?]] book

The title text is a joke off of {{w|Big Data}}, which is a name for analysis of a set of data that includes a huge amount of information. He also says "for a big planet" because the Earth is big.{{Citation needed}}

The survey is closed, and the questions replaced with the text: "The xkcd survey is now closed. Thank you for all your answers! Response data is being collected and will be posted soon." As of February 2022, the same caption is still there, with no indication of exactly how soon the data is intended to be posted. (Apparently, Randall crashed google forms, so the data is taking a long time to be retrieved [https://www.reddit.com/r/xkcd/comments/40mhve/what_ever_happened_to_the_survey_we_took/ (see this reddit thread)] - much like his breaking of [http://what-if.xkcd.com/imgs/a/62/balloon_wolfram.png Wolfram Alpha]] during answering a reader's question on [[what if?]])

==The Survey==
A recreation of the survey can be found [https://goo.gl/forms/CtAILwjyJAYsmqbO2 here on Google].

The recreation's data can be [https://goo.gl/5A77ZX found live here.]

It started with the following statement:

<nowiki>This is an anonymous survey. After it's done, a database of everyone's responses will be posted.
There's no specific reason for any of the questions. The goal is to create an interesting and unusual data set for people to play with. This is obviously not going to be a real random sample of people, but in the interest of getting cooler data, if you're sharing this with friends, try sending it to some people who wouldn't normally see this kind of thing!

WARNING: This survey is anonymous, but your answers WILL BE MADE PUBLIC. Depending what you write, it's possible that someone may be able to identify you by looking at your responses. None of these questions should ask about anything too private, but don't write anything that you don't want people to see. If you're not comfortable answering a question, just skip it.</nowiki>

'''Note:''' The order of the possible answers (the list of possibilities) was random, and changed every time the page is reloaded. So do not try to fix the order here below...

===Plane===
*Have you ever been in a plane?
**No
**Yes

===Skydiving===
*Have you ever been {{w|Parachuting|skydiving}}?
**No, but I might someday
**Yes
**No

===The Dress===
*When you first saw {{w|The dress (viral phenomenon)|The Dress}}, what color was it? — (Also see [[1492: Dress Color]] and the [[Blag]] ENTRY [http://blog.xkcd.com/2010/05/03/color-survey-results/ Color Survey Results]).
**White and gold
**A color combination not listed here
**I don't remember
**Blue and black
**What dress?

===Popular food===
*What's a really popular food that you don't like?
**''Text box''

===Floaters===
*When you look at a blue sky, do you see those swirly {{w|floater|floaters}} in your vision?
**Yes, constantly
**I'm not sure what things you mean
**Yes, occasionally
**No

===Running out of gas===
*Have you ever had a car run out of gas while you were driving it?
**Yes
**No

===Animals===
*Name the first five animals you can think of
**''Multi line text box''

===Weather===
*What's the weather like where you are right now?
**''Text box''

===Activities===
*Which of these can you do reasonably well?
*(Check all that apply)
**{{w|slam dunk|Dunk}} a basketball — A "slam dunk" or simply "dunk" is the act of jumping up and putting the ball through the net with a lot of force
**Tie a {{w|sheet bend}} or {{w|bowline}} — A sheet bend is a knot that joins two ropes together; A bowline is a knot used to form a fixed loop at the end of a rope. Although tied differently, the resulting knots are identical{{Citation needed}}.
**Roller skate
**[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/high-heel-race/ Run in high heels]
**Drive a stick shift — See {{w|Manual transmission}} of a car
**Solve a {{w|Rubik's cube}}
**Dive headfirst off a diving board — See {{w|Springboard}} and {{w|Diving platform}}
**Ice skate
**{{w|Skateboarding|Skateboard}}
**Walk on {{w|stilts}} — Stilts are poles, posts or pillars used to allow a person to walk at a height above the ground
**Ski
**Cut vegetables with a knife
**Swim
**Ride a horse
**{{w|Unicycle}}
**Change the oil on a car
**Do a back {{w|Handspring (gymnastics)|handspring}} — A handspring is an exercise in gymnastics in which you jump through the air landing on your hands, then again landing on your feet
**Juggle — {{w|Toss juggling}} (the most recognizable form of juggling) consists in throwing objects into the air and catching them.

===Spelling===
*What word can you never seem to spell on the first try?
**''Text box''

===Condiments===
*Do you eat {{w|condiments}} directly out of the fridge as a snack?
**No
**Yes

===Thermostat===
*When you adjust a thermostat that was set by someone else, it's usually because you want the room to be...
**Cooler
**Warmer

===Clothing===
*What color is the shirt/dress/upper-body-clothing you're wearing right now, if any?
**''Text box''

===Colds===
*Do you get {{w|Common cold|colds}} often?
**No
**Yes

===Number===
*Pick a number from 1 to 100
**''Text box''

===Spelling===
*On a scale of 1 to 10, how good at spelling are you? (Note that the question does not specify which end of the scale is good or bad.)
**''Tick off list with numbers from 1 to 10.''

===Myers-Briggs===
*Do you know your {{w|Myers–Briggs_Type_Indicator|Myers-Briggs type}}?
**No
**Yes

===Astrology===
*Do you know your {{w|astrological sign}}?
**No
**Yes

===Siblings===
*How many older siblings do you have?
**''Text box''
*How many younger siblings do you have?
**''Text box''
*How many twin/etc siblings do you have?
**''Text box''

===Sleepiness===
*Do you feel sleepy a lot?
**Yes
**No

===Movie star===
*Name a movie star
**''Text box''

===Time in sun===
*Do you spend a lot of time in the sun?
**Yes
**No

===Broccoli===
*Does {{w|broccoli}} taste bitter to you?
**Yes
**No
**I've never had it

===Wakefulness===
*Do you regularly stay awake much later than you meant to?
**Yes
**No

===Keyboard mashing===
*Fill this text box with gibberish by mashing random keyboard keys (See [[1530: Keyboard Mash]]).
**''Broad multi-line text box''

===Driving===
*On a scale of 1 to 5, where 1 is terrible and 3 is average, how good a driver do you think you are? (note it does not include the possibility that you don't drive)
**''Tick off list with numbers from 1 to 5.''

===Allergies===
*Do you have any food allergies?
**No
**Yes

===Thunder===
*Have you heard thunder or seen lightning in the past year? — (The title-text of [[831: Weather Radar]] mentions the belief that thunderstorms seemed more common when one was a kid. Since the survey also asks for age this question is likely a test of that belief.)
**Yes
**No

===Flavor preference===
*Which do you prefer? (It seems to be missing the ''neither'' option...)
**Chocolate
**Vanilla

===Number (reprise)===
*Pick another number from 1 to 100 (Supposedly should not be the same as in the first pick a number box).
**''Text box''

===Internet===
*When you think about stuff on the internet, where do you picture it being physically located? Even if you know it's not really how things work, is there a place you imagine websites and social media posts sitting before you look at them? If so, where is it?
**''Broad multi-line text box''

===Roll tongue===
*Can you {{w|Tongue rolling|roll your tongue}}?
**Yes
**No
**What?

===Toes===
*Can you pick things up with your toes?
**No
**Yes

===Age===
*How old are you?
**''Text box''

===Walls===
*What color are the walls around you right now?
**''Text box''

===Cell phone===
*What kind of cell phone do you have?
**{{w|iPhone}}
**{{w|Android (operating system)|Android}}
**Other smartphone
**Non-smartphone
**I don't have a cell phone

===Eating===
*What's the last thing you ate?
**''Text box''

===Difficult words===
*Which of these words do you know the meaning of?
*Some of these words don’t appear in any of the following dictionaries: the Oxford English Dictionary, the New Oxford American Dictionary, Wiktionary, or Dictionary.com. With one exception, however, reviewers on this site have found verifiable examples of use for the words in question.
*[http://dictionary.reference.com/ Dictionary.com] has an index of difficulty (measured in pixels, with class name <code>difficulty-indicator</code>). We add it at the right of the words that have it. N/A means that a word isn't present in Dictionary.com, or that it doesn't have an index.
**Slickle – Not in any standard dictionary. However, it [http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Slickle is in] the crowd-sourced in Urban Dictionary, as well as a suggested planet name in [[1253: Exoplanet Names]]
**{{Wiktionary|rife|Rife}} – [http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/rife 117]
**{{Wiktionary|soliloquy|Soliloquy}} – [http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/soliloquy 150]
**Fination – not in any dictionary. Appears infrequently in Victorian texts (e.g., [http://books.google.com/books?id=ghNOAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA245&dq=Fination 1889], [http://books.google.com/books?id=nwlCAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA214&dq=Fination 1839])
**{{Wiktionary|stipple|Stipple}} – [http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/stipple 144]
**{{Wiktionary|peristeronic|Peristeronic}} – [http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/peristeronic N/A]. Randall used it and defined it for readers in [[798: Adjectives]].
**{{Wiktionary|modicum|Modicum}} – [http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/modicum 120]
**Trephony – Not available in reference dictionaries. An obsolete spelling of "{{w|Trephine}}" (especially when used as a verb for the process of {{w|Trepanning|trephination}}). Initially a transliteration of Greek [http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0057:entry=tru/panon τρυπάω] for the same.
**Tribution – A regular construction from {{Wiktionary|tribute#Verb|Tribute (verb)}} using "{{Wiktionary|-tion}}" to transform into a noun. Using this regular formation, the term would mean the act of tribute, but no examples of actual use are available. It is worth noting that the use of "tribute" as a verb is generally considered obsolete and the few forms that persist in use relate primarily to the tributary and distributary river systems
**{{Wiktionary|phoropter|Phoropter}} – [http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/phoropter N/A] 1.An instrument used in eye examinations to determine an individual's prescription, the patient looking through various lenses at a chart on the other side.
**Unitory – Not available in reference dictionaries. An obsolete spelling of "Unitary," chiefly British. While long obsolete in normal usage, it persisted longer in mathematics that it did elsewhere (particularly for "Unitory Method" and "Unitory Matrices"). Example of use: [https://books.google.com/books?id=Wl1BAQAAMAAJ&pg=RA5-PA27&lpg=RA5-PA27&dq=unitory+method&source=bl&ots=rfRKJXAJqV&sig=Wsr_gV7xG6Airah9Lx1M0hi-7Zc&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CDsQ6AEwBmoVChMInd_R9qTbxwIVChU-Ch36IAh_#v=onepage&q=unitory%20method&f=false (1)]
**{{Wiktionary|amiable|Amiable}} – [http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/amiable 123]
**{{Wiktionary|salient|Salient}} – [http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/salient 69]
**{{Wiktionary|regolith|Regolith}} – [http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/regolith 162]
**{{Wiktionary|lithe|Lithe}} – [http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/lithe 105]
**Revergent – technical word from {{w|fern}} biology, referring to the edges of fern leaves which curl back on themselves (see [http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FBF00985044 Schölch, 2000])
**{{Wiktionary|hubris|Hubris}} – [http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/hubris 117]
**{{Wiktionary|fleek|Fleek}} – [http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/fleek N/A]
**Cadine – A rare loan-word for {{Wiktionary|fr:cadine|a sultan's wife or a noble ottoman woman}} which comes to English through the French. Examples of Use: [https://books.google.com/books?id=4yz-Y-_OOO0C&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q=cadine&f=false (1)]. Also the name of an {{w|it:Cadine|italian city}}.
**{{Wiktionary|apricity|Apricity}} – Not available in reference dictionaries. An obsolete word for the sun's heat in winter (e.g., [http://books.google.com/books?id=CFBGAAAAYAAJ&pg=PT76&dq=apricity Bailey 1775]). According to the What If? book (page 80), this is Randall's single favourite word in the English language.

===cat===
*Please type "cat" here: (Likely to see how they write the word)
**''Text box''

===Dreams===
*Do you usually remember your dreams?
**No
**Yes

===Text editors===
*Do you have strong opinions about text editors? (See {{w|Editor war}})
**Yes
**No

===Emoji===
*How do you feel about {{w|emoji}}?
**Negative 😠 (Unicode 1f620 - Angry face)
**Positive 😊 (Unicode 263a - Smiling face)
**Neutral 😐 (Unicode 1F610 - Neutral face)

===Snow===
*Does it ever snow where you live?
**No
**Yes

===Taste of food===
*Do you strongly dislike the taste or texture of any of these things?
**Eggs
**Chocolate ice cream
**Beer
**White wine
**{{w|Carbonation}} (or Fizz)
**Red wine
**{{w|Cilantro}}
**Coffee
**Tomatoes
**Yogurt

===Beverages===
*Which of these do you regularly drink?
**Caffeinated soda (e.g. Coca-Cola, Dr. Pepper)
**Noncaffeinated soda
**Coffee
**Fruit juice
**Milk
**Beer
**Wine
**Tea
**{{w|Maple syrup}}
**Water

===Random words===
*Type five random words
**''Broad multi-line text box''

===Flying===
*Are you nervous about flying?
**Yes
**No
**A little

===Favorite number===
*On a scale of 1 to 5, which number is your favorite?
**''Tick off list with numbers from 1 to 5.''

===Sandwich===
*Which of these would you consider a {{w|sandwich}}?
*(Check all that apply)
**{{w|Taco}}
**{{w|Quesadilla}}
**{{w|Submarine sandwich|Sub/Hoagie}}
**{{w|Cheesesteak}}
**{{w|Hamburger}}
**{{w|Open-faced sandwich}}
**{{w|Calzone}}

===Animal affinity===
*Which of these describes you?
*(Check all that apply)
**Dog person
**Cat person
**Half-cat half-person
**Part of a subterranean race of dog people
**Literally named "Catherine Person"

===Sense of direction===
*Would you say you have a good sense of direction?
**Yes
**No

===Socks or underwear===
*Have you ever thrown out all your different pairs of socks/underwear, bought a bunch of replacements that were all one kind, and then told all your friends how great it was and how they should do it too?
**Yes
**No
**I did the throwing out thing, but didn't talk to everyone about it
**No, but I'm totally doing that now

==Transcript==
:[A simple comic with text only. The ''click here'' part is inside a black frame.]
:Introducing
:'''The xkcd Survey'''
:A search for weird correlations
:Note: This survey is anonymous, but
: all responses will be posted publicly 
:so people can play with the data.
:'''Click here to'''
:'''take the survey'''
:Or click here, or here.
:The whole comic is a link,
:because I still haven't gotten
:the hang of HTML imagemaps.

==Trivia==
This strip was referenced upon the availability of preorders for ''How to: Absurd Scientific Advice for Common Real-World Problems''. A new banner appeared at the top of the site to announce that preorders were available; at the right of the banner was a blue box labelled "Click here to preorder", followed immediately below by "Or click anywhere. I still haven't figured out HTML imagemaps."

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics with color]]

2030: Voting Software

2022-05-04T01:50:19Z

Musi: Undo revision 234573 by X. K. C. D. (talk) -- reverting vandalism

{{comic
| number = 2030
| date = August 8, 2018
| title = Voting Software
| image = voting_software.png
| titletext = There are lots of very smart people doing fascinating work on cryptographic voting protocols. We should be funding and encouraging them, and doing all our elections with paper ballots until everyone currently working in that field has retired.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic is a commentary on voting machines specifically, and more generally the contrast between what experts will trust and what the average user will trust.

The first two panels of this comic involve a reporter talking to professional mechanical engineers, asking about the given safety of the products/solutions that each of their fields help to produce (airplanes from aircraft designers in panel 1, elevators from building engineers in panel 2). While the two inventions selected are relatively new when compared to how long humans have existed, the two fields mentioned have existed for multiple human generations, giving enough time to find flaws in their products/solutions and solve said flaws to the point that they can be considered safe for the general public to use.

The comic from panel 3 onwards contrasts this with computer engineers [[Megan]] and [[Cueball]], both agreeing that their given field (computer science/software development/software engineering) does not have the overall consistent competency that other fields have (or at least appear to have). Indeed, at least anecdotally there are very few ethical and security restrictions for what developers can/cannot do, and relatively minor consequences when catastrophes arise from poor decisions.

When the reporter follows the interview up with a mention of {{w|blockchain}} technology, Megan and Cueball reflexively tell the reporter to avoid any voting system using the technology at all costs. {{w|Blockchain}} is a relatively new technology that is intended to solve some computer security issues by making it difficult to doctor old data. However, in the process of solving the old computer security issues, it has introduced new computer security issues that have not yet been ironed out; for instance, it doesn't solve input fraud issues, only data-doctoring fraud, so if a program caused the voting machine to record a vote for candidate B whenever a vote for candidate A was cast (such a program could be uploaded to the voting machines through USB, or through the internet which the voting machine must be connected to for blockchain), blockchain would not prevent it. Blockchain has also had a large number of high-profile scams, thefts, and implementations with critical security holes. Thus, [[Megan]] and [[Cueball]] may not trust this blockchain solution because of this history.

The title text confirms the comic's stance by implicitly saying that any digital voting systems are to not be used under ''any'' circumstances. It may also highlight that anyone working in the field is vulnerable to corruption, or at least that the field is far from maturity. Humorously the title text says digital voting systems should still be ''developed,'' but mostly to keep the people who want to use them occupied, rather than allowing them to actually publish their work in the real world where it can cause serious harm.

Computer systems, operating primarily in a digital domain, fail differently from most traditional areas of engineering, which operate in analog (or continuous) domains. A small error in an analog part often gives a result which is close to the desired properties (it almost fits, it works most of the time). By contrast, a small error in a digital system (just one bit being changed) can easily make the system function in radically different ways (if not just crash entirely). So not only is software engineering younger than other areas of engineering, but the domain is much less forgiving. Even small errors/variations produce catastrophe down the line.

This fear of computerized voting is a result of a fundamental difference between computer security and other types of safety measures: Most engineers only have to deal with wear and tear, and very rarely have to guard against sabotage. In contrast, in cryptography there is ''always'' somebody trying to undo what you've built. Not only that, but new advances in cryptography tend to point out vulnerabilities with previous versions, making them not only obsolete, but dangerously so. For these reasons, it is especially important to make sure that whoever is selling you the security method is both competent and non-malicious, but because crypto software is highly technical and often confidential/proprietary, it can be hard to verify this if you're not an expert in the field (which you won't be, if you're buying it).

These issues are especially pertinent to {{w|voting machine}}s, which store incredibly sensitive information but are often catastrophically outdated due to lack of funding. There are also major issues with electronic voting in general; for example, [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3_0x6oaDmI this video from Computerphile] raises issues of malware infections, transferring the votes to the election authorities without having them intercepted, and needing to trust both the machine's software and central counting system to present an accurate account of the votes. Furthermore, the people purchasing them, the politicians, are generally not known for their technical understanding -- or their impartiality.

Interestingly, this comic was posted a day before DEF CON 2018, and it was shown there that the voting systems that will be used across America for the mid-term vote in November are, in many cases, extremely insecure. The topic of voting machines has been covered before in [[463: Voting Machines]], where the use of anti-virus software on the machines has been discussed.

===Blockchain===
The way blockchain works is that several computers have data being inputted into them. With each tick, they all share their current states with each other, and encrypt and hash it. That state then becomes a 'block' in the chain. They then share states, including that block as part of the state, then hash and encrypt it, and then it becomes a 'block' in the chain. Each 'block' is included in the cryptographic hash of all following blocks, so if a change is made to any given block, all blocks after that block must be changed.

Due to the distributed nature, if changes are made to any chain, it can be compared against the other chains, and so long as the majority say that the changes didn't happen, it's reverted and removed.

This is really great at preventing post-facto data changes. With blockchain you can somewhat guarantee that no one comes in after the election and changes the votes on the machines. (Unless they're handling the blockchain in a stupid fashion, for example without the distribution.) What you cannot do is prevent someone from installing a program on the machine that makes it think that there's a voter when it's idle, and makes it start registering the correct sequence of actions to signify a vote while idle.

Also, the security issues that Blockchain solves could also be solved via write-once memory, which would be more secure and more difficult to doctor.

Most computer security specialists are more worried about programs that randomly deliberately misreport a vote, than people changing the votes after they're already recorded, so blockchain would solve an issue that most computer security specialists are less worried about, while causing new issues (the perpetual internet connection among them).

==Transcript==

:[A Megan-like woman, with bushy hair, is holding a handheld microphone and interviewing Hairbun and Cueball, standing in a line]
:[Heading above the panel]:
:Asking aircraft designers about airplane safety:

:Hairbun: Nothing is ever foolproof, but modern airliners are incredibly resilient. Flying is the safest way to travel.

:[In a frameless panel, Hairy is holding a handheld microphone and interviewing Cueball]
:[Heading above the panel]:
:Asking building engineers about elevator safety:

:Cueball: Elevators are protected by multiple tried-and-tested failsafe mechanisms. They're nearly incapable of falling.

:[Ponytail is holding a handheld microphone and interviewing Megan and Cueball, standing in a line]
:[Heading above the panel]:
:Asking software engineers about computerized voting:

:Megan: That's ''terrifying''.

:[Zoomed in on Ponytail, Megan and Cueball's faces]
:Ponytail: Wait, really?
:Megan: Don't trust voting software and don't listen to anyone who tells you it's safe.
:Ponytail: Why?
:Megan: I don't quite know how to put this, but our entire field is bad at what we do, and if you rely on us, everyone will die.

:[Zoomed back out, showing Ponytail, Megan and Cueball standing in a line]
:Ponytail: They say they've fixed it with something called "blockchain."
:Megan: AAAAA!!!
:Cueball: Whatever they sold you, don't touch it.
:Megan: Bury it in the desert.
:Cueball: Wear gloves.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairbun]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Elections]]
[[Category:Programming]]