explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Talk:928: Mimic Octopus

2015-10-16T11:53:52Z

108.162.212.18: TITLETEXT

How does the mimic octopus manage to mimic multiple fish? Does it split it's own body up or something? '''[[User:Davidy22|Davidy22]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 13:30, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
:"When under attack, some octopuses can perform arm autotomy, in a similar manner to the way skinks and other lizards detach their tails. The crawling arm serves as a distraction to would-be predators. Such severed arms remain sensitive to stimuli and move away from unpleasant sensations.[23]"[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octopus#Defense] {{unsigned ip|173.245.48.113}}

For the record, octopus is from the Greek ὀκτάπους, a compound of ὀκτά (eight) and πούς (foot); πούς is a third declension masculine noun, whose plural is πόδες. Therefore, the etymologically correct plural of octopus should be octopodes, not (as Orson Scott Card suggests) octopoda, since πούς is not a neuter.
:Actually, it would be "octopuses", as it showed up ''after'' the regularization of English plurals to a final -s. As the video in the explanation explains, someone in the Victorian Grammarian Era "realized" it was "Latin" and pluralized it as such. This caught on and still haunts us to this day. "Octopdes" was coined around the same time by a more observant someone, who realized it was actually Greek. Personally, I avoid the whole trichotomy by saying "octopods". Unrelated etymologically, but has the same meaning and is unequivocally regular. Anonymous 08:08, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

Has anyone checked to see if the title text is true? Whether it is or not, this should be added to the description. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.212.18|108.162.212.18]] 11:53, 16 October 2015 (UTC)

1110: Click and Drag

2015-10-15T12:27:23Z

108.162.212.18: /* List of details and references (with transcript) */ edited to add a couple of possible references.

{{comic
| number = 1110
| date = September 19, 2012
| title = Click and Drag
| image = click_and_drag.png
| titletext = Click and drag.
}}
To experience the interactivity, visit the [http://xkcd.com/1110/ original comic].
{{TOC}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Some of the jokes in the larger world might benefit from an explanation. Also, if someone is brave enough to do this: Add the image of each pane in the table}}
This comic is a take on how vast and rich the world is, and on the thrill of exploring it. The world can be described as sad, as well as it can be described as wonderful, even if this seems a bit contradictory, just because it is so big and there are so many different things happening in it all at once. [[Cueball]] comments about this while hanging from a balloon, which brings to mind the expanded perspective over the landscape attained by early experimenters in overland flight.

The title text is the same as the comic title, and both of these invites the reader to ''Click and drag'' the inside of the last panel, with their mouse, and by dragging and dragging, explore what is hidden outside that panel. The image displayed at first turns out to be part of a huge landscape, filled with big or small things, humorous details, people here and there, cave mazes, things floating in the air, jokes and references, unexpected things, relaxing views, etc.

The fact that we only see a small part of the landscape at once refers to the idea that we cannot in real life comprehend the whole world altogether, but only what is around us and/or in the range of our understanding at the time. The click-and-drag process, in which it is impossible to go as fast as we would want to, also draws a parallel with the fact that exploration is always done gradually, step by step, and trying something (i.e. here dragging in a certain direction) always has a cost. This click-and-drag exploration reproduces the thrill of discovering new horizons, getting lost sometimes, finding unexpected things, seeing beauty, humor, desolation or happiness here and there... which can easily captivate an xkcd reader for a long time (and as such qualifies as [[356: Nerd Sniping|nerd sniping]]).

The exploration of the sad and wonderful aspects of the world is the subject of the short movie "{{w|The Red Balloon}}" in which a young boy experiences the complexity of human society through his interactions with a mysterious, intelligent balloon.

In comic [[1416: Pixels]] you zoom, by scrolling, until every pixel in this image turns into new pictures, and this can be continued again and again. Once you have zoomed in, you are able to ''click and drag'' the picture just like in this comic.

==Transcript==
:[This transcript only covers the first four panels as they are shown here above (i.e. before you click and drag).]

:[Cueball is narrating the story, all the text is written in boxes above and below him without speech lines connecting to him.]
:[Cueball is floating by holding onto a balloon with one hand.]
:From the stories
:I expected the world to be sad
:And it was

:[Cueball has grabbed hold of the balloon with both hands.]
:And I expected it to be wonderful.

:[The wind picks up and blows Cueball to the right.]
:It was.

:[Full width panel where the scene opens up. You see Cueball is about a tree's-height from the ground. To the right there is a tall tree with no leaves on it and a broken limb. Below him are some rocks and grass. This is the initial view of the world, that can be clicked and dragged. It is part of tile named 1 North 1 East.]
:I just didn't expect it to be so ''big''.

:[The rest of the comic is transcribed below in the [[1110:_Click_and_Drag#List_of_details_and_references|List of details and references]] section.]

==Viewers==
*http://xkcd.com/1110/ (native zoom, click-and-drag)

'''''Warning:''' there are cheating possibilities—people have implemented ways to explore that world more easily—but the best way to enjoy this comic is to play the game, explore the comic's world the way you're supposed to, get lost in the caves or in the sky, be startled by unexpected things or happy when finding some people after lengthy click-and-dragging through a repetitive landscape. If you didn't do that already, '''reading any below will spoil you from truly enjoying the comic.'''''

Though you can download the full view, the easiest way to browse it is through a {{w|Zooming user interface}}.

*http://victorz.ca/xkcd_map/ '''[recommended]''' (all features of following viewer plus: content highlighted, minimap, less memory and bandwidth, goes to infinity)
*http://xkcd-map.rent-a-geek.de/ (zoom controls, scroll-zoom, click-and-drag, hash permalinks, full-screen)
*http://xkcdmap.webege.com/ Google-maps-style navigation and zooming, with tiles with content highlighted in black or white, allows easy finding of interesting tiles with small things hidden in the ground and sky

==Trivia==
*The click-and-drag portion of this comic is divided up into 2592 sections of 2048x2048 pixels.
*There are 225 separate 2048x2048 PNG files (plus the PNG container with the first panels). The other 2337 sections are simply filled black (in the south) or white (in the north) with HTML.
*The populated area is 81 frames wide (33 West - 48 East) and 32 frames tall (13 North - 19 South)
*According to [[Randall]] in #xkcd on the night this was released, a full size image of this comic (leaving out the blanks) would be 60 gigapixels, and a true single rectangular image would be close to a terapixel. The online version is 1 gigapixel without the blanks and 10 gigapixel as rectangular image (2048x2048x225 = 943,718,400 and 2048x2048x2592 = 10,871,635,968).
*Based on the height of figures as well as the "two mile" figure given on the left-hand side, the scale should be approximately 32 pixels per 5 feet, making the entire map 25920 feet wide (4.9 miles or 7.9 kilometers) by 10240 feet tall (1.9 miles or 3.1 kilometers). If it were an overhead area, it would be about 9.5 square miles (6093 acres or 24.7 square km), roughly the size of Block Island, Rhode Island, USA. Just the POPULATED area (225 tiles with something drawn on them) would be 529 acres, or 0.826 square miles — about the size of Princeton University.
*If the 2048x2048 PNGs were to be printed out as a single poster at 300 dpi, the poster would be 15.36 yards (14.05 meters) long and 6.07 yards (5.55 meters) tall. Most of the detail would be invisible, as these PNGs are optimized for ~72 dpi screens.
*There is one (very dark) green pixel in {{1110|9|s|7|e}} at 1643,1165. The remainder is all grayscale.
*At the end of the right side it shows Cueball pondering where he'll float next.

==Whole Image==
[[File:1110 full tiny.png|none|frame|Whole Image at 0.5% Zoom. The part visible at the beginning is marked red.]]

==List of details and references (with transcript)==

The 225 existing tiles are sorted by columns from West to East and from North to South in each column. (Note that this only includes the tiles that are not entirely white or black).

{| class="wikitable" |
! width="130px" | Grid coords
!Explanation and Transcript
|-
|{{1110|1|n|33|w}}
|[[Cueball]] and [[Megan]] reach the western edge of the image and decide to live there. This is a reference to the last line in the film ''{{w|Groundhog_Day_(film)|Groundhog Day}}''.
;Transcript
:[Cueball and Megan are in a valley at the western edge of the world. Megan is checking their distance traveled with a {{w|GPS}} device. Cueball is looking behind them (eastward).]
:Cueball: We've walked pretty far. We must be on the other side of the world by now.
:Megan: Let's see, we've gone... Two miles.
:Cueball: Darn. You know, this is a nice spot. Let's just live here.
|-
|{{1110|1|n|32|w}}
|Just terrain, no activity.
|-
|{{1110|1|n|31|w}}
|Just terrain, no activity.
|-
|{{1110|1|n|30|w}}
|Just terrain, no activity.
|-
|{{1110|1|n|29|w}}
|Just terrain, no activity.
|-
|{{1110|1|n|28|w}}
|The smooth hillocks at the far right of this panel appear to be the nose and belly of a giant sleeping on its back. The feet extend into the next panel to the east. Possibly a reference to the giant's drink from {{w|Ender's Game}}.
|-
|{{1110|1|n|27|w}}
|The westernmost hillock appears to be the feet of a giant sleeping on its back, continued from the next panel west. {{w|Velociraptor}}s in the high grass.
;Transcript
:[Rolling hills with tall grass.]
:[On the left there are two Velociraptors. The east-facing one looks to be a modern interpretation of the raptor, the west-facing is more Jurassic Park like.]
|-
|{{1110|1|n|26|w}}
|Just terrain, no activity.
|-
|{{1110|1|n|25|w}}
|A large {{w|radio telescope}} with a female listening for a signal. Possibly a reference to the movie {{w|Contact (film)|Contact}}.
|-
|{{1110|1|n|24|w}}
|Just terrain, no activity. Very nice trees though.
|-
|{{1110|1|n|23|w}}
|More nice trees.
|-
|{{1110|2|n|22|w}}
|The top of a large rocket that looks similar to the {{w|Saturn V}} rocket (the base is in {{1110|1|n|22|w}}).
;Transcript
:[A Launch Tower with a waiting Saturn V rocket look-alike attached by the umbilical lines. There are two Cueball-type characters standing on the top.]
:Person 1: So why did we build this? There have ''got'' to be other ways to get to space.
:Person 2: Believe it or not, this is the ''least'' crazy one anyone has come up with.
|-
|{{1110|1|n|22|w}}
|The base of the {{w|Saturn V}} rocket on a launchpad.
;Transcript
:[A Launch Pad and Tower with a waiting Saturn V rocket attached by the umbilical lines. There is a person scaling the rocket. They are at the base of the Second Stage.]
:[A military guardsman is walking the grounds unaware of the person on the rocket.]
|-
|{{1110|1|n|21|w}}
|[[Cueball]] asks Jesus why his footprints look like tire tracks. This is a reference to the inspirational text ''{{w|Footprints (poem)|Footprints}}'' as well as a reference to the {{w|Transformers}}.
;Transcript
:[Two characters stand on the shore by the sea. One has unkempt hair, the other is a Cueball character.]
:Cueball: Jesus, why do your footprints change to tire tracks whenever I was threatened by Decepticons?
|-
|{{1110|1|n|20|w}}
|Water
|-
|{{1110|1|n|19|w}}
|Water
|-
|{{1110|1|n|18|w}}
|Water
|-
|{{1110|1|n|17|w}}
|The scruffy character beneath the {{w|palm tree}} might be a reference to {{w|Desert Island Discs}}, a BBC radio program in which a celebrity chooses the records they would like to be stranded with if castaway. The hatch is a reference to {{w|Lost (TV series)|Lost}} in which the passengers on board a flight over the Pacific Ocean find themselves stranded on a strange island. Their first clue that they stumbled on something out-of-the-ordinary is the hatch.
;Transcript
:[An island in the middle of the sea. On its westward side is a hatch that leads down deep underground. A person is looking at the hatch. Meanwhile a person quietly climbs up a ladder built into the wall of the tunnel inside of the hatch.]
:[On the other side, a scruffy man is looking at a disc while being shaded by a tall coconut palm tree.]
|-
|{{1110|1|s|17|w}}
|A miner. The sliding stone walls behind him (to keep back the water if he digs too far) are a reference to Ted Chiang's "Tower of Babylon".
|-
|{{1110|2|s|17|w}}
|
;Transcript
:[Deep underground a vertical shaft gets wider the deeper you go.]
|-
|{{1110|3|s|17|w}}
|A reference to the game {{w|AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!!_–_A_Reckless_Disregard_for_Gravity|AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!!}}, where the game play consists of falling down while avoiding objects.
;Transcript
:[Deep underground a vertical shaft gets wider the deeper you go. A man wearing a headband has set up a lemonade stand on a plank stuck into the wall. There are people falling down the shaft right next to him.]
:Falling people: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
:Lemonade man: Lemonade? ...Aww, OK. Lemonade? ...Aww, OK. Lemonade?
|-
|{{1110|4|s|17|w}}
|
;Transcript
:[Deep underground a vertical shaft gets wider the deeper you go.]
|-
|{{1110|5|s|17|w}}
|
;Transcript
:[Deep underground a vertical shaft gets wider the deeper you go.]
|-
|{{1110|6|s|17|w}}
|
;Transcript
:[Deep underground a vertical shaft.]
|-
|{{1110|7|s|17|w}}
|
;Transcript
:[Deep underground a vertical shaft.]
|-
|{{1110|8|s|17|w}}
|An {{w|X-Wing}} fighter flies up a vertical shaft, its pilot communicating over radio. The quote is a reference to a scene of the {{w|Star Wars}} movie ''{{w|Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi|Return of the Jedi}}'', with an X-Wing piloted by {{w|Wedge Antilles}} escaping from inside the {{w|Death Star}} ([http://www.imdb.com/character/ch0000060/quotes]):
:{{w|Lando Calrissian}}: "All right, Wedge. Go for the power regulator on the north tower."
:Wedge Antilles: "Copy, Gold Leader. I'm already on my way out."
;Transcript
:[Deep underground, in a vertical shaft. There is an X-Wing fighter running along the shaft.]
:X-Wing pilot [over radio]: Copy that, Gold Leader. I'm already on my way out.
|-
|{{1110|9|s|17|w}}
|
;Transcript
:[Deep underground a vertical shaft gets slimmer the deeper you go.]
|-
|{{1110|10|s|17|w}}
|
;Transcript
:[Deep underground a vertical shaft gets slimmer the deeper you go.]
|-
|{{1110|11|s|17|w}}
|
;Transcript
:[Deep underground a vertical shaft.]
|-
|{{1110|12|s|17|w}}
|Cueball and Megan looking up from the bottom of the shaft. A tunnel goes to the east, there is a woman running eastward.
|-
|{{1110|1|n|16|w}}
|
;Transcript
:[A calm day out at sea.]
|-
|{{1110|12|s|16|w}}
|
;Transcript
:[Deep underground a tunnel comes from the west. A few feet before the end of it a vertical shaft goes down, just about wide enough for a single person to go down. It stops in a man-made cavern, then a tunnel continues eastward.]
|-
|{{1110|1|n|15|w}}
|
;Transcript
:[A calm day out at sea.]
|-
|{{1110|12|s|15|w}}
|
;Transcript
:[Deep underground a tunnel comes from the west and meets a tall cavern, buts keeps going all the way to the east. Cueball has dug up from the ceiling tunnel and is shoveling out a little cavern.]
|-
|{{1110|1|n|14|w}}
|People today can't seem to turn off their phones, unplug and just be by themselves. It has become a societal expectation that every person is constantly connected to the world and is there to respond at any moment. The idea of being indisposed has become a foreign concept.
;Transcript
:[To the west is a sea. There is a beach. Further in-land there are lots of trees with park benches under them.]
:[Cueball and White Hat are walking towards the benches.]
:White Hat: Do you ever put your phone away and just take a moment to breathe and be alone with your thoughts?
:Cueball: Yeah, once. It was ''terrifying''.
|-
|{{1110|12|s|14|w}}
|
;Transcript
:[Deep underground a tunnel with a very rough ceiling goes all the way from west to east.]
|-
|{{1110|1|n|13|w}}
|A rocky hill with a {{w|lighthouse}}. [[Megan]] and [[Ponytail]] sit atop the hill. A half-buried {{w|Statue of Liberty}} is on the other side in reference to ''{{w|Planet of the Apes(film)|Planet of Apes}}'' with [[Cueball]]'s "You Maniacs!" line parodying the final line from the film. Another western shore makes this a very small landmass.
;Transcript
:[Cueball shaking his fist at the half-buried Statue of Liberty.]
:Cueball: You ''maniacs!''
:Cueball: That sand sculpture trophy was supposed to be ''mine!''
|-
|{{1110|12|s|13|w}}
|Someone in a straw hat saying "Becky?". He is carrying either a grappling hook or the end of a rope. Probably a reference to {{w|The Adventures of Tom Sawyer}} in which the title character rescues his sweetheart, Becky Thatcher, from a cave.
|-
|{{1110|1|n|12|w}}
|Water
|-
|{{1110|12|s|12|w}}
|
;Transcript
:[Deep underground a two distant tunnels run from west to east connected by a thin vertical shaft. The lower tunnel has a man-made cavern dug out.]
|-
|{{1110|11|n|11|w}}
|An empty white tile with symmetric coordinates (11 North, 11 West).
|-
|{{1110|1|n|11|w}}
|{{w|Marco Polo (game)|Marco Polo}} is a game similar to tag but played in a swimming pool. The person who is "it" closes their eyes, or is blind-folded and calls out "Marco". All the other players must respond "Polo". The person who is it then tries to find the people by a sort of echo-location. It is a reference to {{w|Marco Polo}} the Venetian merchant who was the first European to make it to Central Asia and China.
;Transcript
:[Out at sea. A blindfolded character playing Marco Polo alone.]
:Blindfolded man: ...Marco? ...Marco?
|-
|{{1110|11|s|11|w}}
|A black tile with symmetric coordinates (11 South, 11 West).
Note, that this PNG file contains an ICC section which means that the blackness in this image is properly {{w|Color correction|color-corrected}}.
|-
|{{1110|12|s|11|w}}
|Deep underground, a cavern opens up to reveal trees, grass, rocks, and a lake. A bird flies toward the trees. A person sits on a rock thoughtfully gazing into the water.
|-
|{{1110|1|n|10|w}}
|Water.
|-
|{{1110|12|s|10|w}}
|A tunnel runs across the top of the tile. It grows rougher on the east side.
|-
|{{1110|1|n|9|w}}
|{{w|Bitcoin}} is a peer-to-peer currency, making it more difficult to trace than traditional currency. It is also difficult, if not impossible, for governments to confiscate. {{w|Peter Thiel}} is a co-founder of {{w|Seasteading#The_Seasteading_Institute|The Seasteading Institute}} that promotes permanent, autonomous ocean communities (similar to a {{w|micronation}}), enabling innovation with new political and social systems. Peter Thiel is also a co-founder of {{w|PayPal}}, a global e-commerce business allowing payments and money transfers to be made through the Internet. Peter Thiel and other co-founders' original vision for PayPal was to have an online payment service that enabled account holders to send money to anyone in the world with just an e-mail address. xkcd also supports [http://xkcd.com/bitcoin bitcoin donations]. This might be a reference to the unspent bitcoins from a recent [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-19633980 $250,000 theft]. If they don't have any internet access they might find it hard to spend their loot.

{{w|Edwin S. Shneidman}} was a pioneer in the field of suicide prevention. He published 20 books on suicide and its prevention, one of which, ''A Commonsense Book of Death'', defines most people to be death-postponers. A death-postponer hopes that death will not occur in anything like the foreseeable future; the event must be staved off for as long as possible. The reference to a "death-postponer" is also the literal opposite to the actual name of the item Cueball throws, a {{w|life preserver}}.
;Transcript
:[Out at sea. There is an anti-aircraft platform with four people aboard, and one person in the water.]

:[On the west side of the aircraft a man with hair is speaking to a bearded man half a head taller than the haired man.]
:Man with hair: I'm not saying our bitcoin-only island nation was a bad idea, but we really should've secured Internet access ''before'' we left.

:[On the east side of the platform a man wearing a sailor's hat walking toward the control tower. Cueball is on the edge holding a lifebuoy.]
:Cueball: Hey, you in the water! Hang on-
:Cueball: I'm gonna throw you a death postponer!
|-
|{{1110|2|s|9|w}}
|Jellyfish playing some sort of console game.
|-
|{{1110|12|s|9|w}}
|A rocky tunnel descends unevenly from the west, growing wider to the east. In the middle, a curving roof with two pointed recesses, together with the upward arching tunnel on either side, is reminiscent of the shape of a bat with wings spread.
|-
|{{1110|1|n|8|w}}
|{{w|Poop deck}} is the nautical term for the deck that forms the roof of a cabin built in the rear of the ship.

The character climbing the rigging is apparently {{w|Elizabeth Warren}}, who said at the {{w|2012 Democratic National Convention}}, "People feel like the system is rigged against them. And here's the painful part: They're right. The system is rigged."

The {{w|pirate}} onboard is shouting "{{w|Glossary of nautical terms#Avast|Avast!}}" (meaning stop), but no one is apparently listening. Possibly a reference to the comic being released on {{w|International Talk Like a Pirate Day}}.

The three-masted sailing ship with the pirate could be a reference to {{w|Monty Python}}'s short film {{w|The Crimson Permanent Assurance}} in which rebellious office clerks turn their office building into a pirate ship, raiding financial districts in numerous big cities, before falling off the edge of the world.
;Transcript
:[Out at sea. There is a three-masted sailing ship at full sail with a healthy wind billowing the sails. There are five crew out on deck, four are aloft, and one on watch in the bowsprit.]

:[A girl is seated on the spanker.]
:Girl: Haha, "Poop Deck."

:[Aloft on the mizzen-mast a woman is standing talking to another woman climbing the rigging between the mizzen and main masts.]
:Mizzen-mast woman: Elizabeth, why are you climbing the rigging?
:Elizabeth: Forget ''this'' rigging. The whole ''system'' is rigged against the middle class and families trying to ''climb'' out of poverty.
:Mizzen-mast woman: ...Ok, but for real, what are you doing on this boat?

:[Fore of the mizzen-mast a classic bearded pirate stands with his sword drawn.]
:Pirate: Avast! Avast! ...Avast?

:[Fore of the main-sail, a Cueball-type character looks over the railing.]

:[Aloft a man is swinging around the fore-mast pretending to be Spiderman.]

:[Lower on the fore-mast a Cueball-type character is adjusting the rigging. On the deck another is adjusting more rigging.]

:[Out on the bowsprit Megan is keeping watch, and telling the runner Ponytail what is ahead.]
:Megan: We should go slow -
:Megan: That water up ahead looks pretty deep.
|-
|{{1110|12|s|8|w}}
|A wide rocky tunnel slopes from the west off the bottom of the tile.
|-
|{{1110|13|s|8|w}}
|An opening from above narrows and flattens out as the rough tunnel turns eastward.
|-
|{{1110|7|n|7|w}}
|A {{w|Boeing 717}} in landing configuration.
|-
|{{1110|1|n|7|w}}
|Water
|-
|{{1110|13|s|7|w}}
|A tunnel descends unevenly from the west, opening up somewhat in the bottom corner to the east. [[Megan]] and [[Ponytail]] are climbing a near-vertical section of the rocky wall.
|-
|{{1110|14|s|7|w}}
|Loose stones form the bottom of a small cavern that extends upward out of the tile. A tunnel runs out of it to the east.
|-
|{{1110|1|n|6|w}}
|Water
|-
|{{1110|1|s|6|w}}
|Jellyfish
|-
|{{1110|13|s|6|w}}
|Mostly solid rock; the east side and roof of a cave is in the lower westward corner.
|-
|{{1110|14|s|6|w}}
|
;Transcript
:[A flat tunnel runs the length of the whole tile. It is rough cut on the ceiling, but a smooth surface for walking. There is a hint that the ceiling draws away from the floor to the west. Cueball is walking east along the tunnel.]
|-
|{{1110|6|n|5|w}}
|[[Red spiders]] from earlier comics falling from the sky
|-
|{{1110|1|n|5|w}}
|"{{w|I'm on a Boat}}" is a single from {{w|The Lonely Island}}'s debut album {{w|Incredibad}}.
;Transcript
:[Out at sea. On the west side are two buoys, on the east is only one, in the center there is a sailboat. Cueball and another person wearing a beanie are on the small sailboat.]
:Beanie: I'm on a boat! I expected more from the experience! Instead, all I can think to do is tell people where I am! ...I'm on a boat!
|-
|{{1110|14|s|5|w}}
|
;Transcript
:[A flat tunnel runs the length of the whole tile. It is rough cut on the ceiling, but a smooth surface for walking.]
|-
|{{1110|2|n|4|w}}
|An {{w|Embraer E-Jet family|Embraer E-190}}
|-
|{{1110|1|n|4|w}}
|The coast of the body of water at a beach with some sea birds and beachgoers.
|-
|{{1110|14|s|4|w}}
|
;Transcript
:[A flat tunnel runs the length of the whole tile. It is rough cut on the ceiling, but a smooth surface for walking. The shaft grows in diameter as it goes eastward.]
|-
|{{1110|3|n|3|w}}
|
; Transcript
:[High in the sky.]
:[Cueball is sitting in a swing attached to the end of a crane, and is swinging.]
:Cueball: WHEEE!
|-
|{{1110|2|n|3|w}}
|An empty white tile. Exactly the same as {{1110|8|n|1|w}}
|-
|{{1110|1|n|3|w}}
|The west wall of a large building which staircases narrower as it rises.
|-
|{{1110|14|s|3|w}}
|
;Transcript
:[A flat tunnel runs the length of the whole tile. It is rough cut on the ceiling, but a smooth surface for walking. A small vertical shaft goes up to a very small cavern.]
|-
|{{1110|8|n|2|w}}
|This seems to be the peak of the {{w|Burj Khalifa}} to which {{1110|6|n|27|e}} refers.
|-
|{{1110|7|n|2|w}}
| Part of the {{w|Burj Khalifa}}
|-
|{{1110|6|n|2|w}}
|[[Black Hat]] is seen in the picture with a {{w|gatling gun}}, probably the Imperial cannons referred in {{1110|8|n|6|e}}. Also at bottom, a cueball is flying a paper airplane off the building.
;Transcript
:Ponytail: We're so high up that if you threw a penny off the edge, inflation would reduce its value to 0.00999999975 by the time it landed.
:[Further south, on a balcony]
:Megan: The Wikipedia article on this balcony says the view is nice.
:Cueball: I thought so.
|-
|{{1110|5|n|2|w}}
|A construction crane lifting another, smaller, construction crane. Possibly a reference to the [http://vimeo.com/46359692 Truck Truck Truck] gag from the Simpsons. Also, self-erecting {{w|tower crane}}s do usually not lift {{w|crawler crane}}s
|-
|{{1110|4|n|2|w}}
|A narrowing peak. The above and below panels have construction cranes, but this panel is refreshingly devoid of them.
|-
|{{1110|3|n|2|w}}
|On the west side, the top of a (different) construction crane. On the east side, Cueball is firing a clay pigeon launcher while Ponytail fires a shotgun at the target. Meanwhile, Megan comes up from behind with CDs.
;Transcript
:Megan: I found some more CDs
:Ponytail: PULL!
|-
|{{1110|2|n|2|w}}
|On the west side, the bottom of the construction crane. On the upper eastern side, [[Hair Bun Girl]] is laid back, relaxing in a chair while using a laptop. On the next step down, a party crowd is out on a balcony.
;Transcript
:Person: I'm working at a small startup. Our business model is 'taking free drinks from industry events and reselling them.'
:Person: Oh, hey, I should get going...
|-
|{{1110|1|n|2|w}}
|The bulk of the base of the building with one terrace visible on either side. Megan says "I came here to chew bubblegum... And I'm all out of bubblegum" is a reference to the movie {{w|They Live}} in which the character Nada famously says "I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass...and I'm all out of bubblegum". That line is also used in the game {{w|Duke Nukem 3D}} by Duke himself, when Shrapnel City (Episode 3) starts. Also, Cueball says "That's a shame" a line popularised by Jerry in the sitcom {{w|Seinfeld|Seinfeld}}. Pool line is a reference to "pool on the roof" prank from the movie {{w|Hackers (film)|Hackers}}.
|-
|{{1110|14|s|2|w}}
|
;Transcript
:[A flat tunnel runs the length of the whole tile. It is rough cut on the ceiling, but a smooth surface for walking. There is a single vertical shaft that would have gone down. The ceiling above the shaft has crumbled, and the rubble has filled in the shaft.]
|-
|{{1110|8|n|1|w}}
|An empty white tile. Exactly the same as {{1110|2|n|3|w}}
|-
|{{1110|5|n|1|w}}
|The tail of the crawler crane lifted at {{1110|5|n|2|w}}.
|-
|{{1110|2|n|1|w}}
|An empty white tile.
|-
|{{1110|1|n|1|w}}
|The western wall at the base of a large building including its {{w|portico}}, a remote control rocket-powered bicycle attempting to launch from the first terrace, a balcony on the second terrace and a {{w|satellite dish}} and other exhausts on the third. Two trees with a squirre stand in front of the building leading to a parking lot with cars and one {{w|Wienermobile}}
|-
|{{1110|14|s|1|w}}
|
;Transcript
:[A flat tunnel runs the length of the whole tile. It is rough cut on the ceiling, but a smooth surface for walking. There are two rough cut vertical shafts going down, there is a rock pile on the ground between the two. A small vertical shaft goes up to a very small empty cavern.]
|-
|{{1110|15|s|1|w}}
|This is a sad statement about where the Internet is right now. The Internet should be a vast and diverse place filled with new and exciting content that breaks the mold of already established media. But instead, everyone on the Internet has become a shill for their Facebook page and their Twitter stream. It feels like everything links back to these two sites. Even stuck at the bottom of a shaft, these two people care more for how many Facebook likes and twitter followers they have, than for their own lives and safety.
;Transcript
:[Deep underground. There are two shafts, the western one ends abruptly with a pile of rubble at the bottom. The other changes direction and becomes a tunnel to the east.]
:[Cueball and Megan are stranded at the bottom of the western shaft.]
:Cueball: Is anyone up there? If you can hear us, ''friend us on Facebook!''
:Megan: ''Follow us on Twitter! Please!''
|-
|{{1110|13|n|1|e}}
|Two whales is possibly a reference to the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and the planet [http://hitchhikers.wikia.com/wiki/Magrathea Magrathea], where (improbably) two incoming missiles are turned into a whale and a bowl of petunias. It may also be a reference to the album From Mars to Sirius by the French heavy metal band Gojira, specifically the track, "Flying Whales." A third possibility is a reference to Respighi's "The Pines of Rome" from Fantasia II.
|-
|{{1110|6|n|1|e}}
|A {{w|hot air balloon}} is the oldest form of human-carrying flight.
;Transcript
:[High in the sky. Cueball and Megan are in a hot air balloon.]
|-
|{{1110|1|n|1|e}}
|The {{w|Origin (mathematics)|"center"}} of the world; the default loaded image with Cueball floating by balloon. The balloons may be a reference to comic [[1106]]. This may also be a reference to {{w|Winnie The Pooh}}. The parking lot to the west ends to a grassy/rocky field with a tree. A hill runs up to the east with a fountain.

; Transcript:
:[Open scene.]
:[To the extreme left there is the end of a parking lot. Right from that Cueball is holding onto a balloon several feet from the ground.]
:Cueball [narration]: I just didn't expect it to be so ''BIG''.
:[About 50 feet east of Cueball there is a lone tree with no leaves on it. Cueball is approximately parallel to with the top of it.]
:[Farther east and much higher up is a single balloon floating away.]
:[More east and on the ground Beret Guy is waving a butterfly net, chasing an RC Helicopter.]
:[Two girls, one blonde and one darker, are walking away from Beret Guy.]
:[On the extreme right is a fountain spraying water.]
|-
|{{1110|14|s|1|e}}
|
;Transcript
:[A flat tunnel runs the length of the whole tile. It is rough cut on the ceiling, but a smooth surface for walking. A single vertical shaft extends southward, rough cut all around.]
|-
|{{1110|15|s|1|e}}
| No activity, mineshaft
|-
|{{1110|16|s|1|e}}
| No activity, mineshaft
|-
|{{1110|17|s|1|e}}
|Alaska at the bottom of the shaft.
At the lowest level of the cave, a fish leaps from water.
|-
|{{1110|9|n|2|e}}
|A reference to the {{w|Apollo 13}} manned mission to the moon in 1970. Two days after launch, en route to the moon, an oxygen tank exploded. Astronaut Swigert {{w|File:Apollo13-wehaveaproblem.ogg|reported}} the incident to Mission Control in Houston saying 'Houston, we've had a problem.' The 1995 movie {{w|Apollo 13 (film)|Apollo 13}} deliberately misquoted Swigert's famous statement as 'Houston, we have a problem' because the original made it seem that the problem had already passed.

The response is a parody of the inspirational quote 'There are no problems, only opportunities.'
;Transcript
:[The Apollo 13 mission is en route to the moon. An astronaut on board the craft informs Mission Control of an incident.]
:Astronaut: Houston, we have a problem.
:Mission Control: That's a negative, Apollo. There are no problems - only opportunities. Over.
|-
|{{1110|3|n|2|e}}
|A reference to the {{w|Greek myth}} of {{w|Icarus}} and his father's escape from {{w|Crete}} by building wings of feathers and wax. The joke is that, the incredible part of the story, the fact that Icarus and his father actually flew with simple wax and feathers, is downplayed to try to give children an object lesson about {{Wiktionary|humility}} and {{Wiktionary|hubris}}.
;Transcript
:[High in the air. There are feathers floating gently down. Below them is Icarus falling head first, he has the remains of wax and feather wings strapped to his arms.]
:Icarus: I only hope the story of how ''building wax wings enabled me to fly'' teaches everyone a lesson about hubris.
|-
|{{1110|1|n|2|e}}
|
;Transcript
:[To the left, Ponytail is climbing up while Cueball has second thoughts.]
:Cueball: We should turn back.
:Ponytail: Wimp.
:[In the middle, Cueball and Megan seem to be soaking in some sort of pond.]
:[To the right, Ponytail is standing on top of a castle while Megan pushes a boulder and Cueball is playing some music.]
|-
|{{1110|14|s|2|e}}
|
;Transcript
:[A flat tunnel runs the length of the whole tile. It is rough cut on the ceiling, but a smooth surface for walking.]
|-
|{{1110|17|s|2|e}}
|
|-
|{{1110|3|n|3|e}}
|[[Megan]] is surfing on a {{w|Boeing 767|Boeing 767-300W}}
|-
|{{1110|2|n|3|e}}
|[Ground slops uphill, left-to-right (West to East). Close to the far right boundary is the Christmas Tree from {{w|A Charlie Brown Christmas}}. In the middle is an electronic listening station. Right and Up-slope of the listening station, Megan and Cueball are lying on the ground, talking. Near bottom left is Ponytail, wearing sunglasses, roller-skiing off a ski jump. Top left are four birds in the sky.]
;Transcript
:Megan: Ever wonder if there's life up there ''beyond'' the stuff we're covering up?
:Cueball: Nah.
|-
|{{1110|1|n|3|e}}
|
|-
|{{1110|14|s|3|e}}
|
;Transcript
:[The tunnel opens up to a small cavern. The ground of the cavern is grass covered, and there is a tree growing in the center. Cueball is lounging near the tree.]
|-
|{{1110|17|s|3|e}}
|
|-
|{{1110|18|s|3|e}}
|{{w|Minecraft}} reference: Someone escapes a creeper, running deeper into the cave he just fell in.
|-
|{{1110|2|n|4|e}}
|The {{w|Blue Hill Meteorological Observatory}} as seen in [http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9c/Great_Blue_Hill_Weather_Station_Milton_MA_01.jpg this particular photo]. The radio tower depicted shows the antennas for the {{w|WGBH (FM)|WGBH}} and {{w|WKAF}} FM stations.
A reference to George Mallory's famous response to the question: "Why do you want to climb Mount Everest?".
;Transcript
:[Megan seems to be helping Cueball climb the hill.]
:Megan: "Because it's there" is more poetic than "I'm rich enough that my goals are arbitrary."
|-
|{{1110|1|n|4|e}}
|A black empty tile (required because unspecified North tiles are automatically filled with white).
|-
|{{1110|18|s|4|e}}
|
|-
|{{1110|19|s|4|e}}
|
|-
|{{1110|2|n|5|e}}
|Cueball can't get cellphone reception, while two wingsuit flyers are leaping off a cliff above him.
|-
|{{1110|1|n|5|e}}
|A black empty tile (required because unspecified North tiles are automatically filled with white).
|-
|{{1110|17|s|5|e}}
|Possibly The {{w|Nautilus (Verne)|Nautilus}}, the submarine from Jules Verne's novels Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1870) and The Mysterious Island (1874) Also, possibly an allusion to {{w|Schwa (art)|Schwa}}.
|-
|{{1110|19|s|5|e}}
|
|-
|{{1110|8|n|6|e}}
|{{w|Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope|Red Five}} is both Anakin and Luke Skywalker's call sign. Anakin uses the sign in the Battle of Coruscant and Luke uses it in the Battle of Yavin. Also note the use of "{{w|cannon}}" and "{{w|Canon (basic principle)|canon}}, possibly a reference to [[1401: New]]."
;Transcript
:Red Five to Red Leader - I'm out of range of any Imperial cannons or canons.
|-
|{{1110|2|n|6|e}}
|Giant airborne jellyfish.
;Transcript
:[Two birdwatchers with binoculars walk on the slope of a hill, one facing the tree at the far right of {{1110|2|n|5|e}} with her back to the giant jellyfish and the other one staring at it]
:Birdwatcher #1: Ooh, a {{w|yellow warbler}}!
:Birdwatcher #2: Cool.
|-
|{{1110|1|n|6|e}}
|
|-
|{{1110|16|s|6|e}}
|
|-
|{{1110|17|s|6|e}}
|
|-
|{{1110|19|s|6|e}}
|
|-
|{{1110|1|n|7|e}}
|Level 1-1 of the original {{w|Super Mario Bros.}} This is confirmed by text on {{1110|3|s|7|e}}. Compare with [http://www.mariowiki.com/images/e/e4/World_1-1_SMB.png screenshot]. The level's "bottomless pits" continue downward.
|-
|{{1110|1|s|7|e}}
|Two people climbing up/down the holes, and one falling.
|-
|{{1110|2|s|7|e}}
|
|-
|{{1110|3|s|7|e}}
|Two people are talking next to a "bottomless pit" from the Mario level, one is saying: "The walls... worn smooth by billions of tumbling Mario corpses".
|-
|{{1110|4|s|7|e}}
|The two pits on the left join together here.
|-
|{{1110|5|s|7|e}}
|
|-
|{{1110|6|s|7|e}}
|
|-
|{{1110|7|s|7|e}}
|
|-
|{{1110|8|s|7|e}}
|{{w|Role-playing game|RPG}} style pit trap
|-
|{{1110|9|s|7|e}}
|Another {{w|Minecraft}} reference. Cueball standing while a girl swings a pickaxe to further dig out a tunnel. Farther down, part of the mine shaft has collapsed and sealed the hole.
|-
|{{1110|10|s|7|e}}
|
|-
|{{1110|11|s|7|e}}
|
|-
|{{1110|12|s|7|e}}
|
|-
|{{1110|13|s|7|e}}
|
|-
|{{1110|14|s|7|e}}
|A cane is wedged in the right hand mine shaft. Likely a reference to the first {{w|Where's Waldo}} book, where Waldo loses his walking stick (and other items) and readers must scour the detailed illustrations to find Waldo and each of the items he drops.
|-
|{{1110|15|s|7|e}}
|
|-
|{{1110|16|s|7|e}}
|
;Transcript
:[Deep below the surface, the two boreholes finally end. The bones of the unfortunate ones to have fallen down the holes are scattered. A single man-made shaft is covered by a plug of some kind. The shaft goes down to supported deck {{w|arch bridge}} spanning a large chasm, the bottom of which is not shown.]
|-
|{{1110|17|s|7|e}}
|
;Transcript
:[A Pyramid in a cavern. Most likely a reference to Neon Genesis Evangelion's [http://evangelion.wikia.com/wiki/GeoFront NERV HQ], which is also located in a deep underground cavern. Most of a thatch-roof gazebo can be seen to the east of the pyramid.]
|-
|{{1110|19|s|7|e}}
|Horizontal tunnel
|-
|{{1110|1|n|8|e}}
|Four wind turbines, with [[Megan]] standing among them. May be a reference to [[1378: Turbine]]
|-
|{{1110|16|s|8|e}}
|Mostly solid rock; the roof of a cave is in the bottom corner to the west.
|-
|{{1110|17|s|8|e}}
|A small graveyard.
|-
|{{1110|18|s|8|e}}
|There are tentacle-like objects restricting the passing of objects through this tunnel, the art of which closely resembles the Xbox Live Arcade game {{w|Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet}}, and also bears a resemblance to the mouth of a {{w|Sarlacc Pit}} from Star Wars.
|-
|{{1110|19|s|8|e}}
|A tunnel from the west intersects with a vertical passage from above. To the east of the intersection the tunnel dead ends, and the opening downwards is filled with rocks and impassable.
|-
|{{1110|1|n|9|e}}
|Reference to the first line of "{{w|99 Problems}}" by {{w|Jay-Z}} ("If you're having girl problems I feel bad for you son. I've got 99 problems but a <rhymes with "witch"> ain't one."). Just left of the fence is a small cleared area with what appears to be a frog in the center. Frog Prince? Also a reference to {{w|Off-by-one error#Fencepost error|fencepost error}}. Ironically, there may be an off-by-one error in the joke, since it would only take 100 fenceposts to cover 99 problems, not 101.
|-
|{{1110|3|n|10|e}}
|The outline of the {{w|Bombardier Dash 8}} Q400 aircraft shown in Wikipedia.
|-
|{{1110|1|n|10|e}}
|Hilly terrain with a tree, and a [[Cueball]] standing on a rock.
|-
|{{1110|11|n|11|e}}
|An empty white tile with symmetric coordinates (11 N, 11 E).
|-
|{{1110|1|n|11|e}}
|A {{w|sine}} curve {{w|oscillate}}s between -1 and 1.
;Transcript
:[A bridge begins. The land falls down to meet the water with an almost sinusoidal curve.]
|-
|{{1110|11|s|11|e}}
|An empty black tile with symmetric coordinates (11 N, 11 E).
Note, that this PNG file contains an ICC section which means that the blackness in this image is properly {{w|Color correction|color-corrected}}.
|-
|{{1110|5|n|12|e}}
|This is a re-enactment of one of the last scenes in {{w|2001: A Space Odyssey (film)|2001: A Space Odyssey}}, in which Dave Bowman shuts down {{w|Hal 9000}} by one-by-one pulling out processor modules. Hal eventually regresses to his first programmed memories, the song {{w|Daisy Bell}} which he sings for Bowman.
;Transcript
:[High above the ground. Cueball has scaled the outside of a hot air balloon and is using a knife to cut it open while the gondola sings Daisy Bell.]
:''RIIIP''
:Gondola [singing, getting slower]: Daiiisyyy... Daiiiiiiisy...
|-
|{{1110|1|n|12|e}}
|{{w|Bourne Bridge|Bourne}} or {{w|Sagamore Bridge}}
;Transcript
:[The bridge continues.]
|-
|{{1110|1|n|13|e}}
|The bridge is either the {{w|Bourne Bridge|Bourne}} or {{w|Sagamore Bridge}}.

The {{w|covered wagon}} was popularized during the {{w|American Frontier|American expansion west}}, as a good way to bring goods along with as a family journeyed from the crowded eastern states out west (usually to Oregon or California).
;Transcript
:[Center of the bridge.]

:[A covered wagon is crossing east, there is a person driving driving, and a person poking out the back. A footman is walking quite a ways ahead of the carriage.]

:[On top of the bridge structure, Megan and Ponytail are sitting and eating some kind of picnic.]
:Megan and Ponytail: Nom nom nom

:[A tank, vaguely resembling a {{w|Sherman Firefly}}, is crossing west, possibly in a reference to the WWII film {{w|A Bridge Too Far}}. Ponytail is sitting on the turret. Cueball is being more daring and is balancing with arms outstretch on the end of the gun.]

:[Underneath the tank a two-masted junk rigged sailboat is resting with sails furled. Megan and Cueball are fore standing at the railing looking out over the sea.]
:Megan: So, um, here's the thing—
:Megan: I'm married to the sea, but it's a very ... ''open'' marriage.
|-
|{{1110|1|n|14|e}}
|{{w|Bourne Bridge|Bourne}} or {{w|Sagamore Bridge}}
;Transcript
:[Land again.]
|-
|{{1110|1|n|15|e}}
|[[Cueball]] is singing the chorus to the song "{{w|Flagpole Sitta}}" by {{w|Harvey Danger}}. The characters in the wagon reference the {{w|Oregon Trail (computer game)|Oregon Trail}} computer game.

[[Black Hat]] seems to be up to his usual shenanigans.

;Transcript
:[The bridge meets land again, and at the western foot of the bridge is a cannon. Black Hat is sitting behind the cannon, and has lit its fuse.]
:[Where the river meets the land there are stairs leading up to a landing.]

:[The covered wagon has made it across the bridge. Everything is drooping, now. The horse is not walking as upright, the driver is slouching, the person out the back is now lounging on the back with a gun clearly visible.]
:Someone inside wagon: You brought no food but ''how'' many boxes of bullets?

:[Farther east Cueball is sitting on top of a flagpole singing. Just northwest of him, a leaf spins through the air.]
:Cueball [singing]: I'm not sick, but I'm not wellll
|-
|{{1110|2|n|16|e}}
|Top of VLF antenna.
|-
|{{1110|1|n|16|e}}
|A cabin which appears to be hooked up to a VLF antenna.
|-
|{{1110|2|n|17|e}}
|Top of VLF antenna.
|-
|{{1110|1|n|17|e}}
|VLF antenna and a steep cliff dropoff to water. Cueball watches a butterfly flit around as they did in the {{w|Peanuts}} comic strip.
The VLF antenna is likely to be a representation of the [http://www.stormfax.com/wireless.htm Marconi Station] on Cape Cod as it existed in the early 1900's. This station transmitted the first trans-Atlantic wireless telegram in 1903. It had the same four towers and steep drop-off to the beach as depicted in this comic with possible original photo [http://capecodhistory.us/Wellfleet-records/pictures/Marconi-pc.jpg here].
|-
|{{1110|3|n|18|e}}
|A {{w|Boeing 717}} with landing gear deployed. Caption: "Folks, this is your captain speaking. I need you all to turn on every electronic device your have. There's no time to explain." (a reference to {{w|No Time To Explain|the game with the same name}}?)
|-
|{{1110|1|n|18|e}}
|Two swimmers in the ocean saying "Stupid {{w|FreeBSD}}...". FreeBSD is a Unix-like operating system. A reference to [[349: Success]].
|-
|{{1110|1|n|19|e}}
|A {{w|humpback whale}} breaching.
|-
|{{1110|1|n|20|e}}
|A rocky shore. The uppermost rock formation in this panel appears to be a laughing face in profile.
|-
|{{1110|1|n|21|e}}
|A fin-shaped object protrudes from the ground.
|-
|{{1110|2|n|22|e}}
|{{w|Guy-wire}}s
|-
|{{1110|1|n|22|e}}
|An anchor for {{w|Guy-wire}}s. To the east of the anchor, a very small Cueball and an equally tiny Megan can be seen in the grass.
|-
|{{1110|3|n|23|e}}
|{{w|Guy-wire}}s
|-
|{{1110|2|n|23|e}}
|{{w|Guy-wire}}s
|-
|{{1110|1|n|23|e}}
|An anchor for {{w|Guy-wire}}s
|-
|{{1110|4|n|24|e}}
|{{w|Guy-wire}}s
|-
|{{1110|3|n|24|e}}
|{{w|Guy-wire}}s
|-
|{{1110|2|n|24|e}}
|{{w|Guy-wire}}s
|-
|{{1110|1|n|24|e}}
|An anchor for {{w|Guy-wire}}s.
|-
|{{1110|5|n|25|e}}
|{{w|Guy-wire}}s
|-
|{{1110|4|n|25|e}}
|{{w|Guy-wire}}s
|-
|{{1110|3|n|25|e}}
|{{w|Guy-wire}}s
|-
|{{1110|2|n|25|e}}
|{{w|Guy-wire}}s
|-
|{{1110|1|n|25|e}}
|{{w|Guy-wire}}s with terrain
|-
|{{1110|6|n|26|e}}
|{{w|Guy-wire}}s
|-
|{{1110|5|n|26|e}}
|{{w|Guy-wire}}s
|-
|{{1110|4|n|26|e}}
|Black Hat is hanging from one of the wire supports.
|-
|{{1110|3|n|26|e}}
|{{w|Guy-wire}}s
|-
|{{1110|2|n|26|e}}
|{{w|Guy-wire}}s
|-
|{{1110|1|n|26|e}}
|An anchor for {{w|Guy-wire}}s.
|-
|{{1110|7|n|27|e}}
|Top of the radio tower mentioned under 6N27E (right below).
|-
|{{1110|6|n|27|e}}
|This appears to be the former record-holder for the tallest man-made structure, the {{w|KVLY-TV mast}} in {{w|North Dakota}}. It was surpassed by the {{w|Burj Khalifa}} (829.84 m (2,723 ft)) located in Dubai (also included in the comic).
;Transcript
:[Top of a radio tower. There are four guy-wires that connect to the tower, two on each side. A woman is standing on the top, holding onto the antenna for stability.]
:Woman: Dubai may have taken the record for "Tallest Manmade Structure," but North Dakota still has "[http://www.realnd.com/jamestownbuffaloindex.htm Largest Buffalo Monument]," "[http://heritagerenewal.org/bigthings/hamburger.htm Biggest Hamburger]," and "[http://www.realnd.com/casseltoncanpileindex.htm Tallest Pyramid of Oil Cans]." So ''there''.
|-
|{{1110|5|n|27|e}}
|{{w|Radio tower}} with {{w|guy-wire}}s.
|-
|{{1110|4|n|27|e}}
|{{w|Radio tower}} with {{w|guy-wire}}s.
|-
|{{1110|3|n|27|e}}
|{{w|Radio tower}} with {{w|guy-wire}}s.
|-
|{{1110|2|n|27|e}}
|{{w|Radio tower}} with {{w|guy-wire}}s.
|-
|{{1110|1|n|27|e}}
|The base of a {{w|radio tower}}.
|-
|{{1110|6|n|28|e}}
|{{w|Guy-wire}}s
|-
|{{1110|5|n|28|e}}
|{{w|Guy-wire}}s
|-
|{{1110|4|n|28|e}}
|{{w|Guy-wire}}s
|-
|{{1110|3|n|28|e}}
|{{w|Guy-wire}}s
|-
|{{1110|2|n|28|e}}
|{{w|Guy-wire}}s
|-
|{{1110|1|n|28|e}}
|An anchor for {{w|Guy-wire}}s.
|-
|{{1110|5|n|29|e}}
|{{w|Guy-wire}}s
|-
|{{1110|4|n|29|e}}
|Someone is sliding down the wire. Possibly a reference to the game {{w|Infamous (video game)|Infamous}}.
|-
|{{1110|3|n|29|e}}
|{{w|Guy-wire}}s
|-
|{{1110|2|n|29|e}}
|{{w|Guy-wire}}s
|-
|{{1110|1|n|29|e}}
|{{w|Guy-wire}}s with terrain
|-
|{{1110|4|n|30|e}}
|{{w|Guy-wire}}s
|-
|{{1110|3|n|30|e}}
|{{w|Guy-wire}}s
|-
|{{1110|2|n|30|e}}
|{{w|Guy-wire}}s
|-
|{{1110|1|n|30|e}}
|An anchor for {{w|Guy-wire}}s
|-
|{{1110|3|n|31|e}}
|{{w|Guy-wire}}s
|-
|{{1110|2|n|31|e}}
|{{w|Guy-wire}}s
|-
|{{1110|1|n|31|e}}
|An anchor for {{w|Guy-wire}}s.
|-
|{{1110|2|n|32|e}}
|{{w|Guy-wire}}s
|-
|{{1110|1|n|32|e}}
|An anchor for {{w|Guy-wire}}s.
|-
|{{1110|1|n|33|e}}
|A tree with a tractor.
|-
|{{1110|1|n|34|e}}
|A rolling grassy landscape with a fence. Some of the fence posts are topped with bluebird boxes, and birds sit on the fence wires.
|-
|{{1110|1|n|35|e}}
|a {{w|barn}} and some trees.
|-
|{{1110|1|n|36|e}}
|Reference to the original Pokémon games. When Prof. Oak tells you not to go into the tall grass without a Pokémon.
;Transcript
:[There is a large hill with very tall grass (taller than any character in this section).]
:[Left-most is some structure of some kind.]
:[West of the structure is Cueball shouting to Megan, who is running into the long grass.]
:Cueball: Don't go into the long grass! (Line from Jurassic Park 2: The Lost World which precedes the velociraptor attack.)
:Megan: Pikachu, I choose ''DEATH''—
:Megan: And with it immortality.
|-
|{{1110|1|n|37|e}}
|Grass.
|-
|{{1110|1|n|38|e}}
|Grass with a short rectangular structure.
|-
|{{1110|2|n|39|e}}
|The top of a water tower. Cueball and Megan on the catwalk at the top. Cueball looking out. Megan using some mounted device (maybe a telephone?, or some controls?).
|-
|{{1110|1|n|39|e}}
|The base of a water tower.
|-
|{{1110|1|n|40|e}}
|Grass.
|-
|{{1110|1|n|41|e}}
|Grass.
|-
|{{1110|1|n|42|e}}
|Grass.
|-
|{{1110|1|n|43|e}}
|Grass.
|-
|{{1110|1|n|44|e}}
|Grass.
|-
|{{1110|1|n|45|e}}
|Grass.
|-
|{{1110|1|n|46|e}}
|Grass.
|-
|{{1110|1|n|47|e}}
|Grass.
|-
|{{1110|1|n|48|e}}
|[[Cueball]] with a balloon in his hand, flying towards the image border. He says "I wonder where I'll float next". This is a reference to [[1|the very first xkcd comic]]. It may also be a reference to {{w|World of Goo}}, a computer game, where at the end of level 1 the goo balls leave the screen carried by balloons, wondering what will be next. Alternatively, this may be a reference to the detail and variety of earlier panels.
;Transcript
:[Grassy hill slowly rolls until the extreme right which ends in a much larger drop-off. This is the end of the world.]
:[Cueball is still floating holding his balloon, heading further east.]
:Cueball: I wonder where I'll float next.
|-
|}

==References by Category==
===Vehicles===
{| class="wikitable" |
! Name
! width="130px" | Grid coords
! Thumbnail
|-
|{{w|covered wagon|Covered wagons}}
|{{1110|1|n|13|e}} {{1110|1|n|15|e}}
|[[File:covered-wagon.png]] [[File:covered-wagon-2.png]]
|-
|Remote-controlled rocket-powered bicycle
|{{1110|1|n|1|w}}
|[[File:rocket-powered-bicycle.png]]
|-
|{{w|Sailboat}}
|{{1110|1|n|5|w}}
|[[File:sailboat.png]]
|-
|{{w|Sailing ship}}
|{{1110|1|n|8|w}}
|[[File:sailing-ship.png]]
|-
|{{w|Junk-rigged Sailboat}}
|{{1110|1|n|13|e}}
|[[File:junk-rigged-sailboat.png]]
|-
|{{w|Hot air balloons}}
|{{1110|6|n|1|e}}
|[[File:hot-air-balloon-1.png]] [[File:hot-air-balloon-2.png]]
|-
|{{w|Cars}}
|{{1110|1|n|1|w}} {{1110|1|n|1|e}}
|[[File:cars-sedans-1.png]] [[File:cars-sedans-2.png]] [[File:cars-sedans-3.png]] [[File:cars-sedans-4.png]]
|-
|{{w|Wienermobile}}
|{{1110|1|n|1|w}}
|[[File:wienermobile.png]]
|-
|{{w|Tractor}}
|{{1110|1|n|33|e}}
|[[File:tractor.png]]
|-
|{{w|Tank}}
|{{1110|1|n|13|e}}
|[[File:tank.png]]
|-
|{{w|Submarine}}
|{{1110|17|s|5|e}}
|[[File:submarine.png]]
|-
|{{w|Boeing 717}} Jet airliner
|{{1110|7|n|7|w}} {{1110|3|n|18|e}}
|[[File:boeing-717-jet.png]] [[File:boeing-717-jet-landing.png]]
|-
|{{w|Embraer E-Jet family|Embraer E-190}} Jet airliner
|{{1110|2|n|4|w}}
|[[File:embraer-e-190-jet.png]]
|-
|{{w|Boeing 767|Boeing 767-300W}} Jet airliner
|{{1110|3|n|3|e}}
|[[File:boeing-767-300w-jet.png]]
|-
|{{w|Bombardier Dash 8|Bombardier Dash-8 Q400}} turboprop airliner
|{{1110|3|n|10|e}}
|[[File:bombardier-dash-8.png]]
|-
|{{w|Saturn V}} Rocket
|{{1110|1|n|22|w}} {{1110|2|n|22|w}}
|[[File:saturn-v-rocket.png]]
|-
|{{w|Apollo 13}} spacecraft
|{{1110|9|n|2|e}}
|[[File:apollo-13-spacecraft.png]]
|-
|{{w|X-Wing fighters}}
|{{1110|8|n|6|e}} {{1110|8|s|17|w}}
|[[File:x-wing-fighter-1.png]] [[File:x-wing-fighter-2.png]]
|-
|}

===Man-made Structures===
{| class="wikitable" |
! Name
! width="130px" | Grid coords
! Thumbnail
|-
|{{w|Burj Khalifa}}
|{{1110|8|n|2|w}}, {{1110|6|n|27|e}}
|[[File:burj-khalifa.png]]
|-
|{{w|Statue of Liberty}}
|{{1110|1|n|13|w}}
|[[File:statue-of-liberty.png]]
|-
|{{w|Pyramid}}
|{{1110|17|s|7|e}}
|[[File:1110-pyramid.png]]
|-
|Bridges (Suspension bridge, Arch bridge)
|{{1110|1|n|12|e}} {{1110|1|n|13|e}} {{1110|1|n|14|e}}
|[[File:arch-bridge.png]]
|-
|{{w|Lighthouse}}
|{{1110|1|n|13|w}}
|[[File:lighthouse.png]]
|-
|Water tower
|{{1110|1|n|39|e}} {{1110|2|n|39|e}}
|[[File:water-tower.png]]
|-
|Mine shafts
|{{1110|1|s|17|w}}
|[[File:mine-shafts.png]]
|-
|Graveyard / cemetery
|{{1110|17|s|8|e}}
|[[File:graveyard-cemetary.png]]
|-
|Parking lot
|{{1110|1|n|1|w}} {{1110|1|n|1|e}}
|[[File:cars-sedans-1.png]] [[File:cars-sedans-2.png]] [[File:cars-sedans-3.png]] [[File:cars-sedans-4.png]]
|-
|Fence posts
|{{1110|1|n|34|e}}
|[[File:fenceposts.png]]
|-
|Bluebird boxes
|{{1110|1|n|34|e}}
|[[File:bluebird-boxes.png]]
|-
|Barn
|{{1110|1|n|35|e}}
|[[File:barn.png]]
|-
|Tire Swing
|{{1110|2|n|4|e}}
|[[File:tire-swing.png]]
|-
|Fountain
|{{1110|1|n|1|e}}
|[[File:1110-fountain.png]]
|-
|Park benches
|{{1110|1|n|14|w}}
|[[File:park-benches.png]]
|-
|Buoys
|{{1110|1|n|5|w}}
|[[File:buoy-1.png]] [[File:buoy-2.png]] [[File:buoy-3.png]]
|-
|Beach Umbrella
|{{1110|1|n|4|w}}
|[[File:beach-umbrella.png]]
|-
|Butterfly Net
|{{1110|1|n|1|e}}
|[[File:butterfly-net.png]]
|-
|}

===Technology===
{| class="wikitable" |
! Name
! width="130px" | Grid coords
! Thumbnail
|-
|{{w|Construction Cranes}} (Tower crane, Crawler crane)
|
|
|-
|Anti-aircraft platform
|{{1110|1|n|9|w}}
|[[File:anti-aircraft-platform.png]]
|-
|Wind turbines
|{{1110|1|n|8|e}}
|[[File:wind-turbines.png]]
|-
|{{w|Meteorological Observatory}}
|{{1110|2|n|4|e}}
|[[File:meteorological-observatory.png]]
|-
|{{w|Radio station}}
|{{1110|1|n|16|e}} {{1110|2|n|16|e}} {{1110|1|n|17|e}}
|[[File:marconi-station.png]]
|-
|{{w|Radio mast}}
|{{1110|2|n|16|e}}
|[[File:kvly-tv-mast.png]] [[File:guy-wires-with-mast.png]]
|-
|{{w|Radio Telescope}}
|{{1110|1|n|25|w}}
|[[File:1110-radio-telescope.png]]
|-
|{{w|Satellite Dish}}
|{{1110|1|n|1|w}}
|[[File:1110-satellite-dish.png]]
|-
|{{w|GPS}}
|{{1110|1|n|33|w}}
|
|-
|{{w|Bitcoins}}
|{{1110|1|n|9|w}}
|
|-
|{{w|Game Console}}
|{{1110|2|s|9|w}}
|
|-
|{{w|Guns}} (Anti-Aircraft Gun, Shotgun)
|{{1110|6|n|2|w}}
|
|-
|{{w|Laptop}}
|{{1110|2|n|2|w}}
|
|-
|{{w|Cellphones}}
|{{1110|2|n|5|e}}
|
|-
|{{w|FreeBSD}}
|{{1110|1|n|18|e}}
|
|-
|{{w|Facebook}}, {{w|Twitter}}
|{{1110|15|s|1|w}}
|
|-
|}

===Games===
{| class="wikitable" |
! Name
! width="130px" | Grid coords
! Thumbnail
|-
|{{w|AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! – A Reckless Disregard for Gravity|AaAaAA!!!}}
|{{1110|3|s|17|w}}
|
|-
|{{w|Clay pigeon}}
|{{1110|3|n|2|w}}
|
|-
|{{w|Duke Nukem 3D}}
|{{1110|1|n|2|w}}
|
|-
|{{w|Marco Polo (game)|Marco Polo}}
|{{1110|1|n|11|w}}
|
|-
|{{w|Super Mario Bros.}}
|{{1110|1|n|7|e}}
|
|-
|{{w|Minecraft}}
|{{1110|18|s|3|e}} {{1110|9|s|7|e}}
|
|-
|{{w|inFamous}}
|{{1110|4|n|29|e}}
|
|-
|{{w|The Oregon Trail (video game)|The Oregon Trail}}
|{{1110|1|n|15|e}} {{1110|1|n|13|e}}
|
|-
|{{w|Pokémon}}
|{{1110|1|n|36|e}}
|
|-
|}

===Movies===
{| class="wikitable" |
! Name
! width="130px" | Grid coords
! Thumbnail
|-
|{{w|2001: A Space Odyssey (film)|2001: A Space Odyssey}}
|{{1110|5|n|12|e}}
|
|-
|{{w|A Bridge Too Far (film)|A Bridge Too Far}}
|{{1110|1|n|13|e}}
|
|-
|{{w|Apollo 13 (film)|Apollo 13}}
|{{1110|9|n|2|e}}
|
|-
|{{w|Contact (film)|Contact}}
|{{1110|1|n|25|w}}
|
|-
|{{w|Groundhog Day (film)|Groundhog Day}}
|{{1110|1|n|33|w}}
|
|-
|{{w|Hackers (film)|Hackers}}
|{{1110|1|n|2|w}}
|
|-
|{{w|Jurassic Park (film)|Jurassic Park}}
|{{1110|1|n|36|e}}
|
|-
|{{w|Planet of the Apes (1968 film)|Planet of the Apes}}
|{{1110|1|n|13|w}}
|
|-
|{{w|Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi}}
|{{1110|8|s|17|w}} {{1110|18|s|8|e}}
|
|-
|{{w|The Crimson Permanent Assurance}}
|{{1110|1|n|8|w}}
|
|-
|{{w|They Live}}
|{{1110|1|n|2|w}}
|
|-
|{{w|Transformers}}
|{{1110|1|n|21|w}}
|
|-
|}

===Television Shows===
{| class="wikitable" |
! Name
! width="130px" | Grid coords
! Thumbnail
|-
|{{w|Lost (TV series)|Lost}}
|{{1110|1|n|17|w}}
|
|-
|{{w|The Simpsons}}
|{{1110|5|n|2|w}}
|
|-
|{{w|Seinfeld}}
|{{1110|1|n|2|w}}
|
|-
|{{w|A Charlie Brown Christmas}}
|{{1110|2|n|3|e}}
|
|-
|}

===Books===
{| class="wikitable" |
! Name
! width="130px" | Grid coords
! Thumbnail
|-
|{{w|Ender's Game}}
|{{1110|1|n|28|w}}
|
|-
|{{w|Footprints (poem)|Footprints}}
|{{1110|1|n|21|w}}
|
|-
|{{w|Tower of Babylon}}
|{{1110|1|s|17|w}}
|
|-
|{{w|The Adventures of Tom Sawyer}}
|{{1110|12|s|13|w}}
|
|-
|{{w|A Commonsense Book of Death}}
|{{1110|1|n|9|w}}
|
|-
|{{w|The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy}}
|{{1110|13|n|1|e}}
|
|-
|{{w|Where's Waldo}}
|{{1110|14|s|7|e}}
|
|-
|}

===Music===
{| class="wikitable" |
! Name
! width="130px" | Grid coords
! Thumbnail
|-
|{{w|99 Problems}}
|{{1110|1|n|9|e}}
|
|-
|{{w|Daisy Bell}}
|{{1110|5|n|12|e}}
|
|-
|{{w|Flagpole Sitta}}
|{{1110|1|n|15|e}}
|
|-
|{{w|I'm on a Boat}}
|{{1110|1|n|5|w}}
|
|-
|}

===Radio Programs===
{| class="wikitable" |
! Name
! width="130px" | Grid coords
! Thumbnail
|-
|{{w|Desert Island Discs}}
|{{1110|1|n|17|w}}
|
|-
|}

===Flora and Fauna===
{| class="wikitable" |
! Name
! width="130px" | Grid coords
! Thumbnail
|-
|Trees
|{{1110|1|n|14|w}} {{1110|14|s|3|e}}
|
|-
|{{w|Squirrel}}
|{{1110|1|n|1|w}}
|
|-
|{{w|Velociraptors}}
|{{1110|1|n|27|w}}
|
|-
|{{w|Seabirds}}
|{{1110|1|n|4|w}}
|
|-
|{{w|Jellyfish}}
|{{1110|2|n|6|e}} {{1110|1|s|6|w}} {{1110|2|s|9|w}}
|
|-
|{{w|Humpback whale|Whales (Humpback)}}
|{{1110|13|n|1|e}}
|
|-
|Fish
|{{1110|17|s|1|e}}
|
|-
|{{w|Yellow Warbler}}
|{{1110|2|n|6|e}}
|
|-
|[[:Category:Red Spiders|Red Spiders]]
|{{1110|6|n|5|w}}
|
|-
|}

===People===
{| class="wikitable" |
! Name
! width="130px" | Grid coords
! width="256px" | Thumbnail
|-
|{{w|Peter Thiel}}
|{{1110|1|n|9|w}}
|
|-
|{{w|Elizabeth Warren}}
|{{1110|1|n|8|w}}
|
|-
|{{w|Icarus}}
|{{1110|3|n|2|e}}
|
|-
|{{w|George Mallory}}
|{{1110|2|n|4|e}}
|
|-
|}

===Places===
{| class="wikitable" |
! Name
! width="130px" | Grid coords
! Thumbnail
|-
|{{w|Dubai}}
|{{1110|6|n|27|e}}
|
|-
|{{w|North Dakota}}
|{{1110|6|n|27|e}}
|
|-
|{{w|Alaska}}
|{{1110|17|s|1|e}}
|
|-
|}

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Black Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hair Bun Girl]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Large drawings]]
[[Category:Interactive comics]]
[[Category:Philosophy]]
[[Category:Velociraptors]]
[[Category:Squirrels]]
[[Category:Wingsuit]]
[[Category:Firefly]]
[[Category:Pokémon]]
[[Category:Red Spiders]]
[[Category:Video games]]

Talk:730: Circuit Diagram

2014-12-17T00:15:38Z

108.162.212.18: possible explaining-the-joke of 'moral rectifier'

So, is the arena a new kind of comparator or something? '''[[User:Davidy22|Davidy22]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 13:28, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

11:13, 10 April 2013 (UTC)11:13, 10 April 2013 (UTC)[[User:Jh6p|Jh6p]] ([[User talk:Jh6p|talk]])
The 3 liter capacitor could also be a ball approximately 6 inches in diameter if the seams on the ball were similar to the seams on a basketball. Perhaps a volleyball?

: "A squirrel. What it does as a circuit element is unsure."
Perhaps an allusion to a {{w|Squirrel-cage rotor|squirrel cage}}?
[[User:Wwoods|Wwoods]] ([[User talk:Wwoods|talk]]) 18:51, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

: The shape of the squirrel's tail reminds me of a {{w|hysteresis}} curve, although this is admittedly a bit of a stretch. —[[User:Scs|Scs]] ([[User talk:Scs|talk]]) 16:02, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

The 'to scale' motor would be about half a mile wide. Powering the rabbit on Gaia's vibrator (also included)? --[[User:StarChaser Tyger|StarChaser Tyger]] ([[User talk:StarChaser Tyger|talk]]) 08:40, 22 June 2013 (UTC)

I beg to differ on the flux capacitor thing, as cool as it sounds. Since it is right above the I-90 notation, it is more likely a fork in the road (notice the road stripes indicating that you can pass at any point in the fork). [[Special:Contributions/97.87.12.114|97.87.12.114]] 02:15, 24 June 2013 (UTC)
: Oh, I'm pretty sure it's a flux capacitor. Compare some of [http://www.google.com/search?q=flux+capacitor&tbm=isch these images]. Yes, there are several road references in this comic, but an electronic reference (especially to a ''fictional'' electronic component!) makes more sense. Also I've never seen a Y-shaped highway intersection that looked quite like that (and especially not on an interstate). —[[User:Scs|Scs]] ([[User talk:Scs|talk]]) 14:52, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

I have wasted 4 hours on the puzzle, and after wasting 9 pages of A5 paper, the resistance of that terrible resistor mess worked out to be exactly 25265/33783 ohm, or about 0.74786135 ohm. --KopaLeo [[Special:Contributions/199.48.226.89|199.48.226.89]] 15:16, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

I think that the "fishing float" might actually be a picture of an ordinary push switch (similar to foot switches used on standard lamps). [[Special:Contributions/87.194.171.29|87.194.171.29]] 16:12, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Isn't the "YES" resistor a reference to the anecdote of how John Lennon and Yoko Ono met? That's what I thought when I saw it, but then, I kinda like The Beatles a bit. [[Special:Contributions/200.70.22.74|200.70.22.74]] 12:27, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

I think the attempt to explain every single piece of the comic is rather silly. The humor largely draws from the absurdity of the diagram, and that can probably be summarized without going into detail about the possible references of each individual component. [[Special:Contributions/199.27.130.180|199.27.130.180]] 03:22, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
: I disagree. The joke works on multiple levels, both the absurdity of the circuit, and the smaller parts of which it is comprised. [[User:Hydroksyde|Hydroksyde]] ([[User talk:Hydroksyde|talk]]) 02:40, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

I concur with KopaLeo - I got the same answer for the resistance of the grid of resistors - about 0.748 when rounded. What a problem!
--techdude
[[Special:Contributions/108.162.215.65|108.162.215.65]] 20:45, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

I feel like I should point out that putting a ground connection in holy water probably creates {{w|Holy Ground}} [[Special:Contributions/108.162.212.197|108.162.212.197]] 11:36, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

To center of Sun could possibly be another map reference. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.250.202|108.162.250.202]] 01:08, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

The 'moral rectifier' seems like it's built of diodes which prevent current flow to the left, which might mean it's making the current 'more right'? with right being a synonym for moral?
[[Special:Contributions/108.162.212.18|108.162.212.18]] 00:15, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

;3L capacitor

The capacitor reminded me of a time I asked my dad why desktop PCs (the kind we could afford at the time were 200-500 W) couldn't have capacitors to protect them from 1-second or shorter power interruptions without the cost of a UPS. He said such a capacitor would have to be as wide and tall as a 2L pop bottle. (He didn't say how much it would weigh.) [[User:Promethean|Promethean]] ([[User talk:Promethean|talk]]) 04:38, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

Talk:1181: PGP

2014-06-28T16:37:43Z

108.162.212.18:

Everybody below seems to have misread the comic. It says nothing about 'verifying that the email is secure' or secret, or encrypted. It says verifying that the email is '''AUTHENTIC'''. This is a significant difference in meaning.[[Special:Contributions/24.70.188.179|24.70.188.179]] 15:55, 4 March 2013 (UTC)
: I understood the same. I am probably the only nerd that use PGP. So if you receive a mail with that "heading" it's probably from me.[[Special:Contributions/83.42.5.246|83.42.5.246]] 09:20, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
: '''"AUTHENTIC" what?''' Not to be too much of an engineer, but a confirmed/verified PGP signature only means that the contents have not been altered and the message was signed by the stated someone, but that 'stated someone' isn't necessarily the person whom you think it is. To map a real person to a digital signature PGP uses the "Web of Trust" model that relies upon the signer and reader trusting many third parties and thus building trust-links (a web)... rather than a central authority figure who issues trust to both users (the PKI model).--[[User:Sweerek|Sweerek]] ([[User talk:Sweerek|talk]]) 15:28, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

I don't really understand what's funny about this comic. [[Special:Contributions/76.106.251.87|76.106.251.87]] 05:53, 4 March 2013 (UTC)
: Perhaps the fact that an email is encrypted (or pretends to be) at all? Most emails aren't encrypted, or none of the ones I send or get are. :D [[Special:Contributions/59.10.72.121|59.10.72.121]] 06:28, 4 March 2013 (UTC)
: what is funny, is that nobody can read the signatures -- and therefore they a less than pointless, as the gives a false sense of security.
: I always sign my mails. If people cannot verify the signature, they are probably not too aware of security issues anyway. The only problem is windows Live Mail users, who receive an empty body with the original message as an attachment. At least in 2010 it was like that. [[Special:Contributions/46.142.43.161|46.142.43.161]] 18:09, 4 March 2013 (UTC)madd

I think merely the fact that PGP is in the email itself suggests the sender of the email is probably just a big nerd and therefore can be trusted. {{unsigned|153.90.91.1}}
: You are the type of person that the comic is making fun of. You assume it's safe and don't bother to verify it. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.212.18|108.162.212.18]] 16:37, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

Isn't it that those markers could very simply just have been typed in, rather than being part of the decryption system? [[User:DonGoat|DonGoat]] ([[User talk:DonGoat|talk]]) 07:41, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

With public key systems like PGP you need the public key of the other person to verify the authenticity of the message. Most people do not use PGP or do not know how it works or are just lazy. Some of those are convinced enough just by the outer looks of a signed email: The starting block and the jumbled chars at the end. It is like being impressed by a signature per se in real life without knowing what the one of the person you write to looks like. I think the allusion to pretty good is coincidental. Sebastian --[[Special:Contributions/178.26.118.249|178.26.118.249]] 08:11, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

:Email client is supposed to automatically check the signature and report it's validity in a way which can't be counterfeited. Few if any do. On the other hand, how much do you really want to need the email is signed? Unless it's asking for password or something, which would be suspicious anyway ... (and in that case, you should reply by ENCRYPTED email. By definition, email encrypted with public key of someone you trust posted to attacker should be useless to him).
:Personally, I don't PGP sign my emails because noone I'm regularly writting to would be able to verify the signature. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 09:27, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

There is an interesting comparison to do with regular handwritten signature, as this is exactly how people check the authenticity of a handwritten signed document: check for a signature. If there is one, and if there is, even if you never saw a sample of that signature, trust it. However, as with cryptographic signature with an unknown key, this does rely one something: the fact that it is forbidden, and punishable, to counterfeit one's signature, even if it is badly done (as in: write a random signature, hoping that the recipient does not know the real signature of the alleged author). -- [[User:Elessar|Elessar]] ([[User talk:Elessar|talk]]) 09:02, 4 March 2013 (UTC)
:Speaking of not checking handwritten signatures: http://www.zug.com/pranks/credit/ -- [[Special:Contributions/24.72.82.182|24.72.82.182]] 21:45, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

I agree with the commenters above me and I think the explanation goes into the wrong direction. This cartoon has nothing to do with encryption, it's only about (cryptographically) signing an e-mail. PGP can do both, but whilst signing is done using your own secret PGP key, for encryption you must have the public key of the recipient, so they must already know how to use PGP (or GnuPG) and have it installed. The cartoon is about people who either do not have PGP installed in their e-mail program or are using a web mailer (like many) that cannot handle cryptographically signed messages. For them, the signature is useless, unless they believe that the mere existence of a signature is a proof that the message is authentic.
Oh, and the explanation is wrong on the ASCII armor. If you read the RFC correctly, this separation line is used if you ''don't have'' ASCII armored text but plaintext. [[Special:Contributions/128.7.3.55|128.7.3.55]] 09:40, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

:You may be confusing "ASCII armored" (which in OpenPGP speak is "a BASE64-encoded version of the signature or encrypted text") with the encoding of the actual data (which may also be BASE64, or it may be Quoted-Nonprintable, or it may be actual plain-text ASCII). This separation line signals that signature will be at the end, and that the mail will not be encoded in PGP-MIME, which pretty much requires that the signature is ASCII armored.[[Special:Contributions/195.144.91.202|195.144.91.202]] 12:03, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

::At the time of my comment, the explanation said: ''»[...] Randall suggests that if you just look for "Begin PGP Signed Message" in the message, the assumption that the message is encrypted is "Pretty Good." This holds true as one of the RFC4880-devised plaintext headers '''for messages with ASCII armor''' is exactly this text«'' (emphasis by me), whereas RFC 4880 defines in section "Cleartext Signature Framework" that this header is used for ''cleartext'' messages, i.e. explicitly ''without'' ASCII armor. The explanation was changed shortly afterwards, so my comment was outdated and apparently confusing. [[Special:Contributions/128.7.3.55|128.7.3.55]] 11:48, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

:I also agree that the explanation doesn't really explain the point. PGP does not only provide encryption (which is in some sense privacy), but also authentication. If I publish my public key, anyone can use it to verify an email I signed with my private key. The joke is about what really happens. The text says: "If you find a header, this indicates a signed message. You are pretty safe if you assume the mail is authentic." This is funny, because email signatures are still so uncommon that there actually is no need to fake it. If you fake an email, why faking a signature? Just don't sign it. The image text goes one step further saying that you're safer when you look at the bottom of the mail and look for some weird random characters. This is what the actual signature looks like, but of course, the only way to really authenticate the mail is to use the sender's public key to verify that the random characters are a real signature. --[[User:BKA|BKA]] ([[User talk:BKA|talk]]) 12:19, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

PGP, or GPG (even in Windows) now, helps you verify the sender. If the key kept in the registry, or in your public keyring, matches, then the sender is the one known to you as the owner of that key. Of course, that doesn't stop someone from giving you a public key while pretending to be another, then maintaining the masquerade.

Incidentally nearly EVERYONE has seen a public key verified message. Visit any https website, and odds are the web browser not only established a secure channel through asymmetric (public key) encryption, but also verifies the owner of the 'site by checking with places like VeriSign. How many people here have visited their own HTTPS 'site, (while playing around with a server, for instance,) and had their browser pop up a warning about the 'site being unverified? [[Special:Contributions/156.110.38.82|156.110.38.82]] 14:50, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

As several others have noted, PGP can be used to encrypt and/or authenticate a message. I'd argue that the latter function is of little utility in the real world, as it solves a problem that few people have (the system itself dates to when e-mail was used very differently, and the expected future use case didn't exactly go as we all imagined). Security nerds would rarely need to authenticate anything that is otherwise unimportant enough to not bother to encrypt; typical end-users often can't even recognize obvious phishes, so unless their OS transparently refused to even display an email from a sender whose key was not in the recipients' keyring (ignoring all the complexity putting it in there entails) they would treat all emails as authentic anyway...which is what they do. E-mail was never designed for security, and nowadays the majority of it is spam, legit-spam, virtual receipts, and the like; there is so much noise now that most people who need secure communications have other vectors for such. [TL;DR: if you both need and know how to use PGP authentication of plaintext e-mail for important communication, you probably don't send those important things via plaintext e-mail.] [[Special:Contributions/173.161.183.129|173.161.183.129]] 18:49, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

Also, Randall's comment that the presence of a signature does not necessarily authenticate the message is reminiscent of [[1121: Identity]]. --[[Special:Contributions/213.151.48.139|213.151.48.139]] 12:13, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Hmmm... my take, and I thought I saw someone else hint at this above, is that the PGP decoration leads the ''unsophisticated'' reader into a ''false'' sense of security. It's akin to that severe-looking envelope marked "For Official Business Only" but coming from some mass mailer making it seem like their solicitation is in fact some official governmental communication. "It's got ''that'' on the cover, it ''must'' be important. I better find out what it is..." Voila. Mission accomplished. -- [[User:IronyChef|IronyChef]] ([[User talk:IronyChef|talk]]) 16:25, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

What would have been really funny is if the email content showed an attempt at [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigerian_scam Nigerian Scam]. [[User:Abhaysk|Abhaysk]] ([[User talk:Abhaysk|talk]]) 01:06, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
:"As several others have noted, PGP can be used to encrypt and/or authenticate a message. I'd argue that the latter function is of little utility in the real world" :I'd argue the opposite, spoofing an email is trivial, reading someone elses email is somewhat harder. Having a policy of only performing certain actions based on signed mails from known keys makes a lot of sense. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.51|141.101.98.51]] 13:36, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Talk:1192: Humming

2014-02-26T03:42:00Z

108.162.212.18:

406 Not Acceptable
The requested resource is only capable of generating content not acceptable according to the Accept headers sent in the request
[[Special:Contributions/76.93.158.8|76.93.158.8]] 05:14, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

Makes me think of [[wikipedia:Close Encounters of the Third Kind|Close Encounters of the Third Kind]] --[[User:Jeff|Jeff]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 12:39, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

That reminds me of the QR-Codes that by decoding it say things like: "And for that you take out your smartphone?" or "It's a stupid Avatar!"... [[Special:Contributions/80.154.105.130|80.154.105.130]] 16:44, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

:I read somewhere that an old man once wore a t-shirt with a QR-Code, which redirected to a naked picture of this man... [[Special:Contributions/108.162.212.18|108.162.212.18]] 03:42, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

Today's comic is late and it's April 1. I'm worried. [[User:Alpha|Alpha]] ([[User talk:Alpha|talk]]) 06:10, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Talk:1170: Bridge

2014-02-17T01:37:10Z

108.162.212.18:

I am ''definitely'' going to do this to someone!
~tartilc

Ahhh it's been a while since the last classic. This one is instant.
-Adam

Note that the Cueball's argument doesn't really defeat the idea behind the phrase. Jumping off the bridge JUST because your friends did is still bad idea. What you should do is analyse situation. In best case, FIND the logical reason why your friends jumped, although it's true that spending too much time analysing can be dangerous. Also, look WHERE are your friends jumping too and if they landed alive. In many catastrophic scenarios, panic can kill more people that the catastrophe. That said, statistically speaking, if all your friends jumped off the bridge, there probably IS reason why they did it and you WILL probably do the same - not because they jumped, but for the same reason they jumped. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 09:01, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
:But cueball didn't go for reasonably check why they jumped before making the decision. From what I understood, his argument, even if not the best idea, is to trust the friends judgement and jump too. Jump first, ask questions later. [[Special:Contributions/189.123.129.34|189.123.129.34]] 18:11, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

In Hong Kong, Moms use "jump off the building" instead of bridge. (Too many skyscrapers, tall apartments right here, only really rich people live in houses). Ok, next time I will argue with her with this when I am going to do something stupid LOL [[Special:Contributions/123.202.19.132|123.202.19.132]] 09:08, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

I probably one of the people who will not jump right away, at least think and looking around first. Yes it need some time and may cost me, but that's me. [[User:Arifsaha|Arifsaha]] ([[User talk:Arifsaha|talk]]) 21:37, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Cueball's argument assumes that each of his friends made independent decisions to jump off a bridge. However, if his other friends were reasoning in a similar fashion to Cueball, they may have come to the conclusion that the bridge was on fire after only a single person jumped. This herd behaviour is exactly what the adage is to remind one of. --[[Special:Contributions/128.135.70.143|128.135.70.143]] 21:56, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

I always was of the opinion that if '''all''' my friends DID jump off a bridge, I would probably jump off too, because I'd be far too depressed at the thought of all my friends being dead. Can you imagine living with that trauma? And who exactly is going to console you through it? All the likely candidates are dead! - [[User:KeithTyler|KeithTyler]] ([[User talk:KeithTyler|talk]]) 21:58, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert, did a comic similar to this one in 1999: [http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/1999-11-21/ Young Dilbert] --[[Special:Contributions/24.145.230.202|24.145.230.202]] 01:10, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

I think the point is that if you choose your friends wisely you can trust their logic. If they ALL jumped, ther must be a reason, unless you hang out with morons.
-Adam
:Or they have been all influenced by some gas or radiation, so cannot reason logically. :-) [[User:Arifsaha|Arifsaha]] ([[User talk:Arifsaha|talk]]) 17:16, 8 February 2013 (UTC)
:Or, you know, blood control or something. Except I'm the A positive...maybe they'd have the sense not to let me jump. --Prairie

I can't help but notice: We've all heard this, right? So basically, a lot of persons repeat saying that after having heard another say it. Should it make them question their logic? Not really. Saying this adage is kind of a fine example where doing something just because so many others did it, is rather stupid.
-thelvin

I wonder what Cueball and his friends were going to do? On the face of it, it didn't appear to be anything all that dangerous. His mother, if she was using this argument out of reflex, probably just got her comeuppance for applying it in an inappropriate context. Poor mom. She probably already has too much on her hands, working for a living and raising a very intelligent kid, and now she has the extra chore of checking her metaphors carefully before use. This should push her right to that old favorite, "Because!"[[Special:Contributions/24.79.11.46|24.79.11.46]] 20:42, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

So Mom, got her comeuppance? Isn't this exactly what she wanted her son to do, examine what was going on and make a logical decision based on it... the fact that he said "their must be a reason", means she failed of course and must retrain him. So now she just has to say..."Ok, you can go as long as you can demonstrate to me the value of you attending (said function) and those that will be denied to you by not attending and doing something more socially responsible!18:24, 11 February 2013 (UTC) MI Ranger 11 Feb 2013

I want to do this! Except that it requires having friends...
Wait... All my friends are doing it is still a valid argument, since any expression of the form 'All X are Y' is always true whenever X (my friends) is an empty set! (vacuously true)[[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.244|141.101.98.244]] 21:57, 3 November 2013 (UTC)
Much simpler... Up until the parent asks about bridge jumping, everything is the same: then cueball says "yeah. We're going bungee jumping." {{unsigned ip|108.162.219.35}}

If I ever have children, and the situation comes where I'll have to say "If all your friends...", I'll say it and see how they answer.
:If they give up on doing what they were going to do, I'll tell them they're wrong and then expose the idea of this comic.
:If, instead, they respond with the idea of this comic, then I raised them well.
[[Special:Contributions/108.162.212.18|108.162.212.18]] 01:37, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

Talk:1168: tar

2014-02-17T01:26:47Z

108.162.212.18:

I thought the title text would be "tar --help"
[[Special:Contributions/123.202.19.132|123.202.19.132]] 06:59, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

The comic is about the difficulty of the tar program options.

Even if his life depended on it and after years of usage, Bob/Randall could not come up with the right parameters without looking them up. So a situation is shown, where Bob's life depends on coming up with the right parameters:

* It shows an atomic warhead
* It has a user interface, which requests any valid tar command
* If it is not entered on the first try within 10s, the bomb is not disarmed and potentially explodes on the spot

Randall has come up with a situation, where the unix guy Bob can be the hero by knowing tar parameters. This is a pipe dream of a geek; nobody cares IRL, if you know tar parameters on the first try.

It is hilarious, that
* the bomb says in full detail the rules including that you should not cheat and it probably has no means to check whether you cheated. This is no game, but feels like one. In war and love every means is allowed - even cheating; it would also be self-defense for disarming the bomb; Bob and his colleagues are not even considering to cheat.
* the user has root access to the bomb, shown by the bomb as ~#, the tilde is the home directory, the # signifies super-user rights; even if the available programs prevent the bomb from being shutdown or disabled by a nonintended way, normally no root access is given for users of linux devices during normal usage; and disarming the bomb with official rules is normal usage of a bomb; a root prompt should not be necessary, if the bomb software is designed and configured well; possibly the unix prompt is a simulation for entering an answer
* Bob shurely needs more than 10s to come. So the bomb will have announced that questions, which require unix knowledge will follow - or has already asked other Unix questions; perhaps after 10s without entering anything a new question comes up
* this bomb can be disarmed with "common knowledge"

Small notes:
* The screen looks to be really grayscale (esp. the inverted "TEN") - not just because of the comic; it has at least 3 colors (black, white, tar gray); it could be that the "TEN" is updated dynamically and is thus inverted
* The comic is quite black: The screen and the bomb; Randall seldomly uses solid black areas; the bomb is a gloomy topic so it is black like "tar" (pun)

Sebastian --[[Special:Contributions/178.26.121.97|178.26.121.97]] 07:24, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

I think there is a visual double pun in this strip: the bomb disarmed by a tar command is a reference to the [[wikipedia:Tar (computing)#Tarbomb|tarbombs]], but it also looks like the [[wikipedia:File:Tsar Bomba Revised.jpg|Tsar Bomb(a)]]. --[[User:Koveras|Koveras]] ([[User talk:Koveras|talk]]) 08:24, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
: I don’t think it looks like Tsar Bomba. If anything, it is much more similar to [[wikipedia:Fat Man|Fat Man]]. --[[User:Mormegil|Mormegil]] ([[User talk:Mormegil|talk]]) 08:38, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
:: Yeah, but "Fat Man" doesn't sound like "tarbomb". --[[User:Koveras|Koveras]] ([[User talk:Koveras|talk]]) 10:48, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
:: Furthermore, the Tsar bomb was much bigger; I think I've read somewhere that it had the size of a bus. --[[Special:Contributions/95.34.7.179|95.34.7.179]] 11:11, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

I think another joke is in the fact that you don't know which Unix is running on the bomb so you don't actually know which parameter layout is supported. tar --help for example may or may not be valid since -- is a GNU extension.

tar -bvzx for a tar.bzip2 .... wait... no... argh... I've always just trusted my fingers.. --[[Special:Contributions/59.167.191.93|59.167.191.93]] 10:14, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
: Will '''tar -?''' be valid everywhere?. [[User:Arifsaha|Arifsaha]] ([[User talk:Arifsaha|talk]]) 19:32, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

tar -lvvb archive.tar.bz
File not found. Sorry, you're dead.
~#
[[Special:Contributions/74.82.68.68|74.82.68.68]] 12:35, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

Googling tar commands would definitely take more than 10 seconds, especially considering that Rob did not take his computer. (A smartphone is an option, but...)
Then again, why would "ten" be written in letters instead of numerals? [[User:Greyson|Greyson]] ([[User talk:Greyson|talk]]) 13:28, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
:I think the clock is already counting down. So probably they've discovered the bomb with still some minutes on the display. They call Bob when there is a minute left, He arrives with 25 sec's on the display and 15s later the screendump is made... [[Special:Contributions/86.82.116.63|86.82.116.63]] 22:33, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
:: This makes sense. --[[User:Shine|Shine]] ([[User talk:Shine|talk]]) 22:41, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

I think the current explantion is missing an important point: the tar commands are not that much difficult. What makes tar complicated is that there are many different implementations. The linux guy knows only gnu tar, but some unices have much different implementations and different commands. "tar --help" is certainly not available on an old hpux, for example. '''That''' make is difficult to type a valid tar command – even more if you don't know the implementation.
[[Special:Contributions/212.222.53.78|212.222.53.78]] 10:26, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
: Will '''tar -?''' be valid everywhere?. [[User:Arifsaha|Arifsaha]] ([[User talk:Arifsaha|talk]]) 19:32, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

I'm a Windows user, so bear with me. Couldn't he type something like "man tar" to get the proper usage of the "tar" command on this particular system? It's a "man" command, so it shouldn't count as a try towards typing a "tar" command. Of course, maybe the bomb would explode if he entered anything else. [[Special:Contributions/70.31.159.230|70.31.159.230]] 13:46, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

:Yeah, all standard Unix installations should have man installed. But many mini installations don't, so these days Google is the standard backup.[[User:CityZen|CityZen]] ([[User talk:CityZen|talk]]) 14:58, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

Randall's joke is spot on, as usual. I've been using UNIX for nearly 30 years. Windows User's solution is elegant. Before Google there was the <code>man</code> command. In all seriousness, productivity on a UNIX box can be greatly enhanced simply by keeping good notes. I keep patterns of all sorts of UNIX commands handy so I don't have to look them up. As Wikipedia implies, <code>tar -tf</code> (I prefer <code>-tvf</code>) should be memorized because one quickly learns that one should ''always'' inspect tarballs before unpacking them. ''– [[User:Tbc|tbc]] ([[User talk:Tbc|talk]]) 14:11, 1 February 2013 (UTC)''

One of the reasons that tar is so useful is that it can often do exactly what you want when other, more obvious commands cannot. For instance, recursively copying a directory from one place to another (using "cp") can be tricky when symbolic links are involved, and thus people memorize incantations like "tar cf - . | (cd dest; tar xf -)". As well, it's a standard tool that's guaranteed to be found on every Unix installation (unlike zip/unzip).[[User:CityZen|CityZen]] ([[User talk:CityZen|talk]]) 14:58, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

tar --help. Problem solved. '''[[User:Davidy22|Davidy22]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 15:21, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
: Maybe '''tar -?''' is better?. [[User:Arifsaha|Arifsaha]] ([[User talk:Arifsaha|talk]]) 19:32, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

What about "tar xf foo.tar"? I always assume options without dash work everywhere because options they are the original scheme. Of course, foot.tar might be absent, but in my view, the command itself remains valid.
As to the time limit: I imagine a countdown starts when the first key is hit - that leaves little time for "man tar". [[Special:Contributions/46.142.35.251|46.142.35.251]] 16:49, 1 February 2013 (UTC) madd

It feels like a partial reference to comic [http://xkcd.com/208/ xkcd 208]--[[Special:Contributions/108.162.157.176|108.162.157.176]] 04:31, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

I don't find tar all that tricky. The situation I'm always trumped with is when copying data, using cp, scp or rsync -r, then chmod -R /data 555. Why is '-R' capitalized? --[[Special:Contributions/98.253.217.12|98.253.217.12]] 19:54, 2 February 2013 (UTC)
:Because -r is 'substract the "read" right'. More interresting question is, why ssh -p but scp -P? -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 00:03, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

First thing that struck me here was the Jurassic Park allusion. Surprised no-one else has mentioned it.--[[Special:Contributions/58.6.184.37|58.6.184.37]] 07:01, 3 February 2013 (UTC)
:No one mentioned "What are four lowercase letters that are not legal flag arguments to the Berkeley UNIX version of `ls'?" question either ... -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 00:07, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Does this mean we should start retroactively rename cueball to "rob"?
:Rob is ''a'' Cueball, not ''every'' Cueball, so no. [[User:JET73L|JET73L]] ([[User talk:JET73L|talk]]) 14:05, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

There is something morbid in the subtext here.... I have a feeling that Randall is going to kill off Megan, Rob, and "White Hat"... [[User:Greyson|Greyson]] ([[User talk:Greyson|talk]]) 01:47, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Randall, I am disappoint! I haven't used tar for more than a year and I don't err anymore: tar -xvzf file (.gz) or tar -xvjf file (.bz2), and I still consider myself quite the newb. Works on all flavors of linux I tried (I like trying linuxes on VMs, dunno about other unixes, but everytime I need it, I get it right, so I wouldn't even consider this in my list of hardest programs to get right first time). For those interested: -x extract -v verbose (I like it) -z uncompress (for some compression types, in some flavors this works with bz2, IIRC) -j uncompress (for bz2, maybe others). [[Special:Contributions/189.123.132.123|189.123.132.123]] 20:51, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

:Originally bzip used -y. Not speaking about fact that bzip is pretty new - and some unixes don't have ANY compression support in their tar. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 00:03, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

The quickest tar command with valid syntax would be "tar t". Every switch after the first command letter is optional. Even the initial dash is optional. [[Special:Contributions/85.24.234.35|85.24.234.35]] 11:03, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
:(That would also be a command that is valid in every known tar version throughout the universe.)

The tar command actually has a unique syntax in unix. Classicly, it's first parameter is a subcommand (letter) followed by zero or more option letters. (And I think the subcommand had to be first.) Parameters for the options follow in sequence after that, in the same order the options where listed. Then, for the 'c' subcommand, an input filename list follows. This syntax was rather painful when you had perhaps 5 different option letters each with parameters, but this was a normal enough occurance when you specified the tape drive, tape block size, tape length, and a few others I can't even remember. Early implementations would have a file listing tape configurations so you could pick one and all its parameters with a single digit. In any case, it should be noted that a dash ('-') was actually NOT ALLOWED on the parameters. More recent versions of tar have attempted to add the more common unix option parsing, but still support the dash-less form. Having said all that, I tend to prefer "tar xvzf filename.tar.gz" and "tar tvzf filename.tar.gz". [[User:Divad27182|Divad27182]] ([[User talk:Divad27182|talk]]) 20:18, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure about it, so I'll not add to the explanation: doesn't "tarbomb" also refers to a malicious tarball that releases a ridiculously big file filled with blank/random data? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.212.18|108.162.212.18]] 01:26, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

Talk:1160: Drop Those Pounds

2014-02-16T00:18:07Z

108.162.212.18:

"Dropping Thirty Pounds Fast"? Is that a reference to the projectile weight being approx 30lb and "dropping" it on someone's walls? [[User:DreamingDaemon|DD]] ([[User talk:DreamingDaemon|talk]]) 10:03, 14 January 2013 (UTC)
:I was thinking more along the lines of thirty pounds of blood and dismembered flesh. '''[[User:Davidy22|Davidy22]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 10:46, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

A trebuchet works by dropping a large weight connected to the swing arm, thereby propelling the projectile in a parabola (hopefully) towards the target. Thus, by dropping 30 lbs fast, you may literally hit your target. {{unsigned|‎62.109.36.140}}

:Anyhow the explanation is a little off. The "subtlety" referred to is not that people tend to ignore weight loss flyers. It is that the flyer ''looks'' like a flyer for a weight loss programme, while it is actually trying to recruit people for something entirely different. Most people would not get this and sign up thinking that they would lose body weight, while they would be signing up for the trebuchet club. The only hint is the drawing, really. I agree with the above comment that the "dropping 30lbs" probably refers to the projectile. [[Special:Contributions/62.25.36.19|62.25.36.19]] 10:52, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

::Actually - I didn't mean that the 30lbs was the projectile but rather the counterweight propelling the projectile. [[Special:Contributions/62.109.36.140|62.109.36.140]] 12:53, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

My vote is that 30lbs stands for the projectile. [[Special:Contributions/70.31.159.230|70.31.159.230]] 15:55, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

30lbs for the projectile is most consistent with the alt-text, which implies that they will be hurling projectiles at the town. A 30lbs counterweight would only be able to fling a projectile an order of magnitude smaller. Also, for medieval trebuchets the "average mass of the projectiles was probably around 50–100 kg" ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trebuchet#Counterweight_trebuchet Wikipedia article]) --[[User:Forlackofabettername|Forlackofabettername]] ([[User talk:Forlackofabettername|talk]]) 16:23, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

:A trebuchet club would likely be building smaller models than the original medieval ones, so my vote is the 30lbs is referring to the counterweight, not the projectile. In a trebuchet, the counterweight drops fast, whereas the projectile doesn't initially drop at all, but it rather launches upwards and sideways; it'll be some time before it starts dropping, and even then not very quickly as the vertical speed takes some time to switch from up to zero, and then finally down, eventually building up speed to something that might be considered "FAST". But the "FAST" is mostly in the horizontal direction rather than seen as a "drop". In the meantime, that counterweight had already dropped more directly a long time ago. --boB

::Even the projectiles will take more to drop, it still quite "FAST" compare any weight loss program, so I think it can still refer to the projectile. [[User:Arifsaha|Arifsaha]] ([[User talk:Arifsaha|talk]]) 18:17, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

:::I can just imagine someone from the club saying "Let's drop 30 lbs on the target". Besides, I'd consider the usage of the word "drop" to be more metaphorical because in the operation of a trebuchet, no individual actually drops a counterweight; they simply pull a pin or cut a rope. [[Special:Contributions/70.31.159.230|70.31.159.230]] 20:54, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

A what-if wonder: considering a {{w|trebuchet}} is a {{w|weapon}}, will it be legal to own and place a {{w|trebuchet}} in your own {{w|backyard}}? [[User:Arifsaha|Arifsaha]] ([[User talk:Arifsaha|talk]]) 18:20, 14 January 2013 (UTC)
: The art of [http://www.amazon.com/dp/1613740646 backyard ballistics] is a firmly established niche hobby -- presumably for people with really big backyards. --[[User:Prooffreader|Prooffreader]] ([[User talk:Prooffreader|talk]]) 20:22, 14 January 2013 (UTC)
::'''''Presumably''''' people with really big backyards ... or with really annoying neighbors. {{unsigned|76.172.113.16}}
:: I needed a new hobby since I broke the last one... this is a contender! Thanks! :D [[User:DreamingDaemon|DD]] ([[User talk:DreamingDaemon|talk]]) 16:42, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

This might be example of '''literal''' vs '''figurative''' meaning: for trebuchet it is literally dropping counterweight and literally hitting a target. --[[User:JakubNarebski|JakubNarebski]] ([[User talk:JakubNarebski|talk]]) 17:06, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for finally turning my temporary text into a proper explanation :) [[Special:Contributions/62.25.36.19|62.25.36.19]] 17:16, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Image could also be mistaken for two people taking a walk by a hill to a castle; which would be consistent with mistaking the add for one for weight-loss; The absence of any trebuchet in the picture suggests this is deliberate. [[Special:Contributions/144.124.1.121|144.124.1.121]] 10:04, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Although there is ambiguity here, I would think that the 30 pounds is referring to the counterweight. This is due to the fact that any device can hurl a projectile (spring catapult, torsion device, and of course trebuchet) but what sets the trebuchet apart from the rest is that it is powered by falling mass. Also, any trebuchet club that is just starting will likely be building small golfball trebuchets which would likely use counterweights on the scale of 30 pounds. I agree the alt-text makes more sense if they are actually hurling 30 pounds, but I think the main joke here is the comic that makes use of the fact that a trebuchet is literally a dropping weight. Lastly, you aren't "dropping" the projectile, you are hurling it. {{unsigned|72.71.205.240}}

:Of course it's truly pedantic, but has anybody considered that dropping a 30-pound counterweight to fling a projectile imparts the same amount of energy1 to the target as dropping a 30-pound "projectile" (which would be more like a bomb in this case) on the target from roughly the same height the counterweight drops? So dropping a 30-pound counterweight on a trebuchet is very much indeed like dropping a 30-pound payload directly on your target, albeit at an angle that's more likely to be disadvantageous to the target, and from a location that's generally easier to occupy.

:1This is disregarding the additional friction losses, of course, which would be higher in the case of flinging a projectile with a trebuchet than in the case of dropping a bomb, due to friction in the trebuchet's axle or other mechanisms, the greater distance the projectile most likely travels as well as the higher speed with which it does so, and the projectile's lower mass and thus lower inertia. [[User:Daddy|Daddy]] ([[User talk:Daddy|talk]]) 14:01, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

But what IS the LEAST subtle method???[[Special:Contributions/204.138.232.251|204.138.232.251]] 20:40, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm surprised that nobody else has mentioned (or that I have somehow managed to skim over) the reference to the ''usual'' over-figerative depiction of "hitting a target" in such aspirationally motivating advertising, i.e. an archery target with an arrow in the bullseye. Or unpierced, but pensively awaiting the projectile, depicted in flight (in extreme perspective, heading intothe page that the target often faces straight out from) or otherwise. (I suspect that the phenomena extends to firearms targets as well, especially in communities with a relatively high amount of target-shooting involvement. I'm sure I've seen the old "german soldier silhouette" image used, albeit very rarely.) But, anyway, I can imagine that Randall is additionally riffing off the number of "Hit your target!" flyers with a bullseye motif... but skewing that to the fictional target reader's expectation that a motif or depiction of a parabolic trajectory might be supposed to convey exactly the same thing, rather than its actual literalist meaning. [[Special:Contributions/178.99.226.118|178.99.226.118]] 00:44, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

I'm impressed that nobody added to the explanation how much is 30 pounds in kilograms. I did that now. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.212.18|108.162.212.18]] 00:18, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

1160: Drop Those Pounds

2014-02-16T00:17:18Z

108.162.212.18: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1160
| date = January 14, 2013
| title = Drop Those Pounds
| image = drop those pounds.png
| titletext = If the flyers don't work, we'll switch to the LEAST subtle method of informing a town of the existence of a trebuchet club.
}}

==Explanation==

The comic presents a flyer with text typical of a ubiquitous advertisement for a "Weight Loss Program". However, the image at the bottom of the flyer and the title text make it clear that the flyer is actually an advertisement for a trebuchet club. This unexpected meaning is meant to highlight the ambiguity of the flyer's content.
A {{w|trebuchet}} is gravity powered siege engine, which was originally used to attack fortifications. It works by dropping a raised counter weight to rotate a throwing arm, launching a projectile on a ballistic path.
The phrase "We'll help you hit your target by dropping 30 pounds FAST" is where the ambiguity is produced. In the context of a weight loss ad, the "target" would be a rhetorical device referring to the weight which one wishes to achieve. In the context of a trebuchet club, the target is a literal location which one is trying to hit with a projectile. Likewise, a weight loss ad may indicate that a client could quickly lose 30 pounds (~13,6 kg). However, in this context, the 30 pounds being dropped is either the counter-weight - which is dropped to provide a trebuchet with its power, implying a rather small trebuchet - or the projectile itself being dropped at the target - it will be slower than the counter-weight but definitely still much faster than any weight loss program.

The only hint that the flyer advertises a trebuchet club is in the drawing at the bottom of the flyer, which appears to show two individuals pondering a ballistic path towards a castle tower (though no trebuchet is shown). The subtitle indicates that this flyer "may have been too subtle", while the title text suggests that, if the flyer is indeed too subtle a form of advertisement, they have less subtle options of announcing their club's existence — such as using their trebuchet to attack the town.

==Transcript==
:[Poster with drawing of Megan and Cueball in bottom left corner, castle in bottom right corner and a curved line between them. On the poster is some large text.]
:Struggling with those 2013 resolutions?
:We'll help you hit hit your target
:By dropping thirty pounds '''fast'''
:[Small print.]
:Web: http:// [Illegible] .com
:Call: [Illegible.]

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]

Talk:1159: Countdown

2014-02-16T00:05:06Z

108.162.212.18:

If you assume (with nothing else known), that large numbers have a probability about reciprocal to themselves to ensure a sum/integral of 1, the digits not being zeroes is extremely unlikely.

Whether black hat guy thinks a supervolcanoe eruption is a favourable event or being spared from one is not made entirely clear. Sebastian --[[Special:Contributions/178.26.121.97|178.26.121.97]] 08:56, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
:I warmly recommend the article {{w|harmonic series (mathematics)}}. ;-) --[[Special:Contributions/131.152.41.173|131.152.41.173]] 13:30, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
::You are right, the harmonic series is divergent. However, the maximal number of digits - which can be possibly displayed - is finite. Which distribution would you suggest? Sebastian --[[Special:Contributions/178.26.121.97|178.26.121.97]] 19:35, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

:Sebastian, do you know the specific name of the statistical principle you're invoking? I agree, but [[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] does not, and he has a quick tendency to remove things. One part of it is that you don't know the magnitude of a number, exponential distribution is a more appropriate model than linear. Another part is about the unlikelihood of the middle digits being zero. - [[User:Frankie|Frankie]] ([[User talk:Frankie|talk]]) 21:37, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
::{{w|Benford's law}} is about the probability of certain first digit(s). Sebastian --[[Special:Contributions/178.26.121.97|178.26.121.97]] 22:34, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
:::Hmm... "Benford's law also concerns the expected distribution for digits beyond the first, which approach a uniform distribution". I missed that the first time I read the article. Okay, that covers the essential parts of the argument. - [[User:Frankie|Frankie]] ([[User talk:Frankie|talk]]) 19:43, 12 January 2013 (UTC)
::::Come on now Frankie, I'm doing my best. I was just too quick to think that the claim was just another of these casual confusions about probability that non-math people have from time to time. (You know, I haven't rolled a 6 for some time, so now the chances must be pretty high...) I hadn't heard about this very counter-intuitive Benson-principle before, but found [http://plus.maths.org/content/looking-out-number-one this page] helpfylly explanatory.
::::So, I trust you on this. What I don't understand is, how do we know that Benfords law can be applied to this particular 14 digit number? The time left to an eruption? Also, how could a calculation of the actual probabiliy of the preciding digits being zero or anything else be made? – [[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 22:52, 12 January 2013 (UTC)
:::::What is more important for this comic than the Benford's law itself, is its underlying condition that many naturally existing numbers are lognormally distributed. And not uniformally distributed. Under that premise we can try do hypothesize about the odds of leading zeroes. Sebastian --[[Special:Contributions/178.26.121.97|178.26.121.97]] 00:28, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
:::::The initial timer is a physical quantity, therefore scale invariant, and created by a lognormal distribution (first random experiment). Now there are two possibilities: -- a) BHG specifically got a 14-digit display for the countdown (with the first digit according to Benford's law of course) and the initial timer 14 digits wide. b) The initial timer value possibly was much smaller and it could have been any number which fit on the display. -- Cueball comes in. The shown timer is uniformally distributed within the range below the initial timer (second random experiment). Because of the visible zeroes a) does not seem to be likely and b) would be true, specifically b) with the hidden digits being zero, as the shown zeroes are very unprobable with all large timer values, and the short timer actually is quite probable (lognormal distribution). Is this a valid way to argue for probabilities? Sebastian --[[Special:Contributions/178.26.121.97|178.26.121.97]] 00:55, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
::::::It seems legit, but I can't tell, really. But we have no concrete estimation yet (maybe that's too hard). Do you ''really'' think that this phenomenon is so strong so that (from the 1 in 30000) it makes the probability for four zeroes ''higher'' than for all the other 29999 possibilities together? –[[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 08:45, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
:::::::Another effect is that if the initial counter was small to begin with, it is quite unprobable (with only one supervolcanoe eruption) that Cueball comes in during the run of the counter. I will try to do a calculation example to compare the possibilities with reasonable assumptions. Sebastian --[[Special:Contributions/178.26.121.97|178.26.121.97]] 08:52, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
::::::::I restructured the last part somewhat. Hope that I didn't screw anything up, and if so, fix it! And it would be very nice if you could also add some more explanation of the math involved! –[[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 19:36, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
::This is a wholly inappropriate accusation to make here. If you have a problem, please put it through appropriate channels. No editor has a perfect score, we all slip up because we're all human. [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]]_a ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 23:49, 12 January 2013 (UTC)
: Assuming that the middle digits are random, the expected value is 1.53 million years. But: If the display is off-the-shelf, it is probably larger than the largest number actually displayed. Maybe the counter started at 1e8, and the next smaller display had only 8 digits. Maybe we should have a look at the statistical distribution of digits in commercially available LED displays ... [[Special:Contributions/77.88.71.157|77.88.71.157]] 08:42, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

::I don't think there are displays with that many digits. You have to buy several one digit (perhaps four digits) displays and multiplex them together. 23:56, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

"I forget which one" may be a reference to the 7 known supervolcanoes, or it might be to a list published by the Guardian in 2005 of the top 10 existential threats to life on Earth, which went briefly viral. It included a supervolcano eruption, as well as viral pandemic, meteorite strike, greenhouse gases, superintelligent robots, nuclear war, cosmic rays, terrorism, black holes, and telomere erosion [http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2005/apr/14/research.science2]

I understand how the hidden numbers could mean that a volcano could either erupt very soon or a very long time. But I don't get why this is a joke. Is there something funnny that I am missing? {{unsigned|72.38.90.50}}

:It's a joke, because a supervolcano eruption would have a major impact on the earth, and Black Hat has a timer that will tell him when one will occur, but he is too lazy to see whether it will happen soon. {{unsigned|76.14.25.84}}

The title-text may be a reference to the line "May the odds be ever in your favor!" in ''The Hunger Games''. I wonder if this might also be a commentary on the foolishness of assuming that a rare event won't happen anytime soon. [[User:gijobarts|gijobarts]] ([[User Talk:gijobarts|talk]]) 19:54, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

The picture could be somewhat symbolic. It could be a sunset or sunrise, like the would could be about to end or not. [[Special:Contributions/67.194.183.127|67.194.183.127]] 06:19, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

Benford's Law has no bearing on what any of the covered digits are except the first, and even then it only weakly applies; it only applies to the FIRST digit of natural numbers, and since we can have leading 0's is really doesn't apply. Furthermore, even if it applied to all the digits, the probability distribution on the covered digits is not affected by the shown digits; that's not how probability works. If I flip a coin 10 times and it's heads all ten times, the probability that the 11th flip is still 50/50. -Mike Powers
:Benford's Law shows that with real-life (physical) numbers you cannot just use a 10% probability for each digit. These numbers are not uniformally, but lognormally distributed. That means, there is a smaller tendency to greater numbers than their possible number space would allow. Benford's Law with its relevancy to the first n digits is not directly applicable here, but its general validity contradicts some of the assumptions normally often made. As you see many zeroes in the middle part, the probability is quite high that also the first digits are zero. Here the length of the number has a normal distribution and a short number is about as probable as a long one. And long ones with zeroes in the middle are seldom so it is probably a short number. This would not be the case, if each digit is randomly selected from 0-9. Then the greater probability of longer numbers would cancel out this effect. Sebastian --[[Special:Contributions/178.26.121.97|178.26.121.97]] 10:07, 3 February 2013 (UTC)
:Regarding the independence of the digits: That is conditional probability. We have a probability distribution for the complete number. In nature this is a lognormal distribution (with suitable parameters regarding the scale; that is why the intention to buy a display with certain width is important). That means zero digits are quite common, as short numbers have much weight. With just creating the digits independently you do not get a lognormal distribution. With four zeroes shown only 1/10.000 of the longer numbers are possible any longer, making them much rarer. To begin with they would need a probability of at least 10.000 as high to counter this effect, but they do not have it (with a uniformal distribution they would have it). Sebastian --[[Special:Contributions/178.26.121.97|178.26.121.97]] 10:25, 3 February 2013 (UTC)
:If we have initially the same probability for numbers of digit length 1-14 (about 7%): After looking we (partly) know that digits 1 till 4 are non-zero and digits 5-8 are zero. Then numbers of digit length 1-3 have 0% probability, numbers with digit length 5-8 have 0% probability. Numbers with digit length 9-14 have a probability of 0.01% each and numbers with length 4 have a probability of 99.94%. The results differ with the logarithmic distribution of number length. E.g. with mu=11 digits and sigma=2 digits, the probability of 4 digits is 85%. With mu=12 digits and sigma=3 digits, the probability of 4 digits is 98.3%. With mu=7.5 digits and sigma=4 digits the probability of 4 digits is 99.95%. With mu=12 digits and sigma=2 digits, the probability of 4 digits is 47.64%. Sebastian --[[Special:Contributions/178.26.121.97|178.26.121.97]] 11:07, 3 February 2013 (UTC)
The 11:59 subtle joke is slightly reinforced as the countdown steps over 2400. Sebastian --[[Special:Contributions/178.26.121.97|178.26.121.97]] 11:11, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Could "the odds are in our favour" be a reference to the hunger games? {{unsigned ip|141.101.98.240}}

:If you had read all the comments, you would have seen that someone else already thought the same, and nesting your comment below his/hers would make more sense. But that's just me grammar naziing around. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.212.18|108.162.212.18]] 00:05, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

Talk:1159: Countdown

2014-02-15T23:56:23Z

108.162.212.18:

If you assume (with nothing else known), that large numbers have a probability about reciprocal to themselves to ensure a sum/integral of 1, the digits not being zeroes is extremely unlikely.

Whether black hat guy thinks a supervolcanoe eruption is a favourable event or being spared from one is not made entirely clear. Sebastian --[[Special:Contributions/178.26.121.97|178.26.121.97]] 08:56, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
:I warmly recommend the article {{w|harmonic series (mathematics)}}. ;-) --[[Special:Contributions/131.152.41.173|131.152.41.173]] 13:30, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
::You are right, the harmonic series is divergent. However, the maximal number of digits - which can be possibly displayed - is finite. Which distribution would you suggest? Sebastian --[[Special:Contributions/178.26.121.97|178.26.121.97]] 19:35, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

:Sebastian, do you know the specific name of the statistical principle you're invoking? I agree, but [[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] does not, and he has a quick tendency to remove things. One part of it is that you don't know the magnitude of a number, exponential distribution is a more appropriate model than linear. Another part is about the unlikelihood of the middle digits being zero. - [[User:Frankie|Frankie]] ([[User talk:Frankie|talk]]) 21:37, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
::{{w|Benford's law}} is about the probability of certain first digit(s). Sebastian --[[Special:Contributions/178.26.121.97|178.26.121.97]] 22:34, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
:::Hmm... "Benford's law also concerns the expected distribution for digits beyond the first, which approach a uniform distribution". I missed that the first time I read the article. Okay, that covers the essential parts of the argument. - [[User:Frankie|Frankie]] ([[User talk:Frankie|talk]]) 19:43, 12 January 2013 (UTC)
::::Come on now Frankie, I'm doing my best. I was just too quick to think that the claim was just another of these casual confusions about probability that non-math people have from time to time. (You know, I haven't rolled a 6 for some time, so now the chances must be pretty high...) I hadn't heard about this very counter-intuitive Benson-principle before, but found [http://plus.maths.org/content/looking-out-number-one this page] helpfylly explanatory.
::::So, I trust you on this. What I don't understand is, how do we know that Benfords law can be applied to this particular 14 digit number? The time left to an eruption? Also, how could a calculation of the actual probabiliy of the preciding digits being zero or anything else be made? – [[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 22:52, 12 January 2013 (UTC)
:::::What is more important for this comic than the Benford's law itself, is its underlying condition that many naturally existing numbers are lognormally distributed. And not uniformally distributed. Under that premise we can try do hypothesize about the odds of leading zeroes. Sebastian --[[Special:Contributions/178.26.121.97|178.26.121.97]] 00:28, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
:::::The initial timer is a physical quantity, therefore scale invariant, and created by a lognormal distribution (first random experiment). Now there are two possibilities: -- a) BHG specifically got a 14-digit display for the countdown (with the first digit according to Benford's law of course) and the initial timer 14 digits wide. b) The initial timer value possibly was much smaller and it could have been any number which fit on the display. -- Cueball comes in. The shown timer is uniformally distributed within the range below the initial timer (second random experiment). Because of the visible zeroes a) does not seem to be likely and b) would be true, specifically b) with the hidden digits being zero, as the shown zeroes are very unprobable with all large timer values, and the short timer actually is quite probable (lognormal distribution). Is this a valid way to argue for probabilities? Sebastian --[[Special:Contributions/178.26.121.97|178.26.121.97]] 00:55, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
::::::It seems legit, but I can't tell, really. But we have no concrete estimation yet (maybe that's too hard). Do you ''really'' think that this phenomenon is so strong so that (from the 1 in 30000) it makes the probability for four zeroes ''higher'' than for all the other 29999 possibilities together? –[[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 08:45, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
:::::::Another effect is that if the initial counter was small to begin with, it is quite unprobable (with only one supervolcanoe eruption) that Cueball comes in during the run of the counter. I will try to do a calculation example to compare the possibilities with reasonable assumptions. Sebastian --[[Special:Contributions/178.26.121.97|178.26.121.97]] 08:52, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
::::::::I restructured the last part somewhat. Hope that I didn't screw anything up, and if so, fix it! And it would be very nice if you could also add some more explanation of the math involved! –[[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 19:36, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
::This is a wholly inappropriate accusation to make here. If you have a problem, please put it through appropriate channels. No editor has a perfect score, we all slip up because we're all human. [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]]_a ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 23:49, 12 January 2013 (UTC)
: Assuming that the middle digits are random, the expected value is 1.53 million years. But: If the display is off-the-shelf, it is probably larger than the largest number actually displayed. Maybe the counter started at 1e8, and the next smaller display had only 8 digits. Maybe we should have a look at the statistical distribution of digits in commercially available LED displays ... [[Special:Contributions/77.88.71.157|77.88.71.157]] 08:42, 14 January 2013 (UTC)
::I don't think there are displays with that many digits. You have to buy several one digit (perhaps four digit) displays and multiplex them together. 23:56, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

"I forget which one" may be a reference to the 7 known supervolcanoes, or it might be to a list published by the Guardian in 2005 of the top 10 existential threats to life on Earth, which went briefly viral. It included a supervolcano eruption, as well as viral pandemic, meteorite strike, greenhouse gases, superintelligent robots, nuclear war, cosmic rays, terrorism, black holes, and telomere erosion [http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2005/apr/14/research.science2]

I understand how the hidden numbers could mean that a volcano could either erupt very soon or a very long time. But I don't get why this is a joke. Is there something funnny that I am missing? {{unsigned|72.38.90.50}}

:It's a joke, because a supervolcano eruption would have a major impact on the earth, and Black Hat has a timer that will tell him when one will occur, but he is too lazy to see whether it will happen soon. {{unsigned|76.14.25.84}}

The title-text may be a reference to the line "May the odds be ever in your favor!" in ''The Hunger Games''. I wonder if this might also be a commentary on the foolishness of assuming that a rare event won't happen anytime soon. [[User:gijobarts|gijobarts]] ([[User Talk:gijobarts|talk]]) 19:54, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

The picture could be somewhat symbolic. It could be a sunset or sunrise, like the would could be about to end or not. [[Special:Contributions/67.194.183.127|67.194.183.127]] 06:19, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

Benford's Law has no bearing on what any of the covered digits are except the first, and even then it only weakly applies; it only applies to the FIRST digit of natural numbers, and since we can have leading 0's is really doesn't apply. Furthermore, even if it applied to all the digits, the probability distribution on the covered digits is not affected by the shown digits; that's not how probability works. If I flip a coin 10 times and it's heads all ten times, the probability that the 11th flip is still 50/50. -Mike Powers
:Benford's Law shows that with real-life (physical) numbers you cannot just use a 10% probability for each digit. These numbers are not uniformally, but lognormally distributed. That means, there is a smaller tendency to greater numbers than their possible number space would allow. Benford's Law with its relevancy to the first n digits is not directly applicable here, but its general validity contradicts some of the assumptions normally often made. As you see many zeroes in the middle part, the probability is quite high that also the first digits are zero. Here the length of the number has a normal distribution and a short number is about as probable as a long one. And long ones with zeroes in the middle are seldom so it is probably a short number. This would not be the case, if each digit is randomly selected from 0-9. Then the greater probability of longer numbers would cancel out this effect. Sebastian --[[Special:Contributions/178.26.121.97|178.26.121.97]] 10:07, 3 February 2013 (UTC)
:Regarding the independence of the digits: That is conditional probability. We have a probability distribution for the complete number. In nature this is a lognormal distribution (with suitable parameters regarding the scale; that is why the intention to buy a display with certain width is important). That means zero digits are quite common, as short numbers have much weight. With just creating the digits independently you do not get a lognormal distribution. With four zeroes shown only 1/10.000 of the longer numbers are possible any longer, making them much rarer. To begin with they would need a probability of at least 10.000 as high to counter this effect, but they do not have it (with a uniformal distribution they would have it). Sebastian --[[Special:Contributions/178.26.121.97|178.26.121.97]] 10:25, 3 February 2013 (UTC)
:If we have initially the same probability for numbers of digit length 1-14 (about 7%): After looking we (partly) know that digits 1 till 4 are non-zero and digits 5-8 are zero. Then numbers of digit length 1-3 have 0% probability, numbers with digit length 5-8 have 0% probability. Numbers with digit length 9-14 have a probability of 0.01% each and numbers with length 4 have a probability of 99.94%. The results differ with the logarithmic distribution of number length. E.g. with mu=11 digits and sigma=2 digits, the probability of 4 digits is 85%. With mu=12 digits and sigma=3 digits, the probability of 4 digits is 98.3%. With mu=7.5 digits and sigma=4 digits the probability of 4 digits is 99.95%. With mu=12 digits and sigma=2 digits, the probability of 4 digits is 47.64%. Sebastian --[[Special:Contributions/178.26.121.97|178.26.121.97]] 11:07, 3 February 2013 (UTC)
The 11:59 subtle joke is slightly reinforced as the countdown steps over 2400. Sebastian --[[Special:Contributions/178.26.121.97|178.26.121.97]] 11:11, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Could "the odds are in our favour" be a reference to the hunger games? {{unsigned ip|141.101.98.240}}

Talk:1157: Sick Day

2014-02-15T00:02:04Z

108.162.212.18:

I expected the title-text's "Wikipedia path" to end with "Philosophy". [[Special:Contributions/173.8.183.86|173.8.183.86]] 07:19, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
:My thoughts exactly! ([http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=903 Extended Mind]--see title text.) [[User:Zelmo|Zelmo]] ([[User talk:Zelmo|talk]]) 15:45, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Is "Wikipeida" a deliberate typo? Does it mean something different than "Wikipedia", or does
it just indicate that Randall is too sick to spell "Wikipedia" properly? [[Special:Contributions/194.106.220.85|194.106.220.85]] 09:07, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
:I don't think it was, since it has been corrected. However, the picture in here has not updated... [[Special:Contributions/95.209.104.190|95.209.104.190]] 16:32, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

I expected the FIRST comment will resolve the wikipedia entries ... well ok: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virus Virus] -> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immune_system Immune system] -> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innate_immune_system Innate immune system] -> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasites Parasites] (actually redirect) -> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_parasites_of_humans List of parasites of humans] -> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naegleria_fowleri Naegleria fowleri] -> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primary_amoebic_meningoencephalitis Primary amoebic meningoencephalitis] -> Deciding I DEFINITELY shouldn't connect an aquarium pump to my sinuses -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 09:30, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
:This comic likely refers to the recent bout of flu making its way through most of the US, was on the news a couple days ago.--[[User:Relic|Relic]] ([[User talk:Relic|talk]]) 03:40, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

A case of amebic Meningitis from the use of a neti pot was the final diagnosis of [http://www.housemd-guide.com/season8/817needeggs.php an episode of House M.D.] [[Special:Contributions/108.162.225.56|108.162.225.56]] 09:02, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

:Yeah but the guy used faucet water instead of a completely clean one. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.212.18|108.162.212.18]] 00:02, 15 February 2014 (UTC)