Talk:2017: Stargazing 2

In the description for the earlier comic, it is quite emphatically asserted that this is not Megan (although it certainly is drawn like her) but is, instead, a male TV host. 172.68.174.28 20:21, 9 July 2018 (UTC)MrBigDog2u

Thanks, but I believe the transcript of the former comic was interpreted false. People are often outlined as male when they are in fact women. AND in this comic it's clearly a female without any doubt. --Dgbrt (talk) 21:11, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

Actually if you go to /1646/info.0.json , you'll find the presenter referred to as he twice. Unless you're saying Megan uses he, it seems unlikely to be a female. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ For what it's worth, I assumed it was a female until I read the explanation for 1644. 162.158.107.37 22:57, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

Two questions about that:

1.) I don't see any use of the word "he" in that transcript. Where do you see that?

2.) Why 1646? Isn't that one with Cueball writing a Twitter bot?

Looking at xkcd.com/1644/info.0.json, xkcd.com/1646/info.0.json, & xkcd.com/2017/info.0.json, I can't find a reference to gender in any of them.

ProphetZarquon (talk) 23:37, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

Hey Zarquon, if you look again at [1], you can see the star guide referenced as “he” a couple times if you carefuread the whole transcript. If alternatively your contribution to this wiki is that of trolling, you are making this rather obvious. If you’re getting different contents for that file than we are, maybe you could upload it to ipfs or something for comparison and tell us the ip addresses that xkcd.com resolves to for you, so that somebody can debug the issue. 162.158.62.243 07:38, 10 July 2018 (UTC)

Is it possible this is meant to be Brian Cox? The hair is right and he's often noted for his enthusiasm. don't know how well known he is in the US, but a nerd like Randall is very likely to know of him --Luckykaa (talk) 07:50, 10 July 2018 (UTC)

It is certainly Brian Cox as was found out in the first Stargazing and as fits with the offical transcript. It is even named after his show. End of story! I have corrected both explanations. Please don't go there DGBRT. This was discussed back then and was concluded to be so. --Kynde (talk) 14:08, 10 July 2018 (UTC)

There is even a triva with the original transcript in the original copmic to make this clear. Read that first! 1644:_Stargazing#Trivia --Kynde (talk) 14:11, 10 July 2018 (UTC)

"Don't bother trying to catch them"??? What stellar object would you catch? Unless this is a reference to asteroid mining? 172.68.90.28 22:47, 9 July 2018 (UTC)SiliconWolf

Those stellar objects are so close compared to all the others, who wouldn't try?? Could you imagine actually meeting another object in this universe of distant interstellar bodies? 172.68.54.46 23:11, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

I assumed that, having described all the goodies in an aircraft, there's a chance that someone might literally try to catch one by jumping in the air (with a suitably poor concept of distance). Or trying to construct some kind of giant butterfly net.141.101.98.250 17:36, 10 July 2018 (UTC)

The Triangle may refer to Summer Triangle It can be found very easily by beginners. 172.68.51.94 12:22, 10 July 2018 (UTC)

Actually, any three non-colinear points make up a triangle so there are an incredibly large number (not infinite, but ...) of triangles formed by combinations of three stars. I would go so far as to speculate that it may not be possible to find three stars that ARE perfectly colinear (certainly not in three dimensions). I think that's sort of the point of the joke.172.68.174.28 16:25, 10 July 2018 (UTC)MrBigDog2u

Is anyone else worried about a reference to shining a light at aircraft? There are decent astronomical reasons to have a moderately (50mW-200mW in my case) powerful laser, since it provides a very visible "pointer" when showing people to bits of the sky (or for lining up a telescope, where you can't see the surroundings easily and amateurs like me can get lost). But there are way too many stories of morons shining lasers at aircraft in an attempt to "cause trouble" (by blinding the pilot and potentially killing hundreds of people in the subsequent crash), so any responsible astronomer would be checking for aircraft in the sky, not doing this anywhere near an airport, and moving the laser in circles to avoid holding it on a target. I don't consider shining a light at a plane to be a topic of amusement.141.101.98.250 17:36, 10 July 2018 (UTC)

I do! And I wonder what would happen to the plane if we tried more power? Hmmm... BytEfLUSh (talk) 19:01, 10 July 2018 (UTC)