explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

231: Cat Proximity

2016-10-21T04:11:51Z

108.162.215.113: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number =231
| date =March 5, 2007
| title =Cat Proximity
| image =cat_proximity.png
| titletext =Yes you are! And you're sitting there! Hi, kitty!
}}

==Explanation==
This comic refers to the use of "{{w|baby talk}}" when speaking to pets, especially {{w|cats}}. A person's voice becomes {{w|falsetto}} and [http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cooing cooing], vocabulary becomes simplified, and phrases are repeated, such as "Here, kitty, kitty, kitty".

The chart shows that a person's apparent intelligence decreases, and that the [http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/inanity inanity] (i.e. uselessness or emptiness) of their statements increases, the closer they get to a cat.
Most people act like this when they're playing with cats or trying to call it over to them.
Thankfully being close to a cat doesn't actually cause any decrease of intelligence in normal circumstances; the graph technically refers to ''demonstrated'' intelligence rather than actual IQ levels.

The title text continues [[Cueball|Cueball's]] obvious statement (and thus inane/useless point made) from below the graph.

In [[1535: Words for Pets]] [[Randall]] again mentions how people often talk strangely to their pets.

==Transcript==
:[A graph with the x-axis labeled, and the scale indicated from left to right:]
:Far
:Human proximity to cat
:Near
:[Two curves are drawn and labeled, first the one starting on top, which then veers downwards and crosses the other as that curve veers upwards.]
:Intelligence
:Inanity of statements

:[Below the graph Cueball is seen standing at three distances from a cat that is drawn to the far right. The two first Cueballs are just standing, one below far, the other in the middle and the last is standing close to the cat (below near) with his hands up and he is speaking.]
:Cueball: You're a kitty!

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Animals]]
[[Category:Line graphs]]

1705: Pokémon Go

2016-07-11T16:43:39Z

108.162.215.113: copyedit

{{comic
| number = 1705
| date = July 11, 2016
| title = Pokémon Go
| image = pokemon_go.png
| titletext = Still waiting for the Pokémon Go update that lets you capture strangers' pets.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Still early explanation. More info needed on the game. Is the underlighting not also how they look on the screen of the real game? Link to black hat comic.}}

{{w|Pokémon Go}} is an {{w|augmented reality}} (AR) smartphone game, where players walk around the real world trying to find and capture digital first-generation {{w|Pokémon}} (i.e. Pokémon from the first series of games released), then leveling them up and/or evolving them, and using them in battle, similar to the classic Pokémon games for handheld consoles. These Pokémon are randomly placed around the world in the AR format so that they can only be seen through the phone. [[Randall]] is playing a prank on all players happening upon his real Pokémon figures as they are so consumed with this new game that they assume that they are from the game, not realizing that they should not be able to see them before they take out their phones, and then after doing this wondering why their phone is having trouble loading them.

Due to the popularity of the Pokémon franchise, after Pokémon GO's release in America on July 6, 2016, many fans of the series have been walking around with their smartphones out to capture and battle Pokémon, sometimes looking very ridiculous in the process{{Citation needed}}.

Randall jokes that he has replicated the AR properties of the Pokémon in the app (that is, when you encounter a Pokémon, it is a small computer-generated sprite placed over your phone's front camera image that moves about your screen, giving the appearance of a "real" Pokémon in front of you). Randall's real life plastic models of various Pokémon have been constructed so they would seem to fit on a smartphone screen due to perspective, he has embedded a [[332: Gyroscopes|gyroscope]] in them so they wobble about their base giving them the appearance of basic computer-created movement, and as a final touch he has added a subtle underlighting to give them a slightly computer-generated look compared to the real world around them. These effects combined fool avid Pokémon GO players into taking out their smartphone to capture the Pokémon for their game, when in fact it is just a toy sitting in front of them, and they should have known this as mentioned above. In this comic Randall displays the Pokémon called {{w|Squirtle}} which looks like a little turtle. Such a complicated contraption would probably be very difficult to make and quite valuable for the Pokémon Go fan when he realized it is a real-world object, so after they have been fooled they would probably be happy to bring back this trophy.

The suggested prank is harmless, but in Missouri [https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jul/10/pokemon-go-armed-robbers-dead-body armed criminals have taken advantage] of the game's location sharing to lure unwitting players into secluded areas and rob them.

This comic is part of the [[:Category:My Hobby|My Hobby series]]. In this case, the hobby is pranking players of Pokémon Go by replicating the appearance of the augmented reality mechanic.

In the title text, Randall is still waiting for an update that allows capture of strangers' pets -- besides the obvious, playing by the rules of Pokémon only wild (not any with an owner) Pokémon can be caught. However, in the Pokémon Colosseum games, through the use of a specialized device the player steals from the villains, the player can capture other trainers' Pokémon. This is also a callback to an earlier strip wherein [[Black Hat]] [[1086: Eyelash Wish Log|wishes]] for a Pokéball that works on strangers' pets.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball walks in to the frame from the left. On the sidewalk in front of him is a small Pokémon figure looking like a standing tortoise with a long tail. Lines around it indicate that it is moving forth and back (wobbling), and circle lines below indicate that there is light below it. The exact position of the Pokémon and these lines around it change through all four images, but stays almost in the same position.]

:[Cueball takes out his smart phone and points it's camera at the Pokémon while looking at the screen.]

:[Cueball shakes his smart phone violently up and down indicated with four to five gray drawings of his arm and phone below and above one solid black copy of the hand and phone. There are also two gray lines above and below the outer gray phones to indicate this shaking.]

:[Cueball has lowered his smart phone and just stands there looking at the wobbling Pokémon.]
:Cueball: '''''???'''''

:[Caption below the panel:]
:'''My hobby: Building plastic Pokémon with subtle underlighting and a gyroscope to make them drift back and forth, then leaving them sitting around to mess with Pokémon Go players.'''

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:My Hobby]]
[[Category:Pokémon]]
[[Category:Animals]] 
[[Category:Smartphones]]

1699: Local News

2016-06-27T19:48:24Z

108.162.215.113: /* Explanation */ wikilink

{{comic
| number = 1699
| date = June 27, 2016
| title = Local News
| image = local_news.png
| titletext = Will there ever be a physics term greater than 'tachyonic antitelephone?' According to this message from the future, the answer is 'no.'
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|More detail on quantum mechanics needed.}}
Typical news broadcasts are divided into local, national, and global news segments. The broadcast in this comic has been broken into local and nonlocal instead. However, rather than focusing on national or global news, the nonlocal segment deals with news of a [[wikipedia:Quantum nonlocality|nonlocality]] nature; more likely dealing with causal nonlocality.

A "{{w|tachyon}}" is a theoretical or thought-experiment particle which travels faster than the speed of light. It has many strange properties, including being able to go back in time. This is how the newscaster is able to send a beam back in time to kill her past self. The comic does not explain the paradox of how someone who died in the past could still be alive.

A {{w|Tachyonic antitelephone}} is a theoretical device which would allow messages to be sent to the past. The title text, itself a message sent to the past, informs us that physics will indeed never have a term greater than "Tachyonic antitelephone".

==Transcript==
[Newscaster sitting at her desk]

Newscaster: In local news, city council elections were held today.

Newscaster: In nonlocal news, I killed my past self with a tachyon beam.
{{comic discussion}}

1699: Local News

2016-06-27T16:24:13Z

108.162.215.113: /* Explanation */ more detail on quantum mechanics needed

1698: Theft Quadrants

2016-06-25T00:45:53Z

108.162.215.113: /* Explanation */ rearrange

{{comic
| number = 1698
| date = June 24, 2016
| title = Theft Quadrants
| image = theft quadrants.png
| titletext = TinyURL was the most popular link shortener for long enough that it made it into a lot of printed publications. I wonder what year the domain will finally lapse and get picked up by a porn site.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|How difficult is it to steal TinyURL, really? Is it a real problem?}}

This is a "{{w|Time_management#The_Eisenhower_Method|Eisenhower box}}" comparing how difficult it is to steal a specified thing with the severity of the theft.

It is hard to steal {{w|Gold Codes|nuclear launch codes}}. That's a good thing, too, since they could be used to start a {{w|Nuclear warfare|nuclear war}}.

It is also hard to steal the {{w|Crown Jewels of the United Kingdom|crown jewels}}, since they are protected by a [http://yeomenoftheguard.com/Windsor%20Castle.jpg complex security system]. But if they were stolen, it wouldn't be so bad for most people.

It wouldn't be hard to steal the {{w|Wienermobile}} (a car shaped like a hot-dog, advertising the Oscar Mayer brand), and there would be little consequence if it were stolen.

It wouldn't be hard to steal the {{w|TinyURL|tinyurl.com}} domain name, but the consequences of that could be significant.

TinyURL offer a url shortening service. They provide short URLs that redirect to long ones. This is useful if you want to write down a very long URL as it saves typing and is more accurate. Other companies including [https://bitly.com/ bit.ly] offer a similar service, as do [https://goo.gl/ Google] and Twitter. TinyURL was, for a while, the most popular of these URL shortening services. If their domain name were stolen, all the redirects from short URLs could be changed to forward traffic to sites hosting, for example, malware. This would have significant effects on a large number of people.

Domain hijacking is relatively common. If a cracker can obtain personal information about the domain owner, they can impersonate them to the domain registrar, and obtain control of the domain, and with that control defraud a large number of people.

As the title text notes, sites can be particularly vulnerable if they do not maintain their web site, as the registrar is free then to sell the same domain to any third party. A [https://reports.internic.net/cgi/whois?whois_nic=tinyurl.com&type=domain whois search] as of June 2016 finds that the tinyurl.com domain is next due for renewal in June 2018.

Randall has written about stealing the Wienermobile before in [[935: Missed Connections]].

==Transcript==
{{incomplete|Added basic transcript. Please improve on it by editing it.}}

{| class="wikitable"
!rowspan="2"|How hard thing would be to steal
! Hard
| The Crown Jewels||The Nuclear Launch Codes
|-
! Easy
| The Oscar Mayer Weinermobile||The tinyurl.com Domain Name
|-
!colspan="2" rowspan="2"|
! Not that bad
! Very bad
|-
!colspan="2"|How bad it would be if someone stole it
|}

{{comic discussion}}

Talk:1532: New Horizons

2015-06-05T12:51:22Z

108.162.215.113:

Anyone know why the text on the comic was heavily aliased (pixelated edges), although it's since been fixed on the xkcd website? [[User:Keavon|Keavon]] ([[User talk:Keavon|talk]]) 07:45, 1 June 2015 (UTC)
:Probably a bad setting on the PNG compression by Randall when saving. Maybe he's trying to optimize file size (although in this case, the quality suffered). --BigMal // [[Special:Contributions/108.162.238.192|108.162.238.192]] 11:53, 1 June 2015 (UTC)
:Did the quality of the comic improve over time? Might have been a reference to the images provided by new horizons becoming more clear as it approached[[Special:Contributions/108.162.215.113|108.162.215.113]] 12:51, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

According to Wikipedia, "in August 2014, astronomers made high-precision measurements of Pluto's location and orbit around the Sun using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array to help NASA's New Horizons spacecraft accurately home in on Pluto." Was Steve involved in these measurements too? (And any of the numerous ways by which it can be determined how far away NH is and which way it is travelling!)--[[User:Laverock|Laverock]] ([[User talk:Laverock|talk]]) 12:43, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

This joke appears to be aimed at the implausibility of the Horizon Mission’s concept art, which looks suspiciously like earth. The image shows deserts, mountains and oceans which appear to be “riffs off” of a satellite image of the Horn of Africa, western Asia, and the Indian Ocean.
Examples:
Artist's conception of New Horizons at Pluto. Image Credit: NASA
http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/15-011a.jpg
Image usage:
http://www.spaceflightinsider.com/missions/solar-system/new-horizons-starts-first-phase-pluto-encounter/

I do not know if the image is concept art for the New Horizon mission from back in 2006; or if it is a more generic space exploration art work. It is hard to imagine that it is specific to the New Horizon’s Mission.
One should ask New Horizons mission members to comment. There must be an interesting inside story. [[User:Dfh42|Dfh42]] ([[User talk:Dfh42|talk]]) 15:49, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

This earlier mission art is probably closer to what Randall would consider plausible:
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_267.html [[User:Dfh42|Dfh42]] ([[User talk:Dfh42|talk]]) 16:29, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

Waitasec, wouldn't the people on the ground know pretty much the exact position of this probe at all times? If nothing else they know its direction and distance from earth just by monitoring their communications with it. [[User:Odysseus654|Odysseus654]] ([[User talk:Odysseus654|talk]]) 17:45, 1 June 2015 (UTC)
:Yes, that is the joke.[[User:Zeimusu|Zeimusu]] ([[User talk:Zeimusu|talk]]) 21:18, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

;Slingshot maneuver

It uses the gravity of a planet to alter the path and speed of a spacecraft. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity_assist Reference] I guess Steve miscalculated the maneuver. --[[User:Arturotena|Arturotena]] ([[User talk:Arturotena|talk]]) 06:41, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

;References

# Related tweet: [https://twitter.com/NASANewHorizons/status/603652798622920704 As @NASANewHorizons gets closer, our view of #Pluto gets better and better!].
# Related link: [http://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-s-new-horizons-sees-more-detail-as-it-draws-closer-to-pluto NASA’s New Horizons Sees More Detail as It Draws Closer to Pluto].
# [http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov/team/ NASA Dawn Team]
--[[User:Arturotena|Arturotena]] ([[User talk:Arturotena|talk]]) 06:34, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

;Distance?

If Pluto is 39.26 AU from the Sun, how can New Horizons be 0.34 AU from Pluto and 32.55 AU from the Sun? [[Special:Contributions/141.101.64.35|141.101.64.35]] 20:54, 1 June 2015 (UTC)
:I reinserted the sentence semi-major axis, and I added a Wikipedia link: {{w|semi-major axis}}. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.238.144|108.162.238.144]] 21:47, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

Why is the distance even in the explanation ? -- I move to strike and delete [[User:Spongebog|Spongebog]] ([[User talk:Spongebog|talk]]) 15:02, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

;Steve?

So is Steve a character now? What about a dwarf character? [[User:Z|Z]] ([[User talk:Z|talk]]) 20:22, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

: There must be other people named "Steve" ! [[User:Spongebog|Spongebog]] ([[User talk:Spongebog|talk]]) 06:35, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

:: No, Steve was an {{w|only child}} . . . . [[User:Spongebog|BingoBash]] ([[User talk:Spongebog|talk]]) 06:45, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

Btw, Steve was also mentioned in comic 228. [[User:TronX7|TronX7]] ([[User talk:TronX7|talk]]) 06:59, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

1293: Job Interview

2015-03-03T00:52:59Z

108.162.215.113: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1293
| date = November 20, 2013
| title = Job Interview
| image = job_interview.png
| titletext = When you talk about the job experience you'll give me, why do you pronounce 'job' with a long 'o'?
}}

==Explanation==
Following on from [[1032: Networking|his attempts at networking]], [[Beret Guy]], the oddball of the xkcd cast, conducts an interview for a programmer position at his mysteriously successful company.

Much like most of Beret Guy's interactions with people, Beret Guy is cheerful and upbeat, yet indicates that he has at best a scrambled understanding of how people in this situation normally act. Because of this, the job interview becomes increasingly bizarre, starting with Beret Guy's assertion that the company headquarters is a "real building [he] found", implying that the building is not in fact real. He says his company makes phone accessories, but then adds, "like apps and stickers," two wildly different products in terms of both production and profitability. He is strangely vague about both the position ("someone to write on our computers") and the salary ("a bunch of paychecks"). Then he mentions ghosts, which is either a powerful disincentive from joining the company, yet another sign that Beret Guy is mentally unsound, or both.

The strip finishes with Beret Guy plugging a cord into an electrical outlet clumsily labeled "Soup," which then, implausibly, actually starts dispensing soup. This is clearly not a normal business.{{Citation needed}} However, this is a typical behaviour of Beret Guy - see a similar example in: [[1395: Power Cord]].

The title text makes reference to the biblical story of {{w|Job (biblical figure)|Job}} (pronounced with a long O to rhyme with globe), who was put through many horrendous ordeals to test Job's faith in God. This suggests that the interviewee will be taking on not a "job experience" but rather a "Job experience" (i.e. the job will be a horrendous ordeal).

Other job interviews were portrayed in [[1094: Interview]] and [[1088: Five Years]].

==Transcript==
:[Beret Guy walks in, followed by a...'prospective hire'.]
:Beret Guy: Welcome to our company! We're headquartered here, in this real building I found!

:[Both people sit down at a table. The 'hire' has a tray with food and a beverage. Beret Guy has a bowl. In the adjacent wall, there is a power outlet with a paper label taped to it marked "Soup". A small roll of wire sits next to Beret Guy's chair.]
:'Hire': What do you.. ''do''?
:Beret Guy: We make stuff for phones! Like apps and stickers!

:[Beret Guy grabs the roll of wire.]
:Beret Guy: We want to hire you to write on our computers. We can offer you a bunch of paychecks! <small>There are ghosts here.</small>

:[Beret Guy unrolls the wire and plugs it into the wall.]
:'Hire': ...Are you sure this is a company?
:Beret Guy: I hope so!

:[Soup (or something one can only hope is soup) streams out of the plugged-in wire into Beret Guy's bowl.]

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Beret Guy]]
[[Category:Religion]]
[[Category:Beret Guy’s Business]]