https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/api.php?action=feedcontributions&user=172.68.34.122&feedformat=atomexplain xkcd - User contributions [en]2024-03-28T16:11:15ZUser contributionsMediaWiki 1.30.0https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=752:_Phobia&diff=125919752: Phobia2016-08-30T06:48:13Z<p>172.68.34.122: /* Explanation */</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 752<br />
| date = June 11, 2010<br />
| title = Phobia<br />
| image = phobia.png<br />
| titletext = Oh God, the tornado picked up snakes!<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
This comic seems to be about {{w|Phobia|phobias}}, i.e. being afraid of specific and non-specific things like the blonde woman who is {{w|Ophidiophobia|afraid of snakes}}.<br />
<br />
But inspired by this comment [[Megan]], as seen before, acts overly philosophical and says that she is afraid of something not usually mentioned as a phobia. Her sentence is one often used when someone wish to have a relationship, but one of them uses the excuse to postpone going into such a relationship because ''everything is complicated right now''. If this excuse is used enough time (in a row), then at some point there will not be any more years left (either because one of the two dies, or find another or just gives up). This is what Megan states she is afraid of. <br />
<br />
After she has said this, the blonde woman thinks for quite some time (in the beat panel). When she finally decides to ask Megan if she might want to do something, Megan cuts her of. It seems likely that the blonde woman has read the situation correctly, and guessed that Megan actually wishes to enter into a serious (lesbian) relationship with her. But when Megan realizes she may have given too much away, she instead tries to prevent this inquiry by suddenly telling that she wish to be a storm chaser. This is such a strange idea to throw out, and also so far away from having a phobia as it can get, that she prevents the question. <br />
<br />
Given the fact that the blonde woman has an idea that Megan actually have feelings for her, it is not so strange that she now decides to follow Megan's ambition and together they become {{w|Storm chasing|storm chasers}} - individuals who pursue severe weather conditions, for either scientific investigation or providing media coverage or an adventure. Ironically, chasing adverse weather, especially tornadoes, is more dangerous than the things that cause the original phobia of either characters. Indeed, one's ability to control the risk while being near tornado is far less than one's ability to control the risk of being bitten by a snake; the tornado is violent and unpredictable, while snakes only attack humans when they feel threatened. Additionally, one needs to deliberately expose oneself to the snake in order to have any risk of being attacked.<br />
<br />
In the title text another element of irony enters as they, while observing the adverse weather, notice that the snakes {{w|Rain of Animals|have been picked up by the tornado}}, and now, in addition to being exposed to the violence of weather, the main characters are also exposed to snakes falling from the sky.<br />
<br />
This comic are related with the movies {{w|Snakes on a plane}}, {{w|Twister (1996 film)|Twister}} and {{w|Thelma & Louise}}. The last of these movie has two women friends on a road trip, and in the end they kiss, and there have been [http://www.etonline.com/news/186576_susan_sarandon_thinks_her_thelma_louise_character_may_have_become_a_lesbian_if_she_had_lived/ several] [http://s1.zetaboards.com/L_Anon/topic/5185938/1/ discussion] on whether one of both of them would be lesbian or not.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:[A blonde woman and Megan in the background of the image observes a long snake on the ground in the foreground.]<br />
:Blonde: Whoa, a snake!<br />
:Megan: Cool!<br />
:Blonde: I'm afraid of snakes.<br />
<br />
:[Zoom in only on Megan's upper half.]<br />
:Megan: I'm afraid of saying "everything's complicated right now, but maybe next year" until there are no more years left.<br />
<br />
:[Slim panel with a zoom to a full picture of only the blonde woman as she considers this. Beat panel.]<br />
<br />
:[Same type of image of Megan, who cuts the blonde woman's reply (from off panel) off in mid-sentence.]<br />
:Blonde (of panel): Do you-<br />
:Megan: I want to be a storm chaser.<br />
<br />
:[A black tornado reaches from the black storm clouds to the earth, kicking up a sizable cloud of debris at its base. The blonde woman is at the wheel of a car, with Megan hanging out the window and holding a camera.]<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]<br />
[[Category:Animals]]</div>172.68.34.122https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1726:_Unicode&diff=1259171726: Unicode2016-08-30T06:32:37Z<p>172.68.34.122: /* Explanation */</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 1726<br />
| date = August 29, 2016<br />
| title = Unicode<br />
| image = unicode.png<br />
| titletext = I'm excited about the proposal to add a "brontosaurus" emoji codepoint because it has the potential to bring together a half-dozen different groups of pedantic people into a single glorious internet argument.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|first time making page. Needs much more work including links, sources and the Brontosaurus reference.}}<br />
<br />
Cueball, along with two other figures, is placing traffic signs in a river. As rivers flow according to the landscape, this plan will not work and the river will continue on its course. Cueball is very frustrated by this and is still trying to make the river obey traffic laws. The caption lays out the punchline: the comic compares the useless approach of Cueball attempting to divert a flowing, moving river with fixed signs that do nothing, with the {{w|Unicode Consortium}}'s attempt to define the diverse and ever-changing human language with strict technical standards.<br />
<br />
{{w|Unicode}} is a largely successful attempt to have a standard for representing all possible letters, numerals, digits and symbols that make up human writing in all languages. This includes the roman letters used in this article, characters with modifiers like ê (both with the common characters as well as the modifiers selectable separately), ideographic characters like in Chinese, syllabic writing system like Japanese, right-to-left and/or top-to-bottom writing systems, mathematical symbols, emoji, and many other writing systems. The symbols on the signs in the river, are, in fact Unicode, with the warning sign triangle with an exclamation mark ⚠ having code (U+26A0) and the black, rightwards arrow ➡ having code (U+271A). As can be imagined, coping with the wide variety of character sizes, orientations, ways they can be modified, capitalization rules, etc. can get to be very challenging as the Unicode Consortium tries to write rules that accommodate how printed language is actually used.<br />
<br />
The title text refers to a proposal to add three dinosaur heads to the official list of emoji. This is likely to stir debate between the following opposing camps:<br />
*those who favor the inclusion of more emoji vs. those who oppose emoji on principle<br />
*those who accept the existence of ''Brontosaurus'' vs. those who deny its status as a species unique from ''Apatosaurus''<br />
*those who favor a traditional, scaly image of dinosaurs vs. those who have accepted the feathered-dinosaur paradigm<br />
*those who point out that two of the dinosaurs in the "Jurassic Emoji" set actually come from the Cretaceous period, and as such renaming is necessary vs. those who think that "Jurassic" is a cooler word<br />
<br />
===See also===<br />
[[636: Brontosaurus]]<br />
<br />
* [http://unicode.org/L2/L2016/16072-jurassic-emoji.pdf Jurassic Emoji proposal]; [http://www.unicode.org/L2/L2016/16103-jurassic-fdbk.pdf initial feedback]; [http://www.courtneymilan.com/dino/ Proposer's timeline/status page]<br />
* [http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/26a0/index.htm Unicode Character 'WARNING SIGN']<br />
* [http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/27a1/index.htm Unicode Character 'BLACK RIGHTWARDS ARROW']<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
[Single panel scene: [[Cueball]] is standing waist-deep in a river. With one arm he is holding on to a traffic sign that says "Detour" with an arrow pointing to the right. The other arm is pointing horizontally. Further up the river is another street sign apparently in around 0.5 metres of water; this sign has an exclamation mark inside a triangle. In the distance on one bank of the river, two people are standing and making gestures, with a sign lying on the ground next to them. Behind them is a parked car on a road that crosses a bridge over the river.]<br />
<br />
Cueball: No, go ''this'' way, not &mdash;<br />
<br />
Are you even ''listening''!?<br />
<br />
… ''Hey! That's not what this area is for!''<br />
<br />
[Caption]<br />
<br />
Watching the Unicode people try to govern the infinite chaos of human language with consistent technical standards is like watching highway engineers try to steer a river using traffic signs.<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]</div>172.68.34.122https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:1716:_Time_Travel_Thesis&diff=124764Talk:1716: Time Travel Thesis2016-08-05T15:21:49Z<p>172.68.34.122: </p>
<hr />
<div><!--Please sign your posts with ~~~~--><br />
Any possibility that future Megan actually uses time travel to assist present Megan to exit? [[User:Plm-qaz snr|Plm-qaz snr]] ([[User talk:Plm-qaz snr|talk]]) 07:52, 5 August 2016 (UTC)<br />
:Yes for sure --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 11:51, 5 August 2016 (UTC)<br />
<br />
I don't feel like it's ''mainsplaining'' and I don't think ''not have a bad problem that will make it so she will not go to 1812 today.'' is relevant (maybe an joke, but nothing to do with the comic). [[Special:Contributions/162.158.114.230|162.158.114.230]] 08:18, 5 August 2016 (UTC)<br />
:I have deleted that part. Someone deleted mansplaining before I started my edit, and then by the time I was ready there was edit conflicts and it was reentered. I have decided not to do anything about it. He may have a point. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 11:51, 5 August 2016 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Did someone really decide ''mansplaining'' was the right word to use here? Not only is it entirely inappropriate, but it's not exactly a well-known term, so it's liable to confuse people. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.142.147|162.158.142.147]] 08:28, 5 August 2016 (UTC)<br />
:Yeah. Cueball's just trying to have a conversation, not trying to act like he knows more than her. If anything, she's being rude by not letting him finish what he was saying. Sure, I know more about computers than my dad, but I let him tell me about his new discoveries. I'm a music major, so I know more about music than a lot of people, but I still let them talk. She not only keeps interrupting him, but goes back in time to avoid the "boring" conversation altogether--and says it all right in front of him. We're not supposed to think she's a decent [person], unlike when Randall stood up for people who happened to have not learned something. [[User:Trlkly|Trlkly]] ([[User talk:Trlkly|talk]]) 09:17, 5 August 2016 (UTC)<br />
::Well she does try to let him know that he do not have to ask if she knows it, just begin talking about it. It is annoying when people assume that just because they just read something no one else has read about it. And even worse if he doesn't understand that she has used years of he life studying the subject. And if he actually understand but continues that's just bad... --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 11:51, 5 August 2016 (UTC)<br />
::I don't see why it has to be mansplaining - Cueball just learned about it and thinks its exciting, so he wants to tell others about it. And in most conversations between a noob and an expert, the noob usually needs a point reclarified (especially if the book they just read wasnt written by that expert.) FutureMegan knows this isnt the case though… [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.87|108.162.221.87]] 12:20, 5 August 2016 (UTC)<br />
<br />
I don't think the title text mentions a TimeTravel to 2010. Rather there was a party themed 2010 in the future (Like there are 90's and 80's themed parties nowadays)<br />
--[[Special:Contributions/162.158.83.198|162.158.83.198]] 10:41, 5 August 2016 (UTC)<br />
:Agree that has been corrected. No one know when the glasses broke but in that future no one probably uses them anymore. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 11:51, 5 August 2016 (UTC)<br />
<br />
How did future Megan know that the conversation wasn't important if she didn't attend it in her past (in fact, no-one did or would)? A grandfather paradox. At best, she remembered to tell her past self, in which case it's still a bootstrap paradox (and an impressive feat of human memory, though Novikov self-consistency principle might hav helped her "randomly" remember). [[Special:Contributions/141.101.95.99|141.101.95.99]] 10:57, 5 August 2016 (UTC)<br />
:Tried to add some more about that paradox and in general. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 11:51, 5 August 2016 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Alright, anyone who is willing to make the claim that "Google Glass will probably become popular in the 2010's" is living in a fantasy world. I've edited it to make the far more accurate claim that it could be either because Glass became popular or because Glass was an esoteric piece of hardware that lived (and died) in the 2010's. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.34.122|172.68.34.122]] 15:21, 5 August 2016 (UTC)</div>172.68.34.122https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1716:_Time_Travel_Thesis&diff=1247631716: Time Travel Thesis2016-08-05T15:19:33Z<p>172.68.34.122: /* Explanation */ Saying that Google Glass will become popular in the 2010's is stretching it ... at best.</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 1716<br />
| date = August 5, 2016<br />
| title = Time Travel Thesis<br />
| image = time_travel_thesis.png<br />
| titletext = 'Hey, what are those futuristic goggles for, anyway?' 'Oh, this is just a broken Google Glass. It was 2010's night at the club.'<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|Several interpretations possible. Please try to sort them out.}}<br />
[[Cueball]] has apparently been reading about {{w|time travel}}. He tells [[Megan]] about this, and Megan excitedly remarks that she did her college thesis on time travel which basically means that she is supposed to know a lot more about time travel than a guy who has just been "reading" about it.<br />
<br />
Cueball, however, continues to ask her if she knows basic facts about time travel, like he is investigating if he has discovered facets about it that she would have overlooked while writing a thesis about it. Megan keeps trying to say that since she wrote a (Time Travel) Thesis she already knows all of this and much, much more.<br />
<br />
At this point Megan's future-self arrives with a ''Bzzzzt'', having used time travel to arrive at this exact moment in time. It seem she has continued her research and has successfully managed to make a time machine (maybe in a collaboration with others, but with the ability to use it to her own end and needs.) <br />
<br />
The reason she arrives is only to tell her younger self that this conversation with Cueball doesn't go anywhere and isn't important, and so present Megan can leave and not waste her time anymore. Up till then, Megan was presumably reluctant to break off a conversation on the topic of time travel, since the conversation could potentially have improved, or maybe she was even at first attracted to Cueball and interested because he at least had read about time travel. But once the conversation began to run of track, it came as a relief to know that she could quit without the risk of missing out on anything important. <br />
<br />
And then she just walks away with her future-self leaving Cueball hanging in the last panel. That was a new way to get dished. <br />
<br />
Alternatively, future-Megan just makes an excuse to haul present-Megan off in order to prevent the latter from disclosing some details of time travel science to Cueball, which could have unintended consequences. However using very advanced technology, or even violating physics law, for ''very mundane'' ends is a very common in xkcd, so using time travel to prevent useless conversation is not surprising from Megan.<br />
<br />
In either case if future Megan did not finish the conversation she would not know it was unimportant, thus indicating that she actually did. So by coming back she now changes her own (and Cueball's) future. But maybe she knows this will not change anything, just save her self from wasting time. Of course the general implications of being able to travel like this are enormous, and the {{w|Grandfather paradox|paradoxes arising}} from such a possibility endless. For instance the future Megan could now describe to the present Megan how the make the time machine. But why not have gone even further back making it possible to travel in time even earlier etc. (And of course the whole going back and killing one of parents before they even meet, like the idea in {{w|The Terminator}} movie). Generally time travel is a [[:Category:Time travel|recurring theme]] in xkcd.<br />
<br />
Could be that [[Randall]] may have had some conversations like this, where after having spend a lot of time getting nothing out of it himself, would have wished his future self had come back to tell him to just leave the conversation now.<br />
<br />
In the title text present-Megan asks future-Megan about her futuristic googles and what they are for, presumably assuming they are needed for the time travel (maybe it is the backpack?) However it turns out it's just some old and broken {{w|Google Glass}}. The only reason future Megan wears these is that she attended a party at the club that had a 2010's night theme.<br />
<br />
This is an indication of how far from the future she has traveled, as Google Glass was first released in the 2010's. It is not clear whether she is wearing Google Glass because it became popular in the 2010's or because it was an esoteric piece of hardware that people would readily associate with the 2010's. Also a 90s party may be thrown today, but not a 2000's party. So it is safe to assume that Megan is at least from the 2030's. Also people attending retro dress-up parties frequently make mistakes and do not dress up exactly in-style, creating some anachronisms, especially if they dress up like they did many years ago.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:[Cueball is facing Megan, talking to her.]<br />
:Cueball: I've been reading about time travel.<br />
:Megan: Cool! I did my thesis on time travel!<br />
<br />
:[Cueball is now gesturing toward Megan. An electrical charge of some sort is shown occurring outside the panel in the bottom right corner behind Megan.]<br />
:Cueball: Nice! So you know about closed timelike curves?<br />
:Megan: Yup. Thesis.<br />
:Cueball: Apparently wormholes can use exotic matter to–<br />
:Megan: I know. Like I said–<br />
:Charge: <big>''Bzzzt!''</big><br />
<br />
:[Megan has turned away from Cueball to the right. Megan from the future, wearing sunglasses, a headset and a machine strapped to her back has entered the frame from the right where the charge appeared.]<br />
:Future-Megan: You can skip this conversation. It doesn't turn out to be important.<br />
:Megan: Oh, thank God.<br />
<br />
:[Cueball is standing alone, the two Megans have left the panel.]<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]<br />
[[Category:Time travel]]</div>172.68.34.122