https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/api.php?action=feedcontributions&user=108.162.241.249&feedformat=atomexplain xkcd - User contributions [en]2024-03-28T17:31:06ZUser contributionsMediaWiki 1.30.0https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2714:_Cold_Complaints&diff=3022212714: Cold Complaints2022-12-22T04:17:11Z<p>108.162.241.249: Undo revision 302219 by 172.71.150.169 (talk)</p>
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<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 2714<br />
| date = December 21, 2022<br />
| title = Cold Complaints<br />
| image = cold_complaints_2x.png<br />
| imagesize = 740x254px<br />
| noexpand = true<br />
| titletext = Our investigation into whining-based remedies became the first study to be halted by the IRB on the grounds that the treatment group was 'too annoying.'<br />
}}<br />
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==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|Created by a GIGANTIC WHINING BABY - Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
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When people are ill, they will often complain about the symptoms that they're suffering from. A common sterotype is that men will revert to infantile behavior when miserably sick. This can be annoying to the people around them, but they typically tolerate such behavior out of compassion. The joke in this comic is that [[Hairy]] spoke via a {{w|telemedicine}} appointment to [[Ponytail]], a medical professional who explicitly advised him to act out, since his condition has no effective medical treatment. He takes her advice to, "act like you're the first person ever to have a cold," literally, stating it specifically when his companion asks about it.<br />
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This comic was published during a "tripledemic" in the U.S., involving {{w|COVID-19}}, {{w|influenza}}, and {{w|respiratory syncytial virus}} (RSV, a frequent cause of common colds) infections, the latter of which have no cure other than to wait them out with plenty of rest and fluids. It expounds on the finding that, "talking about troublesome events, including events with which one is dissatisfied, may ... result in improved physiological health." (Kowalski, R.M. (2002) [http://people.uncw.edu/hakanr/documents/whining.pdf "Whining, griping, and complaining: positivity in the negativity."] ''Journal of clinical psychology,'' '''58'''(9):1023-35.) <br />
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The title text describes a similar study, but where the {{w|institutional review board}} (IRB) halted the study because the participants were too annoying. This is ironic since they would be expected to whine annoyingly. IRBs are expected to review the ethics of a research project. Whining is not usually considered dangerous,{{citation needed}} but in this case it was presumably so intolerable that they had to put a stop to it.<br />
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==Transcript==<br />
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
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:[Hairy sitting on a chair in front of a computer screen. There is an image of Ponytail on the screen speaking.]<br />
:Ponytail: Well, it's not COVID or flu. Probably one of the other viruses.<br />
:Hairy: Ughh<br />
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:[A zoomed out version of the image, Ponytail cannot be seen]<br />
:Ponytail: There's not much you can do to speed up recovery other than rest, hydrate, and whine and complain and be a gigantic baby about it. <br />
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:[Same as previous panel]<br />
:Hairy: Whine and complain?<br />
:Ponytail: Yeah. You need to act like you're the first person ever to have a cold.<br />
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:[Hairy lying on a couch wrapped in a blanket, with a lot of paper tissues around]<br />
:Off-screen voice: Are you '''''sure''''' that's what she said?<br />
:Hairy: Unbelievable. Here I am, the only person ever to feel bad, and you're '''''doubting''''' me? <br />
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{{comic discussion}}<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]<br />
[[Category:Doctor Ponytail]]<br />
[[Category:Medicine]]<br />
[[Category:COVID-19]]</div>108.162.241.249https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:2712:_Gravity&diff=301525Talk:2712: Gravity2022-12-16T22:47:34Z<p>108.162.241.249: </p>
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<div><!--Please sign your posts with ~~~~ and don't delete this text. New comments should be added at the bottom.--><br />
Whatever image is supposed to be in the center isn't showing up for me! D: Tried on both Safari and Chrome but it gives me the little broken picture icon. Hopefully it's fixed soon! (The comic's been up for about 10 minutes going by when the bot updated this page.) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.126.117|172.70.126.117]] 22:28, 16 December 2022 (UTC)<br />
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: The center image is trying to load this link, but there's nothing there: https://xkcd.com/tile/ship1/ship_gliding_2x.png. I hope that gets fixed soon. The "ship" seems to rotate a bit unpredictably over time. At first I thought it was responding to my mouse movements, but I don't think so anymore. [[User:Orion205|Orion205]] ([[User talk:Orion205|talk]]) 22:34, 16 December 2022 (UTC)<br />
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: Ah, the center image is controlled by the javascript, of course: https://xkcd.com/2712/comic.js. So this is some sort of interactive comic? [[User:Orion205|Orion205]] ([[User talk:Orion205|talk]]) 22:36, 16 December 2022 (UTC)<br />
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: Okay, left/right arrow keys seem to control the rotation. I'll check back in later in hopes of seeing the ship so I have some idea what the point of it all is. [[User:Orion205|Orion205]] ([[User talk:Orion205|talk]]) 22:39, 16 December 2022 (UTC)<br />
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: And now it's working. You fly a little spaceship around the little planet. Luckily you have shields if you slam into the ground too hard. [[User:Orion205|Orion205]] ([[User talk:Orion205|talk]]) 22:43, 16 December 2022 (UTC)<br />
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You can transform the ship into a different (seems faster to me) one by running into the last cannon ball.<br />
[[Special:Contributions/108.162.241.249|108.162.241.249]]</div>108.162.241.249https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2275:_Coronavirus_Name&diff=3004202275: Coronavirus Name2022-12-03T23:34:55Z<p>108.162.241.249: </p>
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<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 2275<br />
| date = March 2, 2020<br />
| title = Coronavirus Name<br />
| image = coronavirus_name.png<br />
| titletext = It's important to keep the spider from touching your face.<br />
}}<br />
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==Explanation==<br />
This comic is the first comic in a long [[:Category:COVID-19|series of comics]] about the {{w|COVID-19 pandemic}}. For several weeks in a row, all comics were related to this pandemic.<br />
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This is thus [[Randall|Randall's]] first take on the COVID-19 pandemic. As of the publication date (March 2, 2020), the pandemic had infected more than 90,000 people, and had caused more than 3,000 deaths. <br />
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Coronavirus is a category of viruses named for their appearance, which is similar to a halo or crown, and includes four different viruses which can cause the common cold in humans. However, the virus itself is not called COVID-19, but is called {{w|severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2}} (SARS-CoV-2). So calling the virus or disease "coronavirus" is like calling a specific strain of flu ''The Influenza virus''. However, since the new coronavirus is so hyped in the media it has attracted so much attention, so the name "coronavirus" has become associated with COVID-19, making it difficult to discuss other types of coronaviruses later on.<br />
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As of March 2, 2020, COVID-19 in China has a 20% hospitalization rate and a 2% death rate by current estimates, compared to a [https://www.livescience.com/coronavirus-myths.html typical rate of around 0.1% for the flu in the US].<br />
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In this comic, researchers [[Ponytail]], [[Megan]] and [[Cueball]] are discussing that it is by now too late to try calling the disease its official name COVID-19, as the name coronavirus has stuck. [[Cueball]] reacts with dismay, since there are many other types of coronaviruses.<br />
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To illustrate that Cueball's complaint is excessively pedantic and inconsequential, Ponytail &mdash; rather than using a more real-world analogy &mdash; compares the coronavirus naming to a giant car-eating spider living on top of the skyscrapers of the town, which people similarly refer to generically as simply "The Spider," even though that is not the most technically-accurate name (it is technically a mutated ''{{w|Tigrosa annexa}}'' {{w|wolf spider}}). Everyone knows what you mean when you say "Coronavirus", as they do when you mention "The Spider".<br />
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The comic then goes on to poke fun at itself by treating Ponytail's example as a real concern, as [[Megan]] then asks if they should not also do something about the spider. But Ponytail and Cueball agree that they can only tackle one problem at a time, and coronavirus takes up all their time. Ponytail further notes that she simply began altering her route to circumvent the location where The Spider has taken up residence, as evidence that the Spider issue can be easily avoided, and is therefore not an immediate concern.<br />
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The title text references the health advice that people avoid touching their face with unwashed hands, in order to prevent infections that they picked up by touching things from entering their mucous membranes. (It's a lot easier for an infection to enter the body through the inside of your nose than your hands.) It is likewise quite important to keep the giant spider from touching your face, but for the dissimilar reason that it might bite and eat you.<br />
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Notably, the rename to COVID-19 did eventually catch on as the default description of the disease caused by "The Coronavirus" SARS-CoV2.<br />
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==Transcript==<br />
:[Megan is carrying a box with biohazard symbols on it towards a desk where Ponytail (wearing safety glasses) is working on a laptop, across from Cueball (also wearing safety glasses) who is putting a test tube into a PCR machine. There's also a flask on the desk.]<br />
:Ponytail: Feels like we missed the window for the "COVID-19" renaming. "Coronavirus" is just too catchy.<br />
:Cueball: But it's not specific! There are a lot of coronaviruses.<br />
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:[In a frameless panel, Ponytail (still wearing safety glasses) is pointing at a screen or picture showing a modern city skyline with a large spider crawling across three of the high-rise buildings.]<br />
:Ponytail: I think it's fine. It's like, you know the giant spider downtown that sits on the buildings and sometimes eats cars? I think ''technically'' it's a mutant ''T. annexa'' wolf spider, but everyone is just calling it "the spider" and we all know what they mean.<br />
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:[Back to the setting from the first panel. Megan is standing and Ponytail had turned towards her and Cueball has stepped back from the machine.]<br />
:Megan: I've been meaning to ask, what's '''''with''''' that spider? Should we...do something?<br />
:Ponytail: Honestly I've been too busy with the virus stuff to look into it-I just changed my commute to avoid Main St.<br />
:Cueball: Yeah, that's fair. One thing at a time.<br />
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{{comic discussion}}<br />
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[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]<br />
[[Category:COVID-19]]<br />
[[Category:Science]]<br />
[[Category:Spiders]]<br />
[[File:Angry_beaver_soyboy_wojack.png]]</div>108.162.241.249