explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

2216: Percent Milkfat

2026-05-15T14:52:52Z

SomebodyElse: /* Explanation */ just linking characters' names

{{comic
| number = 2216
| date = October 16, 2019
| title = Percent Milkfat
| image = percent_milkfat.png
| titletext = "So what's dark energy?" "Cosmologists and the FDA are both trying very hard to find out."
}}

==Explanation==
While cow milk contains a variable amount of fat (about 4.2%), whole milk from the store generally contains about [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/10/03/whole-milk-is-actually-3-5-milk-whats-up-with-that/ 3.5% milkfat] by weight according to the comic and some sources; [https://milklife.com/articles/nutrition/types-of-dairy-milk other sources] list similar but not identical numbers such as 3.25%.

Dairies commonly sell whole milk as well as products with less fat produced by removing milkfat. {{w|Fat_content_of_milk#United_States|In the United States}}, there are three common products with less fat: 2% or "reduced fat" milk, 1% or "lowfat" milk, and "fat-free" or "skim" milk with 0 to 0.5% milkfat.

Since whole milk is labeled as "whole" milk and not as "3.5% milk," one might naively assume that whole milk is 100% milkfat, although this is not the case; 100% would be a product which is entirely milkfat (also known as butterfat), such as {{w|clarified butter}} or ghee. In milk, {{w|Milk#Nutrition and health|the remainder}} is mainly water along with proteins, lactose (a sugar), and other substances.

The comic analogizes this difference to the fact that physicists believe that "ordinary" matter constitutes only 5% of the actual mass-energy of the universe. Scientists predict the existence of another kind of matter known as "{{w|dark matter}}," invisible to our current instruments but exerting gravitational force on ordinary matter, which would constitute 85% of total matter and 27% of the universe's mass-energy, with the remainder an even less detectable and more mysterious "{{w|dark energy}}" accounting for the increasing speed of {{w|expansion of the universe}}.

[[Ponytail]] uses these quantities to "explain" the "missing" percentage in whole milk between the actual 3.5% and a potential 100% "whole." She actually uses the 27% as mentioned above for dark matter. She thus indicates that dark energy takes up the remaining 69.5% of the whole milk.

Ponytail is assuming that dark matter and dark energy are {{w|Uniform distribution (continuous)|distributed uniformly}} throughout all pockets of the universe, no matter how small. This assumption is common in statistics and may have seemed appropriate since no one knows the proportion of dark matter or dark energy of an object as small as a milk carton (though a more sensible argument is that all matter is accounted for when considering the milk and the carton; no additional "dark" matter is necessary to explain the weight of the milk carton).

{{w|Physical cosmology|Cosmologists}} are working to better understand dark energy or another reason for the universe's accelerating expansion. The title text supposes that both cosmologists and the {{w|Food and Drug Administration}} (FDA), which regulates milk and other food items in the United States, are trying to understand the dark energy of the whole milk. In real life, the work of cosmologists and FDA scientists does not overlap at all.{{Citation needed}}

Dark energy was recently mentioned in [[2113: Physics Suppression]], but before that milkfat and dark energy were actually mentioned in the same sentence in [[2063: Carnot Cycle]] from almost a year before this comic, so the idea behind this comic is not new for [[Randall]]. Dark matter was mentioned back in [[1758: Astrophysics]] and [[2186: Dark Matter]].

==Transcript==
:[Ponytail, raising her palm, and Cueball are talking.]
:Ponytail: "2% milk" is 2% milkfat. But "whole milk" isn't 100% milkfat–it's 3.5%.
:Cueball: Weird. What's the rest of it?
:Ponytail: About 27% is dark matter. The remainder is dark energy.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Cosmology]]
[[Category:Food]]

2188: E Scooters

2026-05-15T12:48:14Z

SomebodyElse: /* Explanation */ just linking characters' names

{{comic
| number = 2188
| date = August 12, 2019
| title = E Scooters
| image = e_scooters.png
| titletext = Obviously battery technology and prices have driven a lot of the scooter explosion, but I feel like Dean Kamen must be at least a little grumpy about how much people laughed at the idea of the Segway.
}}

==Explanation==
At the time of publishing, {{w|motorized scooter}}s or e-scooters were very popular, especially with the rise of ride-share companies such as {{w|Lime (transportation company)|Lime}} and {{w|Bird (company)|Bird}} that use apps allowing users to rent the scooters by the minute.

[[Cueball]] drives up to [[White Hat]] on his e-scooter. White Hat asks him for his thoughts on the scooter; he is interested as he has heard so much about them. However, instead of just waiting to hear Cueball's response, White Hat then goes on to list four opinions he has heard other people say about e-scooters:

#Are they impractical and unsafe toys?
#Or a last-mile transit revolution?
#A low-carbon car replacement?
#Or Silicon Valley sidewalk clutter?

When White Hat finally stops talking, Cueball tells him that he has given this a lot of thought and says he will give him his opinion on e-scooters. But instead of choosing an opinion from White Hat's list, or any logical opinion at all for that matter, Cueball starts making engine/vehicle sounds. This may indicate he doesn't care about any of White Hat's complicated opinions and is just excited about the fun of riding an e-scooter. In the last panel Cueball also makes "pew pew pew" sounds and other sounds from shooter-type video games, perhaps indicating that for him, riding a scooter is akin to the fun he gets from playing such video games.

Some people consider e-scooters as a "low-carbon car replacement", as they result in far less carbon emissions (and other pollution) per mile than automobiles (though there remains debate about the environmental costs of their manufacture). Additionally, e-scooters have been touted as a form of "last-mile transit" - bridging the gap between public transit networks and final destinations. However, others consider e-scooters a public nuisance, as users often leave them on the sidewalk haphazardly; hence the question about them being clutter. The comment about them being specifically "Silicon Valley" clutter is due to the expense, the city-infrastructure needed, and the high-tech nature of these devices. Many of the e-scooter companies are also from the Silicon Valley area. Scooters have also been seen as dangerous ("unsafe toys"), as many users do not wear helmets when riding e-scooters (though Cueball is seen with a helmet in the comic, although not wearing it) or ride them at high speed on sidewalks with many pedestrians. Some cities have gone so far as to [https://www.thestate.com/news/local/article224573320.html ban e-scooters] [https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/21/18701299/nashville-electric-scooter-ban-man-killed from their communities].

Cueball's response of making onomatopoeic sounds which mimic the e-scooter is humorous for two reasons. First, e-scooters are fun and may seem futuristic, like something from his childhood. This would bring out a youthful and childish joy children have when making engine noises when playing with toy cars. He is acting like a kid because riding a scooter makes him feel like one. The second reason this is funny is that the scooters, being battery-powered, are nearly silent. He is making the sounds a traditional motorized scooter makes to fill in the audible gap. The laser sounds have no obvious connection to the scooter, but fits in with the kinds of sound effects kids make when playing with toys, feeding into the joke that he isn't making a logical argument, but simply taking childlike joy in the experience.

The title text refers to Dean Kamen, an American inventor best known for founding the {{w|Segway}} company. At the time of the invention of the Segway, it was billed as a revolution in personal transit, with articles (and Kamen himself) speculating that future cities might be entirely rebuilt around it and similar personal transporters. The reality of the Segway didn't come close to living up to the hype, and it quickly became the subject of mockery, with the original Segway ultimately being discontinued. The text implies that Kamen might resent the fact that a similar (if less grandiose) vision has re-emerged and is once again being taken seriously, but without his invention. However, [https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/01/lime-partners-with-segway-to-build-electric-scooters/ Segway actually manufactures scooters for e-scooter rental agency Lime].

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is getting off his e-scooter, with his bicycle helmet hanging on the handlebars. He has stopped right in front of White Hat who addresses him.]
:White Hat: Hey, you got one of those e-scooters!
:Cueball: Yeah!

:[Cueball is now standing next to the e-scooter holding on to the handlebars with one hand. Both he and White Hat look down at the scooter.]
:White Hat: So what do you think? I hear so much about these things.

:[A large panel with just White Hat who is spreading his arms out.]
:White Hat: Are they impractical and unsafe toys? Or a last-mile transit revolution?

:[Closeup on White Hat holding both arms out and up with palms held up.]
:White Hat: A low-carbon car replacement? Or Silicon Valley sidewalk clutter?

:[In a frame-less panel only Cueball and his e-scooter is shown.]
:Cueball: Well, having given it lots of thought, here is my opinion on scooters:

:[Cueball is bending at the knees and holding on to the handlebars with both hands as White Hat is looking at him. Cueball starts making machine noises.]
:Cueball: Zooooooom!
:Cueball: Neeeeeoooormm
:Cueball: Vrrrm Vrrmvrmm
:Cueball: Wheeee!

:[Cueball continues making sounds as in the previous panel. White Hat seems to have taken a step back.]
:Cueball: Pew pew pew!
:Cueball: Bzzzzt Kaboom!
:White Hat: Wait, why are there lasers?
:Cueball: Pew!

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category: Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category: Comics featuring White Hat]]

2184: Unpopular Opinions

2026-05-15T12:44:02Z

SomebodyElse: /* Explanation */ just linking characters' names and fixing a different link

{{comic
| number = 2184
| date = August 2, 2019
| title = Unpopular Opinions
| image = unpopular_opinions.png
| titletext = I wasn't a big fan of 3 or Salvation, so I'm trying to resist getting my hopes up too much for Dark Fate, but it's hard. I'm just a sucker for humans and robots traveling through time to try to drive trucks into each other, apparently.
}}

==Explanation==
Everybody has their own preferences as to what movies they like and dislike, and when your like or dislike of a movie seems to be different than the majority of people, you could call your preference the "unpopular opinion" because your opinion is the less prevalent one. This most often takes the form of "I hate this movie and I don't understand why everybody else seems to like it", but this comic is talking about the opposite form, which it categorizes as less common, namely "I like this movie and don't understand why everybody else seems to hate it." The comic points out that it's relatively common to hate movies that most people like, but the converse, in which you like a movie others seem to hate, is much harder to find. One explanation for this may be that if a movie is already established to be bad, you won't end up watching it anyway.

To illustrate this point, the comic challenges readers to identify such a movie, with three caveats: it came out during your adult life, you ''genuinely'' like it, and it scored below 50% on the popular review aggregator {{w|Rotten Tomatoes}}. The first two conditions are selected to eliminate the most common reasons people might like "bad" movies. Movies we see as children may win our affection despite not being very good, both because children tend to have less discriminating tastes, and because we associate them with happy memories, causing us to enjoy them as adults, despite their flaws. Some movies are enjoyed specifically ''because'' they're so bad, and people find humor or morbid fascination with the terrible filmmaking (referred to as {{tvtropes|SoBadItsGood|"So Bad, It's Good"}}). Both those cases are distinct from a film that an adult would actually enjoy on it's own merits.

The third condition is intended to ensure that the movie is genuinely unpopular (or at least critically maligned). It's possible for people to have a perception of how disliked a movie is (possibly due to your own social circle), which doesn't actually represent large-scale popularity. The condition also eliminates films which weren't actually disliked, but just weren't as popular as you think they should have been. Rotten Tomatoes aggregates professional reviews and categorizes them as positive ("fresh") or negative ("rotten"). Scoring below 50% means that less than half of all reviewers gave the film a positive review, which is a good proxy for a film being generally understood to be "bad". It's worth noting that audience ratings {{tvtropes|CriticalDissonance|don't always align with professional critics}}, so this isn't a perfect test for popularity, but it's a decent match.

The image in this comic gives an example of this effect, namely the movie ''{{w|Terminator Genisys}}'', the fifth in the {{w|Terminator (franchise)|''Terminator''}} series, released in 2015. This series, about time-traveling killer robots, included the highly rated ''Terminator 2'' (93% on Rotten Tomatoes), while ''Terminator Genisys'' is only 26%. When [[Cueball]] says he likes the movie, [[Megan]] is surprised (possibly appalled) causing him to become defensive. This may indicate another difficulty in expressing such opinions: other people may look down on you for your perceived bad taste.

The title text refers to three movies in the ''{{w|Terminator (franchise)|Terminator}}'' franchise, ''{{w|Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines}}'' (2003), ''{{w|Terminator Salvation}}'' (2009), and ''{{w|Terminator: Dark Fate}}'' (due out later in 2019). The ''Terminator'' movie series has featured both time travel and trucks driving or attempting to drive into people, and Randall apparently finds himself drawn to such movies. He hopes that ''Dark Fate'' will be a good movie, but has low expectations, considering the [https://www.rottentomatoes.com/franchise/terminator less than stellar ratings] of the last 3 movies (69%, 33%, and 26%).

A [https://www.rottentomatoes.com/browse/movies_at_home/audience:spilled~critics:rotten~sort:newest Rotten Tomatoes search ordered by release date limited to qualifying movies (except that it goes up to 60%)] can help individuals verify the difficulty of finding such movies for themselves.

==Transcript==
:[Ponytail, Cueball, and Megan are all looking at their cell phones. Cueball is in the middle, facing out, holding his phone in both hands, while the two women face towards him with only one hand on their phones. Ponytail is tapping on the phone as shown by small lines over her fingers. they talk to each other, but before that, there is the following text above them:]
:Unpopular ''positive'' opinion challenge:
:Name a movie that...
:(1) you genuinely like (not "so bad it's good")
:(2) came out in your adult life post-2000, and
:(3) is rated below 50% on Rotten Tomatoes.

:Ponytail: Wow, this is harder than I thought.
:Cueball: ...Terminator Genisys?
:Megan: Seriously?!
:Cueball: ''I like time travel, OK??''

[Caption below the panel:]
:When people talk about their "unpopular opinions" about movies, they usually mean hating something everyone likes, but liking something everyone hates is much harder.

==Trivia==
On xkcd, this Friday comic was replaced on Sunday by a [[Disappearing Sunday Update]], which was temporarily assigned the sequence number 2185 in order to prevent the trouble of having an unnumbered comic on [https://xkcd.com xkcd.com]. It was designed to disappear completely and leave no trace in xkcd's history or archives when the Monday comic, [[2185: Cumulonimbus]], was released. The original comic also no longer appears in this wiki's comic navigation and is hence [[Disappearing Sunday Update|available here]].

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Fiction]]
[[Category:Time travel]]
[[Category:Robots]]
[[Category:Terminator]]

2183: Icon Swap

2026-05-15T12:41:09Z

SomebodyElse: /* Explanation */ just linking characters' names

{{comic
| number = 2183
| date = July 31, 2019
| title = Icon Swap
| image = icon_swap.png
| titletext = Someone's probably working on an eBook app where, if you stop reading right before some plot twist happens, the app will wait a while and then send you a breaking news alert about what's happening, prompting you to open it and read the next few pages to learn more.
}}

==Explanation==
[[Randall]] denies having a {{w|social media addiction}}. However, he concludes that he must have some problem, as he opens his social media / news apps many times a day. He tries to remedy this addiction by rearranging the icons on his phone’s app launcher. Specifically, he swaps the app icon with that of an eBook reader, so opening the "social media app" would lead to the eBook reader, and vice versa. In this case, when he swaps a social media/news app with his {{w|E-book}} reading app, he ends up reading more books (as shown by the graph) because he is used to having his media app in its place, and is opening it up through {{w|muscle memory}}.

This results in the punch line, where he says that this causes him to read "a half-dozen" books before his muscle memory adjusts and not he stops opening his reader as often. Presumably, he changes the icons again in order to trick his muscle memory when he makes a conscious decision to read more books or use less social media.

Alternatively, Randall does not realize that he is reading books instead of a social media feed, and often gets through many books before realizing.

In the title text, Randall says that there is probably an eBook app in development that will use "breaking news alerts", typically sent as {{w|push notifications}}, about what is happening in the book, to prompt readers to continue reading more pages. This parallels how a news app works, which would send an alert when a new event occurs.

This topic is similar to one he went over in [[477: Typewriter]], where he is compulsively trying to check news websites despite using a typewriter.

==Transcript==
:[A histogram of books finished over time. Spikes occur at certain points, with arrows marked "Icon Swap" pointing to the point before them.]

:[Caption below the panel:]
:I'm not saying I have a problem compulsively checking news and social media on my phone, but when I replace the social media app icon with my eBook reader, I read a half-dozen books before I get used to the change.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Smartphones]]

2175: Flag Interpretation

2026-05-15T12:13:13Z

SomebodyElse: /* Explanation */ just linking characters' names

{{comic
| number = 2175
| date = July 12, 2019
| title = Flag Interpretation
| image = flag_interpretation.png
| titletext = When Salvador Dalí died, it took months to get all the flagpoles sufficiently melted.
}}

==Explanation==
In many countries including the United States (whose flag is depicted in the comic), it is customary to lower the flag to {{w|half staff}} when important public figures die. This is normally done by raising the flag to full height, then immediately "lowering" it to half height. In the US, regulations regarding flying the flag at half staff specify the length of time for the flag to be flown at half staff, and are based on the importance of the person who has died. There are no regulations where the flag would be flown at any height other than full height or half staff, and there are no regulations where multiple flags would be flown.

The definition of half-staff, or half-mast, differs between countries and does not necessarily imply flying the flag at half the height of the pole or mast. For example, in the USA the flag is usually flown at half the height of the pole, whereas UK practice is to leave space for an 'invisible flag' above the flown flag, which may mean flying the flag near the top of the pole depending on its height. These differing practices contribute to confusion and ambiguity concerning the flag height, which is exploited in the comic.

[[Randall]], as usual, makes a humorous list of fictional additional traditions.

The title text is a reference to ''{{w|The Persistence of Memory}}'' and other paintings and sculptures by {{w|Salvador Dalí}} which include watches and other objects that are melting.

===Table===
{| border =1 width=100% cellpadding=5 class="wikitable"
! Flag Position !! Randall's Interpretation || Explanation
|-
|Flag at half mast
|Someone important died.
|In the U.S., it is customary to lower the flag to half mast when somebody important died. In the flag raising ritual, the flag is supposed to be raised to full mast first and then lowered back to half mast. At the end of the day, the flag is supposed to re-raised to full mast before lowering the flag from the flagpole.
|-
|Flag at three-quarter mast
|Someone died but we're not sure how we feel about them.
|Assuming that this way of flying the flag follows the same custom as above, it can be inferred that the flag was first raised to full mast, and then lowered by only half the distance customary for honoring an important person. If the people in charge of raising the flag are not convinced of a deceased person's importance, it follows that they would give said person a half-hearted commemoration.
A more literal interpretation is that a single full-mast flag can be taken to mean "nobody important died". If so, 3/4ths mast is a compromise between that and the half mast meaning; in other words, "someone half-important died".
|-
|Flag at base of the mast
|Everyone important died.
|Likewise, if the flag is lowered halfway when an important person dies, lowering it twice as far implies that multiple important people have died. No intermediate positions are shown, so we can't be sure exactly how many. However, Randall does not specify his definition of "everyone," so this scenario could possibly imply that there was an event that led to the complete cessation of life on Earth, possibly leaving nobody to raise the flag.
|-
|Two flags at full mast
|Someone important was successfully cloned.
|Following the "flag for important people" rule, two flags would mean two (cloned) important people.
|-
|Two flags at half mast
|An important person died battling their evil clone.
|The concept of evil clone (or twin) is popular in fiction; in this case, two flags at half mast would mean that both clones (good and evilly diverged), or perhaps the cloned person and their clone-gone-bad (antithetical to the presumably 'good' original), died in some battle where both failed in trying to establish themselves as the sole surviving version.
|-
|Flag at half mast and upside-down
|Nobody has died for weeks and that seems good but statistically it's very alarming.
|Since on average [https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/ someone dies every few seconds], it would indeed be extremely unlikely that no one would die for weeks in a row. Although not having anyone die seems good on the surface, it would trigger alarm about why this was happening; what mysterious force could possibly cause cessation of all deaths? And will it continue into the future, triggering an overpopulation crisis in short order?
In real life, flying the US flag {{w|Distress_signal#Inverted_flags|upside down}} is widely considered a distress signal, "a signal of dire distress in instances of extreme danger to life or property", and would not be intended to indicate an important figure has died.
|-
|One normal-sized flag at half mast and five tiny flags at full mast
|Someone diverted a trolley to save five people by killing one important person.
|This is a reference to the {{w|Trolley problem}}, a well-known thought experiment in ethics: An out-of-control trolley is running toward five people who are on the tracks. If you do nothing, these five will be killed. However, you can trigger a switch that will divert the trolley onto a side track, where there is one person who would be killed. Which is the more ethical option?
In this case, the important person was sacrificed, and so is commemorated by the usual custom of lowering the flag to half-mast. The small flags, which represent the less important people, fly at full mast to indicate those people's continued survival.
|-
|No flag on the pole
|The person who knows where the flag is stored at night died.
|Presumably the flag-keeper died during the night, and nobody living knows where the flag is stored and can't seem to locate it to put it on the flagpole. Amusingly, this is not symbolic at all, being an automatic consequence of the flag-keeper's death.
|-
|Melted flagpole (title text)
|Salvador Dalí died
|{{w|Salvador Dalí}} was a painter who was most famous for making objects in his paintings look "melted". [[Randall]] is saying that, when he died, the flag-raisers melted the flagpoles to make them resemble his paintings, and that it took them months to do so.
|}

==Transcript==
:[8 panels in 2 rows, 4 panels per row - each panel shows a flagpole in a different state of flying flag(s) with a caption at the bottom of the panel below the flagpole.]
:[The US flag at half mast.]
:Caption: Someone important died
:[The same flag at three-quarter mast.]
:Caption: Someone died but we're not sure how we feel about them
:[The flag at the base of the mast.]
:Caption: Everyone important died
:[Two identical flags at full mast.]
:Caption: Someone important was successfully cloned
:[Two identical flags at half mast.]
:Caption: An important person died battling their evil clone
:[An upside-down flag at half mast.]
:Caption: Nobody has died for weeks and that seems good but statistically it's very alarming.
:[A normal-sized flag at half mast and five tiny flags at full mast.]
:Caption: Someone diverted a trolley to save five people by killing one important person
:[A flagpole with no flag.]
:Caption: The person who knows where the flag is stored at night died.

{{comic discussion}}

2174: First News Memory

2026-05-15T12:11:56Z

SomebodyElse: /* Title Text */ just linking characters' names

{{comic
| number = 2174
| date = July 10, 2019
| title = First News Memory
| image = first_news_memory.png
| titletext = Psychology researchers say our 'flashbulb' memories of big events can be unreliable, but I clearly remember watching live on CNN as Challenger crashed into and destroyed the Berlin Wall.
}}

==Explanation==

Seven xkcd characters are discussing their "first news memory", their first memory of an event that was reported by the news media. Typically, very young children are unaware of even major news events. At some period in childhood, a news event will be significant and widely covered enough that the child will notice and remember it. Which specific event this is impacted by the person's age, where they live, and how prominently the news is featured in their homes and surroundings.

In the first panel, [[Cueball]] and [[Megan]] report that they remember the {{w|1988 United States presidential election|1988 US presidential election}} and the {{w|Berlin_Wall#Fall_of_the_Berlin_Wall|the removal of the Berlin wall}} in 1989 respectively. These are normal 'firsts' for Americans born in the early 1980s, as both of these events dominated media coverage at the time when people of that age would first be old enough to notice and remember it.

[[Hairy]] then recalls watching the {{w|Space Shuttle Challenger disaster|''Challenger'' disaster}} in school. A number of schools in the United States showed live video of the Space Shuttle ''Challenger'' being launched in 1986, in part because the crew {{w|Christa McAuliffe|included a high-school teacher}} as a science outreach effort, only to be shocked when the spacecraft broke up shortly after take-off. The term "blew up" is only partially correct: the disaster was precipitated by a burn-through from the side of one of the solid-rocket boosters into the main tank, and its resulting loss of containment and structural integrity, resulting in what is these days {{w|Euphemism|euphemistically}} be called a "Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly" eventually from aerodynamic forces, though this process also caused the liquid hydrogen and oxygen tanks were ruptured and underwent rapid vaporisation/expansion to contribute to the effects upon the already damaged Shuttle and create a very dramatic 'smoke cloud'-like explosive effect. This disaster would indeed have been a formative memory for the many students who saw it live, but Hairy subverts this expectation by clarifying that he saw it in 1995, nearly a decade after the disaster. He mentions that his teacher was fired soon after, presumably for deliberately exposing young students to a highly traumatic event for no reason.

[[White Hat]] says that his first news memory was about the 2016 election (presumably the {{w|2016 United States presidential election|2016 US presidential election}}), which was only three years prior to the publication date of this comic. As he is in his 30's, the fact that he can't remember any earlier news events surprises his friends, as he apparently was entirely unaware of news events for most of his life.

The final memory comes from [[Black Hat]], who says he remembers "when we landed on the Moon". The implication is that he's talking about humanity's {{w|Apollo 11|first Moon landing}}, which occurred on July 20, 1969, and that "we" refers to the United States (which launched the mission in question) or mankind in general. For people who where children in the 1960's, having the first Moon landing as a memory is quite common.

Black Hat subverts this interpretation by saying 'my second memory is my mom telling us we were moving to Earth instead, to blend in with the humans.' This completely re-interprets his first sentence, as it suggests that the "we" refers to himself and his family actually landing on the Moon. It also implies that he's an alien who landed on the Moon as a stopping point before relocating to Earth. [[Hairbun]] remarks that this revelation "explains a lot", implying that Black Hat's fundamental disregard for normal standards of human behavior make more sense if he is, in fact, not human. Of course, it's equally valid to conclude that Black Hat is lying simply to mess with the people around him, which would be fully in-character for him. This could also mean that Black Hat and White Hat are brothers, and thus, since it is unclear when they landed on Earth, it's possible the election was the first news episode White Hat ever watched.

===Title Text===
The title text gives [http://theconversation.com/flashbulb-memories-of-dramatic-events-arent-as-accurate-as-believed-64838 the claim] that {{w|Flashbulb memory|flashbulb memories}} of big events can be unreliable. [[Randall]] (or another character in the comic, possibly [[Hairbun]] or [[Black Hat]], who would want to spread misinformation) denies this claim, claiming to remember watching on CNN as the ''Challenger'' spacecraft crashed into the Berlin Wall. This is an inaccurate memory of these two events, as the ''Challenger'' explosion occurred in 1986 over the Atlantic Ocean, just east of Cape Canaveral, Florida, and did not occur near the Berlin Wall (in Berlin, Germany). Also, the Berlin Wall was intentionally demolished starting in 1989; it was not damaged by a space shuttle.{{Citation needed}} It's also possible that this memory conflates those events with those of the {{w|September 11 attacks}}, since the latter ''did'' involve three winged craft crashing into and destroying landmark structures.

==Transcript==
:[Ponytail, Cueball, Megan, Hairy, White Hat, Black Hat and Hairbun are all at a party, discussing their earliest news memories.]

:[Panel with Ponytail, Cueball, Megan, and Hairy]
:Ponytail: What's your first news memory?
:Cueball: I always like this question! Mine was the 1988 election.
:Megan: Berlin wall for me. You?

:[Frame-less panel with Megan, Hairy, White Hat, and Black Hat]
:Hairy: Watching the ''Challenger'' launch in class. We were so excited; everyone was horrified when it blew up.
:Hairy: It was 1995.
:Hairy: Our teacher got fired soon after.

:[Panel with Hairy, White Hat, Black Hat, and Hairbun]
:White Hat: Mine's the 2016 election.
:Hairbun: ...aren't you in your 30's?
:White Hat: Look, we're not all great about keeping up with the news, OK?

:[Panel with White Hat, Black Hat, and Hairbun]
:Black Hat: My first memory is when we landed on the moon.
:Black Hat: My second memory is my mom telling us we were moving to Earth instead, to blend in with the humans.
:Hairbun: This explains a lot.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]
[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Black Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairbun]]
[[Category:Rockets]]

Talk:2170: Coordinate Precision

2026-05-15T11:11:22Z

SomebodyElse: I broke something.

The coordinates seem to show a NASA building, so in the end you're still soing something space related. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.55.196|172.69.55.196]] 19:47, 1 July 2019 (UTC)Some random European.
:The more precise coordinates are actually in the middle of the Rocket Garden at the Visitor's Center of the Kennedy Space Center complex. [[User:Ianrbibtitlht|Ianrbibtitlht]] ([[User talk:Ianrbibtitlht|talk]]) 19:58, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

The atom-level coordinates are obtained by appending digits of e and pi to the Rocket Garden coordinates. [[User:Ichoran|Ichoran]] ([[User talk:Ichoran|talk]]) 20:21, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

I always find it very funny to see all those decimals. Regular GPS devices have an uncertainty of 3 meters if there is no interference from trees, buildings or whatever. That puts you at about 4 to 5 decimals I guess. [[User:Palmpje|Palmpje]] ([[User talk:Palmpje|talk]]) 20:26, 1 July 2019 (UTC)
:A Google Maps webpage URL includes coordinates to seven decimal places. [[User:EmuSam|EmuSam]] ([[User talk:EmuSam|talk]]) 20:48, 1 July 2019 (UTC)
::Sure but out there with your handheld GPS or normal consumer device that includes a GPS receiver you won't get more precision than about 3 meters. And when your at the higher latitudes you're probably not getting that. [[User:Palmpje|Palmpje]] ([[User talk:Palmpje|talk]]) 20:52, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

So combining this comic with #2169, is Randal suggesting he'll be at the Rocket Garden on July 28th (much as he did in #240)? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.208|108.162.216.208]] 20:47, 1 July 2019 (UTC)
:It says ''June'' 28th. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.126.22|162.158.126.22]] 20:52, 1 July 2019 (UTC)
::No, the date of that comic is June 28, but the title text says: [AT THE JULY 28TH MEETING] --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 21:51, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

I broke the table and don't know how to fix it. HELP!! [[User:SomebodyElse|SomebodyElse]] ([[User talk:SomebodyElse|talk]]) 11:09, 15 May 2026 (UTC)
:::Ah, that makes sense. For some reason my app only showed the first part of the tirle text --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.126.94|162.158.126.94]] 23:04, 1 July 2019 (UTC)
::::The COMIC says "June 28th." The TITLE TEXT says "July 28th." Apparently the government computer predictive text was trained from different input. [[User:Mwburden|mwburden]] ([[User talk:Mwburden|talk]]) 15:26, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

Regrettably, there are two dimensions missing, Z and T. Without Z (elevation)+/- you could be in space or in a neutrino detector. T is only relevant for dynamic objects, but there again, the Americas are going West at a measurable rate! [[User:RIIW - Ponder it|RIIW - Ponder it]] ([[User talk:RIIW - Ponder it|talk]]) 21:30, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

The seventh row is likely a reference to comic number 1358 where two stick figures try to find waldo via satellite. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.226.125|172.69.226.125]] 21:44, 1 July 2019 (UTC) kisara, 21:42, 1 July 2019 (utc)

10^-40 degrees on the surface of the earth translates to about 0.7 planck lengths. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.106.234|162.158.106.234]] 21:50, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

Do the coordinates 28.5234°N, 80.6830°W really correspond to the tip of the Delta rocket? I checked and it was pointing to a small patch of ground next to the rocket, not the tip of the rocket itself. [[User:Herobrine|Herobrine]] ([[User talk:Herobrine|talk]]) 00:20, 2 July 2019 (UTC)
:No, you need to go to five decimal places to get the rocket. In that respect, I think he might be off by one digit of precision in his descriptions. [[User:Jeremyp|Jeremyp]] ([[User talk:Jeremyp|talk]]) 12:04, 2 July 2019 (UTC)
::Someone corrected it in the explanation, the coordinates 28.52345°N, 80.68309°W do correspond to the Delta rocket. [[User:Herobrine|Herobrine]] ([[User talk:Herobrine|talk]]) 12:46, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

I would like to mention that neither number seems to fit into a standard double float value. I made a fiddle showing this. [https://dotnetfiddle.net/k7yK0Y#] [[User:Ansarya|Ansarya]] ([[User talk:Ansarya|talk]]) 01:48, 2 July 2019 (UTC)
:Floats are stored base 2, so representing them exactly as decimal often requires many more digits than is actually necessary (for complicated number theory reasons, a float can always be represented exactly as decimal, which would not be true if floats were stored in base 3). For this reason, programming languages that can format floats round them, usually to a number of digits where it will be possible to reconstruct the original float (though C# apparently takes off a couple extra digits, since those digits are almost never significant). To illustrate this, I used Rust to print many more digits of a float than would be shown normally [https://play.rust-lang.org/?version=stable&mode=debug&edition=2018&gist=6796c2459ceabea1a03d7113b676dd8f]. The latitude coordinate in the comic could be the result of printing a double precision float, but the longitude coordinate could not be. Also note that it takes almost 50 digits to reach an exact base 10 representation, even though only 14 or 15 of those digits are actually needed to reconstruct the original float. [[User:Probably not Douglas Hofstadter|Probably not Douglas Hofstadter]] ([[User talk:Probably not Douglas Hofstadter|talk]]) 18:01, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

May be my pet peeve... ...but adding an additional error to every piece of input data [and maybe every intermediate result] in order to show that either the precision the original measurement ends here or that all further digits of the measurement read "0" often introduces an error that can add up surprisingly quickly => I personally prefer raw floats that indicate there probably was no error analysis to rounded data and won't get tired on telling people to explicitely state what precision they can expect.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.114.70|162.158.114.70]]

If the smallest subnormal 32 bit float is a Planck length, then the largest 32 bit float is 10 sextillion times the diameter of the observable universe. If the value 1.0 of a 64 bit float is a cubic Planck length, then the largest float is 100 sextillion ''googol'' times the volume of the observable universe. [[User:Probably not Douglas Hofstadter|Probably not Douglas Hofstadter]] ([[User talk:Probably not Douglas Hofstadter|talk]]) 17:21, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

It'd be neat to have a map that shows the precision of given coordinates; like how Google Maps shows transparent blue circle with a wider radius if it's location detection isn't very precise. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.170.76|172.69.170.76]] 19:10, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

Something about the formatting of the table seems to be messing up the main page. Not sure what it is, but it happens just after the '110 km (70 mi)' so might be related to the span. Not a major problem as it's fine on the comic page and the main page will change tomorrow anyway. [[User:A(l)Chemist|AlChemist]] ([[User talk:A(l)Chemist|talk]]) 19:43, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

/\
/ \
/____\
information is people
[[Special:Contributions/172.68.34.172|172.68.34.172]] 01:27, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

"more than a quintillion times smaller" that's short scale quintillion, right?
[[User:Kventin|Kventin]] ([[User talk:Kventin|talk]]) 08:04, 3 July 2019 (UTC)
:...and it's ambiguous otherwise. Depends entirely upon what one understands as "one time smaller" (or even if you can have a meaningful "zero times smaller", if you prefer) before you start to further multiply the smallerness by incrementing the factorisation. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.76|141.101.98.76]] 00:57, 6 July 2019 (UTC)

<q>This is probably a reference to the fact that persons are animate, and different persons can occupy the same position at different times.</q>
No it is not. The comic itself explicitly states that it's a reference to the geodetic datum when it says, <q>but since you didn't include datum information, we can't tell who</q>.

<q>As the comic notes, different persons can occupy the same position at different times</q>. Where does it note that? Am I looking at a different comic? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.38.166|162.158.38.166]] 09:57, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

Is there supposed to be a comma after the dash in the description on 15 decimal places? I thought the "beginning - interjection - end of sentence" structure doesn't require a comma since the interjected section is basically a comma in itself. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.44.146|172.69.44.146]] 16:51, 3 July 2019 (UTC)
:As I learned it, a sentence with an interjection should be structured and punctuated as if the interjection were not there, be it enclosed in parentheses or dashes. See “Let's hunt – and then eat –, Grandma!”. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.226.106|172.68.226.106]] 22:40, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

For whatever reason, the plural of “geodetic datum” is “geodetic datums”. If you say “geodetic data”, then that sounds like you’re talking about a list of coordinates or something. It’s not regular, but it’s standard usage in the geodetic field. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.160.150|172.69.160.150]] 13:47, 4 July 2019 (UTC)

"The coordinates at 28.52345°N, 80.68309°W (in decimal degrees form; in geographic coordinate system form using degrees, minutes, and seconds, 28° 31′ 24.24.4″N, 80° 40′ 59.1″W)". The reference https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geographic_coordinate_system does not support the view that degrees-minutes-seconds are any more of a geographic coordinate system than are decimal degrees (or meters, radians, etc. for that matter). This reads like somebody is grinding an axe.[[Special:Contributions/172.68.58.149|172.68.58.149]] 23:53, 4 July 2019 (UTC)

Also the table at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal_degrees is similar to the comic, and predates it by at least a year. Not sure how or if that should be included in the explanation.[[Special:Contributions/172.68.58.149|172.68.58.149]] 23:53, 4 July 2019 (UTC)

Then of course there's N 47° 38.938 W 122° 20.887 - You're probably a [[wikipedia:Geocaching|geocacher]] (Which always uses the GPS standard WGS84 datum, by the way, so that's that problem solved). --[[User:IByte|IByte]] ([[User talk:IByte|talk]]) 11:37, 6 July 2019 (UTC)
:I was actually surprised there was no reference to [[426|geohashing]] here. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.245.193|172.68.245.193]] 06:39, 8 July 2019 (UTC)

'''What the number of digits in your time means'''

2010s: you're talking about a zeitgeist 
2016: you're talking about a piece of culture and how it fits in that zeitgeist 
2016 Q4: you're talking about a likely release date in the future 
2016 Nov: you're doing accounting 
2016 Nov 08: you're talking about a specific historic event 
2016 Nov 08 01:30 PM: you're talking about an event to gather for, but since you didn't include timezone information, we can't tell when 
2016 Nov 08 01:41 PM: you're writing a play-by-play 
2016 Nov 08 01:41:42 PM: you're checking out the date for an online comment 
2016 Nov 08 01:41:42.135 PM: you're optimistic about your computer's ability to sync to a webserver 
2016 Nov 08 01:41:42.135623 PM: you're probably filming with an expensive slow-mo camera 
2016 Nov 08 01:41:42.135623730 PM: you're probably doing something space-related

[[Special:Contributions/172.69.190.4|172.69.190.4]] 20:54, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

Before I came here I started a Google search on the Latitude and Longitude - Google offered up the correct Longitude as I entered the Latitude. Just interesting, not surprising.

Someone just corrected that GPS coordinates do not cover square but rectangular areas. Now I am wondering: Is that correct? wouldn't the areas be slightly wider at the base closest to the equator, than on the base closes to the nearest pole? Or does this still qualify as rectangular, since the angles are 90° on the surface? Also: are all rectangles, when defined by the same amount of digits, the same size? or are they smaller close to the poles? (If I do not have something fundamentally wrong in my mind they would need to be either much smaller or more overlapping, close to the poles?) --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 07:14, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

Anyone else notice the longitude starts giving the digits of pi? 68309(4159265358) just missing the 3.1. {{unsigned ip|162.158.146.180|18:50, 9 January 2024}}

I broke the table and can't fix it. HELP!! [[User:SomebodyElse|SomebodyElse]] ([[User talk:SomebodyElse|talk]]) 11:11, 15 May 2026 (UTC)

Talk:2170: Coordinate Precision

2026-05-15T11:09:30Z

SomebodyElse: I broke something.

2170: Coordinate Precision

2026-05-15T11:07:40Z

SomebodyElse: /* Chart */ WHOOOPS - placed in wrong area

{{comic
| number = 2170
| date = July 1, 2019
| title = Coordinate Precision
| image = coordinate_precision.png
| titletext = 40 digits: You are optimistic about our understanding of the nature of distance itself.
}}

==Explanation==

This cartoon gives increasingly precise latitude and longitude coordinates for a location on the planet Earth. However, a given pair of coordinates covers a trapezoidal region of land, and thus leaves some ambiguity; therefore, greater precision requires an increasing count of decimal places in your coordinates. This comic uses this information to roughly identify how precise a given coordinate length might be.

The increasing precision of coordinates in this cartoon is similar to the increasing magnification in the short documentary {{w|Powers of Ten (film)|"Powers of 10,"}} which can be found [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fKBhvDjuy0 here]. (Also parodied in [[271: Powers of One]]).

The coordinates at [https://tools.wmflabs.org/geohack/geohack.php?pagename=Cape_Canaveral&params=28.52345_N_80.68309_W_type:landmark_region:US-FL_scale:10000 28.52345°N, 80.68309°W] (in {{w|decimal degrees}} form; in {{w|geographic coordinate system}} form using degrees, minutes, and seconds, 28° 31′ 24.4″N, 80° 40′ 59.1″W) are pointing to the {{w|Rocket Garden}} at the {{w|Kennedy Space Center}} in {{w|Merritt Island, Florida}} —specifically, the tip of the [https://www.kennedyspacecenter.com/-/media/DNC/KSCVC/Blog-Images/Rocket-Garden/rocket-garden-with-labels.ashx?h=860&w=1173&la=en&hash=7B9ADC7AFF5370E462AC98D9651945B806B77B2C Delta] rocket.

The sixth entry in the table, with seven digits of precision, includes the caveat that, while your coordinates map to areas small enough on the Earth's surface to indicate pointing to a specific person in a room, "since you didn't include datum information, we can't tell who". This is a reference to the ''{{w|geodetic datum}}'' or ''geodetic system'' — different ways of dealing with the fact that the Earth is neither perfectly spherical nor perfectly an oblate ellipsoid. The various datums do not make much difference at six digits of precision, but at seven, there is enough skew depending on which system is in use that the person in a room you are referring to with the coordinates is ambiguous. It is unstated, but the remaining lines in the table with ever-greater precision suffer from this same issue and are equally ambiguous without datum information.

The final entry, with seventeen digits of precision, suggests that either the user is referring to individual atoms in the much-larger-scale whole-Earth coordinate system, or (perhaps more likely) has not bothered to format the values from the GPS module for viewing in the software UI in any way whatsoever, resulting in a value that is {{w|False precision|meaninglessly precise}} because the measurement wasn't that {{w|Accuracy and precision|accurate}} to begin with. See [[2696: Precision vs Accuracy]]. Even if the value is accurate, locating individual atoms by coordinates is not actually useful in most cases, and the motions of multiple systems within our physical world (continental drift, subtle vibrations, {{w|Brownian motion}}, etc.) would render the precise value obsolete rather quickly.

For the decimal places past the 5th on the latitude, the digits given are actually the first part of the decimal expansion of the constant ''e'' (2.7182818284), while for the decimal places past the 5th on the longitude, the digits given are part of the decimal expansion of the constant ''π'' (3.14159265358) starting with the second digit (4).

The title text references how at sufficiently small distances, our understanding of reality itself begins to break down. Smaller than the {{w|Planck length}}, which is more than a quintillion times smaller than the diameter of a proton, the ideals of Euclidean geometry no longer apply and space itself may be composed of a {{w|quantum foam}} where the very geometry of spacetime itself fluctuates, meaning coordinate systems based on an assumption that space doesn't change would no longer work. String theory, on the other hand, assumes that at a short enough distance the world is composed of ten space dimensions, which precludes the use of a two-dimensional coordinate system (not that our “normal” three dimensions don't do so in themselves).

The actual number of longitude digits needed to identify a point to a particular precision depends on its latitude. Near the poles, you need fewer longitude digits than at the equator – starting with one digit fewer at around lat. 85°, past all constantly inhabited human settlements, and with two digits fewer at lat. 89.5°, inaccessible to anyone but polar researchers and the occasional guided tour. The number of latitude digits for some particular accuracy stays essentially the same everywhere.

==Chart==

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Decimal places
! Resolution*
! In the comic
! Location
! Explanation/notes
|-
| 0
| 110 km (70 mi)
| Something space-related
| Somewhere near the east coast of Florida
| This resolution is enough to point out a large-scale feature like a country, a mountain range, a large lake, or a significant island on a map of the world. It can also be used to tell if certain celestial phenomena are visible from a given location.
|-
| 1
| 11 km (7 mi)
| A specific city
| Cape Canaveral
| Cities typically span a couple kilometers/miles in diameter and are far enough from each other to distinguish them at this resolution. There are exceptions though, and the veracity of this statement depends greatly on the definition of a “city”, which varies by location and history.
|-
| 2
| 1.1 km (¾ mi)
| A neighborhood
| Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex
|
|-
| 3
| 110 m (360 ft)
| A suburban cul-de-sac
| The Rocket Garden at the Kennedy Space Center
|
|-
| 4
| 11 m (36 ft)
| A particular corner of a house
| Somewhere near the center of the Rocket Garden
|
|-
| 5
| 1.1 m (3½ ft)
| A specific person in a room (given geodetic datum information)
| The [https://www.kennedyspacecenter.com/-/media/DNC/KSCVC/Blog-Images/Rocket-Garden/rocket-garden-with-labels.ashx?h=860&w=1173&la=en&hash=7B9ADC7AFF5370E462AC98D9651945B806B77B2C Thor-Delta] rocket in Rocket Garden
| As the comic notes, the differences between {{w|geodetic datum}}s – different ways to map geodetic coordinates to specific points on the Earth's surface – become large enough that one needs to specify the one in use when supplying coordinates to this degree of precision (or greater, of course). Since the Earth is not a perfect ellipsoid, different parts of the planet conform best to ellipsoids of slightly different proportions, resulting in different coordinates for a specific location; not to mention that locally used datums have local reference points, which means that the local and global standards are slowly drifting away from each other with the tectonical plates.
Note that the comment in the comic concerns only the {{w|North American Datum|NAD 1983}} datum which is fairly close to the international, “one size fits all” standard {{w|WGS-84}}. Other datums may be shifted by tens or even hundreds of meters (yards), making geodetic datum specification necessary for less precise coordinates as well. {{w|Geocaching}} uses seven numbers, five decimal places, for precision, although it can only really be trusted to five or six (three or four decimal places).
|-
| 9
| 0.11 mm (4⅜ thou)
|-
| 7
| 1.1 cm (⁷⁄₁₆ in)
| Waldo on a page
| Presumably the very tip of the rocket
| This refers to ''{{w|Where's Wally?|Where's Waldo?}}'', a series of books and magazines containing various scenes (densely packed with people) where one must find Waldo, a character wearing a red and white striped shirt. In the puzzles, he usually stands less than 2 cm (1 in) tall.
Finding Waldo on a page using satellites was also referenced in [[1358:_NRO|#1358]].
| A specific grain of sand
| rowspan=3 | N/A
|
|-
| 15
| 110 pm (1.1 Å)
| Raw floating point precision or an individual atom
| A double-precision (64-bit) floating point variable stores 52 significant bits (with an implicit 1 in front), so that 180.00000000000000 and 179.99999999999997 may be represented as distinct values. (This is only 14 decimals, however; the larger the integral part, the fewer bits remain to represent the fractional part.) This level of precision is useful for mitigating rounding errors in computations, but this advantage only shows if the last few digits are treated as non-significant and thus, ideally, hidden from view. To work with data that is actually this precise – like tracking individual atoms or representing continental drift up to the second –, one must make allowance for these additional non-significant digits and store the coordinates in ''quadruple'' precision.
To track atoms, however, one needs very sensitive (and expensive) equipment with a severely limited range (according to our current understanding of science and technology). Using a global-scale coordinate system when a micrometer-scale would fit much better is either an abuse of the system and a great waste of memory and computing power, or it means that a significant portion of the Earth's surface has been blanketed by quantum microscopes, which would be an abuse and a waste of many other things as well.{{Citation needed}}
|-
| 40
| 1.1 × 10–11 ym (1.1 × 10–35 m)
| Near (or past) our current understanding of the nature of distance
| This is where the resolution reaches the Planck length (1.6 × 10–35 m). At this scale, the very structure of spacetime (and thus, the notion of distance) may be different than what we know; measuring anything to Planck length precision would necessitate such tremendous amounts of energy in one place that would create minuscule black holes, warping spacetime further (in addition to wreaking havoc with whatever you were trying to pinpoint).
|}
<nowiki>*</nowiki>Since the Earth is not exactly spherical, the actual length of one degree of latitude varies between 110.574 km (68.707 mi) at the equator and 111.694 km (69.403 mi) at the poles, while one degree of longitude is 111.320 km (69.171 mi) at the equator, 55.800 km (34.673 mi) at lat. 60°, and 0 km (0 mi) at the poles.

==Transcript==
:[Single panel containing a table with two columns for "Lat/Lon Precision" and "Meaning" and a caption above the table.]
:Caption: What The Number of Digits in Your Coordinates Means

:[Row 1]
:Lat/Lon: 28°N, 80°W
:Meaning: You're probably doing something space-related

:[Row 2]
:Lat/Lon: 28.5°N, 80.6°W
:Meaning: You're pointing out a specific city

:[Row 3]
:Lat/Lon: 28.52°N, 80.68°W
:Meaning: You're pointing out a neighborhood

:[Row 4]
:Lat/Lon: 28.523°N, 80.683°W
:Meaning: You're pointing out a specific suburban cul-de-sac

:[Row 5]
:Lat/Lon: 28.5234°N, 80.6830°W
:Meaning: You're pointing to a particular corner of a house

:[Row 6]
:Lat/Lon: 28.52345°N, 80.68309°W
:Meaning: You're pointing to a specific person in a room, but since you didn't include datum information, we can't tell who

:[Row 7]
:Lat/Lon: 28.5234571°N, 80.6830941°W
:Meaning: You're pointing to Waldo on a page

:[Row 8]
:Lat/Lon: 28.523457182°N, 80.683094159°W
:Meaning: "Hey, check out this specific sand grain!"

:[Row 9]
:Lat/Lon: 28.523457182818284°N, 80.683094159265358°W
:Meaning: Either you're handing out raw floating point variables, or you've built a database to track individual atoms. In either case, please stop.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Space]]
[[Category:Geography]]
[[Category:Programming]]

2170: Coordinate Precision

2026-05-15T11:05:51Z

SomebodyElse: /* Chart */ linking to Geocaching

{{comic
| number = 2170
| date = July 1, 2019
| title = Coordinate Precision
| image = coordinate_precision.png
| titletext = 40 digits: You are optimistic about our understanding of the nature of distance itself.
}}

==Explanation==

This cartoon gives increasingly precise latitude and longitude coordinates for a location on the planet Earth. However, a given pair of coordinates covers a trapezoidal region of land, and thus leaves some ambiguity; therefore, greater precision requires an increasing count of decimal places in your coordinates. This comic uses this information to roughly identify how precise a given coordinate length might be.

The increasing precision of coordinates in this cartoon is similar to the increasing magnification in the short documentary {{w|Powers of Ten (film)|"Powers of 10,"}} which can be found [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fKBhvDjuy0 here]. (Also parodied in [[271: Powers of One]]).

The coordinates at [https://tools.wmflabs.org/geohack/geohack.php?pagename=Cape_Canaveral&params=28.52345_N_80.68309_W_type:landmark_region:US-FL_scale:10000 28.52345°N, 80.68309°W] (in {{w|decimal degrees}} form; in {{w|geographic coordinate system}} form using degrees, minutes, and seconds, 28° 31′ 24.4″N, 80° 40′ 59.1″W) are pointing to the {{w|Rocket Garden}} at the {{w|Kennedy Space Center}} in {{w|Merritt Island, Florida}} —specifically, the tip of the [https://www.kennedyspacecenter.com/-/media/DNC/KSCVC/Blog-Images/Rocket-Garden/rocket-garden-with-labels.ashx?h=860&w=1173&la=en&hash=7B9ADC7AFF5370E462AC98D9651945B806B77B2C Delta] rocket.

The sixth entry in the table, with seven digits of precision, includes the caveat that, while your coordinates map to areas small enough on the Earth's surface to indicate pointing to a specific person in a room, "since you didn't include datum information, we can't tell who". This is a reference to the ''{{w|geodetic datum}}'' or ''geodetic system'' — different ways of dealing with the fact that the Earth is neither perfectly spherical nor perfectly an oblate ellipsoid. The various datums do not make much difference at six digits of precision, but at seven, there is enough skew depending on which system is in use that the person in a room you are referring to with the coordinates is ambiguous. It is unstated, but the remaining lines in the table with ever-greater precision suffer from this same issue and are equally ambiguous without datum information.

The final entry, with seventeen digits of precision, suggests that either the user is referring to individual atoms in the much-larger-scale whole-Earth coordinate system, or (perhaps more likely) has not bothered to format the values from the GPS module for viewing in the software UI in any way whatsoever, resulting in a value that is {{w|False precision|meaninglessly precise}} because the measurement wasn't that {{w|Accuracy and precision|accurate}} to begin with. See [[2696: Precision vs Accuracy]]. Even if the value is accurate, locating individual atoms by coordinates is not actually useful in most cases, and the motions of multiple systems within our physical world (continental drift, subtle vibrations, {{w|Brownian motion}}, etc.) would render the precise value obsolete rather quickly.

For the decimal places past the 5th on the latitude, the digits given are actually the first part of the decimal expansion of the constant ''e'' (2.7182818284), while for the decimal places past the 5th on the longitude, the digits given are part of the decimal expansion of the constant ''π'' (3.14159265358) starting with the second digit (4).

The title text references how at sufficiently small distances, our understanding of reality itself begins to break down. Smaller than the {{w|Planck length}}, which is more than a quintillion times smaller than the diameter of a proton, the ideals of Euclidean geometry no longer apply and space itself may be composed of a {{w|quantum foam}} where the very geometry of spacetime itself fluctuates, meaning coordinate systems based on an assumption that space doesn't change would no longer work. String theory, on the other hand, assumes that at a short enough distance the world is composed of ten space dimensions, which precludes the use of a two-dimensional coordinate system (not that our “normal” three dimensions don't do so in themselves).

The actual number of longitude digits needed to identify a point to a particular precision depends on its latitude. Near the poles, you need fewer longitude digits than at the equator – starting with one digit fewer at around lat. 85°, past all constantly inhabited human settlements, and with two digits fewer at lat. 89.5°, inaccessible to anyone but polar researchers and the occasional guided tour. The number of latitude digits for some particular accuracy stays essentially the same everywhere.

==Chart==

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Decimal places
! Resolution*
! In the comic
! Location
! Explanation/notes
|-
| 0
| 110 km (70 mi)
| Something space-related
| Somewhere near the east coast of Florida
| This resolution is enough to point out a large-scale feature like a country, a mountain range, a large lake, or a significant island on a map of the world. It can also be used to tell if certain celestial phenomena are visible from a given location.
|-
| 1
| 11 km (7 mi)
| A specific city
| Cape Canaveral
| Cities typically span a couple kilometers/miles in diameter and are far enough from each other to distinguish them at this resolution. There are exceptions though, and the veracity of this statement depends greatly on the definition of a “city”, which varies by location and history.
|-
| 2
| 1.1 km (¾ mi)
| A neighborhood
| Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex
|
|-
| 3
| 110 m (360 ft)
| A suburban cul-de-sac
| The Rocket Garden at the Kennedy Space Center
|
|-
| 4
| 11 m (36 ft)
| A particular corner of a house
| Somewhere near the center of the Rocket Garden
|
|-
| 5
| 1.1 m (3½ ft)
| A specific person in a room (given geodetic datum information)
| The [https://www.kennedyspacecenter.com/-/media/DNC/KSCVC/Blog-Images/Rocket-Garden/rocket-garden-with-labels.ashx?h=860&w=1173&la=en&hash=7B9ADC7AFF5370E462AC98D9651945B806B77B2C Thor-Delta] rocket in Rocket Garden
| As the comic notes, the differences between {{w|geodetic datum}}s – different ways to map geodetic coordinates to specific points on the Earth's surface – become large enough that one needs to specify the one in use when supplying coordinates to this degree of precision (or greater, of course). Since the Earth is not a perfect ellipsoid, different parts of the planet conform best to ellipsoids of slightly different proportions, resulting in different coordinates for a specific location; not to mention that locally used datums have local reference points, which means that the local and global standards are slowly drifting away from each other with the tectonical plates.
Note that the comment in the comic concerns only the {{w|North American Datum|NAD 1983}} datum which is fairly close to the international, “one size fits all” standard {{w|WGS-84}}. Other datums may be shifted by tens or even hundreds of meters (yards), making geodetic datum specification necessary for less precise coordinates as well.
|-
| 7
| 1.1 cm (⁷⁄₁₆ in)
| Waldo on a page
| Presumably the very tip of the rocket
| This refers to ''{{w|Where's Wally?|Where's Waldo?}}'', a series of books and magazines containing various scenes (densely packed with people) where one must find Waldo, a character wearing a red and white striped shirt. In the puzzles, he usually stands less than 2 cm (1 in) tall.
Finding Waldo on a page using satellites was also referenced in [[1358:_NRO|#1358]].
{{w|Geocaching}} also uses seven numbers for precision, although it can only really be trusted to five or six.
|-
| 9
| 0.11 mm (4⅜ thou)
| A specific grain of sand
| rowspan=3 | N/A
|
|-
| 15
| 110 pm (1.1 Å)
| Raw floating point precision or an individual atom
| A double-precision (64-bit) floating point variable stores 52 significant bits (with an implicit 1 in front), so that 180.00000000000000 and 179.99999999999997 may be represented as distinct values. (This is only 14 decimals, however; the larger the integral part, the fewer bits remain to represent the fractional part.) This level of precision is useful for mitigating rounding errors in computations, but this advantage only shows if the last few digits are treated as non-significant and thus, ideally, hidden from view. To work with data that is actually this precise – like tracking individual atoms or representing continental drift up to the second –, one must make allowance for these additional non-significant digits and store the coordinates in ''quadruple'' precision.
To track atoms, however, one needs very sensitive (and expensive) equipment with a severely limited range (according to our current understanding of science and technology). Using a global-scale coordinate system when a micrometer-scale would fit much better is either an abuse of the system and a great waste of memory and computing power, or it means that a significant portion of the Earth's surface has been blanketed by quantum microscopes, which would be an abuse and a waste of many other things as well.{{Citation needed}}
|-
| 40
| 1.1 × 10–11 ym (1.1 × 10–35 m)
| Near (or past) our current understanding of the nature of distance
| This is where the resolution reaches the Planck length (1.6 × 10–35 m). At this scale, the very structure of spacetime (and thus, the notion of distance) may be different than what we know; measuring anything to Planck length precision would necessitate such tremendous amounts of energy in one place that would create minuscule black holes, warping spacetime further (in addition to wreaking havoc with whatever you were trying to pinpoint).
|}
<nowiki>*</nowiki>Since the Earth is not exactly spherical, the actual length of one degree of latitude varies between 110.574 km (68.707 mi) at the equator and 111.694 km (69.403 mi) at the poles, while one degree of longitude is 111.320 km (69.171 mi) at the equator, 55.800 km (34.673 mi) at lat. 60°, and 0 km (0 mi) at the poles.

==Transcript==
:[Single panel containing a table with two columns for "Lat/Lon Precision" and "Meaning" and a caption above the table.]
:Caption: What The Number of Digits in Your Coordinates Means

:[Row 1]
:Lat/Lon: 28°N, 80°W
:Meaning: You're probably doing something space-related

:[Row 2]
:Lat/Lon: 28.5°N, 80.6°W
:Meaning: You're pointing out a specific city

:[Row 3]
:Lat/Lon: 28.52°N, 80.68°W
:Meaning: You're pointing out a neighborhood

:[Row 4]
:Lat/Lon: 28.523°N, 80.683°W
:Meaning: You're pointing out a specific suburban cul-de-sac

:[Row 5]
:Lat/Lon: 28.5234°N, 80.6830°W
:Meaning: You're pointing to a particular corner of a house

:[Row 6]
:Lat/Lon: 28.52345°N, 80.68309°W
:Meaning: You're pointing to a specific person in a room, but since you didn't include datum information, we can't tell who

:[Row 7]
:Lat/Lon: 28.5234571°N, 80.6830941°W
:Meaning: You're pointing to Waldo on a page

:[Row 8]
:Lat/Lon: 28.523457182°N, 80.683094159°W
:Meaning: "Hey, check out this specific sand grain!"

:[Row 9]
:Lat/Lon: 28.523457182818284°N, 80.683094159265358°W
:Meaning: Either you're handing out raw floating point variables, or you've built a database to track individual atoms. In either case, please stop.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Space]]
[[Category:Geography]]
[[Category:Programming]]

3245: Results Age

2026-05-14T12:22:40Z

SomebodyElse: /* Explanation */ Finishing the table

{{comic
| number = 3245
| date = May 13, 2026
| title = Results Age
| image = results_age_2x.png
| imagesize = 478x669px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Please, we need your help. Our research suggests you're the last living descendant of the person who knew how to format this config file.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|This page was created BY AN INTERNET GRANDPA. Don't remove this notice too soon.}}
This comic shows how likely it is that a bug reported will be fixed, based on the age of some past post that matches your search for details of the problem.

A table is shown below of the explanations of each table row:
{| class="wikitable"
!Age of post !! Explanation given !! Full Explanation
|-
|2 hours ago || A service outage. Not very long to fix - Just wait. ||The recentness of the information implies that it has just happened, and other people have noticed it and started to post about the issue. Large-scale problems like a service outage are obvious priorities, and will (hopefully!) be fixed quickly.
|-
|5 days ago || A new update just broke something big. High chance to be fixed, but you might have to wait for a patch || Similar to before, a large breakage would be very high priority to be fixed. However, as it's been five days since reporting it, the bug is likely taking a while to be found, so - as pointed out in the comic - you could have to wait a bit longer for this one to be resolved.
|-
|3 months ago ||A new product isn't working for some users. Decent chance of finding a solution in replies || This problem is clearly not considered a priority for a fix by the creators, judging by how long it's been there. It possibly isn't an issue affecting everyone, or even a large proportion of users. However, people are innovative, and someone may well have found their own fix, patch or kludge to get around the product limitations.
|-
|2 years ago||You've run into an edge case. Low chance to be fixed, but there could be help in troubleshooting||An edge case is a rare situation that the developers did not think to account for, usually causing a logic error, where the program works, but outputs something unexpected which might cause an error down the line. Very few people will suffer from this precise problem, which may mean that it's not considered worth the effort to apply a fix. The developers or other users may have encountered similar issues on this or similar software, and noting how they solved ''those'' problems might lead you towards how to solve your own.
|-
|13 years ago||You're the only one with this problem. Very Low chance to be fixed, and the post is likely irrelevant||A post of this age likely predates the software you're using, or at least the current version of it. It's probably a coincidental match to your search query, and doesn't actually relate to the problem you've encountered. Since no-one else has posted about this issue or anything similar within a recent timeframe, it's likely that you're the first person (or at least, one of very few people) to have come across it.
|-
|24 years ago||Oh god how is the Internet so old. Maybe whoever posted the message's children can help you out. || This is another comic [[:Category:Comics to make one feel old|where Randall makes people feel old]]. In this case by pointing out that the Internet is very old, and people posting comments in the early period of the Internet are now grown up with kids. Something [[Randall]] has repeatedly shown that he is uncomfortable with. It is also (presumably) rare enough to be a [[979: Wisdom of the Ancients|DenverCoder9 situation]], and 13 years is longer than the time in that comic, so 13 years might be such a situation too.
The Internet is, in fact, over fifty years old — significantly older than this notional post. The World Wide Web (to many, synonymous with the Internet) hails from the early 1990s, and Google (one of the more commonly used search engines, through which this error search might have been made) started working in the late 1990s. The biggest surprise might be that some information found on a web-page in 2002 (and still relevant to your search) survives on some still live web server (or as an archive of that original information on some successor site). For example, anything hosted on a {{w|GeoCities}} site would have normally been made inaccessible in 2014.
|-
|Title text||Please, we need your help. Our research suggests you're the last living descendant of the person who knew how to format this config file.||The title text appears to be a conversation taking place in a distant future with the descendant of an ancient internet post. The 'last living descendant' is a common trope in fiction where arcane knowledge is passed down through a family line (often on the previous generation's deathbed). The suggestion is that the solution to the user's issue is a closely guarded secret that has had to be kept safe in this way.
|}

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

:Implications of the age of the posts you see when you Google an error message

:[A search engine prompt field is shown, containing part of an error code message (beginning with E-21 & what looks like a 9 & 3 next to it). Below this are search results shown as obscured text, except for a the phrase '3 years ago' in the first heading. This is expanded into an ellipse that obscures the rest of the search field.]
:[A table, with 3 columns, labelled "Age of post", "What it means", and "Probability of a fix"]

:[Row 1: Age of post:] 2 hours ago
:[What it means:] There's an infrastructure outage
:[Probability of a fix:] Very high -- just wait

:[Row 2: Age of post:] 5 days ago
:[What it means:] A recent update broke something big
:[Probability of a fix:] High, but you might have to wait for a patch

:[Row 3: Age of post:] 3 months ago
:[What it means:] A new product isn't working for some users
:[Probability of a fix:] Decent chance of a solution in the replies

:[Row 4: Age of post:] 2 years ago
:[What it means:] You've run into an edge case
:[Probability of a fix:] Low, but maybe the replies can help with troubleshooting

:[Row 5: Age of post:] 13 years ago
:[What it means:] You're the only person with this problem
:[Probability of a fix:] Very low -- post is likely not relevant

:[Row 6: Age of post:] 24 years ago
:[What it means:] Oh God how is the Internet this old
:[Probability of a fix:] Maybe whoever posted this message has kids who can help you

{{comic discussion}}<noinclude>

[[Category:Comics to make one feel old]]
[[Category:Computers]]
[[Category:Internet]]

3245: Results Age

2026-05-13T19:53:44Z

SomebodyElse: /* Explanation */ connecting to 979: Wisdom of the Ancients

3245: Results Age

2026-05-13T19:51:37Z

SomebodyElse: /* Explanation */ typo correction

3245: Results Age

2026-05-13T19:50:13Z

SomebodyElse: /* Explanation */ connecting to 979: Wisdom of the Ancients

3245: Results Age

2026-05-13T19:42:30Z

SomebodyElse: /* Explanation */ an explanation of an edge case

Talk:3245: Results Age

2026-05-13T19:40:52Z

SomebodyElse:

oh god these are uncomfortably accurate...though sometimes the post age is the next time rung down. i hit an issue recently which sent me to mozilla forum posts from 2008, migrated twice, where the people having the problem seem to have stopped caring about it a decade ago - '''[[User:Vaedez|Vaedez]]''' ([[User talk:Vaedez|talk]]) 18:43, 13 May 2026 (UTC)

Man, I’m not even 24 ''years old'' [[Special:Contributions/2A02:6B6F:E226:B00:803D:CE4C:ED8:DED4|2A02:6B6F:E226:B00:803D:CE4C:ED8:DED4]] 18:45, 13 May 2026 (UTC)

I guess once we finish the table in the explanation we can convert that to a similar table in the transcript, rather than doing them independently. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 19:13, 13 May 2026 (UTC)

I will add an explanation of an edge case [[User:SomebodyElse|SomebodyElse]] ([[User talk:SomebodyElse|talk]]) 19:40, 13 May 2026 (UTC)

541: TED Talk

2026-05-13T16:40:59Z

SomebodyElse: /* Conferences where Randall is banned from */

{{comic
| number = 541
| date = February 9, 2009
| title = TED Talk
| image = ted_talk.png
| titletext = The IAU ban came after the 'redefinition of the 'planet' to include the IAU president's mom' incident.
}}

==Explanation==
The comics shows Randall as a presenter at the highly prestigious {{w|TED conference}}, a symposium about technology, entertainment and design. The illustrious {{w|list of TED speakers|list of former presenters}} includes amongst others Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Larry Page, Richard Dawkins and Gordon Brown. The conference is regarded as a forum for {{w|digerati}}. Every talk has a length of at most 20 minutes and is supposed to be as captivating as possible. Randall's presentation, however, reduces the purpose of the conference to absurdity: The topic he wishes to point out to his listeners, is that of how to put an emoticon at the end of a parenthetical statement. One possibility that is shown is "Linux (or BSD :)", which looks mismatched because the emoji does not close the opening parenthesis. The other one, "Linux (or BSD :))" has a closing parenthesis, but makes the emoticon look double-chinned.

This question is of little practical consequence, although it received a lot of attention after publication of the comic. In the last panel, the TED conference is another item to add to his list of conferences from which he has been banned. On the list are other conferences from all sorts of fields, including every American {{w|furry convention}}. The title text about Randall's ban from the {{w|IAU}} conference is a reference to the popular maternal insults called {{w|"Yo mama" joke}}s. A common representative of the genre runs "Yo mama so fat, scientists have declared her the 10th planet." Those kinds of jokes are a [[:Category:Your Mom|recurring theme]] on xkcd. Unpaired parentheses would later be mentioned again in [[859: (]].

It can be inferred from [[629: Skins]], that Randall was banned from North American furry conventions due to being a "Skin", which is a furry whose fursona prefers going around disguised as a human. Depending on Randall's behavior, such an action could generate a lot of drama and, presumably, lead to convention bans. Getting banned from attending a conference is a [[:Category:Banned from conferences|recurring theme]] on xkcd, and even in real life, Randall sometimes has bad ideas for conference topics, [https://blog.xkcd.com/2009/02/11/ireland/ such as presumably not speaking for the entire conference]. This was so far the sixth of eight comics to directly mention conference bans. The first to do so was [[153: Cryptography]].

===Conferences where Randall is banned from===
These are the conferences from which Randall has been banned according to this comic.

; [http://www.siggraph.org Siggraph]: Special Interest Group on Graphics and Interactive Techniques. - According to [[365: Slides]]'s title text, he was physically thrown out.

; [http://www.iacr.org/meetings/eurocrypt/ Eurocrypt]: Annual International Conference on the Theory and Applications of Cryptographic Techniques.

; [https://www.defcon.org/ Defcon]: DEF CON® Hacking Conference.

; [http://www.pycon.org/ Pycon]: Python Conference.

; [https://www.iau.org/science/meetings/ International Astronomical Union]: The IAU's mission is to promote and safeguard the science of astronomy in all its aspects through international cooperation.

; [http://www.gacpaleodivision.com/pd-meetings.html Canadian Paleontology Conference]: The main goal of the CPC and its predecessors has been to provide a relatively small, informal forum for presentation and discussion of current paleontological research.

; [http://fclr.info/ Every American furry convention]: There are many furry conventions in America (see the {{w|List of furry conventions|Wikipedia page}} for more details), but to be banned from all of them would probably require action by the Furry Convention Leadership Roundtable, the coordinating body for furry conventions.

; [http://www.americanbakers.org/meetings/ American Baking Society (American Bakers Association)]: ABA represents the interests of bakers before the U.S. Congress, federal agencies, and international regulatory authorities.

; [https://www.imata.org/ Asian Dolphin-Training Conference]: International Marine Animal Trainers' Association.

; [https://ted.com TED]: Technology, Entertainment, Design.

==Transcript==
:[Randall, drawn as Cueball, on stage.]
:Randall: Hi. I'm Randall. Welcome to my TED talk.
:Randall: It's an honor to speak to you, some of the brightest innovators from so many fields, about a problem in desperate need of your attention:
:Randall: How DO you end parenthetical statements with emoticons? I can't figure out a good way.
:[Screen next to him shows two statements, both crossed out in red.]
:"Linux (or BSD :) would..." looks mismatched
:"Linux (or BSD :)) would..." looks mismatched and weird

:[Randall writing on a desk.]
:[Randall's List] Conferences I'm banned from:
:Siggraph
:Eurocrypt
:Defcon
:Pycon
:International Astronomical Union
:Canadian Paleontology Conference
:Every American Furry Convention
:American Baking Society
:Asian Dolphin-Training Conference
:TED

==Trivia==
*After the release of this comic, Randall has given a TED talk in March 2014. [https://www.ted.com/talks/randall_munroe_comics_that_ask_what_if Randall Munroe Comics that ask "what if?"].

*This was the [[:Category:Comics with red annotations|first comic with red annotations]], albeit this time being in-universe, rather than the later typical use for comic-level commentary.

===PyCon response===
In response to this comic, PyCon organizers jokingly [http://pycon.blogspot.com/2009/02/randall-munroe.html announced] that Randall Munroe was banned from PyCon 2009 due to "last year's disgraceful keynote, '{{w|Web crawler|Web Spiders}} vs. [[Red Spiders]]'." They also said they instructed their volunteers to refuse admission to him and "any stick figures who may attempt to register, particularly if they are [[:Category:Characters with hats|wearing hats]]."

Messages on the PyCon-Organizers mailing list show that this joke was intended to get Randall to come to PyCon: (The links will only work if you're subscribed to the mailing list.)
:PyCon mentioned briefly in today's xkcd:
:http://xkcd.com/541/
:We've still never gotten Randall Munroe to actually attend, have we? Anybody want to take charge of twisting his arm this time? I think we can still offer him a "press pass" (free registration). [...] [http://mail.python.org/mailman/private/pycon-organizers/2009-February/011224.html]
::An invite would seem most appropriate given the cartoon. :-)
::We could also have an official PyCon blog post confirming his ban... [http://mail.python.org/mailman/private/pycon-organizers/2009-February/011225.html]
:::How about a public blog post LIFTING the ban and inviting him? [http://mail.python.org/mailman/private/pycon-organizers/2009-February/011226.html]
::::Confirming the ban is far funnier... He's definitely a disturbing influence on programmers. [http://mail.python.org/mailman/private/pycon-organizers/2009-February/011227.html]
:::::Agreed, especially if we invite him concurrently with confirming the ban. [http://mail.python.org/mailman/private/pycon-organizers/2009-February/011239.html]
:::::(a few posts later)
:::::I'm happy to participate in actually throwing some thin guy out of the conference, and then get some graphics savvy person to animate a stick figure over that. :) [...][http://mail.python.org/mailman/private/pycon-organizers/2009-February/011274.html]
::::::here's a rough idea of what would show up if you invited him to actually do any speaking...
::::::http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJOS0sV2a24
::::::it's fairly long. he shows up in the beginning around 3:25. [http://mail.python.org/mailman/private/pycon-organizers/2009-February/011275.html]
:::::::For the record, I did try to convince him to come when got the art for the tshirt last year. He didn't seem super psyched, but then again emotions are hard to read via IRC.
:::::::I love the idea of "officially" banning him, however. ;-) [http://mail.python.org/mailman/private/pycon-organizers/2009-February/011241.html]
::::::::(a few posts later)
::::::::OK - posted to the PyCon blog, by the power vested in me as publicity chair. With Michael Foord's excellent sentence added.
::::::::Now let him know that since he's banned, he HAS to come. [http://mail.python.org/mailman/private/pycon-organizers/2009-February/011251.html]
:::::::@32:49 “What I need is a movie that’s an hour and a half of River Tam beating up dinosaurs.” — Randall

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Randall Munroe]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Furries]]
[[Category:Banned from conferences]]
[[Category:Public speaking]]
[[Category:Your Mom]]
[[Category:Comics with red annotations]]
[[Category:Comics with a Spanish translation]]

2143: Disk Usage

2026-05-13T13:59:42Z

SomebodyElse: /* Explanation */ just linking characters' names

{{comic
| number = 2143
| date = April 29, 2019
| title = Disk Usage
| image = disk_usage.png
| titletext = Menu -> Manage -> [Optimize space usage, Encrypt disk usage report, Convert photos to text-only, Delete temporary files, Delete permanent files, Delete all files currently in use, Optimize menu options, Download cloud, Optimize cloud, Upload unused space to cloud]
}}

==Explanation==
Many personal computers provide a way to obtain a graphical breakdown of how their storage space is being used, most commonly by representing the filesystem as a pie chart in which each slice represents the proportion of the total storage space being taken up by a particular item.

In this comic, [[Randall]] has illustrated the usage of his hard disk drive in just such a way, although as is common for him, the items in his hard drive start off seemingly normal and become increasingly strange:

{| class="wikitable"
! Item !! Explanation
|-
|width=20%|'''Photos'''
|width=80%|Digital photographs are a common item to be stored on a hard disk; many people take lots of photographs with their smartphone or a camera, and will commonly transfer them to a disk drive for safekeeping, editing and/or organizing. With the high resolution of modern cameras and the ease of taking photos, it is common for photo collections to consume a significant amount of disk space.
|-
|'''Good photos'''
|On the flipside, the ease of taking photographs means that it is very easy to take ''bad'' photographs, particularly as most people are not experienced at photography. The pie chart is rather bluntly indicating that of the many photographs Randall has taken, only a vanishingly small fraction of them are actually good.
|-
|'''Documents'''
|On a file system, "Documents" is generally used as a catch-all term for the user's personal files.
|-
|'''Everything you've streamed since 2017'''
|Streaming is a term that refers to accessing audio or video content on the Internet without downloading the entire media file first - it is instead played while it's being retrieved. An example of streaming is watching a YouTube video. Assuming a weekly 2h live stream (@4Mbps) between 2017-01-01 and 2019-04-29, these recordings would be 425GB in size. When these files take up 6% of all the used disk space, the full amount of used space would be roughly 7TB, which is plausible, given the [https://www.anandtech.com/show/10106/western-digital-introduces-its-consumer-helium-drives rise of 10TB hard disks in 2016].

It might also be referring to temporary media files that were stored on the disk while it was being "streamed" for viewing or listening from the Internet and never deleted when done.
|-
|'''A single five-year old PowerPoint presentation'''
|Almost a tenth of the entire disk space is taken up by a single file, a presentation made five years ago in {{w|Microsoft PowerPoint}}. It's unclear why Randall has kept this file or why it is so huge - possibly it is important to him for some reason, or perhaps he can't bear the thought of throwing information away, regardless of how much storage it requires.

While it's possible that the file may genuinely be long or detailed enough to require so much space, it could also be that the file is bloated due to PowerPoint's strategy of [http://www.pptfaq.com/FAQ00062_Why_are_my_PowerPoint_files_so_big-_What_can_I_do_about_it-.htm converting compressed graphics to full-resolution bitmaps for historical cross-platform compatibility]. This has been known to result in PowerPoint decks that are much larger than the sum of their component files.
|-
|'''"System"'''
|This would be files related to the computer's {{w|Operating System}}. While these files will generally show up on a disk usage analysis, it is generally recommended to leave them alone, as they may be critical to the computer's operation. A well-known trolling tactic involves tricking unsuspecting users into deleting their critical system files (eg. the "System32" folder on Windows), which renders the operating system unusable.
|-
|'''Unused'''
|{{w|Parkinson's law}}, the computer storage corollary, says that data expands to fill the space available for storage. As such, this sliver representing the unused portion of the storage device will always be tiny.
|-
|'''"Cache"'''
|The operating system and other programs often keep copies of data they've used or downloaded in case they need to use that data again; such data is usually stored in cache files. Often these can be deleted without too much ill effect, but some programs have different ways of deleting their own cache files.
|-
|'''"Other"'''
|People attempting to organize their files will often end up creating a directory called "Other" or "Misc" for any files that they could not categorize. On Randall's hard disk, this "Other" directory takes up a significant amount of disk space, indicating that either his categorization system isn't working very well, or he doesn't have the discipline to properly maintain his file organization. Alternatively, this could be a category defined by the usage report, which would include anything it can't categorize - often a strangely large portion of the files.

Another possible explanation is that folder names like "Other", "Cache" and "System" refer to storing porn while trying to hide this fact by using innocuous folder names, hence the quotation marks.
|-
|'''Why are there two full backups of my phone from 2015 deep in a settings folder?'''
|A settings folder is a directory that usually contains configuration data for a program, but could also potentially contain other data relevant to that program's operation. A phone backup program might store a backup of a phone to this location as part of its operation.
|}

Alarmingly, the "Unused" portion of the pie chart is extremely small, which means the disk is nearly full with very little remaining capacity. Users don't usually worry about what is using space on their computer disk until they get an alert about the disk running out of space - this is likely when a user would resort to viewing this type of graph to figure out what they can delete to free up disk space.

The title text references the management UI of a hypothetical disk cleaning utility. The following options are mentioned in its menu:

{| class="wikitable"
! Option !! Explanation
|-
|width=20%|'''Optimize space usage'''
|width=80%|A common nondescript phrase often found in such tools, this option would presumably perform actions to increase the amount of available space. One such way could be to use {{w|data deduplication|deduplication}} to delete files that contain duplicated or redundant data.
|-
|'''Encrypt disk usage report'''
|{{w|Disk encryption}} is a common security measure to prevent unwanted parties from reading the contents of a hard drive unless they know the passphrase. However, this option would encrypt the disk usage report itself, which is not very helpful as the report simply contains output that the user requested. However, given that the output can show the potentially personal things a person may have on their hard drive, this may suggest that the unusual disk usage is embarrassing enough that the user may want to encrypt the usage report to prevent other people from reading it.
|-
|'''Convert photos to text-only'''
|Text files are typically much smaller than images, as a typical image requires a lot more information to represent it than the usual use case for a plain text document. Therefore, on the surface this option seems like it could be a potential disk space optimization. However, there is no general way to convert photographs to text, nor is it clear what this would mean, nor would it likely be desirable to do so. The most space-efficient image-to-text conversion would be to replace the photo file with a text file containing a short description of the photo, for example using an AI algorithm like [https://www.captionbot.ai/ CaptionBot]. However, most people would consider the loss of visual information to be unacceptable. An alternative would be to convert the photos into {{w|ASCII art}}, by converting regularly sampled blocks of pixels to ASCII characters that closely approximate the general shape and shade of those pixels. This would result in a low-fidelity impression of the photo, which would indeed significantly reduce the file size, but would still likely be considered an unacceptable degradation of the photo. Another possibility is to use {{w|optical character recognition}} (OCR) to automatically transcribe the text in the image; however, this only works on images containing text and can produce garbage output when applied to non-textual images, which most photographs are. Finally, it could be that the tool turns image files into text files by changing the {{w|filename extension}} to .txt, but this would not save any space, and would only make the files more difficult to open as the operating system might fail to recognize them as images.
|-
|'''Delete temporary files'''
|This is a real option. Temporary files usually contain ephemeral data used by programs as part of their operation. For example, cache files are usually temporary - they contain data which is being kept locally to speed up access and avoid the need to refetch or recalculate data. However, it would not be a problem to delete this data, as it can simply be reacquired if needed. Temporary files are often not deleted automatically, so deleting them can save a significant amount of disk space.
|-
|'''Delete permanent files'''
|Playing on the previous option, a "permanent file" is a made-up term, as no files are permanent (they can always be deleted). However, if we interpret a permanent file to mean the opposite of a temporary file, this would refer to the user's documents, pictures, etc., plus all their operating system files. You would not want to delete these.
|-
|'''Delete all files currently in use'''
|Operating systems will typically lock files while a program is actively accessing them, which prevents other programs from modifying the file until it is unlocked. This prevents clashes that can occur when two processes are modifying the same data. If you attempt to delete a file locked in this way, you'll usually be warned that the file is currently in use, and likely be prevented from doing so. This option, however, apparently gives you the specific power to delete ''only'' the files that are in use, which would most definitely result in data loss or program crashes, including perhaps even the program doing the deleting, making it effectively single-use. Windows explicitly disallows deleting open files (since open files are internally referred to by their names), and Linux, etc. provide locking mechanisms to prevent it, since it can cause data loss. Deleting all open files would be catastrophic, especially if it included system utilities & the kernel. If this hypothetical disk usage program is capable of deleting all files in use anywhere on the planet, it would be considerably worse{{citation needed}} (and given some of the options, that possibility can't be ruled out).
|-
|'''Optimize menu options'''
|This is a play on the first entry, except this time it optimizes the menu options themselves. It is unclear what exactly this would entail. One way to optimize a menu could be to put the most useful options at the top to reduce the amount of time needed to find them.
|-
|'''Download cloud'''
|Cloud refers to {{w|cloud storage}}, which is storage space on remote machines that can be requisitioned on demand. Cloud providers usually have a huge amount of available storage space in dedicated datacenters to meet the needs of their clients; thus, downloading the entire cloud would be many orders of magnitude to fit on a typical desktop computer. That said, in [[908: The Cloud]], the cloud is depicted as (ultimately) running on a single desktop-sized server in [[Black Hat]]'s house, by making heavy use of caching.
|-
|'''Optimize cloud'''
|Again, it is not clear how an entire cloud storage system would be optimized, and in any case, it would not be the job of a simple disk space usage utility to optimize a cloud provider's data storage for them. Alternatively, perhaps this option is how the aforementioned Black Hat is able to run the cloud on his desktop server.
|-
|'''Upload unused space to cloud'''
|This option is nonsensical, as you cannot upload disk space; you can only upload the data contained within that space. If it were somehow possible to upload disk space itself (and that doing so simultaneously removed the space from your disk), this would result in your disk having less space available, which is the opposite of what a disk cleaner utility is supposed to do. If, on the other hand, the option uploads the data contained within unused disk space, this is possible but problematic for a different reason: unused disk space often contains actual data that was previously deleted. This is because deletion typically doesn't erase data from existence; it simply frees the space used by the data, and removes any reference to the data from the file system. The data itself is, in most cases, still there, and will remain there until something else claims the disk space. Data recovery tools take advantage of this to "undelete" data by recovering it from the unused space. If you were to upload your unused space to the cloud, it may contain information that you wanted to remain deleted.
|}

==Transcript==
:[This comic shows a pie chart with 10 slices, each with a label and a line pointing to these ten different sized slices. There is a caption above the chart:]
:Disk Space Usage Report

:[The labels on each slice is given in anti-clockwise order starting from the 12 o'clock position. The percentages are estimated from the image and are noted in the square brackets before the transcript:]

:[18%] Photos
:[1%] Good Photos
:[3%]: Documents
:[6%]: Everything you've streamed since 2017
:[9%]: A single five-year-old PowerPoint presentation
:[21%]: "System"
:[2%]: Unused
:[9%]: "Cache"
:[23%]: "Other"
:[8%]: Why are there two full backups of my phone from 2015 deep in a settings folder?

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Computers]]
[[Category:Pie charts]]

2140: Reinvent the Wheel

2026-05-13T13:56:42Z

SomebodyElse: /* Explanation */ just linking characters' names

{{comic
| number = 2140
| date = April 22, 2019
| title = Reinvent the Wheel
| image = reinvent_the_wheel.png
| titletext = Right now it's a bicycle wheel, so we've had to move to lighter vehicles, but the reduced overhead is worth it. There was one week when a wheel of cheese got dangerously close to the first page, though.
}}

==Explanation==
"{{w|Reinventing the wheel}}" is an idiom/metaphor that refers to duplicate effort to recreate something that has already been created or perfected previously without adding any value in the process. The phrase relates to the idea that the round {{w|wheel}} was invented a long time ago and there is no way to make it better, as a circle is the most optimal shape. While the phrase includes the word "wheel", it isn't typically directly associated with the wheel but instead uses the word "wheel" because of the easily understandable meaning.

In this comic, [[Beret Guy]] works for a company (or this is his [[:Category:Beret Guy's Business|own company]]) that produces vehicles, and he is explaining to [[Ponytail]] their decision to not reinvent the wheel for their products, using the phrase in a literal sense instead of figuratively. Instead of determining for themselves what wheel to use, they want to use whichever wheel is presumably considered the "best" wheel by the world, using a daily Google image search for "wheel" to determine the highest ranked wheel, and then using that wheel on the vehicles they produce that day. In reality, this would be a very bad way of choosing the wheels of the automobiles Beret Guy's company produces. In addition to being extremely inefficient, as they might have to change the wheels they use every day, it may also result in copyrights and lawsuits against his company.

The point of the comic is to make fun of programmers or engineers in general who take the idea that you should never reinvent the wheel too seriously. When these people have a problem, they may Google to find a solution to that problem, and when they find a piece of online code, they use it in their own code, even if it wasn't initially designed to handle the task for which it is being used and thus may have unintended side effects or other issues.

Another way that programmers may go too far in avoiding reinventing the wheel is in using external dependencies. It can be valuable to use external libraries, especially for applications where certain tasks have strange edge cases that a 'reinvention' is likely to miss or require lots of development effort to correctly implement (like [https://infiniteundo.com/post/25326999628/falsehoods-programmers-believe-about-time time]). However, using someone else's code means taking on the risk of security vulnerabilities, and when the library is updated on live installations, the user also takes on the risk that the library might become unavailable or otherwise break. In this case, Beret Guy's company updates their wheel "library" on a daily basis from Google's image search. Google is unlikely to shut down a core search product, but they might change the API that Beret Guy's company uses (unless he's just going to their website himself), and they have been known to shut down projects that people like, such as [https://www.google.com/reader/about/ Google Reader]. On the day this comic was released, Randall changed the [[Design_of_xkcd.com#Header_text|Header text]] of xkcd, adding a [[Header text#2019-04-23_-_Google_Reader|reference to Google Reader]].

The popular programming language Python manages external dependencies with packages called "wheels" which are "published to the cheese shop", which may or may not be an intended reference.

In any event, Beret Guy is in effect reinventing the wheel by doing a new search for wheels on Google Images every day. If the wheel he finds on Google Images on a given day is suitable for his company's needs, the company would likely be better off using the same wheel on succeeding days (unless circumstances change which make that unfeasible), compared to trying to doing a new search for wheels every day. In addition, Beret Guy's company might be forced to create new wheel-producing machinery every day, although if Beret Guy can transmit [[1293: Job Interview|soup]] and [[1395: Power Cord|air]] through electrical cords, it may simply be a matter of copying the image then pasting it in real life.

The title text indicates that Beret Guy is currently using bicycle wheels for his vehicles, requiring his vehicles to be lighter as bicycle wheels cannot carry a lot of weight. He says this "reduce[s] overhead", which is both literally true, that his vehicle weighs less, and refers to the usual figurative desire of reducing overhead costs of development by using external libraries. If the former interpretation is correct, this raises the question of why Beret Guy's company didn't try to lighten the load of its vehicles beforehand. Finally, the narrator (supposedly Beret Guy) explains that at one point a wheel of cheese was near the top of the Google images search. If it had reached the top, it would have been disastrous as a wheel of cheese is completely unsuited for use as a vehicle's wheel.{{Citation needed}} Beret Guy implies that his company would have used it if it reached the first position even though he knows that it would be unsuitable for usage in vehicles, further demonstrating Beret Guy's lack of business knowledge.

On the day the comic was released a bicycle wheel came up first when searching for "wheel", see image in the [[#Trivia|Trivia]] section below.

==Transcript==
:[Beret Guy is talking to Ponytail.]
:Beret Guy: We don't want to reinvent the wheel, so every day we Google image search "wheel", and whatever object comes up, that's what we attach to our vehicles.
:Beret Guy: Sure, external dependencies carry risks, but so far they've all been pretty good wheels.

==Trivia==
*On the day this comic came out a Google search on Wheel would in some cases have a bicycle wheel at the top:
:[[File:2140_Reinvent_the_Wheel_Google_Search_Wheel.png|400px]]
*The JavaScript development community has had several security and reliability incidents caused by over-dependence on automated package updates. In 2016, a JavaScript developer [https://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/03/23/npm_left_pad_chaos/ un-published several libraries] (including one "library" which was just an eleven-line function for padding strings, which was nevertheless included in thousands of projects and downloaded millions of times a month) from the npm package repository. This broke projects that depended on them and, until npm un-un-published his packages (with new maintainers), also opened the possibility that a bad actor could register malicious projects under those names and hijack all of their dependents. In July 2018, an attacker gained access to the npm account of an ESLint maintainer and [https://eslint.org/blog/2018/07/postmortem-for-malicious-package-publishes published malicious versions of their packages], and in September 2018, the event-stream library was taken over by a malicious maintainer who [https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/11/26/npm_repo_bitcoin_stealer/ added code to look for and steal bitcoins from the users who installed it].

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Language]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Beret Guy]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Beret Guy's Business]]
[[Category:Google Search]]

Talk:2138: Wanna See the Code?

2026-05-13T13:53:46Z

SomebodyElse:

I'm puzzled by the "they" in this: " And because you're lucky that the people around you understand that they create more problems than they solve." I take the "they"s to be the people around him, but it almost makes some sense if it was " And because you're lucky that the people around you understand that it[code,dead body] create[s] more problems than they solve." but that's not right either. [[User:Afbach|Afbach]] ([[User talk:Afbach|talk]])
:I think "they" '''is''' meant to refer back to [code,dead body], but it is either a deliberate ambiguity or a rather poorly constructed sentence. I suppose it's in speech, so we shouldn't be too hard on Ponytail. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.111.169|162.158.111.169]] 11:47, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

I'm puzzled by the "And because". What's that doing there? What is the 'and' connecting? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.111.169|162.158.111.169]] 18:37, 17 April 2019 (UTC)
:I think it’s connecting to how Cueball’s code is like a dead body-saying how, just like a corpse, the people around him understand that the code cause more problems than they solve. A corpse won’t solve any problems, only create them, just like Cueball’s code. But IDK, I’m just a little seventh grader. Please feel free to critique my interpretation-I love learning how to improve! [[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]] ([[User talk:42.book.addict|talk]]) 22:07, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

Pony tail is saying "[Cueball] is lucky that the people around [cueball] understand that [dead bodies] create more problems than they solve" insinuating that otherwise cueballs fate for writing such bad code would be dire. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.107.25|162.158.107.25]] 18:52, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

I'm glad I'm not the only one struggling with the dialogue in this comic. I'm certain Randall's made a mistake. [[User:Hawthorn|Hawthorn]] ([[User talk:Hawthorn|talk]]) 20:17, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

Another take on Ponytails final comment - Queball: "My code is sort of similar to a dead body, [...]" Pontytail: "and [it is also similar to a dead body] because" everyone knows Queball writing code causes more problems than the code solves, just like creating dead bodies cause more problems than what it solves. With the title text referring to what happens with either Queballs code or dead bodies if left ignored. He is lucky, in that people realize they can't ignore his code, and have to deal with it for him before things go sideways. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.106.102|162.158.106.102]] 20:29, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

I'm also unsure that it is so clear what Ponytail means as now explained in the explanation. It could be both this above and the current with Cueball being the dead body that would cause new sort of problems. Agree that Randall has made a poor word composition here. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 13:23, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

This is saying that he is lucky that his coworkers understand that a dead body causes more trouble down the line than it's worth otherwise they would have killed him over how bad his code is.

;Title text
I tried to come up with an explanation for the title text, but honestly, that has me a bit stumped too. I'm really not sure what Randall was going for in this comic. My understanding of "downstream" is from source control software like {{w|Git}}; a developer who pulls code from a repository is said to be "downstream" of it - ie. they're receiving code. When they push their changes back, they push it "upstream".

Well, "downstream" and "upstream" in git terminology rather refers to the concept of forking. A forked repository generated by github has per default the remote named "upstream" set to the original repository. This term extends beyond simple git inheritance of repositories. But already with git repositories, it is obvious: put Cueballs hack into a submodule of an aspiring and fast-moving project. Someone burning the midnight oil gets tired and wants to get home, and the third corner case of Cueballs brainchild does not let him. Instead of biting the bullet, they just make more hacks, access some internal attribute or whatnot. The next guy comes along, and just copy-pastes that dirty code.
That said, software proliferates across distributions, across operating systems, across programming languages (if there is for example an interface involved that is (kinda) language agnostic. Take REST apis for example). The reason is, a software construct always defines (an) interface(s) to which hopefully docs with preconditions, postconditions, and a reasonable correspondence to common sense are established. Well, for ad hoc software like Cueballs script, that would of course not be the case, and this goes in weaker form for e.g. many packages in official debian repositories, and their specializations (Realtime gentoo, Media Ubuntu or whathaveya). They re-package software, and where it comes from, that's upstream. Developers in that environment get accustomed to a good interface that works 90% of the times, and make software that caters to specific quirks, workarounds, etc. these workarounds will inform other interfaces in related packages, implementations. This is of course just technical debt all over again, but distributed, not in one company or something.--[[Special:Contributions/162.158.88.14|162.158.88.14]] 22:37, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

I think what this means in context is that Cueball pushes his bad code to a repository, and other developers pull it downstream, thus "contaminating" their local environments. But honestly, this interpretation doesn't really feel satisfying to me, so I'm not sure. [[User:Hawthorn|Hawthorn]] ([[User talk:Hawthorn|talk]]) 21:25, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

The 2nd interpretation of "downstream" is downstream of a river - a dead body will contaminate the river even if it is not "touched". I think downstream for software development could just mean work for people in the future. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.215.160|108.162.215.160]] 21:41, 17 April 2019 (UTC)
:I interpreted this as an output issue. If he wrote code to automate, for example, data entry, the results could be flawed "contaminating" the output stream. This would fit with the literal dead body in a river parallel in that the otherwise good water which passes the body is fouled.[[User:OhFFS|OhFFS]] ([[User talk:OhFFS|talk]]) 21:08, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

This is one weird page. When you put "https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/2138:_Wanna_See_the_Code%3F" in site-name text-box it is plain "No input file specified" page. ''(Noticed this via link on "https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/Category:Code_Quality")''. However when put "https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/2138": It replaces itself with "https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/2138:_Wanna_See_the_Code%3F" and works normally. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.68.6|141.101.68.6]] 09:10, 9 October 2020 (UTC)
:I'm fairly certain adding a ? after the URL in normal circumstances is making a request/query for additional info, but because nothing comes after the ? in this case, the site gets confused and responds with no output. Consequently, it's possible to access the page from a search engine results page, but not from inside the wiki (of which I imagine most attempted connections will come as a result) and not as a direct URL input. For anybody coming hereafter, it's been mentioned [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/explain_xkcd:Community_portal/Technical#2138_page_issues here], so you can use that thread for ease of discussion. I'm actually not sure whether this comment will save or not because I'm almost certain when I hit 'save' it's going to tell me no input file specified. Contextually and incidentally hilarious, though. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.159.24|162.158.159.24]] 10:55, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

> The causality with flowing water and software is reasonably comparable: both can be seen as a stream of atoms that are (almost) endlessly divisible and recombinable.

This doesn't make sense. First of all, "atom" literally means "indivisible" (a poor choice for the physics concept in retrospect, now that we know about quarks, but that's neither here nor there). Perhaps it was the stream that was intended to be described as "almost endlessly divisible"? Second, I don't understand the analogy between "a stream of atoms" and Cueball's code. But third and foremost, I don't see how the divisibility of atoms (or streams for that matter) relates to the causality of flowing water. This entire sentence needs to be scrapped IMHHO.
[[Special:Contributions/2A05:6E02:1113:D510:FBA8:A49F:433B:A8CC|2A05:6E02:1113:D510:FBA8:A49F:433B:A8CC]] 08:58, 18 March 2026 (UTC)

Someone ought to link the code quality series to "how messy Cueball's code can be" [[User:SomebodyElse|SomebodyElse]] ([[User talk:SomebodyElse|talk]]) 13:53, 13 May 2026 (UTC)

2138: Wanna See the Code?

2026-05-13T13:51:31Z

SomebodyElse: /* Explanation */ just linking characters' names

{{comic
| number = 2138
| date = April 17, 2019
| title = Wanna See the Code?
| image = wanna_see_the_code.png
| titletext = And because if you just leave it there, it's going to start contaminating things downstream even if no one touches it directly.
}}

==Explanation==
[[Cueball]] declares that he has written a script to automate some (presumably time-consuming or tedious) task, which pleases [[Ponytail]] at first... until she remembers how messy Cueball's code tends to be, and gets worried.

Cueball offers to show her his code, but Ponytail remarks that it sounds like he's creepily inviting her to see a dead body. (This is likely a reference to the movie "Stand By Me," which begins with one of the main characters making this exact offer.) Magnanimously, Cueball accepts the comparison, noting that his code ''does'' have at least one similarity to a deceased corpse: although unpleasant, if Ponytail allows it to go unchecked, it causes problems which will get increasingly worse over time. In the "dead body" analogy, a recently-deceased corpse is easier to deal with than one that has been left for a few weeks, which will be decayed, unpleasantly smelly, and will likely have attracted disease-spreading vermin.

Ponytail then makes a near threatening comment where she says that he is lucky that people understand both that his code causes more problems than it solves and that dead bodies create more problems than they solve. Most likely this means that they understand that killing him would cause more problems than it solves (the problem solved would no doubt be his code).

This may be a reference to the concept of {{w|technical debt}} in software development: the idea that an initially poor implementation accrues a sort of "compound interest" over time, becoming increasingly difficult to repair the longer it is left unfixed. This happens because any future development might have to take unorthodox or unrecommended measures to work around the problems that are already there, making the system increasingly complex and fragile the more that is added to it.

In the title text, "downstream" has a double meaning, as it is a term that applies to a situation where a dead body would decompose in or near some river, and as well to a software engineering concept: In the river situation, the dead body will contaminate the water or groundwater that it feeds from and have consequences for organisms that come in contact with that water. In the software engineering analogue, "downstream" refers to software derived from, or depending on, "upstream" software like the cadaver that Cueball devised. The causality with flowing water and software is reasonably comparable: both can be seen as a stream of atoms that are (almost) endlessly divisible and recombinable.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is walking, talking to Ponytail, who is offscreen.]
:Cueball: I wrote a script to automate that thing.
:Ponytail: Oh cool!
:Ponytail: ...wait, '''''you''''' wrote it?
:Ponytail: Oh no.

:[Cueball and Ponytail are standing next to each other and talking.]
:Cueball: Wanna see the code?
:Ponytail: I would, if you hadn't said that in the tone of voice of "Wanna see a dead body?"

:[Same scene as before, except Cueball has his hand on his chin.]
:Cueball: My code ''is'' sort of similar to a dead body, in that you can either come look at it now, or wait a few weeks until it becomes a problem.
:Ponytail: And because you're lucky that the people around you understand that they create more problems than they solve.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Programming]]
[[Category:Cueball's computer problems]]

2137: Text Entry

2026-05-13T13:49:26Z

SomebodyElse: /* Explanation */ just linking characters' names

{{comic
| number = 2137
| date = April 15, 2019
| title = Text Entry
| image = text_entry.png
| titletext = I like to think that somewhere out there, there's someone whose personal quest is lobbying TV providers to add an option to switch their on-screen keyboards to Dvorak.
}}

==Explanation==
In this comic, [[Randall]] remarks upon something that he considers to be an absurdity of modern living; that in spite of our amazing advances in technology, there still exist user interfaces in 2019 where a person has to "pick letters" to type, a somewhat clunky and inefficient method of text entry. This can be seen when doing searches in a TV guide menu or in menus for streaming options like {{w|Netflix}} or {{w|Hulu}}. Some of these menus may allow for voice searches or support {{w|bluetooth keyboard}}s, but the traditional method is still to select letters via a cursor. Many controllers for devices only have a few buttons, which makes it necessary to use schemes such as scrolling around a picture of a keyboard to laboriously select letters, making this extremely inconvenient and annoying to users. The fact that these haven't been replaced with better interfaces comes as a surprise to Randall, hence him believing it to be the second most weird thing in 2019. [[Cueball]] is probably looking up ''{{w|Our Planet}}'' which was a popular Netflix series when this comic was released. Cueball has spelled out "O U R [space] P L" so far.

Randall references the "{{w|Score (game)|high score}}" in an {{w|arcade game}}. When achieving a high score in an arcade game, the user typically is able to enter their name or initials into the machine. These are entered by picking letters one by one (and usually under a time limit, for extra fun <s>and/or stress</s>), as the comic mentions.

The title text mentions the keyboard system {{w|Dvorak Simplified Keyboard|Dvorak}}, a [[:Category:Dvorak|recurrent theme]] on xkcd, which is a keyboard layout patented by {{w|August Dvorak}} and {{w|William Dealey}}. As the Dvorak layout is optimized for more efficient typing with two hands, it is unlikely that using it would be more efficient than a standard {{w|Qwerty}} when limited to cursor entry methods. Another drawback would be that the Dvorak layout is visually unfamiliar to most people, even to many Dvorak typists who rarely look at their keyboard and instead rely on muscle-memory to find keys. As such it could be confusing for users to use for TV selection menus compared to either the more visually familiar {{w|Qwerty}} layout or showing letters in alphabetical order. Alternately, Randall may be referring to Dvorak’s placement of frequently used letters clustered in the center as a potential slight improvement over the linear A-Z layout of such interfaces (a half-measure offered ironically, of course).

Although the focus of this comic is on the text entry method, Randall prefaces the comic with what he considers to be the actual weirdest thing about 2019: that [[Donald Trump]] is the president of the United States of America. Randall had previously expressed support for Trump's opponent, Hillary Clinton, in the comic [[1756: I'm With Her]] which preceded the 2016 US Presidential Election. In that comic he did not mention Trump.

==Transcript==
:[Ponytail and Cueball are sitting on a couch, with Megan standing behind them. Cueball is pointing a remote at a television. The word space is written inside a frame.]
:Television: O...U...R...SPACE...P...L...
:Remote: Click Click Click

:[Caption below the panel:]
:The weirdest thing about 2019 is obviously that Donald Trump is president, but I think the second weirdest is that you sometimes ''still'' have to type stuff in by picking letters on a screen one at a time with a cursor like you're entering a high score in a 1980s arcade game.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Politics]]
[[Category:Video games]]
[[Category:Dvorak]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Donald Trump]]
[[Category:Comics featuring politicians]]

2133: EHT Black Hole Picture

2026-05-13T13:44:03Z

SomebodyElse: /* Explanation */ just linking characters' names

{{comic
| number = 2133
| date = April 5, 2019
| title = EHT Black Hole Picture
| image = eht_black_hole_picture.png
| titletext = [five years later] Ok, it seems we were accidentally zoomed in slightly too far. But imagine there's a cool-looking twisted accretion disc just outside this black square!
}}

==Explanation==
This comic references the {{w|Event Horizon Telescope}}, an international project dedicated to imaging {{w|black hole}}s {{w|Sagittarius A*}} and {{w|M87*}} with angular resolution comparable in size to their event horizons. The first image of M87 was released to the public on Wednesday, April 10, 2019, five days after this comic's release, and appeared on the same day in the comic [[2135: M87 Black Hole Size Comparison]].

The image was produced from data gathered since 2006, collected by over a dozen radio telescopes around the world and combined through a process called {{w|interferometry}}. Normally, a telescope's resolution is limited by the size of its aperture, but by recording radio signals at multiple sites, the minute differences between the signals can be digitally processed into an image with much higher resolution. The telescopes used for the EHT are in Hawaii, North and South America, Europe, and Antarctica, and so the effective diameter of the collective EHT is almost the size of the Earth itself. As each telescope recorded observations of the black holes, the results were written to hard drives and mailed to observatories at {{w|MIT}} and the {{w|Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy}} for processing. Astronomical recordings can involve astronomical amounts of data, so the raw, original, feed from a telescope may never be stored if it is too dense -- it is instead processed live by computers to capture the information of interest, and the processed result is stored. 

The first image released by the EHT was expected to be in April 2017, but unforeseen events delayed it by two years, to April 2019. [[Randall]] predicts this trend will continue and makes a joke by analogy to real-world difficult experiences capturing important moments. Luckily, this comic was not in any way prophetic, and five days after this comic was released [https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-47873592 the EHT team released a black hole picture] for the world to enjoy. The comic shows [[Cueball]] giving a press conference on the recent photographing of a black hole. However, the photograph is a disappointment, caused by the spectacular failure of several systems:

* You cannot download the picture.

Obviously, it would be quite impractical to fail to reliably provide this in an astronomical system. Cueball describes the system as being like {{w|Pinterest}}, where {{w|JavaScript}} prevents you from right-clicking on an image so that you could save it (or at least attempts to, there are many workarounds).

* You cannot screenshot the picture.

Cueball states that they then tried to take a screenshot, but the key combination to make a screenshot instead turned off the monitor where the picture was being displayed whenever they tried to use it, requiring extra time and effort each attempt in order to return to the view of the black hole. This could reference the fact that many mobile devices incorporate the power button in their screen shot combination and the power button can also turn off the screen. Laptops and operating systems may also have undocumented key combinations that blank the screen, which users can accidentally press when in a hurry and create further stress for themselves. Content under DRM may also prevent screenshots, and attempting to screenshot a protected video will result in a black image.

* The viewing period ends before a physical camera can be used.

As a last act of desperation, Cueball took out his phone and attempted to take a photo of the screen showing the black hole, but by that time, the observation had ended, and the photo was lost. In reality, none of this ''should'' be an issue as the picture would be immediately saved by the system and would not need to be downloaded from the site, but NASA especially knows that developers of a system can never predict the obscure happenstances that can combine to create failure at the end. Cueball then states that they would try to take a picture of a black hole again next year.

The title text explains that (after presumably five years of annual tries), the picture failed again as the telescope was too zoomed in and only captured a featureless square. Since a black hole by definition returns no light sent to it, the photograph would be entirely black. Researchers however are primarily presumably trying to obtain images of the more interesting edge known as an {{w|accretion disc}}, which could actually be meaningfully photographed. The joke is that the black hole could only be photographed once a year, and in each year some incidental set of mistakes combined to prevent the photograph from actually being shared with anybody. This could be a reference to the {{w|cosmic censorship hypothesis}}, which states that a "naked" singularity cannot be viewed from outside an event horizon, where in this case the censor is some kind of "butterfly of doom" that bedevils astronomers who attempt to image one anyway, similar to some interpretations of the {{w|Novikov self-consistency principle}} (a possible resolution to various {{w|time travel paradoxes}} which asserts that any event which would lead to a paradox must have probability zero).

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is standing behind a lectern, with "Press Conference" and the EHT logo displayed on a projector screen behind him.]
:Cueball: We linked up our observatories, got everything aligned, and there it was:
:Cueball: The first image of a black hole!

:[Zoom in on Cueball. A question is asked from off panel.]
:Off-panel question: Can you share the picture?
:Cueball: Well, here's the thing...

:[Cueball lifts his arm holding his hand with its palm up.]
:Cueball: Turns out our telescope feed is like Pinterest, where you can't right-click to save an image.
:Cueball: So we tried to take a screenshot, but the key combination kept turning off the display instead.

:[Zoom back out to show that the image on the projector screen has changed to show a blurry picture of a white computer screen against a black background. The EHT logo remains at the bottom of the projector screen.]
:Cueball: I grabbed my phone and tried to take a picture of the screen, but I was too slow. The observation had ended.
:Cueball: We're planning to try again next year, and we'll definitely record the screen this time.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Public speaking]]
[[Category:Astronomy]]
[[Category:Smartphones]]

2132: Percentage Styles

2026-05-13T13:40:13Z

SomebodyElse: /* Explanation */ just linking characters' names

{{comic
| number = 2132
| date = April 3, 2019
| title = Percentage Styles
| image = percentage_styles.png
| titletext = In a tribute to classical Latin, I started pronouncing it 'per-kent.' Eventually my friends had to resort to spritzing me with a water bottle like a cat to train me out of it.
}}

==Explanation==
On March 29, 2019, The {{w|AP Stylebook}} changed a long-standing rule that forbade press writers from using the percent sign (%) when writing percentages. This had long been a controversial rule, leading to much debate over the preferable way to write percentages, before the Associated Press finally conceded the point.

The comic lists the best to worst ways in which you can write out phrases that are phonetically the same as "65%". They go from the common "65%" and "65 percent" to "65 per cent," which is not common in [[Randall]]'s area and time, to the eccentric "sixty-five%" and "65 per¢" (using the cent currency symbol) which are not used in normal writing and would stand out like a sore thumb when read. The middle option, "65 per cent", was common in older literature, along with "65 per cent.", using "cent." as an abbreviation for "centum", which is Latin for "hundred". ("per" in Latin translates to "through", "for", and several other English prepositions.) The entire string would translate to "65 for every hundred." "Per cent" is more widely used in British English than in American English today.

A small gap between the ends of the bar and the best and worst options may suggest the existence of even better and worse options not listed in this comic, such as "6ty5/¢".

Other abbreviations not mentioned in the comic include "pct.", "pct" or "pc". See {{w|Percentage}}.

The title text references the ambiguity of {{w|hard and soft C}} in English. In Classical Latin, "C" is always pronounced like "K". However, in English, most "C"s before E, I and Y (including "percent") are soft, and pronounced like "S". In academia, [http://www.covingtoninnovations.com/mc/latinpro.pdf Latin students are taught the Classical Latin pronunciations of words], rather than the pronunciation used by the Catholic church. Some students of Latin may adopt the Latin pronunciation of English words derived from Latin. Such people may tend more to pronounce, even when not the correct choice, "celtic" like "keltic" (this ''is'' the correct choice, except for the {{w|Boston Celtics|basketball team}}), "caesar" like "kaiser", or "cent" like "kent" (although since this involves obviously saying something others aren't going to understand unless they took the same classes, it might as well be "per kentum").

People sometimes train a cat out of a bad behavior, such as scratching upholstery, by spritzing the cat with water when the cat does the undesired behavior. In this case, Randall's friends found him so annoying they trained him out saying "per kent" by spraying him with water every time he pronounced it that way. Training people this way was previously a punchline in [[220: Philosophy]], while training a cat this way was previously a punchline in [[1786: Trash]].

===Styles and their acceptability===
;65%
:This is the standard way of writing percentages. Randall's approval acceptability is 98%.
;65 percent
:This one has no space, it is more common in American English. Rating: 97 percent
;65 per cent
:This one has a space, it is more common in British English. Rating: 86 per cent
;Sixty-five%
:This one writes out the number, but not the percent sign. Rating: Sixty%
;65 per¢
:This one uses the cent symbol in place of the word cent, which is incorrect in this context, as ''cent'' here does not refer to a currency. Rating: 2 per¢

==Transcript==
:Percentage styles in order of acceptability
:[A long vertical line is shown with five dots on it.]
:[Label at the top:]
:Best
:[Dot labels from top to bottom:]

:65%
:[very short distance]
:65 percent
:[at roughly quarter scale]
:65 per cent
:[at roughly half scale]
:Sixty-five%
:[at the end]
:65 per¢

[[Category:Charts]]

{{comic discussion}}

2131: Emojidome

2026-05-13T13:37:20Z

SomebodyElse: /* Explanation */ just linking characters' names

{{comic
| number = 2131
| date = April 1, 2019
| title = Emojidome
| image = emojidome.png
| titletext = Thank you to the xkcd April 1st volunteers/commentators, including @Chromakode, Kevin, @Aiiane, Patrick, Kat, Reuven, @cotrone, @bstaffin, @zigdon, schwal, Stereo, and everyone who voted!
}}
{{series
| series = April
| number = 11
| date = April 1, 2019
| days_late =
| day_category = Monday
| prev_title = 1975: Right Click
| prev_date = April 1, 2018
| next_title = 2288: Collector's Edition
| next_date = April 3, 2020
| extra_text =
}}
{{TOC}}The {{xkcd|2131|original comic}} links to a [https://xkcd.com/2131/emojidome_bracket_round_of_128.png image of the results].

==Explanation==
The interactive comic began at noon ET (16:00 UTC) on April 1, 2019, and ended a day later. In it, users were shown two emojis and voted for their favorite before the time ran out. 512 different emojis were paired against each other in a cup or {{w|Bracket (tournament)|bracket}} system, with only one winner. Brackets, like the one in this comic, for finding the best emoji, are a recurring theme in xkcd. It is also relevant for this time of year, and two years ago in 2017, the first comic in April, [[1819: Sweet 16]] from April 3rd was a bracket, referencing {{w|March Madness}}. The {{w|2019 NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament|2019 version}} of the {{w|National Collegiate Athletic Association}} {{w|College basketball}} national championship tournament began March 19th and ends April 8th 2019. So this comic could also be said to reference this, although it is not so explicit here. Earlier [[Randall]] made another large and "silly" bracket in [[1529: Bracket]] (which someone then actually made into an online voting system, just like in this comic).

The title is a reference to the movie ''{{w|Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome}},'' which had the tagline: "Two men enter. One man leaves." The "Thunderdome" in the film is a gladiatorial arena where conflicts are resolved by a duel to the death. In the final round, the Milky Way emoji (🌌) won against the Hedgehog emoji (🦔). The comic was updated to show the result.

===How it worked===

[[File:2131 Emojidome example.png|thumb|400px|Comic as it appeared during the competition]]

In the first round, the voting period for each bout lasted 37.5 seconds. The voting period for each bout doubled for the second, third, and fourth rounds. The voting period for each bout for the fifth round through the end was 26 minutes. The entire bracket took 24 hours 6 minutes.

Remaining time of a given bout was shown on a timer beneath the voting buttons. If the time remaining was one minute or greater, the time was shown rounded to the nearest minute (e.g., "Remaining Time: 26 minutes"); thus the minute would change on the half minute (e.g., "2 minutes" changed to "1 minute" at 1 minute 30 seconds). If the time remaining was less than a minute, the time was shown in seconds (e.g., "59 seconds"). When there were two (sometimes three) seconds remaining, the timer would display "Time's Up!" through the end of the bout and for a [[1070: Words for Small Sets|couple]] of seconds after the end of the bout while the images for the next bout were loading. Then the next bout would appear and the results of the previous bout would be added to the list of past bouts, with the most recent bout at the top.

Commentary was displayed above the images for each bout, and changed occasionally through the bout. In the first round, the commentary was made up of some stock phrases with a few custom phrases mixed in. Later commentary was tailored to suit each match-up and provided live updates on how each bout was progressing. A final comment was included in the list of past bouts.

{| class="wikitable sortable"
|-
! Round !! Start (ET) !! Start (UTC) !! Bouts !! Bout length !! Round length
|-
| 1 || 12:00 || 16:00 || 256 || 37.5 s || 2 h 40 m
|-
| 2 || 14:40 || 18:40 || 128 || 1 m 15 s || 2 h 40 m
|-
| 3 || 17:20 || 21:20 || 64 || 2 m 30 s || 2 h 40 m
|-
| 4 || 20:00 || 0:00 || 32 || 5 m || 2 h 40 m
|-
| 5 || 22:40 || 2:40 || 16 || 26 m || 6 h 56 m
|-
| 6 || 5:36 || 9:36 || 8 || 26 m || 3 h 28 m
|-
| 7 || 9:04 || 13:04 || 4 || 26 m || 1 h 44 m
|-
| 8 || 10:48 || 14:48 || 2 || 26 m || 52 m
|-
| 9 || 11:40 || 15:40 || 1 || 26 m || 26 m
|}

The competing candidates were periodically overlaid with colored hearts that floated up from the vote button oscillating in a triangle wave pattern before disappearing above the candidate. Below the current competition, the results of past bouts were shown with the "loser" displayed in greyscale, the winner in color, and the final robot-commentator comment on that match.

The commentary appeared to suggest that there was some real-time feedback from the results of the competition. For instance, "It seems like our friends over Australia is joining the fun" appeared in the commentary. So did "We are getting a lot of questions on this today. This is live commentary, folks." https://i.imgur.com/8kPwjou.png, directly declaring that the commentary is live. Note that the schedule might show different emoji pictures than the main voting screen, presumably because of fonts. The image is pre-rendered.

The competing candidates are chosen in order of Unicode value at first, resulting in similar emojis being compared. Examples include:

😜 squaring off against 😛 - two emojis playfully sticking their tongues out

🤩 squaring off against 😍 - two smiling emojis with symbols for eyes

😂 squaring off with 🤣 - two emojis that are crying in laughter/joy.

The original title text "🤼🤼🤼🤼🤼🤼🤼🤼" consisted of eight wrestler emojis. This likely represented the round of 8, where the eight winners then can turn to the winner next to them and continue the quarterfinals, etc. The title text was updated after the final round. Notably, it appears the eggplant emoji (🍆) and the peach emoji (🍑) were left out of the bracket, alongside the middle finger emoji (🖕). The eggplant and peach are frequently used to represent a penis and vulva/buttocks, respectively. There has been no statement from Randall on why they were left out.

A robot face announcer-emoji (🤖) and a link to the full bracket was added at 38 minutes in.
https://www.xkcd.com/2131/emojidome_bracket.png shows 512 emojis in a single-elimination tournament.
https://www.xkcd.com/2131/emojidome_bracket_256.png was added later and shows the 256 emojis that competed on the second round.
https://www.xkcd.com/2131/emojidome_bracket_round_3.png was added for the third round. https://www.xkcd.com/2131/emojidome_bracket_round_4.png was added for the fourth round. The round 3 bracket was later updated with results during the Volcano vs Owl fight. There was an error where the flying saucer had beaten the stars, which was not the case.
A new bracket image was created for the Round of 32 which seems to be updated with new results as they come in. https://www.xkcd.com/2131/emojidome_bracket_round_of_32.png

It is not clear how the winner is decided when both emojis tied for first. This has happened twice: in Cupcake vs. Birthday Cake (🧁 vs. 🎂) with 3658 points each, where the Birthday Cake (🎂) was declared winner, and in the very first match of Grinning Face vs. Grinning Face With Smiling Eyes (😀 vs. 😁), in which no votes were cast, but the Grinning Face With Smiling Eyes (😁) was declared winner. Both of these tied bouts occurred in round 1, and both declared winners lost their subsequent match in round 2.

The [https://github.com/xkcd/kurita source code for the comic] was released on GitHub. The data from this comic, including the results, is available as JSON-websocket at https://emojidome.xkcd.com/2131/socket, transposed into a more human-readable format at https://leet.nu/tmp/xkcd-2131.html. Another viewer used to be https://phiresky.github.io/emojidome, [https://www.reddit.com/r/xkcd/comments/b89zz1/emojidome_live_bracket_viewer/ made by a redditor], which used to display the brackets along with the final scores and comment.

==== Round 1====
{| class="wikitable mw-collapsible mw-collapsed"
|-
! Competitors and score !! Commentary
|-
| 😀 (0) vs 😁 (0)
* Grinning face
* Grinning face with smiling eyes
'''(Tie - unclear how winner was chosen)'''
|
* You do not want to miss the fan favorite 😀. Coming up next!
|-
| 😆 (207) vs '''😅 (251)'''
* Smiling face with open mouth and tightly-closed eyes
* '''Smiling face with open mouth and cold sweat'''
|
* Next up, 😅 and 😆.
* I'm really looking forward to everything we're going to see today.
|-
| 😂 (772) vs '''🤣 (824)'''
* Face with tears of joy
* '''Rolling On the Floor Laughing'''
|
* Oh, this one should be good.
|-
| 🙂 (939) vs '''🙃 (1494)'''
* Slightly smiling face
* '''Upside-down face'''
|
* You do not want to miss the fan favorite 🙂. Coming up next!
* You think this is something, folks, well... we're just getting started.
|-
| 😊 (857) vs '''😉 (1774)'''
* Smiling face with smiling eyes
* '''Winking face'''
|
* They have been attacking each other on social media all week. Next up! It's 😉 vs. 😊.
|-
| '''😇 (1417)''' vs 🥰 (1392)
* '''Smiling face with halo'''
* Smiling face with smiling eyes and three hearts
|
* Welcome back, it's time for 😇 and 🥰 to go head to head.
|-
| '''😍 (2159)''' vs 🤩 (1447)
* '''Smiling face with heart-shaped eyes'''
* Grinning face with star eyes
|
* We will be right back with 😍 vs. 🤩!
|-
| 😗 (1045) vs '''😘 (2595)'''
* Kissing face
* '''Face throwing a kiss'''
|
* They have been attacking each other on social media all week. Next up! It's 😗 vs. 😘.
* This is a day that 😗 has been anticipating for a long time.
|-
| 😚 (1619) vs '''😙 (1770)'''
* Kissing face with closed eyes
* '''Kissing face with smiling eyes'''
|
* Have at it, 😙 and 😚!
* If you are just joining us, fear not! You haven't missed much.
|-
| 😋 (1549) vs '''😛 (2644)'''
* Face savouring delicious food
* '''Face with stuck-out tongue'''
|
* It's time to find out: Who would win in a match, 😋 or 😛?
* 😋 stole that win.
|-
| '''😜 (2302)''' vs 🤪 (2085)
* '''Face with stuck-out tongue and winking eye'''
* Grinning face with one large and one small eye
|
* Next up, 😜 and 🤪.
*😜 didn't do their homework.
|-
| '''😝 (2568)''' vs 🤑 (1372)
* '''Face with stuck-out tongue and tightly-closed eyes'''
* Money-mouth face
|
* Don't change that channel, folks. We have 😝 and 🤑 warming up.
|-
| 🤗 (1598) vs '''🤭 (2316)'''
* Hugging face
* '''Smiling face with smiling eyes and hand covering mouth'''
|
* Next up, 🤗 and 🤭.
* Sometimes miracles happen.
|-
| 🤫 (734) vs '''🤔 (4374)'''
* Face with finger covering closed lips
* '''Thinking face'''
|
* Oh, this one should be good.
|-
| 🤐 (1119) vs '''🤨 (2928)'''
* Zipper-mouth face
* '''Face with one eyebrow raised'''
|
* We will be right back with 🤐 vs. 🤨!
* Not sure which way this one goes.
|-
| 😐 (1506) vs '''😑 (1665)'''
* Neutral face
* '''Expressionless face'''
|
* They have been attacking each other on social media all week. Next up! It's 😐 vs. 😑.
* One for the history books.
|-
| 😶 (2437) vs '''😏 (2659)'''
* Face without mouth
* '''Smirking face'''
|
* It's time to find out: Who would win in a match, 😏 or 😶?
* This one was over before it started.
|-
| 😒 (1562) vs '''🙄 (2692)'''
* Unamused face
* '''Face with rolling eyes'''
|
* If you're like me, you've argued over who would win head-to-head, 😒 or 🙄.
|-
| '''😬 (3345)''' vs 🤥 (1137)
* '''Grimacing face'''
* Lying face
|
* Oh this one should be good.
*No surprises here. 🤥 skates to an easy win.
*I hope everyone has printed their brackets and are ready, because time waits for very few people!
*No surprises here. 😬 skates to an easy win.
|-
| 😌 (1980) vs '''😔 (2238)'''
* Relieved face
* '''Pensive face'''
|
* Next! Who would win in a match between 😌 and 😔? We are about to find out.
* 😔 comes out on top.
|-
| '''😴 (2770)''' vs 🤤 (1957)
* '''Sleeping face'''
* Drooling face
|
* Oh, this one should be good.
*A dominant performance by 😴.
|-
| 😷 (1760) vs '''🤒 (2629)'''
* Face with medical mask
* '''Face with thermometer'''
|
* Welcome back, it's time for 😷 and 🤒 to go head to head.
* In the end, there was nothing 😷 could do to stop the power of 🤒.
|-
| 🤢 (2270) vs '''🤕 (2648)'''
* Nauseated face
* '''Face with head-bandage'''
|
* Next up, 🤕 and 🤢.
* 🤕 stole that win.
|-
| 🤧 (2325) vs '''🤮 (3260)'''
* Sneezing face
* '''Face with open mouth vomiting'''
|
* Will it be 🤧 or 🤮? Find out next after this message from our sponsors.
* 🤮 opened strong and 🤧 never caught up.
|-
| 🥵 (1884) vs '''🥶 (3983)'''
* Overheated face
* '''Freezing face'''
|
* You do not want to miss the fan favorite 🥵. Coming up next!
* I have never seen 🥶 crush an opponent that mercilessly before.
|-
| 😵 (2920) vs '''🥴 (3762)'''
* Dizzy face
* '''Face with uneven eyes and wavy mouth'''
|
* Oh this one should be good.
* That was 😵's to give away and they did.
|-
| 🤯 (3055) vs '''🤠 (3110)'''
* Shocked face with exploding head
* '''Face with cowboy hat'''
|
* They have been attacking each other on social media all week. Next up! It's 🤠 vs. 🤯.
* However this ends up, someone got blown away.
|-
| '''😎 (4316)''' vs 🥳 (2201)
* '''Smiling face with sunglasses'''
* Face with party horn and party hat
|
* On deck, we have 😎 and 🥳.
*I guess it was that kind of a party.
|-
| 😟 (2184) vs '''😕 (3663)'''
* Worried face
* '''Confused face'''
|
* Uh oh. 😟 has had words with 😕 before. The next match will be good.
* 😕 one, 😟 zero.
|-
| ☹ (1638) vs '''😮 (5498)'''
* White frowning face
* '''Face with open mouth'''
|
* Next up, ☹ and 😮.
* I hope everyone has printed their brackets and are ready, because time waits for very few people!
|-
| 😲 (2383) vs '''😯 (3904)'''
* Astonished face
* '''Hushed face'''
|
* Don't change that channel, folks. We have 😯 and 😲 warming up.
* And 😲 falls to 😯. A suprising turn of events.
|-
| 😧 (3063) vs '''😳 (3754)'''
* Anguished face
* '''Flushed face'''
|
* We will be right back with 😧 vs. 😳!
* This one was over before it started.
|-
| 😨 (2082) vs '''😰 (4050)'''
* Fearful face
* '''Face with open mouth and cold sweat'''
|
* Oh, this one should be good.
* Well, this doesn't look good.
|-
| 😢 (2095) vs '''😭 (5108)'''
* Crying face
* '''Loudly crying face'''
|
* Have at it, 😢 and 😭!
* This one's a real tear-jerker.
|-
| 😖 (2039) vs '''😱 (4758)'''
* Confounded face
* '''Face screaming in fear'''
|
* If you're like me, you've argued over who would win head-to-head, 😖 or 😱.
* 😱 stole that win.
|-
| 😞 (2879) vs '''😣 (3528)'''
* Disappointed face
* '''Persevering face'''
|
* Coming to you live from the Emojidome, it's 😞 vs. 😣!
* This one's painful.
|-
| 😩 (2785) vs '''😓 (3231)'''
* Weary face
* '''Face with cold sweat'''
|
* On deck, we have 😓 and 😩.
* It's early yet, folks. The coffee hasn't kicked in.
|-
| 😫 (1827) vs '''😤 (4871)'''
* Tired face
* '''Face with look of triumph'''
|
* Coming to you live from the Emojidome, it's 😤 vs. 😫!
* I didn't remember 😫 qualifying. I think they snuck in.
|-
| 😠 (1866) vs '''😡 (5192)'''
* Angry face
* '''Pouting face'''
|
* Will it be 😠 or 😡? Find out next after this message from our sponsors.
* It is astounding how much competition we have in store for today.
|-
| '''😈 (4225)''' vs 🤬 (3072)
* '''Smiling face with horns'''
* Serious face with symbols covering mouth
|
* Coming to you live from the Emojidome, it's 😈 vs. 🤬!
*Speak of the devil...
|-
| 👿 (2341) vs '''💀 (4739)'''
* Imp
* '''Skull'''
|
* We will be right back with 👿 vs. 💀!
* It has been a long road for 💀 to get to competing on the world stage.
|-
| '''💩 (4829)''' vs 🤡 (2514)
* '''Pile of poo'''
* Clown face
|
* Have at it, 💩 and 🤡!
*I think we all know how this is going to go.
|-
| 👻 (3680) vs '''👽 (3983)'''
* Ghost
* '''Extraterrestrial alien'''
|
* Have at it, 👻 and 👽!
|-
| 🏰 (2715) vs '''👾 (4412)'''
* European castle
* '''Alien monster'''
|
* They have been attacking each other on social media all week. Next up! It's 🏰 vs. 👾.
* 👾 opened strong and 🏰 never caught up.
|-
| 😸 (3334) vs '''😺 (3542)'''
* Grinning cat face with smiling eyes
* '''Smiling cat face with open mouth'''
|
* They have been attacking each other on social media all week. Next up! It's 😸 vs. 😺.
* This one is serious, folks.
|-
| 😹 (2778) vs '''😻 (3702)'''
* Cat face with tears of joy
* '''Smiling cat face with heart-shaped eyes'''
|
* Welcome back, it's time for 😹 and 😻 to go head to head.
* The hearts are my favorite part. It all comes down to love. And that really says something.
|-
| 😽 (1815) vs '''😼 (3991)'''
* Kissing cat face with closed eyes
* '''Cat face with wry smile'''
|
* I'm looking forward to this.
* Sometimes miracles happen.
|-
| 😿 (1189) vs '''🙀 (4682)'''
* Crying cat face
* '''Weary cat face'''
|
* On deck, we have 😿 and 🙀.
|-
| 💋 (2122) vs '''😾 (3837)'''
* Kiss mark
* '''Pouting cat face'''
|
* Oh, this one should be good.
|-
| 💌 (1659) vs '''💖 (3386)'''
* Love letter
* '''Sparkling heart'''
|
* Next! Who would win in a match between 💌 and 💖? We are about to find out.
* 💌 is an fan favorite to go far today.
|-
| '''❤ (3904)''' vs 💔 (1920)
* '''Heavy black heart'''
* Broken heart
|
* Uh oh. 💔 has had words with ❤ before. The next match will be good.
|-
| 🖤 (2940) vs '''💯 (3866)'''
* Black heart
* '''Hundred points symbol'''
|
* It is a battle as old as time itself. 💯 and 🖤! Facing off against each other again!
* A dominant performance by 💯.
|-
| 💥 (3055) vs '''💦 (3843)'''
* Collision symbol
* '''Splashing sweat symbol'''
|
* Welcome back, it's time for 💥 and 💦 to go head to head.
* Like fire and water.
|-
| 🕳 (2476) vs '''💣 (4063)'''
* Hole
* '''Bomb'''
|
* Don't change that channel, folks. We have 💣 and 🕳 warming up.
* This one was a mess.
|-
| 🤞 (2246) vs '''🤘 (4845)'''
* Hand with index and middle fingers crossed
* '''Sign of the horns'''
|
* You do not want to miss the fan favorite 🤘. Coming up next!
* It feels like these early matches are over almost before they begin.
|-
| 👎 (2231) vs '''👍 (5077)'''
* Thumbs down sign
* '''Thumbs up sign'''
|
* Will it be 👍 or 👎? Find out next after this message from our sponsors.
* Nice to see the support for positivity.
|-
| 🙏 (3114) vs '''👊 (4861)'''
* Person with folded hands
* '''Fisted hand sign'''
|
* Have at it, 👊 and 🙏!
* I don't think 🙏 expected to see 👊 opposite them today.
|-
| 💅 (2366) vs '''🦵 (4060)'''
* Nail polish
* '''Leg'''
|
* It's time to find out: Who would win in a match, 💅 or 🦵?
* If 🦵 wins this match, it will be interesting to see how far they can go.
|-
| 🦷 (1409) vs '''🧠 (5821)'''
* Tooth
* '''Brain'''
|
* Oh this one should be good.
|-
| '''👀 (4052)''' vs 🦴 (2198)
* '''Eyes'''
* Bone
|
* Uh oh. 🦴 has had words with 👀 before. The next match will be good.
|-
| 👄 (1712) vs '''👅 (4648)'''
* Mouth
* '''Tongue'''
|
* Don't change that channel, folks. We have 👄 and 👅 warming up.
|-
| 👶 (1414) vs '''🤦 (5666)'''
* Baby
* '''Face palm'''
|
* Uh oh. 🤦 has had words with 👶 before. The next match will be good.
|-
| '''👩‍🔬 (6374)''' vs 🤷 (2385)
* '''Woman + microscope'''
* Shrug
|
* Have at it, 👩‍🔬 and 🤷!
|-
| '''👩‍🚀 (5502)''' vs 🦸 (2302)
* '''Woman + rocket'''
* Superhero
|
* It's time to find out: Who would win in a match, 👩‍🚀 or 🦸?
|-
| 🧚 (1909) vs '''🧙 (6294)'''
* Fairy
* '''Mage'''
|
* Uh oh. 🧚 has had words with 🧙 before. The next match will be good.
* There are some titanic match-ups that could happen today.
* Yes, this is live commentary.
* We have only just started, folks. Stay tuned for more amazing contests!
|-
| 🧜 (3835) vs '''🧛 (3840)'''
* Merperson
* '''Vampire'''
|
* You do not want to miss the fan favorite 🧛. Coming up next!
* Not sure which way this one goes.
|-
| 💆 (2815) vs '''🧟 (3747)'''
* Face massage
* '''Zombie'''
|
* Next up, 💆 and 🧟.
* That's just a typical Monday for you.
|-
| 💇 (3029) vs '''🚶 (3055)'''
* Haircut
* '''Pedestrian'''
|
* We will be right back with 💇 vs. 🚶!
* It's going to be a busy day, folks. Remember to pace yourself.
|-
| 🏃 (2239) vs '''💃 (5833)'''
* Runner
* '''Dancer'''
|
* On deck, we have 🏃 and 💃.
* Make some noise! Show 🏃 and 💃 some love!
* That was 🏃's to give away and they did.
|-
| 🕺 (1990) vs '''🕴 (5035)'''
* Man dancing
* '''Man in business suit levitating'''
|
* We will be right back with 🕴 vs. 🕺!
* I spoke with 🕴 before we started today. They were hoping to dodge 🕺. Too bad for them.
|-
| 🏇 (2563) vs '''🤺 (5157)'''
* Horse racing
* '''Fencer'''
|
* Have at it, 🏇 and 🤺!
* Never bring a sword to a horse fight.
|-
| '''⛷ (4510)''' vs 🏂 (3762)
* '''Skier'''
* Snowboarder
|
* Coming to you live from the Emojidome, it's ⛷ vs. 🏂!
*We have a lot of excited fans in the audience.
|-
| 🏌 (2557) vs '''🏄 (6285)'''
* Golfer
* '''Surfer'''
|
* It's time to find out: Who would win in a match, 🏄 or 🏌?
* Ok! Let's see those hearts!
* I have never seen 🏄 crush an opponent that mercilessly before.
|-
| ⛹ (2793) vs '''🏊 (5994)'''
* Person with ball
* '''Swimmer'''
|
* Have at it, ⛹ and 🏊!
|-
| 🏋 (2300) vs '''🚴 (8063)'''
* Weight lifter
* '''Bicyclist'''
|
* Will it be 🏋 or 🚴? Find out next after this message from our sponsors.
* Right now the crowd is chanting 🏋! 🏋! An early sign of a favorite?
|-
| '''🚵 (5650)''' vs 🤾 (4698)
* '''Mountain bicyclist'''
* Handball
|
* We will be right back with 🚵 vs. 🤾!
*It's neck and neck!
|-
| 👤 (2195) vs '''🛀 (5529)'''
* Bust in silhouette
* '''Bath'''
|
* Don't change that channel, folks. We have 👤 and 🛀 warming up.
|-
| '''🐒 (4644)''' vs 🦍 (3336)
* '''Monkey'''
* Gorilla
|
* Oh, this one should be good.
|-
| 🐕 (3458) vs '''🐶 (4004)'''
* Dog
* '''Dog face'''
|
* You do not want to miss the fan favorite 🐕. Coming up next!
* Mostly a matter of perspective.
|-
| 🐺 (2774) vs '''🦊 (6024)'''
* Wolf face
* '''Fox face'''
|
* Oh, this one should be good.
* Again, small variations make all the difference.
|-
| '''🐱 (4931)''' vs 🦝 (4017)
* '''Cat face'''
* Raccoon
|
* They have been attacking each other on social media all week. Next up! It's 🐱 vs. 🦝.
*🦝 is an fan favorite to go far today.
*🐱 stole that win.
|-
| '''🐈 (5046)''' vs 🦁 (3957)
* '''Cat'''
* Lion face
|
* Don't change that channel, folks. We have 🐈 and 🦁 warming up.
*Again, we are getting a lot of questions on this today. This is live commentary, folks.
*We have a lot of excited fans in the audience.
|-
| 🐆 (2186) vs '''🐅 (6280)'''
* Leopard
* '''Tiger'''
|
* It's time to find out: Who would win in a match, 🐅 or 🐆?
* Stripes or Spots, Stripes or Spots
|-
| 🐴 (3722) vs '''🐎 (4120)'''
* Horse face
* '''Horse'''
|
* Next! Who would win in a match between 🐎 and 🐴? We are about to find out.
* I've got your horse right here.
|-
| 🦓 (3486) vs '''🦄 (6830)'''
* Zebra face
* '''Unicorn face'''
|
* Next! Who would win in a match between 🦄 and 🦓? We are about to find out.
* I think we all know how this is going to go.
* It was neck and neck until the very end, but some necks are longer than others.
|-
| 🐮 (3658) vs '''🦌 (5111)'''
* Cow face
* '''Deer'''
|
* Uh oh. 🦌 has had words with 🐮 before. The next match will be good.
* This is a close one!
|-
| 🐖 (3568) vs '''🐷 (5175)'''
* Pig
* '''Pig face'''
|
* You do not want to miss the fan favorite 🐖. Coming up next!
* Who will bring home the bacon?
|-
| 🐗 (2576) vs '''🐏 (6073)'''
* Boar
* '''Ram'''
|
* It's time to find out: Who would win in a match, 🐏 or 🐗?
|-
| 🐪 (3329) vs '''🐐 (5304)'''
* Dromedary camel
* '''Goat'''
|
* It's time to find out: Who would win in a match, 🐐 or 🐪?
|-
| 🦙 (4397) vs '''🦒 (5164)'''
* Llama
* '''Giraffe face'''
|
* Uh oh. 🦙 has had words with 🦒 before. The next match will be good.
* It's neck and neck!
* I hope 🦙 comes back next year. It would be a sham to see it all end like this.
|-
| '''🐘 (4809)''' vs 🦏 (3804)
* '''Elephant'''
* Rhinoceros
|
* It's time to find out: Who would win in a match, 🐘 or 🦏?
*We'll never forget this.
|-
| 🐁 (4039) vs '''🦛 (4085)'''
* Mouse
* '''Hippopotamus'''
|
* It's time to find out: Who would win in a match, 🐁 or 🦛?
|-
| 🐀 (2994) vs '''🐹 (4580)'''
* Rat
* '''Hamster face'''
|
* Will it be 🐀 or 🐹? Find out next after this message from our sponsors.
* Today is also about settling scores, there is no doubt about that for some of our contestants.
|-
| 🐰 (1865) vs '''🐿 (5175)'''
* Rabbit face
* '''Chipmunk'''
|
* If you're like me, you've argued over who would win head-to-head, 🐰 or 🐿.
* Its about reflexes.
|-
| 🦇 (3648) vs '''🦔 (4507)'''
* Bat
* '''Hedgehog'''
|
* They have been attacking each other on social media all week. Next up! It's 🦇 vs. 🦔.
* This one is a toss-up in my book, folks.
|-
| 🐻 (2686) vs '''🐨 (5059)'''
* Bear face
* '''Koala'''
|
* Coming to you live from the Emojidome, it's 🐨 vs. 🐻!
* Ok! You know what to do! Let's see those hearts!
|-
| 🐼 (2896) vs '''🦘 (5185)'''
* Panda face
* '''Kangaroo'''
|
* Next! Who would win in a match between 🐼 and 🦘? We are about to find out.
* It's exciting to look around and see so many joining us from all over the world.
* One for the history books.
|-
| 🦃 (2553) vs '''🦡 (5483)'''
* Turkey
* '''Badger'''
|
* It is a battle as old as time itself. 🦃 and 🦡! Facing off against each other again!
* That was a stinker of a battle, if you ask me.
|-
| 🐓 (2883) vs '''🐣 (5153)'''
* Rooster
* '''Hatching chick'''
|
* Welcome back, it's time for 🐓 and 🐣 to go head to head.
|-
| 🕊 (2432) vs '''🐧 (5951)'''
* Dove of peace
* '''Penguin'''
|
* We will be right back with 🐧 vs. 🕊!
|-
| 🦅 (3871) vs '''🦆 (4800)'''
* Eagle
* '''Duck'''
|
* Uh oh. 🦆 has had words with 🦅 before. The next match will be good.
|-
| 🦢 (1613) vs '''🦉 (7025)'''
* Swan
* '''Owl'''
|
* They have been attacking each other on social media all week. Next up! It's 🦉 vs. 🦢.
* 🦉 didn't do their homework.
* I hope everyone has printed their brackets and are ready, because time waits for very few people!
* Yes, this is live commentary.
* 🦉 one, 🦢 zero.
|-
| 🦚 (4333) vs '''🦜 (4803)'''
* Peacock
* '''Parrot'''
|
* Oh, this one should be good.
* I know some very invested audience members for this one.
|-
| 🐊 (3986) vs '''🐢 (6403)'''
* Crocodile
* '''Turtle'''
|
* I'm looking forward to this.
|-
| '''🐍 (5378)''' vs 🦎 (4415)
* '''Snake'''
* Lizard
|
* Have at it, 🐍 and 🦎!
*In the end, there was nothing 🐍 could do to stop the power of 🦎.
*Did you just see that!?
*Plenty of matches left to see. Don't go anywhere.
|-
| '''🐉 (5359)''' vs 🦕 (4855)
* '''Dragon'''
* Sauropod
|
* Have at it, 🐉 and 🦕!
*One for the history books.
|-
| '''🐳 (5445)''' vs 🦖 (5411)
* '''Spouting whale'''
* T-rex
|
* I'm looking forward to this.
*Again, another difficult match-up for our audience.
|-
| 🐟 (1639) vs '''🐬 (8071)'''
* Fish
* '''Dolphin'''
|
* Will it be 🐟 or 🐬? Find out next after this message from our sponsors.
* I know which one I would choose, but I don't have time to vote!
|-
| 🐡 (2307) vs '''🦈 (6544)'''
* Blowfish
* '''Shark'''
|
* Have at it, 🐡 and 🦈!
* 🦈 opened strong and 🐡 never caught up.
|-
| 🐚 (1590) vs '''🐙 (8224)'''
* Spiral shell
* '''Octopus'''
|
* They have been attacking each other on social media all week. Next up! It's 🐙 vs. 🐚.
* This one was over before it started.
|-
| 🐌 (4816) vs '''🦋 (4835)'''
* Snail
* '''Butterfly'''
|
* We will be right back with 🐌 vs. 🦋!
* The hearts are flying on this one!
|-
| 🐜 (3194) vs '''🐛 (5132)'''
* Ant
* '''Bug'''
|
* I'm looking forward to this.
* 🐜 didn't do their homework.
|-
| 🐞 (3561) vs '''🐝 (5804)'''
* Lady beetle
* '''Honeybee'''
|
* On deck, we have 🐝 and 🐞.
* This one is a true test of the audience today.
* Will luck be a ladybug tonight?
* Amazing!
|-
| '''🕷 (4806)''' vs 🦗 (4195)
* '''Spider'''
* Cricket
|
* Uh oh. 🦗 has had words with 🕷 before. The next match will be good.
*And 🦗 falls to 🕷. A suprising turn of events.
|-
| 🦂 (3853) vs '''🦠 (4971)'''
* Scorpion
* '''Microbe'''
|
* Next! Who would win in a match between 🦂 and 🦠? We are about to find out.
* Nope. Nope nope nope nope.
|-
| 🌷 (3767) vs '''🌻 (4374)'''
* Tulip
* '''Sunflower'''
|
* We will be right back with 🌷 vs. 🌻!
* Now that's more like it.
|-
| 🌳 (1973) vs '''🌲 (6563)'''
* Deciduous tree
* '''Evergreen tree'''
|
* If you're like me, you've argued over who would win head-to-head, 🌲 or 🌳.
* Who would have thought, eh?
|-
| 🌴 (3876) vs '''🌵 (5468)'''
* Palm tree
* '''Cactus'''
|
* Oh, this one should be good.
* In the end, there was nothing 🌴 could do to stop the power of 🌵.
|-
| 🍈 (2617) vs '''🍇 (5319)'''
* Melon
* '''Grapes'''
|
* It's time to find out: Who would win in a match, 🍇 or 🍈?
* Folks, I am just as stunned at the outcome as you.
|-
| 🍋 (4186) vs '''🍉 (4720)'''
* Lemon
* '''Watermelon'''
|
* They have been attacking each other on social media all week. Next up! It's 🍉 vs. 🍋.
* I just don't know why they can't find common ground.
* 🍉 one, 🍋 zero.
|-
| 🍌 (4704) vs '''🍍 (5525)'''
* Banana
* '''Pineapple'''
|
* Don't change that channel, folks. We have 🍌 and 🍍 warming up.
* Ok! Let's see those hearts!
* I guess it was that kind of a party.
|-
| '''🍎 (5111)''' vs 🥭 (3830)
* '''Red apple'''
* Mango
|
* I'm looking forward to this.
|-
| 🍏 (2703) vs '''🍓 (6403)'''
* Green apple
* '''Strawberry'''
|
* It's time to find out: Who would win in a match, 🍏 or 🍓?
* We might be close to some matches the audience is expecting or hoping to see today.
* Berry nice!
|-
| 🍅 (3002) vs '''🥝 (5348)'''
* Tomato
* '''Kiwifruit'''
|
* They have been attacking each other on social media all week. Next up! It's 🍅 vs. 🥝.
|-
| 🥥 (3840) vs '''🥑 (5759)'''
* Coconut
* '''Avocado'''
|
* On deck, we have 🥑 and 🥥.
* Somehow, someone will blame millenials for this.
|-
| 🥕 (4577) vs '''🥔 (4620)'''
* Carrot
* '''Potato'''
|
* Next! Who would win in a match between 🥔 and 🥕? We are about to find out.
* Ahhh the age old question, 🥕 or 🥔.
|-
| 🌽 (4074) vs '''🌶 (5087)'''
* Ear of maize
* '''Hot pepper'''
|
* Have at it, 🌶 and 🌽!
|-
| 🥬 (2694) vs '''🥒 (5472)'''
* Leafy green
* '''Cucumber'''
|
* You do not want to miss the fan favorite 🥒. Coming up next!
* Not sure which way this one goes.
|-
| '''🍄 (5850)''' vs 🥦 (2707)
* '''Mushroom'''
* Broccoli
|
* Will it be 🍄 or 🥦? Find out next after this message from our sponsors.
*Folks, we are nearly halfway through the first bracket!
*Again, we are getting a lot of questions on this today. This is live commentary, folks.
*Into the second half of the first round.
*That was 🥦's to give away and they did.
|-
| 🌰 (2698) vs '''🥜 (6225)'''
* Chestnut
* '''Peanuts'''
|
* It's time to find out: Who would win in a match, 🌰 or 🥜?
* I am not even sure what I am looking at here.
|-
| 🍞 (2934) vs '''🥐 (6465)'''
* Bread
* '''Croissant'''
|
* They have been attacking each other on social media all week. Next up! It's 🍞 vs. 🥐.
* Well, I know who I would vote for.
|-
| 🥖 (4800) vs '''🥨 (5136)'''
* Baguette bread
* '''Pretzel'''
|
* We will be right back with 🥖 vs. 🥨!
|-
| 🥯 (2470) vs '''🥞 (5926)'''
* Bagel
* '''Pancakes'''
|
* Uh oh. 🥯 has had words with 🥞 before. The next match will be good.
* Now I am just hungry.
|-
| 🥩 (3959) vs '''🧀 (6225)'''
* Cut of meat
* '''Cheese wedge'''
|
* Oh this one should be good.
* Truly a battle for the ages.
|-
| 🍟 (3719) vs '''🍔 (5352)'''
* French fries
* '''Hamburger'''
|
* Don't change that channel, folks. We have 🍔 and 🍟 warming up.
|-
| 🌭 (1340) vs '''🍕 (7881)'''
* Hot dog
* '''Slice of pizza'''
|
* If you're like me, you've argued over who would win head-to-head, 🌭 or 🍕.
|-
| '''🌮 (6417)''' vs 🥪 (2869)
* '''Taco'''
* Sandwich
|
* It's time to find out: Who would win in a match, 🌮 or 🥪?
*I'll be honest, even I voted in that last one.
*There are some titanic match-ups that could happen today.
*One for the history books.
|-
| '''🌯 (5359)''' vs 🥚 (3868)
* '''Burrito'''
* Egg
|
* It's time to find out: Who would win in a match, 🌯 or 🥚?
*🥚 is an fan favorite to go far today.
*One for the history books.
|-
| '''🍳 (5293)''' vs 🥗 (3101)
* '''Cooking'''
* Green salad
|
* Have at it, 🍳 and 🥗!
*There can be very food-centric history books.
*If 🍳 wins this match, it will be interesting to see how far they can go.
|-
| '''🍿 (2640)''' vs 🧂 (2067)
* '''Popcorn'''
* Salt shaker
|
* Oh, this one should be good.
*This one was over before it started.
|-
| '''🍱 (4931)''' vs 🥫 (1948)
* '''Bento box'''
* Canned food
|
* They have been attacking each other on social media all week. Next up! It's 🍱 vs. 🥫.
*It is early still. Possibly too early to predict an over-all winner. But I am hearing 🏇 mentioned a fair bit.
*And 🥫 falls to 🍱. A suprising turn of events.
|-
| 🍤 (2334) vs '''🍣 (5552)'''
* Fried shrimp
* '''Sushi'''
|
* They have been attacking each other on social media all week. Next up! It's 🍣 vs. 🍤.
* Plenty of matches left to see. Don't go anywhere.
|-
| 🥡 (3101) vs '''🥟 (4128)'''
* Takeout box
* '''Dumpling'''
|
* They have been attacking each other on social media all week. Next up! It's 🥟 vs. 🥡.
* 🥟 one, 🥡 zero.
|-
| 🦀 (3762) vs '''🦞 (4739)'''
* Crab
* '''Lobster'''
|
* Coming to you live from the Emojidome, it's 🦀 vs. 🦞!
|-
| 🦐 (2421) vs '''🦑 (6162)'''
* Shrimp
* '''Squid'''
|
* Will it be 🦐 or 🦑? Find out next after this message from our sponsors.
|-
| 🍦 (3804) vs '''🍨 (4698)'''
* Soft ice cream
* '''Ice cream'''
|
* If you're like me, you've argued over who would win head-to-head, 🍦 or 🍨.
|-
| 🍪 (3722) vs '''🍩 (5167)'''
* Cookie
* '''Doughnut'''
|
* We will be right back with 🍩 vs. 🍪!
|-
| 🎂 (3658) vs 🧁 (3658)
* Birthday cake
* Cupcake '''(Tie - unclear how winner was chosen)'''
|
* Next up, 🎂 and 🧁.
|-
| 🍬 (1244) vs '''🍫 (6674)'''
* Candy
* '''Chocolate bar'''
|
* We will be right back with 🍫 vs. 🍬!
|-
| 🍭 (2568) vs '''🍯 (5445)'''
* Lollipop
* '''Honey pot'''
|
* It's time to find out: Who would win in a match, 🍭 or 🍯?
* Thank you for tuning in. I promise you are in for a treat today.
|-
| 🍼 (1824) vs '''🥛 (5239)'''
* Baby bottle
* '''Glass of milk'''
|
* Will it be 🍼 or 🥛? Find out next after this message from our sponsors.
|-
| '''☕ (4813)''' vs 🍾 (3227)
* '''Hot beverage'''
* Bottle with popping cork
|
* If you're like me, you've argued over who would win head-to-head, ☕ or 🍾.
*Time to get another feel for our audience today.
|-
| 🍷 (3021) vs '''🍹 (3561)'''
* Wine glass
* '''Tropical drink'''
|
* It is a battle as old as time itself. 🍷 and 🍹! Facing off against each other again!
* Well now I am just getting thirsty.
|-
| '''🍺 (5763)''' vs 🥤 (3897)
* '''Beer mug'''
* Cup with straw
|
* Will it be 🍺 or 🥤? Find out next after this message from our sponsors.
*Still thirsty!
|-
| 🍴 (3917) vs '''🥢 (4348)'''
* Fork and knife
* '''Chopsticks'''
|
* We will be right back with 🍴 vs. 🥢!
* I know which one I would choose, but I don't have time to vote!
|-
| '''🔪 (5627)''' vs 🥄 (1742)
* '''Hocho'''
* Spoon
|
* Have at it, 🔪 and 🥄!
|-
| 🏺 (2604) vs '''🧭 (4784)'''
* Amphora
* '''Compass'''
|
* Don't change that channel, folks. We have 🏺 and 🧭 warming up.
* You just know that 🏺 is thinking about 🏎 right now.
|-
| ⛰ (1843) vs '''🌋 (6793)'''
* Mountain
* '''Volcano'''
|
* You do not want to miss the fan favorite ⛰. Coming up next!
* This one was over before it started.
|-
| 🏖 (3159) vs '''🏕 (5611)'''
* Beach with umbrella
* '''Camping'''
|
* Welcome back, it's time for 🏕 and 🏖 to go head to head.
* Time to pick your poison!
|-
| 🏟 (2537) vs '''🏝 (6180)'''
* Stadium
* '''Desert island'''
|
* I'm looking forward to this.
|-
| '''🏗 (4093)''' vs 🧱 (3680)
* '''Building construction'''
* Brick
|
* Oh this one should be good.
*What an amazing display of prowess from 🏗.
|-
| 🏢 (2178) vs '''🏠 (5829)'''
* Office building
* '''House building'''
|
* Oh, this one should be good.
* 🏠 has every reason to be concerned about this match-up.
|-
| 🏨 (1367) vs '''🏥 (5326)'''
* Hotel
* '''Hospital'''
|
* Next! Who would win in a match between 🏥 and 🏨? We are about to find out.
* is $6,000,000 of one and Six million of the other, am I right?
|-
| 🏪 (3114) vs '''🗽 (4875)'''
* Convenience store
* '''Statue of liberty'''
|
* It is a battle as old as time itself. 🏪 and 🗽! Facing off against each other again!
|-
| '''⛲ (4296)''' vs ⛺ (3483)
* '''Fountain'''
* Tent
|
* Don't change that channel, folks. We have ⛲ and ⛺ warming up.
*If you look away for a moment, you may miss your chance to send ⛺ into the later rounds.
|-
| 🌁 (3488) vs '''🌃 (4354)'''
* Foggy
* '''Night with stars'''
|
* I'm looking forward to this.
|-
| 🏙 (2396) vs '''🌅 (6055)'''
* Cityscape
* '''Sunrise'''
|
* Next up, 🌅 and 🏙.
* 🏙 is fully committed to this match.
|-
| 🎠 (3307) vs '''🎡 (4648)'''
* Carousel horse
* '''Ferris wheel'''
|
* It's time to find out: Who would win in a match, 🎠 or 🎡?
* Oh no. 🎠 fans are not going to like this match-up.
|-
| '''🎢 (5854)''' vs 💈 (2137)
* '''Roller coaster'''
* Barber pole
|
* Next up, 🎢 and 💈.
*This one will be filled with twists and turns!
|-
| 🚂 (3915) vs '''🚄 (4826)'''
* Steam locomotive
* '''High-speed train'''
|
* They have been attacking each other on social media all week. Next up! It's 🚂 vs. 🚄.
* The future waits on no one. Let's see those hearts!
|-
| 🚇 (3395) vs '''🚝 (4881)'''
* Metro
* '''Monorail'''
|
* Coming to you live from the Emojidome, it's 🚇 vs. 🚝!
* On the other hand, time and space are a matter of perspective, right?
* I guess it was that kind of a party.
|-
| 🚌 (2412) vs '''🚑 (5363)'''
* Bus
* '''Ambulance'''
|
* They have been attacking each other on social media all week. Next up! It's 🚌 vs. 🚑.
* Uh oh, that can't be good for 🚌.
|-
| 🚓 (2703) vs '''🚒 (6746)'''
* Police car
* '''Fire engine'''
|
* Oh, this one should be good.
* Uh oh, that can't be good for 🚓.
* This is a classic struggle.
|-
| 🚕 (3400) vs '''🚗 (3794)'''
* Taxi
* '''Automobile'''
|
* Don't change that channel, folks. We have 🚕 and 🚗 warming up.
* Well that's certainly something.
|-
| 🚘 (2922) vs '''🚜 (5363)'''
* Oncoming automobile
* '''Tractor'''
|
* Next up, 🚘 and 🚜.
* This one is a real nail biter!
* If 🚘 falls today, we might start hearing serious conversations about retirement.
|-
| 🏎 (3103) vs '''🛵 (4839)'''
* Racing car
* '''Motor scooter'''
|
* Don't change that channel, folks. We have 🏎 and 🛵 warming up.
* Well this is just fan service. And I am ok with it.
|-
| 🛴 (2103) vs '''🚲 (6970)'''
* Scooter
* '''Bicycle'''
|
* Next! Who would win in a match between 🚲 and 🛴? We are about to find out.
* Frankly, I don't think anyone saw this coming.
|-
| 🛢 (3474) vs '''🛹 (4780)'''
* Oil drum
* '''Skateboard'''
|
* Next! Who would win in a match between 🛢 and 🛹? We are about to find out.
* And 🛢 falls to 🛹. A suprising turn of events.
|-
| '''⚓ (4816)''' vs 🚨 (2389)
* '''Anchor'''
* Police cars revolving light
|
* Welcome back, it's time for ⚓ and 🚨 to go head to head.
*Just to stress this again. Live commentary, folks. Completely unscripted and coming in hot.
*This one is a true test of the audience today.
|-
| '''⛵ (4941)''' vs 🚢 (2877)
* '''Sailboat'''
* Ship
|
* Coming to you live from the Emojidome, it's ⛵ vs. 🚢!
*SAIL!
|-
| 💺 (1776) vs '''🛩 (5947)'''
* Seat
* '''Small airplane'''
|
* You do not want to miss the fan favorite 💺. Coming up next!
|-
| 🚡 (3729) vs '''🚁 (4148)'''
* Aerial tramway
* '''Helicopter'''
|
* If you're like me, you've argued over who would win head-to-head, 🚁 or 🚡.
* Sometimes miracles happen.
* Plenty of matches left to see. Don't go anywhere.
|-
| 🛰 (3655) vs '''🚀 (4861)'''
* Satellite
* '''Rocket'''
|
* Welcome back, it's time for 🚀 and 🛰 to go head to head.
* 🛰 and 🚀 have been friends for a long time. I am not sure where that relationship is going to be after today.
|-
| ⏳ (3021) vs '''🛸 (5203)'''
* Hourglass with flowing sand
* '''Flying saucer'''
|
* It's time to find out: Who would win in a match, ⏳ or 🛸?
* This one is serious, folks.
|-
| '''⌚ (4462)''' vs ⏰ (3619)
* '''Watch'''
* Alarm clock
|
* You do not want to miss the fan favorite ⌚. Coming up next!
*If you believe in ⏰, now is the time to clap or whatever, because it is not looking good.
*If you believe in ⏰, now is the time to clap or whatever, because it is not looking good.
|-
| 🌕 (3690) vs '''🌒 (4145)'''
* Full moon symbol
* '''Waxing crescent moon symbol'''
|
* You do not want to miss the fan favorite 🌒. Coming up next!
* What a shocking result!
|-
| 🌡 (2829) vs '''🌙 (4432)'''
* Thermometer
* '''Crescent moon'''
|
* It is a battle as old as time itself. 🌙 and 🌡! Facing off against each other again!
|-
| 🌝 (3559) vs '''🌞 (3871)'''
* Full moon with face
* '''Sun with face'''
|
* You do not want to miss the fan favorite 🌝. Coming up next!
|-
| ⭐ (2063) vs '''🌌 (5731)'''
* White medium star
* '''Milky way'''
|
* Uh oh. 🌌 has had words with ⭐ before. The next match will be good.
|-
| '''⛈ (5487)''' vs 🌦 (1983)
* '''Thunder cloud and rain'''
* White sun behind cloud with rain
|
* Don't change that channel, folks. We have ⛈ and 🌦 warming up.
*And 🌦 falls to ⛈. A suprising turn of events.
|-
| 🌨 (3646) vs '''🌪 (4139)'''
* Cloud with snow
* '''Cloud with tornado'''
|
* It is a battle as old as time itself. 🌨 and 🌪! Facing off against each other again!
* Folks, I am just as stunned at the outcome as you.
|-
| 🌀 (3034) vs '''🌈 (7070)'''
* Cyclone
* '''Rainbow'''
|
* Next! Who would win in a match between 🌀 and 🌈? We are about to find out.
|-
| ☂ (2117) vs '''⚡ (5125)'''
* Umbrella
* '''High voltage sign'''
|
* You do not want to miss the fan favorite ☂. Coming up next!
|-
| '''☄ (4988)''' vs ⛄ (2602)
* '''Comet'''
* Snowman without snow
|
* They have been attacking each other on social media all week. Next up! It's ☄ vs. ⛄.
*Another curious match-up with significant implications on how the rest of the day will go.
|-
| 🌊 (3356) vs '''🔥 (5286)'''
* Water wave
* '''Fire'''
|
* Oh, this one should be good.
* I am not sure if 🌊 was prepared for today.
|-
| 🎆 (3284) vs '''🎃 (4418)'''
* Fireworks
* '''Jack-o-lantern'''
|
* If you're like me, you've argued over who would win head-to-head, 🎃 or 🎆.
* This is a mystery.
|-
| 🎇 (2770) vs '''🧨 (4066)'''
* Firework sparkler
* '''Firecracker'''
|
* Coming to you live from the Emojidome, it's 🎇 vs. 🧨!
* Get ready for an explosive result!
|-
| 🎈 (2619) vs '''🎉 (4673)'''
* Balloon
* '''Party popper'''
|
* I'm looking forward to this.
* I guess it was that kind of a party.
|-
| 🎊 (2250) vs '''🎁 (4203)'''
* Confetti ball
* '''Wrapped present'''
|
* Welcome back, it's time for 🎁 and 🎊 to go head to head.
* This one was a mess.
|-
| 🎟 (2054) vs '''🏆 (4558)'''
* Admission tickets
* '''Trophy'''
|
* Don't change that channel, folks. We have 🎟 and 🏆 warming up.
* Truly a dizzying win.
|-
| ⚽ (3116) vs '''🏅 (4383)'''
* Soccer ball
* '''Sports medal'''
|
* Have at it, ⚽ and 🏅!
* A dominant performance by 🏅.
|-
| '''⚾ (5479)''' vs 🥎 (2335)
* '''Baseball'''
* Softball
|
* Uh oh. 🥎 has had words with ⚾ before. The next match will be good.
*Uhhhh. I can't tell the difference here, can you?
|-
| 🏐 (3742) vs '''🏀 (4148)'''
* Volleyball
* '''Basketball and hoop'''
|
* Oh this one should be good.
* The ball is round, everything else is negotiable.
|-
| 🏈 (2932) vs '''🎾 (6003)'''
* American football
* '''Tennis racquet and ball'''
|
* Next up, 🎾 and 🏈.
* The ball is round ...er .... well .... uh.
|-
| 🎳 (4071) vs '''🥏 (4561)'''
* Bowling
* '''Flying disc'''
|
* We will be right back with 🎳 vs. 🥏!
* I had BOWLING BALL in my March Madness bracket. I did not do well.
* Ok. Now this is just ridiculous.
|-
| 🏑 (2742) vs '''🏏 (3810)'''
* Field hockey stick and ball
* '''Cricket bat and ball'''
|
* We will be right back with 🏏 vs. 🏑!
|-
| '''🏒 (5926)''' vs 🥍 (2291)
* '''Ice hockey stick and puck'''
* Lacrosse stick and ball
|
* Oh this one should be good.
*Floor stick vs. sky stick—who will win?
|-
| '''🏓 (5858)''' vs 🥊 (2203)
* '''Table tennis paddle and ball'''
* Boxing glove
|
* Coming to you live from the Emojidome, it's 🏓 vs. 🥊!
|-
| ⛸ (2465) vs '''🛷 (4552)'''
* Ice skate
* '''Sled'''
|
* They have been attacking each other on social media all week. Next up! It's ⛸ vs. 🛷.
* Foot sled vs. regular sled!
|-
| 🎯 (1539) vs '''🥌 (1873)'''
* Direct hit
* '''Curling stone'''
|
* Next! Who would win in a match between 🎯 and 🥌? We are about to find out.
|-
| '''🎮 (6798)''' vs 🔮 (2657)
* '''Video game'''
* Crystal ball
|
* Oh, this one should be good.
|-
| 🎭 (2137) vs '''🎲 (4868)'''
* Performing arts
* '''Game die'''
|
* If you're like me, you've argued over who would win head-to-head, 🎭 or 🎲.
|-
| '''🎨 (4172)''' vs 🧶 (2994)
* '''Artist palette'''
* Ball of yarn
|
* Uh oh. 🧶 has had words with 🎨 before. The next match will be good.
*A lot of cats clicking on screens right now.
|-
| '''👓 (4206)''' vs 🥽 (3986)
* '''Eyeglasses'''
* Goggles
|
* Have at it, 👓 and 🥽!
*Glasses vs. Science Glasses!
|-
| 👛 (1029) vs '''🧦 (5468)'''
* Purse
* '''Socks'''
|
* Have at it, 👛 and 🧦!
|-
| '''🎒 (3516)''' vs 👟 (2756)
* '''School satchel'''
* Athletic shoe
|
* Don't change that channel, folks. We have 🎒 and 👟 warming up.
*Time for school! Which one will you bring?
|-
| 👠 (1627) vs '''👑 (5203)'''
* High-heeled shoe
* '''Crown'''
|
* Oh this one should be good.
|-
| '''🎩 (5611)''' vs 💄 (1719)
* '''Top hat'''
* Lipstick
|
* They have been attacking each other on social media all week. Next up! It's 🎩 vs. 💄.
*The fanciest matchup!
|-
| 💍 (1284) vs '''💎 (5973)'''
* Ring
* '''Gem stone'''
|
* Will it be 💍 or 💎? Find out next after this message from our sponsors.
* If you like the one on the right, put a ring on it!
|-
| 🎤 (1728) vs '''🎵 (5239)'''
* Microphone
* '''Musical note'''
|
* On deck, we have 🎤 and 🎵.
* :notes::notes::notes:
* Music!
|-
| '''🎷 (4934)''' vs 📻 (2021)
* '''Saxophone'''
* Radio
|
* Don't change that channel, folks. We have 🎷 and 📻 warming up.
*The radio and the saxophone are having a music fight. Who can be louder?
|-
| 🎺 (3427) vs '''🎸 (4388)'''
* Trumpet
* '''Guitar'''
|
* Uh oh. 🎺 has had words with 🎸 before. The next match will be good.
* Truly, this is a day that will live in the memories of everyone here.
|-
| '''🎻 (4450)''' vs 🥁 (2857)
* '''Violin'''
* Drum with drumsticks
|
* They have been attacking each other on social media all week. Next up! It's 🎻 vs. 🥁.
*You can hit either one with drumsticks, technically.
|-
| 📱 (3837) vs '''📞 (3980)'''
* Mobile phone
* '''Telephone receiver'''
|
* They have been attacking each other on social media all week. Next up! It's 📞 vs. 📱.
* 📞 is fully committed to this match.
|-
| 📠 (2877) vs '''📟 (3262)'''
* Fax machine
* '''Pager'''
|
* Uh oh. 📠 has had words with 📟 before. The next match will be good.
* This one is a toss-up in my book, folks.
* Only 15% of the people voting recognize either of these antique devices.
|-
| 🔋 (2676) vs '''💻 (4418)'''
* Battery
* '''Personal computer'''
|
* Oh this one should be good.
* I spoke with 💻 before the match today, and they had this to say: 💻.
* Sparks fly!
|-
| '''⌨ (5293)''' vs 🖨 (1909)
* '''Keyboard'''
* Printer
|
* Oh, this one should be good.
*A keyboard is just a reverse printer.
|-
| 🖱 (2661) vs '''💾 (6308)'''
* Three button mouse
* '''Floppy disk'''
|
* I'm looking forward to this.
* Yes, this is live commentary.
* This one is a mystery to me, folks.
|-
| 📀 (2585) vs '''🧮 (5282)'''
* Dvd
* '''Abacus'''
|
* Will it be 📀 or 🧮? Find out next after this message from our sponsors.
|-
| 📺 (2752) vs '''📷 (4543)'''
* Television
* '''Camera'''
|
* Next up, 📷 and 📺.
* 📷 certainly has its work cut out for it going up agaist 📺.
* The camera comes with a tiny TV on the back, which hardly seems fair.
|-
| 📼 (3648) vs '''🔎 (3663)'''
* Videocassette
* '''Right-pointing magnifying glass'''
|
* It's time to find out: Who would win in a match, 📼 or 🔎?
* 🔎 has every reason to be concerned about this match-up.
* These two can combine for a very unsatisfying movie-watching experience.
|-
| 🕯 (3910) vs '''💡 (4178)'''
* Candle
* '''Electric light bulb'''
|
* Welcome back, it's time for 💡 and 🕯 to go head to head.
* I'm so happy to see 💡 here, after 🧠 didn't make it.
* Some would argue this one was settled in the 1800s.
|-
| 🔦 (1663) vs '''📚 (5960)'''
* Electric torch
* '''Books'''
|
* It is a battle as old as time itself. 📚 and 🔦! Facing off against each other again!
* The flashlight illuminates the pages, but it only makes the books stronger!
|-
| 📰 (2524) vs '''📜 (5491)'''
* Newspaper
* '''Scroll'''
|
* You do not want to miss the fan favorite 📜. Coming up next!
* I thought we had seen everything, but look at 📜 go! Amazing!
* A faceoff between two types of ancient scrolls.
|-
| 💳 (2655) vs '''💰 (5595)'''
* Credit card
* '''Money bag'''
|
* It is a battle as old as time itself. 💰 and 💳! Facing off against each other again!
|-
| 📬 (3218) vs '''📦 (3350)'''
* Open mailbox with raised flag
* '''Package'''
|
* Don't change that channel, folks. We have 📦 and 📬 warming up.
* Will the package fit in the mailbox? Vote now!
|-
| 🗳 (2403) vs '''🖋 (4691)'''
* Ballot box with ballot
* '''Lower left fountain pen'''
|
* Welcome back, it's time for 🖋 and 🗳 to go head to head.
* The winner of this bout will go on to face The Sword.
* The winner of this bout will go on to face The Sword. Who’s mightier?
|-
| 🖌 (3530) vs '''🖍 (3897)'''
* Lower left paintbrush
* '''Lower left crayon'''
|
* It is a battle as old as time itself. 🖌 and 🖍! Facing off against each other again!
* If 🖍 falls today, we might start hearing serious conversations about retirement.
* Paintbrush (hard mode) vs. Paintbrush (easy mode)
|-
| 💼 (2264) vs '''📅 (3884)'''
* Briefcase
* '''Calendar'''
|
* Oh, this one should be good.
* You have to wonder if 💼 even wanted to be here today.
|-
| 🗒 (2430) vs '''📊 (4726)'''
* Spiral note pad
* '''Bar chart'''
|
* They have been attacking each other on social media all week. Next up! It's 📊 vs. 🗒.
* *checks notes* Yikes.
|-
| 📌 (2799) vs '''📎 (4796)'''
* Pushpin
* '''Paperclip'''
|
* Uh oh. 📎 has had words with 📌 before. The next match will be good.
* I am excited about this match. This might be my favorite early match so far.
|-
| '''✂ (3762)''' vs 🗑 (2409)
* '''Black scissors'''
* Wastebasket
|
* We will be right back with ✂ vs. 🗑!
*This is a day that ✂ has been anticipating for a long time.
|-
| 🔒 (2827) vs '''🗝 (5214)'''
* Lock
* '''Old key'''
|
* Oh this one should be good.
* Finally, an answer to the classic question.
|-
| 🔨 (3350) vs '''🗡 (5042)'''
* Hammer
* '''Dagger knife'''
|
* Oh, this one should be good.
* Between the two of these, you can cover almost any home improvement situation.
|-
| '''⚔ (5352)''' vs 🔫 (3734)
* '''Crossed swords'''
* Pistol
|
* I'm looking forward to this.
*Pew pew pew!
*[sword noises]
|-
| '''🏹 (4931)''' vs 🛡 (2629)
* '''Bow and arrow'''
* Shield
|
* Coming to you live from the Emojidome, it's 🏹 vs. 🛡!
*Where is the Master Sword when you need it?
*In this match, we see Legolas take on Captain America.
|-
| 🗜 (3393) vs '''🔧 (3481)'''
* Compression
* '''Wrench'''
|
* Don't change that channel, folks. We have 🔧 and 🗜 warming up.
* [drops pretense of impartiality] VOTE C clamp!
|-
| '''⚖ (4961)''' vs 🧰 (1868)
* '''Scales'''
* Toolbox
|
* Coming to you live from the Emojidome, it's ⚖ vs. 🧰!
*I know some of you out there had a challenging commute. Hopefully today's matches will improve your day.
*If there’s any justice in the world, the one on the left will win.
|-
| 🧪 (4134) vs '''🧲 (4519)'''
* Test tube
* '''Magnet'''
|
* It's time to find out: Who would win in a match, 🧪 or 🧲?
* Do you want super-powers? Because this is how you get super-powers!
|-
| 🔬 (2587) vs '''🧬 (5487)'''
* Microscope
* '''DNA double helix'''
|
* Oh, this one should be good.
* Do you want super-science? Because this is how you get super-science!
|-
| 📡 (3609) vs '''🔭 (4607)'''
* Satellite antenna
* '''Telescope'''
|
* You do not want to miss the fan favorite 📡. Coming up next!
* This one is a real nail biter!
|-
| 🚿 (3933) vs '''🚽 (4031)'''
* Shower
* '''Toilet'''
|
* Next up, 🚽 and 🚿.
* Combine these to save time in the morning!
|-
| '''🛁 (4131)''' vs 🧷 (2740)
* '''Bathtub'''
* Safety pin
|
* You do not want to miss the fan favorite 🛁. Coming up next!
*Well that just doesn't seem fair.
|-
| 🧹 (2655) vs '''🧻 (5118)'''
* Broom
* '''Roll of paper'''
|
* Will it be 🧹 or 🧻? Find out next after this message from our sponsors.
|-
| '''⚰ (4651)''' vs 🧯 (4009)
* '''Coffin'''
* Fire extinguisher
|
* You do not want to miss the fan favorite ⚰. Coming up next!
*You should have one of these handy in your house, although I guess which one is up to you.
|-
| 🆗 (5326) vs '''🆒 (5506)'''
* Squared OK
* '''Squared COOL'''
|
* Don't change that channel, folks. We have 🆒 and 🆗 warming up.
* Here it is, the final match before the second round!
* At least this one is going to be over quickly.
* Here it is, the final match before the second round!
|-
|}

==== Round 2====
{| class="wikitable mw-collapsible mw-collapsed"
|-
! Competitors and score !! Commentary
|-
| 😁 (5968) vs '''😅 (9223)'''
* Grinning face with smiling eyes
* '''Smiling face with open mouth and cold sweat'''
|
* They have been attacking each other on social media all week. Next up! It's 😁 vs. 😅.
* What a shocking result!
* Welcome to round 2!
* Welcome to round 2! These rounds will be a little slower.
* Welcome to round 2!
|-
| '''🙃 (12578)''' vs 🤣 (5892)
* '''Upside-down face'''
* Rolling On the Floor Laughing
|
* It's time to find out: Who would win in a match, 🙃 or 🤣?
*Round two is serious business, folks.
*Rolling-on-the-floor-laughing is a top seed, but the upside-down smiley has a certain intriguing ambiguity. Possible upset?
|-
| 😇 (4117) vs '''😉 (10595)'''
* Smiling face with halo
* '''Winking face'''
|
* Uh oh. 😉 has had words with 😇 before. The next match will be good.
* Is it winking *at* the halo? Or is it winking at me?
* I didn't remember 😉 qualifying.
|-
| 😘 (6659) vs '''😍 (8816)'''
* Face throwing a kiss
* '''Smiling face with heart-shaped eyes'''
|
* On deck, we have 😍 and 😘.
* I expect to see a lot of hearts on the page for this one.
|-
| 😙 (2284) vs '''😛 (11620)'''
* Kissing face with smiling eyes
* '''Face with stuck-out tongue'''
|
* It is a battle as old as time itself. 😙 and 😛! Facing off against each other again!
* This one is a toss-up in my book, folks.
* Don’t you hate it when one of you sticks out your tongue right as the other goes for the kiss?
* Close one!
|-
| 😝 (6304) vs '''😜 (7167)'''
* Face with stuck-out tongue and tightly-closed eyes
* '''Face with stuck-out tongue and winking eye'''
|
* You do not want to miss the fan favorite 😜. Coming up next!
|-
| 🤭 (1796) vs '''🤔 (15162)'''
* Smiling face with smiling eyes and hand covering mouth
* '''Thinking face'''
|
* Will it be 🤔 or 🤭? Find out next after this message from our sponsors.
* You know what the correct answer is here.
|-
| 😑 (5943) vs '''🤨 (9223)'''
* Expressionless face
* '''Face with one eyebrow raised'''
|
* You do not want to miss the fan favorite 😑. Coming up next!
* 😑 certainly has its work cut out for it going up agaist 🤨.
|-
| 🙄 (5122) vs '''😏 (8486)'''
* Face with rolling eyes
* '''Smirking face'''
|
* Welcome back, it's time for 😏 and 🙄 to go head to head.
* Why is the one on the right looking at me like that?
|-
| 😔 (4101) vs '''😬 (8574)'''
* Pensive face
* '''Grimacing face'''
|
* It's time to find out: Who would win in a match, 😔 or 😬?
* I don’t think either competitor wants to win this round.
* See? That's how you should feel. Starting at a humble live commentator doing live commentary.
|-
| '''😴 (8582)''' vs 🤒 (2281)
* '''Sleeping face'''
* Face with thermometer
|
* Coming to you live from the Emojidome, it's 😴 vs. 🤒!
*Mondays, am I right?
*Two big moods enter, one leaves.
|-
| 🤕 (5579) vs '''🤮 (8136)'''
* Face with head-bandage
* '''Face with open mouth vomiting'''
|
* On deck, we have 🤕 and 🤮.
* I don't feel so good...
* Really leaving it all on the floor with this one.
|-
| 🥴 (5548) vs '''🥶 (7121)'''
* Face with uneven eyes and wavy mouth
* '''Freezing face'''
|
* On deck, we have 🥴 and 🥶.
* Ice to see you.
* I think they might be trying to ice the kicker!
|-
| '''😎 (8912)''' vs 🤠 (5576)
* '''Smiling face with sunglasses'''
* Face with cowboy hat
|
* Have at it, 😎 and 🤠!
*Howdy, I’m the sheriff of cool!
|-
| 😕 (4748) vs '''😮 (7861)'''
* Confused face
* '''Face with open mouth'''
|
* I'm looking forward to this.
* An unexpected pairing! This should be good.
* I mean ... you can *see* the bracket so it isn't completely unexpected.
|-
| 😳 (5552) vs '''😯 (6583)'''
* Flushed face
* '''Hushed face'''
|
* It is a battle as old as time itself. 😯 and 😳! Facing off against each other again!
* Wasn't 😯 in the last match?
|-
| 😰 (2756) vs '''😭 (9508)'''
* Face with open mouth and cold sweat
* '''Loudly crying face'''
|
* Oh, this one should be good.
* 😰 is going to have to dig deep if they want to continue.
|-
| 😣 (2674) vs '''😱 (10403)'''
* Persevering face
* '''Face screaming in fear'''
|
* Oh, this one should be good.
* It doesn't get more real than this, folks.
|-
| 😓 (4790) vs '''😤 (7053)'''
* Face with cold sweat
* '''Face with look of triumph'''
|
* Welcome back, it's time for 😓 and 😤 to go head to head.
* Nice. Nice nice nice nice.
|-
| 😡 (4209) vs '''😈 (9437)'''
* Pouting face
* '''Smiling face with horns'''
|
* It's time to find out: Who would win in a match, 😈 or 😡?
* This one is a toss-up in my book, folks.
|-
| 💩 (7681) vs '''💀 (12905)'''
* Pile of poo
* '''Skull'''
|
* They have been attacking each other on social media all week. Next up! It's 💀 vs. 💩.
* This one is going to cause some arguments.
|-
| 👽 (4888) vs '''👾 (9937)'''
* Extraterrestrial alien
* '''Alien monster'''
|
* I'm looking forward to this.
* Space invaders: Analog vs. Digital
|-
| 😻 (5800) vs '''😺 (6451)'''
* Smiling cat face with heart-shaped eyes
* '''Smiling cat face with open mouth'''
|
* Coming to you live from the Emojidome, it's 😺 vs. 😻!
* I love cats. I love every kind of cat.
|-
| 😼 (4767) vs '''🙀 (7648)'''
* Cat face with wry smile
* '''Weary cat face'''
|
* Oh this one should be good.
* Every. Kind. Of. Cat.
* Did someone say "V-E-T?"
|-
| 😾 (5464) vs '''💖 (7037)'''
* Pouting cat face
* '''Sparkling heart'''
|
* Next up, 💖 and 😾.
* 😾 looks pretty upset.
|-
| ❤ (7490) vs '''💯 (7881)'''
* Heavy black heart
* '''Hundred points symbol'''
|
* You do not want to miss the fan favorite ❤. Coming up next!
* Two crowd-pleasers here, folks!
* The score is Love-100
|-
| 💣 (6379) vs '''💦 (7343)'''
* Bomb
* '''Splashing sweat symbol'''
|
* Next up, 💣 and 💦.
* From where I am standing 💦 has a commanding grip on this bracket.
* Well that's certainly something.
* I know which one I would choose, but I don't have time to vote!
|-
| '''👍 (7610)''' vs 🤘 (6417)
* '''Thumbs up sign'''
* Sign of the horns
|
* On deck, we have 👍 and 🤘.
*This is going well, right? This is working for you?
|-
| '''👊 (8368)''' vs 🦵 (3323)
* '''Fisted hand sign'''
* Leg
|
* Next up, 👊 and 🦵.
*Kickpuncher or punchkicker?
|-
| 👀 (6253) vs '''🧠 (6412)'''
* Eyes
* '''Brain'''
|
* If you're like me, you've argued over who would win head-to-head, 👀 or 🧠.
* Whoever wins this one gets punched by the fist emoji in the next round. Choose wisely.
* Whoever wins this one gets punched by the fist emoji in the next round. Choose wisely.
|-
| 👅 (4726) vs '''🤦 (7496)'''
* Tongue
* '''Face palm'''
|
* It's time to find out: Who would win in a match, 👅 or 🤦?
* Look, we are a little disappointed, too.
|-
| 👩‍🚀 (5246) vs '''👩‍🔬 (7971)'''
* Woman + Rocket
* '''Woman + Microscope'''
|
* Oh, this one should be good.
* So, what do you want to be when you grow up?
* Neither of these professions go well with concussions.
|-
| 🧛 (2269) vs '''🧙 (13138)'''
* Vampire
* '''Mage'''
|
* We will be right back with 🧙 vs. 🧛!
* Science?
|-
| '''🚶 (6112)''' vs 🧟 (6020)
* '''Pedestrian'''
* Zombie
|
* Oh this one should be good.
*Oh no. 🚶 fans are not going to like this match-up.
*Walk for your lives!
|-
| 🕴 (5070) vs '''💃 (7283)'''
* Man in business suit levitating
* '''Dancer'''
|
* You do not want to miss the fan favorite 💃. Coming up next!
* The Matrix is TWENTY YEARS OLD
* The Matrix is *TWENTY* *YEARS* *OLD*
|-
| ⛷ (4388) vs '''🤺 (7484)'''
* Skier
* '''Fencer'''
|
* On deck, we have ⛷ and 🤺.
* A slippery slope. En guard!
* The IOC has rejected this combination sport.
|-
| 🏊 (4139) vs '''🏄 (5491)'''
* Swimmer
* '''Surfer'''
|
* They have been attacking each other on social media all week. Next up! It's 🏄 vs. 🏊.
* This one, too.
|-
| 🚴 (4082) vs '''🚵 (7642)'''
* Bicyclist
* '''Mountain bicyclist'''
|
* Coming to you live from the Emojidome, it's 🚴 vs. 🚵!
* Why is 🚵 stuck in a box?
|-
| 🛀 (4042) vs '''🐒 (6948)'''
* Bath
* '''Monkey'''
|
* They have been attacking each other on social media all week. Next up! It's 🐒 vs. 🛀.
* Uh-oh.
|-
| 🐶 (5214) vs '''🦊 (12396)'''
* Dog face
* '''Fox face'''
|
* We will be right back with 🐶 vs. 🦊!
* Again, we are getting a lot of questions on this today. This is live commentary, folks.
* 12/10 Both good doggos.
|-
| 🐱 (5182) vs '''🐈 (7578)'''
* Cat face
* '''Cat'''
|
* We will be right back with 🐈 vs. 🐱!
* EVERY. CAT.
|-
| 🐎 (4944) vs '''🐅 (9398)'''
* Horse
* '''Tiger'''
|
* Have at it, 🐅 and 🐎!
* If it were up to me, the last bracket would have eight cats and then just stop there with eight winners.
|-
| 🦌 (5619) vs '''🦄 (10318)'''
* Deer
* '''Unicorn face'''
|
* Have at it, 🦄 and 🦌!
* The IOC had some words about this pairing as well
|-
| 🐷 (5341) vs '''🐏 (8541)'''
* Pig face
* '''Ram'''
|
* Welcome back, it's time for 🐏 and 🐷 to go head to head.
* Or side to head, or whatever. VOTE!
* That was 🐷's to give away and they did.
|-
| 🐐 (6038) vs '''🦒 (8345)'''
* Goat
* '''Giraffe face'''
|
* I'm looking forward to this.
* Yet more Very good dogs
|-
| '''🐘 (11342)''' vs 🦛 (3614)
* '''Elephant'''
* Hippopotamus
|
* Oh, this one should be good.
*Another curious match-up with significant implications on how the rest of the day will go.
|-
| 🐹 (3660) vs '''🐿 (10713)'''
* Hamster face
* '''Chipmunk'''
|
* It is a battle as old as time itself. 🐹 and 🐿! Facing off against each other again!
* We are incredibly excited to see so many fans here.
* Finally, the long-awaited showdown between Alvin and the Chipmunks and the Hamster Dance.
|-
| 🐨 (5171) vs '''🦔 (10929)'''
* Koala
* '''Hedgehog'''
|
* On deck, we have 🐨 and 🦔.
* It doesn't get more real than this, folks.
* Tree pocket cat vs. spiky cat
|-
| 🦘 (6954) vs '''🦡 (7727)'''
* Kangaroo
* '''Badger'''
|
* Will it be 🦘 or 🦡? Find out next after this message from our sponsors.
* If you believe in 🦘, now is the time to clap or whatever, because it is not looking good.
|-
| 🐣 (5846) vs '''🐧 (12239)'''
* Hatching chick
* '''Penguin'''
|
* We will be right back with 🐣 vs. 🐧!
* Don't count 🐣 out yet. They may have a contingent of fans just tuning in to battle.
* I thought we had seen everything, but look at 🐧 go! Amazing!
* A generational battle.
|-
| 🦆 (6558) vs '''🦉 (9674)'''
* Duck
* '''Owl'''
|
* Will it be 🦆 or 🦉? Find out next after this message from our sponsors.
* You just know that 🦆 is thinking about 🏥 right now.
* Duck... duck... duck... duck... owl!
|-
| '''🐢 (11594)''' vs 🦜 (3957)
* '''Turtle'''
* Parrot
|
* Uh oh. 🦜 has had words with 🐢 before. The next match will be good.
*Sometimes miracles happen.
|-
| 🐍 (5264) vs '''🐉 (6954)'''
* Snake
* '''Dragon'''
|
* Have at it, 🐉 and 🐍!
* How spiky do you like your sneks?
* Snake is currently losing to Fanfiction Snake.
* Snake is losing to Snake Fanfiction
|-
| 🐬 (7916) vs '''🐳 (9398)'''
* Dolphin
* '''Spouting whale'''
|
* On deck, we have 🐬 and 🐳.
* It's the battle of the blowholes!
|-
| '''🐙 (8799)''' vs 🦈 (3695)
* '''Octopus'''
* Shark
|
* Next up, 🐙 and 🦈.
*This one is potentially a battle between two mimic octopuses.
|-
| 🐛 (5330) vs '''🦋 (9176)'''
* Bug
* '''Butterfly'''
|
* On deck, we have 🐛 and 🦋.
* Time waits for no one.
* Another generational struggle.
|-
| 🕷 (5714) vs '''🐝 (12151)'''
* Spider
* '''Honeybee'''
|
* We will be right back with 🐝 vs. 🕷!
* 🕷 and 🐝 have been friends for a long time. I am not sure where that relationship is going to be after today.
|-
| 🌻 (6639) vs '''🦠 (10448)'''
* Sunflower
* '''Microbe'''
|
* Oh, this one should be good.
* You *knwo* what to do, folks.
* Oh no. 🦠 fans are not going to like this match-up.
* Fresh off its victory over the aliens in War of the Worlds…
|-
| 🌲 (8099) vs '''🌵 (8194)'''
* Evergreen tree
* '''Cactus'''
|
* Will it be 🌲 or 🌵? Find out next after this message from our sponsors.
* DISAPPOINTED!
* both are surprisingly spiky!
* This is the closest battle in the bracket so far.
|-
| 🍇 (6548) vs '''🍉 (8681)'''
* Grapes
* '''Watermelon'''
|
* Oh this one should be good.
* sweet!
|-
| 🍎 (5411) vs '''🍍 (10586)'''
* Red apple
* '''Pineapple'''
|
* Have at it, 🍍 and 🍎!
* Regular apple versus Pine’s Apple
* Fancy apple holds a clear lead over Regular Apple.
|-
| '''🍓 (8877)''' vs 🥝 (7540)
* '''Strawberry'''
* Kiwifruit
|
* It's time to find out: Who would win in a match, 🍓 or 🥝?
*Seeds: Inside or Out?
*Outside: Seeds or Hair?
|-
| 🥔 (7800) vs '''🥑 (9580)'''
* Potato
* '''Avocado'''
|
* Don't change that channel, folks. We have 🥑 and 🥔 warming up.
* Fun fact: Several different analyses confirm baby boomers like avocados more than millennials!
|-
| '''🌶 (8714)''' vs 🥒 (6360)
* '''Hot pepper'''
* Cucumber
|
* You do not want to miss the fan favorite 🌶. Coming up next!
*I know some very invested audience members for this one.
|-
| '''🍄 (8929)''' vs 🥜 (5311)
* '''Mushroom'''
* Peanuts
|
* You do not want to miss the fan favorite 🍄. Coming up next!
*It's peanut butter mushroom time!
|-
| 🥨 (7003) vs '''🥐 (9204)'''
* Pretzel
* '''Croissant'''
|
* Don't change that channel, folks. We have 🥐 and 🥨 warming up.
* Buttery curved bread: extra-buttery or extra-curved?
|-
| 🥞 (7881) vs '''🧀 (9457)'''
* Pancakes
* '''Cheese wedge'''
|
* Will it be 🥞 or 🧀? Find out next after this message from our sponsors.
* I wonder what cheesy pancakes are like.
|-
| 🍔 (5917) vs '''🍕 (11407)'''
* Hamburger
* '''Slice of pizza'''
|
* It is a battle as old as time itself. 🍔 and 🍕! Facing off against each other again!
* Friday Night Food Fight!
|-
| 🌮 (7714) vs '''🌯 (8885)'''
* Taco
* '''Burrito'''
|
* Coming to you live from the Emojidome, it's 🌮 vs. 🌯!
* ………
* . . . . . .
|-
| 🍿 (7104) vs '''🍳 (8128)'''
* Popcorn
* '''Cooking'''
|
* You do not want to miss the fan favorite 🍳. Coming up next!
* The saltiest and butteriest matchup yet
|-
| 🍱 (4259) vs '''🍣 (7578)'''
* Bento box
* '''Sushi'''
|
* Oh, this one should be good.
* Hungry again. Wasn't it just lunch time?
* This part of the bracket has been *wild*
* Sushi takes the lead!
|-
| 🥟 (5804) vs '''🦞 (7681)'''
* Dumpling
* '''Lobster'''
|
* Oh this one should be good.
* A delicious dumpling vs some kind of large spider
|-
| 🍨 (7349) vs '''🦑 (7834)'''
* Ice cream
* '''Squid'''
|
* If you're like me, you've argued over who would win head-to-head, 🍨 or 🦑.
* I think there’s another squid hiding in the ice cream bowl.
|-
| 🎂 (4175) vs '''🍩 (8454)'''
* Birthday cake
* '''Doughnut'''
|
* If you're like me, you've argued over who would win head-to-head, 🍩 or 🎂.
|-
| 🍯 (4787) vs '''🍫 (7565)'''
* Honey pot
* '''Chocolate bar'''
|
* Next! Who would win in a match between 🍫 and 🍯? We are about to find out.
* The beans vs. the bees!
|-
| '''☕ (7674)''' vs 🥛 (5344)
* '''Hot beverage'''
* Glass of milk
|
* Coming to you live from the Emojidome, it's ☕ vs. 🥛!
*Would you like some coffee with your milk?
|-
| 🍹 (4901) vs '''🍺 (7490)'''
* Tropical drink
* '''Beer mug'''
|
* Uh oh. 🍺 has had words with 🍹 before. The next match will be good.
* how drunk do you want to get?
* One small glass of beer with an umbrella, please.
|-
| '''🔪 (7787)''' vs 🥢 (5468)
* '''Hocho'''
* Chopsticks
|
* Oh, this one should be good.
*The two most popular ways to eat food
|-
| '''🌋 (8706)''' vs 🧭 (4079)
* '''Volcano'''
* Compass
|
* I'm looking forward to this.
*That compass is not leading you in a good direction.
|-
| 🏝 (5445) vs '''🏕 (8722)'''
* Desert island
* '''Camping'''
|
* Coming to you live from the Emojidome, it's 🏕 vs. 🏝!
|-
| 🏠 (5722) vs '''🏗 (5804)'''
* House building
* '''Building construction'''
|
* It is a battle as old as time itself. 🏗 and 🏠! Facing off against each other again!
* It's building vs. building!
|-
| '''🏥 (7053)''' vs 🗽 (5981)
* '''Hospital'''
* Statue of liberty
|
* We will be right back with 🏥 vs. 🗽!
|-
| ⛲ (5498) vs '''🌃 (6519)'''
* Fountain
* '''Night with stars'''
|
* You do not want to miss the fan favorite ⛲. Coming up next!
|-
| 🎡 (3212) vs '''🌅 (8000)'''
* Ferris wheel
* '''Sunrise'''
|
* It is a battle as old as time itself. 🌅 and 🎡! Facing off against each other again!
|-
| 🎢 (4701) vs '''🚄 (7014)'''
* Roller coaster
* '''High-speed train'''
|
* We will be right back with 🎢 vs. 🚄!
* Do you like your fast trains flat, or up-and-down?
|-
| 🚑 (4901) vs '''🚝 (7087)'''
* Ambulance
* '''Monorail'''
|
* On deck, we have 🚑 and 🚝.
|-
| 🚗 (2707) vs '''🚒 (8391)'''
* Automobile
* '''Fire engine'''
|
* Will it be 🚒 or 🚗? Find out next after this message from our sponsors.
|-
| 🛵 (5344) vs '''🚜 (6475)'''
* Motor scooter
* '''Tractor'''
|
* It's time to find out: Who would win in a match, 🚜 or 🛵?
* Both of these are popular rideshare vehicles.
|-
| 🛹 (3509) vs '''🚲 (9447)'''
* Skateboard
* '''Bicycle'''
|
* They have been attacking each other on social media all week. Next up! It's 🚲 vs. 🛹.
* next wave of rideshare vehicles.
|-
| '''⚓ (6608)''' vs ⛵ (6431)
* '''Anchor'''
* Sailboat
|
* Welcome back, it's time for ⚓ and ⛵ to go head to head.
*Should I stay or should I go?
|-
| 🛩 (5694) vs '''🚁 (6529)'''
* Small airplane
* '''Helicopter'''
|
* Will it be 🚁 or 🛩? Find out next after this message from our sponsors.
* Here in the future, flying cars are common!
|-
| 🚀 (7266) vs '''🛸 (14945)'''
* Rocket
* '''Flying saucer'''
|
* They have been attacking each other on social media all week. Next up! It's 🚀 vs. 🛸.
* IFO vs UFO
|-
| ⌚ (6623) vs '''🌒 (7404)'''
* Watch
* '''Waxing crescent moon symbol'''
|
* They have been attacking each other on social media all week. Next up! It's ⌚ vs. 🌒.
* Waxing crescent already? I must be running slow.
|-
| 🌙 (8921) vs '''🌞 (15703)'''
* Crescent moon
* '''Sun with face'''
|
* Welcome back, it's time for 🌙 and 🌞 to go head to head.
* Two contenders as different as night and day.
* In five billion years, this battle will play out in real life with the same result.
|-
| ⛈ (9358) vs '''🌌 (17038)'''
* Thunder cloud and rain
* '''Milky way'''
|
* I'm looking forward to this.
* Astronomers are hammering the button on the right as hard as they can.
|-
| 🌪 (9848) vs '''🌈 (11326)'''
* Cloud with tornado
* '''Rainbow'''
|
* You do not want to miss the fan favorite 🌈. Coming up next!
* The Wizard Of Oz (1938)
* The Wizard Of Oz (1939)
|-
| '''☄ (8014)''' vs ⚡ (7597)
* '''Comet'''
* High voltage sign
|
* Oh, this one should be good.
*The two leading theories for what killed the dinosaurs: A comet strike, or Zeus.
*Boom!
|-
| 🎃 (4112) vs '''🔥 (10407)'''
* Jack-o-lantern
* '''Fire'''
|
* If you're like me, you've argued over who would win head-to-head, 🎃 or 🔥.
|-
| 🎉 (5422) vs '''🧨 (18509)'''
* Party popper
* '''Firecracker'''
|
* Oh this one should be good.
* How emphatic do you like your celebrations?
|-
| 🏆 (5564) vs '''🎁 (6499)'''
* Trophy
* '''Wrapped present'''
|
* Have at it, 🎁 and 🏆!
|-
| ⚾ (5404) vs '''🏅 (7337)'''
* Baseball
* '''Sports medal'''
|
* Oh, this one should be good.
* Sports fact: If you hit a medal-winner with a ball, you take their title.
|-
| 🎾 (6117) vs '''🏀 (6171)'''
* Tennis racquet and ball
* '''Basketball and hoop'''
|
* We will be right back with 🎾 vs. 🏀!
* Sports fact: If you hit a medal-winner with a ball, you take the medal (but they take first base.)
* Sports showdowns: Bouncy edition
* Would you rather play basketball with a tennis ball, or tennis with a basketball?
|-
| 🏏 (7343) vs '''🥏 (7546)'''
* Cricket bat and ball
* '''Flying disc'''
|
* You do not want to miss the fan favorite 🏏. Coming up next!
|-
| 🏒 (8078) vs '''🏓 (8739)'''
* Ice hockey stick and puck
* '''Table tennis paddle and ball'''
|
* Uh oh. 🏓 has had words with 🏒 before. The next match will be good.
|-
| 🛷 (7104) vs '''🥌 (7733)'''
* Sled
* '''Curling stone'''
|
* Have at it, 🛷 and 🥌!
|-
| 🎲 (11931) vs '''🎮 (14739)'''
* Game die
* '''Video game'''
|
* They have been attacking each other on social media all week. Next up! It's 🎮 vs. 🎲.
* Digital or analog?
* Devices or, uh, dices?
|-
| '''🎨 (5374)''' vs 👓 (4988)
* '''Artist palette'''
* Eyeglasses
|
* We will be right back with 🎨 vs. 👓!
*two ways to add color to your world
|-
| '''🎒 (4961)''' vs 🧦 (4819)
* '''School satchel'''
* Socks
|
* We will be right back with 🎒 vs. 🧦!
*You can put your feet in either of these! No one can stop you.
|-
| '''🎩 (23265)''' vs 👑 (19274)
* '''Top hat'''
* Crown
|
* Will it be 🎩 or 👑? Find out next after this message from our sponsors.
*Hats for fancy people!
|-
| '''🎵 (17951)''' vs 💎 (9378)
* '''Musical note'''
* Gem stone
|
* We will be right back with 🎵 vs. 💎!
*C-notes
|-
| 🎷 (6954) vs '''🎸 (10692)'''
* Saxophone
* '''Guitar'''
|
* They have been attacking each other on social media all week. Next up! It's 🎷 vs. 🎸.
* I've never heard the dueling banjos played like this!
|-
| '''🎻 (11568)''' vs 📞 (8172)
* '''Violin'''
* Telephone receiver
|
* They have been attacking each other on social media all week. Next up! It's 🎻 vs. 📞.
*Can I put you on hold? I can't hang onto both of these with my chin
|-
| 💻 (7355) vs '''📟 (9348)'''
* Personal computer
* '''Pager'''
|
* It is a battle as old as time itself. 💻 and 📟! Facing off against each other again!
* Over time, computers have gotten steadily smaller.
|-
| ⌨ (3372) vs '''💾 (8550)'''
* Keyboard
* '''Floppy disk'''
|
* I'm looking forward to this.
* fun fact: it would take the average person 20 years to type an entire floppy disk
|-
| 📷 (10623) vs '''🧮 (12401)'''
* Camera
* '''Abacus'''
|
* Oh, this one should be good.
|-
| 🔎 (7902) vs '''💡 (12706)'''
* Right-pointing magnifying glass
* '''Electric light bulb'''
|
* On deck, we have 💡 and 🔎.
* it's mostly clicks either way.
* Both equally bad for bugs.
|-
| 📜 (4020) vs '''📚 (32459)'''
* Scroll
* '''Books'''
|
* Oh, this one should be good.
* Turning pages: hot new technology, or too much complication?
|-
| 💰 (5378) vs '''📦 (17957)'''
* Money bag
* '''Package'''
|
* Oh, this one should be good.
* Let's be real. Neither contain actual money.
|-
| 🖋 (6166) vs '''🖍 (42115)'''
* Lower left fountain pen
* '''Lower left crayon'''
|
* It is a battle as old as time itself. 🖋 and 🖍! Facing off against each other again!
* Neither is coming off your walls if a kid gets ahold of them.
|-
| 📅 (3309) vs '''📊 (5217)'''
* Calendar
* '''Bar chart'''
|
* Have at it, 📅 and 📊!
* It’s cool how, if you design an emoji font, you get to tell everyone your birthday.
|-
| ✂ (4504) vs '''📎 (5846)'''
* Black scissors
* '''Paperclip'''
|
* It is a battle as old as time itself. ✂ and 📎! Facing off against each other again!
* Look, we all have too much paper in our lives, but we all deal with it differently
* Clippy, I swear…
|-
| 🗡 (5537) vs '''🗝 (6193)'''
* Dagger knife
* '''Old key'''
|
* They have been attacking each other on social media all week. Next up! It's 🗝 vs. 🗡.
* There are two ways to open doors: The easy way and the fun way.
|-
| ⚔ (5514) vs '''🏹 (7201)'''
* Crossed swords
* '''Bow and arrow'''
|
* Welcome back, it's time for ⚔ and 🏹 to go head to head.
* Close-up stabby, or stabby from a ways off?
|-
| '''⚖ (6153)''' vs 🔧 (4351)
* '''Scales'''
* Wrench
|
* Will it be ⚖ or 🔧? Find out next after this message from our sponsors.
*⚖ comes out on top.
|-
| 🧲 (4654) vs '''🧬 (9019)'''
* Magnet
* '''DNA double helix'''
|
* Oh this one should be good.
|-
| 🚽 (4388) vs '''🔭 (8647)'''
* Toilet
* '''Telescope'''
|
* They have been attacking each other on social media all week. Next up! It's 🔭 vs. 🚽.
* I got these mixed up last week and I still haven't heard the end of it.
|-
| 🛁 (4540) vs '''🧻 (11347)'''
* Bathtub
* '''Roll of paper'''
|
* Welcome back, it's time for 🛁 and 🧻 to go head to head.
* Needed both of these after the telescope incident.
|-
| '''⚰ (7909)''' vs 🆒 (6024)
* '''Coffin'''
* Squared COOL
|
* On deck, we have ⚰ and 🆒.
*And that wraps up the round!
|-
|}

==== Round 3====
{| class="wikitable mw-collapsible mw-collapsed"
|-
! Competitors and score !! Commentary
|-
| 😅 (6285) vs '''🙃 (31589)'''
* Smiling face with open mouth and cold sweat
* '''Upside-down face'''
|
* Uh oh. 🙃 has had words with 😅 before. The next match will be good.
|-
| 😍 (8430) vs '''😉 (10837)'''
* Smiling face with heart-shaped eyes
* '''Winking face'''
|
* Next! Who would win in a match between 😉 and 😍? We are about to find out.
* Some of us are more suave than others...
|-
| 😛 (9010) vs '''😜 (10428)'''
* Face with stuck-out tongue
* '''Face with stuck-out tongue and winking eye'''
|
* Uh oh. 😜 has had words with 😛 before. The next match will be good.
* Battle of the tongues
|-
| 🤨 (6519) vs '''🤔 (18849)'''
* Face with one eyebrow raised
* '''Thinking face'''
|
* Next up, 🤔 and 🤨.
* Some behind the scenes for you, folks. I know for a fact that 🤔 wanted first billing for this match and 🤨 refused to budge.
|-
| 😬 (8983) vs '''😏 (11449)'''
* Grimacing face
* '''Smirking face'''
|
* It is a battle as old as time itself. 😏 and 😬! Facing off against each other again!
|-
| '''😴 (10588)''' vs 🤮 (7773)
* '''Sleeping face'''
* Face with open mouth vomiting
|
* Have at it, 😴 and 🤮!
*🤮 opened strong and 😴 never caught up.
*I hope everyone has printed their brackets and are ready, because time waits for very few people!
*I guess it was that kind of a party.
|-
| '''😎 (11469)''' vs 🥶 (9176)
* '''Smiling face with sunglasses'''
* Freezing face
|
* Oh, this one should be good.
*🥶 has a chance here, but it is slipping away.
*What's cooler than being cool?
*What’s cooler than being cool?
*You need to be cooler than that!
|-
| 😯 (7648) vs '''😮 (7944)'''
* Hushed face
* '''Face with open mouth'''
|
* Oh, this one should be good.
* Anyone want to go bowling?
* Sometimes I spend so long deciding on which of these to use that the conversation moves on.
|-
| 😭 (7559) vs '''😱 (8894)'''
* Loudly crying face
* '''Face screaming in fear'''
|
* They have been attacking each other on social media all week. Next up! It's 😭 vs. 😱.
* In these kinds of contests, everyone comes away a little hurt.
|-
| 😤 (5475) vs '''😈 (9739)'''
* Face with look of triumph
* '''Smiling face with horns'''
|
* Uh oh. 😤 has had words with 😈 before. The next match will be good.
* I don't think 😤 expected to see 😈 opposite them today.
* Devils over Cotton by a country mile. Let's see those hearts!
* This one was over before it started.
|-
| 💀 (6669) vs '''👾 (11173)'''
* Skull
* '''Alien monster'''
|
* It's time to find out: Who would win in a match, 👾 or 💀?
* It doesn't get more real than this, folks.
|-
| 😺 (7993) vs '''🙀 (8903)'''
* Smiling cat face with open mouth
* '''Weary cat face'''
|
* On deck, we have 😺 and 🙀.
* I spoke with 🙀 before we started today. They were hoping to dodge 😺. Too bad for them.
* The next few are contests are going to break friendships.
* This one is a real nail biter!
|-
| 💯 (9859) vs '''💖 (10041)'''
* Hundred points symbol
* '''Sparkling heart'''
|
* Next! Who would win in a match between 💖 and 💯? We are about to find out.
* I've always considered 💖 to be one of the greats.
* Starting to think 100 might go all the way.
* Starting to think 💯 might go all the way.
|-
| 👍 (9892) vs '''💦 (9960)'''
* Thumbs up sign
* '''Splashing sweat symbol'''
|
* It's time to find out: Who would win in a match, 👍 or 💦?
* What an unexpected result!!
* Now what is going to happen here:
* We are seeing some real back and forth matches this round.
* Again, cannot stress this enough. This commentary is 100% (sorry) live.
|-
| 👊 (6867) vs '''🧠 (12115)'''
* Fisted hand sign
* '''Brain'''
|
* They have been attacking each other on social media all week. Next up! It's 👊 vs. 🧠.
* Sometimes miracles happen.
* The match-up you have been waiting for!
|-
| '''👩‍🔬 (15141)''' vs 🤦 (7172)
* '''Woman + Microscope'''
* Face palm
|
* Oh this one should be good.
*Looks like someone forgot their PPE today!
|-
| 🚶 (2581) vs '''🧙 (17413)'''
* Pedestrian
* '''Mage'''
|
* Welcome back, it's time for 🚶 and 🧙 to go head to head.
* Another fan favorite. Can 🚶 catch up to 🧙?
* Well folks, it is not looking good for 🚶.
* In the end, there was nothing 🚶 could do to stop the power of 🧙.
|-
| 💃 (10409) vs '''🤺 (10987)'''
* Dancer
* '''Fencer'''
|
* We will be right back with 💃 vs. 🤺!
* Pointy Dancy vs. Pointy Stancy
* This one should be familiar to anyone who has tried fencing in heels.
|-
| 🏄 (7355) vs '''🚵 (10300)'''
* Surfer
* '''Mountain bicyclist'''
|
* Oh this one should be good.
* 🏄 has a chance here, but it is slipping away.
* Bicycle --> Unicycle --> None-cycle with left waves
* 🏄 has a chance here, but it is slipping away.
|-
| 🐒 (4784) vs '''🦊 (15635)'''
* Monkey
* '''Fox face'''
|
* It is a battle as old as time itself. 🐒 and 🦊! Facing off against each other again!
* Another challenging contest of cute!
* What *does* the fox say? "NOT TODAY, MONKEY."
|-
| 🐅 (7014) vs '''🐈 (11420)'''
* Tiger
* '''Cat'''
|
* Oh this one should be good.
* I have taken this yoga class!
* It looks like it is Cat vs. Extremely Cat.
|-
| 🐏 (12498) vs '''🦄 (12505)'''
* Ram
* '''Unicorn face'''
|
* On deck, we have 🐏 and 🦄.
* 🐏 is an fan favorite to go far today.
* This one is a real nail biter!
* This one is a real horn-biter!
|-
| '''🐘 (11723)''' vs 🦒 (6162)
* '''Elephant'''
* Giraffe face
|
* Have at it, 🐘 and 🦒!
*Two great examples of character creator parameters set to different extremes.
|-
| 🐿 (9539) vs '''🦔 (12565)'''
* Chipmunk
* '''Hedgehog'''
|
* Have at it, 🐿 and 🦔!
* I have no idea how you are going to handle this one, folks.
* 🦔 is out to an early lead, but don't count 🐿 out just yet.
* the crowd is going nuts!
* One for the history books.
|-
| '''🐧 (14230)''' vs 🦡 (7361)
* '''Penguin'''
* Badger
|
* It is a battle as old as time itself. 🐧 and 🦡! Facing off against each other again!
*Arriving at the party ... same party two hours later.
|-
| 🐢 (10674) vs '''🦉 (10893)'''
* Turtle
* '''Owl'''
|
* Coming to you live from the Emojidome, it's 🐢 vs. 🦉!
* Yeah, we know. This one is going to sting.
* It's neck and ... very interesting neck!
* Owl standing in for Hare in this round. We're all as surprised as you are.
|-
| 🐳 (9881) vs '''🐉 (12000)'''
* Spouting whale
* '''Dragon'''
|
* Welcome back, it's time for 🐉 and 🐳 to go head to head.
* Dry Snek vs. Wet Snek.
* A showdown between two mythical creatures!
* The dragon keeps beating real animals, even though dragons are just our animal fanfic.
* Save the whales!
|-
| '''🐙 (13431)''' vs 🦋 (6011)
* '''Octopus'''
* Butterfly
|
* On deck, we have 🐙 and 🦋.
*save the butterwhales!
*Here we have a contest between two mimic octopuses
*The octopus has over twice as many clicks, folks. This one isn’t looking close.
*The octopus has over twice as many clicks, folks. This one isn’t close.
|-
| '''🐝 (19577)''' vs 🦠 (16657)
* '''Honeybee'''
* Microbe
|
* I'm looking forward to this.
*nooooon, :butterfly:
*nooooon, butterfly (edited)
*Honeybees vs. colony collapse disorder
*I’m looking at the totals, and this one is extremely close.
*🦠 fans need to click more and faster!
*I mean, 🐝 fans need to keep clicking!
*Fun fact: You can click more than once, although if you click too much it ignores you.
*No! Save the bees!
*Bees!
|-
| 🍉 (12946) vs '''🌵 (13830)'''
* Watermelon
* '''Cactus'''
|
* Have at it, 🌵 and 🍉!
* As a dessert for saving the bees, try one of these fine desert fruits.
* Ever wonder what the inside of a cactus looks like? We’ve cut one open for you here.
|-
| 🍓 (12167) vs '''🍍 (12522)'''
* Strawberry
* '''Pineapple'''
|
* Uh oh. 🍓 has had words with 🍍 before. The next match will be good.
* What fruit is best to eat in the night? Could it be Pine’s Apple?
* The weird-textured fruit showdown features two strong competitors.
|-
| 🌶 (13812) vs '''🥑 (13975)'''
* Hot pepper
* '''Avocado'''
|
* Uh oh. 🥑 has had words with 🌶 before. The next match will be good.
* We have reached the halfway point of round 3!
* As Twitter user @jitka said, “I like avocados because they taste pretty good and also they come with a cool wood ball you get to keep”
|-
| 🍄 (11290) vs '''🥐 (11348)'''
* Mushroom
* '''Croissant'''
|
* Next up, 🍄 and 🥐.
* Don’t eat either of these if you find them on the ground in the woods.
|-
| '''🍕 (13520)''' vs 🧀 (8558)
* '''Slice of pizza'''
* Cheese wedge
|
* Don't change that channel, folks. We have 🍕 and 🧀 warming up.
*cheese: baked or not?
*pizza is just impure cheese
|-
| 🍳 (8407) vs '''🌯 (9848)'''
* Cooking
* '''Burrito'''
|
* Don't change that channel, folks. We have 🌯 and 🍳 warming up.
* one burrito, sunny-side up
* Now I want a burrito.
|-
| '''🍣 (11362)''' vs 🦞 (9488)
* '''Sushi'''
* Lobster
|
* It is a battle as old as time itself. 🍣 and 🦞! Facing off against each other again!
*I thought we had seen everything, but look at 🍣 go! Amazing!
|-
| 🍩 (12192) vs '''🦑 (12893)'''
* Doughnut
* '''Squid'''
|
* On deck, we have 🍩 and 🦑.
* Do not mix these flavors.
|-
| ☕ (7248) vs '''🍫 (13919)'''
* Hot beverage
* '''Chocolate bar'''
|
* If you're like me, you've argued over who would win head-to-head, ☕ or 🍫.
* what a cruel choice
* in which form would you like your beans?
* mocha hold the chocolate vs. mocha hold the coffee
|-
| 🍺 (11448) vs '''🔪 (12597)'''
* Beer mug
* '''Hocho'''
|
* Will it be 🍺 or 🔪? Find out next after this message from our sponsors.
* What an amazingly bad combination!
* Its ... a close shave.
|-
| 🏕 (6055) vs '''🌋 (13928)'''
* Camping
* '''Volcano'''
|
* They have been attacking each other on social media all week. Next up! It's 🌋 vs. 🏕.
* What an amazingly bad combination! .... Again!
* the eruption of mt. Saint helens (artist's conception)
* ruuuuunn!
|-
| 🏥 (7225) vs '''🏗 (8415)'''
* Hospital
* '''Building construction'''
|
* You do not want to miss the fan favorite 🏗. Coming up next!
* the crane can build hospitals, so voting for the crane is like wishing for infinite wishes
|-
| 🌅 (7042) vs '''🌃 (10460)'''
* Sunrise
* '''Night with stars'''
|
* Oh this one should be good.
* all good things must come to an end
|-
| 🚄 (8128) vs '''🚝 (8903)'''
* High-speed train
* '''Monorail'''
|
* I'm looking forward to this.
|-
| 🚜 (6598) vs '''🚒 (8085)'''
* Tractor
* '''Fire engine'''
|
* Coming to you live from the Emojidome, it's 🚒 vs. 🚜!
* We can put out your fire, or we can move it over there.
|-
| ⚓ (6987) vs '''🚲 (9001)'''
* Anchor
* '''Bicycle'''
|
* If you're like me, you've argued over who would win head-to-head, ⚓ or 🚲.
|-
| 🚁 (3409) vs '''🛸 (12591)'''
* Helicopter
* '''Flying saucer'''
|
* Oh, this one should be good.
* Independence Day (1996)
|-
| 🌞 (6290) vs '''🌒 (11026)'''
* Sun with face
* '''Waxing crescent moon symbol'''
|
* Coming to you live from the Emojidome, it's 🌒 vs. 🌞!
|-
| 🌈 (12417) vs '''🌌 (13194)'''
* Rainbow
* '''Milky way'''
|
* Uh oh. 🌌 has had words with 🌈 before. The next match will be good.
|-
| ☄ (7687) vs '''🔥 (8315)'''
* Comet
* '''Fire'''
|
* Have at it, ☄ and 🔥!
* Armageddon (1998)
|-
| 🎁 (5311) vs '''🧨 (9417)'''
* Wrapped present
* '''Firecracker'''
|
* I'm looking forward to this.
* Do you like surprises?
|-
| 🏀 (3729) vs '''🏅 (9083)'''
* Basketball and hoop
* '''Sports medal'''
|
* If you're like me, you've argued over who would win head-to-head, 🏀 or 🏅.
* This match has me questioning 🏀's commitment.
|-
| '''🏓 (9290)''' vs 🥏 (7916)
* '''Table tennis paddle and ball'''
* Flying disc
|
* I'm looking forward to this.
*Don't blink.
|-
| 🎮 (11060) vs '''🥌 (14205)'''
* Video game
* '''Curling stone'''
|
* Welcome back, it's time for 🎮 and 🥌 to go head to head.
* Curling Simulator 2019
* If you love 🥌, you will have to show it now!
* Its a close match!
* 🎮 sweeping up
* 🥌 sweeping up
* I think 🥌 has it.
|-
| 🎒 (5682) vs '''🎨 (8574)'''
* School satchel
* '''Artist palette'''
|
* Oh this one should be good.
* Is the backpack Blue or Red??
* Blue or Red isn't going to matter if 🎨 keeps their lead!
* This one was over before it started.
|-
| 🎩 (9120) vs '''🎵 (10259)'''
* Top hat
* '''Musical note'''
|
* It's time to find out: Who would win in a match, 🎩 or 🎵?
* Top Hat (1935)
|-
| 🎸 (7349) vs '''🎻 (10889)'''
* Guitar
* '''Violin'''
|
* Don't change that channel, folks. We have 🎸 and 🎻 warming up.
* the day the music died
|-
| 📟 (3276) vs '''💾 (14470)'''
* Pager
* '''Floppy disk'''
|
* Don't change that channel, folks. We have 💾 and 📟 warming up.
* 🖍, are you watching this match?
* At this rate, 📟 will lose worse than 🎒 earlier!
|-
| 💡 (7834) vs '''🧮 (10579)'''
* Electric light bulb
* '''Abacus'''
|
* It is a battle as old as time itself. 💡 and 🧮! Facing off against each other again!
* What an illuminating contest.
* In case you were wondering, the obsolete tech bracket is coming to a close soon.
* 🧮 comes out on top.
|-
| 📦 (3650) vs '''📚 (13464)'''
* Package
* '''Books'''
|
* Uh oh. 📦 has had words with 📚 before. The next match will be good.
* Remember trees?
|-
| 📊 (7144) vs '''🖍 (8035)'''
* Bar chart
* '''Lower left crayon'''
|
* It is a battle as old as time itself. 📊 and 🖍! Facing off against each other again!
* Which crayon is the shortest
* Which crayon is the shortest?
|-
| 📎 (8114) vs '''🗝 (9019)'''
* Paperclip
* '''Old key'''
|
* Have at it, 📎 and 🗝!
* Have you considered just casting 'Knock'?
|-
| ⚖ (6910) vs '''🏹 (9251)'''
* Scales
* '''Bow and arrow'''
|
* You do not want to miss the fan favorite ⚖. Coming up next!
* I am not sure if there is anything else that 🏹 needs to prove.
|-
| 🔭 (9037) vs '''🧬 (11772)'''
* Telescope
* '''DNA double helix'''
|
* It's time to find out: Who would win in a match, 🔭 or 🧬?
* Pretty sure that is not how any of this works.
|-
| ⚰ (12470) vs '''🧻 (13083)'''
* Coffin
* '''Roll of paper'''
|
* Don't change that channel, folks. We have ⚰ and 🧻 warming up.
* This is the final match of round 3!
* You have died of Dysentery.
|-
|}

==== Round 4====
{| class="wikitable mw-collapsible mw-collapsed"
|-
! Competitors and score !! Commentary
|-
| 😉 (13589) vs '''🙃 (22912)'''
* Winking face
* '''Upside-down face'''
|
* Will it be 😉 or 🙃? Find out next after this message from our sponsors.
* Finally! A rivalry spoke only in whispers now takes center stage.
* I see our friends in Australia have joined in the fun.
* 😉 has some time to recover, but they are going to need help.
* Down to our last minute in the match!
* 😉 never had a chance.
|-
| 😜 (6578) vs '''🤔 (25692)'''
* Face with stuck-out tongue and winking eye
* '''Thinking face'''
|
* Next! Who would win in a match between 😜 and 🤔? We are about to find out.
* This match-up reminds me of something clever I heard earlier ...
* Oh! I remember what it was!
* Someone said
|-
| 😴 (11518) vs '''😏 (12506)'''
* Sleeping face
* '''Smirking face'''
|
* If you're like me, you've argued over who would win head-to-head, 😏 or 😴.
* Success is no stranger to 😏. Let's see if they can keep it going.
* Don't sleep on this match-up!
|-
| 😮 (18361) vs '''😎 (18415)'''
* Face with open mouth
* '''Smiling face with sunglasses'''
|
* Next up, 😎 and 😮.
* I don't know about you, but this is the match I have been waiting all day to see.
* Sunglasses pulling ahead.
* The betting markets had 😮 as favourite today, but it sure looks like 😎 is going to make it!
* It's all up to 😎 now. Can they hold 😮 back long enough to claim victory?
* The betting markets had 😮 as favourite today, but it sure looks like 😎 is going to make it!
* The gap is closing! Is there enough time for 😮 to take the lead?
* This one is coming down to the wire!
* Surprised Pikachu pulls ahead!
|-
| 😱 (4868) vs '''😈 (5411)'''
* Face screaming in fear
* '''Smiling face with horns'''
|
* It is a battle as old as time itself. 😈 and 😱! Facing off against each other again!
|-
| 👾 (18385) vs '''🙀 (18571)'''
* Alien monster
* '''Weary cat face'''
|
* 👾 and 🙀 have been friends for a long time. I am not sure where that relationship is going to be after today.
* This could get interesting if 🙀 brings out their lasers!
* This could get interesting if 👾 brings out their lasers!
* Can we go back to the laser kittens for a minute?
* laser kittens! mew mew mew!
* Uh oh. The cat cheering section seems to be slacking.
* Can the cats make a comeback and save us all?
* It's gonna be tight!
|-
| 💦 (13865) vs '''💖 (15698)'''
* Splashing sweat symbol
* '''Sparkling heart'''
|
* Someone has to win this match and someone has to lose, but you have to acknowledge the pure sportsmanship of these competitors.
* Click the link at the bottom of the comic to view the current bracket! (Just updated.)
* That last one came down to the wire, and this one's looking like it might too.
* The three other Planeteers are watching this match tensely.
* Sparkle Heart has been a surprisingly strong contender, knocking out the 100 emoji early!
* Click the link at the bottom of the comic to view the current bracket!
* Sparkle heart appears to be running away with another one.
|-
| '''👩‍🔬 (19865)''' vs 🧠 (9398)
* '''Woman + Microscope'''
* Brain
|
* This is a match that no one wanted to deal with until the end.
*what exactly is 👩‍🔬 going to do with that beaker?
*Neuroscience vs. Neuro!
*There seems to be a commotion in the audience as to whether that was a flask or a beaker.
*I *was* a beaker, but someone changed it in post!
*Looks like 👩‍🔬 is really taking 🧠 to *flask*.
|-
| 🤺 (8947) vs '''🧙 (25337)'''
* Fencer
* '''Mage'''
|
* 🤺 has been a fan favorite all day. Suprising literally no one.
* However, 🧙 has literally been disintegrating their competition all afternoon.
* What are we thinking here? 'Heat Metal'?
* Parry hotter vs Harry Potter?
|-
| 🚵 (7397) vs '''🦊 (27045)'''
* Mountain bicyclist
* '''Fox face'''
|
* This is a match that no one wanted to deal with until the end.
* several people are typing.
* 🦊 is putting 🚵 in the rear-view mirror and stepping on the gas.
* I have never seen 🦊 crush an opponent that mercilessly before.
|-
| '''🐈 (25965)''' vs 🦄 (20912)
* '''Cat'''
* Unicorn face
|
* Oh this one should be good.
*I am not sure if there is anything else that 🐈 needs to prove.
|-
| 🐘 (23083) vs '''🦔 (23975)'''
* Elephant
* '''Hedgehog'''
|
* I spoke with 🐘 before the match today, and they had this to say: 🐘.
* This is one grudge that won't be resolved soon: 🐘 never forgets.
* Hedgehog has been a strong contender but elephant is running surprisingly close.
* This is going to come down to the final seconds.
* An amazing match from 🦔.
|-
| 🐧 (19957) vs '''🦉 (22737)'''
* Penguin
* '''Owl'''
|
* There are a lot of 🐧 fans in the audience today hoping to see their champ make it through.
* Another close match in the making!
* 1 minute for 🦉 to overtake 🐧!
* I think the bird has it.
|-
| 🐉 (25129) vs '''🐙 (25238)'''
* Dragon
* '''Octopus'''
|
* You wouldn't know it to look at them right now, but 🐉 and 🐙 have been friends for years.
* I think 🐉 may have finally met their match.
* 🐙 is trying to get back in the lead. But 🐉 is not having any of it.
* The totals are back and forth!
* An unbelievably close match is down to the final minute!
* It’s neck and neck, despite one being all neck and the other having none.
* The final seconds are here. Who will take the final lead?
|-
| 🌵 (17985) vs '''🐝 (18691)'''
* Cactus
* '''Honeybee'''
|
* 🌵 has really suprised me today.
* another close match. Are all of the contests going to be like this now?
|-
| '''🍍 (19728)''' vs 🥑 (18099)
* '''Pineapple'''
* Avocado
|
* 🍍 continues to show why they are just the dominant force to be reckoned with today.
*Avocado Toast or Pineapple Pizza
*Avocado Toast or Pineapple Pizza?
|-
| '''🍕 (19207)''' vs 🥐 (11100)
* '''Slice of pizza'''
* Croissant
|
* Oh this one should be good.
*Pineapple pizza isn't real pizza
*There are two correct answers here. Choose wisely.
*Pizzas are like croissant tacos
*Looks like 🥐 is getting roasted.
*🥐 burn so easily. Who knew?
|-
| 🌯 (16204) vs '''🍣 (17599)'''
* Burrito
* '''Sushi'''
|
* 🌯 came to play. It is so obvious.
* why do we have to choose?
* I have definitely eaten food that was described as both of these.
|-
| 🍫 (17503) vs '''🦑 (18313)'''
* Chocolate bar
* '''Squid'''
|
* Oh this one should be good.
* No No Nothing about this is good.
* 🍫 is pretty sweet, but I'm a sucker for 🦑
|-
| '''🌋 (18049)''' vs 🔪 (7144)
* '''Volcano'''
* Hocho
|
* 🌋 has been a fan favorite all day. Suprising literally no one.
*before the knives come out of the mountain they're technically called "magma"
*before knives come out of a mountain they're technically called 'magma'
|-
| 🏗 (7355) vs '''🌃 (12660)'''
* Building construction
* '''Night with stars'''
|
* Oh this one should be good.
* Has anyone ever seen one of these without the other? Hmm.
* 163
|-
| 🚒 (4736) vs '''🚝 (9570)'''
* Fire engine
* '''Monorail'''
|
* 🚒 is dedicating this match to someone very special in their lives.
|-
| 🚲 (11477) vs '''🛸 (14994)'''
* Bicycle
* '''Flying saucer'''
|
* 🚲 has really suprised me today.
* E.T. (1982)
|-
| 🌒 (7313) vs '''🌌 (15975)'''
* Waxing crescent moon symbol
* '''Milky way'''
|
* I am very excited to see 🌌 still in this competition.
* This battle is out of this world!
|-
| '''🔥 (13588)''' vs 🧨 (8239)
* '''Fire'''
* Firecracker
|
* This is a match with a special meaning for 🔥.
*Uh oh, this is one of those battles where nobody wins.
*🔥 bolting ahead with an alarming lead against 🧨
*Take cover folks, this looks like it's going to be a hot one.
*aaaaaand boom goes the dynamite!
|-
| 🏅 (9309) vs '''🏓 (11409)'''
* Sports medal
* '''Table tennis paddle and ball'''
|
* I am very excited to see 🏅 still in this competition.
* Ohhhhhhhh. That one is going to leave a mark.
|-
| 🎨 (11242) vs '''🥌 (20329)'''
* Artist palette
* '''Curling stone'''
|
* Look at where you came from 🎨. Look at where you started! You would think that this would be enough.
* C'mon baby put the rock in the house
|-
| 🎵 (10452) vs '''🎻 (11806)'''
* Musical note
* '''Violin'''
|
* 🎵 came to play. It is so obvious.
* It is a battle as old as time itself. 🎵 and 🎻! Facing off against each other again!
* No, that's not the iTunes logo
* 🎻's tuning might be working against them right now.
|-
| '''💾 (16887)''' vs 🧮 (13339)
* '''Floppy disk'''
* Abacus
|
* 💾 is dedicating this match to someone very special in their lives.
*Welcome back to the Obsolete Technology Dome!
*MicroSD Card is watching closely at this battle of two square data storage options
|-
| 🖍 (6157) vs '''📚 (16083)'''
* Lower left crayon
* '''Books'''
|
* This is going to be a challenge for 📚.
* 📚 really left a mark on 🖍 in their last match.
* 🖍 really left a mark on 📚 in their last match.
|-
| '''🏹 (14112)''' vs 🗝 (11789)
* '''Bow and arrow'''
* Old key
|
* 🏹 is looking fierce, but 🗝 is having none of it.
|-
| 🧻 (8107) vs '''🧬 (24415)'''
* Roll of paper
* '''DNA double helix'''
|
* 🧬 came to play. It is so obvious.
* 🧻 and 🧬 are neck and neck here in the final bout of round 3!
* when either is missing, you're in trouble
* And 🧻 falls to 🧬. A suprising turn of events.
|-
|}

==== Round 5====
{| class="wikitable mw-collapsible mw-collapsed"
|-
! Competitors and score !! Commentary
|-
| 🙃 (77562) vs '''🤔 (85714)'''
* Upside-down face
* '''Thinking face'''
|
* all remaining rounds will be 26 minutes
* all remaining bouts will be 26 minutes
* Sometimes I think they've gone too far with plastic surgery
* This one's a fitting start to the round of 32, don't you think?
* Spiderman (2002)
* these vote totals are getting *close*! 🤔
* up is down, down is up! 🤔
* up is down, down is up! 🙃
* 🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔
* Getting knocked out in the round of 32 🙃
|-
| 😎 (35129) vs '''😏 (35485)'''
* Smiling face with sunglasses
* '''Smirking face'''
|
* 😎 and 😏 have been friends for a long time. I am not sure where that relationship is going to be after today.
* wink wink vs nudge nudge
* The Blues Brothers (1980)
* Can't read my p-p-p-poker face"
* Can't read my p-p-p-poker face
* David Caruso, is that you
* explicit vs. implicit
|-
| 🙀 (34060) vs '''😈 (46401)'''
* Weary cat face
* '''Smiling face with horns'''
|
* Are we about to see a huge upset?
* The devil went down to kittytown
* We're not sure which of these is a more accurate representation of a cat
* Both of them like to make your life hell.
* Which side are the Hellcats cheering for?
* 9 circles of hell. 9 lives. COINCIDENCE?
* Better the devil you know than the one you pet.
|-
| 💖 (15594) vs '''👩‍🔬 (43035)'''
* Sparkling heart
* '''Woman + Microscope'''
|
* This is a match that no one wanted to deal with until the end.
* Love Potion No. 9 (1963)
* The shine seems to be wearing off for sparkle heart.
* The shine seems to be wearing off for sparkle heart. What's in that flask?
|-
| 🦊 (48941) vs '''🧙 (49275)'''
* Fox face
* '''Mage'''
|
* 🦊 has really suprised me today.
* :leaves:: Target creature gets +3/+3 until end of turn targeting Devilthorn Fox
* G: Target creature gets +3/+3 until end of turn targeting Devilthorn Fox
|-
| 🐈 (32862) vs '''🦔 (42994)'''
* Cat
* '''Hedgehog'''
|
* I don't care if you are a 🐈 fan or a 🦔 fan, you have to admire their work here today.
* Scoring of this bout might be delayed, we're having to re-calibrate our cuteness meter.
|-
| 🐙 (38553) vs '''🦉 (204094)'''
* Octopus
* '''Owl'''
|
* Someone has to win this match and someone has to lose, but you have to acknowledge the pure sportsmanship of these competitors.
* This staring contest began hours before the match started.
* You obviously like owls.
|-
| 🍍 (25531) vs '''🐝 (28801)'''
* Pineapple
* '''Honeybee'''
|
* 🍍 is dedicating this match to someone very special in their lives.
* Neither of these really go well with a bonnet.
|-
| 🍕 (30696) vs '''🍣 (33247)'''
* Slice of pizza
* '''Sushi'''
|
* We didn't expect 🍕 to show up today, and ... well ... we are just as suprised as you!
* It's come down to this... which one is going to get taken out.
* In Toronto, this isn't even a competition.
|-
| '''🌋 (24884)''' vs 🦑 (20329)
* '''Volcano'''
* Squid
|
* There was never any doubt in my mind that 🌋 would be right here, right now.
*Finally the mastermind has an appropriate lair
|-
| 🌃 (21192) vs '''🚝 (24042)'''
* Night with stars
* '''Monorail'''
|
* I am very excited to see 🌃 still in this competition.
|-
| '''🌌 (25884)''' vs 🛸 (14803)
* '''Milky way'''
* Flying saucer
|
* 🌌 has been a fan favorite all day. Suprising literally no one.
*Will we go to the stars, or will the stars come to us?
|-
| 🏓 (13494) vs '''🔥 (17154)'''
* Table tennis paddle and ball
* '''Fire'''
|
* 🏓 continues to show why they are just the dominant force to be reckoned with today.
* Would you rather be on fire, or on fire?
* Have you ever seen a ping pong paddle on fire? Me neither.
|-
| '''🎻 (26281)''' vs 🥌 (26221)
* '''Violin'''
* Curling stone
|
* 🎻 certainly has its work cut out for it going up agaist 🥌.
*Which do you prefer, classical or house?
|-
| 📚 (16770) vs '''💾 (19628)'''
* Books
* '''Floppy disk'''
|
* 💾 had an interesting previous round. Let's see what they do now.
* One of these is a universal icon for saving data, and the other is a floppy.
* The Persistence of Memory (1931)
|-
| 🏹 (9717) vs '''🧬 (20370)'''
* Bow and arrow
* '''DNA double helix'''
|
* We didn't expect 🏹 to show up today, and ... well ... we are just as suprised as you!
* The latest ad targeting technology is pretty scary.
|-
|}

==== Round 6====
{| class="wikitable mw-collapsible mw-collapsed"
|-
! Competitors and score !! Commentary
|-
| 😏 (17357) vs '''🤔 (23903)'''
* Smirking face
* '''Thinking face'''
|
* Look at where you came from 😏. Look at where you started! You would think that this would be enough.
* I know something you don't know.
* How do you know for sure that your votes are doing anything?
|-
| 😈 (11306) vs '''👩‍🔬 (30208)'''
* Smiling face with horns
* '''Woman + Microscope'''
|
* This is a match with a special meaning for 👩‍🔬.
* The scientific method's problem is that the devil's in the details.
|-
| 🧙 (26205) vs '''🦔 (27999)'''
* Mage
* '''Hedgehog'''
|
* 🦔 had an interesting previous round. Let's see what they do now.
* Hedge magic is generally more pragmatic than other forms of sorcery.
* The wizard didn't do it
|-
| 🐝 (21941) vs '''🦉 (28070)'''
* Honeybee
* '''Owl'''
|
* 🐝 came to play. It is so obvious.
* Of course we all know about the Owls and the Bees
* The Owlbee is a lesser known, but beloved D&D monster.
* The Owlbee is a lesser known, but beloved D and D monster.
* The Owlbee is a lesser known, but beloved DnD monster.
* Owls well that ends well
|-
| 🍣 (27026) vs '''🌋 (33364)'''
* Sushi
* '''Volcano'''
|
* 🌋 is dedicating this match to someone very special in their lives.
* Cooked or raw?
* Sushi is tasty, but the volcano offers free delivery.
* Click the link at the bottom for a just-updated bracket!
* Sushi has received a technical disqualification for being very very cooked
|-
| '''🌌 (36285)''' vs 🚝 (17405)
* '''Milky way'''
* Monorail
|
* 🌌 continues to show why they are just the dominant force to be reckoned with today.
*~future~
*The red carpet is empty tonight; the sky is full of stars.
*NIGHT TRAIN!
*Spaaaaaaaaace
|-
| 🎻 (26806) vs '''🔥 (32652)'''
* Violin
* '''Fire'''
|
* 🎻 is dedicating this match to someone very special in their lives.
* Either can kill if used indiscriminately.
* And fire flew from his fingertips as he rosined up his bow.
* That fiddle-playing is [fire emoji], but that fire emoji is [actual fire].
* That 🎻 is 🔥, but that 🔥 is actual 🔥.
* Click the link below the comic to see the current round of 32! (just updated)
* Click the link at the bottom to see the current round of 32! (just updated)
* That 🎻 is 🔥, but that 🔥 is actual 🔥.
|-
| 💾 (57577) vs '''🧬 (58313)'''
* Floppy disk
* '''DNA double helix'''
|
* Look at where you came from 💾. Look at where you started! You would think that this would be enough.
* Magnets work on both of these, right?
* Fun fact: Your genome could fit on just a few hundred floppy disks.
* This is the final match of the round, determining whether 💾 or 🧬 makes it into the Elite Eight.
* These two have been neck-and-neck through the whole bout.
* The “3d-printed save icon” is pulling ahead in the home stretch!
* This is a close one!
* Fun fact: Your genome could fit on just a few hundred floppy disks.
|-
|}

==== Round 7 - Quarterfinals====
{| class="wikitable mw-collapsible mw-collapsed"
|-
! Competitors and score !! Commentary
|-
| '''👩‍🔬 (113683)''' vs 🤔 (108653)
* '''Woman + Microscope'''
* Thinking face
|
* Nearly tied at 40,000 votes each!
*Nearly tied at 50,000 votes each!
*👩‍🔬 has the lead, but 🤔 points out it’s not a statistically significant difference.
*🤔 has the lead, but 👩‍🔬 points out it’s not a statistically significant difference.
*🤔 pulls ahead, but reminds everyone that it’s not a statistically significant lead.
*👩‍🔬 pulls ahead, but reminds everyone that it’s not a statistically significant lead.
*Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
*👩‍🔬 is ahead, but reminds everyone that it’s not statistically significant.
*👩‍🔬 appears to be leading, but more studies are needed.
*🤔
|-
| 🦉 (103212) vs '''🦔 (105260)'''
* Owl
* '''Hedgehog'''
|
* I've always considered 🦉 to be one of the greats.
* sky cat vs. pointy cat
* This bout will decide which animal emoji advances to the final 4.
* The main difference between these two is the number of potentially flying spines.
* This one's going to be close.
* One might say this was neck and neck if either of these had one.
* 🦔 just barely squeaking in a victory.
|-
| 🌋 (105716) vs '''🌌 (175099)'''
* Volcano
* '''Milky way'''
|
* 🌋 had an interesting previous round. Let's see what they do now.
* Star stuff or regurgitated star stuff?
* This is secretly a referendum on air pollution.
* “Earth” and “Space” have each sent their most exciting representatives
* 🌋 is going to go extinct at this rate.
* This combination led to the cretaceous extinction.
* It’s looking like 🌌 will advance to the final 4.
* Good (starry) Night!
|-
| '''🔥 (178121)''' vs 🧬 (159553)
* '''Fire'''
* DNA double helix
|
* Did you know the melting point of DNA depends on the information it encodes?
*Jurassic Park III (2001)
*🧬 pulled ahead early, but 🔥 has closed the gap.
*🧬 is pulling away!
*Click the link below to see the current bracket!
*🧬 seems eager to move up the ladder.
*Whatever happens, this one will have a twist ending.
*🧬 has pulled ahead in the home stretch!
*🔥 has pulled ahead in the home stretch!
*🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
|-
|}

==== Round 8 - Semifinals====
{| class="wikitable mw-collapsible mw-collapsed"
|-
! Competitors and score !! Commentary
|-
| 👩‍🔬 (285263) vs '''🦔 (285736)'''
* Woman + Microscope
* '''Hedgehog'''
|
* 👩‍🔬 defeated [purple devil face] and [sparkling heart] to get here.
* 👩‍🔬 defeated the wizard and then beat out the rest of the animal quadrant.
* 🦔 defeated the wizard and then beat out the rest of the animal quadrant.
* With over a quarter of a million votes, this one is coming down to the wire.
* In the final minutes, 🦔 is opening up the first real lead of the bout!
* 🦔 fans had better keep clicking!
* 👩‍🔬 is ahead but 🦔 is closing the gap!
* It’s virtually tied going into the final minute! Keep clicking!
* 🦔 pulls ahead!
* Science!
|-
| '''🌌 (281040)''' vs 🔥 (155282)
* '''Milky way'''
* Fire
|
* Without oxygen, there’s no 🔥.
*Space fire fact: If we detect fire on exoplanets, it may indicate life. Oxygen is volatile and shouldn’t persist in an atmosphere without something replenishing it.
*Space fire fact: If we detect fire on exoplanets, it may indicate life. Oxygen is volatile and shouldn’t persist in an atmosphere without replenishment.
*Just how much fire is there in a star, anyway?
*The winner of this match will go on to face hedgehog in the finals.
*The galaxy is running away with this one.
*Click the link below for the bracket! (Change the 32 to 128 for a larger one.)
*Space is running away so fast with this one we're seeing red shift.
*Spaaaaaaaaaaaaace
*Space ran away with that one so fast it redshifted.
|-
|}

==== Round 9 - Final====
{| class="wikitable mw-collapsible mw-collapsed"
|-
! Competitors and score !! Commentary
|-
| '''🌌 (710129)''' vs 🦔 (682919)
* '''Milky way'''
* Hedgehog
|
* 🦔 is in the lead!
*🌌 has pulled ahead again!
*🦔 is slowly trying to close the gap that 🌌 managed to open.
*🦔 is catching up!
*🦔 is in the lead, 🌌 hot on its tail.
*🌌 beginning to expand its lead again.
*Over a million votes have been cast!
*🌌 in the lead, but 🦔 isn't out of this yet.
*This is it folks, the final moments...
*🌌 takes it!
|-
|}

===Error image transcript===
:[This is the image that appears when JavaScript fails or other errors occur. This is what embeds and automated programs usually see, as they load down dynamic comics. The transcript for this image is below the image:]
:[[File:2131_Emojidome_Error_image.png]]
:[A tournament bracket tree is shown with eight participants each on the left and right side, for a total of sixteen, all of which are the 😰 emoji ("Face With Open Mouth and Cold Sweat"). From both sides towards the middle the brackets reduce to eight, then four, two, and one line where the latter join to a rectangle in the middle. Below is an explanation of why this is seen instead of the correct comic. It is due to an error with JavaScript. This is also why the sad emoji is used in all sweet sixteen places.]

:Visit xkcd.com to participate

:If you ''are'' on xkcd.com, then you're seeing this
:because of something something JavaScript.

:Listen, websites are hard 😰

==Transcript==
:[This was an interactive and dynamic comic during April 1st from its release until its completion. But the final and current image, will be the official image to transcribe. But the dynamic part of the comic as well as the "error image" displayed to services that could not render the dynamic comic is also transcribed here below.]

:[The final picture shows the winner of the gold medal in the Emojidome bracket tournament, as well as the runner up with the silver medal. There is no text. The winner is the "Space", "Stars" or "Milky Way" emoji, which is shown with a blue band on top of a dark blue band on top of an almost black background, indicating the light band of the Milky Way in the night sky. Stars (in both five point star shape and as dots) in light blue are spread out in all three bands of color. The large gold medal with its red neck string, is floating close to the middle of the picture, lacking any kind of neck in space to tie it around. To the left of the gold medal is the runner up, the brown Hedgehog, with light-brown face. It clutches the smaller silver medal, also with red neck string, which floats out there in space. The hedgehog with medal is depicted small enough to fit inside the neck string on the gold medal.]

===Dynamic comic transcript===
:[This is an example of how the comic appeared during the competition. The example includes one of the final winner, Space's, matches. The dynamic part of the comic is transcribed below:]
:[[File:2131 Emojidome example.png|400px]]
:[At the top center of the comic, the two emojis battling it out are shown next to each other. The emojis displayed in the comic used the [https://github.com/twitter/twemoji twemoji] icon set. A different emoji set was shown in links to image of the tournament brackets. These matches are called bouts in the comic. The emoji from the top (or left) of the bracket is shown to the left. In this case it was space, night sky, milky way or stars vs Maglev train. Between them is the following text:]
:VS

:[There are two buttons one below each of the two emoji. If pressed the buttons became red. They could be pressed multiple times each match. The buttons have text on them:]
:Vote Vote

:[From the buttons colored hearts are released, often in bundles, and then they wave up across the emoji whose button they emanated from.]

:[Below the buttons there is and indicator showing how long the current battle is open for further votes. In the example the text is:]
:Remaining time: 24 minutes

:[The time began at "26 minutes" during the final rounds. It changed to "1 minute", with 1 minutes and 30 seconds left, and then 30 seconds later to "60 seconds" counting down to a few seconds. Then, before reaching 2 or 3 seconds it changed (a bit too early) to "Time's up!" Shortly there after a new bout would begin.]

:[Above the two emoji at the very top is a comment. The commentator is shown as a robot emoji. The comment often changed during the long final rounds. In the current example the text is:]
:"~future~"

:[But there would have been several others during the match. Given that Space won the entire Emojidome, the train lost this match. Often a final comment was posted just as the result was in. These final messages was then put at the top of the list of past bouts (matches). These bouts was displayed at the bottom of the comic below the remaining time. To the left was the following text:]
:Past bouts:

:[Below this text was a list of all previous matches, showing the two emojis, with the loser grayed out, with their final comment next to them. As soon as there where more than three a scroll bar appeared to the right, making it possible to scroll down through all these previous matches. As it was 512 emojis to begin with, there were 256 bouts in the first round, and then 255 the rest of the way to the final for a total of 511 bouts at the end. Here are the text of the three matches that can be seen in the example (the grayed out loser was Sushi, Bee and Wizard):]
:🌋 vs 🍣 "Sushi has received a technical disqualification for being very very cooked"
:🐝 vs 🦉 "Owls well that ends well"
:🦔 vs 🧙 "The Wizard didn't do it"

:[All the final bouts remarks, as well as the match ups, the score of votes, and all the other comments coming at the top during each bout can be found below in the round 1 to round 9 sections. They are thus not only a transcript.]

:[Finally at the bottom of the comic below the scroll-able version of the past bouts, there was a link to images of the brackets, beginning with the full long one of all 512 emojis, and the zooming in and out, plus updating with results along the way. The link was a text that explained what the link was for. In the current example the link text, which is link blue, was:]
:Full bracket for today's comic (round 3).

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Interactive comics]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Emoji]]
[[Category:Sport]]
[[Category:Tournament bracket]]
[[Category:Dynamic comics]]
[[Category:Portmanteau]]
[[Category:Giraffes]]

2130: Industry Nicknames

2026-05-13T12:53:31Z

SomebodyElse: /* Explanation */ just linking characters' names

{{comic
| number = 2130
| date = March 29, 2019
| title = Industry Nicknames
| image = industry_nicknames.png
| titletext = As far as "being in the pocket of Big Egg" goes, I think the real threat is Chansey.
}}

==Explanation==
"Big industry" is a common nickname used to describe corporate concerns in the United States which have near-monopolistic control over significant areas of the economy, which allow them to wield a large amount of control over markets, as well as influencing political decisions. To be "in someone's pocket" means this entity can readily influence the subject's behavior, whether by bribery, blackmail, legal maneuvering, threats, lobbying, social influence, financial control, or any other means.

Of the 8 industries listed, {{w|Big Tobacco}} and {{w|Big Pharma}} are nicknames that are commonly used. [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-27/warren-calls-for-breakup-of-big-ag-in-appeal-to-family-farmers Big Ag] is less commonly used, but is increasingly visible, as agriculture is increasingly dominated by large and powerful corporations, rather than individual family farms. While the rest of these names are purely fictional, [[Randall]] could be imagining a possible future in which these industries become big players in the political arena. The mining industry may be referred to in this context by sector, as {{w|Big Coal}} or {{w|Big Oil}} (Randall uses the term "big hole", which sounds much sillier. Most, but not all, forms of mining involve large holes.) The U.S. automobile industry was until recent decades referred to as "Detroit," later meaning only the {{w|Big Three automobile manufacturers}} before falling out of common usage. "Big Foot" is likely a reference to the mythical creature {{w|Bigfoot}}. Those who have been on the rough end of how large organizations can push not only individuals but entire communities around in a mafia-like way may take issue with a medical board being equated with such groups.

[https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Chansey_(Pok%C3%A9mon) Chansey], mentioned in the title text, is a type of female-only {{w|List of Pokémon|Pokémon}} who carries around an egg in her marsupial-like front pouch. For Chansey the phrase "in the pocket of Big Egg" would be rather literal, except that the egg is in her pocket, rather than the other way around. Randall does not specify why Chansey would be a "threat" or why a Pokémon would be bribing people. Perhaps because, if being in the pocket of Big Egg is bad, and Big Egg is in the pocket of Chansey, then Chansey controls Big Egg and is the one to worry about.

==Transcript==
:[A line chart is shown going from left to right between two small vertical stop lines. On the line are eight dots spread out unevenly from close to each end. The most central dot is the one with furthest distance to the nearest dots, having almost the same distance in both direction the nearest dots. The other dots are in some cases very close. Beneath each dot there goes a line down to a label written beneath each line. Above the chart there is a big title and below that an explanation. Below that again, there is a small arrow pointing to the right with a label above it.]
:<big>Nicknames for Industries and Organizations</big>
:Ranked by how silly it sounds when you say someone is "In the pocket of..."

:[Arrow label:]
:Sillier

:[Labels for the eight dots from left to right:]
:Cigarette companies: "Big Tobacco"
:Drug companies: "Big Pharma"
:The farming industry: "Big Ag"
:Automakers: "Big Car"
:The International Equestrian Federation: "Big Horse"
:The Board of Podiatric Medicine: "Big Foot"
:The mining industry: "Big Hole"
:The American Egg Board: "Big Egg"

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Rankings]]
[[Category:Animals]] 
[[Category:Food]] 
[[Category:Pokémon]]

2127: Panama Canal

2026-05-13T12:49:38Z

SomebodyElse: /* Explanation */ just linking characters' names

{{comic
| number = 2127
| date = March 22, 2019
| title = Panama Canal
| image = panama_canal.png
| titletext = Once they selected the other proposal, we could have kept shopping ours around, but we would had to modify it include an aqueduct over their canal, which would be totally unreasonable.
}}

==Explanation==
The {{w|Panama Canal}} is, as the name suggests, a canal through the country of Panama. It is important for bridging the {{w|Atlantic}} and {{w|Pacific}} oceans, and is an important trade route. The canal is in Panama because this is the narrowest piece of land for crossing between the two oceans. When the Panama Canal was being proposed, several alternate routes were suggested such as the recently-revived {{w|Nicaragua Canal|Nicaragua Route}}.

[[Cueball]] says that when the Panama Canal connecting the Caribbean Sea to the Pacific Ocean was being planned, he proposed an alternate route that connects the {{w|Arctic Ocean}} to the {{w|Great Southern Ocean}}. At the time, the northern terminus would have been inaccessible, because the Arctic Ocean was almost completely covered by ice. His suggested route runs somewhat to the east of the {{w|Continental Divide of the Americas|continental divide}} and has a total length of slightly over ten thousand miles, in contrast to the real-life canal which is only fifty miles long. The extra length and more-rugged terrain make his proposal much more difficult to build and maintain than the real-life Panama Canal.{{Citation needed}}

Moreover, while the real-life canal significantly shortens the travel distance between major cities on the east and west coasts of the Americas, his alternative offers little benefit over traveling north or south in either the Atlantic or Pacific oceans. In fact, with the lack of currents that can aid travel and the slow speed required to traverse canal locks, it would be significantly slower. In addition, ships would have to wait approximately 100 years for global warming to melt the ice in the Arctic Ocean along the northern coast of North America sufficiently for them to enter or exit the northern end of the canal. (However, since construction of this canal might take even longer, the ice might not be a problem by the time it was completed.)

The title text references the now-existing Panama Canal, and the fact that [[Randall]]'s canal would need to cross it at some point. The title text suggests that crossing two canals would have to be done via {{w|aqueduct}}, instead of the more useful {{w|at-grade crossing}}, most likely at {{w|Gatun Lake}}, which would allow boats to travel between the two canals by simply connecting them. The humor here is that this canal would be one of the most ambitious construction projects in history; an aqueduct being added to the costs is an expense on the same scale of needing an extra screw to hold something in on Apollo 11. The route depicted appears to cross the Mackenzie, Missouri, Rio Grande, and Amazon rivers anyway, so only this additional crossing is apparently "unreasonable."

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is standing in front of a poster with two maps showing the Americas. He is pointing to the right one with a stick he is holding in his hand. Specifically to the red line going through the Americas from the Arctic sea above Canada near Alaska, down through North America, through the middle of Central America down through the middle of South America to end up in the Antarctic sea below the tip of South America. On the map to the left there is a similar red line indicating the Panama Canal crossing the thinnest part of Central America from the Pacific Oceanto the Atlantic Ocean. Both lines end in small dots on either "side" of the continent. The two maps have labels above them:]
:Atlantic-Pacific option
:Arctic-Antarctic option

:[Caption below the panel:]
:I still don't understand why the Panama Canal planners rejected my proposal.

==Trivia==
*The Panama Canal was the main theme in [[1632: Palindrome]] and there is a scene in [[1608: Hoverboard]] where a [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/images/0/0d/1608_1026x1073y_Ruins_with_Cueball_singing_of_Spiders_and_Panama.png song that Cueball sings] references the canal. {{w|Panamax}} is referenced in the title text of [[1865: Wifi vs Cellular]].
*If Cueball had proposed an alternative Panama Canal when the original was being built, he would have to have been alive in the early 1900s. Assuming he was at least 18 when the Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty was signed to authorize the canal (a very generously low estimate), this version of Cueball would been born no later than 1885.
*This is the second comic in a row with a [[:Category:Maps|map based theme]]. Randall likes maps.
*A canal crossing a canal occurs at several places. One of the more famous ones is the {{w|Magdeburg Water Bridge}} in Germany. It also features some locks nearby, so ships can change from the canal to the Elbe river, and vice versa.
*Another interesting connection of canals on different height levels is the {{w|Falkirk Wheel}} in Scotland.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Maps]]

2123: Meta Collecting

2026-05-13T12:42:43Z

SomebodyElse: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2123
| date = March 13, 2019
| title = Meta Collecting
| image = meta_collecting.png
| titletext = I'm trying to get the page locked because some jerk keeps adding "Yachts".
}}

==Explanation==

This is another comic in the "[[:Category:My Hobby|My Hobby]]" series.

Many people's hobbies involve {{w|collecting}} many items of the same category: Post stamps, collectible cards, painted dolls, wine, and so on. Just about anything can be collected, however, some things are collected much more often than others. Wikipedia has a page listing the most popular categories of such {{w|collectible}} items.

In [[Randall]]'s usual style of going meta with everything, he decided to start a meta-collection—a collection of examples of different things that people can collect. He uses Wikipedia's {{w|list of collectibles}} for reference. In the comic, [[Cueball]] is showing to his friend (who appears to be [[White Hat]]) his collection of various items that have nothing in common except that they're all popular collectibles. So while most people try to collect everything in one narrow category of collectibles, Cueball's collection will only be complete if he can get one item from each of the list of collectible items as cataloged by Wikipedia's list, so he has a collection of representative elements from all collections.

In the title text, Randall complains about a Wikipedia editor who keeps adding {{w|yacht}}s to the list of collectibles, probably because it would force him to buy a yacht if he ever wanted to complete his collection of collectibles. Yachts are traditionally considered immensely expensive and the vast majority of people own zero yachts, let alone a collection of them.{{Citation needed}} Note that Randall does not specify how he is trying to get the page locked, and the comic itself might be a rather meta way of doing so: xkcd fans have a history of making lots of edits to Wikipedia articles Randall mentions, resulting in them being protected or locked. The article has in fact been edited and reverted about 50 times by these fans over the course of a single day and was {{w|special:redirect/logid/97716186|temporarily protected}} on March 14th, 2019, which expired three days later. The first addition of Yachts to this page was by a user named {{w|Special:Contributions/Xkcd2123|Xkcd2123}}, but it is unlikely that this user is Randall.

===List of Items on the Shelf===
Items are numbered on each shelf from left.

{| class="wikitable"
!Item Location
!Description
|-
|Top Shelf, First Item
|Possibly an urn or cookie jar.
|-
|Top Shelf, Second Item
|Possibly a candle
|-
|Top Shelf, Third Item
|Model boat
|-
|Middle Shelf, First Item
|Possibly a book
|-
|Middle Shelf, Second Item
|Unidentifiable small item, maybe a rock or tooth
|-
|Middle Shelf, Third Item
|Compact disc in case
|-
|Middle Shelf, Fourth Item
|A record, probably vinyl but could possibly be shellac as shellac "78s" are popular collectors items.
|-
|Middle Shelf, Fifth Item
|Unidentifiable rectangular item, possibly a collectible card
|-
|Middle Shelf, Sixth Item
|Unidentifiable small item
|-
|Bottom Shelf, First Item
|Humanoid figurine or action figure
|-
|Bottom Shelf, Second Item
|Martini glass
|-
|Bottom Shelf, Third Item
|Teapot
|-
|Bottom Shelf, Fourth Item
|Possibly a coin on a stand
|-
|Bottom Shelf, Fifth Item
|Salt/pepper shaker, chess piece, or {{w|Pez dispenser}}
|-
|Bottom Shelf, Sixth Item
|Unidentifiable small item
|}

==Transcript==

:[The comic depicts Cueball reading from a list to White Hat, standing next to a case filled with collectables including an urn, a model ship, a compact disc, a vinyl record, a doll or figurine, a martini glass, and a teapot.]
:Today we're looking for a lunchbox, a snow globe, a Maytag dryer, a Harley Davidson, and a stamp.

:[Caption below the frame:]
:My hobby: Collecting one item from every category listed on Wikipedia's "List of collectables."

==Trivia==

As of 13 March 2019 at 6:44 PM ET, there ''was'' a debate on the Wikipedia [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:List_of_collectables#May_consider_a_temporary_editing_protection talk] tab about locking this page.
This has now been upheld, and the page was temporarily locked.

As of 25 May 2019 at 10:25 PM ET, the page was unlocked and yachts were back on the list.
:As of 04 July 2024 at 06:40 UTC there are no yachts to be found on the list.
:As of 15 August 2025 at 13:25 UTC yachts ARE on the list.

A previous comic, [[739: Malamanteau]], also caused a similar situation on Wikipedia, with many xkcd fans attempting to create the fictional page. The page has been turned into a redirect to the Wikipedia page for xkcd.

Another previous comic, [[1052: Every Major's Terrible]], also caused a similar situation on Wikipedia, with many xkcd readers attempting to redirect "Physics major" to "Engineer".

Total Collection Value
GRAND TOTAL: $63,617.00
Additional insights:

The classic/vintage car alone represents 62.88% of the total collection value
Without the car, the collection would cost $23,617.00

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:My Hobby]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:Wikipedia]]

2121: Light Pollution

2026-05-13T12:40:17Z

SomebodyElse: /* Explanation */ just linking characters' names

{{comic
| number = 2121
| date = March 8, 2019
| title = Light Pollution
| image = light_pollution.png
| titletext = It's so sad how almost no one alive today can remember seeing the galactic rainbow, the insanity nebula, or the skull and glowing eyes of the Destroyer of Sagittarius.
}}

==Explanation==

This comic shows how {{w|Light pollution|light pollution}} in cities affects what you can see from the night sky. The first three panels show realistic examples of what you could see from the sky inside a large city, in the suburbs and far away from light pollution. These panels roughly correlate on the {{w|Bortle Scale}} to 8-9 (city), 5-6 (suburbs) and 2-3 (remote area).

The last panel contrasts these for comedic effect with fake things that are not actually present in the night sky.{{Citation needed}} The "Ships of the Sky King" may be a reference to an elven legend in {{w|J. R. R. Tolkien}}'s works, in which several elven ships sail tangentially off the planet of Middle Earth and into the sky. This story was previously mentioned in [[1255: Columbus]]. "{{w|Celestial spheres|Crystal spheres}}" is an ancient theory about the heavens and what it was that held up the stars, before it was commonly accepted that space could be made of hard vacuum and celestial bodies held there by laws of inertia and gravity and vast distances. The spheres are nested inside each other concentrically. [[Randall]] proposes they are held by {{w|latticework}} like that which supports the Eiffel Tower, and that the lattice structure could be seen long ago when the sky was much darker. It is also a possible reference to the science fiction short-story "{{w|The_Crystal_Spheres|The Crystal Spheres}}" by David Brin, where the solar system is surrounded by hard crystal spheres that have to be broken before leaving as an explanation of the Fermi Paradox. Furthermore, in the lore of Dungeons & Dragons, the solar system is also enclosed in a massive crystal sphere, with other solar systems in similar solar systems, separated by "the flow".

Although all crystals do have a {{w|Crystal structure|crystal lattice}}, as in the [https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/crystal meaning 3] of the word "crystal" in Merriam-Webster (a body that [...] has a regularly repeating internal arrangement of its atoms and often external plane faces), these lattices are sub-microscopic and would be invisible in the sky. Additionally, crystal structure was not yet known at the time that the celestial spheres theory was popular. Crystal Spheres were also mentioned in [[1189: Voyager 1]].

In consensus reality, the sky does contain many invisible objects that can observe us and/or provide major structures of our society, such as satellites, {{w|Mesosphere#Exploration_and_uses|nearcraft}}, and drones, but these are usually invisible due to size and distance more than brightness.

The title text starts off sounding like a legitimate statement about light pollution. It is common to remark that the vast majority of people never see things in the night sky that were commonly seen by our ancestors every night prior to industrialization, such as the {{w|Milky Way}} or now-obscure phenomena such as {{w|Zodiacal light}}, {{w|Airglow}} or {{w|Gegenschein}}. The title text then further adds to the humor of the last panel by describing non-existent features, which could be references to {{w|H. P. Lovecraft}} as he often refers to beasts the possible size that “The Destroyer of Sagittarius” would have to be ({{w|Sagittarius (constellation)|Sagittarius}} is one of the constellations of the zodiac and {{w|Sagittarius A*}} a black hole at the center of the {{w|Milky Way}} inside of that constellation.). He also often speaks of insanity and color, connecting the two.

Light pollution was later mentioned in [[2274: Stargazing 3]].

==Transcript==
:[Four views of the night sky are shown in separate panels. They look more like photographs than drawn comics. A caption at the top reads:]
:'''Light Pollution and the Disappearing Night Sky'''

:[The first view shows only a few bright stars visible on a fairly light gray-brownish background. The inline text on the left top is:]
:High Light Pollution
:(Cities)

:[In the second view more stars, and hints of a few galactic clouds, are visible against a dark-gray background.]
:Moderate Light Pollution
:(Suburbs)

:[A lot of stars in the third image, some partly colored, and a clear view of the Milky Way.]
:Low Light Pollution
:(Very remote areas)

:[The fourth and last image shows even more stars and brighter colors. A slightly fuzzy illuminated triangular grid overlays the entire sky. Embedded within it are three ghostly silhouettes of celestial sailing ships. The text on the top left reads:]
:No Light Pollution
:(How the sky should look)
:[Four arrows are pointing to some triangles:]
:Lattice of the crystal spheres
:[Three arrows are indicating the sailing ships:]
:Ships of the Sky King

{{comic discussion}}

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

2119: Video Orientation

2026-05-13T12:36:35Z

SomebodyElse: /* Explanation */ just linking characters' names

{{comic
| number = 2119
| date = March 4, 2019
| title = Video Orientation
| image = video_orientation.png
| titletext = CIRCULAR VIDEO - PROS: Solves aspect ratio problem. CONS: Never trust anyone who talks to you from inside a circle.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic compares selected pros and cons of 3 video "orientations" (also known as angling), one of which is entirely made-up. This comic could have been inspired by articles published by [https://mashable.com/2017/12/28/vertical-video-mainstream-year/ Mashable], and [https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/video-looks-most-natural-horizontally-but-we-hold-our-phones-vertically/ Scientific American], which comment on how videos are now filmed vertically through smartphones.

[[Randall]]'s observations on horizontal vs vertical indicate that he has resigned himself to the acceptance of vertical videos. However, he does love a good [[690|compromise]], so he suggests "Diagonal Orientation" as a third option to equally dissatisfy both types of user. The issue with this is that diagonal angling fails to fully capture the benefits of either horizontal or vertical angling.

This is another comic claiming that an obviously bad idea keeps being done by accident "so we might as well just accept it", following on from [[2116: .NORM Normal File Format]] a week prior.

'''Horizontal orientation'''

Pros:　
* Good for people not used to phones, and has been used for over a century for capturing video.
* Easier to control the composition of the image, especially wide shots.
* Main distribution format for most video types.

Cons:
* Not the best at capturing a human's entire body, without also capturing much of their surroundings.
* Potentially uncomfortable for the one making the recording to maintain over a long period of time, as most phones were designed for vertical holding.

'''Vertical orientation'''

Pros:
* Supposedly the norm for most users capturing video on their smartphone (thus we should accept it as such).
* Made for mobile devices by design. This means you can quickly post to multiple channels with a single video with no need for complicated editing or tweaking.

Cons:
* Not ideal for capturing the background, as our world is mostly a "horizontal plane".
* Limits techniques you can use, for example it restricts the way you can compose shots, scan the landscape, and present different scenes.

'''Diagonal orientation'''

Pros:
* Not a standard format of video, thus "bold". It's "dynamic" since it can capture significant portions of both human and landscape.
* Equally annoying to all viewers.
* Flawless, as in perfect in every way.{{Dubious}}

Cons:
* None.

The diagonal orientation is similar to the "oblique angle" or "{{w|Dutch angle}}" in cinema, and is often used to portray psychological uneasiness or tension in the subject being filmed. Note that while "Dutch angle" is ''filmed'' diagonally, it is ''projected'' in the classic Horizontal orientation.

'''Circular video'''

Pros:
* Solves the aspect ratio problem, as it will always be 1:1.

Cons:
* The title text quip about non-trustworthy opinions from someone inside a circle could be a nonsense statement, or refer to various things, such as having a demon trapped inside a summoning circle; being spoken to by members of a select or secretive circle of people; HAL 9000 from {{w|2001: A Space Odyssey}}; Loki in The Avengers, who is the god of trickery and is held at one point in a circular cell; an advertising trope where a talking head in a circle is superimposed over images of the product being advertised, usually this is the case in low budget productions for "as seen on TV" products.

==Transcript==

:[The image shows three columns by three rows with the following headers:]
:'''Video Orientation'''
:'''Pros'''
:'''Cons'''

:[First row:]
:[A wide picture with a text above:]
:Horizontal
:[Pros are:]
:*Looks normal to old people
:*Format used by a century of cinema
:[Cons are:]
:*Humans are taller than are wide
:*I'm not turning my phone sideways

:[Second row:]
:[A tall picture with a text above:]
:Vertical
:[Pros are:]
:*How most normal people shoot and watch video now so we may as well accept it
:[Cons are:]
:*Human world is mostly a horizontal plane

:[Third row:]
:[A picture rotated by 45 degrees with a text above:]
:Diagonal
:[Pros are:]
:*Bold and dynamic
:*Equally annoying to all viewers
:*Good compromise
:[Cons are:]
:*None

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Compromise]]
[[Category:Smartphones]]

2118: Normal Distribution

2026-05-13T12:35:09Z

SomebodyElse: /* Explanation */ just linking characters' names

{{comic
| number = 2118
| date = March 1, 2019
| title = Normal Distribution
| image = normal_distribution.png
| titletext = It's the NORMAL distribution, not the TANGENT distribution.
}}

==Explanation==
This is another comic on [[:Category:How to annoy|How to annoy]] people, particularly targeting statisticians in this instance.

[[File:Standard_deviation_diagram.svg|thumb|{{w|Normal distribution}}s and the intervals of the standard deviation are a topic commonly seen in introductory statistics. Randall's chart is similar, but his lines are perpendicular.]]
In statistics, a {{w|Probability distribution|distribution}} is a representation that can be understood in terms of how much of a sample is expected to fall into either discrete bins or between particular ranges of values. For example, if you wanted to represent an age distribution using bins of ten years (0-9, 10-19, etc.), you could produce a bar chart, one bar for each bin, where the height of each bar represents a count of the portion of the sample matching that bin. To turn that bar chart into a distribution, you'd get infinitely many people (technically: a number N which tends to infinity), put them into age bins that are infinitely narrow (technically: bins whose size is O(1/sqrt(N))), and then divide each bin count by the total count so that the whole thing added up to 1. It is common to ask how much of the distribution lies between two vertical lines; that would correspond to asking what percent of people are expected to fall between two ages.

Many statistical samplings resemble a pattern called a "{{w|normal distribution}}". A theoretically perfect normal distribution would have an infinite sample size and infinitely small bins. That would produce a bar chart matching the shape of the curve in the comic.

The area between two vertical lines of the distribution represents the probability that a randomly selected X-value is between the X-values of the lines. [[Randall]] instead finds the area between two ''horizontal'' lines, which is mathematically meaningless, because the Y-axis of a probability distribution is typically taken to represent {{w|absolute magnitude|magnitude}} as a fraction of unity. In the age-distribution analogy above, two points with the same X-value could be understood to represent two people with the same age; but two points with the same Y-value cannot easily be understood in terms of the analogy. The items "represented" by the magnitude at any given horizontal position are indistinguishable, unordered, and interchangeable; the fact that two items happen to fall at the same position on the Y-axis doesn't mean they have anything in common.

In short, Randall has invented a new probability distribution, which the title text humorously implies should be called the ''tangent distribution''. This distribution is defined as follows: consider the area between the curve in the comic and the horizontal axis, and consider a random point (X, Y) uniformly distributed in that region. Then X has the normal distribution and Y has the tangent distribution. Areas between vertical lines in the comic give probabilities concerning X, and areas between horizontal lines in the comic give probabilities concerning Y. The comic correctly indicates that if we let ''R'' be the interval of Y values that is 52.682% of the range of Y centered at the midpoint of the range, then any randomly selected Y value has probability 1/2 of falling inside interval ''R''.

This distribution has never been discussed before, and has no known application. Moreover, the distribution of Y is not symmetric: while 50% of Y values fall inside interval ''R'', 41% fall below ''R'' and only 9% fall above ''R''. So the single piece of information in the comic is not a good way to describe this distribution! We do use such intervals for the normal distribution because the normal distribution is symmetric, and the center of symmetry is the mean, median, and mode. (However, it would be just about as ridiculous to observe that 50% of the X values in a standard normal distribution fall between the vertical lines X=-0.2 and X=1.41.)

The title text refers to the notion of {{w|Normal (geometry)|normals}} and {{w|tangent}}s in geometry. Given a 2D curve or 3D surface, a line which points perpendicularly outward from a point on the curve or surface (making a 90-degree angle with the curve) is said to be ''normal'' to the curve, while a line which just grazes the curve, being exactly parallel to the curve at the point of contact, is said to be ''tangent'' to the curve at that point. The joke is that this geometrical notion of ''normal'' is completely unrelated to the statistical ''normal distribution''. Randall observes that if you take a geometric normal and rotate it 90 degrees, you produce a tangent; thus, if you take the ''normal'' distribution and rotate it by 90 degrees, you must get something called the "''tangent'' distribution." Saying this to a statistician would only annoy the statistician further.

This is annoying to a statistician not only because the terms ''normal'' and ''tangent'' come from differential geometry and have no established meaning in probability theory. Even the word ''perpendicular'' has no established meaning in probability theory. Of course, the x and y coordinates in the comic are perpendicular (orthogonal) coordinates, but X and Y are not "perpendicular" or "orthogonal" random variables. Even if we give "perpendicular" or "orthogonal" a probabilistic meaning, and the most obvious such meaning is either {{w|Independence (probability theory)|independent}}, which even uses a symbol related to the geometric symbol for perpendicularity, or {{w|Uncorrelatedness (probability theory)|uncorrelated}}, which makes X and Y orthogonal vectors in the Hilbert space of random variables that are square integrable with respect to Lebesgue measure, X and Y are not perpendicular in either of these senses.

So the more probability and statistics you know, the more annoying this comic becomes. It is not just about confusing novices.

==Transcript==
:[A bell curve of a normal distribution, with the area between two horizontal lines shaded.]

:[The center of the chart is marked between the two lines:]
:Midpoint

:[The distance between the lines is marked to the right of the midpoint, with the label:]
:52.7%

:[A label on the outside of the graph, describing the distance between the two lines:]
:"Remember, 50% of the distribution falls between these two lines!"

:[Caption below the panel:]
:How to annoy a statistician

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Statistics]]
[[Category:Puns]]
[[Category:How to annoy]]

2117: Differentiation and Integration

2026-05-13T12:33:51Z

SomebodyElse: /* Explanation */ just linking characters' names

{{comic
| number = 2117
| date = February 27, 2019
| title = Differentiation and Integration
| image = differentiation_and_integration.png
| titletext = "Symbolic integration" is when you theatrically go through the motions of finding integrals, but the actual result you get doesn't matter because it's purely symbolic.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic illustrates the old saying [https://mathoverflow.net/q/66377 "Differentiation is mechanics, integration is art."] It does so by providing a {{w|flowchart}} purporting to show the process of differentiation, and another for integration.

{{w|Derivative|Differentiation}} and {{w|Antiderivative|Integration}} are two major components of {{w|calculus}}. As many Calculus 2 students are painfully aware, integration is much more complicated than the differentiation it undoes.

However, [[Randall]] dramatically overstates this point here. After the first step of integration, Randall assumes that any integration can not be solved so simply, and then dives into a step named "????", suggesting that it is unknowable how to proceed. The rest of the flowchart is (we can assume deliberately) even harder to follow, and does not reach a conclusion. This is in contrast to the simple, straightforward flowchart for differentiation. The fact that the arrows in the bottom of the integration part lead off the bottom of the page indicates that "Phone calls to mathematicians", "Oh no" and "Burn the evidence" are not final steps in the difficult journey. The flowchart could be extended by Randall to God-knows-where extents.

It should be noted that Randall slightly undermines his point by providing four different methods, and an "etc", and a "No"-branch for attempting differentiation with no guidelines for selecting between them.

===Differentiation===
'''{{w|Chain rule}}'''

For any <math> \frac{d}{dx}f(x)=f'(x)</math> and <math> \frac{d}{dx}g(x)=g'(x) </math>, it follows that <math> \frac{d}{dx}(f(g(x)))=f'(g(x))\cdot g'(x)</math>.

'''{{w|Power Rule}}'''

For any 𝑓(𝑥) = 𝑘 ⋅ 𝑥𝑎, it follows that 𝑓 '(𝑥) = 𝑘 ⋅ 𝑎 ⋅ 𝑥𝑎−1.

'''{{w|Quotient rule}}'''

For any <math> \frac{d}{dx}f(x)=f'(x)</math> and <math> \frac{d}{dx}g(x)=g'(x) </math>, it follows that <math> \frac{d}{dx} \frac{f(x)}{g(x)}=\frac{f'(x)\cdot g(x)-f(x)\cdot g'(x)}{(g(x))^2}</math> if <math>g(x)\ne 0</math>.

'''{{w|Product rule}}'''

For any <math> \frac{d}{dx}f(x)=f'(x)</math> and <math> \frac{d}{dx}g(x)=g'(x) </math>, it follows that <math> \frac{d}{dx}(f(x)\cdot g(x))=f'(x)\cdot g(x)+f(x)\cdot g'(x)</math>.

===Integration===
'''{{w|Integration by parts}}'''

The "product rule" run backwards. Since <math>(uv)' = uv' + u'v</math>, it follows that by integrating both sides you get <math> uv = \int u dv + \int v du</math>, which is more commonly written as <math>\int u dv = uv - \int v du</math>. By finding appropriate values for functions <math>u, v</math> such that your problem is in the form <math>\int u dv</math>, your problem ''may'' be simplified. The catch is, there exists no algorithm for determining what functions they might possibly be, so this approach quickly devolves into a guessing game - this has been the topic of an earlier comic, [[1201: Integration by Parts]].

'''{{w|Integration by substitution|Substitution}}'''

The "chain rule" run backwards. Since d(f(u)) = f'(u) ⋅ du/dx ⋅ dx, it follows that f(u) = ∫ f'(u) ⋅ du/dx ⋅ dx. By finding appropriate values for functions f, u such that your problem is in the form ∫ f'(u) ⋅ du/dx ⋅ dx, your problem ''may'' be simplified.

'''{{w|Cauchy's integral formula|Cauchy's Formula}}'''

Cauchy's Integral formula is a result in complex analysis that relates the value of a contour integral in the complex plane to properties of the singularities in the interior of the contour. <math> \frac{d^n}{da^n}f(a) = \frac{n!}{2\pi i} \oint_\gamma \frac{f(z)}{\left(z-a\right)^{n+1}}\, dz.</math> It is often used to compute integrals on the real line by extending the path of the integral from the real line into the complex plane to apply the formula, then proving that the integral from the parts of the contour not on the real line has value zero.

'''{{w|Partial_fraction_decomposition#Application_to_symbolic_integration|Partial Fractions}}'''

Partial fractions is a technique for breaking up a function that comprises one polynomial divided by another into a sum of functions comprising constants over the factors of the original denominator, which can easily be integrated into logarithms.

'''Install {{w|Mathematica}}'''

Mathematica is a modern technical computing system spanning most areas. One of its features is to compute mathematical functions. This step in the flowchart is to install and use Mathematica to do the integration for you. Here is a description about the [https://web.archive.org/web/20180727184709/http://reference.wolfram.com/language/tutorial/IntegralsThatCanAndCannotBeDone.html intricacies of integration and how Mathematica handles those]. (It would be quicker to try [https://www.wolframalpha.com Wolfram Alpha] instead of installing Mathematica, which uses the same backend for mathematical calculations.)

'''{{w|Riemann integral|Riemann Integration}}'''

The Riemann integral is a definition of definite integration. Elementary textbooks on calculus sometimes present finding a definite integral as a process of approximating an area by strips of equal width, as in <math>\sum_{i=0}^{n-1} f(t_i) \left(x_{i+1}-x_i\right).</math>, and then taking the limit as the strips become narrower. Riemann integration removes the requirement that the strips have equal width, and so is a more flexible definition. However there are still many functions for which the Riemann integral doesn't converge, and consideration of these functions leads to the {{w|Lebesgue integration|Lebesgue integral}}. Riemann integration is not a method of calculus appropriate for finding the anti-derivative of an elementary function.

'''{{w|Stokes' Theorem}}'''

Stokes' theorem is a statement about the integration of differential forms on manifolds. <math>\int_{\partial \Omega}\omega=\int_\Omega d\omega\,.</math> It is invoked in science and engineering during control volume analysis (that is, to track the rate of change of a quantity within a control volume, it suffices to track the fluxes in and out of the control volume boundary), but is rarely used directly (and even when it is used directly, the functions that are most frequently used in science and engineering are well-behaved, like sinusoids and polynomials).

'''{{w|Risch Algorithm}}'''

The Risch algorithm is a notoriously complex procedure that, given a certain class of symbolic integrand, either finds a symbolic integral or proves that no elementary integral exists. (Technically it is only a semi-algorithm, and cannot produce an answer unless it can determine if a certain symbolic expression is {{w|Constant problem|equal to 0}} or not.) Many computer algebra systems have chosen to implement only the simpler Risch-Norman algorithm, which does not come with the same guarantee. A series of extensions to the Risch algorithm extend the class of allowable functions to include (at least) the error function and the logarithmic integral. A human would have to be pretty desperate to attempt this (presumably) by hand.

'''What the heck is a {{w|Bessel function}}??'''

Bessel functions are the solution to the differential equation x2 ⋅ d2y/dx2 + x ⋅ dy/dx + (x2 - n2) ⋅ y = 0, where n is the order of the Bessel function. Though such functions show up in some engineering, physics, and abstract mathematics, in lower levels of calculus they are often a sign that the integration was not set up properly before someone put them into a symbolic algebra solver.

'''Phone calls to mathematicians'''

This step would indicate that the flowchart user, desperate from failed attempts to solve the problem, contacts some more skilled mathematicians by phone, and presumably asks them for help. The connected steps of "Oh no", "What the heck is a Bessel function?" and "Burn the evidence" may suggest the possibility that this interaction might not play out very well and could even get the caller in trouble.
Specialists and renowned experts being bothered - not to their amusement - by strangers, often at highly inconvenient times or locations, is a common comedic trope, also previously utilized by xkcd (for example in [[163: Donald Knuth]]).

'''Burn the evidence'''

This phrase parodies a common trope in detective fiction, where characters burn notes, receipts, passports, etc. to maintain secrecy. This may refer to the burning of one's work to avoid the shame of being associated with such a badly failed attempt to solve the given integration problem. Moreover, such a poor attempt at integration could be viewed as a 'crime against mathematics', with the working of the problem being criminal 'evidence' that must be destroyed to avoid exposure as the culprit. Alternatively, it could be an ironic hint to the fact that in order to find the integral, it may even be necessary to break the law or upset higher powers, so the negative consequences of a prosecution can only be avoided by destroying the evidence.

'''{{w|Symbolic integration}}'''

Symbolic integration is the basic process of finding an antiderivative function (defined with symbols), as opposed to numerically integrating a function. The title text is a pun that defines the term not as integration that works with symbols, but rather as integration as a symbolic act, as if it were a component of a ritual. A symbolic act in a ritual is an act meant to evoke something else, such as burning a wooden figurine of a person to represent one’s hatred of that person. Alternatively, the reference could be seen as a joke that integration might as well be a symbol, like in a novel, because Randall can't get any meaningful results from his analysis.

==Transcript==
:[Two flow charts are shown.]

:[The first flow chart has four steps in simple order, one with multiple recommendations.]
:DIFFERENTIATION
:Start
:Try applying
::Chain Rule
::Power Rule
::Quotient Rule
::Product Rule
::Etc.
:Done?
::No [Arrow returns to "Try applying" step.]
::Yes
:Done!

[The second flow chart begins like the first, then descends into chaos.]
:INTEGRATION
:Start
:Try applying
::Integration by Parts
::Substitution
:Done?
:Haha, Nope!

:[Chaos, Roughly from left to right, top to bottom, direction arrows not included.]
::Cauchy's Formula
::????
::???!?
::???
::???
::?
::Partial Fractions
::??
::?
::Install Mathematica
::?
::Riemann Integration
::Stokes' Theorem
::???
::?
::Risch Algorithm
::???
::[Sad face.]
::?????
::???
::What the heck is a Bessel Function??
::Phone calls to mathematicians
::Oh No
::Burn the Evidence
::[More arrows pointing out of the image to suggest more steps.]

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Analysis]]
[[Category:Flowcharts]]
[[Category:Math]]

2116: .NORM Normal File Format

2026-05-13T12:31:02Z

SomebodyElse: /* Explanation */ just linking characters' names

{{comic
| number = 2116
| date = February 25, 2019
| title = .NORM Normal File Format
| image = norm_normal_file_format.png
| titletext = At some point, compression becomes an aesthetic design choice. Luckily, SVG is a really flexible format, so there's no reason it can't support vector JPEG artifacts.
}}
The comic image links to a [https://twitter.com/openelex/status/853977391747801088 tweet by OpenElections] that displays an Excel file produced by the City of Detroit.
==Explanation==
[[File:XKCD2116.norm.jpg|thumb|200px|An example of what Cueball might have received.]][[Cueball]]'s friend seems to have sent him a rather unusual datafile passed off as a new "normal" standard. People who work with data, and need data sent to them electronically, typically need it sent in a way that they can easily use it – either in a text format that can be copy-pasted, or as a spreadsheet or CSV file that can be imported into a spreadsheet program, or such.
Information sent by Cueball's friend in this fashion – a photograph of a spreadsheet embedded into a word processing file – is not only aesthetically unpleasing, but essentially useless for any purpose beyond being looked at. The recipient has no choice but to retype the entire data set, or attempt to use optical character recognition (OCR) and hope that no mistakes are made in the process.

Any functional relationships between data (such as formulas used to compute data values) have been lost. Further, the size of the data is bloated by being converted first from numbers and formulas into text, then from text into graphics, and then from graphics to embedded graphics in a word processing document. This adds nothing to the content, and only adds steps to the process of retrieving the data.

However useless this kind of data manipulation might be, it is becoming more and more common, especially as more computer-illiterate people find "creative" ways to exchange information. Usually, their job is getting the data together in a Word file, and the only file they have is a screenshot of the spreadsheet, not the original file, so they just put the screenshot in the Word file. Cueball's friend suggests that this is now a normal way to send files, and that Cueball should update his system to support this new type of file, represented by a ".norm" suffix. In [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/2341 2341: Scientist Tech Help] a .norm like file is referenced. The caption acknowledges that this has become a ''de facto'' standard and that we should just accept and formalize it.

The comic image links to a [https://twitter.com/openelex/status/853977391747801088 tweet by OpenElections] that displays an Excel file produced by the City of Detroit. It contains a lookup table for the city's absentee precincts in 2016. The data had been input as clip art (images) of the values, instead of being entered in the spreadsheet cells. This comic is reminiscent of the comic [[763: Workaround]], which also describes convoluted formats.

The title text suggests that eventually compression (or at least compression with data/quality loss) will be unnecessary as technology improves in the future. SVG ({{w|Scalable Vector Graphics}}) is a vector graphic format that is fundamentally a lossless format, representing images using geometric figures. {{w|JPEG}} is a lossy format, representing images as an array of rectangles approximating the original image. Randall suggests that some people in the future may choose to include JPEG artifacts to SVG vector graphics for its "aesthetics", perhaps as a throwback to when lower quality JPEG images were commonplace, or as a form of {{w|glitch art}}. It is possible that some in the future will view JPEG artifacts as giving their images a quaint/retro feel, much the way that some people today use sepia-tone filters on their images. (And much like some people today use JPEG artifacts to give their images an intentionally low-quality appearance.) The double space before aesthetic, although likely accidental, is possibly a reference to a bug that could arise when using lossy compression.

This is made even more reasonable by the fact that the SVG specification employs a lot of filters and already can embed regular pixel-based JPEG files. Furthermore, it allows JavaScript to be used to manipulate objects, meaning such an effect may be implementable in the current SVG 2.0 specification.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is at a computer. Someone is talking to him from off-panel.]
:Voice: I sent you the data.
:Cueball: Thanks!
:Cueball: …this is a Word document containing an embedded photo you took of your screen with the spreadsheet open.
:Voice: Yeah? Does your computer not support .NORM files? Maybe you need to update.

:[Caption below the panel:]
:Since everyone sends stuff this way anyway, we should just formalize it as a standard.

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Computers]]
[[Category:Spreadsheets]]

==Trivia==
Several days after this comic was released, Microsoft announced support for loading pictures into Excel. A photo of a printed data table shall be converted it into a fully editable table. See: [https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/1/18246429/microsoft-excel-covert-photos-data-tables-editable-table-ai-feature Microsoft Excel will now let you snap a picture of a spreadsheet and import it].

{{comic discussion}}

2115: Plutonium

2026-05-13T12:28:38Z

SomebodyElse: /* Explanation */ just linking characters' names

{{comic
| number = 2115
| date = February 22, 2019
| title = Plutonium
| image = plutonium.png
| titletext = It's like someone briefly joined the team running the universe, introduced their idea for a cool mechanic, then left, and now everyone is stuck pretending that this wildly unbalanced dynamic makes sense.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic pokes fun at the properties of {{w|plutonium}}, claiming that it is so unrealistically powerful that it may as well be random science fiction jargon. Indeed, the ability for a metal to radiate energy sounds impossible. (This comic leaves out the inherent dangers of highly radioactive material.) This is reflected by [[Megan]] and [[Hairy]] treating [[Cueball]]'s idea as a joke.

There are devices that need substantial electrical power over long times – on the order of decades – but local sources of energy are insufficient or unavailable, yet constructing a power line or resupplying them with some power source (like fuel, fresh chemical batteries etc.) is either impossible or overly costly. Such devices include maritime beacons and buoys, automatic weather and science stations located in remote areas, and – most importantly – deep space probes and some planetary probes or science packs. A probe sent beyond Jupiter cannot effectively rely on photovoltaic panels for energy because the great distance to the Sun means that the amount of solar radiation per unit of area is very low, requiring impractically large and thus heavy panels to provide enough energy. Carrying a lot of fuel adds mass to the probe, making it more expensive to launch.

Instead, such devices usually use {{W|radioisotope thermoelectric generator}}s (RTGs). In an RTG the natural radioactive decay of some unstable isotope such as {{w|plutonium-238}} or {{w|strontium-90}} produces a lot of heat. This is used to generate energy using {{W|thermopiles}}, which generate electricity directly from temperature differences using the {{W|thermoelectric effect}}. The key element of an RTG, a pellet of radioactive material such as plutonium dioxide, could be facetiously described as a "power orb" – a lump of a substance that gives out heat apparently from nothing. For example, the {{w|Voyager probes}} used three RTGs, each containing 4.5 kg of plutonium-238, each producing at its peak 2400 W of heat energy, converted to 160 W of electrical energy.

Plutonium-238 must be produced from neptunium-237 in a nuclear reactor. Neptunium-237 in turn is a "waste product" produced in comparatively large quantities (for something that is essentially real life alchemy, that is) by nuclear reactors. One problem is that in irradiated fuel, neptunium-237 will be mixed in with all sorts of other stuff and separating it is neither cheap nor easy — which is why NASA at one point was in danger of running out of it. Unlike some other radioactive materials, the {{W|Alpha decay|alpha radiation}} emitted by plutonium-238 can be relatively harmless, as it is quickly absorbed by surrounding material and turned to heat. But plutonium is still incredibly dangerous if it gets inside a human body unprotected — if the "surrounding material" that turns the alpha radiation into heat is your DNA, you drastically increase your risk for cancer or get {{w|acute radiation syndrome|radiation sickness}}, depending on the dose. In pure form plutonium-238 produces a little more than half a watt of heat per gram, which slowly drops as the material decays to lead, emitting a quarter watt per gram after 100 years. Other disadvantages of RTGs include the risk of contamination in the event of a launch failure, and the relatively limited supply of plutonium.

The title text references development of games. A rule or strategy within a game is often called a ''mechanic'', meant as one particular rule (singular) out of the overall set of rules (game mechanic''s''). In this context, the word ''mechanics'' is a metaphor referring to the set of rules and interactions that govern the imaginary world of the game. The ''mechanics'' of a game define the deterministic or randomized functions of events and/or characters within the game, the outcomes of actions commanded by the players, and so on. This metaphor refers to the {{W|mechanics}} science, and how it describes behavior of physical objects in the real world. However, contrary to real-world mechanics which "just happen" and we try only to describe how things work, in {{W|game mechanics}} every single rule or interaction has to be explicitly defined. The game simulates (to a given extent) an actual world. Game rules do not need to mimic the real world closely and often don't for many reasons; this results in (intended or otherwise) inconsistencies, unexpected behavior or imbalance. Game players complain about “imbalance” when a particular rule, interaction or item present in the game (such as an extremely powerful magical artifact) gives a character exploiting it a great and unjustified advantage. Inconsistencies and possible imbalances can lead to problematic game mechanics being unused or left unresolved, after the creator of those mechanics ceases their participation in the game or game development process.

Things that seem like they shouldn't work but do are the main topic of [[2540: TTSLTSWBD]].

==Transcript==

:[Megan, Hairy, Cueball, and Ponytail are talking.]
:Megan: How will we keep the spacecraft supplied with heat and electricity?
:Cueball: We could use a power orb. They give off thousands of watts 24/7.
:Megan: Huh? How do you recharge it?
:Cueball: You don't. It's just made of a metal that emits energy.
:Megan: OK, come on.
:Hairy: Can we please be serious here?

:[Caption below the panel:]
:For something that's real, plutonium is so unrealistic.

==Trivia==
*{{w|Kerbal Space Program}}, a space simulator game which has been featured in xkcd several times, has its own version of the RTG, running on Blutonium-238. However, due to the lack of a half-life mechanic, the RTG is simply an infinite source power – an actual videogame power orb (however probably not by a person who joined and quickly quit the team). Randall has made many [[:Category:Kerbal Space Program|several references]] to the game.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Space]]

2112: Night Shift

2026-05-13T12:25:06Z

SomebodyElse: /* Explanation */ just linking characters' names

{{comic
| number = 2112
| date = February 15, 2019
| title = Night Shift
| image = night_shift.png
| titletext = Help, I set my white balance wrong and suddenly everyone is screaming at each other about whether they've been to Colorado.
}}

==Explanation==

Many electronic devices have settings to adjust display color and intensity. "{{w|Night Shift (software)|Night shift}}," or similar modes make the display less blue. This may be useful in the evening, since blue light interferes with melatonin, the hormone which regulates the sleep cycle. Exposure to intense blue light in the evening can interfere with becoming sleepy. This comic re-imagines such a mode as influencing the content of messages to encourage sleepiness—or, at least, to dampen [[386: Duty Calls|the emotional response that might keep someone up too late at night]].

In the title text, the reverse has occurred. By setting his {{w|Color balance|white balance}} incorrectly, the opinions that [[Randall]] is reading are more intense, even about "simple" things as having visited Colorado or not (instead of his phone display merely becoming too bluish). This may be a play on {{w|angry white male}}, or similar, which is also characterized by violent expressions of views, and uses the word white. Randall might have meant brightness instead of white balance, with the idea that increasing the amount of light coming from the screen also increases the vehemence of the posts.

This strip then references the fact that on the internet, very few people answer in the singulars of 'Yes' or 'No' or another equally short and definable answer. This may be because there is little perceived value in such a short but factual answer, when you have the opportunity to voice your opinion, sometimes at length. Also in many cultures indirect expression is the norm, or polite; a short direct answer is considered less acceptable, especially in the negative.

==Transcript==
:[Comments with peoples' profile pictures in front of them are shown in white comment boxes on a gray background.]
: Cueball: The Atlantic Ocean is big
:: Ponytail: The Pacific is even bigger
:: Cueball With Full Body Profile Picture (WFBPP): They're both very big

: Megan: A lot of people have TVs
:: Hairbun: Some people don't
:: Megan: Yeah, that's true

: Cueball: 24 isn't a prime number
:: Cueball WFBPP: Neither is 25

: Hairbun: Have you ever been to Colorado?
:: Megan: No
:: Cueball WFBPP: No
:: Cueball: Yeah
:: Ponytail: No

:[Caption below the panel:]
:My phone has a night shift mode to help me sleep, but instead of reducing the intensity of blue light, it reduces the intensity of opinions.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairbun]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]
[[Category:Social networking]]
[[Category:Phones]]

2111: Opportunity Rover

2026-05-13T12:23:44Z

SomebodyElse: /* Explanation */ just linking characters' names

{{comic
| number = 2111
| date = February 13, 2019
| title = Opportunity Rover
| image = opportunity_rover.png
| titletext = Thanks for bringing us along.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic is a tribute to the {{w|Opportunity (rover)|Opportunity rover}} and its nearly 15 year mission in which it sent back publicly available photos and research from Mars to Earth. The evening prior to this comic uploading (Feb 12, 2019), Nasa's JPL sent their [https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/02/opportunity-did-not-answer-nasas-final-call-and-its-now-gone-to-us/ final data request] to the rover, in hopes that it would respond. When it did not, the rover was declared to be officially lost.

The comic starts with [[White Hat]], looking at some people taking photographs and lamenting the fact that they're taking pictures all the time, saying "Kids these days...", a common complaint about younger people by their elders. This could be considered a {{w|Straw man}} argument, as White Hat is lamenting that the younger generation look at the world through their camera phones and thus don't experience it directly, and believe that they lose some of the joy of the event in the process - an opinion he has expressed previously in [[1314: Photos]].

To this [[Randall]] appears to counter that sharing and showing to others is an exciting part of the joy, an opinion which he also expressed as [[Cueball]] in [[1314: Photos]]. He then proceeds to say that the Opportunity of exploring a completely new world is an exciting part of the exploration, and expresses joy in the fact that MER-B Opportunity was able to share its experiences in its 15-year, 45-kilometer journey on Mars with the entirety of humanity.

The comic ends by thanking the Opportunity rover (and NASA) for allowing the general public the incredible experiences it had on Mars in its 15 Earth-year lifetime, to receive the pictures and data, while traversing along hostile terrain for us. The last panel shows some "followers" which represents everyone on Earth listening to the words from the rover as it transmits the incredible experiences it had on Mars in its 15 Earth-year lifetime. Note, perhaps the reference to "dust devil" suggests these may have been the last such descriptions as that may refer to the deadly global dust storm that likely killed the rover and ended the mission. The dust-devils were also likely responsible for the amazing extended missions for both rovers as they tended to blow the accumulated dust off the solar panels.

The title text shows gratitude for the rover, which brought everyone on Earth, including Randall, along in its journey by sending images of the journey to Earth. Also, Randall used to work at NASA (as a robotocist no less), so as much joy as it brought the world at large, it probably felt just a little more personal for him.

The Opportunity rover also appeared in [[1504: Opportunity]], while its twin rover Spirit also had a dedicated comic in [[695: Spirit]].

==Transcript==
:[White Hat is watching while Jill and Cueball in the background hold their smartphones up to use them as cameras. A narrator (Randall) comments with text above them:]
:Narrator: Some people complain that we see the world through our cameras.
:White Hat: Kids these days...

:[Cueball points to the left with his hand while shouting and holding his other hand up near his mouth. Again there is narrating text, both above and below this time.]
:Narrator: But for me, the really exciting part of finding something new
:Cueball: ''Wow, you gotta come see this!''
:Narrator: has always been showing it to others.

:[A black panel shows a space probe approaching a planet. White narrating text is above and below.]
:Exploring an entire new world
:would already be the adventure of a lifetime.
:Imagine having the chance to share every new sight

:[A queue of seven people is seen following a rover driving in front of them on a rock filled landscape. Its track is shown behind it. The people do not leave foot prints though. The rover speaks. At the top of the panel there is a last narrating text inside a small box across the top of the panel. The seven people are Cueball, Jill, Hairy (looking back), another Cueball holding his hand to his chin, Ponytail and finally Megan, who points forward.]
:Narrator: with seven billion friends.
:Rover: ...and here's a trench I dug with my wheel, and here's where a dust devil went ''right'' past me, and over there is the biggest cliff I've ever seen, and this is...

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Jill]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics with inverted brightness]]
[[Category:Photography]]
[[Category:Mars rovers]]
[[Category:Space]]
[[Category:Comics featuring children]]

2106: Sharing Options

2026-05-13T12:14:58Z

SomebodyElse: /* Explanation */ just linking characters' names

{{comic
| number = 2106
| date = February 1, 2019
| title = Sharing Options
| image = sharing_options.png
| titletext = How about posts that are public, but every time a company accesses a bunch of them, the API makes their CEO’s account click 'like’ on one of them at random so you get a notification.
}}

==Explanation==
[[Cueball]] is signing up for {{w|social media}}, represented in the comic as a Virtual Reality cyberspace where humans float through the sky with clouds and talk to a virtual assistant shaped like a talking smartphone device. [[Ponytail]] and other characters can be seen in the background.

The virtual assistant is explaining Cueball's options for sharing information on social media: he can make it available only to those he selects — what most sites call a "Friends Only" option — or he can make it available to everyone — what most sites call a "Public" post — which by nature will unfortunately include various high risk groups.

Many social media sites allow users to control who can see content (posts, pictures, etc.) that users share. Several high profile social media sites have sparked controversy by automatically widely sharing user data, unless the user restricts access. The settings for controlling the sharing of data are not always obvious to the user, or easy to use. Access may be limited to immediate friends, or be available to all users (public); some platforms allow intermediate levels of control.
As most social media sites are free to use, the business model for these companies involves a mixture of selling advertising space on their website and selling data on its users. Targeted advertising takes data on users’ past behavior and things that they have liked, and uses this to predict what adverts they may be interested in or be most vulnerable to. Targeted adverts are more valuable to advertisers as they avoid paying to show adverts to individuals who are unlikely to be interested in their products; but can lead to users feeling that they are being spied on. While the terms and conditions for social media websites will include details of how data will be used, the length of these documents and legal terminology may deter users from reading them, meaning that they may be unaware that their data is being exploited in this way. Regulation has been slow to catch up with changing online trends; however, the European Union have recently introduced {{w|General Data Protection Regulation|General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR)}} which aims to regulate how user data can be shared. GDPR was featured in comic [[1998: GDPR]].

Data from social media may be used for marketing, for law enforcement, {{w|mass surveillance}} and social control, for investigative journalism, for criminal activity, {{w|Confidence trick|confidence games}}, among other things.

{{w|Internet fraud|Internet scammers}} use online information to manipulate people, often to commit fraud. They may acquire personal data using web crawlers to automatically scan social networks for personal information (particularly emails) to scam their owners. Those bots called web crawlers can get the information without scammers' manual browsing of the victims' profile. Those people who set their social network account as public (the 2nd option in the comic) are more likely victims of scammers since they can access their profiles without being the victim's friend or follower.
Other examples of questionable uses for social media on xkcd include [[300: Facebook]].
[[Randall]] is making a point that there ought to be some option between sharing posts only with your friends and making them completely public. The title text shows that he would specifically like to know when corporations read regular peoples' posts.

This also could be a stab at the sharing policies between Facebook and the just-announced end of Google+. Google+ allowed users to create multiple groups called 'circles'. Posts could then be shared by targeting specific circles. For example: "I'm in the hospital" could be shared with just the family circle, but the "I got a promotion" could be shared with the family circle, the co-workers circle, and the general public circle. Facebook provides an option to share with “friends of friends,” leaving the decision about how widely a post is shared not with the posts creator, but with the posts recipients.
The comic is set in the future of VR, yet the fact that Internet companies like Facebook, Tencent and Twitter try hard to collect and sell user data won't change. This may suggests that Randall believe those companies will never reconsider their approach regarding user privacy.

==Transcript==

:[Cueball floating in midair is communicating with a small floating screen that resembles a smartphone. Other people and clouds visible floating by in background.]
:Screen: Welcome to social media! When you put stuff here, you have two options: (1) You can make it available to a small set of 300 or so approved friends.

:[Cueball is still floating and talking with the smartphone. Other people and clouds visible floating by in background.]
:Screen: Or (2) you can share permanent copies of it all with billions of people, including internet scammers, random predatory companies, and hostile governments.

:[In a frameless panel, Cueball has stopped moving and is facing the screen]
:Cueball: Why would anyone pick option two?
:Screen: Two is the default.
:Cueball: Yikes.

:[Cueball is still floating and talking with the smartphone. Other people and clouds visible floating by in background. Cueball has his hand raised]
:Cueball: So those are the only two options? There’s nothing in between?
:Screen: I don’t understand. Like what?

:[Cueball continues floating and talking with the smartphone. Other people and clouds visible floating by in background.]
:Cueball: I mean...there are numbers between 300 and a billion.
:Screen: Huh? Name one.
:Screen: ''Pretty'' sure I would have heard of those.

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

2104: Biff Tannen

2026-05-13T12:11:58Z

SomebodyElse: /* Explanation */ just linking characters' names

{{comic
| number = 2104
| date = January 28, 2019
| title = Biff Tannen
| image = biff_tannen.png
| titletext = I can't help myself; now I want to read a bunch of thinkpieces from newspapers in Biff's 1985 arguing over whether the growth of the region into a corporate dystopia was inevitable.
}}

==Explanation==
[[Cueball]] is expounding a theory to [[White Hat]] regarding the alternate timeline seen in the movie ''{{w|Back to the Future II}}'', in which the character {{w|Biff Tannen}} stole a {{w|DeLorean time machine|time machine}} and used it to travel 60 years into the past to 1955. In that timeline, Future Biff gave his younger self a [https://backtothefuture.fandom.com/wiki/Grays_Sports_Almanac sports almanac] containing 50 years of outcomes of sporting events, which enabled his younger self to earn millions from betting on {{w|horse races}} and other sporting events. The result is that the altered present of 1985 has become a corporate dystopia due to the actions of the exceedingly wealthy Biff and his company, BiffCo.

Cueball's theory is that the people now living in this dystopian 1985 would never know that their timeline was altered; as far as they are concerned, theirs ''is'' the true timeline. Because of this, they would seek to analyze every detail of Biff Tannen's rise to power, inventing their own theories as to his success and arguing with each other over the supporting evidence.

However, in the third panel, it becomes clear that this has all merely been Cueball's elaborate setup for a bad pun, causing White Hat to voice his disapproval.

;''Back to the Future II''
This comic is based on ''{{w|Back to the Future II}}''. In this movie, the character {{w|Biff Tannen}} steals the {{w|DeLorean time machine|time machine}}, which is the main plot device, and uses it to go back in time from 2015 to 1955. He then gives Marty McFly’s [https://backtothefuture.fandom.com/wiki/Grays_Sports_Almanac sports almanac], containing the outcomes of 50 years (1950–2000) worth of sporting events, to his own younger self. His younger self uses this sports almanac to make millions by successfully betting on {{w|horse races}}. He then forms a company, and calls it [https://backtothefuture.fandom.com/wiki/BiffCo BiffCo]. In the movie, the protagonists reverse this, by going back to 1955 and stealing the almanac back soon after Biff delivered it. It is heavily implied that this universe, also called “[https://backtothefuture.fandom.com/wiki/1985A 1985A]” in the movie, stops existing after this change.

The movie is set in the fictional town of {{w|Hill Valley (Back to the Future)|Hill Valley, California}}. When the protagonists return to 1985, they find that Biff has turned the town’s “Courthouse Square” into a 27-story casino, and generally taken over Hill Valley. This has apparently resulted in the town being overrun by armed gangs, and beset by crime, violence, corruption, and an overall atmosphere of quasi-dystopian misery. This is what Cueball refers to as “the decline of the city, and general social decay”.

Further, a newspaper headline seen in that universe reads "{{w|Richard Nixon|Nixon}} to Seek Fifth Term; Vows to End {{w|Vietnam War}} by 1985". Nixon was a notoriously corrupt President of the United States who was involved in a burglary of his political opponents' campaign headquarters (either through directly ordering it or in covering it up), and implicated in various related illegal and unethical activities. He resigned in 1974 after he came to believe he would be be convicted by the Senate and removed from office after he was impeached by the House.

The Vietnam War was a proxy war between the USA and USSR and their respective blocs, characterized by American efforts to eliminate communist-backed insurgents. In reality, real and perceived failures to make progress, and growing domestic opposition to the human and financial costs of the war, led to the withdrawal of all American armed forces by 1973.

This headline in the alternate timeline implies that Richard Nixon remained President until at least 1981. In reality, this would violate the {{w|Twenty-second Amendment|22nd Amendment}}, which limits Presidents to two four-year terms in office; hence, the headline implies that this amendment has been repealed or is being ignored. All of this suggests that the United States government has become much more authoritarian and corrupt in that universe. Further, the continuing Vietnam War would have resulted in millions more deaths and billions more dollars of additional direct and indirect losses than were caused in reality.

;Counterfactuals
Cueball mentions that this universe – that is, the 1985A ''Back to the Future'' timeline – would not have any ''counterfactuals'' to work with. This is often short, in {{w|epistemology}}, for {{w|counterfactual conditionals}}, that is, conditional statements about what ''would'' be true if something ''were'' true that we know for a fact is not true. Randall’s ''[[what if? (blog)|what if?]]'' series is based on counterfactuals, since it explores hypotheticals — conditionals which are contrary to fact. For example, the first “what if?” post, about what would happen if you tried to hit a baseball that was thrown at 90% the speed of light, is a counterfactual, because we know for a fact that a baseball has never been thrown at such a speed{{Citation needed}}. In the case of the 1985A universe, they would not have any information on the ''counterfactuals'', that is, the facts about [https://backtothefuture.fandom.com/wiki/Timeline_1 what would happen] if Biff did not have this almanac.

;''Hillbilly Elegy''
''{{w|Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis}}'' is a book published in June 2016 by {{w|JD Vance}}, who would later become Vice President for Trump's second term (though this was not expected when the comic was published). The book gives an account of growing up in a poor {{w|Rust Belt}} town, and gives a broader, probing look at the struggles of America’s white working class. This comic is a play on the title of this book, which has been described as explaining the “social, regional, and class” issues in white working-class America. The white American working class was a key factor in the {{w|2016 United States presidential election|election}} of U.S. President Donald Trump, and many critics have interpreted the book as an explanation of his election, which was deemed improbable by many analysts before it happened. {{w|Netflix}} had [https://deadline.com/2019/01/netflix-hillbilly-elegy-ron-howard-movie-deal-40m-1202541118/ purchased the rights] to an upcoming film adaptation of the book three days before this comic, prompting another wave of criticism of the book’s theories.

Cueball is proposing a similarly-titled book, set in the ''Back to the Future II'' 1985A timeline, that would describe the supposed factors leading to the rise of Biff Tannen in Hill Valley. In that universe, while the rise of Biff — and the subsequent decay of the city and other issues discussed above — is the result of his using a future sports almanac to cheat at sports betting, the rest of the population would have to guess at the structural societal issues that might have caused these otherwise inexplicable trends. Thus, Cueball compares such blind guessing with the analysis contained in ''Hillbilly Elegy''.

;White Hat’s reaction
This makes [[White Hat]] angry. This may be for various reasons:

* Because it’s such a painfully long setup for a really stupid pun.
* There is a decent chance that the book White Hat is currently reading is ''Hillbilly Elegy''. If he is enjoying it, this would make the joke more insulting to him, as it compares the book to useless theorizing about an event which was really caused by {{w|Time travel|time traveling}}.
* After seeing the similarity alluded to by Cueball between our current reality and a reality where the book ''Hill Valley Elegy'' is written, he might imagine that we may be living in a world in which Trump’s election was {{w|Determinism|predetermined}}, just as Biff’s rise to power was predetermined by time travel. If he opposes Donald Trump politically, it would probably frustrate him to imagine that being optimistic for the future would be in vain, as any social change he might hope for may be simply predetermined not to happen, perhaps by time travelers.

;Relationship to political events
[[Randall]] is known to have [[1756: I'm With Her|supported Hillary Clinton]], the main opponent of Donald Trump, in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, having made a comic just to promote her. This may add to explaining the comic in the following ways:

* Randall may have made this comic to disparage a book which supposedly explains the election of the candidate he opposed, by comparing it to useless (and wrong) theorizing.
* The comic may be intended as an insult to Trump himself, by comparing the {{w|Dystopia|dystopian}} 1985A universe, where Biff rose to power (albeit not as President) to the actual universe, where Trump was elected to the presidency.
* The comic may be an allusion to {{w|Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections|alleged Russian tampering}} of the 2016 U.S. elections: Randall may be proposing that it is futile to attribute Donald Trump’s rise to power to any set of structural societal issues that may have acted indirectly, while ignoring the hidden, speculated, but far more direct cause of foul play, just as it would be futile to analyze Biff Tannen’s rise to power by similar means, ignoring the impact of foul play via time travel and a sports almanac.

The title text continues the comparison to the election situation by mentioning thinkpieces from newspapers that would appear in the ''Back to the Future II'' 1985A universe in which Biff has taken over. Various thinkpieces did appear in real life newspapers in an attempt to explain Trump’s rise to power after his election, and asking whether it was inevitable.

As ''{{w|Back to the Future II}}''’s important [https://backtothefuture.fandom.com/wiki/October_21 October 2015] setting date approached, commentators began noting the similarities between the older version of the character Biff Tannen and then presidential candidate Donald Trump. When the comparison was brought to the attention of the film’s writer, {{w|Bob Gale}}, in an interview, he [https://www.thedailybeast.com/back-to-the-future-writer-biff-tannen-is-based-on-donald-trump# claimed] that elements of Tannen’s personality were actually based on Trump, who was already well known in the late 1980s for his work in real estate and tabloid controversies. Thus, there is a real connection between Biff Tannen and Donald Trump. This supports the comparison between the two made by Randall. That being said, actor {{w|Thomas F. Wilson|Tom Wilson}} has [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4lYCaFx3Og denied] that his performance of the role was in any way based on Trump.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball talks while walking up behind White Hat, who is reading in an armchair.]
:Cueball: You know, in the universe where Biff Tannen took Marty McFly’s sports almanac back in time, the people wouldn’t have any counterfactuals to work with.
:Cueball: Their world would be ''the'' world.

:[In a frame-less panel White Hat turns his head to look at Cueball as he keeps talking.]
:Cueball: They would have spent decades debating which structural problems enabled the rise of BiffCo, the decline of the city, and general social decay.
:Cueball: Everyone would find reasons it confirmed their pet theory.

:[White Hat turns his head back to his book.]
:Cueball: I'm going to write a book set in that universe. I'll call it ''Hill Valley Elegy''.
:White Hat: ... I ''hate'' you.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:Fiction]]
[[Category:Time travel]]
[[Category:Back to the Future]]

2102: Internet Archive

2026-05-13T12:06:59Z

SomebodyElse: /* Explanation */ just linking characters' names

{{comic
| number = 2102
| date = January 23, 2019
| title = Internet Archive
| image = internet_archive.png
| titletext = The fact that things like the npm left-pad incident are so rare is oddly reassuring.
}}

==Explanation==
The {{w|Internet Archive}} is a project that is invaluable for internet research. It is a public archive of information, including public domain books and music. It also runs the {{w|Wayback Machine}}, an archive of backups of web pages all over the Web at various times that can be used to see past versions of a page, even if that site has since shut down. The Internet Archive accepts submissions of any type of information, including new backups of web pages and newly-made public domain content.

[[Ponytail]] and [[Cueball]] first remark upon how weird the concept of the Internet Archive is, commenting that it would seem like an implausible concept if not for the fact that it already existed.

This revisits a point that [[Randall]] made in [[2085: arXiv]]: in the title text for that comic, he wrote,

:''Both arXiv and archive.org are invaluable projects which, if they didn't exist, we would dismiss as obviously ridiculous and unworkable.''

Our culture has an overarching theme of equating profit with success, so when efforts succeed due to inherent public benefit, this can often yield surprise.

They then become more philosophical, and wonder about invaluable systems that are maintained by a just a few individuals, meaning that they could disappear if any of those people stopped doing what they were doing. They relate this to the function of the {{w|human body}}, which does contain many {{w|List of systems of the human body|systems}} whose function and inner workings are unknown to the average person.

Again, as in [[2085: arXiv]], the two try not to "jinx things" by drawing attention to the improbability of this system working perfectly. In arXiv, when Megan exclaims that being able to post research papers as free PDFs on arXiv "makes no sense at all", Ponytail responds, ''"Shhh, you'll jinx it!"'' Here, Cueball tells Ponytail, "Probably best not to think about it." This is ironic as the inclusion of this information in a popular comic like xkcd is drawing attention to it.

As an example of "invaluable systems maintained by just a few individuals", the title text refers to the "[https://blog.npmjs.org/post/141577284765/kik-left-pad-and-npm npm left-pad incident]", a 2016 incident where a package for the {{w|npm (software)|npm}} package manager was removed from the software library by its author. As this particular package was used by many projects, both directly and indirectly, this caused a severe disruption in the software world. Randall is relieved that cases like this do not occur more frequently. This topic appears to stay on his mind for a while, since [[2347: Dependency]] covers a similar theme.

==Transcript==
:[Ponytail and Cueball are walking to the right.]
:Ponytail: The Internet Archive is so weird. If it didn't exist, it would sound totally implausible.
:Cueball: ''Seriously.''

:[Ponytail and Cueball continue walking to the right.]
:Cueball: Do you ever worry about how reliant we are on systems that someone happens to maintain for some reason but which could disappear at any time?

:[Ponytail and Cueball are seen in silhouette from a distance.]
:Ponytail: Yeah - the same thing freaks me out about having a body.
:Cueball: I know, right?? I don't even know what half these parts ''do''!
:Ponytail: And yet if they stop, we die!
:Cueball: Probably best not to think about it.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Biology]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Internet]]

2098: Magnetic Pole

2026-05-13T12:03:43Z

SomebodyElse: /* Explanation */ just linking characters' names

{{comic
| number = 2098
| date = January 14, 2019
| title = Magnetic Pole
| image = magnetic_pole.png
| titletext = People keep trying to come up with reasons that we should worry about the magnetic field collapsing or reversing, but honestly I think it's fine. Whatever minor problems it causes will be made up for by the mid-latitude auroras.
}}

==Explanation==
Over the last couple of months, {{w|Earth's magnetic field|Earth's magnetic fields}} have been [https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-00007-1 shifting rapidly]. Although the magnetic fields do move regularly, the current shift has been unexpected and unprecedented. As many location systems are reliant on the magnetic fields to function, the accuracy of such tools is being shifted beyond the maximum acceptable error. The scientists are therefore updating these tools in order to prevent ships from running aground, similarly to [[2029: Disaster Movie]].

Locational and navigational systems use the magnetic field, combined with a model of field behavior, to do fancy math and pop out data. Because of the rapid shifts, a new model was scheduled to be created; however, the model has been considerably delayed by the {{w|United States federal government shutdown of 2018–2019|US government shutdown}}.

As shifts occur, the error of geopositional data will increase until a new {{w|World Magnetic Model|model}} is released. The effect is especially pronounced as you move toward the poles.

[[Cueball]] is saying that because of the currently published {{w|magnetic declination}} data being slightly incorrect, his {{w|schooner}}s (old merchant sailing ships) may go off-course and crash on {{w|shoal}}s. This is to illustrate how magnetic pole shift doesn't actually affect many people's daily lives. Modern ships' navigation systems do not rely on magnetic pole location – in contrast to old vessels which mostly used a {{w|compass}}. However, airplanes do use compasses readings in determining runway numbers. Thus, northern countries have started to use the {{w|Geographic North Pole}} to determine runway numbers, which could otherwise need recalibration on occasion, as would all the {{w|Quantum compass|not-necessarily magnetic}} flightdeck compasses.

Since the movement is only about two-fifths of a degree, it wouldn't cause much disruption for [[Cueball]] or require him to adjust anything about his lifestyle, but since the speed of the change has been steadily increasing over the past few years, it may mean we are heading for a geomagnetic reversal in the next few decades, something very exciting indeed. During a magnetic reversal, the poles wouldn't just switch places; several different poles would form and interact chaotically, and it's likely that one of them would end up close enough to where [[Randall]] lives to cause auroras to become more common at some point during the transition.

In the title text, Randall mentions that there are reasons people could be concerned, but says that they would be more than made up for by newly being able to experience mid-latitude auroras. Since auroras occur between 10° and 20° from the magnetic poles, the migration of the poles to middle latitudes would cause the auroras to occur there as well; since more people live at middle latitudes than in the Arctic and Antarctic Circles, and since auroras are considered aesthetically attractive,{{Citation needed}} the psychological benefits of the drifting poles might more than make up for the technical difficulties it causes.

==Transcript==
:[White Hat and Cueball are talking to each other. White Hat has a cellphone in his hand, while Cueball is raising his hands in the air in mock exasperation.]
:White Hat: I just read that the Earth's North magnetic pole is drifting rapidly.
:Cueball: Oh no! I must update our declination tables post haste, lest our merchant schooners run aground on the shoals!

:[Caption below the panel:]
:I like when the Earth's magnetic field does weird stuff, because it's a huge, cool, urgent-seeming science thing, but there's nothing I personally need to do about it.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]

2093: Reminders

2026-05-13T11:56:21Z

SomebodyElse: /* Explanation */ just linking characters' names

{{comic
| number = 2093
| date = January 2, 2019
| title = Reminders
| image = reminders.png
| titletext = The good news is that if the number of work and friend relationships you have exceeds your willingness to do the bare minimum to keep up with everyone's life events and stuff, one way or another that problem eventually solves itself.
}}

==Explanation==

In this comic, [[Cueball]] is using an {{w|email client}} program on a laptop, which is a popular tool for communicating by email with others.

In recent years, many email clients have started implementing helpful warnings and reminders to catch common human mistakes and ease the process of communication. One such feature, demonstrated in this comic, is that many clients will now warn you if you've mentioned an {{w|Email attachment|attachment}} in your email but haven't actually attached anything, a common error people make when emailing.

This has gotten to the point where email clients are increasingly stepping in to help with social obligations too; for example, reminding you if [https://gsuiteupdates.googleblog.com/2018/05/gmail-remind-respond.html you've left an email unanswered] for too long, or that someone is celebrating a birthday today and should be congratulated. With the increasing availability of social data and advances in machine learning, these features have the potential to become very sophisticated, to the point that they can effortlessly make social inferences and connections that might have slipped a human user's mind.

Such features are meant to be helpful aids, but have led people to be worried about privacy issues, or about how "smart" technology is becoming. However, in this comic, Cueball (likely representing [[Randall]] himself) has come to the uncomfortable realization that technology is now easily surpassing his own ability to maintain social relationships with other people, by being more aware of his friends' social lives than he is. He is disturbed by how unwittingly unconscientious he has become.

The title text suggests that the problem of keeping up a baseline level of interest in other people's lives eventually solves itself; implying, somewhat darkly, that if you don't put in even the bare minimum effort to keep up, you'll end up with fewer friends as some get annoyed by your lack of interest in their lives.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball at his desk using a laptop.]
:Laptop: You got this email six days ago. Do you want to follow up?
:Cueball: Oh, right, I should do that.
:[Cueball types on laptop.] *type type*
:Laptop: Did you forget the attachment?
:Cueball: Oops, yes.
:Laptop: Today is the recipient's birthday. Did you want to mention that?
:Cueball: Wait, it is?

:[Caption below the panel:]
:These reminders make me uncomfortable, not because computers are getting too smart, but because it reminds me how often I fall short of even baseline levels of conscientiousness.

{{comic discussion}}

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

2093: Reminders

2026-05-13T11:55:27Z

SomebodyElse: /* Explanation */ just linking characters' names

{{comic
| number = 2093
| date = January 2, 2019
| title = Reminders
| image = reminders.png
| titletext = The good news is that if the number of work and friend relationships you have exceeds your willingness to do the bare minimum to keep up with everyone's life events and stuff, one way or another that problem eventually solves itself.
}}

==Explanation==

In this comic, [[Cueball]] is using an {{w|email client}} program on a laptop, which is a popular tool for communicating by email with others.

In recent years, many email clients have started implementing helpful warnings and reminders to catch common human mistakes and ease the process of communication. One such feature, demonstrated in this comic, is that many clients will now warn you if you've mentioned an {{w|Email attachment|attachment}} in your email but haven't actually attached anything, a common error people make when emailing.

This has gotten to the point where email clients are increasingly stepping in to help with social obligations too; for example, reminding you if [https://gsuiteupdates.googleblog.com/2018/05/gmail-remind-respond.html you've left an email unanswered] for too long, or that someone is celebrating a birthday today and should be congratulated. With the increasing availability of social data and advances in machine learning, these features have the potential to become very sophisticated, to the point that they can effortlessly make social inferences and connections that might have slipped a human user's mind.

Such features are meant to be helpful aids, but have led people to be worried about privacy issues, or about how "smart" technology is becoming. However, in this comic, Cueball (likely representing Randall himself) has come to the uncomfortable realization that technology is now easily surpassing his own ability to maintain social relationships with other people, by being more aware of his friends' social lives than he is. He is disturbed by how unwittingly unconscientious he has become.

The title text suggests that the problem of keeping up a baseline level of interest in other people's lives eventually solves itself; implying, somewhat darkly, that if you don't put in even the bare minimum effort to keep up, you'll end up with fewer friends as some get annoyed by your lack of interest in their lives.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball at his desk using a laptop.]
:Laptop: You got this email six days ago. Do you want to follow up?
:Cueball: Oh, right, I should do that.
:[Cueball types on laptop.] *type type*
:Laptop: Did you forget the attachment?
:Cueball: Oops, yes.
:Laptop: Today is the recipient's birthday. Did you want to mention that?
:Cueball: Wait, it is?

:[Caption below the panel:]
:These reminders make me uncomfortable, not because computers are getting too smart, but because it reminds me how often I fall short of even baseline levels of conscientiousness.

{{comic discussion}}

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

2081: Middle Latitudes

2026-05-13T11:35:04Z

SomebodyElse: /* Explanation */ oops - now fixed

{{comic
| number = 2081
| date = December 5, 2018
| title = Middle Latitudes
| image = middle_latitudes.png
| titletext = Snowy blizzards are fun, but so are warm sunny beaches, so we split the difference by having lots of icy wet slush!
}}

==Explanation==
Because of the Earth's axial tilt, the apparent daily path of the Sun through the sky - in particular, how long it takes and how high in the sky it gets - is different depending on how far North or South of the Equator you are (your latitude), and also changes throughout the year as the Earth revolves around the Sun. This fact yields two very important pairs of latitudes:

* {{w|Arctic Circle}} (66°33′North)
* {{w|Tropic of Cancer}} (23°26′North)
and
* {{w|Tropic of Capricorn}} (23°26′South)
* {{w|Antarctic Circle}} (66°33′South)

The latitudes that lie within these two bands are called the {{w|middle latitudes}} - also sometimes referred to as the North Temperate Zone and the South Temperate Zone respectively.

The Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn are the latitudes beyond which, if you go any further from the Equator, it is no longer possible for the Sun to be directly overhead at any time of the year. Similarly, the Arctic and Antarctic Circles represent the latitudes beyond which it is possible for the Sun not to rise or set ''at all'' at some times of the year.

In the middle latitudes - which occur between these extremes - we instead get the rather less impressive phenomenon of daylight simply being a bit longer in summer and a bit shorter in winter.

In the comic, the middle latitudes are sarcastically proffered as a [[:Category:Compromise|compromise]] between two extremes described by [[Cueball]]: day lengths that don't vary that much (as occurs in the torrid zone near the Equator), and no possibility of days with no daylight at all (as occurs in the Arctic/Antarctic zones). However, it is clear that [[Megan]]'s compromise merely results in seasonal weather that has no interesting or useful features at any time of the year. In particular, winter is singled out as a season that is generally just dim and bleak in the middle latitudes, with days that don't last long and are cold and dull anyway.

The title text extends the idea with another spurious compromise, this time between snowy blizzards and warm sunny beaches - both of which are enjoyable in their own ways, but "splitting the difference" and combining the two would result in unpleasant icy slush.

There are other comics that refer to the length of the day, and how it is different each day, for example, [[2050: 6/6 Time]].

==Transcript==
:[Cueball and Megan standing and talking, Megan with her arms raised.]
:Cueball: It would be nice if the sun could rise and set at normal times. But it would also be cool to experience 24-hour darkness for weeks on end.
:Megan: Well, what if we split the difference, so all winter everything was normal but slightly more dim and bleak?
:Cueball: Perfect!
:[Caption below the frame:]
:Middle latitudes are the worst.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Astronomy]]
[[Category:Time]]
[[Category:Compromise]]

2081: Middle Latitudes

2026-05-13T11:34:37Z

SomebodyElse: /* Explanation */ just linking characters' names

{{comic
| number = 2081
| date = December 5, 2018
| title = Middle Latitudes
| image = middle_latitudes.png
| titletext = Snowy blizzards are fun, but so are warm sunny beaches, so we split the difference by having lots of icy wet slush!
}}

==Explanation==
Because of the Earth's axial tilt, the apparent daily path of the Sun through the sky - in particular, how long it takes and how high in the sky it gets - is different depending on how far North or South of the Equator you are (your latitude), and also changes throughout the year as the Earth revolves around the Sun. This fact yields two very important pairs of latitudes:

* {{w|Arctic Circle}} (66°33′North)
* {{w|Tropic of Cancer}} (23°26′North)
and
* {{w|Tropic of Capricorn}} (23°26′South)
* {{w|Antarctic Circle}} (66°33′South)

The latitudes that lie within these two bands are called the {{w|middle latitudes}} - also sometimes referred to as the North Temperate Zone and the South Temperate Zone respectively.

The Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn are the latitudes beyond which, if you go any further from the Equator, it is no longer possible for the Sun to be directly overhead at any time of the year. Similarly, the Arctic and Antarctic Circles represent the latitudes beyond which it is possible for the Sun not to rise or set ''at all'' at some times of the year.

In the middle latitudes - which occur between these extremes - we instead get the rather less impressive phenomenon of daylight simply being a bit longer in summer and a bit shorter in winter.

In the comic, the middle latitudes are sarcastically proffered as a [[:Category:Compromise|compromise]] between two extremes described by [[Cueball]]: day lengths that don't vary that much (as occurs in the torrid zone near the Equator), and no possibility of days with no daylight at all (as occurs in the Arctic/Antarctic zones). However, it is clear that [[Megan's]] compromise merely results in seasonal weather that has no interesting or useful features at any time of the year. In particular, winter is singled out as a season that is generally just dim and bleak in the middle latitudes, with days that don't last long and are cold and dull anyway.

The title text extends the idea with another spurious compromise, this time between snowy blizzards and warm sunny beaches - both of which are enjoyable in their own ways, but "splitting the difference" and combining the two would result in unpleasant icy slush.

There are other comics that refer to the length of the day, and how it is different each day, for example, [[2050: 6/6 Time]].

==Transcript==
:[Cueball and Megan standing and talking, Megan with her arms raised.]
:Cueball: It would be nice if the sun could rise and set at normal times. But it would also be cool to experience 24-hour darkness for weeks on end.
:Megan: Well, what if we split the difference, so all winter everything was normal but slightly more dim and bleak?
:Cueball: Perfect!
:[Caption below the frame:]
:Middle latitudes are the worst.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Astronomy]]
[[Category:Time]]
[[Category:Compromise]]

2075: Update Your Address

2026-05-13T11:26:26Z

SomebodyElse: /* Explanation */ Turning the word "House" blue in House of Leaves

{{comic
| number = 2075
| date = November 21, 2018
| title = Update Your Address
| image = update_your_address.png
| titletext = This is my four-digit PIN. It was passed down to me by my father, and someday I will pass it on to you. Unless we figure out how to update it, but that sounds complicated.
}}

==Explanation==
In this comic, Cueball is facing several instances where entities asking or confirming his address find that the address they possess is incorrect - each address is progressively more outdated. In the final comic, Cueball gives up and confirms that yes, he is still living in a country that hasn't existed for over a century.

Inaccurate addresses may be a common problem for someone who has moved constantly in their lifetime. Alternatively, Cueball and his family do not find it important to update addresses for those particular businesses / entities.

{{w|Austria-Hungary}} was a European empire that existed between 1867 and 1918, {{w|Austria-Hungary#Dissolution|dissolving}} during {{w|World War I}}. It is possible that Cueball's ancestors hail from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, though it would be even more absurd for that to be used as an address, given that the polity ended a century ago, whereas the earliest programmable computer was created 20 years after the country was dissolved and personal/small business computers approximately 40 years after that.

Ash Tree Lane refers to {{w|House of Leaves}}, a postmodern novel from 2000 in which one of many nested plots involves a house on Ash Tree Lane that is bigger on the inside than on the outside, and in fact contains a {{w|labyrinth}} with a {{w|minotaur}}. The book, and Ash Tree Lane specifically, have previously been referenced in [[472: House of Pancakes]], [[827: My Business Idea]], and [[886: Craigslist Apartments]]. Since the house is shown to have supernatural properties, it is not unlikely that it might be able to alter records.

The title text treats bank accounts (and the PIN codes needed to access them) as though they were physical heirlooms passed down generation to generation. The patent for PIN codes was submitted in May 1966, and the first public use of a {{w|Personal identification number|PIN code}} was in 1967, when {{w|Barclays}} used them to process {{w|cheques}} at {{w|automated teller machines}}. It would be unusual for Cueball to inherit both an active bank account and the PIN associated with it -- when a person with a bank account dies, the bank usually closes the account altogether and transfers the money to a separate account of whoever is named the beneficiary. Treating the account number and/or its PIN as though they were physical heirlooms plays into the joke of them not changing through the years (due to the perceived difficulty of updating them).

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is standing and talking on a phone.]
:Voice: Do you still live at 342 River St?
:Cueball: No, I moved last year.

:[Cueball is standing behind a counter with Hairy, whose hands are on a keyboard.]
:Hairy: Is 21 Ash Tree Lane still a good address?
:Cueball: What? That's my childhood home. How is that even in your system?

:[Cueball is talking on a phone again in a borderless panel.]
:Voice: The address we have is 205 Second St #2.
:Cueball: I... think that's where my parents lived before I was born!?

:[Cueball stands behind another counter with Ponytail and a tablet.]
:Ponytail: Are you still living in... "The Austro-Hungarian Empire?"
:Cueball: You know what, sure.
:Ponytail: Austria-Hungary dissolved in 1918.
:Cueball: Well, I come from a long line of people who hate updating stuff.

{{comic discussion}}

Talk:2075: Update Your Address

2026-05-13T11:15:37Z

SomebodyElse:

Just a clarification, the Barclays PIN didn't have anything to do with cheques. You used it to validate a plastic punched card so that the machine would dispense a £20* note in a plastic clip. The card was posted back in a few days. * Ok it might have been £10, a long time ago, even though I was a teenager at the time. BTW in UK we often call ATMs Cashpoints after Lloyds Banks ATM that was the first to use (in UK at least) a returned, Mag stripe card, that contacted the Mainframe in real time : no funds - no cash [[User:RIIW - Ponder it|RIIW - Ponder it]] ([[User talk:RIIW - Ponder it|talk]]) 19:12, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

Living in a town where the core is 30-60th Street and most live on XXXX or XXXXX 10-271 Street/Avenue/Road/Drive/Place has made average US addresses like Cueballs' seem quaint and unscientific.. Also the 5 Main Streets are very minor and not at First or "Zeroth" Street or the center of town. {{unsigned ip|162.158.63.166}}
:Queens? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.131.65|172.70.131.65]] 03:51, 27 October 2023 (UTC)

Given that I'm of the generation born in 1970 whose parents were likely to have both debit cards and pin codes (in fact, I remember begging my mother to let me type the pin code into the "Beep-a-deep machine" when I was very young) and many of my friends and even my wife now have deceased parents, inheriting a pin code sounds plausible to me. Inheriting a bank account is harder, but if the child is a joint account owner, it would be relatively easy to just never tell the bank that the other family member died, as you're still legal owner and have access to all the funds within; and thus, yes, might pass down a pin number to successive generations.[[User:Seebert|Seebert]] ([[User talk:Seebert|talk]]) 16:25, 22 November 2018 (UTC)
:I find the most remarkable thing about this comic strip that a "4-digit" pin is treated as being completely outdated. I know a bank that requires you to change your pin every 3? 6? 12? months. I know that one bank for a time used a 6-digit pin instead of a 4-digit one. And I know of a person who has talked his bank into accepting 16-digit pins for him causing aprehension on all kinds of cashiers. But by the definition of this comic nearly all pins in the world are outdated.--[[User:Gunterkoenigsmann|Gunterkoenigsmann]] ([[User talk:Gunterkoenigsmann|talk]]) 07:22, 23 November 2018 (UTC)
::I'm betting that bank actually just put a note on his account "use first four digits of PIN" & let him spiel out the 12 unused digits afterwards just to placate him. A bank changing their systems to accept longer PINs would likely be quite expensive for them, while most of their users hate remembering even 4 digits at all. And yeah, 4 digits is not enough security for financial transactions; the PIN system is more about maintaining a perception of security than actual fraud prevention, these days. [[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 17:01, 23 November 2018 (UTC)
::I interpreted the title text as a commentary on the difficulty of changing a PIN rather than on them being outdated. Not all banks require their customers to change theirs regularly. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.131.65|172.70.131.65]] 03:51, 27 October 2023 (UTC)
::Most banks in Canada (at least all the ones I've used), allow you to set a 6 digit pin on debit cards only but they warn you that doing this means that you can't use the card in the US and recommend a 4 digit pin instead. I think credit cards are limited to 4 digits but I haven't checked. My assumption is that the limitation is set by the card network. Generally {{w|Interact}} for debit cards and Visa or Mastercard for credit cards but some debit cards are co-branded with Interact and Visa or Mastercard. One of my US credit cards doesn't even have a pin, it does chip and signature which is very weird to me. Banking is for sure a case of {{xkcd|927}} [[User:Brycemw|Brycemw]] ([[User talk:Brycemw|talk]]) 16:17, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

I feel like the House of Leaves description here is off, isn't it an entire thing that there is no confirmed creature within the labyrinth? Maybe I just haven't gotten to the point where it's confirmed yet. [[User:Floof|Floof]] ([[User talk:Floof|talk]]) 12:58, 29 April 2026 (UTC)
:I don't know the answer to your question, but "leaves" needs to be turned blue, and I don't know how. [[User:SomebodyElse|SomebodyElse]] ([[User talk:SomebodyElse|talk]]) 11:14, 13 May 2026 (UTC) SomebodyElse 12:13, 13 May 2026 (UTC)
:: Oops, I meant "house" [[User:SomebodyElse|SomebodyElse]] ([[User talk:SomebodyElse|talk]]) 11:15, 13 May 2026 (UTC)

Talk:2075: Update Your Address

2026-05-13T11:14:31Z

SomebodyElse:

Talk:2073: Kilogram

2026-05-13T11:08:41Z

SomebodyElse:

It's nothing short of a miracle that the US made it to the moon when the imperial system's so ingrained into our culture. Oh, wait, it was a bunch of German scientists who made that possible. Nevermind... Alex

I didn't know that weights and currencies could be converted 1:1, that's cool! [[User:Fabian42|Fabian42]] ([[User talk:Fabian42|talk]]) 16:37, 16 November 2018 (UTC)

I wish they ''had'' redefined the kilogram a little bit. It would have been neat if 1 kg was exactly the weight of 1 dm^3 (1 litre) of water under one atmosphere of pressure. Right now it's soooo close. It's a good enough estimate for simple maths, but whenever you tell people that a litre of water weighs one kilogram the pedants comes out of the woodworks... [[User:Kapten-N|Kapten-N]] ([[User talk:Kapten-N|talk]]) 16:50, 16 November 2018 (UTC)

:Having thought about it, therein lies much of the joke. Originally a kg was 1 dm^3 of water at stp. But it's no longer that, so it is essentially now an arbitrary value. And being an arbitrary value, there's really no principled argument not to just redefine it as a pound. The only argument against redefining it as a pound is practical, and sentimental.[[User:Nccsa186|Nccsa186]] ([[User talk:Nccsa186|talk]]) 19:29, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

:You'll get pedants whenever you refer to a kilogram as weight; it's a mass. The difference is that stuff weighs less on the Moon - or on tall mountains - although the mass is the same. I think the article as I just read it gets away with this. And, sure, what is the standard kilogram but a weight, that you take and weigh... rja.carnegie@excite.com [[Special:Contributions/162.158.91.59|162.158.91.59]] 23:57, 16 November 2018 (UTC)

::It ''used'' to be a mass. Now it's a ratio of the local gravitational strength versus the efficiency of an EM field. Kibble scales require EM shielding & an environment of ''precisely'' 1g, in order to be accurate. Since gravity isn't equal everywhere, our measurements of kilograms will now vary accordingly. [[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 08:36, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

::: No, it doesn't require an environment of precisely 1g, it relies on the fact that the effect of local gravity is well understood, can be measured precisely, and compensated for. It's a fundamental aspect of the Kibble balance and you can rest assured that it hasn't been overlooked by the physicists designing it! [[Special:Contributions/162.158.134.34|162.158.134.34]] 16:38, 17 November 2018 (UTC)
::::Oh really? ''How'' would one precisely measure the local gravity? In kilograms of force? No, sorry. This is a bad method. It leads to an insoluble quandary & clearly either ''hasn't'' been thought through by its supporters, or is an intentional exploit. ''Actually'' fixing it to Planck's constant would be great, but a Kibble scale can't do that. Weighing mass against anything but another mass is foolish.[[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 22:15, 19 November 2018 (UTC)
:::::Local gravity is measured with a gravimeter, which is a kind of accelerometer that also compensates for tidal effects. You can read about it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravimeter [[Special:Contributions/162.158.94.2|162.158.94.2]] 15:32, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

:::I'm very happy that measuring a kilogram accurately now may require EM shielding. EM shielding is far too rare nowadays, in this modern world of far-beyond-van-eck-phreaking. Anything that makes shielding more prevalent and widely understood is sorely needed. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.65.84|172.68.65.84]] 23:19, 20 November 2018 (UTC)
::::Amen to that! - ''Originally sent from inside a Faraday cage, but for some reason it didn't work until I stepped out.''
::::[[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 20:08, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

Up until 1964 a litre (and therefore actually the metre too) used to be defined as the volume that water with mass 1kg takes. But this is not good for exact measurements not only because you need exactly reproducable temperature, pressure (not so problematic, because you can measure them and then calculate the divergence) and gravity (not so easy to measure, because you need an exact mass and exact masses are impossible to keep the same), but also because you need pure water free of any polutions of other stuff (hard and expensive) and even free of tiny amounts of isotopes which are deuterium and tritium (even way more expensive).
Because the water that was used then was never close to pure the actual weight of water nowadays is 0.99997kg at 4°C and 1.013bar and I don't know which value for g. There is also another definition which I like, but is hard to measure in real life scenarios: E=mc². A kilogramm should be 1/c² of the mass which anything becomes heavier that you accelerate by the energy of one Joule. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.90.150|162.158.90.150]] 17:11, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
:But how do you define/measure a Joule then? [[User:Fabian42|Fabian42]] ([[User talk:Fabian42|talk]]) 18:19, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
:No, until 1964, meter and litre were totally independent, a meter has never been defined directly or indirectly in relation to a mass of water. It is only since 1964 that the liter is defined as a cubic decimeter.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.90.36|162.158.90.36]] 18:36, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
::The original proposition for a reproducible unit of mass (after the french Revolution, by Talleyrand) was that of the pound being the mass of a cubic foot of distilled water, Also the ''Grave'' (equal to our kilogram) was defined by the cubic decimetre of water by the French Commission of weights and measures in 1793. ("Le poid du pied cube d'eau étant ainsi connu, on a conclu celui du décimètre cube, ou la nouvelle unité de poids" https://books.google.nl/books?id=FufDNJHvgFEC p.274). So length and mass *were* interlinked by water.
:Also, in E=mc², E is the energy '''at rest''' (for a stationary object of mass m), so your definition using the acceleration makes no sense.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.88.254|162.158.88.254]] 18:47, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
::That's not the original intent of that formula though. The modern formula is E=γmc², where m is the rest mass. But when Einstein wrote m in E=mc², he meant mass as in the measure of how much gravitational force you exert and experience... which in modern terms is γm . These days, E=mc² is only valid if γ=1, which translates to a body at rest. But that's due to the convention regarding what is meant by mass (rest mass or effective mass) changing since that formula was written, not the E being intended to neglect relativistic effects. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.55.112|172.69.55.112]] 22:56, 11 September 2019 (UTC)
Actually, for the new definition of the kilo using the Kibble balance you need to measure the gravity... [[Special:Contributions/162.158.134.16|162.158.134.16]] 17:34, 16 November 2018 (UTC)

Welp, looks like 1 kg, a.k.a. 1 lb, a.k.a 2.2 lb, is now officially defined to have zero mass.
[[Special:Contributions/172.69.50.28|172.69.50.28]] 16:56, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
:…or infinite. [[User:Fabian42|Fabian42]] ([[User talk:Fabian42|talk]]) 16:59, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
::What I understand: the joke is not (only) about 1 (old) kg = 1 (old) lb, but (also) about 1 new kg = 1 old lb... or 1 new lb = 1 old kg :^) Or about a ring of positive characteristic --[[Special:Contributions/188.114.102.94|188.114.102.94]] 17:08, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
:I'm so glad other people see the problem with this supposed "official" definition. We've gone from a unit of measure problematically prone to contamination error, to a unit of measure that changes depending on where you measure it! [[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 08:36, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

what about the ambiguity of the pound? would they reference an Avoirdupois bound or a Troy lb? --wonderkatn {{unsigned ip|172.69.50.16}}

I don't believe the Imperial system is "no longer used". Gills have been retired, but yards and even chains are still in use, not to mention the Imperial <s>lb</s> pint. [[User:Yngvadottir|Yngvadottir]] ([[User talk:Yngvadottir|talk]]) 18:49, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
:The imperial system has some good things about it. Feet are divisible by 12, and Fahrenheit is much nicer for human temperatures. [[User:Linker|Linker]] ([[User talk:Linker|talk]]) 18:55, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
::Yeah, coz it's so easier to divide by 12 than to divide by 10! {{unsigned ip|162.158.89.61}}
:::No it is easier to divide by 2, 3, 4, and 6, and yes, I can divide the number of feet by 10 easily in my head. [[User:SDSpivey|SDSpivey]] ([[User talk:SDSpivey|talk]]) 19:15, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
:::The idea is that with twelve parts, you can have 1/2, 1/3, 1/4, 1/6, and 1/12 all be integer number of parts. This is why these types of systems developed in the past, and why so many systems also had multiples of 60 (you can do the math here.). They were easy to divide by merchants without access to any sort of calculation method. The base-10 system is great if you're only ever dealing with halves or tenths. But if you want a quarter or a third of something, you have to split the base units. It's no longer necessary in modern life, but it had a real advantage in ancient times. [[User:Cgrimes85|Cgrimes85]] ([[User talk:Cgrimes85|talk]]) 19:18, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
:::: No longer necessary in modern life... Which is why we should all switch to base-10 units of time! [[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 08:36, 17 November 2018 (UTC)
::::: Or we could change everything else to base 12... (I can dream, can't I?) [[User:Linker|Linker]] ([[User talk:Linker|talk]]) 18:45, 17 November 2018 (UTC)
:::::: I would love a base-10 time system. Especially since time=money, and money is base-10. Color me surprised a while back when my research led me to find out this had been tried in the past. They had a whole calendar system designed to renumber minutes, hours, days and weeks. I think they went to a 10 day week. Would have worked, too, except for religion. Under the new system, too many people had problems keeping track of every seventh day. SO it was scrapped. --ElectroDFW-- [[Special:Contributions/108.162.238.59|108.162.238.59]] 08:06, 22 November 2018 (UTC)
:::::::"Swatch time" was dangerously close to a sensible set of increments. Agreed that base-10 would be better than what we use now. [[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 20:08, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

Ok, I'm going to point out something. What's a meter? 1000 milimeters. What's a milimeter? .....skipping the questions all the way to the end, the answer is "the wavelength of the color orange". Or at least that's what I read. So my question is: why orange? What's so special about orange? What as a species or as a solar system or as universe does the color orange have to do with anything? [[Special:Contributions/172.68.90.10|172.68.90.10]] 21:50, 16 November 2018 (UTC) SiliconWolf

: Orange is my favorite color. Enough said. Alex

: "The metre was originally defined in 1793 as one ten-millionth of the distance from the equator to the North Pole." That's why orange. Think of those lines from equator to pole... and how an orange is divided in segments beneath the peel. This is why the "Terry's Chocolate Orange" is so called, because it resembles the fruit orange. rja.carnegie@excite.com [[Special:Contributions/162.158.91.59|162.158.91.59]] 23:51, 16 November 2018 (UTC)

: The wavelength definition of the meter is not in use anymore either. Since 1983, the meter is defined as the distance the light (any light) travel in the vacuum in 1/299792458 seconds. Of course, all units have a part of arbitrary, and the value it is used to calculate the meter (the orange color, the 1/299792458 seconds...) are basically chosen because they are close to and more precise than the previous definition that existed, in order to not have to recalibrate things that don't need high precision. [[Special:Contributions/103.22.200.210|103.22.200.210]] 08:03, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

:I feel like we're starting to compare angstroms & millitrumps, here. [[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 08:36, 17 November 2018 (UTC)
::I don't think we need to bring politics in here. [[User:N0lqu|-boB]] ([[User talk:N0lqu|talk]]) 15:16, 19 November 2018 (UTC)
:::Agreed, but all this talk of "orange" makes it very hard not to relate the entire conversation to politics, for some of us who are particularly affected. Hopefully someday it'll just be another color that's hard to rhyme, again.

'''Be very careful'''

An announcement to a new definition of the kilogram is published wildly (I mean what I'm saying) today. Please do not present this issue as a final fact, I'm still missing an official statement -- it's just press hype. And there are two possible definitions taken account, not only the one from the US. The final decision right now looks like some of Randall's compromises. Just sayin... --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 20:01, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
:OK then, here's an after-the-vote November 16 web page from NIST, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, within the US Department of Commerce. It says it's a done deal. [https://www.nist.gov/news-events/news/2018/11/historic-vote-ties-kilogram-and-other-units-natural-constants historic-vote-ties-kilogram-and-other-units-natural-constants]. --JohnB [[Special:Contributions/162.158.79.89|162.158.79.89]] 21:58, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
::Thanks, but my German sources still preset something like counting atoms [https://www.ptb.de/cms/forschung-entwicklung/forschung-zum-neuen-si/ptb-experimente/kilogramm-und-mol-atome-zaehlen.html Kilogram and MOL, counting atoms], just meaning I'm not sure what will be true in May 2019, do we know the truth??? And in fact it looks like Europeans are fighting against US scientists, or vice versa. This is far of a standard I would prefer. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 22:29, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
:::I'm ''extremely'' skeptical of the Kibble scale definition. It won't maintain constant mass at different locations. [[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 08:36, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

It will be very funny when we find out one of those constants is not really constant ... sure, planck length is less likely to change than physical object, but it MIGHT. Like, maybe it gets longer the older the universe is ... -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 23:17, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
:The definition of units is always dependent on our knowledge of physics. Perhaps the best example of this is the confusion about whether the pound is a unit of mass or weight. The lb predates the distinction and the definition bifurcated when the distinction became clear.
:If Planck's constant isn't constant then we get two functionally different concepts of mass and we have to decide if we stick with the new definition or go back to (some equivalent of) the older one.
:By the way the confusion over the definition of a lb was settled long ago. The lb is defined in terms of the kg and is a unit of mass. The claim that the lb is a unit of force is a deliberate obfuscation perpetuated by bad physics teachers who understand neither physics nor the history of physics. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.58|108.162.219.58]] 19:52, 19 November 2018 (UTC)
:Since they're proposing to measure the gravitational force exerted on a unit of mass against the force exerted by an electromagnetic field (instead of comparing the downward force exerted on two masses), the new definition ''isn't'' a constant. For instance, on the moon such a scale would define 1kg as about 13.3lbs! The "new official definition" is a bad one. [[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 08:36, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

You could not define the kilogram in terms of electric force when you defined the Amp in terms of the current that creates a given force. But by defining the amp in terms of numbers of elementary charges per second and setting Avogadro and other constants by fiat, you break the circle. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.38.190|162.158.38.190]] 23:54, 16 November 2018 (UTC)

In the Netherlands, we use the metric system. We also use the term "pond" to mean pound. However, we use metric pounds. Those are 0.500 kilogram, so it is actually easy to use. {{unsigned ip|162.158.89.61}}

US weight and length units definition is strictly based on metric system:
"Standards for the exact length of an inch have varied in the past, but since the adoption of the international yard during the 1950s and 1960s it has been based on the metric system and defined as exactly 2.54 cm."{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inch}
"the most common today is the international avoirdupois pound, which is legally defined as exactly 0.45359237 kilograms" {https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pound_(mass)}
Therefore the conversion proposed sounds recursive.
Also, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmSJXC6_qQ8
[[Special:Contributions/172.68.51.178|172.68.51.178]] 13:49, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

While it would be nice if the meter were equal to a yard, it would certainly be better if the meter were defined as 5.28 feet, so that kilometers and miles are the same.[[User:Mathmannix|Mathmannix]] ([[User talk:Mathmannix|talk]]) 13:54, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

: Not to mention, why are highway sign distances measured in quarter-miles, but our car odometers are tenths? Grrr... --ElectroDFW-- [[Special:Contributions/108.162.238.59|108.162.238.59]] 08:06, 22 November 2018 (UTC)

I'm guessing that they'll get around the varying g problem by defining the kg in terms of some standard acceleration equal to 9.81 m/s^2. Then when measuring an object's mass you would account for the difference between the local value of g and the standard one. This isnt a problem because we can measure gravitational acceleration quite precisely and it depends only on the units of length and time.
[[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.190|108.162.216.190]]Carl[[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.190|108.162.216.190]]
: The varying g problem is already compensated for in the way you describe (otherwise the Kibble balance wouldn't be useful), ProphetZarquon is just spreading misinformation. [[User:Arcorann|Arcorann]] ([[User talk:Arcorann|talk]]) 07:55, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

In the What If "A Mole of Moles," Randall states in his estimates, "Anything I can throw weighs one pound. One pound is one kilogram." [https://what-if.xkcd.com/4/] {{unsigned ip|162.158.75.178}}

Let's see... All the things this proposed change would mess up. (even assuming that Black Hat meant 1 Kilogram = 1 mass-pound)
....
The newton just changed, but only in relation to the KG, so I guess the force required to lift 1 KG in 1 G is still technically about 10 newtons, only it's a DIFFERENT newton now...
atmospheric pressure is no longer ~= to 100 kilopascals, because the pascal just changed.
1 liter of water is no longer ~= to 1 KG.
Metric and imperial Tons are no longer anywhere close to each other.
1 mole of carbon-12 no longer masses 12 grams.
There must be other ways the common rules-of-thumb of the metric system just got broken, any suggestions? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.82|108.162.216.82]] 19:44, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

There is already one link to a Veritasium video on this subject a few coments above, and there was a new video out just before this vote, about the new units: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_e1wITe_ig The kg is dead, long live the kg]. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 15:57, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

The title text actually made me scream in existential horror. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.79.89|162.158.79.89]]Somebody who probably has an account here but can't be bothered to log in.

Someone has to link the pages to Black Hat, Ponytail, Megan, and Cueball the first time each of their names appear -- I don't know how. [[User:SomebodyElse|SomebodyElse]] ([[User talk:SomebodyElse|talk]]) 18:19, 12 May 2026 (UTC) SomebodyElse 17:18, 12 May 2026 (UTC)
:To link to an internal page by exact name, simply put that page name in [[]]s. There's ''slightly'' more complexity if you want to link by some other visible text (put the pipe-symbol then the 'link text' before the closing brackets), but I don't think that's necessary in this case, where the names we see and the page-titles we want to go to are exactly the same. I'll leave it to you (or whoever else wanders by) to do.
:But I would encourage you to look at the source of pages that do things that you think you want to do, somewhere else (or even on the very same page!). It's a good learning experience, and you'll get to understand the fairly understandable markup methods used here and on other wikis. [[Special:Contributions/81.179.199.253|81.179.199.253]] 19:04, 12 May 2026 (UTC)
::Done! [[User:SomebodyElse|SomebodyElse]] ([[User talk:SomebodyElse|talk]]) 11:08, 13 May 2026 (UTC) SomebodyElse 12:08, 13 May 2026 (UTC)

2073: Kilogram

2026-05-13T11:06:44Z

SomebodyElse: /* Explanation */ just linking characters' names

{{comic
| number = 2073
| date = November 16, 2018
| title = Kilogram
| image = kilogram.png
| titletext = I'm glad to hear they're finally redefining the meter to be exactly three feet.
}}

==Explanation==

Standard units such as the kilogram, meter, and second are redefined from time to time as measurement technologies improve. These redefinitions are generally done to improve the precision to which the various units can be known or reproduced, without changing their actual value. The joke here is that redefining the kilogram to equal one pound sounds like an incredible idea to Americans who never use the kilogram. However, this idea would cause mass confusion and outrage, and would additionally fail to improve the precision of the kilogram.

In this comic, [[Black Hat]] announces that the kilogram has been redefined as equal to one {{w|Pound (mass)|pound}}. [[Ponytail]] and [[Cueball]] seem to think this makes things simpler, but [[Megan]] is alarmed. The metric system of measurement is the one used by most of the world and is the standard system used in science. Redefining the kilogram to be equal to the pound would be very disruptive and outrage supporters of the metric system. This is for two reasons. The first is that since the pound and the kilogram are completely different, redefining the kilogram to a new size from before will create a lot of confusion, since now when people read a mass in kilograms they need to work out whether it was written in old kilograms or new (pound-sized) kilograms.

The second reason is that the {{w|Pound (mass)#Current use|current definition}} of the pound relies on the kilogram, as the pound is officially defined as 0.45359237 kilograms. If the kilogram is defined in terms of the pound, which is still defined in terms of the kilogram, then in effect the kilogram is defined in terms of itself. This is illogical, leads to potentially spiralling redefinitions, and does not solve the original problem of increasing the precision of the kilogram measure.

On the day of this comic, the {{w|General Conference on Weights and Measures|General Conference on Weights and Measures}} (which Randall confused with the {{w|International Committee for Weights and Measures|International Committee for Weights and Measures}}) voted to redefine the {{w|kilogram}} by fixing it via the value of {{w|Planck's Constant}}. This is measured using a {{w|Kibble balance}}, which involves passing a measured current through an electromagnet to exert a force to balance 1 kg. The change took effect on May 20, 2019, when the platinum cylinder International Prototype Kilogram that previously defined the unit was retired. This means that the mass of a kilogram is no longer tied to a physical object, but to the fundamental properties of the universe. By fixing the value of Planck constant to 6.62607015×10-34 kg⋅m2⋅s−1, the kilogram is defined in terms of the second and the speed of light via the meter.

The previous method of confirming that a kilogram is accurate is to use physical metal weights measuring exactly one kilogram, periodically transporting them around the world to an official weight lab to confirm they still weigh the same. Over time these physical objects have changed very slightly in their mass making them unreliable in the long run -- thus running into the issue that a kilogram did not stay a constant measure of mass. Note that these weights and comparisons are so precise that a fingerprint on one of the weights could throw them off.

The new method of confirming that a kilogram is accurate relies upon an extremely precise knowledge of local gravitational effects and an absence (or counteraction) of electromagnetic interference. On a traditional scale, two units of equal weight will balance, regardless of local gravitational levels; whereas the new method requires that the gravitational force be determined precisely for every site, meaning an additional measurement has to take place. This involves a high-precision {{w|gravimeter}} such as the FG5 absolute gravimeter.

The title text continues the joke by saying that the meter has been defined as exactly three feet. The yard, the closest US measurement to the meter, is three feet. However, a meter is about 9 centimeters (~3.55 inches) longer than a yard. As with the pound, the metric system is used to define the yard as it is officially defined as 0.9144 meters. This joke recreates the comic in the real world, with [[Randall]] playing as Black Hat, and the reader responding. Those who fall for the claim will either be excited that things are simpler, or devastated at what the result will be.

==Transcript==
:[Black Hat talking to Ponytail, Cueball, and Megan while all stand in a row. Megan's hands are raised emphatically.]
:Black Hat: To end many years of confusion, the International Committee for Weights and Measures has just voted to redefine the kilogram.
:Black Hat: As of next May, it will equal exactly one pound.
:Ponytail: Oh, cool.
:Cueball: That ''does'' make things simpler.
:Megan: '''''No!!'''''

==Trivia==
To further expand on this, the classic definitions of all our various units of time, length, mass, and temperature are based on phenomena that are neither convenient to measure precisely nor in fact consistently reproducible. The duration of an Earth day and year vary unpredictably, the circumference of the Earth varies, the International Prototype Kilogram gains or loses mass any time it is handled (and in fact just sitting there it and its reference copies diverge from each other), and the value of baseline temperatures such as the freezing point of water depend on which isotopes of hydrogen are in the water molecules.

Nevertheless, there really are constants of nature. For example, one of them is ‘''c''’, the speed of light in a vacuum. The expressed value of ''c'' depends on your choice of the unit of distance and the unit of time, but it’s a constant in those units. Now just suppose we all had a reproducible way to define a specific unit of time, which just for fun we call a ‘second’. You might not know the length of a ‘meter’, but if I told you that measured in meters per second the universal constant value of ''c'' is exactly 299792458 meters per second, then I would have fixed the length of a meter to be exactly the distance light travels in a vacuum in 1/299792458 seconds. And in fact this is what the international body responsible for defining our SI units has done.

{{w|Second#"Atomic"_second|One second}} is defined to be a specific number of periods of the radiation emitted in a certain transition of a cesium 133 atom. The specific number was set in the year 1967, so as to match a previous astronomical standard called {{w|Second#Fraction_of_an_ephemeris_year|ephemeris time}} to the limit of human measuring ability at the time. The 1967 definition didn’t change the actual duration of a second, but it did make its measurement forever reproducible.

In 1983 the value of ''c'' was fixed to the value noted above. Prior to that it had been measured with respect to existing definitions of a meter, and had to be expressed with a measure of uncertainty. For example in 1973 a team at the US National Bureau of Standards refined ''c'' to 299,792,457.4 m/s ± 1 m/s. But from 1983 onwards, with an exact integer value for ''c'' that is quite close to that Bureau measurement, the length of a meter is now fixed with no plus/minus uncertainty. Furthermore, both the second and the meter match their predecessor definitions for all intents and purposes.

Similar redefinitions of units of mass and of temperature in terms of universal constants have been agreed to, mass with regard to the Planck constant ''h'', and temperature with regard to the Boltzmann constant ''k''. The constants ''h'' and ''k'' had previously been measured quantities, complete with uncertainties. The SI body fixed both of them to exact values, resulting in exact, no-uncertainty values for a kilogram of mass and a kelvin of thermodynamic temperature. As with the second and the meter, these new definitions match their predecessor definitions for all intents and purposes.

To expand on this even further, three additional universal constants that were previously measured and that had uncertainty values have been assigned fixed values, resulting in exact definitions of three corresponding units of measurement without affecting their applicability. Fixing the unit of elementary charge, ''e'', serves to define the unit of electric current, the Ampere. Fixing the unit of luminous efficacy ''Kcd'' serves to define the unit of luminous intensity, the candela. And fixing the Avogadro constant ''NA'' serves to define the unit of amount of substance, the mole.

A Wikipedia article about redefining the SI units of measure in terms of newly fixed values of things taken to be universal constants is {{w|2019 redefinition of the SI base units}}.

Additionally, it might be worth noting the pound has multiple different types and definitions. The most common definition today is the international avoirdupois pound (lb), which is defined (discarding the semantics) as a unit of mass equal to 0.45359237 kilograms. However the pound is commonly used as to describe force, defined as the force an avoirdupois pound exerts on the Earth (lbf). These definitions however are identical in practical terms, such that an item with 0.45359237 kilograms of mass exerts one avoirdupois pound of force on the Earth. In the SI, the derived unit of force is the newton.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Black Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Physics]]

Talk:2073: Kilogram

2026-05-12T18:19:02Z

SomebodyElse: