https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/api.php?action=feedcontributions&user=172.69.34.82&feedformat=atomexplain xkcd - User contributions [en]2024-03-28T08:20:51ZUser contributionsMediaWiki 1.30.0https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1784:_Bad_Map_Projection:_Liquid_Resize&diff=2307921784: Bad Map Projection: Liquid Resize2022-04-20T15:04:27Z<p>172.69.34.82: smack bros</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 1784<br />
| date = January 11, 2017<br />
| title = Bad Map Projection: Liquid Resize<br />
| image = bad_map_projection_liquid_resize.png<br />
| titletext = This map preserves the shapes of Tissot's indicatrices pretty well, as long as you draw them in before running the resize.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
This is the first comic in the series of [[:Category:Bad Map Projections|Bad Map Projections]] presenting Bad map projection #107: The Liquid Resize. This turned into a series when [[1799: Bad Map Projection: Time Zones]] (#79), was released just a bit more than a month after this one.<br />
<br />
There is no perfect way to draw a map of the world on a flat piece of paper. Each one will introduce a different type of distortion, and the best projection for a given situation is sometimes disputed. [[Randall]] previously explored 12 different projections in [[977: Map Projections]], and expressed his disdain for some types he sees as less efficient but whose users feel superior. None of them are truly perfect as any 2D map projection will always distort in a way the spherical reality, and a map projection that is useful for one aspect (like navigation, geographical shapes and masses visualization, etc.) will not be so for all the others. Local maps of smaller areas can be quite accurate, but the idea of both these map projection comics is to map the entire globe on a flat surface.<br />
<br />
This comic suggests that there are many other projections than the 12 from the previous map projection comic, and Randall seems to have an entire list, of which at least 358 are "Bad Map Projections." The one presented here is #107 and is it called the "Liquid Resize." It is unclear if he includes the previous 12 in this list. Quite possibly he does, since all 2D projections of the surface of a 3D sphere will be bad in certain respects. (The next comic's projections ''Time Zones'' based on these, has #79 and could be concluded as being less bad than this one, which also seems realistic as this map looks more like a normal map projection, although it also has huge flaws).<br />
<br />
The ''Liquid Resize'' map projection, however, is not only useless for most map applications -- as the size, shape, and position of most countries are quite distorted -- but its creation includes two steps which are outright counterproductive. If the list is sorted from best to worst it may be hard to find a worse projection method than this, so finding 106 projections better than this one seems realistic!<br />
<br />
First, this method needs a planar map projection as its starting point, thus compounding the problems right off the bat. Planar projections are relatively accurate near the center but heavily distorted toward the edges. A famous example of a planar projection is the logo of the {{w|United Nations}}. Planar projections are basically only useful for 3D graphics rendering, if the user needs a quick, inexpensive way to store map textures that will later be attached to a sphere.<br />
<br />
Second, the map uses [https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/using/content-aware-scaling.html Photoshop's content aware resizing tool], a very questionable choice. (Using a Photoshop tool for a task it is not intended for was also used in [[1685: Patch]] where a GNU patch tool was replaced with Adobe Photoshop's patch tool to compile code.) The content aware resizing tool resizes images by identifying what it thinks are important details and preserving these, while shrinking or stretching less detailed areas. For example, [http://knowyourmeme.com/photos/710073-content-aware-scaling when used on a face], the algorithm detects that the eyes and mouth are important details and tries to keep these in place, while stretching the skin around it. When applied to a map, this means that areas with lots of countries - and therefore lots of detail - such as Europe, West Africa, the Eastern Mediterranean and Central America/the Caribbean are relatively unchanged, while big countries like India, China and the US are very warped. The choices that the resizing tool makes are also dependent on the exact visual features of the original map, such as the choice of not having any topography or infrastructure drawn on, or not including a latitude/longitude grid, so what areas are deemed as unimportant is even more arbitrary than it would be on, say, a photographic picture of the Earth. <br />
<br />
[http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/content-aware-scaling Bad content aware scaling] is already a meme. This projection does do a good job, however, of making almost every country clearly visible and indicating which countries are neighbors. <br />
South America fits into Africa almost as it did in the era of the super-continent {{w|Pangaea}}.<br />
<br />
{{w|Tissot's indicatrices}} are equally sized small circles overlaid on a globe to show the distortion of a particular map projection; if the map distortion distorts the shapes or areas of countries, it will do the same to the circles. The title text suggests that the shapes of Tissot's indicatrices would be pretty well preserved by the Liquid Resize transformation, 'as long as you draw them in before running the resize'. This is a joke. "Drawing them in before running the resize" means that a different projection would be generated (probably preserving the indicatrices themselves), making the use of the indicatrices meaningless, sort of like cheating. In fact by drawing them small enough there will be no resizing at all.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:[Caption at the top of the panel:]<br />
:Bad map projection #107:<br />
:<big>The <big>Liquid Resize</big></big><br />
:A political map compressed using Photoshop's content-aware resizing algorithm to cut down on unused blank space<br />
<br />
:[Below the caption there is a map of the world divided and colored by political boundaries, with outlines around each continent in black and around each country in dark gray. Antarctica is colored in light gray, bodies of water in white, and countries in pale shades of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple. The map is heavily distorted, with Africa in the center and the other continents curving around it, approximating the bounds of a square with rounded corners. The oceans have been removed but also huge countries like the US, Australia, Brazil, Russia and especially India and Argentina have been heavily distorted while areas in the center with many smaller countries like Africa and Europe is almost unchanged.]<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:Comics with color]]<br />
[[Category:Bad Map Projections]]</div>172.69.34.82https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1223:_Dwarf_Fortress&diff=2301331223: Dwarf Fortress2022-04-12T01:45:39Z<p>172.69.34.82: censorship of unnecessary swearing</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 1223<br />
| date = June 10, 2013<br />
| title = Dwarf Fortress<br />
| image = dwarf_fortress.png<br />
| titletext = I may be the kind of person who wastes a year implementing a Turing-complete computer in Dwarf Fortress, but that makes you the kind of person who wastes ten more getting that computer to run Minecraft.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
This comic is a reaction to the recent reveal of a U.S. electronic telecom surveillance program called {{w|PRISM (surveillance program)|PRISM}}, run by the {{w|NSA}}. There is [http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/06/us-tech-giants-nsa-data a Guardian article] about it. PRISM, leaked by a former NSA official, incited some controversy since it provides government access to private data (e-mails, videos, chats, file transfers, etc.). <!-- please expand/correct this ~Alpha --><br />
<br />
''{{w|Dwarf Fortress}}'' is a freeware strategy game in which the player builds a civilization by giving orders to — as opposed to directly controlling — a group of dwarves. It is famous for having a very detailed simulation of its world and for allowing deep micro-management (as well as an incredibly steep learning curve).<br />
<br />
"Big Brother" means "a tyrannical government body that constantly monitors all its citizens." The term comes from the classic dystopian novel ''{{w|Nineteen Eighty-Four}}'' by George Orwell, wherein propaganda videos are narrated by an actor with the stage name of Big Brother and the dystopia's surveillance system is said to be monitored by Big Brother himself.<br />
<br />
[[Cueball]] has a discussion with Big Brother ("corporate surveillance state"), in which he mocks Big Brother's interest in the inconsequential activity of playing a video game (''Dwarf Fortress'' in particular) by drawing a parallel between Big Brother's omniscient surveillance of Cueball and Cueball's omniscient surveillance of the dwarves. Big Brother appears to be mortified when it realizes the accuracy of Cueball's comparison.<br />
<br />
Informally, a system exhibits ''Turing-completeness'' when it is theoretically capable of executing any algorithm. One of the simplest Turing-complete systems is the {{w|Turing machine}}, a device that manipulates symbols on a strip of tape according to a table of rules — it {{w|Church-Turing thesis|can be proven}} to have the same capabilities as any ordinary programming language. Other very simple systems include {{w|Rule 110}}, {{w|lambda calculus}}, {{w|Conway's game of life}}, and {{w|Brainfuck}}. The reason we don't work with these is because they're a real pain in the butt. Would you rather build a network of spaceships that collide with each other to simulate the successor function, or just write <tt>i := i + 1</tt>?<br />
<br />
A common CS nerd challenge is to prove the Turing-completeness of a system that wasn't intended to be that way &mdash; games in particular. The usual way to do this is to construct a Turing machine simulator within the system. It has been done for [http://mkv25.net/dfma/map-8269 Dwarf Fortress], [http://web.mat.bham.ac.uk/R.W.Kaye/minesw/infmsw.pdf (infinite) Minesweeper] (pdf), [http://www.toothycat.net/~hologram/Turing/HowItWorks.html Magic the Gathering], [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13GOFa1C4e4 Little Big Planet], [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1X21HQphy6I Minecraft] ([http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sNge0Ywz-M another Minecraft example])<sup>1</sup>, [http://aurellem.org/vba-clojure/html/total-control.html Pokémon Yellow] (through the elaborate use of many in-game glitches) and [http://cp4space.wordpress.com/2013/04/05/3d-chess-is-turing-complete/ 3D chess]. These kinds of proofs often involve formulating ridiculously complex creations just to simulate a little machine writing symbols on a tape!<sup>2</sup><br />
<br />
Finally, Randall makes a crack that users will try to nest their Turing-complete computers; after finishing his Turing-complete Dwarf Fortress computer, someone else will try to make the Dwarf Fortress computer run Minecraft (a highly inefficient process that would be a nightmare to coordinate, and would run incredibly slowly).<br />
<br />
<small><br />
<sup>1</sup> The youtuber legomasta99 even build a whole programmable PC in Minecraft as can be seen [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbO0tqH8f5I here].<br />
<br />
<sup>2</sup>Technically, a computer is not really Turing-complete. A Turing-complete system has to have unlimited space, and that's not possible for a memory-limited computer or any software running inside it. But even if we don't have access to Turing-completeness, we can build a theoretical machine and show how it can be extended indefinitely. In a few of the games, we prove Turing-completeness in infinite variants.<br />
</small><br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:[Cueball sits at a desk with a computer, hands on the keyboard, talking to an unseen observer.]<br />
:Cueball: If the corporate surveillance state monitors and controls every aspect of my life...<br />
:Big Brother: We do.<br />
:Cueball: And I play Dwarf Fortress all day...<br />
:Big Brother: You do.<br />
:Cueball: Then you're effectively Dwarf Fortress players watching your dwarves play Dwarf Fortress.<br />
:Big Brother: ... Oh God.<br />
:[Caption below the panel:]<br />
:Big Brother realizes he's trapped in the most tedious possible Hell.<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
[[Category:Programming]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]<br />
[[Category:Video games]]<br />
[[Category:Politics]]<br />
[[Category:Comics with color]]<br />
[[Category:Fiction]]<br />
[[Category:Minecraft]]</div>172.69.34.82https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:2592:_False_Dichotomy&diff=228517Talk:2592: False Dichotomy2022-03-16T17:16:38Z<p>172.69.34.82: A theory about a false trichotomy</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 />
<br />
This is my second explanation ever, it probably isnt great but its good for others to have something to start from. if anybody who knows how to do the links and everything, for all of the characters and the fancy words, please do that. [[User:ElijahRock|ElijahRock]] ([[User talk:ElijahRock|talk]]) 17:57, 11 March 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
And here I thought it was a pun on tracheotomy...<br />
<br />
I’m pretty sure the cannibalism joke is based on the idea that we have to create a “false dichotomy” between humans and non-human living things, or else we can’t say that it’s okay to eat some things (maybe the line is drawn at plants, maybe at animals) but not others (a category that usually includes humans). [[User:Pablo360|Pablo360]] ([[User talk:Pablo360|talk]]) 19:03, 11 March 2022 (UTC)<br />
:I don't think it's that specific. Often false dichotomies use something horrible or unthinkable as the alternative, and cannibalism is about as taboo as it gets. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]])<br />
<br />
: no, that's delving too far into a fairly simple joke. "Embracing dichotomies and Cannibalism" is a false dichotomy itself! He could have said anything "skydiving", "poison swallowing", anything... It's the fact it's a false dichotomy used to justify false dichotomies. GET IT?!?!?<br />
<br />
I think the title text joke is more based on "There are 2 hard problems in computer science: cache invalidation, naming things, and off-by-1 errors." [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 19:29, 11 March 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Trichotomy is not a portmanteau but a real word by itself, and it means what is supposed to mean, i.e., division in three categories. [[User:Vdm|Vdm]] ([[User talk:Vdm|talk]]) 21:36, 11 March 2022 (UTC)<br />
:I had not read this comment, when I dove in myself. I agree, though it is an artificial and (slightly) incorrect swap of di- to tri- so is a relative neologism. I've endeavoured to summarise what I understand of it (wiktionary lacks some of the depth, as you try to drill down, and I'm not sure I can provide full references for my version!) and removed the presumption of being a portmanteau. Which I would rather apply to two independent words being melded together, not a replacement of one prefix (or suffix, or infix) with another equivalently elemental fragmentary affix.<br />
:But that's just my opinion. Open to further editing. (Maybe shoving in a Trivia section, also!) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.34.221|162.158.34.221]] 01:09, 12 March 2022 (UTC)<br />
:Isn’t the morpheme “-tricho-“ about hair? So “trichotomy” should mean “haircut”. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.130.153|172.70.130.153]] 23:22, 12 March 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
It may be a stretch, but Cueball’s dialogue could be a reference to A Modest Proposal, which satirically creates an extended false dichotomy between poverty and cannibalism [[User:Lordoftheroboflies|Lordoftheroboflies]] ([[User talk:Lordoftheroboflies|talk]]) 23:11, 11 March 2022 (UTC)<br />
:{{Citation Needed}} (I don't know what you're referring to :) ) [[User:Kev|Kev]] ([[User talk:Kev|talk]]) 15:22, 12 March 2022 (UTC)<br />
:It's a fairly well known piece of satire by Johnathan Swift. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Modest_Proposal [[Special:Contributions/108.162.245.69|108.162.245.69]] 23:10, 12 March 2022 (UTC)<br />
:It isnt actually a false Dichotomy, it is a satirical argument that it is more moral to eat babies than to let poor people die from starvation/exposure, rather than anything conflating the two as the same. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.211.26|172.70.211.26]] 04:30, 15 March 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Personally I saw the title text as a reference to Monty Python's Spanish Inqusition: "Our chief weapon is surprise, surprise and fear, fear and surprise. Our *two* weapons are fear and surprise, and ruthless efficiency. Our *three* weapons are fear and surprise and ruthless efficiency and an almost fanatical dedication to the pope." [[Special:Contributions/141.101.104.98|141.101.104.98]] 12:16, 16 March 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
It is possible that when he refers to "surprise trichotomies," he is referring to the cannibalism-false dichotomy false dichotomy. The third element is vegetarianism.</div>172.69.34.82https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2590:_I_Shouldn%27t_Complain&diff=2280952590: I Shouldn't Complain2022-03-07T18:36:47Z<p>172.69.34.82: /* Explanation */ ce</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 2590<br />
| date = March 7, 2022<br />
| title = I Shouldn't Complain<br />
| image = i_shouldnt_complain.png<br />
| titletext = Bald-faced hornets are only a 2 on the Schmidt pain index, so I shouldn't complain. The tennis ball ejected from the dryer exhaust vent could have ricocheted off the nest of a much higher-scoring insect before knocking me off the ladder. Really, I'm lucky.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|Created by a BALD-FACED HORNET - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
<br />
Megan has had a very unfortunate experience of falling into a garbage can and being stung by wasps, and is telling Cueball about it. However, she seeks to downplay this experience by saying "I shouldn't complain". This has become a habit in Western culture, like comparing issues to "kids starving in Africa" or war-torn countries.<br />
<br />
In the title text, Megan continues to downplay her experience even though it was very painful. The {{w|Schmidt sting pain index}} is a pain scale for different insect stings, which ranges from 1 to 4. Megan says her stings were a 2 on the scale, which compared to a pain of 4 is "less painful", but still worse than not being stung at all!<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
:[Cueball and Megan standing together. Cueball has his hands on his chin, shocked.]<br />
:Cueball: I can't believe you fell headfirst into a garbage can and were stuck there for two hours while wasps stung your exposed legs!<br />
:Megan: I shouldn't complain! Lots of people have been stuck for longer in worse places.<br />
:Megan: Really, I'm lucky.<br />
<br />
:[Caption below the panel]:<br />
:The more unpleasant someone's experience is, the more they apologize for complaining because it could be worse.<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]<br />
[[Category:Animals]]</div>172.69.34.82https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2590:_I_Shouldn%27t_Complain&diff=2280942590: I Shouldn't Complain2022-03-07T18:36:07Z<p>172.69.34.82: /* Explanation */ ce</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 2590<br />
| date = March 7, 2022<br />
| title = I Shouldn't Complain<br />
| image = i_shouldnt_complain.png<br />
| titletext = Bald-faced hornets are only a 2 on the Schmidt pain index, so I shouldn't complain. The tennis ball ejected from the dryer exhaust vent could have ricocheted off the nest of a much higher-scoring insect before knocking me off the ladder. Really, I'm lucky.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|Created by a BALD-FACED HORNET - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
<br />
Megan has had a very unfortunate experience of falling into a garbage can and being stung by wasps, and is telling Cueball about it. However, she seeks to downplay this experience by saying "I shouldn't complain". This has become a habit in Western culture, like comparing issues to "kids starving in Africa" or war-torn countries.<br />
<br />
In the title text, Megan continues to downplay her experience even though it was very painful. The {{w|Schmidt sting pain index}} is a pain scale for different insect stings, which ranges from 1 to 4. Megan says her stings were a 2 on the scale, which compared to a pain of 4 is "good", but still worse than not being stung at all!<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
:[Cueball and Megan standing together. Cueball has his hands on his chin, shocked.]<br />
:Cueball: I can't believe you fell headfirst into a garbage can and were stuck there for two hours while wasps stung your exposed legs!<br />
:Megan: I shouldn't complain! Lots of people have been stuck for longer in worse places.<br />
:Megan: Really, I'm lucky.<br />
<br />
:[Caption below the panel]:<br />
:The more unpleasant someone's experience is, the more they apologize for complaining because it could be worse.<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]<br />
[[Category:Animals]]</div>172.69.34.82https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2590:_I_Shouldn%27t_Complain&diff=2280932590: I Shouldn't Complain2022-03-07T18:34:57Z<p>172.69.34.82: /* Transcript */ duplicate</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 2590<br />
| date = March 7, 2022<br />
| title = I Shouldn't Complain<br />
| image = i_shouldnt_complain.png<br />
| titletext = Bald-faced hornets are only a 2 on the Schmidt pain index, so I shouldn't complain. The tennis ball ejected from the dryer exhaust vent could have ricocheted off the nest of a much higher-scoring insect before knocking me off the ladder. Really, I'm lucky.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|Created by a BALD-FACED HORNET - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
<br />
Megan has had a very unfortunate experience of falling into a garbage can and being stung by wasps, and is telling Cueball about it. However, she seeks to downplay this experience by saying "I shouldn't complain". This has become a habit in Western culture, like comparing issues to "kids starving in Africa" or in war-torn countries.<br />
<br />
In the title text, Megan continues to downplay her experience even though it was very painful. The {{w|Schmidt sting pain index}} is a pain scale for different insect stings, which ranges from 1 to 4. Megan says her stings were a 2 on the scale, which compared to a pain of 4 is "good", but still worse than not being stung at all!<br />
<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
:[Cueball and Megan standing together. Cueball has his hands on his chin, shocked.]<br />
:Cueball: I can't believe you fell headfirst into a garbage can and were stuck there for two hours while wasps stung your exposed legs!<br />
:Megan: I shouldn't complain! Lots of people have been stuck for longer in worse places.<br />
:Megan: Really, I'm lucky.<br />
<br />
:[Caption below the panel]:<br />
:The more unpleasant someone's experience is, the more they apologize for complaining because it could be worse.<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]<br />
[[Category:Animals]]</div>172.69.34.82https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2590:_I_Shouldn%27t_Complain&diff=2280922590: I Shouldn't Complain2022-03-07T18:34:06Z<p>172.69.34.82: /* Explanation */ start brief</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 2590<br />
| date = March 7, 2022<br />
| title = I Shouldn't Complain<br />
| image = i_shouldnt_complain.png<br />
| titletext = Bald-faced hornets are only a 2 on the Schmidt pain index, so I shouldn't complain. The tennis ball ejected from the dryer exhaust vent could have ricocheted off the nest of a much higher-scoring insect before knocking me off the ladder. Really, I'm lucky.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|Created by a BALD-FACED HORNET - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
<br />
Megan has had a very unfortunate experience of falling into a garbage can and being stung by wasps, and is telling Cueball about it. However, she seeks to downplay this experience by saying "I shouldn't complain". This has become a habit in Western culture, like comparing issues to "kids starving in Africa" or in war-torn countries.<br />
<br />
In the title text, Megan continues to downplay her experience even though it was very painful. The {{w|Schmidt sting pain index}} is a pain scale for different insect stings, which ranges from 1 to 4. Megan says her stings were a 2 on the scale, which compared to a pain of 4 is "good", but still worse than not being stung at all!<br />
<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:Cueball: I can't believe you fell headfirst into a garbage can and were stuck there for two hours while wasps stung your exposed legs!<br />
:Megan: I shouldn't complain! Lots of people have been stuck for longer in worse places.<br />
:Megan: Really, I'm lucky.<br />
:[Caption below the panel:]<br />
:The more unpleasant someone's experience is, the more they apologize for complaining because it could be worse.<br />
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
:[Cueball and Megan standing together. Cueball has his hands on his chin, shocked.]<br />
:Cueball: I can't believe you fell headfirst into a garbage can and were stuck there for two hours while wasps stung your exposed legs!<br />
:Megan: I shouldn't complain! Lots of people have been stuck for longer in worse places.<br />
:Megan: Really, I'm lucky.<br />
<br />
:[Caption below the panel]:<br />
:The more unpleasant someone's experience is, the more they apologize for complaining because it could be worse.<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]<br />
[[Category:Animals]]</div>172.69.34.82https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2590:_I_Shouldn%27t_Complain&diff=2280892590: I Shouldn't Complain2022-03-07T18:28:44Z<p>172.69.34.82: /* Transcript */ create</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 2590<br />
| date = March 7, 2022<br />
| title = I Shouldn't Complain<br />
| image = i_shouldnt_complain.png<br />
| titletext = Bald-faced hornets are only a 2 on the Schmidt pain index, so I shouldn't complain. The tennis ball ejected from the dryer exhaust vent could have ricocheted off the nest of a much higher-scoring insect before knocking me off the ladder. Really, I'm lucky.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|Created by a BOT - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
:[Cueball and Megan standing together. Cueball has his hands on his chin, shocked.]<br />
:Cueball: I can't believe you fell headfirst into a garbage can and were stuck there for two hours while wasps stung your exposed legs!<br />
:Megan: I shouldn't complain! Lots of people have been stuck for longer in worse places.<br />
:Megan: Really, I'm lucky.<br />
<br />
:[Caption below the panel]:<br />
:The more unpleasant someone's experience is, the more they apologize for complaining because it could be worse.<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]<br />
[[Category:Animals]]</div>172.69.34.82https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2590:_I_Shouldn%27t_Complain&diff=2280882590: I Shouldn't Complain2022-03-07T18:26:43Z<p>172.69.34.82: /* Transcript */</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 2590<br />
| date = March 7, 2022<br />
| title = I Shouldn't Complain<br />
| image = i_shouldnt_complain.png<br />
| titletext = Bald-faced hornets are only a 2 on the Schmidt pain index, so I shouldn't complain. The tennis ball ejected from the dryer exhaust vent could have ricocheted off the nest of a much higher-scoring insect before knocking me off the ladder. Really, I'm lucky.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|Created by a BOT - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]<br />
[[Category:Animals]]</div>172.69.34.82https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2588:_Party_Quadrants&diff=2278622588: Party Quadrants2022-03-02T23:31:11Z<p>172.69.34.82: /* Explanation */</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 2588<br />
| date = March 2, 2022<br />
| title = Party Quadrants<br />
| image = party_quadrants.png<br />
| titletext = Single-elimination might provide more drama, but I think we can all agree that a comprehensive numerical scoring system will let us better judge the party's winner.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|Created by a BOT that generates party quadrants - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
In this comic there are four quadrants to allow the user to visualize the range of possibilities of fun from for the author of this comic (Randall) and for guests. The rows indicate a range of not fun to fun for guests(top to bottom), and the columns indicate a range of not fun to fun for Randall (left to right).<br />
<br />
The data point that is high and to the right within the upper right quadrant is for a Sporcle Geography Tournament with Snacks! Live-Updating Scoreboard, and no Distracting Music. Sporcle is a trivia game that is downloadable as an app on your smart phone. The joke here is that this type of event is really fun for Randall, but not very fun for everyone else.<br />
<br />
In the bottom right quadrant (fun for everyone), are two party zones, one that is the Appropriate Zone for a Party and another that is the appropriate zone for a Birthday Party. The Party zone indicates that it is fun for Randall and guests, whereas the zone for the Birthday Party zone indicates that it Birthday Parties may have moments that are not as much fun for guests (but still in the bottom left quadrant), and times that are perhaps more fun (on average) for Randall.<br />
<br />
The joke is that for some reason, Randall keeps accidentally planning parties in the Top Right Quadrant (fun for him, not for guests).<br />
<br />
The title text makes mention of a comprehensive, and perhaps overly complicated, scoring system to determine who is the party's winner, which may be a reference to the Sprocle trivia game night that Randall has planned in the upper right quadrant.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}</div>172.69.34.82https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:2588:_Party_Quadrants&diff=227861Talk:2588: Party Quadrants2022-03-02T23:29:34Z<p>172.69.34.82: </p>
<hr />
<div>I added a first draft. I'm sure someone can make it better.</div>172.69.34.82https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2588:_Party_Quadrants&diff=2278602588: Party Quadrants2022-03-02T23:28:49Z<p>172.69.34.82: /* My first pass. I'm sure someone can make it better */</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 2588<br />
| date = March 2, 2022<br />
| title = Party Quadrants<br />
| image = party_quadrants.png<br />
| titletext = Single-elimination might provide more drama, but I think we can all agree that a comprehensive numerical scoring system will let us better judge the party's winner.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|Created by a BOT - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
In this comic there are four quadrants to allow the user to visualize the range of possibilities of fun from for the author of this comic (Randall) and for guests. The rows indicate a range of not fun to fun for guests(top to bottom), and the columns indicate a range of not fun to fun for Randall (left to right).<br />
<br />
The data point that is high and to the right within the upper right quadrant is for a Sporcle Geography Tournament with Snacks! Live-Updating Scoreboard, and no Distracting Music. Sporcle is a trivia game that is downloadable as an app on your smart phone. The joke here is that this type of event is really fun for Randall, but not very fun for everyone else.<br />
<br />
In the bottom right quadrant (fun for everyone), are two party zones, one that is the Appropriate Zone for a Party and another that is the appropriate zone for a Birthday Party. The Party zone indicates that it is fun for Randall and guests, whereas the zone for the Birthday Party zone indicates that it Birthday Parties may have moments that are not as much fun for guests (but still in the bottom left quadrant), and times that are perhaps more fun (on average) for Randall.<br />
<br />
The joke is that for some reason, Randall keeps accidentally planning parties in the Top Right Quadrant (fun for him, not for guests).<br />
<br />
The title text makes mention of a comprehensive, and perhaps overly complicated, scoring system to determine who is the party's winner, which may be a reference to the Sprocle trivia game night that Randall has planned in the upper right quadrant.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}</div>172.69.34.82https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2588:_Party_Quadrants&diff=2278592588: Party Quadrants2022-03-02T23:22:30Z<p>172.69.34.82: /* Explanation */ Getting explanation started.</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 2588<br />
| date = March 2, 2022<br />
| title = Party Quadrants<br />
| image = party_quadrants.png<br />
| titletext = Single-elimination might provide more drama, but I think we can all agree that a comprehensive numerical scoring system will let us better judge the party's winner.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|Created by a BOT - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
In this comic there are four quadrants to allow the user to visualize the range of possibilities of fun from for the author of this comic (Randall) and for others. The rows indicate a range of not fun to fun for others (top to bottom), and the columns indicate a range of not fun to fun for Randall (left to right).<br />
<br />
The data point that is high and to the right within the upper right quadrant is for a Sporcle Geography Tournament with Snacks! Live-Updating Scoreboard, and no Distracting Music. Sporcle is a trivia game that is downloadable as an app on your smart phone. The joke here is that this type of event is really fun for Randall, but not very fun for everyone else.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}</div>172.69.34.82https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:2579:_Tractor_Beam&diff=226900Talk:2579: Tractor Beam2022-02-11T17:27:06Z<p>172.69.34.82: cmt</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 />
This feels a lot like a SMBC outtake. (In a good way.) --[[Special:Contributions/172.70.110.147|172.70.110.147]] 20:42, 9 February 2022 (UTC)<br />
:This reads like a bash.org comment. (In a good way.) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.126.221|172.70.126.221]] 21:24, 9 February 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
So, if I were rising in a tractor-beam, I think there'd be clues as to the scope of the effects. Are my clothes hanging off me, floating round me or am I being upwardly cradled by them? Do I feel like I'm standing on something, hanging upside-down by my feet (from a topsy-turvey horizontal) or freefalling? What's my inner-ear telling me? Is the air around me rushing up, feels still (even though I'm moving vertically through it) or is it like I'm being raised up through it? Does the air feel like treacle, can I push against it, angle my arms to spin in the 'wind' like with indoor freefalling? Does any lateral wind still pass by as it did before the beam (small adjustments for being away from ground-effects, allowed for) or swirl oddly laterally or vertically? Is anything in the air (bat or smoke or rain or whatever dust I kicked up as I scrabbled for footing upon the first surprise of being tractored up) going up or down or neither, or revealing eddies? A bat, or anything else that flies, is going to have excess lift until any confusion (again with the inner-ear?) stops it from using its wings to counteract any non-existent 'weight' element, if applicable. If I hold one hand atop another (easier to experiment with, and switch over, than feet being below my torso, especially if I can't control attitude) do I feel a 'force shadow' where levity does not pass and/or gravity from below is no longer nullified/negated? Am I held as vertically (or similarly, perhaps can adopt a 'seated' poise) or am I unable to hold my attitude/able to change it? ...And loads more obvious things to potentially experience, depending upon how I deal with the first few tests and how quickly I can form less open-ended and more practical/emperical theories about what all I have started to learn means... [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.68|172.70.86.68]] 21:47, 9 February 2022 (UTC)<br />
:Hypothetically, Cueball might be being moved by forces similar to the one causing [https://www.bbc.com/news/56643677 this] - levitation would be an amazing thing to have --[[User:Char Latte49|Wielder of the Staple Gun]] ([[User talk:Char Latte49|talk]]) 01:28, 10 February 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Very interesting that Randall has been creating a string of comics on UFOs recently. Wonder if he knows something we don't? Jokes aside, it's interesting to see how his brain works, exclusively from a creative-output perspective. The string of UFO comics must be related to something that he experienced in his life recently. Similar to his cursed connectors run a few months ago: one can only wonder what weird, jerry-rigged solution he needed to some frustrating problem. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.110.245|172.70.110.245]] 01:47, 10 February 2022 (UTC)<br />
:There has been a lot about UFOs spotted by the US Airforce, I think? I still don't believe it's aliens... [https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/its-never-aliens-until-it-is/ It's never Aliens] ;-) I guess once he get's one idea for a specific comic, then this may easily spawn other ideas. So I'm not sure there are any particular reason he got the first idea, but that may explain the others that followed. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 08:00, 10 February 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Let's imagine that a bat between the UFO and Cueball creates a shielding effect from the tractor beam. Part of Cueball would feel the traction but others not. He could be torn apart! Poor Cueball.<br />
:If not the part of his body that is not attracted simply goes along with the actively pulled parts, like when you lift a baby in its armpits.<br />
:[[User:While False|While False]] ([[User talk:While False|talk]]) 12:27, 10 February 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
I feel like it is Randall, not Cueball, as it is "me" in the caption. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.187.232|162.158.187.232]] 12:54, 10 February 2022 (UTC)Bumpf<br />
<br />
<br />
What gets me is how Cueball will enter the hatch. If it's far enough 'into the drawing' to make it a person-sized hatch then the projective cone would shine an eliptical slice along the ground forelengthened far morenthan our viewpoint foreshortens it, so its major axis would be (on the image) vertical, not horizontal. For that ground-footprint, it's a smaller, closer craft. Still large, but the hatch is smaller than Cueball. Clearly, then, the tractor-beam is ''only'' used to raise the chosen subject off the ground, because (unlike the anti-gravity/levitation beam) the transporter-technology they actually use to ultimately bring a chosen subject into the ship itself ''cannot'' distinguish between a person and the ground they might be standing on. Risking either injurious impediments to the one being transported or tearing up some ground with them. (Leaving either foot-filled shoes or a 'divot' in the ground, to shock and/or excite those who discover the evidence of the abduction, and causing a mess for the aliens inside the vessel... either way.) This is clearly the only logical conclusion we can make. ;) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.159.125|162.158.159.125]] 13:51, 10 February 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
<br />
For me the first two questions are obviously linked to the tractor from the headline. Cueball is thinking about using the tractor beam of the UFO to plow a field. Thus he wants to know why the dirt is not being pulled up with him. I'm surprised this is not mentioned, so I might be totally wrong here. --[[Special:Contributions/172.70.246.109|172.70.246.109]] 11:50, 11 February 2022 (UTC)<br />
: Don't believe "tractor beam" has anything to do with a farming tractor. From Wikipedia, it says that "tractor beam" is short for "attractor beam". [[Special:Contributions/172.69.34.82|172.69.34.82]] 17:27, 11 February 2022 (UTC)</div>172.69.34.82https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Countdown_in_header_text&diff=224791Countdown in header text2022-01-19T02:33:01Z<p>172.69.34.82: /* Countdown */ time</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| date = January 10, 2022<br />
| title = Countdown in header text<br />
| image = Countdown_in_header_text.png<br />
| before = The countdown will probably last 21 days. After February 1st 2022 it is likely to have disappeared. See this [https://web.archive.org/web/20220110183238/https://xkcd.com/ 2022-01-10] archive version.<br />
| ldomain = www<br />
| lappend = <br />
| extra = yes<br />
}}<br />
*Go directly to the list of [[Countdown in header text/images|images]].<br />
{{TOC}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
*On January 10th 2022, [[Randall]] added a countdown in the top right corner of the [[xkcd Header text]] on {{xkcd}}.<br />
**This happened while the comic [[2565: Latency]] was up.<br />
***First the xkcd Header text was [[xkcd_Header_text#2022-01-08_-_Back_to_standard_text|changed back]] to the [[xkcd_Header_text#Header_text|standard text]] for the first time in almost three years:<br />
****xkcd updates every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. <br />
***But already while this Friday-comic was still up on the following Monday the [[xkcd_Header_text#2022-01-10_-_Standard_text_with_countdown|countdown]] was added.<br />
****This was thus up when the Monday comic [[2566: Decorative Constants]] was released, drawing more people to the xkcd page.<br />
*The first [[#Archived Versions|archived version]] from [https://web.archive.org/web/20220110183238/https://xkcd.com/ 2022-01-10] read 20d 20h 27m.<br />
**It looks like it started on [https://munvoseli.github.io/xkcd-countdown/ 01-10 17:00 UTC]. <br />
***At that time it would have read 20d 21h 59 min. Just two hours and 1 minute short of 3 weeks.<br />
*This countdown will reach zero on Monday 2022-01-31 at 14:59 (2:59 PM) {{w|UTC}}, or 9:59 AM in Boston, Randall's home town.<br />
**If seconds will be added towards the end, it seems likely that it may end exactly at 15:00 UTC (10:00 AM in Boston).<br />
***Though either way, it would fall on Monday 2022-01-31, and therefore the day comic 2575 should be released.<br />
*The next day on [https://web.archive.org/web/20220111153818/https://xkcd.com/ 2022-01-11] a diagonal black bar appeared in the lower left-hand corner of the countdown box and started to move further into the image on following changes to the [[#Images|image]].<br />
**This development called for the creation of this dedicated [[Countdown in header text]] page.<br />
**The line had already moved further into the image at this time, but the latest version will never be available in the web archive.<br />
***This development is reminiscent of the huge comic [[1190: Time]].<br />
*[https://munvoseli.github.io/ Munvoseli] is keeping [https://munvoseli.github.io/xkcd-countdown/ track of the changes] to the image on the countdown.<br />
**Although there are (at 2022-01-12 12:35 UTC) thirteen different frames we know of, the first three looks the same (because the diagonal bar was not in the frame yet) and the seventh and the eighth also seems to be the same, even though the bar had already begun moving across the frame from the fourth. This is either on purpose, a slipup or means that The Frame<sup>TM</sup> might not be zooming out of a larger image.<br />
***However, the images that look the same all have individual addresses on the xkcd server. See more under [[#Images|Images]] below.<br />
<br />
Randall has previously made a comic simply called [[1159: Countdown]]. However, in that the roles are reversed. There we know that the countdown is for (Super Volcano) but not if it will happen soon or very much later. Here we know when, and it is rather soon, but not what. <br />
<br />
==Images==<br />
*Images will be put on [[Countdown in header text/images|this separate page]].<br />
**The images can also be found [https://munvoseli.github.io/xkcd-countdown/ here] on munvoseli's page.<br />
***It is possible to compare two images, chosen between those released, on that page!<br />
***From 2022-01-14 it has also been possible to see an animation.<br />
**See more details at the top of the image page.<br />
*After a few days the black lines forming the image came into conflict with the clock, which has a rounded white frame around it. This can be seen in one of the earliest examples here:<br />
[[File:Countdown in header text Clock Cover Black Lines.png]]<br />
*Also at this time a new development happened after the "plane tail" moved forward it stopped on 2022-01-18 and started moving up (or zooming in). See for instance these two comparison from munvoseli's page showing the difference from the 8 pictures before today, and then after three out today:<br />
[[File:Countdown in header text Compare 40 to 48.png]] [[File:Countdown in header text Compare 48 to 51.png]]<br />
<br />
==Theories==<br />
*Here different theories for what the countdown is for and what the picture is going to reveal can be added.<br />
<br />
===The picture===<br />
* Ongoing description:<br />
** Frames 1-12: A diagonal line.<br />
** Frame 13: A curve seems to begin at the top left of the line. <br />
** Frame 18: The curve connects the diagonal line with a horizontal line.<br />
** Frame 27-28: A new line appears in the bottom left corner.<br />
** Frame 40-42: The new line turns out to be connected to the horizontal line, forming a corner which is not attached to any other line.<br />
** Frame 49: The "camera movement" direction changes, while the object is still moving upward it stopped moving towards the left side, moving towards the right instead. <!--is it zooming in? I don't know if I'm just imagining that. can someone measure the pixels or something? --[[User:256.256.256.256|256.256.256.256]] ([[User talk:256.256.256.256|talk]]) ~~~~~ --><br />
<br />
*Theories about the picture:<br />
**It seems after two days and 12 pictures like either something is moving into the frame or that it is a zoom out from a white area of a large picture. Maybe it is the arm of Cueball that will come into view.<br />
***That turned out not to be the case!<br />
**The second line makes it look somewhat like the tail fin of an aircraft.<br />
***Or the wing of an aircraft (left if looking down at it). Perhaps the plane is towing a banner that will fly through the frame. <br />
****I'm thinking the tail of a Zeppelin. <br />
****After almost a week this looks like the most promising suggestion so far. <br />
*****Now that the direction of the camera movement has changed, we might get to see the rest of the aircraft soon.<br />
****Also since the two lines remain the same distance, the “zooming out” theory seems to be dis-proven.<br />
**Maybe it is some kind of vehicle rolling into frame, like a car?<br />
***No<br />
**Or the word xkcd? (or xkcd 2?)<br />
***No<br />
**Could have been "Hangman", but it looks like it's zooming in on the diagonal instead of continuing to make a gibbet.<br />
***No<br />
**With the new second line appearing in the corner as of frame 28 it looks like it's definitely zooming out of an image. It looks like it could be someone's arm in a running position.<br />
***No<br />
**I think it could also be two legs of a reclining stick person.<br />
***No<br />
**The lines suggest a shark fin and the movement would suggest it swimming across the frame.<br />
***If it was a shark fin, then the most likely candidates would be the first dorsal fin and the pectoral fin, but both end in points rather than edges like in the pictures of the header puzzle. An aircraft tail fin still seems most likely.<br />
**Maybe it's a two-dimensional shape viewed from a weird angle? <br />
***Like a rectangle viewed from a floating, tilted perspective<br />
***Or the top of the k in xkcd<br />
***Or a boat dock or something?<br />
<br />
===Countdown===<br />
*Theories about the countdown:<br />
*Several have already been mentioned in the discussion:<br />
**Randall's next book, either the countdown is counting down to the start of promotion or it is released when the countdown ends.<br />
***Usually Randall has made month long [[:Category:Book promotion|book promotions]] before release. So if it is the release day it is a new way to do it. But he will get a lot of attention. If it is just the start of promoting it, people might get disappointed…<br />
****For instance he began promoting his [[xkcd_Header_text#2015-05-14_-_New_book_Thing_Explainer|new book Thing Explainer]] in the header text. That was in May 2015 and the book was first released [https://blog.xkcd.com/2015/05/13/new-book-thing-explainer/ late November 2015]. Most of this time the header text was promoting the book.<br />
**{{w|James Webb Space Telescope}} (JWST) going into orbit about L2 {{w|Lagrange point}}.<br />
***Randall has already made several comics about the telescope. The latest [[2564: Sunshield]] was released just five days prior to the countdown was started.<br />
***But the telescope will not reach the point but rather go into a large orbit around it, so a precise timer counting down to it seems a bit farfetched.<br />
***On NASA's page on JWST it seems like it will [https://www.jwst.nasa.gov/content/webbLaunch/deploymentExplorer.html#25 go into orbit] 29.5 days after its [[December 25th Launch]], on Christmas Day, so it should have already started the orbit by the 23rd or 24th of January - 8 days before the countdown.<br />
**{{w|Lunar New Year}}<br />
***In China it starts on February 1st and a [https://yourcountdown.to/chinese-new-year countdown for China] is 8 hours behind.<br />
****The South Korean time zone is UTC+9, hence 14:59 UTC = 23:59 in South Korea, one minute to Feb 1.<br />
*****But it's weird if Randall that has basically never mentioned this holiday suddenly makes a three week countdown for it, and why choose South Korea when most would think of China in this context…?<br />
**Randall will stop making xkcd (Goodbye in the image).<br />
***Hopefully not.<br />
****Agreed, {{tvtropes|PoisonOakEpilepticTrees|to be avoided}}<br />
**[https://nationaldaycalendar.com/backward-day-january-31/ National Backward Day]<br />
***This is not a day mentioned on Wikipedia at the time of release of the countdown, so seems unlikely.<br />
**Maybe it will be an announcement of xkcd 2, a new and improved version for… some reason?<br />
***Seems unlikely…<br />
**{{w|Black History Month}}. The {{w|Greensboro sit-ins}} started on Feb 1 1960. Black History Month also begins on February 1st, also in 2022.<br />
***But this countdown stops early on January 31st so seems unlikely. <br />
***However, before changing the Header recently it was about [[xkcd_Header_text#2020-06-03_-_Black_Lives_Matter|Black Lives Matter]] for more than 1.5 years, first ending on December 20th 2021, less than a month before the countdown began. In between that there was a short Christmas sale reminder until a week into 2022. So it could just be another way of reminding of us the issues faced by black people in the US.<br />
**The accompanying header says specifically "xkcd updates Monday, Wednesday, and Friday"--maybe the countdown is to the reveal of a new update schedule?<br />
***Very unlikely. This was the standard header for a long time. It was used when Randall had nothing better to say. But with all his books and the trouble in US with elections and BLM, he has used the header as a platform most of the time many years now. So the standard text is rare. But he did return it for two days before adding the count down, making it seem just like normal.<br />
***A guess is that it returned to this, so the header text did not take any focus away from the countdown.<br />
**Red spider attack?<br />
***Un-Likely<br />
**He will become a father - could be a planned C-section.<br />
***As this is unpredictable, and could go wrong, then this would be a dangerous countdown, people can be very superstitious, even if scientist.<br />
**As it currently looks (after a [[1070: Words for Small Sets|few days]] into the countdown) it may be a trip he is taking by plane. <br />
***Maybe going somewhere people could meet him.<br />
***Moving a long way from home (down under or the like).<br />
****Maybe he's moving to Japan? Could be a plane, and the time zone would fit, at least.<br />
*****Then the countdown would be until when the plane lands, not to midnight.<br />
****What has time zones to do with this clock? It counts down to the same time all over the world, and will reach zero at the same time no matter what time zone you are in. Will soon delete the above if no clear explanation of why this should matter is presented!<br />
*****Time zones have to do with where it will be midnight when the countdown reaches zero. If it's a countdown to when January ends (a moment before February begins), then it's until that moment in the time zone where the countdown reaches zero at that time.<br />
**Perhaps it's a start to a new series like time https://xkcd.com/1190/<br />
<br />
==Archived Versions==<br />
*Here is a list of the versions that has been saved to the web archive during the countdown.<br />
**The counter in that version is written behind the date of the web archive:<br />
#[https://web.archive.org/web/20220110183238/https://xkcd.com/ 2022-01-10] 20d 20h 27m<br />
#[https://web.archive.org/web/20220110214138/https://xkcd.com/ 2022-01-10] 20d 17h 18m<br />
#[https://web.archive.org/web/20220111011115/https://xkcd.com/ 2022-01-11] 20d 13h 48m<br />
#[https://web.archive.org/web/20220112005828/https://xkcd.com/ 2022-01-12] 19d 14h 1m<br />
#[https://web.archive.org/web/20220113044552/https://xkcd.com/ 2022-01-13] 18d 10h 14m<br />
#[https://web.archive.org/web/20220114010759/https://xkcd.com/ 2022-01-14] 17d 13h 51m<br />
#[https://web.archive.org/web/20220114195624/https://xkcd.com/ 2022-01-14] 16d 19h 3m<br />
#[https://web.archive.org/web/20220115052737/https://xkcd.com/ 2022-01-15] 16d 9h 32m<br />
#[https://web.archive.org/web/20220116074923/https://xkcd.com/ 2022-01-16] 15d 7h 10m<br />
#[https://web.archive.org/web/20220116225217/https://xkcd.com/ 2022-01-16] 14d 16h 7m<br />
#[https://web.archive.org/web/20220118050255/https://xkcd.com/ 2022-01-18] 13d 9h 57m<br />
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{{comic discussion}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:Meta]]</div>172.69.34.82https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:2460:_Vaccinated&diff=211711Talk:2460: Vaccinated2021-05-10T15:25:06Z<p>172.69.34.82: </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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Do you get to encounter a lot of fit Vaccination Stats Models if you go to a Vaccination Stats Pool-Party? Asking for a Vaccination Stats Friend! [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.106|141.101.98.106]] 23:35, 7 May 2021 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Possible reference to 2450. Though depends on what counts as a party. I'm anti-social enough that I being in a room of 2 would put me in a normal party-goer range [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.126|108.162.221.126]] 17:32, 9 May 2021 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Does anyone else see six and ¼ lines of grey vertical lines and black crossed (clapping) hands icons in the middle of the explanation? [[User:These Are Not The Comments You Are Looking For|These Are Not The Comments You Are Looking For]] ([[User talk:These Are Not The Comments You Are Looking For|talk]]) 04:35, 10 May 2021 (UTC)<br />
:Yes. Removed it. [[User:Herobrine|Herobrine]] ([[User talk:Herobrine|talk]]) 04:37, 10 May 2021 (UTC)<br />
<br />
> as they are unafraid of being infected by COVID or spreading COVID to others.<br />
Do we know this to be true yet? Or has there not been large enough of a sample set? Genuinely curious, as I'd like to have a large welcome-back house party with fully vaccinated people, but have no way to vet if the guests have outside contact with unvaccinated people. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.34.82|172.69.34.82]]</div>172.69.34.82https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2458:_Bubble_Wrap&diff=2114902458: Bubble Wrap2021-05-04T06:10:39Z<p>172.69.34.82: /* Explanation */ wlink</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 2458<br />
| date = May 3, 2021<br />
| title = Bubble Wrap<br />
| image = bubble_wrap.png<br />
| titletext = I think of myself as the David Attenborough of factory mailing equipment.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|Created by a DAVID ATTENBOROUGH OF FACTORY MAILING EQUIPMENT. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
{{w|Bubble wrap}} is packing material made by melting two sheets of plastic together with little pockets of air (the "bubbles") spread throughout the surface. It is wrapped around fragile items for moving or shipping because the air pockets act as a cushion if the item(s) within are struck or shook. Many people enjoy popping bubble wrap as a mindless hobby due to the sound each bubble makes as it bursts.<br />
<br />
The premise behind this comic is that the air inside each bubble comes from the factory where it was made, and thus as each bubble is popped that air - along with anything in it - is released. If one had a very sensitive sense of smell, one could detect unique odors present in the factory at the time not present where you are popping the bubble wrap. The comic has Cueball smelling {{w|WD-40}} (a lubricant likely to be found where machines are running), diesel fumes (likely found where trucks drop off supplies or pick up product) and what he thinks is sea air, causing him to muse that the factory is by the ocean.<br />
<br />
In reality, the air inside most factories is much like the air anywhere else. This is particularly true for modern factories which are much cleaner than the popular conception of a dirty, smelly factory from early in the days of industrialization. One would be unlikely to distinctly smell WD-40 or diesel fumes standing in such a factory unless it was right after or right near they were used. It would be even less likely to them smell them when the minuscule amounts of air in the bubbles was then diluted in the larger amount of air surrounding you when they are popped. Furthermore, although the comic suggests popping the bubbles gives one a "tour" of the factory, in fact all of the air added to the bubbles would only come from the machine where the wrap is made. It would be even less likely to pickup smells from other parts of the factory such as diesel fumes from the loading docks, since air is not added to bubble wrap there.<br />
<br />
Although this scenario is unlikely given human olfactory ability, scientists with very sensitive equipment have done essentially this with ice cores. As ice is laid down in places such as the Greenland or Antarctic ice sheets, it traps small bubbles from the atmosphere at the time within it. As long as the ice remains frozen, those bubbles remain trapped and do not interact with the current atmosphere, preserving a record of the chemical composition of the air in the past. There have been many scientific expeditions to drill ice cores and then melt pieces of them in a laboratory where special equipment can analyze the ancient air as it is released to study the quantity of oxygen and CO2 within in. The deeper the core is drilled, the farther in the past the sample.<br />
<br />
The title text references {{w|David Attenborough}}, who is famous for having narrated many influential documentaries for the BBC about life on earth. He is renowned for having brought science into the homes of tens of millions. The title text humorously suggests that Cueball's "narration" about what he smells in the bubble wrap is as important and distinguished as Attenborough's award winning work.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
:[Cueball is standing and holding bubble wrap.]<br />
:Cueball: Hmm...<br />
:Cueball: WD-40, diesel fumes...<br />
:Cueball: And is that sea air? I guess they're near the ocean.<br />
:Bubble wrap: ''POP''<br />
:[Caption below the panel:]<br />
:If your sense of smell is good enough, popping bubble wrap gives you a tour of a bubble wrap factory.<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]</div>172.69.34.82https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2458:_Bubble_Wrap&diff=2114892458: Bubble Wrap2021-05-04T06:09:25Z<p>172.69.34.82: Fixes</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 2458<br />
| date = May 3, 2021<br />
| title = Bubble Wrap<br />
| image = bubble_wrap.png<br />
| titletext = I think of myself as the David Attenborough of factory mailing equipment.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|Created by a DAVID ATTENBOROUGH OF FACTORY MAILING EQUIPMENT. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
Bubble wrap is packing material made by melting two sheets of plastic together with little pockets of air (the "bubbles") spread throughout the surface. It is wrapped around fragile items for moving or shipping because the air pockets act as a cushion if the item(s) within are struck or shook. Many people enjoy popping bubble wrap as a mindless hobby due to the sound each bubble makes as it bursts.<br />
<br />
The premise behind this comic is that the air inside each bubble comes from the factory where it was made, and thus as each bubble is popped that air - along with anything in it - is released. If one had a very sensitive sense of smell, one could detect unique odors present in the factory at the time not present where you are popping the bubble wrap. The comic has Cueball smelling WD-40 (a lubricant likely to be found where machines are running), diesel fumes (likely found where trucks drop off supplies or pick up product) and what he thinks is sea air, causing him to muse that the factory is by the ocean.<br />
<br />
In reality, the air inside most factories is much like the air anywhere else. This is particularly true for modern factories which are much cleaner than the popular conception of a dirty, smelly factory from early in the days of industrialization. One would be unlikely to distinctly smell WD-40 or diesel fumes standing in such a factory unless it was right after or right near they were used. It would be even less likely to them smell them when the minuscule amounts of air in the bubbles was then diluted in the larger amount of air surrounding you when they are popped. Furthermore, although the comic suggests popping the bubbles gives one a "tour" of the factory, in fact all of the air added to the bubbles would only come from the machine where the wrap is made. It would be even less likely to pickup smells from other parts of the factory such as diesel fumes from the loading docks, since air is not added to bubble wrap there.<br />
<br />
Although this scenario is unlikely given human olfactory ability, scientists with very sensitive equipment have done essentially this with ice cores. As ice is laid down in places such as the Greenland or Antarctic ice sheets, it traps small bubbles from the atmosphere at the time within it. As long as the ice remains frozen, those bubbles remain trapped and do not interact with the current atmosphere, preserving a record of the chemical composition of the air in the past. There have been many scientific expeditions to drill ice cores and then melt pieces of them in a laboratory where special equipment can analyze the ancient air as it is released to study the quantity of oxygen and CO2 within in. The deeper the core is drilled, the farther in the past the sample.<br />
<br />
The title text references David Attenborough, who is famous for having narrated many influential documentaries for the BBC about life on earth. He is renowned for having brought science into the homes of tens of millions. The title text humorously suggests that Cueball's "narration" about what he smells in the bubble wrap is as important and distinguished as Attenborough's award winning work.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
:[Cueball is standing and holding bubble wrap.]<br />
:Cueball: Hmm...<br />
:Cueball: WD-40, diesel fumes...<br />
:Cueball: And is that sea air? I guess they're near the ocean.<br />
:Bubble wrap: ''POP''<br />
:[Caption below the panel:]<br />
:If your sense of smell is good enough, popping bubble wrap gives you a tour of a bubble wrap factory.<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]</div>172.69.34.82https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2456:_Types_of_Scientific_Paper&diff=2112952456: Types of Scientific Paper2021-04-29T14:10:48Z<p>172.69.34.82: /* Table of papers */</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 2456<br />
| date = April 28, 2021<br />
| title = Types of Scientific Paper<br />
| image = types_of_scientific_paper.png<br />
| titletext = Others include "We've incrementally improved the estimate of this coefficient," "Maybe all these categories are wrong," and "We found a way to make student volunteers worse at tasks."<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|Created by a RESEARCH DEPARTMENT ON A LUNCHBREAK. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
In this comic, Randall describes categories of scientific papers with somewhat humorous generalized titles.<br />
<br />
==Table of papers==<br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
|+Breakdown of Papers<br />
|-<br />
!Paper Title<br />
!Explanation<br />
!Article Description<br />
|-<br />
!scope=row|We put a camera somewhere new<br />
|This may involve miniaturisation or other improvements of imaging sensors, power supply, transmission or retention of data, environmental hardening and (possibly) recovery afterwards. Photographs and videos can be especially helpful in understanding what is or was going on, especially for the layman, than more limited signal traces.<br />
<br />
Cameras have been inserted into ''every'' obvious bodily orifice (including swallowed, to be later excreted), placed in habitats to monitor wildlife, attached to wildlife to monitor habitats, sent into volcanic craters/ocean trenches/high altitudes/nuclear reactors, launched into space and sent past/round/onto several of the solar-system's more interesting bodies. This makes the "somewhere new" claim intriguing, possibly even comparable to 'clickbait'.<br/>This could also be generalized even more by replacing "camera" with "sensor", and then going to debate the newly derived sensor data.<br />
|Includes a large figure, likely an image captured with the camera.<br />
|-<br />
!scope=row|Hey, I found a trove of old records! They don't turn out to be particularly useful, but still, cool!<br />
|Rather than starting with the aim of investigating some question, and finding some way of answering it by uncovering evidence, sometimes a writer may have stumbled upon a cache of historic documents that they then feel compelled to justify the resulting 'WikiWalk' they may have found themselves sucked into. The author may be far more excited about this than any future reader. This could also be a paper by a historian who found out ancient records which could be useful.<br />
|Small figure may show the most interesting fragment of the records.<br />
|-<br />
!scope=row|My colleague is wrong and I can finally prove it<br />
|This title refers to the occasional rivalries between scientists within a field, which can push them to seek proof that they, and not their colleague, are correct. It reflects a tone of smug self-satisfaction.<br />
|<br />
|-<br />
!scope=row|The immune system is at it again<br />
|The human immune system is notoriously complex, and there are countless papers in medical fields just describing its strangeness. While it is best known for preventing and battling infections, in auto-immune disease, it can also turn against the body that it is supposed to protect. Moreover it can overreact, for instance in allergic reactions or in a potentially lethal {{w|cytokine storm}} known to occur in certain viral infections, including {{w|Influenza}} and {{w|COVID-19}}. The title may convey exasperation with the amorphous nature of their study subject. <br />
|<br />
|-<br />
!scope=row|We figured out how to make this exotic material, so email us if you need some<br />
|Researchers often attempt to create materials despite there not being any demand, predicting that in the future their material will be game-changing without any actual applications. These researchers have created such a material, and are offering to produce it for anyone who needs it. It is couched in terms of having created an answer for which there was not yet any proper question.<br />
|<br />
|-<br />
!scope=row|What are fish even doing down there<br />
|Deep sea marine biology regularly discovers [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7QXdlSBGGY strange lifeforms] in unexpected places, and theories explaining deep sea ecosystems are regularly confounded by new data.<br />
<br />
Scientists may also bump into marine organisms when looking for something else. For example, one planned underwater neutrino detector [https://www.nature.com/articles/srep44938 picked up bioluminescence instead].<br />
<br />
Whichever way, the title probably reflects a totally unexpected result that is possibly too cross-disciplinary to be properly comprehended as an actual scientific advance by the authors. However, a proper study of the species could very well be an important paper.<br />
|This paper does not appear to have any headers, implying a longer, free-flowing format.<br />
|-<br />
!scope=row|This task I had to do anyway turned out to be hard enough for its own paper<br />
|There is a huge variety in the complexity and importance of subjects studied in scientific papers, and often some supposedly easy task will be sufficiently complicated as to merit its own paper. For example, a scientist may have discovered a better way of finding out if a substance is X or Y while studying something else.<br />
<br />
The author may be glad to have been able to turn mundane 'housekeeping' activities, that don't normally do much to enhance academic reputations, into an actual opportunity to be cite-worthy.<br />
|<br />
|-<br />
!scope=row|Hey, at least we showed that this method can produce results! That's not nothing, right?<br />
|One of the struggles of the scientific method is that many experiments will not produce the results scientists desired or expected. Negative or conflicting results of well-conducted research are as important as positive or dramatic ones, but are often ignored in favor of more novel findings. As a result, some journals are established specifically for negative results, reducing the bias towards only positive claims that may actually be outliers or anomalies.<br />
<br />
In this case, the authors may otherwise have worked on their problem and been left with no citable proof of their efforts. The title perhaps reflects an attempt to present this as 'success' of a different kind, rather than a submission to such a null/negative-results platform. This may be similar to the above type of paper too.<br />
|<br />
|-<br />
!scope=row|Check out this weird thing one of us saw while out for a walk<br />
|This paper may be imagined as an opportunistic publication. A department or team has seen itself low down on the local 'league table' for academic output. A brainstorming session for a way of rectifying this led to desperately seizing upon the first idle comment made (in lieu of any better sounding ideas) that can somehow be shoehorned into their respective subject area, and is now being presented similar to "this one weird thing" clickbait titles that almost always oversell their content.<br />
<br />
This also works in the context of entomology. Insects have the most species of any class of animals [https://www.si.edu/spotlight/buginfo/bugnos by a wide margin], but due to their small size, they're not easily seen. As a result, new species are constantly being discovered in places as innocuous as [https://wildlife.org/video-entomologists-discover-30-new-species-in-la-backyards/ someone's backyard.]<br />
|Includes several large figures, likely close-up photographs of the weird thing. There are no headers, as the paper may have little background or methodology, just observations.<br />
|-<br />
!scope=row|We are 500 scientists and here's what we've been up to for the last 10 years<br />
| Some papers summarize the work of big research teams, like those working on the [https://repositorio.uc.cl/xmlui/bitstream/handle/11534/13948/Observation%20of%20a%20new%20particle%20in%20the%20search%20for%20the%20Standard%20Model%20Higgs%20boson%20with%20the%20ATLAS%20detector%20at%20the%20LHC.pdf Higgs Boson] (list of authors starts at page 17 and goes to page 26 with foot notes about authors to page 29, and a dedication in the header would suggest that more than one other contributor ''died'' over the course of the research, which would be rather unusual for a smaller project) or LIGO. Since the discoveries which are made are a team effort, probably outlasting many of the individual tenures involved, the papers have many authors listed.<br />
A credit for participation may not mean any particularly great contribution by each individual, but being left out (even for one summer's secondment, seven years before any results could be recorded) would be taken as a slight, and an opportunity missed to be 'citable' in the future.<br />
|A huge portion of the page is taken up by the presumably 500 authors' names, above the main horizontal bar.<br />
|-<br />
!scope=row|Some thoughts on how everyone else is bad at research<br />
|Similar to the "my colleague is wrong" paper, but in this case applied to far greater swathes of the community by the author(s) of this (possibly unfocussed) tract. Usually a "systematic review", the words 'some thoughts' might indicate a meta-approach with no original research - and possibly a passive-aggressive style of assessment.<br />
|No header sections, possibly because these particular thoughts are in the form of an essay or letter without an accompanying investigation.<br />
|-<br />
!scope=row|We scanned some undergraduates<br />
|Some initial research, especially that on a low budget, may recruit students at the same institution as easily available test-subjects. Quite often these are psychological or sociological studies, but can involve more medical (but non-invasive) 'scans', from simple eyeball-tracking to full-body MRI. The low-key approach to the title (concentrating blandly upon the method, compared to some of the more 'clickbait' titles above) may indicate that the results obtained are very trivial and no great developments were even made in implementation. Alternately, this is a truly ground-breaking paper obscured entirely by the lead author's over-narrow professional focus and avoidance of any hype.<br />
<br />
When misread as "scammed", this paper can also refer to numerous famous psychological studies done before the establishment of certain ethical rules, such as the Milgram experiment.<br />
|<br />
|-<br />
!scope=row|We've incrementally improved the estimate of this coefficient<br />
|Often scientific research, e.g. in cosmology or physics, will work with an assumed constant value that is known to be only an 'educated guess' of the actual definite value, or an inclusive range. However accurate/certain this is, further experimentation or observation may further narrow down the uncertainty involved to a statistically significant degree.<br />
<br />
Even if these improvements may seem trivial to those outside the discipline (e.g. narrowing down a seemingly esoteric value from 99.99% certainty to 99.995% certainty), they are probably understood as significant achievements by those aware of the effort needed to obtain such diminishing returns, and the authors are probably very excited to have done what they did.<br />
|rowspan="3"|(Only referenced in Title Text)<br />
|-<br />
!scope=row|Maybe all these categories are wrong<br />
|In some field that relies heavily upon classification (e.g. phylogenetic biology, or the Standard Model in physics) sometimes observations arise that cast doubt on the previously established ideas. It seems that this may have happened here, hopefully with a suggestion of how to reimagine the situation.<br />
<br />
The article may have been written with with a sense of euphoria (the chance to present a paradigm shift in thinking, to rewrite the textbooks) or pessimism (it demonstrates only the failings in current thinking, without any obvious solution).<br />
<br />
Alternatively, it may be a reference to the categories of papers that this comic proposes.<br />
|-<br />
!scope=row|We found a way to make student volunteers worse at tasks<br />
|Possibly a psychology experiment, and maybe not even the result expected. In general, the repetition of an activity will induce greater skill/capacity in a tested individual. By accident or design, the study group in this instance has induced the opposite correlation. (There ''are'', however, some studies that explicitly look at how e.g. lack of sleep reduces productivity.)<br />
<br />
Exactly what emotion the title reflects might depend upon whether the worsening was an intended result, or even how the team were able to refocuss and seize upon the adverse outcomes.<br />
|}<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
{{incomplete transcript|Could need description of each paper}}<br />
:[Heading:]<br />
:Types of Scientific Paper <br />
<br />
:[An array of 4 rows with 3 scientific papers each, is shown. The first page of each is shown, but only the papers titles are legible. Black lines for headings, several lines for paragraphs of text and white rectangles indicating figures are used to make each paper look different. Titles are as follows:]<br />
:We put a camera somewhere new<br />
:Hey, I found a trove of old records! They don't turn out to be particularly useful, but still, cool!<br />
:My colleague is wrong and I can finally prove it<br />
:The immune system is at it again<br />
:We figured out how to make this exotic material, so email us if you need some<br />
:What are fish even doing down there<br />
:This task I had to do anyway turned out to be hard enough for its own paper<br />
:Hey, at least we showed that this method can produce results! That's not nothing, right?<br />
:Check out this weird thing one of us saw while out for a walk<br />
:We are 500 scientists and here's what we've been up to for the last 10 years<br />
:Some thoughts on how everyone else is bad at research<br />
:We scanned some undergraduates<br />
<br />
==Trivia==<br />
*Originally, this comic's title text misspelled "volunteers" as "volunters". <br />
**This could have been intentional (''we'' might be the volunteers)<br />
**But it was not as it was quickly corrected.<br />
*Another comic, [[2012: Thorough Analysis]], similarly categorizes or mocks research papers.<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:Research Papers]]<br />
[[Category:Science]]</div>172.69.34.82