explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Talk:545: Neutrality Schmeutrality

2014-04-23T04:50:22Z

Rvighne: Comment

What if instead of word count, it was determined by letter count. so insert a word with multiple spellings like "colour/color" and people will repeatedly edit and re-edit the word over and over until the servers crashed ? --[[User:ParadoX|ParadoX]] ([[User talk:ParadoX|talk]]) 09:01, 26 June 2013 (UTC)ParadoX

I think that the idea is that the edit and re-editing would overload the servers without it being a change to a single word. [[User:Theo|Theo]] ([[User talk:Theo|talk]]) 21:06, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

:If Wikipedia's aim is to take a neutral stance, and Wikipedia is being exploited to determine which of two opposing sides receives a donation, Wikipedia's correct action would be to prevent the article from being written, thus enforcing Wikipedia's stance on neutrality. [[User:Thokling|Thokling]] ([[User talk:Thokling|talk]]) 20:17, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
::If there is no article, the word count is 0, which is an even number, so it goes to pro-choice activists. :) [[Special:Contributions/173.245.51.209|173.245.51.209]] 13:03, 6 November 2013 (UTC)
:::No: if there is no article, the word count is undefined. You cannot determine anything about something that doesn't exist. [[User:Rvighne|rvighne]] ([[User talk:Rvighne|talk]]) 04:50, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

Lock the article mid-edit leaving a single word unfinished. That becomes a fraction of a word which is neit- [[Special:Contributions/173.245.55.217|173.245.55.217]] 16:02, 2 December 2013 (UTC)BK

What the hell is Schmeutrality? ''Schmeu...'' looks very German to me, but I still have no idea about its meaning on this portmanteau. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 21:39, 2 December 2013 (UTC)
:An old (read "pre-internet") meme, probably Yiddish, is to say a word, then replace the initial consonant cluster of the word with "schm" (read "shm") and say the altered word. This denotes an active apathy toward the subject, that is, the speaker is deliberately disregarding the authority (for that is usually what is "regarded") and doing their own thing, as Black Hat is doing here, disregarding the authority of Wikipedia's stance on neutrality. If you were skipping school, and wanted to justify, you would say "School, Schmool". If you were disobeying you're Aunt Josephine, you would justify, to a confidant, "Aunt Josephine, Schmaunt Josephine". Other examples include "God, Schmod", "Copyrights, Schmopyrights" and "Feds, Schmeds".
:While I was familiar with this before him, Lemony Snicket's third book of a Series of Unfortunate Events, ''The Wide Window'', explains it better than I do.
:Anonymous 04:56, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

1355: Airplane Message

2014-04-14T23:37:42Z

Rvighne: Added My Hobby link and changed add to ad(vertisement)

{{comic
| number = 1355
| date = April 14, 2014
| title = Airplane Message
| image = airplane_message.png
| titletext = PHARAOH IRY-HOR, FROM THE 3200s BC, IS THE FIRST HUMAN WHOSE NAME WE KNOW.
}}

==Explanation==
Large banners are sometimes flown behind airplanes to advertise a product or event to a large number of people. Here [[Randall]] suggests replacing the ad with some interesting facts. This one would let people, who see the banner, learn something new and interesting views of the world, rather than trying to sell them something. Here he presents two possible facts: {{w|Adriamycin}}, a cancer therapy, and {{w|Iry-Hor}}, the oldest human we do know by name.

The {{w|chemotherapy}} drug {{w|doxorubicin}}, trade name Adriamycin, is based on a strain of the bacterium ''{{w|Streptomyces peucetius}}'' first isolated from a soil sample taken at {{w|Castel del Monte, Apulia|Castel del Monte}} in {{w|Andria}}, Italy.

As mentioned at the title text Iry-Hor was an ancient, {{w|Dynasty 0|predynastic}} pharaoh of the ancient Egypt — no former Egypt documents do exist today.

==Transcript==
:There is a plane with a banner behind
:Banner: Adriamycin, one of our most potent chemotherapy drugs, comes from the dirt from an Italian castle.

:My hobby: Breaking into airplane hangars and replacing the ads on their giant banners with cool facts.

==Trivia==
*This comic is another in the string of the [[My Hobby]] comics.
*This is one of several comics dealing with cancer and its treatment. [[Randall]]'s fiancée (now his wife) [http://blog.xkcd.com/2011/06/30/family-illness/ was diagnosed] with Stage III breast cancer in October of 2010, and it has been a [[:Category:Cancer|recurring topic]] ever since.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:My Hobby]]
[[Category:Cancer]]

68: Five Thirty

2014-03-09T05:27:23Z

Rvighne: Added tentative details to Panels 9 and 10 based on a comment by RoseEmanuel

{{comic
| number = 68
| date = February 24, 2006
| title = Five Thirty
| image = five_thirty.jpg
| titletext = The 8th panel is my favorite
}}

==Explanation==
At 5:30 AM, one's sleep-deprived mind sometimes comes up with things that seem like nonsense later.

None of the twelve panels in this comic seem to have any correlation with one another, each one being its own "story," and none of them really make any sense. It is unknown whether Randall really wrote this comic while awake at 5:30 in the morning, or if he wrote it while completely alert and is trying to pass off his rejected ideas by saying what one's mind may experience when trying to process information at an hour when the person is not used to being awake.

== Comic Panels' Explanations (Numbered left to right, top to bottom): ==

1: "80s night" is a special theme many nightclubs hold, inviting their guests to wear fashions that were popular in the 1980's while playing dance music from the same period.

2: {{w|Jack the Ripper}} was an infamous serial killer in Victorian {{w|England}}. {{w|Jack Black}} is a rock star and actor. "There is no Tuesday" is likely a reference to ''{{w|The Matrix}}''.

3: There doesn't seem to be too much to this panel that isn't self-explanatory, but it's possible that there's a reference to the ''{{w|Civilization (video game)|Civilization}}'' series of video games, in which it's possible (albeit unlikely) for medieval soldiers to attack and destroy 20th-century military helicopters.

4: Stick figures standing upright are indeed drawn without any thought as to which section of their legs are the shins.

5: It's hard to tell what the two stick figures are actually doing, but the most common guess it that they're both wearing watches. In that case they likely forgot to adjust their clocks for a time change (shortly before this comic was released, {{w|Daylight Savings Time}} had just begun in the United States) and were off in their schedules as a result.

6: "Ointment" may be a reference to the infamous lotion scene in ''{{w|Silence of the Lambs}}'', as the panel appears to be invoking horror movie visuals.

7: The farthest left angle is labeled theta. The joke is that finding the cosine, the length of the adjacent leg divided by the length of the hypotenuse, would be difficult as the adjacent leg is poorly drawn and does not resemble a strait line to be measured.

8: Lots of jokes have been made out of the template "does liking X make you gay?", where the speaker is afraid that he may be a homosexual. Here, the speaker has apparently transformed into a {{w|mermaid}} at some point. His friend seems to be eager to both turn into a mermaid himself, and confirm himself for a homosexual.

9: Waving a gun around and declaring that things you hate are "for pussies" is stereotypical "{{w|macho}}" behavior. Possibly, the man with the gun is going to cut the other man's hair with bullets because it's more "macho" than going to the barber.

10: This doesn't seem to mean anything whatsoever. However, both of the characters say something irrational: "My hair is bleeding" is irrational because hair can't bleed, and "√3" is an {{w|irrational number}}.

11: A bachelor party is traditionally raucous party that is thrown for a groom on the night before his wedding. This does nothing to explain why the man is upside down.

12: Likely a reference to the "{{w|ant on a rubber rope}}" thought experiment. Apparently in Randall's mind the experiment does not end well for the ant.

----

The title text could actually refer to two different panels. If a person chooses to read the comic left-to-right, top-to-bottom, the eighth panel could be the one with where Cueball asks "Does being a mermaid for five minutes make you gay?" However, if a person chooses to read the comic top-to-bottom, left-to-right, the eighth panel will instead be the one with Cueball hanging upside down shouting "Bachelor party!"

==Transcript==
:Comics from 5:30 AM
:[A succession of unrelated and completely random panels.]

:Cueball: It's 80's night at the club. Wanna go?

:Friend: There is no Tuesday.
:Cueball: Jack the Ripper or Jack Black?

:[Cueball in this panel is holding a glinting sword.]
:Friend: You crashed my helicopter!
:Cueball: Verily!

:[A small figure is talking with a larger figure.]
:Figure 1: Basically, neither of us have shins.
:Figure 2: Over and out.

:[Two men are shown: one with three arms, and another with just two. All arms have round appendages at their ends.]
:Men: shitshitshitshitshitshitdaylightsavingsshitshitshitshitsh

:[Two figures with pumpkins (carved with faces) for heads.]
:Figure 1: You're out of ointment and out of time!

:[A diagram of a right-angled triangle, with a theta at the smallest angle.]
:FUCK THE COSINE

:Friend: Does being a mermaid for five minutes make you gay?
:Cueball: I hope so!

:[The friend is holding a gun to Cueball's head.]
:Friend: Barbershops are for pussies.

:Friend: My hair is bleeding.
:Cueball: √3

:[Cueball seems to be walking on the ceiling.]
:Cueball: Bachelor party!

:[Warning sign with picture of an ant.]
:WARNING: STRETCHY DEATH

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