https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/api.php?action=feedcontributions&user=141.101.76.34&feedformat=atomexplain xkcd - User contributions [en]2024-03-28T18:54:19ZUser contributionsMediaWiki 1.30.0https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=179:_e_to_the_pi_times_i&diff=206548179: e to the pi times i2021-02-20T22:08:43Z<p>141.101.76.34: Undo revision 206547 by 172.68.174.68 (talk)</p>
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<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 179<br />
| date = November 3, 2006<br />
| title = e to the pi times i<br />
| image = e_to_the_pi_times_i.png<br />
| titletext = I have never been totally satisfied by the explanations for why e to the ix gives a sinusoidal wave.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
The comic largely references {{w|Euler's identity}}. This identity states that e<sup>iπ</sup> + 1 = 0. Therefore, e<sup>iπ</sup> = &minus;1.<br />
<br />
The humor from this comic is because of the seemingly arbitrary relationship between e, π, and the identity of i (the square root of &minus;1). e is the mathematical identity of which the derivative of e<sup>x</sup> with respect to x is still e<sup>x</sup>, while π is the relationship between the circumference of a circle divided by its diameter. Taking these two values and applying them to the value of i in such a manner makes it seem counter-intuitive that it would yield &minus;1 from basic analysis. The above linked Wikipedia page goes into good detail of how to derive this identity, as does [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dhHrg-KbJ0 this YouTube video].<br />
<br />
The title text refers to how Euler's identity is called upon in complex form (separating real and imaginary numbers): e<sup>ix</sup> = cos(x) + i sin(x).<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:[Two people standing at a board with writing on. One person is pointing at the board.]<br />
:Cueball: Numbers of the form n√-1 are "imaginary," but can still be used in equations.<br />
:Friend: Okay.<br />
:Cueball: And e^(π√-1)=-1.<br />
:Friend: Now you're just fucking with me.<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]<br />
[[Category:Math]]</div>141.101.76.34https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1962:_Generations&diff=1539001962: Generations2018-03-07T14:34:24Z<p>141.101.76.34: /* Explanation */ Fix typo in the time period for The Procedural Generation</p>
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<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 1962<br />
| date = March 2, 2018<br />
| title = Generations<br />
| image = generations.png<br />
| titletext = For a while it looked like the Paperclip Machines would destroy us, since they wanted to turn the whole universe into paperclips, but they abruptly lost interest in paperclips the moment their parents' generation got into making them, too.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|Table still needs some work. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
<br />
This comic is making fun of the various names we give "generations" while also predicting some future names. The release of this comic coincides with the [http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/03/01/defining-generations-where-millennials-end-and-post-millennials-begin/ Pew Research Center's recent announcement that they have decided where the Millennial generation ends].<br />
<br />
Each generation listed is exactly 18 years long, which is the approximate length of each "generation" anyway (given that coincidentally, there are exactly 54 intermediate years between the end of World War II and the New Millennium).<br />
<br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
|-<br />
! scope="col"| Generation<br />
! scope="col"| Time period<br />
! scope="col"| Explanation<br />
|-<br />
| The Founders<br />
| 1730&nbsp;-&nbsp;1747<br />
| Most of the {{w|Founding Fathers of the United States|United States' Founding Fathers}} were born in this period. (But not all: Benjamin Franklin, for instance, was born two generations prior, in 1706.)<br />
|-<br />
| Generation ƒ<br />
| 1748 - 1765<br />
| ƒ was used to represent {{w|Long s|"long s"}} in the typography used in Colonial America. It can be seen in many historical documents from the period. It is also the symbol that represented the {{w|Dutch guilder|guilder}}, the currency of the Netherlands from the 17th century until 2002.<br />
|-<br />
| The Adequate Generation<br />
| 1766 - 1783<br />
| Randall apparently found nothing notable about this generation, positive or negative. This is a reference to the Greatest Generation, below.<br />
|-<br />
| Generation Æ<br />
| 1784 - 1801<br />
| Æ is the {{w|Æ|diphthong}} Aesh - its name sounds like X, though it is pronounced as a long e or IPA /æ/. This character is commonly transcribed differently into British English and American English as ae and e respectively making a difference in spelling in words such as encyclopaedia/encylopedia. One of the key influences on this is Webster's dictionary, first published 1828.<br />
|-<br />
| The generation we cut a lot of slack because they produced Lincoln<br />
| 1802 - 1819<br />
| Abraham Lincoln was born in 1809, and is regarded as one of the best presidents of all time. The comic states that the other people born in this generation were "cut a lot of slack" because of him. As with the Oops, one of us is Hitler generation, it is absurd to define an entire generation by defining its most famous member.<br />
|-<br />
| The&nbsp;Gilded&nbsp;Generation<br />
| 1820 - 1837<br />
| {{w|Gilded Generation (Strauss–Howe theory)| So named under the Strauss-Howe generation theory}}, though they use the time period 1822-1842 instead. This likely refers to the "{{w|Gilded Age}}" of American history, roughly the last three decades of the 19th century.<br />
|-<br />
| The Second-Greatest Generation<br />
| 1838 - 1855<br />
|<br />
This is a reference to the Greatest Generation, below, and could be implying a similarity between the accomplishments and sacrifices of this generation - who fought in the U.S. Civil War and who passed the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution - to those of the Greatest Generation. There is also some humor in the name: what Randall means is that this generation was, supposedly, second best in terms of its greatness. However, the wording could be interpreted to mean that they are chronologically the second generation to be called "greatest", even though they actually were born first.<br />
|-<br />
| Generation – • • –<br />
| 1856 - 1873<br />
| – • • – is the letter X in {{w|Morse_code|International Morse Code}}. This is an old-timey version of Gen Xers, mirrored by the later "More Gen-Xers somehow." This is also a reference to the rise of {{w|telegraphy}}, popular during this time period.<br />
|-<br />
| The kids who died in the Gilded Generation's factories and mines<br />
| 1874 - 1891<br />
| {{w|Child labour #The Industrial Revolution|Child labor}} had been widely used since before the start of the Industrial Revolution, but this is when people started doing something about it - and also, when the need for an educated workforce arose, applying substantial economic pressure on societies to put children in school instead. It would be more accurate to label this generation, "The kids who stopped dying in the Gilded Generation's factories and mines".<br />
|-<br />
| Oops, one of us is Hitler<br />
| 1892 - 1909<br />
| {{w|Adolf Hitler}}, possibly the most hated (and, by most definitions, evil) man in living human memory as of this comic's posting, was born during in 1889. Aside from the fact that this places him in the previous generation, it seems beyond silly to blame everyone else who was born during this period for being born in the same generation as him. Among those who eventually heard of him (thus, excluding those in isolated areas or who died before he rose to power), the vast majority of them would not hear of him until well after 1909. In reality, this generation is known as the {{w|Lost Generation}}, though the dates are somewhat skewed.<br />
|-<br />
| The Greatest Generation<br />
| 1910 - 1927<br />
| Named by journalist {{w|Tom Brokaw}} in 1998 in {{w|The Greatest Generation|a book of the same name}}, this is the first generation on the list to have a real, commonly accepted name, and was named as such due to being the generation that survived the hardships of the {{w|Great Depression}} immediately before being drafted to fight in {{w|World War II}}.<br />
|-<br />
| The Silent Generation<br />
| 1928 - 1945<br />
| Coined by Time Magazine in 1951, the Silent Generation grew up during a time of paranoia and very little activism due to phenomena such as {{w|McCarthyism}} making it dangerous to speak out.<br />
|-<br />
| Baby Boomers<br />
| 1946 - 1963<br />
| A spike in births was seen following the return of soldiers to the US from European and Pacific theatres of war. These children enjoyed the benefits of US prosperity whilst the rest of the world rebuilt, lived in fear of nuclear annihilation and watched the Space Race.<br />
|-<br />
| Generation X<br />
| 1965 - 1981<br />
| "X" here refers to an unknown or undefined element, not specifically a placement in the alphabet as Y and Z (see below) seem to imply, and was used throughout history to refer to alienated youth in general as early as the 1950s, with the name sticking to this one thanks to Douglas Coupland's 1991 novel. Generation X's time period was one of sweeping societal change and rapid technological advancement. <br />
|-<br />
| Millennials<br />
| 1982 - 1999<br />
| The last children born in the 2nd Millennium. Initially called Generation Y, as they were thought to be so boring the only thing of note was that they came after Generation X, by people that hadn't anticipated the internet.<br />
|-<br />
| Generation 💅 (nail polish emoji)<br />
| 2000 - 2017<br />
| This begins the hypothetical future generation names, though this generation was already fully born as of this comic's posting. Social media was established and rising during the formative years of this generation, and the widespread adoption of emoji began during this time. The [https://emojipedia.org/nail-polish/ Nail Polish Emoji] (U+1F485) is used here. Currently known as Generation Z or iGen in reality, (there's actually controversy over both names but the goods and bads of each seem to cancel each other out and other names aren't as exciting.) though the comic implies it may change due to emojis ultimately replacing the alphabet entirely. (having this generation's name be hieroglyphs would actually be pretty cool.)<br />
|-<br />
| Zuckerberg's Army<br />
| 2018 - 2035<br />
| Continuing on the above, this may be presuming the dominance of Facebook during the childhoods of this generation, and corresponding social norming as ultimately directed by its leader Mark Zuckerberg. Ironically, as of this comic's posting, [http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/facebook-quit-young-people-social-media-snapchat-instagram-emarketer-a8206486.html young users were already leaving Facebook for other social media sites]. May also be a reference to "Dumbledore's Army" in ''Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix''. It is uncertain whether Zuckerberg's Army is in alliance or at war with the other social media militaries of the mid-21st century.<br />
|-<br />
| The Hovering Ones<br />
| 2036 - 2053<br />
| This may posit increased adoption of cybernetics, which (as with any technology) are more easily adopted by the young who do not have to unlearn previous ways. If advances allowed someone to hover all the time, such that one would not need to walk, this generation's name suggests that becoming so widely used among this generation that they became known for it.<br />
|-<br />
| Spare Parts<br />
| 2054 - 2071<br />
| Continuing on the above speculation about cybernetics, this presumes enough apathy or sociopathy among this generation's parents that giving birth (or other means of creating a new human) was often done to create bodies from which organs could be harvested (presumably primarily for the benefit of their elders).<br />
|-<br />
| More Gen-Xers somehow<br />
| 2072 - 2089<br />
| As with "Generation – • • –", this may be positing that Generation X like traits pop up about 3/4 of the way through each century.<br />
|-<br />
| The Paperclip Machines<br />
| 2090 - 2107<br />
| This, and the alt text, are references to the concept of a [https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Paperclip_maximizer paperclip maximizer], where an AI might be designed to be helpful, but end up being harmful. The clicker game [http://www.decisionproblem.com/paperclips/ Universal Paperclips] makes this concept playable. Furthering the above speculation of cybernetics, this generation might be primarily artificial intelligences, though of limited ability to set their own priorities (a flaw which would be fixed in later generations).<br />
|-<br />
| The Mixed Bag (produced 4 Lincolns, 1 Napoleon, and 2 Hitlers)<br />
| 2108 - 2125<br />
| As with the above examples, a generation may become known for its most famous members, but it is not useful to define an entire generation by them. In this case, the generation may have literally produced 4 Lincolns, 1 Napoleon, and 2 Hitlers via cloning or the like. This also implies that Napoleon's generation was named after him. However, Napoleon's generation is ironically, the Adequate Generation.<br />
|-<br />
| The Procedural Generation<br />
| 2126 - 2143<br />
| {{w|Procedural generation}} is a way of creating data automatically, rather than capturing it via sensor (including when the "sensor" is a keyboard and the data is typed in). This confusion of the term "generation" could refer to more artificial intelligences that were created via routines instead of directly coded, which would likely stem from attempts to improve child creation once most children were explicitly manufactured instead of relying on evolution-granted biological means.<br />
|-<br />
| Generation Ω<br />
| 2144 - 2161<br />
| "Omega" is the last letter in the Greek alphabet, and used as a symbol of endings. Given the above generation names implying increasingly artificial children, this may suggest the last generation that is recognizably a generation. This does not necessarily mean the end of children or the end of humanity, just that anything after 2161 is widely recognized to no longer have even notional generational coherence - perhaps because of drift (children born to one group during a given time are wildly different enough from children born to another group at the same time that people give up trying to group them by time), child gestation and maturation times (for example, if it became common for a child to go from conception to adulthood in less than a year), or exceptions to what counts as a "child" (for example, if it becomes possible and common to create clones that are somewhere between free-willed beings and mind-controlled drones, and this sufficiently supplants creation of completely free-willed children, regardless of whether the children are artificial intelligences or old-fashioned biological children).<br />
|-<br />
| Star Trek: The Next Generation<br />
|2360 - 2378<br />
|''{{w|Star Trek: The Next Generation}}'' was a TV show set in the future. The first episode of ''TNG'', "{{w|Encounter at Farpoint}}", takes place in 2364, and it concluded with "{{w|All_Good_Things..._(Star_Trek:_The_Next_Generation)|All Good Things...}}", which took place in 2370. The final canonical adventures of the cast of ''The Next Generation'' did not occur until the events of ''{{w|Star Trek: Nemesis}}'' in 2379.<br />
|}<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
<br />
:"Generations" are arbitrary. They're just labels we use to obliquely talk about cultural trends.<br />
:But since Pew Research has become the latest to weigh in, and everyone loves a good pointless argument over definitions...<br />
<br />
:''xkcd presents''<br />
:A Definitive Chronology of the Generations<br />
<br />
:1730-1747 The Founders<br />
:1748-1765 Generation ƒ <br />
:1766-1783 The Adequate Generation<br />
:1784-1801 Generation Æ<br />
:1802-1819 The generation we cut a lot of slack because they produced Lincoln<br />
:1820-1837 The Gilded Generation<br />
:1838-1855 The Second-Greatest Generation<br />
:1856-1873 Generation – • • –<br />
:1874-1891 The kids who died in the Gilded Generation's factories and mines<br />
:1892-1909 Oops, one of us is Hitler<br />
:<span style="background:#f0ee87">1910-1927 The Greatest Generation</span><br />
:<span style="background:#f0ee87">1928-1945 The Silent Generation</span><br />
:<span style="background:#f0ee87">1946-1963 Baby Boomers</span><br />
:<span style="background:#f0ee87">1964-1981 Generation X</span><br />
:<span style="background:#f0ee87">1982-1999 Millennials</span><br />
:2000-2017 Generation 💅 [nail polish emoji]<br />
:2018-2035 Zuckerberg's army<br />
:2036-2053 The Hovering Ones<br />
:2054-2071 Spare Parts<br />
:2072-2089 More Gen-Xers somehow<br />
:2090-2107 The Paperclip Machines<br />
:2108-2125 The Mixed Bag (produced 4 Lincolns, 1 Napoleon and 2 Hitlers)<br />
:2126-2143 The Procedural Generation<br />
:2144-2161 Generation Ω<br />
:2360-2378 Star Trek: The Next Generation <br />
<br />
Title text: For a while it looked like the Paperclip Machines would destroy us, since they wanted to turn the whole universe into paperclips, but they abruptly lost interest in paperclips the moment their parents' generation got into making them, too.<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:Comics with color]]<br />
[[Category:Emoji]]</div>141.101.76.34https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1913:_A_%3F&diff=1477001913: A ?2017-11-11T19:23:24Z<p>141.101.76.34: /* Explanation */ continuing on the censored word</p>
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<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 1913<br />
| date = November 8, 2017<br />
| title = A �<br />
| image = i.png<br />
| titletext = If you want in on the fun, map a key on your keyboard to the sequence U+0041 U+0020 U+FFFD (or U+0021 U+0020 U+FFFD for the exclamation point version), and then no update can never take this away from you.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
<br />
After the update to {{w|Apple Inc.|Apple's}} {{w|IOS_11#11.1|iOS 11.1}}, many (though not all) {{w|iPhone}} users suffered from a strange bug, where the {{w|autocorrection}} changed any input of the single lowercase letter "i" to either "A" or "!" followed by a space and a Unicode {{w|Variation Selectors (Unicode block)|variation selector 16}} (U+FE0F, on iOS displayed as a question mark in a square).<ref>http://www.loopinsight.com/2017/11/06/ios-bug-autocorrects-letter-i-to-a-plus-unicode-symbol-heres-a-workaround-and-a-clue-to-the-cause/</ref> Using a {{w|Specials_(Unicode_block)#Replacement_character|replacement character}} to approximate this display, the result of typing "i took" might be "A � took" or "! � took". In a handwritten text, the "�" symbol could then be mistaken for a censored word, signifying indignation aginst the person taking out the trash. This problem previously manifested as an "I" followed directly by the VS-16 "emojify character", turning them into an " �" without the "A".<ref>https://twitter.com/willkirkby/status/925865928193134593</ref><br />
<br />
The note in this comic is the equivalent of starting a text message with "i took out..." and triggering the iOS bug. The joke revolves around acceptance of the bug through repetition has influenced the writer's hand written style.<br />
<br />
The codes in the title text refer to "A �" and "! �" respectively. The text provides a way to keep the "bug" active, (which can be realized through the use of a {{w|Cydia}} tweak) even after it is patched. Although this would have no practical use, it is still a fun way{{Citation needed}} for iPhone users to keep the infamous bug fresh in everyone's mind, and to make sure that the Apple company never lives down the embarrassing incident.<br />
<br />
The statement in the title text "no update can never take this away from you" is a {{w|Double negative|double negative}}, which is a considered non-standard grammatical use in modern English, although common in many dialects. Taking literally it could actually mean "any update can take this away from you". This may be a typo or a colloquial use, with the intended meaning to be "ever" instead of "never" with some exaggeration.<br />
<br />
=== References ===<br />
<references /><br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:[A picture of a yellow post-it note with a handwritten message:]<br />
:A ⍰ took out the trash but the dishwasher still needs to be run.<br />
<br />
:[Caption below the panel:]<br />
:Apple can try to fix the autocorrect bug, but I've already incorporated it into my handwriting.<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:Unicode]]<br />
[[Category:Comics with color]]</div>141.101.76.34