https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/api.php?action=feedcontributions&user=162.158.142.64&feedformat=atomexplain xkcd - User contributions [en]2024-03-29T08:53:01ZUser contributionsMediaWiki 1.30.0https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:2032:_Word_Puzzles&diff=161144Talk:2032: Word Puzzles2018-08-13T20:59:37Z<p>162.158.142.64: </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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;Is it a real word puzzle?<br />
Who wants to labouriously check if he's double-bluffed and used an actual word puzzle for this comic? :D [[Special:Contributions/162.158.154.181|162.158.154.181]] 17:45, 13 August 2018 (UTC)<br />
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"Jeopardy" is misspelled in the description. Can someone who is logged in please fix?<br />
Many of the "clue" words can also be rearranged, anagram-wise, to form new words, e.g., parts ≈ strap. {{unsigned ip|162.158.74.243}}<br />
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Most words have 2, 3, 4 or 5 characters. I do not believe, it is a simple crossword puzzle, otherwise he would not fool people. Sebastian --[[Special:Contributions/172.68.110.4|172.68.110.4]] 18:17, 13 August 2018 (UTC)<br />
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;Some thoughts:<br />
*Cueball is messing with Megan and not presenting an answer what the "reminiscent of Jeopardy answers" would imply.<br />
*{{w|Lance Ito}} is a judge well known for the O. J. Simpson murder case.<br />
*{{w|Brian Eno}} is an English musician, composer, record producer, singer, writer, and visual artist. Read the Wiki article to learn more.<br />
*No idea what "Ohio's AirAsia Arena" could imply.<br />
--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 18:37, 13 August 2018 (UTC)<br />
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;Moved from the explanation (discussion goes here)<br />
The kind of puzzle that Megan thinks she is solving is called a "Cryptic", which has markedly different rules than ordinary crosswords. If Cueball's statement had been "Part of this aria is an Indian garment" the answer would have been "sari", because a part of the phrase "this aria" is the sequence "sari", which in turn is an Indian garment. Cueball's actual statement contains quite a few familiar cryptic puzzle triggers. The word "composed" can be a hint of a preceding or following anagram, in this case of "this aria" or of "by Brian" or of even longer adjacent strings. Although "opera star" could be a famous singer, say "Caruso", it might also be the name of an opera followed by the name of an astronomical star. "Au pair" could be any of its ordinary meanings, say "nanny", but might also be "earrings" (because AU is the chemical symbol for gold, and a gold pair could be earrings). The word "start" is often a hint to take just the beginning of a word, so "the start" would be "t", or "start of his" would be "h" or "hi". The New York Times runs a cryptic crossword as its "second Sunday puzzle" every other month or so, and there are other regular cryptic crossword venues. In case you are interested, there are various guides on the web for solving cryptics, such as this one at The Atlantic: https://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/puzzclue.htm. Although Randall says he is messing with us, the fact that he is so much cleverer than any of the rest of us means that Cueball's statement might even be a legitimate cryptic clue. --John [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.214|108.162.219.214]] 18:40, 13 August 2018 (UTC)<br />
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If anyone has an account on https://puzzling.stackexchange.com/, that community might be able to figure out if it's a legit puzzle. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.142.64|162.158.142.64]] 20:59, 13 August 2018 (UTC)</div>162.158.142.64https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:1994:_Repairs&diff=157115Talk:1994: Repairs2018-05-16T05:15:24Z<p>162.158.142.64: new comment</p>
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I think the bot on here and xkcd OS might be broken[[Special:Contributions/172.69.22.200|172.69.22.200]] 04:46, 16 May 2018 (UTC)<br />
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The 2x version (found in srcset attribute) is complete though - https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/repairs_2x.png [[Special:Contributions/162.158.2.16|162.158.2.16]] 05:08, 16 May 2018 (UTC)<br />
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This comic almost seems meta. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.142.64|162.158.142.64]] 05:15, 16 May 2018 (UTC)</div>162.158.142.64https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1866:_Russell%27s_Teapot&diff=1430011866: Russell's Teapot2017-07-21T06:11:44Z<p>162.158.142.64: add a basic transcript and alt text</p>
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<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 1866<br />
| date = July 21, 2017<br />
| title = Russell's Teapot<br />
| image = Russells_Teapot.png<br />
| titletext = Unfortunately, NASA regulations state that Bertrand Russell-related payloads can only be launched within launch vehicles which do not launch themselves.<br />
}}<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete| }}<br />
Russell's Teapot is a philosophical argument that reflects on the difficulty of trying to prove a negative. It involves a hypothetical teapot orbiting a heavenly body, whose existence hasn't been proven. It is very often used in atheistic arguments.<br />
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[[Cueball]] is trying to settle the teapot argument by actually launching a teapot into space via a crowdfunding campaign.<br />
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The title-text refers to Russell's Teapot, an analogy which Bertrand Russell devised "to illustrate that the philosophic burden of proof lies upon a person making unfalsifiable claims, rather than shifting the burden of disproof to others." (Wikipedia)<br />
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"He wrote that if he were to assert, without offering proof, that a teapot orbits the Sun somewhere in space between the Earth and Mars, he could not expect anyone to believe him solely because his assertion could not be proven wrong." (Wikipedia)<br />
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==Transcript==<br />
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[[Cueball]] is standing in front of a blueprint labeled "CubeSat-Based Design", containing a satellite with a teapot in the top.<br />
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Below the comic box:<br />
"I'm crowdfunding a project to launch a teapot into orbit around the sun to settle the Russell thing once and for all."<br />
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==Alt-text==<br />
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Unfortunately, NASA regulations state that Bertrand Russell-related payloads can only be launched within launch vehicles which do not launch themselves.<br />
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{{comic discussion}}</div>162.158.142.64https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1779:_2017&diff=1332201779: 20172017-01-04T06:43:58Z<p>162.158.142.64: /* Explanation */ politics have no place in explain xkcd</p>
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<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 1779<br />
| date = December 30, 2016<br />
| title = 2017<br />
| image = 2017.png<br />
| titletext = Things are looking good for the eclipse--Nate Silver says Earth will almost definitely still have a moon in August.<br />
}}<br />
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==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|First draft of an explanation,}}<br />
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[[Randall]] shares some of his thoughts about 2016, a year that many people eagerly await the end of because of its increased turmoil (terrorist attacks, controversial political events in numerous countries, and, in the United States and Britain, the deaths of an unusually large number of well-known and beloved celebrities). It is also known that Randall is a {{w|Hillary Clinton}} supporter (as shown in the [[1756: I'm With Her]] comic), so an additional reading of that tile could be that we are headed into 2017 "without" a Hillary Clinton presidency.<br />
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Instead of simply condemning 2016 as a terrible year and expecting 2017 to be significantly better, [[Cueball]] and [[Megan]] observe that much of what made 2016 bad is the effect that it will have upon future years rather than the actual events themselves (for instance, a divisive {{w|United States presidential election, 2016|U.S. presidential election}} has caused significant controversy in 2016, but President-elect {{w|Donald Trump}} will actually take office and begin to affect the world — whether for better or for worse — in 2017). However, Randall also offers a glimpse of hope in the last few panels by observing that, just as all of the bad things in 2016 were unexpected, good things in 2017 that are unexpected are equally likely to happen. As such, he argues that we should hold on to our hope even though things seem difficult right now.<br />
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As the conversation unfolds, Megan and Cueball encounter an uprooted tree and cross it like a balance beam. This is a visual metaphor; the dead tree represents the end of the old year, while the crossing represents the transition into the new year. This is similar to the magical toboggan from {{w|Calvin and Hobbes}} that serves as a metaphor for their conversations, mentioned in [[529: Sledding Discussion]] and [[409: Electric Skateboard (Double Comic)]].<br />
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The last panel may also serve as a reminder that the world continues to spin on despite all of the turmoil. This is true both literally, as the {{w|solar eclipse|eclipse}} Randall is excited about is caused by the orbits of several celestial bodies lining up just right (the sun, Earth, and moon), but also figuratively, as he notes that prime-numbered years have typically been good ones, and so illustrates the positive attitude that people can choose to take in order to see all that which is good and to spread a little bit more cheerfulness. Randall has had six prime years since his birth, 1987, 1993, 1997, 1999, 2003 and 2011. This could also be a pun referencing the saying "being in his prime years".<br />
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Randall previously mentioned his excitement for the {{w|Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017|2017 eclipse}} exactly three years earlier in [[1302: Year in Review]], where Megan complains about 2013 not having an eclipse nor aurora, and hopes they don't cancel the 2017 eclipse.<br />
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The title text is a reference to {{w|Nate Silver}} who is well-known (in the United States) as an election polling analyst on {{w|FiveThirtyEight}}. His model allowed for a higher chance that Donald Trump would win the presidency compared to other similar models — though the fact that he still favored a Clinton win may be contributing to getting humor from the idea that he may be "wrong" again, and the Moon could possibly vanish in 2017, making the year definitely worse than 2016. This is accentuated by the qualifier "almost definitely", which is of humorously low confidence for presenting a fact as certain as the Moon not somehow disappearing within the next year.<br />
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There have been three previous New Year's comics with only the year used as the title: [[998: 2012]] in 2012, [[1311: 2014]] in 2014 and [[1624: 2016]] in 2016. This is the first odd-numbered years (and thus of course the first prime year)using only the new year as the title. It is also the first that has such a depressive mood. This thus follows the trend of the other negative comics released after Trump's victory, the first being [[1761: Blame]] and the second being [[1773: Negativity]], which both refer to the negativity on the internet spawned by Trump's election (among other things).<br />
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Cueball quips that "Prime years have always been good for [him]", assuming he is the same age as Randall, 1987, 1993, 1997, 1999, 2003 and 2011 have all been good years for him. Of course, we do not know how old Cueball really is, how much thought he actually put into his seemingly off-the-cuff remark, or whether those years were actually good for Randall (although I'm sure one of who can be bothered could answer any one of those questions)<br />
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==Transcript==<br />
:[Cueball and Megan walking outdoors]<br />
:Cueball: Can't wait for this stupid year to be over.<br />
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:[The two approach a fallen tree]<br />
:Megan: I can. This year made the future scarier. So much of why 2016 was bad was because of the things it sent us into 2017 without.<br />
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:[Megan has hopped up onto the tree trunk and begins to walk along it]<br />
:Cueball: You gotta have hope, though.<br />
:Megan: You say that, but you also said all this awful stuff couldn't happen, and it did. You're as clueless as the rest of us.<br />
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:[Cueball also walks along the tree trunk as Megan stops and turns to look at him]<br />
:Cueball: Well, if we're wrong about which bad things can happen, it's got to make us at least a ''little'' less sure about which good things can't.<br />
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:[Closeup of Megan hopping down from the tree]<br />
:Megan: I guess.<br />
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:[A distant shot of Megan and Cueball walking along again]<br />
:Cueball: Plus, 2017 has a cool eclipse in it.<br />
:Megan: Ooh, yeah!<br />
:Cueball: And it's prime. Prime years have always been good for me.<br />
:Megan: Sure, I'll take it.<br />
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{{comic discussion}}<br />
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[[Category:New Year]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Nate Silver]]<br />
[[Category:Comics sharing name|2017]]<br />
[[Category:Astronomy]]<br />
[[Category:Math]]</div>162.158.142.64