explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Talk:1179: ISO 8601

2013-02-27T13:55:02Z

98.122.166.235: roman calendars?

Apparently there are some mistakes in the Roman numerals in the comic, the year MMXII is 2012. Also LVII/CCLXV = 57/265, whereas February 27th is the 58th day of the year (which has 365 days). --[[User:Ulm|ulm]] ([[User talk:Ulm|talk]]) 07:55, 27 February 2013 (UTC)
:Just guessing, but could this have something to do with the divergence of various Roman calendars, e.g. Julian vs. Gregorian? [[Special:Contributions/98.122.166.235|98.122.166.235]] 13:55, 27 February 2013 (UTC)
:Another error: Obviously 1330300800 is intended to be Unix time, but it corresponds to 2012-02-27 00:00:00 UTC. --[[User:Ulm|ulm]] ([[User talk:Ulm|talk]]) 08:10, 27 February 2013 (UTC)
:The day part "57" is not wrong: Since Feb 27 is the 58th day of the year, at the beginning of that day, 57 days have gone by since the year started. (At the end of the day, 58 days have gone by) Since we associate days with their beginning (like we do with e.g. hours and minutes), 57 is the correct number (or else Dec 31 would be 2013+365/365 = 2014, and therefore in the wrong year) -- [[User:Xorg|Xorg]] ([[User talk:Xorg|talk]]) 13:53, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Can anyone explain 01237 (last interpretation before the cat)? Thanks [[Special:Contributions/68.230.38.154|68.230.38.154]] 08:04, 27 February 2013 (UTC)
:The small numbers above and below the larger ones show which digit is used where. For example, the 2nd and 5th digit is a 0, the 3rd digit is a 1 etc. [[Special:Contributions/82.115.151.1|82.115.151.1]] 08:15, 27 February 2013 (UTC)
:01237 are the digits used in the date, and the numbers above and below them reflect the order in which they are written; 0 is the second and fifth digit, 1 is the third digit, 2 is the first, sixth and seventh digit, 3 is the fourth digit, and 7 is the eighth digit: 20130227 [[User:Bdemirci|Bdemirci]] ([[User talk:Bdemirci|talk]]) 08:15, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Someone can explain me what means: ((3+3)×(111+1)-1)×3/3-1/33? {{unsigned|95.23.147.48}}
:Read the comic explanation. '''[[User:Davidy22|Davidy²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 10:58, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

A strange thing is that he forgot the form mostly used in Europe: 27.01.2013. --[[User:DaB.|DaB.]] ([[User talk:DaB.|talk]]) 12:44, 27 February 2013 (UTC)
:: That form is mostly used in Germany. Belgium and France use 27/01/2013 more, Netherlands use 27-01-2013. No idea what the UK prefers although I could imagine 01.27.2013.[[Special:Contributions/62.159.14.62|62.159.14.62]] 12:58, 27 February 2013 (UTC)
::: The UK prefers 27/02/2013 --[[User:H|H]] ([[User talk:H|talk]]) 13:20, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Talk:1161: Hand Sanitizer

2013-01-16T12:59:51Z

98.122.166.235:

Does anyone think the "peak" referred to in the title text could be the 1918 flu pandemic? Or even the bird flu outbreak?[[User:Chexwarrior|Chexwarrior]] ([[User talk:Chexwarrior|talk]]) 10:31, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

That 99.99% number on the hand sanitizer is probably made up anyway. Any actual scientific measure of effectivity would need to take into account different resistance of different types of germs. So, question is, is the sanitizer more or less effective? -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 10:35, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

:I actually had in the back of my mind that the 99.99% figure wasn't a "dead germ count," but the number of strains of germs the sanitizer has the ability to kill. I.e. there are some strains which it doesn't kill. —[[Special:Contributions/98.122.166.235|98.122.166.235]] 12:59, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Talk:1144: Tags

2012-12-10T04:07:27Z

98.122.166.235:

I literally grimaced when I saw the comic, and then I read the title text and my stomach churned, and then I saw the non-breaking space and I wanted to crawl up in a ball and die. [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]]_a ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 06:01, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

I'm a web developer and I didn't find this annoying, although I did roll my eyes. Then I came here to see if there was anything I missed that SHOULD annoy me. No, to annoy a web developer you have to use table tags, blink tags(not supported on most browsers for good reason, annoys anybody when it works), and have a stray !-- inside a tag where it doesn't belong. Also, use any html inside your css file. And have it where it only works in IE. [[User:Ferretwilliams|Ferretwilliams]] ([[User talk:Ferretwilliams|talk]]) 06:11, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

:That's okay, it's easy to implement blink with javascript and changing the display value from hidden to inline every half second. And lots of news sites these days re-implement the marquee tag with a bit of javascript too. What Randall really missed here was an opportunity for the center and font tags. [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]]_a ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 06:18, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

:I'm sure Randall didn't want us to die, that's why he didn't go further. :-p [[User:Ctxppc|Ctxppc]] ([[User talk:Ctxppc|talk]]) 18:16, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Argh. Almost as bad as unclosed left parentheses.(Y'know, like this. [[User:DreamingDaemon|DreamingDaemon]] ([[User talk:DreamingDaemon|talk]]) 10:21, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

:You mean like comic [[859]]?
::That's exactly what I meant... People do that to me in emails because they know it presses my buttons! [[User:DreamingDaemon|DreamingDaemon]] ([[User talk:DreamingDaemon|talk]]) 16:56, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

It's been a long while since I coded html (I quit about the time style sheets appeared) but I think the annoying part of <code>&nbsp;</code> is the fact that it appears as the 6 characters instead of a space, not just that it's at the end and could push the text to another line. Doesn't this typically mean that someone copied some code but didn't look carefully at the results when they pasted it into an editor? --[[User:DanB|DanB]] ([[User talk:DanB|talk]]) 14:27, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

:Either the title text has been parsed - in which case it's actually <code><nowiki>&lt;A&gt;: Like&lt;/a&gt; this&amp;nbsp;</nowiki></code> (and, yes, probably copy/pasted) - or it hasn't (which seems more likely to me), in which case the <code>&nbsp;</code> will show up as a non-breaking space when it is parsed. [[User:Noëlle|Noëlle]] ([[User talk:Noëlle|talk]]) 00:40, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

::The title text is copy/pasted from xkcd, where he escapes the ampersand so that the non-breaking space escape will show up in the title text. He might just be toying with those of us who know about the non-breaking space, as most people (the kind of people that would mis-match div and span and change the case of their tags) don't even know what a non-breaking space would be used for. [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]]_a ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 03:37, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

::: I know. :) I was answering Dan's question. Assuming the title text is going into a webpage, either the whole thing is already parsed, in which case the tags will also appear as they currently do, or it's not parsed yet and the <code>&nbsp;</code> will appear properly in the rendered page. :) [[User:Noëlle|Noëlle]] ([[User talk:Noëlle|talk]]) 01:53, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

I wonder if the "answer" in the title text is yet another joke? It goes <A>: Like</A> this  — but A used in this way means Anchor, not Answer. Such a line would appear in the browser as "Like this" (with the word Like blue and underlined), making it a clickable "Like" link. {{unsigned|69.158.169.14}}

: I think there is another joke hidden there: It goes »<A>: Like </A>this« instead of »: <A>Like</A> this« which turns not only »Like« but also the surrounding whitespace and punctuation into a link/anchor. That points to WYSIWYG HTML editors, as it's easy there to select a little bit more than the intended word when creating a link/marking text as bold, etc. [[Special:Contributions/178.201.95.76|178.201.95.76]] 01:03, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

::Actually, the Like wouldn't be blue and underlined BECAUSE it lacks the href. At least in firefox. The <a name> and <a href> are so different that browser apparently don't do either when neither are present. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 11:48, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

Similarly, it would be nice to address whether you can close a <code><nowiki><div></nowiki></code> with a <code><nowiki></nowiki></code>. Obviously you're not supposed to, but would it work? – ''[[User:Philosopher|Philosopher]]'' [[User talk:Philosopher|Let us reason together.]] 20:57, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

:Opening but not closing a div tag, depends on how a browser's quirks mode interprets that; I'd expect the browser to have everything fall into that div until it encounters a close tag of an element outside (that the div is nested inside). I'd also expect that encountering a close span without having first pushed an open span tag onto the DOM would simply not be recognized as markup and treated as improperly escaped page content. But, I don't write code for any of the major browsers so this is ''wild'' speculation. [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]]_a ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 21:24, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

::You can't close a DIV with a SPAN; they're syntactically different and browsers treat them as such. If you try the code above, the major browsers do exactly as Lcarsos suggests with the open DIV (continue until they find a matching /DIV or until /BODY) and completely ignore the /SPAN (Chrome goes so far as to expunge it from the DOM entirely). The DIV behavior exposes a subtler aspect to the comic, actually - because DIV isn't a semantic element, if a /DIV is missing, it can get very, very difficult to track down where the appropriate /DIV is supposed to go, especially when multiple coders are working on a single long (and, in the worst-case scenario, improperly-nested, multi-file) page. [[User:Noëlle|Noëlle]] ([[User talk:Noëlle|talk]]) 00:39, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

:::Note that "multi-file" is common when it's application output and not static page. Even if the files are supposed to be correctly nested, it may be hard to find which of them isn't, especially taking into account "if"s of template engine. The template engine may not really help you, similarly to some interprets or compilers of programming language which tells you they are missing some closing symbol near the end of file even when the place they are actually missing from is somewhere in the middle, because they paired them incorrectly. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 11:48, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

There needs to be a little more explanation of what <div> and tags are. I come here to have the jokes I don't get explained, and after a sentence like "Usage of and <div> tags should be kept low, for they have no intrinsic semantic value," I need a site called "explainexplainxkcd.com." [[Special:Contributions/24.224.110.93|24.224.110.93]] 01:17, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

: I clarified in the explanation. Does that look better? [[User:Noëlle|Noëlle]] ([[User talk:Noëlle|talk]]) 01:53, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

::Yes, thanks. I'm afraid I still don't have much idea what <div> and are, but it looks like that's because it would to hard to absolutely fully explain. Thanks! [[Special:Contributions/98.122.166.235|98.122.166.235]] 04:07, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

Talk:1118: Microsoft

2012-10-10T13:30:55Z

98.122.166.235: not too lonely at the top

Let the discussion begin! (replace this stub with actual content?) [[User:Odysseus654|Odysseus654]] ([[User talk:Odysseus654|talk]]) 04:29, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Well in the case of Microsoft they already dominated the market and so threatened to gain monopoly power. In the case of Apple (disclosure: I use a Mac) the market share is insignificant, really. As for Facebook and Google, the oversight is puzzling to say the least.[[Special:Contributions/172.190.2.141|172.190.2.141]] 05:16, 8 October 2012 (UTC)ExternalMonologue

:¬I Ummmmmmm... Why does my IP address show?? Other peoples' addresses don't show. How do I prevent this from happening?[[Special:Contributions/172.190.2.141|172.190.2.141]] 05:19, 8 October 2012 (UTC)ExternalMonologue

::Click the "log in / sign up" icon in the upper right and login or create an account for youself. Then you will no longer be known by your IP address[[User:Odysseus654|Odysseus654]] ([[User talk:Odysseus654|talk]]) 06:27, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

:I think the reason Microsoft was noticed and Facebook/Google didn't was that Netscape complained. It didn't helped him, of course. Which may also be reason why nothing is happening with Facebook/Google: seriously, WHAT do you think can the court do? And about Apple: yes, they could forbid Apple to control the list of application, but ... RIAA/MPAA will then complain. They WANT to end the era of "you own the device, therefore you can install whatever you want on it", because THEY want that control. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 08:24, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
One could add that the European Union did the same thing (see [[Wikipedia:European Union Microsoft competition case]]), first because of Windows Media Player (imagine any operating system coming without media player), but later also because of Internet Explorer. (It was already laughable back then, even before Apple completely dominated the mobile and tablet market.) Thanks to that we now have [[Wikipedia:BrowserChoice.eu]], and we are a free people. --[[Special:Contributions/84.75.58.16|84.75.58.16]] 08:49, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Note that Microsoft [http://venturebeat.com/2012/09/27/microsoft-browser-choice-fine-eu/ has been in the news recently] because they (accidentally?) broke the agreements they made (or were forced into) when the last browser rulings came down [[User:Odysseus654|Odysseus654]] ([[User talk:Odysseus654|talk]]) 22:43, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

What about Fa€ebook, App£e, and Goog£e?

:In retrospect, the whole Internet Explorer thing seems pretty dumb. I guess at the time web browsers still weren't considered to be an essential, fundamental piece of computer functionality. But they certainly are now. It would be weird for an operating system, ANY operating system, to not have a built-in web browser at this point. [[Special:Contributions/173.21.57.231|173.21.57.231]] 20:42, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

::Wouldn't Fac€book be more exact?
::Yes, the browsers ARE essential and BECAUSE of that it's important WHICH browser you have. Personally I can't understand why the OS (any of them) can't came with multiple browsers preinstalled. I find hard to believe it's because of size. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 08:36, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Would it also be relevant that, a week before this comic, [http://redmondmag.com/articles/2012/10/01/google-surpasses-microsoft-as-most-valuable-tech-company.aspx| Google surpassed Microsoft] in market value? —[[Special:Contributions/98.122.166.235|98.122.166.235]] 13:30, 10 October 2012 (UTC)