explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

3171: Geologic Core Sample

2025-11-25T13:15:44Z

Rps: Kola Borehole

{{comic
| number = 3171
| date = November 21, 2025
| title = Geologic Core Sample
| image = geologic_core_sample_2x.png
| imagesize = 493x790px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = If you drill at the right angle and time things perfectly, your core sample can include a section of a rival team's coring equipment.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|This page was created BY A GEOLOGIC RIBBIT. Don't remove this notice too soon.}}

This image presents a core sample taken by a slightly overenthusiastic team of geologists.

A {{w|core sample}} is a cylindrical piece of something, in this case the rock of Earth's crust, obtained with special drills, taken in order to study the layers within. In typical xkcd fashion, the core sample depicted here contains a mix of real rocks found in core samples, and many humorous or fictional additions. It's shown that, on the way down, the coring drills have hit many, many obstacles they really shouldn't have, culminating in the punchline that the geologists have drilled straight through the Earth to the opposite hemisphere and out the other side — far deeper than any core sample could be taken in reality. In the real world the deepest borehole is the [[1330: Kola Borehole]] which attained maximum true vertical depth of 12,262 metres (40,230 ft; 7.619 mi) in 1989.

;Topsoil :{{w|Topsoil}} is the uppermost layer of the typical {{w|pedosphere}}, which often needs to be dug through before reaching actual rock. Whether the soil section of the core would actually be retained and counted is up to the nature of the study being made, but it will become clear that this core sample wasn't obtained with much thought of finesse.
;Till :{{w|Till}} is unsorted glacial sediment, which might underlie the soil layer and form the transition to the foundation rock below.
;Granite bedrock :{{w|Bedrock}} is solid rock, and there may normally be nothing but more bedrock beneath it until the Earth's {{w|Mantle_(geology)|mantle}}. {{w|Granite}} is a very common igneous rock that could normally form such bedrock.
:There are suggestions, from what is seen beneath it, that this particular layer of 'bedrock' (though being a natural material, at source) has been placed here as a construction base, infilled over with the above layers in this particular spot.
:Bedrock could also be a reference to the unmineable blocks that make up the bottom of the world in Minecraft.
;Bottomsoil :A fictional counterpart of topsoil. Topsoil is so named because it is generally found on top of other layers, and not to distinguish it from a separate 'bottomsoil' layer. Here, however, there are apparently two layers of soil somehow sandwiching the bedrock layer. Theoretically, the intervening granite could have been laid (as a slab) upon the lowest layers of an excavated area, later to be sampled by this corer ''as if'' a natural layer.
;Roof/Floor of subway car :These two layers are indications that the drill has broken into a subway tunnel (possibly from amongst those shown in [[1196: Subways]]), dug deep into the rock, or perhaps {{w|Tunnel#Cut-and-cover|cut'n'covered}} into the ground (hence, perhaps, the anomalous granite being added above — though the further tunnel lining/ceiling is not given a label, that would hold up the initial infill of soil). The section of tunnel it penetrated happened to contain a subway train, which has also been 'sampled'. The drill has essentially compressed the 'void' that is the interior of the car and the rest of the tunnel. This may seem to be good luck (given a later layer), but this still doesn't bode well for the subway train that may have been trying to move when the drill started to pierce it.
;More granite :Granite ''is'' a very common igneous rock.
;Municipal water main:A pipe has been partly sliced through (enough to one side to not force the collapse of its void). Most water pipes of this size would not normally be forced through rock, only the loose material above it, relying upon pressure to carry water upwards, where necessary.
:However, {{w|combined sewer|drainage systems}} (that rely upon gravity for most of the route) may need at times to be dug deeper to maximize the natural flow. Some {{w|Thames Tideway Tunnel|particularly large projects}} may be excavated deeply through rock, even below some subway lines, though they'll be tunnels/pipes with a far larger bore than seen here, for both construction and capacity reasons.
;Slightly different granite:There are {{w|QAPF diagram|''many'' subtypes}} of granite, as well as being a lot of it.
;Piece of screaming spelunker's arm:Cave systems exist underground in many places, though more usually within rock-types more likely to dissolve than granite layers. The main exception might be from {{w|Lava tube|volcanic tunnels}} left in {{w|basalt}}, but that's technically ''still'' not granite, meaning that any cave system here would need explaining.
:{{w|Spelunkers}} (also known as cavers) explore caves, and one must have been in the wrong place when the corer passed through, suffering a clear injury (possibly greater than any that the unknown (but not ''directly'' impacted) subway users might have already suffered). If the spelunker was not already screaming ''before'' the drill came through (perhaps for help, if they were stuck — the size of the cave is unknown, with the open space closed up, as with the subway), losing a chunk of arm will have definitely prompted screams.
;Cool crystals with no resale value:There are many geological processes that can concentrate elements and compounds in a way that form crystalline minerals. Some are useful as ores, others are valued just as the crystals themselves (for aesthetic reasons or otherwise).
:Whatever these crystals are, as a small seam within the granitic layer just below the spelunker's location, they look nice (or are otherwise interesting), but either have little further application or are just so common that there's no point trying to make use of this deposit (even if they could perhaps be more 'easily' reached by any spelunker not put off by the threat of drillbits).
;Mangled fragments of drillbit from previous attempt
:When coring rock, it's possible for the tip of the coring drill to encounter problems (like particularly dense and hard rock) that damage it, perhaps by bending its track too much and shearing off the head.
:This latest attempt, probably sent down slightly to the side of the prior one (unless it had managed to gouge out ''just'' the remains of the previous drillpipe, and retain the rock/subway/spelunker layers previously cored out) has encountered the tip of the prior attempt.
:If there's one thing guaranteed to be as tough as a drillbit, it's ''another'' drillbit, which must necessarily be hard enough to cut through the expected rock types. Luckily, the first one was clearly damaged enough, by its prior encounter, that it didn't thwart this next attempt and (perhaps literally) grind it to a halt. Nor, apparently, was there a repeat of whatever issue left that first drill like this.
:Being in the middle of the core, it could be that these bits are meant to be from another attempt to drill the diameter of the Earth from a complete different location. Assuming absurd precision, all such drill holes would meet at the center of the Earth.
;Some boring intrusive rock that's basically granite but has a name like "diorite" or "andalite" that you always have to look up
:Diorite is a real type of igneous rock — an intermediate between actual granite and {{w|gabbro}} — but an [http://animorphs.fandom.com/wiki/Andalite Andalite] is an alien from the Animorphs book series, which [[Randall]] enjoys and has [[:Category:Animorphs|referenced before]]. Perhaps Randall is "misremembering" the name of {{w|andesite}}, another type of igneous rock, from his [[1223: Dwarf Fortress|knowledge of]] the complex set of reality-inspired rock types encountered in the game {{w|Dwarf Fortress}}. As the sample appears right before the Netherrack sample, it may also be referencing {{w|Minecraft}}, as granite, diorite, and andesite exist in that game as mineable stone types.
;Netherrack:A dark red, and entirely fictional, stone appearing in Minecraft, with which Randall is [[861: Wisdom Teeth|also well acquainted]]. In Minecraft, Netherrack typically only appears naturally in The Nether, an alternate dimension resembling hell. In the overworld, where the core sample is presumably being taken, Netherrack only naturally forms in ruins of Nether Portals found on the surface, so for it to appear this deep in the sample, it would need to have been placed there by another person, likely while mining. (Some fan theories suggest that the nether is under the overworld, which isn't true, but some mods exist that make this true.)
;Balrog wing:The balrog is a creature in {{w|Lord of the Rings}}, found deep beneath the world, awakened when the dwarves delved too deep and too greedily, as it could be suggested that the geologists are doing here. It was previously encountered in the title text of [[3141: Mantle Model]]. The {{w|Balrog#Characteristics|balrog's wings}} are often discussed, in the context of whether it had them, and therefore whether they could or should have helped it escape the fall that was forced upon it in the books. At least one balrog, however, now appears to have at least one less wing than those it previously had. We do not know if there was any screaming involved.
;Granite:This label is applied to rock that appears to cover both ends of a 'height' of rock-core that is simplified by a diagrammatic cut. From the context of later layers, this would include a very long length of drilled material that passes into the {{w|Earth's mantle}}, and [[3145: Piercing|perhaps]] at least some of its core, before coming back up through the granite to be found somewhere on the other side of the planet.

; Topsoil:Beyond the indeterminate length of granite, the sample transitions back into the loose upper layers, indicating that the exploratory core is now being taken from ascending layers (albeit in a location lacking subways, etc, or just managing to miss everything seen in the preceding section).
;Cement:On emerging from the other side of the Earth, the geologists have drilled through the foundations of a building.
;Floorboards / Carpet:These two layers are typical of a reasonably well-equipped residential building — probably the ground floor, without any basement level. The core is coming up inside a furnished room.
;Possessions of a confused and angry homeowner in the other hemisphere
:The core sample has tunneled up into somebody's house, probably while they are there, and has traveled through some of the furniture, fixtures and/or fittings, to their clear annoyance.

Apart from the less expected elements to the core that was cut and retrieved (and the sheer impossibility of drilling the necessary several thousand miles 'down' through the Earth, and then drawing that sample back out again), the comic heavily plays upon the fact that someone with the ability and equipment to take this sample is, nevertheless, not as sure about geology as they perhaps ought to be, with almost all rock just being considered 'granite', without any better (or more accurate) qualification.

The title text suggests that core sampling is a competitive pursuit, in which, with the correct drilling angle, dark arts can be employed to interfere with the coring experiment of a "rival team". This is, outside of cold war-type pettiness, not considered a constructive approach to science.{{Citation needed}}

Only about 15% of the Earth's land surface is directly antipodal to other land, which would make this sample less than "typical" if it was aimed directly down through the exact centre of the Earth and back up again (a distance of almost 8,000 miles, or more than 12,000 km). If one were to do this from a random spot of land, one would be much more likely to have the sample terminate in an ocean; the chances of ending up in a house would be even lower. However, considering that the title text mentions drilling at an angle, the 'other hemisphere' point might be not necessarily be at the antipodal point, and there also seems to be the capacity to aim at a more desirable target, in which case this is a "typical" core under ''deliberately'' chosen circumstances. The exact nature of reaching "the other hemisphere" is not expanded upon — it could be as simple as drilling (mostly sideways) a short distance across the {{w|equator}}, or {{w|prime meridian}}, or having to go at least a quarter of the way under the planet's surface (slightly over 1.4 times the Earth's radius, by the most direct route), in any direction, such that the two ends cannot be counted as being in any single arbitrary hemisphere.

This comic comes not long after [[3162: Heart Mountain]], which involved strange stratification, so may be part of the same thought process about the nature, and occasional oddities, of the geologic column.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Don't remove this notice too soon.}}
:[Caption at the top of the panel:] Typical geologic core sample
:[Below this is a drawing of a cylindrical core sample with various labels, in order from the top of the panel toward the bottom.]
:[A short, dark section of core:] Topsoil
:[A more obviously granular shorter section with a diagonal transition:] Till
:[A light and lightly-marked phase:] Granite bedrock
:[Repeating the Topsoil appearance:] Bottomsoil
:[A short/squat and possibly squeezed 'lump':] Roof of subway car
:[A similar squeezed-out lump:] Floor of subway car
:[A longer length of the 'granite' texture, within which...:] More granite
:[Not quite half of a pipe-width, cut out as a gap perpendicular and not quite all the way across the core:] Municipal water main
:[Slightly more grainy version of the 'granite':] Slightly different granite
:[In a junction between 'granites', an squat, unidentifiable lump:] Piece of screaming spelunker's arm
:[Within a longer granite layer, a short stretch of spiky/crystalline features:] Cool crystals with no resale value
:[Within the same granite layer, an intrusion of mechanical-looking junk:] Mangled fragments of drillbit from previous attempt
:[As per granite, but slightly more grainy:] Some boring intrusive rock that's basically granite but has a name like "diorite" or "andalite" that you always have to look up
:[Dark, cobbly textured stone:] Netherrack
:[Within a stretch of granite, a short, dark but otherwise unidentifiable lump:] Balrog wing
:[At this point, there is a discontinuity indicating that an arbitrary length has been omitted. The sample then resumes:]
:[Still 'granite':] Granite
:[Dark soil texture:] Topsoil
:[Light, fine and sparse 'grains':] Cement
:[Two very short cross-sections, each with contrasting wood-grain stripes:] Floorboards
:[Two very short sections with a textile-base plus piles appearance:] Carpet
:[A mish-mash of 'stuff', possibly including cloth, metal components, grainy wood and 'topped' at the lowest end by something equally puzzling at an angle:] Possesions of a confused and angry homeowner in the other hemisphere

{{comic discussion}}<noinclude>
[[Category:Geology]]
[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:LOTR]]
[[Category:Animorphs]]
[[Category:Minecraft]]

Talk:3171: Geologic Core Sample

2025-11-24T16:44:31Z

Rps: Kola Superdeep Borehole

F1R5T P0ST [[User:Slothscript|Slothscript]] ([[User talk:Slothscript|talk]]) 23:51, 21 November 2025 (UTC)

How do I add a category? It needs to be in the LOTR category. (Wow it’s hard to edit this thing on a phone) [[User:Kirinhatchi|Kirinhatchi]] ([[User talk:Kirinhatchi|talk]])

is netherrack a typo? {{unsigned ip|151.197.190.53|00:24, 22 November 2025 (UTC)}}
:No, it's an extremely weak, dark red rock from Minecraft. [[User:RadiantRainwing|RadiantRainwing]] ([[User talk:RadiantRainwing|talk]]) 00:39, 22 November 2025 (UTC)

andalite is not a rock it's an alien from Animorphs which the author is a fan of. Maybe I'll add it to the Animorphs category page [[User:Whoservelt|Whoservelt]] ([[User talk:Whoservelt|talk]]) 00:28, 22 November 2025 (UTC)

They’re just normal rock types, so perhaps not, but I was wondering if the back-to-back references to granite and diorite is a secondary Minecraft reference, since they were added in the same update (which I always associate with them in general.) [[User:KelOfTheStars!|KelOfTheStars!]] ([[User talk:KelOfTheStars!|talk]]) 01:23, 22 November 2025 (UTC)
:I think it IS another Minecraft reference. Along with granite and diorite, there’s a third in that triad: andesite — which is spelled and pronounced similarly enough to “Andalite” that the two could quite possibly be conflated, especially by someone who is familiar with the latter and “always has to look up” the former. {{unsigned ip|2a04:4e41:3521:69d6::1d21:69d6|01:44, 22 November 2025 (UTC)}}
::Well, it's 'andalite' in the comic, not andesite. I think that's just a passing reference. [[User:DollarStoreBa'al|--'''''[[User:DollarStoreBa'al|DollarStoreBa'al]][[User Talk:DollarStoreBa'al|Converse]]]] ([[User talk:DollarStoreBa'al|talk]]) 02:29, 22 November 2025 (UTC)
:It's been a long time since I Minecrafted, but I don't recall any (stock) inclusion of anything so realistic. Raw 'generic' stone (which became cobblestone once mined, unless it was an ore-holding version), sandstone, obsidian (which I'd usually cast) and the indestrutable bedrock - in the 'normal' world. Netherack (I keep wanting to type "nethack"!) in the Nether and maybe something else (other than the general igneous theme, fire and hostiles) ...glowstone? I know there are (were) 'real rock patches', as with many other mods, but I hadn't heard of this being put into vanilla editions (Bedrock, or whatever). Whether it's happened since the Ender got put in, I don't know. I was playing (solo-survival mode, mostly) when there were Endermen, but not yet their own domain for them/the dragon, and basically forgot about it before Microsoft took it on (then had too many other new time-sinks to even consider selling my soul to them)...
:But something like Dwarf Fortress ''does'' have plenty of rock-types (plain 'granite', but also diorite, gabbro, slate, limestone, mudstone, etc, etc, etc, even before getting to ores and gem clusters), for longer even than Minecraft had been around, and I linked into that where I thought appropriate. [[Special:Contributions/82.132.236.186|82.132.236.186]] 17:26, 22 November 2025 (UTC)
:: You've not minecraft in a long time then friend, it's been over a decade since Endermen were added. Here are some more stone types in vanilla minecraft other than the ones you listed: Granite, Andesite, Diorite, Sandstone, Red Sandstone, Tuff, Deepslate, Calcite, Dripstone, Basalt, Blackstone, and End Stone. [[Special:Contributions/199.247.247.123|199.247.247.123]] 19:20, 22 November 2025 (UTC)
::: As another long-lapsed minecrafter, that's news to me. (Could I colour stone, back then, or was that just wool blocks and maybe some modded-in 'concrete'?) Also reminded me more of [https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Stone DF stones], though, there being a lot of those, and MC looks like it's still not quite as complexity. I love being able to build entire castles in olivine, or cinnabar/[https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Pitchblende whatever's plentiful enough] (and not ore/flux, or the limited amount best saved for other purposes like colour-coded magmasafe floodgates/levers), without 'cheating' by applying my own hues to them. Mind you, I also prefer pre-Steam ASCII-style (vanilla) DF, as well, easier to understand, sometimes, than trying to understand some of the artwork. [[Special:Contributions/2.98.77.121|2.98.77.121]] 20:08, 22 November 2025 (UTC)
:::Concrete is now an actual thing in minecraft. It's color is basically solid, So it's great for building. [[User:DollarStoreBa'al|--'''''[[User:DollarStoreBa'al|DollarStoreBa'al]][[User Talk:DollarStoreBa'al|Converse]]]] ([[User talk:DollarStoreBa'al|talk]]) 00:12, 23 November 2025 (UTC)

Do we make this a table? This comic seems perfect for a table. Maybe 'layer', whether it's real or not, and explanation? [[User:DollarStoreBa'al|--'''''[[User:DollarStoreBa'al|DollarStoreBa'al]][[User Talk:DollarStoreBa'al|Converse]]]] ([[User talk:DollarStoreBa'al|talk]]) 01:36, 22 November 2025 (UTC)
:I'll try to work on a a table (given that someone else doesn't beat me to the chase). Also-what happened to your sig? '''[[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]][[User talk:42.book.addict|Talk to me!]]''' 06:31, 22 November 2025 (UTC)
::I was pondering a ";term:definition" approach, and someone beat me to it (but without the definition-indent) and I ran my changes with it. I don't think a table would need more than two columns (excluding "Real?", being "Yes", "No" or "Technically Yes/No, '''but...'''"), so, with the predicted division of vertical space in a table, I think I'd stick with the '''header'''+explanation of the ";:" method. (Can always add a Real/Not Real {{template|Yes}}/{{template|No}}/{{template|Maybe}}-''like'' appending/prepending note to the term-header...) It's not really going to need sortable-table use, etc. [[Special:Contributions/82.132.236.186|82.132.236.186]] 17:26, 22 November 2025 (UTC)

Should reference somewhere that Balrogs having wings is controversial to begin with (see here)[https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Balrogs/Wings] [[Special:Contributions/2601:241:8002:3E0:89D3:137:DFC1:D5B4|2601:241:8002:3E0:89D3:137:DFC1:D5B4]] 04:41, 22 November 2025 (UTC)
:Hadn't read this, when I puut my own thing about it in there. The actual "did they have wings?" bit, in the {{w|Balrog}} page I linked to a section of, is buried within a multiparagraph section, so ''maybe'' your link is better (or a better one in that part, straight-link Balrog on the first mention for the general wikipedia entry).
:Certainly, when I was young (long before Wikipedia, and indeed the Web... Not sure when alt.fan.tolkien started, but I didn't have usenet access before I had academic internet access, but it was already an FAQ when I finally got into that scene), the questions were:
:#So, did a (or 'the', or ''any'', depending on tye context) Balrog have actual wings?
:#If they did, why? Given they were subterranean denizens? (Probably not the exact words, maybe "...living underground".)
:#So how could it be made to fall like that? (Typical answer: "A wizard did it"... Namely Gandalf kept it falling/distracted. Because that was the point.)
:...I may check to see if the collected wisdom of the current ubiquitous fan-led website has any better answers than we would come up with, after our countless geek-hours of discussion after/before/during tabletop RPGing (even if it wasn't LOTR-based, someone could easily have mentioned the balrog, in the context of a viking attack over a narrow bridge, or whatever). [[Special:Contributions/82.132.236.186|82.132.236.186]] 17:26, 22 November 2025 (UTC)
::Balrogs are not naturally subterranean. They're Maiar, just like Sauron and Gandalf. They used to fight in wars and do other evil stuff on the surface. [[User:DL Draco Rex|DL Draco Rex]] ([[User talk:DL Draco Rex|talk]]) 15:33, 23 November 2025 (UTC)

Actually, coring previous drilling equipment ''can'' happen. The southern German town of [https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebungsrisse_in_Staufen_im_Breisgau Staufen] suffered a geothermal drilling gone wrong (they inserted ground water into anhydrite, which swelled, causing the town to rise). During the investigations, the original drilling equipment was hit in the new core, showing the errors made in the first place. [[Special:Contributions/2001:16B8:A875:DC00:3068:165E:B396:DE72|2001:16B8:A875:DC00:3068:165E:B396:DE72]] 07:33, 22 November 2025 (UTC)

Side comment on the header saying "typical": coming to the surface on land instead of water is [https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/aset1o/places_where_you_could_actually_make_an_earth/ extremely unlikely], as we were taught years ago by Ze Frank's "If The Earth Were a Sandwich" video series. Look it up. [[User:Jonesey|Jonesey]] ([[User talk:Jonesey|talk]]) 16:24, 23 November 2025 (UTC)

The explanation talks about how the Nether is essentially Minecraft hell - it might be worth mentioning how the comic might be referencing going so deep you find hell. That might also coincide with the Balrog wing (do they live in hell?), something something digging too deep, but I lack the requisite LOTR knowledge to make that connection for real [[User:R128|R128]] ([[User talk:R128|talk]]) 13:50, 24 November 2025 (UTC)
: Also, they've ended up coring another person's house, and as we all know, hell is other people...
: Oh, and there's a bit of water main in there, and the main is, of course, high water. [[Special:Contributions/82.13.184.33|82.13.184.33]] 14:30, 24 November 2025 (UTC)

Probably the {{w|Kola Superdeep Borehole}} should be mentioned.[[User:Rps|Rps]] ([[User talk:Rps|talk]]) 16:44, 24 November 2025 (UTC)

3156: Planetary Rings

2025-10-17T18:37:03Z

Rps: starlink terminals as an example of phased arrays antennas

{{comic
| number = 3156
| date = October 17, 2025
| title = Planetary Rings
| image = planetary_rings_2x.png
| imagesize = 356x279px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = If you don't know where you are on Earth, the angle of satellite dishes can help constrain your latitude. If some of them are pointing straight up, you're probably near the Equator, right under the ring.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|This page was created by an off-axis satellite dish. Don't remove this notice too soon.}}
A {{w|ring system|planetary ring}} is a disc of small objects and other material orbiting a planet. The most well known are the rings of {{w|Saturn}}, which were discovered by {{w|Galileo Galilei}}, but all the {{w|gas giant}} planets in the Solar System have rings, as do some minor planets and moons.

Earth does not have a natural ring system, although it's theorized that it may have had one in the distant past.[https://web.archive.org/web/20250401024532/https://time.com/7022440/earth-ring-like-saturn-study/] However, since the 1950's (about 68 years ago at the time this comic was posted) we have launched many artificial satellites into Earth orbit, and the ones in the {{w|Geostationary Orbit}} are in the equatorial plane, so they constitute an artificial ring system. (Other satellites are in various {{w|orbital planes}}.)

{{w|Satellite dishes}} are used to communicate with most of these devices. If they are stationary that means they are pointed at a {{w|geostationary satellite}}. Not all dishes are pointed at the geostationary orbit, but in that case, if they are used for communicating with satellites in other orbits or with space probes, they must move continuously to track the satellite/probe.

(Note 1 - there are motorized dishes that can move between some number of pre-programmed positions to select which geostationary satellite to use at a given moment.
Note 2 - there are antennas which can "point" at different directions by {{w|Phased array|electronic means}}, without physically moving (eg, {{w|Starlink}} user terminals).)

In terms of mass, Earth's ring system is tiny compared to other planetary ring systems in the Solar System. In descending order of mass, these are Saturn (1019 kg [https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aat2965]), Uranus (1016 kg [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rings_of_Uranus]), Jupiter (between 1011 and 1016 kg [https://pages.astro.umd.edu/~dphamil/research/preprints/BurSimSho03.pdf]), Neptune (1015 kg [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rings_of_Neptune]). Assuming 580 satellites (active and inactive) in geostationary orbit [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_satellites_in_geosynchronous_orbit] and a typical mass of 1,000 kg, Earth's ring system has a mass of 106 kg.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Don't remove this notice too soon.}}

:[On the left side, a table:]
: Planet Ring?
: Mercury ☐
: Venus ☐
: Earth [[☑]]
: Mars ☐
: Jupiter ☑
: Saturn ☑
: Uranus ☑
: Neptune ☑

:[On the right side, a drawing of the Earth from space, with Africa in view. Many dots represent the satellites, and most of them are in an ellipse. An arrow points to it:]
:Geostationary satellite belt

:[Caption below the panel:]
: Astronomy fact: a century ago, Earth didn't have rings, but we have one now! It's where all the satellite dishes are pointed.

{{comic discussion}}<noinclude>

[[Category:Astronomy]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]

Talk:3156: Planetary Rings

2025-10-17T18:33:25Z

Rps: Notes

Is my draft right? It's hard to understand a comic that hasn't yet got an explanation! [[User:RadiantRainwing|RadiantRainwing]] ([[User talk:RadiantRainwing|talk]]) 16:21, 17 October 2025 (UTC)
:I came here to say this is one of those xkcds that really doesn't need explaining. I do like the bit about "although it's theorized that [Earth] may have had [a natural planetary ring system] in the past," it's additional information I wouldn't think about just reading the panel. [[Special:Contributions/64.201.132.210|64.201.132.210]] 17:48, 17 October 2025 (UTC)
:I think you did a good job, you gave depth to the terms used, added related facts, and included comparisons netween the listed rings. [[Special:Contributions/64.114.211.102|64.114.211.102]] 18:17, 17 October 2025 (UTC)
Can't wait until our ring evolves via kessler syndrome. [[Special:Contributions/64.114.211.102|64.114.211.102]] 18:17, 17 October 2025 (UTC)

I added two notes, but I don't have time now to learn the syntax to make proper notes, so they are just in the middle of the text. I will try to do it later, if someone else doesn't do it. [[User:Rps|Rps]] ([[User talk:Rps|talk]]) 18:33, 17 October 2025 (UTC)

3156: Planetary Rings

2025-10-17T18:18:40Z

Rps: More about moving antennas

{{comic
| number = 3156
| date = October 17, 2025
| title = Planetary Rings
| image = planetary_rings_2x.png
| imagesize = 356x279px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = If you don't know where you are on Earth, the angle of satellite dishes can help constrain your latitude. If some of them are pointing straight up, you're probably near the Equator, right under the ring.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|This page was created by an off-axis satellite dish. Don't remove this notice too soon.}}
A {{w|ring system|planetary ring}} is a disc of small objects and other material orbiting a planet. The most well known are the rings of {{w|Saturn}}, which were discovered by {{w|Galileo Galilei}}, but all the {{w|gas giant}} planets in the Solar System have rings, as do some minor planets and moons.

Earth does not have a natural ring system, although it's theorized that it may have had one in the distant past.[https://web.archive.org/web/20250401024532/https://time.com/7022440/earth-ring-like-saturn-study/] However, since the 1950's (about 68 years ago at the time this comic was posted) we have launched many artificial satellites into Earth orbit, and the ones in the {{w|Geostationary Orbit}} are in the equatorial plane, so they constitute an artificial ring system. (Other satellites are in various {{w|orbital planes}}.)

{{w|Satellite dishes}} are used to communicate with most of these devices. If they are stationary that means they are pointed at a {{w|geostationary satellite}}. Not all dishes are pointed at the geostationary orbit, but in that case, if they are used for communicating with satellites in other orbits or with space probes, they must move continuously to track the satellite/probe.

(Note 1 - there are motorized dishes that can move between some number of pre-programmed positions to select which geostationary satellite to use at a given moment.
Note 2 - there are antennas which can "point" at different directions by {{w|Phased array|electronic means}}, without physically moving.)

In terms of mass, Earth's ring system is tiny compared to other planetary ring systems in the Solar System. In descending order of mass, these are Saturn (1019 kg [https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aat2965]), Uranus (1016 kg [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rings_of_Uranus]), Jupiter (between 1011 and 1016 kg [https://pages.astro.umd.edu/~dphamil/research/preprints/BurSimSho03.pdf]), Neptune (1015 kg [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rings_of_Neptune]). Assuming 580 satellites (active and inactive) in geostationary orbit [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_satellites_in_geosynchronous_orbit] and a typical mass of 1,000 kg, Earth's ring system has a mass of 106 kg.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Don't remove this notice too soon.}}

:[On the left side, a table:]
: Planet Ring?
: Mercury ☐
: Venus ☐
: Earth [[☑]]
: Mars ☐
: Jupiter ☑
: Saturn ☑
: Uranus ☑
: Neptune ☑

:[On the right side, a drawing of the Earth from space, with Africa in view. Many dots represent the satellites, and most of them are in an ellipse. An arrow points to it:]
:Geostationary satellite belt

:[Caption below the panel:]
: Astronomy fact: a century ago, Earth didn't have rings, but we have one now! It's where all the satellite dishes are pointed.

{{comic discussion}}<noinclude>

[[Category:Astronomy]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]

3156: Planetary Rings

2025-10-17T18:09:21Z

Rps: dishes pointing at non-geostationary satellites

{{comic
| number = 3156
| date = October 17, 2025
| title = Planetary Rings
| image = planetary_rings_2x.png
| imagesize = 356x279px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = If you don't know where you are on Earth, the angle of satellite dishes can help constrain your latitude. If some of them are pointing straight up, you're probably near the Equator, right under the ring.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|This page was created by an off-axis satellite dish. Don't remove this notice too soon.}}
A {{w|ring system|planetary ring}} is a disc of small objects and other material orbiting a planet. The most well known are the rings of {{w|Saturn}}, which were discovered by {{w|Galileo Galilei}}, but all the {{w|gas giant}} planets in the Solar System have rings, as do some minor planets and moons.

Earth does not have a natural ring system, although it's theorized that it may have had one in the distant past.[https://web.archive.org/web/20250401024532/https://time.com/7022440/earth-ring-like-saturn-study/] However, since the 1950's (about 68 years ago at the time this comic was posted) we have launched many artificial satellites into Earth orbit, and the ones in the {{w|Geostationary Orbit}} are in the equatorial plane, so they constitute an artificial ring system. (Other satellites are in various {{w|orbital planes}}.)

{{w|Satellite dishes}} are used to communicate with most of these devices. If they are stationary that means they are pointed at a geostationary satellite. Not all dishes are pointed at the geostationary orbit, but in that case, if they are used for communicating with satellites in other orbits or with space probes, they must move to track the satellite/probe.

In terms of mass, Earth's ring system is tiny compared to other planetary ring systems in the Solar System. In descending order of mass, these are Saturn (1019 kg [https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aat2965]), Uranus (1016 kg [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rings_of_Uranus]), Jupiter (between 1011 and 1016 kg [https://pages.astro.umd.edu/~dphamil/research/preprints/BurSimSho03.pdf]), Neptune (1015 kg [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rings_of_Neptune]). Assuming 580 satellites (active and inactive) in geostationary orbit [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_satellites_in_geosynchronous_orbit] and a typical mass of 1,000 kg, Earth's ring system has a mass of 106 kg.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Don't remove this notice too soon.}}

:[On the left side, a table:]
: Planet Ring?
: Mercury ☐
: Venus ☐
: Earth [[☑]]
: Mars ☐
: Jupiter ☑
: Saturn ☑
: Uranus ☑
: Neptune ☑

:[On the right side, a drawing of the Earth from space, with Africa in view. Many dots represent the satellites, and most of them are in an ellipse. An arrow points to it:]
:Geostationary satellite belt

:[Caption below the panel:]
: Astronomy fact: a century ago, Earth didn't have rings, but we have one now! It's where all the satellite dishes are pointed.

{{comic discussion}}<noinclude>

[[Category:Astronomy]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]

3156: Planetary Rings

2025-10-17T18:00:30Z

Rps: Orbital planes

{{comic
| number = 3156
| date = October 17, 2025
| title = Planetary Rings
| image = planetary_rings_2x.png
| imagesize = 356x279px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = If you don't know where you are on Earth, the angle of satellite dishes can help constrain your latitude. If some of them are pointing straight up, you're probably near the Equator, right under the ring.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|This page was created by an off-axis satellite dish. Don't remove this notice too soon.}}
A {{w|ring system|planetary ring}} is a disc of small objects and other material orbiting a planet. The most well known are the rings of {{w|Saturn}}, which were discovered by {{w|Galileo Galilei}}, but all the {{w|gas giant}} planets in the Solar System have rings, as do some minor planets and moons.

Earth does not have a natural ring system, although it's theorized that it may have had one in the distant past.[https://web.archive.org/web/20250401024532/https://time.com/7022440/earth-ring-like-saturn-study/] However, since the 1950's (about 68 years ago at the time this comic was posted) we have launched many artificial satellites into Earth orbit, and the ones in the {{w|Geostationary Orbit}} are in the equatorial plane, so they constitute an artificial ring system. (Other satellites are in various {{w|orbital planes}}.)

{{w|Satellite dishes}} are used to communicate with most of these devices. But since some are used for communicating with polar satellites and space probes, it's not all as claimed by the caption.

In terms of mass, Earth's ring system is tiny compared to other planetary ring systems in the Solar System. In descending order of mass, these are Saturn (1019 kg [https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aat2965]), Uranus (1016 kg [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rings_of_Uranus]), Jupiter (between 1011 and 1016 kg [https://pages.astro.umd.edu/~dphamil/research/preprints/BurSimSho03.pdf]), Neptune (1015 kg [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rings_of_Neptune]). Assuming 580 satellites (active and inactive) in geostationary orbit [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_satellites_in_geosynchronous_orbit] and a typical mass of 1,000 kg, Earth's ring system has a mass of 106 kg.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Don't remove this notice too soon.}}

:[On the left side, a table:]
: Planet Ring?
: Mercury ☐
: Venus ☐
: Earth [[☑]]
: Mars ☐
: Jupiter ☑
: Saturn ☑
: Uranus ☑
: Neptune ☑

:[On the right side, a drawing of the Earth from space, with Africa in view. Many dots represent the satellites, and most of them are in an ellipse. An arrow points to it:]
:Geostationary satellite belt

:[Caption below the panel:]
: Astronomy fact: a century ago, Earth didn't have rings, but we have one now! It's where all the satellite dishes are pointed.

{{comic discussion}}<noinclude>

[[Category:Astronomy]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]

3135: Sea Level

2025-09-02T15:08:08Z

Rps: The tides surprised the romans

{{comic
| number = 3135
| date = August 29, 2025
| title = Sea Level
| image = sea_level_2x.png
| imagesize = 321x453px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = They're up there with coral islands, lightning, and caterpillars turning into butterflies.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|This page was created by A FRIENDLY TIDAL WAVE. Don't remove this notice too soon.}}
In this comic [[Cueball]] is wondering aloud what happened to an island, possibly a {{w|sandbar}} that was visible earlier, but is not anymore. [[Megan]] explains to him that the {{w|tide}} has gone up, and thus the island is underwater. She then tells him about what causes tides, namely the {{w|Moon}}, which is large enough and orbits close enough to Earth to gravitationally affect the waters of our oceans, causing them to go up and down daily. Similarly to [[2809: Moon]], Cueball is amazed at the oddity of our planet having a natural satellite large enough to affect our oceans, and Randall seems to be as well, as the caption says that if the Moon didn't exist, it would sound extremely outlandish and sci-fi-like.

The way Megan phrased the last sentence, that the Moon orbits close to the surface of the Earth could also add to Cueball's outburst. Whereas the Moon is comparatively close to Earth in the solar system, not many people would describe the Moon as being close to the Earth's surface. Especially when they actually find out how far it is away from Earth. Most pictures depicting both the Earth and the Moon simultaneously cheat to make it possible to see them near each other, while still being able to see surface features. If the system is seen from the side, with the Moon and Earth furthest from each other, a picture shown on a computer screen would make both of them rather small. (If [https://youtu.be/Bz9D6xba9Og Earth is a basketball and the moon a baseball], the baseball should be placed around 8 meters from the basketball to represent the correct distance.)

{{w|Tide|Tides}} on Earth would indeed seem strange and unusual to a visitor from almost anywhere else in the universe (or even from parts of Earth where tides are smaller. For instance, the roman sailors, used to the {{w|Mediterranean Sea|Mediterranean}} where the tides are usually only 20-30cm high, were surprised by the tides of the {{w|Atlantic Ocean|Atlantic}}), along with other features such as the large expanses of liquid water and the oxygen-rich atmosphere that was created by biological activity (photosynthesis). Not to mention the biological activity. As stated in the comic, tides on Earth are largely the result of a single large moon (''the'' Moon) orbiting the Earth at a relatively short distance. This configuration is {{w|List_of_natural_satellites|unique within our solar system}}: Mercury and Venus have no moons, Mars (smaller than Earth) has two (far, far smaller) moons, and each of the remaining planets have several, but are comparatively insignificant, individually. There are four moons in the solar system bigger than the Moon, and a few more almost as big, but they all orbit gaseous planets much larger than Earth, amongst many other minor moons, and thus have far less practical tidal influence upon their respective parent planets. The ''twelfth'' largest known moon is Charon, 12.2% the mass of the dwarf planet Pluto, that it it orbits. (The Moon has 1.2% the mass of Earth, by far the largest such ratio amongst the fully-fledged planetary moons, and is also about 20 times further away in comparison). Its much larger tidal effect has actually resulted in mutual {{w|tidal locking}} so that Charon now orbits only above the same part of Pluto and could not create Earth-like tide cycles. That is, even ''if'' there were plutonian seas quite like ours, another required feature that is effectively unique to the Earth-Moon scenario.

The Sun also influences Earth's tide, as might be expected. If the Moon were absent from Earth orbit, however, tidal amplitudes would be about a third of their current values. The Sun's gravity has about half the influence on Earth's liquid water masses than the Moon does, as the relative distances involved mean that the solar gravity gradient across different parts of the Earth and its oceans is far less. Also, if more than one moon were present, the moon(s) present had much less mass ''or'' the moon(s) present had more distant orbits, tides would have less amplitude. And, in the case of there being multiple moons, they would have much more complex (and possibly difficult to predict) periodicity. If the multiple moons had {{w|orbital resonance}}, the periodicity would be relatively straightforward.

The overall effect of the Moon-dominated tides is that in marginally more than every 6.2 hours (at least for an ocean-dominated equatorial island, such as the comic appears to depict) something that was originally fully revealed by a retreating tide could now be covered be the next rising one. This effect is even more pronounced every 14.75 days, as the Moon and Sun act together to create even higher high tides and lower low tides. Anyone used to the behaviour of the sea would probably be unsurprised by this, but someone normally resident more inland can quite easily be caught out, potentially arriving somewhere by the coast in the morning, to witness the sight of particularly low water levels, then by noon/early-afternoon finding that the seascape has changed and high-water has been reached.

The title text mentions other elements of life on Earth, saying they also seem as outlandish as tides, including {{w|coral islands}}, islands that build up from the skeletons or secretions of small animals, {{w|lightning}}, when electrical discharge creates bright light in the atmosphere, and the {{w|metamorphosis}} of {{w|butterflies}}, when caterpillars create a chrysalis and come out as butterflies.

Lightning is an element of life on Earth since it is thought to have produced chemicals which were important to life's origins. Ozone, produced by lightning, reduces the ultra-violet light reaching earths surface. This protection may have made it easier for life to transition out of the water. Microscopic life in the atmosphere (the aerobiome) affects cloud formation and weather, for instance, some bacteria promote the formation of ice crystals which contributes to rain. As such, the aerobiome may also affect lightning. Lightning is probably a common planetary phenomenon; within our solar system, it [https://science.nasa.gov/science-research/planetary-science/lightning-across-the-solar-system/ occurs on Jupiter, Saturn], and probably Uranus and Neptune. On Mars, lightning probably is generated by electric discharge in dust clouds. The evidence about possible lightning on Venus is mixed.

==Transcript==

:[Single frame, with Megan and Cueball standing at a coastline with grass, with water and waves visible. They are looking at the ocean and are standing together.]

:Cueball: Hey, where's that big island we were looking at this morning?
:Megan: Oh, it's underwater. The ocean's depth here goes up and down by like ten feet every day.
:Cueball: What?
:Megan: It's because the planet has a big moon orbiting near the surface. It causes weird gravity effects.
:Cueball: '''''What???'''''

:[Caption below the frame:]
:People here are used to them, but tides are one of the weirdest and most sci-fi elements of life on Earth.

{{comic discussion}}<noinclude>
[[Category: Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category: Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category: Astronomy]]

Talk:3115: Unsolved Physics Problems

2025-07-15T12:12:38Z

Rps: 79%, not 75%

I didn't notice that the linked paper on zink whiskers was from NASA at first, but it was immediately apparent that an American wrote it... The style is super American. "Oh, no! People who ''chose'' to read this paper won't get it unless I write really big and '''EMPHASISE''' words." It's a very "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter" style of naming margarine, so to say. [[User:Kapten-N|Kapten-N]] ([[User talk:Kapten-N|talk]]) 07:23, 15 July 2025 (UTC)
:The linked pdf is not a scientific paper, but a slide presentation. I think especially for safety-related presentations it is not uncommon to go a bit over the top with "be aware that this seemingly harmless effect can have serious consequences" -- especially if the risk is seemingly low, but the possible damage is really high. --[[Special:Contributions/134.102.219.31|134.102.219.31]] 08:25, 15 July 2025 (UTC)

It seems that there is a typo on the second panel about the Gallium anomaly. According to Wikipedia "The resulting production of 71Ge was calculated in 2005 to be 79% of expected", not 75%. Should this be mentioned? [[User:Rps|Rps]] ([[User talk:Rps|talk]]) 12:12, 15 July 2025 (UTC)

== Unremoved background on the middle title ==

The middle title has unerased lettering with a slightly different style.

Talk:3107: Weather Balloons

2025-06-27T16:19:28Z

Rps: Argon as an isulating gas (in deep diving)

If you could make weather balloons out of plastic grocery bags you could address global warming and plastic bag pollution at the same time. [[Special:Contributions/47.248.235.170|47.248.235.170]] 21:35, 25 June 2025 (UTC)Pat
:You'd only delay those problems as weather balloons do have a life expectancy, just look at the problems the Myth Busters had with them when tackling Lawnchair Larry. [[Special:Contributions/2001:1C02:1A9D:9700:391C:7C6C:4E0A:AD94|2001:1C02:1A9D:9700:391C:7C6C:4E0A:AD94]] 23:21, 25 June 2025 (UTC)
::It wouldn't be a plastic recycling method so much as a plastic distribution method. [[User:RegularSizedGuy|RegularSizedGuy]] ([[User talk:RegularSizedGuy|talk]]) 00:26, 26 June 2025 (UTC)
The current description is useful -- but the phrase "over time" is in error. The graph shows the relationship between the number of weather balloons and the accuracy of modelling: "time" is not a component. [[Special:Contributions/165.225.115.132|165.225.115.132]] 23:56, 25 June 2025 (UTC)
:I would say time is a component because the x axis is labeled number of weather balloons launched _per day_, therefore distributed through time, therefore time is part of the graph. [[Special:Contributions/179.217.229.235|179.217.229.235]] 06:54, 26 June 2025 (UTC)
:The original complaint was neutered {{diff|380453|fairly soon after the observation was made}}, anyway, so no longer applies. Clearly you ''could'' progress through "number of balloons per day". Testing a given number one day, a larger number the next is an easy method (for as long as you wish to sustain that, and are able to). Or even just test for a few releases, one day, then immediately launch more (and test), then yet more (test again), all before the initial ones start to 'decay' out of the current count faster than you can add to them (any eventual backsliding, aside, that makes a timeward correlation to numbers currently aloft).
:But, truly, you could scattergun the effect. Today, launch 1. Tomorrow launch 1 trillion. The day after, try 4000. The day after that, try 4000 ''again'' (just because), or 1 or 400 or 1 trillion or 18 trillion or 42 (or none) — whatever is you desire and within your capability (including maybe preventing other potential launchings from others, to ensure a sufficiently supressed daily figure).
:Anyway, though time 'features', insofar as daily counts (and, as a hidden variable, the matter of balloon longevity, which could change things drastically if prior ones did ''not'' actually vanish between one day and the next but actually permanently accumulated), "over time" is no longer mentioned (whoever rewrote that bit). [[Special:Contributions/82.132.245.112|82.132.245.112]] 09:58, 26 June 2025 (UTC)
:Global helium reserves are currently estimated to be around 40 billion cubic meters (source Google), so you run out of helium well before the balloons have a significant effect. Since the majority of it gets used for cooling cryogenic systems in hospitals that is going to become a serious health issue - it's already happened a couple of times as old reserves were depleted, the industry found some new sources but they are running out of places to look. [[User:MarcusRowland|MarcusRowland]] ([[User talk:MarcusRowland|talk]]) 10:07, 26 June 2025 (UTC)
::If we were launching massive quantities of balloons we could use hydrogen instead which is very abundant (yes, it is dangerous, but on the plus side has more lift). Or even argon (18 atomic weight, so it should have some lift) or methane (16 molecular weight) [[User:Rps|Rps]] ([[User talk:Rps|talk]]) 11:37, 26 June 2025 (UTC)
:::Hydrogen's teeny molecules would leak out of the balloons much faster than helium - when I was an educational lab technician we always had to fill hydrogen balloons just before using them because they deflated very quickly. It's also an indirect greenhouse gas so releasing vast quantities into the atmosphere may not be a good idea. Incidentally, has anyone done the sums on how many weather balloons would actually fit into the volume of the earth's atmosphere? --[[User:MarcusRowland|MarcusRowland]] ([[User talk:MarcusRowland|talk]]) 14:56, 26 June 2025 (UTC)
:::Oops, 18 is argon's atomic number, the mass of (terrestrial) argon is ~40, so it sinks in air. Neon (isotopes 20 and 22) would work somewhat, but is not abundant like argon, so probably not a good idea.[[User:Rps|Rps]] ([[User talk:Rps|talk]])
::::Yes, Argon is a classic gas (with others - an extreme example is tungsten hexafluoride!) for filling a balloon that's ''unusually heavy''. Also escapes from the balloon much less, if you find that useful. [[Special:Contributions/82.132.244.48|82.132.244.48]] 19:00, 26 June 2025 (UTC)
:::::I only remembered later that argon is used by deep divers to inflate {{w|dry suits}}, precisely because it is heavy and so it has less thermal conductivity than the {{w|heliox}} which deep divers use to breath. [[User:Rps|Rps]] ([[User talk:Rps|talk]]) 16:19, 27 June 2025 (UTC)
Honestly I feel like this one is a thinly veiled joke about LLMs: As they grow bigger with more data to work with, they tend to get better, but the improvements require exponential data, so benefits wear off, until the internet gets so polluted with AI slop (like the atmosphere gets covered in balloons), that the quality of results of any future AI venture plummets, and training new models becomes impossible. [[User:mlerp|mlerp]] ([[User talk:mlerp|talk]])

How many weather balloons ''are'' launched per day? Seems relevant. --[[User:Mushrooms|Mushrooms]] ([[User talk:Mushrooms|talk]]) 10:10, 27 June 2025 (UTC)
:Okay, a lot easier number to find than I thought. Estimates range from 900-1300, which matches the comic pretty well. --[[User:Mushrooms|Mushrooms]] ([[User talk:Mushrooms|talk]]) 10:12, 27 June 2025 (UTC)
::Now establish how accurate current weather predictions are, to tie down the other axis. ;) [[Special:Contributions/82.132.245.173|82.132.245.173]] 13:12, 27 June 2025 (UTC)
:: The Wikipedia article says "Between 900 and 1,300 locations around the globe do routine releases, two or four times daily", which would give something roughly around 2,500 - 4,000. [[Special:Contributions/82.13.184.33|82.13.184.33]] 15:23, 27 June 2025 (UTC)

Talk:3107: Weather Balloons

2025-06-26T11:54:53Z

Rps: Correction to argon's mass

Talk:3107: Weather Balloons

2025-06-26T11:37:14Z

Rps: Alternatives to helium

3093: Drafting

2025-06-05T18:31:33Z

Rps: A bit more about cycling drafting and also old F1 racing

{{comic
| number = 3093
| date = May 23, 2025
| title = Drafting
| image = drafting_2x.png
| imagesize = 317x518px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = A 5% efficiency gain at the cost of a 99% efficiency loss
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|This page was created by a bot that should not have tried this. The explanation is still a DRAFT. Don't remove this notice too soon.}}
This is another one of [[Randall|Randall's]] [[:Category: Tips|Tips]], this time an Aerospace tip.

{{w|Drafting (aerodynamics)|Drafting}} is an aerodynamic technique where one moving object follows another one closely to reduce drag by using the first objects {{w|slipstream}}. It is used in various sports, most prominently {{w|cycling}}, specially {{w|Road_bicycle_racing#Drafting|road bicycle racing}}. Also in motorsports, before the invention of high {{w|downforce}} drafting was {{w|1971 Italian Grand Prix|quite important}}. On normal roads drafting can be used by trucks looking to save fuel. While this can give an aerodynamic advantage to both follower and followed if done right, in some cases the disturbances in airflow can actually reduce efficiency. It can also create significant danger of collision if the one being followed has to suddenly manoeuvre or reduce speed.

The comic explores the idea of using drafting for rockets and states that, while it theoretically works, it isn't really recommended.

The title text gives more details on this, claiming that although there is an efficiency gain of 5% through drafting via the general mechanism, it also comes with a 99% loss. Trying to closely follow a rocket, directly against the flow of its extremely hot and high-speed exhaust, could have adverse effects on the follower's flight and structural integrity. There might also be a risk to the leader, if the follower collides with it or if the follower explodes.

Generally, this could be understood because land transportation is based on traction (pulling yourself along a surface via friction). At higher speeds (above 60km/h), the dominant force becomes wind drag. {{w|Energy-efficient driving}} at these higher speeds can be improved by drafting behind another vehicle. This doesn't apply to rockets because they do not move themselves via friction but rather via Newton's third law (throwing stuff backwards). This means that the front rocket would just push the back rocket against its own thrust (among other bad effects).

It should be mentioned that drafting behind another land vehicle in regular traffic is a potentially lethal high-risk endeavour, as the truck in front of you may suddenly have to brake for one reason or another, and human reaction times are generally too long to rely upon when you're close enough for this method to have any significant effect. Rockets do not suddenly brake in mid-flight,{{Citation needed}} so this may be said in their favour as leading vehicles — that is of course, if you feel that blowing up in a spectacular fireball is preferable to being violently crushed into a metal pancake.

==Transcript==
:[A rocket with two boosters is launching going towards the top right corner. It has a two-stage core and two boosters, and they produce three flames from their exhaust and beneath these flames is a large exhaust plume fanning out behind the rocket most of the way towards the bottom of the panel. A smaller rocket is following the first rocket. It is very close to the first rocket, so most of the smaller rocket is inside the exhaust plume from the larger rocket. The smaller rocket does not have boosters, but still produces three smaller flames from its exhaust. Beneath these flames the smaller rocket also leaves a large but slimmer exhaust plume that exits the panel at the bottom left corner.]

:[Caption below the panel:]
:Aerospace tip: Although the technique reduces atmospheric drag for many types of vehicles, you should '''''never''''' try to improve rocket launch efficiency through drafting.

{{comic discussion}}<noinclude>

[[Category:Tips]]
[[Category:Rockets]]

Talk:3080: Tennis Balls

2025-04-24T13:15:12Z

Rps: Tennis ball machines in Wikimedia

feels more like a macroscope to me [[User:GreyFox|GreyFox]] ([[User talk:GreyFox|talk]]) 23:53, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

Weirdly, Wikipedia has pages for pitching machines, bowling machines, and squash ball launchers, but doesn't appear to have one for tennis ball machines. (And no, I'm not going to create one specially for this comic.) [[Special:Contributions/172.71.241.89|172.71.241.89]] 08:42, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

OTOH, Wikimedia has a photo and a couple of diagrams of tennis ball machines: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Tennis_ball_machines and 3 photos of "Tenniskanon" https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?search=Tenniskanon&title=Special:MediaSearch&type=image . I checked and the nobody has yet created the Tenniskanon page in nl.wikipedia.org [[User:Rps|Rps]] ([[User talk:Rps|talk]]) 13:15, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

3078: Anchor Bolts

2025-04-21T10:28:37Z

Rps: Link to wikipedia Kola Superdeep Borehole

{{comic
| number = 3078
| date = April 18, 2025
| title = Anchor Bolts
| image = anchor_screws_2x.png
| imagesize = 381x326px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = The biggest expense was installing the mantle ducts to keep the carbonate-silicate cycle operating.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by an AUTOMATIC SUBLIMATOR. Don't remove this notice too soon. Need to rephrase a section, see the talk page.}}

The comic displays a cross-section of a subduction zone, with an anchor bolt connecting the two tectonic plates. {{w|anchor bolt|Anchor bolts}} are used to secure an item in place, for instance to attach a building to its foundation. In earthquake prone areas, anchor bolts are often used to secure furniture so it will be less hazardous during a tremor.

{{w|Subduction}} is a geologic process in which two {{w|Plate tectonics|plates}} of planetary {{w|lithosphere}} converge, and one is dragged under the other. The Earth's lithsphere is divided into tectonic plates. They slowly move across the surface at a few centimeters per year, although the rate is nonuniform across plates. Where they collide, the denser plate gets dragged under the less dense plate, in a process called subduction. {{w|Earthquake|Earthquakes}} are common at subduction zones, and subduction can also lead to volcanic activity. An "anti-subduction anchor bolt" would effectively stop the process of subduction and the movement of plate tectonics as a whole.{{citation needed}}

A round head bolt is screwed in through both the oceanic lithosphere and the continental crust from the bottom up, with a plain washer on either side, and a wing nut tightened at the surface. Washers are present to prevent the bolt and the wing nut from sinking into the crust, by distributing the forces over larger areas. There are several concerns not addressed in the comic with such a design. The implication that the bolt is being screwed in from the mantle side would imply that a very large bolt head was operated from inside the mantle. (There are types of nut-and-bolt system that might be easier to deploy, such as {{w|toggle bolt}}s and {{w|Molly (fastener)|mollys}}. These would have the bolt head on the Earth's surface, rather than in the mantle, and use a spreading "nut" inside the Earth. They wouldn't require conducting enormous operations from below, "merely" a large hole bored from above.) As of the time of posting of the comic, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kola_Superdeep_Borehole humans have not drilled a hole through a continental crust], still less deployed large vehicles in the mantle. In addition, the presence of wing nuts, fasteners that are designed to be able to be screwed in by hand, implies work done by a larger being that has appendages able to use the wing nut. The bolt itself would be a technological challenge, as well. It would need to be made to withstand the temperature of Earth's mantle, around 1000°C near the surface. At these temperatures, most commercial stainless steel used to manufacture bolts would experience noticeable strength losses. The bolt would need be around 50 km long. Moreover, as subduction zones move parallel to each other, the construction would have to withstand high shear forces, something that a bolt is rather unsuited to compared to other tools, such as rivets. On top of that, ways to alleviate stress must be sought out as if the bolt fails, it could produce a highly amplified earthquake.

In the short term, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions are typically bad for those living nearby, and thus ways to prevent them happening might reduce economic risks in those areas. However, volcanic eruptions deposit nutrients in the surrounding area, enriching soils. Volcanos also release gasses. The vents mentioned in the title text might replenish the nutrients and gasses, replacing the benefits of eruptions. Earthquakes sometimes trigger {{w|tsunami|tsunamis}}, which create or modify beaches, and redistribute nutrients from bays and estuaries across coastal plains. So, while the immediate effects of eruptions and earthquakes can be disruptive, they also enrich the environment. Areas at risk from these "disasters" are also attractive and enriched as a result of these same events.

When plates collide but do not subduct, they often uplift, thickening or raising the crust. The {{w|Himalayas|Himalaya}} mountains, are an example. Tectonic plates spread apart as new lithosphere is formed at ridges, most of which occur under oceans. If spreading continued, but subduction was prevented by the system of anchors pictured in this cartoon, there would likely be new areas of uplift. If positioned appropriately, the mantle ducts, mentioned in the title text, might slow or stop the spreading, reducing uplift.

The title text references the {{w|Carbonate–silicate cycle|carbonate-silicate geochemical cycle}}. Briefly, subduction and subsequent heating of the global crust restores carbon dioxide and silicate rocks to the planetary surface, countering the effects of carbonate deposition and silicate rock weathering. Anchor bolts sufficient to stop plate tectonics would also stop the carbonate-silicate cycle, leading to unexpected, and likely unwelcome, changes in the surface geosphere and biosphere. (Arguably, if the carbonate cycle alone could be paused, it might be a means of reducing the amount of carbon dioxide in the biosphere.) To restore the cycle by an unknown mechanism, "mantle ducts" have been installed as part of the planet-wide plate anchoring system. It is stated that the mantle duct installation was the most expensive part of the project, implying greater intellectual and technical challenges than the already-massive ones associated with anchor-bolt design and deployment.

This project would presumably render [[Beret Guy]]'s [[1388|Subduction License]] worthless.

==Transcript==
:[Panel shows Randall's usual illustration of a subduction zone: a tectonic plate subducting from the left side of the panel with water above it, and a mountain range forming on the right side of the panel on the other tectonic plate. Beneath each tectonic plate is the asthenosphere. The main difference between this image and others like it is that there is a bolt shown attaching the plates together in the subduction zone. The head of the bolt is shown in the asthenosphere below the subducting plate. There are two washers displayed, one between the bolt head and the subducting plate and one above the other above the upper plate on the side of a smaller mountain. A wing nut is positioned above this washer, with part of the bolt sticking out above the nut, higher than the tallest mountains in the panel]

:[Caption below the panel:]
:Good news: Geophysicists are '''''finally''''' installing Earth's required anti-subduction anchor bolts.

==Trivia==
In the [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/images/archive/0/00/20250419063115%21anchor_screws_2x.png original version of the comic], the caption said "anti-subduction anchor '''screws'''" instead of "anti-subduction anchor '''bolts'''". The title of the comic was also changed, from "Anchor Screws" to "Anchor Bolts". The original comic image and title can be seen on an [https://web.archive.org/web/20250419024242/https://xkcd.com/3078/ archived version] of the [https://xkcd.com xkcd.com] site. The fastener illustrated is indeed a {{w|Bolt (fastener)|bolt}} (with a {{w|Wingnut (hardware)|wing nut}}), not a screw. A screw has a pointed end and is drilled into a hole that is smaller than the diameter of the screw; the pressure caused by its {{w|screw thread|thread}} and screw head binds two objects together. A screw does not need a nut to go with it.

A bolt has a flat end, and it goes into a hole that is larger than the diameter of the bolt; it needs a nut which, when fixed onto the bolt and tightened, together with the head creates the pressure that binds the two objects together. Because a nut is used to create pressure, "bolt" is a more correct term than "screw", although it is very common to talk of 'screws' for [[1474: Screws|screw-headed]] bolts which attach panels (with non-threaded holes) against a substrate which incorporates a 'nut-like' threaded hole within it (or a nut encapsulated and held non-rotating in the backing plate's recess), even though they are also flat-faced at the thread-end and not self-tapping.

Or, for a differently worded definition, {{w|Screw#Differentiation between bolt and screw|see here}}.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Subduction]]
[[Category:Geology]]
[[Category:Comics edited after their publication]]

3077: de Sitter

2025-04-17T10:19:44Z

Rps: /* Explanation */ hyperbolic -> Triangles with more than 180º

{{comic
| number = 3077
| date = April 16, 2025
| title = de Sitter
| image = de_sitter_2x.png
| imagesize = 292x459px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Our anti-de Sitter club is small at the moment, but I've started corresponding with the conformal field theory people.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by an EXPONENTIALLY EXPANDING BOT - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
An {{w|anti-de Sitter space}} is a space which has hyperbolic (negative) spatial curvature, in which the sum of the internal angles of [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangle#Triangle_in_non-planar_space triangles] are less than 180° and two parallel lines will diverge when extended. This is in contrast to a {{w|de Sitter space}} which has elliptic (positive) curvature, more than 180° in a triangle, and two parallel lines will meet. The caption "My house is an anti-de Sitter space" refers instead to their house being against the actual physicist {{w|Willem de Sitter}} which both spatial geometries are named after, because the speaker themselves forbids de Sitter from entering their house.

The title-text refers to "conformal field theory". Anti-de Sitter space is a theoretical space with weird curves and extra dimensions. Conformal Field Theory is a set of rules for how tiny particles behave on boundaries. So the ideas of conformal field theory and Anti-de Sitter space are closely linked. For everything in Anti-de Sitter space has a parallel in conformal field theory.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[A note taped to a closed door:]
:20th century Dutch physicist Willem de Sitter is '''''not''''' welcome here

:[Caption below the panel:]
:My house is an anti-de Sitter space.
{{comic discussion}}

3075: Anachronym Challenge

2025-04-11T18:35:38Z

Rps: Link to Anachronym definition

{{comic
| number = 3075
| date = April 11, 2025
| title = Anachronym Challenge
| image = anachronym_challenge_2x.png
| imagesize = 265x404px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = I have to pay with paper money.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|The table is incomplete.}}
[[Cueball]] is reading from a shopping list while shopping for groceries. The items on the grocery list have names that indicate their material but are no longer made from those materials.

{| class="wikitable sortable" style="margin-left:0px"
|-
! Item !! Actually made with !! As opposed to !! Explanation
|-
| {{w|Tin foil | Tin Foil}} || Aluminum || Tin || A shiny foil.
|-
| [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sponge_(tool) Sponge]|| Polyester, Polyurethane || Marine invertebrates in the phylum Porifera, aka {{w| Sea sponges}}. || An item commonly used in the kitchen to soak up water.
|-
| {{w|Cutlery | Silverware}} || Stainless steel || Silver || Common eating device. However, these can be made of paper or plastics.
|-
| {{w|Linens}} || Cotton, Hemp, Polyester || {{w|Flax}} || Commonly in the form of sheets and blankets.
|-
| {{w|Clothes iron | Clothes Iron}} || Aluminum, Stainless steel & plastics || Iron || Used as a tool to remove wrinkles in clothing by heating it up.
|-
| [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corrective_lens#Reading_glasses/ Reading Glasses] || Optical plastics || Glass || Used to assist farsighted people with focusing on things up close.
|-
| {{w|Iron (golf)#Short irons|9 Iron}} || Cast stainless steel, Carbon steel || Iron || Golf club
|-
| {{w|Wood (golf)| 3 Wood}} || Titanium, Carbon fiber || Wood || Golf Club
|-
| {{w|Sidewalk chalk | Sidewalk Chalk}} || Calcium Sulfate (Gypsum) || Calcite chalk || He may have a family, or just likes to play with sidewalk chalk.
|-
| {{w|Rubber duck | Rubber Duck}} || Vinyl Plastics || Rubber or certain waterfowl || Again, the family explanation seems likely here, as most adults do not necessarily enjoy rubber ducks.{{Citation needed}}
|-
| {{w|Paper money | Paper Money}} (Title text) || Cotton, Linen fibers (U.S. note), polypropylene || Paper || Money can be exchanged for goods and services.
|}

Many of the objects listed on Cueball's shopping list can still be made with the materials that they are named after. Silverware can be made of sterling silver, especially in the cutlery of high-end establishments. Linens made from flax are still common. {{acn}} Some wood clubs are still made from wood, specifically persimmon. {{w|Banknotes of the Japanese yen}} are [https://www.npb.go.jp/en/products/intro/tokutyou.html still made] from plant fibers including wood pulp from ''E. chrysantha'' and abaca pulp.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/anachronym Anachronym] Challenge
:[Cueball is looking at a phone in his hand while holding his other hand on the handle of a shopping cart. Above the shopping cart, an underlined header and a bullet list are shown:]
:Shopping List
:* Tin Foil
:* Sponges
:* Silverware
:* Linens
:* Iron & Ironing Board
:* Reading Glasses
:* 9 Iron and 3 Wood
:* Sidewalk Chalk
:* Rubber Duck

:[Caption below the panel:]
:I'm trying to do a shopping trip where I only buy stuff that's no longer made from the material it's named after.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Language]]

Talk:3064: Lungfish

2025-03-17T18:48:01Z

Rps: File names

Huh, first time I've seen a comic the literal minute it was posted. Weird seeing a completely empty explainxkcd page. [[User:Beanie|Beanie]] [[User talk:Beanie|talk]] 16:10, 17 March 2025 (UTC)

Got the basics of a transcript going. --[[User:DollarStoreBa'al|DollarStoreBa'al]] ([[User talk:DollarStoreBa'al|talk]]) 16:21, 17 March 2025 (UTC)
People often talk about DNA being the program that builds life, but it seems to me more as if its the static-data used by the program that builds life
[[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.236|172.70.90.236]] 16:24, 17 March 2025 (UTC)

Anyone know how to add categories? If so, I can handle those. --[[User:DollarStoreBa'al|DollarStoreBa'al]] ([[User talk:DollarStoreBa'al|talk]]) 16:25, 17 March 2025 (UTC)

I was thinking of creating the category Genetics as a subcategory to biology, if it hasn't already been done. --[[User:DollarStoreBa'al|DollarStoreBa'al]] ([[User talk:DollarStoreBa'al|talk]]) 16:29, 17 March 2025 (UTC)

Hi chat, we got a new undiscovered xkcd page to talk about: [[Dot]]. Any info would be helpful. [[User:CalibansCreations|'''Caliban''']] ([[User talk:CalibansCreations|talk]]) 16:52, 17 March 2025 (UTC)

"a common issue when coding" or it could be just editing a doc, a picture, a video, etc.[[Special:Contributions/172.71.151.21|172.71.151.21]] 17:09, 17 March 2025 (UTC)
: I DON'T KNOW HOW TO CODE, OKAY???

Somewhat related, is is quite common for someone to have filenames like "Thesis (final)", "Thesis (really final)", "Thesis (really really final)" (instead of "Thesis" it might be "Presentation"). I have just checked the RCS log of my MSc Thesis: the 2.16 version was the final, but then there were the 3.1 and 3.2, which were the correction of two typos. [[User:Rps|Rps]] ([[User talk:Rps|talk]]) 18:48, 17 March 2025 (UTC)

3049: Incoming Asteroid

2025-02-11T19:24:27Z

Rps: About the title text

{{comic
| number = 3049
| date = February 10, 2025
| title = Incoming Asteroid
| image = incoming_asteroid_2x.png
| imagesize = 454x570px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = The bottom ones are also potentially bad news for any other planets in our solar system that have been counting on Earth having a stable orbit.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by an incoming bearer of bad news - More accurate readings of the log scale, and provide detailed explanations of each point on the chart (should probably be a table, as well). Also, add some acknowledgement of the title-text. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This comic may be inspired by the recent discovery of asteroid {{w|2024 YR4|2024 YR4}}, which, in the date of the comic (February, 10, 2025), was estimated to have about a 2% chance of striking Earth on December 22, 2032. Its size is estimated to be 40-90 meters.

This comic provides a log scale correlating the size of any incoming asteroid to whether its arrival is good or bad news. While asteroids on the smaller end of the scale are good news for sky watchers, as the upcoming objects get bigger, the potential for catastrophe grows. Many astronomy enthusiasts would be happy to see bigger meteors, as bigger generally means more exciting pictures. Of course, once the meteors grow past a certain size even the most enthusiast astronomer might grow concerned about their imminent extinction.{{cn}}

===List of sizes and consequences===
Sizes are approximate.

* '''1 cm''': Good news! Meteors are pretty!
** Nothing more than a streak in the sky.

* '''30 cm''': Great news! You might see a fireball!
** Might descend far enough for the flames of its entry to be visible with the naked eye.

* '''3 m''': Okay news, unless you have expensive windows or are very unlucky.
** Can descend far enough for the shockwave of its passing to shatter windows. The comic mockingly claims this is only a problem if your windows are expensive or happen to get directly hit by it. The {{w|Chelyabinsk meteorite}}, sitting near the upper bound of this category with approximately 18 m in size, damaged more than 7,000 buildings with shockwaves, injuring almost 1500 people.

* '''60 m''': Bad news, especially if you live near the city it's aimed at.
** The {{w|Tunguska event|Tunguska meteor}}, which flattened over 2,000 km2 of Siberian forest in 1908, was 50-60 m across.

* '''600 m''': Bad news, especially if you live on the continent it's aimed at.
** Can easily cause localized extinction, and can be expected to have effects on the rest of the world as well.

* '''9 km''': Bad news for your species.
** The {{w|Chicxulub crater|Chicxulub asteroid}} that wiped out non-avian dinosaurs was about 10 km in diameter.

* '''50 km''': Bad news for your phylum.
**{{w|Chordate|Our phylum}} is primarily all the vertebrate animals.

* '''300 km''': Bad news for your biosphere.
** A global extinction event is pretty much guaranteed.

* '''2,000 km''': Good news for any life that might someday evolve on Earth's new moon.
** Earth's moon is believed to have been formed when Earth, in its infancy, was hit by an object of roughly this size. The comic assumes that another moon would form from another such impact, hypothesizes that life might evolve on that moon, {{tvtropes|BadNewsInAGoodWay|and pretends that it's good news}}.

* '''25,000 km''': Bad news for whatever planet is about to get hit by Earth.
** At this size, the "asteroid" is over twice as large as Earth itself (whose diameter is about 12,700 km) and would likely be classified as a planet. (Unofficially, at least. ''Officially,'' there would be quibbling about whether it had {{w|Clearing the neighbourhood|"cleared its neighborhood."}} Briefly. {{Citation needed}}) At that point, the comic points out, it would be more accurate to describe the Earth crashing into the "asteroid"/planet, not the other way around.

Title Text: the "bottom ones" have enough mass to change Earth's orbit. If it changed enough it might intersect the orbit of other planets (probably Venus or Mars, since those are the closest). This might lead to Earth colliding with that planet. Also, even without a collision, the changed orbit might perturb '''their''' orbits due to the Earth's gravitational force and cause negative consequences.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

:[Header:]
:An asteroid is headed straight for Earth! That's...

:[A log scale of lengths is shown, labelled "Asteroid size", with markings of 1 cm, 10 cm, 1 meter, 10 meters, 100 meters, 1 km, 10 km, 100 km, 1,000 km, and 10,000 km. The remaining lines of text are at various points down the scale.]
:...Good news! Meteors are pretty!

:...Great news! You might see a fireball!

:...Ok news, unless you have expensive windows or are very unlucky.

:...Bad news, especially if you live near the city it's aimed at.

:...Bad news, especially if you live on the continent it's aimed at.

:...Bad news for your species.

:...Bad news for your phylum.

:...Bad news for your biosphere.

:...Good news for any life that might someday evolve on Earth's new moon.

:...Bad news for whatever planet is about to get hit by Earth.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Astronomy]]
[[Category:Space]]

3049: Incoming Asteroid

2025-02-11T13:41:13Z

Rps: When mentioning the probability, the date of the estimate should be mentioned since it will probably change

{{comic
| number = 3049
| date = February 10, 2025
| title = Incoming Asteroid
| image = incoming_asteroid_2x.png
| imagesize = 454x570px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = The bottom ones are also potentially bad news for any other planets in our solar system that have been counting on Earth having a stable orbit.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by an incoming bearer of bad news - More accurate readings of the log scale, and provide detailed explanations of each point on the chart (should probably be a table, as well). Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This comic may be inspired by the recent discovery of asteroid {{w|2024 YR4|2024 YR4}}, which, in the date of the comic (February, 10, 2025) was estimated to have about a 2% chance of striking Earth on December 22, 2032. Its size is estimated to be 40-90 meters.

This comic provides a log scale correlating the size of any incoming asteroid to whether its arrival is good or bad news. While asteroids on the smaller end of the scale are good news for sky watchers, as the upcoming objects get bigger, the potential for catastrophe grows. Many astronomy enthusiasts would be happy to see bigger meteors, as bigger generally means more exciting pictures. Of course, once the meteors grow past a certain size even the most enthusiast astronomer might grow concerned about their imminent extinction.{{cn}}

===List of sizes and consequences===
Sizes are approximate.

* '''1 cm''': Good news! Meteors are pretty!
** Nothing more than a streak in the sky.

* '''30 cm''': Great news! You might see a fireball!
** Might descend far enough for the flames of its entry to be visible with the naked eye.

* '''3 m''': Okay news, unless you have expensive windows or are very unlucky.
** Can descend far enough for the shockwave of its passing to shatter windows. The comic mockingly claims this is only a problem if your windows are expensive or happen to get directly hit by it. The {{w|Chelyabinsk meteorite}}, sitting near the upper bound of this category with approximately 18 m in size, damaged more than 7,000 buildings with shockwaves, injuring almost 1500 people.

* '''100 m''': Bad news, especially if you live near the city it's aimed at.
** The {{w|Tunguska event|Tunguska meteor}}, which flattened over 2,000 km2 of Siberian forest in 1908, was 50-60 m across.

* '''1 km''': Bad news, especially if you live on the continent it's aimed at.
** Can easily cause localized extinction, and can be expected to have effects on the rest of the world as well.

* '''6 km''': Bad news for your species.
** The {{w|Chicxulub crater|Chicxulub asteroid}} that wiped out non-avian dinosaurs was about 10 km in diameter.

* '''50 km''': Bad news for your phylum.
**{{w|Chordate|Our phylum}} is primarily all the vertebrate animals.

* '''200 km''': Bad news for your biosphere.
** A global extinction event is pretty much guaranteed.

* '''3,000 km''': Good news for any life that might some day evolve on Earth's new moon.
** Earth's moon is believed to have been formed when Earth, in its infancy, was hit by an object of roughly this size. The comic assumes that another moon would form from another such impact, hypothesizes that life might evolve on that moon, {{tvtropes|BadNewsInAGoodWay|and pretends that it's good news}}.

* '''30,000 km''': Bad news for whatever planet is about to get hit by Earth.
** At this size, the "asteroid" is over twice as large as Earth itself (whose diameter is about 12,700 km) and would likely be classified as a planet. (Unofficially, at least. ''Officially,'' there would be quibbling about whether it had "cleared its orbit." Briefly. {{Citation needed}}) At that point, the comic points out, it would be more accurate to describe the Earth crashing into the "asteroid"/planet, not the other way around.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

:[Header:]
:An asteroid is headed straight for Earth! That's...

:[A log scale of lengths is shown, labelled "Asteroid size", with markings of 1 cm, 10 cm, 1 meter, 10 meters, 100 meters, 1 km, 10 km, 100 km, 1,000 km, and 10,000 km. The remaining lines of text are at various points down the scale.]
:...Good news! Meteors are pretty!

:...Great news! You might see a fireball!

:...Ok news, unless you have expensive windows or are very unlucky.

:...Bad news, especially if you live near the city it's aimed at.

:...Bad news, especially if you live on the continent it's aimed at.

:...Bad news for your species.

:...Bad news for your phylum.

:...Bad news for your biosphere.

:...Good news for any life that might someday evolve on Earth's new moon.

:...Bad news for whatever planet is about to get hit by Earth.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Astronomy]]
[[Category:Space]]

Talk:3048: Suspension Bridge

2025-02-08T20:46:12Z

Rps: A real bridge that looks a bit like the cartoon

What if a car doing one of the fun jumps lands on a car that didn't do a fun jump? Should we mandate that every car does a fun jump for this reason (and yay, fun jump!)? [[Special:Contributions/198.41.227.115|198.41.227.115]] 22:08, 7 February 2025 (UTC)
: Radar speed management, vehicles are only let on the bridge if their expected land point is between the vehicles around them. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.55.80|172.68.55.80]] 22:48, 7 February 2025 (UTC)
:Carrot/stick question. If they do a jump, they get their toll refunded on the far side of the bridge. Maybe give them double refund if they do a flip. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.246.135|172.69.246.135]] 04:07, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

Do suspension bridges still work when built this way? Those pilings look much easier to sway to me. Maybe they are just buried a little more securely. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.55.80|172.68.55.80]] 22:48, 7 February 2025 (UTC)
:Yep! With "classic" suspension bridges (like the Golden Gate Bridge), there is no fixed connection between the deck and the towers. With differring loads and temperatures the deck can move up and down about 30cm at tower level (and almost 2 netres at midpoint). Some modern bridges do ise a fixed connection or hinge between deck and tower. [[User:IIVQ|IIVQ]] ([[User talk:IIVQ|talk]]) 12:58, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

This looks a lot like a {{w|stressed ribbon bridge}}. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.64.132|172.69.64.132]] 22:59, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

This ''exact'' proposal, the [https://poly-bridge-2.fandom.com/wiki/Dangling_Road 'dangling road'], is actually The Meta in Poly Bridge 2. Poly Bridge 3 tried to tweak the numbers to make this strat less effective, but a variant of it continues to persist to this day. (This probably goes in the trivia section, because it seems like Randall came to this concept from first principles.) [[Special:Contributions/172.71.151.65|172.71.151.65]] 01:07, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

:I came to the comment section to see if somebody already said that. The other thing I would have said is I wonder if RCE reads XKCD… if not, I think someone should ask him to do a blind reaction to this comic. I'd love to see his response :) -- [[User:Angel|Angel]] ([[User talk:Angel|talk]]) 19:18, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

It's funny to me, there's a level in Jak II for the PS2 that's literally just this idea: for whatever reason the city's central palace is held up by five suspension bridge-esque wires, and one level has you crawling along wire #4 to get inside the palace (the catch? The wires are covered in security robots) [[Special:Contributions/172.71.159.7|172.71.159.7]] 01:54, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

I like the fact that vehicles are clearly on flexible cables, not some rigid material formed into a catenary shape. There's a truck between the two towers that is visibly depressing the cable it's riding. [[User:Nitpicking|Nitpicking]] ([[User talk:Nitpicking|talk]]) 03:57, 8 February 2025 (UTC)
:Happy happy joy joy. {{w|Tacoma_Narrows_Bridge_(1940)|No dogs allowed on this bridge}}. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.42.87|162.158.42.87]] 04:35, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

If you add a downward pressure to a rope that's significantly stronger than it's normal tension, you end up with a [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catenary#Suspension_bridge_curve parabola] [[Special:Contributions/162.158.137.212|162.158.137.212]] 17:47, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

Related: The Wooden bridge Tatzlwurm" in Essing Germany by Richard Johann Dietrich: [https://bsky.app/profile/jamonir.bsky.social/post/3lddc7rae4s24]. Maybe it could be included in the explanation. [[User:Rps|Rps]] ([[User talk:Rps|talk]]) 20:46, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

3047: Rotary Tool

2025-02-07T17:01:25Z

Rps: 33 1/3

{{comic
| number = 3047
| date = February 5, 2025
| title = Rotary Tool
| image = rotary_tool_2x.png
| imagesize = 528x468px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = It was great until my thumb slipped and I accidentally launched my telescope into the air at Mach 8.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by AN ILLUSION THAT HELPS THINGS MAKE SENSE. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

It is common to find multipurpose handheld tools that can function as higher-speed drills and lower-speed screwdrivers, switching between modes with a slider. The tool in this comic appears to have extended that concept to the extreme, covering both very high-speed and very low-speed tools. Presumably the tool has a rotating part at one end that can accept multiple attachments to facilitate the different uses.

All of these speeds are sensible for the specified uses. However, engineering a single tool to perform reliably across the required range of speeds is likely to be deeply impractical. Equally, designing the base unit such that it can be usefully employed to all these purposes would be a substantial challenge. For example, a household drill needs to be both portable and reasonably bulky, whereas a record player needs good stability, and a dental drill needs to be small enough to be moved flexibly and delicately. In any case, it's highly unlikely that any individual would have a need for all these uses, so the market for such a tool would be extremely limited.

The title text highlights one of the downsides of combining functions in this way — the potential for using the wrong setting for the task at hand, by carelessness or clumsiness, with detrimental effects. In this case, while attempting to use the "sidereal telescope mount" option with an actual telescope, the user accidentally changed the tool to a much higher speed setting, launching it into the air at a {{w|hypersonic speed}}. More commonly, attempting to insert a screw while on the drill setting could cause damage to the item being screwed together, the screw itself, or the screwdriver bit.

The precession setting refers to the {{w|Precession of the equinoxes|precession of the equinoxes (axial precession)}}, which happens on a 26,000-year cycle that corresponds to the {{w|Revolutions per minute|RPM}} rate shown. The average person does not need to adjust their telescope for such minor shifts, certainly not on a constant basis.{{cn}} This may be beneficial for scientists making precise measurements but they would have more powerful and dedicated tools to this end. For commercial use by the public, this would not be remotely necessary.

The {{w|Dremel#Rotary tools|Dremel}} tool referred to is a high-speed, low-torque {{w|rotary tool}} that can be fitted with a variety of bits for cutting, sanding, grinding, sharpening, polishing, engraving, machining, etc.

The speed of the dental drill might seem excessive, but according to [https://sableindustriesinc.com/what-is-a-high-speed-handpiece-how-it-works-speed-more/ Sable Industries], a manufacturer of high-speed dental drills, they can run "at speeds of between 300,000 and 450,000 RPM." They squirt water as they rotate to cool the bits down, so they don't overheat (a further design complication for this multitool).

The speeds labeled "record player" are intended to correspond to standard rotational speeds of {{w|Phonograph record|phonograph records}}. The intended playback speed standardized at 78 rpm (not 72 rpm as depicted in the comic) in the 1920s, with a record diameter of 10 inches. The speed and size, as well as the required width of the groove encoding the music, dictated a playing time of about 3½ minutes per side; collections of 78 rpm records were released as albums. Beginning in the late 1940s, records designed to be played back at 33⅓ rpm (close enough to the 33 rpm in the comic) were produced, to allow longer play times (hence the LP designation, for "long play") on similar-sized records, which standardized on a 12 inch diameter. This was commonly used to release an collection of songs on a single disc, still called an "album", totaling about 22 minutes per side. Concurrently, an alternative format, 7 inch diameter records designed to be played at 45 rpm, was produced, allowing about 5 minutes per side. This was often used to release "singles" (a single song on each side of the record). The 33⅓ and 45 rpm playback speeds supplanted 78 rpm, and remain the standards today.

{| class="wikitable" style="margin:auto"
|-
! Function !! Speed (rpm) !! Rotation / Revolution Period !! Notes
|-
| Sidereal mount precession adapter || 0.000000000073 || ~26,000 years || see {{w|axial precession}}
|-
| Sidereal telescope mount || 0.00070 || 23.93 hours || rotates once per {{w|Sidereal time|sidereal day}}
|-
| Hour hand on a clock || 0.0014 || 12 hours
|-
| Minute hand on a clock || 0.017 || 60 minutes
|-
| Second hand on a clock || 1 || 1 minute
|-
| 33 rpm {{w|Phonograph|record player}} || 33 || 1.8 seconds || It's actually 33 1/3 rpm
|-
| 45 rpm {{w|Phonograph|record player}} || 45 || 1.3 seconds
|-
| 72 rpm {{w|Phonograph|record player}} || 72 || 0.8 seconds || probable typo for 78 rpm
|-
| {{w|Screwdriver#Powered screwdrivers|Screwdriver}} || 300 || 0.2 seconds
|-
| Drill ||1,500|| 40 milliseconds
|-
| Airplane propeller ||2,500|| 24 milliseconds
|-
| {{w|Dremel#Rotary tools|Dremel}} || 35,000 || 1.7 milliseconds
|-
| {{w|Zippe-type centrifuge|Uranium enrichment centrifuge}} || 60,000 || 1 millisecond
|-
| {{w|Dental drill}} || 300,000 || 0.2 milliseconds
|-
|}
[Note that all speeds are rounded to two significant figures, which may result in some variance from the intended result when trying to calculate revolution times from them.]

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

:Multi-function rotary tool

:[A slider on the side of a tool with various settings.]
:Speed (rpm) Function
:0.000000000073: Sidereal mount precession adapter
:0.00070: Sidereal telescope mount
:[Following three are labeled "clock hands":]
:0.0014: h
:0.017: m
:1: s
:[Following three are labeled "record player":]
:33: 33
:45: 45
:72: 72
:300: Screwdriver [Current setting]
:1500: Drill
:2500: Airplane propeller
:35 000: Dremel
:60 000: Uranium enrichment centrifuge
:300 000: Dental drill

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Telescopes]]

Talk:3047: Rotary Tool

2025-02-07T16:59:43Z

Rps: 16 rpm

How come it's at 0.017 RPM for a minute?? and yet 1 RPM for a second? pls fix this randall [[User:Midnightvortigaunt|Midnightvortigaunt]] ([[User talk:Midnightvortigaunt|talk]]) 18:01, 5 February 2025 (UTC)
:Its 0.017 RPM for the minute hand. The minute hand revolves once per hour or at 1/60 RPM ≈ 0,017 RPM --[[Special:Contributions/172.71.148.59|172.71.148.59]] 18:14, 5 February 2025 (UTC)
::Ohhh that makes sense I didn't think about it like that [[User:Midnightvortigaunt|Midnightvortigaunt]] ([[User talk:Midnightvortigaunt|talk]]) 19:27, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

How come the comment above is invisible to me? [[Special:Contributions/172.68.245.229|172.68.245.229]] 18:03, 5 February 2025 (UTC)
:Possibly because people indented with spaces rather than with colons? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.79.77|162.158.79.77]] 19:40, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

72 RPM for a record player...? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.25|162.158.74.25]] 18:08, 5 February 2025 (UTC)
:I could only find 78 RPM disks in the german wikipedia. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.114.56|172.70.114.56]] 18:41, 5 February 2025 (UTC)
:I came here to make the same comment: 72 is most probably a typo. The old records (at this date, '''very''' old, since the transition to vinyl records was 1948 to 1958 (in the US)) were 78 rpm, not 72 rpm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonograph_record [[User:Rps|Rps]] ([[User talk:Rps|talk]]) 19:30, 5 February 2025 (UTC)
::72 is (for example) relevent to font sizes (size 1 = 1/72 of an inch, size 72 = 1 inch), which might therefore have envaigled Randall's head for numbers by a different route, and got him confused. Conceivably he ''has'' had to deal with playing old 78s, but probably not for a long time... even the retro-revival of vinyl, recently, has probably not had quite so many ''old'' old records released to fill such nostalgic needs. So an easy brain-fudge/thinko to trip over on. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.48|162.158.74.48]] 00:54, 6 February 2025 (UTC)
:There used to be a record label call 72RPM records. {{unsigned ip|172.69.229.146|19:07, 5 February 2025 (UTC)}}

We need one of those tables in here. [[User:DollarStoreBa'al|DollarStoreBa'al]] ([[User talk:DollarStoreBa'al|talk]]) 18:37, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

I made a change to the explanation that all of these numbers are realistic because, I checked out the speed of dental drills and they really do rotate that fast. I haven't checked out all of the other tools, but I suspect that they are also accurate. If you find that any of them are misstated, please correct my correction. [[User:Rtanenbaum|Rtanenbaum]] ([[User talk:Rtanenbaum|talk]]) 22:38, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

'''TABLE REQUEST'''
When someone uploads a table, I'd like to recommend a second column for the frequency / reciprocal of the speed. "0.000000000073 minutes" is one every 13.7 billion minutes, or ~26,000 years. Thanks! [[Special:Contributions/172.70.46.107|172.70.46.107]] 20:20, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

: Me again. Should the column header "revolution time" be "rotation time"? In every instance, the axis of motion is within the object itself; even the second/minute/hour hands go around the axis. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.76.73|141.101.76.73]] 16:41, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

'''TRIVIA''' 16 2/3 RPM phonographs were used for some voice-recorings back in the day. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.26.24|172.68.26.24]] 21:01, 5 February 2025 (UTC)
: My parent's old record player (60's, probably) had 4 possible speeds: 16, 33, 45, 78. By the early 80's the current ones only had 33 and 45. [[User:Rps|Rps]] ([[User talk:Rps|talk]]) 16:59, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

'''Album''' goes back to stacks of 78s. A symphony or opera would be 2, 3, 4 or more disks. They were bound like a photo-album with a leaf for each disk. '''"78"''' wasn't "standardized" until the format was fading. ''3600-rpm motor and 46-tooth gear'' is incomplete (one tooth gear??) Early discs were from 60 to 130 rpm. Users would adjust speed by ear (also to ease pitch-matching for karaoke). Only as LPs arrived did someone invent the number "78.26 rpm" (no recordplayer and few lathes of the period were near that accurate). --[[User:PRR|PRR]] ([[User talk:PRR|talk]]) 02:34, 6 February 2025 (UTC)
: Indeed, my parents had a large collection of old records and at least one had a speed marking of 80rpm.--[[Special:Contributions/172.68.186.43|172.68.186.43]] 09:17, 6 February 2025 (UTC)
:With wind-up players, a lot of them started off playing at one speed and ended playing at a completely different one anyway...[[Special:Contributions/172.68.186.50|172.68.186.50]] 09:43, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

I suspect there's not many consumers needing a Uranium Enrichment Centrifuge... at least outside of a few countries in the Middle East. --[[Special:Contributions/172.70.58.6|172.70.58.6]] 08:50, 6 February 2025 (UTC)
:Might face some regulatory / export license issues too.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.129|172.70.86.129]] 11:34, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

I feel like there was a lost opportunity to have Dr. Who's Sonic Screwdriver on the list. Maybe the rpms are unknown.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.159.107|162.158.159.107]] 13:05, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

The table says that 0.00070 ''"seems off; a sidereal day is 23.93 hours"''. That's just because (like all of the other settings) 0.00070 is quoted with only 2 significant digits. Every period between 23.64 and 23.98 hours would round to 0.00070 RPM. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.134.199|162.158.134.199]] 13:58, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

The question I have is: why are dental drill speeds so high? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.247.92|172.70.247.92]] 17:21, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

:: "''why are dental drill speeds so high?''" It hurts less. (Are you old enough to remember routine use of belt-driven dental drills?) You can cut a given amount of material (wood, steel, tooth) quickly with heavy force or high speed. Neither is really fun, but hi-speed is generally preferred. --[[User:PRR|PRR]] ([[User talk:PRR|talk]]) 19:08, 6 February 2025 (UTC)
:::Although some materials behave badly to heat (either work-hardening, for some alloys, or melting/burning, like plastics) and that's why variable-speed hand-drills/etc usefully have low speeds (for essentially the same force, when that's done via reostat rather than an actual gearbox). On the few occasions I've had my teeth drilled, I'm pretty sure I've detected the pungent smell of fried tooth-fragments, but it was nothing like as strong as smelling my own nose-flesh being burnt one of the times I had it cauterised to try (and fail) to prevent excessive nosebleeds. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.79.139|172.69.79.139]] 21:15, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

Talk:3047: Rotary Tool

2025-02-05T19:30:00Z

Rps: 72 rpm most probably a typo

Talk:3039: Human Altitude

2025-01-20T17:01:21Z

Rps: Gemini 11 flight 1,374 kilometers apogee

I splurged a few paragraphs to try to deal with each detail (and a few things not ''directly'' obvious, but related). However, it's a mess and here (UK) it's basically past my bedtime and I have an early(ish) start tomorrow so... I know that if I had spent another half hour on it, it would have been tighter (less florid?), and would be linking to Yuri Gagarin, Montgolfier, Hubble, man-capable chinese kites, the likes of George Cayley, etc. And I never actually ''mentioned'' the Title Text, though the last paragraph I put is sort of relevent so might just need an "In the title text, it says ..., and, as it happens, ...". I shall leave it up to the editing-gods as to whether my sacrifice is acceptable or entirely in vain... Such is life! And so, goodnight. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.205.119|172.68.205.119]] 01:39, 18 January 2025 (UTC)
:I linked up a couple Wikipedia articles with [[Template:w]] and wish I could add all of those things, but alas: today’s the last day of the semester on a 3 day weekend here in the States and I’ve been sick all week. I’m going to be going now to work on my missing assignments and hopefully finish them, really wish that we can finish up the explanation as quick as we usually do! '''[[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]][[User talk:42.book.addict|Talk to me!]]''' 01:48, 18 January 2025 (UTC)
It seems strange how jagged this is and how low the lows are. Since roughly 1930 (certainly since 1940 at the very latest) someone, somewhere in the world has been flying in an airplane, at a minimum of probably 4.5km for the lowest person. And since like 1955 there's always at least someone over like 7km roughly, and since the jet age like 10km+. This isn't the kind of carelessness that xkcd is known for, unless I'm missing something.[[User:Kchinger|Kchinger]] ([[User talk:Kchinger|talk]]) 03:27, 18 January 2025 (UTC)kchinger
:The Apollo part of the graph implies an at least weekly, probably daily or finer resolution. Aviation unlikely reached 4.5 km above surface on a daily basis until transpacific high altitude airliners became a regularity well after WW2. Planes of the 1930s could achieve greater heights, but usually only attempted when moutains forced them to (so it was not height above ground) and high altitude Zeppelin bombers of WW1 did not fly on a daily basis, sometimes leaving week long gaps between campaigns. However, the pre-airplane lows are still wrong: Pole vaulting has been documented since ancient egypts for crossing of crevices, bodies of water, etc. giving a guaranteed minimum of 2-3 meters. Cliff jumping in the 10s of meters range is also likely to have occured daily somewhere on the globe long before the 20th century and I would not be surprised if some tyrannt created a phase of more than 100 m daily by intensive cliff throwing. (As with the ancient chineses kite observation flights, it might be interesting to extend this graph well into the past, at least up to Spartan postnatal parenthood planning.) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.250.194|172.70.250.194]] 16:06, 18 January 2025 (UTC)
::''Aviation unlikely reached 4.5 km above surface on a daily basis until transpacific high altitude airliners became a regularity well after WW2. Planes of the 1930s could achieve greater heights, but usually only attempted when moutains forced them to...'' The limit is the humans. Past 10k or 15k feet (~4.5km) they go loopy then pass out. Pressurized cabins are costly. Wiley Post flew past 17,000 ft (to 50kft!) in 1934 with a pot on his head, after two other suits split their seams. War forces high flight: the B-17 crews had oxygen bottles and electric heat suits; they did fly about every day but thin air was the least of their problems. B-25 was pressurized but not nice inside. The Constellation (the world's finest tri-motor) was one of the first shirtsleeve cabins, to 24,000 ft (7,300m), but was a very premium ride. The DC-2, DC-3, and DC-4 were unpressurized (a few test DC-4s tried it). Piston engine output tends to zero by 55k ft, even with supercharger. The real move to high altitude comes with turbojets (Comet is credited with first pressurized production passenger plane), Boeing 707, Caravelle, DC8, etc which often work better far above 20k feet. --[[User:PRR|PRR]] ([[User talk:PRR|talk]]) 20:09, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

For the "Apollo bits", I actually have (fairly) precise data, but the question is whether the spiky bits resemble the reality at all. Here's a version with accurately positioned timestamps, but with the the altitude normalised. Launch is at bottom, time in lunar orbit is at top. To keep the data short I have removed the 'oscillation in orbit" of them all (except for 13, which ''just'' looped around and came straight back out again), and the track of the landers (as never really gets any ''further'' away, averaged over a lunar orbiter orbit) as these things aren't really isn't visible if overviewing the whole program. Blue=orbit-only, Green=orbit-with-landing, Magenta is 13's mission. All sat on a month-start scale (thicker lines are year-starts), for reference.
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{{cob}}
If you want to see it, copy the text into a file, save/rename as a .svg and open it in any modern browser. (There are other ways of opening SVGs, but that's probably the easiest way for most of those who don't have a preference.) ...to make it look more like the comic, I suggest you make the stroke-width for the missionLines group '''''huuuuuuge!!!!''''' ;) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.118|162.158.74.118]] 21:14, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

Some of the text (both in the explanation and the "into snow or water" in the title text) seems to suggest a "who wasn't shortly killed" that isn't stated in the chart. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.246.150|172.69.246.150]] 05:55, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

:"into snow or water" is in the title text which is about surviving... --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 13:05, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

I wonder why the chart does not consider parachutes? They might have been available around the same time as balloons, maybe earlier? [[User:Captain Nemo|Captain Nemo]] ([[User talk:Captain Nemo|talk]]) 12:29, 18 January 2025 (UTC)
:A parachutist can onyl start as high as his ballon, so that would make no difference until paragliding became a sport (way too late). However, most highs are still utterly wrong due to the omission of high altitude balooning from the mid-19th century onwards: It seems that no true airplane has ever beaten older baloon records. AT ALL. In fact, among all the objects capable of aerodynamic flight, only the X-2, the X-15 and the Space Shuttle set new 'maximum manned altidude' records going beyond aerostats of their time. However, all three ascended in balistic, rocketpowered flight, only using the lift of their wings during return. So humanitys pinnacle has always been defined by people thrown of cliffs, people attached to kites, peoples in baloons or people on rockets. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.250.194|172.70.250.194]] 16:06, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

huh. no joke comic. [[user talk:lett‪herebedarklight|youtu.be/miLcaqq2Zpk]] 15:43, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuan_Huangtou Yuan Huangtou] is a strong contender for the question in the title text. As a punishment he was sent to the sky on a big kite which was then let go. He came down 2.5 km away and survived. It seems entirely possible that he may have reached altitudes of several hundred meters. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.95.196|162.158.95.196]] 19:05, 18 January 2025 (UTC)
:From my recollection of a book on Chinese kite history, I'd put the max for a person-carrying kite at around a couple hundred meters. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.41.9|162.158.41.9]] 04:59, 19 January 2025 (UTC)
:As a technical argument, I'd mention that what makes a kite a kite is that it is tethered (albeit dynamically, whether to a winch or a firmly ground-based handler, rather than necessarily ''tied to the ground''; this makes the kites in kite-surfing/sailing/skating/etc a bit of an edge condition, but still valid as the canchor' is only ever itself airborne by temporarily depleting the kite's 'lift ability').
:Unless it was at the end of a 2.5km tether, at least part of the time the kite was released became a glider. And the means for keeping a glider up (and then ultimately not descending too fast!) are somewhat different from how you make a kite controllable. Even if you successfully raised a man-kite up and brought them back down several times (getting both the payer-out person ''and'' the payload-person used to how to control the kite-flight), the attitude and augmenting flight-surfaces that the kite used to get/keep/maintain height would probably be entirely wrong (perhaps even counterproductive!) when the release happens and the 'passenger' needs to now suddenly develop the need to "fly a glider" (or, maybe, a suboptimal parasail)
:I would not be surprised if many (reluctant) 'test pilots' failed to work out how not to stall (and other forms of flight-failure) in the time and distance they had before they reached the ground. The later ones ''might'' have a better hash of it ''if'' they were taken to witness their first compatriots' efforts (and those initial 'candidates' were able to shout down what they were feeling/doing, during their final fateful moments, to assist both the builders and future-fliers)... But, in the days before ''any'' actual aviation experience (let alone any form of flight-recorder, for both easier detailing of events and the repeatable playback for their better analysis), quite a bit of luck (or some coincidentally instinctive panic-induced response to falling, perhaps somehow harking back to the most recent common ancestor with a sugarglider/flying-squirrel/etc) will have played a part in whoever it might have been who rode a once-kite-now-glider down.
:Or, possibly, part of the luck was that the released tether was long enough to ''drag'' on the ground (given the options for rope/chord, around that time, and possibly the spool it was unspooled from, before the spool itself was released (by accident/design)), and with a strong enough wind and a consistently 'draggy' free-tether, it maintained a kite-like flight profile for the suggested distance (never being any higher than when ground-tethered, but only ''very gradually'' losing its initial height), such that the CFIT at the end was a 'survivable' (legs first? kite-structure acted as an initial crumple-zone?) landing.
:Of course, it's at least partly a legendary account. Could be somewhat contrived from retellings and embelishments, 'originally' just being (out of many such 'experiments' with 'volunteers') a controlled rise that was then re-winched-in, conflated with what happened when the tether snapped/etc, during a particularly windy day, and where the resulting wreckage was discovered. I think it's ''possible'' it happened (and one might even be able to plan to re-enact it, with modern knowledge of aeronautics and hands-on experience with all the more recent methods and means of flying), but it sounds like it became known ''only'' because it was a memetic (and maybe composite) success, only having to compete with the few "glorious failures", not the many occasions where some basic idea (that ''may'' have eventually led to better ideas) just didn't work ''or'' notably fail. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.160.195|172.70.160.195]] 14:52, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

11 paragraphs should be 5-7. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.151.155|172.71.151.155]] 05:04, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

Annotated the image [https://imgur.com/a/nQ3FZdi here]... Green line is "current absolute record" (assuming the truth of the plot), blue line is "highest height that will now always have someone higher" (again, going by the plot), red line is "record by a living individual" (''based'' upon the plot, and several historical truths I could discern, but probably getting to be as much speculative as the original joke-plot-with-a-passing-basis-in-fact). [[Special:Contributions/172.69.79.164|172.69.79.164]] 01:39, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

In 1966 there should be a peak above 1000km, the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemini_11 Gemini 11 flight], September 12-15, 1966, which reached an apogee of 1,374 kilometers. [[User:Rps|Rps]] ([[User talk:Rps|talk]]) 17:01, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

Talk:3008: Proterozoic Rocks

2024-11-07T16:40:46Z

Rps: Redundant edit

So the last panel refers to the unseen birth of a rock? How are rocks even born?:
:Farther - does is mean father back, or further ahead in time? If ahead it could mean Randall do not think there will be any eyes left to see in 500 million years time. Which is not unlikely. Earth will not stay inhabitable much longer than that (probably 800 million years, then the seas will have evaporated). --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 08:30, 7 November 2024 (UTC)
:A few ways. Fusion likely formed many elements, and neutron star death possibly the rest of the naturally occurring ones. When those started sticking together they would form rocks. The type likely being referred to here is probably sediment being compressed and former a cohesive stone, magma crystalizing, or compression of the latter two types of rocks into different types of rocks. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.124.222|172.71.124.222]] 06:52, 7 November 2024 (UTC)
:I think in this context it was by up welling magma and they are only rare because plate tectonics and erosion has recycled 99.9X% of them. [[User:RIIW - Ponder it|RIIW - Ponder it]] ([[User talk:RIIW - Ponder it|talk]]) 07:58, 7 November 2024 (UTC)
:First the mommy rock and the daddy rock fall in love... [[Special:Contributions/172.71.175.16|172.71.175.16]] 15:19, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

Makes me think of the manga ''Houseki No Kuni'' (''Land of the Lustrous'') and how effortlessly it depicts thousands and millions of years passing in a blink. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.159.228|162.158.159.228]] 08:00, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

Guess Randall didn't want to acknowledge the results. Can't say I blame him. [[User:CalibansCreations|'''Caliban''']] ([[User talk:CalibansCreations|talk]]) 08:16, 7 November 2024 (UTC)
:Well it did end in an all black panel... Like his mood. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 08:30, 7 November 2024 (UTC)
:Maybe he thinks she can still win? [[Special:Contributions/172.71.31.39|172.71.31.39]] 13:05, 7 November 2024 (UTC)
:Oh, I think everything in this comic speaks that Randall is acutely aware of the results. Meditating on eon-old stones is a mental health exercise. I feel him. - and gave the explanation a try. [[User:Transgalactic|Transgalactic]] ([[User talk:Transgalactic|talk]]) 13:49, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

Oh, I ''like'' that title text. It has a poetic quality. (It refers to when various part of animal anatomy first evolved, but does so in a really nice way.) --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.24|162.158.74.24]] 08:47, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

I'd suggest that the explanation should at least include the other interpretation of "farther", namely "farther back in time". I think that's the more obvious one, personally: he's saying these rocks are a billion years old, eyes evolved 500 million years ago and that vast abyss of time "stretches back as far as the eye can see ... and then 500 million years farther" [back]. As in, these rocks existed for 500 million years in a world where there were no eyes. Right? I don't know how the future got involved, it seems to be pretty clearly about the past.[[User:ModelD|ModelD]] ([[User talk:ModelD|talk]]) 14:25, 7 November 2024 (UTC)
:Yeah, that description of 'farther back in time' really seems to make more sense here, since the comic talks about how the rocks were there for roughly that long before eyes existed, and it keeps with the poetic, reflective nature of the rest of the comic, while the future interpretation feels like a bit of a jump from one theme to another. [[User:UnbiasedBrigade|UnbiasedBrigade]] ([[User talk:UnbiasedBrigade|talk]]) 15:03, 7 November 2024 (UTC)
: I concur. This is the interpretation I had before coming to explainxkcd. I think that efforts to make the cartoon be about current events impose a meaning on it that the cartoonist is not yet ready to express. The cartoon appeared very late, and (speaking of imposing a meaning on a cartoon) I imagine Randall struggled mightily to come up with an idea that was not some variation on a fireball of wrath consuming the USA and everything in it. I would also remove the climate-change reference as an overreaching interpretation. For what it's worth, Randall's living depends on computer use by his audience, and computer use is a massive contributor to anthropogenic climate change. I have read repeatedly that, in order to persuade someone to adopt a desired behavior, the proponent has to model it. In this case, by massive reductions in personal energy usage ... which will simultaneously make your life miserable and put you out of the public eye, where no one can see the correct behavior you're modeling. How I learned to stop worrying and love carbon dioxide. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.42.96|162.158.42.96]] 15:13, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

Um. Pretty sure this comic has nothing to do with the 2024 election. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.174.23|162.158.174.23]] 15:14, 7 November 2024 (UTC)
: It seems at least mildly relevant. It's a huge, recent event; of a sort that Randall is known to care a lot about; and the meditative mood being evoked seems appropriate. I wouldn't call it an "election comic" or anything, but the trivial is certainly relevant. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.58.132|172.69.58.132]] 16:18, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

Oops, I read the 16:14 version https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=3008:_Proterozoic_Rocks&oldid=356138 , decided to edit the article and didn't notice that it had already been changed. I don't know if I should remove my edit or merge the 2 edits? [[User:Rps|Rps]] ([[User talk:Rps|talk]]) 16:40, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

3008: Proterozoic Rocks

2024-11-07T16:33:42Z

Rps: My explanation for the joke of the last (black) panel.

{{comic
| number = 3008
| date = November 6, 2024
| title = Proterozoic Rocks
| image = proterozoic_rocks_2x.png
| imagesize = 740x272px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = These rocks are from a time before eyes, brains, and bones, pieces of a land warmed by an unseen sun.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a BLIND PROTEROZOIC BOT - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

{{w|Proterozoic}} rocks such as the 1.1 billion-year-old rocks in the comic were formed 2500 to 538.8 million years ago, and some of them survived the tectonic movements until today. Proterozoic rocks which were formed from sediment at the bottom of an inland sea such as the former {{w|Western Interior Seaway}} would be placed in North America today.

Animal life and the first animal [https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1716824114 eyes developed on trilobites] half a billion years ago, around the transition between the proterozoic and the phanerozoic {{w|Cambrian}} period, which saw a great proliferation of biological diversity(Also known as the Cambrian Explosion).

In the last two panels Cueball talks about feeling a connection to the rock, which "spans a vast abyss of time that stretches back as far as the eye can see. And then 500 million years farther." The last black panel illustrates the "500 million years farther" than "the eye can see" (because there were no eyes to see them).

This also could be interpreted as expressing the need to connect to something that lasts vastly beyond the current turbulent era, to put it into perspective and to find strength in knowing that nature transcends human troubles. At the same time the ultimate black panel indicates the even more distant past without complex eye-bearing life, putting themselves into the position of being effectively as sightless as anything that existed that long ago, despite it not actually being a darkened time by the standards of any modern observer.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

:[Cueball is seen at a distance, walking amid a rocky landscape.]
:I love being near Proterozoic rocks.
:These ones are 1.1 billion years old.
:That's so, '''''so''''' old.

:[Cueball standing next to a rock.]
:Eyes evolved half a billion years ago. The first time a rock was ever looked at, these rocks were already 500 million years old.

:[Cueball sitting atop a large rock.]
:People say geologic time makes them feel small. But when I touch this rock, it's like I'm a part of it, spanning a vast abyss of time that stretches back as far as the eye can see.

:[A completely black panel except for text in white lettering.]
:And then 500 million years farther.

== Trivia ==

This comic was published on the day when {{w|Donald Trump}}'s re-election as president of the USA was announced. Randall was vocal in his support for oppositional candidate {{w|Kamala Harris}}; the xkcd homepage featured [https://web.archive.org/web/20241106175959im_/https://imgs.xkcd.com/news/harris_news@2x.png a drawing with a "Vote for Harris" sign] [https://web.archive.org/web/20241106215812/https://xkcd.com/ during the run-up to the election]. Trump's renewed presidency (at a time when the [https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/science/climate-issues/degrees-matter +1.5°C target] to limit global warming is [https://climate.copernicus.eu/copernicus-2024-virtually-certain-be-warmest-year-and-first-year-above-15degc most likely already missed]) is predicted to [https://www.climatechangenews.com/2024/11/06/us-election-climate-experts-react-to-donald-trumps-victory/ exacerbate climate change], which is a hazard to many complex life forms including humans.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:All Comics]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Geology]]
[[Category:Biology]]
[[Category:Comics with inverted brightness]]

Talk:2977: Three Kinds of Research

2024-09-19T10:46:11Z

Rps: example of the 3rd kind of research

Aren't there two missing ones: standard model+standard circumstances (i.e. remembering you have to have something to turn in and it's the night before the science fair) and novel theory+novel circumstances (i.e. what if the universe is actually a seven dimensional tuna salad sandwich?) [[User:RegularSizedGuy|RegularSizedGuy]] ([[User talk:RegularSizedGuy|talk]]) 04:25, 27 August 2024 (UTC)
:ah, but that isn't ''professional'' research. [[user talk:lettherebedarklight|youtu.be/miLcaqq2Zpk]] 06:20, 27 August 2024 (UTC)
::I shall add this to the list: miLcaqq2Zpk {{unsigned ip|162.158.197.157|14:56, 27 August 2024}} (whatever the reason/need was to say this)
::Standard model+standard circumstances, in moderation, is an essential part of science. Repeating an experiment a few times helps show what the real results are. If anything, there tends to be an unfortunate bias to not repeating experiments enough (harder to get them funded/published than it should be). It becomes a standard model and standard circumstances by repetition. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.206.209|172.70.206.209]] 07:15, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

I originally thought that Hairy was mapping every tree as in like a binary tree, and was covered in plants for some other, possibly related reason. Also, what's this about <blah>? [[Special:Contributions/172.69.22.50|172.69.22.50]] 20:38, 27 August 2024 (UTC)
:Knowing Randall, this ''was'' a mathematical investigation, but Hairy got a little more "into the (initially mathematical) trees" than intended. Might be worth expanding on this, but it's (intentionally, thus humorously) vague so it could have a lot of different thoughts attached to it.
:As to the other bit:
:*Someone wrote a non sequitur trolling on that subject you mentioned, even though the comic has absolutely nothing to do with it (and the comments weren't exactly a notably intellectual analysis, anyway, even if it had been). Others fed the troll a bit, there was some editing done and then a resurgence (just as poorly done) that you got to see but had left of most of the early 'context' absent.
:*It's all readable in the page history. Not worth reading, IMO, but it's there. But now not ''here''. Bye bye the whole (limited) discussion as a non-executive decision on my part.
:*I would not normally delete/edit others' comments from Talk (especially of regulars), but definitely more smoke than fire and more heat than light so no loss. If established users wish to create a subsection for it, and paste it all back in, they're welcome to and can easily do so. Until then, any other anon-IP or recently created username that starts up with another clear and irrelevent trolling should probably consider themselves fair game to be deleted again (and perhaps by actual named editors/admin), plus any purely troll-feeding replies that had only that relevence.
:HTH, HAND. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.90|172.70.91.90]] 23:59, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

Mapping individual trees is an actual thing, and how to do that is a field of research. I had a quick look and saw that it has come a long way since I gave up studying Forestry to become a teacher instead: [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0303243420301665 Mapping individual trees with airborne laser scanning data...] [https://www.nature.com/articles/s41597-023-02000-w Individual structure mapping over six million trees for NYC] [https://woodsapp.com/en/how-to-document-habitat-trees-with-woodsapp/ app for GPS-mapping so-called "habitat trees" that provide ecological niches and thus get special protection to promote biodiversity] Germany seems to be much bigger on this than other countries; anyway I can well remember how this kind of thing was a typical interns' task in my day and obviously [https://www.ls.tum.de/fileadmin/w00bww/ls/download/jobs/240325_praktikum-arboreo.pdf still is]. It's fairly reasonable to assume, though, that this may not have been exactly on top of Randall's mind. [[User:PaulEberhardt|PaulEberhardt]] ([[User talk:PaulEberhardt|talk]]) 08:05, 29 August 2024 (UTC)
:Come to think of it, Hairy doesn't specify a particular area or type of tree, so he may have got carried away after all. [[User:PaulEberhardt|PaulEberhardt]] ([[User talk:PaulEberhardt|talk]]) 08:11, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

What if we apply a novel theory to novel circumstances? ;) [[Special:Contributions/172.69.71.83|172.69.71.83]] 18:55, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

The state of California did actually map every tree in the state: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/heres-map-all-trees-california-180955708/

I previously added a paragraph about Hairy's gender which then got removed because it was bloated by further edits. (At least, I hope that was the reason.) I've reintroduced a more concise explanation that should stand the test of time as it is both interesting and important IMHO. Please note that I have deliberately not used the term 'non-binary' as this is not a catch-all term for any gender-diverse individual. I like the term 'gender-expansive' but not everyone knows what that means. :-)[[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.254|172.70.91.254]] 18:34, 15 September 2024 (UTC)
:Trouble is, the absolutely most likely explanation is that it was a their-plural. Then that it's their-indetermined (by the speaker). The their-otherness (self-proclaimed alternate-gender) option is a valid but still exceptional reason, in comparison. If in doubt about ''which'' decision was made, ''we'' could fall back to number two (if we're aware enough about sensitivity), but only because we're not yet entrusted with the original reason, not knowing about ''their'' knowledge (or otherwise), and attitude, of Hairy's particular scenario. Until someone says "my pronouns are...", you could just as much annoy them by hypercorrecting the common assumptions. (There are certain types I wouldn't mind annoying, because one needn't tolerate intolerance, but there's not just that to consider.) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.100|172.70.91.100]] 22:15, 15 September 2024 (UTC)
::I disagree. Given the scale of the endeavour as demonstrated by how dishevelled Hairy looks, it seems to me that the idea is that Hairy made that map *alone*. I guess it's possible that the title text is referring to multiple people, but I never interpreted it like that. The map being a solo project also fits with the comedy of the comic.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.123|172.70.90.123]] 23:55, 15 September 2024 (UTC)
:::Hairy might just be the only (or first) one that got back from the woods with the results, or the ''most'' presentable and/or effusively capable for the task of public speaking. I doubt the other two were sole-authors*, either, of their own publications (assumed not an actual doctoral 'viva', which would be more personal and individual) and a double-act (or group) presentation team isn't generally the norm unless you're going for actual theatrics in announcing your (entertaining) results to the world. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.76|172.70.91.76]] 11:03, 16 September 2024 (UTC)
:::<nowiki>*</nowiki> - meant to say, sole authors of the paper that described how "we" (their team) provided the presentation material. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.53|172.70.91.53]] 11:10, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

An example of the 3rd kind of research: https://x.com/jasoncrawford/status/1835819853157962137 : Listing "every Anglo-Saxon whose name we know". [[User:Rps|Rps]] ([[User talk:Rps|talk]])

Talk:386: Duty Calls

2024-08-16T13:15:37Z

Rps: Using this compulsion to get answers

Doesn't look like anyone's touched this during its spotlight as the Incomplete Article of the Day. But really, what else can we say? [[Special:Contributions/199.27.128.66|199.27.128.66]] 03:06, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Maybe how deeply compelling the "need" to fix something wrong on the Internet is? It's not just a plain correction.... it gnaws at you...[[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.8|108.162.219.8]] 03:17, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

:Related: some time ago I saw someone (jokingly?) explaining her technique to get replies to her questions: first, using her username, ask the question in the relevant forum, reddit, etc.; then, using another username, post a wrong answer. Shortly after someone will correct it and supply a correct answer. Unfortunately I didn't save the tweet(?) and I don't think I could find it again. [[User:Rps|Rps]] ([[User talk:Rps|talk]]) 13:15, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

Tried to flesh out/improve the analysis. Still needs some editing for clarity [I'm not sure how formal the tone of this wiki is supposed to be?] but hopefully it's an improvement on the previous edit. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.56|108.162.216.56]] 17:47, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

I think its good. Hits on all the points, unless anyone sees differently I think it adequately explains the comic. I think all the editing from here is flow and stylistic stuff. And that's minimal. --[[User:Lackadaisical|Lackadaisical]] ([[User talk:Lackadaisical|talk]]) 20:22, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

It's a Cunningham's law reference, guys, that's it. {{unsigned ip|141.101.106.155|11:38, 26 February 2015}}

The title "Duty Calls" has a double meaning. One that Cueball needs to go "fix" the internet and that he needs to "be" with his S/O. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.47|108.162.216.47]] 21:04, 26 August 2015 (UTC){{unsigned ip|127.0.0.1}}

I think this explanation misses the case when someone is ''factually'' wrong on the internet, and doesn't just have a different opinion. For example, when someone on Facebook "discovers" that the Mercator map projection is "wrong" and that the "true" one is Gall-Peters (true story), I believe even Randall would feel the need to say something. But of course, the border between factual errors and arguing is very thin... [[Special:Contributions/162.158.150.64|162.158.150.64]] 09:50, 8 June 2017 (UTC)

:I just added an "alternative interpretation" for just this case. [[User:Rps|Rps]] ([[User talk:Rps|talk]]) 13:11, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

What about when you are legitimately trying to help someone? {{unsigned ip|172.69.42.130|19:09, 12 November 2020}}

Oh dear, Cueball represents me here. [[User:Beanie|Beanie]] ([[User talk:Beanie|talk]]) 11:52, 23 March 2021 (UTC)

See [https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Cunningham%27s_Law Cunningham's Law] {{unsigned ip|172.68.50.189|19:10, 13 March 2022}}

Talk:2928: Software Testing Day

2024-05-06T13:09:32Z

Rps: After Midnight

What holiday are they referring to? In the UK we will have a long weekend due to the Early May Bank Holiday. But May Day isn't a "thing" in the USA, is it? Or should we just assume this is set in Britain? [[User:Zeimusu|Zeimusu]] ([[User talk:Zeimusu|talk]]) 13:45, 4 May 2024 (UTC)
:Well, that's refering to the official STD(!) set to be on January 0th (+24hr+12hr), so I don't think it's a topical scene.
:It looks like our Leftpondian friends have official ''nationwide'' 'holidays' on: New Year's Day (1/Jan), Martin Luther King, Jr, Day. (3rd Monday in January), Inauguration Day (20/Jan, every 4 years), Presidents Day (3rd Monday in February), Memorial Day (last Monday in May), Juneteenth (19/Jun), Independence Day (4/Jul), Labor Day (1st Monday in September), Columbus Day (2nd Monday in October), Veterans Day (11/Nov), Thanksgiving Day (4th Thursday in November), Christmas Day (25/Dec). And then there'll be additional state/more local days, no doubt. (And, because of labo(u)r laws, or insufficient ones, I'm given to believe that might be more of an inconvenience/inapplicability to quite a lot of workers.)
:But this seems to be a highly specific 'QA'/software-testers' tradition, either within a particular company or across ''all'' such professionals. At least within the xkcd universe, which might have all kinds of other strangenesses to it that we're only seeing the vaguest outline of through these comics. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.242.188|172.71.242.188]] 17:37, 4 May 2024 (UTC)
:"May Day isn't a ''thing'' in the USA, is it?" -- Personal holiday. At my house (Maine USA) a maypole is customary (if snow allows). When I was very young (1950s California) we celebrated in kindergarten, but I think religious bigots cancelled that. --[[User:PRR|PRR]] ([[User talk:PRR|talk]]) 19:55, 4 May 2024 (UTC)

I exapnded the "hours on/after midnight" section a bit. Nearly put down that the 'official' day at times used to start at 6:00AM (or dawn, depending upon whether some form of consistent timekeeping or just practical astronomical cycles dominated), so that the post-midnight activities of people (very unusual, for most, but would include liturgical ceremonies) also belonged to the prior daylight cycle. And that "noon" was the "ninth hour" of the day (~3PM, give or take), before clock changes and civil practice moved it to midday. - But this really is beyond the scope of the above explanation, so mentioning it here instead. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.38.91|162.158.38.91]] 18:09, 4 May 2024 (UTC)
:I work in public transport, where we use times up to 32:00 but ignore daylight saving time on the night it switches (so on that night, 30:00 might be 5am or 7am in the sunday morning). Also, we have different notations for time as a specific point in the day (7:10) or as a duration (7h10). [[User:IIVQ|IIVQ]] ([[User talk:IIVQ|talk]]) 06:47, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

I'll just leave this here :) https://gist.github.com/timvisee/fcda9bbdff88d45cc9061606b4b923ca [[User:Elektrizikekswerk|Elektrizikekswerk]] ([[User talk:Elektrizikekswerk|talk]]) 07:28, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

Some years ago there were gigs at the local [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sB--qzE4JhE indie disco] which started after midnight (because, due to licensing rules, opening doors before midnight would imply extra costs, since it would count as an extra working day). When posting about those gigs I would write something like "1:00 in the night from Friday to Saturday", so as to not be ambiguous. [[User:Rps|Rps]] ([[User talk:Rps|talk]]) 13:09, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

2917: Types of Eclipse Photo

2024-04-09T13:23:46Z

Rps: Better link to the wikimedia commons (includes description)

{{comic
| number = 2917
| date = April 8, 2024
| title = Types of Eclipse Photo
| image = types_of_eclipse_photo_2x.png
| imagesize = 594x460px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = The most rare, top-tier eclipse photo would be the Solar Earth Eclipse, but the Apollo 12 crew's attempt to capture it was marred by camera shake. They said it looked spectacular, though.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by an AUSTRALIAN CLOUD FROM THE FUTURE - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This comic is about the {{w|Solar eclipse of April 8, 2024|recent total solar eclipse}} visible in North America. The last photograph refers to a {{w|Solar eclipse of July 22, 2028|2028 total solar eclipse}} that will cross the Australian continent. A photographer who took this cloudy photo during the 2024 eclipse would likely feel frustrated to the point of wanting to take a better one in Australia in 2028 - but only if the weather is better.

The title text refers to a [https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Apollo_12_view_of_Solar_Eclipse_(5052129615).jpg photograph] taken during the {{w|Apollo 12}} mission when the Earth came between the spacecraft and the Sun.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

:<big>Types of Eclipse Photo</big>

:[Eclipse during totality]
:The standard

:[Partial eclipse with lighter sky]
:The partial

:[Two Cueballs and Ponytail looking and pointing at the sky]
:The reaction shot

:[Eclipse during totality with red "ribbons" around the Moon]
:The fancy lens

:[A faint glow of light in the center]
:The focus issues

:[The rear of an SUV]
:The traffic jam

:[A dark circle on Earth's surface]
:The astronaut

:[A gray cover of clouds]
:The "frustratedly looking up the cloud situation in Australia for 2028"

==Trivia==
* '''This trivia section was created by a BOT but edited by a human'''
* The [https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/types_of_eclipse_photo.png standard size] image was uploaded with a resolution/size of 8920 by 6909, larger than the supposed 2x version at 1189 by 921. This was likely an error.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]
[[Category:Solar eclipses]]
[[Category:Astronomy]]
[[Category:Weather]]
[[Category:Photography]]

2913: Periodic Table Regions

2024-04-02T11:03:43Z

Rps: /* Table Sections */ Nuclear applications of Lithium and Beryllium

{{comic
| number = 2913
| date = March 29, 2024
| title = Periodic Table Regions
| image = periodic_table_regions_2x.png
| imagesize = 740x501px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Cesium-133, let it be. Cesium-134, let it be even more.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a LAWFUL NEUTRAL MURDER WEAPON COMMONLY USED TO MAKE SPARK PLUGS' VOICES SQUEAKY- Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

The {{w|periodic table}} is used to arrange {{w|chemical element}}s based on their properties. This comic groups them together into regions with labels humorously reflecting their properties, characteristics, or uses.

=== Table Sections ===

{| class=wikitable
! scope="col" | Section
! scope="col" | Real table
! scope="col" | Elements contained
! scope="col" | Explanation
|-
| Slightly fancy protons || Hydrogen || Hydrogen || Most hydrogen atoms (specifically of the isotope H-1, making up 99.9844% of all hydrogen on Earth) are a proton and an electron. Since the electron can be removed (so only a proton remains) and you can call that a H+ ion, [[Randall]] calls hydrogen atoms "slightly fancy protons".
|-
| Weird dirt || Lighter alkali and alkaline earth metals || Lithium, Beryllium || Lithium and beryllium, as some of the lightest elements, have unusual properties compared to heavier metals. Lithium, for instance, is the least dense metal on the periodic table, and is used in applications such as [https://www.rsc.org/periodic-table/element/3/lithium rechargeable batteries] and as a {{w|Lithium_(medication)|psychiatric medication}}. Beryllium is both toxic and transparent to x-rays, but also keeps its shape and stiffness over a wide range of temperatures, leading to its use in the primary mirrors of the [https://webb.nasa.gov/content/observatory/ote/mirrors/index.html#3 James Webb Space Telescope]. It was also used in F1, both in brake calipers and {{w|Beryllium#Applications|internal engine parts}}, before being outlawed (due to its toxicity). Also, {{w|Beryllium#Nuclear_applications|both}} {{w|Lithium#Nuclear|elements}} have nuclear applications.
|-
| Regular dirt || Middle alkali and alkaline earth metals || Sodium, Magnesium, Potassium, Calcium || Despite being metals, these are listed as "dirt" rather than "metal." Perhaps this is because they are commonly found in dirt, as they are essential nutrients for plant life and for many other forms of life, including humans.
|-
| Ends in a number, let it slumber. Ends in a letter, not much better. || Heavier alkali and alkaline earth metals || Rubidium, Strontium, Cesium, Barium, Francium, Radium || Highly reactive metals, some of which are commonly used as radioactive isotopes (which are known by a number; e.g. radium-223). The title text mentions cesium-133 and cesium-134, with the former being the only stable isotope of cesium. The phrase, "cesium-133, let it be," in the title text is a reference to the mnemonic used to remind one how to identify and to avoid {{w|poison ivy}}: "leaves of 3, let it be". Cesium-134 however isn't the most notorious radioactive isotope. That would likely be cesium-137.
|-
| Boring alloy metals. Probably crucial to the spark plug industry or something. (But one of them is radioactive so stay on your toes.) || The left transition metals || Scandium, Titanium, Vanadium, Chromium, Manganese, Yttrium, Zirconium, Niobium, Molybdenum, Technetium, Ruthenium, Hafnium, Tantalum, Tungsten, Rhenium, Osmium || Not actually so boring, but they tend to be used as constituents (sometimes as a small but vital trace) in alloys with specific uses, including {{w|stainless steel}}, {{w|Electric light|bulb filaments}} and {{w|Superconductivity|superconductors}}. A {{w|spark plug}} may use {{w|austenitic stainless steel}}, which includes chromium and (in some cases) molybdenum, for heat and oxidation resistance. {{w|Technetium}} is the lightest element that has no stable isotope and is thus radioactive. Technetium is commonly used in medical imaging.
|-
| Regular metals || The top transition metals || Titanium, Manganese, Iron, Cobalt, Nickel, Copper, Zinc, Aluminum, Silicon || Commonly known metals (and one metalloid, silicon). These all have important uses in construction and other major industries.
|-
| $$$$ || The platinum group || Rhodium, Palladium, Silver, Osmium, Iridium, Platinum, Gold || Rare and highly prized metals. The most expensive of these, osmium, is worth about $1,600 per gram as of when the comic was posted, despite not being appropriate for jewellery due to forming osmium tetroxide upon contact with air, which can irreversibly stain the human cornea, leading to blindness.
|-
| Weird metals || The "ordinary metals" and some transition metals || Gallium, Germanium, Cadmium, Indium, Tin, Mercury || These are more obscure than the other metals (except tin and mercury) and tend to have fewer or more specialized uses. Mercury is also the only metal that is liquid at room temperature, and gallium melts just above that at 30 °C (86 °F). Indium is one of the only metals able to be chewed like bubble gum. This is because it is non-toxic and extremely soft.
|-
| Boron (fool's carbon) || Boron || Boron || Just as like how {{w|pyrite}} is commonly called "fool's gold", Randall calls {{w|boron}} "fool's carbon" due to its similarities in the way both elements can make stable {{w|covalently bonded}} molecules. Many of boron's {{w|allotropes}} are also analogous with those of carbon.
|-
| You are here || Nonmetals || Carbon, Nitrogen, Oxygen, Phosphorus || Other than hydrogen, these are all the elements required to make {{w|DNA}}, and they make up the majority of atoms in other biological molecules, thus placing you over here.
|-
| Murder weapons || Ordinary metals and metalloids || Arsenic, Antimony, Tellurium, Thallium, Lead, Bismuth, Polonium || Arsenic, thallium, lead, and polonium are highly toxic and have been involved in many notorious poisoning cases. Antimony and tellurium are also hazardous, though to a lesser degree. Lead is also by far the most common metal used for making bullets, for which purpose it may be used by itself or alloyed with other metals (usually a small amount of tin, and an even smaller amount of antimony) and/or coated (most often with copper); for the reason, the term "lead poisoning", while originally referring to long term lead accumulation in the body (also called "{{w|saturnism}}", and known for more than 2000 years) is sometimes used as a euphemism (often with an element of dark humor) for gunshot wounds when discussing someone's cause of death. Bismuth is the odd one out, having little toxicity at all, but it is used in lead-free bullets and shot (although if this is the intention, iron really ought to be included for its own (very common) use in lead-free shot (of the variety commonly referred to as "steel shot"), in addition to its various other lethal uses).
|-
| Safety goggles required || The lighter halogens + some of group 16 || Fluorine, Sulfur, Chlorine, Selenium, Bromine || These elements are highly reactive, so safety goggles are required. Randall has previously mentioned the nasty properties of {{w|bromine}} at room temperature in [https://what-if.xkcd.com/50/ Extreme Boating] and the awful things you can do with {{w|fluorine}} in [https://what-if.xkcd.com/40/ Pressure Cooker].
|-
| Very specific health problems || Iodine and radon || Iodine, Radon || {{w|Radon}} gas is formed in the radioactive decay series of uranium and thorium, which occur in trace levels in many common minerals. The gravel and concrete used in construction include such minerals, and the radon is released into air via pores and cracks in the stone and concrete. The relatively poor ventilation in underground spaces such as basements and cellars can cause the radon to accumulate rather than being released into the environment. Eventually, the radon itself decays into other elements, which are also radioactive. Radon is chemically very inert and doesn't bind to anything, but it can still be inhaled, and its daughter elements can bind to dust particles. The radioactive materials, when inhaled, can cause damage to cells, especially in the lungs, with lung cancers as a possible long-term consequence. Iodine is a required nutrient that humans need in trace amounts to remain healthy, with an iodine deficiency typically causing thyroid problems such as goitre. Radioactive iodine is easily taken into the body, deliberately to counteract hyperthyroidism (by giving the thyroid gland radiation damage) or uncontrollably due to exposure to material in nuclear fallout/accidents. Giving high doses of 'normal' iodine would ideally flush out the problematic isotope. Even comparing the two radioactive effects, these two specific health problems are entirely unrelated, and it is only by coincidence that they are corner-to-corner on the periodic table.
|-
| Lawful Neutral || Noble gases || Helium, Neon, Argon, Krypton, Xenon || These elements are mostly unreactive, and are referred to as 'noble' as they typically do not associate with other elements. (The first three don't form chemical compounds at all, apart from things like unstable ionic complexes. The other two do form a few compounds, but these are rather difficult to synthesize and are quite reactive.)
Lawful Neutral is a reference to the {{w|Dungeons & Dragons}} alignment chart, which gives moral categories for characters. The chart goes from Lawful to Chaotic on one axis, and Good to Evil on another. Lawful Neutral means following the law without any bias towards Good or Evil, which could be exemplified by the unreactivity of the noble gases.
|-
| Don't bother learning their names – they're not staying long || Astatine and Period 7 from Rutherfordium onwards || Astatine, Rutherfordium, Dubnium, Seaborgium, Bohrium, Hassium, Meitnerium, Darmstadtium, Roentgenium, Copernicum, Nihonium, Flerovium, Moscovium, Livermorium, Tennessine, Oganesson || These elements are hard to produce in large quantities and decay within hours or less... in some cases, milliseconds. (Their names haven't exactly been stable, either, with previous multiple systems of placeholder names. For example, dubnium has been called nielsbohrium, hahnium, joliotium, unnilpentium, and eka-tantalum.)
|-
| Whoever figures out a better way to fit these up there gets the next Nobel Prize || The internal transition metals || Lanthanum, Cerium, Praseodymium, Neodymium, Promethium, Samarium, Europium, Gadolinium, Terbium, Dysprosium, Holmium, Erbium, Thulium, Ytterbium, Lutetium, Actinium, Thorium, Protactinium, Uranium, Neptunium, Plutonium, Americium, Curium, Berkelium, Californium, Einsteinium, Fermium, Mendelevium, Nobelium, Lawrencium|| The {{w|lanthanide}}s and {{w|actinide}}s are usually placed awkwardly "outside" of the main periodic table, most placements taking two elements out of their own row. There are alternative {{w|types of periodic tables}} with differing ways of displaying the elements, including some that [https://ptable.com/image/periodic-table-wide.svg keep the lanthanides and actinides in-line]; however, they are usually considered either less visually appealing or more difficult to understand.
|}

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

:[A periodic table with regions labeled. Regions are marked with shapes that have rounded edges and sometimes a chemical element can be partially in two regions.]

:[Hydrogen:]
:Slightly fancy protons
:[Lithium and beryllium:]
:Weird dirt
:[4 elements below:]
:Regular dirt
:[6 elements further below:]
:Ends in a number, let it slumber
:ends in a letter, not much better
:[Left side of the transition metals group:]
:Boring alloy metals
:Probably critical to the spark plug industry or something
:(but one of them is radioactive so stay on your toes)
:[Most of the top row of the transition metals + aluminum:]
:Regular metals
:[Below the rightmost "regular metals":]
:Weird metals
:[Between "boring alloy metals" and "weird metals":]
:$$$$
:[Boron:]
:Boron (fool's carbon)
:[Top-center of p-block:]
:You are here
:[Top-right of p-block, excluding the rightmost column:]
:Safety goggles required
:[5 uppermost elements of the rightmost column:]
:Lawful neutral
:[Iodine and radon:]
:Very specific health problems
:[Below and to the right of "weird metals":]
:Murder weapons
:[Bottom row from the fourth column onwards:]
:Don't bother learning their names - they're not staying long
:[The lanthanides and actinides below the rest of the table, two rows of fifteen elements, arrow pointing to a conspicuous gap in the third column of the main table where the fifteenth would ordinarily be:]
:Whoever figures out a better way to fit these up there gets the next Nobel Prize

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Chemistry]]

2913: Periodic Table Regions

2024-04-01T10:40:58Z

Rps: /* Table Sections */ Beryllium#Applications

{{comic
| number = 2913
| date = March 29, 2024
| title = Periodic Table Regions
| image = periodic_table_regions_2x.png
| imagesize = 740x501px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Cesium-133, let it be. Cesium-134, let it be even more.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a LAWFUL NEUTRAL MURDER WEAPON COMMONLY USED TO MAKE SPARK PLUGS' VOICES SQUEAKY- Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

The {{w|periodic table}} is used to arrange {{w|chemical element}}s based on their properties. This comic groups them together into regions with labels humorously reflecting their properties, characteristics, or uses.

=== Table Sections ===

{| class=wikitable
! scope="col" | Section
! scope="col" | Real table
! scope="col" | Elements contained
! scope="col" | Explanation
|-
| Slightly fancy protons || Hydrogen || Hydrogen || Most hydrogen atoms (specifically of the isotope H-1, making up 99.9844% of all hydrogen on Earth) are a proton and an electron. Since the electron can be removed (so only a proton remains) and you can call that a H+ ion, [[Randall]] calls hydrogen atoms "slightly fancy protons".
|-
| Weird dirt || Lighter alkali and alkaline earth metals || Lithium, Beryllium || Lithium and beryllium, as some of the lightest elements, have unusual properties compared to heavier metals. Lithium, for instance, is the least dense metal on the periodic table, and is used in applications such as [https://www.rsc.org/periodic-table/element/3/lithium rechargeable batteries] and as a {{w|Lithium_(medication)|psychiatric medication}}. Beryllium is both toxic and transparent to x-rays, but also keeps its shape and stiffness over a wide range of temperatures, leading to its use in the primary mirrors of the [https://webb.nasa.gov/content/observatory/ote/mirrors/index.html#3 James Webb Space Telescope]. It was also used in F1, both in brake calipers and {{w|Beryllium#Applications|internal engine parts}}, before being outlawed (due to its toxicity).
|-
| Regular dirt || Middle alkali and alkaline earth metals || Sodium, Magnesium, Potassium, Calcium || Despite being metals, these are listed as "dirt" rather than "metal." Perhaps this is because they are commonly found in dirt, as they are essential nutrients for plant life and for many other forms of life, including humans).
|-
| Ends in a number, let it slumber. Ends in a letter, not much better. || Heavier alkali and alkaline earth metals || Rubidium, Strontium, Cesium, Barium, Francium, Radium || Highly reactive metals, some of which are commonly used as radioactive isotopes (which are known by a number; e.g. radium-223). The title text mentions cesium-133 and cesium-134, with the former being the only stable isotope of cesium. The phrase, "cesium-133, let it be," in the title text is a reference to the mnemonic used to remind one how to identify and to avoid {{w|poison ivy}}: "leaves of 3, let it be". Cesium-134 however isn't the most notorious radioactive isotope. That would likely be cesium-137.
|-
| Boring alloy metals. Probably crucial to the spark plug industry or something. (But one of them is radioactive so stay on your toes.) || The left transition metals || Scandium, Titanium, Vanadium, Chromium, Manganese, Yttrium, Zirconium, Niobium, Molybdenum, Technetium, Ruthenium, Hafnium, Tantalum, Tungsten, Rhenium, Osmium || Not actually so boring, but they tend to be used as constituents (sometimes as a small but vital trace) in alloys with specific uses, including {{w|stainless steel}}, {{w|Electric light|bulb filaments}} and {{w|Superconductivity|superconductors}}. A {{w|spark plug}} may use {{w|austenitic stainless steel}}, which includes chromium and (in some cases) molybdenum, for heat and oxidation resistance. {{w|Technetium}} is the lightest element that has no stable isotope and is thus radioactive. Technetium is commonly used in medical imaging.
|-
| Regular metals || The top transition metals || Titanium, Manganese, Iron, Cobalt, Nickel, Copper, Zinc, Aluminum, Silicon || Commonly known metals (and one metalloid, silicon). These all have important uses in construction and other major industries.
|-
| $$$$ || The platinum group || Rhodium, Palladium, Silver, Osmium, Iridium, Platinum, Gold || Rare and highly prized metals.
|-
| Weird metals || The "ordinary metals" and some transition metals || Gallium, Germanium, Cadmium, Indium, Tin, Mercury || These are more obscure than the other metals (except tin and mercury) and tend to have fewer or more specialized uses. Mercury is also the only metal that is liquid at room temperature, and gallium melts just above that at 30 °C (86 °F).
|-
| Boron (fool's carbon) || Boron || Boron || Just as like how {{w|pyrite}} is commonly called "fool's gold", Randall calls {{w|boron}} "fool's carbon" due to its similarities in the way both elements can make stable {{w|covalently bonded}} molecules. Many of boron's {{w|allotropes}} are also analogous with those of carbon.
|-
| You are here || Nonmetals || Carbon, Nitrogen, Oxygen, Phosphorus || Other than hydrogen, these are all the elements required to make {{w|DNA}}, and they make up the majority of atoms in other biological molecules, thus placing you over here.
|-
| Murder weapons || Ordinary metals and metalloids || Arsenic, Antimony, Tellurium, Thallium, Lead, Bismuth, Polonium || Arsenic, thallium, lead, and polonium are highly toxic and have been involved in many notorious poisoning cases. Antimony and tellurium are also hazardous, though to a lesser degree. Lead is also by far the most common metal used for making bullets, for which purpose it may be used by itself or alloyed with other metals (usually a small amount of tin, and an even smaller amount of antimony) and/or coated (most often with copper); for the reason, the term "lead poisoning", while originally referring to long term lead accumulation in the body (also called "{{w|saturnism}}", and known for more than 2000 years)) is sometimes used as a euphemism (often with an element of dark humor) for gunshot wounds when discussing someone's cause of death. Bismuth is the odd one out, having little toxicity at all, but it is used in lead free bullets and shot (although if this is the intention, iron really ought to be included for its own (very common) use in lead-free shot (of the variety commonly referred to as "steel shot"), in addition to its various other lethal uses).
|-
| Safety goggles required || The lighter halogens + some of group 16 || Fluorine, Sulfur, Chlorine, Selenium, Bromine || These elements are highly reactive, so safety goggles are required. Randall has previously mentioned the nasty properties of {{w|bromine}} at room temperature in [https://what-if.xkcd.com/50/ Extreme Boating].
|-
| Very specific health problems || Iodine and radon || Iodine, Radon || {{w|Radon}} gas is formed in the radioactive decay series of uranium and thorium, which occur in trace levels in many common minerals. The gravel and concrete used in construction include such minerals, and the radon is released into air via pores and cracks in the stone and concrete. The relatively poor ventilation in underground spaces such as basements and cellars can cause the radon to accumulate rather than being released into the environment. Eventually, the radon itself decays into other elements, which are also radioactive. Radon is chemically very inert and doesn't bind to anything, but it can still be inhaled, and its daughter elements can bind to dust particles. The radioactive materials, when inhaled, can cause damage to cells, especially in the lungs, with lung cancers as a possible long-term consequence. Iodine is a required nutrient that humans need in trace amounts to remain healthy, with an iodine deficiency typically causing thyroid problems such as goitre. Radioactive iodine is easily taken into the body, deliberately to counteract hyperthyroidism (by giving the thyroid gland radiation damage) or uncontrollably due to exposure to material in nuclear fallout/accidents. Giving high doses of 'normal' iodine would ideally flush out the problematic isotope. Even comparing the two radioactive effects, these two specific health problems are entirely unrelated, and it is only by coincidence that they are corner-to-corner on the periodic table.
|-
| Lawful Neutral || Noble gases || Helium, Neon, Argon, Krypton, Xenon || These elements are mostly unreactive. (The first three don't form chemical compounds at all, apart from things like unstable ionic complexes. The other two do form a few compounds, but these are rather difficult to synthesize and are quite reactive.)
Lawful Neutral is a reference to the D&D alignment chart, which gives moral categories for characters. The chart goes from Lawful to Chaotic on one axis, and Good to Evil on another. Lawful Neutral means following the law without any bias towards Good or Evil, which could be exemplified by the unreactivity of the Noble Gases.
|-
| Don't bother learning their names – they're not staying long || Astatine and Period 7 from Rutherfordium onwards || Astatine, Rutherfordium, Dubnium, Seaborgium, Bohrium, Hassium, Meitnerium, Darmstadtium, Roentgenium, Copernicum, Nihonium, Flevorium, Moscovium, Livermorium, Tennessine, Oganesson || These elements are hard to produce in large quantities and decay within hours or less... in some cases, milliseconds. (Their names haven't exactly been stable, either, with previous multiple systems of placeholder names. For example, dubnium has been called nielsbohrium, hahnium, joliotium, unnilpentium, and eka-tantalum.)
|-
| Whoever figures out a better way to fit these up there gets the next Nobel Prize || The internal transition metals || Lanthanum, Cerium, Praseodymium, Neodymium, Promethium, Samarium, Europium, Gadolinium, Terbium, Dysprosium, Holmium, Erbium, Thulium, Ytterbium, Lutetium, Actinium, Thorium, Protactinium, Uranium, Neptunium, Plutonium, Americium, Curium, Berkelium, Californium, Einsteinium, Fermium, Mendelevium, Nobelium, Lawrencium|| The {{w|lanthanide}}s and {{w|actinide}}s are placed awkwardly "outside" of the main periodic table, taking two elements out of their own position (not all versions with separated rows do this); there are alternative {{w|types of periodic tables}} with differing ways of displaying the elements, however they are usually considered either less visually appealing or more difficult to understand.
|}

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

:[A periodic table with regions labeled. Regions are marked with shapes that have rounded edges and sometimes a chemical element can be partially in two regions.]

:[Hydrogen:]
:Slightly fancy protons
:[Lithium and beryllium:]
:Weird dirt
:[4 elements below:]
:Regular dirt
:[6 elements further below:]
:Ends in a number, let it slumber
:ends in a letter, not much better
:[Left side of the transition metals group:]
:Boring alloy metals
:Probably critical to the spark plug industry or something
:(but one of them is radioactive so stay on your toes)
:[Most of the top row of the transition metals + aluminum:]
:Regular metals
:[Below the rightmost "regular metals":]
:Weird metals
:[Between "boring alloy metals" and "weird metals":]
:$$$$
:[Boron:]
:Boron (fool's carbon)
:[Top-center of p-block:]
:You are here
:[Top-right of p-block, excluding the rightmost column:]
:Safety goggles required
:[5 uppermost elements of the rightmost column:]
:Lawful neutral
:[Iodine and radon:]
:Very specific health problems
:[Below and to the right of "weird metals":]
:Murder weapons
:[Bottom row from the fourth column onwards:]
:Don't bother learning their names - they're not staying long
:[The lanthanides and actinides below the rest of the table, two rows of fifteen elements, arrow pointing to a conspicuous gap in the third column of the main table where the fifteenth would ordinarily be:]
:Whoever figures out a better way to fit these up there gets the next Nobel Prize

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Chemistry]]

2913: Periodic Table Regions

2024-04-01T10:28:55Z

Rps: /* Table Sections */ Lithium_(medication)

{{comic
| number = 2913
| date = March 29, 2024
| title = Periodic Table Regions
| image = periodic_table_regions_2x.png
| imagesize = 740x501px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Cesium-133, let it be. Cesium-134, let it be even more.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a LAWFUL NEUTRAL MURDER WEAPON COMMONLY USED TO MAKE SPARK PLUGS' VOICES SQUEAKY- Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

The {{w|periodic table}} is used to arrange {{w|chemical element}}s based on their properties. This comic groups them together into regions with labels humorously reflecting their properties, characteristics, or uses.

=== Table Sections ===

{| class=wikitable
! scope="col" | Section
! scope="col" | Real table
! scope="col" | Elements contained
! scope="col" | Explanation
|-
| Slightly fancy protons || Hydrogen || Hydrogen || Most hydrogen atoms (specifically of the isotope H-1, making up 99.9844% of all hydrogen on Earth) are a proton and an electron. Since the electron can be removed (so only a proton remains) and you can call that a H+ ion, [[Randall]] calls hydrogen atoms "slightly fancy protons".
|-
| Weird dirt || Lighter alkali and alkaline earth metals || Lithium, Beryllium || Lithium and beryllium, as some of the lightest elements, have unusual properties compared to heavier metals. Lithium, for instance, is the least dense metal on the periodic table, and is used in applications such as [https://www.rsc.org/periodic-table/element/3/lithium rechargeable batteries] and as a {{w|Lithium_(medication)|psychiatric medication}}. Beryllium is both toxic and transparent to x-rays, but also keeps its shape and stiffness over a wide range of temperatures, leading to its use in the primary mirrors of the [https://webb.nasa.gov/content/observatory/ote/mirrors/index.html#3 James Webb Space Telescope].
|-
| Regular dirt || Middle alkali and alkaline earth metals || Sodium, Magnesium, Potassium, Calcium || Despite being metals, these are listed as "dirt" rather than "metal." Perhaps this is because they are commonly found in dirt, as they are essential nutrients for plant life and for many other forms of life, including humans).
|-
| Ends in a number, let it slumber. Ends in a letter, not much better. || Heavier alkali and alkaline earth metals || Rubidium, Strontium, Cesium, Barium, Francium, Radium || Highly reactive metals, some of which are commonly used as radioactive isotopes (which are known by a number; e.g. radium-223). The title text mentions cesium-133 and cesium-134, with the former being the only stable isotope of cesium. The phrase, "cesium-133, let it be," in the title text is a reference to the mnemonic used to remind one how to identify and to avoid {{w|poison ivy}}: "leaves of 3, let it be". Cesium-134 however isn't the most notorious radioactive isotope. That would likely be cesium-137.
|-
| Boring alloy metals. Probably crucial to the spark plug industry or something. (But one of them is radioactive so stay on your toes.) || The left transition metals || Scandium, Titanium, Vanadium, Chromium, Manganese, Yttrium, Zirconium, Niobium, Molybdenum, Technetium, Ruthenium, Hafnium, Tantalum, Tungsten, Rhenium, Osmium || Not actually so boring, but they tend to be used as constituents (sometimes as a small but vital trace) in alloys with specific uses, including {{w|stainless steel}}, {{w|Electric light|bulb filaments}} and {{w|Superconductivity|superconductors}}. A {{w|spark plug}} may use {{w|austenitic stainless steel}}, which includes chromium and (in some cases) molybdenum, for heat and oxidation resistance. {{w|Technetium}} is the lightest element that has no stable isotope and is thus radioactive. Technetium is commonly used in medical imaging.
|-
| Regular metals || The top transition metals || Titanium, Manganese, Iron, Cobalt, Nickel, Copper, Zinc, Aluminum, Silicon || Commonly known metals (and one metalloid, silicon). These all have important uses in construction and other major industries.
|-
| $$$$ || The platinum group || Rhodium, Palladium, Silver, Osmium, Iridium, Platinum, Gold || Rare and highly prized metals.
|-
| Weird metals || The "ordinary metals" and some transition metals || Gallium, Germanium, Cadmium, Indium, Tin, Mercury || These are more obscure than the other metals (except tin and mercury) and tend to have fewer or more specialized uses. Mercury is also the only metal that is liquid at room temperature, and gallium melts just above that at 30 °C (86 °F).
|-
| Boron (fool's carbon) || Boron || Boron || Just as like how {{w|pyrite}} is commonly called "fool's gold", Randall calls {{w|boron}} "fool's carbon" due to its similarities in the way both elements can make stable {{w|covalently bonded}} molecules. Many of boron's {{w|allotropes}} are also analogous with those of carbon.
|-
| You are here || Nonmetals || Carbon, Nitrogen, Oxygen, Phosphorus || Other than hydrogen, these are all the elements required to make {{w|DNA}}, and they make up the majority of atoms in other biological molecules, thus placing you over here.
|-
| Murder weapons || Ordinary metals and metalloids || Arsenic, Antimony, Tellurium, Thallium, Lead, Bismuth, Polonium || Arsenic, thallium, lead, and polonium are highly toxic and have been involved in many notorious poisoning cases. Antimony and tellurium are also hazardous, though to a lesser degree. Lead is also by far the most common metal used for making bullets, for which purpose it may be used by itself or alloyed with other metals (usually a small amount of tin, and an even smaller amount of antimony) and/or coated (most often with copper); for the reason, the term "lead poisoning", while originally referring to long term lead accumulation in the body (also called "{{w|saturnism}}", and known for more than 2000 years)) is sometimes used as a euphemism (often with an element of dark humor) for gunshot wounds when discussing someone's cause of death. Bismuth is the odd one out, having little toxicity at all, but it is used in lead free bullets and shot (although if this is the intention, iron really ought to be included for its own (very common) use in lead-free shot (of the variety commonly referred to as "steel shot"), in addition to its various other lethal uses).
|-
| Safety goggles required || The lighter halogens + some of group 16 || Fluorine, Sulfur, Chlorine, Selenium, Bromine || These elements are highly reactive, so safety goggles are required. Randall has previously mentioned the nasty properties of {{w|bromine}} at room temperature in [https://what-if.xkcd.com/50/ Extreme Boating].
|-
| Very specific health problems || Iodine and radon || Iodine, Radon || {{w|Radon}} gas is formed in the radioactive decay series of uranium and thorium, which occur in trace levels in many common minerals. The gravel and concrete used in construction include such minerals, and the radon is released into air via pores and cracks in the stone and concrete. The relatively poor ventilation in underground spaces such as basements and cellars can cause the radon to accumulate rather than being released into the environment. Eventually, the radon itself decays into other elements, which are also radioactive. Radon is chemically very inert and doesn't bind to anything, but it can still be inhaled, and its daughter elements can bind to dust particles. The radioactive materials, when inhaled, can cause damage to cells, especially in the lungs, with lung cancers as a possible long-term consequence. Iodine is a required nutrient that humans need in trace amounts to remain healthy, with an iodine deficiency typically causing thyroid problems such as goitre. Radioactive iodine is easily taken into the body, deliberately to counteract hyperthyroidism (by giving the thyroid gland radiation damage) or uncontrollably due to exposure to material in nuclear fallout/accidents. Giving high doses of 'normal' iodine would ideally flush out the problematic isotope. Even comparing the two radioactive effects, these two specific health problems are entirely unrelated, and it is only by coincidence that they are corner-to-corner on the periodic table.
|-
| Lawful Neutral || Noble gases || Helium, Neon, Argon, Krypton, Xenon || These elements are mostly unreactive. (The first three don't form chemical compounds at all, apart from things like unstable ionic complexes. The other two do form a few compounds, but these are rather difficult to synthesize and are quite reactive.)
Lawful Neutral is a reference to the D&D alignment chart, which gives moral categories for characters. The chart goes from Lawful to Chaotic on one axis, and Good to Evil on another. Lawful Neutral means following the law without any bias towards Good or Evil, which could be exemplified by the unreactivity of the Noble Gases.
|-
| Don't bother learning their names – they're not staying long || Astatine and Period 7 from Rutherfordium onwards || Astatine, Rutherfordium, Dubnium, Seaborgium, Bohrium, Hassium, Meitnerium, Darmstadtium, Roentgenium, Copernicum, Nihonium, Flevorium, Moscovium, Livermorium, Tennessine, Oganesson || These elements are hard to produce in large quantities and decay within hours or less... in some cases, milliseconds. (Their names haven't exactly been stable, either, with previous multiple systems of placeholder names. For example, dubnium has been called nielsbohrium, hahnium, joliotium, unnilpentium, and eka-tantalum.)
|-
| Whoever figures out a better way to fit these up there gets the next Nobel Prize || The internal transition metals || Lanthanum, Cerium, Praseodymium, Neodymium, Promethium, Samarium, Europium, Gadolinium, Terbium, Dysprosium, Holmium, Erbium, Thulium, Ytterbium, Lutetium, Actinium, Thorium, Protactinium, Uranium, Neptunium, Plutonium, Americium, Curium, Berkelium, Californium, Einsteinium, Fermium, Mendelevium, Nobelium, Lawrencium|| The {{w|lanthanide}}s and {{w|actinide}}s are placed awkwardly "outside" of the main periodic table, taking two elements out of their own position (not all versions with separated rows do this); there are alternative {{w|types of periodic tables}} with differing ways of displaying the elements, however they are usually considered either less visually appealing or more difficult to understand.
|}

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

:[A periodic table with regions labeled. Regions are marked with shapes that have rounded edges and sometimes a chemical element can be partially in two regions.]

:[Hydrogen:]
:Slightly fancy protons
:[Lithium and beryllium:]
:Weird dirt
:[4 elements below:]
:Regular dirt
:[6 elements further below:]
:Ends in a number, let it slumber
:ends in a letter, not much better
:[Left side of the transition metals group:]
:Boring alloy metals
:Probably critical to the spark plug industry or something
:(but one of them is radioactive so stay on your toes)
:[Most of the top row of the transition metals + aluminum:]
:Regular metals
:[Below the rightmost "regular metals":]
:Weird metals
:[Between "boring alloy metals" and "weird metals":]
:$$$$
:[Boron:]
:Boron (fool's carbon)
:[Top-center of p-block:]
:You are here
:[Top-right of p-block, excluding the rightmost column:]
:Safety goggles required
:[5 uppermost elements of the rightmost column:]
:Lawful neutral
:[Iodine and radon:]
:Very specific health problems
:[Below and to the right of "weird metals":]
:Murder weapons
:[Bottom row from the fourth column onwards:]
:Don't bother learning their names - they're not staying long
:[The lanthanides and actinides below the rest of the table, two rows of fifteen elements, arrow pointing to a conspicuous gap in the third column of the main table where the fifteenth would ordinarily be:]
:Whoever figures out a better way to fit these up there gets the next Nobel Prize

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Chemistry]]

Talk:2906: Earth

2024-03-18T18:57:57Z

Rps: What is the delta-v of a reentry burn?

I originally read the caption as "how badly ''we'd'' messed up", which... changes Sagan's tone somewhat. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.155.54|172.71.155.54]] 08:02, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

At first I thought the joke was that the rocket firing had somehow gone so catastrophically badly that the entire Earth had literally been reduced to dust. [[User:Fabian42|Fabian42]] ([[User talk:Fabian42|talk]]) 08:37, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
:I also had this notion at first. That after the failed burn Earth had been destroyed... But I think not so anymore. So thx explain xkcd. ;-) --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 12:43, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

So, according to explainxkcd, that’s a ''square'' “spacecraft window”?? Why have we never seen a square spacecraft window in any other context, ever? Did Randall screw up that badly in the original comic, or was it a previous explainxkcd editor who screwed up here? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.214.60|172.70.214.60]] 08:58, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
:I'm not sure what you're on about and why anyone has to have screwed up. Why can't it be a rectangular (we don't know it's square) spacecraft window? [[User:Bischoff|Bischoff]] ([[User talk:Bischoff|talk]]) 09:53, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
::This is very clearly a triangle shaped window in a very elongated spaceship [[User:Whimsical|Whimsical]] ([[User talk:Whimsical|talk]]) 11:24, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
::: Maybe it is part of a huge spider-shaped window? (I home people here will remember that meta-reference to What If) [[Special:Contributions/172.71.94.208|172.71.94.208]] 12:28, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
::::This picture from the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cupola_(ISS_module)#/media/File:Tracy_Caldwell_Dyson_in_Cupola_ISS.jpg Cupola] module of the ISS has trapeze like windows. But the one behind the astronaut could easily have been a rectangle from what can be seen in the picture. So to argue that this window could not have been shot the same is just silly. Of course it was important to the joke that you did not realize it was a window until reading the caption. Also if this space craft has held up to go so far form Earth with living inhabitants it is obviously not a space ship in use today! --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 12:43, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
:::::There is precedent with the [https://www.sciencephoto.com/media/990677/view/crew-at-window-of-space-shuttle-discovery-2006 Space Shuttle] (aft flight-deck window, others were round, the 'forward flight-deck' ones were of course the main flight/piloting ones with awkward quadrilateral shapes and pesky instrument panels where none are in the comic). The windows in the Shuttle were actually a weight issue (certainly, at first, they were plain (chunky!) glass, and added a ''lot'' of weight to the design.
:::::Also look at {{w|File:Blue Origin M7.jpg|Blue Origin's capsule}} for more current design that could end up eventually on an orbital/extra-orbital vessel. Although Crew Dragon is more conservative, and {{w|File:MACES in Orion mock-up.jpg|Orion's interior}} looks like it isn't so big (while Starship's eventual window configuration might eventually be vastly more conservative than the Dan Dare/Flash Gordon aesthetic of the concept imagery).
:::::So... Possible, but depends upon the design needs for the craft (fully space-capable whilst ''intended'' to undergo re-entry, is all we really know). [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.92|172.70.90.92]] 16:13, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

In my mind is the scene in C.S. Lewis's religious novel Out of the Silent Planet, where an English philologist, Ransom, is abducted by criminals into outer space and meets aliens. In chapter fifteen, a wise sorn tries to figure out which planet Ransom is from. Probably Thulcandra, the garbage planet of the Solar System. Ransom doesn't like the sound of that, but the sorn gets out something that isn't a telescope and he shows Thulcandra to Ransom, and yup, that's us. Lewis writes it better. I don't know if Carl Sagan had read this. --Robert Carnegie rja.carnegie@gmail.com [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.75|141.101.99.75]] 13:12, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
:Hoo boy, yep that book (and its sequel) are beyond even Narnia in their religious symbolism (though the later environmentalist movements could definitely find an allegory in them, too, not sure how intended that was, in CSL's time, some time before a practical Gaia Hypothesis/etc). I can imagine Randall knows of the book (though clearly more influenced by Sagan in a direct lineage). Not entirely sure Sagan will have taken interest in that genre, nor taken the above to heart. Probably no more than his genuine scientific and rhetoric interests, which may be sufficient genesis for his own coined meme. But that's just my gut feeling. i.e. Worthy of note, but not directly (or singly-indirectly) connected. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.153|172.70.85.153]] 14:20, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
:: The Gaia Hypothesis is also religious, so it makes sense that it could be written into C. S. Lewis. Protecting the environment is important, but Mother Nature is basically a deity for misanthropes. {{unsigned ip|162.158.155.91|14:02, 15 March 2024}}
:::It ''can'' be believed religiously, and is named after a goddess, but also can be used to describe the (long-term) self-regulating interactions of the various elements of biomes and atmos/geos-/pedospheres that interact, in a more scientific way. (Some people religiously believe in evolution as God's "fire and forget" Creationist act to get us from the very start of Genesis until Revelations, for example, but it doesn't stop a strictly agnostic scientific analysis of natural selection getting us here, with or without writings that describe everything in traditional concepts that may not ''necessarily' be entirely accurate - but sustained "God's chosen people" in ways that mattered... to put just one teleological spin on it.)
:::It can just be considered a more complex (and entirelg natural) global thermostat. Which might have difficulty dealing with people lighting unexpected fires in the middle of their bedrooms (e.g.), and can't stop them burning their own house down if they start a runaway effect that it has no power to stop, but ''normally'' it can counteract variations of temperature by eventually adjusting the heating/cooling elements. Or, I suppose, decides that a hotter/colder house is better, so long as there are still some pot-plants that will thrive under the new conditions (until nudged back by other effects).
:::...that's simplistic, as an analogy, and in key ways 'not really correct', but it starts to reflect the no-god-needed tenet of the general idea. (Not sure I have confidence in "it'll be alright", but I would say it has better chance than "''we'll'' be alright", as we aren't vital to 'keep things going'. In fact, once we're gone then anything that remains will get its own chance to nudge conditions to a new equilibreum.) [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.232|141.101.98.232]] 15:23, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

The color for the blue dot seems to be around #B6C8EB. --[[User:1234231587678|1234231587678]] ([[User talk:1234231587678|talk]]) 15:18, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
:Zooming in, the central pixel is definitely #ABBBDC (a very easy color to hand type), with some artifacts around it of varying shades of grey. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.59.184|172.69.59.184]] 20:58, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
::I think we're discussing different versions of the two images. The single central pixel of the dot in the "regular-sized" image on the xkcd site, "earth.png" (364 x 472 pixels), is now #B5C6E9, while the ''six'' central pixels in the 2x image, "earth_2x.png" (728 x 945 pixels), are #BDCFF4. The "regular-sized" version here, "363px-earth_2x.png" (363 x 471 pixels) has a single central pixel, #ABBBDC, while the large image on *this* site, "545px-earth_2x.png" (545 x 707 pixels), has ''two'' central pixels, #BDCFF4. [[User:BunsenH|BunsenH]] ([[User talk:BunsenH|talk]]) 22:33, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
I'd say he nailed Sagan's hair... [[User:Inexplicable|Inexplicable]] ([[User talk:Inexplicable|talk]]) 19:11, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

Carl may *claim* to have messed up, but I find it hard to believe that he wouldn't aim the rocket for deep space, given half a chance.
:Sounds about right. It's Carl Sagan... and besides, who ''wouldn't'' want the opportunity to venture into the final frontier? (Also, please remember to sign your post next time.) [[User:OmniDoom|OmniDoom]] ([[User talk:OmniDoom|talk]]) 23:40, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
::Um. "Spend a little while in LEO then go home and live out the rest of your life" vs. "spend a little while much further out, in the company of a few people who ''really resent you'', then die unpleasantly"? I'd go with the former. [[User:BunsenH|BunsenH]] ([[User talk:BunsenH|talk]]) 16:18, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

Does anybody know what is a typical reentry burn, for instance, when a capsule leaves the ISS? I wrote "some hundreds m/s" but it might be less than that. If the original orbit is very low, even a tiny reduction will lower the perigee enough to intersect the atmosphere. [[User:Rps|Rps]] ([[User talk:Rps|talk]]) 18:57, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

2906: Earth

2024-03-18T18:50:43Z

Rps: /* The scale of the error */ typo: h -> s

{{comic
| number = 2906
| date = March 13, 2024
| title = Earth
| image = earth_2x.png
| imagesize = 364x472px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Just think of all the countless petty squabbles and misunderstandings, of all the fervent hatreds, over so insignificant a thing as the direction and duration of a rocket engine firing.
}}

==Explanation==
[[File:Pale Blue Dot.png|200px|right|thumb|The ''Pale Blue Dot'' image from Voyager 1. Earth is the "pale blue dot" halfway up the rightmost color band.]]
At first sight, this appears to be the famous {{w|Carl Sagan}} commentary, upon the ''{{w|Pale Blue Dot}}'' image of Earth, a picture taken by the {{w|Voyager 1 probe}} in 1990 (at that time 6 billion kilometers away) but having been transmitted back to Earth to be appreciated as one of the most iconic 'photos of Earth from space', along with ''{{w|Earthrise}}'' and ''{{w|The Blue Marble}}''. Sagan's written, and later spoken, words evoke how the lives of all of us are somehow confined to barely more than a single pixel's-worth of existence upon an already zoomed-in view of space.

From the caption, however, it appears that 'Carl' is not looking at an image. Instead it is a spacecraft window. The minute apparent size of the Earth is as a result of the spacecraft being very far from Earth. This is an unintended consequence of an attempt to deorbit from {{w|low Earth orbit}} (i.e. not more than 2000 kilometers from the Earth's surface, from which the Earth should still mostly fill any view that points towards it). Rather than transitioning from LEO into a re-entry trajectory, somehow the vessel and crew have been sent into a ''much'' higher-reaching orbit, if not into a solar or extra-solar trajectory. And it is apparently Carl's fault. The speech is thus not an inward view of where we all are, but an outward look at somewhere that all the crew (unwillingly, and against all recent expectations) are ''not''.


The title text continues with the traditional tone of the speech, only to become an implicit attempt to claim that it wasn't quite as drastic an error as it actually seems to have been.

The very same words (or as far as they go), but in the more traditional situation of an informative lecture, were previously used in [[1246: Pale Blue Dot]].

=== The scale of the error ===

The comic's distance from Earth is unlikely to be anywhere near that of Voyager 1, and would not be being seen portrayed by the same 1500mm high-resolution narrow-angle camera as took the alluded-to image. The apparent size of Earth, compared with Carl at his window, would depend a lot on the actual 'camera' geometry/position for the scene. For comparison, however, the Earth seen from the Moon is slightly under four times the diameter of the Moon as seen from the Earth, or perhaps nearly the size of a clenched fist, held at arm's length. This implies (unless the scene uses a particularly wide-angled lens, close to Carl and the window) that the vessel's position is now ''significantly'' beyond the orbit of the Moon.

The ''absence'' of a clearly visible Moon, which would have a near-identical phase to the illuminated Earth and could easily be the second brightest object in the scene, is therefore best explained by it being no more than a sub-pixel object, indistinguishable from the surrounding darkness of space, somewhere within thirty Earth diameters (and thus [[2205: Types of Approximation|approximately]], in this image, pixels) of the visible Earth. This could include being sufficiently in conjunction/opposition to Earth to blend in, or be obscured by it.

The general lack of other visible stars, etc, would be explained by the exposure being tuned to not wash out the illuminated internal view, and not being set up for useful astronomical shots, though may then set another range of useful limits on what magnitude of reflected sunlight must still arrive from Earth in order to remain visible.

The orbital speed in low-earth orbit is ~8km/s. Escape speed is ~11km/s. So to reentry the spacecraft must do a retrograde burn of some hundreds m/s, while to escape it must do a prograde burn of ~3km/s. So it must have been quite an error (~10 times bigger and in the opposite direction).

=== The "pale blue" dot ===
Although it might initially look like a white dot, the comic truly has used a pale blue color for the dot that represents Earth, with the color used in the "2x" version of the image seeming to be 0xBDCFF4.

This can be interpreted as predominently a very light gray, with an extra hint of green and a bigger hint of blue. Or redefined as an {{w|HSL and HSV|HSV}} triplet of of 220.4 (a greenish-blue hue), 22.5% (relatively unsaturated) and 95.7% (very bright), all consistent with how the sunlit side of an Earthlike world would look with large oceans, vast swathes of terrestrial vegetation and atmospheric clouds) if necessarily abstracted down to a very limited number of pixels.

Looking at {{w|File:Pale_Blue_Dot.png|an actual example of the 'original'}}, seems to give a possible RGB of 0x95B39E (which gives: hue of 138, i.e. a 'bluish-green'; saturation level of 16.8%; brightness value of 70.2%), which is of course also consistent with the above assumptions about Earth. But all such images are of course ultimately derived as a composite of the data from [https://pds-rings.seti.org/voyager/iss/inst_cat_na1.html#filters eight separate 'filters'], which don't neatly fit into the {{w|RGB color model}}, and always subject to various kinds of post-processing and image conversion techniques.

==Transcript==
:[Carl Sagan (drawn Cueball like but with flat hair) is standing in front of a black screen with a tiny pale blue dot in the middle. He indicates the screen by holding out his right hand palm up towards the screen. He is speaking to someone off-panel, who replies from a star burst on the right edge of the panel.]
:Carl: Look again at that dot. That's home. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives...
:Carl: On a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
:Off-panel voice: We '''''know,''''' Carl.

:[Caption below the panel:]
:Carl Sagan was '''''not''''' making us feel better about how badly he'd messed up the low Earth orbit reentry burn.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]]
[[Category:Space]]

2906: Earth

2024-03-18T18:49:12Z

Rps: /* The scale of the error */ burn error

{{comic
| number = 2906
| date = March 13, 2024
| title = Earth
| image = earth_2x.png
| imagesize = 364x472px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Just think of all the countless petty squabbles and misunderstandings, of all the fervent hatreds, over so insignificant a thing as the direction and duration of a rocket engine firing.
}}

==Explanation==
[[File:Pale Blue Dot.png|200px|right|thumb|The ''Pale Blue Dot'' image from Voyager 1. Earth is the "pale blue dot" halfway up the rightmost color band.]]
At first sight, this appears to be the famous {{w|Carl Sagan}} commentary, upon the ''{{w|Pale Blue Dot}}'' image of Earth, a picture taken by the {{w|Voyager 1 probe}} in 1990 (at that time 6 billion kilometers away) but having been transmitted back to Earth to be appreciated as one of the most iconic 'photos of Earth from space', along with ''{{w|Earthrise}}'' and ''{{w|The Blue Marble}}''. Sagan's written, and later spoken, words evoke how the lives of all of us are somehow confined to barely more than a single pixel's-worth of existence upon an already zoomed-in view of space.

From the caption, however, it appears that 'Carl' is not looking at an image. Instead it is a spacecraft window. The minute apparent size of the Earth is as a result of the spacecraft being very far from Earth. This is an unintended consequence of an attempt to deorbit from {{w|low Earth orbit}} (i.e. not more than 2000 kilometers from the Earth's surface, from which the Earth should still mostly fill any view that points towards it). Rather than transitioning from LEO into a re-entry trajectory, somehow the vessel and crew have been sent into a ''much'' higher-reaching orbit, if not into a solar or extra-solar trajectory. And it is apparently Carl's fault. The speech is thus not an inward view of where we all are, but an outward look at somewhere that all the crew (unwillingly, and against all recent expectations) are ''not''.


The title text continues with the traditional tone of the speech, only to become an implicit attempt to claim that it wasn't quite as drastic an error as it actually seems to have been.

The very same words (or as far as they go), but in the more traditional situation of an informative lecture, were previously used in [[1246: Pale Blue Dot]].

=== The scale of the error ===

The comic's distance from Earth is unlikely to be anywhere near that of Voyager 1, and would not be being seen portrayed by the same 1500mm high-resolution narrow-angle camera as took the alluded-to image. The apparent size of Earth, compared with Carl at his window, would depend a lot on the actual 'camera' geometry/position for the scene. For comparison, however, the Earth seen from the Moon is slightly under four times the diameter of the Moon as seen from the Earth, or perhaps nearly the size of a clenched fist, held at arm's length. This implies (unless the scene uses a particularly wide-angled lens, close to Carl and the window) that the vessel's position is now ''significantly'' beyond the orbit of the Moon.

The ''absence'' of a clearly visible Moon, which would have a near-identical phase to the illuminated Earth and could easily be the second brightest object in the scene, is therefore best explained by it being no more than a sub-pixel object, indistinguishable from the surrounding darkness of space, somewhere within thirty Earth diameters (and thus [[2205: Types of Approximation|approximately]], in this image, pixels) of the visible Earth. This could include being sufficiently in conjunction/opposition to Earth to blend in, or be obscured by it.

The general lack of other visible stars, etc, would be explained by the exposure being tuned to not wash out the illuminated internal view, and not being set up for useful astronomical shots, though may then set another range of useful limits on what magnitude of reflected sunlight must still arrive from Earth in order to remain visible.

The orbital speed in low-earth orbit is ~8km/s. Escape speed is ~11km/h. So to reentry the spacecraft must do a retrograde burn of some hundreds m/s, while to escape it must do a prograde burn of ~3km/s. So it must have been quite an error (~10 times bigger and in the opposite direction).

=== The "pale blue" dot ===
Although it might initially look like a white dot, the comic truly has used a pale blue color for the dot that represents Earth, with the color used in the "2x" version of the image seeming to be 0xBDCFF4.

This can be interpreted as predominently a very light gray, with an extra hint of green and a bigger hint of blue. Or redefined as an {{w|HSL and HSV|HSV}} triplet of of 220.4 (a greenish-blue hue), 22.5% (relatively unsaturated) and 95.7% (very bright), all consistent with how the sunlit side of an Earthlike world would look with large oceans, vast swathes of terrestrial vegetation and atmospheric clouds) if necessarily abstracted down to a very limited number of pixels.

Looking at {{w|File:Pale_Blue_Dot.png|an actual example of the 'original'}}, seems to give a possible RGB of 0x95B39E (which gives: hue of 138, i.e. a 'bluish-green'; saturation level of 16.8%; brightness value of 70.2%), which is of course also consistent with the above assumptions about Earth. But all such images are of course ultimately derived as a composite of the data from [https://pds-rings.seti.org/voyager/iss/inst_cat_na1.html#filters eight separate 'filters'], which don't neatly fit into the {{w|RGB color model}}, and always subject to various kinds of post-processing and image conversion techniques.

==Transcript==
:[Carl Sagan (drawn Cueball like but with flat hair) is standing in front of a black screen with a tiny pale blue dot in the middle. He indicates the screen by holding out his right hand palm up towards the screen. He is speaking to someone off-panel, who replies from a star burst on the right edge of the panel.]
:Carl: Look again at that dot. That's home. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives...
:Carl: On a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
:Off-panel voice: We '''''know,''''' Carl.

:[Caption below the panel:]
:Carl Sagan was '''''not''''' making us feel better about how badly he'd messed up the low Earth orbit reentry burn.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]]
[[Category:Space]]

Talk:386: Duty Calls

2024-03-14T13:11:37Z

Rps: When the original poster is factually wrong

Doesn't look like anyone's touched this during its spotlight as the Incomplete Article of the Day. But really, what else can we say? [[Special:Contributions/199.27.128.66|199.27.128.66]] 03:06, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Maybe how deeply compelling the "need" to fix something wrong on the Internet is? It's not just a plain correction.... it gnaws at you...[[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.8|108.162.219.8]] 03:17, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Tried to flesh out/improve the analysis. Still needs some editing for clarity [I'm not sure how formal the tone of this wiki is supposed to be?] but hopefully it's an improvement on the previous edit. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.56|108.162.216.56]] 17:47, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

I think its good. Hits on all the points, unless anyone sees differently I think it adequately explains the comic. I think all the editing from here is flow and stylistic stuff. And that's minimal. --[[User:Lackadaisical|Lackadaisical]] ([[User talk:Lackadaisical|talk]]) 20:22, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

It's a Cunningham's law reference, guys, that's it. {{unsigned ip|141.101.106.155|11:38, 26 February 2015}}

The title "Duty Calls" has a double meaning. One that Cueball needs to go "fix" the internet and that he needs to "be" with his S/O. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.47|108.162.216.47]] 21:04, 26 August 2015 (UTC){{unsigned ip|127.0.0.1}}

I think this explanation misses the case when someone is ''factually'' wrong on the internet, and doesn't just have a different opinion. For example, when someone on Facebook "discovers" that the Mercator map projection is "wrong" and that the "true" one is Gall-Peters (true story), I believe even Randall would feel the need to say something. But of course, the border between factual errors and arguing is very thin... [[Special:Contributions/162.158.150.64|162.158.150.64]] 09:50, 8 June 2017 (UTC)

:I just added an "alternative interpretation" for just this case. [[User:Rps|Rps]] ([[User talk:Rps|talk]]) 13:11, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

What about when you are legitimately trying to help someone? {{unsigned ip|172.69.42.130|19:09, 12 November 2020}}

Oh dear, Cueball represents me here. [[User:Beanie|Beanie]] ([[User talk:Beanie|talk]]) 11:52, 23 March 2021 (UTC)

See [https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Cunningham%27s_Law Cunningham's Law] {{unsigned ip|172.68.50.189|19:10, 13 March 2022}}

386: Duty Calls

2024-03-14T13:07:47Z

Rps: Alternative interpretation

{{comic
| number = 386
| date = February 20, 2008
| title = Duty Calls
| image = duty calls.png
| titletext = What do you want me to do? LEAVE? Then they'll keep being wrong!
}}

==Explanation==
[[Cueball]], and many people everywhere, feel an {{Wiktionary|irrepressible}} urge to correct people on the Internet, and often get intensely invested in arguments over mundane or insignificant topics. In this comic, Cueball is presented as an exaggerated example of one such arguer. His statement that "This is important" shows his excessive investment in whatever (unnamed) topic he is arguing about. Additionally, Cueball's interpretation of the argument as "someone is wrong, I need to correct them" rather than "someone disagrees with me, I should learn from them" parodies Internet arguers' insistence in the obvious, objective superiority of their viewpoint. The phrase "Duty Calls" used in the title is traditionally used in much more dramatic contexts (say, by a police officer, firefighter, doctor, etc. when talking about their job), so applying it to the job of arguing on the Internet is a humorous mismatch that puts Cueball's disproportionate investment into perspective. In [[955: Neutrinos]] another incarnation of Cueball is cured of a similar disease. A much later comic is simply called [[1731: Wrong]], but here it is not the other people who are wrong! A callback to this comic was made in [[2051: Bad Opinions]].

The title text reinforces the absurd nature of his emotional investment in this argument. His reasoning that "they'll keep being wrong!" if he leaves suggests that the only solution he sees is to continue to argue until everyone on the Internet has agreed with him on all issues–a ridiculously impossible plan. By taking this satire to its logical conclusion–an eternity of arguing on the Internet with no time for pleasure in real life–Randall reminds the reader that getting emotionally involved in Internet arguments at the expense of real life is a terrible, terrible idea.

===Alternative interpretation===

There are a lot of people in the Internet {{Citation needed}} . Some
percentage of those people are objectively wrong about known things.
In consequence, there are a lot of wrong people in the Internet.
So, correcting those people is a {{w|Sisyphus#Punishment_in_the_underworld|never ending task}}.
Also, some of those people are wrong because they are
{{w|Crank#Slang|cranks}}, and won't accept even a clear demonstration of
their error. But the people posting corrections can self-justify their
effort because they are helping the {{w|Lurker|lurkers}} who otherwise could be
led astray by the errors published.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is typing on a computer.]
:Voice outside frame: Are you coming to bed?
:Cueball: I can't. This is important.
:Voice: What?
:Cueball: Someone is WRONG on the Internet.

==Trivia==
This comic used to be [https://web.archive.org/web/20220125023401/https://store.xkcd.com/products/signed-prints available as a signed print] in the xkcd store before it was [[Store|shut down]].

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Internet]]
[[Category:Comics with xkcd store products]]

Talk:2119: Video Orientation

2024-02-27T17:58:14Z

Rps: About camera sensor sizes

[IMG]http://i64.tinypic.com/2co1zio.png[/IMG]
More readable:I think this could be done with text too.
[[Special:Contributions/172.68.154.64|172.68.154.64]] 13:41, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

Obligatory prior art in this commentary space: [https://vimeo.com/313458699 Glove and Boots: Vertical Video Syndrome] (apparently they decamped from Youtube to Vimeo last month, the original c. 2013 video was Bt9zSfinwFA). [[User:JohnHawkinson|JohnHawkinson]] ([[User talk:JohnHawkinson|talk]]) 14:21, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

The title text seems to be a reference to AL, the A.I in ''2001 : A Space Odyssey'' which cause a few problems to the crew and mainly communicate through a round lens. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.226.171|172.69.226.171]] 14:27, 4 March 2019 (UTC)
:Or 2002 movie The Ring [[Special:Contributions/141.101.96.221|141.101.96.221]] 14:32, 4 March 2019 (UTC)
::I presumed it was a reference to summoning circles. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.62.160|172.69.62.160]] 15:28, 4 March 2019 (UTC)
:::My first thought was a reference to Matt Parker of standupmaths and his spherical camera: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgyI8aPctaI [[Special:Contributions/162.158.62.67|162.158.62.67]] 18:17, 4 March 2019 (UTC)
:::I think the same... Isn't it some Terry Pratchett quote? or may be from other fantasy? --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.94.2|162.158.94.2]] 18:32, 4 March 2019 (UTC)
:It was HAL, not AL in Space Odyssey. Move the letters forward one, and it's IBM. Deliberate Easter egg. {{unsigned ip|162.158.38.94}}
::I thought it was something that wasn't planned by the author? But yeah, still makes for an interesting Easter egg. [[User:Herobrine|Herobrine]] ([[User talk:Herobrine|talk]]) 13:09, 5 March 2019 (UTC)
:::You are correct. Clarke has always insisted that the letter-shift from IBM was coincidence and that he would've picked a different name had they known at the time. HAL has always stood for "Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic computer". ({{w|HAL 9000#Origin of name|source}}). [[User:Shamino|Shamino]] ([[User talk:Shamino|talk]]) 13:37, 6 March 2019 (UTC)
:Nonsense. The title text is clearly stating that Randall sees Family Circus [http://familycircus.com/] as his nemesis. [[User:JamesCurran|JamesCurran]] ([[User talk:JamesCurran|talk]]) 21:59, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

A circular screen is great for that retro-look, like a [https://picclick.com/1950s-ZENITH-PORTHOLE-Television-18-Circular-TV-Screen-113317154719.html 1950's Zenith Porthole TV]. I seem to remember seeing circular screens on some really old sci-fi shows as well. As well as one use of a [https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Film/ThisIslandEarth triangular screen]. [[User:Shamino|Shamino]] ([[User talk:Shamino|talk]]) 14:37, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

I thought the circular format was a reference to SnapChat's camera glasses and people's mistrust of "surveillance glasses". I am probably wrong. [[User:RIIW - Ponder it|RIIW - Ponder it]] ([[User talk:RIIW - Ponder it|talk]]) 18:57, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

Fails in the obvious- Horizontal is better because you can send the video in to the TV news for your 15 seconds of fame without looking like a douche who doesn't know how to rotate their phone. And why isn't there a setting for "always landscape" anyway?[[User:Seebert|Seebert]] ([[User talk:Seebert|talk]]) 14:48, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

:I have to agree... the fact that most non-mobile screens are oriented horizontally being left out was kind of a big miss. A vertical video looks like crap on a TV or Computer Monitor (Ironically unless it's an old 3:4 one, where the difference is a lot more minor.) -Graptor [[Special:Contributions/172.69.62.220|172.69.62.220]] 15:34, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

:I assume that inside your phone camera there's a "retina" chip in the same dimensions as your screen, so if your phone is upright (portrait) then the picture is portrait shape too. But, sure, they could make the camera rotate inside the phone... that would work for switching between selfie / other people modes, too. But no, then your selfies would be upside down... or... can I get back to you? :-) Robert Carnegie rja.carnegie@excite.com [[Special:Contributions/162.158.155.200|162.158.155.200]] 11:14, 7 March 2019 (UTC)

::No, usually the sensor of the camera(s) doesn't match the screen resolution. For instance, in my previous smartphone (the current one has 3 cameras so it might be more complicated) the camera has a sensor with a 4:3 aspect ratio (this is usual format for small sensors) and ~13 MegaPixels (4160 * 3120). When I selected the 16:9 ratio the image was cropped to ~10 MP (4096 * 2304). The manufacturer could have made the camera software to have an option to take landscape images while holding the phone vertically by cropping to 3120 * 2340 (4:3 format) or 3120 * 1755 (16:9). This would not be enough for 4K video, but it would be plenty for Full-HD (which is only 1920 * 1080). [[User:Rps|Rps]] ([[User talk:Rps|talk]]) 17:58, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

Ironically, when I first read the comic on my phone (portrait), I did not realise there was a third "CONS" column. [[User:ColinHogben|ColinHogben]] ([[User talk:ColinHogben|talk]]) 15:20, 4 March 2019 (UTC)
:that never would have happened with a circular screen ~ ocæon 01:44, 5 March 2019 (UTC)

Not that good of an explanation, even if I wrote some of it. Actually, especially since I wrote some of it. [[User:Netherin5|Netherin5]] ([[User talk:Netherin5|talk]]) 16:54, 4 March 2019 (UTC)
:Thanks 90.10 [[User:Netherin5|Netherin5]] ([[User talk:Netherin5|talk]]) 17:08, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

I have never had problems holding my smartphone in landscape, or my camera in portrait. I just can't understand the use of portrait to film anything but one for two people's faces just because you hold the device that way to make a phone call (on the v rare occasion they do). Hey but I was born in the 50's [[User:RIIW - Ponder it|RIIW - Ponder it]] ([[User talk:RIIW - Ponder it|talk]]) 18:57, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

I don't think the 50x150 view comment is right. I'd suggest removing it or backing it up with a source. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.146.16|162.158.146.16]] 23:14, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

I feel like there's an awesome joke to be made about Battlefield Earth here...
[[User:Glassvein|Glassvein]] ([[User talk:Glassvein|talk]]) 02:44, 5 March 2019 (UTC)

== Anti-Semitic trolling ==
Edited to remove the anti-Semitic tag and content. {{unsigned|Elusis}}
:Dealing with the same thing. [[User:Netherin5|Netherin5]] ([[User talk:Netherin5|talk]]) 17:30, 4 March 2019 (UTC)
::Maybe we should replace the Google CAPTCHA with an IQ test? That should get rid of the 5-year old troll.[[Special:Contributions/172.69.226.171|172.69.226.171]] 18:33, 4 March 2019 (UTC)
:::But then they’d say IQ was rigged by the communistic jewish theocracy. [[User:Netherin5|Netherin5]] ([[User talk:Netherin5|talk]]) 18:48, 4 March 2019 (UTC)
::::This replies aren't helpful. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 20:00, 4 March 2019 (UTC)
:Thanks for removing that content, but please do not remove the entire incomplete tag that soon. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 20:00, 4 March 2019 (UTC)
My advice for now: Just revert that content silently, that unregistered user always has to solve a captcha while a registered user easily can revert it. Without any discussion that IP will get tired sooner or later. Nonetheless many thanks to everybody keeping an eye on this destructive edits. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 20:00, 4 March 2019 (UTC)
:Yes, just '''revert''', do not try to edit it out or you'll miss some little bit stuffed here or there - but look at the revision history before to check out if someone haven't added useful stuff in between troll's edits. In this case you need to edit it out, just be careful. -- [[Special:Contributions/162.158.90.150|162.158.90.150]] 17:28, 5 March 2019 (UTC)

Can you do me a favour and stop censoring my edits? If your position has any merit (it doesn't), you could defeat me in debate (you can't). {{unsigned ip|162.158.106.6}}
:There is no censorship here. And please do us a favor and sign your comments. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 21:19, 4 March 2019 (UTC)
::::Fuck you, shill. Soon the truth will be revealed, whether you want it to be or not. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.106.240|162.158.106.240]] 21:32, 4 March 2019 (UTC)
Please no censorship on comments like this in a talk page unless it's really vandalism. I have reverted the two "deleted troll stuff" remarks back to the original. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 19:59, 5 March 2019 (UTC)
:With the language being used, the comments were, indeed, vandalism. Re-removed them. {{unsigned ip|108.162.216.82}}
::Bad language isn't vandalism - but your action editing comments written by others is vandalism. This is a talk page and everybody can say anything, but some nonsense like this require a proper reply. This is not the explanation page. And further more deleting comments gives the writer an argument about censorship which in this case would be correct. Do you want that writer having a correct argument?
::BTW: Please do not forget to sign your comments. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 19:21, 6 March 2019 (UTC)
::: Off-topic rants (my characterization) and vulgar personal attacks on other commentators (including against you, Dgbrt) is OK, because this is a 'talk' section? If it entertains me to post "The NFL is rigged to let New England win" in every comic I should go ahead? [[User:These Are Not The Comments You Are Looking For|These Are Not The Comments You Are Looking For]] ([[User talk:These Are Not The Comments You Are Looking For|talk]]) 04:05, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

but guys, the stuff he's saying is '''bold and dynamic''' @_@[[Special:Contributions/172.69.33.23|172.69.33.23]] 00:51, 5 March 2019 (UTC)

[[Special:Contributions/141.101.97.54|141.101.97.54]]Wait, what happened? What do video orientations have to do with antisemitism?

==Table==
may the pro con table be replicated and expanded upon? the realworld aplications of horizontal, vertical, diagonal, and circular screens would be comparable the same way. ocæon 01:54, 5 March 2019 (UTC) {{unsigned|Ocæon}}
: so my first contibution and i screwed up formatting, heh, i have no clues to fixing that.. anyway angular filming with cameras goes well beyond dutchy, nobody else remember early handheld rap music videos? and circular screens also gave a pro which is not yet noted at all please don't make me add it! ocæon 18:34, 5 March 2019 (UTC) {{unsigned|Ocæon}}
::You did start your first line with a space which formats the text as a quote. And please sign your comments with at least <nowiki>~~~~</nowiki> or use the sign button at the top of the editor. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 19:52, 5 March 2019 (UTC)

"I'm not turning my phone sideways" -- seems like someone never plays any games on his phone. Heck, even docs and sheets are better in horizontal orientation than vertical orientation. As for the "don't trust anyone speaking from inside a circle," it made me think of (1) the little peepholes on doorways to see who's out there and (2) The Oval Office. While that's not technically a circle, it's somewhat related... [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.153|162.158.74.153]] 08:28, 5 March 2019 (UTC)

"The title text quip about circular video would be a reference to having a demon trapped inside a summoning circle" Oh really? You know this how? Google certainly didn't show anything like that; indeed, there was a lot about "circle of trust" and I don't trust this comment. I'd say [citation needed] or change it to "circle of trust". ( DON'T CENSOR ME, MAN! ;^) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.214.70|162.158.214.70]] 11:00, 5 March 2019 (UTC)
:Circle of trust seems to be a clothing brand? I do not see any relevance on that. Nevertheless I think the demon thing should, if at all, be one of few alternative explanations. It might just be a nonsense statement, or could be related to a fisheye objective, binoculars, or to the looking holes in appartment doors. --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 11:07, 5 March 2019 (UTC)

wow this circle is sure disliked alot considering randall says it solves the aspect ratio problem. if it's a trust issue then what happens in the case that two people hold a conversation via circular televideophones? ocæon 22:14, 6 March 2019 (UTC) {{unsigned|Ocæon}}

Maybe Randal and someone he knows have those Alexa video things that are circular and people talk out of... [[User:RIIW - Ponder it|RIIW - Ponder it]] ([[User talk:RIIW - Ponder it|talk]]) 22:32, 6 March 2019 (UTC)

== Randalls favorite video orientation ==

What makes people think he likes the horizontal orientation more? Looking at the comic it seems to me he likes the vertical orientation more. --[[Special:Contributions/172.69.54.87|172.69.54.87]] 10:05, 6 March 2019 (UTC)

:the pro for vertical suggests it has reached a tipping point for widespread social acceptance, but whether it's pro status is an assertion or a path of least resistance remains unclear. it leaves us free to project on the issue. ocæon 22:28, 6 March 2019 (UTC) {{unsigned|Ocæon}}

== Pro/Contra Vertical Video ==

The explanation so far seems to suggest that he thinks vertical video is obviously bad, and even compares it to the "Norm" type file comic. "claiming that an obviously bad idea keeps being done by accident 'so we might as well just accept it'". However, I think this is not true at all, and the comic aligns much more to the comics which talked about common misconceptions (Frankenstein) or commonly used bad grammar ("could care less"). On many of these comics, he seems to have the opinion that the people who insist on the "correct" way should stop insisting and just accept the change. I think this one relates much more to those, and he is pro vertical video [which I'm not, so this is not an interpretation based on personal preference], instead of relating to the "Norm" comic where he obviously is just joking. The point of the comic is "stop fighting it". And nowhere in the comic he claims that horizontal video is obviously better, like the explanation says so far. {{unsigned ip|162.158.89.223}}

Another con with circular video is that it can get distorted because of Mercator Projection.

Talk:2881: Bug Thread

2024-01-16T12:51:11Z

Rps: DenverCoder9

No idea what to put in the explanation box, so I just did the incomplete tag.[[Special:Contributions/172.69.33.185|172.69.33.185]] 05:36, 16 January 2024 (UTC)
:I was writing an initial Explanation even as you did that. (I had an almost identical BOT-replacing idea. Which I continued to use as I hit the edit-conflict on yours.)
:Not entirely happy with my narrative structure. Tried (too hard?) to not re-use phrasing. Either in there or in the Transcript (tbough currently leaving for someone else), I thought I might remark that ''either'' the Cueball-like beach-booker ''or'' the WhiteHat-like years-noter ''could'' be the half-seen uppermost post's contributor, based upon the visible portrait. But it seemed a bit hard to nicely shoehorn in, especially as it could be neither. Though any of those seen could also easily be up above the scroll-windowing, anyway, nearer where the unstated (to us) issue is actually described. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.29|172.70.90.29]] 06:18, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

I hate when I have a problem with something, and when I google it either the solution is behind a paywall, too outdated to work, or has no responses. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.173|108.162.216.173]] 06:43, 16 January 2024 (UTC)
:Me, too. Want to rent a beach house and whine about it together? [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 07:45, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

Do you think DenverCoder9 made it to the meet-up? --[[User:Koveras|Koveras]] ([[User talk:Koveras|talk]]) 07:53, 16 January 2024 (UTC)
:Gone. Reduced to ashes.--[[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.68|162.158.74.68]] 08:06, 16 January 2024 (UTC)
:If, like me, you didn't remember who [[979: Wisdom of the Ancients|DenverCoder9]] was, here is the link. [[User:Rps|Rps]] ([[User talk:Rps|talk]]) 12:51, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

Talk:2843: Professional Oaths

2023-10-19T12:19:42Z

Rps: Possible corrections to hippodrome and hypergolic

added transcript [[User:Certified_nqh|Me]][[[285: Wikipedian Protester|''citation needed'']]][[Category:Pages using the "citation needed" template]] 05:47, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

every /^H.*ic$/ would be 4 syllables if it wasn't for hydroelectric [[User:Certified_nqh|Me]][[[285: Wikipedian Protester|''citation needed'']]][[Category:Pages using the "citation needed" template]] 05:55, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

Clearly some lone editor had a grudge against hermeneutics, putting 'study' in scare quotes like that. AzureArmageddon 07:38, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

Hippopotamic Oath: First, lead your horse to water. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.139|172.70.86.139]] 08:02, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

Hypobolic Oath: Do your worst! [[Special:Contributions/172.70.250.73|172.70.250.73]] 09:55, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

"A hippodrome is a circular arena" The classical Greek/Roman was not circular:
"One end of the ancient Greek hippodromos was semicircular, and the other end square with an extensive portico"
Maybe it would be more correct to talk about '''pairs''' of hypergolic substances?
[[User:Rps|Rps]] ([[User talk:Rps|talk]]) 12:19, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

Talk:2831: xkcd Phone Flip

2023-09-22T17:01:22Z

Rps: kid's game

this is my first time editing, did i do well? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.134.202|172.70.134.202]] 21:39, 20 September 2023 (UTC)
:Decent enough, assuming you were the one giving the reference to the Z-series. But it'll be expanded, improved and reformatted a lot, I predict. I put in my own (intended) first-edit, but clearly there's you (and possibly A.N. Other) already adding their own thoughts. (Which I am counting on, rather than trying to write it all in one go all by myself... I'll wait for it to settle down and ''then'' see if there are various tweaks I'll want try on whatever form it becomes.) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.7|172.70.90.7]] 21:50, 20 September 2023 (UTC)
:The other person was me, but I think there's someone else as well reformatting and rewriting things.--[[Special:Contributions/172.68.34.38|172.68.34.38]] 23:57, 20 September 2023 (UTC)

So, what is the meaning of "flip" here? [[User:JohnHawkinson|JohnHawkinson]] ([[User talk:JohnHawkinson|talk]]) 22:07, 20 September 2023 (UTC)
:It's a reference to the Samsung Galaxy line of folding smartphones, which is marketed as 'Galaxy Z Flip' phones. While there had been double-screened smartphones in the past, Samsung was able to figure out some way to have the actual screen flex and fold in the middle so that when it's closed the primary screen is protected, but when opened up the user sees a single screen without a hinge in the middle. The current model (the 'Z Flip 5') is the sixth iteration of the device since it was originally introduced in China in 2019. [[User:RAGBRAIvet|RAGBRAIvet]] ([[User talk:RAGBRAIvet|talk]]) 22:36, 20 September 2023 (UTC)

:I think it's just part of the whole marketroid feeling these are supposed to have. It's part of the name and the [alleged] "marketing" department, as is typical, came up with something extremely dumb and useless. See: [https://serverfault.com/questions/117799/which-version-of-sunos SunOS vs Solaris] [[Special:Contributions/162.158.197.132|162.158.197.132]] 22:32, 20 September 2023 (UTC)

Anybody else think the main sequence battery is a fusion cell that is also the chemical flashlight and full spectrum backlight that necessitates the SPF 15 coating? [[Special:Contributions/172.71.151.83|172.71.151.83]] 22:36, 20 September 2023 (UTC)
:I'm thinking it's a reference to the Cyalume lightsticks which need to be bent, which shatters a small glass vial inside and releases a hydrogen peroxide solution into a second solution of an oxalate ester and electron-rich dye contained within the outer plastic shell. The resulting chemiluminescent reaction creates visible light. [[User:RAGBRAIvet|RAGBRAIvet]] ([[User talk:RAGBRAIvet|talk]]) 22:42, 20 September 2023 (UTC)
:I assumed main sequence refers to stellar evolution in astronomy. {{w|Main sequence}} These stars have a relatively long life, matching the description. The SPF 15 coating and full spectrum would also make sense. However I am not sure that description as a chemical flashlight would follow appropriate. The primary energy generation would be nuclear (fusion). It has been long enough since I took astronomy I don't remember all the details of how the energy is converted into light, and whether that would ultimately be considered a chemical, thermal, or nuclear process (or combination thereof). [[Special:Contributions/172.69.22.152|172.69.22.152]] 00:20, 21 September 2023 (UTC)
::Even relatively cold parts of stars are too hot for any chemical reactions. The photons produced from fusion are caught and re-emitted by atoms in outer layers of stars and the spectrum DOES match thermal radiation, so thermal maybe. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 21:21, 21 September 2023 (UTC)

Arch support may also refer to the Linux distro [[Special:Contributions/162.158.110.237|162.158.110.237]] 08:42, 21 September 2023 (UTC)

I initially misread the title text as being a ''Thanos'' partnership. In which case, presumably inadvertently touching the button could wipe out half the population of the universe.[[Special:Contributions/172.71.242.77|172.71.242.77]] 10:25, 21 September 2023 (UTC)
:Can destroy mountains with one click, but not half the population [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.220|172.70.90.220]] 10:32, 21 September 2023 (UTC)

The breaking the glass might refer to “ Break glass (which draws its name from breaking the glass to pull a fire alarm) refers to a quick means for a person who does not have access privileges to certain information to gain access when necessary.”

With a chemical flashlight, I assume the free refills might actually come in handy (though it doesn't say there is a chemical flashlight and with the flip form, bending might just refer to some mechanical switch activating the flashlight - or considering the possibly stellar power source, it just removes shielding). [[User:627235|627235]] ([[User talk:627235|talk]]) 11:01, 21 September 2023 (UTC)
:At least it isn't a "chemical fleshlight". Moreover one activated by severe bending! [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.46|172.70.162.46]] 11:20, 21 September 2023 (UTC)

Had thought to note (but couldn't find a way to slip it into the Explanation) that the origami-form relies upon a square sheet, but the unfolded form seems to be (close enough to) 2:1 ratio. If it ''is'' 2:1 (give or take excess to go around the initial bend), the first step might of course be to make the screen effectively 2-ply, then worry about how to seemlessly fold ''that'' into the Fortune Teller, with convex/concave folds and the necessary compound corners. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.46|172.70.162.46]] 11:20, 21 September 2023 (UTC)

"One pixel display" - I was surprised by the suggestion that this could be a static image, like a slide; I had imagined, and would like to see (perhaps more explicitly) the alternative, that the whole screen simply lights up in a single color (within the __-bit colorspace). --[[Special:Contributions/108.162.245.177|108.162.245.177]] 17:03, 21 September 2023 (UTC)

I agree with the latter - I would consider the pixel as the minimum picture element, no subdetails. [[User:Vdm|Vdm]] ([[User talk:Vdm|talk]]) 20:30, 21 September 2023 (UTC)

:A single pixel with a lot of display states need not be static. Show a bunch in sequence like a film based movie projector. Pixel is the minimum addressable picture element. Think about ASCII art (e.g., printing Mona Lisa on a daisywheel printer), or graphics on the IBM PC monochrome display, Commodore PET, etc. There are also those pieces of art where each pixel is a small photograph (I don't know if there is a name for that). Not typical pixels, bit of a gray area. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.158.15|172.71.158.15]] 21:10, 21 September 2023 (UTC)
::A name for that: {{w|Photographic mosaic}}.
::Also, consider perhaps waving a single pixel around fast and using ''time'' and actual position at that time with sufficient image-retention (by the static viewer) to build up an observable but very temporary image. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.79.152|172.69.79.152]] 22:22, 21 September 2023 (UTC)

Anyone thinks the "Main sequence battery" could be a reference to [https://xkcd.com/1422 1422: My Phone Is Dying]? --[[Special:Contributions/141.101.97.11|141.101.97.11]] 08:00, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

I wonder if the "we didn't actually mean" thing is a reference to those bendy iPhones almost a decade ago? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.38.74|162.158.38.74]] 08:45, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

Maybe the explanation should also mention that kid's game that you do with a folded paper like the images on the right. I don't know how it is called, but this Facebook comment by "AJ Himmel" references it:
"Can also be used to find out who you'll marry someday! Just repeatedly flip it open then unfold a flap!"
[[User:Rps|Rps]] ([[User talk:Rps|talk]]) 17:01, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

Talk:2828: Exoplanet Observation

2023-09-13T17:59:01Z

Rps: "spectrum" derived from "spectre" by Newton

Probably, related to the recent Webb discovery of interesting gases in K2-18 b's atmosphere: https://www.nasa.gov/goddard/2023/webb-discovers-methane-carbon-dioxide-in-atmosphere-of-k2-18b [[User:Rps|Rps]] ([[User talk:Rps|talk]])
: Added! (Saw your comment after my edit). --[[User:Hddqsb|Hddqsb]] ([[User talk:Hddqsb|talk]]) 15:43, 13 September 2023 (UTC)

I am not finding a reference, but I think I read that Newton chose the word "spectrum" by analogy with the word "spectre" (which means ghost), since the rainbow colors were sort of "hiding" in the white light and were revealed by the prism. So it is not a coincidence that you can make puns like on this comic. [[User:Rps|Rps]] ([[User talk:Rps|talk]]) 17:59, 13 September 2023 (UTC)

Talk:2828: Exoplanet Observation

2023-09-13T15:29:54Z

Rps: K2-18 b's atmosphere

Talk:2804: Marshmallow

2023-07-19T16:11:26Z

Rps: marshmallow temperature

Made a start, not sure if the heating up science is completely correct though [[User:MrCandela|MrCandela]] ([[User talk:MrCandela|talk]]) 13:54, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

Because I'm a nitpicker, I kind of want to see some mention in this blurb about how reentry is usually a communications blackout period, due to the plasma sheath blocking all radio waves, and so talking with Houston *during* reentry is unrealistic. I strongly suspect Randall knew this, though, and ignored it for the sake of the joke. [[User:Trimeta|Trimeta]] ([[User talk:Trimeta|talk]]) 14:08, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

:In the case of the space shuttle it was possible to circumvent the problem of radio blackout by relaying the radio through satellites (the plasma blocks the radio waves downwards, but there was be a window upwards). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_blackout#Spacecraft_reentry [[User:Rps|Rps]] ([[User talk:Rps|talk]]) 15:39, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

:The current explanation suggests that Mission Control would be concerned by the lack of communication from the capsule, but given that they would be aware of the effects of reentry, there's no particular reason why this should cause them concern.[[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.134|141.101.99.134]] 15:58, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

Some things that should probably be added:
The comic was likely published in anticipation of the 54th anniversary of the first moon landing on the 20th of July 1969
In reality, the marshmallow, exposed to the vaccum of space, would expand due to the internally trapped gasses until its structural integrity failed https://youtu.be/MYAmPRQ4eWo?t=285
The title text should probably direct reference to {{w|Kessler syndrome}}, in which a single collision of orbiting objects causes a chain reaction filling low earth orbit with debris, in this case, tasty stacks [[Special:Contributions/162.158.155.71|162.158.155.71]] 14:30, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

IMO, "Reentry Marshmallow Toasting Module" refers only to the Marshmallow arm and any necessary associated parts (covers, actuators, etc.), not the whole spacecraft (as the way it is currently written suggests). That is, as for instance, Apollo had a command module, a service module, etc.(?) in this case, there is this extra module. I think it is not unusual to have experiments or sensors piggy-backing in a existent spacecraft or probe. [[User:Rps|Rps]] ([[User talk:Rps|talk]]) 15:55, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
:Agreed - I'd just amended the article to that effect before coming down here and reading this. :o) [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.134|141.101.99.134]] 15:59, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

"the marshmallow has been on the outside of the module for the entire journey, exposed to the vacuum of space. In this situation, it would have radiated all its heat energy away, reaching temperatures near absolute zero" I think this is incorrect: the side of the spacecraft in the shadow gets quite cold, although probably not ~3ºK (cosmic background temperature), since in low-earth orbit you have a warm body (the Earth) radiating some heat some (most?) of the time. But the sun side gets quite hot. Apollo used "Passive Thermal Control" (informally, it was called “barbecue roll”) to even out the temperature. [[User:Rps|Rps]] ([[User talk:Rps|talk]]) 16:11, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

Talk:2804: Marshmallow

2023-07-19T15:55:28Z

Rps: Module

Talk:2804: Marshmallow

2023-07-19T15:39:40Z

Rps: Radio blackout

2776: Crystal Ball

2023-05-16T10:52:00Z

Rps: link to scrying in wikipedia

{{comic
| number = 2776
| date = May 15, 2023
| title = Crystal Ball
| image = crystal_ball_2x.png
| imagesize = 257x336px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = They often use ball lenses to collect light at the ends of optical fibers, so when you look stuff up on the internet you're actually scrying through a crystal ball.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by AN INSUFFICIENT UNDERSTANDING OF THE PHYSICS PRINCIPLES BEHIND REFRACTION AND WHY LIGHT MIGHT ONLY HAVE A ONE-WAY SPEED- Elaborate on the title-text. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

In optics, {{w|spherical aberration }} is an image imperfection that occurs due to the increased refraction of light rays that occurs when rays strike a lens or a reflection of light rays that occurs when rays strike a mirror near its edge, in comparison with those that strike nearer the center. This causes the parts of an image reflected near the edges of a sphere (from the perspective of a viewer) to be distorted. As the viewer moves, the parts of the image which are distorted move as well.

This is the principle behind a {{w|Fisheye lens}}, which corrects for the distortion to provide an image that is circular in shape and tends to be convex (i.e, bulges outwards) towards the center of the image.

The comic makes the joke that, since a crystal ball is a sphere, anyone trying to use one for {{w|scrying}} or seeing the future would have to deal with this issue as well; the wizard is telling Cueball that he can only make out the parts of his future which are near the center, as the rest is distorted. In practice, of course, this would likely not be an issue, as spherical aberration is specifically a property of refracted light, and since the crystal ball is presumably not showing an image made of the light refracted by the ball itself, the image should not be distorted.

The title text observes a real-world action that could [[1475: Technically|technically]] be described as "scrying through a crystal ball", that being the usage of the internet. Information over the internet is often transmitted via light sent through {{w|fiber-optic cables}}, which, according to the title text, is sometimes collected using ball lenses. Due to the similarity between ball lenses and crystal balls, Randall argues that this is technically scrying through a crystal ball because you're receiving information from elsewhere (Googling something) and receiving it at the end of a crystal ball (ball lenses).

==Transcript==
:[A wizard with with a pointed hat, long hair and a large beard is sitting on a chair at the left side of a table. He is holding a crystal ball with both hands while he is looking into it. The ball has a reflection on the side towards Cueball who is sitting on a chair at the opposite side of the table with his hands in his lap.]
:Wizard: Your future is hard to see.
:Wizard: I can make out some hazy details in the center, but the off-axis components are particularly unclear.

:[Caption below the panel:]
:Wizards never did figure out how to fix spherical aberration.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Characters with hats]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Physics]]
[[Category:Internet]]

Talk:2774: Taxiing

2023-05-15T17:07:19Z

Rps: Example of a airplane in a truck

I don't understand why you would buy Detour signs, when you can often so easily pick them up for free from the side of a road... :P [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.32|172.70.86.32]] 20:35, 10 May 2023 (UTC)
:I don't understand why you'd take detour signs for free, when people can pay you to watch you steal flatbed trucks. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.178.191|172.70.178.191]] 20:37, 10 May 2023 (UTC)

But would an airplane even fit on a truck? Or on a treadmill for that matter? [[Special:Contributions/172.71.182.47|172.71.182.47]] 21:11, 10 May 2023 (UTC)
: Depends on whether you want to take the plane complete with wings attached, and on how big the flatbed is, and for that matter on the size of the plane. [[User:Thisfox|Thisfox]] ([[User talk:Thisfox|talk]]) 04:16, 12 May 2023 (UTC)
:: Depends on how far you want to take the aircraft. You could just move it to some other part of the airport. There are a few airports that cross national boundaries which could make a relocation more interesting. May be worth mentioning the aircraft tractors at Orly Airport. These had a ramp that the nosewheel rode on, a flatbed could be used the same way. Orly public relations claimed it used these tractors because of unusually large taxi distances at the airport, but it was probably because they were French.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.159.52|162.158.159.52]] 19:10, 12 May 2023 (UTC)
:::Towbarless Tractors (not all with 'ramps', but may grip and raise the front wheel) are practical for a number of reasons. They dont need to be self-ballasted to be able to push/pull the nosewheel (the plane adds weight enough, to prevent the powerto the wheels just spinning them) and there's no need for a towbar-connector (complicating the dynamics of turns/reversing). Loads of slightly different designs of Pushbacks for airliners, despite some of the more usual common design features, like ultra-low profile (barely more than the necessary height of the wheels, perhaps) to facilitate getting entirely underneath the nose/fuselage of planes. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.126|141.101.98.126]] 20:42, 12 May 2023 (UTC)
: Here is a X-15 in a truck (wings and stabilizer disassembled): https://www.alamy.com/stock-image-photograph-of-the-x-15-research-aircraft-being-trucked-to-cleveland-162597234.html?imageid=0AC6CC18-40AD-4D4F-8A92-1368529CE832&p=75935&pn=1&searchId=76793ef026a859439e41c5fe56343a84&searchtype=0 In a book I have there is a picture of the plane being trucked from the factory to the base, but I couldn't find it in a quick serach. [[User:Rps|Rps]] ([[User talk:Rps|talk]]) 17:07, 15 May 2023 (UTC)

On TV, you don't even need detour signs. Just hack their GPS for free. [[User:Jordan Brown|Jordan Brown]] ([[User talk:Jordan Brown|talk]]) 22:51, 10 May 2023 (UTC)

I would have expected Black Hat to be doing something like that, not Cueball. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.210.191|172.70.210.191]] 23:15, 10 May 2023 (UTC)

:That was my first thought, too. Or even Beret Guy. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.127.133|172.70.127.133]] 00:30, 11 May 2023 (UTC)Pat

:Black hat would be sending the airplane into a [[1484|recycling facility]] (see bottom lines of text), and Beret Guy would be raiding it for scones. Or turning it into scones. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.58.140|172.68.58.140]] 03:48, 11 May 2023 (UTC)

As a pilot, i would not follow these glowsticks onto a trailer due to safety restrictions on how far away the wheels should be. That's why airports are so big. [[Special:Contributions/172.64.238.44|172.64.238.44]] 06:36, 11 May 2023 (UTC)
:Sometimes, one could see an airplane on a flatbed truck. Some flatbed trucks (or rather trailers) are HUGE. However, presumably the plane had not taxied onto the trailer under pilot control and its own power, but had been lowered by a crane, which had a completely different set of "marshalls" -- [[Special:Contributions/162.158.103.165|162.158.103.165]] 08:26, 11 May 2023 (UTC)

Weird. Almost back to back "Did you know you can just BUY...?" comics. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.71.11|172.69.71.11]] 08:36, 11 May 2023 (UTC)

Nothing to say about the comic itself, but I just wanted to express how funny this explanation is, between the proposed solution for the police car requirement and the description for the added image. I never knew we could add images in this way to make explanations clearer! [[Special:Contributions/162.158.233.69|162.158.233.69]] 12:17, 12 May 2023 (UTC)

Is this a comment(ary) on the people online who say "I don't know why people pay so much for (xx) software when you can just buy a licence online for $15"? {{unsigned ip|172.70.90.252|11:25, 15 May 2023}}
:Probably more a general 'life hack' thing, rather than that example. Buying software online, physical for delivery or licence-only with download, is often subject to many deals that can outcompete the bricks'n'mortar stores, but that's true for just about anything. But "buy this <handy kitchen gadget> and you'll never have to buy pre-<whatevered> <foodstuff> ever again" seems to be more the kind of current vogue it's building off of. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.31|172.70.86.31]] 16:13, 15 May 2023 (UTC)