https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/api.php?action=feedcontributions&user=172.70.91.78&feedformat=atomexplain xkcd - User contributions [en]2024-03-28T16:28:01ZUser contributionsMediaWiki 1.30.0https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:2728:_Lane_Change_Highway&diff=305202Talk:2728: Lane Change Highway2023-01-24T13:15:47Z<p>172.70.91.78: </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 />
There's a section of the M25 motorway around London which does this... Never did like it. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.201|172.70.85.201]] 07:14, 24 January 2023 (UTC)<br />
:I hope you are kidding ;-) Although there are some funny histories about that road. For instance Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett. (Now a series - see [https://youtu.be/M0S3a32RzEo?t=112 Crowley Creates (and Destroys) The M25 - Good Omens]. :-) --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 08:25, 24 January 2023 (UTC)<br />
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:A lot of highways in France do something similar. At every ascend, the ascending traffic gets its own new lane, presumably to keep ascending cars from doing merging manouevres. To keep the same number of lanes, the leftmost lane merges into the adjacent lane before the ascend. So if you simply stay on your lane, you kind of drift to the left with every ascend. I am not sure if this really helps to cut accidents, but I think it is a clever solution at least for some accident-prone ascends. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.160.36|172.71.160.36]] 08:32, 24 January 2023 (UTC)<br />
Saved the image to the wayback machine here https://web.archive.org/web/20230124073752/https://xkcd.com/ [[User:Mushrooms|Mushrooms]] ([[User talk:Mushrooms|talk]]) 07:41, 24 January 2023 (UTC)<br />
:Doesn't that happen automatically? I like they are there, but do webcrawlers not manage that on a dayli basis? --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 08:17, 24 January 2023 (UTC)<br />
::Huh, didn't know that. Better safe than sorry! [[User:Mushrooms|Mushrooms]] ([[User talk:Mushrooms|talk]]) 08:33, 24 January 2023 (UTC)<br />
It's really a very wide single-lane road. The left lanes originate from the edge of the road so no cars feed into them, and on the right side once you merge there is no where to go except to merge into the next right-hand side, so the net effect is that the road is 4 lanes wide, but is functioning as a single-lane road. That assumes everyone is entering from the right side. But I guess they could be entering from the left but still in a very short time all cars are on the right. [[User:Rtanenbaum|Rtanenbaum]] ([[User talk:Rtanenbaum|talk]]) 12:24, 24 January 2023 (UTC)<br />
<br />
This is very similar to major roundabouts, in the UK at least, that have a spiral outwards. If entering a four-way junction (and there can be more feed-offs than that) , you may be invited to assume one of three entry lanes (as soon as the feed-in is wide enough to accomodate them) for left (the side of the road upon which we drive), forward or right that lead onto one of three lanes going clockwise round the island.<br />
<br />(Sometimes the left-lane becomes marking- or even curb-separated from the island lanes, effectively skirting the island so there's no waiting for traffic on the island to pass. It merges with the feed-out lane, or becomes a two-lane carriageway direction, some useful distance from the junction.)<br />
<br />On safely entering the junction (by giving way to anything already on it ''or'' being filtered by traffic signals), the semi-perpendicular lane markings (oblique crosses at the lane-edge intersections) guide you to the outer/inner or any median encircling lane which, as each outlet is passed, shifts over by one with a new 'inner' lane for that latest input road's "(almost) all the way round" traffic. (For some junctions, 180 degree change of travel is also a necessity, e.g. due to no cross-traffic (right-hand turning) possible on the lead up to the island, but a sub-junction comes off it in that direction anyway.)<br />
<br />It tends to work best on the rounder roundabouts with periodic entry/exit points, or on the truly huge ones that act like a town-centre one-way inner ringroad, only without the town. When there's a large complex with straights and curves, the guiding lines (epecially across the 'crosses' might not be so obvious (if they are for the first car on the road, the one immediately behind might not have sufficient sight of the outward jinks in the indicated path and lose track of which path they should be on (especially if it is their first use of the junction) and the cross-overs can get worn and/or dirtied to make it less obvious), so inevitably there's lane-drift (and ''more'' wear/obscuration of the lane-guides).<br />
<br />But, in general, with only accidental merging needed ("no, not this exit, it's the next one... there's nothing behind, so quickly...") and continuous lane-generation (to which the rarer all-the-way-round traffic can shift over into), I think there's a parallel. But this not being the inspiration or reference. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.178.65|172.71.178.65]] 13:12, 24 January 2023 (UTC)</div>172.70.91.78https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2727:_Runtime&diff=3050772727: Runtime2023-01-21T03:15:59Z<p>172.70.91.78: /* Explanation */ "of so" -> "or so", but is an awkward rapid-repeat of the phrase, so varying the language</p>
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<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 2727<br />
| date = January 20, 2023<br />
| title = Runtime<br />
| image = runtime_2x.png<br />
| imagesize = 399x389px<br />
| noexpand = true<br />
| titletext = At least there's a general understanding all around that Doctor Who is its own thing.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|Created by EIGHT BAD MOVIES - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
<br />
The comic presents two separate conversations, which boil down to the same premise and yet differing conclusions. In one, a particular TV show is being watched, in the other a film franchise.<br />
<br />
While it is finding its feet, a new season of a television show (perhaps commissioned, on the back of some perceived interest in the story it will tell, for a dozen or so episodes of around 50 minutes - i.e. about ten hours at a minimum) is not necessarily going to get everything right in the writing style, the slant it puts on the subject matter, the cast of characters or other production values. Or at least not for mass appeal to the everyman, for whom [[Cueball]] is the archetypal representative. Nevertheless, the series ''did'' get further seasons, and [[White Hat]] (the optimist, and clearly won over by the production) is on the way to successfully convincing Cueball to view the series, or perhaps to continue to watch it after becoming jaded by its early failure to live up to its promise. It sounds reasonable to Cueball, just from his friend's recommendation, to get over the hump and appreciate it "when it gets good".<br />
<br />
A series of films, however, are seemingly a different matter. By substituting 10+ hours of filmed-for-television with something more cinematic, the prospect of getting over the exact same scale of 'hump' in a long-running set of sequels (eight films at a not unreasonable average length of 85 minutes each would ''also'' require ten hours of commitment), is not at all enticing.<br />
<br />
The title text talks of the long-running British TV series that is Doctor Who. It is vague about Randall's precise opinion, but even the most dedicated fan would acknowledge that it has had a varying quality/charm/consistency/etc, according to one's personal tastes for such things. Comparing the original run (pre-Millenium, featuring seven key actors sequentially taking on the title role, and another for a standalone TV-movie) with the revived series (continuing the pattern with a further seven title-actors, and the eighth already announced), and any number of 'show-runners' (producers, main writers, etc) is one possible point of contention, probably more suited to British viewers. Possibly, in Randall's case, it is just the (perceived) ups and downs in the more recent era, which has been more consistently screened in the US.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
:[Two situations are depicted between White Hat and Cueball.]<br />
:[Situation 1:]<br />
:White Hat: You should keep watching! After the first season it gets really good.<br />
:Cueball: Oh yeah, I've heard that!<br />
:[Situation 2:]<br />
:White Hat: You should keep watching! After the first 8 movies, they get really good.<br />
:Cueball: Haha, what? I'm not going to sit through '''''eight''''' bad movies!<br />
:[Caption below the panel:]<br />
:It's weird how it's way more normal and socially acceptable to suggest someone spend 10-15 hours watching something when it's TV rather than movies.<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]<br />
[[Category:Fiction]]<br />
[[Category:Doctor Who]]</div>172.70.91.78https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2727:_Runtime&diff=3050752727: Runtime2023-01-21T03:07:46Z<p>172.70.91.78: /* Explanation */ Obvious typo. For starters.</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 2727<br />
| date = January 20, 2023<br />
| title = Runtime<br />
| image = runtime_2x.png<br />
| imagesize = 399x389px<br />
| noexpand = true<br />
| titletext = At least there's a general understanding all around that Doctor Who is its own thing.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|Created by EIGHT BAD MOVIES - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
<br />
The comic presents two separate conversations, which boil down to the same premise. In one, a particular TV show is being watched, in the other a film franchise.<br />
<br />
While it is finding its feet, a new season of a television show (perhaps commissioned, on the back of some perceived interest in the story it will tell, for a dozen or so episodes of 50 minutes of so - i.e. about ten hours at a minimum) is not necessarily going to get everything right in the writing style, the slant it puts on the subject matter, the cast of characters or other production values. Or at least not for mass appeal to the everyman, for whom [[Cueball]] is the archetypal representative. Nevertheless, the series ''did'' get further seasons, and [[White Hat]] (the optimist, and clearly won over by the production) is on the way to successfully convincing Cueball to view the series, or perhaps to continue to watch it after becoming jaded by its early failure to live up to its promise. It sounds reasonable to Cueball, just from his friend's recommendation, to get over the hump and appreciate it "when it gets good".<br />
<br />
A series of films, however, are seemingly a different matter. By substituting 10+ hours of filmed-for-television with something more cinematic, the prospect of getting over the exact same scale of 'hump' in a long-running set of sequels (eight films at a not unreasonable average length of 85 minutes each would ''also'' require ten hours of commitment), is not at all enticing.<br />
<br />
The title text talks of the long-running British TV series that is Doctor Who. It is vague about Randall's precise opinion, but even the most dedicated fan would acknowledge that it has had a varying quality/charm/consistency/etc, according to one's personal tastes for such things. Comparing the original run (pre-Millenium, featuring seven key actors sequentially taking on the title role, and another for a standalone TV-movie) with the revived series (continuing the pattern with a further seven title-actors, and the eighth already announced), and any number of 'show-runners' (producers, main writers, etc) is one possible point of contention, probably more suited to British viewers. Possibly, in Randall's case, it is just the (perceived) ups and downs in the more recent era, which has been more consistently screened in the US.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
:[Two situations are depicted between White Hat and Cueball.]<br />
:[Situation 1:]<br />
:White Hat: You should keep watching! After the first season it gets really good.<br />
:Cueball: Oh yeah, I've heard that!<br />
:[Situation 2:]<br />
:White Hat: You should keep watching! After the first 8 movies, they get really good.<br />
:Cueball: Haha, what? I'm not going to sit through '''''eight''''' bad movies!<br />
:[Caption below the panel:]<br />
:It's weird how it's way more normal and socially acceptable to suggest someone spend 10-15 hours watching something when it's TV rather than movies.<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]<br />
[[Category:Fiction]]<br />
[[Category:Doctor Who]]</div>172.70.91.78https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:1675:_Message_in_a_Bottle&diff=305069Talk:1675: Message in a Bottle2023-01-21T02:17:11Z<p>172.70.91.78: </p>
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<div><!--Please sign your posts with ~~~~--><br />
The title text reminds me of the song {{w|Message in a Bottle (song)|Message in a Bottle}} by Police. ;-) Maybe enough that it should be part of the explanation? [[User:|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 13:30, 2 May 2016 (UTC)<br />
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: Why not? Seems to fit the description. [[User:Jacoder23|Jacoder23]] ([[User talk:Jacoder23|talk]]) 14:07, 2 May 2016 (UTC)<br />
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:: Checked the lyrics, there isn't a line that resembles the text I'm afraid, Randall isn't making a reference here. Missed opportunity! [[Special:Contributions/108.162.250.158|108.162.250.158]] 01:36, 3 May 2016 (UTC)<br />
<br />
::: Are you sure? Walked out this morning; Don't believe what I saw; A hundred billion bottles; Washed up on the shore {{unsigned ip|162.158.133.120}}<br />
<br />
:::: Same subject matter, but no apparent link. Not every mention of apples, gardens, or snakes is a reference to the Garden of Eden. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.23|108.162.221.23]] 16:36, 4 May 2016 (UTC)<br />
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::::: I was referring only to the sentence "there isn't a line that resembles the text I'm afraid". I simply assumed you missed that one, because I certainly see a resemblance to the title text. I agree that it would be a stretch to have it as part of the explanation. Sometimes I have seen "Trivia" sections underneath, I believe? {{unsigned ip|162.158.135.54}}<br />
<br />
I had a totally different take on the comic. I took it to mean Cueball had sent out a message in a bottle and someone was unsubscribing from his message list. DrGee [[Special:Contributions/108.162.218.172|108.162.218.172]] 00:32, 5 May 2016 (UTC)<br />
<br />
It may be worth mentioning that in certain mailing lists or mass emails people use "reply all" to unsubscribe or otherwise request being removed from the recipients list of future messages; meaning everyone else's inbox gets clogged with unsubscribe requests even though the message only needed to go to the originator. (The best part is the people who reply all to tell the other people to stop using reply all.) [[Special:Contributions/108.162.237.242|108.162.237.242]] 14:14, 2 May 2016 (UTC)<br />
:We have had a run of this at work. There are really many possible recipients at work. It went exactly as you noted. The most funny was those complaining about those replying to all when complaining about the replying to all spam... and then doing so by replying to all! And the best was that after a week people getting home from holiday began it all again by replying to all on the original message that started it all ;-) [[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 20:40, 2 May 2016 (UTC) <br />
<br />
<br />
Isn't there another xkcd comic involving messages in a bottle? I feel like this comic might be related to that one but I cannot find the other one. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.68.83|162.158.68.83]] 14:19, 2 May 2016 (UTC)<br />
<br />
If we're talking about problems to do with reply to all and mailing list, this story is always a good read: https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/exchange/2004/04/08/me-too/ [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.54|141.101.98.54]] 14:22, 2 May 2016 (UTC)<br />
<br />
<br />
Transcript: The curvy writing might also indicate that the paper was not kept perfectly dry inside the bottle. --[[Special:Contributions/198.41.242.240|198.41.242.240]] 15:39, 2 May 2016 (UTC)<br />
<br />
The explanation of the main comic doesn't seem to provide much of an explanation. Here's how I read the comic:<br />
<br />
: This comic is about how hard it is to unsubscribe from some email lists. 'Unsubscribe' links often don't work (perhaps intentionally). In desperation, someone has tried to send their 'unsubscribe' request in a bottle, hoping in vain that it will have its intended effect. Instead, Cueball receives it. The title-text slightly shifts the premise: now Cueball is the intended recipient, an incompetent email list operator who replies in the wrong way, triggering the problem described in the current title-text explanation. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.70.229|141.101.70.229]] 16:03, 2 May 2016 (UTC) Adam<br />
<br />
:I've added my own, somewhat nihilistic, interpretation of the original message. Despair and hopelessness are not topics that XCKD often delves in, but similar themes have appeared in some of the earlier comics. My interpretation may not be correct, but given earlier comics on the topic of heartbreak, and some news of serious health problems affecting the creator's life, I believe it is valid speculation. I did place it higher on the page than I would have liked, but I couldn't find a better place for it. I think it's worth keeping in, in some form, but if a few people feel otherwise, I won't engage in an edit war. [[User:Potato|Potato]] ([[User talk:Potato|talk]]) 02:48, 3 May 2016 (UTC)<br />
<br />
:: I don't think this flows naturally from the comic, I think you're stretching it a bit to be honest, but instead of deleting I've moved it after the next paragraph just so it flows better [[Special:Contributions/108.162.250.158|108.162.250.158]] 06:25, 3 May 2016 (UTC)<br />
<br />
::: correspondence by message in a bottle is, in my memory, a common trope. beloved of tom and jerry at least. i read it that this new message was personal to cueball. that the message was a response to a previous bottle and that the recipient of that wanted nothing more to do ''with cueball''. but, then, i'm dumb. --[[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.84|141.101.98.84]] 12:39, 3 May 2016 (UTC)<br />
<br />
So, quick story about me! I'm in charge of the email list and sending emails for the fencing club I'm in. I make sure to include a "click here to unsubscribe" link at the bottom of every email, as well as instructions on how to unsubscribe without using the link (because I'm using a Google Groups to manage the list). I've even tested the link several times with my own email. However, in spite of this, every couple weeks somebody sends a "reply all" Unsubscribe request from somebody who joined the email list before I was in charge of it. It gets pretty annoying, actually, since everybody ends up getting more of these "reply all" unsubscribe requests than actual emails from the club. Plus, it's easier for them to remove themselves from the email list than it is for me to remove them.<br />
Most of the time, I just respond with an email from my own account (so there's no danger of accidentally replying to everyone) saying "Hey. If you look at the email, there's instructions on how to unsubscribe. If you can't figure out the instructions, here's my email (_________@___.__). Please tell me what's confusing about the instructions so I can improve them." I can relate to this comic, though. Pretty funny. End story time.<br />
[[User:Jeudi Violist|Jeudi Violist]] ([[User talk:Jeudi Violist|talk]]) 20:03, 2 May 2016 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Unsubscribe [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.79|108.162.219.79]] 20:40, 2 May 2016 (UTC)<br />
<br />
<br />
Given the timing of this comic, this is surely a reference (at least a partial one) to [http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/message-in-bottle-found-steve-mershon_uk_571f28e8e4b0a1e971ca56eb this news story] about a recently found message in a bottle. Or am I over-correlating? [[User:PabloVergos|PabloVergos]] ([[User talk:PabloVergos|talk]]) 08:27, 3 May 2016 (UTC)<br />
<br />
<br />
It looks to me that what was written on the note was unsub5cribe which even if intercepted by the automated mail manager would have been not interpreted as a command and would have been sent to the list instead of performing the intended action. Generally, most mailing lists have a separate e-mail address to send commands to but some allow commands to the list address. [[User:Rleblanc|Rleblanc]] ([[User talk:Rleblanc|talk]]) 18:35, 3 May 2016 (UTC)<br />
<br />
<br />
Instead of Un (reverse action) + subscribe (the verb, not gonna parse it further), the morphemes could be parsed as: Un (not) + sub (short for submarine / underwater) + scribe (a person who writes): It's the signature line from a correspondent who isn't underwater. Perhaps the bottle was supposed to go to Atlantis to a mermaid penpal? :p [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.98|108.162.221.98]] 22:39, 3 May 2016 (UTC)<br />
<br />
When I initially read the comic, the single-word message "unsubscribe" brought to mind commercial SMS services which accept similar responses to automatically disable message lists. Nonetheless, the reference to "reply all" in the alt text does make email as the inspiration more likely. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.246.120|108.162.246.120]] 02:54, 4 May 2016 (UTC)<br />
<br />
This could also be a reference to YouTube Comments, where people feel the need to announce that they are unsubscribing from the YouTube channel that created the video. This is typically annoying to other watchers, as it adds nothing to the discussion. [[User:PowerKitten|PowerKitten]] ([[User talk:PowerKitten|talk]]) 17:53, 4 May 2016 (UTC)<br />
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I interpreted it as Cueball trying to unsubscribe from whoever sent the note in the bottle, but I guess the current explanation fits the title text better... [[Special:Contributions/162.158.214.58|162.158.214.58]] 19:40, 12 March 2019 (UTC)<br />
<br />
If possible, please add this in the trivia. Some email websites indeed used to have "message in a bottle" simulators. --[[User:ColorfulGalaxy|ColorfulGalaxy]] ([[User talk:ColorfulGalaxy|talk]]) 20:20, 20 January 2023 (UTC)<br />
:Please explain ''what'' you think should be added to Trivia (or just do it yourself, but be prepared to cite it appropriately when you do). I've been using email since before there was even websites, and unless I've missed something peculiar to (say) AOL/other early web2mail interfaces I don't ever remember seing a "send to random other subscriber" thing, or anything else I could imagine you're suggesting instead. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.78|172.70.91.78]] 02:17, 21 January 2023 (UTC)</div>172.70.91.78https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2719:_Hydrogen_Isotopes&diff=3044362719: Hydrogen Isotopes2023-01-09T21:37:59Z<p>172.70.91.78: /* Explanation */ unnecessary comma</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 2719<br />
| date = January 2, 2023<br />
| title = Hydrogen Isotopes<br />
| image = hydrogen_isotopes_2x.png<br />
| imagesize = 442x250px<br />
| noexpand = true<br />
| titletext = Oops, All Neutrons is also known as Neutral Quadrium, Nydnonen, and Goth Tritium.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|Created by a BREAK ROOM DE BROGLIE MICROWAVE USER. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
<br />
{{W|Hydrogen}} is the simplest of the chemical atoms, usually consisting of an electron orbiting a lone proton, but it has two other naturally occurring {{w|isotope}}s. This comic shows real and humorously fictional forms of hydrogen, generally depicted according to the {{w|Discovery of the neutron#Proton–neutron model of the nucleus|Chadwick model}} of the atom; see [[2100: Models of the Atom]] for details.<br />
<br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
! "Isotope"<br />
! Real?<br />
! Description<br />
|-<br />
|Hydrogen<br />
|Yes<br />
|Hydrogen-1 is the most common isotope of hydrogen, with one proton and one electron, depicted with the electron orbiting the central proton. It is also occasionally known as protium.<br />
|-<br />
|Deuterium<br />
|Yes<br />
|{{w|Deuterium}} is the second most common isotope of hydrogen, with one electron and both a neutron and proton in its nucleus. About one of every 6,760 hydrogen atoms in seawater is deuterium. Its chemical symbol is D, or [[2614: 2|<sup>2</sup>H]], and it's also called heavy hydrogen or hydrogen-2.<br />
|-<br />
|Tritium<br />
|Yes<br />
|{{w|Tritium}} is the third most common isotope of hydrogen, with an electron orbiting a nucleus of one proton and two neutrons to give it an atomic mass of about three {{w|Dalton (unit)|daltons}}. It is radioactive with a half-life of about twelve years and is very rare (but not as rare as unbound "instant hydrogen" neutrons). It can also be designated as hydrogen-3, with the symbol T or, more often, <sup>3</sup>H.<br />
|-<br />
|Ium<br />
|Only in the lab<br />
|This is a free electron orbiting around nothing. Following the naming of the heavier hydrogen isotopes, where a prefix designating the number of {{w|nucleons}} is followed by the suffix "-ium", the lack of a nucleus is designated here by the absence of a prefix. A free electron will not circle around nothing but ''will'' react to electromagnetic fields. A {{w|Penning trap}} can confine electrons to move in circles. <br />
|-<br />
|Wheelium<br />
|No<br />
|This fictional form consists of a proton, electron and neutron orbiting around nothing, with the appearance of all rotating as if on a wheel rim. The neutron could bind to the proton, but will more likely {{w|Elastic_scattering#Nuclear particle physics|elastically scatter}} away.<br />
|-<br />
|Instant hydrogen (ready in 15 minutes)<br />
|Yes, but rare[https://radioactivity.eu.com/phenomenon/neutronic_radiation]<br />
|This is just a single neutron. An unbound neutron will decay into a proton, an electron and an antineutrino after a mean lifetime of just under fifteen minutes. While the free proton is technically a positive hydrogen ion, the emitted proton and electron will only form into an atom together [https://van.physics.illinois.edu/ask/listing/1207 about four times in a million]. The name is likely a reference to "instant" food, such as noodles, which are reduced for convenience and can be quickly reconstituted when required.<br />
|-<br />
|Hydrogen (maximum strength)<br />
|No<br />
|This fictional isotope consists of an electron, a proton and [https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/hydrogen_isotopes_2x.png what appear to be at least 15 neutrons]. The heaviest {{w|Isotopes of hydrogen#List of isotopes|hydrogen isotope known}} at present is <sup>7</sup>H, with six neutrons. All isotopes heavier than <sup>3</sup>H decay almost immediately, most likely by {{w|Nuclear drip line|dripping}} neutrons and emitting a large amount of energy. "Maximum strength" may be a reference to over-the-counter medicines that contain the largest permitted quantity of active ingredients.<br />
|-<br />
|Oops, All Neutrons<br />
|Extremely unlikely<br />
|This fictional form consists of four neutrons, with one orbiting around a group of three. As the existence of {{w|tetraneutron|tetraneutrons}} is still uncertain, their possible configurations are unknown but the depicted configuration is very unlikely given the characteristics of the fundamental forces. The name is probably a reference to an American breakfast cereal called {{w|Cap'n Crunch#Variations|Oops! All Berries}}, which has also been referenced in [[2256]].<br />
|}<br />
<br />
The title text provides three other names for Oops, All Neutrons:<br />
# "Neutral Quadrium": {{w|Isotopes_of_hydrogen#Hydrogen-4|Quadrium}} is the extremely rare artificial isotope hydrogen-4, with a proton and three neutrons.[https://www.chem.ccu.edu.tw/~hu/Web_Lib/articles/Muonium+H2_Science_2011.pdf][https://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/GodesRcontrolled.pdf] The proton and electron have been replaced with neutrons.<br />
# "Nydnonen" is the word "hydrogen" with three consonants replaced by the letter 'n' so that it has four of them, representing the four neutrons.<br />
# "Goth Tritium": All the particles in the depiction are black, resembling typical {{w|gothic fashion}}, and in the same configuration as the particles of tritium.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:[Eight drawings of different versions of hydrogen atoms are shown. They are arranged in two rows of four. The depictions use the planetary model version with for instance a negative electron (with a "-" written inside a small circle) orbiting a positive proton (with a "+" written inside a larger circle) and a black neutron depicted as a circle of the same size as the neutron, as in the second atom - Deuterium. Each has a label underneath. Here, they are listed in reading order:]<br />
:[An electron orbiting a proton:] <br />
:Hydrogen<br />
<br />
:[An electron orbiting a proton connected with a neutron:] <br />
:Deuterium<br />
<br />
:[An electron orbiting a proton connected with two neutrons, so that they form a triangle:] <br />
:Tritium<br />
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:[An electron orbiting nothing:]<br />
:Ium<br />
<br />
:[An electron, a proton and a neutron placed equidistant from each other on the same circular orbit around nothing:]<br />
:Wheelium<br />
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:[A single neutron:] <br />
:Instant Hydrogen (ready in 15 minutes)<br />
<br />
:[An electron orbiting a proton connected with many neutrons, 13 visible with six touching the proton which are in front. Four more are close to those six and mostly shown and then three are only just visible behind the others. Looking closely there are also two smaller dots near the edge indicating at least two more, for 15 that can be seen. And several more would be behind the visible neutrons if this forms a spherical shape. The electron's orbit just barely goes around the outer neutrons:] <br />
:Hydrogen (maximum strength)<br />
<br />
:[Four neutrons, arranged like the particles in Tritium but with a neutron orbiting a triangle of neutrons.]<br />
:Oops, All Neutrons<br />
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{{comic discussion}}<br />
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[[Category:Charts]]<br />
[[Category:Physics]]<br />
[[Category:Chemistry]]</div>172.70.91.78https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2720:_Biology_vs_Robotics&diff=3041142720: Biology vs Robotics2023-01-04T22:38:11Z<p>172.70.91.78: </p>
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<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 2720<br />
| date = January 4, 2023<br />
| title = Biology vs Robotics<br />
| image = biology_vs_robotics_2x.png<br />
| imagesize = 546x260px<br />
| noexpand = true<br />
| titletext = Sorry, I've just always had these random things I don't like--like olives, or robots drilling holes in me without warning.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|Created by a BOT - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
Joke funny haha because robots are not people and do not heal biologically! Funny Randall!<br />
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==Transcript==<br />
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}</div>172.70.91.78https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:2716:_Game_Night_Ordering&diff=303658Talk:2716: Game Night Ordering2022-12-29T17:12:31Z<p>172.70.91.78: </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 />
Should we create a category for comics about game night? It can contain at least this and https://xkcd.com/2486/. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 22:32, 26 December 2022 (UTC)<br />
:I'm not going to oppose it, but keep in mind that it would overlap with [[:Category:Board games]]. --[[Special:Contributions/172.70.178.48|172.70.178.48]] 22:50, 26 December 2022 (UTC)<br />
::We absolutely need a general [[:Category:Games]] because we have e.g. roleplaying games under Board games. Does anyone know how to edit in a superclass category? The last time I ever did anything sophisticated with Mediawiki categories was like 2008. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.154.38|172.71.154.38]] 23:39, 26 December 2022 (UTC)<br />
:::{{done}} [[User:Liv2splain|Liv2splain]] ([[User talk:Liv2splain|talk]]) 06:20, 27 December 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
The rules would seem to be similar to the card game Cheat (or, at least, the version we used to play). Using an ordinary wholly-dealt pack of cards (for any number of players), it was a "blind bid and discard" game whereby each player has to state "<one to four> <card value>s" (or more than four, with merged packs, each of which might be whole or partial) was going on the discard pile, such that the card value was within one (-1, =, +1, with standard wrapping ...>10>J>Q>K>A>2>...) of the prior stated discard. And ''something'' had to be discarded, whether or not the player could technically do so. The forfeit for not continuing play ''or'' challenging, within a generally acceptable thinking time, was the same for either being successfully challenged (you stated you put down two threes, but on checking the dump pile you discarded two sevens) or for the person who wrongly challenged... to pick up the discard pile and be so much further from the ultimate goal of ending up with zero cards (the first the winner, optionally the second, third, etc to do so to earn further ranks just for the sake of continuing/last-ranking the one who ended up as the only one still with cards). - I presume this game just applies the same penalty (buying the food) to anyone who dithers over whether to challenge anything or 'play their own hand'. There doesn't need to be anything more complicated to it. Unless there's also an 'empty hand' winning state, that I can't discern from the brief discourse given in the comic. But it seems more geared to finding the eventual 'loser' (the one who pays up) than any single beneficiary. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.34.230|162.158.34.230]] 23:17, 26 December 2022 (UTC)<br />
:If there is a link for Cheat you should add it. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.206.150|172.70.206.150]] 23:20, 26 December 2022 (UTC)<br />
::Well, I think there's far too many variations... Though, surprisingly, it does look like {{w|Cheat (game)}} actually describes ''my'' learnt version quite well. But I don't think I see any 'time out' penalties mentioned there, and that was th XXX oe key part of the "play or challenge, don't dither, or you lose" bit to my (sorry, rather long) description above... [[Special:Contributions/162.158.34.230|162.158.34.230]] 23:27, 26 December 2022 (UTC)<br />
::: Never apologize for verbosity on talk; devote that energy to brevity on main. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.154.156|172.71.154.156]] 23:41, 26 December 2022 (UTC)<br />
::::We need a quotes page. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.206.150|172.70.206.150]] 02:13, 27 December 2022 (UTC)<br />
::(Plus there's the inverted "loser finder" rather than "winner finder" primary nature of the gameplay. It makes the methodology of play a bit too different.) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.34.231|162.158.34.231]] 23:30, 26 December 2022 (UTC)<br />
:::My favourite tactic (knowing that I'm unlikely to identifiably play against anyone who reads this...) in Cheat is that ''when'' I have four (or more, in multipack) of a particular in-range card value, and not chosen to ignore someone else's clearly false declaration of that rank, I declare one or two of this (but dump something else, as convenient) on one pass, on the very next opportunity (fellow players tending to random-walk the ±1 bracket-change) I declare/dump 'another' one or two (for real), and then on the next opportunity I truthfully get rid of all the remainder. That adds up to greater than the possibly held number of cards. But when the suspicions are ramped up against me (I've now declared six of the four jacks in the pack!) I'm proven correct. And yet, when I was lying, I knew that nobody else could hold any (or enough) of the rank to have reasonable doubts about me.<br />
:::As a bonus, so long as I remember what I dumped in the first bit of this tactic, I can conceivably have still had ''those'' cards if gameplay forces me to submit something in thir separate range. Meaning that now it's fairly safe to pretend to dump them (but actually dump any further different card-values as I decide), without increased suspicion. Especially when all this is slotted into a more general "honesty is the best policy" gameplay, save for some of the above traps or ''strictly necessary'' bluff, meaning it's high risk to challenge me. Even upon my having just declared the latest in a running total of ''seven'' deuces, or whatever it turns out I've apparently racked up since the last forced pickup (which I treat as opportunity, should I suffer it).<br />
:::Though none of this relates easily to the comic's game, of course, which is more a combination of knowledge, prepartee and hutzpah... [[Special:Contributions/172.71.242.74|172.71.242.74]] 08:31, 27 December 2022 (UTC)<br />
::::What?? [[Special:Contributions/172.71.158.6|172.71.158.6]] 10:52, 27 December 2022 (UTC)<br />
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We should make a payment service for providing crowdfunded rewards to the best contributors to explanations. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.134.16|172.69.134.16]] 01:16, 27 December 2022 (UTC)<br />
:I love this idea but it would conflict with the ethos of completely anonymized contributions here. Unless someone can propose how it might not? I mean, if there was some way to include an SHA-256 identity-confirming hash in edit summaries? Would keeping track of them in terms of surviving text after, say, a month be a decent leaderboard scoring? [[Special:Contributions/172.69.33.84|172.69.33.84]] 01:42, 27 December 2022 (UTC)<br />
::My meager anonymous IP contributions to explanations have been completely dwarfed by my attempts to revert vandalism on the official main page leaderboard, but is that a good or a bad thing? The idea needs to be carefully considered. I would absolutely kick in $25 to support other explainers, but I would need some assurance that the system couldn't be gamed by, e.g. paraphrasers, which I'm not sure is even possible. [[User:Liv2splain|Liv2splain]] ([[User talk:Liv2splain|talk]]) 01:54, 27 December 2022 (UTC)<br />
::: It's easy to hijack someone else's contributions with paraphrasing and refactoring. It's a dead end. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.166.230|162.158.166.230]] 02:05, 27 December 2022 (UTC)<br />
:::: True, but is there a way to avoid the cheating? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.214.253|172.70.214.253]] 02:28, 27 December 2022 (UTC)<br />
::: I would probably also kick in $25 if the system was well-designed, even if it was vulnerable to paraphrasing or refactoring, as long as someone could call out such flaws as they happened. Never let the perfect be the enemy of the good. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.166.173|162.158.166.173]] 02:39, 27 December 2022 (UTC)<br />
:::: The operationalism issue is how to set up actual payment flows while still allowing criticisms of them. The cost to reverse a payment is too high compared to the relative number of payments you might want to reverse. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.158.90|172.71.158.90]] 05:33, 27 December 2022 (UTC)<br />
: You could make this simple by having it be opt-in and having contributors identify themselves in their summary. Like, just put a payment address in the summary, and then link to the contribution in the discussion here. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.114.79|172.70.114.79]] 14:46, 27 December 2022 (UTC)<br />
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Is this about cryptocurrency scams? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.211.135|172.70.211.135]] 02:50, 27 December 2022 (UTC)<br />
:I want to [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlMwc1c0HRQ&ab_channel=NickKing subscribe to your newsletter.] [[Special:Contributions/172.70.206.92|172.70.206.92]] 05:20, 27 December 2022 (UTC)<br />
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Am I an idiot because I didn't know Amazon did food delivery before clicking on that first link? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.211.92|172.70.211.92]] 05:42, 27 December 2022 (UTC)<br />
:I didn't know either until you brought it to my attention, but firstly their prices are high compared to established players, and secondly it's a dystopian vision of capitalism which everyone is trying to avoid even though we all know it's inevitable. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.158.217|172.71.158.217]] 07:39, 27 December 2022 (UTC)<br />
::Dude! You can say that again! [[Special:Contributions/172.69.33.125|172.69.33.125]] 07:45, 27 December 2022 (UTC)<br />
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Does anyone else see the food : money :: atoms : bits analogy? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.186.19|162.158.186.19]] 07:26, 27 December 2022 (UTC)<br />
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The strategy mentioned in the alttext might not be faecetious- consider the alternate categories of apps and services that might exist, such as randomisers, colour pickers, specialty search engines, wikis, en and decoders, photo editors, etc. I could pull off somehting like a list of encoding bits in python in a couple hours off of seventh grade computer science. ~Tanz<br />
:No, you could make a fake, standalone site that might even suffice to phish payment details from the sufficiently gullable.<br />
:OTOH, there are eCommerce-focused Content Management Systems out there that you can pay to host something that (with further effort, including effort to advertise to consumers ''and'' recruit supply-end businesses to service the orders) might then be considered valid, and might eventually even make an honest profit from. At least before taxes/business rates, financial services/payment handling fees, etc. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.178.64|172.71.178.64]] 15:27, 27 December 2022 (UTC)<br />
:It reads quite serious to me given the historical content re hacker culture, but editors clearly disagree. Being a reseller or using a tool like chatgpt makes this much easier. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.110.236|172.70.110.236]] 01:01, 28 December 2022 (UTC) edit: it's a joke in that only somebody who spent all their time building software would spend a week making an app for one game night. although, if you have an upcoming release ... [[Special:Contributions/172.70.110.237|172.70.110.237]] 01:05, 28 December 2022 (UTC)<br />
:: It's not the programming, it's the logistics of recruiting drivers and having them ready and scheduled, and having contracts with financial institutions approved which involves a due diligence process which absolutely takes over a week. You're also going to need a lawyer draft up contracts, terms, and policies. You'd be lucky to get a lawyer consultation appointment in a week. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.158.216|172.71.158.216]] 03:11, 28 December 2022 (UTC)<br />
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Going from the description, cheat sounds remarkably like the game BS. Are they two names for the same thing? Or is there some fundamental difference? ~NotFromAiPhoneGuys {{unsigned ip|172.69.68.15|15:41, 29 December 2022}}<br />
:The wikilink to Cheat clearly says yes, if you follow it, and a few other game-names as well. Or at least to within the same general cloud of games. i.e. any given BS is likely no more different to Cheat than any other local variation upon Cheat is. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.78|172.70.91.78]] 17:12, 29 December 2022 (UTC)</div>172.70.91.78https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2713:_Data_Point&diff=3020252713: Data Point2022-12-21T01:04:44Z<p>172.70.91.78: /* Explanation */ But, of course, we had nested parentheticals, trying it without the outer layering. And moved a linked-comma to outside the link.</p>
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<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 2713<br />
| date = December 19, 2022<br />
| title = Data Point<br />
| image = data_point_2x.png<br />
| imagesize = 315x409px<br />
| noexpand = true<br />
| titletext = In general you should only include your single best data point in the paper. The rest of the data can go in the supplementary materials.<br />
}}<br />
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==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|Created by a REALLY COOL DATA POINT. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
<br />
When scientific measurements are made, the conclusions are almost always based on many data points observed in relation to each other. The comic jokes that a single data point can somehow be of such interest in isolation that the other data may be disregarded. In reality, a single datum can almost never represent what the information in the related data taken together indicate. <br />
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[[Randall]]'s caption states that a figure illustrating a single datum thus constitutes a "science power move." (Similarly to the [[:Category:Science tip|science tips]] of previous comics.)<br />
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This is most likely intended as factitious satire, because the purpose of a chart or graph figure is to present multiple data which would be less clear as tabular or textual data, so there is rarely any reason to devote a figure to a single datum, regardless of its importance. The canonical counterexample is presentation of [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780123971609000059 the mean of a group of measurements]. ([https://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/3-s2.0-B9780123971609000059-f05-01-9780123971609.jpg Figure here] — note the point's specular reflection indicating 3-D.) A less common counterexample might be when an interesting singular {{w|matrix decomposition}} such as an {{w|eigenvector}} is characterized, but this would only occur when such a datum is highly dimensional. It also could be a joke about papers which only highlight particularly interesting or significant data without including the background measurements or similar mundane information necessary to fully understand or reproduce the findings. While there are [https://www.aje.com/en/arc/data-not-shown-4-reasons-omit-figure-or-table/ accepted reasons for this practice], it can be annoying when trying to follow an otherwise useful procedure or comparing aspects of the results the authors did not anticipate.<br />
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The title text suggests relegating all the other data to supplementary materials, presumably to avoid detracting from the single "cool" datum.<br />
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==Transcript==<br />
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:[A graph is shown. There are regularly spaced unreadable labels along both axes. In the center there is a single data point with short symmetrical vertical error bars. The graph is dominated by a round white center behind the point from where brilliant white lines emanate out radially in all directions, filling most of the background area, and looking like a star or the sun. Beneath the graph there are two lines of unreadable caption text to the left, next to a rectangular legend box on the right with one dot, indicating the data point, and an unreadable label. Above the graph it is titled:]<br />
<br />
:Figure 2.<br />
<br />
:[Caption beneath the panel:]<br />
:Science power move: When one of your data points is really cool, devote a whole figure to it.<br />
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{{comic discussion}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:Science]]<br />
[[Category:Scientific research]]</div>172.70.91.78https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:1443:_Language_Nerd&diff=301292Talk:1443: Language Nerd2022-12-14T00:18:52Z<p>172.70.91.78: </p>
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<div>I got edit-conflicted (not a problem), but if someone wants to consider canibalising/correcting my own intended contribution, and then completely delete this comment (please!), here's what it was:<br />
:The English language (and others) can be, and often is, treated quite fluidly with regard to certain word forms. For example "medalled" <!-- really need a link for this other than http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?search=medalled&title=Special%3ASearch --> has been coined as the act of "having gained a medal" in a sporting competition. (Not to be confused with "meddled".) "Verbed" (i.e. to have made a non-verb form into a verb form) is a more long-standing example which is used in this comic without any form of meta-reference <!-- Future editor: Link to something like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conversion_(word_formation) perhaps? --> and has perhaps gained greater acceptance, already, even amongst those who might decry the other neologism.<br />
:In the comic, "legit" has been newly created as an adverb, possibly from the adjective "legitimate" (confusingly, since "legitimately" already exists as a usable adverb), "adverb" has been 'verbed' into "adverbed" and it is also pointed out that the noun clause "language nerd" has been used in an adjectival context, i.e. "adjectived".<br />
And I had also made the edit summary say "It's probably infinitely improvable, but I've stop-gapped an initial explanation and commentified some additionalifications you might have some usiness for.", but that's probably no use to anyone. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.112|141.101.99.112]] 08:53, 5 November 2014 (UTC)<br />
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Indubitably. [[User:Jarod997|Jarod997]] ([[User talk:Jarod997|talk]]) 14:17, 5 November 2014 (UTC)<br />
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I wonder if this is also an homage to the [http://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/2013/01/28 Calvin and Hobbes] comic where Calvin likes to "verb" words.[[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.55|108.162.216.55]] 14:28, 5 November 2014 (UTC)<br />
:"Verbing words weirds language" came to mind when I read today's comic, but I'd forgotten the source - thanks for that! [[User:DivePeak|DivePeak]] ([[User talk:DivePeak|talk]]) 01:58, 6 November 2014 (UTC)<br />
:This is definitely a reference to the Calvin and Hobbes strip. "Verbing weirds language" is a famous phrase among linguists. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.56.200|173.245.56.200]] 03:08, 6 November 2014 (UTC)<br />
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What group who "might decry the other neologism[s]" accepts "verbed"? [[User:Djbrasier|Djbrasier]] ([[User talk:Djbrasier|talk]]) 17:17, 5 November 2014 (UTC)<br />
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I'm slightly confused about the "adjectived language nerd" claim - can someone clarify or chime in with their opinion? If "language nerd" is describing "go," (i.e. describing the way in which he/she "[went] on you," wouldn't you say that it was actually being adverbed (as with legit)? Or should at be interpreted as describing he/she themself, in which case I guess adjectived is correct? [[Special:Contributions/173.245.56.157|173.245.56.157]] 18:38, 5 November 2014 (UTC)<br />
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:"Go (adjective)" is a modular expression that does turn adjectives into adverbs, but by using "language nerd" in that spot, it implies the phrase has been "adjectived" more than it has been "adverbed" [ex grat. "go yellow", "go bad", "go rogue", etc]. [[User:ArtDuck|ArtDuck]] ([[User talk:ArtDuck|talk]]) 04:03, 6 November 2014 (UTC)<br />
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If you are confused about the "adjectived language nerd", I would like to point you to the discussion of this comic by linguist Geoffrey K Pullum (http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=15576) xkcd gets Pullum's stamp of approval and that is high praise indeed for linguistic matters. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.32|108.162.216.32]] 23:28, 5 November 2014 (UTC)<br />
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:Pullum is being rather lax here, probably because he likes the strip so much, and even he just says that it's "arguably accurate," which I wouldn't characterize as high praise. "Language nerd" here is functioning as a predicate noun, which Pullum calls a predicative complement and Wikipedia calls a predicative nominal or predicate nominal. So "language nerd" here isn't really an adjective, any more than "language" is an adjective, notwithstanding that it modifies "nerd." [[Special:Contributions/173.245.56.200|173.245.56.200]] 03:18, 6 November 2014 (UTC)<br />
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Megan didn't verb "verb". As with the comments pointing to the Calvin and Hobbes strip, "verbing" is already a thing. [[User:Smperron|Smperron]] ([[User talk:Smperron|talk]]) 07:06, 6 November 2014 (UTC)<br />
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I don't mean to go all anchronic nazi on XKCD, but when Megan says "I just", The meaning of the word 'just' in this sentence is "very recently; in the immediate past." However at the point of saying the word 'just', she actually hasn't yet done the thing which she is about to describe., hence it would be more correct to say "I am legit adverbing 'legit', I just verbed adverb, etc..". Unless a sentence is like a database transaction and the period at the end is the COMMIT statement, in which case you can only evaluate the sentence once you reach the end. Is it possible to overthink things in XKCD? <br />
[[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.62|108.162.216.62]] 03:46, 8 November 2014 (UTC)<br />
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:Seems to be the rule here. Nonetheless, you raise an iteresting point. [[Special:Contributions/188.114.99.189|188.114.99.189]] 00:01, 1 December 2015 (UTC)<br />
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"Megan uses the word adverbed without any comment" <- this is wrong because she says "I just verbed adverb" [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.236|141.101.98.236]] 22:55, 3 December 2014 (UTC)<br />
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'''example of an autogram?'''<br />
<br />
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autogram<br />
I would say so, except in the "parts of speech" sense {{unsigned ip|172.69.198.28}}<br />
<br />
Related: [http://google.com/search?q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mathisfunforum.com%2Fviewtopic.php%3Fid%3D1689&form=QBLHCN&sp=-1&pq=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mathisfunforum.com%2Fviewtopic.php%3Fid%3D1689&sc=0-51&qs=n&sk=&cvid=3DDF204C36474D6DB99C4F858F88CEE0&ghsh=0&ghacc=0&ghpl= Click here] --[[User:ColorfulGalaxy|ColorfulGalaxy]] ([[User talk:ColorfulGalaxy|talk]]) 10:04, 13 December 2022 (UTC)<br />
:Could you provide a less awful-looking link to follow without requiring either Google-parsing or a manual demunging of whatever it is the link is supposed to lead to? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.78|172.70.91.78]] 00:18, 14 December 2022 (UTC)</div>172.70.91.78https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2307:_Alive_Or_Not&diff=3011142307: Alive Or Not2022-12-12T16:07:41Z<p>172.70.91.78: /* Things ranked as alive */ Tweak</p>
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<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 2307<br />
| date = May 15, 2020<br />
| title = Alive Or Not<br />
| image = alive_or_not.png<br />
| titletext = Computer viruses currently fall somewhere between prions and fire.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
There is no universally-accepted definition of "{{w|life}}"; {{w|Life#Definitions|all definitions}} thus far proposed have either excluded some things commonly understood to be alive or included some things commonly understood to not be alive. Take reproduction, a trait commonly assumed to be essential and unique to life; by this definition, anything which cannot reproduce (including {{w|mules}}, {{w|worker bees}}, and postmenopausal women) would be considered nonliving, while anything which can duplicate itself (including {{w|computer viruses}}, {{w|3D printers|advanced 3D printers}}, and {{w|fire}}—see below) would be considered alive.<br />
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Many more elaborate definitions of life have been attempted over the decades. Some common additional factors include:<br />
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* {{w|Homeostasis}}, the ability to control an internal environment to maintain a constant state;<br />
* {{w|Metabolism}}, converting nutrients into energy and building blocks for growth, reproduction, and so on;<br />
* {{w|Adaptation}} through heredity and natural selection; and <br />
* Responding to the environment.<br />
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Despite all of this, the only definite definition of "life" is "something everyone agrees is alive" - and even then, that’s also indefinite because of the further ambiguity of what counts as part of “everyone”. This comic attempts to rank several types of things by how likely people are to perceive them as "alive". As there is a debate as to whether viruses are alive or not, [[Randall]] has taken a side, and may spark debate, by putting viruses above the alive line. <br />
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Given that this comic was released during the early days of the [[:Category:COVID-19|COVID-19]] pandemic, viruses are for sure on Randall's mind, given that most comics more than a month before this one was about COVID-19. And this comic is most likely inspired by this, and the previous comic [[2306: Common Cold]], where the cold viruses are definitely alive, and afraid.<br />
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=== Things ranked as alive ===<br />
<br />
* '''Animals (normal)'''<br />
* '''Animals (weird ones like jellyfish and coral)''': Randall's categorization of animals as "normal" or "weird" can be seen as a simplified version of the {{w|Great chain of being}}, a philosophical framework in which humans are seen as the most "advanced" form of life, followed by a divine or otherwise justified hierarchy of progressively lesser life-forms (mammals, birds, fish, lizards, insects, and so on). Categorizing weird animals was already done in [[1587: Food Rule]]. Corals may be considered as lying between animals and fungi because corals, like, fungi and plants, are {{w|Sessility (motility)|sessile}}, i.e., they "grow" in one place. Jellyfish are not sessile, but {{w|Cnidaria#Basic_body_forms|many jellyfish are the same species as corals}} in different generations. The more unlike ourselves that creatures are, the more incomprehensible their 'lives' are to casual inspection - whilst being definitely alive and officially members of the Animal Kingdom, {{w|Sponge#Coordination of activities|some creatures}} can be very weird indeed.<br />
* '''{{w|Fungi}}''': Fungi represent a unique lineage of eukaryotic, mostly multicellular organisms. Although historically studied by botanists specializing in the sub-discipline "mycology", modern scholarship places fungi in the "opisthokont" lineage, which contains both the animals and the fungi. Fungi, like animals, cannot make complex organic molecules from carbon dioxide, and must consume organic molecules as food to survive. Like plants, fungi are typically unable to move on their own. The various types of fungi include mushrooms, yeasts, rusts, smuts, and molds. Fungi evolution is also referenced in [[1749: Mushrooms]].<br />
* '''{{w|Plant}}s''': Those often green<sup><nowiki>[</nowiki>{{w|Viridiplantae|citation needed}}<nowiki>]</nowiki></sup>, often leafy things outside your current isolation dwelling, sometimes inside, next to the window. They are primarily distinguished from other eukaryotes by being able to use photosynthesis to convert water, carbon dioxide and energy from light into sugar and free oxygen.<br />
* '''{{w|Slime mold}}s''': Slime molds are eukaryotic single-celled organisms (so "more advanced" than bacteria). In the "plasmodial" slime molds, the "single cell" may expand to spread across several feet of territory, and weigh several pounds, while the "cellular" slime molds are most notable for their occasional congregation into macro-sized colonies which can appear to move as a single creature. It's interesting that Randall ranks them as "less alive" than fungi (which they were once thought to be), especially given some of their curious behaviors (e.g. [https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2014/feb/18/slime-mould-rail-road-transport-routes optimizing transportation networks] when presented with a collection of food flakes and obstacles).<br />
* '''{{w|Bacteria}}''': Bacteria are one of two groups of prokaryotes, meaning cells that do not contain a nucleus and rarely harbor membrane-bound organelles. A small portion of Bacteria are pathogenic, but most are actually harmless. Bacteria's ability to convert raw materials into nutrients available for other living things makes them essential to other living things.<br />
* '''{{w|Archaea}}''': Archaea (misspelled as ''Archea'' by Randall) is a {{w|domain (biology)|domain}} of organisms, which do not fall under eukaryotes or bacteria. They are single-celled organisms that lack a nucleus, and were initially thought to be ancient lineages of bacteria (i.e. ''archaeobacteria'') found in extreme environments similar to the early Earth, which is probably why Randall ranks them as "less alive" than bacteria. However, it is now known that they live pretty much everywhere that regular bacteria do, and that they have very distinct biochemistry from bacteria; they are actually more closely related to eukaryotes (i.e. slime molds and up) than bacteria are.<br />
* '''{{w|Virus}}es''': Viruses are infectious agents consisting of a genome surrounded by a protein or lipid shell. When a virus contacts a cell, it delivers its genome inside the cell which causes the cells' reproductive machinery to create more viruses. Since viruses are incapable of reproducing without the aid of larger cells, [https://www.google.com/search?q=are+viruses+alive it is often debated] whether or not they are actually alive. Randall has ranked viruses as "alive" but on the lowest possible rung of such; indeed, many biologists say [https://askabiologist.asu.edu/questions/are-viruses-alive viruses fall in a gray area], or that [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1369848616300103 the question is arbitrary and non-scientific]. By another criterion life on Earth is defined by the presence of extremely long molecules that can be replicated (copied). Every organism above viruses contains both DNA and RNA. Viruses only contain either RNA or DNA. Nothing below here contains any (biologically active) DNA or RNA. This comic came out the day after [[2306: Common Cold]], where cold virus was anthropomorphized and was asking humans to stop with all their hand washing when the [[:Category:COVID-19|COVID-19]] pandemic is over. Thus those viruses where definitely alive. Maybe that comic inspired this one.<br />
<br />
===Things ranked as not alive===<br />
* '''{{w|Prions}}''': Prions are misfolded proteins that cause other proteins to misfold. They are most famously the cause of various brain diseases such as "{{w|mad cow disease}}", and may be involved in Alzheimer's disease. Similarly to viruses, prions require something else to replicate, but unlike viruses, they do not possess a nucleic-acid genome or any other means of carrying heritable information, and they do not alter the cell's production machinery, but rather interact with proteins which are already made. In that sense, they're more like a particularly tricky kind of metabolic waste product or pollution.<br />
* (from title text) '''{{w|Computer virus}}es''': A piece of code which hijacks computer systems to replicate itself, named by analogy to biological viruses. Strictly speaking, they're just a particular encoding of information, usually stored in electromagnetic media (although there's no reason one couldn't be stored on punch cards). Randall ranks them as "''currently''" more alive than fire, because they do carry "genetic" information (which anti-virus programs can be programmed to look for, analogous to vaccination) and some are capable of modifying themselves to adapt to new environments, but less alive than prions because they only operate within information systems. However, if a virus were able to e.g. hijack an electronics factory to start making flash drives and memory cards that carry the virus's code, then perhaps it might move up in the hierarchy.<br />
* '''{{w|Fire}}''': Fire is a common example of something which meets many common definitions for life; it grows, reproduces by spreading seeds (sparks), and consumes energy and excretes waste (ashes and smoke) by the same net chemical process as respiration. However, while fire can be a necessary part of the life cycle of other organisms (e.g. redwood trees), it does not maintain a constant environment within itself, nor does it perform {{w|anabolism}}, the construction of larger molecules from smaller ones. Respirating life-forms use helper molecules to moderate the oxidation reaction into small steps to produce useful units of energy, rather than letting it all happen at once to produce heat.<br />
* '''{{w|Clouds}}''': Random shapes taken by clouds may resemble animals and other objects, but arguably they are not alive in any sense. Things like tornadoes and hurricanes, on the other hand, can meet some definitions of life: they maintain homeostasis, actively seek and consume energy, and occasionally reproduce. Cf. ''Fire'' above.<br />
* '''{{w|Fossils}}''': Fossils are the petrified remains of once-living organisms, so in that sense they are more connected to life than "regular rocks", and some may hold DNA that could theoretically be used to clone the fossilized life-form.<br />
* '''{{w|Rocks}} shaped like faces''': Humans have an extremely advanced capability for seeing patterns, and one of the most powerful patterns we seek is {{w|Face perception|faces}}, so much so that we see faces even where they don't exist (a common form of {{w|pareidolia}}). Humans instinctively anthropomorphize any object which vaguely resembles a face as having a sense of attention and mood, and so a rock shaped like a face would likely be treated differently than a rock not shaped like a face. Randall does not distinguish between rocks intentionally carved to look like faces (such as the famous {{w|Moai}} sculptures) or rocks that happen to look vaguely like faces under the right lighting conditions (such as the famous {{w|Face on Mars}}.)<br />
* '''Regular {{w|rocks}}''': Modern taxonomy originates from Carl Linnaeus, who categorized all objects on Earth as animals, plants (often stated as "''vegetable''" in quiz games like Twenty Questions), or minerals. Minerals are most obviously not alive, although some cultures and works of fiction have creatures that turn to stone and will return later to life, and some people keep {{w|Pet Rock|rocks as "pets"}}.<br />
<br />
Interestingly, the vertical line linking the categories extends beyond both the most-alive and least-alive things, making one wonder what Randall might think is more alive than "normal animals" or less alive than "regular rocks". In the latter direction an explanation might be that shortly before this comic the scientific press wrote about heat-resistant bacteria that live in the desert and slowly eat regular rocks generating their own water in this process making even the sand in the desert partially alive.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:[A chart consisting of vertical line, with 14 dots and a horizontal dashed dividing line drawn across the list a bit below the middle. Each dot has a label to the right of the line with a line pointing to the dot they belong to. Above and below the dividing line is a label with a broad arrow pointing up above and down below.]<br />
:Up arrow: Alive<br />
:Down arrow: Not alive<br />
<br />
:[Dot labels from top to bottom above the dashed line:]<br />
:Animals (Normal)<br />
:Animals (Weird ones like jellyfish and coral)<br />
:Fungi<br />
:Plants<br />
:Slime molds<br />
:Bacteria<br />
:Archea<br />
:Viruses<br />
<br />
:[Dot labels from top to bottom below the dashed line:]<br />
:Prions<br />
:Fire<br />
:Clouds<br />
:Fossils<br />
:Rocks shaped like faces<br />
:Regular rocks<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:Charts]]<br />
[[Category:Biology]]<br />
[[Category:Geology]]<br />
[[Category:Mycology]]</div>172.70.91.78https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2708:_Mystery_Asterisk_Destination&diff=3009552708: Mystery Asterisk Destination2022-12-09T09:22:52Z<p>172.70.91.78: /* Explanation */</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 2708<br />
| date = December 7, 2022<br />
| title = Mystery Asterisk Destination<br />
| image = mystery_asterisk_destination_2x.png<br />
| imagesize = 288x248px<br />
| noexpand = true<br />
| titletext = If you ever see the † dagger symbol with no unmatched footnote, it means the writer is saying the phrase while threatening you with a dagger.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|Created by a BOT.* Do NOT delete this tag too soon.<sup>†</sup>}}<br />
<br />
This comic pertains to the use of asterisks and other symbols for footnotes or endnotes. It jokes that when an asterisk appears after a word without a corresponding footnote, it refers to this comic. This is sometimes seen in articles, books, and other pieces of media where the footnote corresponding to the asterisk is either nonexistent or unable to be found. This can be quite frustrating, especially when a footnote or explanation on the marked piece of information would have been helpful or necessary. Thus this comic may provide closure for some readers, similar in spirit to [[391: Anti-Mindvirus]], and opposite to the tension created by the unmatched parenthesis in [[859: (]]. <br />
<br />
In programming languages and mathematical expressions, an unpaired asterisk or dagger often does not refer to a footnote, and thus does not constitute a mystery. Examples include using asterisks such as for the multiplication operator, or dates of birth and death which are sometimes indicated with an asterisk or dagger respectively.<br />
<br />
The title text jokes that unmatched instances of † (a dagger; a symbol usually used for a second footnote in a text) are threats being made by the author to the reader with a physical dagger. As of this writing, it states "If you ever see the † dagger symbol with no '''''un'''''matched footnote...", forming a double negative. This is likely a typo intended as "...no matching footnote."<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:[A blank panel with text at the bottom.]<br />
:'''*'''Whenever you see a mystery asterisk that doesn't have a matching footnote, it points here.<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}</div>172.70.91.78https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2707:_Astronomy_Numbers&diff=3009532707: Astronomy Numbers2022-12-09T09:16:55Z<p>172.70.91.78: /* Explanation */</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 2707<br />
| date = December 5, 2022<br />
| title = Astronomy Numbers<br />
| image = astronomy_numbers_2x.png<br />
| imagesize = 593x315px<br />
| noexpand = true<br />
| titletext = I adopted a cat that weighs 12 solar masses. Laser pointers love chasing it.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|Created by A WARPED SPACE-TIME CONTINUUM - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
Space is big[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hv1spjsvu-A] and the things that are in space can also end up being very big themselves. As a result, most quantities in astronomy have huge scales. For example, Earth has a mass 10<sup>23</sup> times more than the average human, and the Sun is 10<sup>5</sup> times more than that, which itself is 10<sup>12</sup> times less massive than the Milky Way. The same applies to speeds, distances, and time, which can often be measured in terms of light speed, light-years, and millions or billions of years. Because of this, it's a truly unusual occurrence for anything in space to end up in the fairly narrow range of scales of mass, size, speed, or time that humans can easily grasp.<br />
<br />
[[Ponytail]], apparently a scientist researching something related to Earth's orbit, finds that on the date in question (January 1, although the year is not specified), Earth will be approaching the sun at a velocity of 65 miles per hour—an extremely common and normal-sounding velocity to American ears, often used as a speed limit on highways in the US. Ponytail is clearly a little thrown off by this, and remarks that she finds it "suspicious" when reasonably human-scaled numbers come up.<br />
<br />
She then extends this discomfort to things that should be measured in regular numbers, such as the weight of cats. The vet, [[Megan]], is seemingly used to this problem (perhaps she gets a lot of astronomers, or Ponytail has a hypochondriac cat), so she restates the 12-lb weight of Ponytail's cat in solar masses. Since using this unit yields an ''incredibly'' small number, 3×10<sup>-30</sup> (a three preceded by a decimal point and 29 zeroes), it evidently sounds more plausible to the astronomer. This weight is in fact about 13 lb 2 oz (about 5.5 kilograms), slightly heavier than the initial figure given for the cat, but within [[2585: Rounding|rounding error]] for the single digit of precision that Megan uses. According to [[2205:_Types_of_Approximation | 2205: Types of Approximation]] that rounding error is unusually small for an astronomer, though. Also, the usage of weight gives the word "scales" in "scales should all be incomprehensible" a double meaning because scales are used to weigh things, including cats. A scale that returns weights in solar masses would indeed be incomprhensible to most people. However, this could be unintentional on Randall's part.<br />
<br />
The Earth's orbital velocity around the Sun is far above any "normal" scales (around 30 kilometers per second or 108,000 kilometers per hour). However, Earth has a pretty circular orbit around the Sun, so most of this speed ends up being tangential (sideways) rather than radial (towards or away from) the Sun, which is the value relevant for Ponytail's calculations. On January 1, Earth's radial velocity is close to its smallest value because we reach our closest point to the Sun in the first few days of January each year (in 2023, {{w|Perihelion|perihelion}} happens on January 4) so by January 1, it's nearly come to a standstill before it starts traveling away from the Sun again. On the other hand, by April 3, 2023, Earth will be receding from the Sun by almost 500 meters per second or 1800 kilometers per hour, a less normal speed for the average person to encounter in everyday life.{{citation needed}} 65 miles per hour is approximately equal to 105 kilometers per hour, although the even more typical scientific value (in {{w|International System of Units|SI}} derived units) would be 29 meters per second.<br />
<br />
The title text suggests that laser pointers "love chasing" a new cat with a weight of 12 solar masses (an inversion of the typical cat behavior of [[729: Laser Pointer|chasing laser pointer dots]]). A 12 solar mass cat would have the dominant gravitation well in our solar system, which would make everything fall towards the cat – including laser pointers. Furthermore, all gravitational fields bend light towards their center; a 12 solar mass object could bend light quite a lot. A laser pointer aimed near such a cat would bend the light towards it or "chase" it. In fact, anything with 12 solar masses would have a Schwarzschild radius of around 36 kilometers, so any cat-sized thing with that mass would be a black hole, drawing all light within a 72-kilometer sphere around it into its singularity.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:[Ponytail is standing in front of a whiteboard writing on it with a pen, while Cueball looks over her shoulder from behind her. On the board is an almost circular ellipse with a cross that centers on a dot towards the left side of it. On the right side there is a small circle on the ellipse's line. There are several lines of wiggles representing unreadable text. To the left of the ellipse there are two lines near the top of and four near at the bottom of the ellipse. Ponytail is writing a fifth line below these almost under the ellipse. At the bottom to the left there is a rectangular frame with a line of text beneath it and at the bottom left corner there is a line forming a half closes rectangle around two dots.]<br />
:Ponytail: …And we need to correct for our elliptical orbit. On January 1<sup>st</sup>, Earth will be approaching the sun at a rate of ...let's see...<br />
:Ponytail: 65 miles per hour.<br />
:Ponytail: Weird. Okay.<br />
:Cueball: Weird?<br />
<br />
:[Ponytail has turned towards Cueball, the pen is no longer in her hand and the white board is no longer shown.]<br />
:Ponytail: I get suspicious whenever I see a normal number in astronomy. We're not supposed to have those. Feels wrong.<br />
:Ponytail: Scales should all be incomprehensible.<br />
<br />
:[Megan in a lab-coat raised her hand palm up towards an animal carrier cage standing on her desk. The cage has a handle and five air holes are at the top. Behind two of them something black inside the cage can be seen. Ponytail is standing on the other side of the desk looking at Megan. Above the top of the panels frame there is a panel with a label:]<br />
:Earlier, at the vet:<br />
:Megan: Your cat weighs 12 lbs.<br />
:Ponytail: Ridiculous, nothing weighs "12". You must mean 10<sup>-20</sup>? Or 10<sup>40</sup>?<br />
:Megan: Fine. Your cat weighs 3x10<sup>-30</sup> solar masses.<br />
:Ponytail: Okay. Better.<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]<br />
[[Category:Astronomy]]<br />
[[Category:Cats]]</div>172.70.91.78https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2707:_Astronomy_Numbers&diff=3009512707: Astronomy Numbers2022-12-09T09:14:02Z<p>172.70.91.78: /* Explanation */</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 2707<br />
| date = December 5, 2022<br />
| title = Astronomy Numbers<br />
| image = astronomy_numbers_2x.png<br />
| imagesize = 593x315px<br />
| noexpand = true<br />
| titletext = I adopted a cat that weighs 12 solar masses. Laser pointers love chasing it.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|Created by A WARPED SPACE-TIME CONTINUUM - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
Space is big[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hv1spjsvu-A] and the things that are in space can also end up being very big themselves. As a result, most quantities in astronomy have huge scales. For example, Earth has a mass 10<sup>23</sup> times more than the average human, and the Sun is 10<sup>5</sup> times more than that, which itself is 10<sup>12</sup> times less massive than the Milky Way. The same applies to speeds, distances, and time, which can often be measured in terms of light speed, light-years, and millions or billions of years. Because of this, it's a truly unusual occurrence for anything in space to end up in the fairly narrow range of scales of mass, size, speed, or time that humans can easily grasp.<br />
<br />
[[Ponytail]], apparently a scientist researching something related to Earth's orbit, finds that on the date in question (January 1, although the year is not specified), Earth will be approaching the sun at a velocity of 65 miles per hour—an extremely common and normal-sounding velocity to American ears, often used as a speed limit on highways in the US. Ponytail is clearly a little thrown off by this, and remarks that she finds it "suspicious" when reasonably human-scaled numbers come up.<br />
<br />
She then extends this discomfort to things that should be measured in regular numbers, such as the weight of cats. The vet, [[Megan]], is seemingly used to this problem (perhaps she gets a lot of astronomers), so she restates the 12-lb weight of Ponytail's cat in solar masses. Since using this unit yields an ''incredibly'' small number, 3×10<sup>-30</sup> (a three preceded by a decimal point and 29 zeroes), it evidently sounds more plausible to the astronomer. This weight is in fact about 13 lb 2 oz (about 5.5 kilograms), slightly heavier than the initial figure given for the cat, but within [[2585: Rounding|rounding error]] for the single digit of precision that Megan uses. According to [[2205:_Types_of_Approximation | 2205: Types of Approximation]] that rounding error is unusually small for an astronomer, though. Also, the usage of weight gives the word "scales" in "scales should all be incomprehensible" a double meaning because scales are used to weigh things, including cats. A scale that returns weights in solar masses would indeed be incomprhensible to most people. However, this could be unintentional on Randall's part.<br />
<br />
Although the Earth's orbital velocity around the Sun is far above any "normal" scales (around 30 kilometers per second or 108,000 kilometers per hour), Earth has a pretty circular orbit around the Sun. So most of this speed ends up being tangential (sideways) rather than radial (towards or away from) the Sun, which is the value relevant for Ponytail's calculations. On January 1, Earth's radial velocity is close to its smallest value because we reach our closest point to the Sun in the first few days of January each year (in 2023, {{w|Perihelion|perihelion}} happens on January 4) so by January 1, it's nearly come to a standstill before it starts traveling away from the Sun again. On the other hand, by April 3, 2023, Earth will be receding from the Sun by almost 500 meters per second or 1800 kilometers per hour, a less normal speed for the average person to encounter in everyday life.{{citation needed}} 65 miles per hour is approximately equal to 105 kilometers per hour, although the even more typical scientific value (in {{w|International System of Units|SI}} derived units) would be 29 meters per second.<br />
<br />
The title text suggests that laser pointers "love chasing" a new cat with a weight of 12 solar masses (an inversion of the typical cat behavior of [[729: Laser Pointer|chasing laser pointer dots]]). A 12 solar mass cat would have the dominant gravitation well in our solar system, which would make everything fall towards the cat – including laser pointers. Furthermore, all gravitational fields bend light towards their center; a 12 solar mass object could bend light quite a lot. A laser pointer aimed near such a cat would bend the light towards it or "chase" it. In fact, anything with 12 solar masses would have a Schwarzschild radius of around 36 kilometers, so any cat-sized thing with that mass would be a black hole, drawing all light within a 72-kilometer sphere around it into its singularity.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:[Ponytail is standing in front of a whiteboard writing on it with a pen, while Cueball looks over her shoulder from behind her. On the board is an almost circular ellipse with a cross that centers on a dot towards the left side of it. On the right side there is a small circle on the ellipse's line. There are several lines of wiggles representing unreadable text. To the left of the ellipse there are two lines near the top of and four near at the bottom of the ellipse. Ponytail is writing a fifth line below these almost under the ellipse. At the bottom to the left there is a rectangular frame with a line of text beneath it and at the bottom left corner there is a line forming a half closes rectangle around two dots.]<br />
:Ponytail: …And we need to correct for our elliptical orbit. On January 1<sup>st</sup>, Earth will be approaching the sun at a rate of ...let's see...<br />
:Ponytail: 65 miles per hour.<br />
:Ponytail: Weird. Okay.<br />
:Cueball: Weird?<br />
<br />
:[Ponytail has turned towards Cueball, the pen is no longer in her hand and the white board is no longer shown.]<br />
:Ponytail: I get suspicious whenever I see a normal number in astronomy. We're not supposed to have those. Feels wrong.<br />
:Ponytail: Scales should all be incomprehensible.<br />
<br />
:[Megan in a lab-coat raised her hand palm up towards an animal carrier cage standing on her desk. The cage has a handle and five air holes are at the top. Behind two of them something black inside the cage can be seen. Ponytail is standing on the other side of the desk looking at Megan. Above the top of the panels frame there is a panel with a label:]<br />
:Earlier, at the vet:<br />
:Megan: Your cat weighs 12 lbs.<br />
:Ponytail: Ridiculous, nothing weighs "12". You must mean 10<sup>-20</sup>? Or 10<sup>40</sup>?<br />
:Megan: Fine. Your cat weighs 3x10<sup>-30</sup> solar masses.<br />
:Ponytail: Okay. Better.<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]<br />
[[Category:Astronomy]]<br />
[[Category:Cats]]</div>172.70.91.78https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2668:_Artemis_Quote&diff=2945342668: Artemis Quote2022-09-09T13:36:27Z<p>172.70.91.78: Undo revision 294501 by 172.70.214.79 (talk) No, 'cohesive' does not mean "let us lump these dissimilar things together".</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 2668<br />
| date = September 5, 2022<br />
| title = Artemis Quote<br />
| image = artemis_quote.png<br />
| titletext = Another option: "It is an honor to be the first human to set foot on the moon."<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|created by a MISQUOTED ASTRONAUT. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
<br />
The {{w|Artemis program}} is a series of planned space missions that will land people on the Moon and begin to set up infrastructure for a permanent crewed presence. People first landed on the Moon in 1969 as part of the {{w|Apollo program}}. They have not been back since 1972.<br />
<br />
When {{w|Neil Armstrong}} became the first person to walk on the Moon, he famously said, "That's one small step for man; one giant leap for mankind." However, he was intending to say, "That's one small step for '''''a''''' man; one giant leap for mankind [emphasis added]." [https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/48/Frase_de_Neil_Armstrong.ogg The audio recording] omits the word "a", making the sentence confusing, as "man" and "mankind" have the same meaning when referring to all people. <br />
<br />
That the word was apparently elided by Armstrong in the excitement, changing the meaning of the historical phrase, is controversial and thus humorous. Subsequently, Armstrong and others have blamed insufficiently tuned {{w|voice activity detection}} hardware circuitry intended to save power in radio voice transmission, but NASA engineers, third-party historians and their hired experts have never been able to corroborate that explanation.[https://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/alsj/a11/a11.step.html][http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003645.html] Armstrong later said he hoped, "history would grant me leeway for dropping the syllable and understand that it was certainly intended, even if it was not said," and, on p.126 of the June 1982 edition of ''Omni,'' "the 'a' is implied, so I'm happy if they just put it in parentheses." The {{w|schwa}} indefinite article "a" is optional in certain contexts of most dialects of American English.[https://linguapress.com/grammar/article-in-english.htm]<br />
<br />
[[Randall]] suggests that the first Artemis astronaut to set foot on the Moon has a duty to utter an even more confusing quote, saying the sentence, "This is one of my favorite historical quotes — the first words spoken by an Artemis astronaut on the moon," aloud as they step onto the Moon. That would be confusingly self-referential, as if they were alluding to something from the past. The phrasing would also be confusing to a person hearing it quoted, as it would sound more like a statement about the quote than the actual quote itself. This is very unlikely, and funny merely as a recommendation; if it actually happened, it might be both hilarious and scandalous.<br />
<br />
While the comic's lunar lander has similarities to the {{w|Starship HLS|current plans}} for the Artemis lander,[https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/as-artemis-moves-forward-nasa-picks-spacex-to-land-next-americans-on-moon] it is a generic drawing, perhaps in homage to classic space science fiction, with the exit portal at an unlikely position near the base of the {{w|SpaceX Starship}} lander.[https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-starship-moon-elevator-nasa-prototype/]<br />
<br />
The title text suggests an alternate phrase by which the Artemis astronaut could say being the first (rather than 13th) human on the Moon is a great honor. People hearing this quote in the future could assume that Artemis was the first crewed mission to the Moon. It could feed into contemporary conspiracy theories that the Apollo landings were faked, furthering the confusion.<br />
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This comic coincides with the canceled launch of {{w|Artemis 1}}, an uncrewed test mission which will serve as the start of the Artemis program. The mission was intended to launch on 29 August 2022, and later on 3 September 2022, but was repeatedly postponed due to a series of technical problems and will now take place no earlier than 19 September 2022.<br />
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In [[893: 65 Years]], Randall made a graph showing the number of living people who had been on the moon, and estimated the day when zero would be alive. At that time 9 of the 12 were still alive. Upon this comic's release, only four are still among the living.<br />
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==Transcript==<br />
:[A vertical rocket is standing on four deployed legs on the surface of the Moon. The surface is depicted with characteristic craters and rocks with a slightly curved horizon. The rocket is standing in the left part of the panel. A short ladder leads down from a hatch in the lower part of the rocket body. An astronaut has stepped down from a ladder onto the Moon's surface, and is speaking:]<br />
<br />
:Astronaut: This is one of my favorite historical quotes — the first words spoken by an Artemis astronaut on the Moon.<br />
<br />
:[Caption beneath the panel:]<br />
:Neil Armstrong's "man"/"a man" quote created a lot of historical confusion, and I think it's our duty to expand on that legacy with Artemis.<br />
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{{comic discussion}}<br />
[[Category:Language]]<br />
[[Category:Space]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]]</div>172.70.91.78https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:2261:_Worst_Thing_That_Could_Happen&diff=294414Talk:2261: Worst Thing That Could Happen2022-09-07T19:47:21Z<p>172.70.91.78: More correct link.</p>
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What? No one mentioned Earth being hit by asteroid or one of close stars going supernova? -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 19:43, 29 January 2020 (UTC)<br />
:No, this is just dealing with the worst scenarios. [[User:N0lqu|-boB]] ([[User talk:N0lqu|talk]]) 21:05, 29 January 2020 (UTC)<br />
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Birds_(film) , isn't it? Wouldn't it be more destructive than just ramming and pecking? [[Special:Contributions/141.101.105.216|141.101.105.216]] 21:56, 29 January 2020 (UTC)<br />
<br />
I very recently saw a meme I had to think of (and want to share the funny part), where a badass-person was described. The last point was "the morals of a seagull." --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 07:10, 30 January 2020 (UTC) Edit: Just googled it. It was a reddit post about seals, and the conclusion was, they are like "if a cat weighed 300 kilos and had the intelligence of a toddler & the morals of a seagull". --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 07:25, 30 January 2020 (UTC)<br />
<br />
“Much of the computer networking technology used today has its roots in research into hardening nuclear command and control systems against an incoming first strike...”. This is false, at least as far as the early internet goes. https://www.internetsociety.org/internet/history-internet/brief-history-internet/#f5 — “5 It was from the RAND study that the false rumor started claiming that the ARPANET was somehow related to building a network resistant to nuclear war. This was never true of the ARPANET, only the unrelated RAND study on secure voice considered nuclear war. However, the later work on Internetting did emphasize robustness and survivability, including the capability to withstand losses of large portions of the underlying networks.” Since the authors include Vint Cerf, I’m inclined to give it a lot of credibility. {{unsigned ip|162.158.2.214}}<br />
<br />
How does ''Ninja Warrior'' subject contestants to pain/humiliation on failure? The only humiliation factor is from failing in the first place, and the water is there to ''minimize'' pain (well, to minimize ''injuries'' anyway). There are plenty of ''much'' better examples of game shows that "punish" failure. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.70.34|172.68.70.34]] 16:12, 30 January 2020 (UTC)<br />
: Ninja Warrior is the 'painful' contest that I happen to have seen most recently, but on reflection I suppose MXC/Takeshi's Castle is a little more straightforward on the "humiliation" factor. --[[User:NotaBene|NotaBene]] ([[User talk:NotaBene|talk]]) 02:34, 31 January 2020 (UTC)<br />
<br />
CTRL-f for searching... I always imagined Randal as an Emacs user (Emacs standard binding for incremental search is ctrl-s) but I guess no one is perfect. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.70.70|172.68.70.70]] 05:14, 31 January 2020 (UTC)<br />
: Ctrl-F works on almost anything nowadays, such as web browsers, which he probably uses more frequently than Emacs. Of course, Ctrl-F notably does NOT work in Microsoft Outlook. Thanks, Bill. [[User:N0lqu|-boB]] ([[User talk:N0lqu|talk]]) 16:34, 31 January 2020 (UTC)<br />
::It says he's searching release notes, which would be located where the upgrade came from, which means the website it was downloaded from (so, reading in a web browser) or some App Store or another (I would think the notes are in the Store app itself or a plain text file). Since I've never used eMacs, it seems an unlikely format for something meant to be widely seen like release notes. :) [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 05:05, 1 February 2020 (UTC)<br />
:::in this comic Cueball et al. are representing programmers not users, they would not be installing the latest release of an app from an App Store but rather applying a patch to, and then recompiling, source code. The release notes would be in a text file, most likely with a .txt extension, and would be readable with any software tool that would be used for displaying or editing .txt files. But setting that aside, to think that because you personally haven’t used of a particular tool has any bearing on its popularity is hubris of the highest order.[[Special:Contributions/172.68.70.34|172.68.70.34]] 10:11, 2 February 2020 (UTC)<br />
:You're right about Randal being an Emacs user though, see title text of [[561]]. [[User:Bischoff|Bischoff]] ([[User talk:Bischoff|talk]]) 08:13, 3 February 2020 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Just added two new categories for this comic: [[:Category:Volcanoes]] and [[:Category:Nuclear weapons]]. They were long overdue with 22 and 25 comics respectively after I searched through for relevant words. This is the fourth with Supervolcanoes mentioned. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 10:58, 31 January 2020 (UTC)<br />
<br />
There are presumably many more people than wells (citation needed). If everybody fell down a well, the people in any particular well would be piled on top of each other, and the ones at the top should be able to climb out. Then they can help the people below them. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 19:22, 31 January 2020 (UTC)<br />
<br />
"Since Randall is just reading but not changing the patch notes, a web browser, PDF viewer, or word processing program such as Adobe Reader or Microsoft Word might have been used."... Uhhhh, just because he's not changing the release notes doesn't mean he isn't using something like Notepad, which to me seems the most likely unless it's an App Store, about just as likely that it's a web browser on the upgrade's website. Also, not to be pedantic (okay, to be pedantic, LOL!), Adobe ACROBAT Reader wouldn't be a "word processing program". I could see calling the writer program Adobe Acrobat that, but the more widespread READER is exactly that, just a reader, no processing. :) [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 05:05, 1 February 2020 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Am I the only one that thinks the link to Lassie is extremely tenuous? It seems far more likely to be referencing the general trope of falling down a well, such as this [https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ThrownDownAWell example from TVTropes] or even some previous comics, such as [[568]]. [[User:PotatoGod|PotatoGod]] ([[User talk:PotatoGod|talk]]) 03:55, 3 February 2020 (UTC) EDIT: fixed the broken link to tvtropes [[User:PotatoGod|PotatoGod]] ([[User talk:PotatoGod|talk]]) 17:50, 3 February 2020 (UTC)<br />
:I'd say the Lassie connection is valid, partly because it's the first thing I thought of as well. The tvtropes article you referenced doesn't seem to exist and [[568]] has nothing to do with falling into wells. Mike probably got in voluntarily. [[User:Bischoff|Bischoff]] ([[User talk:Bischoff|talk]]) 08:09, 3 February 2020 (UTC)<br />
<br />
COVID 19. COVID 19 could happen. [[User:Cwallenpoole|Cwallenpoole]] ([[User talk:Cwallenpoole|talk]]) 14:56, 20 July 2021 (UTC)<br />
:If you think the pandemic of the last two years is the worst possible pandemic, then I guess your imagination isn't as good as mine at thinking up "worst thing(s) that could happen." [[User:Mathmannix|Mathmannix]] ([[User talk:Mathmannix|talk]]) 18:04, 17 August 2021 (UTC)<br />
:: Oh, no. I'm not saying it's the worst thing that could happen. I'm saying it did happen and because the upgrade happened before the pandemic, the pandemic must be caused by the upgrade. [[User:Cwallenpoole|Cwallenpoole]] ([[User talk:Cwallenpoole|talk]]) 18:13, 17 August 2021 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Care to [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2261:_Worst_Thing_That_Could_Happen&diff=prev&oldid=294401 explain why the (re)deletion], other-IP? SFAICT, that contribution was relevent, but you're removing it. (Are you the same IP who has been editing a lot of other things out, recently? I bet you are.) And in leiu of re-reverting it myself, which is as bad form as it is for you to repeat removing things in the first place, with no justification given, I shall leave this link and comment as a whole as a note for posterity. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.78|172.70.91.78]] 19:44, 7 September 2022 (UTC)</div>172.70.91.78https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:2261:_Worst_Thing_That_Could_Happen&diff=294413Talk:2261: Worst Thing That Could Happen2022-09-07T19:44:46Z<p>172.70.91.78: </p>
<hr />
<div><!--Please sign your posts with ~~~~ and don't delete this text. New comments should be added at the bottom.--><br />
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What? No one mentioned Earth being hit by asteroid or one of close stars going supernova? -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 19:43, 29 January 2020 (UTC)<br />
:No, this is just dealing with the worst scenarios. [[User:N0lqu|-boB]] ([[User talk:N0lqu|talk]]) 21:05, 29 January 2020 (UTC)<br />
<br />
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Birds_(film) , isn't it? Wouldn't it be more destructive than just ramming and pecking? [[Special:Contributions/141.101.105.216|141.101.105.216]] 21:56, 29 January 2020 (UTC)<br />
<br />
I very recently saw a meme I had to think of (and want to share the funny part), where a badass-person was described. The last point was "the morals of a seagull." --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 07:10, 30 January 2020 (UTC) Edit: Just googled it. It was a reddit post about seals, and the conclusion was, they are like "if a cat weighed 300 kilos and had the intelligence of a toddler & the morals of a seagull". --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 07:25, 30 January 2020 (UTC)<br />
<br />
“Much of the computer networking technology used today has its roots in research into hardening nuclear command and control systems against an incoming first strike...”. This is false, at least as far as the early internet goes. https://www.internetsociety.org/internet/history-internet/brief-history-internet/#f5 — “5 It was from the RAND study that the false rumor started claiming that the ARPANET was somehow related to building a network resistant to nuclear war. This was never true of the ARPANET, only the unrelated RAND study on secure voice considered nuclear war. However, the later work on Internetting did emphasize robustness and survivability, including the capability to withstand losses of large portions of the underlying networks.” Since the authors include Vint Cerf, I’m inclined to give it a lot of credibility. {{unsigned ip|162.158.2.214}}<br />
<br />
How does ''Ninja Warrior'' subject contestants to pain/humiliation on failure? The only humiliation factor is from failing in the first place, and the water is there to ''minimize'' pain (well, to minimize ''injuries'' anyway). There are plenty of ''much'' better examples of game shows that "punish" failure. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.70.34|172.68.70.34]] 16:12, 30 January 2020 (UTC)<br />
: Ninja Warrior is the 'painful' contest that I happen to have seen most recently, but on reflection I suppose MXC/Takeshi's Castle is a little more straightforward on the "humiliation" factor. --[[User:NotaBene|NotaBene]] ([[User talk:NotaBene|talk]]) 02:34, 31 January 2020 (UTC)<br />
<br />
CTRL-f for searching... I always imagined Randal as an Emacs user (Emacs standard binding for incremental search is ctrl-s) but I guess no one is perfect. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.70.70|172.68.70.70]] 05:14, 31 January 2020 (UTC)<br />
: Ctrl-F works on almost anything nowadays, such as web browsers, which he probably uses more frequently than Emacs. Of course, Ctrl-F notably does NOT work in Microsoft Outlook. Thanks, Bill. [[User:N0lqu|-boB]] ([[User talk:N0lqu|talk]]) 16:34, 31 January 2020 (UTC)<br />
::It says he's searching release notes, which would be located where the upgrade came from, which means the website it was downloaded from (so, reading in a web browser) or some App Store or another (I would think the notes are in the Store app itself or a plain text file). Since I've never used eMacs, it seems an unlikely format for something meant to be widely seen like release notes. :) [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 05:05, 1 February 2020 (UTC)<br />
:::in this comic Cueball et al. are representing programmers not users, they would not be installing the latest release of an app from an App Store but rather applying a patch to, and then recompiling, source code. The release notes would be in a text file, most likely with a .txt extension, and would be readable with any software tool that would be used for displaying or editing .txt files. But setting that aside, to think that because you personally haven’t used of a particular tool has any bearing on its popularity is hubris of the highest order.[[Special:Contributions/172.68.70.34|172.68.70.34]] 10:11, 2 February 2020 (UTC)<br />
:You're right about Randal being an Emacs user though, see title text of [[561]]. [[User:Bischoff|Bischoff]] ([[User talk:Bischoff|talk]]) 08:13, 3 February 2020 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Just added two new categories for this comic: [[:Category:Volcanoes]] and [[:Category:Nuclear weapons]]. They were long overdue with 22 and 25 comics respectively after I searched through for relevant words. This is the fourth with Supervolcanoes mentioned. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 10:58, 31 January 2020 (UTC)<br />
<br />
There are presumably many more people than wells (citation needed). If everybody fell down a well, the people in any particular well would be piled on top of each other, and the ones at the top should be able to climb out. Then they can help the people below them. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 19:22, 31 January 2020 (UTC)<br />
<br />
"Since Randall is just reading but not changing the patch notes, a web browser, PDF viewer, or word processing program such as Adobe Reader or Microsoft Word might have been used."... Uhhhh, just because he's not changing the release notes doesn't mean he isn't using something like Notepad, which to me seems the most likely unless it's an App Store, about just as likely that it's a web browser on the upgrade's website. Also, not to be pedantic (okay, to be pedantic, LOL!), Adobe ACROBAT Reader wouldn't be a "word processing program". I could see calling the writer program Adobe Acrobat that, but the more widespread READER is exactly that, just a reader, no processing. :) [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 05:05, 1 February 2020 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Am I the only one that thinks the link to Lassie is extremely tenuous? It seems far more likely to be referencing the general trope of falling down a well, such as this [https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ThrownDownAWell example from TVTropes] or even some previous comics, such as [[568]]. [[User:PotatoGod|PotatoGod]] ([[User talk:PotatoGod|talk]]) 03:55, 3 February 2020 (UTC) EDIT: fixed the broken link to tvtropes [[User:PotatoGod|PotatoGod]] ([[User talk:PotatoGod|talk]]) 17:50, 3 February 2020 (UTC)<br />
:I'd say the Lassie connection is valid, partly because it's the first thing I thought of as well. The tvtropes article you referenced doesn't seem to exist and [[568]] has nothing to do with falling into wells. Mike probably got in voluntarily. [[User:Bischoff|Bischoff]] ([[User talk:Bischoff|talk]]) 08:09, 3 February 2020 (UTC)<br />
<br />
COVID 19. COVID 19 could happen. [[User:Cwallenpoole|Cwallenpoole]] ([[User talk:Cwallenpoole|talk]]) 14:56, 20 July 2021 (UTC)<br />
:If you think the pandemic of the last two years is the worst possible pandemic, then I guess your imagination isn't as good as mine at thinking up "worst thing(s) that could happen." [[User:Mathmannix|Mathmannix]] ([[User talk:Mathmannix|talk]]) 18:04, 17 August 2021 (UTC)<br />
:: Oh, no. I'm not saying it's the worst thing that could happen. I'm saying it did happen and because the upgrade happened before the pandemic, the pandemic must be caused by the upgrade. [[User:Cwallenpoole|Cwallenpoole]] ([[User talk:Cwallenpoole|talk]]) 18:13, 17 August 2021 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Care to [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2261:_Worst_Thing_That_Could_Happen&oldid=294401 explain why the (re)deletion], other-IP? SFAICT, that contribution was relevent, but you're removing it. (Are you the same IP who has been editing a lot of other things out, recently? I bet you are.) And in leiu of re-reverting it myself, which is as bad form as it is for you to repeat removing things in the first place, with no justification given, I shall leave this link and comment as a whole as a note for posterity. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.78|172.70.91.78]] 19:44, 7 September 2022 (UTC)</div>172.70.91.78https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:2667:_First_Internet_Interaction&diff=294388Talk:2667: First Internet Interaction2022-09-07T11:26:44Z<p>172.70.91.78: </p>
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Is this related to https://www.kerrang.com/green-day-fans-remind-the-internet-not-to-post-wake-me-up-when-september-ends-jokes/ ? {{unsigned ip|172.70.114.87|21:51, 2 September 2022}}<br />
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((Hey, what a coincidence. You edit-conflict the following ramble (that mentiones the September thing) that I was trying not to make too wordy and mostly failed at...))<br /><br />
Not entirely sure what my first Internet thing was (pre-web, might have been telnetting - or even Kermitting - to the software ftp/whatever server at Univeristy of Kent, but that was pretty much not an 'interaction'). And I may have IRCed/Usenetted already, with forgettable results, but I'm fairly sure my very first email to anyone outside of the campus networks (and certainly my first outside of JANET) was to Terry Pratchett. {{cot|...even more boringly nostalgic bit}}<br />
I decided to pointing out something interesting I'd thought of after reading Wyrd Sisters. Which his reply made obvious that he clearly already knew and was definitely riffing off of. (That was me being naive, definitely. It was a very personable knock-back, really. But as 'one of probably many' I never did apologise for my stupidity in any future interactions.)<br />
{{cob}}<br />
Mind you, I'd only just become sort of reassured that I didn't have to pay any kind of postage for email. (Probably.)<br />
<br />I think I had to wait until after The Eternal September to start getting the comic-like responses. But then I probably lost my patience with various Eternal Septemberites (AOL/WebTV/etc) myself, though never with Greenday details. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.79.173|172.69.79.173]] 22:10, 2 September 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
is there a related comics section? If so, https://xkcd.com/1053/ is probably related. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.34.8|172.69.34.8]] 00:46, 3 September 2022 (UTC)<br />
:Good one. I know I've seen Green Day mentioned in <s>at least a few other xkcds</s> some other media about Randall. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.214.79|172.70.214.79]] 01:01, 3 September 2022 (UTC)<br />
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I think the title text is implying that he does have a serious problem [[Special:Contributions/172.69.33.35|172.69.33.35]] 01:15, 3 September 2022 (UTC)<br />
:The reply was a conditional, so we can't really infer that generality. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.214.59|172.70.214.59]] 01:30, 3 September 2022 (UTC)<br />
::On the contrary... It might be conditional, but we know the condition: "If you don't know who Green Day is", we know for sure that L'il Cueball DOES NOT know who they are, so the condition has been met. I agree, I think Cueball is saying "You were right, I DO have a serious problem!" :) [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 04:24, 4 September 2022 (UTC)<br />
: Maybe Cueball's socialization issues. Or possibly that the internet is broadly searchable if you don't know something, so you needn't ask humans. But while I'm outside American culture, I doubt that now or at any time has it been "a serious problem" to not know what or, as it turns out, who is/are "Green Day". <br />
: The name isn't apparently a reference to St Patrick's holiday, but, says Wikipedia, "slang in the San Francisco Bay area" for what I can call taking a herbal holiday. At least, I assume I can, but rules may be subjective. And it's local, so perhaps in New York it does mean St Patrick's Day. Japan celebrates "Greenery Day" for, indirectly, historic reasons. I expect they don't try to say "greenery". <br />
: Anyway, would "AOL Kids" tell you about the San Francisco meaning? It is "A Logic Named Joe" all over again, as has been noticed often. Incidentally, it appears that Green Day were founded as "Sweet Children". Robert Carnegie rja.carnegie@gmail.com [[Special:Contributions/162.158.159.73|162.158.159.73]] 03:12, 3 September 2022 (UTC)<br />
:I know of Green Day (more so after these two comics, obviously) but until now I doubt I'd have mentioned them off the top of my head if I'd have been given an hour to list as many musical acts as I could, except for very isolated instances of prior "oh yeah, someone mentioned this lot earlier". And not sure when they first came to my attention, but probably well post 1993 (and well well post being a 9yo).<br />
:And I couldn't (recent info aside) have actually named any of their songs if asked ''specifically'' about them. Probably heard something they did, some time, but if I've experienced American Idiot then absolutely nothing about it (tune, words or (except since Wednesday) title) seems to have stuck. I have now glanced at their wikipedia article, and... <sup>-> Who...</sup><sub>my head</sub><sup>...osh! -></sup><br />
:But then I could tell you that Clive Dunn performed "Grandad" and Terry Wogan did the "Floral Dance" and Joe Dolce sang "Whatsa matter you" instead, so probably my serious problem is that I'm just not in their normal target audience. An ocean away and a decade (or probably more) outside their usual fanbase catchment. ;) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.128|172.70.91.128]] 03:23, 3 September 2022 (UTC)<br />
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This is what I come to explainxkcd for, answers to such questions as “Who or what is or was Green Day (and why should I care)?” and other such things I’ve never come across during my more than six decades of literacy. Thanks explainxkcd. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.146.137|172.71.146.137]] 08:52, 3 September 2022 (UTC)<br />
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My sole knowledge of Green Day is that they released an album called "Dookie", there were two or three songs from it that were on MTV, and I couldn't name any of them today, not even at gunpoint. [[User:RAGBRAIvet|RAGBRAIvet]] ([[User talk:RAGBRAIvet|talk]]) 09:14, 3 September 2022 (UTC)<br />
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To the best of my knowledge, Cueball has always been drawn bald (or at least with no visible hair), yet the 1993 Cueball shows a relatively long and very unkempt growth. Wonder what happened – alopecia? Very early onset of male pattern baldness? Or maybe he just prefers to shave it and rock the Yul Brynner look? [[User:RAGBRAIvet|RAGBRAIvet]] ([[User talk:RAGBRAIvet|talk]]) 09:24, 3 September 2022 (UTC)<br />
:Not all "child stick-figures" have had hair (obvious girls, like clear women, being the exception for obvious characterisation/distinction reasons) so I presume it's a deliberate contrast. Young Cueball (Who Is Not A 'cueball') clearly had full hair (with maybe a pudding-basin cut/styling?) that was distinctive. Whether, then, Current Cueball has hair so non-descript that there's no depiction that can be done...; whether he is full bald/shaved (because of early male-pattern-baldness/other)...; or whether his hair is just so head-shape-clingy... I don't know.<br />
:Note that Cueball's head (especially in early comics) is not a true oval/ovoid but seems to have a small cusp (about where the crown of his hair would be) that's often usefully depicting his head-attitude but also where the illustrating pen probably started and ended its head-loop. I choose to believe that to be representative of his (short/managed) hair as an abstract of where the hairs might radiate from in a pretty normal hairstyle aithout excessive styling/combovering/etc.<br />
:But there are many possible reasons for any (in)consistent portrayal. Except that it clearly depicts a youth who has changed (perhaps through cynicism of life's many challenges, including online interactions) into the more world-worn current self. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.33|172.70.85.33]] 12:40, 3 September 2022 (UTC)<br />
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So who else is going to admit they had never heard of Green Day ever before? I sure had not, and I'm an 80s kid living in California. Maybe because I've never been in indie rock bands that much. Does that makes me one of the lucky 10,000 of the day? [[User:Ralfoide|Ralfoide]] ([[User talk:Ralfoide|talk]]) 18:34, 3 September 2022 (UTC)<br />
:It does! [[Special:Contributions/172.70.210.243|172.70.210.243]] 18:51, 3 September 2022 (UTC)<br />
:I never heard of Green Day before and I'm not sure I should care, but I was never into rock that much. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 02:36, 4 September 2022 (UTC)<br />
:Living in America in the right time period, yeah, THAT is weird. They were huge. Probably their biggest song, and I think their first breakout hit, was Basket Case "Do you have the time, to listen to me whine...". Video has them in a mental hospital. What might be their last hit, WAY different genre, early 2000s, was "Wake Me Up When September Ends", so every Oct. 1 a joke goes around "Hey, September ended, wake up that Green Day guy!" (He tweeted a reply once, "Ya ya, I'm up, you can leave me alone now" or some such). [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 04:48, 4 September 2022 (UTC)<br />
:American Idiot got played a lot in the UK over the Bush years. It was rather hard to miss. No further comment to avoid a political discussion [[Special:Contributions/172.70.247.16|172.70.247.16]] 13:37, 5 September 2022 (UTC)<br />
:Not to forget "Boulevard of broken dreams" which was played here (Germany) up and down on every station.... But I can easily believe that someone would not have heard of any given interpreter even if surely heard a song or two from them. I know a ton of songs which I don't know/couldn't name the interpreter. [[User:Elektrizikekswerk|Elektrizikekswerk]] ([[User talk:Elektrizikekswerk|talk]]) 10:32, 7 September 2022 (UTC)<br />
::My thoughts too. Except I glanced through their Discography and had zero song-recognition, purely by name. "American Idiot" means nothing to me beyond being brought up as a reference in these related comics; "Boulevard..." rings no bells. If I were to play any of them, or coincidentally have them played at me on the radio with a handy pre/post announcement of it being one of Green Day's, maybe I'd realise I knew some of their stuff after all.<br />
::(NB. "Interpreter" is usually for someone like a "translator", but implying more real-time translation rather than, say, text-to-text between languages. I assume you mean "performer"(/singer/musician/group/band, according to context, and also applicable to actors), as otherwise it's more a niche word for (say) certain types of dancer. Aber mein Deutsche ist schlechter, dein Englisch ist anders vehr gut! Nur fur hilfe sie, ich erwahne es. :P )<br />
::But the last time I regularly listened to '90s music was... The '90s? And not so much even then, as I obviously didn't pay enough attention. There was this song that repeated "''These sounds'' going through my mi(i)i(i)ind..." but always sounded to me like "''Pi-izza'' (going through..., etc)" - no, didn't make sense, but it was as a result of the 'singing' style/delivery. And I don't know what group that was, or if that was the song-title even. Probably not Green Day, though. I'm consciously resisting the urge to Google it! [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.78|172.70.91.78]] 11:26, 7 September 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
We need a category for children, e.g. [[742: Campfire]]. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.210.243|172.70.210.243]] 18:51, 3 September 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
My first online interaction was trying to figure out why my school district's Data General PL/1/BASIC-knockoff clone was so pathetic compared to the Xerox PARC Smalltalk system I had been reading about in the issue of ''BYTE'' I had picked up. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.206.95|172.70.206.95]] 21:57, 3 September 2022 (UTC)<br />
:Interesting. I don't remember what was my first online interaction. Guess it wasn't very formative. It PROBABLY was in comments under some technical article. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 02:40, 4 September 2022 (UTC)<br />
:: Oddly, that was in 1979 (as in the {{w|1979 (song)|song}} by the {{w|Smashing Pumpkins}}) and not 1981 when [https://i.ibb.co/dD7LMpr/Screenshot-2022-09-03-10-51-53-PM.png the famous ''BYTE'' Smalltalk special issue] came out. The magazine had been covering Smalltalk for years, because of the {{w|Douglas Engelbart}} influence, I guess, in various news blurbs, letters, and mentions in columns prior to the special issue. By the time I got that special issue, I had moved to a school district with TI, Honeywell, and Burroughs minicomputers with a wide variety of languages instead of that PL/1-based Data General minicomputer/mainframe. Sadly none of them were truly incremental and interactive like Smalltalk was or e.g. [https://gibber.cc/playground/index.html GIBBER][https://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/p/pod/dod-idx/gibber-live-coding-audio-in-the-browser.pdf?c=icmc;idno=bbp2372.2012.011;format=pdf] is today. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.214.79|172.70.214.79]] 07:57, 4 September 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Definitely not my first, but earliest online interaction with a stranger I can remember was in 1990 or so, a friend had his own BBS, in a board - possibly dedicated to it - I got into a competition with a guy to top each other's insults (no actual argument, just exercising how offensive we could get). Then after a bunch of volleys back and forth he came up with one I just couldn't top, so I instead came up with the most insulting offensive title for King Of Insults I could manage. :) [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 04:48, 4 September 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
What I'm seeing here is that Cueball canonically had hair as a kid. {{unsigned ip|172.68.210.45|23:13, 4 September 2022}}<br />
<br />
My first internet interaction was (probably) on an IRC channel at the moment Sydney experienced a small earthquake on a Saturday night in 1993. I remember typing "Did anybody else just feel that?", and got one or two replies.<br />
More significantly, I was the first person in our company (500+ employees at the time) to have internet access, and I was allowed to "surf" the net, looking for opportunities and reference links to our business. Naturally, I found a lot of stuff more interesting to me (sf, games, etc) than boring health-insurance. One of the USENET channels I discovered by accident had hundreds of email posts about some new collectable card game. There was baffling talk about Lotuses, Moxes, Shivan Dragons, Instanrts, Enchantments, mana, etc. It was quite confusing but a year later (aged 35), I was hooked. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.249.9|108.162.249.9]] 01:12, 5 September 2022 (UTC) Beechmere<br />
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== Perhaps a more general than mocking for lack of pop culture knowledge ==<br />
<br />
I feel like there's a little bit more of a message here with this cartoon. I don't necessarily think that Megan is pointing out that only "judging people for lack of pop culture knowledge" has remained, rather being quick to judge online in all things is what hasn't changed. I've definitely had several experiences with impatient people online and on the flip-side have been quick to judge others online. It doesn't help anyone feel good or feel welcome anywhere by being rude/mean. [[User:JosephDaCoder|JosephDaCoder]] ([[User talk:JosephDaCoder|talk]]) 05:11, 7 September 2022 (UTC)</div>172.70.91.78https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1820:_Security_Advice&diff=2943541820: Security Advice2022-09-06T18:52:59Z<p>172.70.91.78: /* Security tips */ Semiphonetic thinko?</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 1820<br />
| date = April 5, 2017<br />
| title = Security Advice<br />
| image = security_advice.png<br />
| titletext = Never give your password or bank account number to anyone who doesn't have a blue check mark next to their name.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
This is another one of [[Randall|Randall's]] [[:Category:Tips|Tips]], this time a list of security tips.<br />
<br />
The comic depicts a conversation between [[Cueball]] and [[Ponytail]], discussing the fact that giving people security advice in the past has failed to improve their internet security, and in some cases even made things worse. One such example is telling people to create complicated passwords containing numbers and symbols, which not only made the passwords harder to remember (leading people to create huge security risks by [https://arstechnica.com/security/2015/04/hacked-french-network-exposed-its-own-passwords-during-tv-interview/ leaving post-it notes with their passwords on their computer monitor]), but did not actually make those passwords harder to crack (see [[936: Password Strength]]).<br />
<br />
As a result, Cueball suggests using {{w|reverse psychology}} and give out bad advice instead, in hopes of achieving a positive effect. The last panel contains a list with 13 security tips, which are parodies of actual security tips. The title text is just one more tip. See [[#Security tips|table]] below for explanations for all 14 tips.<br />
<br />
===Security tips===<br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
!Security Tip<br />
!Explanation<br />
|- id="tip0"<br />
|Print out this list and keep it in your bank safe deposit box (header)<br />
|This is a standard recommendation for documents that must be kept secure because they are irreplaceable and/or contain sensitive information. However this list itself is easily replaceable and the contents will be well-known, so storing it in a safe place is totally unnecessary. Putting it in a {{w|safe deposit box}} would even be counterproductive since the list can only serve its purpose as a ready reminder if it's easily accessible to everyone. So when people fail to follow this tip, they may end up keeping it in a place where they have easy access to the tips so they may also fail to follow all the others.<br />
|- id="tip1"<br />
|Don't click links to websites<br />
|The usual tip is "Don't click on ''suspicious'' website links" or "Don't click any links in suspicious emails". The comic's variation instead tells users not to click on any links to any websites, which essentially stops them from using the World Wide Web altogether. So this tip is not really helping, as the opposite of this would be to click on all links. [https://www.sketchywebsite.net This is an example website that showcases an extreme example of what ''could'' (probably wouldn't (this is not advice)) happen if you clicked on a suspicious link.]<br />
|- id="tip2"<br />
|Use prime numbers in your password<br />
|It is usually recommended that one uses numbers in one's password, to increase its entropy, making it harder to find with a {{w|Brute-force attack|brute force}} attack. In contrast the comic suggests using {{w|prime numbers}} in one's password. Large prime numbers are an essential part of modern cryptography and security systems, when used in algorithms that are computed by machines. They don't have any effect when used by humans in passwords, except for maybe making it harder to remember. In addition, if people were to regularly use prime numbers in their passwords, it would actually make passwords ''easier'' to guess, as it would substantially reduce the number of possible passwords people may choose from.<br />
|- id="tip3"<br />
|Change your password manager monthly<br />
|It is often recommended to change passwords on a regular basis and to use a {{w|password manager}}. Password managers are programs which can help users create, store, and change their passwords easily and securely. Changing password managers monthly would involve copying all stored passwords from one manager to another, which would be quite impractical and has no security benefit.<br />
|- id="tip4"<br />
|Hold your breath while crossing the border<br />
|At some border crossings, government agents may search computers, cell phones, and other electronic devices. The usual advice for such situations ranges from asserting your rights to resetting all devices and deleting all data prior to crossing a border. Holding one's breath can potentially prevent inhaling germs or poisons in some situations, though useless in the context of computer security. These two topics mixed in the same advice won't achieve anything, but if you hold your breath for too long you could pass out when crossing, or look stressed/suspicious and invite even more scrutiny. This could also be a reference to the superstition of holding one's breath when passing a graveyard, or similarly to the movie ''{{w|Spirited Away}}'', where the main character is instructed to hold her breath while crossing the bridge that acts as the border between the human and spirit world. In any case, holding one's breath while browsing the Internet would have no useful effect, supernatural or otherwise.<br />
|- id="tip5"<br />
|Install a secure font<br />
|A real tip might be "Install a secure browser" especially when many people used {{w|Internet Explorer 6}}. Secure fonts do exist and are designed to make checks difficult to alter, but using one on a computer would not help one's internet security. May also refer to Google Chrome [https://www.proofpoint.com/us/threat-insight/post/EITest-Nabbing-Chrome-Users-Chrome-Font-Social-Engineering-Scheme "Install missing font"] malware.<br />
|- id="tip6"<br />
|Use a 2-factor smoke detector<br />
|{{w|Multi-factor authentication|Two factor authentication}} describes the practice of using two different identification factors (such as a password and a code from a secure token) to authenticate the user. A two factor smoke detector presumably uses two or more factors to identify ''smoke'' (such as {{w|Smoke_detector#Ionization|ionization}} and {{w|Smoke_detector#Photoelectric|photoelectric}}). Such devices [https://alarmspecs.com actually exist], but, while improving the user's general safety, they do nothing to improve their internet security.<br />
<br />
<!-- Previously, this row argued:<br />
"Also, the logic behind using two-factor authentication is that '''both''' types of credentials must match to grant access. Smoke detectors work otherwise - usually firing if '''any''' of the sensors detect a fire. If the smoke detector worked according to the authentication logic it will be less likely to detect smoke, effectively lessening fire safety as compared to a single sensor one."<br />
<br />
That analysis is not correct, because detection is not binary, it involves thresholds. A smoke detector with two independent detection mechanisms can lower the threshold of one or both mechanisms in combination with the other, adjusting the likelihood of detection and the confidence of each detection. With any detector there is a tradeoff between nuisance tripping and detection failure. A dual function detector allows those tradeoffs to be made in two dimensions and not just one, and is not inherently more prone to nuisance tripping. And all that assumes the mechanisms are functioning as AND, which does not seem to be a requirement put forth in the comic. ~~~~<br />
<br />
--><br />
A month before this comic the newest [[:Category:xkcd Phones|xkcd Phone]], [[1809: xkcd Phone 5]], was released with a 28-factor authentication.<br />
|- id="tip7"<br />
|Change your maiden name regularly<br />
|A {{w|maiden name}} is the family name that a woman has at birth. (The gender-neutral term is "birth name" or "birth surname"; it is unclear whether this "advice" is meant to apply only to women.) Security experts frequently criticize the concept of security questions like "what is your mother's maiden name?", on the basis that they can often be deduced from publicly available information. In the sense that it refers to a historical fact, a maiden name cannot be changed retroactively, although in the sense that it refers to the last name on one's birth certificate, in some narrow cases this ''can'' be amended. For instance, when someone is {{w|adoption|adopted}} and takes their adoptive parent's last name, in many jurisdictions a {{w|legal fiction}} holds that they have had that last name since birth, and governments will issue new birth certificates to that effect. However, it is unlikely for anyone to be able to amend the surname on their birth certificate more than once, and impossible to do so "regularly".<br />
<br />
A real tip for dealing with security questions is to enter false data.<br />
|- id="tip8"<br />
|Put strange USB drives in a bag of rice overnight<br />
|The usual security tip is "Don't plug strange {{w|USB flash drive|USB drives}} into your computer," because sometimes attackers leave USB devices with malicious programs lying around, hoping that people will plug them into target computers out of curiosity. This tip states that you should "put USB drives in a bag of rice overnight" which is a common technique for drying out water-damaged devices, due to rice's absorbent qualities. This would not clean the drive of viruses, and unless the drive was wet (perhaps because you found it outside due to it being called "strange") it would not do anything. In [[1598: Salvage]], another attempt is made to salvage something unconventional with rice, and here it is shown that Randall considers the rice drying of a wet mobile is a myth, so this is yet another jab at the idea.<br />
|- id="tip9"<br />
|Use special characters like & and %<br />
|You can use special characters to increase the entropy/strength of your password, though as described in [[936: Password Strength]], that often leads to passwords that are hard to remember but not particularly strong. The password context is missing here, and in everyday situations the characters & and % are not special. These two characters are often disallowed in passwords because of their relevance to {{w|SQL}} (a common database query language). If these characters were used in a password, a badly written security system using SQL could have severe bugs (and security vulnerabilities) similar to the security flaw in [[327: Exploits of a Mom]].<br />
|- id="tip10"<br />
|Only read content published through Tor.com<br />
|{{w|tor (anonymity network)|Tor}} is a software solution to provide anonymity on the web for its users. The website [https://tor.com Tor.com] is the website of fantasy and sci-fi book publisher {{w|Tor Books}}, which has no relation to the Tor-network.<br />
|- id="tip11"<br />
|Use a burner's phone<br />
|A play on using a {{w|Prepay mobile phone|burner phone}} (a cheap/disposable cell phone like those purchased at 7-11, often used for drug deals or other activity one might not want traced), and using the cell phone of a burner, i.e. a person who habitually uses marijuana (or, less likely, a person who goes to the {{w|Burning Man|Burning Man festival}}).<br />
|- id="tip12"<br />
|Get an SSL certificate and store it in a safe place<br />
|{{w|Transport Layer Security|SSL/TLS}} is a protocol for securing connections on the internet. To check if someone is who they claim to be, you can check the individual's {{w|Public key certificate|certificate}}. Such a certificate has to be public; storing it in a safe place makes the certificate useless. You have to store the private key that matches the certificate in a safe place, else someone could steal the identity.<br />
|- id="tip13"<br />
|If a border guard asks to examine your laptop, you have a legal right to challenge them to a chess game for your soul.<br />
|This tip is a reference to the common trope {{tvtropes|ChessWithDeath|Chess with Death}}, in which a mortal challenges a god to a game or challenge, often for their life. This version of the trope traces back to {{w|Ingmar Bergman|Ingmar Bergman's}} film {{w|The Seventh Seal}}, in which the protagonist {{w|The Seventh Seal#Synopsis|challenges Death}} to a game of chess. But instead of avoiding death, this tip suggests you have the right to do the same to get out of handing your devices over to a border guard. (This trope is also featured in [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/393 393: Ultimate Game]). <br />
Under President {{w|Donald Trump}} (inaugurated two and a half months prior to this comic), border patrol and customs agents have become notorious for profiling non-Caucasian travelers and immigrants. Stories abound of agents coercing and threatening travelers to hand over their smartphones -- they do not have legal right to just take your devices under the Fourth Amendment, but have many not-entirely-idle threats they can level at you until you do as they wish.<br />
<br />
This is the second tip referring to crossing a border. Randall has made several comics lately that could be seen as being related to issues concerning the election of Donald Trump as president - see more [[Sad comics|here]]. <br />
|- id="tip14"<br />
|'''Title Text''': Never give your password or bank account number to anyone who doesn't have a blue check mark next to their name. <br />
|The usual security tip here is ''"only trust Twitter accounts claiming to be legitimate if they have a blue check mark next to their name"'', which means that the account is verified as legitimate. This tip suggests only giving your ''password'' to verified accounts, although you shouldn't give your password to ''any'' account. Twitter Verification would be revisited in [[1914: Twitter Verification]].<br />
<br />
It also refers to problems especially visible in the US banking system, where there is very little security for direct account drafts, and because of that it is advised there to keep the account number as secret as possible. In contrast, in Europe giving your account number to someone is one of the most common ways to get paid.<br />
<br />
A related tip might be "Never give your password or bank details to a website that doesn't have a padlock icon next to the URL". In most modern browsers, if you access a secure website, there will be a padlock icon in the browser indicating you've connected to a secure website using {{w|HTTPS|Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure}}. It doesn't provide that it is not malicious site, and that is secure to enter. So this tip treats the verified account icon the same way you might treat a secure website icon.<br />
|}<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:[Cueball is listening to Ponytail who holds her hands out in front of her.]<br />
:Ponytail: We've been trying for decades to give people good security advice.<br />
:Ponytail: But in retrospect, lots of the tips actually made things worse.<br />
<br />
:[Cueball takes his hand to his chin as Ponytail takes her arms down.]<br />
:Cueball: Maybe we should try to give ''bad'' advice?<br />
:Ponytail: I guess it's worth a shot.<br />
<br />
:[Below these two panel is one large and long panel with a long list with 13 tips. The underlined heading and the bracket below it are centered above the bullet list below.]<br />
:<big><u>Security tips</u></big><br />
:(Print out this list and keep it in your bank safe deposit box.)<br />
* Don't click links to websites<br />
* Use prime numbers in your password<br />
* Change your password manager monthly<br />
* Hold your breath while crossing the border<br />
* Install a secure font<br />
* Use a 2-factor smoke detector<br />
* Change your maiden name regularly<br />
* Put strange USB drives in a bag of rice overnight<br />
* Use special characters like & and %<br />
* Only read content published through tor.com<br />
* Use a burner's phone<br />
* Get an SSL certificate and store it in a safe place<br />
* If a border guard asks to examine your laptop, you have a legal right to challenge them to a chess game for your soul.<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]<br />
[[Category:Chess]]<br />
[[Category:Computers]]<br />
[[Category:Tips]]</div>172.70.91.78https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:2664:_Cloud_Swirls&diff=293946Talk:2664: Cloud Swirls2022-09-02T11:36:55Z<p>172.70.91.78: </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)<br />
:It's not how I would have started the Explanation, but I think it'll quickly be rewritten enough that this element is downplayed/subsumed in some more generalised attempt to explain everything from QFD to the CBR. As I'm only just reading this now, just before I have to wander off to do something else, I shall have to defer my own dabbling edits until later, by which time it will have been matured (or at least remixed) into a more thorough text, so no point me worrying upon how to improve the necessary but rarely inviolable initial attempt to Explain. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.5|172.70.85.5]] 11:51, 27 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:: Maybe in some combination with the {{w|Observer effect (physics)}}, it's an attempt to get at the simulation hypothesis maybe? <br />
::I absolutely do not get whatever it is that the title text is saying, so I'm sitting this one out. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.214.189|172.70.214.189]] 14:56, 27 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:::I'd interpret it as them studying fluid dynamics in hope of discovering a way to create the coolest possible cloud. --[[Special:Contributions/172.68.50.207|172.68.50.207]] 15:07, 27 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
::::Aye. Given we can't see the 'best clouds' here (because the chances are low that we can) and we can't go and see the absolute best clouds (due to limitations on visiting every likely place out there), by intensely studying the phenomenon that in part dictates how all clouds look one might create (or visually predict the look of) the superior type through rigorous simulation/emulation/etc. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.155|172.70.162.155]] 15:53, 27 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
''Much more computing power could be saved by skimping on the chemistry of the quattuordecillions of atoms in the oceans than the clouds in the sky ... but skimping on oceanic chemistry would make biogenesis much less feasible. However, Earth has life.''<br />
<br />
Wait, what if this is the solution to the Fermi paradox? /jk [[User:Xkcdjerry|Xkcdjerry]] ([[User talk:Xkcdjerry|talk]]) 02:49, 28 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
"Of course, most people do not think that the Universe is a simulation..." feels like a ''genuine'' [citation needed] to me. I can't say with confidence that it's the prevailing theory, but it's been gaining so much traction in this day and age that it feels weird to claim with confidence that the majority of people don't think it.<br />
:Agree. On the other hand, I don't think the Universe simulation cheats to save computing resources. With the scale it works in, it must be massively parallel system which isn't able to reallocate resources from one area to other. Also, if whoever programmed the simulation would be willing to cheat, they would start with not designing the physical laws so complicated. Or alternatively, they would cheat big, changing our memories to make everything seem to work correctly. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 23:44, 28 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
::Yes. If the universe were like The Matrix—i.e., its main goal were to house beings possessing minds—then simulating only the input to each being’s senses would be the most economical.<br />
:::However, the amount of computation to identify beings and what information constitutes their input might be so hard as to be analogous to the {{w|halting problem}}, or technically undecidable (but subject to likely useful heuristics, depending on the purpose of any such simulation.) This gets into {{w|Compatibilism#Non-naturalism|non-naturalist compatibilism}} on the free will question, but it's not clear whether such a discussion would add anything directly to an explanation of the comic, but is worth considering. Maybe in the "Further considerations" block. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.34.28|172.69.34.28]] 20:29, 29 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Am I the only one who feels like the Explanation is lacking its customary explanatoriousness? I propose a table in the form of {{w|Pascal's wager}}, which when projected on the {{w|Mandelbrot set}}, looks like clouds. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.166.173|162.158.166.173]] 03:12, 29 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
I don't think this is an accurate description or explanation of the title text, so I am moving it here:<br />
: "The response is, more or less, that the second person wants to see “the coolest clouds”. If one devised a system to determine what would qualify as the coolest clouds (an entirely subjective thing), then one could rank planets on how cool their clouds were. Since only one planet would have the best clouds and there is a great number of planets, it is statistically unlikely that Earth - or any of the other planets in our system - will be the winner. Thus, in order to see the coolest clouds, one must either travel to another system or learn fluid dynamics to simulate them. Compared to the vast distances a ship must travel to reach even the nearest star, even rockets seem slow, and it would take a long time to get even a fraction of the way there. Because of this, the latter is chosen." <br />
[[Special:Contributions/162.158.166.173|162.158.166.173]] 03:59, 29 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
::I was surprised to see that removed. It looked ''exactly'' like the explanation for the TT, to me. The alternative seems to lack so much of the implied rationale. But maybe the simulation of this site provided to my brain is different from the simulation of this site provided to yours (assuming you exist, and you aren't a confounding factor included 8n my whole simulation of what I might or might not be experiencing).... [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.78|172.70.91.78]]<br />
:::It assumes that different atmospheric compositions could produce cooler clouds, which is tautological given the subjectivity of the criterion, but questionable from the perspective of mean opinions over a wide population such as the readership. The current two sentence explanation of the title text sidesteps that issue, and is much easier and faster to read. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.214.183|172.70.214.183]] 20:54, 29 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
I was reminded by this strip of the fact that THIS planet, the only planet in our solar system where the natural satellite has the correct relationship with the sun to occasionally block it out in an extremely cool way (with the 'diamond ring' corona effect), is also the only planet (so far as we know) where such , solar eclipses can be APPRECIATED...<br />
<br />
[[User:MarquisOfCarrabass|MarquisOfCarrabass]] ([[User talk:MarquisOfCarrabass|talk]]) 06:23, 29 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
This is the WORST explainxkcd "Explanation" I have ever seen. There is absolutely NOTHING in the comic that has ANYTHING to do with 3D videogames and any such ideas come COMPLETELY from out of the blue. SHEESH! [[Special:Contributions/172.70.130.171|172.70.130.171]] 10:40, 29 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:Agreed. The comic is about planets and clouds, there is nothing about simulations or rendering at all. The last panel is a hint at anthropomorphizing (if that's a word) the universe for humour, as if it just creates neat clouds for fun. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.128|172.70.91.128]] 07:18, 30 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:: Getting fluid dynamics right being a lot of work is absolutely a reference to simulation, and I don't see how such in the context of observations of our reality can escape entailing the simulation hypothesis. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.214.183|172.70.214.183]] 00:43, 31 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
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As for the "Further consideration" section, it's a whole big pile of . . . something . . . that belongs somewhere else but not here. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.131.170|172.70.131.170]] 10:46, 29 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:Click the Expand link, pay the consequences :D [[Special:Contributions/172.70.206.213|172.70.206.213]] 23:48, 29 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
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Is there a difference between ascribing motivations to the Universe and positing the purpose of a constructed simulation of our reality? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.211.146|172.70.211.146]] 23:37, 29 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
: Neither are falsifiable hypotheses, to begin with. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.206.213|172.70.206.213]] 23:45, 29 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
: Yes; there is a difference. The first says nothing about where the motivations come from and the second is specific about it. If the Universe has motivations they could come from any number of unknown sources . . . . [[Special:Contributions/172.70.178.107|172.70.178.107]] 10:43, 30 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
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Feels like this deserves a link to [https://cloudappreciationsociety.org/ the Cloud Appreciation Society] [[User:Miamiclay|Miamiclay]] ([[User talk:Miamiclay|talk]]) 07:07, 31 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:Feels like you could replace the whole explanation with that link and it would be more explanatory. I understood the comic more before I tried to read the explanation than I do afterwards. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.78|172.70.91.78]] 11:36, 2 September 2022 (UTC)</div>172.70.91.78https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:2664:_Cloud_Swirls&diff=293637Talk:2664: Cloud Swirls2022-08-29T08:41:44Z<p>172.70.91.78: </p>
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3-D video games? HUH??[[Special:Contributions/172.70.131.126|172.70.131.126]] 09:33, 27 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:It's not how I would have started the Explanation, but I think it'll quickly be rewritten enough that this element is downplayed/subsumed in some more generalised attempt to explain everything from QFD to the CBR. As I'm only just reading this now, just before I have to wander off to do something else, I shall have to defer my own dabbling edits until later, by which time it will have been matured (or at least remixed) into a more thorough text, so no point me worrying upon how to improve the necessary but rarely inviolable initial attempt to Explain. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.5|172.70.85.5]] 11:51, 27 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:: Maybe in some combination with the {{w|Observer effect (physics)}}, it's an attempt to get at the simulation hypothesis maybe? <br />
::I absolutely do not get whatever it is that the title text is saying, so I'm sitting this one out. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.214.189|172.70.214.189]] 14:56, 27 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:::I'd interpret it as them studying fluid dynamics in hope of discovering a way to create the coolest possible cloud. --[[Special:Contributions/172.68.50.207|172.68.50.207]] 15:07, 27 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
::::Aye. Given we can't see the 'best clouds' here (because the chances are low that we can) and we can't go and see the absolute best clouds (due to limitations on visiting every likely place out there), by intensely studying the phenomenon that in part dictates how all clouds look one might create (or visually predict the look of) the superior type through rigorous simulation/emulation/etc. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.155|172.70.162.155]] 15:53, 27 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
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''Much more computing power could be saved by skimping on the chemistry of the quattuordecillions of atoms in the oceans than the clouds in the sky ... but skimping on oceanic chemistry would make biogenesis much less feasible. However, Earth has life.''<br />
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Wait, what if this is the solution to the Fermi paradox? /jk [[User:Xkcdjerry|Xkcdjerry]] ([[User talk:Xkcdjerry|talk]]) 02:49, 28 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
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"Of course, most people do not think that the Universe is a simulation..." feels like a ''genuine'' [citation needed] to me. I can't say with confidence that it's the prevailing theory, but it's been gaining so much traction in this day and age that it feels weird to claim with confidence that the majority of people don't think it.<br />
:Agree. On the other hand, I don't think the Universe simulation cheats to save computing resources. With the scale it works in, it must be massively parallel system which isn't able to reallocate resources from one area to other. Also, if whoever programmed the simulation would be willing to cheat, they would start with not designing the physical laws so complicated. Or alternatively, they would cheat big, changing our memories to make everything seem to work correctly. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 23:44, 28 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
::Yes. If the universe were like The Matrix—i.e., its main goal were to house beings possessing minds—then simulating only the input to each being’s senses would be the most economical.<br />
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Am I the only one who feels like the Explanation is lacking its customary explanatoriousness? I propose a table in the form of {{w|Pascal's wager}}, which when projected on the {{w|Mandelbrot set}}, looks like clouds. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.166.173|162.158.166.173]] 03:12, 29 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
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I don't think this is an accurate description or explanation of the title text, so I am moving it here:<br />
: "The response is, more or less, that the second person wants to see “the coolest clouds”. If one devised a system to determine what would qualify as the coolest clouds (an entirely subjective thing), then one could rank planets on how cool their clouds were. Since only one planet would have the best clouds and there is a great number of planets, it is statistically unlikely that Earth - or any of the other planets in our system - will be the winner. Thus, in order to see the coolest clouds, one must either travel to another system or learn fluid dynamics to simulate them. Compared to the vast distances a ship must travel to reach even the nearest star, even rockets seem slow, and it would take a long time to get even a fraction of the way there. Because of this, the latter is chosen." <br />
[[Special:Contributions/162.158.166.173|162.158.166.173]] 03:59, 29 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
::I was surprised to see that removed. It looked ''exactly'' like the explanation for the TT, to me. The alternative seems to lack so much of the implied rationale. But maybe the simulation of this site provided to my brain is different from the simulation of this site provided to yours (assuming you exist, and you aren't a confounding factor included 8n my whole simulation of what I might or might not be experiencing).... [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.78|172.70.91.78]]<br />
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I was reminded by this strip of the fact that THIS planet, the only planet in our solar system where the natural satellite has the correct relationship with the sun to occasionally block it out in an extremely cool way (with the 'diamond ring' corona effect), is also the only planet (so far as we know) where such solar eclipses can be APPRECIATED...<br />
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[[User:MarquisOfCarrabass|MarquisOfCarrabass]] ([[User talk:MarquisOfCarrabass|talk]]) 06:23, 29 August 2022 (UTC)</div>172.70.91.78https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:1348:_Before_the_Internet&diff=293559Talk:1348: Before the Internet2022-08-27T10:59:36Z<p>172.70.91.78: </p>
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I'm pretty sure that Randall doesn't make this mistake, but "Before the Internet" and "Before the Web" are two very different things in a way that old fogeys like myself (and him) tend to mutter on about when anyone younger than maybe 40 make the mistake of conflating the two.<br />
If that's Exploit Mom, she'd probably be too young to ''really'' know times pre-Internet in the truest sense. (Although "before the layperson ''knew'' about the Internet" could be placed somewhere in the mid-to-late '90s, which ''is'' after the early '90s inception of the Web.)<br />
Enough pedantry. Someone needs to make a more useful comment than the above, and quickly! [[Special:Contributions/141.101.89.211|141.101.89.211]] 06:00, 28 March 2014 (UTC)<br />
:The person asking the question is a child-character. The adult-character then followed up with a clarification question "[Do you mean] not having a phone or computer to distract you?". Though, in your "truest sense", "before the Internet" and "the first decade or so of the Internet" would be mostly the same. The Internet didn't have much of an impact on or value to society until after it reached a certain size.[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_effect] [[Special:Contributions/108.162.237.64|108.162.237.64]] 07:15, 28 March 2014 (UTC)<br />
::Yeahbut you're still conflating "Internet" and "Web". "The first decade or so of the Internet" still takes us up to maybe the start of the '80s ''at the latest''. A college/university student of that time is now in now in their 40s (hence the "['''Even''', ''sic''] if that's Exploit Mom"), and I don't think that the adult character looks old enough. Hack off ten years or so (for the first ''Web'' Generation to find their new distraction, via AOL if not their college) and I think it would work better. Of course, I don't dismiss Megan/whoever being a little sparing with the truth for a good tale. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.89.211|141.101.89.211]] 23:11, 28 March 2014 (UTC)<br />
:::What society refers to as the "Internet" didn't really surface until the mid-to-late 90s. Before that, the systems that formed an "internet" (lower-case, to refer to the generic concept of wide-area interconnected systems) was only barely accessible to the public, and the systems that were connected this way in the early 80s were part of the original ARPANET that was primarily used by the military. In short, the "Internet" that we take for granted today was a product of its own discovery, which largely occurred in the mid-90s. An average-aged mom with a kid in the average age range to be asking questions like the one in this comic would probably have grown up in the 80s. [[Special:Contributions/199.27.128.249|199.27.128.249]] 03:39, 29 March 2014 (UTC)<br />
::::Yes, exactly. Like I said, there's pedantry involved in this issue. But ''the internet'' (OSI layer 1-3 or 4, depending on how you define it) was named circa 1974 and pre-existed that in a vaguely recognisable form at the tail-end of the '60s. And is different from ''the web'' (OSI layer 7, itself). It's just an observation, and I would just count the adult in the strip as an 'unreliable narrator', whether intentionally or otherwise. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.89.211|141.101.89.211]] 04:50, 29 March 2014 (UTC)<br />
I read a lot. Before the internet was cheap, I would go to the library on my bike, borrow 5 books (the limit), read them all and go to the library again. On a good weekend day I could repeat this 3 or 4 times. Some books I've read thousands of times. Relevant irrelevant comment[[Special:Contributions/108.162.218.41|108.162.218.41]] 07:18, 28 March 2014 (UTC)<br />
: Very impressive. Libraries are typically open for 8 hours a day, so you read 15-20 (3-4 x 5) books in 8 hours. That's about 30 minutes per book.<br />
: A short novel is about 200 pages. I'm an accomplished reader, and I read about a page a minute. Assuming you read exclusively short novels, you managed 7 pages a minute, or 3500 words per minute, or one page every 10 seconds. That's about three times the 1000-words-per-minute limit on human skim-reading comprehension. I'm very impressed!<br />
: This may explain why you have had to read some books thousands of times. At a reading speed of 3500 words per minute, your comprehension was likely extremely poor, necessitating you to go back many times to understand what was going on. May I suggest that in future, you read more slowly, so that you can understand better the first time? You'll enjoy what you're reading so much more.[[Special:Contributions/173.245.53.178|173.245.53.178]] 17:11, 28 March 2014 (UTC)<br />
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Does this comic even ''need'' explaining? Pretty self-explanatory of you ask me. —[[Special:Contributions/108.162.210.237|108.162.210.237]] 08:04, 28 March 2014 (UTC)<br />
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: I think some sort of explanation relating to why this is funny. It is sort of the opposite of the standard nostalgia. Rather like our parents generation may have had a similar discussion with their parents about the invention of TV (add a generation if you are too young). When you think about it, it is a bit odd how society is keen to develop tech to make things better, and at the same time declare that things were better in the past. We sometimes get quite good expositions on this sort of thing here... hopefully someone with some sociology/psychology knowledge can explain this a bit better. {{unsigned ip|108.162.219.19}}<br />
::Agreed it's fairly self-explanatory. The 'reverse-nostalgia' point is interesting. I guess the joke here is kind of that the Mom is making it sound like there was nothing to do before the internet, whereas in reality there was plenty to do; people weren't sitting around waiting for the internet to be invented so they didn't know that it was a thing that could be missing from their lives, it just seems that way now because we can't imagine our lives without it. In a way, it's almost a variation on the classic 'we can't watch TV, it hasn't been invented yet' joke.[[Special:Contributions/173.245.53.148|173.245.53.148]] 11:31, 28 March 2014 (UTC)<br />
:::People weren't sitting around waiting for Internet to be invented. Computers already existed, so people were walking around with floppy disks (or tapes) and saying things like "It would be great if we could exchange data while sitting home ..." -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 11:48, 28 March 2014 (UTC)<br />
::My main question is whether the Mom character is being serious or sarcastic - as in the way some people like to wind children up by giving them made-up answers to questions.[[Special:Contributions/173.245.53.148|173.245.53.148]] 11:33, 28 March 2014 (UTC)<br />
:::Yeah, she could be messing with her by just answering with the opposite of what she's clearly expected to say in this exchange. I think the joke works both ways. [[User:Enchantedsleeper|Enchantedsleeper]] ([[User talk:Enchantedsleeper|talk]]) 15:24, 28 March 2014 (UTC)<br />
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::Of course the past was better. Before the Internet, I had lot of free time I could spend whatever I wanted. Now I'm forced to spend most of day in work. Oh, wait, that isn't because of Internet but because I was child and had summer holiday and now I'm adult. (Also, the Internet technically exists since December 1974, but for most people, mid-1990s is start of Internet and my "before the Internet" refers to that). -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 11:48, 28 March 2014 (UTC)<br />
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Isn't this a joke on how older people say younger people don't interact with eachother unless through cellphone etc. Even if they are sitting right next to eachother--[[User:Nitho|Nitho]] ([[User talk:Nitho|talk]]) 11:59, 28 March 2014 (UTC)<br />
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I kindof took this joke as a variation on upstaging a complainer, i.e., "When I was your age, we walked uphill...''both'' ways". [[User:Elvenivle|Elvenivle]] ([[User talk:Elvenivle|talk]]) 22:24, 4 September 2018 (UTC)<br />
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;Ponytail<br />
In [[1105: License Plate]] we can see Ponytail is a police officer. Therefore she must be at least 22, and therefore she was born before 1990. If this comic features Ponytail, then it must be set at most in 2000 (when Ponytail was 10). But in 2000 or before people didn't have smartphones. In my opinion this comic is set in 2014, and therefore the girl character is not [[Ponytail]] but simply a girl with a ponytail. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.50.84|173.245.50.84]] 12:44, 28 March 2014 (UTC)<br />
:Or maybe [[1105: License Plate]] was set in 2024?<br />
:While we are identifying Randalls characters by how they are drawn, I don't think he does. (except for Blackhat and Beret Guy) -- [[User:Xorg|Xorg]] ([[User talk:Xorg|talk]]) 13:20, 28 March 2014 (UTC)<br />
::Of course he doesn't. In [[1344: Digits]] it was arbitrary to label one character as Cueball and the other as Guy. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.90|108.162.221.90]] 17:34, 28 March 2014 (UTC) (I'm [[Special:Contributions/173.245.50.84|173.245.50.84]]).<br />
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I'd like to state my opinion that I think that Megan is being serious. I'm old enough to remember a time before internet and personal computers were widespread and my recollection is EXACTLY the same as Megan's.<br />
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^^Yes - I was there, and we were bored. If you were on the toilet and didn't have an old Reader's Digest handy, you read the bottles of Dr. Bronner's or shampoo bottles - I can still say "methylchloroisothiazolinone" without the slightest hitch or hesitation. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.132.31|172.68.132.31]] 07:00, 14 May 2021 (UTC)<br />
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I grew up before television, we would listen to shows on the radio. There were comedies, dramas, cop shows, mysteries, it was wonderful! The whole family would be gathered in the living room, listening to Hitchcock's Half Hour, Men From The Ministry, Father Dear Father, Z-Squad, etc. I actually wish television had never been invented. [[User:The Cat Lady|-- The Cat Lady]] ([[User talk:The Cat Lady|talk]]) 15:42, 24 October 2021 (UTC)<br />
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Funny how Megan complains about daytime TV when Randall dedicated quite a few comics to the show Firefly. <br />
[[Special:Contributions/172.70.54.193|172.70.54.193]] 02:06, 27 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:Hardly the same, of course. One is seemingly never-ending drivel of various mundane kinds the other was far too brief (unlike that of other initially promising shows like ''Lost'') and never managed to long outlast its novelty and innovative development. (And if you actually hated Firefly, you could avoid it much more than you might avoid 'daytime TV', assuming you had as few other options available to you as typical back in those days.)<br />
:Of course, there are those who are entranced by the 'daytime TV'... single-header social-belligerance shows (e.g. Jerry Springer), double-header magazine types (the types mixing consumer advice, book-clubs, health issues, etc, whatever kept the Power Couple presenters and occasional regular guest expert occupied for an hour or three), whatever came before the current Property-/Auction-/Auctioned Property-porn fad, those rapid turnover gameshows (I must admit that I would not be upset to be forced to watch {{w|Countdown (game show)|the occasional}} one or two of these, but most grow stale on me fairly quickly), some cheesy high-volume daytime soap or other, and if any more of the time needs infilling then probably some much-repeated detective drama (as far as I'm concerned, I could watch {{w|Columbo}}s forever, but that's the main exception).<br />
:...but I think Randall's audience are more likely to be (potential, even if now 'retro') Firefly fans than dedicated 'daytime TV' addicts; assuming they get the time to watch either. Or at least can relate to the general preference.<br />
:And gone are the days of 'event television', with streaming taking over from even VCR-mediated time-shifted viewing (so you could go out of an evening and still hopefully watch that night's Soap to chat about by the watercooler the next day, if that was your thing). Boredom in the era of a potentially Binge-Watched-Series from a whole host of choices is a different beast entirely. And that ignores everything from YouTube(/PornHub) dipping to the hours you might spend trying to grind and advance your zombie/pirate/robot/whatever-proofed settlement in that latest App game you downloaded. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.78|172.70.91.78]] 10:59, 27 August 2022 (UTC)</div>172.70.91.78https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1864:_City_Nicknames&diff=2934781864: City Nicknames2022-08-25T12:00:18Z<p>172.70.91.78: /* Nicknames and Demonyms */ another possibility</p>
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<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 1864<br />
| date = July 17, 2017<br />
| title = City Nicknames<br />
| image = city_nicknames.png<br />
| titletext = This place has so many demonyms. Northlanders. Fair Folk. Honey Barons. Lake Dwellers. Treasurers. Swamp Watchers. Dream Farmers. Wellfolk. Rockeaters. Forgotten Royals. Remote Clients. Barrow-Clerks. The People of Land and Sky.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
<br />
Cities often have official or unofficial nicknames. For instance, {{w|St. Louis|St. Louis, Missouri}}, is known as "Gateway to the West" among several other nicknames. The nicknames typically invoke some historical or geographic feature of the city, but can sometime be opaque to those not familiar with the city. [https://www.into-asia.com/bangkok/introduction/fullname.php The full, formal name of Bangkok] includes a long list of superlatives translating as "The city of angels, the great city, the residence of the Emerald Buddha, the impregnable city (of Ayutthaya) of God Indra, the grand capital of the world endowed with nine precious gems, the happy city, abounding in an enormous Royal Palace that resembles the heavenly abode where reigns the reincarnated god, a city given by Indra and built by Vishnukarn."<br />
<br />
Despite the skyline being clearly recognizable as St. Louis due to the {{w|Gateway Arch}}, [[Black Hat]] calls it {{w|New York City}}. However, the nickname he gives is neither a common New York nickname (such as "{{w|List of nicknames of New York City|The Big Apple}}") nor a St. Louis nickname. [[Megan]] tries to correct him, but it becomes clear that Black Hat is making up nicknames. Many of his suggestions are puns for real nicknames of other places.<br />
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The title text contains made up {{w|demonym}}s in the same pattern. A demonym is a word for the people who live in a particular place. They are typically derived from the name of the place (e.g. "St. Louisan" for people from St. Louis, or New Yorker for those from New York), but some regions have an {{w|Demonym#Informal|informal demonym}} that can be used colloquially by those familiar with the place to refer to its residents (e.g. Hoosier for people from Indiana).<br />
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===Nicknames and Demonyms===<br />
<br />
{| class=wikitable<br />
! City nickname in comic<br />
! Reference<br />
! Explanation<br />
<br />
|-<br />
| The Hot Tamale<br />
| {{w|Hot Tamales}}<br />
| Possibly a reference to the term [http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=big%20enchilada big enchilada] (something of great importance). In the movie <i>[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independence_Day_(1996_film) Independence Day]</i>, the phrase "Big Tamale" is used in a similar manner as "Big Enchilada" to describe the alien fighter held at Area 51.<br />
<br />
|-<br />
| The Winged City<br />
| The Windy City<br />
| Chicago. Possibly also [http://www.airport-technology.com/projects/incheon-international-airport/ Incheon International Airport (ICA/RKSI), South Korea].<br />
<br />
|-<br />
| The Gold Trombone<br />
|<br />
| Possibly a reference to the {{w|Golden Horn}} in Istanbul.<br />
<br />
|-<br />
| Castleopolis<br />
| {{w|Cassopolis}}, or possibly Dictionopolis.<br />
| Literally "Castle city." {{w|Polis}} (from the Greek πόλις for city) is commonly used as a suffix for city names, like {{w|Minneapolis}} or {{w|Alexandroupolis}}; {{w|Metropolis}} can either be a type of city, or one of the real or fictional cities bearing the name. Possibly a reference to The Phantom Tollbooth, which has both castles and cities named Dictionopolis and Digitopolis. In the Industrial Revolution, places known for certain industries had nicknames such as {{w|Cottonopolis}} ({{w|Manchester}}), Copperopolis ({{w|Swansea}}) and Juteopolis ({{w|Dundee}}). Could also be a city in {{w|Castlevania}}.<br />
<br />
|-<br />
| The Kissing Kingdom<br />
| {{w|United Kingdom}}<br />
| This would make a ''Very'' United Kingdom.<br />
<br />
|-<br />
| Sandland<br />
|<br />
| {{w|Sandland}} is a village in northern Norway, most likely coincidentally.<br />
<br />
|-<br />
| The High Place<br />
| {{w|Denver}}<br />
|Denver is known as the Mile High City. Also, in English translations of the Old Testament, the Hebrew term במה (bamah, plural במות bamot) is rendered as "{{w|high place}}," and denotes a place of worship. In modern Jewish synagogues, the "High Place" (bimah) is the elevated platform from which the Torah is read. In Gene Wolfe's ''Free Live Free'', one character claims to come from the "High Place". The others consider this a metaphor, or simply a lie. Eventually this is discovered not to be the case. It could also a reference to {{w|The Man in the High Castle}}, a novel by {{w|Philip K. Dick}} which was adapted into a TV series (at the time of this comic, two seasons had been produced and a third is expected before the end of 2017).<br />
<br />
|-<br />
| Ol' Ironhook<br />
| {{w|Old Ironsides}}<br />
| Old Ironsides is a nickname for the USS Constitution (docked in Charlestown, MA). Ol' Ironhook may be a conflation of Old Ironsides (also a nickname for English Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell) with Old Hookey (a nickname for Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington, English general and PM, who was also nicknamed The Iron Duke) or Old Kinderhook (a nickname for US President Martin Van Buren).<br />
|-<br />
| The Thousand Spires || The City of a Hundred Spires / City of Dreaming Spires|| Prague / Oxford.<br />
|-<br />
| The Graveyard of Kings || The Graveyard of Champions / City of Kings / Graveyard of Empires || ''Graveyard'': Court 2 at Wimbledon, where former champions are often defeated (the playing environment is very different from Centre Court and Court One, which are larger and where games involving highly-ranked players are preferentially located). The comic was released one day after the 2017 Wimbledon Championships were finished. ''Kings'': Nickname of [[wikipedia:Lima|Lima, Peru]] and [[wikipedia:Palermo|Palermo, Sicily]]. The {{w|Valley of the Kings}} in Egypt is literally a graveyard of kings, namely the Pharaohs.<br />
Alternatively, Afghanistan is also known as the "Graveyard of Empires" due to its success in defending against would-be conquerors.<br />
|-<br />
| Bloomtown || [[wikipedia: Boomtown|Boomtown]] || Generic term for a town undergoing rapid growth. Used in the 2002 TV series of the same name as a nickname for Los Angeles. Might also be referring to [[wikipedia:Bloom County|Bloom County]], a comic by [[wikipedia:Berkeley Breathed|Berkeley Breathed]], or Dublin, as the setting for Ulysses by James Joyce. Bloomtown also invokes an image of many flowers, so it could be a reference to a large garden, or a city known for its gardens or flowers. The [[wikipedia: Bloomsbury | Bloomsbury]] district of London is famous as a location for intellectuals and writers, and publishing houses.<br />
|-<br />
| Lantern City USA || {{w|Tree City USA}} || A designation supporting municipalities that showcase urban forestry, in connection with Arbor Day. Lantern city is a fictional, steam-punk serial.<br />
|-<br />
| The City of Many Daughters || {{w|City of Daughters}} || Might be a reference to {{w|City of Daughters}} album by [[wikipedia:Destroyer (band)|Destroyer]].<br />
|-<br />
| Big Mauve || [[wikipedia: Big_Red_(drink)|Big Red Soda]] || Big Red Soda. Big Red is also a chewing gum by Wrigley's. The Cornell teams are known as the [[wikipedia:Cornell Big Red|Big Red]] as is Western Kentucky's mascot [[wikipedia:Big Red (Western Kentucky University)|Big Red]]. The Dartmouth football team is the Big Green. IBM is sometimes known as Big Blue.<br />
|-<br />
| The Glass Cradle || [[wikipedia:The Glass Menagerie|The Glass Menagerie]] || A play by Tennessee Williams. Or Golden Cradle, referencing Mesopotamia.<br />
|- <br />
| The Road Source ||{{w|Rome}} || From the saying that {{w|All Roads Lead to Rome}}. Possibly Rome's antipode (in the Pacific Ocean, a little east of New Zealand), since the saying makes Rome the Road Sink.<br />
|-<br />
| London Prime || London || In the DC comics, to incorporate multiple continuties, there were multiple universes. London Prime would be "real London" on Earth Prime. Various cities named {{w|New London}} in the United States and elsewhere are imagined as London in alternate continuities. Alternatively in mathematics, a [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_(symbol)#Use_in_mathematics.2C_statistics.2C_and_science prime mark], x' can be the next iteration of variable x. <br />
|-<br />
| Hamtown || {{w|Boston}}, {{w|Hamburg}}, {{w|Toronto}} || Boston is known as [[wikipedia:Boston nicknames|beantown]], pork and beans are commonly cooked together (as in {{w|Boston baked beans}}), and ham is a form of pork. The German word ''Burg'' means castle or fort and is often used as suffix for town names. The origin of the prefix ''Ham'' is uncertain, but the food {{w|Hamburger}} derives from this city and ''Hamburger'' in German is the demonym of Hamburg. Toronto is sometimes nicknamed Hogtown. <br />
|-<br />
| The Salad Bowl || || A theory of cultural integration in the US, one that stands in contrast to the older 'Melting Pot' theory. Could also refer to the [[wikipedia: Dust Bowl|Dust Bowl]]. Could also refer to Salinas, CA, the "Salad Bowl of the world".<br />
|-<br />
| God's Boudoir || God's Waiting Room || State of {{w|Florida}}, where many elderly retire then expire. As a ''{{w|boudoir}}'' is a room reserved for a female (host), this usage would implicate that either God is a woman, or that God frequents there often.<br />
|-<br />
| The Glittering Swamp || [[wikipedia:Great Dismal Swamp|The Great Dismal Swamp ]], {{w|Washington, D.C.}} || A large swamp in Virginia and North Carolina. Also, the city of {{w|Washington, D.C.}} has often been referred to as a "swamp," owing partly to its past as a [http://networks.h-net.org/node/28441/pages/36129/swamps-and-city-washington malarial swamp].<br />
|-<br />
| The Steel Forest || The Concrete Jungle || The Concrete Jungle is a name often given to New York's Manhattan area. There was also a book and movie titled ''The Petrified Forest''. <br />
|-<br />
| The Mobius Strip || The Strip || The Strip is a shortened and commonly used name for the Las Vegas Strip, the main area of hotels and casinos in Las Vegas, Nevada. A {{w|Mobius strip}} is a one-sided piece of paper created by rotating the short edge of the strip 180 degrees and attaching it to the other short edge. The Vegas strip has more or less only one side as well.<br />
|-<br />
| The Land of Trains and Fog || || Britain was home to early developments in railroading, and some portions are known for fog and mists.<br />
In the webcomic [[wikipedia:Homestuck | Homestuck]] many events take place on various planets named in the format "Land of X and Y", e.g. "Land of Light and Rain". A series of novels by George R.R. Martin, which was made into the ''Game of Thrones'' TV show, is called ''A Song of Ice and Fire''. The Grand Canyon is known as "The House of Stone and Light" by some native people.<br />
|-<br />
| The Meeting Place || [[wikipedia:Canberra|Canberra]] || The capital city of Australia has its name derived from 'Meeting Place' in the local Aboriginal language, because of a seasonal food boom (Bogong Moths) that drew tribes to the area each year.<br />
|-<br />
| The Dark Star || || ''Dark Star'' is a 1974 science fiction comedy film.<br />
|-<br />
| The Walled Garden || {{w|Walled garden (technology)}} || A walled garden is a virtual environment where the user can only view content that is published or permitted by the proprietor, e.g. AOL or Facebook. Likely a reference to the {{w|Garden Of Eden}}.This could also be a reference to walled cities, e.g. from the Middle Ages, or the {{w|Kowloon Walled City}} in the modern era. ''The Secret Garden'' is a book by Frances Hodgson Burnett.<br />
|-<br />
| Skin City || [[wikipedia:Sin City (description)|Sin City]] || Specifically Las Vegas. Also a generic term for a city well known for gambling, drugs, prostitution, and/or other vices.<br />
|-<br />
| The Horse Rotary || || Horse and rotary are both types of clothes dryer. Might reference The Windy City, which would also likely be good for drying clothes.<br />
|-<br />
| Turkeytown || Turkeytown || A town in Lincoln County, Kentucky.<br />
|-<br />
| The Naked Towers || || ''The Naked City'' was a television series. ''The Two Towers'' is a book by Tolkien, and ''Naked Lunch'' is a book by Burroughs.<br />
|-<br />
| The Meta-City || Metacity || A term for a heterogenous, sprawling urban center with multiple dense centers, such as Tokyo or New York City. Metacity was also the window manager in the Linux GNOME 2 desktop.<br />
|-<br />
| The Urban Orb || || The screen name of a Let's Player on Youtube and Twitch. - Also maybe once more: Rome and the Rest of the world, as in the popes address to the urbi (city: meaning Rome ) and orbi (circle: meaning the world)<br />
|-<br />
| The City of Angles || City of Angels || Los Angeles. Also, the titular City of Angles in the web novel [http://stefangagne.com/cityofangles/ City of Angles]. There also exist several songs with that name, a few of them listed here: {{w|City of Angels}}.<br />
|-<br />
| The Big Wheel || [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0041179/ The Big Wheel] || A 1949 movie about a race car driver. Alternatively, a child's plastic tricycle with an oversized front wheel.<br />
|-<br />
| Bird City USA || || A program started by the Audubon Society. <br />
|-<br />
| The City of Seven Crowns || City of Seven Hills || Rome. Also occasionally refers to Moscow. The next nickname is likely a reference to the 'wrong' part of this nickname.<br />
|-<br />
| Hilltopia || The Hilltop || May be reference to The Hilltop in AMC's The Walking Dead, or possibly the {{w|Hilltopper (train)| Hilltopper}}, a train which used to run through Randall's home town of {{w|Richmond, Virginia}}.<br />
|-<br />
| Bug City || || A nickname for the bug-infested Chicago in the roleplaying game Shadowrun. Also, a sourcebook for the game. This may also be a reference to Johnny Rico's description of Planet P in movie Starship Troopers.<br />
|-<br />
| The Bottomless Cup || || There are many mentions of Bottomless Pits in stories. Additionally, restaurants offering unlimited refills on drinks may refer to this offer by terms like "Bottomless Soda."<br />
|-<br />
| Lorde's Fen || Lord's Fen || Lord's Fen is a place in Huntingdonshire, England. [[wikipedia:Lorde| Lorde]] is a musical artist from Herne Bay, New Zealand - an area near Waitemata Harbour. A [[wikipedia:Fen| fen]] is a type of wetland, which could loosely connect to Herne Bay. <br />
|-<br />
| The Last Town || || The third book in the Wayward Pines series. <br />
|-<br />
| The Empty Set || || The concert hall in the video game Transistor. In mathematics, the {{w|empty set}} refers to an unique set with no elements, often notated as "{}" or "∅".<br />
|-<br />
| Ghost Harbor || || The name for a brewing company in North Carolina.<br />
|}<br />
<br />
{| class=wikitable<br />
! Demonym in comic<br />
! Reference<br />
! Explanation<br />
|-<br />
| Northlanders || {{w|Norsemen}} || Norsemen, literally men from the north, people from Nordic countries. Could also be a reference to highlanders, the people of the {{w|Scottish Highlands}}, with a similar demonym. The "High" in "Highlands" is a reference to the mountainous landscape, not the geographical position. It may or may not have to do with the northernmost province of {{w|New Zealand}}.<br />
|-<br />
| Fair Folk || {{w|Fairy}} || The fair folk is a name for fairies in folklore. The elves in ''The Lord of the Rings'' are referred to as the 'fair folk'. <br />
|-<br />
| Honey Barons || [[wikipedia: Robber_baron_(industrialist) | Robber Barons]], [[wikipedia: Honey_badger | Honey Badgers]], [[wikipedia: Honey bear| honey bear]] || Possibly a play on The Robber Barons, a group of powerful industrialists in the late 1800s known for questionable business ethics, and honey badgers, animals known for their tough skin, bad tempers, and tenacity. Honey bear is a name for a few types of bear, as well as kinkajous. <br />
|-<br />
| Lake Dwellers || The Hobbit || Most likely a reference the people of the Laketown in J.R.R.Tolkien's "The Hobbit".<br />
|-<br />
| Treasurers || || A {{w|treasurer}} is a person in charge of running the treasury of an organization, for example a governmental department. The Auditors were characters in Terry Pratchett's Discworld books who did the book-keeping for reality, and wanted to simplify the universe by destroying life.<br />
|-<br />
| Swamp Watchers || ||<br />
|-<br />
| Dream Farmers || The Dream Factory || Hollywood, California, in its role as the center of the American film industry.<br />
|-<br />
| Wellfolk || Werefolk, Weefolk || The were folk were people who could change into animals: e.g. werewolves. Wee folk is another name for {{w|Fairy}} in folklore.<br />
|-<br />
| Rockeaters || [[Wikipedia:List_of_The_Neverending_Story_characters#Pyornkrachzark_and_the_other_messengers| Rockbiter]] || In the ''Never Ending Story'', Pyornkrachzark, more commonly known as "Rock Biter" is a large creature made completely of stone, named due to their diet of rocks. <br />
May also refer to {{w|Lotus-eaters}}; while these mythical people slept in narcotic apathy, rockeaters might have a tougher time.<br />
|-<br />
| Forgotten Royals || [[wikipedia:Forgotten Realms | Forgotten Realms]] || Royalty from Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) campaign setting.<br />
|-<br />
| Remote Clients || [[wikipedia:Remote_computer|Remote client]] || In computing, a remote client is a program used to access a computer or service over a network. From a System Administrator's perspective, these are typically the users (though sometimes the administrators) of the system.<br />
|-<br />
| Barrow-Clerks || [http://lotr.wikia.com/wiki/Barrow-wights Barrow-wights] || Wraith-like creatures in ''The Lord of the Rings''. The hobbits come across them in the [http://lotr.wikia.com/wiki/Barrow-downs Barrow-downs.] <br />
Those who keep records of items deposited in a grave mound or barrow.<br />
|-<br />
| The People of Land and Sky || [[wikipedia:Sea_Peoples|Sea Peoples]] || Sea peoples were raiders that attacked during the Late Bronze Age collapse.<br />
|}<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:[Black Hat, Megan, and Ponytail are standing on a hill overlooking a city. The Gateway Arch is visible, as well as a number of skyscrapers in the skyline.]<br />
:Black Hat: Ah, New York. The Hot Tamale.<br />
:Megan: This is St. Louis. Also, that's not–<br />
:Black Hat: The Winged City. The Gold Trombone. Castleopolis.<br />
:Megan: It's none of those.<br />
<br />
:[Close-up of Black Hat]<br />
:Black Hat: The Kissing Kingdom. Sandland. The High Place. Ol' Ironhook.<br />
:Megan (off-panel): Still wrong.<br />
:Black Hat: The Thousand Spires. The Graveyard of Kings. Bloomtown. Lantern City USA.<br />
:Megan (off-panel): Please stop.<br />
<br />
:[Black Hat, Megan, and Ponytail are walking]<br />
:Black Hat: The City of Many Daughters. Big Mauve. The Glass Cradle. The Road Source. London Prime. Hamtown. The Salad Bowl. God's Boudoir. The Glittering Swamp. The Steel Forest. The Mobius Strip. The Land of Trains and Fog. The Meeting Place. The Dark Star. The Walled Garden. Skin City. The Horse Rotary. Turkeytown. The Naked Towers. The Meta-City. The Urban Orb. The City of Angles. The Big Wheel. Bird City USA. The City of Seven Crowns. Hilltopia. Bug City. The Bottomless Cup. [Text size getting smaller] Lorde's Fen. The Last Town. The Empty Set. Ghost Harbor.<br />
:Megan: How long does this last?<br />
:Ponytail: No city has ever let him stay long enough to find out.<br />
<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Black Hat]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]<br />
[[Category:LOTR]]</div>172.70.91.78https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:2663:_Tetherball_Configurations&diff=293469Talk:2663: Tetherball Configurations2022-08-25T09:03:57Z<p>172.70.91.78: </p>
<hr />
<div><!--Please sign your posts with ~~~~ and don't delete this text. New comments should be added at the bottom.--><br />
Is anyone else reminded of the "classes of a lever" sort of classification? Where the load, fulcrum, and force are permuted. I know that's not explicitly connected to this comic, but it feels like a similar vibe, since you've got 4 (or 3 out of the 4) elements, and you're just changing the order they're oriented relative to each other. Also, tempted to delete the above comment because it's neither relevant nor signed. [[User:Dextrous Fred|Dextrous Fred]] ([[User talk:Dextrous Fred|talk]]) 03:52, 25 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Ground-rope-ball is arguably a playable cooperative configuration. Player 1 whirls the ball above her head like a bola; Player 2 attempts to hit the ball and get it to reverse direction. Play continues until the ball hits the ground. The final score is equal to the number of reversals. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.93.43|172.70.93.43]] 06:29, 25 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
: Ground-rope-ball is actually quite legit - I have one of these somewhere in the basement... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FT0Z95kN4w [[User:Elektrizikekswerk|Elektrizikekswerk]] ([[User talk:Elektrizikekswerk|talk]]) 06:59, 25 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:: How does that base stay on the ground? --[[User:NeatNit|NeatNit]] ([[User talk:NeatNit|talk]]) 07:52, 25 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
::: It's quite heavy. You could have the same result by somehow connecting the rope directly to the ground. [[User:Elektrizikekswerk|Elektrizikekswerk]] ([[User talk:Elektrizikekswerk|talk]]) 08:35, 25 August 2022 (UTC) <br />
: Ground-rope-ball (GRB) definitely looks good. If you just place it in a playground and let some kids mess around, I guarantee they will eventually come up with rules that make for a fun game. It might not be Tetherball, but it's gotta be worthy of at least 4 stars. --[[User:NeatNit|NeatNit]] ([[User talk:NeatNit|talk]]) 07:52, 25 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
::Not agreeing that it would work in any way related to Tetherball. But a call stuck in the ground like this would definitely get kicked by kids. So as a game it might be used, gut not as Tetherball. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 08:27, 25 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
In Denmark I never played this game, but often played {{w|Totem tennis}} (tether tennis or swingball). Had to find out what it was called in English first before I could write it here. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 08:27, 25 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:I always assumed that tetherball/swingball was effectively the same whether entirely freely pivoting/rolling-over or as the helical-track system (which just automated the 'scoring' system, and undeniably triggered the top to pop up when either limit of travel was reached) that I recall from my teen years. Not sure if it was branded to Mookie Toys, but was definitely more than a decade before the 1993 date that this article appears to suggest the helix-version was created (by some interpretations*) so it could have been amongst the properties it says they bought at that time.<br />
:(* - I'd check exactly what it should mean and rewrite that article accordingly, but my mobile IP at any given moment is almost always on Wikipedia's no-editting list, so I'd need to wait to be tethered to a landline broadband again, and by then I'll have forgotten...)<br />
:I also recall a 'ground weight'-tethered version (with optional peg-holes for further immobilisation if placed upon peggable ground, like your average lawn) in the box of sports equipment taken on cub-/scout-camps, which was full of many other (and often not very Health-And-Safety-compatible) outdoor 'toys' and sports equipment like lawn-darts and several rather antique-looking boxing gloves. Can't recall any branding. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.78|172.70.91.78]] 09:03, 25 August 2022 (UTC)</div>172.70.91.78https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2651:_Air_Gap&diff=2934222651: Air Gap2022-08-24T22:07:57Z<p>172.70.91.78: Undo revision 293342 by 172.69.33.149 (talk) Cannot see why that was the "last good version". Several interesting comments were removed by your edit. (None of mine, so far as I can see.)</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 2651<br />
| date = July 27, 2022<br />
| title = Air Gap<br />
| image = air_gap.png<br />
| titletext = You can still do powerline networking, but the bitrate does drop a little depending on the lightbulb warmup and cooldown delay.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
__NOTOC__<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
<br />
This is another one of [[Randall|Randall's]] [[:Category:Tips|Tips]], this time an Energy Tip.<br />
<br />
The comic [[#Context for understanding the conflation joke|conflates the concepts]] of computer network security and electrical power safety to comical effect, resulting in a deeply impractical and ineffective proposed solution. In {{w|computer security}}, {{w|Air_gap_(networking)|air-gapping}} is a measure used to secure sensitive computers or networks of computers by isolating them from the broader internet, since computers are often breached through the internet. Meanwhile, in electrical engineering, {{w|galvanic isolation}} is a measure to prevent an electric current flow between two circuits, instead, signals and energy are exchanged through indirect methods, e.g. magnetically, optically, or wirelessly. This is used to isolate a dangerous high-voltage circuit from the rest of the device, ensuring equipment and personal safety, it's also used to isolate sensitive measurement instruments from external noise, interference, and surges.<br />
<br />
[[Randall]] suggests increasing the security of your home power supply by air-gapping it, using the light from a powered lightbulb to power a solar panel which then supplies power to the home, such that there is no physical wired connection between your house and the public electricity network. For information security, it prevents an attacker from learning any information by monitoring the electrical activities on the powerline (a {{w|side-channel attack}}). For electrical safety, it would protect equipment behind the solar panel from power surges such as lightning strikes (which in an improperly {{w|Ground (electricity)|grounded}} home could blow out the light bulb, but not so easily risk frying the equipment beyond the photovoltaic cell and its inverter).<br />
<br />
This is a large and very inefficient version of an {{w|opto-isolator}}. Due to its inefficiency, this approach would waste substantial amounts of energy. Because of this problem, opto-isolators in the real world are only used for transmitting signals, and hardly ever used for transmitting power.<br />
<br />
The title text mentions that a computer can still be connected to the internet via the power supply by using {{w|powerline networking}}, but that the bandwidth would be reduced by the lightbulb's warmup and cooldown delay, which would reduce the signalling rate the lightbulb could accomplish to no more than hundreds of bits per second, if that, for incandescent bulbs. However, as the solar panel cannot emit signals, the unidirectional link only allows information to travel in one direction. It's known as a {{w|data diode}} in specialized high-security computing environments to avoid information leaks. But it would be useless for traditional networking, because essential requests and acknowledgments would be unable to travel from behind the solar panel to the lightbulb. Early {{w|communication satellite}} systems for data networking used high-bandwidth unidirectional {{w|downlink}}s paired with low bandwidth ground telephone lines for outbound transmission, but such network configurations remain very uncommon.{{cn}}<br />
<br />
Randall's solution is of course a joke. But in reality he could have used {{w|isolation transformer}}s, which serve to allow the transfer of power via a changing {{w|magnetic flux}} without an electrically conductive path. Most transformers, including "wall wart" power adapters, provide this form of isolation and protect devices from noise, voltage transients, most surges, and shock hazard, using fuses and other circuitry. They also limit powerline networking bandwidth by filtering out high frequencies.<br />
<br />
The look and subject of this comic is reminiscent of the [[:Category:Cursed Connectors|Cursed Connectors]] series. But without the numbered cursed connector in the comic, this is not one of those connectors.<br />
<br />
===Why this would be inefficient and impractical===<br />
* Even energy-efficient LED lightbulbs are only about 35% efficient at turning electricity into light, with the rest emitted as heat.<br />
* The air gap is inefficient at passing light from the bulb to the panel, causing some of the light from the lightbulb to be lost to places other than the solar panel, such as to the eye of the observer. A rough guess might be that in the configuration shown less than 60% of light produced will reach the panel, even assuming a perfect reflector.<br />
* Solar panels are generally around 20% efficient at converting light into electricity, with claims at the world record from a single light source at around 40%.<br />
<br />
All these efficiency-reducing factors, and others, multiply together. Therefore, only a small fraction of energy would be transmitted between the two ends of the air gap, making the circuit require much more electricity and be much less cost-efficient. For instance, the generous assumptions above lead to 96% of the power being lost.<br />
<br />
The solution as illustrated shows a single apparently normal lightbulb, which typically draw no more than 250 watts, and usually much less power. Given the above efficiency issues, it would provide less than a tenth as much power.<br />
<br />
===How this could have a theoretical benefit===<br />
<br />
Isolation transformers have several inherent limitations, and must be used together with other filtering and surge protection devices. The first problem is voltage rating, it's difficult to find a mains-voltage isolation transformer rated beyond a few kilovolts. Secondly, a transformer offers strong protection in steady-state DC and low-frequency 50/60 Hz AC faults, but only limited protection from differential-mode transients and surges. If an electrical surge has significant energy that happens to overlap with the transformer's working frequency (for a switched-mode power supply, this is around several kilohertz), the surge can partially bypass the transformer and enter supposedly-isolated sensitive equipment. Parasitic capacitance is another problem. A capacitor is formed whenever two conductors are separated by an insulator, and the insulated windings inside transformers are no exception. At 100 MHz, the impedance of even a tiny 20 pF capacitance is 79.5 jΩ. As a result, even though the DC impedance across a transformer is several megaohms, but it quickly deteriorates at high-frequency, allowing noise and interference to bypass the transformer and getting into sensitive measurement instruments. Worse, the primary and secondary sides of the transformer can radiate strong electromagnetic interference, since a dipole antenna is formed by two metal plates at different electric potentials. The radiation is suppressed by [https://www.analog.com/media/en/technical-documentation/application-notes/an-1109.pdf bridging the transformer with capacitors], forcing the electric potential to be the same at both sides at high frequency. The drawback is a further increase of capacitance, and a possible reduction of the isolation voltage rating, since [https://incompliancemag.com/article/designing-ethernet-cable-ports-to-withstand-lightning-surges/ capacitors are often the weakest part] of the barrier.<br />
<br />
Thus, there are exotic situations where an electrical connection must be avoided at all costs regardless of its efficiency, when safety or electromagnetic interference problems are critical. [https://www.mdpi.com/2304-6732/8/8/335 Power over Fiber (PoF)] technology has been developed to address these needs. Using lasers, photovoltaic cells, and an optical fiber in between, the isolated load can be placed at a long distance away, allowing high voltage rating and extremely low parasitic capacitance. One example is high-voltage isolation at utility-grid scale, when the voltage can be 10 kV or higher. Electronic Design magazine [https://www.electronicdesign.com/technologies/power-electronics-systems/article/21189815/power-over-fiber-shines-at-voltage-isolation reported an early 2006 product], with the lasers in the transmitter consume about 48 watts or power, in order to deliver about 720 milliwatts at the receiver - an efficiency of 1.5%. More recently, [https://docs.broadcom.com/doc/AFBR-POCxxxL-DS Avago (now Broadcom) also commercialized] this technology, with receivers available for sale at $710. "With 1.5 W of laser light incident [...] up to 120 mA of current can be extracted at an operating voltage of 5.0 V and a total power delivery of 600 mW." Typical applications include "high voltage current sensors and transducers", "E-field and H-field probes", and "MRI/RF imaging coils and patient monitoring equipment".<br />
<br />
Speaking of computer security, such an extreme measure is impractical due to the high power requirement. But given the existing niche industry applications, it's still not 100% outside the realm of imagination. In a top-secret installation, sensitive information on a computer should not be able to transmit to the outside world, neither intentionally by malware, or by spying on information leakage via side-channels. Electrical activities and digital noises on the powerline is a simple-to-use side channel which would be made much less practical by such a contraption.<br />
<br />
===Context for understanding the conflation joke===<br />
One relatively obscure way this comic is funny involves the relationship of the two concepts being conflated. {{w|Power analysis}} in computer security is a form of {{w|side-channel attack}} where the attacker observes and/or manipulates the power use by a device for some reason — for example, to gain insight into an otherwise protected process, or to exfiltrate information without having to use a monitored network connection. Power analysis in fire safety means measuring the {{w|power factor}}, watts, resistance, inductance, capacitance, volts, and amps of electrical circuits.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:[A solar panel and a lamp are pictured together, with the lamp pointed at the solar panel, and electronic equipment connected to the solar panel. Lines point outward from the bulb, indicating that it is shining.]<br />
:[Caption below the panel] <br />
:Energy tip: Increase the security of your home power supply by installing an air gap.<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:Tips]]<br />
[[Category:Computer security]]</div>172.70.91.78https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2661:_Age_Milestone_Privileges&diff=2932592661: Age Milestone Privileges2022-08-22T09:27:10Z<p>172.70.91.78: /* Explanation */ Somehow squished this change, which I assume was important (without checking, probably to get past disambiguation/redirect). Reimplementing in the more desirable template-link form.</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 2661<br />
| date = August 19, 2022<br />
| title = Age Milestone Privileges<br />
| image = age_milestone_privileges.png<br />
| titletext = If you reach 122, you get complete unrevertible editorial control over Jeanne Calment's Wikipedia article.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|Created by a BABY GOD-EMPRESS MAKING THE PRESIDENT'S LETTER R-RATED - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
<br />
This is a list of "age milestones" in the United States. As usual for Randall, he has added many fictional entries to supplement some real life ones.<br />
<br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
! Age || Privilege || Description<br />
|-<br />
| 16 || Drive || Legal driving age varies by state in the US. In Randall's state of Massachusetts, {{w|Driver%27s_licenses_in_the_United_States|and in 8 other states}}, 16 is the minimum age to apply for a learner's permit.<br />
|-<br />
| 17 || Attend R-Rated movies alone ||In the US, the Motion Picture Association assigns {{w|Motion_Picture_Association_film_rating_system|ratings}} to movies based on whether content in said movie is generally acceptable to present to minors. A rating of "R" is supposed to prohibit viewing by minors under 17 years of age unless a parent or guardian accompanies them.<br />
|-<br />
| 18 || Vote || The Twenty-sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution prevents a minimum age of voting from being set above eighteen but does not preclude a minimum age below eighteen. Some states allow 17-year-olds to vote in primaries if they must be allowed to vote in the general election, but Randall's state of Massachusetts is not one of them.<br />
|-<br />
| 21 || Buy Alcohol || In the US, the legal drinking age is 21 years, although other countries have a lower drinking age. For example, in Japan the legal age to drink is 20; whilst in the UK a person as young as 16 may have alcohol with a meal, although they are not allowed to buy it themselves.<br />
|-<br />
| 25 || Rent a car || Car rental companies charge higher rates for underage drivers; typically the minimum age is 25.<br />
|-`e<br />
| 30 || Run for Senate || This entry is slightly incorrect: According to {{w|Article_One_of_the_United_States_Constitution|Article 1, clause 3 of the U.S. Constitution}}, one must be at least 30 years old in order to ''become'' Senator, not ''run'' for Senate. Joe Biden was 29 years old when he was first elected to Senate but turned 30 before being sworn in.<br />
|-<br />
| 32 || Rent a Senator's Car || This is the first joke entry in the table. For one thing, most Senators do not rent out their cars, which they probably need to use regularly themselves because they have jobs{{Citation needed}} to commute to, and it would be a security hazard to allow random strangers access to their vehicle.<br />
<br />
This could also be a reference to the Ambassador, a now defunct car brand.<br />
|-<br />
| 35 || Run for president || In the United States, according to {{w|Article_Two_of_the_United_States_Constitution|Article 2, clause 5 of the U.S. Constitution}}, a person must be at least 35 years old to be eligible to hold the Office of President.<br />
|-<br />
| 40 || Rent a flying car || A 25-year-old might be able to rent a non-flying car today, but not a flying car, because the technology is not mature enough to the point where they're available to rent. The joke is that by the time a 25-year-old reader becomes 40, the technology will exist and they'll be able to rent a flying car. Unlike the earlier lines, the limitation has nothing to do with their age, just technological development.<br />
Alternatively, even once flying cars are developed, their usage will be more restricted. For example, young people are perceived to be more reckless and/or otherwise dangerous.<br />
<br />
This whole issue may be virtually negated if the newly developed flying cars are introduced only as ''self-''flying cars (an off-shoot of self-driving technology but devoid of many of the dangers of navigating roads, i.e. person-controlled vehicles, pedestrians and other ground-based hazards), in which case the age (or even presence) of the renter may be very much more irrelevant than the nature of any route/destination the guidance computer is tasked to fulfill. The question would then be how much a potential passenger would trust pure electronics to avoid all the actual dangers for what is essentially a flying taxi, compared to a human controller who may be fallible but presumably at least has their own fully developed common sense and a degree of self-preservation as well as any requisite training.<br />
|-<br />
| 45 || Learn about the God-Empress || Obviously, the God-Empress does not actually exist because this comic is visible to people under 45 years old.{{Citation needed}} According to [[1413]], she will be public knowledge by 2040 anyway.<br />
|-<br />
| 50 || Join AARP || Full AARP (formerly called the American Association of Retired Persons) membership is available to anyone age 50 and over. {{w|AARP}}<br />
|-<br />
| 50 || Get a shingles vaccine || At the time of the comic, the [https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd/shingles/public/shingrix/index.html CDC recommended] that adults 50 years and older get the shingles vaccine called Shingrix (this line was not in the original version of the comic, corrected later)<br />
|-<br />
| 52 || Click to skip captchas || Older people might have more difficulty understanding captchas. Also, they could be more inconvenienced because some older people move more slowly, so it would take them longer to move the mouse, and people would care more about older people anyway. However, this would be impractical to implement because if the computer knew the person's age, it would know that the user is a person, not a bot, so there would be no point in a captcha anyway.<br />
|-<br />
| 55 || Vote for God-Empress || It appears that a person must have knowledge of the existence of the God-Empress for ten years before they are sufficiently qualified to elect a new one. Since the God-Empress is (presumably) in power for life, it is likely that most people would have to wait much longer than ten years.<br />
|-<br />
| 62 || $80 national parks lifetime pass || https://www.nps.gov/planyourvisit/passes.htm<br />
|-<br />
| 65 || Eligible for Medicare || Medicare is a US government-run health insurance for older people.<br />
|-<br />
| 67 || Collect Social Security || U.S. individuals may collect reduced Social Security benefits starting at age 62, and they can collect increased Social Security benefits if they wait until age 70.<br />
|-<br />
| 68 || See "Skip ads" button on live tv || Some DVRs and streaming applications have a feature to skip over commercial breaks in recorded programs, but this could not be available in live TV, since it would require jumping forward in time. Time travel is currently impossible.{{citation needed}} ||<br />
|-<br />
| 70 || Run for God-Empress || The name suggests that this would also only be available to women.<br />
|-<br />
| 75 || Ride any animal in a national park || The National Parks Service probably could institute this relatively safely because most people over 75 would not be able to run fast enough to outrun/catch up to an animal and mount it{{Citation needed}} and would not have the rebellious/risk-taking/adventurous streak that would incline them to try.{{Citation needed}}<br />
|-<br />
| 80 || Eligible for Megacare || This is based off of becoming eligible for Medicare at age 65.<br />
|-<br />
| 85 || Click to toggle whether an ad is positive or negative about the product ||<br />
|-<br />
| 90 || Click to make any movie R-rated || It is unclear whether this would actually make the movie less appropriate or change the Motion Picture Association's rating to be erroneous. Also, what if the rating was previously NC-17?<br />
|-<br />
| 100 || Get a letter from the president || In the US (which other milestones, such as running for president starting at age 35, indicate is the country being referred to), you instead get congratulated by the weatherman on the {{w|Today (American TV program)|Today Show}}. However, the United Kingdom is much closer. People there receive a card (formerly a telegram, later a TeleMessage) from the Queen on their 100th birthday. (This is not automatic, but must be applied for.)<br />
|-<br />
| 102 || (35+67) Collect a presidential pension || The idea behind this joke is that it is the minimum age of presidency plus the minimal age to collect Social Security. There are several reasons why this must be a joke. Two are that Social Security begins 67 years after the person was born, not 67 years after the person's job started, and that the United States government would not bother to set up such a system because the vast majority of people, including former presidents, do not live to 102 years old. In fact, as of 2022, no former United States president has ever lived to 102 years old.<br />
|-<br />
| 105 || Get a birthday card from the God-Empress || Being a God-Empress would be more important than being the leader of a single country. This would make the God-Empress's time more valuable, so she only has to send a birthday card to the few people who reach the age of 105. Contrariwise, the God-Empress is presumptively all-powerful and furthermore capable of delegation of ministerial tasks such as card transmission, so the utilitarian fact that the scarcity of 105-year-old people reduces workload is not a plausible justification.<br />
|-<br />
| 111 || Leave your own birthday party early by putting on a magic ring || This is a reference to the Lord of the Rings where Bilbo leaves his eleventy-first birthday party (the Bilbo Baggins Farewell Birthday Party) invisibly by using The One Ring.<br />
|-<br />
| 118 || Vote 100 times || Presumably a joke meaning the person can vote 100 times in each election. If there were one election at the same time each year, this would actually be the 101st vote the person is eligible to cast in their lifetime. If the sole election of each year were held at a different time of each year, someone who voted in every election might vote for the 100th time at either age 116, 117, or 118. However this milestone would happen earlier because there are often multiple elections per year, e.g., primaries, general elections, and possibly runoffs.<br />
|-<br />
| 120 || Collect the pensions of all elected officials ||<br />
|-<br />
| 125 || Drink alcohol in an R-rated movie while getting a shingles vaccine from the president || This entry references four earlier milestones (attending an R-rated movie, drinking alcohol, becoming President, and getting the shingles vaccine) whose corresponding ages (17, 21, 35, and 50) sum to 123. While not exactly 125, this may have contributed to the inspiration or age selection of this milestone. <br />
|-<br />
| 128 || Age rolls over, become a baby again || {{w|Integer overflow}} happens in computers when there are not enough bits (binary digits) to store the result of a calculation, and typically happens in computers at a given power of two, such as 128. An unsigned 7-bit number can hold the values 0 to 127 (127 being 2<sup>7</sup> - 1) and an attempt to go beyond 127 will overflow, also called rollover, back to zero. 7-bit numbers are not common native values in today's computers. For the more usual unsigned integers of one byte (8 bits), the correct rollover number would be 256. <br />
<br />
A signed 8-bit number uses the first bit to allow the value from the remaining seven to be negative, the value 128 would become either -128 or -0, depending upon implementation. In its most practical form, a signed 8-bit number can hold values from -128 to 127 and when calculating 127+1 (the binary value 01111111 changing to 10000000) the value is -128 due to the {{w|Two's Complement}} method of having the sign-bit represent the most negative value possible, wgich is generally a more utilitarian method than the 'simpler' method of using it to indicate the positivity/negativity of the value. Either way, though, this means you could have a weird experience of your next phase of life, as your age now is interpretted as successive negative values if the incrementing algorithm and the interpreting algorithm are not thinking about the raw bits in the same way, or at least flagging up the overflow as having happened. <br />
<br />
However, maybe the system uses just 7 bits (the 8th bit often used to be reserved for parity, or other flagging purposes, and otherwise stripped/ignored) if it has never before needed an eighth bit and this had once seemed like a sufficient form of data-packing with no expectation that this limit would be reached. Computers using such systems would have a Y2K-analogous bug once someone actually reached 128 years old, where anomalous processing might indicate the person to be a baby (or fail in other ways). But that would not have happened yet.<br />
<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
The title text mentions {{w|Jeanne Calment}}, who holds the record for the oldest person ever (there are biblical references to older people, such as {{w|Methuselah}}, who supposedly lived to 969, but their ages haven't been verified). She reportedly was age 122 when she died in 1997. There's some controversy whether Calment actually claimed her mother's records, including birth certificate, as her own. "Editing wars" have been fought over her Wikipedia page. Randall claims that if you match her age you get sole editorial control over that article. However, if anyone managed to exceed her achieved age, presumably they would get their own page (albeit that they should not be encouraged to {{w|Wikipedia:Editing Your Own Page|edit it}} themselves) and hers would cease to be as interesting - although that might depend on what use is made of the unparalleled editorial control now granted.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
<br />
<big>Age Milestones</big><br><br />
and associated privileges<br />
<br />
16&nbsp; Drive<br><br />
17&nbsp; Attend R-rated movies alone<br><br />
18&nbsp; Vote<br><br />
21&nbsp; Buy alcohol<br><br />
25&nbsp; Rent a car<br><br />
32&nbsp; Run for senate<br><br />
35&nbsp; Run for president<br><br />
40&nbsp; Rent a flying car<br><br />
45&nbsp; Learn about the God-Empress<br><br />
50&nbsp; Join AARP<br><br />
50&nbsp; Get a shingles vaccine<br><br />
52&nbsp; Click to skip captchas<br><br />
55&nbsp; Vote for God-Empress<br><br />
62&nbsp; $80 National parks lifetime pass<br><br />
65&nbsp; Eligible for Medicare<br><br />
67&nbsp; Collect Social Security<br><br />
68&nbsp; See "Skip Ads" button on live TV<br><br />
70&nbsp; Run for God-Empress<br><br />
75&nbsp; Ride any animal in a national park<br><br />
80&nbsp; Eligible for MegaCare<br><br />
85&nbsp; Click to toggle whether any ad is positive or negative about the product<br><br />
90&nbsp; Click to make any movie R-rated<br><br />
100&nbsp; Get a letter from the president<br><br />
102&nbsp; (35+67) Collect a presidential pension<br><br />
105&nbsp; Get a birthday card from the God-Empress<br><br />
111&nbsp; Leave your own birthday party early by putting on a magic ring<br><br />
118&nbsp; Vote 100 times<br><br />
120&nbsp; Collect the pensions of all elected officials<br><br />
125&nbsp; Drink alcohol in an R-rated movie while getting a shingles vaccine from the president<br><br />
128&nbsp; Age rolls over, become a baby again<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
[[Category:Politics]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]] <!-- Jeanne Calment --><br />
[[Category:Wikipedia]]</div>172.70.91.78https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2661:_Age_Milestone_Privileges&diff=2932582661: Age Milestone Privileges2022-08-22T09:22:25Z<p>172.70.91.78: /* Explanation */ Strove to remove some introduced repetition of information/reorganise some phrasing, ended up expanding it a bit more than intended.</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 2661<br />
| date = August 19, 2022<br />
| title = Age Milestone Privileges<br />
| image = age_milestone_privileges.png<br />
| titletext = If you reach 122, you get complete unrevertible editorial control over Jeanne Calment's Wikipedia article.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|Created by a BABY GOD-EMPRESS MAKING THE PRESIDENT'S LETTER R-RATED - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
<br />
This is a list of "age milestones" in the United States. As usual for Randall, he has added many fictional entries to supplement some real life ones.<br />
<br />
{| class="wikitable"<br />
! Age || Privilege || Description<br />
|-<br />
| 16 || Drive || Legal driving age varies by state in the US. In Randall's state of Massachusetts, {{w|Driver%27s_licenses_in_the_United_States|and in 8 other states}}, 16 is the minimum age to apply for a learner's permit.<br />
|-<br />
| 17 || Attend R-Rated movies alone ||In the US, the Motion Picture Association assigns {{w|Motion_Picture_Association_film_rating_system|ratings}} to movies based on whether content in said movie is generally acceptable to present to minors. A rating of "R" is supposed to prohibit viewing by minors under 17 years of age unless a parent or guardian accompanies them.<br />
|-<br />
| 18 || Vote || The Twenty-sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution prevents a minimum age of voting from being set above eighteen but does not preclude a minimum age below eighteen. Some states allow 17-year-olds to vote in primaries if they must be allowed to vote in the general election, but Randall's state of Massachusetts is not one of them.<br />
|-<br />
| 21 || Buy Alcohol || In the US, the legal drinking age is 21 years, although other countries have a lower drinking age. For example, in Japan the legal age to drink is 20; whilst in the UK a person as young as 16 may have alcohol with a meal, although they are not allowed to buy it themselves.<br />
|-<br />
| 25 || Rent a car || Car rental companies charge higher rates for underage drivers; typically the minimum age is 25.<br />
|-`e<br />
| 30 || Run for Senate || This entry is slightly incorrect: According to {{w|Article_One_of_the_United_States_Constitution|Article 1, clause 3 of the U.S. Constitution}}, one must be at least 30 years old in order to ''become'' Senator, not ''run'' for Senate. Joe Biden was 29 years old when he was first elected to Senate but turned 30 before being sworn in.<br />
|-<br />
| 32 || Rent a Senator's Car || This is the first joke entry in the table. For one thing, most Senators do not rent out their cars, which they probably need to use regularly themselves because they have jobs{{Citation needed}} to commute to, and it would be a security hazard to allow random strangers access to their vehicle.<br />
<br />
This could also be a reference to the Ambassador, a now defunct car brand.<br />
|-<br />
| 35 || Run for president || In the United States, according to {{w|Article_Two_of_the_United_States_Constitution|Article 2, clause 5 of the U.S. Constitution}}, a person must be at least 35 years old to be eligible to hold the Office of President.<br />
|-<br />
| 40 || Rent a flying car || A 25-year-old might be able to rent a non-flying car today, but not a flying car, because the technology is not mature enough to the point where they're available to rent. The joke is that by the time a 25-year-old reader becomes 40, the technology will exist and they'll be able to rent a flying car. Unlike the earlier lines, the limitation has nothing to do with their age, just technological development.<br />
Alternatively, even once flying cars are developed, their usage will be more restricted. For example, young people are perceived to be more reckless and/or otherwise dangerous.<br />
<br />
This whole issue may be virtually negated if the newly developed flying cars are introduced only as ''self-''flying cars (an off-shoot of self-driving technology but devoid of many of the dangers of navigating roads, i.e. person-controlled vehicles, pedestrians and other ground-based hazards), in which case the age (or even presence) of the renter may be very much more irrelevant than the nature of any route/destination the guidance computer is tasked to fulfill. The question would then be how much a potential passenger would trust pure electronics to avoid all the actual dangers for what is essentially a flying taxi, compared to a human controller who may be fallible but presumably at least has their own fully developed common sense and a degree of self-preservation as well as any requisite training.<br />
|-<br />
| 45 || Learn about the God-Empress || Obviously, the God-Empress does not actually exist because this comic is visible to people under 45 years old.{{Citation needed}} According to [[1413]], she will be public knowledge by 2040 anyway.<br />
|-<br />
| 50 || Join AARP || Full AARP (formerly called the American Association of Retired Persons) membership is available to anyone age 50 and over. {{w|AARP}}<br />
|-<br />
| 50 || Get a shingles vaccine || At the time of the comic, the [https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd/shingles/public/shingrix/index.html CDC recommended] that adults 50 years and older get the shingles vaccine called Shingrix (this line was not in the original version of the comic, corrected later)<br />
|-<br />
| 52 || Click to skip captchas || Older people might have more difficulty understanding captchas. Also, they could be more inconvenienced because some older people move more slowly, so it would take them longer to move the mouse, and people would care more about older people anyway. However, this would be impractical to implement because if the computer knew the person's age, it would know that the user is a person, not a bot, so there would be no point in a captcha anyway.<br />
|-<br />
| 55 || Vote for God-Empress || It appears that a person must have knowledge of the existence of the God-Empress for ten years before they are sufficiently qualified to elect a new one. Since the God-Empress is (presumably) in power for life, it is likely that most people would have to wait much longer than ten years.<br />
|-<br />
| 62 || $80 national parks lifetime pass || https://www.nps.gov/planyourvisit/passes.htm<br />
|-<br />
| 65 || Eligible for Medicare || Medicare is a US government-run health insurance for older people.<br />
|-<br />
| 67 || Collect Social Security || U.S. individuals may collect reduced Social Security benefits starting at age 62, and they can collect increased Social Security benefits if they wait until age 70.<br />
|-<br />
| 68 || See "Skip ads" button on live tv || Some DVRs and streaming applications have a feature to skip over commercial breaks in recorded programs, but this could not be available in live TV, since it would require jumping forward in time. Time travel is currently impossible.{{citation needed}} ||<br />
|-<br />
| 70 || Run for God-Empress || The name suggests that this would also only be available to women.<br />
|-<br />
| 75 || Ride any animal in a national park || The National Parks Service probably could institute this relatively safely because most people over 75 would not be able to run fast enough to outrun/catch up to an animal and mount it{{Citation needed}} and would not have the rebellious/risk-taking/adventurous streak that would incline them to try.{{Citation needed}}<br />
|-<br />
| 80 || Eligible for Megacare || This is based off of becoming eligible for Medicare at age 65.<br />
|-<br />
| 85 || Click to toggle whether an ad is positive or negative about the product ||<br />
|-<br />
| 90 || Click to make any movie R-rated || It is unclear whether this would actually make the movie less appropriate or change the Motion Picture Association's rating to be erroneous. Also, what if the rating was previously NC-17?<br />
|-<br />
| 100 || Get a letter from the president || In the US (which other milestones, such as running for president starting at age 35, indicate is the country being referred to), you instead get congratulated by the weatherman on the {{w|Today Show}}. However, the United Kingdom is much closer. People there receive a card (formerly a telegram, later a TeleMessage) from the Queen on their 100th birthday. (This is not automatic, but must be applied for.)<br />
|-<br />
| 102 || (35+67) Collect a presidential pension || The idea behind this joke is that it is the minimum age of presidency plus the minimal age to collect Social Security. There are several reasons why this must be a joke. Two are that Social Security begins 67 years after the person was born, not 67 years after the person's job started, and that the United States government would not bother to set up such a system because the vast majority of people, including former presidents, do not live to 102 years old. In fact, as of 2022, no former United States president has ever lived to 102 years old.<br />
|-<br />
| 105 || Get a birthday card from the God-Empress || Being a God-Empress would be more important than being the leader of a single country. This would make the God-Empress's time more valuable, so she only has to send a birthday card to the few people who reach the age of 105. Contrariwise, the God-Empress is presumptively all-powerful and furthermore capable of delegation of ministerial tasks such as card transmission, so the utilitarian fact that the scarcity of 105-year-old people reduces workload is not a plausible justification.<br />
|-<br />
| 111 || Leave your own birthday party early by putting on a magic ring || This is a reference to the Lord of the Rings where Bilbo leaves his eleventy-first birthday party (the Bilbo Baggins Farewell Birthday Party) invisibly by using The One Ring.<br />
|-<br />
| 118 || Vote 100 times || Presumably a joke meaning the person can vote 100 times in each election. If there were one election at the same time each year, this would actually be the 101st vote the person is eligible to cast in their lifetime. If the sole election of each year were held at a different time of each year, someone who voted in every election might vote for the 100th time at either age 116, 117, or 118. However this milestone would happen earlier because there are often multiple elections per year, e.g., primaries, general elections, and possibly runoffs.<br />
|-<br />
| 120 || Collect the pensions of all elected officials ||<br />
|-<br />
| 125 || Drink alcohol in an R-rated movie while getting a shingles vaccine from the president || This entry references four earlier milestones (attending an R-rated movie, drinking alcohol, becoming President, and getting the shingles vaccine) whose corresponding ages (17, 21, 35, and 50) sum to 123. While not exactly 125, this may have contributed to the inspiration or age selection of this milestone. <br />
|-<br />
| 128 || Age rolls over, become a baby again || {{w|Integer overflow}} happens in computers when there are not enough bits (binary digits) to store the result of a calculation, and typically happens in computers at a given power of two, such as 128. An unsigned 7-bit number can hold the values 0 to 127 (127 being 2<sup>7</sup> - 1) and an attempt to go beyond 127 will overflow, also called rollover, back to zero. 7-bit numbers are not common native values in today's computers. For the more usual unsigned integers of one byte (8 bits), the correct rollover number would be 256. <br />
<br />
A signed 8-bit number uses the first bit to allow the value from the remaining seven to be negative, the value 128 would become either -128 or -0, depending upon implementation. In its most practical form, a signed 8-bit number can hold values from -128 to 127 and when calculating 127+1 (the binary value 01111111 changing to 10000000) the value is -128 due to the {{w|Two's Complement}} method of having the sign-bit represent the most negative value possible, wgich is generally a more utilitarian method than the 'simpler' method of using it to indicate the positivity/negativity of the value. Either way, though, this means you could have a weird experience of your next phase of life, as your age now is interpretted as successive negative values if the incrementing algorithm and the interpreting algorithm are not thinking about the raw bits in the same way, or at least flagging up the overflow as having happened. <br />
<br />
However, maybe the system uses just 7 bits (the 8th bit often used to be reserved for parity, or other flagging purposes, and otherwise stripped/ignored) if it has never before needed an eighth bit and this had once seemed like a sufficient form of data-packing with no expectation that this limit would be reached. Computers using such systems would have a Y2K-analogous bug once someone actually reached 128 years old, where anomalous processing might indicate the person to be a baby (or fail in other ways). But that would not have happened yet.<br />
<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
The title text mentions {{w|Jeanne Calment}}, who holds the record for the oldest person ever (there are biblical references to older people, such as {{w|Methuselah}}, who supposedly lived to 969, but their ages haven't been verified). She reportedly was age 122 when she died in 1997. There's some controversy whether Calment actually claimed her mother's records, including birth certificate, as her own. "Editing wars" have been fought over her Wikipedia page. Randall claims that if you match her age you get sole editorial control over that article. However, if anyone managed to exceed her achieved age, presumably they would get their own page (albeit that they should not be encouraged to {{w|Wikipedia:Editing Your Own Page|edit it}} themselves) and hers would cease to be as interesting - although that might depend on what use is made of the unparalleled editorial control now granted.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
<br />
<big>Age Milestones</big><br><br />
and associated privileges<br />
<br />
16&nbsp; Drive<br><br />
17&nbsp; Attend R-rated movies alone<br><br />
18&nbsp; Vote<br><br />
21&nbsp; Buy alcohol<br><br />
25&nbsp; Rent a car<br><br />
32&nbsp; Run for senate<br><br />
35&nbsp; Run for president<br><br />
40&nbsp; Rent a flying car<br><br />
45&nbsp; Learn about the God-Empress<br><br />
50&nbsp; Join AARP<br><br />
50&nbsp; Get a shingles vaccine<br><br />
52&nbsp; Click to skip captchas<br><br />
55&nbsp; Vote for God-Empress<br><br />
62&nbsp; $80 National parks lifetime pass<br><br />
65&nbsp; Eligible for Medicare<br><br />
67&nbsp; Collect Social Security<br><br />
68&nbsp; See "Skip Ads" button on live TV<br><br />
70&nbsp; Run for God-Empress<br><br />
75&nbsp; Ride any animal in a national park<br><br />
80&nbsp; Eligible for MegaCare<br><br />
85&nbsp; Click to toggle whether any ad is positive or negative about the product<br><br />
90&nbsp; Click to make any movie R-rated<br><br />
100&nbsp; Get a letter from the president<br><br />
102&nbsp; (35+67) Collect a presidential pension<br><br />
105&nbsp; Get a birthday card from the God-Empress<br><br />
111&nbsp; Leave your own birthday party early by putting on a magic ring<br><br />
118&nbsp; Vote 100 times<br><br />
120&nbsp; Collect the pensions of all elected officials<br><br />
125&nbsp; Drink alcohol in an R-rated movie while getting a shingles vaccine from the president<br><br />
128&nbsp; Age rolls over, become a baby again<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
[[Category:Politics]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]] <!-- Jeanne Calment --><br />
[[Category:Wikipedia]]</div>172.70.91.78https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Category:Five-minute_comics&diff=293250Category:Five-minute comics2022-08-21T21:08:38Z<p>172.70.91.78: Fixed typos</p>
<hr />
<div>[[Randall]] released three comics with several small jokes he made as part of a game in five minutes. They were not originally intended as xkcd comic, but were drawn in the same style, and when he needed some time to care for his wife and her cancer he used these to fill in a week's releases. The week after another series [[:Category:Guest Week|Guest Week]] had the same purpose when five artists filled in for Randall during that week.<br />
A fourth comic was released (by mistake?) only to be withdrawn from xkcd, but it was already saved by his fans. See more under part 4.<br />
<br />
[[Category:Comic series]]</div>172.70.91.78https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2652:_Proxy_Variable&diff=2931742652: Proxy Variable2022-08-20T03:14:38Z<p>172.70.91.78: /* Explanation */ clarify</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 reduces loss of bone density or damage to cells. 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>172.70.91.78https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2661:_Age_Milestone_Privileges&diff=2931522661: Age Milestone Privileges2022-08-20T00:26:30Z<p>172.70.91.78: /* Explanation */ Because there may not *be* a Constitution, and I'm not sure if the ability to drive was codified in the US Constitutionz even. Possibly the ability to captain a boat was in the USS Constitution, though...</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 2661<br />
| date = August 19, 2022<br />
| title = Age Milestone Privileges<br />
| image = age_milestone_privileges.png<br />
| titletext = If you reach 122, you get complete unrevertible editorial control over Jeanne Calment's Wikipedia article.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|Created by a BABY GOD-EMPRESS MAKING THE PRESIDENT'S LETTER R-RATED - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
<br />
This is a list of "age milestones" in the United States. As usual for Randall, he has added many fictional entries to supplement some real life ones.<br />
<br />
25 years is also the threshold for being allowed to run for the United States House of Representatives, but the fact that other countries have different laws and regulations with different age-restrictions makes this comic America-centric. Also, this comic is incorrect; one must be at least 30 years old in order to ''become'' Senator, not ''run'' for Senate. Joe Biden was 29 years old when he was elected to Senate but turned 30 before being sworn in.<br />
<br />
Bilbo Baggins Farewell Birthday Party took place on his eleventy-first (111th) birthday.<br />
<br />
Obviously, the god-empress does not actually exist because this comic is visible to people under 45 years old.{{citation needed}}<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
<br />
<big>Age Milestones</big><br><br />
and associated privileges<br />
<br />
16&nbsp; Drive<br><br />
17&nbsp; Attend R-rated movies alone<br><br />
18&nbsp; Vote<br><br />
21&nbsp; Buy alcohol<br><br />
25&nbsp; Rent a car<br><br />
32&nbsp; Run for senate<br><br />
35&nbsp; Run for president<br><br />
40&nbsp; Rent a flying car<br><br />
45&nbsp; Learn about the God-Empress<br><br />
50&nbsp; Join AARP<br><br />
52&nbsp; Click to skip captchas<br><br />
55&nbsp; Vote for God-Empress<br><br />
62&nbsp; $80 National parks lifetime pass<br><br />
65&nbsp; Eligible for Medicare<br><br />
67&nbsp; Collect Social Security<br><br />
68&nbsp; See "Skip Ads" button on live TV<br><br />
70&nbsp; Run for God-Empress<br><br />
75&nbsp; Ride any animal in a national park<br><br />
80&nbsp; Eligible for MegaCare<br><br />
85&nbsp; Click to toggle whether any ad is positive or negative about the product<br><br />
90&nbsp; Click to make any movie R-rated<br><br />
100&nbsp; Get a letter from the president<br><br />
102&nbsp; (35+67) Collect a presidential pension<br><br />
105&nbsp; Get a birthday card from the God-Empress<br><br />
111&nbsp; Leave your own birthday party early by putting on a magic ring<br><br />
118&nbsp; Vote 100 times<br><br />
120&nbsp; Collect the pensions of all elected officials<br><br />
125&nbsp; Drink alcohol in an R-rated movie while getting a shingles vaccine from the president<br><br />
128&nbsp; Age rolls over, become a baby again<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
[[Category:Politics]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]] <!-- Jeanne Calment --><br />
[[Category:Wikipedia]]</div>172.70.91.78https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:2659:_Unreliable_Connection&diff=293114Talk:2659: Unreliable Connection2022-08-19T03:20:42Z<p>172.70.91.78: Forgot to sign...</p>
<hr />
<div><!--Please sign your posts with ~~~~ and don't delete this text. New comments should be added at the bottom.--><br />
I don’t think this has anything to do with teleconferencing. Am I missing something? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.214.81|172.70.214.81]] 22:46, 15 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:Yes. The impliction is that people are expecting you to be available for online communications, and you can use the unreliable Internet connection as an excuse to get out of it. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 22:51, 15 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
::I think it's more about communication in general. He doesn't want anybody calling him or sending him emails, so by saying he has an "unreliable" connection people might assume it will be hard to get in touch with him.<br />
:::Back in the day, email was usually configured so that it could easily overcome such unreliability, and it's still doable,[https://discourse.mailinabox.email/t/running-from-home/6459/7] but today email for most people is a web or local client-server app, as opposed to a local mail store in a peer-to-peer app. Even people in urban areas can suffer unreliable internet, when squirrels or backhoes gnaw through data cables, copper theives strike, or 5G mind control base stations are congested. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.210.143|172.70.210.143]] 23:45, 15 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:::This could equally cover other instant communication methods where your availability is advertised (e.g. Whatsapp). It could also be about alleviating the social pressure the subject feels to continuously check and immediately respond to messages (including emails), because the immediacy is already hindered by the spotty connection (cf the standard "I will have limited access to email" out of office line, which gives the account owner psychological permission to check it infrequently). [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.5|172.70.85.5]] 09:02, 16 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
According to a PhET simulator (https://phet.colorado.edu/sims/html/plinko-probability/latest/plinko-probability_en.html) for this situation, the ideal standard deviation is 1.732 and ideal mean is 6. I don’t feel like doing the calculations :P [[Special:Contributions/172.70.211.134|172.70.211.134]] 23:34, 15 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:If we assume 50-50 for each bounce, the probability that internet is off will be about (11 choose 3)/(2^11), or 8%.--[[User:Account|Account]] ([[User talk:Account|talk]]) 23:51, 15 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
::My first thought was, why so complicated? ''If'' each of the twelve switches is equally (and solely) likely to be struck by each ball, it's (100/12)% of the time, or 8⅓%.<br />
::Although the equal-chance is wrong, so you're definitely doing "end up with exactly 7 bounce rights and 3 bounce lefts, but in any combination" or similar are you? I'd have summed it differently, though. And not sure where the choose ''3'' comes in... Just one bounce left off any row-end pin 11 sends to 11 if all others bounce right. Three bounces left hits switch 9, not eight. If I'm counting correctly. Or am I doing telegraph-poles/wires miscounting?<br />
::Too early in the morning for me to untangle. The only thing I'm sure about is your division by 2^11 (how many total paths there are to get down). [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.78|172.70.91.78]] 05:00, 16 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:::Me again. I hadn't checked that the transcript (which said it was switch #8) was correct. Have now, and found it to be wrong. Have hence also just corrected the Transcript. So I'm gonna assume your 11-choose-3 is entirely correct after all. ;) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.78|172.70.91.78]] 05:08, 16 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:It's actually 12 switches, not 11, but that doesn't affect the math too much. I originally thought "off" was switch 10, which would have changed the math (to 3%), but that's just the one the current ball hit. The actual "off" switch is switch 9. [[User:N0lqu|-boB]] ([[User talk:N0lqu|talk]])<br />
::It previously said that there were eleven "on" switches and one "off" switch (which is twelve in total, but it didn't add them up explicitly), and the change to say that there are 12 Ons and 1 Off made it wrong. I corrected/rephrased it (see if you agree with however it looks by the time you get around to reading this) to avoid that reading error (one which happened to me with my own first glance at the phrasing used, but I thought that was just me at the time) without adding any new misinterpretation or easy misinterpretationality.<br />
::The maths above is indeed correct enough. The 2^11 relates to the total number of unique paths it can take (assuming a bounce left/right just enough to strike the nearest offset pin below to force a new left/right bounce choice) from the first divider through to any of the 11 final left-right pin-bounces (and onto the 12 switches, at which point we're not bothered with the bouncing - diagram suggests the balls leap outwards and don't hit any other switches).<br />
::"11 choose 3" is a way how to ask, given 11 items (possible bounces), how many unique and unordered combinations of exactly 3 of these must exist (leftward-bounces, the rest being right-bounces) to filter onto the off-connected switch. (This is the same as "11 choose 8", if you decide to ask how many right-bounces are necessary, the rest being left-bounces.) That could be layer 1 (the 1-pin), 2 (the 2-pins) and 3 (...), before going consistently right to the final strike of the switch, or layers 9+10+11 (after being pure-right 1..8), but with many intermediate tracks across the pin-spacs (165 in total, as it happens; and it would be 55 to hit switch 10. Or 2, instead of 3, if you orientate things the other way round).<br />
:: 165/2048 (paths hitting the off-switch (at #9) divided by all paths that might happen) is a tad over 8%. On the assumption that it's fair and unbiased and you don't get more rattling around than a simple (single half-step) left/right distribution. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.78|172.70.91.78]] 03:20, 19 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
<br />
To whomever did [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2659:_Unreliable_Connection&diff=292862&oldid=292861], doesn't [https://drops.dagstuhl.de/opus/volltexte/2018/8817/pdf/LIPIcs-FUN-2018-26.pdf] prove that symmetrical configurations nearly identical to those shown can produce uniform distributions? They seem to show it's just a matter of horizontal pin spacing. However, I for one can not verify the proof, which uses unusual (novel?) non-Unicode math notation, and a fairly opaque method of proof. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.211.134|172.70.211.134]] 00:07, 16 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:Not sure, but [https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%87%98%E8%AA%BF%E6%95%B4 this Japanese Wikipedia article] is fascinating. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.206.213|172.70.206.213]] 01:51, 16 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:Please see section 3.5 on pp. 16-18 of the currently first reference [https://arxiv.org/pdf/1601.05706.pdf]. I am particularly intrigued by, "Open Problem 2: Is every uniform distribution of output probabilities of the form 1/2<sup>k</sup> constructible by a 50-50 Pachinko?" on p. 18. However I haven't dived in enough to even know where the parentheses are supposed to be in that expression, yet. [[User:Liv2splain|Liv2splain]] ([[User talk:Liv2splain|talk]]) 17:27, 16 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
: Good question! https://ibb.co/sRwGwB9 don't look triangular, but it seems the proof might suggest much more triangular solutions. Worth thinking about! [[Special:Contributions/172.69.33.115|172.69.33.115]] 21:24, 16 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
What is the chance that the ball will bounce off the first pin, go down the outside of the pins and miss all the switches?<br />
:Probably quite high if it's a bouncy ball. With idealized physics though it'd just hit the leftmost/rightmost switch. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.254.127|172.70.254.127]] 00:45, 16 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
I would describe the device as a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galton_board. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.230.109|172.70.230.109]] 00:30, 16 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
I was watching the photo and hover-over text and the image disappeared and "Unreliable Connection" showed up in its place. I don't know how often this happens.<br />
: Very neat if not a fluke! Can anyone replicate this experience on https://xkcd.com ? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.211.134|172.70.211.134]] 14:21, 16 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
"An added source of humour is that Randall could likely achieve the same effect by looking through the router's settings - which most modern ones have a feature to turn on and off at scheduled times - or via purchasing a smart power strip." But by using these other methods, the connection would still be reliable. If it goes out at regular or pre-scheduled intervals then you know when it will be available or not, hence reliable. I think the joke here is that the contraption does in fact make the connection unreliable. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.114.77|172.70.114.77]] 14:18, 16 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
: Addressed at [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2659:_Unreliable_Connection&diff=292926&oldid=292924]. [[User:Liv2splain|Liv2splain]] ([[User talk:Liv2splain|talk]]) 14:44, 16 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:(Edit conflicted by at least the above, but my answer to the same question...) From a user POV, unless they happen to know that at 11:53 each day (and 12:14, 15:02, 15:07, 16:31, etc...) the scheduler disables tracfic for one (or two, or three) minutes, it is still unreliable, if ultimately predictable ''once you know'' the schedule, having seen it go round a few times and taken note. Similarly a timered power-strip could be used (or even several, in serial, the two or three daily interventions by the first also stopping and delaying the subsequent strips' interventions, making their timings uneven, further down the chain) and until you got the pattern it might as well be 'random', not entirely deterministic. (I'm wondering about some OR-gate-like/etc implementation, so power can pass by at least one parallel timer-shut-off to maintain power at the lower levels while ''some'' mid-way timers get depowered and thus 'shuffled' in interesting ways, and the resulting single output is governed by an intricate multi-dependent set of routes, but I bet an electrician would be wary about wiring that up...)<br />
:You could hack (or patch) the management firmware to be a bit more (pseudo)random about it, though it would still be pseudorandom LFSR/Xorshift with a (long) repetition cycle.<br />
:Or make it dependant upon an external factor (if the modulo 12 of the cumulative sum of all observed packet-destination IPs is zero, shut off for the five times the prior modulo 12 test value, in seconds..?), but that's ''practically'' the pachinko solution but with software hacking rather than hardware-making/hacking as per the comic.<br />
:More effort is needed to make it ultimately unpredictable, but it can still be considered unreliable if it goes out just when you 'want' it.... [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.5|172.70.85.5]] 15:02, 16 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
For real though, isn't this kind of a good idea? [[User:Fephisto|Fephisto]] ([[User talk:Fephisto|talk]]) 14:34, 16 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:Talk to edtech people in the {{w|MOOC}} space and they will tell you asynchronous is worth it, but talk to people who study educational quality factors like time to receive answers to unanticipated questions, and they will have different ideas. [[User:Liv2splain|Liv2splain]] ([[User talk:Liv2splain|talk]]) 14:44, 16 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Does anyone have an openWRT (or other) implementation of this feature yet?<br />
:You can induce it on stock firmware without reflashing, but you need to know the parameters like how often balls come out of the hopper, and what exactly the on/off switches do. As pseudocode:<br />
::<tt>#!/bin/sh</tt><br />
::<tt>while true ; do</tt><br />
:::<tt>sleep </tt>''seconds''<br />
:::<tt>if [ `rand100` -le 8 ] ; then</tt><br />
::::<tt>wifictrl off</tt><br />
:::<tt>else</tt><br />
::::<tt>wifictrl on</tt><br />
:::<tt>fi</tt><br />
::<tt>done</tt><br />
:[[Special:Contributions/172.70.214.81|172.70.214.81]] 00:38, 17 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
There are spaces between the button that the balls can fall into, and this could complicate the stuff a bit. However if the ratio between probability of hitting ON and probability of hitting OFF remain the same (1883:165), the average OFF time will still be the same (165/2048 of the time). The behavior that the network is switching between ON and OFF will probably be changed though. [[User:Lamty101|Lamty101]] ([[User talk:Lamty101|talk]]) 04:44, 17 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
I would have expected the negative reviews to have mentioned all the balls on the floor and perhaps the need to periodically refill the hopper. [[User:Philhower|Philhower]] ([[User talk:Philhower|talk]]) 16:18, 17 August 2022 (UTC)</div>172.70.91.78https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:2659:_Unreliable_Connection&diff=293113Talk:2659: Unreliable Connection2022-08-19T03:20:00Z<p>172.70.91.78: </p>
<hr />
<div><!--Please sign your posts with ~~~~ and don't delete this text. New comments should be added at the bottom.--><br />
I don’t think this has anything to do with teleconferencing. Am I missing something? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.214.81|172.70.214.81]] 22:46, 15 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:Yes. The impliction is that people are expecting you to be available for online communications, and you can use the unreliable Internet connection as an excuse to get out of it. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 22:51, 15 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
::I think it's more about communication in general. He doesn't want anybody calling him or sending him emails, so by saying he has an "unreliable" connection people might assume it will be hard to get in touch with him.<br />
:::Back in the day, email was usually configured so that it could easily overcome such unreliability, and it's still doable,[https://discourse.mailinabox.email/t/running-from-home/6459/7] but today email for most people is a web or local client-server app, as opposed to a local mail store in a peer-to-peer app. Even people in urban areas can suffer unreliable internet, when squirrels or backhoes gnaw through data cables, copper theives strike, or 5G mind control base stations are congested. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.210.143|172.70.210.143]] 23:45, 15 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:::This could equally cover other instant communication methods where your availability is advertised (e.g. Whatsapp). It could also be about alleviating the social pressure the subject feels to continuously check and immediately respond to messages (including emails), because the immediacy is already hindered by the spotty connection (cf the standard "I will have limited access to email" out of office line, which gives the account owner psychological permission to check it infrequently). [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.5|172.70.85.5]] 09:02, 16 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
According to a PhET simulator (https://phet.colorado.edu/sims/html/plinko-probability/latest/plinko-probability_en.html) for this situation, the ideal standard deviation is 1.732 and ideal mean is 6. I don’t feel like doing the calculations :P [[Special:Contributions/172.70.211.134|172.70.211.134]] 23:34, 15 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:If we assume 50-50 for each bounce, the probability that internet is off will be about (11 choose 3)/(2^11), or 8%.--[[User:Account|Account]] ([[User talk:Account|talk]]) 23:51, 15 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
::My first thought was, why so complicated? ''If'' each of the twelve switches is equally (and solely) likely to be struck by each ball, it's (100/12)% of the time, or 8⅓%.<br />
::Although the equal-chance is wrong, so you're definitely doing "end up with exactly 7 bounce rights and 3 bounce lefts, but in any combination" or similar are you? I'd have summed it differently, though. And not sure where the choose ''3'' comes in... Just one bounce left off any row-end pin 11 sends to 11 if all others bounce right. Three bounces left hits switch 9, not eight. If I'm counting correctly. Or am I doing telegraph-poles/wires miscounting?<br />
::Too early in the morning for me to untangle. The only thing I'm sure about is your division by 2^11 (how many total paths there are to get down). [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.78|172.70.91.78]] 05:00, 16 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:::Me again. I hadn't checked that the transcript (which said it was switch #8) was correct. Have now, and found it to be wrong. Have hence also just corrected the Transcript. So I'm gonna assume your 11-choose-3 is entirely correct after all. ;) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.78|172.70.91.78]] 05:08, 16 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:It's actually 12 switches, not 11, but that doesn't affect the math too much. I originally thought "off" was switch 10, which would have changed the math (to 3%), but that's just the one the current ball hit. The actual "off" switch is switch 9. [[User:N0lqu|-boB]] ([[User talk:N0lqu|talk]])<br />
::It previously said that there were eleven "on" switches and one "off" switch (which is twelve in total, but it didn't add them up explicitly), and the change to say that there are 12 Ons and 1 Off made it wrong. I corrected/rephrased it (see if you agree with however it looks by the time you get around to reading this) to avoid that reading error (one which happened to me with my own first glance at the phrasing used, but I thought that was just me at the time) without adding any new misinterpretation or easy misinterpretationality.<br />
::The maths above is indeed correct enough. The 2^11 relates to the total number of unique paths it can take (assuming a bounce left/right just enough to strike the nearest offset pin below to force a new left/right bounce choice) from the first divider through to any of the 11 final left-right pin-bounces (and onto the 12 switches, at which point we're not bothered with the bouncing - diagram suggests the balls leap outwards and don't hit any other switches).<br />
::"11 choose 3" is a way how to ask, given 11 items (possible bounces), how many unique and unordered combinations of exactly 3 of these must exist (leftward-bounces, the rest being right-bounces) to filter onto the off-connected switch. (This is the same as "11 choose 8", if you decide to ask how many right-bounces are necessary, the rest being left-bounces.) That could be layer 1 (the 1-pin), 2 (the 2-pins) and 3 (...), before going consistently right to the final strike of the switch, or layers 9+10+11 (after being pure-right 1..8), but with many intermediate tracks across the pin-spacs (165 in total, as it happens; and it would be 55 to hit switch 10. Or 2, instead of 3, if you orientate things the other way round).<br />
:: 165/2048 (paths hitting the off-switch (at #9) divided by all paths that might happen) is a tad over 8%. On the assumption that it's fair and unbiased and you don't get more rattling around than a simple (single half-step) left/right distribution. <br />
<br />
<br />
To whomever did [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2659:_Unreliable_Connection&diff=292862&oldid=292861], doesn't [https://drops.dagstuhl.de/opus/volltexte/2018/8817/pdf/LIPIcs-FUN-2018-26.pdf] prove that symmetrical configurations nearly identical to those shown can produce uniform distributions? They seem to show it's just a matter of horizontal pin spacing. However, I for one can not verify the proof, which uses unusual (novel?) non-Unicode math notation, and a fairly opaque method of proof. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.211.134|172.70.211.134]] 00:07, 16 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:Not sure, but [https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%87%98%E8%AA%BF%E6%95%B4 this Japanese Wikipedia article] is fascinating. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.206.213|172.70.206.213]] 01:51, 16 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:Please see section 3.5 on pp. 16-18 of the currently first reference [https://arxiv.org/pdf/1601.05706.pdf]. I am particularly intrigued by, "Open Problem 2: Is every uniform distribution of output probabilities of the form 1/2<sup>k</sup> constructible by a 50-50 Pachinko?" on p. 18. However I haven't dived in enough to even know where the parentheses are supposed to be in that expression, yet. [[User:Liv2splain|Liv2splain]] ([[User talk:Liv2splain|talk]]) 17:27, 16 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
: Good question! https://ibb.co/sRwGwB9 don't look triangular, but it seems the proof might suggest much more triangular solutions. Worth thinking about! [[Special:Contributions/172.69.33.115|172.69.33.115]] 21:24, 16 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
What is the chance that the ball will bounce off the first pin, go down the outside of the pins and miss all the switches?<br />
:Probably quite high if it's a bouncy ball. With idealized physics though it'd just hit the leftmost/rightmost switch. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.254.127|172.70.254.127]] 00:45, 16 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
I would describe the device as a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galton_board. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.230.109|172.70.230.109]] 00:30, 16 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
I was watching the photo and hover-over text and the image disappeared and "Unreliable Connection" showed up in its place. I don't know how often this happens.<br />
: Very neat if not a fluke! Can anyone replicate this experience on https://xkcd.com ? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.211.134|172.70.211.134]] 14:21, 16 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
"An added source of humour is that Randall could likely achieve the same effect by looking through the router's settings - which most modern ones have a feature to turn on and off at scheduled times - or via purchasing a smart power strip." But by using these other methods, the connection would still be reliable. If it goes out at regular or pre-scheduled intervals then you know when it will be available or not, hence reliable. I think the joke here is that the contraption does in fact make the connection unreliable. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.114.77|172.70.114.77]] 14:18, 16 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
: Addressed at [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2659:_Unreliable_Connection&diff=292926&oldid=292924]. [[User:Liv2splain|Liv2splain]] ([[User talk:Liv2splain|talk]]) 14:44, 16 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:(Edit conflicted by at least the above, but my answer to the same question...) From a user POV, unless they happen to know that at 11:53 each day (and 12:14, 15:02, 15:07, 16:31, etc...) the scheduler disables tracfic for one (or two, or three) minutes, it is still unreliable, if ultimately predictable ''once you know'' the schedule, having seen it go round a few times and taken note. Similarly a timered power-strip could be used (or even several, in serial, the two or three daily interventions by the first also stopping and delaying the subsequent strips' interventions, making their timings uneven, further down the chain) and until you got the pattern it might as well be 'random', not entirely deterministic. (I'm wondering about some OR-gate-like/etc implementation, so power can pass by at least one parallel timer-shut-off to maintain power at the lower levels while ''some'' mid-way timers get depowered and thus 'shuffled' in interesting ways, and the resulting single output is governed by an intricate multi-dependent set of routes, but I bet an electrician would be wary about wiring that up...)<br />
:You could hack (or patch) the management firmware to be a bit more (pseudo)random about it, though it would still be pseudorandom LFSR/Xorshift with a (long) repetition cycle.<br />
:Or make it dependant upon an external factor (if the modulo 12 of the cumulative sum of all observed packet-destination IPs is zero, shut off for the five times the prior modulo 12 test value, in seconds..?), but that's ''practically'' the pachinko solution but with software hacking rather than hardware-making/hacking as per the comic.<br />
:More effort is needed to make it ultimately unpredictable, but it can still be considered unreliable if it goes out just when you 'want' it.... [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.5|172.70.85.5]] 15:02, 16 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
For real though, isn't this kind of a good idea? [[User:Fephisto|Fephisto]] ([[User talk:Fephisto|talk]]) 14:34, 16 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:Talk to edtech people in the {{w|MOOC}} space and they will tell you asynchronous is worth it, but talk to people who study educational quality factors like time to receive answers to unanticipated questions, and they will have different ideas. [[User:Liv2splain|Liv2splain]] ([[User talk:Liv2splain|talk]]) 14:44, 16 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
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Does anyone have an openWRT (or other) implementation of this feature yet?<br />
:You can induce it on stock firmware without reflashing, but you need to know the parameters like how often balls come out of the hopper, and what exactly the on/off switches do. As pseudocode:<br />
::<tt>#!/bin/sh</tt><br />
::<tt>while true ; do</tt><br />
:::<tt>sleep </tt>''seconds''<br />
:::<tt>if [ `rand100` -le 8 ] ; then</tt><br />
::::<tt>wifictrl off</tt><br />
:::<tt>else</tt><br />
::::<tt>wifictrl on</tt><br />
:::<tt>fi</tt><br />
::<tt>done</tt><br />
:[[Special:Contributions/172.70.214.81|172.70.214.81]] 00:38, 17 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
There are spaces between the button that the balls can fall into, and this could complicate the stuff a bit. However if the ratio between probability of hitting ON and probability of hitting OFF remain the same (1883:165), the average OFF time will still be the same (165/2048 of the time). The behavior that the network is switching between ON and OFF will probably be changed though. [[User:Lamty101|Lamty101]] ([[User talk:Lamty101|talk]]) 04:44, 17 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
I would have expected the negative reviews to have mentioned all the balls on the floor and perhaps the need to periodically refill the hopper. [[User:Philhower|Philhower]] ([[User talk:Philhower|talk]]) 16:18, 17 August 2022 (UTC)</div>172.70.91.78https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=453:_Upcoming_Hurricanes&diff=293079453: Upcoming Hurricanes2022-08-18T14:25:23Z<p>172.70.91.78: /* Hurricane Cos(x) */ it's 2 Cos (x) + C, of course...</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 453<br />
| date = July 23, 2008<br />
| title = Upcoming Hurricanes<br />
| image = upcoming_hurricanes.png<br />
| titletext = I'd like to see more damage assessments for hurricanes hitting New York and flooding Manhattan -- something like the 1938 Long Island Express, but aimed a bit more to the west. It's just a matter of time.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
This comic gives ludicrous and ironic upcoming {{w|Tropical cyclone|hurricane}} paths on an unlabelled map of the {{w|Americas}} that shows the region roughly between central {{w|Canada}} and northern {{w|South America}}. Blue and red dotted lines indicate the future hurricane paths.<br />
<br />
===Hurricanes===<br />
====Hurricane Where-The-Hell-Is-Bermuda====<br />
Enters from the east side of the map, wanders around the {{w|Atlantic Ocean}} in a scribble that seems to take the shape of an {{w|Ampersand}}. Then it goes north for a while, and then peters out without entering the {{w|Bermuda Triangle}}. The Bermuda Triangle is a location in the Atlantic Ocean loosely framed by the three corners {{w|Bermuda}}, {{w|Miami}}, and {{w|Puerto Rico}}. The myth is that (too) many ships and planes get lost once they enter inside the area of this triangle and disappear without a trace. In this case, the hurricane gets lost before entering and can't even find the triangle. It may also simply be a reference to the statistic that Bermuda is affected by {{w|List of Bermuda hurricanes|many Atlantic hurricanes}}, and that this hurricane got lost on its way to its target.<br />
<br />
====Hurricane Illinois-Has-It-Too-Easy====<br />
Comes from somewhere to the north-west, goes through {{w|Illinois}}, and then back to the north-west. Illinois is located far from the ocean, and thus suffers few hurricanes - this particular one is extremely unlikely, and according to the name, exists purely so that Illinois will have a hurricane to deal with. Interestingly enough (though it did not affect the Chicago area or correspond with the path displayed in the comic), roughly one year later, a {{w|Derecho|Super derecho}}, a storm resembling a hurricane or tropical storm in movement and form, {{w|May 2009 Southern Midwest derecho|struck}} central and South Illinois, in addition to much of {{w|Missouri}} and {{w|Kansas}}.<br />
<br />
====Hurricane Freud====<br />
Refers to {{w|Sigmund Freud}}, who believed that accidental sexual expression was a reflection of the unconscious mind's sexual desires. The hurricane's path forms a pair of testicles beside Florida. Florida, due to its shape and location, can be said to resemble a penis, and the hurricane's shape and position exemplify Freud's ideas.<br />
<br />
====Hurricane Screw-It-Let's-Just-Trash-Florida-Again====<br />
Comes from the east, starts to curve to the north, and then turns sharply to head straight for Florida and zigzag through it four times before dying out. Sticking out from the rest of the US, Florida is prone to hurricanes from the East, South, and West. And with the state not being very high or wide, it is common for a hurricane to run over Florida, lose some strength, then rebuild strength over the hot waters in the Gulf of Mexico, only to do a U-turn and strike again. This is not exactly what happens with this particular hurricane, where it turns out into the Atlantic Ocean again each time, suggesting a malicious intent.<br />
<br />
====Hurricane Red and Hurricane Blue====<br />
Blue is the only hurricane path drawn in blue. The two hurricanes are playing a game zipping in straight lines and right angles around {{w|Haiti}}, {{w|Jamaica}}, and {{w|Cuba}}. When ''Red'' successfully cuts off ''Blue'', the latter instantly dies, and then ''Red'' dies shortly thereafter. The game they play is the game of {{w|Tron_(video_game)#Light_Cycles|Light Cycles}} from the {{w|Tron_(video_game)|video game}} based on the movie ''{{w|Tron}}''. ''Hurricane Blue'' lost because it crashed into the wall of light left by ''Hurricane Red's'' {{w|Light_Cycle#Light_cycles|light cycle}}. (Note that real hurricanes are not dotted lines; the two hurricanes would have merged long before Hurricane Blue "lost.")<br />
<br />
====Hurricane Cos(x)====<br />
Forms a curve in the shape of a {{w|sinusoid}} above the bottom edge of the map. Its path resembles a {{w|sine}} wave. This kind of {{w|trigonometric functions}} can, however, both be expressed as sin(x) or cos(x), the latter being a {{w|cosine wave}}. They look exactly the same when there is no clearly defined coordinate system as in this case. Given this oscillates between six and ten degrees north (using Paramaribo and the southern shore of <br />
Trinidad as references) perhaps this hurricane might be better described as Hurricane 2 Cos (x) + 8.<br />
<br />
===Title Text===<br />
The title text refers to the {{w|1938 New England hurricane}} (also known as the Long Island Express) that caused $4.7 billion in damage. Had it been further west, it could have caused more damage, as the right side of a hurricane is stronger and more destructive than the left side, as the winds on the right side push water inland. [[Randall]] asks for more damage assessments for such a hurricane that would be able to flood {{w|Manhattan}} in {{w|New York}}. Only four years after this cartoon was published, making it almost prophetic, {{w|Hurricane Sandy}} did strike the {{w|New York metropolitan area|New York–New Jersey area}} as a {{w|post-tropical cyclone}} storm. Hurricane Sandy caused an estimated $74 billion in damage. <br />
<br />
The 1938 hurricane is also [[980:_Money/Transcript#Disasters|referenced]] in [[980: Money]], where it is calculated that it would have caused $78 billion had it happened in 2011. However, if that hurricane had taken the same turn as Sandy did, the cost today could have been a staggering $237 billion.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:[An unlabelled map shows the region roughly between central Canada and northernmost parts of South America. Dotted lines indicating hurricane paths cover the map, all red except Hurricane Blue, which is blue. Each line is labelled - here follows the labels as they appear from the top and down:]<br />
:Hurricane Where-the-Hell-Is-Bermuda<br />
:Hurricane Illinois-Has-It-Too-Easy<br />
:Hurricane Freud <br />
:Hurricane Screw-It-Let's-Just-Trash-Florida-Again <br />
:Hurricane Red <br />
:Hurricane Blue <br />
:Hurricane cos(x)<br />
<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
[[Category:Hurricanes]]<br />
[[Category:Comics with color]]<br />
[[Category:Penis]]</div>172.70.91.78https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:1354:_Heartbleed_Explanation&diff=293073Talk:1354: Heartbleed Explanation2022-08-18T09:47:05Z<p>172.70.91.78: </p>
<hr />
<div>I assume everybody got the (truncated) reference to the password "<u>Co</u>rrect<u>Ho</u>rse<u>Ba</u>ttery<u>St</u>aple"... [[Special:Contributions/141.101.89.210|141.101.89.210]] 06:51, 11 April 2014 (UTC)<br />
:Until I read this wiki, I did not get that. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.50|108.162.216.50]] 10:09, 11 April 2014 (UTC)BK201<br />
:There are also references to (if I recall correctly): [[Missed Connections]], "snakes but not too long" from [[Umwelt]], there's boats (of which many comics exist), "bees in car why" may be slightly related to [[Parody Week: TFD and Natalie Dee]]... that's all I see. Also the ip (375.381.283.17) doesn't seem to represent anything, but you never know. {{User:Grep/signature|11:04, 11 April 2014}}<br />
::The IP most certainly does not represent anything because it is invalid. Three of the octets are >255. [[User:Dan|Dan]] 21:19, 14 April 2014 (UTC)<br />
:::It does not refer to anything as an IP address. It can still represent something that is not a real IP address - fake IP addresses with four random non-octet numbers are far from unheard of in Hollywood products (e.g, Iron Man 3: 936.345.643.21) [[User:Amadan|Amadan]] ([[User talk:Amadan|talk]]) 03:45, 15 April 2014 (UTC)<br />
<br />
While the bug is explained very good, there is one point missing: The word "user" seems to imply that Meg is known to server. But the bug doesn't require that - ANYONE can ask the server. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 11:03, 11 April 2014 (UTC)<br />
: Nope, the word "user" does not indicate a logged in user. It's just a reference to anybody who happens to "use" (actually: connect to) the server at the moment. In fact, it is a particular network connection (TCP or else), on which other end there is a "user" Meg. -- [[Special:Contributions/108.162.210.111|108.162.210.111]] 12:07, 11 April 2014 (UTC)<br />
::I would ague that the fact that the server associates her with the name 'Meg' rather than an IP address does indeed imply that she is known to the server. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.117.38|172.70.117.38]] 21:58, 18 July 2021 (UTC)<br />
<br />
The transcript should include all the text in the servers memory, not just the highlighted text. [[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 15:04, 11 April 2014 (UTC)<br />
:Nope, it can only do 64k per request. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.91|108.162.216.91]] 16:04, 11 April 2014 (UTC)<br />
::I meant that the transcript here above the talk page should include all text. When I wrote my comment, only the highlighted text in the computers thoghts where transcripted. Now that I visit the page again, it seems to be complete. The text in the servers last speech is only half the 500 charachters long (251) but that is explained by OnePointEight in the comment below. [[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 21:20, 11 April 2014 (UTC)<br />
:The speech bubble is formatted as truncated, but if it were complete it would be 500 characters which is what was requested by Megan and within the 64k max.[[User:OnePointEight|OnePointEight]] ([[User talk:OnePointEight|talk]]) 19:39, 11 April 2014 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Heartbleed Explanation Explanation. Lovely. Also, I see that Eve is an administrator. Eavesdropper? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.237.218|108.162.237.218]] 15:24, 11 April 2014 (UTC)<br />
:Also the attacker is Meg, which can be thought of as an alternate to Mallory/Trudy [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.65|108.162.221.65]] 16:45, 11 April 2014 (UTC)<br />
::This is absurd. Meg is a common nickname for Margaret. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.50.84|173.245.50.84]] 20:38, 11 April 2014 (UTC)<br />
:::As my main language is not English I'm not familiar with nicknames, but if Meg is a common nickname for Margaret then that is important and should be included in the explanation of the title text. I did not understand why Margaret suddenly turned up... [[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 21:28, 11 April 2014 (UTC)<br />
::::The explanation of the title text has presumably been expanded since you visited it. It's a reference to a book. --[[User:V2Blast|V2Blast]] ([[User talk:V2Blast|talk]]) 03:34, 12 April 2014 (UTC)<br />
<br />
"Snakes but not too long"... great! --[[Special:Contributions/108.162.210.241|108.162.210.241]] 15:49, 11 April 2014 (UTC)<br />
<br />
It looks like the "server key" is a phone number: 1-483-503-8534 {{unsigned ip|199.27.130.228}}<br />
:I was thinking the same thing. 483 is not a valid area code however. {{unsigned ip|173.245.48.60}}<br />
<br />
The User Ada is a reference to Ingress, in which Ada is the head of the blue team. Ingress, being an ARG, would be an IRL game.{{unsigned ip|108.162.219.10}}<br />
<br />
Why has everyone here missed the reference to Portal 2? It almost seems so obvious :). [[User:YetAnotherGeek|YetAnotherGeek]] ([[User talk:YetAnotherGeek|talk]]) 09:23, 12 April 2014 (UTC)<br />
:"Are you still there?" could also be a reference to the turrets in Portal / Portal 2 [[Special:Contributions/173.245.62.126|173.245.62.126]] 09:42, 30 June 2015 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Are we sure that the hacker in the comic is Megan? She has long, curly hair as opposed to short straight hair. Considering she has long hair and has malicious intent, she might be Danish. {{unsigned ip|108.162.216.71}}<br />
:The server refers to her as "Meg", and if she were spoofing the source address, the packets wouldn't go back to her. That would be an amplification DoS attack. --[[Special:Contributions/108.162.246.4|108.162.246.4]] 22:42, 13 April 2014 (UTC)<br />
::What's to say that [[Danish|Danish's]] real name isn't Margaret? Last I checked, Margaret and Megan are not the same name. That and I'm pretty sure Megan doesn't have curly hair. --[[User:XndrK|XndrK]] ([[User talk:XndrK|talk]]) 19:56, 28 December 2014 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Has anybody figured out what the selfie.jpg contents reaaly are? It isn't a valid JPG because the magic numbers don't match, and it isn't ASCII text because multiple bytes have the most significant bit set. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.215.45|108.162.215.45]] 07:52, 13 April 2014 (UTC)<br />
:I put 834ba962e2ceb9ff89bd3bff8c into a file and [https://www.virustotal.com/en/file/809c727dee625e37c3487f6d57d42e295e2fdd74a8c1f89ce7e667d8ae3e2fcc/analysis/1397428742/#additional-info sent it to VirusTotal]. The magic literal seems to match "DBase 3 data file with memo(s)", so I'd say that it's just random data. --[[Special:Contributions/108.162.246.4|108.162.246.4]] 22:51, 13 April 2014 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Has anyone figured out if the words "potato", "bird", and "hat" are supposed to mean something in particular? --[[User:Dfeuer|Dfeuer]] ([[User talk:Dfeuer|talk]]) 07:43, 14 April 2014 (UTC)<br />
<br />
I don't know about "potato" and "bird", but "hat" could possibly be a reference to Black Hat Guy, who often creates havoc to prove a point. Also, completely separately from Black Hat Guy, in security discussions, attackers are broken up between black hat ("bad") and white hat ("good") hackers. So "hat" could be a sort of generic reference for a hacker. {{unsigned ip|199.27.128.116}}<br />
:Black Hat Guy is not completely separate. He wears a black hat because he is a black hat hacker. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.55.65|173.245.55.65]] 23:48, 17 April 2014 (UTC) TooMuchBlue<br />
<br />
I think that "potato" and "bird" are a reference to portal 2, (possibly) how the computer cores constantly malfunction. [[User:mailmindlin|mailmindlin]]<br />
<br />
<br />
To understand better how far this goes, [http://www.pabr.org/heartbleedtax/heartbleedtax.en.html A taxonomy of Heartbleed attacks] contains a very interesting list of attack cases. --[[User:MGitsfullofsheep|MGitsfullofsheep]] ([[User talk:MGitsfullofsheep|talk]]) 12:53, 9 September 2014 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Not gonna [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1354:_Heartbleed_Explanation&curid=14548&diff=293068&oldid=273249 edit-war this revert], but a "note book" is the {{wiktionary|note book|less standard}} version (and makes me think more of a "{{wiktionary|scrapbook}}", or even where I might secrete a secret stash of (bank)notes interleved with the pages of the most boring novel on my bookshelf, than a "writing pad"), of what is monatomically a "notebook" in standard English (and even American...). Even after considering notepad (or writing pad, reporter's pad or even "pad" in its own, amongst others) the pen-not-stylus mentioned should be enough, more so than notepad (with confusion with "tablet", both ancient and modern), to read better ''and'' unambiguously. But clearly my whole internal monalogue prior to/during editing (which was much too long/boring to inflict in whole in the summary) isn't as conclusively apparent as I thought. ;) But I feel more strongly about it than I realised, so just making this little note (not upon a pad...) to get it out of my system. Finis. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.78|172.70.91.78]] 09:47, 18 August 2022 (UTC)</div>172.70.91.78https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2649:_Physics_Cost-Saving_Tips&diff=2929632649: Physics Cost-Saving Tips2022-08-16T19:44:07Z<p>172.70.91.78: Undo revision 292938 by Liv2splain (talk) I'm reverting because I think it's not just the one edit, but also careless ones (capital on *one* instance of "helium", for no good reason), etc.</p>
<hr />
<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 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGUteH93xNo 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. Ordinary matter usually contains electrons, but although the {{w|dielectric}} layer of a {{w|capacitor}} can collect electrons, it is not easy to store pure electrons, as they repel each other. When a {{w|Solution (chemistry)|solution}} has free electrons, it becomes {{w|alkaline}} ({{w|Base (chemistry)|basic}}) and corrosive. 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>172.70.91.78https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:2659:_Unreliable_Connection&diff=292900Talk:2659: Unreliable Connection2022-08-16T05:08:27Z<p>172.70.91.78: </p>
<hr />
<div><!--Please sign your posts with ~~~~ and don't delete this text. New comments should be added at the bottom.--><br />
<br />
I don’t think this has anything to do with teleconferencing. Am I missing something? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.214.81|172.70.214.81]] 22:46, 15 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:Yes. The impliction is that people are expecting you to be available for online communications, and you can use the unreliable Internet connection as an excuse to get out of it. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 22:51, 15 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
::I think it's more about communication in general. He doesn't want anybody calling him or sending him emails, so by saying he has an "unreliable" connection people might assume it will be hard to get in touch with him.<br />
:::Back in the day, email was usually configured so that it could easily overcome such unreliability, and it's still doable,[https://discourse.mailinabox.email/t/running-from-home/6459/7] but today email for most people is a web or local client-server app, as opposed to a local mail store in a peer-to-peer app. Even people in urban areas can suffer unreliable internet, when squirrels or backhoes gnaw through data cables, copper theives strike, or 5G mind control base stations are congested. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.210.143|172.70.210.143]] 23:45, 15 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
According to a PhET simulator (https://phet.colorado.edu/sims/html/plinko-probability/latest/plinko-probability_en.html) for this situation, the ideal standard deviation is 1.732 and ideal mean is 6. I don’t feel like doing the calculations :P [[Special:Contributions/172.70.211.134|172.70.211.134]] 23:34, 15 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:If we assume 50-50 for each bounce, the probability that internet is off will be about (11 choose 3)/(2^11), or 8%.--[[User:Account|Account]] ([[User talk:Account|talk]]) 23:51, 15 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
::My first thought was, why so complicated? ''If'' each of the twelve switches is equally (and solely) likely to be struck by each ball, it's (100/12)% of the time, or 8⅓%.<br />
::Although the equal-chance is wrong, so you're definitely doing "end up with exactly 7 bounce rights and 3 bounce lefts, but in any combination" or similar are you? I'd have summed it differently, though. And not sure where the choose ''3'' comes in... Just one bounce left off any row-end pin 11 sends to 11 if all others bounce right. Three bounces left hits switch 9, not eight. If I'm counting correctly. Or am I doing telegraph-poles/wires miscounting?<br />
::Too early in the morning for me to untangle. The only thing I'm sure about is your division by 2^11 (how many total paths there are to get down). [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.78|172.70.91.78]] 05:00, 16 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:::Me again. I hadn't checked that the transcript (which said it was switch #8) was correct. Have now, and found it to be wrong. Have hence also just corrected the Transcript. So I'm gonna assume your 11-choose-3 is entirely correct after all. ;) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.78|172.70.91.78]] 05:08, 16 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
To whomever did [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2659:_Unreliable_Connection&diff=292862&oldid=292861], doesn't [https://drops.dagstuhl.de/opus/volltexte/2018/8817/pdf/LIPIcs-FUN-2018-26.pdf] prove that symmetrical configurations nearly identical to those shown can produce uniform distributions? They seem to show it's just a matter of horizontal pin spacing. However, I for one can not verify the proof, which uses unusual (novel?) non-Unicode math notation, and a fairly opaque method of proof. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.211.134|172.70.211.134]] 00:07, 16 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:Not sure, but [https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%87%98%E8%AA%BF%E6%95%B4 this Japanese Wikipedia article] is fascinating. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.206.213|172.70.206.213]] 01:51, 16 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
What is the chance that the ball will bounce off the first pin, go down the outside of the pins and miss all the switches?<br />
:Probably quite high if it's a bouncy ball. With idealized physics though it'd just hit the leftmost/rightmost switch. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.254.127|172.70.254.127]] 00:45, 16 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
I would describe the device as a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galton_board. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.230.109|172.70.230.109]] 00:30, 16 August 2022 (UTC)</div>172.70.91.78https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2659:_Unreliable_Connection&diff=2928992659: Unreliable Connection2022-08-16T05:04:53Z<p>172.70.91.78: /* Transcript */ Was wrong!</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 />
The probability of a ball hitting the "off" switch is 165/2048, or about 8%, assuming the machine is ordinary.[https://drops.dagstuhl.de/opus/volltexte/2018/8817/pdf/LIPIcs-FUN-2018-26.pdf] 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 rare vacation spots that have reliable internet, to show off the local facilities, to now actually finding somewhere worthwhile to go that still doesn't have it, as a {{wiktionary|humble-brag}} about the remoteness of the destination. 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 desirable. The reviews for the new vacation spot indicate that the 'unfortunate' disconnections are found to be both desirable and undesirable, possibly even by the same person.<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 ninth 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, as shown by a single released ball and a motion path partially showing how it had rebounded from around half-way down until after hitting and rebounding away off a bottom-layer switch.]<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>172.70.91.78https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:2659:_Unreliable_Connection&diff=292898Talk:2659: Unreliable Connection2022-08-16T05:00:59Z<p>172.70.91.78: </p>
<hr />
<div><!--Please sign your posts with ~~~~ and don't delete this text. New comments should be added at the bottom.--><br />
<br />
I don’t think this has anything to do with teleconferencing. Am I missing something? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.214.81|172.70.214.81]] 22:46, 15 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:Yes. The impliction is that people are expecting you to be available for online communications, and you can use the unreliable Internet connection as an excuse to get out of it. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 22:51, 15 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
::I think it's more about communication in general. He doesn't want anybody calling him or sending him emails, so by saying he has an "unreliable" connection people might assume it will be hard to get in touch with him.<br />
:::Back in the day, email was usually configured so that it could easily overcome such unreliability, and it's still doable,[https://discourse.mailinabox.email/t/running-from-home/6459/7] but today email for most people is a web or local client-server app, as opposed to a local mail store in a peer-to-peer app. Even people in urban areas can suffer unreliable internet, when squirrels or backhoes gnaw through data cables, copper theives strike, or 5G mind control base stations are congested. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.210.143|172.70.210.143]] 23:45, 15 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
According to a PhET simulator (https://phet.colorado.edu/sims/html/plinko-probability/latest/plinko-probability_en.html) for this situation, the ideal standard deviation is 1.732 and ideal mean is 6. I don’t feel like doing the calculations :P [[Special:Contributions/172.70.211.134|172.70.211.134]] 23:34, 15 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:If we assume 50-50 for each bounce, the probability that internet is off will be about (11 choose 3)/(2^11), or 8%.--[[User:Account|Account]] ([[User talk:Account|talk]]) 23:51, 15 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
::My first thought was, why so complicated? ''If'' each of the twelve switches is equally (and solely) likely to be struck by each ball, it's (100/12)% of the time, or 8⅓%.<br />
::Although the equal-chance is wrong, so you're definitely doing "end up with exactly 7 bounce rights and 3 bounce lefts, but in any combination" or similar are you? I'd have summed it differently, though. And not sure where the choose ''3'' comes in... Just one bounce left off any row-end pin 11 sends to 11 if all others bounce right. Three bounces left hits switch 9, not eight. If I'm counting correctly. Or am I doing telegraph-poles/wires miscounting?<br />
::Too early in the morning for me to untangle. The only thing I'm sure about is your division by 2^11 (how many total paths there are to get down). [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.78|172.70.91.78]] 05:00, 16 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
To whomever did [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2659:_Unreliable_Connection&diff=292862&oldid=292861], doesn't [https://drops.dagstuhl.de/opus/volltexte/2018/8817/pdf/LIPIcs-FUN-2018-26.pdf] prove that symmetrical configurations nearly identical to those shown can produce uniform distributions? They seem to show it's just a matter of horizontal pin spacing. However, I for one can not verify the proof, which uses unusual (novel?) non-Unicode math notation, and a fairly opaque method of proof. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.211.134|172.70.211.134]] 00:07, 16 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:Not sure, but [https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%87%98%E8%AA%BF%E6%95%B4 this Japanese Wikipedia article] is fascinating. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.206.213|172.70.206.213]] 01:51, 16 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
What is the chance that the ball will bounce off the first pin, go down the outside of the pins and miss all the switches?<br />
:Probably quite high if it's a bouncy ball. With idealized physics though it'd just hit the leftmost/rightmost switch. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.254.127|172.70.254.127]] 00:45, 16 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
I would describe the device as a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galton_board. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.230.109|172.70.230.109]] 00:30, 16 August 2022 (UTC)</div>172.70.91.78https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:2658:_Coffee_Cup_Holes&diff=292808Talk:2658: Coffee Cup Holes2022-08-15T12:27:33Z<p>172.70.91.78: Went away and checked, and found I had the wrong name in mind...</p>
<hr />
<div><!--Please sign your posts with ~~~~ and don't delete this text. New comments should be added at the bottom.--><br />
I was confused for a moment. That's a coffee ''mug''. And the correct answer is either one (the handle) or none (because below the macroscopic level (and above the theoretical sub-Planck scale of string-theory loops) it's increasingly not even mostly holes but very, very barely anything 'solid' jostling about in empty space giving no real impediment to any theoretical quantum-scale cheesewire without even being cut through). A coffee ''cup'' has no holes (regardless) if you don't count any form of sippy-lid it might have. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.13|172.70.85.13]] 22:25, 12 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:Actually, the mug has two at the macro level (the hole that makes up the handle and the hole on the top). There could conceivably be more shallow holes inside the mug where the handle connects to the cup. At a plank-length level, the atoms could be viewed as holes in the vacuum bending space time around it.<br />
::You're not a topologist, certainly. And a ''hydrogen-nucleus'' is approximately 10^20 times the planck-length. The whole atom on the order of 10,000 times larger, and the constiuent quarks 'only' 1,000th, or so, smaller, with the differences being the space betweenn that anything that cares isn't going to consider much of an obstruction. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.155|172.70.162.155]] 23:43, 12 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:There is no "hole" at the top - at best it count as an indention in the surface {{unsigned ip|172.70.211.134|23:38, 12 August 2022}}<br />
::Hole has multiple meanings. A hole in the ground doesn't have to go all the way through the Earth. The point of panel three is that we don't know what definition the question is using, which makes it impossible to answer correctly.[[User:Zzyzx|Zzyzx]] ([[User talk:Zzyzx|talk]]) 00:47, 13 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:Do coffee “cups” not have handles wherever you are? Google image search shows white ceramic cups with rounded bottoms, wider than they are high, ''with round handles'' that a finger or two can pass through, on saucers; and that is indeed what I think of when I hear “coffee cup”. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffee_cup Wikipedia] shows similar examples in other colours and materials. In my understanding, it is entirely equivalent to a mug-with-a-handle topologically and has the same one hole. Oh, are you perhaps thinking of those cardboard cups you get from vending machines and cheap coffee shops? I wouldn’t call them “coffee cups” at all; just “paper cups”. [[User:Chortos-2|Chortos-2]] ([[User talk:Chortos-2|talk]]) 13:01, 13 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
::For my part, "wider than tall and rounded (or even very tapered)" is a cup (it cups the liquid), hence "teacup", and they mostly do have handles, whilst the shape held in the comic is a mug for being more a height-dominant cylinder (or close to it). Topologically the same, but distinct in fully-fleshed form (at least for those of either not morphologically distorted towards the other, a tall cup or a wide mug, say).<br />
::A "paper cup that coffee comes in" (or a similar re-usable "cup-for-life") that does not have a handle is, however, always a ''cup'' even if it's taller than wide, for reasons clearly more descriptivist than prescriptivist in origin. There are no "paper mugs", that I'm aware of; I know you have plastic cup-holding things that give you a (re-usable) handle to hold the thing that the cup sits in so that you don't have to grip a thin, fragile and ''very heated'' disposable/vendable cup skin-on-'skin', but that's a holder for a cup and it's still a cup that it holds.<br />
::I have no compunction in calling the comic's container a mug, based entirely upon its appearance, though obviously applying my own cultural/learnt distinctions to this. YMMV. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.79.171|172.69.79.171]] 19:08, 13 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
::In my experience, it's almost never possible to get even a single finger through the handle on one of those cups. So from a finger perspective they have no holes. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.223|172.70.90.223]] 10:19, 15 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:::Where it ''does'' have a hole (rather than be a solid blade with a thick rim for ripping purposes) the intention is clearly to have the skin-on-skin between finger and thumb as a part of the grip-enhancement. As the hand is (ignoring blood vessels in its interior) not topologically a loop yet is touching then that qualifies the loop of plastic (however unnavigable by any whole digit) as a hole through which such contact can be made. Much more so than the fuss with what loops there are in an {{w|Alexander horned sphere}}, certainly.<br />
:::Contact between components ''may'' also count, especially as the typical 'basket' form of such a cup-holder (definite holes) is now part of the cup-assemblage unit leaving no (or even more insignificant) gaps where those holes were in the holder-alone. In which case you would indeed consider the pinched digits to be looped (finger/thumb/inter-digit-'webbing' forming the hole) and then the handle that they loop through to form a must ''in turn'' be a loop to go though the interossic(?)-hole that has a hole. Which may then topologically create a two-domain composite topology (both parts of which are genus-1-ish toroidality) for which I can't currently imagine the terminology. But it'd be interesting to look at the Borromean Rings object and work out what professional topologists think about ''that'' (three loops, none of which are individually linked to any of the other two, but they are inseperable from ''both'' of the other two). ...sorry, just idly musing about that, not sure it's entirely relevent to the coffee-mugs/etc here. ;) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.13|172.70.85.13]] 12:23, 15 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:Randall uses Coffe Cup and those type of cups are shown on wikipedia for coffee cups, so we should use coffee cup in the explanation and I have corrected this and just mentions that it is a coffee cup of the Mug type. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 10:50, 15 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/26/Mug_and_Torus_morph.gif] [[Special:Contributions/172.70.179.4|172.70.179.4]] 23:54, 12 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
For something to be a hole, you need to consider what is capable of passing through the hole. For instance, a mesh screen might have no holes that my fingers can pass through, but it is full of holes for water or air to pass through. And while atoms might be mostly space, other atoms can't usually just pass through that space, although high-energy particles may. Also, the space can be considered filled with forces, which may act as barriers to certain things. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.130.171|172.70.130.171]] 00:36, 13 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:Sure, for one definition of “hole.” That’s the whole point of the comic: there are multiple definitions, and no single definition is correct. [[User:Szeth Pancakes|Szeth Pancakes]] ([[User talk:Szeth Pancakes|talk]]) 01:01, 13 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Is “cup” or “mug” better for the explanation? “Mug” is a better descriptor, but it’s described as “cup” in the comic, so that would be more faithful to what Randall intended. [[User:Szeth Pancakes|Szeth Pancakes]] ([[User talk:Szeth Pancakes|talk]]) 01:25, 13 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:Coffee Cup in the explanation with mention of Mug. I have done that --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 10:50, 15 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
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Linguist: Zero to Two... mostly. Given linguistic variation and local functional style the object being referred to may not have a closed handle, or any handle at all (Cup vs Mug), and the top may be considered a hole in the common usage. --- [[Special:Contributions/172.69.71.34|172.69.71.34]] 01:33, 13 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:You've left out the deep dark hole of despair at your existence that's reflected back at you if it's your first coffee of the day. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.223|172.70.90.223]] 10:24, 15 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
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Part of the joke is that all five methods don't discern between a cup and a mug, the original cliché being that topologists are unusual because they don't. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.211.134|172.70.211.134]] 03:06, 13 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:All methods dicern and topologist especially notices the difference so this sentence makes no sense --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 10:50, 15 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
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Someone should mention that part of the joke is that when the topologist says it has one hole, they're referring to the hole in the handle, while in the next panel the "normal person" assumes the one hole they mentioned is the opening and questions its validity. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.241.51|108.162.241.51]] 03:25, 13 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:Has been done --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 10:50, 15 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
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All frames except the first and last depict a mug; a topologist most definitely discerns between a a cup and a mug because they give different answers, the "normal" person is only questioning a specific feature, and the philosopher is clearly considering a mug. If it's part of the joke the only contrast is the question. Seems way too subtle for Mr Munroes normal style. probably just what he is used to calling it. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.69.208|172.69.69.208]] 07:04, 13 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:Yes it is a coffee cup of the Mug type. A shame he drew it like this because the mug/cup discussion has nothing with the comic to do at all. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 10:50, 15 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
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We have a lot of visual aids for topology in this comic, and none for the article about 2625: Field Topology. That seems backwards to me.[[Special:Contributions/172.69.22.39|172.69.22.39]] 22:47, 13 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:That's a good point. Please find photos of the various sports fields and edit them to overlay brightly colored and contrastive lines showing where their holes are, link to them on the admin noticeboard, and I'm sure someone will upload and add them. I think they turned off uploads by IPs and new users to discourage troll vandals. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.22.119|172.69.22.119]] 01:07, 14 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
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In the physicist paragraph, I put an Actual Citation Needed tag after "factorial of the number of particles in the universe" because, while I see what is being got at, with string theory of force mediation e.g. photons (and gravitons? or Higgs bosons?) it would be really nice to have a reference for that topic. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.166.125|162.158.166.125]] 01:37, 14 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:Gotchu fam [https://tel.archives-ouvertes.fr/tel-02341882/document] [[Special:Contributions/172.69.134.17|172.69.134.17]] 18:19, 14 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
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In LQG, at each instant of time, geometry is concentrated on one dimensional structures, called graphs, which can be arbitrarily complicated. But I don't think this implies uncountable holes?<br />
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Look, I know you're all having a super-important topology discussion or whatever you call it, but did you know today is ''Star Trek'' day on [[2636: What If? 2 Countdown]]? [[Special:Contributions/172.69.22.71|172.69.22.71]] 18:27, 14 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
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The philosopher may be referencing the following thought experiment: If you add a hole to a balloon, the result is equivalent to a flat disk that has 0 holes. Therefore, a balloon has -1 holes. (See [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymF1bp-qrjU this Stand Up Maths video] for instance.) [[Special:Contributions/172.69.22.145|172.69.22.145]] 18:51, 14 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:Dear topologists, which interior is the inside of a balloon? {{w|Relative interior}} or one of its see-alsos, or something else? [[Special:Contributions/172.69.33.199|172.69.33.199]] 21:46, 14 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
::IDK - but I do not think so. It is just Randall's way of showing us that on our scale a coffee cup with a handle has exactly one hole. I'm sure he is on the topologist side, but think it is a stupid question to ask regular people. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 10:50, 15 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
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I think the philosopher explanation is a bit misleading? "Now" refers to the hypothetical scenario in which there is an extra hole. Natural language philosophy is often (always?) ambiguous, but philosophers generally accept that some interpretations are misreadings and apply the principle of charity. They are not known for "gotcha" trick questions. Rather, Hairbun's question is an example of an "intuition pump", a hypothetical scenario intended to test the reader's intuitions with regard to the concept. So in this case, we might expect the reader to answer that there are now n+1 holes, where n = the number of holes before we made a new hole. You could poll people with this question to get data on the popular understanding of "hole" and "cup" as used in everyday language. [[User:Wordnerd|Wordnerd]] ([[User talk:Wordnerd|talk]]) 01:56, 15 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:Must have been changed since this comment was written... --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 10:50, 15 August 2022 (UTC)</div>172.70.91.78https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:2657:_Complex_Vowels&diff=292805Talk:2657: Complex Vowels2022-08-15T11:52:01Z<p>172.70.91.78: </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 />
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 />
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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 />
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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 />
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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 />
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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 />
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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 />
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: This is the best I could do ə ̯̣̌̄̊̇c̵. I added the zalgo marks to a narrow no-break space in between the schwa and a "c" with a line over it (there's no reverse schwa apparently). Obviously it's not a perfect match, but I think that's sort of the point of this comic. [[User:RDiMartino|RDiMartino]] ([[User talk:RDiMartino|talk]]) 15:31, 12 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
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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 />
:::Ok, back to the 'root' bit: the (Explanation, not Transcript) current use of <code><nowiki>√<span style="border-top: 1px solid currentColor">-1</span></nowiki></code> is ok''ish'' but hovers the line above the "√" top by about ¾ of the initial down-tick's height (as rendered here... Chrome on Android, for reference), which is clearly not pixel-perfect. Maybe this is an outlier (obscure browser and OS that applies to hardly anyone, right?) so not gonna edit it away, but "√-1" is already unambiguous for anyone who knows what "√" is actually used for. Do we absolutely ''need'' to solve this rendering problem at all? At least until we persuade Unicode to release a special arbitrary-width over-kerning version of the √-character. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.77|172.70.162.77]] 09:09, 15 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
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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 />
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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 />
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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 />
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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 />
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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 />
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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)<br />
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You could do something like this comic with the embeddings of a language model trained on IPA and human responses. Stuff like https://towardsdatascience.com/introduction-to-word-embedding-and-word2vec-652d0c2060fa http://www.isle.illinois.edu/speech_web_lg/pubs/2021/gao2021zero.pdf . A speech generating reinforcement learning system rewarded on human response would almost certainly discover complex vowels: sounds humans recognise partly, possibly impossible mixes of normal vowels, that produce erratic or novel human behavior. This has likely happened in some kind of marketing or attention research. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.110.237|172.70.110.237]] 19:20, 12 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
: To add on to this, when playing with or demoing powerful neural networks, people often give the networks impossible prompts (like dall-e’s original example of an armchair in the shape of an avocado, a contradiction as avocados are never shaped like something that is a chair) —- and surprisingly a strong model will actually produce a result humans believe meets the request. This is like the example of “x in fire" —- mainstream neural networks usually do not reject input, they just solve it the best they can, producing an output that best matches everything they learned, or is an extrapolation from what they learned along their internal dimensions. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.110.237|172.70.110.237]] 19:26, 12 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
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"the properties of complex numbers could conceivably support representing physiological features of the vocal tract" - not sure about this - the properties of complex numbers stem from imaginary numbers being defined in relation to the square root of -1 - it's not obvious how a value of -1 would have any meaning in vocalspace (since it's a limited scale, not a continuous plane), never mind its square root, so how would the interactions between real and imaginary numbers read across to those between tongue movements and other vocal tract features? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.223|172.70.90.223]] 10:10, 15 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:Well... Although I never liked the way it was worded, I envisaged it as depicting extradimensional movements/displacements, possibly introducing resonances of air beyond the current three dimensions (and time) of movement. Such as compressive waves in a further imaginary dimension. (For transverse/tortional-waves, in media that support them, moments of movement/wbatever perpendicular/hyperradial to any 'real' version, but in air tbat's probably moot. Unless it isn't..?)<br />
:Or you could consider, as you say, a limited scale of 0..1 being the distance of the tongue-tip between roof-touching and floor-touching (-1 would be a tongue ''embedded'' in whichever surface is zero, somehow phased through and creating a 'nevative cavity' of resonance, somehow, and an i-ward position would be... Well, not 'sideways' (though that does change things) but ''hyper''-sideways (again those other dimensions, probably requiring muscles/etc we don't normally consider), and all that implies.<br />
:...that's if you want my assumptions about how an entirely ficticious and frankly esoteric scenario might 'really' be implemented. I won't say it's the way it ''would'' be, and there are limely many other (mis)interpretations of how it might happen, these were just my first thoughts on initially reading the comic (but it used less words in my head, as I could more easily imagine the necessary illustrative diagrams that did most of the heavy lifting). [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.78|172.70.91.78]] 11:52, 15 August 2022 (UTC)</div>172.70.91.78https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2657:_Complex_Vowels&diff=2926262657: Complex Vowels2022-08-12T10:21:48Z<p>172.70.91.78: /* Transcript */ Overstrikes remain separate (on my display, apparently others) and have no clarifying purpose (not needing to parenthetically extend across a root-parameter of many parts). And sup1/sub2 is wider than ½ (maybe true vertical for some?)</p>
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<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 2657<br />
| date = August 10, 2022<br />
| title = Complex Vowels<br />
| image = complex_vowels.png<br />
| titletext = Pronouncing [ṡṡċċḣḣẇẇȧȧ] is easy; you just say it like the 'x' in 'fire'.<br />
}}<br />
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==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|Created by a ROUNDED TONGUE. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
[[File:Ipa-chart-vowels.png|thumb|200px|The standard IPA vowel chart.]]<br />
This is another one of Randall's [[:Category:Tips|Tips]], this time a Linguistics Tip.<br />
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The curly-haired linguist, [[:Category:Comics featuring Gretchen McCulloch|Gretchen McCulloch]], manages to produce a cursed sound using complex vowels, that cannot be comprehended by normal humans like [[Cueball]] and [[Megan]], that seem to get a headache from listening to the sound. The sound she makes was accomplished (and the tip is about this) by extending the IPA vowel plane along the imaginary axis to produce the complex vowels.<br />
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In phonetics based on the {{w|International Phonetic Alphabet}} (IPA), the space of {{w|vocal tract}} articulators determining {{w|vowel}}s <!-- (as opposed to unvoiced consonants) -- nasals and liquids don't care where the tongue is, in any language {acn} --> is represented as two-dimensional, from the position of the tongue. The vertical axis represents vowel height or ''closedness'' (i.e., how close or far the tongue is from the top of the mouth), and the horizontal axis represents front-to-back ''place'' (i.e., how close or far the top of the tongue is from the teeth.) The position of the tongue, along with the frequency of the {{w|vocal cords}} vibrating in the larynx from air being exhaled by the diaphragm, are the primary determinants of the fundamental and second {{w|formant}}s of vowel sounds.<br />
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A third dimension of vowel sounds is the "roundedness" of the lips, represented on the IPA vowel chart to the right by pairs of vowel phoneme {{w|glyph}}s. Other higher-dimensional vowel representations include {{w|diphthong}}s, which are simply two different sequential vowels slurred together; diphones, which represent the last half of one phoneme followed by the first half of the next; {{w|vowel shift}} mappings delineating different accents[https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/47086396.pdf][https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0095447010000562] and long-term evolution of voiced phone sounds; and {{w|cepstrum|cepstral}} representations such as {{w|Mel-frequency cepstrum|mel-frequency cepstral coefficients}}.<br />
<br />
[[Randall]] suggests increasing the range of vowel sounds available by using complex notation to indicate an additional dimension with an "imaginary" axis. In mathematics, {{w|complex number}}s are numbers including both real numbers and {{w|imaginary number}}s. A complex number can be expressed as, "''a'' + ''b''i," where ''a'' and ''b'' are real numbers, but the latter imaginary part is combined with 'i,' the square root of negative one, as depicted in the central expression in the comic by √-̅1̅, indicating a further dimension of coordinates. When expanding the one-dimensional number line with an imaginary axis, it becomes two-dimensional with the "''b''i" component {{w|orthogonal}} to the original "real" number line. Linguists never use the {{w|complex plane}} to represent vowel roundedness or any other higher-dimensional features of phonemes, although the properties of complex numbers could conceivably support representing physiological features of the vocal tract, such as prior position of the articulators.{{cn}}<br />
<br />
This comic conflates complex numbers in mathematics with "complex vowels" in linguistics. Such complex vowels are implied to create sounds which cannot be properly processed by the human brain, represented graphically as {{w|Zalgo text}} IPA, similarly to the cliché of "black speech" in {{w|Lovecraftian horror}}, a language created by alien beings with different vocal patterns than humans. In reality, people find Zalgo text amusing, thus the humor of the comic, but not particularly insanity-inducing or even more than mildly confusing.{{cn}} This is also funny because unadorned IPA shares some characteristics with Zalgo text, such as extremely uncommon glyphs and weird {{w|diacritics}}.<br />
<br />
In linguistics, 'ə' is the {{w|schwa}} symbol, referred to in the title text and the depiction of complex phonemes, the most common vowel sound in English polysyllabic words (the 'a' in "comma" or the second 'e' in "letter.") Production of the schwa sound takes place with the tongue, jaw, and lips all in a relaxed, central position; However, it is clearly not the normal schwa sound but the one moved into the complex vowel plane by using all letters in the word twice with a diacritic on top: "ṡṡċċḣḣẇẇȧȧ". To pronounce this sound Randall suggest you just say it like the X in Fire. This of course makes no sense in the normal world, since there is no x in fire, but in the complex vowel plane there might be, and you just say it like that X. This is of course in line with the idea that the complex sounds are incomprehensible to the human ear, and most likely also impossible to pronounce for anyone other than [[:Category:Comics featuring Gretchen McCulloch|Gretchen]].<br />
<br />
Another example of weird diacritics is in [[2619: Crêpe]], and with Zalgo text in [[1647: Diacritics]]. The use of typography to create psychological stress is explored in [[859: (]].<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
<br />
:[A diagram shows the extrusion of the trapezoidal IPA vowel chart upwards into three dimensions. A point near the center is labeled with an equation that shows "ə + ½√-1 " as being equivalent to a made-up symbol that looks like two schwas mirroring each other with other markings above and below.]<br />
<br />
:[Below the diagram, a character with shoulder-length dark wavy hair pronounces the new vowel in a speech bubble with unstable lines surrounding it. Two bystanders to her right are bent over slightly, clutching their heads in apparent anguish.]<br />
<br />
:[Caption below the panel:]<br />
:Linguistics tip: Extend the IPA vowel plane along the imaginary axis to produce the ''complex vowels'', cursed sounds which the human mind cannot comprehend.<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
[[Category:Tips]]<br />
[[Category:Language]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Gretchen McCulloch]]</div>172.70.91.78https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2657:_Complex_Vowels&diff=2926252657: Complex Vowels2022-08-12T10:10:09Z<p>172.70.91.78: /* Explanation */ also better to s/for/to/... Ok, surely that's enough tweaking of just the one sentence!</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 2657<br />
| date = August 10, 2022<br />
| title = Complex Vowels<br />
| image = complex_vowels.png<br />
| titletext = Pronouncing [ṡṡċċḣḣẇẇȧȧ] is easy; you just say it like the 'x' in 'fire'.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|Created by a ROUNDED TONGUE. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
[[File:Ipa-chart-vowels.png|thumb|200px|The standard IPA vowel chart.]]<br />
This is another one of Randall's [[:Category:Tips|Tips]], this time a Linguistics Tip.<br />
<br />
The curly-haired linguist, [[:Category:Comics featuring Gretchen McCulloch|Gretchen McCulloch]], manages to produce a cursed sound using complex vowels, that cannot be comprehended by normal humans like [[Cueball]] and [[Megan]], that seem to get a headache from listening to the sound. The sound she makes was accomplished (and the tip is about this) by extending the IPA vowel plane along the imaginary axis to produce the complex vowels.<br />
<br />
In phonetics based on the {{w|International Phonetic Alphabet}} (IPA), the space of {{w|vocal tract}} articulators determining {{w|vowel}}s <!-- (as opposed to unvoiced consonants) -- nasals and liquids don't care where the tongue is, in any language {acn} --> is represented as two-dimensional, from the position of the tongue. The vertical axis represents vowel height or ''closedness'' (i.e., how close or far the tongue is from the top of the mouth), and the horizontal axis represents front-to-back ''place'' (i.e., how close or far the top of the tongue is from the teeth.) The position of the tongue, along with the frequency of the {{w|vocal cords}} vibrating in the larynx from air being exhaled by the diaphragm, are the primary determinants of the fundamental and second {{w|formant}}s of vowel sounds.<br />
<br />
A third dimension of vowel sounds is the "roundedness" of the lips, represented on the IPA vowel chart to the right by pairs of vowel phoneme {{w|glyph}}s. Other higher-dimensional vowel representations include {{w|diphthong}}s, which are simply two different sequential vowels slurred together; diphones, which represent the last half of one phoneme followed by the first half of the next; {{w|vowel shift}} mappings delineating different accents[https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/47086396.pdf][https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0095447010000562] and long-term evolution of voiced phone sounds; and {{w|cepstrum|cepstral}} representations such as {{w|Mel-frequency cepstrum|mel-frequency cepstral coefficients}}.<br />
<br />
[[Randall]] suggests increasing the range of vowel sounds available by using complex notation to indicate an additional dimension with an "imaginary" axis. In mathematics, {{w|complex number}}s are numbers including both real numbers and {{w|imaginary number}}s. A complex number can be expressed as, "''a'' + ''b''i," where ''a'' and ''b'' are real numbers, but the latter imaginary part is combined with 'i,' the square root of negative one, as depicted in the central expression in the comic by √-̅1̅, indicating a further dimension of coordinates. When expanding the one-dimensional number line with an imaginary axis, it becomes two-dimensional with the "''b''i" component {{w|orthogonal}} to the original "real" number line. Linguists never use the {{w|complex plane}} to represent vowel roundedness or any other higher-dimensional features of phonemes, although the properties of complex numbers could conceivably support representing physiological features of the vocal tract, such as prior position of the articulators.{{cn}}<br />
<br />
This comic conflates complex numbers in mathematics with "complex vowels" in linguistics. Such complex vowels are implied to create sounds which cannot be properly processed by the human brain, represented graphically as {{w|Zalgo text}} IPA, similarly to the cliché of "black speech" in {{w|Lovecraftian horror}}, a language created by alien beings with different vocal patterns than humans. In reality, people find Zalgo text amusing, thus the humor of the comic, but not particularly insanity-inducing or even more than mildly confusing.{{cn}} This is also funny because unadorned IPA shares some characteristics with Zalgo text, such as extremely uncommon glyphs and weird {{w|diacritics}}.<br />
<br />
In linguistics, 'ə' is the {{w|schwa}} symbol, referred to in the title text and the depiction of complex phonemes, the most common vowel sound in English polysyllabic words (the 'a' in "comma" or the second 'e' in "letter.") Production of the schwa sound takes place with the tongue, jaw, and lips all in a relaxed, central position; However, it is clearly not the normal schwa sound but the one moved into the complex vowel plane by using all letters in the word twice with a diacritic on top: "ṡṡċċḣḣẇẇȧȧ". To pronounce this sound Randall suggest you just say it like the X in Fire. This of course makes no sense in the normal world, since there is no x in fire, but in the complex vowel plane there might be, and you just say it like that X. This is of course in line with the idea that the complex sounds are incomprehensible to the human ear, and most likely also impossible to pronounce for anyone other than [[:Category:Comics featuring Gretchen McCulloch|Gretchen]].<br />
<br />
Another example of weird diacritics is in [[2619: Crêpe]], and with Zalgo text in [[1647: Diacritics]]. The use of typography to create psychological stress is explored in [[859: (]].<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
<br />
:[A diagram shows the extrusion of the trapezoidal IPA vowel chart upwards into three dimensions. A point near the center is labeled with an equation that shows "ə + <sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub>√-̅1̅ " as being equivalent to a made-up symbol that looks like two schwas mirroring each other with other markings above and below.]<br />
<br />
:[Below the diagram, a character with shoulder-length dark wavy hair pronounces the new vowel in a speech bubble with unstable lines surrounding it. Two bystanders to her right are bent over slightly, clutching their heads in apparent anguish.]<br />
<br />
:[Caption below the panel:]<br />
:Linguistics tip: Extend the IPA vowel plane along the imaginary axis to produce the ''complex vowels'', cursed sounds which the human mind cannot comprehend.<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
[[Category:Tips]]<br />
[[Category:Language]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Gretchen McCulloch]]</div>172.70.91.78https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2657:_Complex_Vowels&diff=2926242657: Complex Vowels2022-08-12T10:07:39Z<p>172.70.91.78: /* Explanation */ Two different superfluous/misplaced punctuations. And "non-comprehendable" has a similar(/better?) whole word variation.</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 2657<br />
| date = August 10, 2022<br />
| title = Complex Vowels<br />
| image = complex_vowels.png<br />
| titletext = Pronouncing [ṡṡċċḣḣẇẇȧȧ] is easy; you just say it like the 'x' in 'fire'.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|Created by a ROUNDED TONGUE. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
[[File:Ipa-chart-vowels.png|thumb|200px|The standard IPA vowel chart.]]<br />
This is another one of Randall's [[:Category:Tips|Tips]], this time a Linguistics Tip.<br />
<br />
The curly-haired linguist, [[:Category:Comics featuring Gretchen McCulloch|Gretchen McCulloch]], manages to produce a cursed sound using complex vowels, that cannot be comprehended by normal humans like [[Cueball]] and [[Megan]], that seem to get a headache from listening to the sound. The sound she makes was accomplished (and the tip is about this) by extending the IPA vowel plane along the imaginary axis to produce the complex vowels.<br />
<br />
In phonetics based on the {{w|International Phonetic Alphabet}} (IPA), the space of {{w|vocal tract}} articulators determining {{w|vowel}}s <!-- (as opposed to unvoiced consonants) -- nasals and liquids don't care where the tongue is, in any language {acn} --> is represented as two-dimensional, from the position of the tongue. The vertical axis represents vowel height or ''closedness'' (i.e., how close or far the tongue is from the top of the mouth), and the horizontal axis represents front-to-back ''place'' (i.e., how close or far the top of the tongue is from the teeth.) The position of the tongue, along with the frequency of the {{w|vocal cords}} vibrating in the larynx from air being exhaled by the diaphragm, are the primary determinants of the fundamental and second {{w|formant}}s of vowel sounds.<br />
<br />
A third dimension of vowel sounds is the "roundedness" of the lips, represented on the IPA vowel chart to the right by pairs of vowel phoneme {{w|glyph}}s. Other higher-dimensional vowel representations include {{w|diphthong}}s, which are simply two different sequential vowels slurred together; diphones, which represent the last half of one phoneme followed by the first half of the next; {{w|vowel shift}} mappings delineating different accents[https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/47086396.pdf][https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0095447010000562] and long-term evolution of voiced phone sounds; and {{w|cepstrum|cepstral}} representations such as {{w|Mel-frequency cepstrum|mel-frequency cepstral coefficients}}.<br />
<br />
[[Randall]] suggests increasing the range of vowel sounds available by using complex notation to indicate an additional dimension with an "imaginary" axis. In mathematics, {{w|complex number}}s are numbers including both real numbers and {{w|imaginary number}}s. A complex number can be expressed as, "''a'' + ''b''i," where ''a'' and ''b'' are real numbers, but the latter imaginary part is combined with 'i,' the square root of negative one, as depicted in the central expression in the comic by √-̅1̅, indicating a further dimension of coordinates. When expanding the one-dimensional number line with an imaginary axis, it becomes two-dimensional with the "''b''i" component {{w|orthogonal}} to the original "real" number line. Linguists never use the {{w|complex plane}} to represent vowel roundedness or any other higher-dimensional features of phonemes, although the properties of complex numbers could conceivably support representing physiological features of the vocal tract, such as prior position of the articulators.{{cn}}<br />
<br />
This comic conflates complex numbers in mathematics with "complex vowels" in linguistics. Such complex vowels are implied to create sounds which cannot be properly processed by the human brain, represented graphically as {{w|Zalgo text}} IPA, similarly to the cliché of "black speech" in {{w|Lovecraftian horror}}, a language created by alien beings with different vocal patterns than humans. In reality, people find Zalgo text amusing, thus the humor of the comic, but not particularly insanity-inducing or even more than mildly confusing.{{cn}} This is also funny because unadorned IPA shares some characteristics with Zalgo text, such as extremely uncommon glyphs and weird {{w|diacritics}}.<br />
<br />
In linguistics, 'ə' is the {{w|schwa}} symbol, referred to in the title text and the depiction of complex phonemes, the most common vowel sound in English polysyllabic words (the 'a' in "comma" or the second 'e' in "letter.") Production of the schwa sound takes place with the tongue, jaw, and lips all in a relaxed, central position; However, it is clearly not the normal schwa sound but the one moved into the complex vowel plane by using all letters in the word twice with a diacritic on top: "ṡṡċċḣḣẇẇȧȧ". To pronounce this sound Randall suggest you just say it like the X in Fire. This of course makes no sense in the normal world, since there is no x in fire, but in the complex vowel plane there might be, and you just say it like that X. This is of course in line with the idea that the complex sounds are incomprehensible for the human ear, and most likely also impossible to pronounce for anyone other than [[:Category:Comics featuring Gretchen McCulloch|Gretchen]].<br />
<br />
Another example of weird diacritics is in [[2619: Crêpe]], and with Zalgo text in [[1647: Diacritics]]. The use of typography to create psychological stress is explored in [[859: (]].<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
<br />
:[A diagram shows the extrusion of the trapezoidal IPA vowel chart upwards into three dimensions. A point near the center is labeled with an equation that shows "ə + <sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub>√-̅1̅ " as being equivalent to a made-up symbol that looks like two schwas mirroring each other with other markings above and below.]<br />
<br />
:[Below the diagram, a character with shoulder-length dark wavy hair pronounces the new vowel in a speech bubble with unstable lines surrounding it. Two bystanders to her right are bent over slightly, clutching their heads in apparent anguish.]<br />
<br />
:[Caption below the panel:]<br />
:Linguistics tip: Extend the IPA vowel plane along the imaginary axis to produce the ''complex vowels'', cursed sounds which the human mind cannot comprehend.<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
[[Category:Tips]]<br />
[[Category:Language]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Gretchen McCulloch]]</div>172.70.91.78https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2657:_Complex_Vowels&diff=2925792657: Complex Vowels2022-08-11T21:50:48Z<p>172.70.91.78: /* Explanation */ Talking about complex number-space, not the IPA+i space, but worded it so that it can be understood to add another dimension atop of what you start with, which may satisfy some people better.</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 2657<br />
| date = August 10, 2022<br />
| title = Complex Vowels<br />
| image = complex_vowels.png<br />
| titletext = Pronouncing [ṡṡċċḣḣẇẇȧȧ] is easy; you just say it like the 'x' in 'fire'.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|Created by a ROUNDED TONGUE. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
<br />
[[File:Ipa-chart-vowels.png|thumb|200px|The standard IPA vowel chart.]]<br />
<br />
This is another one of Randall's [[:Category:Tips|Tips]], this time a Linguistics Tip.<br />
<br />
In phonetics based on the {{w|International Phonetic Alphabet}} (IPA), the space of {{w|vocal tract}} articulators determining {{w|vowel}}s <!-- (as opposed to unvoiced consonants) -- nasals and liquids don't care where the tongue is, in any language {acn} --> is represented as two-dimensional, from the position of the tongue. The vertical axis represents vowel height or ''closedness'' (i.e., how close or far the tongue is from the top of the mouth), and the horizontal axis represents front-to-back ''place'' (i.e., how close or far the top of the tongue is from the teeth.) The position of the tongue, along with the frequency of the {{w|vocal cords}} vibrating in the larynx from air being exhaled by the diaphragm, are the primary determinants of the fundamental and second {{w|formant}}s of vowel sounds.<br />
<br />
A third dimension of vowel sounds is the "roundedness" of the lips, and to a much lesser extent the tongue and cheeks, which is represented on the IPA vowel chart to the right by pairs of vowel phoneme {{w|glyph}}s. Other higher-dimensional vowel representations include {{w|diphthong}}s, which are simply two different sequential vowels slurred together; diphones, which represent the last half of one phoneme followed by the first half of the next; the {{w|vowel shift}} mappings delineating different accents[https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/47086396.pdf][https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0095447010000562] and long-term evolution of voiced phone sounds; and {{w|cepstrum|cepstral}} representations such as {{w|Mel-frequency cepstrum|mel-frequency cepstral coefficients}}.<br />
<br />
[[Randall]] suggests increasing the range of vowel sounds available by using complex notation to indicate an additional dimension using an 'imaginary' axis. In mathematics, {{w|complex number}}s are numbers including both real numbers and {{w|imaginary number}}s. A complex number can be expressed as, "''a'' + ''b''i," where ''a'' and ''b'' are real numbers, but the latter imaginary part is combined with 'i,' the square root of negative one, as depicted in the central expression in the comic by √-1, indicating a further dimension of coordinates. When expanding the one-dimensional number line with an imaginary axis, it becomes two-dimensional with the "''b''i" component orthogonal to the original "real" number line. Linguists never use the {{w|complex plane}} to represent vowel roundedness or any other higher-dimensional features of phonemes.{{cn}}<br />
<br />
This comic conflates complex numbers in mathematics with "complex vowels" in linguistics. Such complex vowels are implied to create sounds which cannot be properly processed by the human brain, represented graphically as {{w|Zalgo text}} IPA, similarly to the cliché of "black speech" in {{w|Lovecraftian horror}}, a language created by alien beings with different vocal patterns than humans. In reality, people find Zalgo text amusing, thus the humor of the comic, but not particularly insanity-inducing or even more than mildly confusing.{{cn}} This is also funny because unadorned IPA shares some characteristics with Zalgo text, such as extremely uncommon glyphs and weird {{w|diacritics}}.<br />
<br />
In linguistics, 'ə' is the {{w|schwa}} symbol, referred to in the title text as well as the depiction of complex phonemes, the most common vowel sound in English polysyllabic words (the 'a' in "comma" or the second 'e' in "letter.") Production of the schwa sound takes place with the tongue, jaw, and lips all in a relaxed, central position; and certainly sounds nothing like the 'x' in "fire", because "fire" doesn't contain the letter 'x.' This is a metaphor to -1 originally not having a square root, but being able to extend the real functions analytically to complex parameters and results. There is one unique such function and the new mathematics is consistent.<br />
<br />
Another example of weird diacritics is in [[2619: Crêpe]], and with Zalgo text in [[1647: Diacritics]]. The linguist in the comic appears to be {{w|Gretchen McCulloch}}, as previously depicted in [[2421: Tower of Babel]] and [[2381: The True Name of the Bear]]. The use of typography to create psychological stress is explored in [[859: (]].<br />
<br />
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]).<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
<br />
:[A diagram shows the extrusion of the trapezoidal IPA vowel chart upwards into three dimensions. A point near the center is labeled with an equation that shows "ə + <sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub>√-1" as being equivalent to a made-up symbol that looks like two schwas mirroring each other with other markings above and below.]<br />
<br />
:[Below the diagram, a character with shoulder-length dark wavy hair pronounces the new vowel in a speech bubble with unstable lines surrounding it. Two bystanders to her right are bent over slightly, clutching their heads in apparent anguish.]<br />
<br />
:[Caption below the panel:]<br />
:Linguistics tip: Extend the IPA vowel plane along the imaginary axis to produce ''complex vowels'', cursed sounds which the human mind cannot comprehend.<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
[[Category:Tips]]<br />
[[Category:Language]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Gretchen McCulloch]]</div>172.70.91.78https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2502:_Every_Data_Table&diff=2925712502: Every Data Table2022-08-11T14:56:14Z<p>172.70.91.78: Undo revision 292569 by 162.158.62.19 (talk) It'd be a better joke if it weren't in a sentence with two "not"s that already makes the tone strange. Adding sarcasm on top makes it weirder.</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 2502<br />
| date = August 13, 2021<br />
| title = Every Data Table<br />
| image = every data table.png<br />
| titletext = I'm hoping 2022 is relatively normal because I don't know what symbol comes after the asterisk and the dagger.<br />
| imagesize =<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
This comic is another entry in a [[:Category:COVID-19|series of comics]] related to the {{w|COVID-19 pandemic}}.<br />
<br />
It shows a future data table with one entry for each year from 2017 to 2024, so this table is made at least three years after publication of the comic (presuming it does not depict some form of advanced estimation of trends). The only discernible differences across the eight years are that two years have footnotes as in 2020* and 2021<sup>†</sup>, whereas the other six years have not.<br />
<br />
Sometimes a symbol such as an asterisk (*) or a dagger (†, also called an obelus or obelisk) is used to denote an unusual entry in a table to be explained in a footnote with a matching symbol. <br />
<br />
The COVID-19 pandemic has had a large impact on the entire world and one way this can be seen is through strange stats resulting from the effects of the pandemic, at least in 2020 and 2021, the years marked with footnote in the data table. Various statistics such as employment statistics, spending power, holiday miles, pet ownership, births (or at least conceptions), and&mdash;naturally&mdash;deaths may have been either grossly suppressed/increased for the majority of 2020, and for 2021 may have hardly recovered, partially recovered, renormalized, bounced back with a vengeance or be over-compensated for in the effort to catch up. <br />
<br />
Thus Randall concludes that "every data table" will look like this one from now on, hence the title of the comic.<br />
<br />
In the title text [[Randall]] states that he hopes 2022 is relatively normal. Comically, he doesn't mainly hope for this because he wants the COVID-19 pandemic to end, but rather because he doesn't know what footnote symbol to use after the asterisk and the dagger. <br />
<br />
It is hard to know what 2022 might be like. At the time of this comic's publication in August 2021, nothing is exactly back to normal and proper recovery or the resulting compensatory readjustment may not have concluded in time for 2022 to reflect the trends expected based upon pre-2020 figures, and the additional further years that future statistics will record.<br />
<br />
Common symbols that are used after the asterisk and dagger include the double dagger (‡), the section symbol/silcrow (§), the parallel/double-pipe (‖) and the paragraph symbol/pilcrow (¶). Alternately one could use multiple symbols (such as †† or ***) or superscript numbers (¹, ², ³ ...).<br />
<br />
Unrelated to the usage as English footnote characters, the asterisk and dagger symbol are used in German mainly as the shorthand "genealogic signs" to express "born" and "died" respectively (e.g. in encyclopaedias, as the German terms are three-syllable words for both and need to be shortened), so a person that is 2020(*) and 2021(†) would have been alive for only about a year, depending on the months. This symbology is also used on some tomb stones. An optimistic view is the "birth" and "death" of the coronavirus {{w|SARS-CoV-2}}, which would also understandably result in uncertainty on the next symbol in this order, for 2022. Pessimists in this context might suggest to use ∞, which is the symbol for infinity.<br />
<br />
Similarly, in biology, an asterisk marks a species (or genus, etc...) that is possibly extinct and a dagger is used to note the possible extinction. (Double asterisks indicate taxa believed to be extinct in the wild but known to be extant in cultivation). This of course does not fit well with SARS-CoV-2, which is not close to extinction.<br />
<br />
Randall seems not to have noticed the potential {{w|monkey's paw}} nature of his wish. "Relative" requires a comparison between things. It could be that the whole fall-out of the pandemic becomes the new normal, and future years have no necessity to use symbols to explain how those years come to be like everyone knows they are, while dates before 2020 will be entirely understood as the old normal. Only 2020 and 2021 may need contextual clarifying, due to their nature as a transition from the old normal to the new normal.<br />
<br />
== Transcript ==<br />
:[A data table is shown with eight years given. After each year is a series of dots, followed by illegible squiggles. The table is slanted compared to the panel, and closely cropped so it's impossible to tell how far the squiggles might extend or what other years might be included beyond the eight shown. Two of the years are marked with symbols indicating unseen footnotes.]<br />
:2017.......<br />
:2018....... <br />
:2019....... <br />
:2020*...... <br />
:2021<span style="font-family: serif;"><sup>†</sup></span>.......<br />
:2022....... <br />
:2023....... <br />
:2024.......<br />
<br />
:[Caption below the panel:]<br />
:Every data table from now on<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:COVID-19]]<br />
[[Category:Statistics]]</div>172.70.91.78https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:2654:_Chemtrails&diff=292019Talk:2654: Chemtrails2022-08-04T12:50:47Z<p>172.70.91.78: </p>
<hr />
<div><!--Please sign your posts with ~~~~ and don't delete this text. New comments should be added at the bottom.--><br />
Ants navigate by following trails of chemicals on the ground, so it is ''technically'' a correct description, but also lumps ant navigation entomologists with conspiracy nuts.--[[User:NyanSequitur|NyanSequitur]] ([[User talk:NyanSequitur|talk]]) 16:01, 3 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:The point is that scientists don't call these trails "chemtrails". Cueball has made that mistaken link. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 16:05, 3 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
I must say that the title-text made me laugh out loud the most. (Also, though I'm sure there's no direct or even impliable link, made me fondly recall Aunt Hillary in {{w|Gödel, Escher, Bach}}, where she does not control or particularly care for her ants and they don't pull ''her'' strings in any way that they 'care' about.) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.250|162.158.158.250]] 16:26, 3 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:But doesn't the queen spread pheromones that control the whole population, and she is not outside thus not affected by the trails left by her workers. So it is not actually so with ants, wasps, bees and termites that they are actually mind controlled by chemicals released by their government? If I'm right the title text is completely wrong on all levels. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 07:33, 4 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
::Obviously the queen can't be directly affected by signals left outside the nest, but equally, workers outside the nest can't be affected by signals from the queen (except inasmuch as they are mediated by other members of the colony). And the queen's behaviour can be modulated by pheromones released inside the nest - such as increasing or decreasing fertility, or changing the pheromones she releases in response. Ultimately, the queen, like any other ant, can only influence the behaviour of those around her, and only does so in response to signals she herself receives - not in some kind of command control, dictatorial way. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.5|172.70.85.5]] 09:07, 4 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Can't quite remember which, but I think there was another comic formatted like this. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.254.165|172.70.254.165]] 17:46, 3 August 2022 (UTC)Nafedalbi<br />
:It was [[2036:_Edgelord|2036, the one about graph theory Ph.Ds]]. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.178.103|172.70.178.103]] 18:00, 3 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Does the caption have any relation to [[2609:_Entwives]]? I came to this explainxkcd page after reading the comic because I am not familiar with the word "entomologists". I hope somebody who knows the word can add a paragraph about the caption. --[[User:Batterystaple|Batterystaple]] ([[User talk:Batterystaple|talk]]) 07:30, 4 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:No, as you can see from the explanation entomologists is one who study insects and this word has been used before in xkcd for that meaning. Nothing to do with Ents. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 07:34, 4 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Do we need new categories for ants and for chemtrails? I found three other with chemtrails, added to the explanation and I think there is a bunch of ants comics. Added one with an ant researcher as here. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 07:33, 4 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Regarding [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2654:_Chemtrails&diff=291978&oldid=291977], there's no need for a trivia section, just put those four links in otherwise empty squarebrackets after the first sentence of that paragraph. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.211.88|172.70.211.88]] 11:21, 4 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
"Whether ant-gland secretion signalling is Turing-equivalent was explored in Douglas Hofstadter's Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid" and the Placebo video are trivia, but reasons explaining why the term may be annoying are speculation. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.33.223|172.69.33.223]] 11:37, 4 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
As far as I can tell, there are three (possibly four) separate editorships that have tried to impose changes to the article in parallel, more or less. Individually quite sensible (I don't agree completely with all of them, but we're no hive-mind so of course I needn't!) but has created a strange flurry of upheavel. I'm certainly not fighting all my own hills. - Though note that I particularly dislike inexplicable bare-[]ed references in this context, especially if it results in <nowiki>[11][12][13][14]</nowiki> type reflinks interupting the flow. I'd rather like to make context-labelled inline links, as part of a proper sentence, for as many holdovers as we can anong those we end up with. But later, maybe. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.5|172.70.85.5]] 12:10, 4 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
: Those [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2654:_Chemtrails&diff=291979&oldid=291978 trivial and speculative links to ant navigation] sources were silly. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.211.90|172.70.211.90]] 12:32, 4 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:: I thought so at first, but someone seemed determined that they'd return (from my excisement) so I did the Trivia thing on their behalf, which yet another person decided was a Speculation and then I observed a full-on-battle between multiple editorships. I'm not sure your removal (I assume, without yet checking you're referencing what I think you are) will stay removed. But not by my hand.<br />
:: Incidentally: a number of times I see "grammar" as an edit summary when it's just a [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2654:_Chemtrails&oldid=292013 rephrasing between two different perfectly valid grammatical forms] (<- just the latest example of many, over the years, not at all picking on that as the 'worst'). Acceptable change, but wrong reasoning. Just sayin'... Not batting for either side on these debates, but can't help being a spectator. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.13|172.70.85.13]] 12:42, 4 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
<br />
I want to discuss this, which I just removed from the Trivia section: "Chemical signalling for mind control is depicted in the ant-technology interaction speculative fiction-themed rock music video by the band ''Placebo'' entitled [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fISvc-yUU1A "Infrared."] While the video is on-topic because it shows a technocratic, plutocratic, or oligarchical conspiracy being toppled by ants, does it depict any chemical signalling? There is a chemical ligand shown at one point, but is that part of a signalling process, an epigenetic effect (the ligand is shown attached to nucleic acid), some other physiological process such as a pharmaceutical study, or just an analytical study unrelated to the wealthy conspirators' propaganda efforts, which are shown as primarily electronic? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.214.185|172.70.214.185]] 12:43, 4 August 2022 (UTC)<br />
:Yes, seemed a stretch of logic to me, just from the link description. Was going to view it – in case it was a Rick Roll or something – but others seemed to confirm it at least wasn't that as it got shuffled around in and out of various contexts. Shall I just say that it's potentially interesting but probably not requisite to understanding the comic, with so much more obvious Explanation stuff. I'm sure I'll enjoy watching it later. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.78|172.70.91.78]] 12:50, 4 August 2022 (UTC)</div>172.70.91.78https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2653:_Omnitaur&diff=2916882653: Omnitaur2022-08-02T08:49:52Z<p>172.70.91.78: /* Explanation */</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 2653<br />
| date = August 1, 2022<br />
| title = Omnitaur<br />
| image = omnitaur.png<br />
| titletext = "My parents were both omnitaurs, which is how I got interested in recombination," said the normal human.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|Created by AN OMNITAUR-HUMAN HYBRID - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
Omnitaur is an {{w|anagram}} of {{w|minotaur}}, a mythical creature that was part man, part bull. "{{wiktionary|omni}}" is a prefix that means "all". The word is for instance known from the word {{w|omnivore}}, meaning all eating as compared to {{w|carnivore}} or {{w|herbivore}} (only eating meat or plant respectively). Given the combinations of animals used to create the omnitaur, it could be expected that it was also an omnivore.<br />
<br />
An "omnitaur" would suggest that it would encompass all real and mythical creatures, and appears to be a hybrid or {{w|Chimera (genetics)|genetic chimera}} combined from 11 different creatures: {{w|Fish}}, {{w|lion}}, {{w|snake}}, {{w|shark}} (also a fish), {{w|bull}}, {{w|dragon}} (another mythical creature), {{w|horse}}, {{w|leopard}}, {{w|Sheep|ram}} (male sheep), {{w|human}} and {{w|bird}}.<br />
<br />
In addition to the minotaur, many other potential inspirations can be found in mythology, like the {{w|centaur}}, which has the upper body of a human and the lower body and legs of a horse; the {{w|manticore}}, with a body of a lion and human face; a {{w|griffin}}, with a lion's body and a eagle's head; a {{w|mermaid}}, with a lower-body of a fish and upper body of a human; a {{w|Hippocampus (mythology)|hippocampus}}, with the upper body of a horse and a lower body of a fish; a {{w|qilin}}, with a body that resembles both a horse and a dragon; or the mythological {{w|chimera (mythology)|chimera}}, for which the genetic chimera is named, which has lion, snake, and goat body parts. Ultimately, there are {{w|List of hybrid creatures in folklore|lots of hybrid creatures in mythology}}, so without word from [[Randall]] you're free to make your own conclusions.<br />
<br />
The title text is a comment by a human whose parents were both omnitaurs. It would be strange that such parents would not produce offspring that was still omnitaur. Hence the "normal" human says "My parents were both omnitaurs, which is how I got interested in recombination". This references {{w|genetic recombination}}, which is the exchange of genetic material between different organisms which leads to production of offspring with combinations of traits that differ from those found in either parent. The human thus has become interested in this, to find out if that could explain how the omnitaur parents could have ordinary human offspring. Since we don't understand omnitaur genetics, we can't evaluate whether that is a plausible claim. But since it seems to be only 1/11 human, the odds are 1/11 x 1/11 = 1/121 for getting a only human offspring, if it was simply a matter of the math... Of course if it worked like that, it would be hard to explain how a creature consisting of 11 different animal came into existence in the first place.<br />
<br />
It is interesting that Randall chooses to mention fish and shark, given that sharks are fish, and he for sure knows this. It would have been like saying mammal for the lion part and then horse later... Also funny he includes dragons, since all the other animals are real animals.<br />
<br />
In {{w|C. S. Lewis}}' {{w|The Chronicles of Narnia}}, the {{w|Magical_creatures_in_The_Chronicles_of_Narnia#Centaurs|centaurs}} are depicted eating two meals - a huge roast meal "to satisfy the man stomach" and a meal of grass "to satisfy the horse stomach", making it take quite some time for them to eat every morning. This could further support that the omnitaur is an omnivore. But given that there are still only need for two stomachs, one for grass and one for most other stuff, it may not take longer for the omnitaur to eat than for the Centaur. Although the bird beak may slow down the process quite a bit.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:[A creature, the Omnitaur, is shown. It is a four legged animal divided into 11 segments, each segments is from a different animal. An arrow goes to each section from a label, most of the labels are above the animal, but the fourth and seventh segments labels are below the animal. The animal has a fish tail and cat like hind legs. The torso is divided into four segments, the first and last of these with scales, but only the last of these also with sharp scales at the top. The second torso segment is white and smooth, the third also white but with hair both above and below, those above merges with the sharp scales of the fourth torso segment. The front legs are horse like, the lower neck is from an animal with dark spots, the upper neck has rams horns, which goes over in the central part of a human head, with ears and hair (drawn like a real human, not like a xkcd stick figure) and finally the front of the face is a bird with its eyes and a beak shown. The labels are given here in the order of the segment of the animal from the back to the front (disregarding weather the label is written above or below the animal:]<br />
:Fish<br />
:Lion<br />
:Snake<br />
:Shark<br />
:Bull<br />
:Dragon<br />
:Horse<br />
:Leopard<br />
:Ram<br />
:Human<br />
:Bird<br />
<br />
:[Caption below the panel:]<br />
:The Omnitaur<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:Animals]]<br />
[[Category:Biology]]</div>172.70.91.78https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2653:_Omnitaur&diff=2916872653: Omnitaur2022-08-02T08:49:23Z<p>172.70.91.78: /* Explanation */</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 2653<br />
| date = August 1, 2022<br />
| title = Omnitaur<br />
| image = omnitaur.png<br />
| titletext = "My parents were both omnitaurs, which is how I got interested in recombination," said the normal human.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|Created by AN OMNITAUR-HUMAN HYBRID - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
Omnitaur is an {{w|anagram}} of {{w|minotaur}}, a mythical creature that was part man, part bull. "{{wiktionary|omni}}" is a prefix that means "all". The word is for instance known from the word {{w|omnivore}}, meaning all eating as compared to {{w|carnivore}} or {{w|herbivore}} (only eating meat or plant respectively). Given the combinations of animals used to create the omnitaur, it could be expected that it was also an omnivore.<br />
<br />
An "omnitaur" would suggest that it would encompass all real and mythical creatures, and appears to be a hybrid or {{w|Chimera (genetics)|genetic chimera}} combined from 11 different creatures: {{w|Fish}}, {{w|lion}}, {{w|snake}}, {{w|shark}} (also a fish), {{w|bull}}, {{w|dragon}} (another mythical creature), {{w|horse}}, {{w|leopard}}, {{w|Sheep|ram}} (male sheep), {{w|human}} and {{w|bird}}.<br />
<br />
In addition to the minotaur, many other potential inspirations can be found in mythology, like the {{w|centaur}}, which has the upper body of a human and the lower body and legs of a horse; the {{w|manticore}}, with a body of a lion and human face; a {{w|griffin}}, with a lion's body and a eagle's head; a {{w|mermaid}}, with a lower-body of a fish and upper body of a human; a {{w|Hippocampus (mythology)|hippocampus}}, with the upper body of a horse and a lower body of a fish; a {{w|qilin}}, with a body that resembles both a horse and a dragon; or the mythological {{w|chimera (mythology)|chimera}}, for which the genetic chimera is named, which has lion, snake, and goat body parts. Ultimately, there are {{w|List of hybrid creatures in folklore|lots of hybrid creatures in mythology}}, so without word from [[Randall]] you're free to make your own conclusions.<br />
<br />
The title text is a comment by a human whose parents were both omnitaurs. It would be strange that such parents would not produce offspring that was still omnitaur. Hence the "normal" human says "My parents were both omnitaurs, which is how I got interested in recombination. This references {{w|genetic recombination}}, which is the exchange of genetic material between different organisms which leads to production of offspring with combinations of traits that differ from those found in either parent. The human thus has become interested in this, to find out if that could explain how the omnitaur parents could have ordinary human offspring. Since we don't understand omnitaur genetics, we can't evaluate whether that is a plausible claim. But since it seems to be only 1/11 human, the odds are 1/11 x 1/11 = 1/121 for getting a only human offspring, if it was simply a matter of the math... Of course if it worked like that, it would be hard to explain how a creature consisting of 11 different animal came into existence in the first place.<br />
<br />
It is interesting that Randall chooses to mention fish and shark, given that sharks are fish, and he for sure knows this. It would have been like saying mammal for the lion part and then horse later... Also funny he includes dragons, since all the other animals are real animals.<br />
<br />
In {{w|C. S. Lewis}}' {{w|The Chronicles of Narnia}}, the {{w|Magical_creatures_in_The_Chronicles_of_Narnia#Centaurs|centaurs}} are depicted eating two meals - a huge roast meal "to satisfy the man stomach" and a meal of grass "to satisfy the horse stomach", making it take quite some time for them to eat every morning. This could further support that the omnitaur is an omnivore. But given that there are still only need for two stomachs, one for grass and one for most other stuff, it may not take longer for the omnitaur to eat than for the Centaur. Although the bird beak may slow down the process quite a bit.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:[A creature, the Omnitaur, is shown. It is a four legged animal divided into 11 segments, each segments is from a different animal. An arrow goes to each section from a label, most of the labels are above the animal, but the fourth and seventh segments labels are below the animal. The animal has a fish tail and cat like hind legs. The torso is divided into four segments, the first and last of these with scales, but only the last of these also with sharp scales at the top. The second torso segment is white and smooth, the third also white but with hair both above and below, those above merges with the sharp scales of the fourth torso segment. The front legs are horse like, the lower neck is from an animal with dark spots, the upper neck has rams horns, which goes over in the central part of a human head, with ears and hair (drawn like a real human, not like a xkcd stick figure) and finally the front of the face is a bird with its eyes and a beak shown. The labels are given here in the order of the segment of the animal from the back to the front (disregarding weather the label is written above or below the animal:]<br />
:Fish<br />
:Lion<br />
:Snake<br />
:Shark<br />
:Bull<br />
:Dragon<br />
:Horse<br />
:Leopard<br />
:Ram<br />
:Human<br />
:Bird<br />
<br />
:[Caption below the panel:]<br />
:The Omnitaur<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:Animals]]<br />
[[Category:Biology]]</div>172.70.91.78https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2653:_Omnitaur&diff=2916862653: Omnitaur2022-08-02T08:42:50Z<p>172.70.91.78: /* Explanation */</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 2653<br />
| date = August 1, 2022<br />
| title = Omnitaur<br />
| image = omnitaur.png<br />
| titletext = "My parents were both omnitaurs, which is how I got interested in recombination," said the normal human.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|Created by AN OMNITAUR-HUMAN HYBRID - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
Omnitaur is an {{w|anagram}} of {{w|minotaur}}, a mythical creature that was part man, part bull. "{{wiktionary|omni}}" is a prefix that means "all". The word is for instance known from the word {{w|omnivore}}, meaning all eating as compared to {{w|carnivore}} or {{w|herbivore}} (only eating meat or plant respectively). Given the combinations of animals used to create the omnitaur, it could be expected that it was also an omnivore.<br />
<br />
An "omnitaur" would suggest that it would encompass all real and mythical creatures, and appears to be a hybrid or {{w|Chimera (genetics)|genetic chimera}} combined from 11 different creatures: {{w|Fish}}, {{w|lion}}, {{w|snake}}, {{w|shark}} (also a fish), {{w|bull}}, {{w|dragon}} (another mythical creature), {{w|horse}}, {{w|leopard}}, {{w|Sheep|ram}} (male sheep), {{w|human}} and {{w|bird}}.<br />
<br />
In addition to the minotaur, many other potential inspirations can be found in mythology, like the {{w|centaur}}, which has the upper body of a human and the lower body and legs of a horse; the {{w|manticore}}, with a body of a lion and human face; a {{w|griffin}}, with a lion's body and a eagle's head; a {{w|mermaid}}, with a lower-body of a fish and upper body of a human; a {{w|Hippocampus (mythology)|hippocampus}}, with the upper body of a horse and a lower body of a fish; a {{w|qilin}}, with a body that resembles both a horse and a dragon; or the mythological {{w|chimera (mythology)|chimera}}, for which the genetic chimera is named, which has lion, snake, and goat body parts. Ultimately, there are {{w|List of hybrid creatures in folklore|lots of hybrid creatures in mythology}}, so without word from [[Randall]] you're free to make your own conclusions.<br />
<br />
The title text is a comment said by a human whose parents both where omnitaurs. This would be strange that such parents would not get offspring that was still omnitaur. Hence the "normal" human says "My parents were both omnitaurs, which is how I got interested in recombination. This references {{w|genetic recombination}}, which is the exchange of genetic material between different organisms which leads to production of offspring with combinations of traits that differ from those found in either parent. The human thus has become interested in this, to find out if that could explain how the omnitaur parents could have ordinary human offspring. Since we don't understand omnitaur genetics, we can't evaluate whether that is a plausible claim. But since it seems to be only 1/11 human, the odds are 1/11 x 1/11 = 1/121 for getting a only human offspring, if it was simply a matter of the math... Of course if it worked like that, it would be hard to explain how a creature consisting of 11 different animal came into existence in the first place.<br />
<br />
It is interesting that Randall chooses to mention fish and shark, given that sharks are fish, and he for sure knows this. It would have been like saying mammal for the lion part and then horse later... Also funny he includes dragons, since all the other animals are real animals.<br />
<br />
In {{w|C. S. Lewis}}' {{w|The Chronicles of Narnia}}, the {{w|Magical_creatures_in_The_Chronicles_of_Narnia#Centaurs|centaurs}} are depicted eating two meals - a huge roast meal "to satisfy the man stomach" and a meal of grass "to satisfy the horse stomach", making it take quite some time for them to eat every morning. This could further support that the omnitaur is an omnivore. But given that there are still only need for two stomachs, one for grass and one for most other stuff, it may not take longer for the omnitaur to eat than for the Centaur. Although the bird beak may slow down the process quite a bit.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:[A creature, the Omnitaur, is shown. It is a four legged animal divided into 11 segments, each segments is from a different animal. An arrow goes to each section from a label, most of the labels are above the animal, but the fourth and seventh segments labels are below the animal. The animal has a fish tail and cat like hind legs. The torso is divided into four segments, the first and last of these with scales, but only the last of these also with sharp scales at the top. The second torso segment is white and smooth, the third also white but with hair both above and below, those above merges with the sharp scales of the fourth torso segment. The front legs are horse like, the lower neck is from an animal with dark spots, the upper neck has rams horns, which goes over in the central part of a human head, with ears and hair (drawn like a real human, not like a xkcd stick figure) and finally the front of the face is a bird with its eyes and a beak shown. The labels are given here in the order of the segment of the animal from the back to the front (disregarding weather the label is written above or below the animal:]<br />
:Fish<br />
:Lion<br />
:Snake<br />
:Shark<br />
:Bull<br />
:Dragon<br />
:Horse<br />
:Leopard<br />
:Ram<br />
:Human<br />
:Bird<br />
<br />
:[Caption below the panel:]<br />
:The Omnitaur<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:Animals]]<br />
[[Category:Biology]]</div>172.70.91.78https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2653:_Omnitaur&diff=2916852653: Omnitaur2022-08-02T08:41:11Z<p>172.70.91.78: /* Explanation */</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 2653<br />
| date = August 1, 2022<br />
| title = Omnitaur<br />
| image = omnitaur.png<br />
| titletext = "My parents were both omnitaurs, which is how I got interested in recombination," said the normal human.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|Created by AN OMNITAUR-HUMAN HYBRID - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
Omnitaur is an {{w|anagram}} of {{w|minotaur}}, a mythical creature that was part man, part bull. "{{wiktionary|omni}}" is a prefix that means "all". The word is for instance known from the word {{w|omnivore}}, meaning all eating as compared to {{w|carnivore}} or {{w|herbivore}} (only eating meat or plant respectively). Given the combinations of animals used to create the omnitaur, it could be expected that it was also an omnivore.<br />
<br />
An "omnitaur" would suggest that it would encompass all real and mythical creatures, and appears to be a hybrid or {{w|Chimera (genetics)|genetic chimera}} combined from 11 different creatures: {{w|Fish}}, {{w|lion}}, {{w|snake}}, {{w|shark}} (also a fish), {{w|bull}}, {{w|dragon}} (another mythical creature), {{w|horse}}, {{w|leopard}}, {{w|Sheep|ram}} (male sheep), {{w|human}} and {{w|bird}}.<br />
<br />
In addition to the minotaur, many other inspirations can be found in mythology like the {{w|centaur}}, which has the upper body of a human and the lower body and legs of a horse; the {{w|manticore}} with a body of a lion and human face; a {{w|griffin}} with a lion's body and a eagle's head; a {{w|mermaid}} with a lower-body of a fish and upper body of a human; a {{w|Hippocampus (mythology)|hippocampus}} with the upper body of a horse and a lower body of a fish; a {{w|qilin}} with a body that resembles both a horse and a dragon; or the mythological {{w|chimera (mythology)|chimera}}, for which the genetic chimera is named, which has lion, snake, and goat body parts; But ultimately there are {{w|List of hybrid creatures in folklore|lots of hybrid creatures in mythology}}, so without word from [[Randall]] you're free to make your own conclusions.<br />
<br />
The title text is a comment said by a human whose parents both where omnitaurs. This would be strange that such parents would not get offspring that was still omnitaur. Hence the "normal" human says "My parents were both omnitaurs, which is how I got interested in recombination. This references {{w|genetic recombination}}, which is the exchange of genetic material between different organisms which leads to production of offspring with combinations of traits that differ from those found in either parent. The human thus has become interested in this, to find out if that could explain how the omnitaur parents could have ordinary human offspring. Since we don't understand omnitaur genetics, we can't evaluate whether that is a plausible claim. But since it seems to be only 1/11 human, the odds are 1/11 x 1/11 = 1/121 for getting a only human offspring, if it was simply a matter of the math... Of course if it worked like that, it would be hard to explain how a creature consisting of 11 different animal came into existence in the first place.<br />
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It is interesting that Randall chooses to mention fish and shark, given that sharks are fish, and he for sure knows this. It would have been like saying mammal for the lion part and then horse later... Also funny he includes dragons, since all the other animals are real animals.<br />
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In {{w|C. S. Lewis}}' {{w|The Chronicles of Narnia}}, the {{w|Magical_creatures_in_The_Chronicles_of_Narnia#Centaurs|centaurs}} are depicted eating two meals - a huge roast meal "to satisfy the man stomach" and a meal of grass "to satisfy the horse stomach", making it take quite some time for them to eat every morning. This could further support that the omnitaur is an omnivore. But given that there are still only need for two stomachs, one for grass and one for most other stuff, it may not take longer for the omnitaur to eat than for the Centaur. Although the bird beak may slow down the process quite a bit.<br />
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==Transcript==<br />
:[A creature, the Omnitaur, is shown. It is a four legged animal divided into 11 segments, each segments is from a different animal. An arrow goes to each section from a label, most of the labels are above the animal, but the fourth and seventh segments labels are below the animal. The animal has a fish tail and cat like hind legs. The torso is divided into four segments, the first and last of these with scales, but only the last of these also with sharp scales at the top. The second torso segment is white and smooth, the third also white but with hair both above and below, those above merges with the sharp scales of the fourth torso segment. The front legs are horse like, the lower neck is from an animal with dark spots, the upper neck has rams horns, which goes over in the central part of a human head, with ears and hair (drawn like a real human, not like a xkcd stick figure) and finally the front of the face is a bird with its eyes and a beak shown. The labels are given here in the order of the segment of the animal from the back to the front (disregarding weather the label is written above or below the animal:]<br />
:Fish<br />
:Lion<br />
:Snake<br />
:Shark<br />
:Bull<br />
:Dragon<br />
:Horse<br />
:Leopard<br />
:Ram<br />
:Human<br />
:Bird<br />
<br />
:[Caption below the panel:]<br />
:The Omnitaur<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:Animals]]<br />
[[Category:Biology]]</div>172.70.91.78https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=687:_Dimensional_Analysis&diff=291615687: Dimensional Analysis2022-08-01T08:56:23Z<p>172.70.91.78: /* Some numbers for this calculation */ Clarify the target. Clarify why (often equally 'honest' but idealised compared to IRL) the advertised figures are rarely what you get/could achieve.</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 687<br />
| date = January 11, 2010<br />
| title = Dimensional Analysis<br />
| image = dimensional_analysis.png<br />
| titletext = Or the pressure at the Earth's core will rise slightly.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
Cueball has a [[My Hobby|hobby]] — showing correct calculations according to the {{w|dimensional analysis}} — but with ridiculous correlations of uncorrelated events and measurements. Here Cueball is giving a talk and uses this trick to ''convince'' his listeners that the {{w|Toyota Prius}} combined {{w|United States Environmental Protection Agency|EPA}} gas mileage is somehow connected to the constant ''{{W|Pi|π}}'' via the {{w|Planck energy}}, the pressure at the {{w|Inner_core|Earth's core}} and the width of the {{w|English Channel}}. <br />
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Scientists — often physicists — use dimensional analysis to quickly check if a given formula can possibly relate to a physical system, because if you end up with an equation claiming that Joules are meters, something is clearly wrong.{{cn}} Dimensional analysis here refers to the check if both sides of the equation arrive at the same physical unit when the units of all variables get plugged into the equation. This requires knowledge of the system of units and the relation between different physical units.<br />
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Cueball uses the following equation to make a mockery of the practice:<br />
<br />
<math>\frac{\text{Planck energy}}{\text{Pressure at the core of the Earth}} \times \frac{\text{Prius combined EPA gas mileage}}{\text{Minimum width of the English Channel}} = \pi</math><br />
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===Dimensional analysis===<br />
The right hand side is dimensionless, it's the constant ''π'' = 3.14... which is defined by the relation of two lengths, the circumference and the diameter of a circle. The left hand side requires to plug in the dimensions of the named physical quantities:<br />
<br />
*Planck energy: given in Joules [J]<br />
*Pressure at the core of the Earth: often given in Pascals [Pa]<br />
** In this case, the relationship is used of 1 Pascal [Pa] = 1 Joule per cubic meter [J/m³]<br />
*Prius combined EPA gas mileage: miles per gallon, given in meters per cubic meter [m/m³]<br />
**Fuel efficiency has two formats that are commonly used: length per volume and volume per length. The former must be used here in order to get the units to cancel correctly.<br />
*Minimum width of the English Channel: given in meters [m]<br />
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When plugged into the left hand side, this amounts to:<br />
<br />
<math>\frac{\text{J}}{\frac{\text{J}}{\text{m}^3}} \times \frac{\frac{\text{m}}{\text{m}^3}}{\text{m}} = \text{m}^3 \times \frac{1}{\text{m}^3} = 1</math><br />
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Note that for dimensional analysis constant factors are not taken into account. Here square brackets are used to denote dimensional analysis. In the above equation the unit of energy (joule) as well as all the unit of volume (cubic meter) cancel out each other.<br />
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Another aspect of the comic is that sometimes dimension analysis of equations that were not derived but rather "made up" can provide insight. However, in reality such an equations would have to be somehow "motivated", which is more of an art than science and requires great experience in the field the equation should relate to. The presented equation combines values that have no immediate causal relation with each other, so it does not make sense. Furthermore, since the values have absolutely no causal relation to each other, the ratios presented are simple coincidence; despite Cueball's claim, building a better Prius would not cause any changes to the English Channel.{{Citation needed}}<br />
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The title text also refers to this, as a higher pressure at Earth's core could also balance the equation, keeping the result constant equal to ''π''. The Planck energy is an absolute, however, so it is not mentioned as a way to balance the next version of Prius.<br />
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===Some numbers for this calculation===<br />
The {{w|Planck energy}} is the only nearly exact value we do have. Compared to other Planck values it is very large (macroscopic).<br />
E_planck = 1.956 x 10<sup>9</sup> J<br />
<br />
Pressure at the {{w|Inner_core#Temperature_and_pressure|core}} of the Earth ranges from 330 to 360 gigapascals.<br />
Using a simple value like this:<br />
P_core = 350 GPa = 3.5 x 10<sup>11</sup> J/m³<br />
<br />
Prius combined {{w|Toyota_Prius#Fuel_economy_and_emissions|EPA gas mileage}}:<br />
For the third generation (from 2010) the City mileage is 51 mpg and the Highway mileage is 48 mpg. But it is the [http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/Find.do?action=sbs&id=26425 combined EPA gas mileage] which is used in the equation and that is 50 miles per gallon.<br />
50 mpg => 21,000,000 m/m³<br />
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Minimum width of the {{w|English Channel}} is about<br />
33.1&nbsp;km = 33,100&nbsp;m<br />
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Calculating from these values you will get ''π'' = 3.54... that is pretty close to ''π'' = 3.14... while using a Planck value. According to Cueball this will be within the experimental error (the combined error for all four numbers - none are exact numbers). For instance if you tried the ePrius you would may get closer to pi — as the distance per fuel quantity in real life usage usually is somewhat lower than the standardised test value advertised — and that would reduce the result.<br />
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[http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%28Planck+Energy%29%2F%28Pressure+at+the+Earth%27s+core%29*%282010+Prius+combined+EPA+Gas+Mileage%29%2F%2833.1+km%29 Wolfram|Alpha can find most of the statistics and do the calculations.]<br />
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==Transcript==<br />
:My Hobby:<br />
:Abusing dimensional analysis<br />
<br />
:[On a blackboard.]<br />
:(Planck energy/Pressure at the Earth's core) x (Prius combined EPA gas mileage/Minimum width of the English Channel) = π<br />
<br />
:[Cueball indicates this equation with a pointer in front of a class.]<br />
:Cueball: It's correct to within experimental error, and the units check out. It must be a fundamental law.<br />
:Student: But what if they build a better Prius?<br />
:Cueball: ''Then England will drift out to sea.''<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]<br />
[[Category:Comics with color]]<br />
[[Category:Comics with inverted brightness]]<br />
[[Category:My Hobby]]<br />
[[Category:Math]]<br />
[[Category:Physics]]<br />
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]</div>172.70.91.78