https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/api.php?action=feedcontributions&user=172.70.86.34&feedformat=atomexplain xkcd - User contributions [en]2024-03-28T21:12:36ZUser contributionsMediaWiki 1.30.0https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:2664:_Cloud_Swirls&diff=293558Talk:2664: Cloud Swirls2022-08-27T10:08:12Z<p>172.70.86.34: </p>
<hr />
<div><!--Please sign your posts with ~~~~ and don't delete this text. New comments should be added at the bottom.--><br />
3-D video games? HUH??[[Special:Contributions/172.70.131.126|172.70.131.126]] 09:33, 27 August 2022 (UTC)</div>172.70.86.34https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2086:_History_Department&diff=2935322086: History Department2022-08-27T00:01:42Z<p>172.70.86.34: </p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 2086<br />
| date = December 17, 2018<br />
| title = History Department<br />
| image = history_department.png<br />
| titletext = When we take into account the recent discovery of previously-unstudied history in the 1750s, this year may have been an outright loss.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
In this comic [[Ponytail]] is a representative of the history department, which might be a department of a university or other organisation. She presents the year report of 2018. In this, she explains, the department has fully analyzed over four months of history. In the meantime, due to the passage of time, another year of history has been added to their workload (implied to be the year spanning between the current meeting and the previous one). This presents a cycle in which the department would only be able to keep up if they could analyze, within a one year period, more than or exactly one year of history.<br />
<br />
A department in a business, such as the finance department, is typically required to keep up with their own workload and complete an entire year's worth of workload every year. A business that fails to manage this minimum would almost certainly fail: bills would not get collected, invoices would not get paid, employees would not get paid, etc. A history department fails to follow this model in two very important ways. First, the subject of history cannot be fully processed. New discoveries change what we know about certain time periods. Even current events cannot be fully processed, as future events will cause historians to see connections in things not previously thought to be connected. Second, the standard model for history departments focuses on specific eras or specific subjects for the purpose of explaining the events to students. History departments do not process years, but instead process the subject so that it stays relevant to the understanding of the current student body.<br />
<br />
There are, however, long running historical projects that have suffered this very problem. An example is the {{w|Histoire_littéraire_de_la_France| Histoire littéraire de la France}} which began publication in 1733 with a volume covering up to the year 300. By 1995 over 40 volumes had been published, but the historical account had only reached the 14th century. The volumes for the 14th century had taken 130 years to produce. Although over the 250 years of the project publication had been proceeding faster than time elapsed, the proliferation of literary content following the dawn of printing in the 15th century is likely to cause the project to slip further into reverse.<br />
<br />
The title text further expands this problem by indicating the discovery of a new era of history that had previously gone un-analyzed, which would have added more undiscovered history than it removed. The 1750s decade is possibly a reference to the {{w|Adoption_of_the_Gregorian_calendar#Great_Britain_and_its_colonies|adoption of the Gregorian Calendar by the British Empire}}. <br />
<br />
Randall previously mentioned that history is huge in [[1979: History]].<br />
<br />
Events in the dates listed:<br />
* November 1833: A Leonid meteor shower occurred in North America ({{w|Leonids#1800s}}); an 8.7 {{w|1833_Sumatra_earthquake| earthquake struck Sumatra}}.<br />
<br />
* April 19-22, 1979: April 20: {{w|Jimmy_Carter_rabbit_incident| President Jimmy Carter was attacked by a swamp rabbit}}. This was referenced directly in [[204: America]], so is most likely the reason this period has been included; April 22: the {{w|Albert Einstein Memorial}} was unveiled at The National Academy of Sciences in Washington, DC.<br />
<br />
* May 21-25, 585 BCE: Possibly a reference to the solar eclipse that actually happened May 28, 585 BCE, or to the war between King Alyattes of Lydia and King Cyaxares of Media that ended after said solar eclipse.<br />
<br />
* June-August 1848: <br />
:* June &ndash; The {{w|Serbians}} from {{w|Vojvodina}} start a rebellion against the Hungarian government. <br />
:* June 2&ndash;June 12 &ndash; The {{w|Prague Slavic Congress, 1848|Prague Slavic Congress}} brings together members of the {{w|Pan-Slavism}} movement.<br />
:* June 17 &ndash; The Austrian army bombards {{w|Prague}}, and crushes a working class revolt.<br />
:* June 21 &ndash; {{w|Wallachian Revolution of 1848}}: The {{w|Proclamation of Islaz}} is made public, and a {{w|Romanians|Romanian}} revolutionary government led by {{w|Ion Heliade Rădulescu}} and {{w|Christian Tell}} is created.<br />
:* June 22 &ndash; The French government dissolves the national workshops in Paris, giving the workers the choice of joining the army or going to workshops in the provinces. The following day, the {{w|June Days Uprising}} begin in response.<br />
:* July &ndash; The {{w|Public Health Act 1848|Public Health Act}} establishes {{w|Local board of health|Boards of Health}} across {{w|England and Wales}}. <br />
:* July 5 &ndash; The Hungarian national revolutionary parliament starts to work.<br />
:* July 19 &ndash; {{w|Women's rights}} &ndash; {{w|Seneca Falls Convention}}: The 2-day {{w|Women's Rights Convention}} opens in {{w|Seneca Falls, New York}} and "{{w|Bloomers (clothing)|Bloomers}}" are introduced at the {{w|feminism|feminist}} convention.<br />
:* July 26 &ndash; The {{w|Matale Rebellion}} breaks out, against {{w|British Ceylon|British rule}} in {{w|Sri Lanka}}.<br />
:* July 29 &ndash; {{w|Young Irelander Rebellion of 1848|Young Irelander Rebellion}}: A nationalist revolt in {{w|County Tipperary}}, against British rule, is put down by the {{w|Royal Irish Constabulary|Irish Constabulary}}.<br />
:* August 6 &ndash; {{w|HMS Daedalus (1826)|HMS ''Daedalus''}} reports a sighting of a sea serpent.<br />
:* August 14 &ndash; American President {{w|James K. Polk}} annexes the {{w|Oregon Country}}, and renames it the {{w|Oregon Territory}} as part of the United States. <br />
:* August 17 &ndash; {{w|Yucatán}} officially unites with Mexico.<br />
:* August 24 &ndash; The U.S. barque ''{{w|Ocean Monarch (barque)|Ocean Monarch}}'' is burnt out off the {{w|Great Orme}}, {{w|North Wales}}, with the loss of 178, chiefly emigrants.<br />
:* August 28 &ndash; Mathieu Luis becomes the first black member to join the {{w|French Parliament}}, as a representative of {{w|Guadeloupe}}.<br />
<br />
* May 16, 2001: The {{w|neo-noir}} mystery film {{w|Mullholland Drive (film)|Mulholland Drive}} premiered at the {{w|2001 Cannes Film Festival|2001}} {{w|Cannes Film Festival}}. In addition, the Timothy McVeigh execution was originally scheduled for this date.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:[Ponytail is standing behind a lectern holding a hand up indicating the presentation screen next to her with a list of time periods. The screen has a string ending in ring, attached to it, to pull it down.]<br />
:Ponytail: 2018 was a productive year for the history department - we were able to fully analyze over four months of history.<br />
:Ponytail: Unfortunately, over that same period, an entire year of new history was produced.<br />
:Ponytail: I'm afraid we're falling behind.<br />
<br />
:[Presentation:]<br />
:<u>Studied</u><br />
:November 1833<br />
:April 19-22, 1979<br />
:May 21-25, 585 BCE<br />
:June-August 1848<br />
:May 16, 2001<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]<br />
[[Category:Public speaking]]</div>172.70.86.34https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:2661:_Age_Milestone_Privileges&diff=293315Talk:2661: Age Milestone Privileges2022-08-23T08:16:08Z<p>172.70.86.34: </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 />
Who is God empress?{{unsigned ip|172.68.50.207|23:05, 19 August 2022}}<br />
:I reminds me of the God-empress of Missouri from an earlier comic about nested WWII speculation.{{unsigned ip|172.69.69.207|23:17, 19 August 2022}}<br />
::That's comic [[2149]], yeah. There's also "I Swear Allegiance To The God-Empress In Life And In Death" in comic [[1413]], a phrase that will suddenly be very familiar in the year 2038.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.111.46|172.70.111.46]] 03:28, 20 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
: The age to learn about Her Majesty, the God-empress is accurate, you kids will just think he's joking before you turn 45 and hear Her voice in your head.{{unsigned ip|162.158.62.167|23:56, 19 August 2022}}<br />
<br />
The age must be stored in a 7 bit number because it wraps back to zero when 128 is reached. - Brian K {{unsigned ip|172.70.174.159|23:52, 19 August 2022}}<br />
:''(Hey, you eager lot, you've all forgotten to (''properly'', if at all) sign your discussion contributions...)''<br />
:...if it were 8-bit signed, unchecked bitwise rollover could be awkward. Especially in 1's Compliment. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.5|172.70.85.5]] 00:23, 20 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Make sure the explanations you’re putting in the table are explanations, not reviews of the comic! I agree with the fact that the comic is “America-centric,” but things like that should be stripped of opinion before being put into the article. A better way to put that might be (before the table) “Since Randall lives in America, many of the entries in this comic are specific to the U.S.” [[User:Szeth Pancakes|Szeth Pancakes]] ([[User talk:Szeth Pancakes|talk]]) 01:39, 20 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Image has been updated, a new line item at age 50 for shingles vaccine. Whosoever knows how to fix the image on this site, please do so. [[User:Mrob27|Mrob27]] ([[User talk:Mrob27|talk]]) 05:24, 20 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:I think perhaps the 125 item was meant to be (17+21+35+50) but Randall got it wrong. [[User:Mrob27|Mrob27]] ([[User talk:Mrob27|talk]]) 05:51, 20 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
I think 118 means thereafter you get to vote 100 times in each election, not that you have voted 100 times ever. Not correcting the table yet, as I may be the only one who thinks this. [[User:Miamiclay|Miamiclay]] ([[User talk:Miamiclay|talk]]) 06:34, 20 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:I thought that, for what it's worth (there wasn't even a table when I first was here, though, and left everyone else to get on with it). If nobody else mentions it ('officially'), I may do so later. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.225|141.101.98.225]] 08:47, 20 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:I assumed a joke about getting to cast 100 votes in each subsequent election, but the explanation could be what he meant. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.146.73|172.71.146.73]] 09:05, 20 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:I agree it's much funnier, but I believe Randall would have thought to write "Vote 100 times per election". [[User:Mrob27|Mrob27]] ([[User talk:Mrob27|talk]]) 07:10, 22 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:On further thought, I realized that ''every'' other item in the list is a ''privilege'' gained at a particular age, rather than an accomplishment, so the alternative explanation makes no sense and should probably be deleted. If anyone agrees, feel free to do so. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.106.21|162.158.106.21]] 17:59, 22 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
I don't think it was deliberate, but I think a certain editor ended up globally deleting some words (without going back to check the Diffs: car, election, Senator, years) from the text when adding something new. Be careful. Easy to restore, and hopefully I did that even whilst retaining the legitimate-looking edit that coincided with that error, but seems like something I need to mention as having happened. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.79.173|172.69.79.173]] 20:31, 20 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
I suspect that the "age rolls over" idea came from the Wikipedia search excerpt using Duck Duck Go in Firefox (haven't checked anywhere else) - <br />
[https://ibb.co/grL7032 Screenshot] --[[User:Steve|Steve]] ([[User talk:Steve|talk]]) 02:10, 21 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
128 is also where the accumulated lives of Super Mario roll back over to zero. [[User:L-Space Traveler|L-Space Traveler]] ([[User talk:L-Space Traveler|talk]]) 00:59, 22 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
The Age 18 title is "buy alcohol" but the discussion is all about drinking alcohol. They are different things. [[User:Jgharston|Jgharston]] ([[User talk:Jgharston|talk]]) 11:24, 22 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
There's no particular reason why a God-Empress should have to be in power for life. They might serve a given term, or simply until they choose to hand over the title, and then retire to a life of retreat in their temple, or something. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.34|172.70.86.34]] 15:54, 22 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:Well, it could indeed be [https://www.darthsanddroids.net/episodes/0021.html something very like that...]. (Everyone less than 45 will have to continue to think this is just a joke, of course.) [[Special:Contributions/172.69.79.201|172.69.79.201]] 16:33, 22 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
I take it whoever wrote the skip captcha entry is barely out of short trousers if they think that over-52s are 'old' and 'move slowly'? I'd suggest Randall probably chose this age because it (roughly, and currently) aligns with the start of the Unix epoch - these are people 'born before computer time'. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.34|172.70.86.34]] 08:16, 23 August 2022 (UTC)</div>172.70.86.34https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:2661:_Age_Milestone_Privileges&diff=293264Talk:2661: Age Milestone Privileges2022-08-22T15:54:49Z<p>172.70.86.34: </p>
<hr />
<div><!--Please sign your posts with ~~~~ and don't delete this text. New comments should be added at the bottom.--><br />
Who is God empress?{{unsigned ip|172.68.50.207|23:05, 19 August 2022}}<br />
:I reminds me of the God-empress of Missouri from an earlier comic about nested WWII speculation.{{unsigned ip|172.69.69.207|23:17, 19 August 2022}}<br />
::That's comic [[2149]], yeah. There's also "I Swear Allegiance To The God-Empress In Life And In Death" in comic [[1413]], a phrase that will suddenly be very familiar in the year 2038.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.111.46|172.70.111.46]] 03:28, 20 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
: The age to learn about Her Majesty, the God-empress is accurate, you kids will just think he's joking before you turn 45 and hear Her voice in your head.{{unsigned ip|162.158.62.167|23:56, 19 August 2022}}<br />
<br />
The age must be stored in a 7 bit number because it wraps back to zero when 128 is reached. - Brian K {{unsigned ip|172.70.174.159|23:52, 19 August 2022}}<br />
:''(Hey, you eager lot, you've all forgotten to (''properly'', if at all) sign your discussion contributions...)''<br />
:...if it were 8-bit signed, unchecked bitwise rollover could be awkward. Especially in 1's Compliment. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.5|172.70.85.5]] 00:23, 20 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Make sure the explanations you’re putting in the table are explanations, not reviews of the comic! I agree with the fact that the comic is “America-centric,” but things like that should be stripped of opinion before being put into the article. A better way to put that might be (before the table) “Since Randall lives in America, many of the entries in this comic are specific to the U.S.” [[User:Szeth Pancakes|Szeth Pancakes]] ([[User talk:Szeth Pancakes|talk]]) 01:39, 20 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Image has been updated, a new line item at age 50 for shingles vaccine. Whosoever knows how to fix the image on this site, please do so. [[User:Mrob27|Mrob27]] ([[User talk:Mrob27|talk]]) 05:24, 20 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:I think perhaps the 125 item was meant to be (17+21+35+50) but Randall got it wrong. [[User:Mrob27|Mrob27]] ([[User talk:Mrob27|talk]]) 05:51, 20 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
I think 118 means thereafter you get to vote 100 times in each election, not that you have voted 100 times ever. Not correcting the table yet, as I may be the only one who thinks this. [[User:Miamiclay|Miamiclay]] ([[User talk:Miamiclay|talk]]) 06:34, 20 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:I thought that, for what it's worth (there wasn't even a table when I first was here, though, and left everyone else to get on with it). If nobody else mentions it ('officially'), I may do so later. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.225|141.101.98.225]] 08:47, 20 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:I assumed a joke about getting to cast 100 votes in each subsequent election, but the explanation could be what he meant. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.146.73|172.71.146.73]] 09:05, 20 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:I agree it's much funnier, but I believe Randall would have thought to write "Vote 100 times per election". [[User:Mrob27|Mrob27]] ([[User talk:Mrob27|talk]]) 07:10, 22 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
I don't think it was deliberate, but I think a certain editor ended up globally deleting some words (without going back to check the Diffs: car, election, Senator, years) from the text when adding something new. Be careful. Easy to restore, and hopefully I did that even whilst retaining the legitimate-looking edit that coincided with that error, but seems like something I need to mention as having happened. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.79.173|172.69.79.173]] 20:31, 20 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
I suspect that the "age rolls over" idea came from the Wikipedia search excerpt using Duck Duck Go in Firefox (haven't checked anywhere else) - <br />
[https://ibb.co/grL7032 Screenshot] --[[User:Steve|Steve]] ([[User talk:Steve|talk]]) 02:10, 21 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
128 is also where the accumulated lives of Super Mario roll back over to zero. [[User:L-Space Traveler|L-Space Traveler]] ([[User talk:L-Space Traveler|talk]]) 00:59, 22 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
The Age 18 title is "buy alcohol" but the discussion is all about drinking alcohol. They are different things. [[User:Jgharston|Jgharston]] ([[User talk:Jgharston|talk]]) 11:24, 22 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
There's no particular reason why a God-Empress should have to be in power for life. They might serve a given term, or simply until they choose to hand over the title, and then retire to a life of retreat in their temple, or something. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.34|172.70.86.34]] 15:54, 22 August 2022 (UTC)</div>172.70.86.34https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:2661:_Age_Milestone_Privileges&diff=293207Talk:2661: Age Milestone Privileges2022-08-20T08:49:05Z<p>172.70.86.34: </p>
<hr />
<div><!--Please sign your posts with ~~~~ and don't delete this text. New comments should be added at the bottom.--><br />
Who is God empress?{{unsigned ip|172.68.50.207|23:05, 19 August 2022}}<br />
:I reminds me of the God-empress of Missouri from an earlier comic about nested WWII speculation.{{unsigned ip|172.69.69.207|23:17, 19 August 2022}}<br />
::That's comic [[2149]], yeah. There's also "I Swear Allegiance To The God-Empress In Life And In Death" in comic [[1413]], a phrase that will suddenly be very familiar in the year 2038.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.111.46|172.70.111.46]] 03:28, 20 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
: The age to learn about Her Majesty, the God-empress is accurate, you kids will just think he's joking before you turn 45 and hear Her voice in your head.{{unsigned ip|162.158.62.167|23:56, 19 August 2022}}<br />
<br />
The age must be stored in a 7 bit number because it wraps back to zero when 128 is reached. - Brian K {{unsigned ip|172.70.174.159|23:52, 19 August 2022}}<br />
:''(Hey, you eager lot, you've all forgotten to (''properly'', if at all) sign your discussion contributions...)''<br />
:...if it were 8-bit signed, unchecked bitwise rollover could be awkward. Especially in 1's Compliment. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.5|172.70.85.5]] 00:23, 20 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Make sure the explanations you’re putting in the table are explanations, not reviews of the comic! I agree with the fact that the comic is “America-centric,” but things like that should be stripped of opinion before being put into the article. A better way to put that might be (before the table) “Since Randall lives in America, many of the entries in this comic are specific to the U.S.” [[User:Szeth Pancakes|Szeth Pancakes]] ([[User talk:Szeth Pancakes|talk]]) 01:39, 20 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Image has been updated, a new line item at age 50 for shingles vaccine. Whosoever knows how to fix the image on this site, please do so. [[User:Mrob27|Mrob27]] ([[User talk:Mrob27|talk]]) 05:24, 20 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:I think perhaps the 125 item was meant to be (17+21+35+50) but Randall got it wrong. [[User:Mrob27|Mrob27]] ([[User talk:Mrob27|talk]]) 05:51, 20 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
I think 118 means thereafter you get to vote 100 times in each election, not that you have voted 100 times ever. Not correcting the table yet, as I may be the only one who thinks this. [[User:Miamiclay|Miamiclay]] ([[User talk:Miamiclay|talk]]) 06:34, 20 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:I thought that, for what it's worth (there wasn't even a table when I first was here, though, and left everyone else to get on with it). If nobody else mentions it ('officially'), I may do so later. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.225|141.101.98.225]] 08:47, 20 August 2022 (UTC)</div>172.70.86.34https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2652:_Proxy_Variable&diff=2931952652: Proxy Variable2022-08-20T08:03:52Z<p>172.70.86.34: /* Explanation */ Because rewrite to actively "reducing loss" has a double-negative feeling. And such biomarkers can usually only be comparative against expectations/control.</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 2652<br />
| date = July 29, 2022<br />
| title = Proxy Variable <br />
| image = proxy_variable.png<br />
| titletext = Our work has produced great answers. Now someone just needs to figure out which questions they go with.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
__NOTOC__<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
In this comic, [[Hairy]] is discussing use of a proxy variable with [[Cueball]]. In statistics, a {{w|proxy variable}} is used as a stand-in for one or more other variables that are difficult to measure. In order to be useful as such, proxy variables must be correlated with what they are intended to represent. For example, a drug might aim to reduce deaths from a slow-acting disease. But testing if it reduces deaths might take many years, so researchers might test for a proxy outcome instead, like whether the drug appears to mitigate loss of bone density or cell-damage. Physicians use blood pressure as one of many proxies for cardiovascular health.<br />
<br />
Hairy is dismissing the question of whether they are studying the right variable as too expensive to answer. This is deeply ironic and thus satirical, because good {{w|experiment design}} requires sufficient attention to the robustness of all the involved parts of an experiment, even if the expense may be prohibitive. This comic might be referring to the recent discovery of [https://www.science.org/content/article/potential-fabrication-research-images-threatens-key-theory-alzheimers-disease nearly two decades] of allegedly fraudulent {{w|Alzheimer's disease}} research supporting a mistaken proxy hypothesis.<br />
<br />
Choosing the wrong proxy variable might make the research misleading, irrelevant, or as the title text suggests, answer the wrong question. Separating correlation from {{w|Causality|causation}} is necessary when interpreting proxy variable results to make sure the question they answer is known. Mere correlation instead of {{w|Causal analysis|authentic causation}} yields weaker results. {{w|Exploratory causal analysis}} can assist with finding useful proxy variables, but is difficult for the layperson to interpret and can be misleading, because even if performed correctly, a {{w|combinatorial explosion}} of possible proxy variables can make traditional {{w|statistical significance}} analysis fail, requiring {{w|F-score}}s or similar measures. The history of pharmaceutical research is largely a graveyard of failed proxy hypotheses; that is one of the reasons for [https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/manage-recs/fdaaa experiment registration regulations.]<br />
<br />
The title text's notion of having an answer without knowing the actual question could also be be a reference to the classic comedy science fiction novel {{w|The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy|The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy}}, where in one scene Earth turns out to be a supercomputer built for the purpose of figuring out the question for the answer "42."<br />
<br />
=== Examples of noteworthy proxy variables ===<br />
<br />
<!-- recap -->* Loss of bone density or damage to cells for toxicity <br />
* Blood pressure for cardiovascular health<br />
* Amyloid markers for Alzheimer's disease <br />
<br />
* Local temperature for global warming severity<br />
* GDP growth for development (demolishing a hospital adds to GDP but subtracts from development)<br />
* Money supply size for price inflation (see e.g. the {{w|paradox of thrift}})<br />
* {{W|Carbonic anhydrase}} expression for carbon sequestration<br />
* Asphalt production for carbon sequestration <br />
* Proportion renewable energy for carbon reduction (see {{w|Jevons paradox}})<br />
* Dialytic {{w|desalination}} for carbon sequestration[https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B73LgocyHQnfV1Q4VE45RmFFeFlPSDlKalctVS1nRlYyY3lR/view?usp=sharing&resourcekey=0-3YeR9jAkROsI0YLf4_07GQ][https://drive.google.com/file/d/14igVdhaIhrbHVTN5lI3XfxgNWPsvjNa7]<br />
* {{w|Bacillus thuringiensis israelensis}} application for mosquito abatement<br />
* Indoor carbon dioxide levels for air quality and ventilation<br />
<br />
==Transcript== <br />
:[Cueball is looking at Hairy who points a pointer to a poster. On the poster there is a line graph at the top and below that a candlestick chart. The line graph appears to show a time series with a question mark inside a ellipsoid at the end of the curve. The candlestick chart shows a box-and-whiskers plot comparing two variables. There is no readable text except the question mark. Hairy's stick points just below the line chart.]<br />
:Hairy: We want to study this variable, but it's too hard to observe.<br />
:Poster: ?<br />
<br />
:[In a slim panel only Hairy and the poster are shown. His pointer now points to the left variable in the box-and-whiskers plot,]<br />
:Hairy: So we're studying this proxy variable.<br />
:Poster: ?<br />
<br />
:[Back to Cueball and Hairy with the poster out of frame. Hairy holds the pointer down by his side.]<br />
:Cueball: Is it correlated with the other variable?<br />
:Hairy: Look, we don't have the funding to answer every little question.<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]<br />
[[Category:Science]]<br />
[[Category:Line graphs]]<br />
[[Category:Charts]]<br />
[[Category:Scientific research]]</div>172.70.86.34https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1354:_Heartbleed_Explanation&diff=2930681354: Heartbleed Explanation2022-08-18T08:44:00Z<p>172.70.86.34: /* Transcript */ Presuming "and a pen" avoids confusion with a laptop-type "notebook" (considered "notepad", but similar concerns, and given 'notepad'+stylus use is a thing it might be even more of a confusion)</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 1354<br />
| date = April 11, 2014<br />
| title = Heartbleed Explanation<br />
| image = heartbleed_explanation.png<br />
| titletext = Are you still there, server? It's me, Margaret.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
The {{w|Heartbleed bug}} has received a lot of news coverage recently and was also the topic of the previous comic [[1353: Heartbleed]]. This comic explains how the bug may have been discovered and can be exploited to reveal a server's memory contents. <br />
<br />
A [[Megan]]-like character named Margaret (or "Meg") sends heartbeat requests to the server, the server responds to the heartbeat request by returning the contents of the body of the request up to the number of letters requested. The first two requests are well formed, requesting exactly the number of characters in the request body. The server's memory is showing Meg's request with many other requests going on at the same time.<br />
<br />
Meg then ponders this and tries to another request asking for "HAT" but requests that it be 500 letters long instead of only 3; the server —not checking it or simply unaware that 500 letters is larger than the request body— returns "HAT" plus 497 letters that happened to be next to the word "HAT" in its memory (more will follow than are shown in the server's speak bubble as there are only 251 letters/symbols in the shown reply). Included are many sensitive bits of information, including a master key and user passwords. One of the passwords shown is "CoHoBaSt", a reference to [[936: Password Strength]], which suggests using "<u>co</u>rrect <u>ho</u>rse <u>ba</u>ttery <u>st</u>aple" as a password.<br />
<br />
Often popular explanations of security bugs require the issue to be simplified a lot and to leave out a lot of details. In this case [[Randall]] didn't have to do much simplifying; the bug is actually that simple. Also, it should be noted that any client which can connect to the server typically can exploit this bug in the underlying {{w|OpenSSL}} software — the use of the term "User Meg" does not imply that Meg had to authenticate first.<br />
<br />
Although Randall shows Meg recording the data by hand, on paper, it is more likely that a person exploiting the bug would have a computer record the data, perhaps on its hard drive or on a flash drive.<br />
<br />
The title text is a reference to ''{{w|Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret.}}'', a novel by {{w|Judy Blume}}, and plays off of the "server, are you still there?" line in every panel where she did start a request. The novel is the theme of another comic [[1544: Margaret]] too. ''Meg'' can be a nickname for ''Margaret'' as well as ''[[Megan]]'' who Margaret resembles.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:[Caption above the panels:]<br />
:'''How the Heartbleed Bug works:'''<br />
<br />
:[Meg, a girl with more curly hair than Megan, stands to the left in a panel. At the center of the panel is a black and gray server with red and green diode lights showing. During all six panels the server stays the same. Meg is standing with her arms down in four panels. It will be noted when she does not. Meg talks to the server. The server "thinks" all the time, i.e. we see its memory in all panels. The top and bottom line is breaking the edge of the thought bubble making it difficult to discern. In every second panel it replies to Meg. In these panels the number of letters requested by Meg is highlighted with yellow color.]<br />
<br />
:[Meg speaks, server thinks:]<br />
:Meg: Server, are you still there? If so, reply "POTATO" (6 letters).<br />
:Server thinking: <tt>wants pages about "boats". User Erica requests secure connection using key "4538538374224" '''User Meg wants these 6 letters: POTATO.''' User Ada wants pages about "irl games". Unlocking secure records with master key 5130985733435. Maggie (chrome user) sends this message: "Hi</tt><br />
<br />
:[Server thinks, the same as above, although cut a little different at the edges, with POTATO highlighted in yellow and it replies the highlighted part in a rectangular speak bubble.]<br />
:Server thinking: <tt>wants pages about "boats". User Erica requests secure connection using key "4538538374224" '''User Meg wants these 6 letters: POTATO.''' User Ada wants pages about "irl games". Unlocking secure records with master key 5130985733435. Maggie (chrome user) sends this message: "Hi</tt><br />
:Server: <tt>POTATO</tt><br />
<br />
:[Meg speaks, server thinks:]<br />
:Meg: Server, are you still there? If so, reply "BIRD" (4 letters).<br />
:Server thinking: <tt>User Olivia from London wants pages about "man bees in car why". Note: Files for IP 375.381.283.17 are in /tmp/files-3843. '''User Meg wants these 4 letters: BIRD.''' There are currently 348 connections open. User Brendan uploaded the file selfie.jpg (contents: 834ba962e2ceb9ff89bd3bff8c</tt>...<br />
<br />
:[Server thinks, the same as above, although cut a little different at the edges, with BIRD highlighted in yellow and it replies the highlighted part in a rectangular speak bubble. Meg has taken her hand to her chin thinking:]<br />
<br />
:Server thinking: <tt>User Olivia from London wants pages about "man bees in car why". Note: Files for IP 375.381.283.17 are in /tmp/files-3843. '''User Meg wants these 4 letters: BIRD.''' There are currently 348 connections open. User Brendan uploaded the file selfie.jpg (contents: 834ba962e2ceb9ff89bd3bff8c</tt>...<br />
:Server: <tt>BIRD</tt><br />
:Meg: ''Hmm...''<br />
<br />
:[Meg has taken her hand down again and speaks, server thinks, now with her line at the top:]<br />
<br />
:Meg: Server, are you still there? If so, reply "HAT" (500 letters).<br />
:Server memory: <tt>a connection. Jake requested pictures of deer. '''User Meg wants these 500 letters: HAT.''' Lucas requests the "missed connections" page. Eve (administrator) wants to set server's master key to "14835038534". Isabel wants pages about "snakes but not too long". User Karen wants to change account password to "CoHoBaSt". User</tt><br />
<br />
:[Server thinks, the same as above, although cut a little different at the edges, with everything from (and including) "HAT" highlighted in yellow and it replies the highlighted part and even more in a rectangular speech bubble. Meg has taken a notebook and a pen and is writing something.:]<br />
<br />
:Server memory: <tt>a connection. Jake requested pictures of deer. '''User Meg wants these 500 letters: HAT.''' Lucas requests the "missed connections" page. Eve (administrator) wants to set server's master key to "14835038534". Isabel wants pages about "snakes but not too long". User Karen wants to change account password to "CoHoBaSt". User</tt><br />
:Server: <tt>HAT. Lucas requests the "missed connections" page. Eve (administrator) wants to set server's key to "14835038534". Isabel wants pages about "snakes but not too long". User Karen wants to change account password to "CoHoBaSt". User Amber requests pages</tt><br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:Comics with color]]<br />
[[Category:Computers]]</div>172.70.86.34https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:2639:_Periodic_Table_Changes&diff=292962Talk:2639: Periodic Table Changes2022-08-16T19:38:19Z<p>172.70.86.34: </p>
<hr />
<div><!--Please sign your posts with ~~~~ and don't delete this text. New comments should be added at the bottom.--><br />
<br />
The format of this comic appears most similar to https://xkcd.com/1902/. Is it worth noting that, in some representations of the periodic table (see https://ptable.com/#Electrons), Helium is indeed placed in the second column next to Hydrogen? [[User:Dextrous Fred|Dextrous Fred]] ([[User talk:Dextrous Fred|talk]]) 21:54, 29 June 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Nice. I'm doing the old "what elements have been obscured/overwritten" thing, after far too long since actually memorising the Periodic Table that was on my school's lab wall... But, hey! Where has Hahnium got to? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.77|172.70.162.77]] 22:25, 29 June 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
I wonder why he kept the Latinate abbreviations for Antimony and Mercury. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 23:17, 29 June 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
The changes by Asdf seem like they mostly belong in the Transcript, not Explanation.<br />
:I moved some of my lengthy descriptions from Explanation to Transcript, hopefully this helps. Sorry if I caused inconvenience. -[[User:Asdf|Asdf]] ([[User talk:Asdf|talk]]) 00:00, 30 June 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Laaaaame! Not revolutionary enough! Why not simply get rid of all these historical accidents and indicate any element by its nuclear charge? [[Special:Contributions/172.71.102.117|172.71.102.117]] 07:05, 30 June 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Anyone else find it ironic that the new kinds of carbon are indexed with Roman numerals on the same comic where it says "this isn't Ancient Rome"? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.38.27|162.158.38.27]] 07:18, 30 June 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
For the language nerds among us, "I" for iron wouldn't work at all well in Dutch. Although the element is typewritten "ijzer", the first two characters are treated as a single letter and are capitalised together (IJzer). It's pronounced EI and is listed in the Dutch alphabet alongside (or sometimes even instead of) Y.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.233.55|162.158.233.55]] 08:37, 30 June 2022 (UTC)<br />
:Clearly there isn't much consideration given to any other language than English. The "annoying W" is for Wolfram or something close in many languages, "Na" is Natrium, "K" is Kalium - frankly, Mr. Munroe just uses the wrong language. Then again, "Fe" really is annoying, of course it should be "Ei" for Eisen ... [[User:627235|627235]] ([[User talk:627235|talk]]) 11:32, 30 June 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
This feels more like a parallel to corporate reorganisations that are based on idealised concepts of how an organisation 'should' work than on the practicalities of what people actually do, than it does to economic plans. Particularly with the reference to training elements to adapt to their new positions. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.173|172.70.90.173]] 10:47, 30 June 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
For the language bit he somehow missed Mercury (Hg: Hydrargyrum). [[User:Thaledison|Erin Anne]] ([[User talk:Thaledison|talk]]) 15:21, 30 June 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
He also missed Cu. Since copper is more familiar than cobalt, except for certain classes of scientist, it gets Co and cobalt gets Cb. Which will never get confused with niobium, will it? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.175.30|172.70.175.30]] 21:28, 30 June 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
The title may also mean "Periodic" tables changes, i.e. the table changes every few months. That's what I understood at first glance. [[User:Lamty101|Lamty101]] ([[User talk:Lamty101|talk]]) 15:01, 1 July 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
=== Table galore ===<br />
Can we please get back to a less table-ceneterd style? Tables are a neat tool to order various data. "Text" and "Explanation" are not in that category. That's what (section)headlines are for. Or do you write your articles/homework/thesis/whatever in Excel (or equivalent)? I know people who LOVE to use excel for text work, so that's not that unheared of, but there's a general rule: Use the right tool for the right job. Tables are not the right tool for "Text" and "Explanation". /edit: And such wide tables are generally bad to view/handle in mobile [[User:Elektrizikekswerk|Elektrizikekswerk]] ([[User talk:Elektrizikekswerk|talk]]) 08:22, 1 July 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
:I do not edit the Wiki frequently, though I noticed that the style of the comic matched that of https://xkcd.com/1902/ so I changed the style of the explanation to match that as well. I will note that in my personal opinion, I prefer a table for explanations which cover multiple individual parts of a comic, though someone who is much more experienced than me can feel free to revert the edit, I apologize if I missed a convention rule on the wiki page. A side note: While you may be correct that a table is the wrong way to contain data, the purpose of the wiki in my opinion is not to organize and collect information, it is to present it to readers. I believe that the table accurately breaks down the comic into each comment from Randall. However, I have edited very few wikis, and I could be 100% wrong. I just thought I would explain the reasoning behind adding a table, such that any other user could understand its purpose. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.246.32|108.162.246.32]] 17:19, 1 July 2022 (UTC)<br />
:: Don't worry, it's fine - there is no written or unwritten rule (that I am aware of) that you might have broken. I just think that tables are the wrong tool for that specific task (i.e. as you said it: Present information to readers) in this specific case, which by the way would in my opinion also apply to 1902. There are cases where a table is absolutely fine and desirable. This is just not such a case :) [[User:Elektrizikekswerk|Elektrizikekswerk]] ([[User talk:Elektrizikekswerk|talk]]) 09:41, 4 July 2022 (UTC)<br />
:::I see where you're coming from, but many of the annotations here are just far too much text for a section header, or even a dictionary list. The table is the only way to go here, even if I might prefer a dictionary list (line prefixes ';' and ':' in wikitext) for [[1902]]. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.214.81|172.70.214.81]] 12:15, 11 July 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
As long as we can all agree on the spellings. I propose that we all use the spelling "aluminum" but as a compromise adopt "platinium" [[Special:Contributions/108.162.237.75|108.162.237.75]] 14:34, 1 July 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
For "Ty, Dh and Jk", I wonder if it's no coincidence that the first and last are common online abbreviations ("Thank you" and "Joke", the former last used by Randall in the result of the Turtle Instructions, from memory)... Not sure about Dh (I'm not a cool hip cat that's down with all the rad kids, daddyo, etc, etc...) but if someone else knows that's something then might be worth an official mention? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.62|172.70.91.62]] 12:12, 5 July 2022 (UTC)<br />
:Just to nitpick the above comment of 5 July, JK is an initialism of Just Kidding, that said joking and kidding are synonyms so it works out the same<br />
[[Special:Contributions/162.158.62.195|162.158.62.195]] 15:35, 16 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
::As that 5/Jul editor, I thank you. Probably worked it out (wrongly, but equivalently) purely from context a long time ago, and then read it as that automatically ever since, having no reason to overturn it.<br />
::(And I'll have used it myself... Hmmm, I wonder if I've tried to say "Joke!" but actually said "Just Kidding!" in a context where the difference is vital. I mean, it's not so much like you hear about people misunderstanding LOL as "Lots Of Love" and then texting something like "Your grandpa passed peacefully last week, we'll let you know more about the funeral arrangements when we know. LOL" - but there's always a chance..!)<br />
::Anyhoo, consider me corrected. ;) If you're not wrong yourself... (Lots Of Love!) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.34|172.70.86.34]] 19:38, 16 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
'''Abortion spam'''<br />
<br />
Is there any way to stop the abortion spam? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.178.47|172.70.178.47]] 18:03, 1 July 2022 (UTC)<br />
:I had a look, and see nothing (in the last few hours) that is this... But the answer is that a lot of spam is being prevented from happening (see the User Creation Log for all the accounts created that then don't do anything) and those that do happen get quickly reverted by us, the editors. There's not much more that can be done (and still have a workable wiki), But I know the current admins aren't idle, either, so maybe of there's a tweak or two that could be done, it may yet be. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.34.71|162.158.34.71]] 19:35, 1 July 2022 (UTC)</div>172.70.86.34https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2659:_Unreliable_Connection&diff=2928922659: Unreliable Connection2022-08-16T01:44:44Z<p>172.70.86.34: /* Transcript */ Misrembered the image during the re-edit process.</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 2659<br />
| date = August 15, 2022<br />
| title = Unreliable Connection<br />
| image = unreliable_connection.png<br />
| titletext = NEGATIVE REVIEWS MENTION: Unreliable internet. POSITIVE REVIEWS MENTION: Unreliable internet.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|Created by ROUND TRIP LATENCY BACKOFF. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
<br />
In this comic, [[Randall]] solves the social problem of demands for {{w|synchronous conferencing|synchronous teleconferencing}} with a deliberately less than optimal internet device that causes {{w|Asynchronous communication|asynchronous}} methods of communication to be relatively more reliable and efficient for personal use. The device appears to be an automated version of a {{w|Galton board}} or {{w|Jin Akiyama}}'s mathematical {{w|pachinko}} machine[https://arxiv.org/pdf/1601.05706.pdf] with a series of eleven "on" and one "off" switches at the bottom to be pressed by falling balls. This is funny because such a device could likely much more easily be implemented in the {{w|firmware}} of the internet or WiFi {{w|modem}} or {{w|Router (computing)|router}}s. (See [[1785: Wifi]] for an explanation of firmware.) It's not clear whether the switches merely interrupt the connection momentarily or control power to the modem, which would involve a much longer booting sequence.<br />
<br />
Assuming the machine is symmetric (and ordinary [https://drops.dagstuhl.de/opus/volltexte/2018/8817/pdf/LIPIcs-FUN-2018-26.pdf]), the probability of a single ball hitting the "off" switch is 165/2048, or about 8%. We don't know the frequency with which new balls are dropped, so we can't estimate the frequency with which the device is likely to trigger {{w|Session Initiation Protocol}}, {{w|Transmission Control Protocol}}, or similar {{w|Timeout (computing)|timeout}} conditions that would likely close synchronous {{w|VOIP}}, video conferencing, and e.g. {{w|VRChat}} connections. Even if such connections were to survive the induced service interruptions, the {{w|application layer}} call or teleconference quality would suffer during them. The device may cause interruptions rarely enough that the connection is usable for casual purposes, but the user can still reasonably claim that it's unreliable to get out of online obligations.<br />
<br />
The title text reflects on today's increasingly always-connected world, where emphasis may be changing from finding vacation spots that have reliable internet to finding somewhere worthwhile to go that still doesn't have it. It could also be a comment on the mild paradox that a nominally unreliable internet connection has advantages for those whose communication schedules, volume, or style preferences make synchronous teleconferencing less practical, as indicated by the reviews for the new vacation spot.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
<br />
:[There are twelve switches under an automated Galton board or pachinko machine, eleven of which are linked to a large item marked "on" but the eighth of which is linked to one marked "off", apparently controlling the operation of a modem connected to a gigabit data-cable and also connected onwards to a WiFi router. There is a supply of balls in a hopper above the board, with the triangular configuration of pins directing the balls chaotically to one or other of the switches.]<br />
<br />
:Caption: My new vacation spot has very fast internet that turns off randomly every now and then, just so you can tell people you'll be staying somewhere without a reliable connection.<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
[[Category:Internet]]</div>172.70.86.34https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2659:_Unreliable_Connection&diff=2928762659: Unreliable Connection2022-08-16T00:47:04Z<p>172.70.86.34: /* Explanation */</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 2659<br />
| date = August 15, 2022<br />
| title = Unreliable Connection<br />
| image = unreliable_connection.png<br />
| titletext = NEGATIVE REVIEWS MENTION: Unreliable internet. POSITIVE REVIEWS MENTION: Unreliable internet.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|Created by ROUND TRIP LATENCY BACKOFF. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
<br />
In this comic, [[Randall]] solves the social problem of demands for {{w|synchronous conferencing|synchronous teleconferencing}} with a deliberately less than optimal internet device that causes {{w|Asynchronous communication|asynchronous}} methods of communication to be relatively more reliable and efficient for personal use. The device appears to be an automated version of a {{w|Galton board}} or {{w|Jin Akiyama}}'s mathematical {{w|pachinko}} machine[https://arxiv.org/pdf/1601.05706.pdf] with a series of eleven "on" and one "off" switches at the bottom to be pressed by falling balls. This is funny because such a device could likely much more easily be implemented in the {{w|firmware}} of the internet or WiFi {{w|modem}} or {{w|Router (computing)|router}}s. It's not clear whether the switches merely interrupt the connection momentarily or control power to the modem, which would involve a much longer booting sequence.<br />
<br />
Assuming the machine is symmetric, the probability of a single ball hitting the "off" switch is 165/2048, or about 8%.<br />
We don't know the frequency with which new balls are dropped, so we can't estimate the frequency with which the device is likely to trigger {{w|Session Initiation Protocol}}, {{w|Transmission Control Protocol}}, or similar {{w|Timeout (computing)|timeout}} conditions that would likely close synchronous {{w|VOIP}}, video conferencing, and e.g. {{w|VRChat}} connections. Even if such connections were to survive the induced service interruptions, the {{w|application layer}} call or teleconference quality would suffer during them. The device may cause interruptions rarely enough that the connection is usable for casual purposes, but the user can still reasonably claim that it's unreliable to get out of online obligations.<br />
<br />
The title text reflects on the mild paradox that a nominally unreliable internet connection has advantages for those whose communication schedules, volume, or style preferences make synchronous teleconferencing less practical, as indicated by the reviews for the new vacation spot. It may also be a sign that, in today's increasingly always-connected world, the emphasis has changed from finding the rare exotic vacation spots that also had internet access to gaining 'tourist-cred' by finding somewhere worthwhile to go that still ''doesn't'' have it.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
<br />
:[A gigabit fiber connection is shown leading to an internet modem with twelve switches under a mechanical pachinko machine, eleven of which are marked "on" but the eighth of which is marked "off." The modem is also connected to a WiFi router.]<br />
<br />
:Caption: My new vacation spot has very fast internet that turns off randomly every now and then, just so you can tell people you'll be staying somewhere without a reliable connection.<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}</div>172.70.86.34https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:2657:_Complex_Vowels&diff=292632Talk:2657: Complex Vowels2022-08-12T11:36:09Z<p>172.70.86.34: </p>
<hr />
<div><!--Please sign your posts with ~~~~ and don't delete this text. New comments should be added at the bottom.--><br />
Spoken symbol bears resemblance to 🜏, https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%F0%9F%9C%8F<br />
:Not really, it's closer to 'əG.' [[Special:Contributions/172.69.33.25|172.69.33.25]] 01:15, 11 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
::Looks like ꬱ to me. Plus some diacritics sprinkled over it, of course. It does look ''similar'' to 🜏 when you include the zalgo. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.98.99|172.71.98.99]] 06:53, 11 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
sscchhwwaa is easy, say it like the x in "fire" and the silent p in "bath"[[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.13|172.70.85.13]] 21:42, 10 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:What? There is no 'x' in "fire." [[Special:Contributions/172.69.33.25|172.69.33.25]] 01:17, 11 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Ideas: bellows-, reed-, and lucite-based voiced phone production tracts typical in science museums; {{w|diphone}}s as an alternative to phomemes (a diphone is the second half of one phoneme followed by the first half of the next -- NOT two adjacent phomemes as the Wikipedia article claims. Two adjacent phomemes are a biphone, not a diphone); the relationship of the position of the tongue in two dimensional place &times; closedeness space to the fundamental and second {{w|formant}} frequencies of speech audio; {{w|diphthong}}s; {{w|Mel-frequency cepstrum|cepstral}} representation such as {{w|MFCC|mel-frequency ceptstral coefficients}}; and {{w|Zalgo text}} IPA. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.206.213|172.70.206.213]] 22:41, 10 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
: Roger. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.33.149|172.69.33.149]] 03:25, 11 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
The vowelspace is depicted in two dimensions for convenience, but it has at least three dimensions. Look at the IPA vowel diagram (already added to this page). The third dimension is roundedness.<br />
:Yes, of the lips; apart from the two dimensions (out: place, and up: closedeness) of the tongue. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.206.95|172.70.206.95]] 22:59, 10 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
::Does roundedness also involve the tongue and cheeks to any extent? [[Special:Contributions/172.69.33.199|172.69.33.199]] 23:36, 10 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:I wonder if Randall is doing this similarly to the way physicists present space-time diagrams with only 2 dimensions of space. We can visualize 3 dimensions using projections on 2-dimensional images, but it's hard to visualize 4 dimensions. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 15:18, 11 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
::If you can't visualize 4-D, play tennis. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.34.58|172.69.34.58]] 03:15, 12 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
This linguist character has appeared 3 times now. Will there be a new character page dedicated to Gretchen or "The Linguist"? [[Special:Contributions/172.69.33.225|172.69.33.225]] 00:21, 11 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:I second this motion. I think it would make more sense to have a generic character called "the Linguist" since, as the explanation for 2381 points out, not every linguist in xkcd is necessarily Gretchen. Plus, it seems like with this comic he's varied the artistic style, with the hair looking slightly less frizzy. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.248.143|172.69.248.143]] 22:15, 11 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Can someone please create and paste in a zalgostring for the fancy 'əG' ligature shown twice in the comic? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.211.134|172.70.211.134]] 01:10, 11 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:Is this another example of Randall trolling Explainxkcd as in [[2619: Crêpe]]? [[Special:Contributions/172.69.33.37|172.69.33.37]] 01:45, 11 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Someone please remind me how to Zalgo a top horizontal bar over √-1. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.211.134|172.70.211.134]] 02:34, 11 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
: Slow way = Windows Character Map --> Group by: unicode subrange... Group By: Combining Diacritical Marks. 6th character from the top left (U+0305:Overline) yields √-̅1̅.<br />
:Fast way = HTML character entities, ''{character it combines with}&#{character number code};'' (773:Overline) yields √-&#773;1&#773;<br />
:Ignore other codes as they are either non-combining or have height relative to combining character (ie Macron) -- [[Special:Contributions/172.69.70.201|172.69.70.201]] 04:35, 11 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
::Are you sure? Those aren't wide enough to connect along the top for me. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.34.10|172.69.34.10]] 07:57, 11 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
::[same person as previous above] looks great now, let me check innthe browser that it had issues in.... [[Special:Contributions/172.70.214.45|172.70.214.45]] 02:24, 12 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:::[different person...] It's never looked Ok for me, on multiple browsers and platforms it always rendered as two separate overstrikes, and even the first does not connect to the √ bit. As an extended root-overstrike is more useful for visually bracketting ambiguities, like the central bit in "(-b±√(b²-4ac))/(2a)" I consider it superfluous for what would be "√(-1)" but cannot be "√(-).1". Nice try, though.<br />
:::Related, I've exchanged "<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub>" for ½. On this device it looks similar (slanted numerator/denominator bar and still an offset, unlike the drawn comic which is vertically aligned), but it might look better or even direct over-under with the correct font rendered into. And, like the former, probably ''read'' better as screen-readers process the Transcript for the visually impaired.<br />
:::If it weren't for that latter point, I'd take the idea used in [[2614]] for the in-Explanation <table style="display: inline-table; line-height: 0.6em; vertical-align: middle; font-size:7pt; text-size-adjust: none;"><tr><td>2</td></tr><tr><td>2</td></tr></table> (<code><nowiki><table style="display: inline-table; line-height: 0.6em; vertical-align: middle; font-size:7pt; text-size-adjust: none;"><tr><td>2</td></tr><tr><td>2</td></tr></table></nowiki></code>) and put it as: <table style="display: inline-table; line-height: 0.6em; vertical-align: middle; font-size:7pt; text-size-adjust: none;"><tr><td><u>1</u></td></tr><tr><td>2</td></tr></table> [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.221|172.70.85.221]] 10:41, 12 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
I don’t think what Randall is trying to do is provide a “roundness” dimension, but that’s how the explanation reads to me right now (“such” a dimension, e.g.) [[User:Szeth Pancakes|Szeth Pancakes]] ([[User talk:Szeth Pancakes|talk]]) 05:13, 11 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
: Agreed - rearranged it a bit to deal with the real-life dimensions first, then be more explicit that the proposal is to add to the existing dimensions in a way analogous to how imaginary numbers expand the domain of real numbers. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.128|172.70.91.128]] 08:19, 11 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Being an Englishman of a certain age, I had a panic flash back to the ITA. [[User:Arachrah|Arachrah]] ([[User talk:Arachrah|talk]]) 12:55, 11 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:What was wrong with the Independant Television Authority?<br />
:(Seriously, though, the Initial Teaching Alphabet was very bad... It insisted that "book" had a different vowel in it to "up", contrary to everyone's experience, including the teacher who tried to use it. - Ironically, though, when a few years later we were in 'big school' and being taught our first French lesson we got confused by being told at the very start that the words "''un''" and "''une''" (written on the board) were the equivalent to the English word "uh" (spoken)... Uh? What's "uh"?... "You know, as in 'uh book', 'uh table', 'uh chair'...") [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.13|172.70.85.13]] 14:37, 11 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
::I'm curious how you pronounce them if they *aren't* different vowels: is it uhp and b'uhk (^p and b^k in IPA), the Near-close near-back rounded vowel (not sure how to describe it or get the upside down omega to render, or something entirely different? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.131.126|172.70.131.126]] 21:57, 11 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:::Quite possibly, but I'm never entirely confident that I have the right impression of what a given IPA means, from my particular regional accent as a baseline. Definitely the same (excepting the phonemic ending each of "-uck/-upp" and the presence or not of another initial element).<br />
:::A good comparative linguist could probably name the various zones (encompassed by various isogloss lines) where this is true. And, by actually hearing me, perhaps narrow down the one from which I actually hail, quite accurately. At least one set of my grandparents always said "book" (or "look") more like the longer "ew" than "uh", and they were pretty much always local to another town just 10-15 miles away from the one of my own birth/upbringing (don't remember much of the other grandparents, but they were also from a village more in the other area than my own, but making an almost equilateral triangle on the map). Traces of this kind of 'elsewhere' accent from my parents probably did make me stand out a little bit from my "nth generation local" peers. But still up≈book applies.<br />
:::If I had a cat, by now it would be staring up at me, wondering why I've been saying "up book book up look whup uck luck suck tuck muck Krup ... (etc)" to myself, trying to detect any changes and all similarities. While imaging myself in various social situations that demand broader or more RPified pronunciations... ;) ((Plus trying to calculate my exact tongue-placement/etc.)) [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.242|141.101.99.242]] 23:09, 11 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:Blast from the past! I remember ITA from when I was in elementary school on Long Island in the 60's. In my later years I frequently confused this with IPA. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 15:18, 11 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Not sure what the text "There is one unique such function and the new mathematics is consistent." - in current version, with similarly bad historic variations - is supposed to mean. The point of sqrt(-1) is that it never had a valid result on the Real number-line, and only by imagining a non-real dimension can you start to work with such a number (alone or in combination with real values) with a consistency that allows even nth-roots and exponentiation. The "unique (...) function" bit sounds strange. And note that -1 does ''not'' have a single unique root (which I can't help feeling is what is trying to be said, still)... its two roots are i and -i, for much the same reason that sqrt(1)=±1. But maybe the statement I'm wondering about is written under some branch of functional number-theory that I'm not familiar with, so could the relevent editor(s) please do it in a way that won't so confuse/trouble me or mislead others? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.80|172.70.91.80]] 22:03, 11 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:Done. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.34.58|172.69.34.58]] 23:09, 11 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Since when does a completely generic orthogonal projection from 2- to 3-D invoke the Gell-Mann quark model? Unicode needs a glyph to tell physicists to settle down. Removed: "The multi-plane scheme of the comic seems inspired by the representation of the Gell-Mann quark model used in particle physics (you can see one on page 4 of the [https://pdg.lbl.gov/2022/reviews/rpp2022-rev-quark-model.pdf Particle Data Group quark model review])." [[Special:Contributions/172.70.211.88|172.70.211.88]] 02:02, 12 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Reminds me of ''[https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/54431070-battle-of-the-linguist-mages Battle of the Linguist Mages]'' - Punctuation marks are alien invaders from another dimension, and magic consists of pronouncing "power morphemes" (assuming learning them doesn't drive you mad, first). --[[User:Bobson|Bobson]] ([[User talk:Bobson|talk]]) 02:43, 12 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
The symbol reminds me of the {{w|Mandelbrot Set}} but turned on its side. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.93.43|172.70.93.43]] 07:17, 12 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
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Not sure about ''the most common vowel sound in English polysyllabic words (the 'a' in "comma" or the second 'e' in "letter.")'' - those are pronounced completely differently (unless perhaps you are from the south of England and pronounce 'letter' as 'lettah'). [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.147|172.70.162.147]] 07:32, 12 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
: I would pronounce them 'commuh' and 'lettuh', with a very short 'uh', which would fit with it being the most common vowel sound, given people say 'uh?' quite a lot. Although that's about as unpolysyllabic as you could get. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.80|172.70.91.80]] 09:02, 12 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:: Again, probably multiple isoglosses apply. I'm an "uh"-common person from the North and recognise "ah"-common accents as (certain bits of) the South, but it's possible that "lettah"<->"lettuh" and "commah"<->"commuh" transition at different boundaries across/around/through the Midlands, thus confusing many people. I think RP goes more "commah" and "lettuh(r)". Checking Wiktionary, though, IPA is given as /ˈkɒm.ə/ (UK, otherwise unspecified) and /ˈlɛtə(ɹ)/ (RP), but there's not much info on direct comparisons between, say, East London/East Midlands/East Yorkshire/East Anglia/East Kilbride/Dwyran... [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.34|172.70.86.34]] 11:36, 12 August 2022 (UTC)</div>172.70.86.34https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:119:_Worst_Band_Name_Ever&diff=291775Talk:119: Worst Band Name Ever2022-08-02T15:16:37Z<p>172.70.86.34: Someone didn't realise they hadn't signed...</p>
<hr />
<div>What about hitchslapper? '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|purple|David}}<font color=green size=3px>y</font></u><font color=indigo size=4px>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 11:01, 8 March 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
What indicates there is no audience? "...the name 'Hedgeclipper' as the reason why the band has no audience..." I read it as the other members or a promoter/manager decided on a band name for a battle-of-the-bands, open mic, or other venue with multiple acts, and told the announcer, but an audience might still be there. [[User:Tryc|Tryc]] ([[User talk:Tryc|talk]]) 13:04, 14 June 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
The thing is that, if they end up being any good, then whatever their name it'll be forever associated with a successful band. I mean ''The B''ea''tles'' is such a kitsh name, right? What on Earth is ''U2'' supposed to mean (to anyone not familiar with the plane type, or the various other vehicles and objects given that name), and what made it "the name that they disliked the least"? ''Arctic Monkeys''? Silly name. ''The Who''? Who? (And surely more grammatically ''The Whom''!) Are ''The Beach Boys'' lifeguards? Isn't ''Blondie'' just what we call that fair-haired lass in the office? And you can forget right now about ''The Buzzcocks'' and ''The Sex Pistols'', I think you just wandered into the wrong store... [[Special:Contributions/178.98.31.27|178.98.31.27]] 05:06, 23 June 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Do you not realise that "U2" sounds like "you too" or maybe "you two"? XD{{unsigned ip|172.69.79.171|12:00, 2 August 2022}}</div>172.70.86.34https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=214:_The_Problem_with_Wikipedia&diff=291651214: The Problem with Wikipedia2022-08-02T02:20:39Z<p>172.70.86.34: Undo revision 291650 by RonnyMerkleIsHere (talk) Never heard of him(/you?), and search gives deleted Wiki pages, so maybe a hoax persona. If true, try giving links that justify.</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 214<br />
| date = January 24, 2007<br />
| title = The Problem with Wikipedia<br />
| image = the_problem_with_wikipedia.png<br />
| titletext = 'Taft in a wet t-shirt contest' is the key image here.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
This {{w|Comics|comic}} {{w|Illustration|illustrates}} the {{w|Problem|"problems"}} of {{w|information explosion}} coupled with a {{w|Density|dense}} {{w|World_Wide_Web|web}} of {{w|hypertext}} {{w|Hyperlink|links}}. Through most of human history, written media has been both slow and linear. Hypertext allows a new type of information consumption, through small chunks of information linked together in a web of related concepts, and by being digital, each new chunk can be retrieved quickly and effortlessly. Wikipedia applies this principle very strongly, and because it covers so many topics, it is common for a reader to skim an article about a topic they need or want to know about, and end up following a series of links out of curiosity. Since each new page also has several links, the overall navigation pattern resembles a tree that branches out, "exploding" in size with each new level of link-clicking, thus resulting in many wasted hours (over three in this case) of reading stuff unrelated to the original goal, and lots of open browser tabs holding a wide variety of articles, which are seemingly unrelated, but have common "ancestors." (The problem, for [[Randall]], of wasting time on Wikipedia was later referenced in the title text of [[1501: Mysteries]], and the more general problem of getting trapped following a never-ending chain of interesting links was covered in [[609: Tab Explosion]].) The large diversity in end links may also be a reference to {{w|Wikipedia:Wiki Game|the Wikipedia game}}.<br />
<br />
One can also see this effect occur in other {{w|MediaWiki}}-powered wikis such as this very website, where one comic can lead to another of similar relation or category. In the [[#Table|table]] below, a possible route for each entry has been found.<br />
<br />
Finding routes between the start and end points of the two pages above and the six below makes good challenges in {{w|Wikipedia:Wiki Game|the Wikipedia game}}.<br />
<br />
The title text refers to two of the articles that were supposedly reached at the bottom. {{w|William Howard Taft}} was the 27th President of the U.S., in office from 1909 to 1913, who was notorious for being so overweight that when a White House chief usher [https://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2013/02/06/fact-or-fiction-taft-got-stuck-in-a-tub/ invented a story about him getting stuck in the White House bathtub], people took it seriously. A {{w|wet T-shirt contest}} ''is an {{w|Exhibitionism|exhibitionistic}} competition typically featuring young women contestants at a nightclub, bar, or resort.'' Clearly the combination of these two would be rather bizarre.<br />
<br />
There is an online game that involves trying to get from one Wikipedia page to another in the shortest possible route: http://thewikigame.com/.<br />
<br />
;Table of paths<br />
Due to the ever changing nature of Wikipedia, the {{w|Tacoma Narrows Bridge}} entry on Wikipedia no longer links to [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Structural_collapse&redirect=no Structural collapse], requiring an intermediate step via {{w|Tacoma Narrows Bridge (1940)}}, and since {{w|Structural collapse}} now redirects to {{w|Structural integrity and failure}}, most pages on Wikipedia that linked to Structural collapse have been changed to rename this link.<br />
<br />
The table below lists one valid route for each destination article, though it is not necessarily the most efficient route. ''And that these routes may become invalid as articles are edited.'' They all have been updated on March 21, 2015. All links then could be found directly on the page. This was not the case in the original version of the paths, where some links were in hidden parts of the page.<br />
<br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
!Target<br />
!Wikipath <br />
|-<br />
|{{w|William Howard Taft}}<br />
|{{w|Tacoma Narrows Bridge}} > {{w|Suspension bridge}} > {{w|George Washington Bridge}} > {{w|Washington Heights, Manhattan}} > {{w|George Washington}} > {{w|President of the United States}} > {{w|William Howard Taft}}<br />
|-<br />
|{{w|24-hour analog dial}}<br />
|{{w|Tacoma Narrows Bridge}} > {{w|Suspension bridge}} > {{w|Steel rope}} (now redirecting to ''Wire rope'') > {{w|Steel}} > {{w|Watch}} > {{w|24-hour analog dial}}<br />
|-<br />
|{{w|Lesbianism in erotica}}<br />
|{{w|Tacoma Narrows Bridge}} > {{w|Suspension bridge}} > {{w|Fausto Veranzio}} > {{w|Zagreb}} > {{w|Animation}} > {{w|Anime}} > {{w|Hentai}} > {{w|Cartoon pornography}} > {{w|Pornography}} > {{w|Lesbianism in erotica}}<br />
|-<br />
|{{w|Fatal hilarity}} via {{w|Batman}}<br />
|{{w|Tacoma Narrows Bridge}} > {{w|Suspension Bridge}} > {{w|New York City}} > {{w|Washington Irving}} > {{w|Batman}} > {{w|Batman (1989 film)}} (this extra link now needed to go to the final page) > {{w|Fatal hilarity}} (this page now redirects to ''Death from laughter''. On the previous page the link to that page is called ''die laughing'')<br />
|-<br />
|{{w|Taylor Hanson}}<br />
|{{w|Tacoma Narrows Bridge}} > {{w|Tacoma Narrows Bridge (1940)}} (this extra link now needed to go to the next page) > {{w|Structural collapse}} (this page now redirects to ''Structural integrity and failure'' and is also called this on the previous page) > {{w|Burj Khalifa}} > {{w|Chicago}} > {{w|Baseball}} > {{w|Baseball rules}} > {{w|Hit by pitch}} > {{w|Homer Simpson}} > {{w|Namesake}} > {{w|Taylor Hanson}}<br />
|-<br />
|{{w|Wet T-Shirt Contest}} via {{w|T-Shirt}} and {{w|Cotton}}<br />
|{{w|Tacoma Narrows Bridge}} > {{w|Tacoma Narrows Bridge (1940)}} (this extra link now needed to go to the next page) > {{w|Structural collapse}} (this page now redirects to ''Structural integrity and failure'' and is also called this on the previous page) > {{w|Maharashtra}} > {{w|Cotton}} > {{w|T-Shirt}} > {{w|Wet T-Shirt Contest}}<br />
|}<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:[Heading above the chart:]<br />
:The PROBLEM with WIKIPEDIA:<br />
<br />
:[Text in a frame below the heading:]<br />
:Tacoma Narrows Bridge<br />
<br />
:[Lines lead down both left and right to two new frames with the following entries:] <br />
:Suspension bridge <br />
:Structural collapse<br />
<br />
:[Two more lines lead down from the left frame and one from the right frame, and all lines end on a wiggling line from left to right. Below this wiggled line in square brackets it reads:]<br />
:Three hours of fascinated clicking<br />
<br />
:[Further below there is a similar wiggling line, from where six lines lead to new frames below:]<br />
:William Howard Taft<br />
:24-hour analog dial<br />
:Lesbianism in erotica<br />
:[This frame is followed by a second:]<br />
:Batman; Fatal hilarity<br />
:Taylor Hanson<br />
:[This frame is followed by a chain of two others:]<br />
:Cotton; T-Shirt; Wet T-shirt contest<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
[[Category:Wikipedia]]<br />
[[Category:Flowcharts]]</div>172.70.86.34https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Category:Cursed_Connectors&diff=291085Category:Cursed Connectors2022-07-29T09:56:56Z<p>172.70.86.34: Better position of "though". Then possibly ruining it again with the "(explicitly)" aside. ;)</p>
<hr />
<div>This series of "cursed" connectors began with "Cursed Connectors #187", [[2493: Dual USB-C]], in July 2021. The second installment was released two comics later with "Cursed Connectors #65": [[2495: Universal Seat Belt]]. This was eventually followed three weeks later by "Cursed Connectors #102": [[2503: Memo Spike Connector]].<br />
<br />
[[Randall]] had already made a similar series, [[:Category:Bad Map Projections|Bad Map Projections]], which also uses a similar number system, with the first comic already beginning with a high number for the first bad projection, #107. Similar to this series, the second projection has a lower number than the first (#79).<br />
<br />
However, these connectors are not real connectors. What is meant by "cursed" is uncertain; likely, though, they are "cursed" due to not being functional. Presumably the use of the term takes inspiration from the widespread meme referring to "cursed images" and the [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/cursed-image like] A jab at all the different connectors in existence, and how they often break down, maybe because people try to jam them into the wrong sockets because they have so many different types.<br />
<br />
See also [[2651: Air Gap]] for a similar type of comic with a special connection... though this one is not (explicitly) cursed.<br />
<br />
The connectors get a number which, if taken seriously, would mean there are at least 280 cursed connectors {{w|German_tank_problem|but probably more}}. So far they have the following numbers (listed in number order rather than release order).<br />
:<nowiki>#65</nowiki>: [[2495: Universal Seat Belt|Universal Seat Belt]]<br />
:<nowiki>#78</nowiki>: [[2589: Outlet Denier|Outlet Denier]]<br />
:<nowiki>#102</nowiki>: [[2503: Memo Spike Connector|Memo Spike Connector]]<br />
:<nowiki>#120</nowiki>: [[2642: Meta-Alternating Current|Meta-Alternating Current]]<br />
:<nowiki>#187</nowiki>: [[2493: Dual USB-C|Dual USB-C]]<br />
:<nowiki>#280</nowiki>: [[2507: USV-C|USV-C]]<br />
<br />
This may give promise of several more comics with cursed connectors.<br />
<br />
[[Category:Comic series]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring cursed items]]</div>172.70.86.34https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:2643:_Cosmologist_Gift&diff=291084Talk:2643: Cosmologist Gift2022-07-29T09:49:37Z<p>172.70.86.34: Close-quote</p>
<hr />
<div><!--Please sign your posts with ~~~~ and don't delete this text. New comments should be added at the bottom.--><br />
- The explanation mentions “Eight zeptograms” although Randall’s box says “4 zeptograms of dark matter.”<br />
<br />
- The 4,800 daltons in the explanation is roughly the size of a small protein; for example, insulin is about 5,800 daltons.<br />
<br />
- Randall’s box says it contains 4 zeptograms of dark matter. Could someone explain this? My incomplete (biologist’s) understanding of dark matter is that astrophysicists do not yet know what it is. So how could Randall claim the box contains 4 zeptograms of it?<br />
<br />
Thanks!<br />
<br />
:Fixed; thank you. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.210.125|172.70.210.125]] 01:18, 9 July 2022 (UTC)<br />
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:Since no one has detected ANY dark matter, you can claim any amount is in the box. [[User:SDSpivey|SDSpivey]] ([[User talk:SDSpivey|talk]]) 23:31, 11 July 2022 (UTC)<br />
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[https://arxiv.org/abs/2204.09143 Here's] a more recent PBH DM source than those already cited which could comport with Randall's 0.4% DM particles implication, but doesn't do so explicitly. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.206.213|172.70.206.213]] 02:35, 9 July 2022 (UTC)<br />
:With the math corrected per 162.158.134.89 below, the figure is 34% ubiquitous particles. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.211.36|172.70.211.36]] 09:44, 9 July 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
And this comic was the perfect birthday gift for me. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.245.203|108.162.245.203]] 02:42, 9 July 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
* How was the 23,000 neutrinos/m³ figure obtained? A flux of 7e10/(s·cm²), or 7e14/(s·m²), at a speed of close to 3e8 m/s, gives 2.3e6/m³. That would correspond to a box size of about 0.013 m³, or a bit larger than a typical shoe box. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.134.89|162.158.134.89]] 07:19, 9 July 2022 (UTC)<br />
::Corrected. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.211.52|172.70.211.52]] 09:40, 9 July 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
To note {and I've summarised in an edit) that photons from the Sun can have been travelling for 100,000 years from its core to space, before their 8ish minute trip to the box (assuming you let them in, e.g. leave the lid off, or filter out all but the hard X-rays/etc), whilst neutrinos hardly notice so are 8 or 9 minutes old (before being adjusted for time dilation) regardless. And you can still put as much lead-lined wrapping paper on your present as you want, to keep it a surprise! [[Special:Contributions/172.69.79.211|172.69.79.211]] 14:45, 9 July 2022 (UTC)<br />
:I saw your very interesting source was from 1997 and mostly about neutrino cycles -- which surprisingly match the menstrual cycle better than the orbit of the moon does -- but not mostly about energy migration out of the sun. It looks like the sun actually has multiple layers that engage in different forms of energy transformation. I added a link to the radiative zone (where gamma rays spend 171 thousand years colliding with matter, getting longer wavelength at each collision, until they leave) but somebody should probably learn about all the different zones at some point and make sure the text is correct. I never knew the sun was so complex! I partly imagine high-energy ancient civilizations somewhere deep inside, having their own forms of night and day and seasons. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.62.23|162.158.62.23]] 14:44, 10 July 2022 (UTC)<br />
:I took the [https://news.stanford.edu/pr/97/971219neutrino.html 28 day neutrino cycles] link out, because it really doesn't help explain anything in the comic, and was out of place and confusing where it appeared. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.166.41|162.158.166.41]] 17:20, 11 July 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
I don't see how the box containing dark matter is at all consistent with the premise of dark matter being primordial black holes. PBHs wouldn't be ubiquitously distributed through space such that any given volume contains a constant tiny number of them, would they? Black holes that are ''that'' tiny would have evaporated long ago by Hawking radiation, by my understanding. [[User:BunsenH|BunsenH]] ([[User talk:BunsenH|talk]]) 17:26, 11 July 2022 (UTC)<br />
:If dark matter was 100% particles, then a volume on Earth containing 30,000 solar neutrinos would have 12 zeptograms of dark matter, not 4. Since the box is labeled with only a third as much dark matter, the implication is that Randall might think some is clustered in MACHOs. (I'm going to ignore modified gravity, which gets more attention than non-PBH MACHOs but way less than PBHs, and has some foundational issues along with zero successful simulations compared to very successful large-scale simulations using generalized DM.) In the past decade the only MACHO DM theory with more than a handful of papers per year is PBHs, which skyrocketed in popularity after LIGO/Virgo, but are still less popular among mainstream cosmologists than 100% WIMPs. The elephant in the room is that there's lots of evidence for intermediate mass black holes (LIGO/Virgo being the most compelling, but recent indirect observations exist too) but only one out of about thirty WIMP detector experiments have painfully meager positive results, which nobody else has been able to replicate. It's been a similar situation for almost four decades now. Back in the mid-1970s dark matter was assumed to be mostly 100,000 solar mass black holes. A couple generations of constraints assuming monochromatic mass suggested it was a particle instead. But all the constraints, including microlensing, which assume all black holes have even approximately similar masses had to be rejected after the LIGO/Virgo results.<br />
:To answer your question about the sizes, assuming [https://3iom3142cnb81rlnt6w4mtlr-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/08-GW190521-Mass-Plot-Graveyard.png LIGO/Virgo's 3-160 solar mass range] is representative of typical black holes and likely contains their median is kind of unavoidable at this point. If the median is 50 solar masses and all dark matter is black holes, that would work out to around one per star.<br />
:The group to watch [https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4357/ac332d/meta as JWST's first light comes in is Yale's,] who propose specific testable hypotheses for its deep IR source count distribution, and use a [https://twitter.com/SheerPriya/status/1472352431468003328 non-monochromatic (platycurtic) mass distribution] for black holes, which is the only correct choice for merging bodies. Specifically, NASA is releasing a [https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2022/nasa-shares-list-of-cosmic-targets-for-webb-telescope-s-first-images/ SMACS 0723 field] from JWST [https://www.nasa.gov/webbfirstimages tomorrow,] which should be able to test [https://twitter.com/SheerPriya/status/1546576050976870400 these predictions.] Another author to keep an eye on as JWST results roll in is [https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1361-6633/ac1e31 Bernard Carr] ([https://arxiv.org/pdf/2002.12778.pdf paywall-free preprint]) known for his DM literature reviews over the years, and who has become an ardent PBH DM proponent post-LIGO/Virgo. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.166.235|162.158.166.235]] 20:38, 11 July 2022 (UTC)<br />
:W00T! They decided to do SMACS 0723 first today! https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2022/nasa-s-webb-delivers-deepest-infrared-image-of-universe-yet A gift to cosmologists indeed! [[Special:Contributions/172.70.210.233|172.70.210.233]] 22:23, 11 July 2022 (UTC)<br />
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"what they or anyone else would do with such a box is uncertain." - Put things in it, obviously. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.79.173|172.69.79.173]] 06:32, 12 July 2022 (UTC)<br />
:Why would any self-respecting cosmologist want to mess up the box with more than the minimum extraneous contents? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.245.147|108.162.245.147]] 10:16, 14 July 2022 (UTC)<br />
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How much more mass do neutrinos have when they're going 1-10<sup>-n</sup> times the speed of light? I swear this is not a homework question. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.246.206|108.162.246.206]] 10:05, 27 July 2022 (UTC)<br />
:(The attempt to [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:2643:_Cosmologist_Gift&curid=25418&diff=291075&oldid=290904 fix the question] assumes that 108.162.246.206 was not intending values of n<0, already... What if you've negated their negative! :P I agree it was messy, though. Just think it's rude to alter someone else's comment, hence why I didn't make it "1-(1/10ⁿ)", which was my own first (and equivalent) thought. Shortly before "but I bet it ''is'' a homework question...") [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.34|172.70.86.34]] 09:48, 29 July 2022 (UTC)</div>172.70.86.34https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:2643:_Cosmologist_Gift&diff=291083Talk:2643: Cosmologist Gift2022-07-29T09:48:45Z<p>172.70.86.34: </p>
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- The explanation mentions “Eight zeptograms” although Randall’s box says “4 zeptograms of dark matter.”<br />
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- The 4,800 daltons in the explanation is roughly the size of a small protein; for example, insulin is about 5,800 daltons.<br />
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- Randall’s box says it contains 4 zeptograms of dark matter. Could someone explain this? My incomplete (biologist’s) understanding of dark matter is that astrophysicists do not yet know what it is. So how could Randall claim the box contains 4 zeptograms of it?<br />
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Thanks!<br />
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:Fixed; thank you. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.210.125|172.70.210.125]] 01:18, 9 July 2022 (UTC)<br />
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:Since no one has detected ANY dark matter, you can claim any amount is in the box. [[User:SDSpivey|SDSpivey]] ([[User talk:SDSpivey|talk]]) 23:31, 11 July 2022 (UTC)<br />
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[https://arxiv.org/abs/2204.09143 Here's] a more recent PBH DM source than those already cited which could comport with Randall's 0.4% DM particles implication, but doesn't do so explicitly. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.206.213|172.70.206.213]] 02:35, 9 July 2022 (UTC)<br />
:With the math corrected per 162.158.134.89 below, the figure is 34% ubiquitous particles. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.211.36|172.70.211.36]] 09:44, 9 July 2022 (UTC)<br />
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And this comic was the perfect birthday gift for me. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.245.203|108.162.245.203]] 02:42, 9 July 2022 (UTC)<br />
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* How was the 23,000 neutrinos/m³ figure obtained? A flux of 7e10/(s·cm²), or 7e14/(s·m²), at a speed of close to 3e8 m/s, gives 2.3e6/m³. That would correspond to a box size of about 0.013 m³, or a bit larger than a typical shoe box. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.134.89|162.158.134.89]] 07:19, 9 July 2022 (UTC)<br />
::Corrected. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.211.52|172.70.211.52]] 09:40, 9 July 2022 (UTC)<br />
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To note {and I've summarised in an edit) that photons from the Sun can have been travelling for 100,000 years from its core to space, before their 8ish minute trip to the box (assuming you let them in, e.g. leave the lid off, or filter out all but the hard X-rays/etc), whilst neutrinos hardly notice so are 8 or 9 minutes old (before being adjusted for time dilation) regardless. And you can still put as much lead-lined wrapping paper on your present as you want, to keep it a surprise! [[Special:Contributions/172.69.79.211|172.69.79.211]] 14:45, 9 July 2022 (UTC)<br />
:I saw your very interesting source was from 1997 and mostly about neutrino cycles -- which surprisingly match the menstrual cycle better than the orbit of the moon does -- but not mostly about energy migration out of the sun. It looks like the sun actually has multiple layers that engage in different forms of energy transformation. I added a link to the radiative zone (where gamma rays spend 171 thousand years colliding with matter, getting longer wavelength at each collision, until they leave) but somebody should probably learn about all the different zones at some point and make sure the text is correct. I never knew the sun was so complex! I partly imagine high-energy ancient civilizations somewhere deep inside, having their own forms of night and day and seasons. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.62.23|162.158.62.23]] 14:44, 10 July 2022 (UTC)<br />
:I took the [https://news.stanford.edu/pr/97/971219neutrino.html 28 day neutrino cycles] link out, because it really doesn't help explain anything in the comic, and was out of place and confusing where it appeared. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.166.41|162.158.166.41]] 17:20, 11 July 2022 (UTC)<br />
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I don't see how the box containing dark matter is at all consistent with the premise of dark matter being primordial black holes. PBHs wouldn't be ubiquitously distributed through space such that any given volume contains a constant tiny number of them, would they? Black holes that are ''that'' tiny would have evaporated long ago by Hawking radiation, by my understanding. [[User:BunsenH|BunsenH]] ([[User talk:BunsenH|talk]]) 17:26, 11 July 2022 (UTC)<br />
:If dark matter was 100% particles, then a volume on Earth containing 30,000 solar neutrinos would have 12 zeptograms of dark matter, not 4. Since the box is labeled with only a third as much dark matter, the implication is that Randall might think some is clustered in MACHOs. (I'm going to ignore modified gravity, which gets more attention than non-PBH MACHOs but way less than PBHs, and has some foundational issues along with zero successful simulations compared to very successful large-scale simulations using generalized DM.) In the past decade the only MACHO DM theory with more than a handful of papers per year is PBHs, which skyrocketed in popularity after LIGO/Virgo, but are still less popular among mainstream cosmologists than 100% WIMPs. The elephant in the room is that there's lots of evidence for intermediate mass black holes (LIGO/Virgo being the most compelling, but recent indirect observations exist too) but only one out of about thirty WIMP detector experiments have painfully meager positive results, which nobody else has been able to replicate. It's been a similar situation for almost four decades now. Back in the mid-1970s dark matter was assumed to be mostly 100,000 solar mass black holes. A couple generations of constraints assuming monochromatic mass suggested it was a particle instead. But all the constraints, including microlensing, which assume all black holes have even approximately similar masses had to be rejected after the LIGO/Virgo results.<br />
:To answer your question about the sizes, assuming [https://3iom3142cnb81rlnt6w4mtlr-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/08-GW190521-Mass-Plot-Graveyard.png LIGO/Virgo's 3-160 solar mass range] is representative of typical black holes and likely contains their median is kind of unavoidable at this point. If the median is 50 solar masses and all dark matter is black holes, that would work out to around one per star.<br />
:The group to watch [https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4357/ac332d/meta as JWST's first light comes in is Yale's,] who propose specific testable hypotheses for its deep IR source count distribution, and use a [https://twitter.com/SheerPriya/status/1472352431468003328 non-monochromatic (platycurtic) mass distribution] for black holes, which is the only correct choice for merging bodies. Specifically, NASA is releasing a [https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2022/nasa-shares-list-of-cosmic-targets-for-webb-telescope-s-first-images/ SMACS 0723 field] from JWST [https://www.nasa.gov/webbfirstimages tomorrow,] which should be able to test [https://twitter.com/SheerPriya/status/1546576050976870400 these predictions.] Another author to keep an eye on as JWST results roll in is [https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1361-6633/ac1e31 Bernard Carr] ([https://arxiv.org/pdf/2002.12778.pdf paywall-free preprint]) known for his DM literature reviews over the years, and who has become an ardent PBH DM proponent post-LIGO/Virgo. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.166.235|162.158.166.235]] 20:38, 11 July 2022 (UTC)<br />
:W00T! They decided to do SMACS 0723 first today! https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2022/nasa-s-webb-delivers-deepest-infrared-image-of-universe-yet A gift to cosmologists indeed! [[Special:Contributions/172.70.210.233|172.70.210.233]] 22:23, 11 July 2022 (UTC)<br />
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"what they or anyone else would do with such a box is uncertain." - Put things in it, obviously. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.79.173|172.69.79.173]] 06:32, 12 July 2022 (UTC)<br />
:Why would any self-respecting cosmologist want to mess up the box with more than the minimum extraneous contents? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.245.147|108.162.245.147]] 10:16, 14 July 2022 (UTC)<br />
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How much more mass do neutrinos have when they're going 1-10<sup>-n</sup> times the speed of light? I swear this is not a homework question. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.246.206|108.162.246.206]] 10:05, 27 July 2022 (UTC)<br />
:(The attempt to [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:2643:_Cosmologist_Gift&curid=25418&diff=291075&oldid=290904 fix the question] assumes that 108.162.246.206 was not intending values of n<0, already... What if you've negated their negative! :P I agree it was messy, though. Just think it's rude to alter someone else's comment, hence why I didn't make it "1-(1/10ⁿ)", which was my own first (and equivalent) thought. Shortly before "but I bet it ''is'' a homework question...) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.34|172.70.86.34]] 09:48, 29 July 2022 (UTC)</div>172.70.86.34https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:2207:_Math_Work&diff=291082Talk:2207: Math Work2022-07-29T09:29:48Z<p>172.70.86.34: /* Deletions */</p>
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This makes me think of my profession (software engineer) - Normie: "Oh wow, that looks complicated!" Me: wires two pre-existing libraries together and calls it a day [[User:Baldrickk|Baldrickk]] ([[User talk:Baldrickk|talk]]) 09:39, 26 September 2019 (UTC)<br />
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;Image of Blackboard<br />
I was looking at the blackboard and was wondering if there were any Easter eggs on it.<br />
Here is the result of my badly cropped photoshopping skills.<br />
[https://drive.google.com/open?id=1kGCrQehNGksE2cSK1WvTJcgdwaZ5cdWe]<br />
idk if it would help to sharpen the image.<br />
--[[User:DarkAndromeda31|DarkAndromeda31]] ([[User talk:DarkAndromeda31|talk]]) 01:25, 26 September 2019 (UTC)<br />
:The only thing that really jumps out at me are the wedges, as portions of pie charts where radius also controls area, evoking the {{w|climate stabilization wedge}} game [https://cmi.princeton.edu/wedges/game from Princeton] where the total area of the disk needing to be mitigated is something like 38 gigatons of atmospheric carbon, and the various mitigation solutions have angles representing potential and radius indicating uptake, the proportion of which represents gigatons mitigated as the wedge area. We can offer that game as an example of a bivariate optimization problem which might not have to be manually solved by anyone, if we assume that the local market for [https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ritJrcDKyXNe4Kp2dHBWiFuyBEHvn_81/view surplus potable water, carbon-neutral liquid transportation fuel, and carbon-negative composite lumber for centuries-to-millenia scale sequestration along with wood timber displacement for reforestation] represents locally satisfiable economic demand for N shipping containers of [https://x.company/projects/foghorn Project Foghorn] [https://www.docdroid.net/WlkWabq/ioc-part-1-prototype-article-in-press.pdf plants] and M shipping containers of [https://www.docdroid.net/SRxC3bd/power-to-gas-efficiency.pdf power-to-gas upgrades for natural gas] power plants. That's an example of how a locally market-driven system can solve a bivariate optimization without anyone doing the actual math work in a spreadsheet or otherwise. The economic solution is not necessarily optimal, because even [https://twitter.com/jsalsman/status/1118030378747351040 as powerful as the free market can be,] it isn't necessarily going to find the bivariate optimums for every point on the planet (although it will likely converge asymptotically in some sense) and defectors such as fossil fuel producers are interested in delaying the optimum solution. <br />
:Is that nontangential enough? [[Special:Contributions/172.68.143.18|172.68.143.18]] 20:49, 26 September 2019 (UTC)<br />
::Yes that was far out :-) I'm sure there is nothing interesting hidden in the image. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 08:36, 27 September 2019 (UTC)<br />
:::Compare the graph at [https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=World+natural+gas+production] with that at [https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=World+wind+power+production]. When will the latter overtake the former? [[Special:Contributions/172.68.142.221|172.68.142.221]] 19:19, 27 September 2019 (UTC)<br />
::::Soon one may hope, but that has nothing to do with the drawings on the blackboard...? --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 21:07, 27 September 2019 (UTC)<br />
:::::"Soon" lacks mathematical precision. How do you feel about {{w|distributed constraint optimization}}? [[Special:Contributions/172.68.142.83|172.68.142.83]] 22:56, 27 September 2019 (UTC)<br />
:::::P.S. I would also point out that this comic appeared during the [https://globalclimatestrike.net/ Global Climate Strike] so I stand by my interpretation of the wedges. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.255.136|162.158.255.136]] 19:11, 3 October 2019 (UTC)<br />
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Does [https://www.wolframalpha.com/ Wolfram Alpha] constitute such a problem solver? Cause both Randall and this site has used it on several occasions. But I have not ever really used such things, and do not know if Wolfram can be used as Cueball thinks about in the comic. But if it could, it could be worth mentioning as a method sometimes used by Randall. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 08:43, 27 September 2019 (UTC)<br />
:[https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=x%2By%3D10%2C+x-y%3D4&lk=3] is the first bivariate system of equations example. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.22.134|172.69.22.134]] 17:51, 27 September 2019 (UTC)<br />
::Is that then a yes to my question? ;-) --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 21:07, 27 September 2019 (UTC)<br />
:::Do you think it's more worthwhile to include a general discussion of avoiding the work of solving for two unknowns than the climate wedges? Why do you suggest that the wedges aren't the only distinctive elements on the blackboard? [[Special:Contributions/172.68.142.83|172.68.142.83]] 22:58, 27 September 2019 (UTC)<br />
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I only just now noticed that Randall always puts the crossbars on the I in the word "I" and not otherwise. Looking back, he has nearly always done this, even since the first few comics. That's quite a principled yet subtle stance on letterforms. (There are some exceptions, however, such as comic #87, and a period that goes at least from comic #128 to comic #180. I wonder if it would be too typography-nerdy to put them all in a category.) [[Special:Contributions/198.41.231.85|198.41.231.85]] 14:47, 27 September 2019 (UTC)<br />
: Those "crossbars" would be serifs, whereas he normally uses a sans serif font. A sans serif would be quicker/easier to write by hand, but he probably realized early on (perhaps subconsciously) that an I by itself without serifs looks too much like a random line or a numeral 1 so he treats the solo I like a special letter, with serifs. [[User:N0lqu|-boB]] ([[User talk:N0lqu|talk]]) 15:16, 27 September 2019 (UTC)<br />
::Yes so not something for a category! But funny detail. I have no idea where to put this? Maybe in some part of the format of xkcd? --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 21:07, 27 September 2019 (UTC)<br />
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Thank you, person who sees beauty in grammar (Jkrstrt). I thought something looked off when I said "often site the beauty they see" but I didn't catch it until you sighted the error and made it cite instead. [[User:N0lqu|-boB]] ([[User talk:N0lqu|talk]]) 15:10, 27 September 2019 (UTC)<br />
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We need something about the [https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=%22they%20did%20the%20math%22 2014 popularity spike of the phrase "They did the math"] with a link to e.g. r/theydidthemath. And ask the Hashtag Research Studies group to figure out the cause of that spike. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.189.19|172.68.189.19]] 15:29, 29 September 2019 (UTC)<br />
:This has got to be [https://imgur.com/gallery/qpWueVf somehow related to xkcd.] But how? [[Special:Contributions/172.68.189.19|172.68.189.19]] 20:42, 29 September 2019 (UTC)<br />
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In other olds, [https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=they+did+the+math&case_insensitive=on&year_start=1980&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t4%3B%2Cthey%20did%20the%20math%3B%2Cc0%3B%2Cs0%3B%3Bthey%20did%20the%20math%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BThey%20did%20the%20math%3B%2Cc0 Google Books says it started in 1988] but won't show me the 1988 book in question. I'm going to work on the drone fishing now. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.255.136|162.158.255.136]] 05:31, 30 September 2019 (UTC)<br />
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== Deletions ==<br />
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I feel that [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2207:_Math_Work&diff=182511&oldid=180894 these deletions] were done without sufficient discussion of the rationales for the material given above, leaving the explanation shorter than that of almost all if not all other comics. Whatever you think of the climate change distributed optimization example, there were no objections to the well-documented "they did the math" popularity surge or to the academic references deleted. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.22.68|172.69.22.68]] 01:16, 22 November 2019 (UTC)<br />
:How was that even related to the content of the comic? --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 07:14, 22 November 2019 (UTC)<br />
::Which? The two wedges involving an optimization problem in two variables on Climate Strike Week (a strike being an intentional avoidance of work), or the phrase "They did the math" in relation to "Math work"? <br />
::I intend to replace the deleted material. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.22.68|172.69.22.68]] 05:26, 3 December 2019 (UTC)<br />
:::Why? please explain how it is relevant/related to the comic or helps in understanding it. The comic is about math being complicated and incomprehensible from outside, while from the inside it is just as complicated when you understand it. The comic does not contain the words "the math" nor does the pie chart or the wedge give any indication of being about anything specific. It is just as likely something about Pizza. --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 07:24, 3 December 2019 (UTC)<br />
::::I have, in detail, above. I have asked famed Bloomberg columnist and fellow economics science communication enthusiast Noah Smith to mediate this dispute. Will you accept him as mediator? [[Special:Contributions/172.68.143.24|172.68.143.24]] 12:06, 8 December 2019 (UTC)<br />
:::::First a personal note: As it seems like we are discussing here, I'd appreciate if you'd create an account here, so that I can link your comments to a single commenter, instead of a changing cloudfare IP adresses. To the topic: I do not deny that a wedge can represent an optimization problem. It can also represent other things. As far as visible from the comic, Cueball could be calculating how much Pizza he has left. Even if it is about an optimization problem, there is no indication in the comic to link this to human-made climate change, apart from the apperance of the comic in climate strike week. If it was a reference to that point, it'd be very (!) subtle. How do you think some spark in the search for some term in 2014, which has a one-word-overlap (and math is the topic of the comic...) with the comic is relevant again? I, again, do not doubt the correctnes of the statements, but only their relevance/connection with this comic. Last but not least: Any registered (and therefore "unique", even though it's easy to register multiple accounts...) commenter may join this discussion, to reach consensus (by the way, I was not even the one deleting it actually). I have never heard of that famed person, nor do I care about his column in some magazine and his enthusiasm about communication. (If he should ever read this, I'd like to repeat myself: I have never heard of him, so it is not meant to disrispect him. He might be a nice guy and very qualified in whatever he writes his column about. He might also be famous to people he is relevant for.) --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 07:29, 9 December 2019 (UTC)<br />
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===An aside to That Guy===<br />
( Hi Kynde, if you read this, I was already rewriting it as a subsection to make it not look like the original issue, then got Edit Conflicted by your plea not to edit your Talk Page unnecessarily. So pasting it all here, instead, plus this comment. :-p ) <br />
No, I'm [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2207:_Math_Work&diff=291019&oldid=282989 this guy.] [[Special:Contributions/172.70.211.88|172.70.211.88]] 15:52, 28 July 2022 (UTC)<br />
:Hello, That Guy. (BTW, I'm also none of the above conversationalists, Kynde...) That change you linked... I just reverted it. It was fixed (devandalised) already in a state that was after the removal of the Incomplete tag and I couldn't work out ''why'' you considered it needing reverting. Yes, a lot of restored stuff (now unrestored), but I couldn't quite work out which (pre-vandalism) version you even reverted to, and surely there were various useful culling edits ("no, we don't need to say that, it's irrelevent", etc) that you were negating.<br />
:Or at least that was my almost knee-jerk response (almost, because I went back through the crapcrapcrap stuff and beyond trying to find where you were coming from, so I spent some time on thinking about it before I did it).<br />
:I offer it up to review by the wider community, or back to yourself (or give Kynde a shot, if they aren't busy). Maybe some old bits could be reintegrated, but I couldn't see which on a semi-cursory glance. So, given you have provided a handle on you, expanding upon the woefully short edit-summary space, to more fully explain any confusion (of mine, or yours, or just in general). Ok? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.128|172.70.91.128]] 16:43, 28 July 2022 (UTC)<br />
::Are you saying you removed vandalism with the revert? Which parts do you think are crap stuff? Do you not see how it is all directly related to the drawing on the board? I should have removed the incomplete tag, but I think I'll try the appended section idea to appease objectors with a compromise. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.33.185|172.69.33.185]] 05:15, 29 July 2022 (UTC)<br />
:::Simply put, your initial effort looked indistinguishable from an opportunity to sneak in creative vandalism. I couldn't even easily confirm you were reverting and not creating from scratch, and we've had some "whole unrelated paragraphs with random external links in" spam recently, although at least there were only wikilinks (IIRC) so it wasn't entirely that.<br />
:::I spent ten minutes or so trawling the history (in and out of various version differences) and didn't have time to do more so I played it safe (reverted to the ''actual'' last good version) with the best explanatory message I could fit in the Summary, and then saw you'd posted here.<br />
:::Then saw (clearly before reading here) you'd reverted my revert, and I was still doubtful but used the longer Summary space (multi-version revert doesn't use up character-limit with details) to express my doubts... I had decided I'd not revert again (keeping below 3RR) if you tried exactly the same again, having said all that I wished for the benefit of other editors to consider, but you didn't force me to even consider it - and, for that, much thanks.<br />
:::Yes, if you find historic bits (whole or multiple paragraphs, even) that you think should be restored then a copypasta would be best. It shows consideration above that of (seemingly) choosing a whole past version and reverting out who-knows-how-much intermediate editing without even reading it and seeing the Incomplete Tag has reappeared. Then they can be (re)assessed on their own merit, unspoilt by the stupid inclusion of signs of wholesale-reversion.<br />
:::But I'm not the main (or only) gatekeeper here, just a random IP who is perhaps a bit over-cautious and occasionally conservative (ironic, given you were trying to 'conserve' the bits you ressurected). I have no authority, I just tried to do what seems to be best. YMMV, as it may for others. And I probably would (and will) do the same again for another instance (on a different article, or that one after significant 'good' new changes) with the same criteria, if I'm around at the right time to do so. But I won't revert anything that might be sensible.<br />
:::And so that's my long-winded answer to cover the many questions you possibly have and many more questions you almost certainly do not have. :P [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.34|172.70.86.34]] 09:29, 29 July 2022 (UTC)</div>172.70.86.34https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:2650:_Deepfakes&diff=290853Talk:2650: Deepfakes2022-07-26T11:00:49Z<p>172.70.86.34: </p>
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Is it worth mentioning that this comic is merely sincere discussion, without (please correct me if I'm wrong) any sort of a joke or irony? The closest it gets is hyperbole in the title text. I know it's not unique in this respect, but it does seem to be different than other such comics because it seems like it might have a joke, given the obscurity of the Ea-nasir reference. If our job is truly to explain, should we let people coming here to figure out the humor know there isn't any? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.214.95|172.70.214.95]] 06:48, 26 July 2022 (UTC)<br />
:Did but [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2650:_Deepfakes&diff=290833&oldid=290831 reverted,] other opinions? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.210.145|172.70.210.145]] 08:39, 26 July 2022 (UTC)<br />
::I have reverted and added more. I just [[609: Tab Explosion|used a long time]] on [[214: The Problem with Wikipedia|wiki]] because of those two tidbits of info that has nothing to do with Deepfakes... :-) --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 09:49, 26 July 2022 (UTC)<br />
:::Snap... I (not the above IP) was also on a long wikiwalk. (Did you know that the map of the copper-fraudster's house is one of the top 200 diagrams that is considered important to resubmit in vectorised format? Amongst many colour-model diagrams and how much money goes to which US surveillance and intelligence agencies. :P ) I really ought to do something important, instead. Like vectorise some diagrams. Hand me my spline-wrench and my gradient-planer! [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.34|172.70.86.34]] 10:17, 26 July 2022 (UTC)<br />
:Not sure about there being no joke. White Hat realizing that you can write untrue things (most common types known as lies and fiction), that people have done it for a long time and calling it the new buzzword ("text deepfakes") certainly was funny to me. Cueball's somewhat obscure reference (which you don't really need to know to understand) drives home the point.[[User:627235|627235]] ([[User talk:627235|talk]]) 10:52, 26 July 2022 (UTC)<br />
:The Ea-nasir punchline made me laugh, I think its a bit of a stretch to say there's no joke here [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.34|172.70.86.34]] 11:00, 26 July 2022 (UTC)</div>172.70.86.34https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:2650:_Deepfakes&diff=290850Talk:2650: Deepfakes2022-07-26T10:17:57Z<p>172.70.86.34: </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 />
Is it worth mentioning that this comic is merely sincere discussion, without (please correct me if I'm wrong) any sort of a joke or irony? The closest it gets is hyperbole in the title text. I know it's not unique in this respect, but it does seem to be different than other such comics because it seems like it might have a joke, given the obscurity of the Ea-nasir reference. If our job is truly to explain, should we let people coming here to figure out the humor know there isn't any? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.214.95|172.70.214.95]] 06:48, 26 July 2022 (UTC)<br />
:Did but [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2650:_Deepfakes&diff=290833&oldid=290831 reverted,] other opinions? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.210.145|172.70.210.145]] 08:39, 26 July 2022 (UTC)<br />
::I have reverted and added more. I just [[609: Tab Explosion|used a long time]] on [[214: The Problem with Wikipedia|wiki]] because of those two tidbits of info that has nothing to do with Deepfakes... :-) --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 09:49, 26 July 2022 (UTC)<br />
:::Snap... I (not the above IP) was also on a long wikiwalk. (Did you know that the map of the copper-fraudster's house is one of the top 200 diagrams that is considered important to resubmit in vectorised format? Amongst many colour-model diagrams and how much money goes to which US surveillance and intelligence agencies. :P ) I really ought to do something important, instead. Like vectorise some diagrams. Hand me my spline-wrench and my gradient-planer! [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.34|172.70.86.34]] 10:17, 26 July 2022 (UTC)</div>172.70.86.34https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2649:_Physics_Cost-Saving_Tips&diff=2907812649: Physics Cost-Saving Tips2022-07-25T21:20:29Z<p>172.70.86.34: explain electrons</p>
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<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 2649<br />
| date = July 22, 2022<br />
| title = Physics Cost-Saving Tips<br />
| image = physics_cost_saving_tips.png<br />
| titletext = I got banned from the county fair for handing out Helium-2 balloons. Apparently the instant massive plasma explosions violated some local ordinance or something.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|Created by a FAUX VECTOR - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
This is another one of [[Randall|Randall's]] [[:Category:Tips|Tips]], this time with a series of Physics Cost-Saving Tips. It also continues the previous [[2648: Chemicals]] comic's jocular theme of tricks to supposedly save money based on misinterpretations of science. <br />
<br />
It suggests four ways to reduce costs or provide something for free for physicists to save money on their research. For instance getting free electrons from a conductor or replacing regular {{w|helium}} with {{w|Isotopes_of_helium#Helium-2_(diproton)|helium 2}}. None of these would provide any real advantages even when possible to implement, and could even be very dangerous, see below in the [[#Table of tips|table]]. Obtaining money from physics experiments was also described in [[2007: Brookhaven RHIC]].<br />
<br />
In the title text, Randall claims to have been banned from the county fair for handing out helium-2 balloons because of the instant massive explosions caused by its radioactive decay (that helium-2 decays fast is mentioned in the comic, with a joke suggestion to use it quickly). He jokes that the balloons violated a local ordinance. {{w|Gas balloon|Helium balloons}} are often given out at county fairs and similar events, but they are filled with {{w|helium-4}} and therefore inert (a very small part will be {{w|Helium-3}}, 2 ppm). A balloon filled with helium-2 is a practical impossibility because of its nanosecond half-life. Assuming a 12-inch diameter balloon at 1 atmosphere of pressure, the balloon-bomb would have a yield of roughly 17 {{w|TNT equivalent|tons of TNT equivalent}}.<br />
{{cot|[[User:SqueakSquawk4|Calculations]]}}<br />
{{User:SqueakSquawk4}} <!-- SqueakSquawk4 prefers this not be subst:ed --><br />
{{cob}}<br />
The smallest nuclear bomb, the {{w|W54}}, had a yield of between 10 and 1,000 tons of TNT. The largest conventional bomb, the {{w|GBU-43/B MOAB}}, has a yield of roughly 11 tons. The {{w|2020 Beirut explosion}} was roughly equivalent to 500 tons. So, while the helium-2 balloon bomb would be larger than all conventional bombs, it would still be smaller than most nukes. Handing out what are effectively small atomic bombs at a county fair would not go down well with any surviving local authorities, so merely being banned is a very mild punishment. Criminal charges such as mass murder and terrorism would be more likely if it weren't for the absurd impossibility of the scenario.<br />
<br />
===Table of tips===<br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
|-<br />
! scope="col" |Cost-Saving Tip<br />
! scope="col" |Explanation<br />
|-<br />
|Try replacing regular vectors with pseudovectors whenever possible<br />
|[[File:Torque animation.gif|frame|right|Relationship of pseudovectors {{w|torque}} ('''τ''') and {{w|angular momentum}} ('''L''') to "regular" Euclidian vectors {{w|Position (vector)|position}} ('''r'''), {{w|force}} ('''F'''), and linear {{w|momentum}} ('''p''') in an oscillatory rotating system. Not shown is the {{w|centripetal force}} of the spoke's {{w|Tension (physics)|tension}}, a Euclidian vector towards the axle proportional to linear momentum, converting it to angular momentum.]]<br />
<br />
The prefix "pseudo-" refers to an inauthentic variation of something. Fakes are usually cheaper than their original brand-name product, while often working just as well, so the comic implies a {{w|pseudovector}} could be a less expensive substitute for a regular vector. On the contrary, pseudovectors, or axial vectors, are distinct from regular {{w|Euclidean vector}}s, the former usually being involved with rotation or physical effects that share properties with rotation, similar to the relationship between angles and lengths. Pseudovectors are formed from the {{w|cross product}}s of Euclidean vectors, in three dimensions, and while similar to Euclidean vectors, there is no physical meaning to their specific direction, only their magnitude and portions of their position. For example, {{w|angular momentum}} is described by a pseudovector, labeled '''L''' in the comic, {{w|Normal (geometry)|normal}} to the {{w|plane of rotation}}, originating from the center of rotation, with magnitude equal to the angular velocity of rotation '''ω''' multiplied by the {{w|moment of inertia}} '''I'''. (The comic's diagram is drawn according to very uncommon {{w|Right-hand rule#Coordinates|left-handed coordinates}} instead of the standard {{w|right-hand rule}}. Randall is right-handed.[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1tcyEo2tQk&t=28s])<br />
|-<br />
|A square wave can be broken down into an infinite supply of valuable sine waves<br />
|{{w|Fourier analysis}} can decompose any periodic function into a series of {{w|sine wave}}s. A {{w|square wave}} can thereby be represented as the sum of an infinite series of sine waves. However, the sine waves are not removed or separated individually, so such a {{w|Fourier transform}} does not produce a "supply" of sine waves for practical use in any tasks other than analysis, and as abstract mathematical objects exempt from the laws of supply and demand, their value is similarly limited.<br />
|-<br />
|Cut waste by buying lighter isotopes that don't have any dead-weight neutrons<br />
|Chemical elements are identified by the number of protons in each atomic nucleus, equal to the number of electrons in their shell (unless the atom is ionized), which dictates most of their chemical behavior. {{w|Isotopes}} are variants of the element with different numbers of neutrons in the nucleus, among which chemical behavior is usually nearly identical. The comic suggests that the neutrons don't serve any useful purpose, so, in theory, if purchasing an element by weight, and its isotopes have the same price per unit weight, then you can save money by buying isotopes with no neutrons at all. In reality, the cost per unit weight for material containing a larger concentration of normally rare isotopes, such as {{w|heavy water}} or {{w|enriched uranium}}, is much higher than the cost of material containing isotopes in their ordinary proportions. (An exception is {{w|depleted uranium}}, which costs less than regular uranium because it is a byproduct of the production of enriched uranium.) In addition, a certain range of neutron quantity is needed to keep atoms stable, as atoms with too many or too few neutrons will decay more quickly than the common isotopes. The image shown is helium-2, an {{w|Isotopes of helium|isotope of helium}} which has a half-life of less than a nanosecond. It decays into two ionized hydrogen atoms, releasing a large amount of energy—hence the explosions mentioned in the title text.<br />
|-<br />
|Conductors are a great source of free electrons (may carry charges)<br />
|{{w|Charge carrier|Free}} {{w|electron}}s are electrons that are not tightly bound to specific atoms so they can move freely, such as in {{w|conduction band}}s of the {{w|metallic bond}}s throughout the iron ingot depicted in the comic. Randall interprets "free" in a different sense, meaning no cost. The charges free electrons carry are electric, not monetary as implied by the pun. In fact all objects contain electrons, but although a {{w|capacitor}} can collect electrons, it is not easy to store pure electrons, as they repel each other. Randall has [https://what-if.xkcd.com/140/ explained the problems] with collecting a large number of electrons before. <br />
|}<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:[The comic shows four rows each with a drawing and an explanation text belonging to each drawing. They alternate between having the drawing on the left and the right side. Above the first row is a large header:]<br />
:<big>Physics Cost-Saving Tips</big><br />
<br />
:[The first row has a drawing of a diagramatical spinning disc, at an angle. It is identified with an 'I', with a dotted axial arrow labelled 'L' and a rotational movement labelled 'ω' (small omega). <br />
:I<br />
:L<br />
:ω<br />
<br />
:[To the right of the diagram is this text:]<br />
:Try replacing regular vectors with pseudovectors whenever possible<br />
<br />
:[The second row shows a square wave with three maxima between four minima. Below the central maxima and the two nearby minima are five arrows pointing down (two bending left two right one straight down). Each arrow points to one of five sine waves below the square wave, in three rows, with different wavelengths. The one with the shortest wavelength is the top left, then the wavelength becomes longer for the one to the right and even longer for each of the next two, in the next row with the final very long wave with longest wavelength at the bottom, with the straight down arrow pointing to that. The long waves at the bottom has the same frequency as the square wave.]<br />
<br />
:[To the left of the waves is this text:]<br />
:A square wave can be broken down into an infinite supply of valuable sine waves<br />
<br />
:[The third row shows two atomic models. The left containing two protons (white with a "+" sign), two neutrons (black) and orbited by two electrons (white with a "-" sign, small outlines, dotted orbits/movement lines). The right model is drawn similarly but without the black neutrons.]<br />
:+ +<br />
:- -<br />
:+ +<br />
:- -<br />
<br />
:[The atoms have labels below and there is an extra message for the second model:]<br />
:<sup>4</sup>He<br />
:<sup>2</sup>He<br />
:<small>(Decays fast- use quickly)</small><br />
<br />
:[To the right of the models is this text:]<br />
:Cut waste by buying lighter isotopes that don't have any dead-weight neutrons<br />
<br />
:[The fourth row shows a flat rectangular bar, drawn in perspective with a scattering of four small circles with "-" sign inside them and ten lines looking like parts of circles, all on the top face towards the far end.]<br />
:- - - - <br />
<br />
:[A bending arrow goes from a label above the bar and points to one of the circles. And on the forward-facing side of the bar there is a label.]<br />
:Arrow: Free electrons<br />
:Label: Iron<br />
<br />
:[To the left of the bar is this text:]<br />
:Conductors are a great source of free electrons<br />
:(May carry charges)<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:Tips]]<br />
[[Category:Physics]]<br />
[[Category:Chemistry]]</div>172.70.86.34https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:2649:_Physics_Cost-Saving_Tips&diff=290120Talk:2649: Physics Cost-Saving Tips2022-07-22T22:17:43Z<p>172.70.86.34: </p>
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I don't recommend trying to make your voice squeeky by breathing He-2. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 19:57, 22 July 2022 (UTC)<br />
: But breathing a helium-rich mixture in general... so long as it still has sufficient oxygen in it ...I would speak highly of it! [[Special:Contributions/162.158.34.221|162.158.34.221]] 20:27, 22 July 2022 (UTC)<br />
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Please link comic 2007. I tried to do so myself but the edit errored [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.34|172.70.86.34]] 22:17, 22 July 2022 (UTC)</div>172.70.86.34