explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Talk:326: Effect an Effect

2016-04-22T17:03:06Z

108.162.214.137: Urban legend?

Can someone explain the title text, thanks! –[[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 14:20, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
:Yeah, I'd like to see that get added as well. I kind of assumed it was like taking a kill-count; one painting for each victim. I'm not sure what it specifically refers to, or what the origin of the term is. [[Special:Contributions/76.106.251.87|76.106.251.87]] 05:55, 28 March 2013 (UTC)
:seen the silhouette images of enemy planes painted next to the pilots canopy on mid 20th century fighter planes? its a reference to that. i've only seen it in films but presumably where there's smoke there's fire. *edit for improved explanation: the images are painted by the pilot to show how many 'bogies' he's shot down,much like how cueball will paint the grammarian on his desktop as another victim. [[User:Xseo|Xseo]] ([[User talk:Xseo|talk]]) 10:02, 15 April 2013 (UTC)
::"mid 20th century fighter planes"?? As opposed to what? Late 18th century fighter planes?[[Special:Contributions/86.44.215.73|86.44.215.73]] 02:44, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
:::As opposed to late 20th and 21st century fighter planes perhaps? [[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 08:20, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
::::And assuming "mid 20th century" refers to World War II of 1939-45 (less years for Americans, arguably more so for some other countries), there were already gun-attached 'fighter aircraft' in WWI and onward (though often technically called "scouts" or "pursuit" aircraft, in English and American terminology, respectively... other countries/languages having their own varients). Maybe not from the ''very'' start of the 1914-18 conflict, as opposing aircrews were apparently quite friendly to each other for a while until some air-reconnaissance pilot took a pistol up with him (or perhaps it was originally a solution against airships, leastwise those that they could get high enough to attack). And then some people had the idea to hard-attach various projectile weapons to the planes. And, oh boy, they had fun for a while trying to mount them to fire through their own front propellers, didn't they? ;)
::::Anyway, the concept definitely had become engrained before the 'mid' 20thC, by whatever name. Did the Red Baron paint kills on his triplane? Did Biggles (fictionally) do so? Someone ought to actually research this. ;) [[Special:Contributions/178.98.31.27|178.98.31.27]] 16:27, 19 June 2013 (UTC)
:::::At least in his autobiography "Der rote Kampfflieger" (The red Fighter pilot) Manfred von Richthofen (the actual name of the Red Baron) did not tell about that. And he did not mention any other pilot doing so, either. But since he considered being a fighter pilot as a sport such as hunting and he was very proud of his "score" it is most likely he would have telled if there were such a rite, I guess. As such I would consider "mid 20th century" as correct, since most if not all actual evidences of that tradition I am aware of are from WWII or later. Unfortunately I did not found any information about the origin of that tradition. The only wikipedia entry is the German article about "Abschussmarkierung" which has no links to translations of other languages and does not contain any information about the origin and searching for "kill marks" or "kill scores" leads to nothing but hobbyist forums or World of Tanks/World of Warplanes (both being more or less WWII games) and similar. Maybe I do some more research on this, later. [[User:Elektrizikekswerk|Elektrizikekswerk]] ([[User talk:Elektrizikekswerk|talk]]) 15:48, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

Effects effecting affects affect effects effectively. Also, Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo. --naginalf [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.40|108.162.216.40]] 20:29, 12 March 2014 (UTC)
: Sure, but really, if an effect can effect affects effectively, how many affects can an effect effectively effect? [[User:Brettpeirce|Brettpeirce]] ([[User talk:Brettpeirce|talk]]) 14:46, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
:: As many affects as an effect can effect if an effect can effect affects effectively. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.238.162|108.162.238.162]] 04:09, 4 November 2014 (UTC)
::: What that is that that is is that that is what that is, I guess. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.56.174|173.245.56.174]] 19:42, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

I was in a meeting once where a guy said, "I am effected by my environment." I replied, "Oh? We think, therefore you are?" Nobody laughed. Sigh. {{unsigned|CoderLass}}

Can someone simplify the meaning / alternative words for the two variants and verb/noun uses in a spreadsheet? --[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Lazer%20erazer Björn Eberhardt] 14:50, 3 June 2015 (CEST)

:You shouldn't need a spreadsheet, since it's only a 2x2 matrix, meaning just 4 meanings. Briefly:
:* Effect (noun): result
:* Effect (verb): cause
:* Affect (noun): visible sign of mood
:* Affect (verb): change

:There are additional meanings for all of these, but they're generally related to the main meaning in obvious ways. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.255.69|162.158.255.69]] 07:28, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

Bjorn- if you find anyone to do that, I'm getting it as a tattoo.
[[User:Gwynfshae|Gwynfshae]] ([[User talk:Gwynfshae|talk]]) 15:01, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

The spelling of "foreign" was corrected several hours after it was posted, according to [http://blog.xkcd.com/2007/10/08/embarassing-typo/ the XKCD blog]. Anyone know how it was initially spelled? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.255.148|162.158.255.148]] 23:34, 31 March 2016 (UTC)

Does the plane-painting thing actually ever happen? I have heard people say the practice exited from well before WWII, but in almost every case both before and after I think it’s an urban legend. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.214.137|108.162.214.137]] 17:03, 22 April 2016 (UTC)

1597: Git

2015-11-07T03:24:56Z

108.162.214.137: So simple, there's a comic showing how it's commonly misunderstood.

{{comic
| number = 1597
| date = October 30, 2015
| title = Git
| image = git.png
| titletext = If that doesn't fix it, git.txt contains the phone number of a friend of mine who understands git. Just wait through a few minutes of 'It's really pretty simple, just think of branches as...' and eventually you'll learn the commands that will fix everything.
}}

==Explanation==
Git has a very cool distributed architecture, but the user experience is much more complex than other revision control systems. TFS and subversion can be taught to junior developers in about 20 minutes, but it takes much longer to learn how to use Git’s basic features. It is very easy for Git to become deadlocked, which requires some obscure commands to fix. Unless you are an expert at Git, it is sometimes easier to delete your project and try again.

There are things that Git does that other RCS don’t do. (I am not entirely sure what they are, to be totally honest. When the question is asked, the responses usually just talk about the architecture.) Git experts tend to like that the software is more powerful than other RCS systems, and some tend to be dismissive of how difficult other people find it to use. Many people (such as myself and Cueball) find the architecture cool, but are not Git experts.

So this is the joke. There is a conflict between how experts typically TALK about Git, and how most users actually USE Git. The humor comes from having a character say things that many people think, but wouldn’t say out loud for fear of looking stupid.

==Alternative==

This comic is a play on how {{w|Git (software)|git}}, a popular {{w|version control}} system, is misused by people who have a very poor understanding of its inner workings. Git is a particularly apt target for such a joke due to its widespread use and the significant discrepancy between its perceived complexity and its underlying design. Tutorials for git tend to use simple systems in their examples, and only deal with the most basic commands to get started, which can create the misleading impression that git can be used effectively without extensive study.

Due to this problem, compounded by the fact that git's commands are named differently from similar commands in other version control systems, many users (including Cueball) are unable to use it beyond basic commands, and might try to avoid problems by saving their code outside git, downloading a newer copy, and then re-applying their changes to the new copy instead of trying to understand and use the features that exist in git to simplify this task.

Whenever complications arise, for example because one developer has changed code that another developer has already changed, or because of a mistaken attempt to undo a mistake, this behaviour can easily lead to a corrupt repository. To overcome this problem, Cueball suggests that Ponytail keeps an alternative copy of her project outside git which, of course, defeats the purpose of employing a version control system to begin with.

git.txt in this case refers to a file that this development team has put into the repository, with readme-like instructions in a simple text file. This kind of file is usually helpful for special tasks like creating databases, or dealing with unusual quirks of a project. Its use here is ironic because git should be well understood by developers, as it is a basic tool. Moreover, you have to use git to get the file to be able to read it in the first place.

Putting a telephone number of someone who "understands git" into such a file is humorous because:
*Software teams would more normally use electronic means of communication
*Explaining git over the phone to team members should not be necessary, as there is extensive help available online, and
*In the situation where many team members would need phone support to avoid or fix basic git problems, this would be extremely distracting to the person whose phone number was given in the file.

Git was originally created by {{w|Linus Torvalds}}, the same person who originally created {{w|Linux}}.

In short: programmers use {{w|Version control|version control systems}} to track changes to code. Most of these version control systems are quite similar and easy to learn if you already know another one. Git is a version control system based on completely different principles, and most programmers find it difficult to wrap their heads around it (although Git also offers a large number of nontrivial benefits over standard version control systems, which is why it is used). Cueball is one of those programmers.

The comic [[1296]] also features git.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball points to a computer on a desk while Ponytail and Hairy are standing further away behind an office chair.]
:Cueball: This is git. It tracks collaborative work on projects through a beautiful distributed graph theory tree model.
:Ponytail: Cool. How do we use it?
:Cueball: No idea. Just memorize these shell commands and type them to sync up. If you get errors, save your work elsewhere, delete the project, and download a fresh copy.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]
[[Category:Programming]]
[[Category:Computers]]
[[Category:Internet]]

Talk:1555: Exoplanet Names 2

2015-07-24T05:09:35Z

108.162.214.137:

.. I almost feel like that titletext gives enough reason for there to be (some) pages about the [[what_if?|''What If?'']] series, but ehhhh... [[User:Pixali|Pixali]] ([[User talk:Pixali|talk]]|[[Special:Contributions/Pixali|contribs]]) 05:02, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

What is with Kepler-283? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.214.137|108.162.214.137]] 05:09, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

== Novella ==

I'm not 100% sure what "Novella" refers to, aside from the dictionary definition of the word (and if that's the case I'm unsure of the context), but in case it's not widely-known on this wiki, I want to suggest the possibility that it's a tribute to the Novella brothers, who are among the co-hosts of the popular science podcast The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe. - [[Special:Contributions/108.162.241.175|108.162.241.175]] 04:43, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

1552: Rulebook

2015-07-17T04:46:58Z

108.162.214.137: /* Transcript */

{{comic
| number = 1552
| date = July 17, 2015
| title = Rulebook
| image = rulebook.png
| titletext = It's definitely an intentional foul, but we've decided it's worth it.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a BOT - Please change this comment when editing this page.}}

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript}}

Ponytail: There's nothing in the rulebook that says we can't kill and eat your dog.

{{comic discussion}}