Difference between revisions of "Talk:2017: Stargazing 2"

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(More on whether it's appropriate to joke about shining lights at aircraft.)
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Does no one else see this as referencing "stars" in the sense of celebrities? That would make sense to me of several of the otherwise bizarre statements here... [[User:Asimong|Asimong]] ([[User talk:Asimong|talk]]) 05:55, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
 
Does no one else see this as referencing "stars" in the sense of celebrities? That would make sense to me of several of the otherwise bizarre statements here... [[User:Asimong|Asimong]] ([[User talk:Asimong|talk]]) 05:55, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
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Contradictory statements- if it's their observatory, the theses must be theirs. Why would they stock their cabinets with other people's theses?

Revision as of 04:36, 13 July 2018

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)
Bullshit. The pronoun "he" does not make him male as a person. That's a stupid preconception, which is perpetuated in the 21st century by a subfaction of feminists, thereby making a fool of themselves. There is no solid hint as to what the actual sex/gender of the figure is, and in this case English language defaults to "he". Maybe Randall indeed thought of Brian Cox, but that's speculation, not basis to infer a gender. And why anyway does it matter?!?!? --162.158.94.44 11:03, 11 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)

Have you ever heard of a pilot noticing having a light shined on them from the ground by a pedestrian? It seems to me planes are so far away the jitter of your hand is going to make actually blinding the pilot a comparable task to blinding a moving housefly the same way. The light will also be much weaker at that distance, and the cockpit would have to be aiming at you. I feep pointing at an aircraft with a laser would be pretty safe, because the plane’s angular size is so much smaller than your precision, and it is moving super fast. 108.162.219.136 19:53, 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)
Pilots blinded by laser are real issue, but only WHEN LANDING or taking off, and therefore in very low attitude. I don't think it's problem in normal cruising altitude. However, if the telescope was in mountains which the airplanes flied over relatively low ... -- Hkmaly (talk) 21:37, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
A traditional flashlight shone at a pilot is unlikely to do much - although there are definitely consumer lights that could be visible at range. Using a telescope sounds more like generating a searchlight (and there are absolutely members of the public who have picked up military searchlights, and who have attracted attention by firing them even carefully). It does depend what's intended, but I think the implication is that the light is bright enough to do something (if only visibly illuminate the plane); shining a searchlight at an aircraft even at moderate distance is likely to be distracting and possibly blinding. Practically, no, I don't think it's a major issue as described. But aircraft are often at fairly low altitude: they take a while to get near to cruising height near me - I work a few miles from Heathrow, and think I could absolutely get a moderate strike rate on cockpit windows allowing for a bit of spread if I were a homicidal moron - lasers take a while to dissipate. I'm glad there seemed to be no reports of anyone doing this with yesterday's RAF centenary low-altitude flypast. And of course there are a lot of military training flights at very low altitude in some areas. I don't believe there's ever been a case of more than temporary blinding, and no crashes, but since I actually like having access to bright lasers (and conventional flashlights) for justifiable and responsible reasons, I just think pointing bright lights at aircraft a topic worth avoiding in the context of humour. Idiots, though hopefully few read xkcd, are easily encouraged. And when someone finally brings a plane down, it's really not going to be funny.141.101.98.250 11:56, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

Does no one else see this as referencing "stars" in the sense of celebrities? That would make sense to me of several of the otherwise bizarre statements here... Asimong (talk) 05:55, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

Contradictory statements- if it's their observatory, the theses must be theirs. Why would they stock their cabinets with other people's theses?