explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Talk:1044: Romney Quiz

2015-06-03T22:04:50Z

108.162.219.119:

I got 4/12! I feel proud! '''[[User:Davidy22|Davidy22]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 08:29, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

I remember when Herman Cain quoted the Pokémon 2000 film. Then again, did not a pro-life politician use Mewtwo's quote? [[User:Greyson|Greyson]] ([[User talk:Greyson|talk]]) 13:21, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

After reading the explanation several times, I still don't get the joke. Is the comic meant as comment that there's something wrong with those kinds of quizzes? Or is it meant to emphasize how well the ordinary ones do line up by offering a bad one for comparison? Or is it just relying on sheer bizarreness, which is why I keep looking for an underlying satirical element that isn't there? I'm just so confused. [[User:Mel|Mel]] ([[User talk:Mel|talk]]) 12:22, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
:Its comparing the absurd (as viewed by Democrats) statements made by Romney to famous quotes by Charlie, implying that they are equally ridiculous and fantastical.[[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.119|108.162.219.119]] 22:04, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

1531: The BDLPSWDKS Effect

2015-05-30T16:09:59Z

108.162.219.119: minor grammar edit

{{comic
| number = 1531
| date = May 29, 2015
| title = The BDLPSWDKS Effect
| image = the bdlpswdks effect.png
| titletext = This well-known effect has of course been replicated in countless experiments.
}}

==Explanation==

The BDLPSWDKS Effect in the title is an {{w|acronym}} for Bernoulli-Doppler-Leidenfrost-Peltzman-Sapir-Whorf-Dunning-Kruger-Stroop Effect, as explained by [[Ponytail]] in the comic. She stands in front of a slide that shows [[Cueball]] being subjected to this effect.

The effect mentioned appears to be a mashup of seven scientific principles (with nine scientists names included) from different scientific fields, with elements from each principle appearing in the resulting description of the effect:

*{{w|Bernoulli's principle}} in fluid dynamics (also mentioned in [[803: Airfoil]]) states that an increase in the speed of a fluid with certain properties occurs simultaneously with a decrease in pressure or a decrease in the fluid's potential energy.
** This is referenced by the firetruck lifting off and hurtling.
*The {{w|Doppler effect}} in physics refers to the change in a wave's frequency for an observer moving relative to its source. Sound from the oncoming firetruck increases in pitch.
**This is referenced by Cueball reacting faster if the shouting is in a non-tonal language than a tonal language. In tonal languages, changes in pitch change the meaning, thus tonal langauges may suffer more from Doppler distortion than non-tonal ones.
*The {{w|Leidenfrost effect}} refers to how liquid will produce an insulating vapor layer when in near contact with an extremely hot surface, causing it to hover over said surface.
**This is referenced by the firetruck lifting off on a layer of superheated gas.
*The {{w|Peltzman effect}} refers to how regulations intended to increase safety are ineffective or counterproductive because people, feeling safer, will engage in riskier behaviours.
**This is referenced by the firefighter speeding due to the feeling of safety he/she has in a modern firetruck, subsequently creating a hazardous situation and reducing the safety of the pedestrian.
*The {{w|Sapir–Whorf hypothesis}} states that a person's world view and cognitive processes are affected by the structure of the language the person speaks.
**This is referenced by languages with a word for "firefighter" giving a quicker reaction. If Cueball speaks (or is currently thinking in) a language without a word for "firefighter", he might be slower to recognize the role and authority of the driver warning him, and thus slower to react to the danger.
*The {{w|Dunning–Kruger effect}} refers to unskilled people mistakenly perceiving themselves as more skilled than they really are, while skilled people underestimate their own abilities.
**This is referenced by the tonal language being a language Cueball thinks he is fluent in but isn't.
*The {{w|Stroop effect}} refers to the phenomenon in which it is easier to name the color of the ink in which a word is written when the word refers to the same color as the ink than when the word refers to a different color.
**This is referenced by Cueball diving out faster if the driver screams "red!" than if the driver screams "green!", as the firetruck is red and therefore it may create a moment of confusion for Cueball if the driver shouts "green!". It may also reference the common usage of "red" as indicating fire or danger, while "green" indicates safety.

This comic is probably a comment on the "replication crisis" in social psychology which has been in the [http://www.nature.com/news/first-results-from-psychology-s-largest-reproducibility-test-1.17433 news recently]. For example, studies finding that merely thinking about intelligent people (e.g., writing down the attributes of a professor) will actually improve performance on math tests were once widely believed, and this "intelligence priming" effect is even included in textbooks. However, recent attempts to reproduce these effects have mostly failed and this failure to replicate is true of many [http://www.nature.com/news/disputed-results-a-fresh-blow-for-social-psychology-1.12902 social priming effects] as well as other experiments in social psychology. Randall is also mocking the complicated, or even convoluted, setups often used in these experiments.

Usually, for an effect to be considered real, the scientific method requires the effect to be replicated by different experimenters in different times and places. It is hard to imagine several scientists in different parts of the world creating the setup to replicate this effect; however the title text mentions (maybe {{w|Sarcasm|sarcastically}}) it has been done countless times.

Many other XKCD strips have commented on the ease with which surprising and novel, but false, results can be published in the scientific literature, such as [[1478]] and [[882]].

Furthermore, the opportunity of publishing this comic strip may (or may not) be related to the recently issued sequels of franchises such as `Mad Max` and `Carmageddon`, where it's not unusual to find heavy wheeled vehicles trampling pedestrians for fun, or simply because the drivers do not care.

==Transcript==

:[Ponytail stands next to a screen displaying a firetruck hurtling toward Cueball on what appears to be a layer of gas.]

:Ponytail: The Bernoulli-Doppler-Leidenfrost-Peltzman-Sapir-Whorf-Dunning-Kruger-Stroop Effect states that if a speeding fire truck lifts off and hurtles towards you on a layer of superheated gas, you'll dive out of the way faster if the driver screams '''''"red!"''''' in a '''''non'''''-tonal language that '''''has''''' a word for "firefighter" than if they scream '''''"green!"''''' in a '''''tonal''''' language with '''''no''''' word for "firefighter" which you '''''think''''' you're fluent in but '''''aren't'''''.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Science]]
[[Category:Physics]]
[[Category:Language]]

1531: The BDLPSWDKS Effect

2015-05-30T16:08:03Z

108.162.219.119: Similar XKCD strips

{{comic
| number = 1531
| date = May 29, 2015
| title = The BDLPSWDKS Effect
| image = the bdlpswdks effect.png
| titletext = This well-known effect has of course been replicated in countless experiments.
}}

==Explanation==

The BDLPSWDKS Effect in the title is an {{w|acronym}} for Bernoulli-Doppler-Leidenfrost-Peltzman-Sapir-Whorf-Dunning-Kruger-Stroop Effect, as explained by [[Ponytail]] in the comic. She stands in front of a slide that shows [[Cueball]] being subjected to this effect.

The effect mentioned appears to be a mashup of seven scientific principles (with nine scientists names included) from different scientific fields, with elements from each principle appearing in the resulting description of the effect:

*{{w|Bernoulli's principle}} in fluid dynamics (also mentioned in [[803: Airfoil]]) states that an increase in the speed of a fluid with certain properties occurs simultaneously with a decrease in pressure or a decrease in the fluid's potential energy.
** This is referenced by the firetruck lifting off and hurtling.
*The {{w|Doppler effect}} in physics refers to the change in a wave's frequency for an observer moving relative to its source. Sound from the oncoming firetruck increases in pitch.
**This is referenced by Cueball reacting faster if the shouting is in a non-tonal language than a tonal language. In tonal languages, changes in pitch change the meaning, thus tonal langauges may suffer more from Doppler distortion than non-tonal ones.
*The {{w|Leidenfrost effect}} refers to how liquid will produce an insulating vapor layer when in near contact with an extremely hot surface, causing it to hover over said surface.
**This is referenced by the firetruck lifting off on a layer of superheated gas.
*The {{w|Peltzman effect}} refers to how regulations intended to increase safety are ineffective or counterproductive because people, feeling safer, will engage in riskier behaviours.
**This is referenced by the firefighter speeding due to the feeling of safety he/she has in a modern firetruck, subsequently creating a hazardous situation and reducing the safety of the pedestrian.
*The {{w|Sapir–Whorf hypothesis}} states that a person's world view and cognitive processes are affected by the structure of the language the person speaks.
**This is referenced by languages with a word for "firefighter" giving a quicker reaction. If Cueball speaks (or is currently thinking in) a language without a word for "firefighter", he might be slower to recognize the role and authority of the driver warning him, and thus slower to react to the danger.
*The {{w|Dunning–Kruger effect}} refers to unskilled people mistakenly perceiving themselves as more skilled than they really are, while skilled people underestimate their own abilities.
**This is referenced by the tonal language being a language Cueball thinks he is fluent in but isn't.
*The {{w|Stroop effect}} refers to the phenomenon in which it is easier to name the color of the ink in which a word is written when the word refers to the same color as the ink than when the word refers to a different color.
**This is referenced by Cueball diving out faster if the driver screams "red!" than if the driver screams "green!", as the firetruck is red and therefore it may create a moment of confusion for Cueball if the driver shouts "green!". It may also reference the common usage of "red" as indicating fire or danger, while "green" indicates safety.

This comic is probably a comment on the "replication crisis" in social psychology which has been in the [http://www.nature.com/news/first-results-from-psychology-s-largest-reproducibility-test-1.17433 news recently]. For example, studies finding merely thinking about intelligent people (e.g., writing down the attributes of a professor) will actually improve performance on math tests were once widely believed, and this "intelligence priming" effect is even included in textbooks. However, recent attempts to reproduce these effects have mostly failed and this failure to replicate is true of many [http://www.nature.com/news/disputed-results-a-fresh-blow-for-social-psychology-1.12902 social priming effects] as well as other experiments in social psychology. Randall is also mocking the complicated, or even convoluted, setups often used in these experiments.

Usually, for an effect to be considered real, the scientific method requires the effect to be replicated by different experimenters in different times and places. It is hard to imagine several scientists in different parts of the world creating the setup to replicate this effect; however the title text mentions (maybe {{w|Sarcasm|sarcastically}}) it has been done countless times.

Many other XKCD strips have commented on the ease with which surprising and novel, but false, results can be published in the scientific literature, such as [[1478]] and [[882]].

Furthermore, the opportunity of publishing this comic strip may (or may not) be related to the recently issued sequels of franchises such as `Mad Max` and `Carmageddon`, where it's not unusual to find heavy wheeled vehicles trampling pedestrians for fun, or simply because the drivers do not care.

==Transcript==

:[Ponytail stands next to a screen displaying a firetruck hurtling toward Cueball on what appears to be a layer of gas.]

:Ponytail: The Bernoulli-Doppler-Leidenfrost-Peltzman-Sapir-Whorf-Dunning-Kruger-Stroop Effect states that if a speeding fire truck lifts off and hurtles towards you on a layer of superheated gas, you'll dive out of the way faster if the driver screams '''''"red!"''''' in a '''''non'''''-tonal language that '''''has''''' a word for "firefighter" than if they scream '''''"green!"''''' in a '''''tonal''''' language with '''''no''''' word for "firefighter" which you '''''think''''' you're fluent in but '''''aren't'''''.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Science]]
[[Category:Physics]]
[[Category:Language]]

1531: The BDLPSWDKS Effect

2015-05-30T15:56:54Z

108.162.219.119: Replication Crisis in Social Psychology

{{comic
| number = 1531
| date = May 29, 2015
| title = The BDLPSWDKS Effect
| image = the bdlpswdks effect.png
| titletext = This well-known effect has of course been replicated in countless experiments.
}}

==Explanation==

The BDLPSWDKS Effect in the title is an {{w|acronym}} for Bernoulli-Doppler-Leidenfrost-Peltzman-Sapir-Whorf-Dunning-Kruger-Stroop Effect, as explained by [[Ponytail]] in the comic. She stands in front of a slide that shows [[Cueball]] being subjected to this effect.

The effect mentioned appears to be a mashup of seven scientific principles (with nine scientists names included) from different scientific fields, with elements from each principle appearing in the resulting description of the effect:

*{{w|Bernoulli's principle}} in fluid dynamics (also mentioned in [[803: Airfoil]]) states that an increase in the speed of a fluid with certain properties occurs simultaneously with a decrease in pressure or a decrease in the fluid's potential energy.
** This is referenced by the firetruck lifting off and hurtling.
*The {{w|Doppler effect}} in physics refers to the change in a wave's frequency for an observer moving relative to its source. Sound from the oncoming firetruck increases in pitch.
**This is referenced by Cueball reacting faster if the shouting is in a non-tonal language than a tonal language. In tonal languages, changes in pitch change the meaning, thus tonal langauges may suffer more from Doppler distortion than non-tonal ones.
*The {{w|Leidenfrost effect}} refers to how liquid will produce an insulating vapor layer when in near contact with an extremely hot surface, causing it to hover over said surface.
**This is referenced by the firetruck lifting off on a layer of superheated gas.
*The {{w|Peltzman effect}} refers to how regulations intended to increase safety are ineffective or counterproductive because people, feeling safer, will engage in riskier behaviours.
**This is referenced by the firefighter speeding due to the feeling of safety he/she has in a modern firetruck, subsequently creating a hazardous situation and reducing the safety of the pedestrian.
*The {{w|Sapir–Whorf hypothesis}} states that a person's world view and cognitive processes are affected by the structure of the language the person speaks.
**This is referenced by languages with a word for "firefighter" giving a quicker reaction. If Cueball speaks (or is currently thinking in) a language without a word for "firefighter", he might be slower to recognize the role and authority of the driver warning him, and thus slower to react to the danger.
*The {{w|Dunning–Kruger effect}} refers to unskilled people mistakenly perceiving themselves as more skilled than they really are, while skilled people underestimate their own abilities.
**This is referenced by the tonal language being a language Cueball thinks he is fluent in but isn't.
*The {{w|Stroop effect}} refers to the phenomenon in which it is easier to name the color of the ink in which a word is written when the word refers to the same color as the ink than when the word refers to a different color.
**This is referenced by Cueball diving out faster if the driver screams "red!" than if the driver screams "green!", as the firetruck is red and therefore it may create a moment of confusion for Cueball if the driver shouts "green!". It may also reference the common usage of "red" as indicating fire or danger, while "green" indicates safety.

This comic is probably a comment on the "replication crisis" in social psychology which has been in the [http://www.nature.com/news/first-results-from-psychology-s-largest-reproducibility-test-1.17433 news recently]. For example, studies finding merely thinking about intelligent people (e.g., writing down the attributes of a professor) will actually improve performance on math tests were once widely believed, and this "intelligence priming" effect is even included in textbooks. However, recent attempts to reproduce these effects have mostly failed and this failure to replicate is true of many [http://www.nature.com/news/disputed-results-a-fresh-blow-for-social-psychology-1.12902 social priming effects] as well as other experiments in social psychology. Randall is also mocking the complicated, or even convoluted, setups often used in these experiments.

Usually, for an effect to be considered real, the scientific method requires the effect to be replicated by different experimenters in different times and places. It is hard to imagine several scientists in different parts of the world creating the setup to replicate this effect; however the title text mentions (maybe {{w|Sarcasm|sarcastically}}) it has been done countless times.

Furthermore, the opportunity of publishing this comic strip may (or may not) be related to the recently issued sequels of franchises such as `Mad Max` and `Carmageddon`, where it's not unusual to find heavy wheeled vehicles trampling pedestrians for fun, or simply because the drivers do not care.

==Transcript==

:[Ponytail stands next to a screen displaying a firetruck hurtling toward Cueball on what appears to be a layer of gas.]

:Ponytail: The Bernoulli-Doppler-Leidenfrost-Peltzman-Sapir-Whorf-Dunning-Kruger-Stroop Effect states that if a speeding fire truck lifts off and hurtles towards you on a layer of superheated gas, you'll dive out of the way faster if the driver screams '''''"red!"''''' in a '''''non'''''-tonal language that '''''has''''' a word for "firefighter" than if they scream '''''"green!"''''' in a '''''tonal''''' language with '''''no''''' word for "firefighter" which you '''''think''''' you're fluent in but '''''aren't'''''.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Science]]
[[Category:Physics]]
[[Category:Language]]

Talk:1529: Bracket

2015-05-25T15:02:01Z

108.162.219.119:

What's the connection between Rip Torn and Natalie Imbruglia? {{unsigned ip|108.162.238.183}}
:Answer: Her song, Torn: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VV1XWJN3nJo-{{unsigned|Stumpy}}

Any pairings that you'd add, given the opportunity? Personally I always confuse [[wikipedia:Wilson Pickett|Wilson Pickett]] and [[wikipedia:Wilson Phillips|Wilson Phillips]]. [[User:Studley|Studley]] ([[User talk:Studley|talk]]) 08:28, 25 May 2015 (UTC)
[[wikipedia:Will Ferrell|Will Ferrell]] and [[wikipedia:Pharrell Williams|Pharrell Williams]] for me! -{{unsigned|Stumpy}}

Why do some first round pairings have more than two people? Beyoncé starts at the third round, so it can't be just because of the number of people. There has to be a joke in them but I don't see it. --[[Special:Contributions/141.101.104.176|141.101.104.176]] 08:45, 25 May 2015 (UTC)
:Possibly an in-joke at the NCAA bracket's First Four round. Mister/Fred Astaire/Rogers is a more "traditional" reference to the First Four. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.103|108.162.219.103]] 10:32, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps it's worth adding to a trivia section that (assuming every person/thing has an equal chance of winning every matchup, Beyonce has the highest odds of winning (1/32 = 3.125%) while Kurt Russell, Russell Crowe, Russell Brand, and Russell Simmons are all tied for having the worst starting odds (1/256 = .391%).[[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.91|108.162.219.91]] 09:19, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

I may be worth mentioning that the bracketing trees resemble hierarchical clustering dendrograms in which some string similarity metric was used as a distance function.

Although the comic is formatted as a tournament bracket, there are hints that it is in fact a dendrogram based on string similarity, in a similar way to how trees of evolutionary relationships between proteins are formed. We see this especially in the "Russell" group where there is equal similarity between any name containing "Russell" and so that group is not resolved into two separate forks. If readers wish to recreate such an analysis for themselves they can take the text on [http://pastebin.com/DRqjaDHH here] paste it into a [http://www.ebi.ac.uk/Tools/msa/clustalw2/ multiple sequence aligner], press Submit, then after processing click Phylogenetic Tree and scroll down. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.74|141.101.99.74]] 12:46, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

Is there any significance to the number of entries? 52 on the left side but only 51 on the right?

;Title text
Changed the reference of the Title Text from Doctor Who (who is already listed in the comic) to Dr. Dre, as the phrasing of the Title Text seems like a very direct reference to the 2001 song "Forgot About Dre." {{unsigned|Conquistador}}
:Probably would have been better to add it as an option since we're clearly far from certain -{{unsigned|Stumpy}}

Why not Zoidberg? --RhyvenNZ [[Special:Contributions/198.41.238.41|198.41.238.41]] 09:55, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

Pretty sure Doctor Who is covered by "The Doctor". He doesn't go by "Who" in the show. He's just the Doctor. I think the missing doctor is House. {{unsigned ip|108.162.215.127}}

Dr. Pepper, maybe? Does "staring" or "forgotten" have to do with it? {{unsigned ip|108.162.237.156}}

Whatagainnow? {{unsigned ip|108.162.222.178}}

Dr. Oz? Dr. Phil? Dr. Watson? Dr. Kavorkian? Dr. Seuss? Wasn't there a famous literary work, The Lost Island of Dr. Moreau? I agree that Dr. House and/or house calls could be a missing candidate for the bracket. But then, there are a ton of 'Sirs' that didn't make the list.  {{unsigned|GAKDragon||please sign your posts appropriately with the appropriate user and talk page links using <nowiki>~~~~</nowiki>}}
:[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Teeth_and_The_Electric_Mayhem Doctor Teeth!] [[User:Jarod997|Jarod997]] ([[User talk:Jarod997|talk]]) 13:50, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

Or is "The Doctor" http://en.memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/The_Doctor? {{unsigned ip|108.162.215.108}}
:The Doctor is already in the bracket. --[[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.49|141.101.99.49]] 10:40, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

It's Doctor House - definitely and finally! {{unsigned|Raydleemsc}}

Definitely "Doc" Brown: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmett_Brown {{unsigned ip|108.162.221.171}}

Could the joke simply be "there are way too many famous doctors", so even though it's arguably the most numerous category in the bracket, some are still "forgotten"?

Probably not talking about doctor who, however he could be referencing The Silence, which is a an alien race, on that show, which you immediately forget about after losing sight of it. {{unsigned|KroniK907}}

I immediately thought of Amy's wedding in Dr Who S5Ep13 where she needed to remember the doctor to bring him back. Too obscure? [[User:Blu003|Blu003]] ([[User talk:Blu003|talk]]) 13:07, 25 May 2015 (UTC)
:Hardly. You want obscure, try The Doctor's granddaughter. Yep, he had/has one. --[[Special:Contributions/108.162.237.144|108.162.237.144]] 13:41, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

Y'know, I can't help but feel that this is a little to bland and unfinished for xkcd. I'm willing to bet that the picture updates with winners. May be sorely disappointed though. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.119|108.162.219.119]] 15:02, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

1508: Operating Systems

2015-04-06T13:05:43Z

108.162.219.119: Added another sentence to the incomplete banner.

{{comic
| number = 1508
| date = April 6, 2015
| title = Operating Systems
| image = operating systems.png
| titletext = One of the survivors, poking around in the ruins with the point of a spear, uncovers a singed photo of Richard Stallman. They stare in silence. "This," one of them finally says, "This is a man who BELIEVED in something."
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|More finetuning needed? Also, we need a more clear definition for the title text, separate from the explanation of the GNU/Hurd explanation.}}
In this comic, Randall gives an overview of past, present and (speculatively) future of the Operating Systems running in his house at any given time. Notably, because Randall is a technological person, there is rarely only one OS in his household. The timeline tracks how Operating Systems have come and gone over the years, and the gradual shift from desktop Operating Systems to mobile can be observed. Beyond the present day, we see some of Randall's humorous predictions as to which technologies and companies will dominate the Operating System landscape in the future.

Previous and current systems:
*{{w|MS-DOS}} (Microsoft Disk Operating System)
*{{w|Microsoft Windows}}
*Apple's {{w|Mac OS}} (Macintosh Operating System)
*{{w|Linux|Linux}}
*{{w|OS X}} (Macintosh Operating System v10)
*{{w|Android_(operating_system)|Android}}
*Apple's {{w|iOS}} (internet Operating System)

His predictions for the future include:
*2018: That {{w|OS X}} and {{w|iOS}} will merge
*2019: That [http://github.com/runtimejs/runtime#readme someone will succeed] in coding an entire operating system in {{w|Javascript}}
*2022: That there'd be an OS based on {{w|Tinder_(application)|Tinder}}
*2024: That the various devices from {{w|Nest Labs}} would be expanded so much that there's an entire operating system for them.
*2029: That {{w|Elon Musk}} will be up to something ambitious and futuristic
*2030: That {{w|Disk_operating_system|DOS}} would make a comeback, but only in an ironic fashion, probably because there would be no more disks left for it to operate from.
*2034: That ordinary people will be deploying {{w|Unmanned_combat_aerial_vehicle|weaponized drones}} in their homes
*2042: Human civilization comes to a fiery end, possibly due to the unholy combination of weaponized drones and whatever the Elon Musk Project had developed.
(Alternate explanation:)
*2045: Human civilization will be wiped out by an ASI (Artificial Super Intelligence, superior to human intelligence), as Elon Musk, Ray Kurzweil, Bill Gates and many tech pundits foresee that 2045 will be the year to see ASI becoming real, and as Elon Musk, Bill Gates and many other tech pundits fear that it will be the extinction of all life on earth, as explained [http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/01/artificial-intelligence-revolution-2.html on this page].

The title text refers to Richard Stallman, the founder of the [http://www.fsf.org/about Free Software movement] and the [http://www.gnu.org/gnu/gnu.html GNU project,] and refers to the timeline when [http://www.gnu.org/software/hurd/hurd.html GNU/Hurd] is finally production ready. The joke is that GNU/Hurd began to be developed in 1990, and while it was expected to be released in a relatively short time, even now only unstable builds have been released. So Randall is saying that it will finally be ready to run in his house 8 years after humanity has ended, i.e. that a production-ready version will never be released. Or maybe he means that a herd of gnu will be running in his living room, as wild animals reclaim the Earth after the end of human civilization. Maybe also he says that though human ''civilization'' doesn't exist anymore still humanity lives on, and GNU/Hurd will be the only system smart enough to be picked up by this post-catastrophe generation.

==Transcript==
:{There is timeline titled "Operating Systems Running in my House". It runs from 1990 to 2067, at the edge of the panel. Bars above the timeline are labeled with operating system names, representing the time period for that OS. The hatch mark at 2015 is labelled "Now". Listed on the timeline are (with approximate year ranges)}:

:MS DOS: 1988 to 1998 (extends left past the beginning of the timeline)
:Mac OS: 1994 to 2001
:Windows: 1993 to 2007
:Linux: 1999 to 2018
:Android: 2009 to 2016
:OS X: 2009 to (bar combines with iOS around 2019) 2023
:iOS: 2013 to (bar combines with OS X around 2019) 2023
:[something].js: 2018 to 2028
:TinderOS: 2022 to 2029
:Nest: 2023 to 2032
:DOS, but ironically: 2030 to 2036
:Elon Musk Project: 2028 to 2042
:Blood Drone: 2034 to 2042
:[Human civilization ends in fire]: 2042 to 2051
:GNU/Hurd: 2059 to past 2067, continuing off panel

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Charts]]