explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Talk:2755: Effect Size

2023-04-07T16:56:46Z

Pbb:

Wow, it looks like I'm first![[Special:Contributions/162.158.146.40|162.158.146.40]] 16:40, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

;Wasn't something like this actually done?
Robert Sapolsky mentions an obscure paper that actually did something like this. They did a meta-analysis of the average reported error throughout various disciplines in order of the physical size of the objects being studied (e.g., from cells to organs to etc.), and found no correlation between them. The conclusion was that this was evidence that philosophical reductionism was flawed. [[User:Fephisto|Fephisto]] ([[User talk:Fephisto|talk]]) 22:45, 27 March 2023 (UTC)
: Did you manage to find it? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.57.203|172.70.57.203]] 08:49, 28 March 2023 (UTC)
:: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_njf8jwEGRo Here] is the talk. He talks about the paper around 1:26:00. The figure is 1:26:50. [[User:Fephisto|Fephisto]] ([[User talk:Fephisto|talk]]) 13:18, 29 March 2023 (UTC)
:: Maybe [https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/article/401203/summary LINK] Titled "Reductionism and Variability in Data: A Meta-Analysis" Sapolsky, R.; Balt S.; Perspectives in Biology and Medicine 39(2), 1996[[User:Tier666|Tier666]] ([[User talk:Tier666|talk]]) 16:21, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

But does the meta-analysis include itself? Technically, it too is part of Science...
Artinum [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.151|172.70.91.151]] 13:06, 28 March 2023 (UTC)
: It's SCIENCE all the way Down! [[User:Kev|Kev]] ([[User talk:Kev|talk]]) 18:39, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

scroll box location is ~25.5% down track: scroll box is 10px high, scrollbar is 290px high, 54px above box, 226px below = center of scrollbox is 59/231 = 25.541..% = ~209,815 pages of total studies. Adjusted to 210,000 to account for rounding errors. (Plus the scroll box might not even move a pixel for a number of pages).[[Special:Contributions/162.158.146.41|162.158.146.41]]
: Wait, if the scrollbar is 290px high, then shouldn't the position be 59/290 = 20.345%? It looks a lot more like 1/5th down than 1/4th down to my eyes. --[[User:Orion205|Orion205]] ([[User talk:Orion205|talk]]) 17:16, 29 March 2023 (UTC)
: The assumption here is that the scroll bar corresponds to the page numbers. However, that is not normally the case, it's more common to have a scroll bar per page, meaning we are here 20% into page nr 53589... -- [[User:Pbb|Pbb]] ([[User talk:Pbb|talk]]) 16:56, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

Did anyone notice the asterisk next to one of the graph elements? There's got to be a lot of those... Not all scientific studies (I would say very few) can be boiled down to a single numerical output.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.146.41|162.158.146.41]]

Unless I misunderstand this, there's also an aspect of this that's due to sign - because some studies of some outcomes expect negative results, and some expect positive, mixing even results that are overall statistically significant may cause the effects to cancel out.
[[User:Mattwigway|Mattwigway]] ([[User talk:Mattwigway|talk]]) 15:32, 28 March 2023 (UTC)
:I think that could be squared[[User:Tier666|Tier666]] ([[User talk:Tier666|talk]]) 17:03, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

meta-analyses are also referenced in [[1477: Meta-Analysis]] [[Special:Contributions/172.71.26.104|172.71.26.104]] 16:18, 28 March 2023 (UTC)Bumpf
: 1477 Is [[1477|Star Wars]]? [[User:Kev|Kev]] ([[User talk:Kev|talk]]) 18:39, 28 March 2023 (UTC)
:: sorry, I meant [[1447: Meta-Analysis]] :) [[Special:Contributions/172.71.166.248|172.71.166.248]] 13:04, 29 March 2023 (UTC)Bumpf
:Would this meta-analysis of all science satisfy Life Goal #28 (assuming it's rejected, as it probably should be)? [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 15:29, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

[[Special:Contributions/172.70.251.39|172.70.251.39]] 07:01, 30 March 2023 (UTC)
'''SCIENCE IS HIGHLY SIGNIFICANT'''

If we (i) postulate that the picture of page 53,589 of the meta-analysis of all science is a representative sample, and if we (ii) postulate that the model of the meta-analysis is just simple random sampling, without stratification (and I think that is a reasonable guess, since if you really have data of ALL science or want to make an assumption about ALL science based on a sample, then Simple random sampling is okay since weighting of different scientific disciplines is proportional to the number of studies in your sample, SRS guarantees getting an unbiased estimate ...), and if we (iii) postulate that the study-specific variance is independent from the single-study means, we can approximately calculate the correct confidence interval.

Let's do it: The authors say that the weighted least square estimator of the population mean is 0.17. The picture shows 11 studies. I eye-balled the effects being (-0.125; 0.5; 0.375; 0.75; -0.375; 3.75; 0.125; 1.25; 0; 0.55; -0,2) and calculated the "between study standard deviation" (using Excel ) being 1.146 and the mean of that sub-sample being 0.6. (Remark: We can ignore the within study variation, since the dominating source of variation is "between studies" and the within error is enclosed in "between study stddev" due to error propagation). Of course, data analysis can be done with a mixed model with clustered data, but doing an analysis with the study means will give a very good approximation.

Now, first step is to calculate the confidence interval of the mean effect size based on the studies we see. We have 11 studies, 10 degrees of freedom. Assuming a t-distribution the (unweighted) 95% confidence interval of the studies in the picture is
0.6 +/- [2.228*1.146/sqrt(11)] = 0.6 +/- 0.77 = [-0.17, 1.37]

The C.I. includes zero but also includes the full meta study mean of 0.17. So, we have no evidence against our hypothesis that page 53,589 which we see on the website is representative for the full meta analysis. So, we can go on

The 95% confidence interval for ALL studies assuming a number of around 250,000 studies would be
0.17 +/- [1.96*1.146/sqrt(250000)] = 0.17 +/- 0.00572 = [0.16428, 0.17572].

The 99.9% confidence interval for ALL studies assuming a number of around 250,000 studies would be
0.17 +/- [3.3*1.146/sqrt(250000)] = 0.17 +/- 0.00756 = [0.16244, 0.17756].

meaning, on average SCIENCE IS HIGHLY SIGNIFICANT (p<0.001)

[[Special:Contributions/162.158.86.191|162.158.86.191]] 10:31, 30 March 2023 (UTC)
I re-viewed the graph and read the comments on the web page. They say the underlying number of papers is 2,3 million. My fault was that I havent multiplied the number of pages with number of studies per page. So, the confidence interval will become even more narrow

The 95% confidence interval for ALL studies assuming a number of around 2,100,000 studies would be
0.17 +/- [1.96*1.146/sqrt(2100000)] = 0.17 +/- 0.00155 = [0.16845, 0.17155].

The 99.9% confidence interval for ALL studies assuming a number of around 250,000 studies would be
0.17 +/- [3.3*1.146/sqrt(2100000)] = 0.17 +/- 0.00261 = [0.16739, 0.17261].

[[Special:Contributions/162.158.86.191|162.158.86.191]] 10:31, 30 March 2023 (UTC)
Interesting is, that the population mean is 0.17 and not 0.000. When averaging the effects of so many studies, all different in topic and investigated treatments and strata, one would expect that the global mean of all effects is zero. But it is 0.17. Clear indication of publication bias. There is higher probability for a positive effect to be published in a paper.

Talk:2700: Account Problems

2022-11-21T14:37:32Z

Pbb:

What was going on with this page? [[User:Sarah the Pie(yes, the food)|Sarah the Pie(yes, the food)]] ([[User talk:Sarah the Pie(yes, the food)|talk]]) 00:58, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

:Vandalism. I mentioned it on the [[explain xkcd:Community portal/Admin requests|Admin requests]] page. It's getting reverted back to normal pretty quickly when it happens, but it will probably keep happening until an admin bans the person doing it, or the person doing it gets bored and stops on their own. [[User:Equites|Equites]] ([[User talk:Equites|talk]]) 01:05, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

are two nazis actually in an edit war or is it just one person astroturfing --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.63.100|162.158.63.100]] 01:18, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

I'm trying to combat it, but I'll only be able to keep this up for around another 20 minutes or so. [[User:InfoManiac|InfoManiac]] ([[User talk:InfoManiac|talk]]) 01:21, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

:Is TheusafBot ofline or something? Generally it handles this sort of stuff pretty well--[[User:Mapron01|Mapron01]] ([[User talk:Mapron01|talk]]) 01:44, 19 November 2022 (UTC)
::I'm pretty sure he is. [[User:Starstar|Starstar]] ([[User talk:Starstar|talk]]) 02:23, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

This reminds me of the time I used a character in my password that was the "stty kill" character for one workstation's default console terminal settings. I normally logged in via ssh, and occasionally logged in via xdm, but the time I tried logging in via the console, it really didn't like what was left of my password. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.62.180|162.158.62.180]] 01:25, 19 November 2022 (UTC)
:Ah, the good old days when ordinary printing characters were used for erase and kill. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 01:43, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

Vandals are just looking for a fun time, generally. Solution: make it not a fun time for them. Revert their edits dryly, patiently, with no particular comment or anything. Eventually they will get bored and find something else to do. Or, perhaps they'll sit there vandalizing while we revert them, we dozens against probably just one vandal. But if you make your irritation clear, that's "fun" to them, and they'll keep at it with renewed vigour. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.239|108.162.216.239]] 01:37, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

I accidentally used a backspace character in a username one time. It caused all sorts of problems with my account.

Also, I've never found the whole "The trolls will leave you alone if you don't move." thing to be effective. But I've never found anything else to be effective at universally adjusting behavior either.
-Master Areth

I wrote most of the current page after the first paragraph. It's a fairly sloppy first draft that could probably use some editing. Anyone who can should feel free to clean it up. Especially since the page is now protected (I'm not complaining; it was necessary) and so I can't edit it any more. [[User:Equites|Equites]] ([[User talk:Equites|talk]]) 05:57, 19 November 2022 (UTC)
:Hi [[User:Equites|Equites]], I [[Special:Diff/299457|rewrote]] the explanation, hope that's okay. I removed the references to the security aspect because I didn't think it was relevant. (Also pinging [[User:FrankHightower|FrankHightower]].) --[[User:Hddqsb|Hddqsb]] ([[User talk:Hddqsb|talk]]) 07:59, 20 November 2022 (UTC)

Seems to be another Tech issue comic, its a tech issue with Cueball talking to Megan and the tech issue is extremely cursed. Should we add this one?[[Special:Contributions/162.158.22.98|162.158.22.98]] 06:00, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

"since there is no sequence of keys he could type that would result in a null terminator" ... I can type a NULL (ASCII 00) just fine in my editor on Linux (ctrl-v ctrl-@, the latter I type as ctrl-shift-2). However, I am not quite sure how to phrase this in the explanation without sounding like "Áctually! ...." [[User:henrikar|Henri]]
:I am amused that both in the main text and in this comment something has converted the "at sign" into [email protected].

The title text is likely a reference to [https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/comments/yqof9f/comment/ivrd9ur/ this reddit post]. [[User:Pb|Pb]] ([[User talk:Pb|talk]]) 07:06, 19 November 2022 (UTC)
: I don't think that's likely... --[[User:Hddqsb|Hddqsb]] ([[User talk:Hddqsb|talk]]) 08:50, 20 November 2022 (UTC)

The only thing is I'm pretty sure it's not terribly difficult to enter a null string character, you just have to know what it is. On a PC with a keyboard that has a number pad, you can press Alt-[Number] to enter special characters using their ASCII code (Alt-65 will get "A", Alt-8 is backspace or delete, I forget which but I think BS, etc. MIGHT need leading zeroes to be 3 digits). The 0 to 31 codes - 32 is space, starting the normal characters - tend to have all the special characters, I think null string is 0? [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 04:14, 20 November 2022 (UTC)
:It is. And (with caveats, depending upon other issues and circumstances) Alt-numpad0 would give me the null-char wherever it's practical and not blocked (intentionally or just because it isn't specifically catered for).[[Special:Contributions/172.71.178.206|172.71.178.206]] 15:25, 20 November 2022 (UTC)
::I know a sysadmin friend of mine had to help a user whose account name was "🦙" (The Llama unicode symbol) and he was on a computer where not all layers between the username field and the password authentication understood unicode. Examples like this will happen in real life. [[User:IIVQ|IIVQ]] ([[User talk:IIVQ|talk]]) 11:16, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

As Cueball is showing and handing over his laptop, I don't think the issue is about a website account (where he could probably do a password reset), but his local account on the laptop, of which he is now locked out, and hopes Poneytail can break into it? [[User:Ghen|ghen]] ([[User talk:Ghen|talk]]) 18:28, 19 November 2022 (UTC)
:Good point, updated to avoid referring to "website" specifically. (Another possibility is that it is the password for some installed application.) --[[User:Hddqsb|Hddqsb]] ([[User talk:Hddqsb|talk]]) 07:17, 20 November 2022 (UTC)

''"Suppose a website's registration form allows the user's new password to have up to 20 characters, but due to a programmer error the login page only accepts passwords with up to 18 characters."''<br>
There are also cases where page or application is updated with the expectation that old user accounts will still be working, but updated page no longer accepts same characters (or number of characters) than the old one, locking some people out. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 01:35, 20 November 2022 (UTC)
: Good point. I don't think it's worth adding this to the explanation though ("keep it simple"). --[[User:Hddqsb|Hddqsb]] ([[User talk:Hddqsb|talk]]) 07:20, 20 November 2022 (UTC)

Concerning the password described in the title text. If the characters are used in the order they appear in the Unicode Table the password starts with the Null String Terminator and therefor you will essentially end up with an empty password if C or a programming language is used handling strings the same way. [[User:Kimmerin|Kimmerin]] ([[User talk:Kimmerin|talk]]) 12:51, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

I've actually had this problem long ago; I used the @ sign as part of my password, and it didn't let me log in anymore. Some systems in the good old days (I think it was an FTP server) used the @ character to separate username and password when authenticating. Also, I am still running into this problem sometimes with usernames (emails) allowing "+" in the address on registration, but not when logging in. [[User:Pbb|Pbb]] ([[User talk:Pbb|talk]])

Talk:2168: Reading in the Original

2019-06-30T18:39:54Z

Pbb:

I removed this line from the explanation: "The New Testament is often studied in the 'original' Greek, despite most of the protagonists actually speaking Aramaic." Reason: While the "protagonists" likely spoke Aramaic, the actual written text was in Koine Greek. The spoken language is a red herring in this case. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.126.118|162.158.126.118]] 14:34, 26 June 2019 (UTC)
:It could be relevant for sections which are basically writing down something said (in Aramaic). -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 23:36, 26 June 2019 (UTC)
::Even if the people being quoted would have been speaking Aramaic, the Aramaic words they would have said may have never been written down, only a translation of it into a form of Greek (presuming the conversation in question ever actually occurred and wasn't invented by a later writer.) However, doing a quick search, I found claimed that 268 verses were originally written in Aramaic (parts of Daniel, Erza, and one verse of Jeremaih, along with a few other scattered words and names). This is out of a total 23,145 Old Testament verses. Most scholars believe the original version of all the New Testament was a form of Greek (though notably somewhat different than what is normally known as "ancient Greek.")--[[Special:Contributions/172.68.38.94|172.68.38.94]] 05:19, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

There's also a [https://la.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vicipaedia:Pagina_prima Latin Wikipedia] and an [https://ang.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C4%93afodtramet Old English Wikipedia]. [[User:KangaroOS|Kangaro]][[User talk:KangaroOS|OS]] 14:53, 26 June 2019 (UTC)
:There would have been an Ancient Greek Wikipedia too if not for Yaroslav Zolotaryov and Siberian - [https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_new_languages/Wikipedia_Ancient_Greek_2 the proposal] was effectively accepted, and only a little bit short of fulfillment, when the Siberian debacle had Wikimedia revise their acceptance system in October 2007.<br />Alas, despite several re-proposals, there is no Ancient Greek Wikipedia to this day, and realistically there would probably only be one if someone raises a child as an Ancient Greek native speaker. (This had happened with Coptic.) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.182.148|162.158.182.148]] 15:47, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

Btw there's no Greek Wikipedia page for Xkcd :) [[Special:Contributions/172.68.51.166|172.68.51.166]] 14:58, 26 June 2019 (UTC)
:Well, it would rather be for χκcδ [[Special:Contributions/198.41.230.112|198.41.230.112]] 15:44, 26 June 2019 (UTC)
::Rather ξκcδ/ξκσδ as xi (not chi) is equivalent to 'x'. The lunate sigma is rather uncommon. Of course I think if we're talking about ancient Greek there were no lowercase letters so it'd be ΞΚΣΔ. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.189.175|172.68.189.175]] 16:08, 26 June 2019 (UTC)
:::Am I the only one who read ΞΚΣΔ as being startlingly close (visually) to IKEA?[[Special:Contributions/162.158.126.22|162.158.126.22]] 16:32, 26 June 2019 (UTC)
:::: Nah, first thing I noticed. :) [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 04:27, 28 June 2019 (UTC)
::: Nope. Thought the same thing and suddenly wondered if the xkcd name origin story has finally been proven to be a hoax. Have we all been had?[[User:Iggynelix|Iggynelix]] ([[User talk:Iggynelix|talk]]) 19:31, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

Hello, everyone! I have been consulting this wiki for a lot of time now, but this is the first time I edit. I edited the 'the New Testament of the Bible being the most notable' sentence because the New Testament is hardly the only notable work in Ancient Greek. In fact, while I'm not familiar with the situation in the U.S., in schools in the EU where I've studied or my mother (who went to Catholic school) has studied, texts from the New Testament were not even taught. Part of the reason for this is that the New Testament uses Koine Greek, which is a later variant of what is commonly called "Ancient Greek". I also think it's worth mentioning that Ancient Greek is quite commonly studied in many European countries even by high-school students, not only by dedicated scholars. [[User:AleksanderV|AleksanderV]] ([[User talk:AleksanderV|talk]]) 18:45, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

Made a small correction by removing Socrates from the list of people who wrote in Greek, since Socrates did not in fact write anything! (or, at least, no original works from Socrates survive, even though some of his followers wrote dialogues with Socrates as a character) ~High Falutin Scholar

Man, you guys '''all got the joke wrong'''! The ARTICLE isn't in Greek, it's Wikipedia's MENUS and screen ELEMENTS that are in Greek! The article itself is still in English, but you're reading it in a Greek "environment". I added a paragraph to clear that up, while leaving the good wrong stuff still there, since it's not wrong in the right context. [[User:N0lqu|-boB]] ([[User talk:N0lqu|talk]]) 19:44, 28 June 2019 (UTC)
:No, that seems wrong. In the sidebar is the link to the Wikipedia in Greek, it's even more difficult to find the Greek language settings for the menus and such. Also the reference in the title text to the articles being shorter only makes sense of it's a different language version.--[[Special:Contributions/162.158.93.93|162.158.93.93]] 22:43, 28 June 2019 (UTC)
::Yeah, clicking the option in the lower left does change the language of the articles, not just the menu and screen elements. After all otherwise the title text wouldn't make sense, as it is referencing how the amount of content in Wikipedia is much lower in most languages other than English, especially languages with relatively few speakers (there are much fewer people who speak Greek than English worldwide), resulting in both shorter articles and fewer total articles, so many English articles wouldn't have a Greek version at all. In any case, the paragraph you added should be removed.--[[Special:Contributions/172.68.38.94|172.68.38.94]] 05:19, 29 June 2019 (UTC)
:As others have said, you are incorrect and I've removed your changes. You can try the procedure Cueball recommended yourself - it links you to the actual Greek Wikipedia rather than just changing the interface. Furthermore, the alt-text backs this up, since the joke about articles being shorter only makes sense if Cueball is viewing the actual Greek Wikipedia (articles there are shorter due to it being newer and having fewer editors. Obviously they would be the same length if he was only changing the interface.) The joke is that that should have cued him in to the fact that the Greek language was not the original, but instead he invented another ridiculous explanation for it. --[[User:Aquillion|Aquillion]] ([[User talk:Aquillion|talk]]) 23:35, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

I feel very stupid, but could someone explain the reason why Greek is considered to be the "original language"? Greek is not the origin of all the languages in Wikipedia, it's not even the origin of English. Ancient Greece is the origin of much of the western culture, but much of it is still older or coming from differnt parts of the world. Or am I totally on the wrong leg here, and is it just a play on the word Wikipedia? Anyway, the choice of Greek as the original language in this comic could use some explaining. --[[User:Pbb|Pbb]] ([[User talk:Pbb|talk]]) 18:39, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

Talk:2128: New Robot

2019-04-02T07:24:41Z

Pbb:

Boston Dynamics does this. [[User:Netherin5|“That Guy from the Netherlands”]] ([[User talk:Netherin5|talk]]) 16:23, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

I have to wonder if the title text is referring to the term "search and destroy", which would certainly be the second type. [[User:MAP|MAP]] ([[User talk:MAP|talk]]) 18:47, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6M46HvyAG2k i'ts a robot! [[User:I prefer qwerty|I prefer qwerty]] ([[User talk:I prefer qwerty|talk]]) 21:29, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

Anyone else reminded of the Rovers from ''The Prisoner''? [[Special:Contributions/172.69.69.190|172.69.69.190]] 21:54, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

It seems like, from both the references(E.G. Hookshot) to various things and the captions, that this bot was built with the purpose of being cool rather than any sort of destructive nature. [[User:V|V]] ([[User talk:V|talk]]) 03:13, 26 March 2019 (UTC)
:I don't think if a charged thing that uses a grappling hook in order to move is too cool as it would most probably discharge its static electricity as soon as it tries to shoot the hook at anything. As a 2nd thought I perhaps would think about if it is fit to be used as a weapon rather than as a rescue thingy, see [[2072:_Evaluating_Tech_Things]] [[User:Gunterkoenigsmann|Gunterkoenigsmann]] ([[User talk:Gunterkoenigsmann|talk]]) 15:56, 28 March 2019 (UTC)
::It doesn’t use static electricity, it uses a charged helium sphere. A.K.A. It isn’t in the hookshot. Even so, it doesn’t matter if it zaps everything at once because that’s also pretty cool. [[User:Netherin5|“That Guy from the Netherlands”]] ([[User talk:Netherin5|talk]]) 16:10, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

I thought I recognized [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fg_JcKSHUtQ&t=2m9s that stage.] [[Special:Contributions/172.68.132.95|172.68.132.95]] 04:00, 26 March 2019 (UTC)

The (current) explanation completley misses the point of the one big advantage robots have for search and rescue missions. especially the search part: They often can access areas humans cannot for reasons such as temperature, space restrictions, safety, height/depth, radiation, etc. So especially for the search part it can be muc hbetter to send in a drone instead of a person. --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 07:30, 26 March 2019 (UTC)

:A drone is "much better" right up until you need to exert a force on something (clear some debris, open a door, drag the unconcious survivor out along the passage you've cleared...). At this point you need a wheeled, snake-like or multi-legged robot which can reasonably support and anchor itself, a situation where having lots of mass (prohibitve for drones) and hence plenty of momentum and/or inertia becomes an advantage.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.155.176|162.158.155.176]] 22:35, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

::That is why there is the need to have many differently specialised robots/drones, and constantly developing new ones which can take special tasks as part of "search and rescue". --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 08:16, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

I'm on mobile and it is too awkward to fix up the current explanation, but it is completely off the mark. The sphere is not a fragile balloon, this is why he didn't say balloon. Engineers come up with robots because they are fun and impressive challenges to make, and it's really cool to make something that has never been made before, especially if it solves a hard problem or it replicates popular fictional media, but others don't understand this and wonder what all the effort is expended for. Floating objects accumulate atmospheric charge relative to ground - this can be used as a weak power source and is the source of lightning. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.50.10|172.69.50.10]] 11:52, 26 March 2019 (UTC)

In complete agreement with ^^ about the fragile balloon. I'd say something more along the lines of "Impractical for the 'rescue' bit", but a sphere isn't necessarily fragile.
[[User:Glassvein|Glassvein]] ([[User talk:Glassvein|talk]]) 02:52, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

It also states that the helium is a sphere -- "floats using a helium sphere" -- not that the helium is ''contained'' in a sphere. Seems there might be some considerable engineering challenges there, either to keep gaseous helium "attached" to the robot and to keep it from dissipating or to make and maintain a non-gaseous sphere of helium. Kinda difficult to have solid helium hanging around, for instance...
:And how does the device charge itself electrically if it has no connection to the ground?[[User:Gunterkoenigsmann|Gunterkoenigsmann]] ([[User talk:Gunterkoenigsmann|talk]]) 16:02, 28 March 2019 (UTC)
::A battery? [[User:Netherin5|“That Guy from the Netherlands”]] ([[User talk:Netherin5|talk]]) 16:10, 28 March 2019 (UTC)
: Just like a helium balloon is not a balloon made out of helium, but a balloon filled with helium, a helium sphere is not a sphere made out of helium, but a sphere filled with helium. --[[User:Pbb|Pbb]] ([[User talk:Pbb|talk]]) 07:24, 2 April 2019 (UTC)