https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/api.php?action=feedcontributions&user=141.101.76.130&feedformat=atomexplain xkcd - User contributions [en]2024-03-28T14:39:47ZUser contributionsMediaWiki 1.30.0https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2034:_Equations&diff=1613222034: Equations2018-08-17T07:39:10Z<p>141.101.76.130: </p>
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<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 2034<br />
| date = August 17, 2018<br />
| title = Equations<br />
| image = equations.png<br />
| titletext = All electromagnetic equations: The same as all fluid dynamics equations, but with the 8 and 23 replaced with the permittivity and permeability of free space, respectively.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|Created by a BOT - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
!style="width:20%"|Equation<br />
!style="width:20%"|Field<br />
!style="width:60%"|Explanation<br />
|-<br />
|<math>E = K_0t + \frac{1}{2}\rho vt^2</math><br />
|All kinematics equations<br />
|Energy equals a constant <math>K_0</math> multiplied by time plus half of density multiplied by speed multiplied by time squared<br />
|-<br />
|<math>K_n = \sum_{i=0}^{\infty}\sum_{\pi=0}^{\infty}(n-\pi)(i-e^{\pi-\infty})</math><br />
|All number theory equations<br />
|Taken literal the equation says: "The nth K-number is equal to for all i in 0 to infinity, for all pi in 0 to infinity; subtract pi from n and multiply it with i minus e (to the power of pi minus infinity). A twofold misconception can be seen here. The first is the reassignment of pi as a variable instead of the constant (3.14). This might be a jab at how in number theory letters adn numbers are used interchangeably, but where soem letters are all of a subben fixed constants. The second misconception is the use of infinity in the latter part of the formula. Naively this would signify that (with the reassigned pi values) the part in the power would range from minus infinity to zero. However infinity is not a number and cannot be used as one without using a limit construct.<br />
|-<br />
|<math>\frac{\partial}{\partial t}\nabla\cdot p = \frac{8}{23}<br />
\int\!\!\!\!\int\!\!\!\!\!\!\!\!\!\!\!\!\!\!\;\;\;\bigcirc\,\,<br />
\rho\,ds\,dt\cdot \rho\frac{\partial}{\partial\nabla}<br />
</math><br />
|All fluid dynamic equations<br />
|-<br />
|<math>|\psi_{x,y}\rangle = A(\psi) A(|x\rangle \otimes |y\rangle)</math><br />
|All quantum mechanic equations<br />
|<br />
|-<br />
|<math>\mathrm{CH}_4 + \mathrm{OH} + \mathrm{HEAT} \rightarrow \mathrm{H}_2\mathrm{O} + \mathrm{CH}_2 + \mathrm{H}_2 \mathrm{EAT}</math><br />
|All chemistry equations<br />
| A modification of the combustion of methane. The correct form is often taught and a good example problem but obviously there are more chemistry problems.<math>HEAT</math> is normally shorthand for {{w|activation energy}}, but in Randall's version it's jokingly used as a chemical ingredient and becomes <math>H_2EAT</math>, taking the hydrogen atom freed by the combustion equation shown.<br />
|-<br />
|<math>SU(2)U(1) \times SU\left(U(2)\right)</math><br />
|All quantum gravity equations<br />
|<br />
|-<br />
|<math>S_g = \frac{-1}{2\bar{\epsilon}}i\eth \hat{\big(} \zeta_0 \dotplus p_\epsilon \rho_v^{abc}\cdot \eta_0 \hat{\big)} f_a^0 a\lambda(\xi) \psi(0_a)</math><br><br />
|All gauge theory equations<br />
|<br />
|-<br />
|<math>H(t) + \Omega + G \cdot \Lambda \, \dots \begin{cases} \dots > 0 & \text{(HUBBLE MODEL)} \\ \dots = 0 & \text{(FLAT SPHERE MODEL)} \\ \dots < 0 & \text{(BRIGHT DARK MATTER MODEL)} \end{cases}<br />
</math><br />
|All cosmology equations<br />
|<br />
|-<br />
|<math>\hat H - \mu_{0} = 0</math><br />
|All truly deep physics equations<br />
|<br />
|-<br />
|<math>\frac{\partial}{\partial t}\nabla\cdot p = \frac{\epsilon_0}{\mu_0}<br />
\int\!\!\!\!\int\!\!\!\!\!\!\!\!\!\!\!\!\!\!\;\;\;\bigcirc\,\,<br />
\rho\,ds\,dt\cdot \rho\frac{\partial}{\partial\nabla}<br />
</math><br />
|All electromagnetic equations<br />
|<br />
|}<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
[TODO: Avoid using math markup here because the images of these equations isn't helpful in a transcript. Sigh.]<br />
[Nine equations are listed and labeled as followed:]<br />
<br><br><br />
E = K<sub>0</sub>t + 1/2 pvt<sup>2</sup><br><br />
ALL KINEMATICS EQUATIONS<br><br />
<br><br />
<math>K_n = \sum_{i=0}^{\infty}\sum_{\pi=0}^{\infty}(n-\pi)(i-e^{\pi-\infty})</math><br><br />
ALL NUMBER THEORY EQUATIONS<br><br />
<br><br />
&#x2202;/&#x2202;t &nabla; &sdot; p = 8/23 (&#x222F; &rho; ds dt &sdot; &rho; &#x2202;/&#x2202;&nabla;)<br><br />
ALL FLUID DYNAMIC EQUATIONS<br><br />
<br><br />
<math>|\psi_{x,y}\rangle = A(\psi) A(|x\rangle \otimes |y\rangle)</math><br><br />
ALL QUANTUM MECHANIC EQUATIONS<br><br />
<br><br />
CH<sub>4</sub> + OH + HEAT &rarr; H<sub>2</sub>O + CH<sub>2</sub> + H<sub>2</sub>EAT <br><br />
ALL CHEMISTRY EQUATIONS<br><br />
<br><br />
SU(2)U(1) &times; SU(U(2)) <br><br />
ALL QUANTUM GRAVITY EQUATIONS<br><br />
<br><br />
<math>S_g = \frac{-1}{2\epsilon}i\eth \hat{\big(} \zeta_0 \dotplus p_\epsilon \rho_v^{abc}\cdot \eta_0 \hat{\big)} f_a^0 a\lambda(\zeta) \psi(0_a)</math><br><br />
ALL GAUGE THEORY EQUATIONS<br><br />
<br><br />
<math>H(t) + \Omega + G \cdot \land \, ... \begin{cases} ... > 0 & \text{(HUBBLE MODEL)} \\ ... = 0 & \text{(FLAT SPHERE MODEL)} \\ ... < 0 & \text{(BRIGHT DARK MATTER MODEL)} \end{cases}<br />
</math><br><br />
ALL COSMOLOGY EQUATIONS<br><br />
<br><br />
&#x0124; - u̧<sub>0</sub> = 0<br><br />
ALL TRULY DEEP PHYSICS EQUATIONS<br />
<br><br />
<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
[[Category:Math]]</div>141.101.76.130https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=873:_FPS_Mod&diff=147608873: FPS Mod2017-11-09T13:25:36Z<p>141.101.76.130: /* Explanation */</p>
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<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 873<br />
| date = March 16, 2011<br />
| title = FPS Mod<br />
| image = fps mod.png<br />
| titletext = Wait, that second one is a woman? ...wait, if that bothers me, then why doesn't... man, this game is no fun anymore.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
FPS stands for {{w|First-person shooter|First Person Shooter}}, which is a type of video game (like {{w|Halo (series)|Halo}} or {{w|Duke Nukem}}) in which you are looking at the world from the first person perspective of the character you are controlling. [[Randall]] notes in the caption that no one liked his FPS mod (short for "modification" of the FPS game), and in the title text it is clear that [[Cueball]] who played this modified version no longer enjoys the game.<br />
<br />
FPS games are controversial for their (supposed) quality of encouraging violence such as killing (especially towards other human beings). One point of the controversy is that, while virtual enemies are just pixels on a screen, real enemies have actual lives, emotions, and the like. In the games, there is a disconnect between the act and its emotional cost, thus leading to the controversy that FPS games encourage wanton killing (or violence in general) to solve problems instead of considering the other party. Randall makes reference to this by adding a mod that gives biographical snippets of the enemy you shoot in the game, thus giving Cueball the perspective of the enemy he just shot, and causing emotional consequence and remorse by removing the disconnect between pixel and life.<br />
<br />
The above can also be a reference towards making games more realistic. Giving the enemies a life above being mere targets definitely makes the game more realistic, but such a game would not be that enjoyable. This has been explored previously in [[772: Frogger]].<br />
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The title text talks about how gender is portrayed in games. For some people it is more emotionally affecting to kill a woman, as women are considered biologically "weaker" than men by many societies, and societal norms state that men must protect them. Gender equality is a highly debated topic with many different viewpoints, where one's conscious reasoned views may sometimes stand at odds to subconscious feelings. When a player becomes aware that killing women bothers one more than killing men, it exposes an inconsistency in the player's own logic, one that's very uncomfortable to confront.<br />
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In the 1993 post-apocalyptic novel {{w|The Fifth Sacred Thing}}, the eco-pacifist residents of San Francisco defeat an invading army using a similar tactic. Rather than engage in armed defense, the family and friends of each dead San Franciscan speak directly to the soldiers who killed them, saying, "My wife was the mother of five children, and I loved her dearly," or "My cousin liked baseball." Eventually the soldiers suffer psychological breakdowns and defect ''en masse'', rather as Cueball seems to do in the title text.<br />
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Amusingly, the 2014 game {{w|Watch_Dogs}} does something quite similar to this; the in-game "Profiler" provides a brief summary of a targeted enemy, and if the enemy does not have a gameplay-relevant feature (i.e. "Can call for backup"), it will mention their hobbies or interests.<br />
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The game {{w|Borderlands 2}} directly references this comic with the Morningstar, a unique aftermarket talking Hyperion sniper rifle which berates the user in a nagging, whiny voice any time they reload, kill an enemy, swap weapons, or score a critical hit. The weapon is obtained from the mission Hyperion Contract 873 (a reference to this comic being comic number 873) and is referred to as "the Hyperion ex-K seedy experimental weapon" upon completion of the mission.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:[Cueball is sitting in a chair in front of his TV holding a gamepad while playing a video game. Every time he shoots the sound is written inside a ring of small curved lines to indicate the noise. Text on the screen is noted after each round of blasts with a zigzag line from the screen and between each entry.]<br />
:''Blam''<br />
:Game: He once built a treehouse.<br />
:''Blam''<br />
:Game: She has 110 unread emails that she was hoping to get to tonight.<br />
:''Blam blam''<br />
:Game: He was the only one who took care of the plants back at base.<br />
<br />
:[Caption below the panel:]<br />
:No one liked my FPS mod that gives you three-second snippets from the bios of people you shoot.<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]<br />
[[Category:Video games]]</div>141.101.76.130https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:1912:_Thermostat&diff=147510Talk:1912: Thermostat2017-11-07T22:35:06Z<p>141.101.76.130: </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 />
Maybe the the last sentence is about moses parting the sea so he can walk through it.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.91.221|162.158.91.221]] 05:55, 6 November 2017 (UTC)<br />
: I interpreted it that way. In computing, partitioning separates parts of a drive that are to be used for different purposes, so parallels might be drawn there. - [[User:Emmia|Emmia]] ([[User talk:Emmia|talk]]) 07:24, 6 November 2017 (UTC)<br />
: Not so sure about that. It's possible, I guess, but it's not obviously funny. I think it's more related to the title text about the helpline operative being afraid to upset whatever god of technology has cursed him with this unfathomable tech problem, and suggesting to him that the situation is so dire he may as well just end it all. (Obviously overreacting, as the failure of an IoT-enabled thermostat is definitely a First World Problem and not the horrendous event the characters are considering it to be.) 09:57, 6 November 2017 (UTC)<br />
:I also thought about the "parting the sea" idea...consider that in the Old Testament, the gods of other cultures were spoken of as alive, and the Israelite God as directly challenging and defeating them (see the challenge issued to the Egyptian deities in Exodus). Perhaps, rather than helping Cueball himself, Hairy thinks that by invoking the Most High, Cueball might be able to defeat whatever technology god he has angered. Hence, Hairy suggests that Cueball try to play the role of Moses. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.34.76|172.68.34.76]] 16:11, 6 November 2017 (UTC)<br />
:No, just talking about abandoning hope and that Cueball should escape life. This use of walking into the sea is a commonly used result of giving up at life, a reaction to not wanting to deal with people, reality, etc. any more. [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 04:37, 7 November 2017 (UTC)<br />
: I read it more as a comment along the lines of "if we've got to the point where we're making something as trivial as a thermostat this complicated then there's no hope for us and we may as well just end it all".[[Special:Contributions/162.158.155.32|162.158.155.32]] 17:31, 7 November 2017 (UTC)<br />
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I think there's additional humor to the extent of his boot problems. Monthly Energy Report (1).doc would be a normal document a smart thermostat may create. But if it became a boot volume it'd brick the device.<br />
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: Maybe "Monthly Energy Report (1).doc" was meant to resemble a malware-laden email attachment. The "(1)" could indicate a name-collision-avoidance suffix of a downloaded file. [[User:Bob Stein - VisiBone|Bob Stein - VisiBone]] ([[User talk:Bob Stein - VisiBone|talk]]) 11:48, 6 November 2017 (UTC)<br />
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:'Monthly Energy Report.doc' might be a normal document a smart energy device might produce (can't see why it would be producing energy reports if all it is is a thermostat), but the '(1)' on the end suggests it's been unable to overwrite a previous report. or for some reason produced a copy of the original document.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.155.32|162.158.155.32]] 17:23, 7 November 2017 (UTC)<br />
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I believe Cueball has accidentally discovered that the thermostat—supposedly simple device—is actually doing surveillance on the house (and is poorly coded). Now the tech support guy is astounded by the fact that somebody has found out, but then promptly suggests suicide in a non-direct manner to clean up evidence, covering this is with religious explanation. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.244.24|172.68.244.24]] 06:37, 6 November 2017 (UTC)<br />
:I'm not sure about the surveillance. It seems to me that the .doc is somehow a record of power usage of the thermostat. However, it remains to be determined a. why it is running Android b. why it is mounting and booting a .doc c. how it got there [[Special:Contributions/162.158.106.12|162.158.106.12]] 07:11, 6 November 2017 (UTC)<br />
:: The .doc file is the trojan that was installed on the device. It was supposed to look innocent, but actually contains an encoded sysroot with the real spyware. It's just also terribly written. Very genuinely Russian.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.202.106|162.158.202.106]] 21:46, 6 November 2017 (UTC)<br />
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I took it as a variation on this joke in HHG:<br />
: "Many were increasingly of the opinion that they'd all made a big mistake in coming down from the trees in the first place. And some said that even the trees had been a bad move, and that no one should ever have left the oceans."<br />
...Which in the BBC TV series was accompanied by visuals of Douglas Adams himself walking into the ocean. --[[Special:Contributions/172.68.86.58|172.68.86.58]] 07:27, 6 November 2017 (UTC)<br />
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Might be a reference to the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nest_learning_thermostat Nest Thermostat], which like Android is an Alphabet thing. While Nest doesn't run Android, its OS is Linux-based like Android. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.246.89|108.162.246.89]] 08:07, 6 November 2017 (UTC)<br />
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While reading the title text my first thought was http://americangods.wikia.com/wiki/Technical_Boy [[User:Elektrizikekswerk|Elektrizikekswerk]] ([[User talk:Elektrizikekswerk|talk]]) 08:16, 6 November 2017 (UTC)<br />
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Not sure if "Android error screen" deserves emphasis in the explanation, as lately many very simple devices have Android, it shouldn't be surprising to find a thermostat running it. [[User:Fvalves|Fvalves]] ([[User talk:Fvalves|talk]]) 10:12, 6 November 2017 (UTC)<br />
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https://xkcd.com/349/ also mentions tech issues and the sea. --[[Special:Contributions/141.101.107.78|141.101.107.78]] 10:36, 6 November 2017 (UTC)<br />
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As a (former) network engineer for the largest IoT deployment at a major ISP, I can say with complete certainty that this is nothing. A hard reset (typically, holding the power and some other button down for 5+ seconds) will skip the attempt at local boot and go directly to a BOOTP wipe from the mothership, which should have that thermostat up and running the Russian military/mob's firmware in ten minutes tops. Soon your thermostat will be mining bitcoin and staging attacks on your local vital infrastructure like all the other thermostats, don't you worry. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.196|141.101.98.196]] 11:14, 6 November 2017 (UTC)<br />
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Should we make a category for this? It's becoming a recurring theme on xkcd. [[User:RamenChef|RamenChef]] ([[User talk:RamenChef|talk]]) 15:49, 6 November 2017 (UTC)<br />
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: Sounds like this may be referrng to recent news where some Google Pixel 2 owners received phones [https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2017/11/2/16599938/google-pixel-2-xl-operating-system-shipping-quality-control-issues without any operating system]. [[User:Shamino|Shamino]] ([[User talk:Shamino|talk]]) 16:59, 6 November 2017 (UTC)<br />
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Refer to https://xkcd.com/801/ on using a complex OS for single purpose Hardware [[Special:Contributions/172.68.46.101|172.68.46.101]]<br />
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Perhaps it's referring to the story of Jonah. In an effort to get Jonah to go back to where he was supposed to go, God sent a terrible storm that devastated the ship that Jonah was escaping on. In order to appease God, the crew had to throw Jonah into the sea, where he was subsequently swallowed up by a giant fish.<br />
<br />
"the extension .docx has been the default from Microsoft Office 2007 onwards and is generally favored over the preceding .doc extension."... No, not "favored", just that it's the default, and the default default, and most people don't know to change it, or how, or that they should. :) I've found docx more u stable, more buggy, and less readable (seeing as people who have the sense not to blindly downgrade through 2007 and 2010 and 365 won't natively be ale to open it, and may have trouble with the file support extension). Actually, Randall's use of .doc here suggests to me he's one of us who are wise enough to stick with Office 2003, or at least stick with using .doc. :) [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 04:37, 7 November 2017 (UTC)<br />
:Moreover, the adding of "(1)" to a filename, when asked to avoid overwriting with conflicts, is itself only a more modern implementation within the Windows family (possibly Vista onwards, but Win8 onwards more certainly), for what used to be a purely overwrite/do not overwrite decision of sorts, although it does also mirror one of many possible user-based method of versioning/forking that wouldn't be unknown...<br />
:(My reading of the comic, BTW, is that someone in the household has opened up the device to a very insecure remote access to grab data to convert into a personal record - and, for some reason, this was being done in .doc rather than .xls or something more usefully statistical - the document for this somehow then written onto the raw partition,perhaps having deleted everythibg else (i.e. the virtual boot partition file the device normally goes to, as part of the bootstrap) leaving that document there for the bootloader to go "well, this is the only file,it must be the partition!" in an overly flexible/helpful but ultimately misguided firmware-led booting process. But there's ''so'' much wrong with even this scenario that I'm with the tech support guy in dispair that it ever happened.)[[Special:Contributions/141.101.76.130|141.101.76.130]] 22:35, 7 November 2017 (UTC)</div>141.101.76.130