explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

2094: Short Selling

2019-01-04T18:11:28Z

108.162.215.178: /* Transcript */ fix up format

{{comic
| number = 2094
| date = January 4, 2019
| title = Short Selling
| image = short_selling.png
| titletext = "I'm selling all my analogies at auction tomorrow, and that witch over there will give you 20 beans if you promise on pain of death to win them for her." "What if SEVERAL people promised witches they'd win, creating some kind of a ... squeeze? Gosh, you could make a lot of–" "Don't be silly! That probably never happens."
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a SHORT WITCH. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

{{w|Short (finance)|Shorting stocks}} (short selling stocks) is a stock market practice where someone takes a risk because they believe that a certain stock's price is going to drop. The risk-taker borrows stock to sell, believing that they will be able to buy the stock back later at a lower price and return it. If everything goes according to plan, the risk-taker will walk away with a profit. Of course, if things don't go according to plan, the risk-taker winds up losing money.

Cueball asks Ponytail to explain shorting stocks. Ponytail starts out with a fairy tale story that falls apart almost before she even starts.

In one version of the "{{w|Jack and the Beanstalk|Jack and the Beanstalk}}" fairy tale story, Jack sells a cow for magic beans. His mother, thinking the beans are fake, is angry with Jack. Jack plants the beans and a magic beanstalk grows up into the clouds. Jack climbs the beanstalk and explores the land above the clouds. He finds the home of a cruel giant and proceeds to steal from the giant. The giant discovers the theft and chases Jack back down the beanstalk. Jack reaches the bottom of the beanstalk first and cuts the beanstalk down. The giant falls to his death, and Jack uses his stolen wealth to take care of himself and his mother.

Ponytail's version starts with a father (not Jack) selling a child he hasn't had yet to a witch. Like short selling, the father is selling something he doesn't own. But unlike short selling, the father is selling something that doesn't exist yet. The child is sold for five magic beans, and the father thinks he will make a profit as he believes the child will only be worth two beans/love once born. The debt comes due, but the value of the child is now 200 beans/love.

The somewhat broken analogy breaks further when Ponytail says the father now is going to fight the witch instead of paying the witch with the child. There is no "fighting" if a short selling stock strategy fails. You simply lose money.

Our now definitely broken analogy breaks down even further (if possible) by sending the kid up the beanstalk to fight the giant - a giant that Ponytail says represents high interest rates. Interest rates have nothing to do with shorting stocks. (Technically they can, but the short seller would have / should have calculated that when determining if their investment strategy would work.)

Cueball comments that the analogy is rapidly losing its value to him. Ponytail fires back with the comment that he should have shorted her advice before asking for it, thus making a profit.

The title text is actually the most useful part of this comic when it comes to investment advice. The witch (the broker) is offering the father (short seller) 20 magic beans now if the father/short seller buys all of the analogies (stocks) later. However, the witch/stock broker tricks several people into this strategy. Since every father/seller now needs the same analogies/stocks, a bidding war erupts. The winner pays a much higher price than expected. And the losers wind up either dead or enslaved (bankrupt).

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[Cueball and Ponytail are walking together, talking.]
:Cueball: I don't understand shorting stocks.
:Ponytail: It's like when you promise your firstborn to a witch for five magic beans.

:[Ponytail close up]
:Cueball: Is that a common-
:Ponytail: She's a sucker, right? You know your awful kid will be worth one or two beans at ''best''.

:[Ponytail and Cueball stopped, facing each other]
:Ponytail: But then it turns out you ''love'' your kid, a love worth 200 beans! You can't afford that loss!
:Ponytail: There's only one way out:
:Ponytail: You gotta fight the witch.

:[Ponytail and Cueball stopped, facing each other]
:Ponytail: So you send your kid up the beanstalk to battle the giant, who represents interest rates.
:Cueball: This analogy is getting less helpful by the minute.
:Ponytail: If only you'd somehow shorted my wisdom before you asked.

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

2094: Short Selling

2019-01-04T18:04:27Z

108.162.215.178: /* Explanation */ wlink, copyedit

{{comic
| number = 2094
| date = January 4, 2019
| title = Short Selling
| image = short_selling.png
| titletext = "I'm selling all my analogies at auction tomorrow, and that witch over there will give you 20 beans if you promise on pain of death to win them for her." "What if SEVERAL people promised witches they'd win, creating some kind of a ... squeeze? Gosh, you could make a lot of–" "Don't be silly! That probably never happens."
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a SHORT WITCH. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

{{w|Short (finance)|Shorting stocks}} (short selling stocks) is a stock market practice where someone takes a risk because they believe that a certain stock's price is going to drop. The risk-taker borrows stock to sell, believing that they will be able to buy the stock back later at a lower price and return it. If everything goes according to plan, the risk-taker will walk away with a profit. Of course, if things don't go according to plan, the risk-taker winds up losing money.

Cueball asks Ponytail to explain shorting stocks. Ponytail starts out with a fairy tale story that falls apart almost before she even starts.

In one version of the "{{w|Jack and the Beanstalk|Jack and the Beanstalk}}" fairy tale story, Jack sells a cow for magic beans. His mother, thinking the beans are fake, is angry with Jack. Jack plants the beans and a magic beanstalk grows up into the clouds. Jack climbs the beanstalk and explores the land above the clouds. He finds the home of a cruel giant and proceeds to steal from the giant. The giant discovers the theft and chases Jack back down the beanstalk. Jack reaches the bottom of the beanstalk first and cuts the beanstalk down. The giant falls to his death, and Jack uses his stolen wealth to take care of himself and his mother.

Ponytail's version starts with a father (not Jack) selling a child he hasn't had yet to a witch. Like short selling, the father is selling something he doesn't own. But unlike short selling, the father is selling something that doesn't exist yet. The child is sold for five magic beans, and the father thinks he will make a profit as he believes the child will only be worth two beans/love once born. The debt comes due, but the value of the child is now 200 beans/love.

The somewhat broken analogy breaks further when Ponytail says the father now is going to fight the witch instead of paying the witch with the child. There is no "fighting" if a short selling stock strategy fails. You simply lose money.

Our now definitely broken analogy breaks down even further (if possible) by sending the kid up the beanstalk to fight the giant - a giant that Ponytail says represents high interest rates. Interest rates have nothing to do with shorting stocks. (Technically they can, but the short seller would have / should have calculated that when determining if their investment strategy would work.)

Cueball comments that the analogy is rapidly losing its value to him. Ponytail fires back with the comment that he should have shorted her advice before asking for it, thus making a profit.

The title text is actually the most useful part of this comic when it comes to investment advice. The witch (the broker) is offering the father (short seller) 20 magic beans now if the father/short seller buys all of the analogies (stocks) later. However, the witch/stock broker tricks several people into this strategy. Since every father/seller now needs the same analogies/stocks, a bidding war erupts. The winner pays a much higher price than expected. And the losers wind up either dead or enslaved (bankrupt).

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
[Cueball and Ponytail walking]

Cueball: I don't understand shorting stocks.

Ponytail: It's like when you promise your firstborn to a witch for five magic beans.

[Ponytail close up]

Cueball: Is that a common-

Ponytail: She's a sucker, right? You know your awful kid will be worth one or two beans at best.

[Ponytail and Cueball stopped, facing each other]

Ponytail: But then it turns out you love your kid, a love worth 200 beans! You can't afford that loss!

Ponytail: There's only one way out: You gotta fight the witch.

[]

Ponytail: So you send your kid up the beanstalk to battle the giant, who represents interest rates.

Cueball: This analogy is getting less helpful by the minute.

Ponytail: If only you'd somehow shorted my wisdom before you asked.

{{comic discussion}}

2093: Reminders

2019-01-04T17:58:37Z

108.162.215.178: /* Transcript */ looks complete to me.

{{comic
| number = 2093
| date = January 2, 2019
| title = Reminders
| image = reminders.png
| titletext = The good news is that if the number of work and friend relationships you have exceeds your willingness to do the bare minimum to keep up with everyone's life events and stuff, one way or another that problem eventually solves itself.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a HELPFUL EMAIL CLIENT. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

In this comic, Cueball is using an {{w|email client}} program on a laptop, which is a popular tool for communicating by email with others.

In recent years, many email clients have started implementing helpful warnings and reminders to catch common human mistakes and ease the process of communication. One such feature, demonstrated in this comic, is that many clients will now warn you if you've mentioned an {{w|Email attachment|attachment}} in your email but haven't actually attached anything, a common error people make when emailing.

This has gotten to the point where email clients are increasingly stepping in to help with social obligations too; for example, reminding you if you've left an email unanswered for too long, or that someone is celebrating a birthday today and should be congratulated. With the increasing availability of social data and advances in machine learning, these features have the potential to become very sophisticated, to the point that they can effortlessly make social inferences and connections that might have slipped a human user's mind.

Such features are meant to be helpful aids, but in this comic, Cueball (likely representing Randall himself) has come to the uncomfortable realization that technology is now easily surpassing his own ability to maintain social relationships with other people, by being more aware of his friends' social lives than he is. He is disturbed by how unwittingly unconscientious he has become.

The title text suggests that the problem of keeping up a baseline level of interest in other people's lives eventually solves itself; implying, somewhat darkly, that if you don't put in even the bare minimum effort to keep up, you'll end up with fewer friends as some get annoyed by your lack of interest in their lives.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball at his desk using a laptop]
:Laptop: You got this email six days ago. Do you want to follow up?
:Cueball: Oh, right, I should do that.
:[Cueball types on laptop:] *type type*
:Laptop: Did you forget the attachment?
:Cueball: Oops, yes.
:Laptop: Today is the recipient's birthday. Did you want to mention that?
:Cueball: Wait, it is?

:[Caption below the panel:]
:These reminders make me uncomfortable, not because computers are getting too smart, but because it reminds me how often I fall short of even baseline levels of conscientiousness.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Email]]

2093: Reminders

2019-01-04T17:57:57Z

108.162.215.178: /* Explanation */ wlink

{{comic
| number = 2093
| date = January 2, 2019
| title = Reminders
| image = reminders.png
| titletext = The good news is that if the number of work and friend relationships you have exceeds your willingness to do the bare minimum to keep up with everyone's life events and stuff, one way or another that problem eventually solves itself.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a HELPFUL EMAIL CLIENT. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

In this comic, Cueball is using an {{w|email client}} program on a laptop, which is a popular tool for communicating by email with others.

In recent years, many email clients have started implementing helpful warnings and reminders to catch common human mistakes and ease the process of communication. One such feature, demonstrated in this comic, is that many clients will now warn you if you've mentioned an {{w|Email attachment|attachment}} in your email but haven't actually attached anything, a common error people make when emailing.

This has gotten to the point where email clients are increasingly stepping in to help with social obligations too; for example, reminding you if you've left an email unanswered for too long, or that someone is celebrating a birthday today and should be congratulated. With the increasing availability of social data and advances in machine learning, these features have the potential to become very sophisticated, to the point that they can effortlessly make social inferences and connections that might have slipped a human user's mind.

Such features are meant to be helpful aids, but in this comic, Cueball (likely representing Randall himself) has come to the uncomfortable realization that technology is now easily surpassing his own ability to maintain social relationships with other people, by being more aware of his friends' social lives than he is. He is disturbed by how unwittingly unconscientious he has become.

The title text suggests that the problem of keeping up a baseline level of interest in other people's lives eventually solves itself; implying, somewhat darkly, that if you don't put in even the bare minimum effort to keep up, you'll end up with fewer friends as some get annoyed by your lack of interest in their lives.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

:[Cueball at his desk using a laptop]
:Laptop: You got this email six days ago. Do you want to follow up?
:Cueball: Oh, right, I should do that.
:[Cueball types on laptop:] *type type*
:Laptop: Did you forget the attachment?
:Cueball: Oops, yes.
:Laptop: Today is the recipient's birthday. Did you want to mention that?
:Cueball: Wait, it is?

:[Caption below the panel:]
:These reminders make me uncomfortable, not because computers are getting too smart, but because it reminds me how often I fall short of even baseline levels of conscientiousness.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Email]]

2087: Rocket Launch

2018-12-19T23:01:44Z

108.162.215.178: /* Explanation */ more

{{comic
| number = 2087
| date = December 19, 2018
| title = Rocket Launch
| image = rocket_launch.png
| titletext = NASA tries to coordinate launch timing with the Care Bears' cloud castle, but unfortunately sometimes collisions with stray Care Bears are unavoidable, so they just try to make the fairings sturdy and hope for a glancing impact.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a CARE BEAR STARE. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This comic was posted on a week with a notably high number of {{w|rocket launch}}es. Originally, there were to be four {{w|Orbital spaceflight|orbital rocket}} launches from the United States on December 19, 2018 (the publish date for the comic), which would have tied with the prior record for number of orbital rocket launches in one day. While these launches were ultimately delayed, breaking the event, the comic was doubtless under production by then.

Only some of the steps listed are actually typical.

* Liftoff: the traditional start of a launch, when the rocket leaves the ground. The engines will typically have been ignited a short time before, but need to throttle up to produce enough thrust to overcome the rocket's weight. "Liftoff" refers to the moment this happens, making the rocket lift off the ground.
* {{w|Max q|Max-Q}}: Peak aerodynamic stress. A rocket accelerates from the moment it leaves the ground. The faster a rocket goes, the more air it pushes through per second - but the higher a rocket goes, the less air there is to push through. (Before liftoff, the rocket is not moving, and thus is not pushing through air. Once in orbit, there is essentially no air to push through, so the rocket is not pushing through air. Between those two times, the rocket is pushing through some amount of air, the exact amount increasing before Max Q and decreasing after Max Q.) "Max Q" is the moment where these two factors produce a maximum, and is the point where the rocket's structure must withstand the most air pushing back against it.
* Booster separation: rockets are designed in {{w|Multistage rocket|stages}}, so they do not have to carry the empty fuel tanks all the way to orbit. (Carrying any mass to orbit is expensive, so the more that can be dropped off earlier, the better.) 3 stages is typical. "Booster separation" marks the point where the first of these stages (the "{{w|Booster (rocketry)|booster}}"), its fuel expended, is typically ejected.
* Max-CB: Highest chance of collision with {{w|Care Bears}}. This is entirely fictitious. Care Bears are fictitious characters, which have a toy line, television series, and movies.
* Main stage separation: see "booster separation" above. This marks the point where the second stage (the "main stage") is ejected.
* {{w|GPS}} silenced so it will stop saying "Make a U-turn". Again, this is fictional. While some rockets do make use of signals from the Global Positioning System ("GPS"), no rockets are known to use the navigational devices that incorporate GPS readers and street maps, providing directions - often with optional text-to-speech - along the Earth's surface. Some such devices are notorious for getting confused in extreme situations (such as the high Mach numbers that rockets achieve); constantly uttering "make a U-turn" would be one such confusion, and any device in such a confused state might well be silenced for being more annoying than helpful. Navigation of this nature is neither necessary nor useful on a rocket, which will have its entire route from ground to orbit computed before launch, and piloting typically left entirely to computers given the precise timing required.
* Reunification (of boosters): another fictional step. Discarded stages fall back into the Earth's atmosphere, either hitting the ground (or, more often, water) or burning up from the friction of falling at extreme speed. The booster and main stage would not be on a course to come anywhere near each other, and would not have enough fuel to change their course (running out of fuel being why they were discarded in the first place). Even if they did, landing for reuse (as {{w|SpaceX reusable launch system development program|SpaceX has attempted}}, sometimes successfully) would be far more likely than a mid-air reunion.
* Pilot panics, copilot takes command after struggle: another fictional step. Astronauts are not the sort of people who panic easily, nor struggle with their crewmates. More importantly, in any modern rocket the "pilot" is not a human being, but a computer incapable of panic (as in the human emotion). It is possible that part of the flight computer could fail, causing redundant failsafes to take over, but the process could not correctly be described as a "struggle", and in any case this sort of failure is uncommon enough that it is not part of a "typical" rocket launch.
* Pursuit phase: fictional. This assumes the (nonexistent) reunified booster would have enough fuel to pursue the top stage of the rocket, and a reason to do so. See "Reunification".
* Inter-stage {{w|dogfight}}: fictional. See "Pursuit phase". This at least provides a potential motive. A dogfight is an aerial battle between fighter aircraft, conducted at close range. This step claims that the rocket booster and the top stage of the rocket engage in a battle.
* Winner proceeds to space: fictional. As noted above, in a real rocket launch there is no dogfight for there to be a "winner" of. A kind reading would note that the top stage "wins" by default, and it is certainly the case that in a real (orbital) rocket launch, the top stage typically does proceed to space.

The title text refers once again to the Care Bears franchise. The Care Bears live in a castle made of clouds, so the comic claims that NASA aims to avoid launching into their castle, but sometimes cannot avoid hitting "stray" Care Bears.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

{{comic discussion}}

2087: Rocket Launch

2018-12-19T22:58:55Z

108.162.215.178: /* Explanation */ more direct

{{comic
| number = 2087
| date = December 19, 2018
| title = Rocket Launch
| image = rocket_launch.png
| titletext = NASA tries to coordinate launch timing with the Care Bears' cloud castle, but unfortunately sometimes collisions with stray Care Bears are unavoidable, so they just try to make the fairings sturdy and hope for a glancing impact.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a CARE BEAR STARE. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This comic was posted on a week with a notably high number of {{w|rocket launch}}es. Originally, there were to be four {{w|Orbital spaceflight|orbital rocket}} launches from the United States on December 19, 2018 (the publish date for the comic), which would have tied with the prior record for number of orbital rocket launches in one day. While these launches were ultimately delayed, breaking the event, the comic was doubtless under production by then.

Only some of the steps listed are actually typical.

* Liftoff: the traditional start of a launch, when the rocket leaves the ground. The engines will typically have been ignited a short time before, but need to throttle up to produce enough thrust to overcome the rocket's weight. "Liftoff" refers to the moment this happens, making the rocket lift off the ground.
* {{w|Max q|Max-Q}}: Peak aerodynamic stress. A rocket accelerates from the moment it leaves the ground. The faster a rocket goes, the more air it pushes through per second - but the higher a rocket goes, the less air there is to push through. (Before liftoff, the rocket is not moving, and thus is not pushing through air. Once in orbit, there is essentially no air to push through, so the rocket is not pushing through air. Between those two times, the rocket is pushing through some amount of air, the exact amount increasing before Max Q and decreasing after Max Q.) "Max Q" is the moment where these two factors produce a maximum, and is the point where the rocket's structure must withstand the most air pushing back against it.
* Booster separation: rockets are designed in {{w|Multistage rocket|stages}}, so they do not have to carry the empty fuel tanks all the way to orbit. (Carrying any mass to orbit is expensive, so the more that can be dropped off earlier, the better.) 3 stages is typical. "Booster separation" marks the point where the first of these stages (the "{{w|Booster (rocketry)|booster}}"), its fuel expended, is typically ejected.
* Max-CB: Highest chance of collision with {{w|Care Bears}}. This is entirely fictitious. Care Bears are fictitious characters, which have a toy line, television series, and movies.
* Main stage separation: see "booster separation" above. This marks the point where the second stage (the "main stage") is ejected.
* {{w|GPS}} silenced so it will stop saying "Make a U-turn". Again, this is fictional. While some rockets do make use of signals from the Global Positioning System ("GPS"), no rockets are known to use the navigational devices that incorporate GPS readers and street maps, providing directions - often with optional text-to-speech - along the Earth's surface. Some such devices are notorious for getting confused in extreme situations (such as the high Mach numbers that rockets achieve); constantly uttering "make a U-turn" would be one such confusion, and any device in such a confused state might well be silenced for being more annoying than helpful. Navigation of this nature is neither necessary nor useful on a rocket, which will have its entire route from ground to orbit computed before launch, and piloting typically left entirely to computers given the precise timing required.
* Reunification (of boosters): another fictional step. Discarded stages fall back into the Earth's atmosphere, either hitting the ground (or, more often, water) or burning up from the friction of falling at extreme speed. The booster and main stage would not be on a course to come anywhere near each other, and would not have enough fuel to change their course (running out of fuel being why they were discarded in the first place). Even if they did, landing for reuse (as {{w|SpaceX reusable launch system development program|SpaceX has attempted}}, sometimes successfully) would be far more likely than a mid-air reunion.
* Pilot panics, copilot takes command after struggle: another fictional step. Astronauts are not the sort of people who panic easily, nor struggle with their crewmates. More importantly, in any modern rocket the "pilot" is not a human being, but a computer incapable of panic (as in the human emotion). It is possible that part of the flight computer could fail, causing redundant failsafes to take over, but the process could not correctly be described as a "struggle", and in any case this sort of failure is uncommon enough that it is not part of a "typical" rocket launch.
* Pursuit Phase: fictional. This assumes the (nonexistent) reunified booster would have enough fuel to pursue the top stage of the rocket, and a reason to do so. See "Reunification".
* Inter-stage {{w|dogfight}}: fictional. See "Pursuit Phase". This at least provides a potential motive. A dogfight is an aerial battle between fighter aircraft, conducted at close range.
* Winner proceeds to space: fictional. As noted above, in a real rocket launch there is no dogfight for there to be a "winner" of. A kind reading would note that the top stage "wins" by default, and it is certainly the case that in a real (orbital) rocket launch, the top stage typically does proceed to space.

The title text refers once again to the Care Bears franchise. The Care Bears live in a castle made of clouds, so the comic claims that NASA aims to avoid launching into their castle, but sometimes cannot avoid hitting "stray" Care Bears.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

{{comic discussion}}

2087: Rocket Launch

2018-12-19T22:57:21Z

108.162.215.178: /* Explanation */ explain

{{comic
| number = 2087
| date = December 19, 2018
| title = Rocket Launch
| image = rocket_launch.png
| titletext = NASA tries to coordinate launch timing with the Care Bears' cloud castle, but unfortunately sometimes collisions with stray Care Bears are unavoidable, so they just try to make the fairings sturdy and hope for a glancing impact.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a CARE BEAR STARE. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This comic was posted on a week with a notably high number of {{w|rocket launch}}es. Originally, there were to be four {{w|Orbital spaceflight|orbital rocket}} launches from the United States on December 19, 2018 (the publish date for the comic), which would have tied with the prior record for number of orbital rocket launches in one day. While these launches were ultimately delayed, breaking the event, the comic was doubtless under production by then.

Only some of the steps listed are actually typical.

* Liftoff: the traditional start of a launch, when the rocket leaves the ground. The engines will typically have been ignited a short time before, but need to throttle up to produce enough thrust to overcome the rocket's weight. "Liftoff" refers to the moment this happens, making the rocket lift off the ground.
* {{w|Max q|Max-Q}}: Peak aerodynamic stress. A rocket accelerates from the moment it leaves the ground. The faster a rocket goes, the more air it pushes through per second - but the higher a rocket goes, the less air there is to push through. (Before liftoff, the rocket is not moving, and thus is not pushing through air. Once in orbit, there is essentially no air to push through, so the rocket is not pushing through air. Between those two times, the rocket is pushing through some amount of air, the exact amount increasing before Max Q and decreasing after Max Q.) "Max Q" is the moment where these two factors produce a maximum, and is the point where the rocket's structure must withstand the most air pushing back against it.
* Booster separation: rockets are designed in {{w|Multistage rocket|stages}}, so they do not have to carry the empty fuel tanks all the way to orbit. (Carrying any mass to orbit is expensive, so the more that can be dropped off earlier, the better.) 3 stages is typical. "Booster separation" marks the point where the first of these stages (the "{{w|Booster (rocketry)|booster}}"), its fuel expended, is typically ejected.
* Max-CB: Highest chance of collision with {{w|Care Bears}}. This is entirely fictitious. Care Bears are fictitious characters, which have a toy line, television series, and movies.
* Main stage separation: see "booster separation" above. This marks the point where the second stage (the "main stage") is ejected.
* {{w|GPS}} silenced so it will stop saying "Make a U-turn". Again, this is fictional. While some rockets do make use of signals from the Global Positioning System ("GPS"), no rockets are known to use the navigational devices that incorporate GPS readers and street maps, providing directions - often with optional text-to-speech - along the Earth's surface. Some such devices are notorious for getting confused in extreme situations (such as the high Mach numbers that rockets achieve); constantly uttering "make a U-turn" would be one such confusion, and any device in such a confused state might well be silenced for being more annoying than helpful. Navigation of this nature is neither necessary nor useful on a rocket, which will have its entire route from ground to orbit computed before launch, and piloting typically left entirely to computers given the precise timing required.
* Reunification (of boosters): another fictional step. Discarded stages fall back into the Earth's atmosphere, either hitting the ground (or, more often, water) or burning up from the friction of falling at extreme speed. The booster and main stage would not be on a course to come anywhere near each other, and would not have enough fuel to change their course (running out of fuel being why they were discarded in the first place). Even if they did, landing for reuse (as {{w|SpaceX}} has attempted, sometimes successfully) would be far more likely than a mid-air reunion.
* Pilot panics, copilot takes command after struggle: another fictional step. Astronauts are not the sort of people who panic easily, nor struggle with their crewmates. More importantly, in any modern rocket the "pilot" is not a human being, but a computer incapable of panic (as in the human emotion). It is possible that part of the flight computer could fail, causing redundant failsafes to take over, but the process could not correctly be described as a "struggle", and in any case this sort of failure is uncommon enough that it is not part of a "typical" rocket launch.
* Pursuit Phase: fictional. This assumes the (nonexistent) reunified booster would have enough fuel to pursue the top stage of the rocket, and a reason to do so. See "Reunification".
* Inter-stage {{w|dogfight}}: fictional. See "Pursuit Phase". This at least provides a potential motive. A dogfight is an aerial battle between fighter aircraft, conducted at close range.
* Winner proceeds to space: fictional. As noted above, in a real rocket launch there is no dogfight for there to be a "winner" of. A kind reading would note that the top stage "wins" by default, and it is certainly the case that in a real (orbital) rocket launch, the top stage typically does proceed to space.

The title text refers once again to the Care Bears franchise. The Care Bears live in a castle made of clouds, so the comic claims that NASA aims to avoid launching into their castle, but sometimes cannot avoid hitting "stray" Care Bears.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

{{comic discussion}}

2087: Rocket Launch

2018-12-19T22:55:15Z

108.162.215.178: /* Explanation */ title text brief

{{comic
| number = 2087
| date = December 19, 2018
| title = Rocket Launch
| image = rocket_launch.png
| titletext = NASA tries to coordinate launch timing with the Care Bears' cloud castle, but unfortunately sometimes collisions with stray Care Bears are unavoidable, so they just try to make the fairings sturdy and hope for a glancing impact.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a CARE BEAR STARE. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This comic was posted on a week with a notably high number of {{w|rocket launch}}es. Originally, there were to be four {{w|Orbital spaceflight|orbital rocket}} launches from the United States on December 19, 2018 (the publish date for the comic), which would have tied with the prior record for number of orbital rocket launches in one day. While these launches were ultimately delayed, breaking the event, the comic was doubtless under production by then.

Only some of the steps listed are actually typical.

* Liftoff: the traditional start of a launch, when the rocket leaves the ground. The engines will typically have been ignited a short time before, but need to throttle up to produce enough thrust to overcome the rocket's weight. "Liftoff" refers to the moment this happens, making the rocket lift off the ground.
* {{w|Max q|Max-Q}}: Peak aerodynamic stress. A rocket accelerates from the moment it leaves the ground. The faster a rocket goes, the more air it pushes through per second - but the higher a rocket goes, the less air there is to push through. (Before liftoff, the rocket is not moving, and thus is not pushing through air. Once in orbit, there is essentially no air to push through, so the rocket is not pushing through air. Between those two times, the rocket is pushing through some amount of air, the exact amount increasing before Max Q and decreasing after Max Q.) "Max Q" is the moment where these two factors produce a maximum, and is the point where the rocket's structure must withstand the most air pushing back against it.
* Booster separation: rockets are designed in {{w|Multistage rocket|stages}}, so they do not have to carry the empty fuel tanks all the way to orbit. (Carrying any mass to orbit is expensive, so the more that can be dropped off earlier, the better.) 3 stages is typical. "Booster separation" marks the point where the first of these stages (the "{{w|Booster (rocketry)|booster}}"), its fuel expended, is typically ejected.
* Max-CB: Highest chance of collision with {{w|Care Bears}}. This is entirely fictitious. Care Bears are cartoon characters. There are no known instances where a rocket has collided with a cartoon.
* Main stage separation: see "booster separation" above. This marks the point where the second stage (the "main stage") is ejected.
* {{w|GPS}} silenced so it will stop saying "Make a U-turn". Again, this is fictional. While some rockets do make use of signals from the Global Positioning System ("GPS"), no rockets are known to use the navigational devices that incorporate GPS readers and street maps, providing directions - often with optional text-to-speech - along the Earth's surface. Some such devices are notorious for getting confused in extreme situations (such as the high Mach numbers that rockets achieve); constantly uttering "make a U-turn" would be one such confusion, and any device in such a confused state might well be silenced for being more annoying than helpful. Navigation of this nature is neither necessary nor useful on a rocket, which will have its entire route from ground to orbit computed before launch, and piloting typically left entirely to computers given the precise timing required.
* Reunification (of boosters): another fictional step. Discarded stages fall back into the Earth's atmosphere, either hitting the ground (or, more often, water) or burning up from the friction of falling at extreme speed. The booster and main stage would not be on a course to come anywhere near each other, and would not have enough fuel to change their course (running out of fuel being why they were discarded in the first place). Even if they did, landing for reuse (as {{w|SpaceX}} has attempted, sometimes successfully) would be far more likely than a mid-air reunion.
* Pilot panics, copilot takes command after struggle: another fictional step. Astronauts are not the sort of people who panic easily, nor struggle with their crewmates. More importantly, in any modern rocket the "pilot" is not a human being, but a computer incapable of panic (as in the human emotion). It is possible that part of the flight computer could fail, causing redundant failsafes to take over, but the process could not correctly be described as a "struggle", and in any case this sort of failure is uncommon enough that it is not part of a "typical" rocket launch.
* Pursuit Phase: fictional. This assumes the (nonexistent) reunified booster would have enough fuel to pursue the top stage of the rocket, and a reason to do so. See "Reunification".
* Inter-stage {{w|dogfight}}: fictional. See "Pursuit Phase". This at least provides a potential motive. A dogfight is an aerial battle between fighter aircraft, conducted at close range.
* Winner proceeds to space: fictional. As noted above, in a real rocket launch there is no dogfight for there to be a "winner" of. A kind reading would note that the top stage "wins" by default, and it is certainly the case that in a real (orbital) rocket launch, the top stage typically does proceed to space.

The title text refers once again to the Care Bears franchise. The Care Bears live in a castle made of clouds, so the comic claims that NASA aims to avoid launching into their castle, but sometimes cannot avoid hitting "stray" Care Bears.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

{{comic discussion}}

2087: Rocket Launch

2018-12-19T22:52:15Z

108.162.215.178: /* Explanation */ wlinks

{{comic
| number = 2087
| date = December 19, 2018
| title = Rocket Launch
| image = rocket_launch.png
| titletext = NASA tries to coordinate launch timing with the Care Bears' cloud castle, but unfortunately sometimes collisions with stray Care Bears are unavoidable, so they just try to make the fairings sturdy and hope for a glancing impact.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a CARE BEAR STARE. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This comic was posted on a week with a notably high number of {{w|rocket launch}}es. Originally, there were to be four {{w|Orbital spaceflight|orbital rocket}} launches from the United States on December 19, 2018 (the publish date for the comic), which would have tied with the prior record for number of orbital rocket launches in one day. While these launches were ultimately delayed, breaking the event, the comic was doubtless under production by then.

Only some of the steps listed are actually typical.

* Liftoff: the traditional start of a launch, when the rocket leaves the ground. The engines will typically have been ignited a short time before, but need to throttle up to produce enough thrust to overcome the rocket's weight. "Liftoff" refers to the moment this happens, making the rocket lift off the ground.
* {{w|Max q|Max-Q}}: Peak aerodynamic stress. A rocket accelerates from the moment it leaves the ground. The faster a rocket goes, the more air it pushes through per second - but the higher a rocket goes, the less air there is to push through. (Before liftoff, the rocket is not moving, and thus is not pushing through air. Once in orbit, there is essentially no air to push through, so the rocket is not pushing through air. Between those two times, the rocket is pushing through some amount of air, the exact amount increasing before Max Q and decreasing after Max Q.) "Max Q" is the moment where these two factors produce a maximum, and is the point where the rocket's structure must withstand the most air pushing back against it.
* Booster separation: rockets are designed in {{w|Multistage rocket|stages}}, so they do not have to carry the empty fuel tanks all the way to orbit. (Carrying any mass to orbit is expensive, so the more that can be dropped off earlier, the better.) 3 stages is typical. "Booster separation" marks the point where the first of these stages (the "{{w|Booster (rocketry)|booster}}"), its fuel expended, is typically ejected.
* Max-CB: Highest chance of collision with {{w|Care Bears}}. This is entirely fictitious. Care Bears are cartoon characters. There are no known instances where a rocket has collided with a cartoon.
* Main stage separation: see "booster separation" above. This marks the point where the second stage (the "main stage") is ejected.
* {{w|GPS}} silenced so it will stop saying "Make a U-turn". Again, this is fictional. While some rockets do make use of signals from the Global Positioning System ("GPS"), no rockets are known to use the navigational devices that incorporate GPS readers and street maps, providing directions - often with optional text-to-speech - along the Earth's surface. Some such devices are notorious for getting confused in extreme situations (such as the high Mach numbers that rockets achieve); constantly uttering "make a U-turn" would be one such confusion, and any device in such a confused state might well be silenced for being more annoying than helpful. Navigation of this nature is neither necessary nor useful on a rocket, which will have its entire route from ground to orbit computed before launch, and piloting typically left entirely to computers given the precise timing required.
* Reunification (of boosters): another fictional step. Discarded stages fall back into the Earth's atmosphere, either hitting the ground (or, more often, water) or burning up from the friction of falling at extreme speed. The booster and main stage would not be on a course to come anywhere near each other, and would not have enough fuel to change their course (running out of fuel being why they were discarded in the first place). Even if they did, landing for reuse (as {{w|SpaceX}} has attempted, sometimes successfully) would be far more likely than a mid-air reunion.
* Pilot panics, copilot takes command after struggle: another fictional step. Astronauts are not the sort of people who panic easily, nor struggle with their crewmates. More importantly, in any modern rocket the "pilot" is not a human being, but a computer incapable of panic (as in the human emotion). It is possible that part of the flight computer could fail, causing redundant failsafes to take over, but the process could not correctly be described as a "struggle", and in any case this sort of failure is uncommon enough that it is not part of a "typical" rocket launch.
* Pursuit Phase: fictional. This assumes the (nonexistent) reunified booster would have enough fuel to pursue the top stage of the rocket, and a reason to do so. See "Reunification".
* Inter-stage {{w|dogfight}}: fictional. See "Pursuit Phase". This at least provides a potential motive. A dogfight is an aerial battle between fighter aircraft, conducted at close range.
* Winner proceeds to space: fictional. As noted above, in a real rocket launch there is no dogfight for there to be a "winner" of. A kind reading would note that the top stage "wins" by default, and it is certainly the case that in a real (orbital) rocket launch, the top stage typically does proceed to space.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

{{comic discussion}}

1414: Writing Skills

2018-12-11T17:26:22Z

108.162.215.178: Undo revision 166882 by Beachristiano (talk)

{{comic
| number = 1414
| date = August 29, 2014
| title = Writing Skills
| image = writing_skills.png
| titletext = I'd like to find a corpus of writing from children in a non-self-selected sample (e.g. handwritten letters to the president from everyone in the same teacher's 7th grade class every year)--and score the kids today versus the kids 20 years ago on various objective measures of writing quality. I've heard the idea that exposure to all this amateur peer practice is hurting us, but I'd bet on the generation that conducts the bulk of their social lives via the written word over the generation that occasionally wrote book reports and letters to grandma once a year, any day.
}}

==Explanation==
[[Cueball]] and [[White Hat]] are discussing the positive and negative effects of young people writing on mobile phones in the vernacular of the day, {{w|Short Message Service}} (SMS).

SMS messages are one of the primary means of text communication on mobile devices, and are typically limited to 160 characters. Due to the limited space available on this and other messaging platforms, and also to decrease the time taken to write a message, {{w|SMS language}} (aka textese) developed as a form of short-hand writing. This involves the abbreviation and deliberate misspelling of words, and the use of acronyms.

Naturally, the use of this style of language has expanded into other areas, including those where brevity is not an issue, and this expansion and evolution of language is a subject of intense debate. The main viewpoints on the subject are:

*Language is being negatively degraded by the use of text speak
*The use of text speak is a natural evolution of language

Cueball's point is that "practice makes perfect". The ability to form good grammar comes from practice through a lot of writing, even when that writing is informal; hence, the SMS generation gets a lot of practice compared to previous generations, who communicated mostly with speech, over the phone, and in person, and may have written only a few letters a year. To foster talent for a major literary work, we should encourage practice, even when that practice is through informal writing such as SMS.

This idea has some real scientific background. Such as the investigation in 2009 [http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1348/026151008X320507/abstract Exploring the relationship between children's knowledge of text message abbreviations and school literacy outcomes]. In this study children 10-12 were asked to compose text messages. The number of textisms was recorded, and a positive correlation was found between use of sms abbreviations and success at literacy tests. This is then related to David Crystal's concept of "ludic" language: the playful use of language as a contribution to language development. That notion is developed here: By playing with textual language, one develops writing skills, just as by playing with balls one can develop sports skills. David Crystal explains: "Children could not be good at texting if they had not already developed great literary awareness [...] If you are aware that your texting behaviour is different, you must have intuited that there is a standard."[http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=HyNVuCxTtW0C&pg=PA162&lpg=PA162&dq=plester+wood+puja&source=bl&ots=x1kjFfoNAW&sig=moBSR9GJaQJlVBr_P9nqDJwvoxU&hl=en&sa=X&ei=rVwDVK3VBqe60QXM5YHABw&ved=0CEMQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=plester%20wood%20puja&f=false]

{{w|James Joyce}} was an celebrated Irish novelist and poet, and his novel {{w|Ulysses (novel)|Ulysses}} is considered to be one of the most important works of modernist literature. It was criticized in some quarters for the frequent lack of punctuation and ungrammatical {{w|Stream of consciousness (narrative mode)|stream of consciousness}} narrative mode. In addition to his better-known works, he wrote a number of love letters with extremely explicit content.

In the title text, Randall wishes to prove Cueball's point by analyzing and comparing bulk volumes of texts (= a {{w|Text corpus|corpus}}) written by children today and 20 years ago. Randall favors the literary ability of today's children for their everyday use of written word over the situation of the past, when children wrote only if forced to do so. The title text's second sentence is particularly long and complex (compared to almost any other title text), which will generally score much higher "on various objective measures of writing quality". Randall may be hinting that writing a lot of short title texts, like writing lot of SMSs, improves your general writing quality - further strengthening Cueball's point. The title text is also 99 words long, probably referencing a 100 word limit.

==Transcript==
:[White Hat and Cueball are walking together, White Hat is holding a newspaper or report.]
:White Hat: Weird- Another study found that kids who use SMS abbreviations actually score ''higher'' on grammar and spelling tests.
:Cueball: Why on ''earth'' is that a suprise?

:[Cueball turns to White hat (who is now out side the frame. Inserted in the frame is a panel showing several kids throwing balls.]
:Cueball: Imagine kids suddenly start playing catch literally ''all the time''. Everywhere they go, they throw balls back and forth, toss them in the air, and hurl them at trees and signs- Nearly every waking hour of their lives.

:[Cueball talks on while White Hat begins to walk.]
:Cueball: Do you think their generation will suck at baseball because they learned sloppy skills?
:White Hat: ...So you think someone will become a great writer while ''sexting?''

:[They walk together.]
:Cueball: Have you ''read'' James Joyce's love letters? The phrases "My little fuckbird" and "Arse full of farts" appear. If we want to write ''Ulysses'', our generation may not be sexting ''enough''.
:White Hat: Eww.

==Trivia==
*Randall originally misspelled surprise as "suprise" in the first panel and also wrote "writing writing" in the beginning of the title text instead of just "writing". It was initially conjectured here that the errors may have been deliberately introduced as they are relevant to the subject. However, both of these errors were corrected on the same day the comic was released and currently are not present in the live version.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:Language]]
[[Category:Baseball]]

2071: Indirect Detection

2018-11-29T17:19:47Z

108.162.215.178: Undo revision 166480 by 162.158.165.52 (talk)

{{comic
| number = 2071
| date = November 12, 2018
| title = Indirect Detection
| image = indirect_detection.png
| titletext = I'm like a prisoner in Plato's Cave, seeing only the shade you throw on the wall.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|This explanation is rather disjointed. It's rather complicated and vague.}}

This comic shows an angry social media post by one of Randall's spiky-haired friends, objecting to the views of unknown third parties, which appear to be a cartoonishly and unrealistically evil take on the proper treatment of abandoned animals. Sometimes when posting something on social media, such as Facebook, that post can be seen by all the people you have designated as your "friends." In this case the original comment was intended to be read by the people holding these views, people who are not direct friends of Randall's and whose posts he therefore could not see, but because it was posted by his direct friend he could read that response and was able to imagine what it was those other people were saying. Knowing a little about what these other mystery people are saying, through direct quotes from within his friend's comment, and having to fill in the rest by his imagination, he reflects on how weird it is to learn that people who hold such views exist in such an indirect manner.

Some users of social media, such as the unwilling participants in Facebook's [https://www.forbes.com/sites/gregorymcneal/2014/06/28/facebook-manipulated-user-news-feeds-to-create-emotional-contagion/ emotional contagion study], have found that despite having many friends of one slant in real life, the posts they see on social media reflect a different slant. Some consider this could happen to affect political views, or to pursue people suspected of crime. The comic reads as if Randall's friend has entered one of these "false bubbles" somehow on a social media site, but that as Randall's "bubble" reflects his views, he can only infer what it is like by reading these posts of his friend.

The title text is a pun comparing the shadows of [[Wikipedia:Allegory of the Cave|Plato's cave]] to the practice of "[[Wikipedia:Throwing shade (slang)|throwing shade]]" (slang for throwing insults, usually subtly), and "the wall" could have a double meaning of both the wall of the cave and the term for someone's social media page.

Plato's Cave is an allegorical tale taking place in a hypothetical cave. The cave contains lifelong prisoners who are chained such that they may only look at one wall. A fire burns, and the goings-on are cast as shadows upon this wall. Lacking a more complete or direct source of information, the cave occupants can only guess about the world by interpreting these shadows as a view of the world itself, and therefore base their other beliefs about the world upon the transitory appearances of these shadows. In this way, Plato's Cave serves as an allegory for our limited understanding of phenomena that occur primarily or entirely outside direct perception by our natural senses. It also offers imagery of how our perceptions and beliefs can be so restricted by what our information channels provide to us, which are now controlled by hidden computer algorithms and marketing teams.

In the same way one might make incorrect assumptions about the makeup and chemical properties of air if one's information on the subject were gathered entirely from watching wind blow through leaves, the hypothetical occupants of Plato's Cave may reasonably be expected to produce wildly inaccurate theories about the outside world, a world they experience only as a kind of shadowplay. To be more specific, if one sees only a reaction (shadow) to an unseen post, one might become polarized against an imagined horrible thing, like if there were a large percentage of people who supported killing pet animals from shelters for sport, when in fact it is only the shadow which you have observed anything about, rather than the object that cast it.

A further joke behind the pun about "throwing shade" may be that judging anything based only upon the most outrageous points of measurement available will likely produce an inaccurate assessment.

==Transcript==
:[A single social media post is shown. On the top left is a portrait of a spiky-haired face, the text right aside is not readable. The post is:]
:Everyone on here needs to stop laughing about how "adopting pets from a shelter is for losers" and "those animals should all be hunted for sport instead." It's reprehensible on so many levels! First of all...

:[Caption below the frame:]
:Sometimes, one of my friends posts an angry response to some terrible opinion I've never heard before, and it's a weird indirect way to learn how awful their other friends must be.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Social networking]]

2076: Horror Movies 2

2018-11-25T07:16:35Z

108.162.215.178: /* Explanation */ ce

{{comic
| number = 2076
| date = November 23, 2018
| title = Horror Movies 2
| image = horror_movies_2.png
| titletext = When I was a kid, someone told me the end of The Giver was ambiguous, which surprised me. I had just assumed Jonah died--because the book had a medal on the cover, and I knew grown-ups liked stories where sad stuff happens at the end for no reason.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a ROLLERCOASTER OF HAPPY ROMANTIC DISCOVERIES. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This comic is a follow-up to [[2056: Horror Movies]] released a month earlier. While the first Horror Movies comic was about giving voice to Randall's inability to enjoy horror movies, this comic takes Randall's previous position and exaggerates it.

White Hat and Cueball discuss the appeal of horror movies and tragic plots. Cueball expresses his dissatisfaction with stories that focus on evoking negative feelings. As an example he mentions how he disliked the ending of ''{{w|Titanic (1997 film)|Titanic}}'' where Jack sacrifices his life in order to save Rose. White Hat does not seem to share Cueball's point of view on successful storytelling and sarcastically promises to send feedback to the movie director {{w|James Cameron}} as well as the 16th century playwright {{w|William Shakespeare}}.

In the title text Cueball (Randall?) discusses the ending of the science fiction novel ''{{w|The Giver}}'' where the fate of the main character Jonah [sic, [[2076: Horror Movies 2#Trivia|see Trivia]]] had been left ambiguous. The joke is a stereotype that the {{w|Newbery Medal}}, a children's literature award, is only given to books with tragic endings.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

:[White Hat and Cueball are walking.]
:White Hat: So you don't like '''''any''''' horror movies?
:Cueball: Spooky stuff is neat but I hate jump scares and watching people get murdered.
:Cueball: Why would you '''''want''''' to see that?

:White Hat: It's like roller coasters. People like experiencing powerful feelings in a safe, controlled setting.
:Cueball: But why not '''''good''''' feelings?

:White Hat: We've always been into tragic stories. Romeo and Juliet, Titanic...
:Cueball: See, that's another thing I don't get!

:Cueball: I loved ''Titanic'' because Rose and Jack found each other and seemed so happy! I just hated the ending.
:White Hat: I'll be sure to give James Cameron and Shakespeare your feedback.

==Trivia==
In the original (current) title-text, there is a typo where the protagonist of ''The Giver'' is referred to as "Jonah" instead of "Jonas."

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]

2076: Horror Movies 2

2018-11-25T07:15:27Z

108.162.215.178: /* Explanation */ copyedit

{{comic
| number = 2076
| date = November 23, 2018
| title = Horror Movies 2
| image = horror_movies_2.png
| titletext = When I was a kid, someone told me the end of The Giver was ambiguous, which surprised me. I had just assumed Jonah died--because the book had a medal on the cover, and I knew grown-ups liked stories where sad stuff happens at the end for no reason.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a ROLLERCOASTER OF HAPPY ROMANTIC DISCOVERIES. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This comic is a follow-up to [[2056: Horror Movies]] released a month earlier. While the first Horror Movies comic was about giving voice to Randall's inability to enjoy horror movies, this comic takes Randall's previous position and exaggerates it.

White Hat and Cueball discuss the appeal of horror movies and tragic plots. Cueball expresses his dissatisfaction with stories that focus on evoking negative feelings. As an example he mentions how he disliked the ending of ''{{w|Titanic (1997 film)|Titanic}}'' where Jack sacrifices his life in order to save Rose. White Hat does not seem to share Cueball's point of view on successful storytelling and sarcastically promises to send feedback to the movie director {{w|James Cameron}} as well as the 16th century playwright {{w|William Shakespeare}}.

In the title text Cueball (Randall?) discusses the ending of the science fiction novel ''{{w|The Giver}}'' where the fate of the main character Jonas [sic, [[2076: Horror Movies 2#Trivia|see Trivia]]] had been left ambiguous. The joke is a stereotype that the {{w|Newbery Medal}}, a children's literature award, is only given to books with tragic endings.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

:[White Hat and Cueball are walking.]
:White Hat: So you don't like '''''any''''' horror movies?
:Cueball: Spooky stuff is neat but I hate jump scares and watching people get murdered.
:Cueball: Why would you '''''want''''' to see that?

:White Hat: It's like roller coasters. People like experiencing powerful feelings in a safe, controlled setting.
:Cueball: But why not '''''good''''' feelings?

:White Hat: We've always been into tragic stories. Romeo and Juliet, Titanic...
:Cueball: See, that's another thing I don't get!

:Cueball: I loved ''Titanic'' because Rose and Jack found each other and seemed so happy! I just hated the ending.
:White Hat: I'll be sure to give James Cameron and Shakespeare your feedback.

==Trivia==
In the original (current) title-text, there is a typo where the protagonist of ''The Giver'' is referred to as "Jonah" instead of "Jonas."

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]

2075: Update Your Address

2018-11-21T19:44:17Z

108.162.215.178: /* Explanation */ add

{{comic
| number = 2075
| date = November 21, 2018
| title = Update Your Address
| image = update_your_address.png
| titletext = This is my four-digit PIN. It was passed down to me by my father, and someday I will pass it on to you. Unless we figure out how to update it, but that sounds complicated.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by someone with an OLD ADDRESS. There is no explanation. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
In this comic, Cueball is facing several instances where entities asking or confirming his address find that the address they possess is incorrect - instead it is a former address, or of another person or entirely non-existent. In the last panel, it is revealed that this is due to the fact that nobody in his family or ancestors update addresses on time.

Inaccurate addresses may be a common problem for someone who has moved constantly in his lifetime. Alternatively, Cueball and his family do not find it important to update addresses for those particular businesses / entities.

{{w|Austria-Hungary}} was a European empire that existed between 1867 and 1918, {{w|Austria-Hungary#Dissolution|dissolving}} during {{w|World War I}}. It is possible that Cueball's ancestors hail from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, though it would be even more absurd for that to be used as an address, given that the polity has not existed for almost a century.

Ash Tree Lane refers to {{w|House of Leaves}}, a postmodern novel from 2000 in which one of many nested plots involves a house on Ash Tree Lane that is bigger on the inside than on the outside, and in fact contains a {{w|labyrinth}} with a {{w|minotaur}}. The book, and Ash Tree Lane specifically, have previously been referenced in [[472: House of Pancakes]] and [[886: Craigslist Apartments]].

The patent for PIN codes was submitted in May 1966, and the first public use of a {{w|Personal identification number|PIN code}} was in 1967, when {{w|Barclays}} used them to process {{w|cheques}} at {{w|automated teller machines}}. It would be somewhat unusual for Cueball to an inherit both an active account and the PIN associated with it.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[Cueball is standing, holding a phone.]
:Voice: Do you still live at 342 River St?
:Cueball: No, I moved last year.
:[Cueball is standing behind a counter with Hairy, whose hands are on a keyboard.]
:Hairy: Is 21 Ash Tree Lane still a good address?
:Cueball: What? That's my childhood home. How is that even in your system?
:[Cueball is holding a phone again.]
:Voice: The address we have is 205 Second St #2.
:Cueball: I... think that's where my parents lived before I was born!?
:[Cueball stands behind another counter with Ponytail and a tablet.]
:Ponytail: Are you still living in... "The Austro-Hungarian Empire?"
:Cueball: You know what, sure.
:Ponytail: Austria-Hungary dissolved in 1918.
:Cueball: Well, I come from a long line of people who hate updating stuff.
{{comic discussion}}

2075: Update Your Address

2018-11-21T19:41:47Z

108.162.215.178: /* Explanation */ PIN "number" is redundant

{{comic
| number = 2075
| date = November 21, 2018
| title = Update Your Address
| image = update_your_address.png
| titletext = This is my four-digit PIN. It was passed down to me by my father, and someday I will pass it on to you. Unless we figure out how to update it, but that sounds complicated.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by someone with an OLD ADDRESS. There is no explanation. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
In this comic, Cueball is facing several instances where entities asking or confirming his address find that the address they possess isn't actually his - instead it's older, or of another person or entirely non-existent. In the last panel, it is revealed that this due to the fact that nobody in his family or ancestors update addresses on time.

{{w|Austria-Hungary}} was a European empire that existed between 1867 and 1918, {{w|Austria-Hungary#Dissolution|dissolving}} during {{w|World War I}}. It is possible that Cueball's ancestors hail from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, though it would be even more absurd for that to be used as an address, given that the polity has not existed for almost a century.

Ash Tree Lane refers to {{w|House of Leaves}}, a postmodern novel from 2000 in which one of many nested plots involves a house on Ash Tree Lane that is bigger on the inside than on the outside, and in fact contains a {{w|labyrinth}} with a {{w|minotaur}}. The book, and Ash Tree Lane specifically, have previously been referenced in [[472: House of Pancakes]] and [[886: Craigslist Apartments]].

The patent for PIN codes was submitted in May 1966, and the first public use of a {{w|Personal identification number|PIN code}} was in 1967, when {{w|Barclays}} used them to process {{w|cheques}} at {{w|automated teller machines}}. It would be somewhat unusual for Cueball to an inherit both an active account and the PIN associated with it.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[Cueball is standing, holding a phone.]
:Voice: Do you still live at 342 River St?
:Cueball: No, I moved last year.
:[Cueball is standing behind a counter with Hairy, whose hands are on a keyboard.]
:Hairy: Is 21 Ash Tree Lane still a good address?
:Cueball: What? That's my childhood home. How is that even in your system?
:[Cueball is holding a phone again.]
:Voice: The address we have is 205 Second St #2.
:Cueball: I... think that's where my parents lived before I was born!?
:[Cueball stands behind another counter with Ponytail and a tablet.]
:Ponytail: Are you still living in... "The Austro-Hungarian Empire?"
:Cueball: You know what, sure.
:Ponytail: Austria-Hungary dissolved in 1918.
:Cueball: Well, I come from a long line of people who hate updating stuff.
{{comic discussion}}

1942: Memorable Quotes

2018-01-15T20:39:54Z

108.162.215.178: I had to do it.

{{comic
| number = 1942
| date = January 15, 2018
| title = Memorable Quotes
| image = memorable_quotes.png
| titletext = "Since there's no ending quote mark, everything after this is part of my quote. —Randall Munroe
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Finish adding the explanations for all quotes, and make sure none of the explanations are pithy or self-evident.}}
This comic "helpfully" provides random quotes to be used by anyone as {{w|blurb}}s, online reviews, motivational quotes or similar short bits of text. Either the webcomic xkcd or its creator Randall Munroe may be quoted using any of the provided lines, as stated at the top of the comic.

In particular, their "usefulness" lies in the fact that almost any of them can be applied to almost any situation. This is achieved by making each quote not really about anything in particular, aside from the fact that they are quotes. This is in contrast to typical quotes, which are never quite this aware that they will be quoted, but this is to be expected when the lines here were made solely for being quoted.

These self-aware quotes are, on a meta level, jokes about quotations generally. Most of Randall's quotes either sabotage the quoting work, reference some aspect of quotes as used in practice, or both---and it can be both when the aspects referenced are about twisting people's words to look like they agree with you.

==Table==
{| border =1 width=100% cellpadding=5 class="wikitable"
! Quote !! Explanation
|-
|''"I disagree strongly with whatever work this quote is attached to."''
|It is possible to quote someone who disagrees strongly with you in a way that looks like they do.
|-
|''"This quote was taken out of context."''
|It is just as possible to take a quote out of context to make your argument look good.
|-
|''"This quote is often falsely attributed to Mark Twain."''
|Many quotes are misquoted as being said by famous people (such as Mark Twain, Dr. Seuss, or Albert Einstein). If this quote was attributed to Mark Twain, however, it would be immediately clear that either it wasn't said by him, or he was lying at the time.
|-
|''"I'm being quoted to introduce something, but I have no idea what it is and certainly don't endorse it."''
|This is likely the case for many famous, widely admired people who are often quoted for all sorts of arguments, even diametrically opposed ones.
|-
|''"This quote is very memorable."''
|One hopes this to be the case, but this quote is very forgettable because of its blandness and because of the fact that it's found in a list of far more interesting quotes.
|-
|''"I wrote this book, and the person quoting me here is taking credit for it."''
|The quote is sabotaging the work that uses it.
|-
|''"This entire thing is the quote, not just the part in quote marks." [Quote marks, brackets, and editor's note are all in the original. —Ed.]''
|The quote itself is referencing how sometimes quotes include mistakes or typographical oddities that may make the reader worry a mistake has been made by the quoting author. An editor's note can be included to assure the original was like that.
|-
|''"Websites that collect quotes are full of mistakes and never check original sources."''
|Websites that collect quotes are infamous for not checking sources. This has been parodied in many ways.
|-
|''"This quote will be the only part of this presentation you remember."''
|Randall asserts that the presentation this quote is found in will be very forgettable, making it likely that a lot of people will listen closer to prove the quote wrong.
|-
|''"Oooh, look at me, I looked up a quote!"''
|Quotes are used to add weight, wit, or authority to a work. If your quote doesn't quite manage this, however, then the inclusion of the quote might just look like you're trying to impress people.
|-
|''"If you're doing a text search in this document for the word 'butts,' the good news is that it's here, but the bad news is that it only appears in this unrelated quote."''
|This would probably occur if you decided to follow Randall's advice and include this quote in your work.
|-
|''"Wait, what if these quote marks are inside out, so everything in the rest of the document is the quotation and ''this'' part isn't? ''Duuuuude.''"''
|
|-
|''"The editors of ''Bartlett's Familiar Quotations'' are a bunch of cowards who don't have the guts to print this."''
|The author of this quote is apparently making a desperate attempt to get a quote published by challenging the editors of ''Bartlett's Familiar Quotations''.
|-
|''"This quote only looks profound when it's in a script font over a sunset."''
|Inspirational quotes are often set in a fancy font above a picture of a sunset, mountain range, beach, etc. to make them look more profound. This quote suggests that, without such formatting, it looks boring and average.
|-
|''"I don't do a lot of public speaking, so I looked up a memorable quote to start my speech, and this is what I found. OK, you're staring at me blankly, but this whole thing is a quote. I know that sounds confusing, but... you know what, never mind."''
|
|-
|''"Sent from my iPhone"''
|This is the default email signature on an iPhone. Quoting this would lead the reader to think that you typed the rest of the work on your phone.
|-
|''"Since there's no ending quote mark, everything after this is part of my quote. —Randall Munroe" —Michael Scott''
|Appears in the title text. Randall Munroe is saying that because there's no ending quotation mark, the rest of the book this quote is in is part of Randall's quote, including, weirdly, the piece of text after what the quote should be specifying that Randall has also said his name.
|}

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Needs some formatting}}
Looking for a quote for something?
Here are some for general use.

They can be attributed to xkcd or Randall Munroe as needed.

*"I disagree strongly with whatever work this quote is attached to."
*"This quote was taken out of context."
*"This quote is often falsely attributed to Mark Twain."
*"I'm being quoted to introduce something, but I have no idea what it is and certainly don't endorse it."
*"This quote is very memorable."
*"I wrote this book, and the person quoting me here is taking credit for it."
*"This entire thing is the quote, not just the part in quote marks." [quote marks, brackets, and editor's note are all in the original. -ED.]
*"Websites that collect quotes are full of mistakes and never check original sources."
*"This quote will be the only part of this presentation you remember."
*"Oooh, look at me, I looked up a quote!"
*"If you're doing a text search in this document for the word 'butts,' the good news is that it's here, but the bad news is that it only appears in this unrelated quote."
*"Wait, what if these quote marks are inside out, so everything in the rest of the document is the quotation and ''this'' part isn't? ''Duuuuude."
*"The editors of ''Bartlett's Familiar Quotations'' are a bunch of cowards who don't have the guts to print this."
*"This quote only looks profound when it's in a script font over a sunset."
*"I don't do a lot of public speaking, so I looked up a memorable quote to start my speech, and this is what I found. OK, you're staring at me blankly, but this whole thing is a quote. I know that sounds confusing, but... You know what, never mind!"
*"Sent from my iPhone."
{{comic discussion}}

Talk:545: Neutrality Schmeutrality

2017-08-08T19:22:00Z

108.162.215.178:

What if instead of word count, it was determined by letter count. so insert a word with multiple spellings like "colour/color" and people will repeatedly edit and re-edit the word over and over until the servers crashed ? --[[User:ParadoX|ParadoX]] ([[User talk:ParadoX|talk]]) 09:01, 26 June 2013 (UTC)ParadoX
::Yea, it doesn't matter either way; let the sheeple have fun herding cats while I camp in the banquet for the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auction_sniping last snipe].[[User:Pacerier|Pacerier]] ([[User talk:Pacerier|talk]]) 12:54, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

I think that the idea is that the edit and re-editing would overload the servers without it being a change to a single word. [[User:Theo|Theo]] ([[User talk:Theo|talk]]) 21:06, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

:If Wikipedia's aim is to take a neutral stance, and Wikipedia is being exploited to determine which of two opposing sides receives a donation, Wikipedia's correct action would be to prevent the article from being written, thus enforcing Wikipedia's stance on neutrality. [[User:Thokling|Thokling]] ([[User talk:Thokling|talk]]) 20:17, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
::If there is no article, the word count is 0, which is an even number, so it goes to pro-choice activists. :) [[Special:Contributions/173.245.51.209|173.245.51.209]] 13:03, 6 November 2013 (UTC)
:::No: if there is no article, the word count is undefined. You cannot determine anything about something that doesn't exist. [[User:Rvighne|rvighne]] ([[User talk:Rvighne|talk]]) 04:50, 23 April 2014 (UTC)
:::: if the article existed, it would be deleted as not notable. [[User:Chess|Chess]] ([[User talk:Chess|talk]]) 00:42, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Lock the article mid-edit leaving a single word unfinished. That becomes a fraction of a word which is neit- [[Special:Contributions/173.245.55.217|173.245.55.217]] 16:02, 2 December 2013 (UTC)BK

What the hell is Schmeutrality? ''Schmeu...'' looks very German to me, but I still have no idea about its meaning on this portmanteau. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 21:39, 2 December 2013 (UTC)
:An old (read "pre-internet") meme, probably Yiddish, is to say a word, then replace the initial consonant cluster of the word with "schm" (read "shm") and say the altered word. This denotes an active apathy toward the subject, that is, the speaker is deliberately disregarding the authority (for that is usually what is "regarded") and doing their own thing, as Black Hat is doing here, disregarding the authority of Wikipedia's stance on neutrality. If you were skipping school, and wanted to justify, you would say "School, Schmool". If you were disobeying you're Aunt Josephine, you would justify, to a confidant, "Aunt Josephine, Schmaunt Josephine". Other examples include "God, Schmod", "Copyrights, Schmopyrights" and "Feds, Schmeds".
:While I was familiar with this before him, Lemony Snicket's third book of a Series of Unfortunate Events, ''The Wide Window'', explains it better than I do.
:Anonymous 04:56, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

Easily fixed. Lock the article just before the deadline, flip a coin in a meeting of lots of Wikipedians, broadcast live. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.228.47|108.162.228.47]] 14:36, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

Another idea. Include a fragment of a word at the end of the article and full-protect it indefinitley. [[User:Jake|Jake]] ([[User talk:Jake|talk]]) 13:46, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

Also, what about hyphenated compound words where it can be debated whether or not they're a single word? [[User:SuperSupermario24|Just some random derp]] 23:49, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

Maybe Black Hat is avoiding donating the money because he knows there will be a constant edit war. I am not quite sure enough to put it in the explanation. [[User:Jacky720|Jacky720]] ([[User talk:Jacky720|talk]]) 10:39, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

What if another speaker at the event (or afterwards) were to donate $1,000,000 at the same time as Black Hat, but the other way round based on the word count? [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.60|141.101.98.60]] 12:04, 8 October 2016 (UTC)

...and 0's an even number 😆[[User:SilverMagpie|SilverMagpie]] ([[User talk:SilverMagpie|talk]]) 04:02, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

Even if the article wasn't created or was deleted, it would remain true that Wikipedia couldn't cover it neutrally, because it wouldn't be covered. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.215.178|108.162.215.178]] 19:22, 8 August 2017 (UTC)

1790: Sad

2017-01-25T17:47:07Z

108.162.215.178: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1790
| date = January 25, 2017
| title = Sad
| image = sad.png
| titletext = With the right 90-degree rotation, any effect is a side effect.
}}

==Explanation==
In this comic, Cueball makes several comments or complaints about Ponytail which are semi-common in regular life. The humor is with Ponytail's responses which subvert the question, by taking them too literally, in a different light than expected, or undermining them completely.

In order...

Cueball's comment about projects having no progress is presumably with regard to real-life projects of importance. Stardew Valley is a video game in which a player creates and manages a virtual farm, and in fact managing it can be considered a complicated project. Ponytail's reply is a great counterexample of how she is making good progress in a project, albeit a virtual one which doesn't matter.

Cueball's comment about not being able to hide from everything is a common one for insular people or for those trying to run away from their problems. Ponytail's reply is in the form of a Politifact reply, claiming (possibly quite truly) that such assertions are false.

Cueball's comment about writing comments is in regard to software development. Comments are something a programmer adds to their code such to make a note for themselves or others, typically to explain a complicated piece of logic or explaining external dependencies of a piece of code. His statement implies that Ponytail was not using the for this purpose, instead writing unrelated notes filled with obscenities. Ponytail's reply is one of typical advice given to amateur fiction and non-fiction writers, that to "write what you know." This has additional humor suggesting that Ponytail knows obscenity well.

Cueball's comment about functions is another software development related idea. Functions are pieces of logic which developers create do things (such as "calculate the diameter of a circle based on its radius"). A function which does nothing is literally useless. Ponytail replies that doing nothing is in line with functional programming, that she is trying to avoid side effects (i.e. unexpected, unintended, and typically unwanted effects upon calling a piece of code). This is typically a good thing. Cueball correctly states that by doing nothing that one avoids all effects, again harkening back to the fact that Ponytail's code is literally useless. Ponytail then replies saying that doing nothing is the "only way to be sure," which is possibly a reference to a common quote from the Alien movie series.

The title text is a pun on the idea of the phrase "side effect." If you turn something 90 degrees you will place it on its side, so thus making it a effect of putting something on its side, or a "side effect."

Ponytail's despondence is likely in response to Donald Trump's election. The title "Sad" is a common interjection in Trump's tweets. The time-frame of "the past few months" from the first panel is consistent with this, as the election was on November 8, 2016, and the comic was posted on January 25, 2017. The reference to fact-checking in the second panel is also reminiscent of the election and post-election coverage.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript}}
[Cueball is looking at Ponytail on a computer.] 
Cueball: How are you doing? 
Ponytail: Hah. 
Cueball: You seem distant lately. For the past few months. 
Ponytail: Can't imagine why. 

Cueball (offscreen): Your projects have stagnated. 
Ponytail: But my Stardew Valley farm is doing great. 
Cueball (offscreen): You can't just hide from everything. 
Ponytail: FACT CHECK: Mostly false. 

Cueball: I'm glad you're including more comments in your code, but it would be nice if they were comments about your code. Or at least a bit less obscenity-filled. 
Ponytail: They say to write what you know. 

[Cueball leans forward] 
Cueball: All the functions you've written take everything passed to them and return it unchanged with the comment "NO, YOU DEAL WITH THIS." 
Ponytail: It's a functional programming thing. Avoiding side effects. 
Cueball: You avoid all effects. 
Ponytail: Only way to be sure. 

[Title Text] 
With the right 90-degree rotation, any effect is a side effect.

{{comic discussion}}

1533: Antique Factory

2015-06-04T00:28:54Z

108.162.215.178: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1533
| date = June 3, 2015
| title = Antique Factory
| image = Antique_Factory.PNG
| titletext = WARNING: This item was aged by the same inexorable passage of time that also processes nuts.
}}

==Explanation==
[[Beret Guy]] has a new job with a confusing premise. When asked where he works, he says “{{w|Antique}} factory!” which seems to be a contradiction since you cannot build an antique object directly in a factory. Only when the item is more than 100 years old (and will often have been in use during this time period) can it be called an antique.

Beret Guy walks up to a chair, a table, and a small cabinet, sits down in the chair, and does nothing else. Of course, one does not simply make antiques. Instead, one must wait. Beret Guy appears to be doing exactly this. The implication is that the “antique factory” is simply a place where furniture is stored until it becomes old enough to be considered “antique,” and that Beret Guy doesn’t perform any useful function (except perhaps using the items to make them look old and worn or keeping an eye on the inventory so it won’t be stolen).

The title text refers to allergy warning labels saying ''May contain nuts''. More specifically, they may say “Manufactured in a facility which also processes nuts,” “Manufactured on equipment that processes products containing nuts,” “Manufactured on equipment that uses nuts,” or similar. These warnings indicate that bits of powder and oil from nuts may have been mixed into the product, creating a hazard to people with nut allergies. Sometimes these warnings are used for allergens besides nuts, but nuts may be the most common.

The joke here is that of course the time that has passed for a specific antique item will be the same time that has also passed while some nuts somewhere have grown. Thus the time that has [[wiktionary:inexorable#Adjective|inexorably]] passed to make a specific item antique will also have processed nuts.

See also [[209: Kayak]].

==Transcript==
:[Beret Guy is leaving with a briefcase in hand.]
:Beret Guy: Gotta go - I'm late for work.
:Off-screen voice: Oh, where are you working now?
:Beret Guy: Antique factory!

:[Beret Guy arrives and pulls out a chair in front of a table and a small cabinet.]

:[Beret Guy sits on the chair in front of the table. He has placed the briefcase behind the chair.]

:[An almost identical panel is repeated once more.]

{{comic discussion}}


[[Category:Comics featuring Beret Guy]]

Talk:148: Mispronouncing

2015-05-16T01:39:55Z

108.162.215.178:

The "airpart" could be referencing a Saint Louis accent, rather than intentional mispronunciation. [[Special:Contributions/130.160.145.185|130.160.145.185]] 19:48, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure that Emad is supposed to refer to Ahmed, and is some sort of joke about Muslim terrorists.[[User:GallantChaos|GallantChaos]] ([[User talk:GallantChaos|talk]]) 18:08, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

Yes, and it's written Emad because he's deliberately mispronouncing it. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.52.203|173.245.52.203]] 02:23, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

No, Emad is the online name of one of Randall's friends, look it up at http://wiki.xkcd.com/irc/Emad_%28Explanation%29
[[Special:Contributions/173.245.55.73|173.245.55.73]] 05:31, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

Man goes into a shop.
"Half a pound of kiddleyes, please"
"Don't you mean 'kidneys"
"That's what I said, diddleye" {{unsigned ip|141.101.99.217}}

Isn't the whole joke on 'blag' that 'blog' and 'blag' are homonyms according to the wonderful English orthography *unless* one is aware that it is originally portmanteau of words 'web' and 'log' and by convention it is pronounced with 'o', but think for a minute: if one would never have seen nor heard that word ever before, would they not pronounce it something like... blag? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.231.67|108.162.231.67]] 23:42, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

For what it's worth, an Emad is mentioned [http://blog.xkcd.com/2013/07/29/1190-time/ here] [[Special:Contributions/108.162.215.178|108.162.215.178]] 01:39, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

502: Dark Flow

2015-05-11T04:22:15Z

108.162.215.178: /* Transcript */ spelling fix

{{comic
| number = 502
| date = November 10, 2008
| title = Dark Flow
| image = dark_flow.png
| titletext = The Pioneer anomaly is due to the force of my love.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic is about {{w|astronomy}} and the {{w|Your Mom}} jokes that have become increasingly widespread in urban parlance. [[Beret Guy]] is perusing a research paper which is presumably discussing {{w|Dark Flow}}, an observed anomaly in the motions of the galaxies which some theorize is caused by an unobservable sibling universe or similarly super massive object beyond the edge of the visible universe. [[Cueball]], who is playing, sees this as an opportunity to turn it into yet another Your Mom joke, implying that Beret Guy's mother is fat.

But apparently, Beret Guy's mother is dead, or at least missing, and he takes the joke seriously. He looks toward the sky, and wishes that his mom pulls harder, so he could be with her. The joke has been turned onto itself.

The title text is a continuation of Beret Guy's thoughts and refers to another piece of science phenomenon that has been observed in space, the {{w|Pioneer Anomaly}}. The {{w|Pioneer}} spacecraft had been slowed down by an unknown force as they exited the solar system, which he says is caused by the force of his love, probably towards his mom.

==Transcript==
:[Beret Guy is sitting at a computer, and Cueball is sitting in an armchair, reading either a book or a newspaper.]
:Beret Guy: According to this A.S.T paper, every galaxy is being pulled toward one area of the sky.

:[Only Cueball.]
:Beret Guy [off-panel]: They hypothesize that it may be due to a supermassive object beyond the edge of the visible universe.
:Cueball: Maybe it's your mom. Zing!

:[Only Beret Guy.]
:Beret Guy: Do you think?

:[Outside at night, on a rooftop. Beret Guy is looking up to the sky, next to a telescope.]
:Beret Guy: Pull harder, mom.
:Beret Guy: I Miss you.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics with inverted brightness]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Beret Guy]]
[[Category:Astronomy]]
[[Category:Your Mom]]
[[Category:Space]]

Talk:1520: Degree-Off

2015-05-10T03:24:11Z

108.162.215.178:

Isn't this the debut of the dark hair-bun girl? Is this trivia section worthy? [[Special:Contributions/173.245.50.88|173.245.50.88]] 22:49, 4 May 2015 (UTC)BK201
:The hair bun girl has [[:Category:Comics featuring Hair Bun Girl|appeared a few times]] since it's inception in [[378: Real Programmers]]. --{{User:17jiangz1/signature|01:05, 05 May 2015}}
::But this one has bangs, and visibly darker hair. Isn't it possible it's a different character? Or am I [http://media1.giphy.com/media/v9rfTQBNqdsSA/giphy.gif splitting hairs]? [[Special:Contributions/173.245.50.88|173.245.50.88]] 20:23, 5 May 2015 (UTC)BK201
:::Yes your are splitting hair. Because in xkcd most characters are just generic and can be any person they need to be. The characteristic of the hair bun has been used only a few times, 8 with this one. Sometimes the figure even represents a real person. I agree that she is drawn a little different, but in the page for Hair Bun Girl it is mentioned that she also sometimes have glasses. It is though interesting that he has used her several times sine passing comic 1500. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 11:43, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

I assume "''Your'' field gathered in the desert to create a new one." refers to the Manhattan Project? {{unsigned ip|173.245.50.74}}
:Yes [[User:Jachra|Jachra]] ([[User talk:Jachra|talk]]) 06:52, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

Chem wants absolutely no part of this conversation. [[User:Jachra|Jachra]] ([[User talk:Jachra|talk]]) 06:52, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are: Conquest, War, Famine, and Death. Is she claiming that her heros have conquered death? [[User:Capncanuck|Capncanuck]] ([[User talk:Capncanuck|talk]]) 06:58, 4 May 2015 (UTC)
: Yeah I didn't get that either. The description as it stands now seems to be implying one of the four horsemen is pestilence, but that's not what my Google search turned up… --[[User:Zagorath|Zagorath]] ([[User talk:Zagorath|talk]]) 15:15, 4 May 2015 (UTC)
::Pestilence [[Special:Contributions/173.245.56.176|173.245.56.176]] 07:10, 4 May 2015 (UTC)
:::In Terry Pratchett's book the fourth horsemen is Pestilence. See also {{w|Four_Horsemen_of_the_Apocalypse#As_infectious_disease|Pestilence}}. It was new to me that it was originally Conquest instead of Pestilence which can be read on wiki: {{w|Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse}}. Since Randall is a big fan of Terry Pratchett it is very likely that he refers to "his" version of the four Horsemen. (It is not Terry's invention, but he made it popular amongst people like Randall). As I disagree with the Death version of the title text, I'm not sure that Terry is directly refereed to in this comic, but I'm sure the Bilologist refers to them killing of pestilence (or plauge). --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 17:23, 4 May 2015 (UTC)
::::There are no humanities on stage, so I think bio can get away with this one.--[[Special:Contributions/108.162.218.23|108.162.218.23]] 17:50, 4 May 2015 (UTC)
::::Maybe it referred to famine. Though that'd be a bit odd. [[User:Halfhat|Halfhat]] ([[User talk:Halfhat|talk]]) 19:05, 4 May 2015 (UTC)
:::::Perhaps the reason why pestilence isn't a real Horseman is because its death by biology retroactively altered the prophecy ("Yes, you've had it for ages. But did you have it for ages 30 minutes ago?" - Rincewind, The Last Continent).```` {{unsigned ip|108.162.219.144}}

also a possible reference to: https://xkcd.com/435/ ? {{unsigned ip|141.101.75.101}}

The stamp collecting quote is from Ernest Rutherford, not Richard Feynman. {{unsigned ip|141.101.70.43}}

1052 also compares degrees --[[Special:Contributions/141.101.104.12|141.101.104.12]] 08:36, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

My assumption was that Cueball was giving a long and possibly rambling talk about physics starting with an anecdote about Feynman and ending with one about Rutherford. I didn't consider the quote to be wrongly attributed therefore. {{unsigned ip|141.101.99.71}}

Please be aware that the proper way to link to wikipedia is to use [[Template:w]].--{{User:17jiangz1/signature|10:01, 04 May 2015}}

This may be Randall's indirect way of saying what he thinks of the anti-vaxxers. --[[User:RenniePet|RenniePet]] ([[User talk:RenniePet|talk]]) 10:49, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

Does the "killing Pestilence" thing also refer to ''Good Omens'' (co-authored by Pratchett), where Pestilence retired in 1936 "mumbling something about penicillin"? Homusubi

Isn't the comment about vaccines kinda reaching? I don't really see any evidence, even implied, that this comic is referencing the anti-vaccine movement in any way. --[[User:Zagorath|Zagorath]] ([[User talk:Zagorath|talk]]) 13:23, 4 May 2015 (UTC)
:I agree that the anti-vaxer comments are out of place. I don't think they should be included as part of the explanation. [[User:Bmmarti3|Bmmarti3]] ([[User talk:Bmmarti3|talk]])

Isn't the biologist talking in the title text? And isn't biology considered a squishy science? I think the title is directed at the physicist, telling him to get harder skin because he's so easily hurt emotionally. [[User:YourLifeisaLie|Yourlifeisalie]] ([[User talk:YourLifeisaLie|talk]]) 14:13, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

I rather doubt that the CAPS in the title text are referring to Pratchett's figure DEATH. In my opinion, the talking-in-CAPS is just meant to infer (further) SHOUTING on the part of the biologist, since she is shouting in the last panel as well. There is no indication whatsoever that the title text should be spoken by anyone other than the biologist herself.[[Special:Contributions/141.101.104.180|141.101.104.180]] 14:20, 4 May 2015 (UTC)thd

Do chemistry and physics represent a helium atom with biology as the nucleus? It would also explain her hair. [[User:Mikemk|Mikemk]] ([[User talk:Mikemk|talk]]) 15:18, 4 May 2015 (UTC)
:I don't see any reason for it to make any sense. It is quite a long shot to think so. However, what explains her hair? [[Special:Contributions/173.245.50.88|173.245.50.88]] 17:50, 4 May 2015 (UTC)BK201

Might there also be a reference to https://xkcd.com/520/, praising biology just in case. [[User:Tzwenn|Tzwenn]] ([[User talk:Tzwenn|talk]]) 15:22, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

What is the giant bump in infectious diseases around 1925? It seems like it must have been a mayor effect, but I don't know how to google for it.[[Special:Contributions/141.101.104.99|141.101.104.99]] 17:43, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

:The planet-wide superflu of 1919, which happened because millions decided to go to Europe, camp in filthy trenches for months and then decided to all go back home simultaneously for some reason. {{unsigned ip|199.27.133.44}}

::Actually, it happened for other reasons, and it was mostly in 1918. Many people arrived at that camp bringing the superflu with them, actually, and the drop-off happened around when the bulk of them went home. Most of the fatalities may actually have been due to cytokine storms, AKA your immune system deciding that you ought to die horribly and now. What you ''actually'' got at the camp is the discovery that, if your feet are continuously wet for sufficiently long periods of time, they'll rot. That said, infectious diseases are on their way back, because antibiotic resistance is going up. There's already a confirmed case of TB resistant to all current antibiotics, and truly new ones becoming less and less frequent. (Most of the obvious routes we've exploited and adaptation is destroying, and many of the remaining obvious routes are insufficiently easy to distinguish from chemical warfare.) [[Special:Contributions/108.162.237.182|108.162.237.182]] 22:46, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

moved the most important comment to the top. [[User:TheJonyMyster|TheJonyMyster]] ([[User talk:TheJonyMyster|talk]]) 00:25, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

Uhm lockpicking != safecracking. Feynman was exploiting a bad design in the safes (you didn't have to dial the exact number) combined with people being lousy at choosing their codes. [[User:Poizan42|Poizan42]] ([[User talk:Poizan42|talk]]) 09:45, 5 May 2015 (UTC)
:A numpad safe still contains a lock. It locks items inside. --{{User:17jiangz1/signature|11:27, 05 May 2015}}

I'm not sure what is the biologists arguing about. Physics creating new horseman of apocalypse is definitely bigger achievement than biologists almost removing one. On the other hand, both fields are capable of making humans extinct by mistake. (Also, seriously, the idea of degree-off is flawed: we need experts in both (or rather all) fields.) -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 12:09, 5 May 2015 (UTC)
:I disagree. Penicillin is a much more important discovery - helping so many people. Killing people is a lot easier than curing them! --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 11:40, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

I think that Civil Engineering should get half the credit. It wouldn't make for as good a cartoon though. Why was the graph of infectious disease rates lightly doctored to reduce the 1918 flu pandemic? My guess is to increase the visual impact. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.238.188|108.162.238.188]] 18:11, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

Biology: Aren't many theoretical developments reliant on chemistry and/or physics? And even more practical developments use tools which rely on chemistry/physics? Example: brain mapping, drug synthesis, etc.? --[[Special:Contributions/108.162.215.178|108.162.215.178]] 02:28, 6 May 2015 (UTC)
: No, this would be as circuitous as saying that physics is entirely reliant on biology, because it's conducted using human brains, hands, eyes, etc. Or hey - theology. How would physics have gotten it's start without funding from churches and kings? The whole line of discussion is more than a little ludicrous. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.249.170|108.162.249.170]] 08:01, 8 May 2015 (UTC)
:: No, what I mean is that physics and chemistry are necessary in order to understand biology and perform research, while the reverse is not true. Cellular/molecular biology, in particular, is dependent on an understanding of chemistry and physics.
:: Just take for example electron transport chains, which depends on quantum mechanics. Or the behavior of neurotransmitters, hormones, etc., which are all connected with organic chemistry.
:: A good understanding of chemistry and physics is also essential in advancing science in general. A good understanding of biology could be useful for the creation of biologically inspired materials in engineering, but biology is not a fundamental building block in any of the harder sciences.
:: Regarding biology and theology: No science's knowledge is taken from, or builds off of, theological teachings. Physics is not dependent on biology, because it does not involve the study of our brains, merely the existence of them. Biology's knowledge is directly dependent on physics.
:: In terms of practical implications, I think biology affects our health more, and physics and chemistry affects our technology more. But it's undeniable that physics and chemistry are more fundamental and essential to all science, than biology.
:: What is your opinion?
:: --[[Special:Contributions/108.162.215.178|108.162.215.178]] 03:24, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

Any ideas as to why Hair Bun Girl's bun disappears in the fourth frame? As in anything more interesting than it being forgotten to be drawn in. [[User:JRVeale|JRVeale]] ([[User talk:JRVeale|talk]]) 11:12, 6 May 2015 (UTC)
:I think she just has turned her head so the bun is behind it. Thus not forgotten, and not really interesting either! --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 11:40, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

The discussion about the new horseman of the apocalypse being radiation poisoning, and the linking of it all to Pratchet, reads very very strangely, I think it is a major overreach. It's very common for Pestilence to be listed as one of the four horsemen, and even with Randall being a Terry Pratchett fan, it seems unlikely this had any influence on it. It's stock-standard in pop culture for them to be listed as War, Famine, Death, Pestilence, even if they don't appear that way in the Bible, just as it is stock-standard for the devil to be portrayed as a red horned guy with cloven feet (which also doesn't appear anywhere in the Bible). It seems like the development of the atomic bomb is what Hair Bun Girl is referring to as the new horseman. I don't see why an overly specific and convoluted connection to "radiation poisoning" is included. - [[Special:Contributions/108.162.249.170|108.162.249.170]] 08:08, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

Talk:1520: Degree-Off

2015-05-06T02:28:49Z

108.162.215.178:

1394: Superm*n

2014-07-14T16:14:45Z

108.162.215.178: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1394
| date = July 14, 2014
| title = Superm*n
| image = superm_n.png
| titletext = See also: Spider-Man reboot in which he can produce several inches of web, doesn't need as much chalk powder on his hands when he goes rock climbing, and occasionally feels vaguely uneasy about situations.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|General expansion/cleanup needed.}}

This comic was posted one day after a {{w|supermoon}}, an informal astronomical event where a full moon occurs close to the Moon's perigee (i.e. the point where it's closest to Earth), causing the moon to appear larger and brighter. The conditions for a supermoon happen once every 411 days, and the loose definition of the term means that there are usually two or three "supermoons" per perigee (the next full moon on August 10 will also qualify as a supermoon).

While this event is often considered beautiful to behold, it is hardly remarkable. The event is not rare, as it occurs approximately every 13.5 months. Furthermore, the moon's apparent increase in size is only marginal -- the June 2013 supermoon, for example, was only 14% bigger and 30% brighter than other full moons of the same year.

The comic points out that the use of the prefix "Super-" in Supermoon is hyperbolic, by depicting how unimpressive the superhero {{w|Superman}} would be if he had similarly proportional increases in physical capacity relative to normal humans.

The title makes use of a filesystem-style wildcard, which could be used to capture either "Supermoon" or "Superman".

The title text refers to {{w|Spiderman}}, another comicbook hero who, having been bitten by a radioactive spider, has spider-like abilities. He is capable of firing webs from his wrists (in some adaptations, he uses a machine to do it) that allows him to swing from buildings (among other things), can cling to surfaces with superhuman gripping abilities, and has "spider sense," a so-called sixth sense that warns him about impending danger. The title text describes trivially minimal versions of these powers, analogous to the trivial size and brightness difference between a "supermoon" and a normal full moon.

==Transcript==
[Cueball is reaching for an item on a high shelf. Superman is rushing towards him]

Superman: I'll get it! I'm 5 inches taller and 7% stronger than the average man!

Caption: The new supermoon-inspired Superman reboot

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics with color]]