explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Talk:2549: Edge Cake

2021-12-05T12:19:41Z

108.162.219.107:

The cake being all edges is a reference to everything about her birth being an edge case.
[[Special:Contributions/172.70.110.227|172.70.110.227]] 03:41, 2 December 2021 (UTC)
: It seems likely that the title of the comic is a related pun: her birthday is an edge case, and so she has an edge cake.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.106.221|162.158.106.221]] 04:22, 2 December 2021 (UTC)
So is Hairbun officially named Emily now, sort of like how all instances of Megan are Megan even though she's only called that once? I know all the names here are just placeholders of convenience, but even then I've never know what the rules for naming are. [[User:Captain Video|Captain Video]] ([[User talk:Captain Video|talk]]) 06:11, 2 December 2021 (UTC)
: Well, Megan is referred to multiple times in the xkcds as "Megan", while the one time Hairbun was called Emily, it referred to the real{{citation needed}} Emily Dickinson. So, probably not. [[User:Bubblegum|bubblegum]]-[[User_talk:Bubblegum|talk]]|[[Special:Contributions/Bubblegum|contribs]] 02:44, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

Edge pieces on cake are often sought after because they hold more frosting, for cakes which are frosted while out of the pan. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.134.23|172.70.134.23]] 06:37, 2 December 2021 (UTC)
: I have an impression that Cueball is delighted by having only edge pieces, however some cakes edge pieces may be either sought for or avoided, depending on one's tastes. E.g. tarts have more crispy base cake content and less filling at the edges. One person may go for the filling, another for the crispy base. -- [[Special:Contributions/162.158.102.11|162.158.102.11]] 09:50, 2 December 2021 (UTC)

So it seems the events in the comic happened on Apr 1., as the "last month" birthday could be either Feb 28. or 29. -- [[Special:Contributions/162.158.102.11|162.158.102.11]] 09:50, 2 December 2021 (UTC)
:Not necessarily. Remember, Emily can have her birthday ''whenever she wants'', so the date this comic is set as is entirely arbitrary. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.178.51|172.70.178.51]] 12:26, 2 December 2021 (UTC)

Are there any particular existing arctic international flights that could have been the one Emily was born on? -- [[Special:Contributions/256.256.256.256|256.256.256.256]] 15:51, 2 December 2021 (UTC)
:There are a few possibities (at least pre-COVID, and obviously we'd be looking historically in this case anyway) as [https://interestingengineering.com/polar-routes-flights-that-go-over-earths-poles might be shown here]. There's two possible (but neither definite) International Datelines on the comic diagram, in case they help orient which from/to directions might have been diverted further in or out of their own kinks in the flightpath to coincide with 90°N. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.77|172.70.162.77]] 16:21, 2 December 2021 (UTC)

Expanded copies of this comic have been appearing on other comics, so large that it fills the whole screen for me. Is anyone else having this problem? [[User:Sarah the Pie(yes, the food)|Sarah the Pie(yes, the food)]] ([[User talk:Sarah the Pie(yes, the food)|talk]]) 22:24, 2 December 2021 (UTC)
:Someone (check the [[Special:RecentChanges|Recent Changes]] page, if you want) has been vandalising a lot of things. Currently I see a picture of an amphibious avian creature on this article's top (if I still need to revert it myself, I will do, but I've seen others have already been reverting other recent vandalism, so I may not need to by the time I've checked again). This very clever individual is obiviously mentally superior to us all(!) the way they can edit wiki pages seemingly at will... Impressive, eh? At some point I'm sure we'll get back to normlal, however boring that may be. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.67|172.70.90.67]] 23:33, 2 December 2021 (UTC)

Not to be too pedantic but isn't rotation a FREQUENCY, not a SPEED? [[User:Skulker|Skulker]] ([[User talk:Skulker|talk]]) 03:19, 3 December 2021 (UTC)
:Depends on the context (and scale). The convention is usually speed for rotation (surface(distance/time) when it's relevant, angular(revolutions/time) otherwise) to avoid conflicts with wave frequency (which is independent of speed). Also they can be freely converted, though converting to and from surface speed requires an additional radius term. The exception is, if comparing periodicity, sometimes frequency is used when it has special relevance (Ex: resonance) -- [[Special:Contributions/172.69.68.200|172.69.68.200]] 02:59, 4 December 2021 (UTC)

Tempted to add a link in the Trivia section to the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Warrimoo Wikipedia] or [https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/ss-warrimoo/ Snopes] pages on the SS Warrimoo, a ship that (reportedly) was on the intersection of the Equator and the International Date Line at the stroke of midnight on January 1, 1900, with a number of interesting implications that follow. There's no way to prove that it actually happened, but it's fun to imagine and is somewhat similar to the premise of the comic. --mezimm [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.15|108.162.221.15]] 14:33, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

Many airplanes actually have limitations written into their operating manuals that prohibit flying north of 89 deg. N or south of 89 deg. S, mostly just so that the navigation software doesn't have to deal with the singularity. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.71.187|172.69.71.187]] 23:48, 3 December 2021 (UTC)
:bloody lazy engineers! [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.107|108.162.219.107]] 12:19, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

Is it not possible that Emily's birth happened to occur at the same moment that the contract specified transfer of ownership? Additionally, is it not possible that the airplane took off from within UTC+13:00 or UTC+14:00 and that the moment of Emily's birth happened to occur in the brief one-or-two hour period in which it was March 1st at that airport, but February 28th in UTC-12:00? UTC-11:00 is inhabited, so it would be possible that ownership of an airplane that took off from within UTC+14:00 was transferred to a company based out of UTC-11:00 during the one-hour period that it was February 28th in UTC-11:00 and March 1st in UTC+14:00 and that, at that exact moment, it was passing over the North Pole. [[User:DL Draco Rex|DL Draco Rex]] ([[User talk:DL Draco Rex|talk]])

Am I alone in thinking that babies don't get born instantaneously? I've never given birth myself but i'd always got the impression that it's a process and any attempt to pick a precise 'instant' is going to be somewhat arbitrary. This means that the plane will very probably have travelled through a variety of time zones any of which could be the 'real' time of birth. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.155|172.70.85.155]] 05:29, 4 December 2021 (UTC)

Dickenson looks like a typo. Dickinson? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.77|172.70.162.77]] 08:44, 4 December 2021 (UTC)

Isn't an "all edge pieces cake" just a plate of cupcakes lol? [[User:Zman350x|Zman350x]] ([[User talk:Zman350x|talk]]) 06:46, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

2201: Foucault Pendulum

2021-11-16T05:36:02Z

108.162.219.107: /* Explanation */ Added citation request.

{{comic
| number = 2201
| date = September 11, 2019
| title = Foucault Pendulum
| image = foucault_pendulum.png
| titletext = Trust me, you don't want to get on the wrong side of the paramilitary enforcement arm of the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service.
}}

==Explanation==

[[Black Hat]] is attending what appears to be a guided tour of a museum with a {{w|Foucault pendulum}}. [[Megan]] is explaining to him, [[Cueball]] and [[Ponytail]] about the device which demonstrates the rotation of the Earth.

Black Hat, being himself, immediately sees an opportunity to cause chaos and seizes it with both hands, quite literally — he grabs the pendulum, which causes the others to shout after him to stop. At first this would seemingly be for fear of ruining the delicate demonstration. However, in the final panel, the [[:Category:News anchor|news anchor]] [[Blondie]] reveals to us that by arresting the motion of the pendulum, Black Hat has somehow stopped the rotation of the Earth. However, it was only briefly, since the local {{w|geophysicists}} managed to wrestle him down, and it must be assumed that they then quickly restarted the pendulum and thus the Earth's rotation.

This of course is blatantly impossible, since the Foucault pendulum's motion is tied to the Earth's rotation, not the other way around (at least in any significant way, see below). A Foucault pendulum is a regular {{w|pendulum}} that swings from a bearing that allows rotation in any direction, like your shoulder joint instead of your elbow, as a demonstration that the Earth is rotating beneath it. If the Earth were stationary, the pendulum's plane of oscillation would not change relative to its immediate surroundings, but the Earth is not stationary, so the pendulum's plane of oscillation will appear to rotate over the course of a day, although in reality it is the Earth that rotates. The low-friction bearing doesn't allow the rotation of the Earth to affect the motion of the pendulum, so it tends to stay aligned with its original inertial reference frame rather than with its surroundings, which rotate with the Earth. A Foucault pendulum located at one of the poles will take a full day to "move" one full round. At the equator there is no movement, and in between it will take longer than 24 hours (24 hours divided by the sine of the latitude).

The fact that the Earth's rotation does not influence the motion of the pendulum does NOT mean that other forces can't affect it - for example, someone running up and manually repositioning the pendulum. Of course, the apparent rotation of the pendulum's plane relative to the Earth is an effect of the planet's motion, rather than the cause of it. Thus, stopping a Foucault pendulum manually does not entail pausing the rotation of the Earth.[citation needed]

If it were somehow possible for a Foucault pendulum to control Earth's rotation (see above), Black Hat would probably not want to alter the momentum of the pendulum if he were not at one of the Earth's poles. That is assuming he was told that it was related to Earth's rotation and assuming that he would prefer to preserve his own life over creating chaos (unless he has some means to prevent his being slammed into a nearby wall at the speed of sound). This is because, if the rotation of the Earth were to be stopped for even very short amounts of time (a few seconds), it would cause everything on Earth that wasn't bolted/fastened to the ground to move eastward compared to the now stationary ground. Objects near the Equator would suddenly be moving at a speed of 300-360 meters per second, likely causing the death of most lifeforms on Earth beneath a certain latitude almost instantaneously. Those close enough to the poles may survive, though. Also this will cause massive windstorms, tsunamis, volcanic and tectonic events on a scale not previously observed on Earth. This would likely cause a mass extinction event and wipe out most of humanity in the initial events (which would eventually lead to our total extinction). It is possible that Black Hat's grabbing the pendulum would cause a gradual slowing prior to stopping, minimizing the issue (though this doesn't seem to be the case), but the results would still be catastrophic, as the aforementioned events are still likely to occur (specifically the tsunamis and volcanic events). However, as mentioned above, if this pendulum were located at the South Pole, then Black Hat and other people around him would not be affected immediately, and he could both do it, survive and be stopped again. The question is whether there would be any more news stories to cover this, given what would happen to the rest of the world! If there was no one to readjust the pendulum's rotation, then certain events would happen after the initial damage (see this video [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_T7L8rt1Ec]). [[Randall]] previously covered this scenario in detail in his [[what if?]] book, see [https://io9.gizmodo.com/xkcds-creator-explains-what-would-happen-if-earth-stopp-1625068208 XKCD's Creator Explains What Would Happen If Earth Stopped Spinning].

To be completely correct, the angular momentum of the Earth+pendulum system is constant, so that when Black Hat "stops" the pendulum's rotation with respect to the Earth, he actually transfers to the pendulum some of Earth's angular momentum, thereby ''slightly'' slowing Earth's rotation. But the order of magnitude of that effect is (at most) in proportion to the pendulum-to-Earth mass ratio. Earth's mass being ~6 x 1024kg, the effect for any practical pendulum would be beyond the 20th decimal place and would therefore go totally unnoticed.

The title text mentions the {{w|International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service}}, an organization providing standards for global time and reference frames; this organization would have a very rough day after the fiasco with Black Hat. The title text refers to a (probably) fictional paramilitary enforcement arm of this organization and the foolishness of tangling with such a force. If Foucault pendulums were somehow able to influence the rotation of the Earth in any measurable way, the IERS enforcers would probably strictly control their installation and monitor their use (and misuse). Black Hat is likely in for a rough day as well. It seems likely that some on this team are geophysicists, since they were the ones who took Black Hat down.

==Transcript==
:[Megan is addressing Cueball, Black Hat and Ponytail as they are looking a pendulum, which consists of a large swinging sphere with a spike beneath it hanging on a string coming down from above with seven small markers under it. Megan is pointing at it while it is swinging towards them, as indicated with lines behind the sphere and the string.]
:Megan: This Foucault pendulum demonstrates Earth's rotation. It stays in a fixed plane while the Earth rotates under it.

:[Close-up on Black Hat holding a hand to his chin.]
:Black Hat: Hmm, really.
:Black Hat: So that means...

:[Zoom out to Black Hat running to the pendulum grabbing it with both hands. He knocks over two of the seven markers that can now be seen to be small pegs standing up on he floor beneath the pendulum. A line goes from his hand on the pendulum up to a sound bubble. Two people off-panel yell at him.]
:Character off-panel 1: Hey!
:Character off-panel 2: Stop him!
:Sound:''Grab''

:[Blondie as a news anchor uses her held out hand to indicate Black Hat who is shown on a screen next to her. There is a caption in two lines above it. The first line in normal text, the second line in white in a black rectangle. There are further unreadable text below the picture.]
:Blondie: The Earth's rotation was briefly halted today until geophysicists wrestled the intruder to the ground...
:Breaking
:''news''

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Black Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Blondie]]
[[Category:News anchor]]
[[Category:Physics]]

2535: Common Cold Viruses

2021-10-29T20:42:32Z

108.162.219.107: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2535
| date = October 29, 2021
| title = Common Cold Viruses
| image = common_cold_viruses.png
| titletext = "It's not an influenza, but the onset has notes of the '09 H1N1 strain." "Ah yes, that was a good year for H1N1."
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a RHINO-SHAPED RHINOVIRUS. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
This comic is another entry in a [[:Category:COVID-19|series of comics]] related to the {{w|COVID-19 pandemic|2020-21 pandemic}} of the {{w|SARS-CoV-2}} virus, which causes {{w|COVID-19}}.

As access to community makerspaces, labs, and knowledge has spread, people have begun doing more things at home that were previous confined to industrial and academic research environments. This was stimulated further during the onset of the pandemic, when communities became focused on helping offset overtaxed national resources.

The compares connoisseurs of viruses to the stereotypical fine wine or cheese connoisseurs.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[Megan, Cueball, and White Hat are standing in a group. Cueball is talking.]
:Cueball: COVID has made me so curious about colds. The next time I get one, I want to know which virus it is specifically.
:Cueball: A Rhinovirus? RSV? Mild Influenza? Or something weird like Metapneumovirus?

:[Megan, Cueball, and White Hat are talking.]
:Megan: How distance are they? Could you learn to tell them apart?
:Cueball: See, I wonder!
:White Hat: I could get a sequencer from work...

:[In this panel, Cueball is sitting on the left, Megan is sitting on the right, and White Hat is standing at the far right. Megan is coughing, there is a tissue box in the middle, and rolled-up tissues lying around on the ground.]
:Caption above the panel: Several years later...
:Cueball: Ah yes, this one has the rich full-bodied bouquet of RSV, but the heady congestion lends it a lingering Rhinovirus nosefeel.
:Megan: *Cough* Quite right!

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:COVID-19]]

Talk:1015: Kerning

2015-09-28T15:51:52Z

108.162.219.107:

The guy on the left might be so angry he'd try to punch the building -- but you can't fight City Hall. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.107|108.162.219.107]] 15:51, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

Did this to my "friend," and I must say it really hasn't had the intended effect. He's still ''happy'' and ''normal''. '''[[User:Davidy22|Davidy22]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 13:08, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

The originial transcript in the html is:

[[Some IDIOT used a font with TERRIBLE kerning on the side of a building for a sign labeled "CITY OFFICES". Only.. you aren't even frickin' sure because of this terrible kerning, as the "C" and the "I" in "CITY" have waaay too strong kerning. And so do the "C" and the "E" in "OFFICES", to the point that it actually looks like TWO words. And the I and the C are so close together, they almost look like a freakish K! Two people stand in front of this sign. One notices all these obvious flaws, while the other exists in peaceful ignorance.]]
Person 1: *Argh*!
Person 2: what?
If you really hate someone, teach them to recognize bad kerning.

Title text: I have never been as self-conscious about my handwriting as when I was inking in the caption for this comic.

Why isnt that used here? {{unsigned ip|108.162.254.4}}

Firefox fails to display overlapped kerning. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.92.24|141.101.92.24]] 15:56, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

1540: Hemingway

2015-06-19T20:51:03Z

108.162.219.107:

{{comic
| number = 1540
| date = June 19, 2015
| title = Hemingway
| image = hemingway.png
| titletext = Instead of bobcat, package contained chair.
}}

==Explanation==
{{Incomplete|Finished with Edit Conflict assimilation, but prior author(s) invited to rejig}}

This comic is a reference to the six-word short story {{w|For sale: baby shoes, never worn}}, which has been attributed to famous author {{w|Ernest Hemingway}}; however, [[Randall|Randall Munroe]] explicitly states that this might not be the case at all. The comic plays on the fact that the original story takes the form of a short advertisement that might have been seen in a newspaper, and for these examples uses various modern 'standards' that did not exist in Hemingway's time.

Each example remains six 'words' long! And the title text obeys this rule, too.

Most exhibit common 'click bait' wording, such as "This Weird Trick...", whilst others make use of annotating tokens from an online site. One line references Roguelike conventions for item descriptions, obviously also unfamiliar to Hemingway's generation and there's also a direct example of HTML formatting tags from the early 1990s; the <BLINK> tag was infamously introduced to the early Netscape browsers. 
Others poke fun at the tragedy that the original story suggests. The six words (For Sale: Baby shoes, never worn) are written like an advertisment, and the reader is supposed to infer that the baby who would have worn the shoes must have died. Randall tries to make the reader infer other things.
'For Sale: This gullible baby's shoes' suggests that the seller somehow tricked the baby out of its shoes. 'Baby shoes for sale by owner' suggests that a very intelligent baby is somehow selling its own shoes, or that someone grew up without using shoes they were once given.

In the case of the HTML, the normally invisble-and-rendered tag elements can be seen and are part of the six words count. This could have been due to 'sanitising' of uploaded text where HTML tags (other than any that are specifically allowed, like it appears Strikethrough formatting might be) are deliberately deactivated by the server, or because the incorrectly closed final tag breaks any intended rendering support.

The title text and the penultimate line in the comic itself makes a reference to the third pane of [[A-Minus-Minus|325: A-Minus-Minus]] in which [[Cueball]] says: 'Instead of office chair, package contained bobcat'

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript}}
:[Caption above comic]
:Hemingway's Rough Drafts

:[A list of rough draft titles]
:For sale: This Gullible Baby's Shoes
:Baby Shoes For Sale By Owner
:<strike>Actually, There's no evidence Hemingway wrote</strike>
:Free Shoes, Provided You Overpower Baby
:For Sale: Weird Baby's Toe Shoes
:For Sale: Baby Shoes [an "Amazon Prime eligible" logo]
:<strike>Though popularly attributed to Hemingway, the</strike>
:This Weird Trick Covers Baby Feet!
:For Sale: Baby Shoes, Just Hatched
:Sale: Seven-League Boots (Expedited Shipping)
:Complete this survey for free shoes!
:''Shoes'', by Ernest Hemingway [citation needed]
:This is my greatest short story.
:For sale: Baby shoes (-1) [cursed]
:<blink><marquee>Baby Shoes!</marquee><blink>
:For Sale: Baby-sized Saddle, Bobcat
:Hemingway Busted for Craigslist Shoe Scam

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics|Color]]