https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/api.php?action=feedcontributions&user=162.158.107.97&feedformat=atomexplain xkcd - User contributions [en]2024-03-28T08:08:23ZUser contributionsMediaWiki 1.30.0https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2167:_Motivated_Reasoning_Olympics&diff=1756562167: Motivated Reasoning Olympics2019-06-24T16:42:45Z<p>162.158.107.97: whitespace issue in transcript</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 2167<br />
| date = June 24, 2019<br />
| title = Motivated Reasoning Olympics<br />
| image = motivated_reasoning_olympics.png<br />
| titletext = [later] I can't believe how bad corruption has become, especially given that our league split off from the statewide one a month ago SPECIFICALLY to protest this kind of flagrantly biased judging.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|Created by a BOT. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
[Cueball is holding a trophy with a 2 engraved on it, showing it off to Ponytail]<br />
<br />
Cueball: Check it out, I won first place at the motivated reasoning olympics!<br />
<br />
Ponytail: That trophy says "second".<br />
<br />
Cueball: Well, the guy who won was caught cheating in an earlier round, so the board is almost certain to strip him of his win once they review the...<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}</div>162.158.107.97https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1962:_Generations&diff=1755041962: Generations2019-06-20T03:46:38Z<p>162.158.107.97: /* Explanation */</p>
<hr />
<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 />
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). A number of the entries are parodies of the terms "Generation X," "Generation Y," etc., by substituting other letters or characters that would seem emblematic of the time period. <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 is the Roman numeral X meaning 10 or tenth, as by conventional generational counting the “baby boom” is the 9th generation of Americans and the following generation is the tenth, Randall’s listing of 13 (mostly made-up) prior generations notwithstanding.<br />
|-<br />
| Millennials<br />
| 1982 - 1999<br />
| The last children born in the 2nd Millennium. Initially called Generation Y, after Generation X.<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 in reality as Generation Z or iGen (there's 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.<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 />
<br />
:<span style=color:#585858>"Generations" are arbitrary. They're just labels we use to obliquely talk about cultural trends.</span><br />
:<span style=color:#585858>But since Pew Research has become the latest to weigh in, and everyone loves a good pointless argument over definitions...</span><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 />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:Comics with color]]<br />
[[Category:Emoji]]</div>162.158.107.97https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2162:_Literary_Opinions&diff=1752392162: Literary Opinions2019-06-12T21:53:24Z<p>162.158.107.97: /* Explanation */ put more likely explanation of multiple people being pen names before Fregoli delusion.</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 2162<br />
| date = June 12, 2019<br />
| title = Literary Opinions<br />
| image = literary_opinions.png<br />
| titletext = If I really focus, I can distinguish between John Steinbeck and John Updike, or between Gore Vidal and Vidal Sassoon, but not both at once.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|Hunter S Thompson was high while writing it. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
[[Megan]] is telling [[Cueball]] about some of her literary opinions: She believes that {{w|William S. Burroughs}}, {{w|Hunter S. Thompson}}, {{w|Chuck Palahniuk}}, and {{w|David Foster Wallace}} are different names for the same person. Many authors write under {{w|pen name|pen names}} for some of their works, or even several different pen names. Sometimes people come to believe that different people are actually a same person, which is known as the {{w|Fregoli delusion}}; the person is usually believed to change appearance. <br />
<br />
She then says that ''{{w|Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas}}'' (by Thompson) and ''{{w|Fight Club (novel)|Fight Club}}'' (by Palahniuk) are the same book with different covers, probably because the title and promotional images for both hint at fighting taking place in a big city (i.e., she is literally {{w|Don't judge a book by its cover|judging the books by their covers}}), when in reality the books are vastly different. Books sometimes have [https://www.rifflebooks.com/list/170553 different covers and titles in different regions]. <br />
<br />
Cueball realizes anyone who has so much as looked at the first page would know this to be false, and so offers Megan the chance to check. She refuses and just moves on to the next opinion she wants to share.<br />
<br />
Cueball realizes all her "literary opinions" are probably about books she has not read, and tries to interrupt her, humorously proposing she should start a {{w|Book discussion club|book club}} to discuss them. This may be to congregate all people who criticize books without reading them, or in hopes that it will be attended by people who have read the book and can prove to Megan her opinions are baseless.<br />
<br />
Megan finishes telling him her opinion anyway, which is that {{w|E.B. White}} and {{w|T.H. White}} are the same person. This is apparently an opinion that Cueball can agree with, as he tells her that he believes it. This is likely a joke that the two names are hard to distinguish due to the having the same last name with only initials instead of a first name. In reality, the books they authored are very different, with E.B. White writing children's books (''{{w|Charlotte's Web}}'', ''{{w|Stuart Little}}'', etc.) and T.H. White writing adult books about King Arthur (''{{w|The Sword and the Stone}}'' and its sequels), although his works ''were'' adapted into a {{w|The Sword in the Stone (1963 film)|Disney movie}} so they could, to some degree, be considered children's books.<br />
<br />
The title text continues with this, with Megan saying that she can distinguish between {{w|John Steinbeck}} and {{w|John Updike}}, or between {{w|Gore Vidal}} and {{w|Vidal Sassoon}}, but she can't do so simultaneously. Again this is likely due to the similarities in their names. <br />
<br />
Additionally, the mention of simultaneity could be a nod to the {{w|Heisenberg uncertainty principle}}, which states that there is a trade-off in precision when simultaneously measuring position and momentum.<br />
<br />
===Explanation of people===<br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
|-<br />
! Name<br />
! Description<br />
|-<br />
| {{w|William S. Burroughs}}<br />
| (1914–1997), American writer and visual artist. Wrote many semi-autobiographical works, best known for ''{{w|Naked Lunch}}'' and ''{{w|Junkie (novel)|Junkie}}''.<br />
|-<br />
| {{w|Hunter S. Thompson}}<br />
| (1937–2005), American journalist and author. Founder of the {{w|Gonzo journalism}} movement. Best known for his novel ''{{w|Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas}}''.<br />
|-<br />
| {{w|Chuck Palahniuk}}<br />
| born 1962, American novelist and freelance journalist. Best known for his novel ''{{w|Fight Club (novel)|Fight Club}}''.<br />
|-<br />
| {{w|David Foster Wallace}}<br />
| (1962–2008), American writer and university professor for English and creative writing. Best known for his novel ''{{w|Infinite Jest}}''.<br />
|-<br />
| {{w|E.B. White}}<br />
| (1899–1985), American writer. Co-author of the English language style guide ''{{w|The Elements of Style}}''. Also known for his children's books, including ''{{w|Stuart Little}}'', ''{{w|Charlotte's Web}}'', and ''{{w|The Trumpet of the Swan}}''.<br />
|-<br />
| {{w|T.H. White}}<br />
| (1906–1964), English author. Known for his Arthurian novel series, ''{{w|The Once and Future King}}''.<br />
|-<br />
| {{w|John Steinbeck}}<br />
| (1902–1968), American novelist. Known for his novels set in Central California, including ''{{w|Tortilla Flat}}'', ''{{w|Cannery Row (novel)|Cannery Row}}'', ''{{w|East of Eden (novel)|East of Eden}}'', ''{{w|Of Mice and Men}}'', and ''{{w|The Grapes of Wrath}}''.<br />
|-<br />
| {{w|John Updike}}<br />
| (1932–2009), American novelist, poet, short-story writer, art critic, and literary critic. Known for his prolific career and for his "Rabbit" series, chronicling the life of {{w|Rabbit Angstrom}}.<br />
|-<br />
| {{w|Gore Vidal}}<br />
| (1925–2012), American writer and public intellectual. A political commentator and essayist, as well as a novelist.<br />
|-<br />
| {{w|Vidal Sassoon}}<br />
| (1928–2012), British-American hairstylist, businessman, and fashion icon. Founded a worldwide chain of hairstyling salons as well as a line of hair treatment products. A philanthropist later in life.<br />
|}<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
<br />
:[Megan is walking with a finger raised toward Cueball, who is seated in a chair with a book.]<br />
:Megan: Literary opinion:<br />
:Megan: I firmly believe that William S. Burroughs, Hunter S. Thompson, Chuck Palahniuk, and David Foster Wallace are different names for the same person.<br />
:Cueball: ...I see.<br />
<br />
:[Megan puts down her hand.]<br />
:Megan: ''Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas'' and ''Fight Club''? Same book with different covers, I bet.<br />
:Cueball: I have both. Want to open them and check?<br />
:Megan: I do not.<br />
<br />
:[Cueball turns back to his book.]<br />
:Megan: Moving on: my next opinion--<br />
:Cueball: You should start a book club for discussing the books you refuse to read.<br />
:Megan: --is that E.B. White and T.H. White are the same person.<br />
:Cueball: Ok, ''that'' I believe.<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]</div>162.158.107.97https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2156:_Ufo&diff=1746852156: Ufo2019-05-29T17:56:06Z<p>162.158.107.97: /* Explanation */ why need to cover up meteorology in initial summary</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 2156<br />
| date = May 29, 2019<br />
| title = Ufo<br />
| image = ufo.png<br />
| titletext = "It's a little low for a weather balloon; it might be some other kind." "Yeah. Besides, I know I'm the alien conspiracy guy, but come on--the idea that the government would care about hiding something so mundane as atmospheric temperature measurement is too ridiculous even for me."<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|Created by an alien weather balloon. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
<br />
This cartoon makes fun of {{w|conspiracy theory|conspiracy theories}}, by suggesting that authorities, like the navy, could be promoting mysterious explanations for mundane phenomena (such as {{w|weather balloon}}). UFO is an initialism for an {{w|unidentified flying object}}. <br />
Since the Trump administration has ordered US government agencies to stop or minimize research and reporting on climate change, it might become necessary for them conceal meteorological activities.<br />
<br />
This comic features {{w|Fox Mulder}} and {{w|Dana Scully}}, two fictional FBI agents from the television show ''{{w|The X-Files}}''. In the show, Fox Mulder is usually a believer in all manner of conspiracies and supernatural phenomena, whereas his partner, Scully, is reflexively skeptical of any claims of the paranormal.<br />
<br />
A fighter aircraft's {{w|Head-up display|Head-Up Display}} (HUD), projects information about the aircraft and it's surroundings on a glass panel in front of the pilot. This allows the pilot to fly and fight without looking down at gauges and panels in the cockpit. When the pilot selects a radar contact to track, information including the angle and range to that contact is displayed on the HUD. The HUD display is also overlaid on video recorded by the airplane's on-board camera. Scully has examined the tracking information recorded in one video and concluded that the unidentified object was relatively stationary. Her opinion is that the object is likely a mundane weather balloon, rather than an extraterrestrial craft.<br />
<br />
"Maybe the shadowy forces that control the world just want to believe" is an allusion to "I Want to Believe", a phrase from the ''The X-Files'' associated with Mulder and [https://images.newrepublic.com/82a6d0770aeaafbae8f26bf40a822b9b79a5c412.png?w=800 his iconic UFO poster.]<br />
<br />
The title text makes it clear why government agencies might try to hide "something so mundane as atmospheric temperature measurement," because the Trump administration ordered US government agencies to stop or minimize research and reporting on climate change.<ref>https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/27/us/politics/trump-climate-science.html</ref><br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:[Mulder from x-files depicted as Hairy sit in his office chair at his desk and points to his computer screen while looking over his sholder and addressing Scully off-panel, who replies.]<br />
:Mulder: Hey Scully, have you seen the navy UFO videos?<br />
:Scully (off-panel): Oh, the History Channel thing?<br />
<br />
:[In a frame-less panel, Scully walks in from the right towards Mulder, who has turned around in his chair facing towards her (the desk is not included). He is leaning on the back of the chair with one arm. Scully has shoulder length hair, not similar to any of the regular women in xkcd.]<br />
:Scully: I don't know about the other two videos, but in one of them, if you take the angles and ranges on the HUD and do a little geometry, it kind of suggests the object isn't really moving. It just looks like it because the plane's camera is panning.<br />
<br />
:[Zoom in on Scully's head.]<br />
:Scully: The pilots got excited for the same reason we did. Then the media got into it. <br />
:Scully: But I think what they saw was a round, white object floating at 13,000 feet.<br />
<br />
:[Zoom out again to shown that Mulder sits straight up in his chair with hands in his lap and the desk with computer behind him. Scully stand in front of him.]<br />
:Harry: So your theory is that the military '''''claims''''' to have footage of aliens, but you think it's a giant cover-up to hide that it's a weather balloon?<br />
:Scully: Some kind of balloon, yes.<br />
:Harry: Pretty weird conspiracy.<br />
:Scully: Maybe the shadowy forces that control the world just want to believe, too.<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:Conspiracy theory]] <br />
[[Category:Climate change]] <!-- Title text --></div>162.158.107.97https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1522:_Astronomy&diff=1736901522: Astronomy2019-05-07T19:59:25Z<p>162.158.107.97: /* Explanation */</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 1522<br />
| date = May 8, 2015<br />
| title = Astronomy<br />
| image = astronomy.png<br />
| titletext = Astrobiology is held back by the fact that we're all too nervous to try to balance on the ladder while holding an expensive microscope.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
For objects at a great distance one can achieve a better view by using a {{w|telescope}} as it is the typical method in {{w|Astronomy}}. Looking through a lens or a {{w|microscope}} in {{w|biology}} and other disciplines does magnify short distant objects. And a {{w|magnifying glass}} works more like a microscope when your eye lense is close to the {{w|focus}} of the magnifying glass, but when looking at distant objects you have to increase the distance between the glass and your eye where the {{w|focal length}} of your magnifying glass must be increased to meters instead of centimetres or less on a close view. But in general a {{w|Galilean Telescope}} works at the same principle as a magnifying glass together with your eye lens, the magnifying glass only has to have a long focal length which is optimized for far distances.<br />
<br />
In the comic, the objects being viewed by Megan could be {{w|stars}}, {{w|galaxies}} and the {{w|planets}} of our {{w|Solar System}}. [[Megan]] takes approach by telescope. [[Beret Guy]] attempts approach it using a step-ladder to get closer to the stars, and then looking at them through his simple hand-held magnifying glass. This approach could be successful only if the stars were a few meters away, so that the ladder would take him within a few centimeters of the study object. In fact the visible stars are several {{w|light years}} away (typically 18-20 orders of magnitude further away) and getting two meters up on a ladder won't make any perceivable difference.{{Citation needed}}<br />
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The title text assumes (for comic effect) that the only thing wrong with Beret Guy's strategy is the instability of the ladder endangering the expensive microscopes used by biologists for {{w|Astrobiology}}. Astrobiology is the study of life (or the possibility thereof) elsewhere in the universe, and here it would be either the planets and moons in our Solar System or {{w|exoplanets}} they needed to look at. This is the second comic related to studying exoplanets in two weeks, the first being [[1517: Spectroscopy]] (see more references there).<br />
<br />
Since we cannot go there, they do, of course, not use any microscopes in the direct studies. However, one typical magnifier in biology is the {{w|electron microscope}}, used to study {{w|microbiology}}, and they cost a lot and are very heavy. It is therefore inadvisable to carry one up a ladder, and it could possibly become very expensive if you did try it anyway.{{Citation needed}}<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:[In front of a starry black sky, Megan looks at the stars through a telescope about twice her size, touching it at the base. She remains in the exact same position through all four panels.]<br />
<br />
:[Beret Guy enters the panel holding a ladder and a magnifying glass.]<br />
<br />
:[Beret Guy places the ladder next to Megan and her telescope. The ladder is stands like a triangle, is slightly larger than Megan, but smaller than the telescope.]<br />
<br />
:[Beret guy climbs to the top of the ladder, and looks at the stars through a magnifying glass.]<br />
<br />
==Trivia==<br />
Usually, however, Beret Guy has [[:Category:Strange powers of Beret Guy|strange powers]], so it's quite possible that his method would yield similar or even better results than Megan's approach; see for instance [[1490: Atoms]]. Given his naivety, it's also possible he just doesn't realize they should look any different. His naivety of astronomy is demonstrated in [[811: Starlight]].<br />
<br />
The history of astronomy is filled with drastic misunderstanding of distances to celestial bodies, even up to the present day like [[Randall]] has covered in [[1342: Ancient Stars]]. Thus, the comic could be in reference to the general overestimation of distances, albeit taken to the opposite extreme.<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
[[Category:Comics with inverted brightness]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Beret Guy]]<br />
[[Category:Strange powers of Beret Guy]]<br />
[[Category:Telescopes]]<br />
[[Category:Science]]<br />
[[Category:Astronomy]]<br />
[[Category:Biology]]</div>162.158.107.97https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:2135:_M87_Black_Hole_Size_Comparison&diff=172590Talk:2135: M87 Black Hole Size Comparison2019-04-12T15:37:42Z<p>162.158.107.97: </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 />
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inb4 anti-semitic troll vandalizes the page [[Special:Contributions/162.158.78.64|162.158.78.64]] 19:38, 10 April 2019 (UTC)<br />
:Jeez, it hasn't happened yet? --[[User:Youforgotthisthing|Youforgotthisthing]] ([[User talk:Youforgotthisthing|talk]]) 19:54, 10 April 2019 (UTC)<br />
::Shhh! You'll jinx it! [[User:Herobrine|Herobrine]] ([[User talk:Herobrine|talk]]) 21:07, 10 April 2019 (UTC)<br />
::I’m surprised. [[User:Netherin5|“That Guy from the Netherlands”]] ([[User talk:Netherin5|talk]]) 23:06, 10 April 2019 (UTC)<br />
::I always miss it, you guys are too fast for me to see it. Not that I want to see it of course. [[User:Linker|Linker]] ([[User talk:Linker|talk]]) 12:08, 11 April 2019 (UTC)<br />
:Well, we made it until 15:40 on the 11th. Since it was created at 18:50 on the 10th, that's about... 20 hours and 15 minutes. Considering how it only took 13 minutes for #2133 to be vandalized-I-mean-corrected, and 25 minutes for #2125, it seems they're getting slower! I wonder if the poor lil fellas need more attention. :( --[[User:Youforgotthisthing|Youforgotthisthing]] ([[User talk:Youforgotthisthing|talk]]) 00:43, 12 April 2019 (UTC)<br />
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Am I the only to one who is amazed at just how *far* Voyager has come? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.111.61|162.158.111.61]] 19:52, 10 April 2019 (UTC)<br />
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I thought the dark disk on the photo is 2.6 Schwartzchild radii, not 1? --[[Special:Contributions/172.68.54.46|172.68.54.46]] 20:50, 10 April 2019 (UTC)<br />
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I Googled to get a sense of scale. Apparently the sun would be less than 4 miles across if compressed into a black hole. The magnitude is incomprehensible. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.210.64|172.69.210.64]] 02:54, 11 April 2019 (UTC)<br />
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I believe "Voyager I" in the title text is a typo and Randall meant to say Voyager II. The location Randall notes would correspond closer to Voyager II than I(9.3 billion miles away from earth vs 11 billion miles). [[Special:Contributions/172.69.247.4|172.69.247.4]] 06:21, 11 April 2019 (UTC)<br />
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I updated a few things in the explanation a couple hours back. It should read more smoothly now.<br />
[[User:Fmccarthy|Fmccarthy]] ([[User talk:Fmccarthy|talk]]) 08:01, 12 April 2019 (UTC)<br />
'''Rephrase scale reference'''<br />
2.5 times smaller is not a good way to express reduction in size. It's clearer to say that it's two-fifths as big or it's 40% of the size. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.38.16|162.158.38.16]] 09:58, 11 April 2019 (UTC)<br />
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Is anyone agreeing with the source ? haven't found a clear attribution of the image to NSF; and also would be suprised to find one.<br />
: [https://www.nsf.gov/news/mmg/media/images/A-Consensus.jpg NSF link to image], [https://www.nsf.gov/news/news_images.jsp?cntn_id=298276&org=NSF NSF page with attribution], "The National Science Foundation (NSF) played a pivotal role in this discovery by funding individual investigators, interdisciplinary scientific teams and radio astronomy research facilities since the inception of EHT. Over the last two decades, NSF has directly funded more than $28 million in EHT research, the largest commitment of resources for the project." [https://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=298276 Source Article and NSF relation to EHT] --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.106.138|162.158.106.138]] 16:30, 11 April 2019 (UTC)Zenthere<br />
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This is alot like the Pluto comic from a few years back. [[User:Take The A Train To Watertown|Take The A Train To Watertown]] ([[User talk:Take The A Train To Watertown|talk]]) 12:10, 11 April 2019 (UTC)<br />
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Why is pluto bigger than the sun? [[User:Lekkin007|Lekkin007]] ([[User talk:Lekkin007|talk]])<br />
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I am trying to spread truth and good critical thinking, but IP editors keep reverting My well-intention edits! What can I do?<br />
[[Special:Contributions/162.158.107.79|162.158.107.79]] 16:59, 11 April 2019 (UTC)<br />
:See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUyH3XhpLTo[[Special:Contributions/162.158.78.82|162.158.78.82]] 18:26, 11 April 2019 (UTC)<br />
:: HAVE YOU TRIED WALKING INTO THE SEA (can't find the relevant xkcd sorry) on a more serious note, I'd be for banning IP editors myself, it wouldn't matter much and just stop me from editing on mobile. If the comments section could somehow be left IP editable but not the articles, that would be an interesting Midway point, but any degree necessary is fine.<br />
:::Sign your posts you fucking cunt [[Special:Contributions/162.158.107.97|162.158.107.97]] 15:37, 12 April 2019 (UTC)<br />
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Anyone else find it ironic for an IP editor to refer to logged-in editors as IP editors? That's the pot calling the brass teapot black! [[User:Ianrbibtitlht|Ianrbibtitlht]] ([[User talk:Ianrbibtitlht|talk]]) 06:09, 12 April 2019 (UTC)</div>162.158.107.97https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:2134:_Too_Much_Talking&diff=172459Talk:2134: Too Much Talking2019-04-08T21:50:16Z<p>162.158.107.97: </p>
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I'd put something here, but I'm tired of typing. [[User:N0lqu|-boB]] ([[User talk:N0lqu|talk]]) 19:25, 8 April 2019 (UTC)<br />
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This feels very different from how Randall usually portrays his characters (being too afraid to speak at all at parties or so stressed about introducing themselves right that they miss the other person's name). I wonder if this is the effect of the alcohol or just a different person altogether. --[[User:Maple42|Maple42]] ([[User talk:Maple42|talk]]) 19:28, 8 April 2019 (UTC)<br />
:Could also be that character over-correcting, a la xkcd 1796. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.106.48|162.158.106.48]] 20:45, 8 April 2019 (UTC)<br />
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Possibly just my flawed interpretation, but it seems like this is possibly a depiction of Randall having arguments online. It doesn't seem like his normal irl-party-characterization (this actually reads a little Beret-Guy-esque; also reminds me a bit of Politifact). Cueball has gotten into a few online debates and left the platform, only to return very soon. The title text is referring to Cueball coming up with "good opinions" and then making his own post for them out of nowhere. What do you guys think? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.107.97|162.158.107.97]] 21:50, 8 April 2019 (UTC)</div>162.158.107.97https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2132:_Percentage_Styles&diff=1721822132: Percentage Styles2019-04-03T16:43:15Z<p>162.158.107.97: randall not "he" whoops</p>
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<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 2132<br />
| date = April 3, 2019<br />
| title = Percentage Styles<br />
| image = percentage_styles.png<br />
| titletext = In a tribute to classical Latin, I started pronouncing it 'per-kent.' Eventually my friends had to resort to spritzing me with a water bottle like a cat to train me out of it.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|Created by a Classicist. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
<br />
The comic lists ways in which you can write out phrases which phonetically are the same as "65%" listed from best to worst. They go from the common "65%" and "65 percent" to odd "sixty-five%" and "65 per¢" which nobody would ever actually use.<br />
<br />
The title text references Latin pronunciations, which are often different from English ones. In this case, Randall's friends found him so annoying they trained him out of it like a cat by spraying him with water every time he said the word that way.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
Percentage styles in order of acceptability<br />
<br />
Best<br />
<br />
65%<br />
<br />
65 percent<br />
<br />
65 per cent<br />
<br />
Sixty-five%<br />
<br />
65 per¢<br />
<br />
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{{comic discussion}}</div>162.158.107.97https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2132:_Percentage_Styles&diff=1721812132: Percentage Styles2019-04-03T16:41:43Z<p>162.158.107.97: started paragraph about title text</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 2132<br />
| date = April 3, 2019<br />
| title = Percentage Styles<br />
| image = percentage_styles.png<br />
| titletext = In a tribute to classical Latin, I started pronouncing it 'per-kent.' Eventually my friends had to resort to spritzing me with a water bottle like a cat to train me out of it.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|Created by a Classicist and a Mathematician. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
<br />
The comic lists ways in which you can write out phrases which phonetically are the same as "65%" listed from best to worst. They go from the common "65%" and "65 percent" to the odd "sixty-five%" and "65 per¢" which nobody would ever actually use. The middle option, "65 per cent", was common in older literature, along with "65 per cent." (ending in a period even in the middle of a sentence); this shows the origin as an abbreviation for "65 per centum", which is Latin for "65 for [each] hundred".<br />
<br />
In Classical Latin, C is believed to have been pronounced like K; but the C in "percent", like most C's from Latin roots in modern languages, is pronounced like S.<br />
<br />
The title text references Latin pronunciations, which are often different from English ones. In this case, his friends found him so annoying they trained him out of it like a cat by spraying him with water every time he said the word that way.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
:Percentage styles in order of acceptability<br />
:[A long vertical line is shown with five dots on it.]<br />
:[Label at the top:]<br />
:Best<br />
:[Dot labels from top to bottom:]<br />
:65%<br />
:[short distance]<br />
:65 percent<br />
:[a much longer distance]<br />
:65 per cent<br />
:[a distance roughly twice the previous]<br />
:Sixty-five%<br />
:[an exceedingly long distance]<br />
:65 per¢<br />
<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}</div>162.158.107.97https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2131:_Emojidome&diff=1718552131: Emojidome2019-04-01T16:25:34Z<p>162.158.107.97: fixed time for voting</p>
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<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 2131<br />
| date = April 1, 2019<br />
| title = Emojidome<br />
| image = <br />
| titletext = 🤼🤼🤼🤼🤼🤼🤼🤼<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|Created by 😇. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
<br />
This is an interactive April Fools' comic in which users are shown two emoji every 30 seconds, and vote for their favorite. Supposedly, the emoji will be eliminated one-by-one until there are a final two emoji facing off, with the one most voted-for being crowned the best emoji.<br />
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The competing candidates appear to be related at first. Examples include:<br />
<br />
😜 squaring off against 😛 - two emoji playfully sticking their tongues out<br />
<br />
🤩 squaring off against 😍 - two smiling emojis with symbols for eyes<br />
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😂 squaring off with 🤣 - two emojis that are crying in laughter/joy.<br />
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The title text may appear to be nonsense. If so, your browser may not be parsing the title text correctly. It consists of the 🤼 emoji eight times over.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:April fools' comics]]<br />
[[Category:Interactive comics]]</div>162.158.107.97https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:2129:_1921_Fact_Checker&diff=171670Talk:2129: 1921 Fact Checker2019-03-27T14:13:28Z<p>162.158.107.97: </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 />
Two gallons of vinegar, huh?</div>162.158.107.97https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1286:_Encryptic&diff=1713361286: Encryptic2019-03-19T02:14:19Z<p>162.158.107.97: </p>
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<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 1286<br />
| date = November 4, 2013<br />
| title = Encryptic<br />
| image = encryptic.png<br />
| titletext = It was bound to happen eventually. This data theft will enable almost limitless [xkcd.com/792]-style password reuse attacks in the coming weeks. There's only one group that comes out of this looking smart: Everyone who pirated Photoshop.<br />
}}<br />
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==Explanation==<br />
Web sites and other computers that authenticate users via passwords need to be able to know if the user typed in the right password. But storing the password itself on the computer has been known to be unnecessarily risky since the publication of [http://www.neurosecurity.com/articles/security/passwd.pdf Password Security: A Case History] in 1978. In that paper, Robert Morris and Ken Thompson demonstrated the practice of using a slow, cryptographically-secure one-way {{w|hash function}}, so that even if the password file is stolen, it will be very hard to figure out what the passwords are, so long as the passwords themselves are suitably complex. They also pioneered the use of {{w|Salt (cryptography)|a "salt"}} which makes each password hash completely different even if two users use the same password. See [http://security.blogoverflow.com/2011/07/a-tour-of-password-questions-and-answers/ A tour of password questions and answers] for background on salts and suitably slow hash functions.<br />
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Adobe, however, ignored these well-known principles, and instead stored over a hundred million passwords in a reversibly encrypted way, using a terrible choice of encryption methods which exposes a great deal of information about the passwords, and does not involve a salt. This password database was recently obtained by someone and released on the Internet.<br />
<br />
In particular, Adobe used {{w|Triple DES}}, an older encryption algorithm which can still be relatively secure when properly used, but they used it improperly. It works on 64-bit (8 character) blocks. Assuming that the passwords are stored in plain ASCII, this means that a sequence of 8 characters in a password which starts on a character position which is a multiple of eight is always encrypted to the same result. Therefore, two passwords starting with "12345678" would start with the same block after being encrypted. Furthermore, this means that you can actually get a very good idea of the length of the password since anything with only one block is a password with length between 1 and 8 characters, and having two blocks implies it has between 9 and 16 characters, etc.<br />
<br />
Adobe also stored hints users created for their passwords. That means that an attacker knows not only if the same 8 characters are used for multiple passwords but also has some hints for guessing them. That means that common password portions should be easy to recover and that any user may be "compromised" by someone else using a part of the same password and providing a good hint. As an example, a password having three hints "Big Apple", "Twin Towers" and "If you can make it there" is probably "New York" or a simple variation on that. The weakness here is that no decryption and therefore no hard cracking has to take place, you just group the passwords by their encrypted blocks and try to solve them like a crossword puzzle. These weaknesses have already been used to presumably identify a password used by {{w|Edward Snowden}}, as discussed at [http://7habitsofhighlyeffectivehackers.blogspot.com/2013/11/can-someone-be-targeted-using-adobe.html 7 Habits of Highly Effective Hackers: Can someone be targeted using the Adobe breach?].<br />
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The examples are not taken from the actual leaked file, since that [http://arstechnica.com/security/2013/11/how-an-epic-blunder-by-adobe-could-strengthen-hand-of-password-crackers/ uses a different format], and the examples are evidently cleverly crafted to make a nice crossword-like puzzle, which can be solved as shown in the Passwords section below.<br />
<br />
As mentioned on http://filosottile.github.io/analyzing-the-adobe-leaked-passwords/ the data in the comic isn't real and contains a hidden message. If the "user password" hashes are Base64 encoded, they read:<br />
<pre>ThiswasnotagooduseofyourtimeButthenagainitwasprobablynotagooduseofmytimeeith<br />
erAndyethereweareXOXOXOLetsLiveHereInThisTinySecretEncodedTextWorldForever==</pre><br />
<br />
More readable:<br />
<pre>This was not a good use of your time<br />
But then again it was probably not a good use of my time either<br />
And yet here we are<br />
XOXOXO<br />
Lets Live Here In This Tiny Secret Encoded Text World Forever==</pre><br />
<br />
E.g., with the initial unique hash blocks: <tt>python -c "print '4e18acc1ab27a2d6a0a2876eb1ea1fca'.decode('hex_codec').encode('base64')"</tt><br />
<br />
The last letter "r" is not fully encoded in the data shown, but any letter from "g" to "v" produces the same binary data.<br />
<br />
===Title Text===<br />
The title text makes a reference to a previous comic: [[792|Black Hat's trouble with what to do with stolen passwords]]. It also states that users of pirated Photoshop are the winners here. This is because in order to make Photoshop pirate-able, it was modified (cracked) by removing the requirement for registration so their passwords were not sent to Adobe and therefore are not present in the leaked file.<br />
<br />
Soon after this comic was published, the most common 1000 passwords were actually compiled into [http://zed0.co.uk/crossword/ a set of 10 interactive online crosswords], inspired by the comic.<br />
<br />
The title itself is a reference to {{w|cryptic crossword}}s.<br />
<br />
===Passwords===<br />
Note that characters in the passwords could be upper or lower case, and they may involve common substitutions like "0" (number zero) for "O" (letter O); therefore, the clues cannot guarantee that the answer shown here is precisely correct. Nevertheless, we have plenty of information for a brute force attack.<br />
<br />
{|class="wikitable"<br />
! Input<br />
! Hint<br />
! Password<br />
! Explanation<br />
|-<br />
|<tt>4e18acc1ab27a2d6</tt><br />
|weather vane sword<br />
|<tt>[http://redwall.wikia.com/wiki/Matthias matthias]</tt><br />
|In ''{{w|Redwall}}'', several characters are associated with a sword hung from a weather vane, but only Matthias shares the name of an apostle (6 lines down).<br />
|-<br />
|<tt>4e18acc1ab27a2d6</tt><br />
|<br />
|<tt>matthias</tt><br />
|Although no hint was used, we know this password too, since it matches the previous one.<br />
|-<br />
|<tt>4e18acc1ab27a2d6&nbsp;a0a2876eb1ea1fca</tt><br />
|name1<br />
|<tt>matthias1</tt><br />
|Even without knowing the user's name, we already know how this starts, so the clue gives us a pretty good idea how it finishes (and another block useful 2 lines down)<br />
|-<br />
|<tt>8babb6299e06eb6d</tt><br />
|duh<br />
|<tt>password</tt><br />
|Unfortunately, this is all too common, and the user practically told us that it's an easy one.<br />
|-<br />
|<tt>8babb6299e06eb6d&nbsp;a0a2876eb1ea1fca</tt><br />
|<br />
|<tt>password1</tt><br />
|Although no hint was used, we know this by combining the previous two.<br />
|-<br />
|<tt>8babb6299e06eb6d&nbsp;85e9da81a8a78adc</tt><br />
|57<br />
|<tt>password57</tt><br />
|Since we know how this begins, this is a good guess.<br />
|-<br />
|<tt>4e18acc1ab27a2d6</tt><br />
|favorite of {{w|Apostle (Christian)|12 apostles}}<br />
|<tt>{{w|Saint Matthias|matthias}}</tt><br />
|The hint suggests only 12 possibilities. Variant spellings, variant lists, and a replacement for Judas add to that number. But we already know which one by combining with the clue 6 lines up. (Surprise: it's the replacement!)<br />
|-<br />
|<tt>1ab29ae86da6e5ca&nbsp;7a2d6a0a2876eb1e</tt><br />
|with your own hand you have done all this<br />
|<tt>Judith1510</tt><br />
|This is a quotation from [http://www.biblestudytools.com/nrsa/judith/15-10.html Judith 15:10] in the Bible.<br />
|-<br />
|<tt>a1f9b2b6299e7a2b&nbsp;eadec1e6ab797397</tt><br />
|sexy earlobes<br />
|<tt>{{w|Charlie Sheen|Charlie&nbsp;Sheen}}</tt><br />
|This refers to an episode of ''{{w|Two and a Half Men}}''. Other answers are possible, but only this one fits the next line.<br />
|-<br />
|<tt>a1f9b2b6299e7a2b&nbsp;617ab0277727ad85</tt><br />
|best TOS episode<br />
|<tt>{{w|Charlie X|Charlie&nbsp;X}}</tt><br />
|"{{w|Star Trek: The Original Series|TOS}}" refers to The Original Series (TOS) of ''{{w|Star Trek}}''. Although this had dozens of episodes, only one fits the previous line as well as the next line.<br />
|-<br />
|<tt>39738b7adb0b8af7&nbsp;617ab0277727ad85</tt><br />
|Sugarland<br />
|<tt>HoustonTX</tt><br />
|{{w|Sugar Land, Texas|Sugar Land}} is a suburb of {{w|Houston}}, {{w|Texas}}. This fits with the previous line. {{w|Sugarland}} is a band, but it does not fit well with the previous hint, and would not lead to our first guess.<br />
|-<br />
|<tt>1ab29ae86da6e5ca</tt><br />
|name + jersey#<br />
|<tt>Judith15</tt><br />
|Even if we knew this user's name, we wouldn't know their jersey number. But the clue 4 lines up already gave us the answer.<br />
|-<br />
|<tt>877ab7889d3862b1</tt><br />
|alpha<br />
|<tt>abc</tt><br />
|This password is also far too common, but this clue still isn't enough to narrow it down. Combine with the clue 4 lines below, however, and it's quite easy.<br />
|-<br />
|<tt>877ab7889d3862b1</tt><br />
|<br />
|<tt>abc</tt><br />
|No hint, but the same as the surrounding passwords.<br />
|-<br />
|<tt>877ab7889d3862b1</tt><br />
|<br />
|<tt>abc</tt><br />
|No hint, but the same as the surrounding passwords.<br />
|-<br />
|<tt>877ab7889d3862b1</tt><br />
|obvious<br />
|<tt>abc</tt><br />
|Same as the surrounding passwords.<br />
|-<br />
|<tt>877ab7889d3862b1</tt><br />
|Michael Jackson<br />
|<tt>abc</tt><br />
|{{w|Michael Jackson}} did many songs, but only one was {{w|ABC (song)|alphabetical}} (4 lines up).<br />
|-<br />
|<tt>38a7c9279cadeb44&nbsp;9dca1d79d4dec6d5</tt><br />
|<br />
|<tt>asdfghjkl</tt><br />
|No hint, but the same as the one below.<br />
|-<br />
|<tt>38a7c9279cadeb44&nbsp;9dca1d79d4dec6d5</tt><br />
|he did the mash, he did the<br />
|<tt>asdfghjkl</tt><br />
|Probably a "keyboard mash" (e.g. asdfghjkl), a common password. The hint is a reference to the song "{{w|Monster Mash}}" ("He did the mash/He did the monster mash").<br />
|-<br />
|<tt>38a7c9279cadeb44</tt><br />
|purloined<br />
|<tt>asdfghjk</tt><br />
|A reference to the {{w|Edgar Allan Poe}} story "{{w|The Purloined Letter}}", this represents all the keys of the home row, or the keyboard mash password, but with one missing("purloined") letter.<br />
|-<br />
|<tt>a8ae5745a2b7af7a&nbsp;9dca1d79d4dec6d5</tt><br />
|fav water-3 {{w|List_of_Pokémon|Pokemon}}<br />
|<tt>[http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Tentacool_(Pok%C3%A9mon) Tentacool]</tt><br />
|This is the only [http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Water_3_%28Egg_Group%29 water-3] Pokémon with a 9 letter name ending in "l", so it must be this to fit with the password 'asdfghjkl'<br />
|-<br />
|}<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:Hackers recently leaked '''''153 million''''' Adobe user emails, encrypted passwords, and password hints.<br />
:Adobe encrypted the passwords improperly, misusing block-mode 3DES. The result is something wonderful:<br />
<br />
<pre><br />
User password Hint<br />
------------- ----<br />
<br />
4e18acc1ab27a2d6 weather vane sword<br />
4e18acc1ab27a2d6<br />
4e18acc1ab27a2d6 a0a2876eb1ea1fca name1<br />
8babb6299e06eb6d duh<br />
8babb6299e06eb6d a0a2876eb1ea1fca<br />
8babb6299e06eb6d 85e9da81a8a78adc 57<br />
4e18acc1ab27a2d6 favorite of 12 apostles<br />
1ab29ae86da6e5ca 7a2d6a0a2876eb1e with your own hand you<br />
have done all this<br />
a1f9b2b6299e7a2b eadec1e6ab797397 sexy earlobes<br />
a1f9b2b6299e7a2b 617ab0277727ad85 best tos episode<br />
39738b7adb0b8af7 617ab0277727ad85 sugarland<br />
1ab29ae86da6e5ca name + jersey#<br />
877ab7889d3862b1 alpha<br />
877ab7889d3862b1<br />
877ab7889d3862b1<br />
877ab7889d3862b1 obvious<br />
877ab7889d3862b1 Michael Jackson<br />
38a7c9279cadeb44 9dca1d79d4dec6d5<br />
38a7c9279cadeb44 9dca1d79d4dec6d5 he did the mash, he did the<br />
38a7c9279cadeb44 purloined<br />
a8ae5745a2b7af7a 9dca1d79d4dec6d5 fav water-3 pokemon<br />
</pre><br />
<br />
:The greatest crossword puzzle in the history of the world<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
[[Category:Comics with color]]<br />
[[Category:Pokémon]]<br />
[[Category:Cryptography]]<br />
[[Category:Star Trek]]</div>162.158.107.97https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1286:_Encryptic&diff=1713351286: Encryptic2019-03-19T02:13:50Z<p>162.158.107.97: </p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 1286<br />
| date = November 4, 2013<br />
| title = Encryptic<br />
| image = encryptic.png<br />
| titletext = It was bound to happen eventually. This data theft will enable almost limitless [xkcd.com/792]-style password reuse attacks in the coming weeks. There's only one group that comes out of this looking smart: Everyone who pirated Photoshop.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
Web sites and other computers that authenticate users via passwords need to be able to know if the user typed in the right password. But storing the password itself on the computer has been known to be unnecessarily risky since the publication of [http://www.neurosecurity.com/articles/security/passwd.pdf Password Security: A Case History] in 1978. In that paper, Robert Morris and Ken Thompson demonstrated the practice of using a slow, cryptographically-secure one-way {{w|hash function}}, so that even if the password file is stolen, it will be very hard to figure out what the passwords are, so long as the passwords themselves are suitably complex. They also pioneered the use of {{w|Salt (cryptography)|a "salt"}} which makes each password hash completely different even if two users use the same password. See [http://security.blogoverflow.com/2011/07/a-tour-of-password-questions-and-answers/ A tour of password questions and answers] for background on salts and suitably slow hash functions.<br />
<br />
Adobe, however, ignored these well-known principles, and instead stored over a hundred million passwords in a reversibly encrypted way, using a terrible choice of encryption methods which exposes a great deal of information about the passwords, and does not involve a salt. This password database was recently obtained by someone and released on the Internet.<br />
<br />
In particular, Adobe used {{w|Triple DES}}, an older encryption algorithm which can still be relatively secure when properly used, but they used it improperly. It works on 64-bit (8 character) blocks. Assuming that the passwords are stored in plain ASCII, this means that a sequence of 8 characters in a password which starts on a character position which is a multiple of eight is always encrypted to the same result. Therefore, two passwords starting with "12345678" would start with the same block after being encrypted. Furthermore, this means that you can actually get a very good idea of the length of the password since anything with only one block is a password with length between 1 and 8 characters, and having two blocks implies it has between 9 and 16 characters, etc.<br />
<br />
Adobe also stored hints users created for their passwords. That means that an attacker knows not only if the same 8 characters are used for multiple passwords but also has some hints for guessing them. That means that common password portions should be easy to recover and that any user may be "compromised" by someone else using a part of the same password and providing a good hint. As an example, a password having three hints "Big Apple", "Twin Towers" and "If you can make it there" is probably "New York" or a simple variation on that. The weakness here is that no decryption and therefore no hard cracking has to take place, you just group the passwords by their encrypted blocks and try to solve them like a crossword puzzle. These weaknesses have already been used to presumably identify a password used by {{w|Edward Snowden}}, as discussed at [http://7habitsofhighlyeffectivehackers.blogspot.com/2013/11/can-someone-be-targeted-using-adobe.html 7 Habits of Highly Effective Hackers: Can someone be targeted using the Adobe breach?].<br />
<br />
The examples are not taken from the actual leaked file, since that [http://arstechnica.com/security/2013/11/how-an-epic-blunder-by-adobe-could-strengthen-hand-of-password-crackers/ uses a different format], and the examples are evidently cleverly crafted to make a nice crossword-like puzzle, which can be solved as shown in the Passwords section below.<br />
<br />
As mentioned on http://filosottile.github.io/analyzing-the-adobe-leaked-passwords/ the data in the comic isn't real and contains a hidden message. If the "user password" hashes are Base64 encoded, they read:<br />
<pre>ThiswasnotagooduseofyourtimeButthenagainitwasprobablynotagooduseofmytimeeith<br />
erAndyethereweareXOXOXOLetsLiveHereInThisTinySecretEncodedTextWorldForever==</pre><br />
<br />
More readable:<br />
<pre>This was not a good use of your time<br />
But then again it was probably not a good use of my time either<br />
And yet here we are<br />
XOXOXO<br />
Lets Live Here In This Tiny Secret Encoded Text World Forever==</pre><br />
<br />
E.g., with the initial unique hash blocks: <tt>python -c "print '4e18acc1ab27a2d6a0a2876eb1ea1fca'.decode('hex_codec').encode('base64')"</tt><br />
<br />
===Title Text===<br />
The last letter "r" is not fully encoded in the data shown, but any letter from "g" to "v" produces the same binary data.<br />
<br />
The title text makes a reference to a previous comic: [[792|Black Hat's trouble with what to do with stolen passwords]]. It also states that users of pirated Photoshop are the winners here. This is because in order to make Photoshop pirate-able, it was modified (cracked) by removing the requirement for registration so their passwords were not sent to Adobe and therefore are not present in the leaked file.<br />
<br />
Soon after this comic was published, the most common 1000 passwords were actually compiled into [http://zed0.co.uk/crossword/ a set of 10 interactive online crosswords], inspired by the comic.<br />
<br />
The title itself is a reference to {{w|cryptic crossword}}s.<br />
<br />
===Passwords===<br />
Note that characters in the passwords could be upper or lower case, and they may involve common substitutions like "0" (number zero) for "O" (letter O); therefore, the clues cannot guarantee that the answer shown here is precisely correct. Nevertheless, we have plenty of information for a brute force attack.<br />
<br />
{|class="wikitable"<br />
! Input<br />
! Hint<br />
! Password<br />
! Explanation<br />
|-<br />
|<tt>4e18acc1ab27a2d6</tt><br />
|weather vane sword<br />
|<tt>[http://redwall.wikia.com/wiki/Matthias matthias]</tt><br />
|In ''{{w|Redwall}}'', several characters are associated with a sword hung from a weather vane, but only Matthias shares the name of an apostle (6 lines down).<br />
|-<br />
|<tt>4e18acc1ab27a2d6</tt><br />
|<br />
|<tt>matthias</tt><br />
|Although no hint was used, we know this password too, since it matches the previous one.<br />
|-<br />
|<tt>4e18acc1ab27a2d6&nbsp;a0a2876eb1ea1fca</tt><br />
|name1<br />
|<tt>matthias1</tt><br />
|Even without knowing the user's name, we already know how this starts, so the clue gives us a pretty good idea how it finishes (and another block useful 2 lines down)<br />
|-<br />
|<tt>8babb6299e06eb6d</tt><br />
|duh<br />
|<tt>password</tt><br />
|Unfortunately, this is all too common, and the user practically told us that it's an easy one.<br />
|-<br />
|<tt>8babb6299e06eb6d&nbsp;a0a2876eb1ea1fca</tt><br />
|<br />
|<tt>password1</tt><br />
|Although no hint was used, we know this by combining the previous two.<br />
|-<br />
|<tt>8babb6299e06eb6d&nbsp;85e9da81a8a78adc</tt><br />
|57<br />
|<tt>password57</tt><br />
|Since we know how this begins, this is a good guess.<br />
|-<br />
|<tt>4e18acc1ab27a2d6</tt><br />
|favorite of {{w|Apostle (Christian)|12 apostles}}<br />
|<tt>{{w|Saint Matthias|matthias}}</tt><br />
|The hint suggests only 12 possibilities. Variant spellings, variant lists, and a replacement for Judas add to that number. But we already know which one by combining with the clue 6 lines up. (Surprise: it's the replacement!)<br />
|-<br />
|<tt>1ab29ae86da6e5ca&nbsp;7a2d6a0a2876eb1e</tt><br />
|with your own hand you have done all this<br />
|<tt>Judith1510</tt><br />
|This is a quotation from [http://www.biblestudytools.com/nrsa/judith/15-10.html Judith 15:10] in the Bible.<br />
|-<br />
|<tt>a1f9b2b6299e7a2b&nbsp;eadec1e6ab797397</tt><br />
|sexy earlobes<br />
|<tt>{{w|Charlie Sheen|Charlie&nbsp;Sheen}}</tt><br />
|This refers to an episode of ''{{w|Two and a Half Men}}''. Other answers are possible, but only this one fits the next line.<br />
|-<br />
|<tt>a1f9b2b6299e7a2b&nbsp;617ab0277727ad85</tt><br />
|best TOS episode<br />
|<tt>{{w|Charlie X|Charlie&nbsp;X}}</tt><br />
|"{{w|Star Trek: The Original Series|TOS}}" refers to The Original Series (TOS) of ''{{w|Star Trek}}''. Although this had dozens of episodes, only one fits the previous line as well as the next line.<br />
|-<br />
|<tt>39738b7adb0b8af7&nbsp;617ab0277727ad85</tt><br />
|Sugarland<br />
|<tt>HoustonTX</tt><br />
|{{w|Sugar Land, Texas|Sugar Land}} is a suburb of {{w|Houston}}, {{w|Texas}}. This fits with the previous line. {{w|Sugarland}} is a band, but it does not fit well with the previous hint, and would not lead to our first guess.<br />
|-<br />
|<tt>1ab29ae86da6e5ca</tt><br />
|name + jersey#<br />
|<tt>Judith15</tt><br />
|Even if we knew this user's name, we wouldn't know their jersey number. But the clue 4 lines up already gave us the answer.<br />
|-<br />
|<tt>877ab7889d3862b1</tt><br />
|alpha<br />
|<tt>abc</tt><br />
|This password is also far too common, but this clue still isn't enough to narrow it down. Combine with the clue 4 lines below, however, and it's quite easy.<br />
|-<br />
|<tt>877ab7889d3862b1</tt><br />
|<br />
|<tt>abc</tt><br />
|No hint, but the same as the surrounding passwords.<br />
|-<br />
|<tt>877ab7889d3862b1</tt><br />
|<br />
|<tt>abc</tt><br />
|No hint, but the same as the surrounding passwords.<br />
|-<br />
|<tt>877ab7889d3862b1</tt><br />
|obvious<br />
|<tt>abc</tt><br />
|Same as the surrounding passwords.<br />
|-<br />
|<tt>877ab7889d3862b1</tt><br />
|Michael Jackson<br />
|<tt>abc</tt><br />
|{{w|Michael Jackson}} did many songs, but only one was {{w|ABC (song)|alphabetical}} (4 lines up).<br />
|-<br />
|<tt>38a7c9279cadeb44&nbsp;9dca1d79d4dec6d5</tt><br />
|<br />
|<tt>asdfghjkl</tt><br />
|No hint, but the same as the one below.<br />
|-<br />
|<tt>38a7c9279cadeb44&nbsp;9dca1d79d4dec6d5</tt><br />
|he did the mash, he did the<br />
|<tt>asdfghjkl</tt><br />
|Probably a "keyboard mash" (e.g. asdfghjkl), a common password. The hint is a reference to the song "{{w|Monster Mash}}" ("He did the mash/He did the monster mash").<br />
|-<br />
|<tt>38a7c9279cadeb44</tt><br />
|purloined<br />
|<tt>asdfghjk</tt><br />
|A reference to the {{w|Edgar Allan Poe}} story "{{w|The Purloined Letter}}", this represents all the keys of the home row, or the keyboard mash password, but with one missing("purloined") letter.<br />
|-<br />
|<tt>a8ae5745a2b7af7a&nbsp;9dca1d79d4dec6d5</tt><br />
|fav water-3 {{w|List_of_Pokémon|Pokemon}}<br />
|<tt>[http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Tentacool_(Pok%C3%A9mon) Tentacool]</tt><br />
|This is the only [http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Water_3_%28Egg_Group%29 water-3] Pokémon with a 9 letter name ending in "l", so it must be this to fit with the password 'asdfghjkl'<br />
|-<br />
|}<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:Hackers recently leaked '''''153 million''''' Adobe user emails, encrypted passwords, and password hints.<br />
:Adobe encrypted the passwords improperly, misusing block-mode 3DES. The result is something wonderful:<br />
<br />
<pre><br />
User password Hint<br />
------------- ----<br />
<br />
4e18acc1ab27a2d6 weather vane sword<br />
4e18acc1ab27a2d6<br />
4e18acc1ab27a2d6 a0a2876eb1ea1fca name1<br />
8babb6299e06eb6d duh<br />
8babb6299e06eb6d a0a2876eb1ea1fca<br />
8babb6299e06eb6d 85e9da81a8a78adc 57<br />
4e18acc1ab27a2d6 favorite of 12 apostles<br />
1ab29ae86da6e5ca 7a2d6a0a2876eb1e with your own hand you<br />
have done all this<br />
a1f9b2b6299e7a2b eadec1e6ab797397 sexy earlobes<br />
a1f9b2b6299e7a2b 617ab0277727ad85 best tos episode<br />
39738b7adb0b8af7 617ab0277727ad85 sugarland<br />
1ab29ae86da6e5ca name + jersey#<br />
877ab7889d3862b1 alpha<br />
877ab7889d3862b1<br />
877ab7889d3862b1<br />
877ab7889d3862b1 obvious<br />
877ab7889d3862b1 Michael Jackson<br />
38a7c9279cadeb44 9dca1d79d4dec6d5<br />
38a7c9279cadeb44 9dca1d79d4dec6d5 he did the mash, he did the<br />
38a7c9279cadeb44 purloined<br />
a8ae5745a2b7af7a 9dca1d79d4dec6d5 fav water-3 pokemon<br />
</pre><br />
<br />
:The greatest crossword puzzle in the history of the world<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
[[Category:Comics with color]]<br />
[[Category:Pokémon]]<br />
[[Category:Cryptography]]<br />
[[Category:Star Trek]]</div>162.158.107.97