https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/api.php?action=feedcontributions&user=108.162.215.134&feedformat=atomexplain xkcd - User contributions [en]2024-03-28T09:08:18ZUser contributionsMediaWiki 1.30.0https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:1744:_Metabolism&diff=128646Talk:1744: Metabolism2016-10-14T19:22:19Z<p>108.162.215.134: </p>
<hr />
<div><!--Please sign your posts with ~~~~--><br />
<br />
This is stated too strongly. Most of our energy consumed goes toward our basal metabolic rate, which does seem to [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basal_metabolic_rate#Causes_of_individual_differences_in_BMR vary among individuals]. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.215.134|108.162.215.134]] 19:22, 14 October 2016 (UTC)<br />
<br />
I think the comics explanation should include dieticians.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.49.12|162.158.49.12]] 14:58, 10 October 2016 (UTC)<br />
<br />
A reference on the topic of metabolic energy balance and common beliefs surrounding it: http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/95/4/989.full [[Special:Contributions/162.158.34.149|162.158.34.149]] 17:47, 10 October 2016 (UTC)<br />
<br />
If it was White Hat saying this, I'd expect him to be literally able to eat whatever he wants, even items that are not normally edible. It is not, however (which is strange, because, even aside from that alternate interpretation, it sounds a lot like his style). --[[Special:Contributions/172.68.11.36|172.68.11.36]] 02:56, 11 October 2016 (UTC)<br />
: I'd say in that case it had to be Beret Guy instead of White Hat. [[User:Elektrizikekswerk|Elektrizikekswerk]] ([[User talk:Elektrizikekswerk|talk]]) 07:31, 11 October 2016 (UTC)<br />
:: I agree - not sure why I mistook one for the other. --[[Special:Contributions/172.68.11.39|172.68.11.39]] 12:11, 11 October 2016 (UTC)<br />
<br />
I have one of those metabolisms where if I eat more than what I need, I sweat a lot during the night and I never fatten. I'm always underweight. é_è [[User:Seipas|Seipas]] ([[User talk:Seipas|talk]]) 09:07, 11 October 2016 (UTC)<br />
<br />
The explaination is mistaken. It is indeed possible to eat and not gain weight, and well document and most parts of it understood by medicine. Excess energy is only stored as fat if the body is stressed, you can piss out the sugar or the intestines can absorb less. The problem with the idea is that is hard to impossible to correct what your body does in this regard which makes is a red herring for the already overweight. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.87.11|162.158.87.11]] 16:45, 11 October 2016 (UTC)<br />
<br />
:It's even worse: if you try some diet to reduce weight and you start feeling hungry due to this diet, your body will interpret it as signal that it needs to work harder to preserve and/or obtain energy. When you stop the diet, you will then gain even more weight, which is also known as {{w|Yo-yo effect}}. Overweight people who already tried multiple diets, some of them based on bad ideas, will typically get more fat from the same food than people who never cared. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 13:37, 13 October 2016 (UTC)<br />
<br />
[https://xkcd.com/1475/ Technically], Cueball says he can eat "'whatever I want," which would imply he could eat traditionally non-edible items. I don't think this is actually intended based on context, but... {{unsigned ip|108.162.218.154}}<br />
<br />
It may be coincidence but this comic was published the day before the Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement) Jewish fast. There was a reference to the Jewish calendar a few comics ago. {{unsigned ip|141.101.104.123}}</div>108.162.215.134https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1732:_Earth_Temperature_Timeline&diff=1269951732: Earth Temperature Timeline2016-09-15T02:47:10Z<p>108.162.215.134: Humans reach North America.; temperature is relative to average, not to 0 degrees C</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 1732<br />
| date = September 12, 2016<br />
| title = Earth Temperature Timeline<br />
| before = [[#Explanation|↓ Skip to explanation ↓]]<br />
| image = earth_temperature_timeline.png<br />
| titletext = [After setting your car on fire] Listen, your car's temperature has changed before.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{TOC}} <br />
{{incomplete|[[#Table of all elements|Table for explanations]] now ready to be filled out. Please remove this tag only when everything is explained.}}<br />
In the past 100 years, human action produced lots of {{w|CO₂ emissions}}, which have caused a rise in average global temperature through the {{w|greenhouse effect}}. This is called {{w|global warming}} and is part of a {{w|climate change}}, a subject that has become a [[:Category:Climate change|recurrent subject]] on xkcd. There are still many people who claim that this is not happening, or at least that it is not caused by any human actions, called "climate change deniers". One argument of theirs is that global warming is happening for natural causes, summarized with the phrase "temperature has changed before". This comic is a direct, but much more thorough, follow up on the previous global warming comic: [[1379: 4.5 Degrees]].<br />
<br />
This comic shows that while temperature changes have indeed occurred before, the speed of the current temperature rise is much, much faster than those seen (actually: estimated) in the previous thousands of years. It seemed to touch on something in peoples consciousness, because it became so popular that [[Randall]] [[#Popularity_of_comic|postponed the release]] of his next comic to keep this one on the front page one day longer. <br />
<br />
This comic is a [[:Category:Timelines|timeline]] on how the temperature has changed since 20,000 BCE to the present day and extrapolated 84 years on from present day of the release of the comic (2016) to 2100 depending on the choice of actions to stop CO₂ emission that is taken now or never. It is meant to contrast the slow-paced natural changes with the rapid temperature rise in the recent years. The effect is achieved by forcing the reader to scroll endlessly through slow, building-up changes and then face them with an almost instantaneous, quick rise towards the end. The temperature curve is a dotted line most of the time, but from about 1850 to present day (2016) the measurement data is good enough to let the curve become a solid line indicating that this is not an estimate. Before 1850 the temperature is an estimate based on the [[#Sources|sources]] given. And likewise into the future the curve is also dotted as this is predictions. And here there are even three possible outcomes depending on how seriously politicians and other influential people (and the population of Earth) take knowledge (and comics) like this.<br />
<br />
Below in the [[#Table of all elements|table]] each entry will be noted and explained (in time). This is one of the comics where Randall cites his [[#Sources|sources]] like he did for one of his other very large comics [[980: Money]].<br />
<br />
The title text compares the saying that "the temperature has changed before" comparing temperature changes over thousands of years to the rapid global warming over the last century with saying that the "small" changes to the temperature a car experiences over the years of normal usage should not make you worried over the rapid temperature increase that happens when someone sets your car on fire. A related joke was used recently in [[1693: Oxidation]].<br />
<br />
===Table of all elements===<br />
*Here is table (to be filled out) of all elements with explanations including reading of temperature and year for each event from the curve.<br />
*Table ready for use:<br />
**The year group is just an easy way to find the section.<br />
**The actual year of an event should be read off more precisely on the chart.<br />
***Suggestion for doing this:<br />
***Top part of element<br />
***Central part of element<br />
***Other?<br />
**Element is a description mainly taken from the transcript. Feel free to remove redundant information, but the guess was that getting the table ready was the most important feature for getting the explanation started.<br />
**T (°C) should be read of for the curve for every element. <b>This is the number of degrees above or below the 1961-1990 average, not the number of degrees above of below °C.</b><br />
**Explanation explains itself.<br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
!Year group<br />
!Element<br />
!Year<br />
!T (°C) compared to 1961-1990 average<br />
!Explanation<br />
|-<br />
| rowspan="2"| 20000 <small>BCE</small><br />
| [An arrow goes from the dotted line to the central line at 0°C (representing the 1961-1990 average). In the middle of the line there is a temperature label:] 4.3°C<br>At the start of our timeline, 22,000 years ago, Earth is 4°C colder than during the late 20<sup>th</sup> century. || 20000 BCE || -4.3 || The temperature at the beginning of the chart compared to the average from 1961-1990 that we compare temperatures with today.<br />
|-<br />
<br />
| {{w|Boston}} is buried under almost a mile of ice, and the {{w|glaciers}} reach as far south as {{w|New York City}}.<br> [The Statue of Liberty is shown in front of a glacier front. A guy with a white {{w|knit cap}} is seen walking in a snowy landscape. The skyline of Boston is shown under a half a mile of ice.] || 19700 BCE || -4.3 || The Boston image is directly taken from [[1225: Ice Sheets]] about the ice age glacier coverage and the guy with the white knit cap could be the guy from [[1321: Cold]] also about global warming. It shows what a difference 4 degree in global temperature means (massive effect), as opposed to what four degree means on a daily weather wise scale (nothing!). [[Randall]] lives in Boston. It was also shown buried in ice in [[1379: 4.5 Degrees]]. Knit caps have only been used a few times in xkcd, most prominently on [[1350:_Lorenz#Knit_Cap_Girl|Knit Cap Girl]] in [[1350: Lorenz]], see her section for more details.<br />
<br />
|-<br />
| rowspan="3"| 19500 <small>BCE</small><br />
| But the world is about to warm up. || || || The warming process actually takes thousands of years, but this is quite rapid on a geological scale.<br />
|-<br />
| By this time, humans have already spread across Africa, Eurasia, and Australia. || || ||<br />
|-<br />
| They’ve created painting, pottery, rope, and bows and arrows, but haven’t developed writing or farming. || || ||<br />
<br />
|-<br />
| rowspan="2"| 19000 <small>BCE</small><br />
| Changes in the Earth’s orbit mean that more sunlight reaches the polar ice… || || ||{{w|Milankovitch cycles}} are repeated climate variations on a timescale of tens of millennia.<br />
|-<br />
| [A line chart with a labeled Y-axis "Summer sun W/m<sup>2</sup> at 60°N" with three labeled ticks ranging from 450-550. The curve starts up and then goes down five times and up four times ending down. There is one plateau towards the end compared to the rest of the curve where the ups and downs are quite alike.] || || ||<br />
<br />
|-<br />
| rowspan="1"| 18500 <small>BCE</small><br />
| [A map of the world. At the top is a light gray area covering North America, Greenland and northern Europe and most of the northern part of Russia. A similar gray area covers Antarctica. The gray areas are labeled as ice.] || || ||<br />
<br />
|-<br />
| rowspan="1"| 18000 <small>BCE</small><br />
| …And the ice sheets start to melt. || || ||<br />
<br />
|-<br />
| rowspan="1"| 17500 <small>BCE</small><br />
| Temperatures have been creeping upward, but around this point, CO<sub>2</sub> levels start to climb…|| || ||<br />
<br />
|-<br />
| rowspan="1"| 17000 <small>BCE</small><br />
| …And then the warming speeds up. || || ||Again, sarcasm about the slow speed of natural climate change compared to modern anthropogenic warming.<br />
<br />
|-<br />
| rowspan="1"| 16500 <small>BCE</small><br />
| [Cueball is standing with a spear just the right of the graph talking to a rabbit.]<br>Cueball: Still pretty cold. || || ||<br />
<br />
|-<br />
| rowspan="2"| 16000 <small>BCE</small><br />
| [Megan points to the graph to the right of her and between her and Ponytail standing on the other side. Mean is the first drawing on the left side of the dotted curve, which has hardly moved since the beginning, only to just on the other side of 4°C below the 1961-1990 average.] || || ||<br />
|-<br />
| [In the right part of the chart is an explanation of the data. Below the first two lines there are four drawings each showing possible temperature swings in reality compared to the smoothed data that represents the dotted curve of the entire chart. The dotted curve is shown in all four drawings and a thin line is shown running along it but with much more fluctuation left and right on the first two, a large spike right on the third and a large bump way right on the fourth. Above these there are two labels. The first labels is inside a bracket that covers the first three, and the last label is for the last drawing. Below is a list of sources.] <br>Limits of this data: <br> Short warming or cooling spikes might be “smoothed out” by these reconstructions but only if they’re small or brief enough. <br> Possible Unlikely<br>Reconstructions are from Shakun (2012) and Marcott (2013), scaled to Annan + Hargreaves (2013) estimate for the last glacial period. || || ||<br />
<br />
|-<br />
| rowspan="1"| 15500 <small>BCE</small><br />
| In what is now France, humans paint murals on the walls of the Lascaux caves <br> [Hairy paints three animals, two with horns, and two humans, Cueball holding hand with Hairy who has a spear. On the other side of the central line Megan writes three letters, the last of which is reversed:] NIИ || || || A reference to the industrial techno band {{w|Nine Inch Nails}}.<br />
<br />
|-<br />
| rowspan="1"| 15000 <small>BCE</small><br />
| Ice sheets around Alaska shrink, exposing a land bridge between Asia and North America <br> [From around the bottom if this section and down to 11500 BCE the dotted curve moved steadily to the right towards warmed temperature peaking close to 1.5°C below the 1961-1990 average. Before this the temperature had not moved much away from that at the start.] || || ||<br />
<br />
|-<br />
| rowspan="1"| 14500 <small>BCE</small><br />
| [Cueball walks right looking back at the graph behind him. Megan walks in front of him pointing further right.]<br>| Cueball: Cool.<br> Humans reach North America. || || || This is approximately when the ancestors of the Inuit crossed the land bridge from what is now Russia to what is now Alaska. However, evidence of humans in North America over 20,000 years ago suggests that humans reached North America by boat prior to the formation of the land bridge. <br />
<br />
|-<br />
| rowspan="2"| 14000 <small>BCE</small><br />
| The edge of the ice withdraws from New York City and retreats North. || || ||<br />
|-<br />
| [A large glacier front speaks in a speech bubble with an arrow pointing at it. Behind is there are four peaks in the horizon and in front of it three small melting pools and some rocks on the ground.] <br> Glacier: ''That’s it! I’m moving to Canada!'' || || || When US citizens are unhappy with changes in their country, they sometimes say they will move to Canada in protest.<br />
<br />
|-<br />
| rowspan="2"| 13500 <small>BCE</small><br />
| Humans domesticate dogs <br> (Date uncertain, may be much earlier) || || ||<br />
|-<br />
|| [Megan and Cueball is watching a wolf looking at them.]<br>Megan: Okay, you can live in our homes and we’ll feed you, but we’ll still get mad if you poop on the floor. <br> Wolf: Deal. <br> Cueball: And we get to breed you to be tiny and dress you in little costumes. <br>Wolf: …Wait. || || || See {{w|Origin of the domestic dog}}. They are often bred for size and occasionally made to wear clothing.<br />
<br />
|-<br />
| rowspan="2"| 13000 <small>BCE</small><br />
| {{w|Woolly Rhino}} goes extinct || || ||<br />
|-<br />
| Oregon is scoured by huge floods as glacial dams burst and lakes of meltwater flow to the sea || || || See {{w|Missoula Floods}}<br />
<br />
|-<br />
| rowspan="1"| 12500 <small>BCE</small><br />
| Ice sheets withdraw from Chicago || || ||<br />
<br />
|-<br />
| rowspan="1"| 12000 <small>BCE</small><br />
| Humans settle Abu Hureyra in Syria || || ||<br />
<br />
|-<br />
| rowspan="1"| 11500 <small>BCE</small><br />
| [An arrow on the left side of the dotted curve is pointing down along the dotted curve and to the left indicate temperature is declining again, meaning the dotted curve now moves left to colder temperatures. This only continues until 10500 BCE. It is only the second time something is noted on the left side after Megan at 16000 BCE] <br> Temperatures start to decline, mainly in the Northern hemisphere<br> This may be caused by changes in ocean circulation due to the floods of cold fresh meltwater flowing into the Atlantic as the North American ice sheet melts. <br> This cooler period is called the {{w|Younger Dryas}} || || ||<br />
<br />
<br />
|-<br />
| rowspan="1"| 11000 <small>BCE</small><br />
| [This is the first text to the left of the dotted curve:] <br> Humans reach Argentina || || ||<br />
<br />
|-<br />
| rowspan="2"| 10500 <small>BCE</small><br />
| [An arrow pointing down along the right side of the dotted curve and to the right indicate temperature is increasing again, meaning the dotted curve now moves right to hotter temperatures. This continues until 8000 BCE where it levels out just above the 1961-1990 average.] <br> Warming resumes || || ||<br />
|-<br />
| Human settlements at Jericho || || ||<br />
<br />
|-<br />
| rowspan="1"| 10000 <small>BCE</small><br />
| First development of farming || || ||<br />
<br />
|-<br />
| rowspan="2"| 9500 <small>BCE</small><br />
| Saber-toothed cat goes extinct || || ||<br />
|-<br />
| Horses disappear from North America || || ||<br />
<br />
|-<br />
| rowspan="4"| 9000 <small>BCE</small><br />
| | Last North American Pokémon go extinct <br> [Cueball with a spear and Megan is looking up at this last “fact”.] <br> Megan: That is not a real fact. || || || As prehistoric [[Megan]] states, this is not a real fact. Pokémon are still thriving throughout the entire world (see [[1705: Pokémon Go]]), and are most commonly found near [http://time.com/4443225/pokemon-go-affluent-white-neighborhoods-report/ affluent first world neighborhoods].<br />
|-<br />
| Temperatures reach modern levels || || ||<br />
|-<br />
| Rising seas cut off the land bridge between North America and Asia || || ||<br />
|-<br />
| {{w|Cattle}} domesticated || || ||<br />
<br />
|-<br />
| rowspan="2"| 8500 <small>BCE</small><br />
| Ice sheets retreat across the Canadian border || || ||<br />
|-<br />
| Temperatures start to level out slightly above 1961-1990 levels || || ||<br />
<br />
|-<br />
| rowspan="1"| 8000 <small>BCE</small><br />
| [The above sentence breaks over the 8000 <small>BCE</small> line. From here a maximum in temperature on the chart is reached at 0.5°C above the 1961-1990 average, which will not be overtaken until 2000 CE. It stays almost constant here until 5000 BCE where a slight cooling begins.] || || ||<br />
<br />
<br />
|-<br />
| rowspan="2"| 7500 <small>BCE</small><br />
| This warm, stable period is called the {{w|Holocene Climate Optimum}} || || ||<br />
|-<br />
| {{w|Jiahu}} settled in China || || ||<br />
<br />
|-<br />
| rowspan="2"| 7000 <small>BCE</small><br />
| Final collapse of the North American ice sheet leads to rapid 2-4m sea level rise… || || ||<br />
|-<br />
| [A small arrow points down and left to the right of the dotted curve. There is a small decrease in temperature but it is very small and would have been missed without the arrow and label.] <br>…And a period of cooling in the Northern hemisphere || || ||<br />
<br />
|-<br />
| rowspan="1"| 6500 <small>BCE</small><br />
| As seas rise to near their modern levels, Britain is cut off from mainland Europe || || ||<br />
<br />
|-<br />
| rowspan="1"| 6000 <small>BCE</small><br />
| Humans develop copper metalworking || || ||<br />
<br />
|-<br />
| rowspan="2"| 5500 <small>BCE</small><br />
| Massive volcanic eruption in Oregon creates crater lake || || ||<br />
|-<br />
| {{w|Gold}} metalworking || || ||<br />
<br />
|-<br />
| rowspan="2"| 5000 <small>BCE</small><br />
| {{w|Invention of the wheel}} || || ||<br />
|-<br />
| [To the right of the dotted curve is an arrow pointing down and slightly left. From here temperature decreases very slowly but steadily from 0.5°C above the 1961-1990 average until 1000 BCE where a stable plateau is reached around the 1961-1990 average.] <br> Earth begins to cool slowly mainly due to regular cycles in its orbit || || ||<br />
<br />
|-<br />
| rowspan="3"| 4500 <small>BCE</small><br />
| Proto-Indo-European language develops || || ||<br />
|-<br />
| [To the right of the curve Ponytail holds up a hand towards Cueball.]<br> Ponytail: Let’s make out language heavily inflected, so future students have to memorize a zillion verb endings!<br> Cueball: Okay! || || ||[[Ponytail]] refers to [[1709: Inflection]].<br />
|-<br />
| Permanent settlements in the fertile crescent || || ||<br />
<br />
|-<br />
| rowspan="2"| 4000 <small>BCE</small><br />
| Horses domesticated || || ||<br />
|-<br />
| {{w|Minoan civilization|Minoan}} culture arises on Crete || || ||<br />
<br />
|-<br />
| rowspan="4"| 3500 <small>BCE</small><br />
| {{w|Egyptian mummification}} || || ||<br />
|-<br />
| Rise of the Indus Valley civilization || || ||<br />
|-<br />
| Invention of writing in Sumer “prehistory” ends, “history” begins || || ||<br />
|-<br />
| Earliest human whose name we know (Pharaoh Iry-Hor in Egypt) || || ||<br />
<br />
|-<br />
| rowspan="5"| 3000 <small>BCE</small><br />
| {{w|Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors}} period in China || || ||<br />
|-<br />
| {{w|Gilgamesh}} || || ||<br />
|-<br />
| {{w|Imhotep}} || || ||<br />
|-<br />
| {{w|Maya civilization|Mayan}} culture emerges || || ||<br />
|-<br />
| {{w|Egyptian pyramids|Great Pyramid}} constructed || || ||<br />
<br />
|-<br />
| rowspan="3"| 2500 <small>BCE</small><br />
| {{w|Corded Ware culture}} in Europe || || ||<br />
|-<br />
| [To the left of the curve two rock musicians with long hair and electrical guitars are standing on either side of a small gate made of three slabs of stone, one on top of the other two standing stones.] <br> Stonehenge completed || 2250 || || The drawing is a reference to the 1984 movie "This is Spinal Tap" (A documentary/parody featuring the fake metal band "Spinal Tap", http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088258/), the musicians order a Stone Henge prop for the stage, which turns out to be too small (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAXzzHM8zLw)<br />
|-<br />
| {{w|Chariots}} developed || || ||<br />
<br />
|-<br />
| rowspan="3"| 2000 <small>BCE</small><br />
| {{w|Alphabetic writing}} developed in Egypt || || ||<br />
|-<br />
| Last mammoths on a tiny Siberian island go extinct || || ||<br />
|-<br />
| {{w|Minoan eruption}} || || ||<br />
<br />
|-<br />
| rowspan="5"| 1500 <small>BCE</small><br />
| {{w|Iron smelting}} || || ||<br />
|-<br />
| {{w|Olmec}} civilization develops in Central America || || ||<br />
|-<br />
| [A Trojan horse with two Cueball-like guys in front and a third standing on its back. Its back is at three Cueball’s height and its head rises to the level of the Cueball on its back. It stands on a platform with four wheel on the visible side. There is text on the horse]<br> Setting of the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey''<br> Text on horse: Not a trap || || ||<br />
|-<br />
| Invasion of the Sea peoples* <br>* A real thing || || ||<br />
|-<br />
| {{w|Polynesians}} explore the Pacific Ocean || || ||<br />
<br />
|-<br />
| rowspan="8"| 1000 <small>BCE</small><br />
| [From 1000 BBC to 1000 CE the temperature is stable and very close to the 1961-1990 average.] || || ||<br />
|-<br />
| {{w|Solomon}} || || ||<br />
|-<br />
| {{w|Iliad}} and {{w|Odyssey}} composed || || ||<br />
|- <br />
| Rise of Greek city-states || || ||<br />
|-<br />
| {{w|Neo-Assyrian}} empire || || ||<br />
|-<br />
| First Olympics || || ||<br />
|-<br />
| {{w|Zapotec civilization|Zapotec}} writing in modern Mexico || || ||<br />
|-<br />
| {{w|Confucius}} || || ||<br />
<br />
|-<br />
| rowspan="10"| 500 <small>BCE</small><br />
| The stuff in the 300 (film)|movie ''300'', but regular speed and with more clothing || || ||<br />
|-<br />
| {{w|Buddha}} || || ||<br />
|-<br />
| {{w|Nazca Lines}} || || ||<br />
|-<br />
| {{w|Alexander the Great}} || || ||<br />
|-<br />
| {{w|Mayan hieroglyphics}} || || ||<br />
|-<br />
| {{w|Ashoka the Great}} || || ||<br />
|-<br />
| {{w|Paper}} invented || || ||<br />
|-<br />
| {{w|Asterix}} || || ||<br />
|-<br />
| {{w| Teotihuacan|Teotihuacán}} metropolis || || ||<br />
|-<br />
| {{w|Julius Caesar}} || || ||<br />
|-<br />
<br />
|-<br />
| rowspan="8"|1 <small>BCE</small><br>1 <small>CE</small><br />
| [At the year 0, there is instead two numbers for each of the two scales before (1 BCE) and after Christ (1 CE)] || || ||<br />
|-<br />
| {{w|Roman Empire}} || || ||<br />
|-<br />
| {{w|Jesus}} || || ||<br />
|-<br />
| [To the left and erupting volcano.] <br> {{w|Pompeii}} || || ||<br />
|-<br />
| {{w|Three Kingdoms}} period || || ||<br />
|-<br />
| {{w|Gupta empire}} || || ||<br />
|-<br />
| Various groups take turns sacking Rome || || ||<br />
|-<br />
| {{w|Attila the Hun}} || || ||<br />
<br />
|-<br />
| rowspan="4"| 500 <small>CE</small><br />
| {{w|Muhammad}} || || ||<br />
|-<br />
| {{w|Tang Dynasty}} || || ||<br />
|-<br />
| [An arrow to the right of the dotted curve pointing down, takes a swing far out from the curve and then bends back again. The text label next to it breaks into the next 500 period. The dotted curve stays stable at the 1961-1990 average along this arrow.] <br> Medieval warm period in Europe and some northern regions (too regional to affect the global average much) || || ||<br />
|-<br />
| {{w|Leif Eriksson}} || || ||<br />
<br />
|-<br />
| rowspan="7"| 1000 <small>CE</small><br />
| [The dotted curve moves to the left towards lower temperature reaching a minimum around 1650 of about 0.6°C below the 1961-1990 average at the Little Ice Age.] || || ||<br />
|-<br />
| [To the left a drawing of a compass with needle pointing the black end towards north west. There are labels for the four main directions (N, S, E, W) and a label next to it:]<br> Magnetic compass navigation || || ||<br />
|-<br />
| {{w|Ghengis Khan}} || || ||<br />
|-<br />
| {{w|Zheng He}}’s fleet explores Asia and Africa || || ||<br />
|-<br />
| {{w|Aztec Empire|Aztec Alliance}} || || ||<br />
|-<br />
| {{w|Printing press}} || || ||<br />
|-<br />
| {{w|Christopher Columbus|Columbus}} || || ||<br />
<br />
|-<br />
| rowspan="2"| 1500 <small>CE</small><br />
| {{w|European Renaissance}} || || ||<br />
|-<br />
| {{w|Shakespeare}} || || ||<br />
<br />
|-<br />
| rowspan="2"| 1600 <br />
| {{w|Isaac Newton|Newton}} || || ||<br />
|-<br />
| [To the right of the dotted curve there is an arrow pointing down that makes a swing in towards the curve and then back out again. At 0.6°C below the 1961-1990 average, this is the coldest it has been since 9500 BCE. It is labeled:]<br> ”{{w|Little Ice Age}}” || || || This was not a true geologic Ice Age, just a slightly chilly period.<br />
<br />
|-<br />
| rowspan="2"| 1700<br />
| {{w|Steam engines}} || || ||<br />
|-<br />
| {{w|United States Declaration of Independence|Unites States Independence}} || || ||<br />
<br />
|-<br />
| rowspan="3"| 1800<br />
| {{w|Industrial Revolution}} || || ||<br />
|-<br />
| {{w|Electrical telegraph|Telegraphs}} || || ||<br />
|-<br />
| [After this the dotted curve becomes solid.] || || || In the late 1800s, weather records became sufficiently accurate and widespread to greatly improve the precision of climate measurements.<br />
<br />
|-<br />
| rowspan="6"| 1900<br />
| {{w|Airplanes}} || || ||<br />
|-<br />
| {{w|World Wars}} || || ||<br />
|-<br />
| [The solid line takes a step to the right close to the 1961-1990 average. Over the rest of the 1900s it moves closer to the 1961-1990 average, crossing it before 2000 where it almost reaches the maximum temperature of 0.5 °C above the 1961-1990 average from earlier in 8000 BCE.] || || || This is what the previous 14000 pixels of comic has been leading up to. After a laborious 20 millennia of gradual and meandering climate change, it should be clear that a full degree of warming in a single century is unprecedented in human history, and very unlikely to be natural variation.<br />
|-<br />
| {{w|Fossil fuel}} CO<sub>2</sub> emissions start rapidly increasing || || ||<br />
|-<br />
| {{w|Nuclear weapons}} || || || The Working Group on the 'Anthropocene' suggests dating the {{w|Anthropocene}} epoch from ~1950.<br />
|-<br />
| {{w|Internet}} || || ||<br />
<br />
<br />
|-<br />
| rowspan="2"| 2000<br />
| {{w|Northwest Passage}} opens || || ||<br />
|-<br />
|[From here to present day the solid line increases rapidly and in 2016 present day is almost reaches 1°C above the 1961-1990 average, with about 0.8°C above the 1961-1990 average.] || || || [http://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php?a=11&p=2 No, warming did not stop in 1998].<br />
<br />
|-<br />
| rowspan="3"| 2016<br />
| | Present day || || ||<br />
|-<br />
| [From here the curve once again becomes dotted as this is the future. After one dot it splits in two and after the first two dots another split between them occurs forming three possible future dotted curves.] || || ||<br />
|-<br />
|The first curve bending down before the others, and thus to the right of the other two reaches about 1.2°C above the 1961-1990 average and then goes straight down and stops at the 2100 line. An arrow points to it from the left and a label is written partly before and the rest after the 2100 line to the left of the curve:] <br>Best-case scenario assuming immediate massive action to limit emissions || || ||<br />
<br />
|-<br />
| rowspan="2"| 2100<br />
| [The middle curve bends a little down after reaching 1.3°C above the 1961-1990 average, and then continues this path reaching 2°C above the 1961-1990 average in 2100. An arrow point from below to it and a label is written below the curve and below 2100 line:] <br> Optimistic scenario|| || ||<br />
|-<br />
| [The last line continues along the path from the last 16 years of the solid line reaching 4.2°C above the 1961-1990 average at 2100, almost as far on the other side of the 1961-1990 average in 150 years as it took 14,000 years to move from the other side from the start of the chart. Another arrow point to this from below with a label below the curve and below 2100 line:] <br> Current Path || || ||<br />
|}<br />
<br />
===Sources===<br />
The image attributes climate data sources as "Shakun et al. (2012), Marcott et al. (2013), Annan and Hargreaves (2013), HadCRUT4, IPCC":<br />
* Shakun et al. (2012) - [http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v484/n7392/full/nature10915.html Nature], [http://www.atm.damtp.cam.ac.uk/mcintyre/shakun-co2-temp-lag-nat12.pdf (pdf)]<br />
* Marcott et al. (2013) - [http://science.sciencemag.org/content/339/6124/1198 Science], [http://www.atm.damtp.cam.ac.uk/mcintyre/shakun-co2-temp-lag-nat12.pdf (pdf)]<br />
* Annan and Hargreaves (2013) - [http://www.clim-past.net/9/367/2013/cp-9-367-2013.html Climate of the Past] [http://www.jamstec.go.jp/frsgc/research/d5/jdannan/LGM_temp.pdf (pdf)]<br />
* {{w|HadCRUT#HadCRUT4 wikipedia|HadCRUT4}} - [http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcrut4/ Official site] <br />
* {{w|Intergovernmental_Panel_on_Climate_Change|IPCC}} -[http://www.ipcc.ch/ Official site]<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
'''Note''' there are several spelling errors in the comic, so please do only correct spelling errors that are not part of the comic! See more in the [[#Trivia|trivia section]].<br />
:[A large heading, followed by a sub-caption. Below that two lines with a statement in between:]<br />
:<big>A timeline of Earth’s average temperature</big><br />
:since the last ice age glaciation<br />
:When people say “The climate has changed before,” these are the kinds of changes they’re talking about.<br />
<br />
:[A very long chart below the headings above is headed with a label for the scale of the X-axis above the chart. Below that a sub-caption. To the left an arrow down to the top of the chart pointing to the dotted curves starting point (at -4.3°C below the 1961-1990 average) with a label above the arrow. And arrow pointing left to the left of the center and another pointing right to the right of the center has labels. Below these is the temperature scale of the X-axis, with 9 ticks between the borders each with a label ranging from -4 to +4°C compared to the 1961-1990 average, but with another step in each direction not labeled towards to axis so the chart covers -5 to +5°C compared to the 1961-1990 average.]<br />
:'''Temperature'''<br />
: <small>Compared to the 1961-1990 average</small><br />
:Start<br />
:Colder<br />
:Warmer<br />
:-4°C -3°C -2°C -1°C 0°C +1°C +2°C +3°C +4°C<br />
<br />
:[To the right of the chart is a gray text standing on the side down along the outer boarder of the chart with the sources for the chart:]<br />
: <font color="gray">Source: Shakun et. al. (2012) , Marcott et. al. (2013), Annan and Hargreaves (2013) , HadCRUT<sub>4</sub>, IPCC </font><br />
<br />
:[The chart is split in 10 columns by the temperature scale and the borders. The two central columns are white, and then from there to the left the background becomes a faded color that changes from light blue to blue at the edge in four steps. Similarly to the right the color changes from light red to red. To the left there is a time scale taking 500 years leaps from 20,000 BCE all the way to year 1, where there are two years, one for BBC and one for CE. The 500 year leaps continue until 1500 CE and from there the steps are down to 100 years until 2100 with also present day 2016 labeled. After 1500 the CE is omitted. The labels stop there, but there is space below covering down to 2200 CE. There is clearly visible division line across the chart on the level of each of the 500 step, and fainter lines for each of the 100 steps all the way even though only the last 5 of these 100 steps are labeled. There is a similar clear line at 2016. Below each step on the Y-axis is noted, and then any text starting before the next step is noted below indented. If there are extra image belonging to text this is indented once more. The graph that the whole chart is about is a dotted line that begins at the “start” point mentioned above at -4.3°C and then begins to go straight down. It will change left and right all the way down. To being with all text and most drawings are to right of the dotted curve. Whenever something is to the left it will be noted. When it says to the left above something, and then nothing over the next, then the next will be to the right. Only at the very bottom are there more entries to the left than right. ]<br />
:20000 <small>BCE</small><br />
::[An arrow goes from the dotted line to the central line at 0°C. In the middle of the line there is a temperature label:]<br />
::4.3°C<br />
::At the start of our timeline, 22,000 years ago, Earth is 4°C colder than during the late 20<sup>th</sup> century.<br />
::Boston is buried under almost a mile of ice, and the glaciers reach as far south as New York City.<br />
:::[The Statue of Liberty is shown in front of a glacier front. A very tiny Cueball is on top of the glacier. The drawing is labeled and so is also the glacier.]<br />
:::New York<br />
:::Ice<br />
:::[A guy with a white knit cap is seen walking in a snowy landscape leaving black footprints behind him. He walks through the white central part of the chart.]<br />
:::[The skyline of Boston is shown with two clear buildings among all the other. Above it is a line and in between this area has been filled with thin lines. The drawing is labeled and so is this area. Also the skyline has an arrow pointing at it with a label:]<br />
:::Boston<br />
:::Ice<br />
:::Modern skyline<br />
<br />
:19500 <small>BCE</small><br />
::But the world is about to warm up.<br />
::By this time, humans have already spread across Africa, Eurasia, and Australia.<br />
::They’ve created painting, pottery, rope, and bows and arrows, but haven’t developed writing or farming.<br />
<br />
:19000 <small>BCE</small><br />
::Changes in the Earth’s orbit mean that more sunlight reaches the polar ice…<br />
:::[A line chart with a labeled Y-axis with three labeled ticks. The curve starts up and then goes down five times and up four times ending down. There is one plateau towards the end compared to the rest of the curve where the ups and downs are quite alike.]<br />
:::Summer sun W/m<sup>2</sup> at 60°N<br />
:::550<br />
:::500<br />
:::450<br />
<br />
:18500 <small>BCE</small><br />
::[A map of the world. At the top is a light gray area covering North America, Greenland and northern Europe and most of the northern part of Russia. A similar gray area covers Antarctica. There are two labels in the gray area above and one in the gray area below:]<br />
::Ice Ice<br />
::Ice<br />
<br />
:18000 <small>BCE</small><br />
::…And the ice sheets start to melt.<br />
<br />
:17500 <small>BCE</small><br />
::Temperatures have been creeping upward, but around this point, CO<sub>2</sub> levels start to climb…<br />
<br />
:17000 <small>BCE</small><br />
::…And then the warming speeds up.<br />
<br />
:16500 <small>BCE</small><br />
::[Cueball is standing with a spear just the right of the graph talking to a rabbit.]<br />
::Cueball: Still pretty cold.<br />
<br />
:16000 <small>BCE</small><br />
::[Megan points to the graph to the right of her and between her and Ponytail standing on the other side. Mean is the first drawing on the left side of the dotted curve, which has hardly moved since the beginning, only to just on the other side of 4°C.]<br />
::[In the right part of the chart is an explanation of the data. Below the first two lines there are four drawings each showing possible temperature swings in reality compared to the smoothed data that represents the dotted curve of the entire chart. The dotted curve is shown in all four drawings and a thin line is shown running along it but with much more fluctuation left and right on the first two, a large spike right on the third and a large bump way right on the fourth. Above these there are two labels. The first labels is inside a bracket that covers the first three, and the last label is for the last drawing. Below is a list of sources.]<br />
::Limits of this data:<br />
::Short warming or cooling spikes might be “smoothed out” by these reconstructions but only if they’re small or brief enough.<br />
:::Possible Unlikely<br />
::Reconstructions are from Shakun (2012) and Marcott (2013), scaled to Annan + Hargreaves (2013) estimate for the last glacial period.<br />
<br />
:15500 <small>BCE</small><br />
::In what is now France, humans paint murals on the walls of the Lascaux caves<br />
::[Hairy paints three animals, two with horns, and two humans, Cueball holding hand with Hairy who has a spear. On the other side of the central line Megan writes three letters, the last of which is reversed.]<br />
:::NIИ<br />
<br />
:15000 <small>BCE</small><br />
::Ice sheets around Alaska shrink, exposing a land bridge between Asia and North America<br />
::[From around the bottom if this section and down to 11500 BCE the dotted curve moved steadily to the right towards warmed temperature peaking close to -1.5°C. Before this the temperature had not moved much away from that at the start.]<br />
<br />
:14500 <small>BCE</small><br />
::[Cueball walks right looking back at the graph behind him. Megan walks in front of him pointing further right.]<br />
::Cueball: Cool.<br />
::Humans reach North America.<br />
<br />
:14000 <small>BCE</small><br />
::The edge of the ice withdraws from New York City and retreats North.<br />
::[A large glacier front speaks in a speech bubble with an arrow pointing at it. Behind is there are four peaks in the horizon and in front of it three small melting pools and some rocks on the ground.]<br />
::Glacier: ''That’s it! I’m moving to Canada!''<br />
<br />
:13500 <small>BCE</small><br />
::Humans domesticate dogs<br />
::(Date uncertain, may be much earlier)<br />
::[Megan and Cueball is watching a wolf looking at them.]<br />
::Megan: Okay, you can live in our homes and we’ll feed you, but we’ll still get mad f you poop on the floor.<br />
::Wolf: Deal.<br />
::Cueball: And we get to breed you to be tiny and dress you in little costumes.<br />
::Wolf: …Wait.<br />
<br />
:13000 <small>BCE</small><br />
::[Randall did not use the normal spelling for Woolly Rhino, but this is an accepted alternative spelling:]<br />
::Wooly Rhino goes extinct<br />
::Oregon is scoured by huge floods as glacial dams burst and lakes of meltwater flow to the sea<br />
<br />
:12500 <small>BCE</small><br />
::Ice sheets withdraw from Chicago<br />
<br />
:12000 <small>BCE</small><br />
::Humans settle Abu Hureyra in Syria<br />
<br />
:11500 <small>BCE</small><br />
::[An arrow on the left side of the dotted curve is pointing down along the dotted curve and to the left indicate temperature is declining again, meaning the dotted curve now moves left to colder temperatures. This only continues until 10500 BCE. It is only the second time something is noted on the left side after Megan at 16000 BCE]<br />
::Temperatures start to decline, mainly in the Northern hemisphere<br />
::This may be caused by changes in ocean circulation due to the floods of cold fresh meltwater flowing into the Atlantic as the North American ice sheet melts.<br />
::This cooler period is called the Younger Dryas<br />
<br />
:11000 <small>BCE</small><br />
::[This is the first text to the left of the dotted curve:]<br />
::Humans reach Argentina<br />
<br />
:10500 <small>BCE</small><br />
::[An arrow pointing down along the right side of the dotted curve and to the right indicate temperature is increasing again, meaning the dotted curve now moves right to hotter temperatures. This continues until 8000 BCE where it levels out just above 0°C.]<br />
::Warming resumes<br />
::Human settlements at Jericho<br />
<br />
:10000 <small>BCE</small><br />
::First development of farming<br />
<br />
:9500 <small>BCE</small><br />
::Saber-toothed cat goes extinct<br />
::[To the left:]<br />
::Horses disappear from North America<br />
<br />
:9000 <small>BCE</small><br />
::[To the left, Randall spelled Pokémon wrong:]<br />
:::Last North American Pokemon go extinct<br />
:::[Cueball with a speak and Megan is looking up at this last “fact”.]<br />
:::Megan: That is not a real fact.<br />
::Temperatures reach modern levels<br />
::Rising seas cut off the land bridge between North America and Asia<br />
::Cattle domesticated<br />
<br />
:8500 <small>BCE</small><br />
::Ice sheets retreat across the Canadian border<br />
::Temperatures start to level out slightly above 1961-1990 levels<br />
<br />
:8000 <small>BCE</small><br />
::[The above sentence breaks over the 8000 <small>BCE</small> line. From here a maximum in temperature on the chart is reached at 0.5°C which will not be overtaken until 2000 CE. It stays almost constant here until 5000 BCE where a slight cooling begins.]<br />
<br />
:7500 <small>BCE</small><br />
::[To the left:]<br />
::This warm, stable period is called the Holocene Climate Optimum<br />
::[To the left:]<br />
::Jiahu settled in China<br />
<br />
:7000 <small>BCE</small><br />
::Final collapse of the North American ice sheet leads to rapid 2-4m sea level rise…<br />
::[A small arrow points down and left to the right of the dotted curve. There is a small decrease in temperature but it is very small and would have been missed without the arrow and label.]<br />
::…And a period of cooling in the Northern hemisphere<br />
<br />
:6500 <small>BCE</small><br />
::[To the left:]<br />
::As seas rise to near their modern levels, Britain is cut off from mainland Europe<br />
<br />
:6000 <small>BCE</small><br />
::Humans develop copper metalworking<br />
<br />
:5500 <small>BCE</small><br />
::[To the left:]<br />
::Massive volcanic eruption in Oregon creates crater lake<br />
::Gold metalworking<br />
<br />
:5000 <small>BCE</small><br />
::[To the left:]<br />
::Invention of the wheel<br />
::[To the left. To the right of the dotted curve is an arrow pointing down and slightly left. From here temperature decreases very slowly but steadily from 0.5°C until 1000 BCE where a stable plateau is reached around 0°C.]<br />
::Earth begins to cool slowly mainly due to regular cycles in its orbit<br />
<br />
:4500 <small>BCE</small><br />
::[To the left:]<br />
:: Proto-Indo-European language develops<br />
:::[To the right of the curve Ponytail holds up a hand towards Cueball.]<br />
:::Ponytail: Let’s make out language heavily inflected, so future students have to memorize a zillion verb endings!<br />
:::Cueball: Okay!<br />
::[To the left:]<br />
::Permanent settlements in the fertile crescent<br />
<br />
:4000 <small>BCE</small><br />
::Horses domesticated<br />
::[To the left:]<br />
::Minoan culture arises on Crete<br />
<br />
:3500 <small>BCE</small><br />
::Egyptian mummification<br />
::Rise of the Indus Valley civilization<br />
::[To the left:]<br />
::Invention of writing in Sumer “prehistory” ends, “history” begins<br />
::Earliest human whose name we know<br />
::<small>(Pharaoh Iry-Hor in Egypt)</small><br />
<br />
:3000 <small>BCE</small><br />
::''Three Sovereigns and five emperors'' period in China<br />
::Gilgamesh<br />
::[To the left:]<br />
::Imhotep<br />
::Mayan culture emerges<br />
::[To the left:]<br />
::Great Pyramid constructed<br />
<br />
:2500 <small>BCE</small><br />
::Corded Ware culture in Europe<br />
::[To the left of the curve two rock musicians with long hair and electrical guitars are standing on either side of a small gate made of three slabs of stone, one on top of the other two standing stones.]<br />
::Stonehenge completed<br />
::Chariots developed<br />
<br />
:2000 <small>BCE</small><br />
::[To the left:]<br />
::Alphabetic writing developed in Egypt<br />
::Last mammoths on a tiny Siberian island go extinct<br />
::[To the left:]<br />
::Minoan eruption<br />
<br />
:1500 <small>BCE</small><br />
::[To the left:]<br />
::Iron smelting<br />
::Olmec civilization develops in Central America<br />
::[A Trojan horse with two Cueball-like guys in front and a third standing on its back. Its back is at three Cueball’s height and its head rises to the level of the Cueball on its back. It stands on a platform with four wheel on the visible side. There is text on the horse]<br />
:::Setting of the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey''<br />
:::Text on horse: Not a trap<br />
::[To the left:]<br />
::Invasion of the Sea peoples*<br />
::<small>* A real thing</small><br />
::Polynesians explore the Pacific Ocean<br />
<br />
:1000 <small>BCE</small><br />
::[From 1000 BBC to 1000 CE the temperature is stable and very close to 0°C.]<br />
::[To the left:]<br />
::Solomon<br />
::[Randall spelled Iliad wrongly this time:]<br />
::Illiad and Odyssey composed <br />
::[To the left:]<br />
::Rise of Greek city-states<br />
::Neo-Assyrian empire<br />
::[To the left:]<br />
::First Olympics<br />
::Zapotec writing in modern Mexico<br />
::[To the left:]<br />
::Confucius<br />
<br />
:500 <small>BCE</small><br />
::[To the left:]<br />
::The stuff in the 300 (film)|movie ''300'', but regular speed and with more clothing<br />
::Buddha<br />
::Nazca Lines<br />
::[To the left:]<br />
::Alexander the Great<br />
::[To the left:]<br />
::Mayan hieroglyphics<br />
::Ashoka the Great<br />
::[To the left:]<br />
::Paper invented<br />
::[To the left:]<br />
::Asterix<br />
::Teotihuacán metropolis<br />
::[To the left:]<br />
::Julius Caesar<br />
<br />
:[At the year 0, there is instead two numbers for each of the two scales before and after Christ:]<br />
:1 <small>BCE</small><br />
:1 <small>CE</small><br />
::[To the left:]<br />
::Roman Empire<br />
::Jesus<br />
::[To the left and erupting volcano.]<br />
::Pompeii<br />
::Three Kingdoms period<br />
::[To the left:]<br />
::Gupta empire<br />
::[To the left:]<br />
::Various groups take turns sacking Rome<br />
::[Randall spelled Attila wrong:]<br />
::Atilla the Hun<br />
<br />
:500 <small>CE</small><br />
::Muhammad<br />
::[To the left:]<br />
::Tang Dynasty<br />
::[An arrow to the right of the dotted curve pointing down, takes a swing far out from the curve and then bends back again. The text label next to it breaks into the next 500 period. The dotted curve stays stable at 0°C along this arrow.]<br />
::Medieval warm period in Europe and some northern regions (too regional to affect the global average much)<br />
::[To the left:]<br />
::Leif Eriksson<br />
<br />
:1000 <small>CE</small><br />
::[The dotted curve moves to the left towards lower temperature reaching a minimum around 1650 of about -0.6°C at the Little Ice Age.]<br />
::[To the left a drawing of a compass with needle pointing the black end towards north west. There are labels for the four main directions and a label next to it:]<br />
:::<small>N</small><br />
:::<small>E W</small><br />
:::<small>S</small><br />
:::Magnetic compass navigation<br />
::[To the left:]<br />
::Ghengis Khan <br />
::Zheng He’s fleet explores Asia and Africa<br />
::[To the left:]<br />
::Aztec Alliance <br />
::[To the left:]<br />
::Printing press<br />
::[To the left:]<br />
::Columbus<br />
<br />
:1500 <small>CE</small><br />
::European Renaissance<br />
::[To the left:]<br />
::Shakespeare<br />
<br />
:1600 <br />
::[To the left:]<br />
::Newton<br />
::[To the right of the dotted curve there is an arrow pointing down that makes a swing in towards the curve and then back out again. At -0.6°C this is the coldest it has been since 9500 BCE. It is labeled:]<br />
::”Little Ice Age”<br />
<br />
:1700<br />
::Steam engines<br />
::[To the left:]<br />
::Unites States Independence<br />
<br />
:1800<br />
::Industrial Revolution<br />
::[To the left:]<br />
::Telegraphs<br />
::[After this the dotted curve becomes solid.]<br />
<br />
:1900<br />
::[To the left, and on the line for 1900:]<br />
::Airplanes<br />
::[To the left:]<br />
::World Wars<br />
::[The solid line takes a step to the right close to 0°C. Over the rest of the 1900s it moves closer to 0°C crossing it before 2000 where it almost reaches the maximum temperature of 0.5 °C from earlier in 8000 BCE.]<br />
::Fossil fuel CO<sub>2</sub> emissions start rapidly increasing<br />
::[To the left:]<br />
::Nuclear weapons<br />
::[To the left:]<br />
::Internet<br />
<br />
:2000<br />
::Northwest Passage opens<br />
::[From here to present day the solid line increases rapidly and in 2016 present day is almost reaches 1°C, with about 0.8°C.]<br />
<br />
:2016<br />
::[To the left on the line for 2016:]<br />
::Present day<br />
::[From here the curve once again becomes dotted as this is the future. After one dot it splits in two and after the first two dots another split between them occurs forming three possible future dotted curves. The first curve bending down before the others, and thus to the right of the other two reaches about 1.2°C and then goes straight down and stops at the 2100 line. An arrow points to it from the left and a label is written patly before and the rest after the 2100 line to the left of the curve:]<br />
::Best-case scenario assuming immediate massive action to limit emissions<br />
<br />
:2100<br />
::[The middle curve bends a little down after reaching 1.3°C and then continues this path reaching 2°C in 2100. An arrow point from below to it and a label is written below the curve and below 2100 line:]<br />
::Optimistic scenario<br />
::[The last line continues along the path from the last 16 years of the solid line reaching 4.2°C at 2100, almost as far on the other side of 0°C in 150 years as it took 14000 years to move from the other side from the start of the chart. Another arrow point to this from below with a label below the curve and below 2100 line:]<br />
::Current Path<br />
<br />
==Trivia==<br />
*There have been several ''[[:Category:Large drawings|large drawings]]'' in the history of xkcd, and also some that are bigger than this one (for instance [[1110: Click and Drag]]). <br />
**But among those that can be viewed in one go, without downloading a larger file or moving around, this is by far the longest.<br />
**The next longest is probably [[482: Height]].<br />
*The timeline starts at 20,000 BCE (22,000 years ago) and ends at 2100 CE, thus covering 22,100 years. <br />
*There are several spelling mistakes. <br />
**Most obvious is the second time Randall wrote the word "Iliad," because he just spelled it correctly at 1500 BCE and then spelled it ''Illiad'' at 1000 BCE with two "L"s.<br />
**Attila the Hun becomes ''Atilla the Hun'' with ''one'' T and ''two'' L's.<br />
**Pokémon is spelled ''Pokemon'', but then again that is not so strange for Randall (see [[1647: Diacritics]]).<br />
**Note that the fact that Woolly rhinoceros becomes ''Wooly rhino'' with only one l is not a spelling mistake but an alternative spelling of the word.<br />
<br />
===Popularity of comic===<br />
*This comic became so popular with a broader audience that Randall decided to push the release of the next comic one day back to Thursday instead of Wednesday. <br />
**He noted this above the comic in the [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/images/6/6d/1732_Earth_Temperature_Timeline_header_text_changed.png header text on xkcd]:<br />
::Note: Since a lot of new people are here looking for this chart today,<br />
::I'll be posting Wednesday's comic on Thursday instead.<br />
*Before that the [http://web.archive.org/web/20160912181546/https://xkcd.com/ normal heading] with the release day of xkcd was shown.<br />
**This was also the [http://web.archive.org/web/20160913231501/http://xkcd.com/ day after] the release.<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:Comics with color]]<br />
[[Category:Large drawings]]<br />
[[Category:Charts]]<br />
[[Category:Timelines]]<br />
[[Category:Line graphs]]<br />
[[Category:Maps]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]] <br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]] <!--Pharao/Solomon/Cesar, Jesus? etc --><br />
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]<br />
[[Category:Climate change]]<br />
[[Category:Science]]<br />
[[Category:Animals]]<br />
[[Category:Music]] <!-- People with Guitars around Stone henge --><br />
[[Category:Fiction]] <!-- Iliad, Odyssey, 300 --><br />
[[Category:Sport]] <!-- Olympics --><br />
[[Category:Religion]] <!-- Jesus, Buddha, Muhammad --><br />
[[Category:Internet]]<br />
[[Category:Pokémon]]</div>108.162.215.134https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:1407:_Worst_Hurricane&diff=73605Talk:1407: Worst Hurricane2014-08-13T10:25:06Z<p>108.162.215.134: </p>
<hr />
<div>I tried to list all the unnamed hurricanes, but I gave up after 1938. Anybody feel like finishing it? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.195|108.162.219.195]] 05:37, 13 August 2014 (UTC)<br />
<br />
The current explanation seems to interpret the title text completely wrongly; it isn't about finding a person that lived in *all* of the states, but finding people that lived in *each*. The point is that the entire data is estimated based on rainfall, not based on actually asking people the question. {{unsigned ip|108.162.250.231}}<br />
<br />
Hurricane Audrey was in June 1957.{{unsigned|Jkrstrt}}<br />
<br />
Some areas in the map is pretty large se Opal, Katrina, Hugo while others are very small like 1946 near the tip of Florida. I don't know much about hurricanes but could one draw a conclusion that the hurricanes in the small areas are not as bad as the larger ones (and that some large ones like those near Mexico, are large only because they don't receive many hurricanes)? Should one add a note in the description why not entire America is mapped? We know that the Atlantic is very good at producing hurricanes but why doesn't the Pacific Ocean produce as many? I write my comment out of curiousity hoping someone has the answers, not that I know much about this (I am not even an American). [[User:Aquaplanet|Aquaplanet]] ([[User talk:Aquaplanet|talk]]) 10:09, 13 August 2014 (UTC)<br />
:On the Pacific coast of the US we get no hurricanes. This is due to the cold water flowing south from Alaska rather than coming north from the equator. This in turn is due to the clockwise flow of large bodies of water in the northern hemisphere, which is in turn due to the coreolis effect (caused by the rotation of the earth.) In California we only remember hurricanes because we here about them on the news, or occasionally when we travel. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.215.134|108.162.215.134]] 10:25, 13 August 2014 (UTC)BluDgeons</div>108.162.215.134https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1037:_Umwelt&diff=721071037: Umwelt2014-07-22T08:49:56Z<p>108.162.215.134: /* Counting Cards */ The said error does not exist.</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 1037<br />
| date = April 1, 2012<br />
| title = Umwelt<br />
| image = umwelt_the_void.jpg<br />
| titletext = Umwelt is the idea that because their senses pick up on different things, different animals in the same ecosystem actually live in very different worlds. Everything about you shapes the world you inhabit--from your ideology to your glasses prescription to your web browser.<br />
}}<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{Incomplete|Many of the strips are not explained}}<br />
An {{w|Umwelt}}, as the title text explains, is the idea that ones entire way of thinking is dependent on their surroundings. Thus, this {{w|April Fools}} comic changes based on the browser, location, or referrer. Thus, what the viewer is viewing the comic on, where they live, or where they came from determines which comic they actually see. As a result, there are actually multiple comics that went up on April Fools' Day, although only one is seen.<br />
<br />
Information about how the wide variety of data was collected and credit for the viewers who contributed can be found [http://www.reddit.com/r/xkcd/comments/rnst4/april_fools_xkcd_changing_comic/ here].<br />
<br />
===The Void===<br />
[[File:umwelt the void.jpg]]<br />
<br />
If the device or browser you are using does not support Javascript, you will simply see a static image of a white swirl on a dark background.<br />
<br />
Possible reference to The Ring (http://imgur.com/wlGmm), as though to suggest that using an alternative browser is dismal and horrific.<br />
<br />
Davean (xkcd's sysadmin): "[This] comic isn't available everywhere and it can come up i[n] some situation[s] only for recognized browsers."<br />
<br />
Browser: Alternative Browser<br />
<br />
===Aurora===<br />
[[File:umwelt aurora.png]]<br />
<br />
One could interpret that since Megan didn't go out and therefore missed seeing the Aurora, the main character lied. That way, she wouldn't have felt sad that she missed out.<br />
<br />
This image changed based on the size of the browser window including different panels at different sizes.<br />
<br />
Locations: Canada, Boston, Maine, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Minnesota, Norway, Denmark<br />
<br />
===Snake===<br />
[[File:umwelt snake composite 1024.png]]<br />
[[:File:umwelt snake composite.png|Full size]]<br />
<br />
The joke here is the extreme length of snakes. The world's longest snake is the python, the longest ever being 33 feet or approx. 10 meters. The red and blue circles refer to the hit game {{w|Portal}}.<br />
There is also a reference to the book "The Little Prince" in the second panel.<br />
<br />
Also, the number and content of the panels changes depending on the size of your browser window.<br />
<br />
This image changed based on the size of the browser window including different panels at different sizes.<br />
<br />
Specific AltText for this image: Umwelt is the idea that because their senses pick up on different things, different animals in the same ecosystem actually live in very different worlds. Everything about you shapes the world you inhabit -from your ideology to your glasses prescription to your browser window size.<br />
<br />
Location: Texas (on Chrome Version 33.0.1750.154 m), New Jersey,<br />
<br />
===Black Hat===<br />
[[File:umwelt tortoise 1024.png]]<br />
[[:File:umwelt tortoise.png|Full size]]<br />
<br />
An analyst attempts to psychoanalyze [[Black Hat|Black Hat's]] [[72: Classhole|classhole]] tendencies. The joke here is that the turtle has actually been turned over and neither sees helping it as a priority. It's a reference to the Voight-Kampff test used in the movie Blade Runner (1982) to identify replicants.<br />
<br />
Location: Seems to appear mostly in "other countries" — those without location-specific comics.<br />
<br />
===Too Quiet===<br />
[[File:umwelt too quiet 1024.png]]<br />
[[:File:umwelt too quiet.png|Full size]]<br />
<br />
A reference to {{w|Jurassic Park (film)|Jurassic Park}} which has been [[87: Velociraptors|constantly]] [[135: Substitute|referred]] [[1110: Click and Drag|to]] [[155: Search History|before]] [[758: Raptor Fences|in]] this comic.<br />
<br />
Also referencing the film {{w|2 Fast 2 Furious|2 Fast 2 Furious}}, an entertaining, yet intellectually unprovoking sequel in a popular film franchise, which is aimed at teenagers and young adults, prompting the blunt response from the stickman. The fact that Steve would use such a cliché {{w|2000s (decade)|noughties}} movie term in such an intense moment, and the subsequent curse, is the joke in this comic.<br />
<br />
Location: short version — iPhone 5c Safari browser in Texas,<br />
<br />
===Pond===<br />
[[File:umwelt pond mobile.png]][[File:umwelt pond wide.png]]<br />
<br />
Two different versions showed, the narrower version for mobile devices.<br />
<br />
Location: unknown<br />
<br />
===Galaxies===<br />
[[File:umwelt galaxies 1024.jpg]]<br />
[[:File:umwelt galaxies.jpg|Full size]]<br />
<br />
Megan is distracted from her conversation with [[Cueball]] by realizing that the space behind his head, from her vantage point, contains millions of galaxies. This is similar to an [http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/image/astro/hst_deep_field.jpg incredible photograph] taken by the Hubble Telescope, in which a tiny dark area of space in fact contained numerous galaxies.<br />
<br />
The title text is an imaginative leap from this scenario: that the galaxies would be up to no good once Cueball is turned away from them.<br />
<br />
This comic was only reported once... the intended environmental context is a mystery.<br />
<br />
Location: unknown<br />
<br />
===xkcd Gold===<br />
[[File:umwelt xkcd gold.png]]<br />
<br />
This is probably a reference to the 4chan Gold Account, an implementation on 4chan that does not actually exist, and is usually used to trick newcomers into revealing their credit card numbers. The joke is that "Gold Account" users can supposedly block other users from viewing images they have posted. The fifth panel is probably a reference to Beecock, a notorious set of shocker images. 4chan's moderators have been known to give out "beecock bans" to particularly annoying users, which redirect the user to a page containing beecock and the text "OH NO THE BOARD IS GONE".<br />
<br />
Referrer: 4chan<br />
<br />
===Yo Mama===<br />
[[File:umwelt dog ballast.png]]<br />
<br />
Possible reference to Kurt Vonnegut Jr.'s "{{w|Harrison Bergeron}}."<br />
<br />
Possibly a veiled criticism of Facebook. This could be slightly rewritten as: "This comic takes place in a dystopian future where the government is afraid of dissent, so it tracks everyone at all times, and some people privately doubt the government, but not enough to stop submitting information to Facebook. But that dystopian future is now."<br />
<br />
Referrer: Facebook<br />
<br />
===Reddit===<br />
[[File:umwelt reddit.png]]<br />
<br />
Reference to referencing, because Reddit, as a referring site, likes references to its referencing in its references.<br />
<br />
This comic also features recursive imagery similar to [[688: Self-Description|Self Description]] where the second panel embeds the entire comic within itself.<br />
<br />
Referrer: Reddit<br />
<br />
===Buns and Hot dogs===<br />
[[File:umwelt somethingawful.jpg]]<br />
<br />
This is a reference to the question "Why do hot dogs come in packages of 6 while buns come in packages of 8?"<br />
<br />
Referrer: SomethingAwful, Questionable Content, & MetaFilter<br />
<br />
===Twitter===<br />
[[File:umwelt twitter.jpg]]<br />
<br />
Referrer: Twitter<br />
<br />
===Wikipedia===<br />
[[File:umwelt wikipedia wide.jpg]]<br />
[[File:umwelt wikipedia mobile.png]]<br />
<br />
The term {{w|Mile High Club}} (or MHC) is a slang term applied collectively to individuals who have sexual intercourse while on board an aircraft. Randall says that reading the news articles on it has distracted him from making that comic.<br />
<br />
Two different versions showed, the narrower version for mobile devices.<br />
<br />
Referrer: Wikipedia<br />
<br />
===Google Chrome===<br />
[[File:umwelt chrome1.jpg]]<br />
<br />
{{w|Sergey Brin}} (born August 21, 1973) is an American computer scientist and Internet entrepreneur who, with Larry Page, co-founded Google, one of the most profitable Internet companies. As of 2013, his personal wealth was estimated to be $24.4 billion. Randall makes the joke that as the founder of Google, Brin's permission would be needed to use Google Chrome. Because there are millions of people who use Google, it is likely that at least some of the time Brin would be asleep, thus he would need to be woken.<br />
<br />
Browser: Chrome<br />
<br />
===Chrome/Firefox===<br />
[[File:umwelt chrome2.png]]<br />
<br />
Mozilla {{w|Firefox}} is a free and open-source web browser developed for Windows, OS X, and Linux, with a mobile version for Android, by the Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation. Cueball is complaining about {{w|Google Chrome}}, to which [[Ponytail]] replies that there is an {{w|add-on}} that fixes what he is complaining about. When questioned, she replies that the add-on is Firefox, which isn't an add-on at all and is instead a different browser.<br />
<br />
Browser: Chrome<br />
<br />
===Google Chrome-2===<br />
[[File:umwelt chrome3.png]]<br />
<br />
This panel references Google Chrome's error screen, which shows a puzzle piece. The comic humorously implies that Chrome is looking for that piece. However, the piece in question cannot possibly line up with any corner.<br />
<br />
Browser: Chrome<br />
<br />
===Mozilla Firefox Private Browsing===<br />
[[File:umwelt firefox incognito.png]]<br />
<br />
Another reference to crashing web browsers.<br />
<br />
Browser: Firefox (Incognito only?)<br />
<br />
===Internet Explorer===<br />
[[File:umwelt ie.png]]<br />
<br />
Yet another reference to crashing web browsers<br />
<br />
Browser: Internet Explorer<br />
<br />
===Maxthon===<br />
[[File:umwelt maxthon.png]]<br />
<br />
Browser: Maxthon<br />
<br />
===Netscape Navigator===<br />
[[File:umwelt netscape womanoctopus.png]]<br />
<br />
[[File:umwelt netscape man.png]]<br />
<br />
Browser: Netscape<br />
<br />
===Rockmelt===<br />
[[File:umwelt rockmelt.png]]<br />
<br />
{{w|Rockmelt}} is a social-media-based browser.<br />
<br />
Reference to the gospel song {{w|Longing for Old Virginia: Their Complete Victor Recordings (1934)|"There's no hiding place down here" by The Carter Family}}, later covered by Stephen Stills.<br />
<br />
:I run to the rock just to hide my face<br />
:And the rocks cried out, no hiding place<br />
:There's no hiding place down here<br />
<br />
It may additionally be a reference to the ''Babylon 5'' episode "And the Rock Cried Out, No Hiding Place," which featured the song.<br />
<br />
Browser: Rockmelt<br />
<br />
===Plugin Disabled===<br />
[[File:umwelt plugin disabled.png]]<br />
<br />
Browser: Plugin (?) Disabled<br />
<br />
===Corporate Networks===<br />
[[File:umwelt corporate general.png]]<br />
[[File:umwelt corporate amazon chrome.png]]<br />
[[File:umwelt corporate amazon firefox.png]]<br />
[[File:umwelt corporate amazon other.png]]<br />
[[File:umwelt corporate google chrome.png]]<br />
[[File:umwelt corporate microsoft chrome.png]]<br />
[[File:umwelt corporate microsoft firefox.png]]<br />
[[File:umwelt corporate microsoft other.png]]<br />
[[File:umwelt corporate nytimes chrome.png]]<br />
[[File:umwelt corporate nytimes other.png]]<br />
<br />
ISP: Corporate networks of Amazon, Google, Microsoft, NY Times<br />
<br />
===Military===<br />
[[File:umwelt military.png]]<br />
<br />
ISP: Military networks<br />
<br />
===T-Mobile===<br />
[[File:umwelt tmobile.png]]<br />
<br />
Reference to T-Mobile's distinguishing feature of weaker coverage, in relation to other major providers.<br />
<br />
ISP: T-Mobile<br />
<br />
===Verizon and AT&T===<br />
[[File:umwelt verizon.png]]<br />
<br />
[[File:umwelt att.png]]<br />
<br />
Reference to Verizon and AT&T's scandals/controversy regarding implementation of bandwidth caps.<br />
<br />
ISP: Verizon and AT&T<br />
<br />
===France===<br />
[[File:umwelt france.jpg]]<br />
<br />
A Google search of "French Military Victories" + 'I'm feeling lucky' used to direct to "did you mean: french military defeats" (due to a {{w|Google bomb}}), referencing a stereotype of the French:[http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/text/victories.html][http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/images/blpic-frenchmilitaryvictories.htm][http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/jokes/bljokefrenchmilitaryhistory.htm]<br />
<br />
Locations: France & Quebec<br />
<br />
===Germany===<br />
[[File:umwelt germany.png]]<br />
<br />
This comic references the {{w|Berlin airlift#The start of the Berlin Airlift|Berlin Airlift}}, a relief measure for citizens in West Berlin (surrounded by East Germany) instituted by the Western Allies after World War II. In reality, the Western Allies flew a grand total of 500,000 tons of food over the Soviet blockade in planes. Randall puts a twist on this event by making it more fun: dropping supplies from a grand chairlift. The play on words is that "chairlift" rhymes with "airlift" and thus makes an easy substitution. The chair force is also a name that other service branches use to make fun of the air force.<br />
<br />
Location: Germany<br />
<br />
===Israel===<br />
[[File:umwelt israel.png]]<br />
<br />
(Translation from Hebrew)<br />
<br />
Person: Mom, I met a great guy! But he's not Jewish. ...Wait, what do you mean "neither are we"? I'm completely confused.<br />
<br />
A reference to the multiple use of the word Jewish to denote both a religious group and a nationality.<br />
<br />
Location: Israel<br />
<br />
===Carnot Cycle===<br />
[[File:umwelt japan.png]]<br />
<br />
A pun on "cycle"; a "{{w|Carnot cycle}}" is a thermodynamic cycle (e.g. refrigeration). Its efficiency depends on the temperature of the hot and cold 'reservoirs' in which it is operating.<br />
<br />
Location: Japan<br />
<br />
===UK===<br />
[[File:umwelt uk.jpg]]<br />
<br />
He worded this as though to imply that the UK is a state of the U.S., and an unimportant one at that, which pokes fun at the UK, creating a paradox (sort of).<br />
<br />
Location: UK<br />
<br />
===Blizzard===<br />
[[File:umwelt disasters blizzard.png]]<br />
<br />
For each location this displayed in, the state name was substituted in the third panel.<br />
<br />
Locations: Alabama, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Georgia, Halifax, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, the Northeast, Ohio, Oklahoma, Ottawa, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Texas, Toronto, Tennessee, New York, Wisconsin<br />
<br />
===Tornado===<br />
[[File:umwelt disasters tornado.png]]<br />
<br />
For each location this displayed in the state name was substituted in the third panel.<br />
<br />
Locations: Alabama, Dallas, Illinois, Georgia, The Midwest, Missouri, Ohio, Oklahoma, Ottawa, Tennessee, Texas<br />
<br />
===Hurricane===<br />
[[File:umwelt disasters hurricane.png]]<br />
<br />
For each location this displayed in the state name was substituted in the third panel.<br />
<br />
Locations: D.C, Florida, Houston, Miami, New Jersey, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virgina<br />
<br />
===Lake Diver Killer===<br />
[[File:umwelt lake diver.png]]<br />
<br />
Locations: Bay Areas<br />
<br />
Location: Vermont showed an image specifically referencing Lake Champlain<br />
<br />
===Lincoln Memorial===<br />
[[File:umwelt lincoln memorial.png]]<br />
<br />
Locations: Illinois & Washington D.C.<br />
<br />
===Helicopter Hunting===<br />
[[File:umwelt helicoptor.png]]<br />
<br />
In Alaska, governments and individuals have {{w|Wolf hunting#North America 2|shot wolves en masse from helicopters}} in an attempt to artificially inflate populations of game, such as moose and caribou, to make hunting them easier. This is opposed by many, as the game populations are not endangered (thus, this threatens ecological balance); wolves are a small threat to livestock in North America; most of the wolf body —including meat and bones— goes wasted as they are sought mainly for their pelts.<br />
<br />
Location: Alaska<br />
<br />
===Newspaper===<br />
[[File:umwelt life scientists.png]][[File:umwelt life rit.png]][[File:umwelt life umass.png]]<br />
<br />
Creating new life has long been a well understood process, in a lab or otherwise.<br />
<br />
Location: Various<br />
<br />
Specific versions appeared for RIT and UMass Amherst<br />
<br />
===Robot Paul Revere===<br />
[[File:umwelt paul revere.png]]<br />
<br />
Combination of the legend of {{w|Paul Revere#"Midnight Ride"|Paul Revere}} and computer binary.<br />
<br />
Location: Boston<br />
<br />
===Counting Cards===<br />
<!-- card counting explanation needed. --><br />
All four colleges in this series are in Massachusetts and, being similar, in pairs, rival each other to some extent (Harvard-MIT, and Smith-Wellesley). The comic contains a reference to the {{w|MIT Blackjack Team}}, which entered popular culture via the {{w|21 (2008 film)|film 21}}, and a possible reference to Orwell's book '1984' and/or {{w|Chain of Command (Star Trek: The Next Generation)|popular homage to it via Star Trek}}: "There are four lights."[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChYIm6MW39k]<br />
<br />
Bonus: The thought-gears in panel 3 are spinning against each other.<br />
<br />
Location: Harvard<br />
<br />
[[File:umwelt counting cards harvard.png]]<br />
<br />
Location: MIT<br />
<br />
[[File:umwelt counting cards mit.png]]<br />
<br />
"Course 15s" at MIT are the business major students, often mocked for taking a less-rigorous program.<br />
<br />
Location: Smith<br />
<br />
[[File:umwelt counting cards smith.png]]<br />
<br />
Location: Wellesley<br />
<br />
[[File:umwelt counting cards wellesley.png]]<br />
<br />
Wellesley is an all-girls college.<br />
<br />
===Giant Box Trap===<br />
[[File:umwelt box trap.png]]<br />
<br />
Randall got his undergrad in Physics at the {{w|Christopher Newport University}}, and was scheduled to return shortly to give a talk.<br />
<br />
Location: Christopher Newport University<br />
<br />
===Chemo Support===<br />
[[File:umwelt chemo.jpg]]<br />
<br />
Randall's now-wife was diagnosed with breast cancer, and apparently DFCI is where they've been spending much of their time.<br />
<br />
Location: Dana-Farber Cancer Institute<br />
<br />
===Reviews===<br />
[[File:reviews.png]]<br />
<br />
The previous strip appears twice when using [[wikipedia:Tor (anonymity network)|TOR]].<br />
<br />
Browser: Any using TOR, and reports of seeing it on a Kindle Fire HD<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:[Note to courageous readers- The transcript has been reordered in the order in which the comics appear in the picture and appropriate names have been given.]<br />
<br />
:'''The Void'''<br />
:[An epic void with a bright light shining right on you.]<br />
<br />
:'''Aurora'''<br />
:[Cueball heading out past Megan comfortably sitting in front of a desk.]<br />
:Cueball: Apparently there's a solar flare that's causing some Great Aurorae. CBC says they may even be visible here! Wanna drive out to see?<br />
:Megan: Hockey's on.<br />
:Cueball: Ok. Later.<br />
<br />
:[An expansive, marvelous image of emerald green northern lights, floating down through the sky.]<br />
<br />
:Megan: See anything?<br />
:Cueball: No, just clouds.<br />
:Megan: Not surprised.<br />
<br />
:'''Aurora-US'''<br />
:[Cueball heading out past Megan comfortably sitting in front of a desk.]<br />
:Cueball: Apparently there's a solar storm causing northern lights over Canada. CNN say they might even be visible {Options: "As Far South As Us", "Here in Boston", "Maine", "Ohio", "Oregon", "New York"}! Wanna drive out to see?<br />
:Megan: It's cold out.<br />
:Cueball: Ok. Later.<br />
<br />
:[An expansive, marvelous image of emerald green northern lights, floating down through the sky.]<br />
<br />
:Megan: See anything?<br />
:Cueball: No, just clouds.<br />
:Megan: Not surprised.<br />
<br />
:'''Snake'''<br />
:[Two people standing next to each other. Megan is holding the head end of a snake. Depending on the width of your browser, the snake is: three frames, the third of which has a little bit of a bump; the first frame has a human-size bump, the second has a third person looking at the snake, and the third has the snake going though two Portals; a squirrel and the human-size bump in the first frame, a ring next to the third person in the second frame, and Beret Guy riding the snake in front of the portal; or The squirrel, a fourth person within the snake being coiled, and the human bump in the first frame, the ring, a fifth person in love, and the third person in the second frame, Beret Guy and the portal in the third frame, and the same two people in the fourth frame.]<br />
<br />
:Megan: I found a snake, but then I forgot to stop.<br />
<br />
:'''Black hat'''<br />
:[Two people sitting at a desk. One is Black Hat. The other is an analyst. Black Hat has a number of terminals attached to his head.]<br />
:Analyst: You come across a tortoise in the desert. You flip it over. It struggles to right itself. You watch. You're not helping. Why is that?<br />
<br />
:Black Hat: It '''knows''' what it did.<br />
<br />
:[View of the entire scene, with said turtle off in the distance on its back and trying to right itself.]<br />
<br />
:'''Too quiet'''<br />
:[A group of four scale down a wall into a field in the middle of the night. They walk off single-file.]<br />
:Person 1: It's quiet.<br />
<br />
:Person 3: Yeah - *Too* quiet.<br />
<br />
:[A Velociraptor is off in the distance, following the group.]<br />
:Person 4: Yeah - too *too* quiet.<br />
<br />
:Person 2: Yeah - 2quiet2furious.<br />
:Person 1: Fuck off, Steve.<br />
<br />
:'''Pond'''<br />
:[A landscape showing a pond, some reeds, and a set of mountains off in the distance.]<br />
<br />
:'''Galaxies'''<br />
:[A trio of galaxies.]<br />
:Galaxy 1: He's not looking!<br />
:Galaxy 3: Let's get him!<br />
:[Lines draw in illustrating the eye-line of one of a pair of people.]<br />
:Cueball: So he said he didn't get the text, but c'mon, he *never* misses texts. Right? ..hello?<br />
:Megan: I'm just staring at your head freaked out by the fact that there are millions of galaxies *directly behind it*.<br />
<br />
:'''xkcd Gold'''<br />
:[Cueball holding bat.]<br />
<br />
:Cueball: Sorry, but this comic<br />
<br />
:[Cueball starts to wind up.]<br />
<br />
:Cueball: requires<br />
<br />
:[Cueball prepares to strike with bat.]<br />
<br />
:Cueball: XKCD<br />
<br />
:[Cueball swings at a beehive.]<br />
:GOLD<br />
<br />
:[Penis Bees fly out of the beehive.]<br />
<br />
:'''Yo mamma'''<br />
:[Cueball yells at a friend.]<br />
:Cueball: Oh yeah? Well you mama's so ''cynical'', her only dog ballast is a ''leash''!<br />
:(This comic takes place in a dystopian future where the government is afraid dogs can hover, so it requires them to wear weights at all times, and some people privately doubt the government, but not enough to stop buying dog weights.)<br />
<br />
:'''Reddit'''<br />
:Five seconds ago:<br />
:[You sitting in front of a desk, reading a reddit thread.]<br />
:You: Oh, hey, reddit has a link to some XKCD april fools comic.<br />
<br />
:Now: [An image of the xkcd comic page.]<br />
:Five seconds from now:<br />
<br />
:You: ..hey<br />
<br />
:30 seconds from now:<br />
:[DANCE PARTY!]<br />
<br />
:'''Buns and Hot dogs'''<br />
:Cueball: What I wanna know is why do hot dogs come in packages of six while buns come in these huge sacks of ash and blood from which "Ave Maria" is faintly audible?<br />
:[Chanting sacks of gore in the background.]<br />
<br />
:'''Twitter'''<br />
:[A Twitter account page with the following: Many tweets, fewer following, even fewer followers, A bunch of assholes in the suggested follow box, trending topics partitioned into: Word Games, Misogyny, and Bieber, stuff your eyes automatically ignore, A really pleasant blue. and the timeline: Something about a podcast, Someone confused because the description doesn't match the link, The link you clicked on to get to this comic, Rob Delaney, Passive Aggression, and horse ebooks.]<br />
<br />
:'''Wikipedia'''<br />
:[There's no comic here because instead of drawing one, I spent the last hour reading every news story cited in the Wikipedia article on The Mile High Club.]<br />
<br />
:'''Google Chrome'''<br />
:[A Chrome plugin error page.]<br />
:Chrome: This plugin requires Sergey Brin's permission to run. Please wait while he is woken.<br />
<br />
:'''Chrome/Firefox'''<br />
:[Two people; Cueball is sitting at a desk in front of a laptop.]<br />
:Cueball: Man, chrome's hardware acceleration really sucks.<br />
:Ponytail: Oh - Theres' a great add-on that fixes it.<br />
:Cueball: Oh? What's it called?<br />
:Ponytail: "Firefox".<br />
<br />
:'''Google Chrome-2'''<br />
:[A Chrome plugin error page with the characteristic jigsaw piece.]<br />
:Chrome: Chrome is looking for this piece. Have you seen it? Chrome thinks it links up with a corner.<br />
<br />
:'''Mozilla Firefox Private Browsing'''<br />
:[Firefox error page.]<br />
:Firefox: Well, this is embarrassing. You know how I'm not supposed to peek at your browsing in private mode? Firefox.. is sorry. Firefox will not blame you if you<br />
:[Button with text.]<br />
:Click here to report this incident.<br />
<br />
:'''Internet Explorer'''<br />
:[IE error page.]<br />
:IE: Error: Internet Explorer has given up.<br />
<br />
:'''Maxthon'''<br />
:Cueball: Maxthon? Hey, 2005 called. Didn't say anything. All I could hear was sobbing. This is getting harder. Anyway, yeah, Maxthon's still cool! Didn't know it was still around!<br />
<br />
:'''Netscape Navigator'''<br />
:[Two different versions exist: one with Cueball talking and one with Megan with tentacle arms talking.]<br />
:Person: Netscape Navigator? Hey, the nineties called - drunk as usual. I hung up without saying anything. This is getting harder. Anyway - it's cool that you'e got netscape running.<br />
<br />
:'''Rockmelt'''<br />
:[Cueball running to laptop.]<br />
:I ran to Rockmelt to hide my face<br />
<br />
:[Cueball sitting at laptop.]<br />
:But Rockmelt cried out -<br />
<br />
:[Laptop shouting.]<br />
:NO HIDING PLACE<br />
<br />
:[zoom out.]<br />
:NO HIDING PLACE DOWN HERE<br />
<br />
:'''Google Chrome-3'''<br />
:[A chrome plugin error page.]<br />
:Chrome: There does not exist --nor could there '''ever''' exist-- a plugin capable of displaying this content.<br />
<br />
:'''Microsoft/Amazon/The Times/Google - Chrome'''<br />
:[Chrome error page.]<br />
:Chrome: This plugin requires clearance from the corporate press office in order to run. Remember, Microsoft/Amazon/The Times/Google is a team; individual employees should ''never'' speak for the company without authorization.<br />
<br />
:'''Microsoft/Amazon - Firefox'''<br />
:[Firefox error page.]<br />
:Error: This plugin requires clearance from the corporate press office in order to run. Remember, Microsoft/Amazon is a team; individual employees should ''never'' speak for the company without authorization.<br />
<br />
:'''Microsoft/The Times'''<br />
:[Error page.]<br />
:Error: This plugin requires clearance from the corporate press office in order to run. Remember, Microsoft/The Times is a team; individual employees should ''never'' speak for the company without authorization.<br />
<br />
:'''Corporate - Generic'''<br />
:[Error page.]<br />
:Error: This plugin requires clearance from the corporate press office in order to run. Remember, we work as a team; individual employees should ''never'' speak for the company without authorization.<br />
<br />
:'''Military'''<br />
:[Person looking at two browser windows.]<br />
:Cueball: I know y'all know what you're doing. But if you're on a military machine and you're supposed to be watching for missiles or something, I hope you're keeping an eye on that in the background while you're reading comics. Also: Thanks.<br />
<br />
:'''T-Mobile'''<br />
:[Error page.]<br />
:Data Error: T-Mobile was unable to establish a connection<br />
<br />
:'''Verizon'''<br />
:[Error page]<br />
:Error: You have exceeded your Verizon monthly bandwidth cap. Mobile web browsing has been disabled.<br />
<br />
:'''France'''<br />
:[Two people; one of which is browsing using a laptop.]<br />
:Cueball: Hey, you're French, right? Ever see what happens when you type "French Military Victories" into Google?<br />
:French person: Does it take you to an article on Napoleon?<br />
<br />
:French person: ..no? Strange, given how he kicked everyone's asses up and down Europe for over a decade.<br />
<br />
:[Beat frame.]<br />
<br />
:Cueball: Touche.<br />
:French person: You know, that'd sound smarter if you didn't pronounce it like it rhymes with "douche".<br />
<br />
:'''Germany'''<br />
:[Cueball dropping food from an unorthodox high perch.]<br />
:June 1948: In response to the Soviet blockade of East Germany, the western allies construct the Berlin Chairlift.<br />
:Cueball on chairlift: Food!<br />
<br />
:'''Israel'''<br />
:[Person on phone.]<br />
:Person (Translation from Hebrew): Mom, I met a great guy! But he's not Jewish. ...Wait, what do you mean "neither are we"? I'm completely confused.<br />
<br />
:'''Carnot Cycle'''<br />
:[Ponytail on a motorcycle with a heat-entropy graph on the side.]<br />
:Ponytail: Check out my new Carnot Cycle!<br />
:Cueball: Neat - how fast does it go?<br />
:Ponytail: Depends how cold it is outside.<br />
<br />
:'''Great Britain'''<br />
:[Illustration of the Atlantic ocean.]<br />
:American person: Sorry I don't have a comic poking fun at the UK here. I only had time to get to the most ''important'' US states.<br />
:British person: Hey - At least we have free health care and real ale.<br />
<br />
:'''Earthquake-Blizzard'''<br />
:[Two people sitting at a desk, facing each other. The desk rattles.]<br />
:Cueball: Stop jiggling your leg.<br />
:Danish: I'm not ji-.. oh!<br />
:Cueball: What!<br />
:Danish: You'll get it..<br />
<br />
:[EVERYTHING RUMBLES.]<br />
:Cueball: ..HOLY CRAP IT'S AN EARTHQUAKE!<br />
:Danish: Just a little one. Happens all the time back in San Francisco.<br />
<br />
:Cueball: But this is {Options: "Alabama", "Boston", "Chicago", "Dallas", "Georgia", "Halifax", "Illinois", "Michigan", "Minnesota", "Missouri", "the Northeast", "Ohio", "Oklahoma", "Ottawa", 'Pennsylvania", "Philadelphia", "Texas", "Toronto", "Tennessee", "New York", "Wisconsin"}! That was huge!<br />
:Danish: Seriously? That's the worst this place can do? Wow. I guess we grow up tougher in California.<br />
:Cueball: Oh ''really''...<br />
<br />
:Six Months Later..<br />
:[Both people are trudging through a massive blizzard.]<br />
:Danish: In pictures, snow always looked so nice and sof - ''AAAA! MY NECK! How do people live here?!''<br />
:Cueball: Come on - it's only three more miles.<br />
<br />
:'''Earthquake-Tornado'''<br />
:[Two people sitting at a desk, facing each other. The desk rattles.]<br />
:Cueball: Stop jiggling your leg.<br />
:Danish: I'm not ji-.. oh!<br />
:Cueball: What!<br />
:Danish: You'll get it..<br />
<br />
:[EVERYTHING RUMBLES.]<br />
:Cueball: ..HOLY CRAP IT'S AN EARTHQUAKE!<br />
:Danish: Just a little one. Happens all the time back in San Francisco.<br />
<br />
:Cueball: But this is {Options: "Alabama", "Dallas", "Illinois", "The Midwest", "Missouri", "Ohio", "Oklahoma", "Ottawa", "Tennessee", "Texas"}!<br />
:Cueball: That was huge!<br />
:Danish: Seriously? That's the worst this place can do? Wow. I guess we grow up tougher in California.<br />
:Cueball: Oh ''really''...<br />
<br />
:Six Months Later..<br />
:[Both people are in a shelter in a prairie with a rapidly-approaching tornado.]<br />
:Danish: AAAA CLOSE THE SHELTER DOOR!<br />
:Cueball: Say the magic words...<br />
:Danish: THIS PLACE IS THE WORST!<br />
:Cueball: Thank you.<br />
<br />
:'''Earthquake-Hurricane'''<br />
:[Two people sitting at a desk, facing each other. The desk rattles.]<br />
:Cueball: Stop jiggling your leg.<br />
:Danish: I'm not ji-.. oh!<br />
:Cueball: What!<br />
:Danish: You'll get it..<br />
<br />
:[EVERYTHING RUMBLES.]<br />
:Cueball: ..HOLY CRAP IT'S AN EARTHQUAKE!<br />
:Danish: Just a little one. Happens all the time back in San Francisco.<br />
<br />
:Cueball: But this is {Options: "D.C", "Florida", "Houston", "Miami", "New Jersey", "North Carolina", "South Carolina", "Virgina"}! That was huge!<br />
:Cueball: That was huge!<br />
:Danish: Seriously? That's the worst this place can do? Wow. I guess we grow up tougher in California.<br />
:Cueball: Oh ''really''...<br />
<br />
:Six Months Later..<br />
<br />
:[Both are in the middle of a hurricane. Danish is grabbing onto a signpost to avoid being swept away.]<br />
:Danish: AAAAA WHAT THE SHIIIIT!<br />
:Cueball: Calm down - this is barely a category 2.<br />
<br />
:'''Lake Diver Killer'''<br />
:[TV Field Reporter in front of a cordoned-off lake.]<br />
:Reporter: Police divers searching the bay say they have recovered the body of another victim of the "Lake Diver Killer."<br />
:Reporter: During the search, three more divers were reported missing.<br />
<br />
:'''Washington'''<br />
:[The statue of Abraham Lincoln in the Lincoln Memorial.]<br />
:In this Marble Prison As in the nightmares of the nation they tried to devour<br />
:The nanobots that constituted Abraham Lincoln<br />
:Are entombed forever.<br />
<br />
:'''Alaska'''<br />
:[A person with a gun chasing a helicopter on the back of a wolf in a snowy Alaskan field.]<br />
:Some people hunt wolves from helicopters. I hunt helicopters from a wolf.<br />
<br />
:'''Life in lab'''<br />
:[Newspaper headline.]<br />
:Scientists/UMass Amherst students/RIT students create life in lab<br />
:[Caption under picture of scientists.]<br />
:"The trick was fuckin'"<br />
<br />
:'''American Revolution'''<br />
:Robot Paul Revere: Remember: Zero if by land, One if by sea.<br />
<br />
:'''MIT'''<br />
:[Two people in front of a group of students.]<br />
:Cueball: I've hired a team of MIT students to count cards for us.<br />
:Hairy: We'll be rich!<br />
<br />
:[Hairy deals some cards while the students watch.]<br />
<br />
:[The gears turn..]<br />
<br />
:Student: Five. There are five cards.<br />
:Cueball: I see their admission standards have been slipping.<br />
:Hairy: Yeah - there are actually four.<br />
<br />
:'''MIT Course 15c'''<br />
:[Two people in front of a group of students.]<br />
:Cueball: I've hired a team of MIT students to count cards for us.<br />
:Hairy: We'll be rich!<br />
<br />
:[Hairy deals some cards while the students watch.]<br />
<br />
:[The gears turn..]<br />
<br />
:Student: Five. There are five cards.<br />
:Cueball: I *knew* we shouldn't have picked course 15s.<br />
:Hairy: Yeah - there are actually four.<br />
<br />
:'''Smith/Wellesley'''<br />
:[Two people in front of a group of students.]<br />
:Cueball: I've hired a team of Smith/Wellesley students to count cards for us.<br />
:Hairy: We'll be rich!<br />
<br />
:[Hairy deals some cards while the students watch.]<br />
<br />
:[The gears turn..]<br />
<br />
:Student: Five. There are five cards.<br />
:Cueball: We should've gone with Wellesley/Smith.<br />
:Hairy: Yeah - there are actually four.<br />
<br />
:'''CNU'''<br />
:[Person unsuspectingly strolls under a giant box trap controlled by a Trible.]<br />
:I worry that CNU only invited me back as a ruse because they realized I never turned in my final paper and want my diploma back. But if it turns out it's for real, I'll see you Wednesday at the Ferguson!<br />
<br />
:'''Dana Farber'''<br />
:[Cueball, pointing towards head.]<br />
:Cueball: Check it out - In support of people going through chemo, I shaved my head.<br />
:Lots of love to everyone reading this at Dana Farber. Cancer sucks. If you are new to DCFI, there's a great little garden on the third floor of the yawkey if you need somewhere quiet to just sit for a little bit and breathe.<br />
<br />
:'''Reviews'''<br />
:Shopping before online reviews:<br />
:[Cueball and Megan stand in a store. Cueball points at a lamp on the table in front of him. There is another lamp on the table behind them.]<br />
:Cueball: This lamp is pretty.<br />
:Megan: And affordable.<br />
:Cueball: Let's get it.<br />
:Megan Ok! <br />
<br />
:Shopping now:<br />
:[Cueball points at a lamp on the table in front of him. Megan looks at her phone.]<br />
:Cueball: This lamp is pretty.<br />
:Megan: It's got 1 1/2 stars on Amazon. Reviews all say to avoid that brand.<br />
<br />
:[Cueball and Megan are now both looking at their phones.]<br />
:Cueball: This one has good reviews.<br />
:Megan: Wait, one guy says when he plugged it in, he got a metallic taste in his mouth and his cats went deaf.<br />
:Cueball: Eek. What about- ...no, review points out it resembles a uterus.<br />
<br />
:[Cueball is still looking at his phone, Megan has hers at her side.]<br />
:Cueball: Ok, I found a Swiss lampmaker with perfect reviews. Her lamps start at 1,300 Francs and she's only reachable by ski lift.<br />
:Megan: You know, our room looks fine in the dark.<br />
<br />
==Trivia==<br />
*Reddit user [http://www.reddit.com/user/SomePostMan SomePostMan] created a [http://www.reddit.com/r/xkcd/comments/t6wmh/all_umwelt_1037_comics_in_two_imgur_albums/ post] that collected all of the Umwelt comics and added explanations. Much of his information is now included in this wiki.<br />
<br />
*The transcript section for this comic also included a note alluding to its extreme length:<br />
: [ [Two people...] ] ((..wait.. <scrolls through a listing of everything> oh goddammit Randall. Thanks a bunch, dude. I better get a raise for typing out all this)) <br />
: [Two people standing next to each other. One is holding the head end of a snake...<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Black Hat]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Beret Guy]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Danish]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]<br />
[[Category:Comics with color]]<br />
[[Category:Dynamic comics]]<br />
[[Category:April fool's comics]]<br />
[[Category:Philosophy]]<br />
[[Category:Penis]]<br />
[[Category:Video games]]<br />
[[Category:Velociraptors]]</div>108.162.215.134