Talk:1394: Superm*n

Explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb.
Revision as of 05:27, 15 July 2014 by 173.245.62.62 (talk)
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Wildcard

Excellent description, but minor niggle: In "Superm*n' , the '*' is a wildcard. This isn't a regular expression that would match 'Superman' and Supermoon'. A regexp could be "Superm.*n" - the '.' means 'any character' and the '*' means 'as many times as you like'. (More selective regexps exist) If you were to interpret 'Superm*n' as a regular expression, it would match 'Supern' , 'Supermn', "Supermmn', Supermmmn' etc. So you could describe 'Superm*n' as a 'wildcard search that would match superman and supermoon'. 141.101.99.184 05:11, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

You're approaching this from a very specific context. You may be correct in that context, but there are plenty of different programs, protocols, languages, etc which use wildcards in various ways. I once worked as a 411 operator, and in the search software we used at the time, a search on "SUPERM*N" would have found both "Superman" and "Supermoon" if both of those were names in listings (although our supervisors would consider that too many keystrokes and would suggest "SUP*N" instead). - 108.162.242.10 05:58, 14 July 2014 (UTC)
Oops, looks like I read the initial comment too quickly, didn't realize you were kind of making the same point I wanted to, you were just being more technical about it. Either way, I think the explanation of the wildcard in the article itself should be made vague enough to avoid further threads like this. - 108.162.242.10 06:03, 14 July 2014 (UTC)
It's clearly a Unix shell file glob. Jeremyp (talk) 09:54, 14 July 2014 (UTC)
This form of wildcard is used in the Windows command prompt as well, and is very well known for Windows users. I obviously can't speak for the full XKCD audience, but limiting the scope of that wildcard to Unix seems unnecessarily exclusive. (Wouldn't it be sufficient to just refer to it as a "wildcard" as a generic concept? I mean, You Know You're a Geek When...) KieferSkunk (talk) 20:12, 14 July 2014 (UTC)
Colour

If a Trivia section is warranted for this comic, I think it should definitely be pointed out this is one of the rare strips that uses a colour other than black or white. Is there an available statistic on use of colour in xkcd? - 108.162.242.10 05:58, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

Ya, I'd bite on this one. Jarod997 (talk) 12:20, 14 July 2014 (UTC)
There's a category, Category:Comics with color. --173.245.55.74 13:24, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

In a similar tune to the supermoon, could the sun at perihelion be called a "superstar"? 103.22.201.239 08:36, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

Wouldn't that be the Earth at perihelion? --173.245.52.82 12:33, 14 July 2014 (UTC)
The sun at Earth's perihelion. 108.162.216.9 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)
I was gonna say, does the Earth get 12% larger when it's at perihelion to the sun? :) KieferSkunk (talk) 20:14, 14 July 2014 (UTC)
The sun appears about 3% larger to an observer on Earth at perihelion, compared to the sun we see during aphelion.[1] Not very apparent to the unaided human eye, given the other factors(including seasonal, diurnal and latitudinal variation) that influence our overall perception of the sun. (Not that I'm recommending naked-eye observations of the sun.) 173.245.62.62 05:27, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
Web-slingers

The comment on the title text makes it sound as though Spiderman canonically shoots webs from his body and only in "some adaptations" has a mechanical device that does so. That's backwards. The machine is the original, the biological version is what happens in "some adaptations" (ie, films). 173.245.48.135 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Exactly right. I've edited the description. Also corrected the spelling of Spider-Man. 199.27.133.39 18:16, 14 July 2014 (UTC)