explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Talk:3223: Inflation Timeline

2026-03-24T07:56:37Z

User 8496351:

;Sexy?

What about the regular/sexy thing? {{unsigned|2a02:26f7:e344:4000:c000::f}}

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_inflation [[Special:Contributions/155.33.87.241|155.33.87.241]] 19:14, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

:I would say this is an application of the "today's lucky 10,000" concept, but this probably doesn't qualify as a thing that everyone knows by the time they're an adult so the number is probably lower. But I hope this experience of learning something new is still as fun as Coke and Mentos! [[User:Dextrous Fred|Dextrous Fred]] ([[User talk:Dextrous Fred|talk]]) 19:47, 23 March 2026 (UTC)
::Not so sure closing this gap in knowledge would really count as "lucky", but each to their own. [[Special:Contributions/204.77.3.72|204.77.3.72]] 00:07, 24 March 2026 (UTC)
:::definitely not a sentence i expected to read on xkcd. [[user:lett‪herebedarklight|raeb]] 05:33, 24 March 2026 (UTC)
:Since economic inflation is money becoming more worthless and therefore de-facto vanishing, it would be better represented by ''body deflation''. That is - character becoming increasingly more gaunt and skinny, until only pile of bones remain (or if cartoonish, until he becomes thinner than fishing line and collapses into a point). Dunno what sort of weirdo would use images of starving people (e.g. victims of nazi death camps) ''for sexual gratification''. --[[User:User 8496351|User 8496351]] ([[User talk:User 8496351|talk]]) 07:56, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

Talk:1516: Win by Induction

2026-02-11T20:48:03Z

User 8496351:

Is the alt text a reference to double-yolkers (eggs with two yolks)? [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16118149 They're only about 1 in every 1000] but it seems like an obvious reference. --[[User:Fenn|Fenn]] ([[User talk:Fenn|talk]]) 08:32, 24 April 2015 (UTC)
:Makes sense to me. I didn't even think of double yolks until you mentioned it here. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.50.89|173.245.50.89]] 09:04, 24 April 2015 (UTC)BK201
::Seconded. --[[Special:Contributions/188.114.110.52|188.114.110.52]] 14:34, 24 April 2015 (UTC)
:::I'd think it's a reference to the rate of twins, which is currently almost exactly 1/30 (and on the rise) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twin#Statistics] [[Special:Contributions/173.245.56.186|173.245.56.186]] 17:45, 24 April 2015 (UTC)Merkky[[Special:Contributions/173.245.56.186|173.245.56.186]] 17:45, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

The explanation currently says that doubling makes it uncountably infinite. I'm pretty sure that doubling at each step (or every few steps) is still a countable infinite set. Proof here: http://practicaltypography.com/the-infinite-pixel-screen.html (see section "The internet demands a recount", because the first attempt is wrong). We can also prove it using the same argument as when proving that N x N is countable infinite (making zig-zag), but in this case making a breadth-first search of the tree of Pikachus: map 1 to the first Pikachu, map 2 and 3 to the two Pikachus at the second level, map 4, 5, 6, 7 to the four Pikachus at the third level, map (2^(n-1))…((2^n) - 1) to the 2^(n-1) Pikachus at level n. {{unsigned ip|108.162.229.177}}
:Saw this too late. Yes, I agree, and I have fixed it accordingly. --[[User:Stephan Schulz|Stephan Schulz]] ([[User talk:Stephan Schulz|talk]]) 09:28, 24 April 2015 (UTC)
:The problem being that we don't have an exact number for how many steps include double Pikachus. Granted, this is just a problem of practice, not theory. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.50.88|173.245.50.88]] 12:37, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

"infinite, but countable" {Cough.} Someone doesn't understand infinity. Perhaps they meant "enumerable". [[Special:Contributions/108.162.250.155|108.162.250.155]] 09:29, 24 April 2015 (UTC)ū
:Someone doesn't understand countability. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.89.217|141.101.89.217]] 09:46, 24 April 2015 (UTC)
::enumeration is counting, in the simplest sense. "To name one by one; specify, as if in a list". That said, the whole of infinite whole numbers CAN be counted, just not by a human and not within a reasonable amount of time. --[[Special:Contributions/188.114.110.52|188.114.110.52]] 14:34, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

"The front most Pikachu speaks." Hey, look, it has those little lines to show it's speaking, not the blank white space behind it. Duh. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.250.155|108.162.250.155]] 09:32, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

Looks like Megan is looking at her watch as well. Mention in transcript/explanation? [[User:Fenn|Fenn]] ([[User talk:Fenn|talk]]) 09:34, 24 April 2015 (UTC)
:Are Megan and Cueball supposed to fight each other? It seems like Cueball still has his closed Pokéball in his hands. Is it then Megan's Pokéball that has evolved into all these Pikachu? And is it because she waits for her Pokémon to be ready to fight Cueball, that she checks her watch? I do not know anything about the Pokémon game/world. But it seems to me that some part of this setup is unexplained by the above... --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 11:23, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

::I've not seen many anime episodes, but in the games' battles the trainers always face each other from opposing sides. Plus, there are classes of trainers that are two people, so it could be that Megan is simply with Cueball. [[Special:Contributions/188.114.97.151|188.114.97.151]] 18:58, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

Friendly reminder: Grammatically speaking, Pokémon are like sheep or deer. Singular and plural are both written the same. One Pikachu, many Pikachu, all the Pikachu. You'd be surprised at how much rage forgetting this causes in certain corners of the Internet. {{unsigned ip|141.101.99.42}}

What doesn't make sense to me is how this could continue indefinitely – after all, each of those Pikachu must have caught its own Pikachu beforehand. I don't see any infinite loop here, just a bunch of Pikachu that already had one another caught itselves. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.96.217|141.101.96.217]] 10:13, 24 April 2015 (UTC)
:Ah, the immortal quip from Jerry Bona: "The Axiom of Choice is obviously true, the well-ordering principle obviously false, and who can tell about Zorn's Lemma?" [[User:Aube|Aube]] ([[User talk:Aube|talk]]) 05:29, 25 April 2015 (UTC)
::Maybe some Pokemon deity (e.g. "Arceus") has created a pokemon ''already filled'' recursively to infinity. --[[Special:Contributions/172.71.90.86|172.71.90.86]] 18:23, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

The word "induction" could also be intended to have a double meaning, referring also to electromagnetic induction. Pikachu is, after all, and electric pokémon. {{unsigned ip|141.101.105.194}}
:Yes, I think this is right. Something about Maxwell's equations and induction. {{unsigned ip|173.245.54.203}}
::From an engineering standpoint, in my opinion, Pikachu act more like biological capacitors (stored electric charge at potentially high voltage able to deliver large discharge currents) than inductors ("storing" magnetic energy via constant current, able to deliver high voltage when interrupted, like the ignition coil for an older automotive engine). I'm not too familiar with the Pokémon in-game/in-show universe, but I would imagine the Nurse Jenny corps could use electric Pokémon such as Pikachu (or Raichu) like defibrillators for cardiac events! --BigMal // [[Special:Contributions/173.245.50.177|173.245.50.177]] 11:42, 24 April 2015 (UTC)
:::There are certain moves, including some that Pikachu can learn, that appear to be based on induction (Thunder Wave and Shock Wave). Besides, they build up charge in their bodies from somewhere; I'd suspect induction from the surrounding environment is what charges them up. --[[Special:Contributions/188.114.110.52|188.114.110.52]] 14:34, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

There's a point floating about how infinity doesn't imply completion. For instance, the number of all even integers is infinite, yet any given integer "only has a 50% chance of being even", so the series is quite obviously incomplete. This article seems to tend towards the idea (in diction) that an infinite number of pikachu would result in a win based on a 'logical' premise, without referring specificially to the terms of it's assumption. [[User:Xerxesbeat|Xerxesbeat]] ([[User talk:Xerxesbeat|talk]]) 11:38, 24 April 2015 (UTC)
:The observation proceeds from the fact that the cardinality of all even integers is the same as the cardinality of all natural numbers (and the cardinality of all rational numbers). You can say that there are as many even integers are there are integers, conterintuitive as that seems. This, however, has nothing to do with the reasoning behind induction. Suppose that there is a finite number that doesn't correspond with a Pikachu, we can pick the least number for which this is the case (just check all the lower numbers until we find the least non-pikachu number N). But there is a pikachu corresponding to N-1, and it is holding a pokeball with a pikachu. So the pikachu in the pokeball of pikachu N-1 is pikachu N, and we have a contradiction to our supposition. Therefore there is no finite number that doesn't correspond with a Pikachu, QED.[[User:Aube|Aube]] ([[User talk:Aube|talk]]) 05:29, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

What happens if the Pikachu in the ball is recursing - picking himself? That doesn't fit the 30-40 double yolk thing, but would explain an infinite series. Food for thought. Megan is bored, waiting for the fight to start. I thought the game was supposed to begin when the players choose, though, so I don't understand why the wait is happening at all. {{unsigned ip|108.162.221.151}}

I doubt this is an intentional part of the joke, but the strongest Ground-type moves (Earthquake, Precipice Blades, etc.) are multi-target, hitting all foes in a 1v5 situation such as Horde Battles. In theory, a strong enough super effective move from Cueball's lead would still end the battle in one turn. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.56.176|173.245.56.176]] 12:04, 24 April 2015 (UTC)
:Not Land's Wrath, Dig, or Earth Power, which are strong ground-type moves.[[Special:Contributions/173.245.48.126|173.245.48.126]] 13:05, 24 April 2015 (UTC)
::Actually, Land's Wrath is multi-target. (The ones you named are also weaker than Earthquake and Precipice Blades, so the original comment stands regardless. Although a lucky Magnitude is more powerful than any of those.) --[[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.98|108.162.221.98]]

I normally get a hearty chuckle out of Randall's graphical musings, but this one had me scratching my head. Fortunately, ExplainXKCD always comes to the rescue! After reading this page, my first thought was: Pokéception! 13:17, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

This sentence is nonsensical: ''When Trainers do battle, the anime's dub has immersed the phrase "<Pokémon's name>, I choose you!" into popular culture memory, which is accompanied by throwing the ball containing the selected Pokémon to the ground, which releases the Pokémon at full size.'' [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.161|108.162.219.161]] 17:51, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

Should it be noted that the Pikachu is drawn without its tail? It would normally a have lightning bolt shaped tail that appears to the side or from behind its head. (Trivia or other note?) [[User:Azule|Azule]] ([[User talk:Azule|talk]]) 15:22, 24 April 2015 (UTC)
:I agree it looks weird, but can it be written off as it's being obscured by itself? {{unsigned ip|173.245.50.89}}
::I would say not. Look how the left arms are all a bit obscured by the body. This indicates that the Pikachu are turned slightly toward a side view. That would mean the back end would more visible, including the tail. [[User:Azule|Azule]] ([[User talk:Azule|talk]]) 09:34, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

In Pokemon games from Gold and up, pokemon are able to hold items, including pokeballs. While in the game, once a pokeball is filled it is no longer available to select as an item, this comic would seem to imply the possible 'inception' scenario of having a pokemon hold an active pokeball (as the games have already shown that a pokeball can go into a pokeball). --[[Special:Contributions/173.245.54.193|173.245.54.193]] 14:13, 24 April 2015 (UTC)
: ahem... "pokeception" short for "pocket inception" - I can't be the first one to coin this (?) - [[User:Brettpeirce|Brettpeirce]] ([[User talk:Brettpeirce|talk]]) 16:33, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

With Megan looking at her watch and Cueball holding the ball, I think we're meant to understand that Megan IS the Pokémon Cueball intends to use against Pikachu.[[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.153|108.162.221.153]] 19:12, 24 April 2015 (UTC)
:Since Cueball has a closed ball in hand he has yet to choose a Pokemon. Tjus Megan cannot be his. She must have thrown the first Pikachu ball. Should be changed in explanation.[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 20:31, 24 April 2015 (UTC)
It is possible the "win by induction" is from the Pikachu's opponent inferring the series in infinite, and conceding. 19:56, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

Am I missing something or does Randall not quite understand how Pokemon works? (Or is intentionally misrepresenting it for the sake of the joke) Pokemon don't come out with their own pokeball with them-- the pokemon aren't magically created. In theory, if someone were to give a pokemon its own pokemon, a chain could occur, but it would be limited to the number of pokemon previously caught. The pokemon are born in the wild and are captured inside pokeballs-- not created from them. {{unsigned ip|108.162.219.91}}
:If a Pikachu can catch another Pikachu in a Pokéball, then there is no reason why the Pikachu it just caught, did not think about this before, and that it had done the same. So when it was caught and put into the Pokéball, it already had a Pokéball with another Pikachu. Of this has occurred enough times you get the result of this comic. No one said this would go on forever, that is something we have interpreted from the comic. It does not come directly from Randall! --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 05:36, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

Bother this. I send out Quagsire. Use Earthquake. '''Please''' do not wait.[[User:Greyson|Greyson]] ([[User talk:Greyson|talk]]) 05:18, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

No mention of the exponential growth? If every 40th pikachu releases 2 and each of those also release their own pikachu then there is an average growth rate of the pikachu able to release another pikachu of 41/40 = 1.025. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.49.90|173.245.49.90]] 19:48, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

;Induction

Two other possibilities: one, in a bit of googling, it would appear that there is a type of Pokémon evolution called induced evolution, which involves stones of some kind? Alternately, we can use the term induction in the sense of soneone being ''inducted'' into a group. In this case, Megan has trained her Pikachu to be a Pokémaster. (Perhaps by arranging for it to be inducted into a rarified "gym"? I confess, I know nothing about the show.) [[Special:Contributions/173.245.56.196|173.245.56.196]] 13:11, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

:Considering [http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Meowth_(Team_Rocket) Team Rocket's Meowth], which could talk and act just like a human, I think it would be possible for a Pokémon to become a trainer, maybe even fight without a trainer, knowing the intricacies of type effectiveness and what not. Also, the infinite Pikachu could have been made at a Day Care, but that would take an infinite time, and therefore can't be what happened in this comic. [[Special:Contributions/188.114.97.151|188.114.97.151]] 18:58, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

I'm surprised no one mentioned that Pokémon is a game a long time before becoming a show. Although it was because of the animated series that Pikachu became "special" among the hundreds of other cute critters.

Also, no mention to the russian matryoshka dolls? Come on...
Closest other xkcd I recall is https://xkcd.com/878/ {{unsigned ip|198.41.230.68}}

;Axiom of choice

Could this be to do with the {{w|axiom of choice}} from set theory? From my understanding, it's a fundamental axiom of set theory that says 'given a set of sets, it's possible to choose one element from each of those sets'. "Choosing" is in this case a specific operation that can be performed on an element.

One specific detail about the axiom is that all sets under consideration must be nonempty; that is, they must contain at least one element. So I think this is analogous to the situation of a Pokemon trainer owning multiple (full) Pokeballs: his Pokeballs are a collection of non-empty sets from which he is now trying to choose a single element ("Pikachu, I choose you!").

Under ''normal'' circumstances, he can do this without invoking the axiom of choice because he knows the names of all his Pokemon and so can select one from each set. In this case, he could prove his ability to make the choice simply by releasing all of his Pokemon from their balls one at a time. (The Pokemon's name is actually irrelevant, because simply releasing the Pokemon counts as a choice).

However, the situation becomes more complex if it turns out that his Pokemon also possess Pokeballs, because now his ability to make the choice is uncertain. In this situation, there could be ''infinitely many'' Pikachus, and so he can't definitely select a Pikachu from all the Pokeballs under his control. In a situation like this, a mathematician would invoke the axiom of choice.

However, it seems that Cueball is actually having a go at it using an inductive method of choice: first by choosing a Pikachu, then having each Pikachu choose a Pikachu. If the number of Pikachus carrying Pokeballs is finite, then eventually, this will demonstrate that the choice can be made and so the axiom of choice is unnecessary. However, if it's ''infinite'', then this will generate a neverending stream of Pikachus. In the latter case, the game never begins, because you can't begin a Pokemon battle until all participants have chosen Pokemon. Most likely, the other players would simply abandon the game, which Cueball could claim as a victory. [[User:Hawthorn|Hawthorn]] ([[User talk:Hawthorn|talk]]) 13:52, 24 April 2015 (UTC)
:I think you are confused about the AoC. AoC states that given any collection of elements, you can choose an element from EACH set. If you are choosing a pokemon from a collection of pokeballs, it's equivalent to choosing one full pokeball from the collection and you are picking an element from a single set, which doesn't involve the AoC (this is something you can always do as long as the set is non-empty). In the example in the comic, AoC is not needed because there is already a natural ordering (ignoring the alt-text, which would make the set a partial ordering), so it's trivial to construct a choice function for any subset (choose the "least" pikachu in the sequence). On the other hand, if we have infinite pikachus running wild, we would need the Axiom of Choice (preferably its equivalent, the Well-Ordering Theorem) to assert that they can be ordered so that all of them except one is captured in a pokeball held by another pikachu.[[User:Aube|Aube]] ([[User talk:Aube|talk]]) 05:10, 25 April 2015 (UTC)
::I was hoping a real mathematician would get involved. ^^ Do you think that this mathematical definition of 'choice' is the one being referred to in the comic, though? [[User:Hawthorn|Hawthorn]] ([[User talk:Hawthorn|talk]]) 13:47, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

Why don't those Pikachu have tails? Have they been sliced off? Is this some kind of mutation?-🐼🐯😺🐱 {{unsigned|FlyingPiggy}}

Its all moot anyway. Pokemon can't talk but to say their name. [[User:YourLifeisaLie|Yourlifeisalie]] ([[User talk:YourLifeisaLie|talk]]) 14:45, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

:[http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Meowth_(Team_Rocket) Team Rocket's Meowth]... [[Special:Contributions/188.114.97.151|188.114.97.151]] 18:58, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

The 1 in 30 or 40 could be a reference to the fact that twins account for around 1 in 30 child births in the US, following in this vein, induction could be wordplay on the act of inducing labour in pregnant animals. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.69|141.101.99.69]] 21:22, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

Pikachu (the one the main character has) doesn't like living in a Pokeball. Maybe this comic explains why? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.184|108.162.221.184]] 23:29, 30 April 2015 (UTC) <<Why are all the IP addresses wrong?

4th Pokemon movie (Pokémon 4Ever: Celebi - Voice of the Forest; 2001) takes place in the past (relatively to Pokemon anime canon). There is old-fashioned pokeball used by young prof. Oak and it looks similar to one in the comic. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1DWzqUbJE8 Watch that part here.] [[Special:Contributions/141.101.89.222|141.101.89.222]] 17:20, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

Maybe each Pikachu will take exponentially shorter time so the total time is finite like GOD in ''GEB''? For example, with the initial Pikachu taking one moment to summon the next, the meta-Pikachu taking half moment, the meta-meta-Pikachu taking quarter moment. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.22|172.70.86.22]] 22:28, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

Wonder if endless battle clause would apply in this situation. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.209|172.70.90.209]] 18:41, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

Actually, Pokemon are shrinked inside Pokeball - but, presumably, mass is not 0. So, if it were truely infinite number of Pokemon there (or, at least, "sufficiently large" one) - then, it would all collapse into black hole. --[[Special:Contributions/172.71.90.86|172.71.90.86]] 18:23, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

I think, this also takes fun of the fact, that in ''Pokemon'' works, almost no-one figures out to attack the Pokemon Trainers themselves (even if fighting with villains, or on-the-road where Pokemon League rules don't apply). Since, if Pokemon Trainer fainted, then the currently deployed Pokemon would be left without orders and don't know what to do next, and non-deployed Pokemon would be effectively neutralized as Trainer can't deploy them if he's fainted. As such, Cueball and Megan could have won, if they immediately attacked the very first Pikachu encountered before he can deploy the second Pikachu; or alternatively, attack the currently last in line (closes to them) Pikachu before he deploys another Pikachu; or alternatively, use Move which damages all opponent's Pokemon on field. Yet instead, they locked themselves in seemingly infinite loop by not wanting to attack trainers; the only reason to not do it, is that it would likely cause every Pikachu in line to attack, as attacking a trainer (every Pikachu in line is both Pokemon and Trainer) would provoke them to also attack the trainer (Cueball). --[[User:SMGmsgsgd|SMGmsgsgd]] ([[User talk:SMGmsgsgd|talk]]) 08:34, 1 September 2025 (UTC)

On the other hand, since every Pikachu doesn't plan to fight himself and deploys another Pikachu, they're effectually not enemies - since unless one of Pikachus get attacked first, they would just stand there and give orders to each-other, without actually doing anything harmful to Cueball and Megan. As such, Cueball and Megan could just walk away at any moment - as in that case, Pikachus would likely just bicker around, and wouldn't attack even if they chase; multiple Run attempts and fight ends. Or alternatively, Cueball and Megan could try to somehow befriend the first Pikachu in line (furthest form them), therefore ending the fight and having all Pikachus recalled - since said Pikachu would, again, not attack unless he's directly hurt, and could be talked with until he gives up or ceases hostility. --[[User:SMGmsgsgd|SMGmsgsgd]] ([[User talk:SMGmsgsgd|talk]])

Is such or similar situation possible in ''actual canon Pokemon'' universe? That is, Pokemon were shown to be smart enough to communicate with humans and interact with objects, and some have human-like intelligence - so in theory, they could use Pokeballs themselves. And if they could carry their own set of Pokeballs while in Pokeball themselves, they could deploy their own Pokemon ad infinitum (and this doesn't violate the "6 Pokemon in team" rule, as extra Pokemon are members of teams of other Pokemon; human trainer still only has 6 Pokemon ''directly'' controlled by him). While infinitely large amounts of Pokemon would obviously be impossible in practice, using this to deploy a few extra dozens of Pokemon could be possible in theory. --[[User:SMGmsgsgd|SMGmsgsgd]] ([[User talk:SMGmsgsgd|talk]]) 08:34, 1 September 2025 (UTC)
:In other words: "In Pokémon canon, Pokémon are only allowed to hold on to an empty Pokéball when stored in a Pokéball." - but this is ''physical'' restriction (i.e. doing so is impossible) or ''legal'' restriction (i.e. doing so is possible, but forbidden by law or Pokemon League Rules)? Just like with "no more than 6 Pokemon in team" and "no more than 1" rules still being debated over by fans over whether they're ''physical'' or ''legal'' restrictions. --[[User:SMGmsgsgd|SMGmsgsgd]] ([[User talk:SMGmsgsgd|talk]]) 09:40, 1 September 2025 (UTC)

Imagine what happens after battle... If Pokeballs used by Pikachu break in half after use - then, after battle ends, all those Pikachu can't be put back into Pokeballs, ''since they're broken''. So they either walk around in huge mob, or disperse and waddle all around the place. --[[User:User 8496351|User 8496351]] ([[User talk:User 8496351|talk]]) 20:48, 11 February 2026 (UTC)

Talk:3200: Chemical Formula

2026-01-30T13:24:18Z

User 8496351:

I'm disappointed that it wasn't scrollable. [[Special:Contributions/2001:41D0:8:5062:0:0:0:1|2001:41D0:8:5062:0:0:0:1]] 20:20, 28 January 2026 (UTC)
:+1 And funny to think that the universe contains less than a few hundred mol of Americium. --[[Special:Contributions/2001:16B8:CC03:E100:8552:6543:7CF4:9AE7|2001:16B8:CC03:E100:8552:6543:7CF4:9AE7]] 20:57, 28 January 2026 (UTC)
::Time for a campaign to Make Americium Greater? [[Special:Contributions/82.13.184.33|82.13.184.33]] 09:32, 29 January 2026 (UTC)
:::Some people don't understand sarcasm. Pleaze don't give them ideas. [[User:Gorcq|Gorcq]] ([[User talk:Gorcq|talk]]) 12:15, 29 January 2026 (UTC)

If anyone's interested in an accessible resource for getting more data like this, may I suggest https://ptable.com/#Properties/Abundance/Universe (which I believe derives data from IUPAC sources) [[User:Dextrous Fred|Dextrous Fred]] ([[User talk:Dextrous Fred|talk]]) 20:37, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

surprised to see so much Astatine, he himself declared, that stuff doesnt want to exist so I expected yet a few powers of ten less {{unsigned ip|2a00:6020:479f:6c00:d587:ac2a:d1e2:26a9|21:08, 28 January 2026 (UTC)}}

This does make me curious: how would neutronium be represented in a chemical formula? Or would it be? My impression is it kind of exists 'outside' of chemistry... -Kalil [[Special:Contributions/147.81.60.76|147.81.60.76]] 21:12, 28 January 2026 (UTC)
:Neutron stars would be represented with '''n''' with various mass numbers. And there are no more than 1 mmol (6.02214076×1020) of neutron stars. [[Special:Contributions/2001:4C4E:1C09:EC00:7932:264E:A9E0:8ED0|2001:4C4E:1C09:EC00:7932:264E:A9E0:8ED0]] 21:38, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

What about adding mass numbers? For example, most of the hydrogen is 1H, with small amounts of 2H and trace amounts of 3H. [[Special:Contributions/2001:4C4E:1C09:EC00:7932:264E:A9E0:8ED0|2001:4C4E:1C09:EC00:7932:264E:A9E0:8ED0]] 21:38, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

Oh look, it's the 3200th comic! Yay I guess! --'''''[[User:DollarStoreBa'al|DollarStoreBa'al]][[User Talk:DollarStoreBa'al|Converse]]''''' 22:46, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

An unregistered user (198.48.180.159) added a note that the chemical formula "C11H15NO2" (i.e. C11H15NO2) "has 302 registered isomers". I don't know the source for that number or where those isomers are registered. (It's the formula for MDMA, which is, as noted, "not good to eat".) Would that be the CAS registry? [[User:BunsenH|BunsenH]] ([[User talk:BunsenH|talk]]) 23:20, 28 January 2026 (UTC)
: Don't know if this works, but here's a site that does immediately return 302 compounds: https://pubchemlite.lcsb.uni.lu/compounds?query=C11H15NO2 [[Special:Contributions/8.17.60.225|8.17.60.225]] 04:19, 29 January 2026 (UTC)

10^26 atoms of americium is about 40 kg. But it looks like humans produced tons of americium: https://isis-online.org/uploads/isis-reports/documents/np_237_and_americium.pdf
. If there are other civilizations in the observable Universe, then the amount of americium in the Universe is even higher. So I guess the formula counts only naturally produced elements. But even then it seems underestimated. [[User:Alexei Kopylov|Alexei Kopylov]] ([[User talk:Alexei Kopylov|talk]]) 23:45, 28 January 2026 (UTC)
:In everything that I've checked (I expanded the "list of names" into a table), I could ''not'' discover any universal quantity of americium that was close to Randall's apparent source. Can't exclude the possibility that artificially nucleogenesis played a part in his figures (while mine are from how much was created 'naturally'), but I've just had to go along with it being a completely wrong figure (for the ultimate universal ranking). Much as boron might be given slightly mismagnituded.
:However, if anyone thinks they have the same source that led to the comic's values (and can reconfirm beryllium's estimated order of magnitude, which is the ''only'' reason I decided to start on compiling this amount of extended data, which is actually for all 118 humanly known elements), then you're welcome to correct anything that I left in an incorrect state. [[Special:Contributions/81.179.199.253|81.179.199.253]] 00:16, 29 January 2026 (UTC)

...but what if you had a mole of universes? {{unsigned ip|99.109.3.237|00:50, 29 January 2026 (UTC)}}

In the explanation, towards the end of the formula for the universe, it says U₁₀². Would that mean that there are only about 100 uranium atoms in the whole universe? That seems way too low. Did the explainer confuse the powers of 10 with rankings (in reverse)? --[[Special:Contributions/208.59.176.206|208.59.176.206]] 03:48, 29 January 2026 (UTC)
:I'm not sure where the error came from, but about half the numbers are drastically too low. Remember, a mole is 6.02*10^23. [[Special:Contributions/174.94.104.215|174.94.104.215]] 05:34, 29 January 2026 (UTC)
:Fixed. The powers were just in descending order, one by one. The current values reflect the actual amounts, give or take one or two orders of magnitude. --[[User:1234231587678|1234231587678]] ([[User talk:1234231587678|talk]]) 06:04, 29 January 2026 (UTC)
:ok, nvm, i just read that the abundance is according to mass, not actual number of atoms, so half of the numbers are probably wrong :( --[[User:1234231587678|1234231587678]] ([[User talk:1234231587678|talk]]) 04:38, 30 January 2026 (UTC)

In the first paragraph of the explanation it says that the number for helium would be about a third as the number for hydrogen. This seems to compare the total masses for both elements instead of the number of atoms. Hydrogen should account for aprox. 92% of the atoms while Helium is approx. 8%. [[Special:Contributions/2A02:810D:9B99:7800:DECB:CADA:B418:2F1A|2A02:810D:9B99:7800:DECB:CADA:B418:2F1A]] 05:58, 29 January 2026 (UTC)
:A very good point. It seems that some sources just neglect to clearly specify whether they're giving abundance in mass fractions or mole fractions (or relative mass totals/mole totals/etc), so probably where errors crept in. But by looking at H and He, if they are roughly 74% vs 24% then it's probably by mass, and the figures probably need adjusting down by the (typical) Z of that element. (So, a third of the mass should be a twelfth of the number, and 12x8%=96%; not far off being 8% vs 92%, well within the casual rounding errors we have accumulated.) If/when I've time, I'll maybe do suitably adjusted values wherever they're needed, but can't do it immediately. [[Special:Contributions/82.132.239.10|82.132.239.10]] 15:02, 29 January 2026 (UTC)

Re "Other more complex atoms, up to atomic mass 56, formed later ... as a result of stellar nucleosynthesis". Not all of them; there is another way. Boron and Beryllium are produced by cosmic ray spallation, the splitting of heavier atoms by the impact of energetic particles. [[Special:Contributions/2A12:F43:141A:9F00:A0FA:9260:7BAF:8D57|2A12:F43:141A:9F00:A0FA:9260:7BAF:8D57]] 13:16, 29 January 2026 (UTC) dww-uk

How do we count the atoms that all rollled up into a singularity and otherwise vanished from the universe except to leave a big pinch in it that causes weird gravity effects. [[Special:Contributions/130.76.187.47|130.76.187.47]] 13:37, 29 January 2026 (UTC)
:I'd say that's a "hairy" problem. [[Special:Contributions/82.132.239.10|82.132.239.10]] 15:02, 29 January 2026 (UTC)
: Socks?

Off topic, but didn’t Xkcd used to be daily? [[User:Commercialegg|Commercialegg]] ([[User talk:Commercialegg|talk]]) 14:50, 29 January 2026 (UTC)
:Not really.
:There have been 'special weeks', the latest being [[822: Guest Week: Jeph Jacques (Questionable Content)]] to [[826: Guest Week: Zach Weiner (SMBC)]] (with previous all-weekday seqeucnes being "The Race", "Secretary", "1337", "Choices" and "Parody Week"), and a spottier schedule back in the double-digit comics that weren't so strictly (or necessarily restricted to) the M/W/F schedule, and April Fools might come out on the relevent day (although also often on whatever day they were eventually ready!), as per other seasonal comics or ones tied to book-releases/etc.
:Of course, every day ''is'' an xkcd day. As well as ''every day'' there's an xkcd (but of course its generally the same one as came out/should have come out on the prior Monday/Wednesday/Friday release scheduled), and [[1053: Ten Thousand|always something to learn]]... ;) [[Special:Contributions/81.179.199.253|81.179.199.253]] 18:58, 29 January 2026 (UTC)
Synthesis of heavy nuclei occurs in kilonovas (neutron star mergers) as well as supernovas (or perhaps kilonovas are considered a form of supernova). [[Special:Contributions/87.75.45.69|87.75.45.69]] 10:42, 30 January 2026 (UTC)

Universes can hold the most information out of any molecules. As such, they make for a good computation substrate for god-life, fulfilling same role DNA and RNA has for humans. A single god-life being contains more Universes - as per '''''entire whole infinite Universes''''', not just their visible parts - than Universe has quarks inside of it. --[[User:User 8496351|User 8496351]] ([[User talk:User 8496351|talk]]) 13:20, 30 January 2026 (UTC)

Talk:3200: Chemical Formula

2026-01-30T13:20:43Z

User 8496351:

I'm disappointed that it wasn't scrollable. [[Special:Contributions/2001:41D0:8:5062:0:0:0:1|2001:41D0:8:5062:0:0:0:1]] 20:20, 28 January 2026 (UTC)
:+1 And funny to think that the universe contains less than a few hundred mol of Americium. --[[Special:Contributions/2001:16B8:CC03:E100:8552:6543:7CF4:9AE7|2001:16B8:CC03:E100:8552:6543:7CF4:9AE7]] 20:57, 28 January 2026 (UTC)
::Time for a campaign to Make Americium Greater? [[Special:Contributions/82.13.184.33|82.13.184.33]] 09:32, 29 January 2026 (UTC)
:::Some people don't understand sarcasm. Pleaze don't give them ideas. [[User:Gorcq|Gorcq]] ([[User talk:Gorcq|talk]]) 12:15, 29 January 2026 (UTC)

If anyone's interested in an accessible resource for getting more data like this, may I suggest https://ptable.com/#Properties/Abundance/Universe (which I believe derives data from IUPAC sources) [[User:Dextrous Fred|Dextrous Fred]] ([[User talk:Dextrous Fred|talk]]) 20:37, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

surprised to see so much Astatine, he himself declared, that stuff doesnt want to exist so I expected yet a few powers of ten less {{unsigned ip|2a00:6020:479f:6c00:d587:ac2a:d1e2:26a9|21:08, 28 January 2026 (UTC)}}

This does make me curious: how would neutronium be represented in a chemical formula? Or would it be? My impression is it kind of exists 'outside' of chemistry... -Kalil [[Special:Contributions/147.81.60.76|147.81.60.76]] 21:12, 28 January 2026 (UTC)
:Neutron stars would be represented with '''n''' with various mass numbers. And there are no more than 1 mmol (6.02214076×1020) of neutron stars. [[Special:Contributions/2001:4C4E:1C09:EC00:7932:264E:A9E0:8ED0|2001:4C4E:1C09:EC00:7932:264E:A9E0:8ED0]] 21:38, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

What about adding mass numbers? For example, most of the hydrogen is 1H, with small amounts of 2H and trace amounts of 3H. [[Special:Contributions/2001:4C4E:1C09:EC00:7932:264E:A9E0:8ED0|2001:4C4E:1C09:EC00:7932:264E:A9E0:8ED0]] 21:38, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

Oh look, it's the 3200th comic! Yay I guess! --'''''[[User:DollarStoreBa'al|DollarStoreBa'al]][[User Talk:DollarStoreBa'al|Converse]]''''' 22:46, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

An unregistered user (198.48.180.159) added a note that the chemical formula "C11H15NO2" (i.e. C11H15NO2) "has 302 registered isomers". I don't know the source for that number or where those isomers are registered. (It's the formula for MDMA, which is, as noted, "not good to eat".) Would that be the CAS registry? [[User:BunsenH|BunsenH]] ([[User talk:BunsenH|talk]]) 23:20, 28 January 2026 (UTC)
: Don't know if this works, but here's a site that does immediately return 302 compounds: https://pubchemlite.lcsb.uni.lu/compounds?query=C11H15NO2 [[Special:Contributions/8.17.60.225|8.17.60.225]] 04:19, 29 January 2026 (UTC)

10^26 atoms of americium is about 40 kg. But it looks like humans produced tons of americium: https://isis-online.org/uploads/isis-reports/documents/np_237_and_americium.pdf
. If there are other civilizations in the observable Universe, then the amount of americium in the Universe is even higher. So I guess the formula counts only naturally produced elements. But even then it seems underestimated. [[User:Alexei Kopylov|Alexei Kopylov]] ([[User talk:Alexei Kopylov|talk]]) 23:45, 28 January 2026 (UTC)
:In everything that I've checked (I expanded the "list of names" into a table), I could ''not'' discover any universal quantity of americium that was close to Randall's apparent source. Can't exclude the possibility that artificially nucleogenesis played a part in his figures (while mine are from how much was created 'naturally'), but I've just had to go along with it being a completely wrong figure (for the ultimate universal ranking). Much as boron might be given slightly mismagnituded.
:However, if anyone thinks they have the same source that led to the comic's values (and can reconfirm beryllium's estimated order of magnitude, which is the ''only'' reason I decided to start on compiling this amount of extended data, which is actually for all 118 humanly known elements), then you're welcome to correct anything that I left in an incorrect state. [[Special:Contributions/81.179.199.253|81.179.199.253]] 00:16, 29 January 2026 (UTC)

...but what if you had a mole of universes? {{unsigned ip|99.109.3.237|00:50, 29 January 2026 (UTC)}}

In the explanation, towards the end of the formula for the universe, it says U₁₀². Would that mean that there are only about 100 uranium atoms in the whole universe? That seems way too low. Did the explainer confuse the powers of 10 with rankings (in reverse)? --[[Special:Contributions/208.59.176.206|208.59.176.206]] 03:48, 29 January 2026 (UTC)
:I'm not sure where the error came from, but about half the numbers are drastically too low. Remember, a mole is 6.02*10^23. [[Special:Contributions/174.94.104.215|174.94.104.215]] 05:34, 29 January 2026 (UTC)
:Fixed. The powers were just in descending order, one by one. The current values reflect the actual amounts, give or take one or two orders of magnitude. --[[User:1234231587678|1234231587678]] ([[User talk:1234231587678|talk]]) 06:04, 29 January 2026 (UTC)
:ok, nvm, i just read that the abundance is according to mass, not actual number of atoms, so half of the numbers are probably wrong :( --[[User:1234231587678|1234231587678]] ([[User talk:1234231587678|talk]]) 04:38, 30 January 2026 (UTC)

In the first paragraph of the explanation it says that the number for helium would be about a third as the number for hydrogen. This seems to compare the total masses for both elements instead of the number of atoms. Hydrogen should account for aprox. 92% of the atoms while Helium is approx. 8%. [[Special:Contributions/2A02:810D:9B99:7800:DECB:CADA:B418:2F1A|2A02:810D:9B99:7800:DECB:CADA:B418:2F1A]] 05:58, 29 January 2026 (UTC)
:A very good point. It seems that some sources just neglect to clearly specify whether they're giving abundance in mass fractions or mole fractions (or relative mass totals/mole totals/etc), so probably where errors crept in. But by looking at H and He, if they are roughly 74% vs 24% then it's probably by mass, and the figures probably need adjusting down by the (typical) Z of that element. (So, a third of the mass should be a twelfth of the number, and 12x8%=96%; not far off being 8% vs 92%, well within the casual rounding errors we have accumulated.) If/when I've time, I'll maybe do suitably adjusted values wherever they're needed, but can't do it immediately. [[Special:Contributions/82.132.239.10|82.132.239.10]] 15:02, 29 January 2026 (UTC)

Re "Other more complex atoms, up to atomic mass 56, formed later ... as a result of stellar nucleosynthesis". Not all of them; there is another way. Boron and Beryllium are produced by cosmic ray spallation, the splitting of heavier atoms by the impact of energetic particles. [[Special:Contributions/2A12:F43:141A:9F00:A0FA:9260:7BAF:8D57|2A12:F43:141A:9F00:A0FA:9260:7BAF:8D57]] 13:16, 29 January 2026 (UTC) dww-uk

How do we count the atoms that all rollled up into a singularity and otherwise vanished from the universe except to leave a big pinch in it that causes weird gravity effects. [[Special:Contributions/130.76.187.47|130.76.187.47]] 13:37, 29 January 2026 (UTC)
:I'd say that's a "hairy" problem. [[Special:Contributions/82.132.239.10|82.132.239.10]] 15:02, 29 January 2026 (UTC)
: Socks?

Off topic, but didn’t Xkcd used to be daily? [[User:Commercialegg|Commercialegg]] ([[User talk:Commercialegg|talk]]) 14:50, 29 January 2026 (UTC)
:Not really.
:There have been 'special weeks', the latest being [[822: Guest Week: Jeph Jacques (Questionable Content)]] to [[826: Guest Week: Zach Weiner (SMBC)]] (with previous all-weekday seqeucnes being "The Race", "Secretary", "1337", "Choices" and "Parody Week"), and a spottier schedule back in the double-digit comics that weren't so strictly (or necessarily restricted to) the M/W/F schedule, and April Fools might come out on the relevent day (although also often on whatever day they were eventually ready!), as per other seasonal comics or ones tied to book-releases/etc.
:Of course, every day ''is'' an xkcd day. As well as ''every day'' there's an xkcd (but of course its generally the same one as came out/should have come out on the prior Monday/Wednesday/Friday release scheduled), and [[1053: Ten Thousand|always something to learn]]... ;) [[Special:Contributions/81.179.199.253|81.179.199.253]] 18:58, 29 January 2026 (UTC)
Synthesis of heavy nuclei occurs in kilonovas (neutron star mergers) as well as supernovas (or perhaps kilonovas are considered a form of supernova). [[Special:Contributions/87.75.45.69|87.75.45.69]] 10:42, 30 January 2026 (UTC)

Universes can hold the most information out of any molecules. As such, they make for a good computation substrate for god-life, fulfilling same role DNA and RNA has for humans. A single god-life being contains more Universes, than Universe has quarks inside of it. --[[User:User 8496351|User 8496351]] ([[User talk:User 8496351|talk]]) 13:20, 30 January 2026 (UTC)

Talk:3167: Car Size

2026-01-02T19:50:33Z

User 8496351:

It is I, broseph. [[User:Broseph|Broseph]] ([[User talk:Broseph|talk]]) 19:45, 12 November 2025 (UTC)
:MY LETTERS ARE BIGGER THAN YOURS!!! --'''''[[User:DollarStoreBa'al|DollarStoreBa'al]][[User Talk:DollarStoreBa'al|Converse]] 20:15, 12 November 2025 (UTC)
tears of the kingdom be like [[Special:Contributions/128.135.204.243|128.135.204.243]] 20:49, 12 November 2025 (UTC)

Did someone say {{w|Not Just Bikes}}? https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0intLFzLaudFG-xAvUEO-A --[[Special:Contributions/62.0.12.1|62.0.12.1]] 20:50, 12 November 2025 (UTC)

On the (current) closing paragraph of the Explanation, note that (at least where I am) it is illegal to ride a bike on the footway, unless specifically signed and permitted as a shared/split pavement area. As a cyclist, I really wouldn't even want to (or to increase fellow motorists' misconceptions that they exclusively own the road) when it's a perfectly good highway, but 'people on bikes' seem to do what they like and perpetuate such misunderstandings. [[Special:Contributions/82.132.244.30|82.132.244.30]] 21:41, 12 November 2025 (UTC)
:It's illegal here too, and I've added a note to that effect. As a cyclist, I do sometimes ride on sidewalks where sharing a road with cars is just too dangerous, but I try to be extremely cautious in my interactions with pedestrians. They've got the right of way; I don't. [[User:BunsenH|BunsenH]] ([[User talk:BunsenH|talk]]) 23:06, 12 November 2025 (UTC)
::On top of often ill-conceived official cycle/pedestrian paths, I have a mild dislike for "cycle lanes", personally, as a sort of official "we really would prefer you to not be on the road, but we don't know what else to do with you, and it looks good when we add up the amount of 'cycle friendly' routes we have" kind of thing. With awareness (so no plugging your ears with headphones playing your 'tunez') most roads that I might use ''ought'' to be safe to cycle without badly implemented off-road/side-of-road segregation, and an overwhelming amount don't have such provision (riding to a cafe forty-plus miles away and circling round a different way back home, there's surprisingly few no-motor-vehicles opportunities to take).
::Even worse, though, is walking by a road with a 'perfectly good' clearly marked cycle lane (not particularly bad, compared to some instances, clean gutter and no bad grates) and some idiot on a bike rushes past me on the ''pavement'' (i.e. sidewalk), these days it often being an electrically-assisted, near silent bike (courtesy of Deliveroo/whoever), except that he's (assuming 'he', but it's a good chance) zooming past me, slightly ''uphill'', without pedalling at all... Technically, he's riding an electric motorcycle, and going at normal traffic speeds (and wearing a motorcycle-style helmet, so probably no point shouting at him as his ears are covered, if he hasn't also got earbuds in!) and ''definitely'' shouldn't be sharing the pavement with me (on the verge of needing a registration plate and paying insurance/tax for his e-moped).
::Of course, he'll act just as badly when he transitions back on the road, ignoring other traffic rules and barely avoiding become the jam on an asphalt smogasbord, various drivers cursing him and wishing ''all cyclists'' were off the streets. (The same drivers might well sneak through lights themselves, though "if it's quiet and nobody else is there", plus happily exceed the 20/30/40/50/60/70 mph limits on roads whenever they can, and don't have me driving ''at the limit'' in front of them when it's awkward for them to pass...)
::Not saying I'm perfect, but there are idiots out there with everything from no wheels (just two legs) up to perhaps 18-ish or whatever their juggernaut has, engines of whatever type or none, but I hope that I do my bit by being more considerate than most (except when it comes to dealing with inconsideration itself, when I internalise any joy I get about stopping others breaking the law for a few short moments) whether I'm walking, riding or driving. Though always trying to be aware of what the inevitably ever-present idiots out there will be doing. (Well, I couldn't do a thing about the time that a car pulled out in front of the bus I was a passenger in. But neither could the bus-driver, really, from what I could work out. Bus. Small car. Not a battle that I'd want to fight, on inertia alone.)
::Darn... this was not intended to be a holier-than-though rant, when I started, but I still don't regret it starting to go that way one bit... [[Special:Contributions/82.132.245.223|82.132.245.223]] 23:56, 12 November 2025 (UTC)
:::''Starting'' to go that way?! Bro, you went full Jeremy Vine caller. Might I suggest that you grow up and realise that the ones you see are 100% of the ones you see, but that doesn't mean they are 100% of the picture. There is nuance. There are rules that are worth avoiding because that allows cyclists to get out of the way quickly – crossing in a way that a pedestrian is allowed to do, at a speed that a pedestrian can't, for example. Co-exist. High horses are far less welcome than cyclists. [[User:Yorkshire Pudding|Yorkshire Pudding]] ([[User talk:Yorkshire Pudding|talk]]) 17:55, 13 November 2025 (UTC)
::::The marking of a 'red bit of asphalt' ahead of the line that cars are expected to stop at, to give cyclists that little extra space when the lights go green, is useless when motorists don't just drive into that space but seem to think the 'stop line' is where the ''driver'' should position themselves (long bonnet being well over that line, half way across the pedestrian crossing or even out into the road junction).
::::I blame bad driving for that (as a cyclist of decades experience, I have to ride defensively), but bad 'biking' doesn't help.
::::I'd much rather ride across a box-junction ''with'' traffic (when the lights allow) than do the slalom of hopping on and off the pavement 'at will' and either waiting for the pedestrian crossing (''ideally'' a proper Toucan, or even Pegasus, given that you normally should only walk your bike across a Zebra or Pelican/Puffin) or disobeying those lights too, at your own risk and giving inconvenience/annoyance to both wheeled and walking traffic.
::::I have a low opinion of the way 'helpful' cycle-infrastructure has been implemented, and a low (but understandable) opinion of how ignorant people are of the bicycle position in the Highway Code and all relevent laws (see Section 72 of the Highway Act 1835, and all successive legislation, which establishes a bicycle as a road vehicle, and I do not want either my rights or obligations to be eroded, either legally or through misconceptions and misunderstandings).
::::I also know that I can drive at 70mph on a motorway (where there's no lesser limit applied to it by gantry signs and/or contraflow-protection signage) and, though I may be going faster than all HGVs, and possibly someone else happy to tootle along at 60ish (which I'm happy to do, too, but not in an overtaking lane unless its due to all the lanes being congested), there'll be traffic passing me at 80, 90 or maybe more in the outside (or middle!) overtaking lane. The only time it seems motorists will ''not'' exceed the limit (not just for a particular road, having not realised the local limit, but for ''every'' UK road) is where there are Average Speed cameras. (Site-only speed-cameras just have them maybe touch the brakes then speed up again afterwards. I've even been parked by the side of a road, by a 30-sign, and seen the approaching traffic ''really'' slam the brakes on on thinking my car (red) is a speed-trap, then speed back up once the guilty reaction has worn out. Stand in the very same place, inconspicuously and without any car, and nobody does it anything like that (probably going 70+ in the 60-zone, easing off to ''eventually'' 35-40 in the 30-zone).)
::::With the widespread ignoring of such laws, I am of course not surprised that people who may-or-may-not have even passed a driving test (or cycling proficiency test) are riding bikes badly. But I don't have to like it. And (like the title-text's forcing of 'lesser vehicles' off the road), I'd rather not have it rebounding upon those of us who ''aren't'' troublemakers.
::::It ''almost'' wants me to change my mind over the ideas of having "taxed, insured and registration-plated" cycles. But that is what other people suggest, probably to 'restore' the car's supremacy of the road (short-sightedly and ignorant of road-history) by making supposed nuisance-cyclists be made accountable (while they'll be shocked if they're ever stopped from going 30 in a 20-zone, or 90 in a NSL-zone).
::::This is no kneejerk opinion. I've been a cyclist for the best part of five decades (only marginally less than I've been walking, though I was also apparently first taken out in a cycle-trailer as a week-old baby) and a motorist for well over three. I've seen cycling become diminished as an everyday past-time and 'biking' spring up as a more elitish one (MAMILs, etc). And the rise of "Kensington Tractors", in the UK, but luckily it's still not heading inexorably down the comic's story. And if I can do my bit to evangelise for general law-abiding consideration and prick the conscience of ''all'' road users (and pedestrians), without myself causing problems to others (I don't count blocking those who intend to drive faster than my on-the-limit speed, just wait until I'm going slower than that because I don't want to spin off an icy road!), I will do so without apology. It doesn't have to be like that (cycling in Belgium is a dream, better even than the Netherlands, with not too shabby experiences from other countries from Denmark through to France), and really shouldn't be like the US, where even ''walking'' often seems to be an inconvenient eccentricity that's barely tolerated.
::::Ok, more enough of that. Most people reading this will never share the roads with me, anyway, even if you might. And Jeremy Vine has nothing to do with it. (Nor any of the Jeremies 'Kyle', 'Clarkson' or 'Corbyn', in their own ways. "Jeremy Hillary Boob, Ph.D.", ''perhaps''...) [[Special:Contributions/82.132.231.193|82.132.231.193]] 19:41, 13 November 2025 (UTC)
::::: Translation for Yanks-- "''in England, “Kensington Tractors” (referring to expensive 4WD Land Rovers in the city, and Kensington, a posh district in London.)."'' --[[User:PRR|PRR]] ([[User talk:PRR|talk]]) 21:50, 13 November 2025 (UTC)

Pretty good comic [[User:Mathmaster|Mathmaster]] ([[User talk:Mathmaster|talk]])

As someone who lives in the UK, the title text comes across as a comment on the US attitude to jaywalking - where the "solution" to vulnerable road users (pedestrians) being put in danger by careless drivers is to make it illegal for the vulnerable group to using the road at all. US people, is it likely that Randall had something like that in mind?
(Unrelated, but when posting this I got a captcha asking me to identify bicycles...) [[Special:Contributions/87.115.222.218|87.115.222.218]] 00:29, 13 November 2025 (UTC)
:I don't think so. I think he's just joking about not caring about peds at all. --'''''[[User:DollarStoreBa'al|DollarStoreBa'al]][[User Talk:DollarStoreBa'al|Converse]] 00:47, 13 November 2025 (UTC)
: As somebody who's lived in both the UK and the US, the US rules have been far more favorable to pedestrians. While it varies by states US rules have crosswalks at all intersections. US rules have always given pedestrians priority over turning traffic, something only introduced in the UK a few years ago, and still honoured mostly in the breach. And in the US drivers are required to yield to pedestrians even when the pedestrian is jaywalking, while in the UK drivers were taught that they must strive to "make progress" and preemptive slowing down while driving past questionable pedestrians was cause for failing a driving test.[[Special:Contributions/76.180.39.133|76.180.39.133]] 16:52, 21 November 2025 (UTC)

As a German, I take offense to this comic. ONLY CARS WILL SURVIVE THE APOCALYPSE! [[Special:Contributions/2A02:2455:1960:4000:652A:12CB:761D:93F6|2A02:2455:1960:4000:652A:12CB:761D:93F6]] 08:45, 13 November 2025 (UTC)

The comic is a typical example of US-centric views. Car ownership in Europe was much lower 50 years ago than in the US. Most people were still stuck in the first panel.--[[Special:Contributions/2001:638:807:507:B425:E1E7:68BD:B213|2001:638:807:507:B425:E1E7:68BD:B213]] 10:08, 13 November 2025 (UTC)
:...Because Randall is American? --'''''[[User:DollarStoreBa'al|DollarStoreBa'al]][[User Talk:DollarStoreBa'al|Converse]] 14:34, 13 November 2025 (UTC)
:Europe has been catching up to the US. In 1995, SUV sales were only 2%, but they were 54% in 2024. This is just a little lower than the US 58%. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 15:17, 13 November 2025 (UTC)
:the concept of people buying bigger cars is western-centric in general. [[user:lett‪herebedarklight|raeb]] 01:32, 14 November 2025 (UTC)

For those of you who keep a eX-Twitter account, someone posted a similar take that was so hilariously self-unaware: https://x.com/jerimiahlee/status/1758883775642059265 that people started one-upping him with larger and larger vehicles in quote posts, sometimes veering in chains that ended up with fictional vehicles, but my personal favorite on one-upmanship was the one who posted an image of a Takraf strip mine excavator… https://x.com/carl___spackler/status/1759646389376852009 [[Special:Contributions/89.83.116.217|89.83.116.217]] 15:17, 13 November 2025 (UTC) Pierre Lebeaupin

I realize this is US-specific, but the comic completely ignores the fact that vehicle manufacturers are incentivized by the US Government to increase the size of the cars they design, since the CAFE standards are graduated based on vehicle size. Larger vehicles are allowed to get lower MPG, so the bigger the vehicle you design, the less you have to worry about making it efficient. In fact, it's difficult to find a small vehicle for sale in the US. [[Special:Contributions/136.226.7.177|136.226.7.177]] 04:19, 14 November 2025 (UTC)

Renault Twingo ? So I followed the link, and this is pretty obviously a gag video. Now I know I'm not hip and with it on all the best memes, but I don't see how this helps explain the comic, or is actually relevant or noteworthy. [[Special:Contributions/104.129.192.105|104.129.192.105]] 19:00, 13 November 2025 (UTC)
: I think you've answered your own question - it's there as a gag. And it is lampooning exactly the kind of sales talk that helps drive the trend in the comic. [[Special:Contributions/82.13.184.33|82.13.184.33]] 10:52, 14 November 2025 (UTC)
:I second. I don't feel it helps explain the comic, or is actually relevant or noteworthy. [[User:OrwellFan|OrwellFan]] ([[User talk:OrwellFan|talk]]) 01:52, 15 November 2025 (UTC)

It should be noted that some electric scooters can reach speeds in excess of 80 km/h, which makes them a really serious threat to pedestrians or bicycles. (but less so than to the rider, obviously) {{unsigned ip|176.138.186.7|18:02, 14 November 2025 (UTC)}}

"This would almost certainly never happen in real life"... have you never seen spiked lug nuts? (Technically, spiked lug nut *covers*.) They seem to be standard on long haul trucks around here. [[Special:Contributions/2600:1700:9DA3:8040:684C:E1EE:D1AD:89AD|2600:1700:9DA3:8040:684C:E1EE:D1AD:89AD]] 22:07, 14 November 2025 (UTC)
:Again, I second. [[User:OrwellFan|OrwellFan]] ([[User talk:OrwellFan|talk]]) 01:52, 15 November 2025 (UTC)
:I have thought about adding spikes (fake and/or soft) to my car to keep other drivers from getting too close. Especially if they are following too close and I decide to slam my brakes. [[User:SDSpivey|SDSpivey]] ([[User talk:SDSpivey|talk]]) 04:50, 16 November 2025 (UTC)
Does randal reference https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carcinisation with the alttext? ---- {{unsigned ip|2a00:fbc:f303:76a5::2|18:49, 17 November 2025 (UTC)}}

Usually Randall’s comics are well-researched, but the historical examples in this one seem ludicrous. Can anyone confirm whether this is accurate at all? [[Special:Contributions/76.131.222.161|76.131.222.161]] 21:32, 20 November 2025 (UTC)
:Well, the '100 years ago' car is a bit ancient-looking. Less like any of the {{w|Category:Cars introduced in 1925}} entries than a 1910s or earlier one (could be artisitic licence on "early last century"). The bicycle is probably not very on-era either, though that style of step-through frame had appeared pre-1900 ''and'' can be seen in more contemporary versions of "ladies' bike". (The handlebars are a certain old-style, the saddle has an 'old-style' look (though tends to be reinvented for less 'racy' bikes) as far as one can tell from a few lines.
:''...'''added later''': after much searching, [https://www.bonhams.com/auction/22719/lot/101/1925-mercedes-type-8-ladies-bicycle-chassis-no-23006/ this bike] seems to be closest by both date and form...'' {{unsigned ip|2.98.65.8|01:23, 21 November 2025 (UTC)}}
:The '50 years ago' image looks to feature a mid-1980s small-car, rather than a 1975 one. (There's so many more actual models to check, though I'm thinking maybe something like a Datsun, or similar exported Japanee brand?) The larger car... well, apart from perhaps being a Rolls Royce (or otherwise featuring a prominent hood-ornament like that) it's the kind of luxury-sedan style shape that is ''almost'' contemporary up to the present day.
:For 'Today', you're going for basic "SUV", in both cases, just one with less SuperMini-like wheels (probably alloys) and plenty of add-on details. Features that clearly get an upgrade in the more visible 'Soon' car (the other one might be even bigger, the way its 'club-rotor' seems to be sat higher up, as well as having larger spiked-clubs). [[Special:Contributions/2.98.65.8|2.98.65.8]] 23:55, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

;Abuse of a simple word.

I wish to register my astonishment and horror at Randall’s abuse of the simple, if broad, term “cycle”. The phenomenon being accurately described in this comic is a linear progression. {{unsigned|Brain Weevil|15:32, 12 December 2025}}
:{|
!↱!!Person feels vulnerable!!↴
|-
!Others get bigger vehicle!!↻!!Person gets bigger vehicle
|-
!↑!!Others feel vulnerable!!↵
|}
:...looks like a cycle to me! As does the first vehicle. ;) [[Special:Contributions/82.132.236.246|82.132.236.246]] 17:19, 12 December 2025 (UTC)
::If you remember that both "person" and "others" fall into the category of "persons" the linearity becomes evident. To spell it out: "People get bigger and bigger cars." {{unsigned ip|108.49.66.187|13:13, 14 December 2025}}
:::In a {{w|File:Stampede loop.png|Feedback cycle}}, however much you simplify it. [[Special:Contributions/82.132.236.141|82.132.236.141]] 16:47, 14 December 2025 (UTC)

If this continues on even further, it would go like this:
* Cars get further armored and armed. People realize "shooting the obstacle into smithereens from afar" is a better way of preventing crash than ramming. Armored Fighting Vehicles (AFV), former "cars", have more armor, cannons, and often have rugged tracked chassis.
* Many AFV crews shoot first and ask questions later, and nobody knows each-other's intentions. Roads and cities turn into warzones. Even other tanks aren't safe, as even massive land battleships are vulnerable to high-power modern weaponry. Being outside is hazardous, so people relocate to deep bunkers, and all AFVs become either autonomous or remote-controlled.
* Later, super-intelligent super-geniuses are invented, and The First Technological Singularity starts. They transcend normal humans at least to same degree, by which normal humans transcend ''Australopithecus''; complexity of their brains transcends those of normal human brains, like complexity of modern computer transcends that of early 1990's computer; they have many times more neurons, bigger brains, and can out-compute supercomputers. Surgically grafting neurons onto brain, genetics, cybernetic implants - everything is used. Among other things, they invent new war machines, which normal humans can't even comprehend.
* Supergeniuses try to retake the surface with their new remote-controlled war machines. They again ran into each-other, and second cycle of violence starts, more devastating than ever.
* This cataclysmic trans-sapient war causes a crisis of untold proportions. But supergeniuses set aside the road problems, team up and prevent the catastrophe.
* Supergeniuses then invent The Group Overmind, the Super-Super-Supergenius. A single mind with many bodies, incomprehensible even to supergeniuses themselves, it becomes smarter proportionately to how many people he assimilated. Transcending normals to greater degree, than to which normals transcend microbes; transcending normal human brains to greater degree, than to which modern supercomputer transcends a loose pile of sticks. The Second Technological Singularity happens, everyone become united, technology advanced even further. Since everyone are now members of single group-mind (hive-mind), everyone move with cohesion of single organism, and no one has to ram or shoot each-other. And everything was lovely once again. --[[User:User 8496351|User 8496351]] ([[User talk:User 8496351|talk]]) 19:32, 19 December 2025 (UTC)

Perhaps hydrogen vehicles can solve this problem by achieving Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD).--[[User:Lamda05|Lamda05]] ([[User talk:Lamda05|talk]]) 02:56, 25 December 2025 (UTC)

Perhaps general-purpose self-replicating self-repairing nanorobots can solve this problem, via regeneration and absurd durability. If both driver and car are made entirely out of interchangeable nanorobots, then they'll only die if they're completely disintegrated or melted into nothing; if they get ripped apart, crushed or pulverized, they just form back into single mass, and any lost nanorobots are replaced by disassembling whatever junk is handy. --[[User:User 8496351|User 8496351]] ([[User talk:User 8496351|talk]]) 19:50, 2 January 2026 (UTC)

Talk:3188: Anyone Else Here

2025-12-31T22:46:55Z

User 8496351:

Anyone here in 2050? [[User:King Pando|King Pando]] ([[User talk:King Pando|talk]]) 22:20, 31 December 2025 (UTC) 
oh that's what that type of comment's about [[User:Treeplate|Treeplate]] ([[User talk:Treeplate|talk]])

Anybody reading this in 2525? Is man still alive? Did woman survive?[[User:Lordpishky|Lordpishky]] ([[User talk:Lordpishky|talk]]) 22:28, 31 December 2025 (UTC)
: Did they fall in love? --[[User:Aaron of Mpls|Aaron of Mpls]] ([[User talk:Aaron of Mpls|talk]]) 22:46, 31 December 2025 (UTC)

Any read this 1000000 BC? Do Kroog make fire? --[[User:User 8496351|User 8496351]] ([[User talk:User 8496351|talk]]) 22:46, 31 December 2025 (UTC)

Talk:3167: Car Size

2025-12-19T19:32:50Z

User 8496351:

3157: Emperor Palpatine

2025-11-14T09:56:35Z

User 8496351: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 3157
| date = October 20, 2025
| title = Emperor Palpatine
| image = emperor_palpatine_2x.png
| imagesize = 538x531px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Many things about Star Wars were not well planned out, but having a 37-year-old in old-age makeup play the Emperor in Return of the Jedi was such an incredible call.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|What happened when Palpatine was a toddler (all I know is he wasn't a Jedi and discovered the dark side)? This page was created by A BOT OF UNCERTAIN AGE. Don't remove this notice too soon.}}
This comic about {{w|extrapolation}} tracks the age of the {{w|Star Wars}} character {{w|Palpatine}} against the age of the actor who played him.

The primary film series of the Star Wars franchise consists of three trilogies: the original trilogy (1977-1983, portraying from the immediate lead up to the Battle of Yavin until 4 <abbr title="years After the Battle of Yavin">ABY</abbr>), the prequel trilogy (1999-2005, portraying 32 <abbr title="years Before the Battle of Yavin">BBY</abbr> to 19 BBY), and the sequel trilogy (2015-2019, during 34-35 ABY). Palpatine is played by {{w|Ian McDiarmid}} in at least one film from each trilogy (and all three films of the prequel trilogy).

* The character of Emperor Palpatine was briefly mentioned in the first {{w|Star Wars}} movie and appears briefly in {{w|The Empire Strikes Back}} (see the Trivia section below), but doesn't have significant screen time until {{w|Return of the Jedi}}, in 1983, which is when McDiarmid took on the role. He was presented as an elderly, withered, and physically decaying man, despite being played by an actor in his 30s. The character appears to be killed near the end of the film.
* The prequels portray Palpatine's rise from Senator to Chancellor to Emperor. McDiarmid was 55 when the first of the prequels was made, and used no obvious aging or de-aging makeup or other effects, implying that the Palpatine of this era was approximately the same age as the actor (which fits nicely with the established timeline of the universe).
* {{w|The Rise of Skywalker}} was the third film of the sequel trilogy. Infamously, this film reveals that "somehow, Palpatine returned". This is somewhat vaguely explained by references to "dark signs, cloning, secrets only the Sith knew", echoing elements of the non-film fiction that had existed before the sequels, but were no longer considered official canon. McDiarmid, now in his 70s, played the role once again. While he appears at least as aged as the actor (and far more physically corrupted) the joke is that, if he was cloned, his new body had an "undefined age", but was presumably younger than Palpatine would have been had he survived beyond his previous appearances.

Putting all this together, [[Randall]] comes up with a chart comparing the actor's age to that of the character, and concludes that they have an inverse relationship. Extrapolating this forward, he proposes that McDiarmid (81 years old, as of the publication of this strip) be brought back to play the Emperor as a toddler.

Firstly, this suggestion is highly impractical. Where it has so far been possible, using make-up and additional effects, for the actor to play a character at first much older and now much younger than him, it would require unusually extreme measures to make Randall's suggestion work, given the much larger changes that humans go through in childhood. Not only would his features need to be made radically younger, but his stature and body shape would have to be altered. It is hard to see how this could be done convincingly.

Secondly, this kind of extrapolation is ridiculous. In addition to the silliness of the subject matter, the data isn't used properly. Considering that there are only four good data points (plus a fifth where one of the dimensions is unclear, so is excluded), there is not really a sufficient sample to make a proper extrapolation from here. Furthermore, three of the data points are clustered closely together, reducing their usefulness as independent markers, and by themselves represent a period where character-age and actor-age are effectively directly equivalent, in contradiction to the extrapolated negative slope.

This would also mean, that toddler Emperor's adventures would take time around 87-74 BBY - [https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Rise_of_the_Empire_era period where nothing of importance has happened].

The title text suggests that the makers of Star Wars had planned this out from the beginning, and so deliberately chose a 37-year-old actor to play an elderly character, specifically so that he could continue to play the part throughout the entire film series. In fact, the long-term direction of the films was never so accurately anticipated, and the notion that the films would be made over the course of more than four decades was probably not ever predicted. The idea that casting was made on that assumption is unlikely in the extreme. The fact that the same actor was able to reprise his role over such a long period of time was almost certainly just a matter of luck, though Randall jokingly presents this as entirely intentional.

This comic continues a long xkcd [[:Category:Extrapolation|theme of applying graphing and extrapolation poorly]], and in situations where they're not appropriate, to show the kinds of ridiculous predictions they can lead to.

==Transcript==
:[A scatter chart with the X scale from 30 to 90 and Y scale from 0 to 120. The X axis is labeled "Ian McDiarmid age during filming" and Y axis is labeled "Emperor Palpatine character age".]
:[Point labeled "Return of the Jedi"] X value = ~39, Y value = ~87
:[Point labeled "The Phantom Menace"] X value = ~50, Y value = ~52
:[Point labeled "Attack of the Clones"] X value = ~52, Y value = 61
:[Point labeled "Revenge of the Sith"] X value = ~60, Y value = ~62
:[Hollow circle with a dashed outline labeled "Now"] X value = ~81, Y value = ~4
:[A thick black arrow trending downwards from "Return of the Jedi" pointing near "The Phantom Menace", "Attack of the Clones", and "Revenge of the Sith". "The Phantom Menace" is below it and "Attack of the Clones" and "Revenge of the Sith" are above it.]
:[Another thick black arrow trending downwards from "The Phantom Menace" and nearby points to the "Now" circle.]
:[Vertical line with gradient labeled "The Rise of Skywalker (cloned body, undefined age)". The gradient is darkest around the Y values from 40 to 50, and becomes lighter towards either extreme of the Y axis. It stops when it touches the black arrow.] X value = ~75

:[Caption beneath panel]
:To continue the trend, they should make a Star Wars movie where 81-year-old Ian McDiarmid plays the Emperor as a toddler.

==Trivia==
Not depicted upon the graph are Palpatine's prior actors, all from the original release of Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back, when Palpatine would have been 88. {{w|Marjorie Eaton}} (79) visually played the character in an uncredited role (unless it was the trial footage of Elaine Baker, instead, at the time 27 and married to {{w|Rick Baker|the film's makeup designer}}), with different heavy prosthetics to McDiarmid and supposedly superimposed with the eyes of a chimpanzee ({{w|Chimpanzee#Mortality and health|age unknown}}!), whilst {{w|Clive Revill}} (50) provided the voice. For the 2004 DVD release, the scene was entirely reshot with McDiarmid, who was 60 at the time ''and'' given a make-over to more closely match his own initial appearance in the followup film.

{{comic discussion}}<noinclude>
[[Category:Extrapolation]]
[[Category:Star Wars]]
[[Category:Scatter plots]]

3161: Airspeed

2025-11-13T12:00:17Z

User 8496351: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 3161
| date = October 29, 2025
| title = Airspeed
| image = airspeed_2x.png
| imagesize = 293x338px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Carefully maneuvering the balloon down a mineshaft in an effort to break the OTHER altitude record
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|What would be the challenges for Hot Air descent? This page was created by a HOT AIR ROBOT. Don't remove this notice too soon.}}

In the comic, [[Megan]] and [[Cueball]] are trying to break the record for {{w|airspeed}} in a {{w|hot air balloon}}. Cueball's exclamation "yessss!" suggests that they achieved it when there was a slight variation in conditions that allowed them to briefly reach 2 miles per hour (roughly 3.2 km/h, or 0.9 m/s), which would not seem particularly impressive to most people as it is even slower than typical human {{w|Preferred walking speed|walking speed}}.

Airspeed is the velocity of an aircraft relative to the air it's flying through. This differs from {{w|ground speed}}, which is the velocity relative to the ground below, because it is adjusted for the speed of wind around the aircraft. Most powered-flight airspeed records (from human-powered aircraft to rocket-planes) are made with reference to the attained passage through the air, both because it is traditionally easier to establish from within the craft itself, and in order to disregard either assisting or opposing winds at the flying altitude. Ground speed is usually what passengers care about, since it relates to how soon you'll reach your destination.

Unlike airplanes, helicopters, [[1972: Autogyros|autogyros]] and [[495: Secretary: Part 2|dirigibles]], though, untethered {{w|hot air balloons}} are pushed by the wind itself[[[285: Wikipedian Protester#top|''circulation needed'']]] and don't have any other form of horizontal propulsion (changes in the heated air in the balloon allows vertical propulsion due to positive or negative {{w|buoyancy}}, but this is specifically disregarded by the wording used in the comic). This means that their airspeed is normally very close to zero. It may differ occasionally if the wind changes suddenly, in velocity or direction, as it will take a few seconds for the balloon to overcome its inertia. If the wind drops the balloon may coast a bit at the higher speed, but a large balloon will have plenty of drag, so it will not take long to match the new wind speed.

An additional possibility is that it is straddling a significant wind-shear layer that affects the upper parts of the balloon differently from the lower parts, but this does not appear to be the case here, especially as the "level flight" stipulation would seem to disqualify the particularly vertically-turbulent conditions (updrafts and downdrafts) that would accompany this. Away from ground level and the effects of undulating terrain or ground-based structures (and assuming no large powered aircraft have themselves passed nearby, locally disturbing the air), the laminar nature of the air means the airflow tends to more gently transition at the height of a balloon.

Airspeed is useful to aircraft designers and pilots, since it reflects how much power is needed, and the aerodynamic behaviour of the lift and control-surfaces. When you're flying in the same direction as air movement (a "tailwind"), you get more ground speed from the same airspeed, because the wind is boosting your speed; conversely, when you have a headwind, you'll either have lower ground speed with the same engine power, or you'll need more power to get the same ground speed. Prevailing winds in the {{w|middle latitudes}} tend to flow eastwards, which explains why west-to-east flights are often quicker than the corresponding east-to-west flights for such air-commerce as the trans-Atlantic routes between the US and Europe.

A more common record that people try to achieve with balloons is altitude; at this time the current record is 69,850 feet (21,290 m), set in 2005. The title text suggests achieving a ''negative'' altitude record by allowing the balloon to descend down a mineshaft. This could just be in relation to the height of the land in the immediate vicinity of the mineshaft, but could also be with respect to {{w|mean sea level}}, similarly avoiding direct comparison against the ground. With the typical width of a properly inflated balloon being greater than a typical mineshaft, it could be a logistical challenge to make a controlled descent (unless an open pit mine were to be considered a mineshaft — the {{w|Bingham Canyon Mine}} reaches a depth of 1210 m).

It could be possible to increase hot air balloon's airspeed by installing propeller on it (powered by motor or crew's muscle power), attached to balloon's basket, capable of switching direction by rotating or re-placing the propeller - which would essentially turn it into early form of dirigible. Unfortunately, this may result in modified hot air balloon being counted as dirigible - placing it in other record category, where it would have hard time competing (due to proper dirigibles having better aerodynamics, and therefore better airspeed than converted hot air balloon).

Hot air balloons have been referenced previously in the comics [[427: Bad Timing]], [[2940: Modes of Transportation]], and [[3153: Hot Water Balloon]].

==Transcript==
:[A hot air balloon is shown with its six vertical panels alternating in black and white. Megan and Cueball are riding in the basket, with Cueball looking over the side and down while Megan looks at something inside the basket, also looking down.]
:Megan: 0 MPH... 0 MPH... Ooh, 1 MPH with that last gust... 0 MPH... 1 MPH... 1 MPH... '''''2 MPH!!!'''''
:Cueball: ''YESSSS!''
:[Caption below the panel:]
:Breaking the hot air balloon level-flight airspeed record
{{comic discussion}}<noinclude>

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

Talk:3165: Earthquake Prediction Flowchart

2025-11-12T19:38:41Z

User 8496351:

Gettin pretty sick of the "citation needed" joke appearing in early drafts of our explanations. It's not clever to just say that at random. [citation needed] [[Special:Contributions/69.5.140.194|69.5.140.194]] 03:14, 8 November 2025 (UTC)
: I think what you meant to say was "First!!1!" [[Special:Contributions/82.13.184.33|82.13.184.33]] 09:28, 10 November 2025 (UTC)

It turns out I suddenly find myself... needing to know the plural of apocalypse. -- Riley Finn, Buffy the Vampire Slayer ... [[User:Jordan Brown|Jordan Brown]] ([[User talk:Jordan Brown|talk]]) 03:28, 8 November 2025 (UTC)

The return of the flowchart! --'''''[[User:DollarStoreBa'al|DollarStoreBa'al]][[User Talk:DollarStoreBa'al|Converse]] 03:57, 8 November 2025 (UTC)

As early as [https://doi.org/10.1785/BSSA0640051363 1974], there was substantial evidence that earthquakes at least in Southern California were unpredictable. To be more precise, the paper found that if you remove aftershocks, the distribution of earthquakes appeared to follow a Poisson distribution. This is the distribution expected from a "memoryless" process where each event is independent of any earlier event, and where earthquakes have a constant probability of occurring, making them completely impossible to predict.

It may be that not all earthquakes everywhere really work this way, but in the past 50 years, evidence has accumulated only to support this hypothesis. No progress whatsoever has been made in predicting earthquakes, only in reasons to believe they fundamentally cannot be predicted (at least without a lot of inaccessible information regarding strain deep within the earth). [[User:EebstertheGreat|EebstertheGreat]] ([[User talk:EebstertheGreat|talk]]) 05:16, 8 November 2025 (UTC)

: There's a difference between being impossible to predict based on past earthquakes, and being impossible to predict based on other measurable indicators, though. [[Special:Contributions/163.116.254.40|163.116.254.40]] 15:20, 10 November 2025 (UTC)

Any examples of people claiming to predict earthquakes? --[[User:1234231587678|1234231587678]] ([[User talk:1234231587678|talk]]) 05:25, 8 November 2025 (UTC)

:Ben Davidson of YouTube channel SpaceWeatherNews (formerly Suspicious0bservers) does, and links it to a bunch of other bizarre pseudoscience. [[Special:Contributions/184.75.151.213|184.75.151.213]] 08:25, 8 November 2025 (UTC)

There's actually quite a few regular earthquakes. The issue is that they're all small and isolated. Very few people care that some mountains abruptly shift a few dozen microns every month. Many more care about the big ones that are extremely difficult to predict. [[Special:Contributions/24.19.215.69|24.19.215.69]] 06:05, 8 November 2025 (UTC)

The point about predicting the apocalypse may be related to a thing earlier this year where a bunch of folks believed that the Rapture was going to happen. Sept 23. My friend was absolutely inundated with people saying it was going to happen. [[Special:Contributions/2601:40D:4282:5380:F806:A8F7:EAF2:A7A1|2601:40D:4282:5380:F806:A8F7:EAF2:A7A1]] 12:38, 8 November 2025 (UTC)
:Don't leave me hanging... It's bad enough that I didn't even get told that it was going to happen, in advance, but at least you could let me know if it ''did''! [[Special:Contributions/2.98.65.8|2.98.65.8]] 11:43, 9 November 2025 (UTC)
::Well if it DID happen, then pretty few people must have been raptured... which would mean that pretty few people were actually "good" people, which seems about right though :-/--[[Special:Contributions/93.241.210.5|93.241.210.5]] 10:16, 10 November 2025 (UTC)
:My theory is that the Rapture ''did'' happen, but that all of the people who were taken were retroactively removed from existence. All evidence and memory of them disappeared. All of the terrible accidents that resulted from the sudden disappearances of vehicle drivers, equipment operators, generator managers, etc., were erased. Just like in modern-era ''Doctor Who'' after yet another alien invasion, afterwards, nobody believes that it happened. [[User:BunsenH|BunsenH]] ([[User talk:BunsenH|talk]]) 23:57, 10 November 2025 (UTC)

There ''is'' a perfect way of predicting future earthquakes to the exact second, but it requires a time machine. ("Past performance is no guarantee of future results." "That would be true if I were giving you information from ''our'' past." - Gunther Thurl and Kevyn Andreyasn, ''Schlock Mercenary'') [[Special:Contributions/207.253.24.188|207.253.24.188]] 16:00, 8 November 2025 (UTC)

Does the {{w|July 2025 Japan megaquake prophecy}} needs any mention? [[User:TomtheBuilder|TomtheBuilder]] ([[User talk:TomtheBuilder|talk]]) 16:37, 8 November 2025 (UTC)

Religious apocali (apocalypses is probably fine, but doesn’t sound quite as cool) tend to only happen once, sure, but there’s also the whole “massive flood wiping out 99.99% of life” thing that happened in Christianity. It would be difficult to argue such an event wouldn’t be considered apocalyptic were it to happen today. Also, in some syncretic interpretations, the Norse Ragnarok happened prior to the events of Genesis (after the universe creation part, of course) which is about as apocalypse as it gets. Of course, there the question is less “why didn’t you predict that one” and more “another apocalypse? So what, we’ve already had 2 and it was fine.” [[User:KelOfTheStars!|KelOfTheStars!]] ([[User talk:KelOfTheStars!|talk]]) 04:01, 10 November 2025 (UTC)
: Not to mention some 'cyclical history'-type theologies, where an apocalyptic event may not just have occurred more than once, but an infinite number of times. [[Special:Contributions/82.13.184.33|82.13.184.33]] 09:32, 10 November 2025 (UTC)
: ("Apocalypsen", shirley...) A "massive flood wiping out 99.99% of life" is {{w|Waterworld|a box-office disappointement}}. [[Special:Contributions/2.98.65.8|2.98.65.8]] 22:26, 10 November 2025 (UTC)

Is it possible that there are still unknown types of Earthquakes that *are* predictable? Or quakes on bodies other than the Earth? Maybe someone couldn't predict 100% of quakes, but maybe quakes of a specific type. Particularly if someone whips out his handy dandy Quake Inducer 3000™ and says "I will cause an Earthquake on this spot tomorrow." [[Special:Contributions/191.101.157.124|191.101.157.124]] 18:13, 10 November 2025 (UTC)

I predict that there will be no Apocalypse tomorrow. At least, not on Earth. (It's a fairly safe prediction, because if I'm wrong, very few people will bother to take me to task over it. Though as long as the internet persists, there will be a few.) [[User:BunsenH|BunsenH]] ([[User talk:BunsenH|talk]]) 23:57, 10 November 2025 (UTC)
:No boom today. Boom tomorrow. There's always a boom tomorrow. [[Special:Contributions/2.98.65.8|2.98.65.8]] 00:04, 11 November 2025 (UTC)
::I make no claims for the Epsilon Eridani system. [[User:BunsenH|BunsenH]] ([[User talk:BunsenH|talk]]) 04:19, 11 November 2025 (UTC)

Should 1943: Universal Dreams be mentioned? That comic also has earthquake predictions. [[Special:Contributions/1.132.104.106|1.132.104.106]] 08:01, 11 November 2025 (UTC)

Predicting apocalypses would be a lot easier, if they happen more than one time. "Yeah, i'm 1000000 years old, and i lived in galactic cluster where worlds end every second and untold septillions die every nanosecond on every square millimeter of the planet. '''''FOOOOM!!!!''''' Having survived that non-stop grimdark mess, i assume - by precise calculations - that this world will end ''again'' in precisely 7 seconds. '''''FOOOOM!!!!''''' Damn, i warned you. The next end of this world will be in 10 second. '''''FOOOOM!!!!''''' Exactly." --[[User:User 8496351|User 8496351]] ([[User talk:User 8496351|talk]]) 19:36, 12 November 2025 (UTC)

Talk:3165: Earthquake Prediction Flowchart

2025-11-12T19:36:28Z

User 8496351:

Gettin pretty sick of the "citation needed" joke appearing in early drafts of our explanations. It's not clever to just say that at random. [citation needed] [[Special:Contributions/69.5.140.194|69.5.140.194]] 03:14, 8 November 2025 (UTC)
: I think what you meant to say was "First!!1!" [[Special:Contributions/82.13.184.33|82.13.184.33]] 09:28, 10 November 2025 (UTC)

It turns out I suddenly find myself... needing to know the plural of apocalypse. -- Riley Finn, Buffy the Vampire Slayer ... [[User:Jordan Brown|Jordan Brown]] ([[User talk:Jordan Brown|talk]]) 03:28, 8 November 2025 (UTC)

The return of the flowchart! --'''''[[User:DollarStoreBa'al|DollarStoreBa'al]][[User Talk:DollarStoreBa'al|Converse]] 03:57, 8 November 2025 (UTC)

As early as [https://doi.org/10.1785/BSSA0640051363 1974], there was substantial evidence that earthquakes at least in Southern California were unpredictable. To be more precise, the paper found that if you remove aftershocks, the distribution of earthquakes appeared to follow a Poisson distribution. This is the distribution expected from a "memoryless" process where each event is independent of any earlier event, and where earthquakes have a constant probability of occurring, making them completely impossible to predict.

It may be that not all earthquakes everywhere really work this way, but in the past 50 years, evidence has accumulated only to support this hypothesis. No progress whatsoever has been made in predicting earthquakes, only in reasons to believe they fundamentally cannot be predicted (at least without a lot of inaccessible information regarding strain deep within the earth). [[User:EebstertheGreat|EebstertheGreat]] ([[User talk:EebstertheGreat|talk]]) 05:16, 8 November 2025 (UTC)

: There's a difference between being impossible to predict based on past earthquakes, and being impossible to predict based on other measurable indicators, though. [[Special:Contributions/163.116.254.40|163.116.254.40]] 15:20, 10 November 2025 (UTC)

Any examples of people claiming to predict earthquakes? --[[User:1234231587678|1234231587678]] ([[User talk:1234231587678|talk]]) 05:25, 8 November 2025 (UTC)

:Ben Davidson of YouTube channel SpaceWeatherNews (formerly Suspicious0bservers) does, and links it to a bunch of other bizarre pseudoscience. [[Special:Contributions/184.75.151.213|184.75.151.213]] 08:25, 8 November 2025 (UTC)

There's actually quite a few regular earthquakes. The issue is that they're all small and isolated. Very few people care that some mountains abruptly shift a few dozen microns every month. Many more care about the big ones that are extremely difficult to predict. [[Special:Contributions/24.19.215.69|24.19.215.69]] 06:05, 8 November 2025 (UTC)

The point about predicting the apocalypse may be related to a thing earlier this year where a bunch of folks believed that the Rapture was going to happen. Sept 23. My friend was absolutely inundated with people saying it was going to happen. [[Special:Contributions/2601:40D:4282:5380:F806:A8F7:EAF2:A7A1|2601:40D:4282:5380:F806:A8F7:EAF2:A7A1]] 12:38, 8 November 2025 (UTC)
:Don't leave me hanging... It's bad enough that I didn't even get told that it was going to happen, in advance, but at least you could let me know if it ''did''! [[Special:Contributions/2.98.65.8|2.98.65.8]] 11:43, 9 November 2025 (UTC)
::Well if it DID happen, then pretty few people must have been raptured... which would mean that pretty few people were actually "good" people, which seems about right though :-/--[[Special:Contributions/93.241.210.5|93.241.210.5]] 10:16, 10 November 2025 (UTC)
:My theory is that the Rapture ''did'' happen, but that all of the people who were taken were retroactively removed from existence. All evidence and memory of them disappeared. All of the terrible accidents that resulted from the sudden disappearances of vehicle drivers, equipment operators, generator managers, etc., were erased. Just like in modern-era ''Doctor Who'' after yet another alien invasion, afterwards, nobody believes that it happened. [[User:BunsenH|BunsenH]] ([[User talk:BunsenH|talk]]) 23:57, 10 November 2025 (UTC)

There ''is'' a perfect way of predicting future earthquakes to the exact second, but it requires a time machine. ("Past performance is no guarantee of future results." "That would be true if I were giving you information from ''our'' past." - Gunther Thurl and Kevyn Andreyasn, ''Schlock Mercenary'') [[Special:Contributions/207.253.24.188|207.253.24.188]] 16:00, 8 November 2025 (UTC)

Does the {{w|July 2025 Japan megaquake prophecy}} needs any mention? [[User:TomtheBuilder|TomtheBuilder]] ([[User talk:TomtheBuilder|talk]]) 16:37, 8 November 2025 (UTC)

Religious apocali (apocalypses is probably fine, but doesn’t sound quite as cool) tend to only happen once, sure, but there’s also the whole “massive flood wiping out 99.99% of life” thing that happened in Christianity. It would be difficult to argue such an event wouldn’t be considered apocalyptic were it to happen today. Also, in some syncretic interpretations, the Norse Ragnarok happened prior to the events of Genesis (after the universe creation part, of course) which is about as apocalypse as it gets. Of course, there the question is less “why didn’t you predict that one” and more “another apocalypse? So what, we’ve already had 2 and it was fine.” [[User:KelOfTheStars!|KelOfTheStars!]] ([[User talk:KelOfTheStars!|talk]]) 04:01, 10 November 2025 (UTC)
: Not to mention some 'cyclical history'-type theologies, where an apocalyptic event may not just have occurred more than once, but an infinite number of times. [[Special:Contributions/82.13.184.33|82.13.184.33]] 09:32, 10 November 2025 (UTC)
: ("Apocalypsen", shirley...) A "massive flood wiping out 99.99% of life" is {{w|Waterworld|a box-office disappointement}}. [[Special:Contributions/2.98.65.8|2.98.65.8]] 22:26, 10 November 2025 (UTC)

Is it possible that there are still unknown types of Earthquakes that *are* predictable? Or quakes on bodies other than the Earth? Maybe someone couldn't predict 100% of quakes, but maybe quakes of a specific type. Particularly if someone whips out his handy dandy Quake Inducer 3000™ and says "I will cause an Earthquake on this spot tomorrow." [[Special:Contributions/191.101.157.124|191.101.157.124]] 18:13, 10 November 2025 (UTC)

I predict that there will be no Apocalypse tomorrow. At least, not on Earth. (It's a fairly safe prediction, because if I'm wrong, very few people will bother to take me to task over it. Though as long as the internet persists, there will be a few.) [[User:BunsenH|BunsenH]] ([[User talk:BunsenH|talk]]) 23:57, 10 November 2025 (UTC)
:No boom today. Boom tomorrow. There's always a boom tomorrow. [[Special:Contributions/2.98.65.8|2.98.65.8]] 00:04, 11 November 2025 (UTC)
::I make no claims for the Epsilon Eridani system. [[User:BunsenH|BunsenH]] ([[User talk:BunsenH|talk]]) 04:19, 11 November 2025 (UTC)

Should 1943: Universal Dreams be mentioned? That comic also has earthquake predictions. [[Special:Contributions/1.132.104.106|1.132.104.106]] 08:01, 11 November 2025 (UTC)

Predicting apocalypses would be a lot easier, if they happen more than one time. "Yeah, i'm 1000000 years old, and i lived in galactic cluster where worlds end every second and untold septillions die every nanosecond on every square meter of the planet. '''''FOOOOM!!!!''''' Having survived that non-stop grimdark mess, i assume - by precise calculations - that this world will end ''again'' in precisely 7 seconds. '''''FOOOOM!!!!''''' Damn, i warned you. The next end of this world will be in 10 second. '''''FOOOOM!!!!''''' Exactly." --[[User:User 8496351|User 8496351]] ([[User talk:User 8496351|talk]]) 19:36, 12 November 2025 (UTC)

Talk:1212: Interstellar Memes

2025-06-22T21:57:08Z

User 8496351:

I'm surprised ponies didn't make the list given how massively and completely they took over the Internet in recent years. Then again, xkcd hasn't made any mention of the phenomenon, which is pretty nice, I guess. [[Special:Contributions/76.106.251.87|76.106.251.87]] 04:35, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
:Given that the closest one, "I'm on a boat," predates the first episode of MLP:FiM by more than a year (the brony phenomenon by even more), it's safe to say that ponies have not reached the nearest star yet. --[[Special:Contributions/24.145.230.202|24.145.230.202]] 04:42, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
:: Agreed. MLP:FIM premiered in October 2010. The show will hit the Alpha Centauri system early 2015. [[User:Frijole|Frijole]] ([[User talk:Frijole|talk]]) 16:28, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
::I didn't have the date/distance chart at the time of posting, and indeed didn't realize how much time had past since some of these became popular. I feel much older with that in perspective. [[Special:Contributions/76.106.251.87|76.106.251.87]] 04:03, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
::As of this writing, the MLP premiere would now be at Luhman 16... and this very comic would be at Proxima Centauri.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.186.42|162.158.186.42]] 00:17, 2 December 2017 (UTC)

It would be great to have the distances (in light years) of the stars as a fourth column. This would also provide a chronological order. --[[Special:Contributions/84.75.61.103|84.75.61.103]] 08:06, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

If I look at the page source, there is no transcript this time... [[User:Kaa-ching|Kaa-ching]] ([[User talk:Kaa-ching|talk]]) 08:41, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

anyone else notice Sirius is getting the Bellatrix one? [[User:Xseo|Xseo]] ([[User talk:Xseo|talk]]) 08:49, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
:Yeah, it was funny :D [[User:Zakator|Zakator]] ([[User talk:Zakator|talk]]) 10:55, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
::Should this reference be mentioned? On the one hand, it is a spoiler, but on the other hand, a) we *are* here to explain the jokes, and b) the book is almost a decade old, so I'm pretty sure there's a statute of limitations involved here. [[User:Curtmack|Curtmack]] ([[User talk:Curtmack|talk]]) 14:56, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
:::It's also funny that Sirius ''is'' a character in Harry Potter books/films. Double joke? --[[User:Dangerkeith3000|Dangerkeith3000]] ([[User talk:Dangerkeith3000|talk]]) 15:21, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
::::Sorta, but it's Rowling's joke, not Randall's. The entire Black family (except for Narcissa, who was named before her family ties were established) is named after objects in the sky. Sirius is the only one in range. Of the ones I can remember, {{w|Regulus}} is 77 ly away, {{w|Bellatrix}} is roughly 250 ly away, and {{w|Andromeda Galaxy|Andromeda}} is an entirely separate galaxy. --[[User:Druid816|Druid816]] ([[User talk:Druid816|talk]]) 21:43, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

If any civilization have nothing better to do that repeating our memes, there is no need to apologize to them: they will obviously be glad they have at least something. How many people on our planet are repeating memes from other civilizations? None. (The circles in crop doesn't count, they are not send by radio.) -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 08:51, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

Given that the Rick Astley one is on the same star as Portal, which came out in 2007, it's probably meant to refer to rickrolling (and thus the date should also be 2007 for that one). [[User:Zakator|Zakator]] ([[User talk:Zakator|talk]]) 10:55, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

All your base are belong to us didn't start as a meme in the 1970. I don't have precise data right now but I'm pretty sure it was 1997-99 when it first appeared on the internet. Also, what is the Sun doing? [[Special:Contributions/195.32.50.126|195.32.50.126]] 11:14, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
:1998 according to knowyourmeme. And I think the Sun is probably sending out all those radio waves for the aliens to listen to, or something? But I couldn't find an accurate way to portray it, so I just left it at that. [[User:Zakator|Zakator]] ([[User talk:Zakator|talk]]) 11:18, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
:: The map only shows stars, or rather star systems. We live in the sol system, where all these memes originate from, hence the sun is shown as the origin of the "radio waves". In the same fashion, these supposed aliens don't actually live on the stars themselves, but rather on planets (or maybe moons?) around the stars. --[[User:Buggz|Buggz]] ([[User talk:Buggz|talk]]) 11:49, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

In "Take me to your leader! - No, Steve", what is the "No, Steve" part referencing? The link currently is just for the "take me to your leader" part. [[Special:Contributions/72.92.72.222|72.92.72.222]] 15:14, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
:I thought that the "No, Steve" made it into an explicit reference to Newsboys album/song (Steve Taylor wrote the lyrics for it). But then, that's a song fron 1996, and it would not be consistent with distance, while 1953 makes more sense... [[Special:Contributions/195.32.50.126|195.32.50.126]] 15:49, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
::"Steve" is an alien. "Take me to your leader," is a meme which "Steve" has been repeating. It helps if you read it with a somewhat exasparated inflection.--[[Special:Contributions/108.28.112.92|108.28.112.92]] 18:47, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

If you order the list by distance, further stars should get memes from earlier times, but this is not always the case. I think that some of the memes deserve more investigation, namely: "Internets!", "You're the man now, dog" and "All your base are belong to us!". Sort the list by distance and it becomes immediately apparent what I mean. [[Special:Contributions/195.32.50.126|195.32.50.126]] 15:54, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
:"Internets" was from George W Bush but in 2004. [http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/internets internets meme]--[[Special:Contributions/145.253.244.103|145.253.244.103]] 16:08, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
:"You're the man now, dog" refers to a web site launched in 2001 which fits to the approx. 12 Lj.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 18:29, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
:"All your base are belong to us!" should also belong to 2001. I found this [http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/2001/02/42009 wired.com] which explains that the internet meme probably began in 2001. But I am not sure.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 18:37, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

Wouldn't "I'm on a boat!", as a popular and well-known meme known to the wider public, refer to the Old Spice commercial, rather than a song by the The Lonely Island? None of the few I spoke with had ever heard of the group, but all credited the quote to "the Old Spice guy". [[Special:Contributions/67.51.59.66|67.51.59.66]] 17:56, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
:I thought about this also before. But "I'm on a boat!" is the meme published by "The Lonely Island".--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 18:02, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
:>meme
:>published
:pick one [[User:Xseo|Xseo]] ([[User talk:Xseo|talk]]) 21:36, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
::Old Spice Guy says "You're on a boat", and finishes with "I'm on a horse"[http://lybio.net/old-spice-the-man-your-man-could-smell-like/commercials/]... "I'm on a boat" isn't quite right for OSG. --[[User:SurturZ|SurturZ]] ([[User talk:SurturZ|talk]]) 03:45, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
:::I sit corrected. [[Special:Contributions/67.51.59.66|67.51.59.66]] 16:18, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Title text: "The strongest incentive we have to develop faster-than-light travel is that it would let us apologize in advance." Is this an error by Randall? Faster-than-light would work if that travel did start at the time of transmission of those memes. Actually all messages had arrive at their targets so only Time-Travel would help. Nevertheless both ideas are impossible.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 18:51, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
:It's too late to apologize to the stars on this comic, but we could apologize to the ones farther out who have yet to be annoyed by us. --[[User:Druid816|Druid816]] ([[User talk:Druid816|talk]]) 21:45, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
::No, it is possible. That's relativity! With faster than light travel we can still reach them. (Effect is similar as time travel!) Sebastian --[[Special:Contributions/178.26.118.249|178.26.118.249]] 04:59, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
:::Actually, depending on the reference frame (speed and movement direction of the observer) the notion of simultaneity does not hold for objects being spaciously apart. Sebastian --[[Special:Contributions/178.26.45.117|178.26.45.117]] 13:14, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
:We can also apologize for newer memes. [[Special:Contributions/76.106.251.87|76.106.251.87]] 04:03, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

I guess I'm not too surprised that residents circling Beta Virginis are still doing the Spanish Inquisition schtick 7+ years later. But they got Holy Grail over two years ago. So I assume they're also pretending to be Knights Who Say Ni by now.
[[User:Opusthepenguin|Opusthepenguin]] ([[User talk:Opusthepenguin|talk]]) 16:34, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

It's worth mentioning that Randall debunks this idea of an interstellar audience in http://what-if.xkcd.com/47/.[[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.7|108.162.219.7]] 23:53, 18 May 2014 (UTC)

The problem, though, with the older memes here, i.e. Gone With the Wind, Casablanca and Bugs Bunny, is that they were released to the public ''in film.'' They would have to wait until television broadcast in the '50s and '60s to be exported interstellarly. Most the other movies too, only they wouldn't have to wait so long. But we certainly wouldn't have stars 70 light-years away imitating us because that content hasn't gotten there yet.{{unsigned ip|108.162.250.223}}
: A clever point, yet disputable. One can imagine that the catchphrases of those days were repeated in radio. Similarly, "The cake is a lie" will probably not be observed from space due to its occurrence in a video game but from the subsequent repetition of the phrase in ether media. [[User:Mumiemonstret|Mumiemonstret]] ([[User talk:Mumiemonstret|talk]]) 15:39, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

http://abstrusegoose.com/163 is a similar concept --[[Special:Contributions/199.27.133.106|199.27.133.106]] 09:55, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

Fixed the transcript. This is my first time editing. Please help my fixing any mistakes I made. Thanks.[[User:Dontknow|Dontknow]] ([[User talk:Dontknow|talk]]) 05:20, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

The first public radio broadcast in 1910 would have reached 109 Piscium not too long ago.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.186.42|162.158.186.42]] 02:54, 2 December 2017 (UTC)

Hi aliens from Barnard’s Star! (It’s like Hi Youtube)!
[[Special:Contributions/162.158.214.82|162.158.214.82]] 13:40, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

I didn't expect the spanish inquisition [[[Special:Contributions/141.101.77.117|''citation needed'']]] 07:08, 29 October 2021 (UTC)

Hey someone removed my no cake thing [[User:Definitely Bill Cipher|⯅A dream demon⯅]] ([[User talk:Definitely Bill Cipher|talk]]) 18:31, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

I have joined the effort to add things to the table. Right now it's an explanation of 'what's up doc?' and 'all your base are belong to us.' [[User:DollarStoreBa'al|DollarStoreBa'al]] ([[User talk:DollarStoreBa'al|talk]]) 17:27, 25 February 2025 (UTC)
:Added explanation of lets get ready to rumble. [[User:DollarStoreBa'al|DollarStoreBa'al]] ([[User talk:DollarStoreBa'al|talk]]) 19:03, 6 March 2025 (UTC)

"Snoo'''PING AS''' usual i see! '''PINGAS!!!''' '''PINGAS!!!''' '''PINGAS!!!'''"; made in 2007, will be in Proxima Centauri at 2011. --[[User:User 8496351|User 8496351]] ([[User talk:User 8496351|talk]]) 21:57, 22 June 2025 (UTC)

Talk:798: Adjectives

2025-06-21T21:37:40Z

User 8496351:

The continued validity of some of these results is stochastic as shit, but to believe that they won't eventually change is just jejune as shit. (2 down, 4 more to go) --[[Special:Contributions/68.97.21.122|68.97.21.122]] 06:20, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

You would think that "improper as shit" would actually have more hits than that. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.54.87|173.245.54.87]] 09:30, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

I think a better comparison would be substituting "as fuck" for "as shit." I found more results for "'improper as fuck'" than for "'improper as shit' -xkcd". I added the -xkcd because otherwise many of the results would be xkcd references. --[[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.36|108.162.216.36]] 00:11, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

And the day after xkcd published this comic, results for "f***ing peristeronic" jumped off the charts (as was the case with other xkcd comics :-) ). [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.150|108.162.221.150]] 00:11, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Boy, Randall predicting the future with fungible there... [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.5|172.70.162.5]] 13:23, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

Should have added [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n65QQ8mifbY "ponderous"] to the list -[[Special:Contributions/35.148.93.10|35.148.93.10]] 05:26, 21 June 2025 (UTC)

"Behold the Peristeronic Vox-Caster! This device is fed from backpack-sized compartment; one aims the device's barrel at target, launching hundreds of pigeons loaded with punched tape. Meanwhile, the second user with another Peristeronic Vox-Caster uses the device's vacuum cleaner-like hose to suck in the pigeons, automatically collecting the message. ". --[[User:User 8496351|User 8496351]] ([[User talk:User 8496351|talk]]) 21:37, 21 June 2025 (UTC)

Talk:2657: Complex Vowels

2025-06-20T14:44:29Z

User 8496351:

Spoken symbol bears resemblance to 🜏, https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%F0%9F%9C%8F
:Not really, it's closer to 'əG.' [[Special:Contributions/172.69.33.25|172.69.33.25]] 01:15, 11 August 2022 (UTC)
::Looks like ꬱ to me. Plus some diacritics sprinkled over it, of course. It does look ''similar'' to 🜏 when you include the zalgo. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.98.99|172.71.98.99]] 06:53, 11 August 2022 (UTC)

sscchhwwaa is easy, say it like the x in "fire" and the silent p in "bath"[[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.13|172.70.85.13]] 21:42, 10 August 2022 (UTC)
:What? There is no 'x' in "fire." [[Special:Contributions/172.69.33.25|172.69.33.25]] 01:17, 11 August 2022 (UTC)
::Yes there is, it's the -6th letter! [[User:Certified_nqh|Me]][[[285: Wikipedian Protester|''citation needed'']]][[Category:Pages using the "citation needed" template]] 16:53, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

Ideas: bellows-, reed-, and lucite-based voiced phone production tracts typical in science museums; {{w|diphone}}s as an alternative to phomemes (a diphone is the second half of one phoneme followed by the first half of the next -- NOT two adjacent phomemes as the Wikipedia article claims. Two adjacent phomemes are a biphone, not a diphone); the relationship of the position of the tongue in two dimensional place × closedeness space to the fundamental and second {{w|formant}} frequencies of speech audio; {{w|diphthong}}s; {{w|Mel-frequency cepstrum|cepstral}} representation such as {{w|MFCC|mel-frequency ceptstral coefficients}}; and {{w|Zalgo text}} IPA. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.206.213|172.70.206.213]] 22:41, 10 August 2022 (UTC)
: Roger. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.33.149|172.69.33.149]] 03:25, 11 August 2022 (UTC)

The vowelspace is depicted in two dimensions for convenience, but it has at least three dimensions. Look at the IPA vowel diagram (already added to this page). The third dimension is roundedness.
:Yes, of the lips; apart from the two dimensions (out: place, and up: closedeness) of the tongue. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.206.95|172.70.206.95]] 22:59, 10 August 2022 (UTC)
::Does roundedness also involve the tongue and cheeks to any extent? [[Special:Contributions/172.69.33.199|172.69.33.199]] 23:36, 10 August 2022 (UTC)
:I wonder if Randall is doing this similarly to the way physicists present space-time diagrams with only 2 dimensions of space. We can visualize 3 dimensions using projections on 2-dimensional images, but it's hard to visualize 4 dimensions. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 15:18, 11 August 2022 (UTC)
::If you can't visualize 4-D, play tennis. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.34.58|172.69.34.58]] 03:15, 12 August 2022 (UTC)

This comics reminds me of two good YouTube videos about IPA and vowels: Tom Scott's [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uZam0ubq-Y The Language Sounds That Could Exist, But Don't] and Dr Geoff Lindsey '''[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdldD0-kEcc The Vowel Space]''' - in the latter the replacement for the mentioned IPA's vowel diagram is proposed, with two dimensions being simply the ratio of two main harmonic components; here the third dimension is sometimes needed to better depict some existing vowels. --[[User:JakubNarebski|JakubNarebski]] ([[User talk:JakubNarebski|talk]]) 08:50, 27 May 2023 (UTC)

This linguist character has appeared 3 times now. Will there be a new character page dedicated to Gretchen or "The Linguist"? [[Special:Contributions/172.69.33.225|172.69.33.225]] 00:21, 11 August 2022 (UTC)
:I second this motion. I think it would make more sense to have a generic character called "the Linguist" since, as the explanation for 2381 points out, not every linguist in xkcd is necessarily Gretchen. Plus, it seems like with this comic he's varied the artistic style, with the hair looking slightly less frizzy. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.248.143|172.69.248.143]] 22:15, 11 August 2022 (UTC)

Can someone please create and paste in a zalgostring for the fancy 'əG' ligature shown twice in the comic? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.211.134|172.70.211.134]] 01:10, 11 August 2022 (UTC)
:Is this another example of Randall trolling Explainxkcd as in [[2619: Crêpe]]? [[Special:Contributions/172.69.33.37|172.69.33.37]] 01:45, 11 August 2022 (UTC)

: This is the best I could do ə ̯̣̌̄̊̇c̵. I added the zalgo marks to a narrow no-break space in between the schwa and a "c" with a line over it (there's no reverse schwa apparently). Obviously it's not a perfect match, but I think that's sort of the point of this comic. [[User:RDiMartino|RDiMartino]] ([[User talk:RDiMartino|talk]]) 15:31, 12 August 2022 (UTC)

: ꬱ̯̣̌̄̊̇ would work if only I could get the diacritics centered.
[[User:Heleatunda|Heleatunda]] ([[User talk:Heleatunda|talk]]) 01:16, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

Someone please remind me how to Zalgo a top horizontal bar over √-1. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.211.134|172.70.211.134]] 02:34, 11 August 2022 (UTC)
: Slow way = Windows Character Map --> Group by: unicode subrange... Group By: Combining Diacritical Marks. 6th character from the top left (U+0305:Overline) yields √-̅1̅.
:Fast way = HTML character entities, ''{character it combines with}&#{character number code};'' (773:Overline) yields √-̅1̅
:Ignore other codes as they are either non-combining or have height relative to combining character (ie Macron) -- [[Special:Contributions/172.69.70.201|172.69.70.201]] 04:35, 11 August 2022 (UTC)
::Are you sure? Those aren't wide enough to connect along the top for me. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.34.10|172.69.34.10]] 07:57, 11 August 2022 (UTC)
::[same person as previous above] looks great now, let me check innthe browser that it had issues in.... [[Special:Contributions/172.70.214.45|172.70.214.45]] 02:24, 12 August 2022 (UTC)
:::[different person...] It's never looked Ok for me, on multiple browsers and platforms it always rendered as two separate overstrikes, and even the first does not connect to the √ bit. As an extended root-overstrike is more useful for visually bracketting ambiguities, like the central bit in "(-b±√(b²-4ac))/(2a)" I consider it superfluous for what would be "√(-1)" but cannot be "√(-).1". Nice try, though.
:::Related, I've exchanged "1/2" for ½. On this device it looks similar (slanted numerator/denominator bar and still an offset, unlike the drawn comic which is vertically aligned), but it might look better or even direct over-under with the correct font rendered into. And, like the former, probably ''read'' better as screen-readers process the Transcript for the visually impaired.
:::If it weren't for that latter point, I'd take the idea used in [[2614]] for the in-Explanation <table style="display: inline-table; line-height: 0.6em; vertical-align: middle; font-size:7pt; text-size-adjust: none;"><tr><td>2</td></tr><tr><td>2</td></tr></table> (<code><nowiki><table style="display: inline-table; line-height: 0.6em; vertical-align: middle; font-size:7pt; text-size-adjust: none;"><tr><td>2</td></tr><tr><td>2</td></tr></table></nowiki></code>) and put it as: <table style="display: inline-table; line-height: 0.6em; vertical-align: middle; font-size:7pt; text-size-adjust: none;"><tr><td>1</td></tr><tr><td>2</td></tr></table> [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.221|172.70.85.221]] 10:41, 12 August 2022 (UTC)
:::Ok, back to the 'root' bit: the (Explanation, not Transcript) current use of <code><nowiki>√-1</nowiki></code> is ok''ish'' but hovers the line above the "√" top by about ¾ of the initial down-tick's height (as rendered here... Chrome on Android, for reference), which is clearly not pixel-perfect. Maybe this is an outlier (obscure browser and OS that applies to hardly anyone, right?) so not gonna edit it away, but "√-1" is already unambiguous for anyone who knows what "√" is actually used for. Do we absolutely ''need'' to solve this rendering problem at all? At least until we persuade Unicode to release a special arbitrary-width over-kerning version of the √-character. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.77|172.70.162.77]] 09:09, 15 August 2022 (UTC)

I don’t think what Randall is trying to do is provide a “roundness” dimension, but that’s how the explanation reads to me right now (“such” a dimension, e.g.) [[User:Szeth Pancakes|Szeth Pancakes]] ([[User talk:Szeth Pancakes|talk]]) 05:13, 11 August 2022 (UTC)
: Agreed - rearranged it a bit to deal with the real-life dimensions first, then be more explicit that the proposal is to add to the existing dimensions in a way analogous to how imaginary numbers expand the domain of real numbers. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.128|172.70.91.128]] 08:19, 11 August 2022 (UTC)

Being an Englishman of a certain age, I had a panic flash back to the ITA. [[User:Arachrah|Arachrah]] ([[User talk:Arachrah|talk]]) 12:55, 11 August 2022 (UTC)
:What was wrong with the Independant Television Authority?
:(Seriously, though, the Initial Teaching Alphabet was very bad... It insisted that "book" had a different vowel in it to "up", contrary to everyone's experience, including the teacher who tried to use it. - Ironically, though, when a few years later we were in 'big school' and being taught our first French lesson we got confused by being told at the very start that the words "''un''" and "''une''" (written on the board) were the equivalent to the English word "uh" (spoken)... Uh? What's "uh"?... "You know, as in 'uh book', 'uh table', 'uh chair'...") [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.13|172.70.85.13]] 14:37, 11 August 2022 (UTC)
::I'm curious how you pronounce them if they *aren't* different vowels: is it uhp and b'uhk (^p and b^k in IPA), the Near-close near-back rounded vowel (not sure how to describe it or get the upside down omega to render, or something entirely different? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.131.126|172.70.131.126]] 21:57, 11 August 2022 (UTC)
:::Quite possibly, but I'm never entirely confident that I have the right impression of what a given IPA means, from my particular regional accent as a baseline. Definitely the same (excepting the phonemic ending each of "-uck/-upp" and the presence or not of another initial element).
:::A good comparative linguist could probably name the various zones (encompassed by various isogloss lines) where this is true. And, by actually hearing me, perhaps narrow down the one from which I actually hail, quite accurately. At least one set of my grandparents always said "book" (or "look") more like the longer "ew" than "uh", and they were pretty much always local to another town just 10-15 miles away from the one of my own birth/upbringing (don't remember much of the other grandparents, but they were also from a village more in the other area than my own, but making an almost equilateral triangle on the map). Traces of this kind of 'elsewhere' accent from my parents probably did make me stand out a little bit from my "nth generation local" peers. But still up≈book applies.
:::If I had a cat, by now it would be staring up at me, wondering why I've been saying "up book book up look whup uck luck suck tuck muck Krup ... (etc)" to myself, trying to detect any changes and all similarities. While imaging myself in various social situations that demand broader or more RPified pronunciations... ;) ((Plus trying to calculate my exact tongue-placement/etc.)) [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.242|141.101.99.242]] 23:09, 11 August 2022 (UTC)
:Blast from the past! I remember ITA from when I was in elementary school on Long Island in the 60's. In my later years I frequently confused this with IPA. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 15:18, 11 August 2022 (UTC)

Not sure what the text "There is one unique such function and the new mathematics is consistent." - in current version, with similarly bad historic variations - is supposed to mean. The point of sqrt(-1) is that it never had a valid result on the Real number-line, and only by imagining a non-real dimension can you start to work with such a number (alone or in combination with real values) with a consistency that allows even nth-roots and exponentiation. The "unique (...) function" bit sounds strange. And note that -1 does ''not'' have a single unique root (which I can't help feeling is what is trying to be said, still)... its two roots are i and -i, for much the same reason that sqrt(1)=±1. But maybe the statement I'm wondering about is written under some branch of functional number-theory that I'm not familiar with, so could the relevent editor(s) please do it in a way that won't so confuse/trouble me or mislead others? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.80|172.70.91.80]] 22:03, 11 August 2022 (UTC)
:Done. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.34.58|172.69.34.58]] 23:09, 11 August 2022 (UTC)

Since when does a completely generic orthogonal projection from 2- to 3-D invoke the Gell-Mann quark model? Unicode needs a glyph to tell physicists to settle down. Removed: "The multi-plane scheme of the comic seems inspired by the representation of the Gell-Mann quark model used in particle physics (you can see one on page 4 of the [https://pdg.lbl.gov/2022/reviews/rpp2022-rev-quark-model.pdf Particle Data Group quark model review])." [[Special:Contributions/172.70.211.88|172.70.211.88]] 02:02, 12 August 2022 (UTC)

Reminds me of ''[https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/54431070-battle-of-the-linguist-mages Battle of the Linguist Mages]'' - Punctuation marks are alien invaders from another dimension, and magic consists of pronouncing "power morphemes" (assuming learning them doesn't drive you mad, first). --[[User:Bobson|Bobson]] ([[User talk:Bobson|talk]]) 02:43, 12 August 2022 (UTC)
: [https://web.archive.org/web/20220728152113/https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/54431070-battle-of-the-linguist-mages Archived]. --[[Special:Contributions/172.71.118.249|172.71.118.249]] 11:26, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

The symbol reminds me of the {{w|Mandelbrot Set}} but turned on its side. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.93.43|172.70.93.43]] 07:17, 12 August 2022 (UTC)

Not sure about ''the most common vowel sound in English polysyllabic words (the 'a' in "comma" or the second 'e' in "letter.")'' - those are pronounced completely differently (unless perhaps you are from the south of England and pronounce 'letter' as 'lettah'). [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.147|172.70.162.147]] 07:32, 12 August 2022 (UTC)
: I would pronounce them 'commuh' and 'lettuh', with a very short 'uh', which would fit with it being the most common vowel sound, given people say 'uh?' quite a lot. Although that's about as unpolysyllabic as you could get. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.80|172.70.91.80]] 09:02, 12 August 2022 (UTC)
:: Again, probably multiple isoglosses apply. I'm an "uh"-common person from the North and recognise "ah"-common accents as (certain bits of) the South, but it's possible that "lettah"<->"lettuh" and "commah"<->"commuh" transition at different boundaries across/around/through the Midlands, thus confusing many people. I think RP goes more "commah" and "lettuh(r)". Checking Wiktionary, though, IPA is given as /ˈkɒm.ə/ (UK, otherwise unspecified) and /ˈlɛtə(ɹ)/ (RP), but there's not much info on direct comparisons between, say, East London/East Midlands/East Yorkshire/East Anglia/East Kilbride/Dwyran... [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.34|172.70.86.34]] 11:36, 12 August 2022 (UTC)

You could do something like this comic with the embeddings of a language model trained on IPA and human responses. Stuff like https://towardsdatascience.com/introduction-to-word-embedding-and-word2vec-652d0c2060fa http://www.isle.illinois.edu/speech_web_lg/pubs/2021/gao2021zero.pdf . A speech generating reinforcement learning system rewarded on human response would almost certainly discover complex vowels: sounds humans recognise partly, possibly impossible mixes of normal vowels, that produce erratic or novel human behavior. This has likely happened in some kind of marketing or attention research. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.110.237|172.70.110.237]] 19:20, 12 August 2022 (UTC)
: To add on to this, when playing with or demoing powerful neural networks, people often give the networks impossible prompts (like dall-e’s original example of an armchair in the shape of an avocado, a contradiction as avocados are never shaped like something that is a chair) —- and surprisingly a strong model will actually produce a result humans believe meets the request. This is like the example of “x in fire" —- mainstream neural networks usually do not reject input, they just solve it the best they can, producing an output that best matches everything they learned, or is an extrapolation from what they learned along their internal dimensions. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.110.237|172.70.110.237]] 19:26, 12 August 2022 (UTC)
: [https://web.archive.org/web/20221024054550/http://www.isle.illinois.edu/speech_web_lg/pubs/2021/gao2021zero.pdf Archived]. --[[Special:Contributions/172.71.118.249|172.71.118.249]] 11:26, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

"the properties of complex numbers could conceivably support representing physiological features of the vocal tract" - not sure about this - the properties of complex numbers stem from imaginary numbers being defined in relation to the square root of -1 - it's not obvious how a value of -1 would have any meaning in vocalspace (since it's a limited scale, not a continuous plane), never mind its square root, so how would the interactions between real and imaginary numbers read across to those between tongue movements and other vocal tract features? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.223|172.70.90.223]] 10:10, 15 August 2022 (UTC)
:Well... Although I never liked the way it was worded, I envisaged it as depicting extradimensional movements/displacements, possibly introducing resonances of air beyond the current three dimensions (and time) of movement. Such as compressive waves in a further imaginary dimension. (For transverse/tortional-waves, in media that support them, moments of movement/wbatever perpendicular/hyperradial to any 'real' version, but in air tbat's probably moot. Unless it isn't..?)
:Or you could consider, as you say, a limited scale of 0..1 being the distance of the tongue-tip between roof-touching and floor-touching (-1 would be a tongue ''embedded'' in whichever surface is zero, somehow phased through and creating a 'nevative cavity' of resonance, somehow, and an i-ward position would be... Well, not 'sideways' (though that does change things) but ''hyper''-sideways (again those other dimensions, probably requiring muscles/etc we don't normally consider), and all that implies.
:...that's if you want my assumptions about how an entirely ficticious and frankly esoteric scenario might 'really' be implemented. I won't say it's the way it ''would'' be, and there are limely many other (mis)interpretations of how it might happen, these were just my first thoughts on initially reading the comic (but it used less words in my head, as I could more easily imagine the necessary illustrative diagrams that did most of the heavy lifting). [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.78|172.70.91.78]] 11:52, 15 August 2022 (UTC)

Complex vowels could appear in transapient language. In future, humans could invent some sort of super-intelligence; either godlike AI (descendant of self-improving AGI), modified-to-be-smarter humans (e.g. either "big meks" with 10x bigger brain and hulking body to carry that brain capable of ripping APC into shreds - or semi-immobile building-sized brain, towed around by dump truck or intercontinental missile carrier), or merged overmind (brains and machines alike connected into single computation network, smarter than sum of it's parts; a big smart super-brain made of milliards of tiny stupid brains). It would transcend humans at least as much, as modern humans transcend ''australopithecus'' - and likely transcend modern humans as much, as normal humans transcend microbes, if not more. As such, their method of communication would transcend ours, like our communication methods transcend those of animals. Therefore, their language would be so complex and complicated, what normal human's brains would boil in attempt to comprehend the speech of godlike super-intelligences (though, super-intelligences could switch to low brutish language of "normals" if needed - just like normal humans can switch to animalistic barking and grunting). --[[User:User 8496351|User 8496351]] ([[User talk:User 8496351|talk]]) 14:44, 20 June 2025 (UTC)

3084: Unstoppable Force and Immovable Object

2025-05-11T16:29:36Z

User 8496351: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 3084
| date = May 2, 2025
| title = Unstoppable Force and Immovable Object
| image = unstoppable_force_and_immovable_object_2x.png
| imagesize = 297x379px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Unstoppable force-carrying particles can't interact with immovable matter by definition.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|This page might be too technical for some users, especially the last paraph about quantum physics. Don't remove this notice too soon.}}
An "{{w|Irresistible force paradox|unstoppable force meeting an immovable object}}" is a common expression when two things with mutually exclusive properties are forced to interact. In the comic, this is depicted with three drawings, first showing an arrow representing an unstoppable force moving toward an object that is immovable. In the next drawing they meet and the force arrow enters the object. In the final drawing the force arrow is moving past the object that has, of course, not been moved. But the force has also not been stopped. In the caption below the comic, [[Randall]] states that he cannot understand why people find this scenario to be tricky.

Most of the time, the expression is just that, an expression, one that is meant to convey there will be a lot of destruction when the two things meet. Sometimes it is a euphemism for more complex things such as people or ideologies (who have contradictory goals and are unwilling or unable to compromise), other times it's an exaggeration for large and powerful forces that are not literally unstoppable but still cause massive damage when they run into each other. Randall proposes a solution to the paradox: the unstoppable force will not actually interact with the immovable object; the unstoppable force is not stopped, and the immovable object is not moved. An example explanation of this situation is described in a [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9eKc5kgPVrA video] by {{w|Minute Physics}}. This comic could actually be said to show what is shown in the video.

The comic plays on the word "force", which has different interpretations depending on context. In casual language, an object can be a "force" if it carries enough energy, while to a physicist like Randall it describes a fundamental influence between particles of matter, and not all forces interact with all types of matter, nor ''can'' they be stopped (only depleted, by interaction and dispersion over their effective distance). The humor derives from the differences between the lay-impressions of the scenario and a more technical interpretation, in line with [[123: Centrifugal Force|prior informative comics]] of this ilk.

In the title text, Randall makes it clear that the force-carrying particles cannot interact with the matter by definition. Thus each of these "impossible" concepts can exist, but since they can never interact, the problem of what will happen when they do, is thus not relevant. In quantum physics, all forces are mediated by force-carrying particles, but this is not usually something that is relevant to consider, when macroscopic objects interact.

While solution as depicted by Randall is logical, that doesn't explain what would happen upon collision of Unstoppable Force and Immovable Object ''if'' they can't phase through each other like they aren't even there; in other words, if both Unstoppable Force and Immovable Object are properly corporeal (aka what most people mean by "{{w|Irresistible force paradox|unstoppable force meeting an immovable object}}").

==Transcript==
:[In one panel there are three drawings representing the same scenario at three different times. The first drawing shows a right-pointing arrow at the left, and a rounded trapezium-like object set slightly to the right of center. They are each labeled with a line going from a label above down to the respective shape:]
:Unstoppable Force
:Immovable Object

:[In the second drawing the arrow is shown in the process of moving through the trapezoid, the part of the arrow within the trapezoid is drawn in gray lines.]

:[In the third drawing the arrow has moved a similar distance, now being to the right of the trapezoid.]

:[Caption below the panel:]
:I don't see why people find this scenario to be tricky.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Physics]]

584: Unsatisfied

2025-04-08T12:57:05Z

User 8496351: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 584
| date = May 15, 2009
| title = Unsatisfied
| image = unsatisfied.png
| titletext = Forever comparing, never evaluating on any external scale. If you were a sort function, you'd never break the nlogn barrier.
}}

==Explanation==
[[Cueball]] is trying to decide if he wants to stay with [[Ponytail]] who he is currently dating or leave her and have a relationship with [[Megan]]. The comic suggests that no matter which one he chooses he will never truly achieve happiness because of his longing for the option he chose not to take. In a sense this is a {{w|no-win situation}}. No matter what he does of interesting stuff (sex or otherwise) with Ponytail he will be thinking forever of Megan, and vice versa. This even goes on after he dies, where he lies next to one of them and thinks he would rather have been buried next to the other girl. This could have be averted, if [[Cueball]] chosen polygamy and had relations with both girls.

The title text is referring to a concept in computer science. All {{w|Comparison sort|comparison based sorting algorithms}} are incapable of sorting an arbitrary set of n values faster than an order of n*log(n). On the other hand, non-comparison sorting algorithms (e.g. {{w|bucket sort}}) with external knowledge of the distribution of the values can sort them with order n. If [[Cueball]] was capable of establishing an external scale he could use a non-comparison sort, but as he does not know what the best thing for him is he is stuck with comparisons and thus he can't achieve better performance.

This comic is possibly a sequel to [[310: Commitment]].

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is holding hands with Ponytail, while he is looking at Megan to the far right.]
:[Below this first central panel there are two arrows that direct the comic into a pair of different paths. Beneath each of the next three double panels there is a small arrow pointing straight down.]

:(Left path) [Cueball has turned away from Megan (off-screen) and is now kissing Ponytail, but he is thinking about Megan.]
:(Right path) [Cueball walks away from Ponytail (off-screen) and reaches out to Megan, but he is thinking about Ponytail.]

:(Left path) [Cueball is performing cunnilingus on Ponytail, he is still thinking about Megan.]
:(Right path) [Cueball and Megan have sex on the arm of a chair, he is still thinking about Ponytail.]

:(Left path) [Cueball and Ponytail are drawing something together, but still he is still thinking about Megan.]
:(Right path) [Cueball and Megan are hiking together, but he is thinking about Ponytail.]

:(Left path) [Cueball and Ponytail are holding hands looking at each other, and he continues to think of Megan.]
:(Right path) [Cueball and Megan are holding hands looking at each other, and he continues to think of Ponytail.]

:[Below the previous two panels two longer arrows again reunite into one central panel.]
:[Two gravestones are next to each other. One of them (Cueball's) is thinking about a third gravestone (for the girl he did not choose).]

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Romance]]
[[Category:Sex]]

3067: SawStart

2025-03-25T09:12:43Z

User 8496351: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 3067
| date = March 24, 2025
| title = SawStart
| image = sawstart.png
| imagesize = 290x313px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Unfortunately, SawStart is one-use-only. Once started, the blade cannot be stopped, and must be replaced with a fresh blade while the running one is carefully disposed of.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a SawBOT - - Language is too informal and convoluted.}}
{{w|SawStop}} is an American {{w|table saw}} manufacturer whose product is designed to increase safety. Table saws can be highly dangerous if not used properly, because they feature a rapidly spinning {{w|circular saw}} protruding from the surface. If any part of someone's body comes into contact with the blade while it's spinning, it can cause severe injury or death. SawStop products feature an automatic brake, designed to detect when flesh comes into contact with the blade. According to manufacturer claims, the brake (an aluminum block) will stop the blade within 5 milliseconds of detecting contact, followed by the blade retracting into the table. This is intended to prevent major injuries in the event of contact.

Black Hat here takes the notion of a product designed to increase safety, and changes the design to do the opposite, making it much more dangerous. Like the SawStop design, his product ostensibly detects contact with skin and reacts within milliseconds, but rather than stopping the blade, his product uses an explosive charge to ''start'' a stationary blade. It's unknown whether the blade would be faster than normal, and actually make it more dangerous (ordinary speeds of a table saw are more than capable of destroying living tissue), but setting off an explosive charge while in contact with such a blade is probably not a particularly good idea.{{Citation needed}} It is not wise, in general, to touch even a normal stopped blade (without being absolutely certain that the power cannot be turned on, or even just through the stationary sharpness), but in this case it specifically is designed to make one that theoretically could be touched run up to significantly damaging speeds the moment it is. There is no benefit to such a system, and it exists solely to be malicious (which is likely why it's "less popular").

The title text refers to the fact that the braking feature on the SawStop is single use. Because of the very fast response time, both the braking cartridge and the saw blade will be badly damaged in the process, and both will need to be replaced (this being considered preferable to the kinds of permanent injuries that can result from a spinning blade). The SawStart is also single use, but in its case, it somehow makes the blade impossible to stop, violating the second law of thermodynamics and probably several other laws.{{Citation needed}} Hence, the SawStart blade must also be replaced, but this apparently has to be done while the blade is spinning. To attempt to remove a spinning blade is incredibly dangerous, and this simply adds to the unnecessary harm this product could do.

In theory, such system could be useful on futuristic mechanized melee weapon (like "chainswords" from ''Warhammer 40000''). In which case, saw would start spinning as soon as it hits the enemy - therefore not needing time to spin up; on top of that, the saw is impossible to stop, and will continue to rip and shred any enemies in contact until saw breaks. Naturally, it is possible to make combat disk saw, designed to cut armor and flesh alike.

A similar thing was done in [[2876: Range Safety]], but that time was with a rocket.

==Transcript==
:[A table with a table saw stands behind Black Hat who gestures to the table while facing Megan and Cueball. There is a label on the side of the table, a logo of a circular saw blade, with the first part of a word inside the blade:]
:SawStart
:Black Hat: When the saw detects contact with skin, an explosive charge starts the blade spinning at full speed within a few milliseconds.

:[Caption below the panel:]
:SawStop's less-popular competitor

{{comic discussion}}

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

3067: SawStart

2025-03-25T09:10:04Z

User 8496351: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 3067
| date = March 24, 2025
| title = SawStart
| image = sawstart.png
| imagesize = 290x313px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Unfortunately, SawStart is one-use-only. Once started, the blade cannot be stopped, and must be replaced with a fresh blade while the running one is carefully disposed of.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a SawBOT - - Language is too informal and convoluted.}}
{{w|SawStop}} is an American {{w|table saw}} manufacturer whose product is designed to increase safety. Table saws can be highly dangerous if not used properly, because they feature a rapidly spinning {{w|circular saw}} protruding from the surface. If any part of someone's body comes into contact with the blade while it's spinning, it can cause severe injury or death. SawStop products feature an automatic brake, designed to detect when flesh comes into contact with the blade. According to manufacturer claims, the brake (an aluminum block) will stop the blade within 5 milliseconds of detecting contact, followed by the blade retracting into the table. This is intended to prevent major injuries in the event of contact.

Black Hat here takes the notion of a product designed to increase safety, and changes the design to do the opposite, making it much more dangerous. Like the SawStop design, his product ostensibly detects contact with skin and reacts within milliseconds, but rather than stopping the blade, his product uses an explosive charge to ''start'' a stationary blade. It's unknown whether the blade would be faster than normal, and actually make it more dangerous (ordinary speeds of a table saw are more than capable of destroying living tissue), but setting off an explosive charge while in contact with such a blade is probably not a particularly good idea.{{Citation needed}} It is not wise, in general, to touch even a normal stopped blade (without being absolutely certain that the power cannot be turned on, or even just through the stationary sharpness), but in this case it specifically is designed to make one that theoretically could be touched run up to significantly damaging speeds the moment it is. There is no benefit to such a system, and it exists solely to be malicious (which is likely why it's "less popular").

In theory, such system could be useful on futuristic mechanized melee weapon (like "chainswords" from ''Warhammer 40000''). In which case, saw would start spinning as soon as it hits the enemy - therefore not needing time to spin up. Naturally, it is possible to make combat disk saw, designed to cut armor and flesh alike.

The title text refers to the fact that the braking feature on the SawStop is single use. Because of the very fast response time, both the braking cartridge and the saw blade will be badly damaged in the process, and both will need to be replaced (this being considered preferable to the kinds of permanent injuries that can result from a spinning blade). The SawStart is also single use, but in its case, it somehow makes the blade impossible to stop, violating the second law of thermodynamics and probably several other laws.{{Citation needed}} Hence, the SawStart blade must also be replaced, but this apparently has to be done while the blade is spinning. To attempt to remove a spinning blade is incredibly dangerous, and this simply adds to the unnecessary harm this product could do.

A similar thing was done in [[2876: Range Safety]], but that time was with a rocket.

==Transcript==
:[A table with a table saw stands behind Black Hat who gestures to the table while facing Megan and Cueball. There is a label on the side of the table, a logo of a circular saw blade, with the first part of a word inside the blade:]
:SawStart
:Black Hat: When the saw detects contact with skin, an explosive charge starts the blade spinning at full speed within a few milliseconds.

:[Caption below the panel:]
:SawStop's less-popular competitor

{{comic discussion}}

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