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| Earth Sized Planets |
 Title text: It probably has an icy mantle over the real silicate geology, but I'm hoping something weird happened to burn off most of the water like with Io. |
Explanation
Cueball and Ponytail are discussing the possibility of the new Vera C. Rubin Observatory discovering an Earth-sized object in the far reaches of the Solar System, as one of several so far unsupported hypothetical candidates as the next Planet Nine, or Ten, that might be on the cusp of being discovered. It would have to be very distant, however, since gravitational effects of an Earth-sized object in the vicinity of Pluto should already have been detected.
Cueball is intrigued by Ponytail's initial imagery, of a planet similar to Earth but with internal heat to make up for the limited heat it would be able to receive from the Sun. In his mind, this leads straight to the exciting possibility that it might even harbor life. Ponytail, being a geologist, has another objective in mind. She is more excited by the idea that it might have plate tectonics, which none of the other terrestrial planets have to any significant degree (excluding, perhaps, some of the moons of the gas giants, especially those where there is a possibly mobile ice surface rather than rocky plates such as Earth has).
The title text continues with the geologist's bias towards being interested in rock-based situations (i.e. silicates) by dismissing the presence of water-ice (a possible hint of the presence of liquid water, an assumed prerequisite for life). Though they expect there to be a layer of ice, they would rather that this would somehow go away in order that the 'real surface' could be studied properly. Ironically, based on our current understanding of plate tectonics, the lack of water would prevent "normal" (i.e. earth-like) plate tectonics. Water is needed to lubricate subduction zones, without it oceanic plates could not slide under the continental plates.
This comic may have been inspired by the actual discovery of an "enormous dwarf planet" by the VCRO, although this is still far from being an Earth-sized planet.
Transcript
- [Cueball and Ponytail are walking side by side.]
- Ponytail: If there's an earth-sized object in the outer solar system, the Rubin Observatory should find it soon.
- [Cueball and Ponytail continue to walk, Ponytail raises her left hand a bit.]
- Ponytail: If it's Earth-sized, it might have a rocky surface and internal heat.
- [They stop, and Ponytail turns to face Cueball, raising her arms above her head.]
- Ponytail: If it has a rocky surface and internal heat, it might have-
- Cueball: Life?
- Ponytail: Plate tectonics!
- [They continue walking. Ponytail's hands are out in front of her.]
- Cueball: You geologists have weird priorities.
- Ponytail: Earth just can't be the only one!
This Week's Explanation for Improvement
As part of the Explanation Improvement Project, each week the community selects one older, stagnant, or otherwise neglected explanation to expand and polish together. This week's pick is comic 1334: Second, you can help us by editing its explanation!
To get involved with the project, you can also nominate an explanation that you think should be improved, or vote on current nominations!
| Second |
 Title text: Let me just scroll down and check behind that rock. Annnnd... nope, page copyright year starts with '19'. Oh God, is this a WEBRING? |
Explanation
|
Welcome to This Week's Explanation for Improvement! Anyone is encouraged to help explain comic 1334: Second; click here to get started! If you are new to wiki editing, you can read our editing FAQ for guidance. Here are some suggestions for improving this explanation: .svg){kind=icon} Copyedit the entire explanation!
.svg){kind=icon} Improve the explanation of "webrings", mentioned in the title text
.svg){kind=icon} Maybe we could add the newer developments in the 12 years after this comic was posted, such as the AI summaries and the enshittification of Google results
|
Google Search (or Google) is the most popular search engine on the Internet.[citation needed] A search engine is an application that helps provide hyperlinks to webpages on the Internet in response to a user's query. Google, like most search engines nowadays, use algorithms to sort the list of hyperlinks, usually by relevancy in terms of a user's query, before being paginated into a generated collection of webpages (search engine results page)
Since Google Search is widely regarded as the most accurate and useful search engine thanks to its optimized algorithms, a user can easily find the information they are looking for on the first page of results, given that their search terms were sufficiently detailed. Because of this, it is rare for a user to ever view the second page of Google results, as it would imply that the results a user is looking for is either obscure, non-existent, or was not indexed. This is especially true for users who would rather improve their search query, which can already be done at the top of the first page, than viewing (or perhaps discovering) the link to second page of Google results at the bottom of the first page.
According to a study by Chitika from 2013, 91.5% of all Google results traffic come from the first page, while a measly 4.8% are from the second page. A joke that also spread around, even before this comic's release, is that the second page of Google results is the "best place to hide a dead body".
Cueball taking a desperate peek at the second page of Google results is represented by a not-at-all subtle metaphor in which Cueball is about to wander into a sun-baked desert. He is also told by a talking rock in the desert that he must abandon his search, as the rock claims that the desert yields none of his answers.
According to the title text, however, he ignores the rock and searches further. He shortly finds a vaguely relevant webpage, but rejects it as "the copyright year starts with '19'". This refers to copyright notices that can be included in websites under copyright, which is usually found at the bottom of its webpages. Website copyright notices often include a year that coincides for when the website was last updated, so a year starting with '19' implies that the website was only active before the 2000s. Since Cueball rejected it, perhaps he is looking for a website to be read and used for research purposes, and a website active from the 90s or earlier would likely contain information too outdated to be of any use to him.
After the rejection, Cueball becomes shocked at the sight of a webring navigation bar. A webring is a web directory of links to multiple websites, usually with a common theme and curated by a 'ringmaster'. They connect from one website to the next, eventually leading back to the starting site. Webrings were popularized in the 1990s by the titular webring, "The Webring" (later WebRing). Web directories in general fell out of use with the rise of search engines, so seeing a webring could mean a site has not been updated since then.
Yahoo acquired WebRing in 1999 as part of its acquisition of GeoCities (a popular webhosting service at the time) and rebranded the service as Yahoo! WebRing in 2000, leaving ringmasters "angry" in part because their customizable homepages had been replaced by the design of Yahoo! WebRing. Taking off in the early 2020s, people have been creating new webrings, often in connection to the web hosting service Neocities, launched in 2013 and inspired by GeoCities. At one time, the importance of a webpage was judged partly on the number of pages linking to it; a webring has at least one page (the previous page in the ring) linking to it but often nothing else (if they were notable enough to be otherwise linked, they were less likely to be on a webring), meaning that reaching a webring meant that one had reached the one-incoming-link level of unimportance.
Transcript
- [Cueball in a desert standing before a rock.]
- Rock: Greetings, stranger.
- Rock: Whatever quest drives you, abandon it.
- Rock: You shall find no answers in these desolate wastes.
- Cueball: I knew I wouldn't.
- Cueball: I guess I... just had to see.
- [Caption below the panel:]
- I hate feeling desperate enough to visit the second page of Google results.
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