explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Talk:2497: Logic Gates

2021-08-03T16:16:31Z

108.162.219.174:

As someone has just Transcripted basically almost all the fine detail I had planned to entable in the Explanation, I shall not now create repetition. Though I had a little more description to the NORXONDOR GOGONAX, in particular, to reference bidirectional (antiparallel) diode pairings (e.g. an LED assembly that glows a different hue depending upon the applied current bias) as probable inspiration, and that latched Flip-Flops surely inspired some part of the Frankensteinian gate-types, too. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.119|141.101.99.119]] 00:08, 3 August 2021 (UTC)

(Also, surprised there was no direct "GONDOR" reference. Or maybe that's because it was ''too'' obvious?) [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.211|141.101.99.211]] 00:12, 3 August 2021 (UTC)

: I was also missing a "GONDOR" reference, and all the X's also made me think XEHANORT. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.126.174|172.70.126.174]] 03:49, 3 August 2021 (UTC)

...So, who's ready to draw up some truth tables? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.126.211|172.70.126.211]] 01:22, 3 August 2021 (UTC)

I can't get the lines in the bitwise-operation example to align properly; the first one is indented a tad. Can someone please fix that? Thanks... [[User:BunsenH|BunsenH]] ([[User talk:BunsenH|talk]]) 04:11, 3 August 2021 (UTC)

The symbol for norx gate (1-input OR, two outputs) I'd read as a noninverting buffer to increase another gate's usable fan-out. Xand gort resembles the symbol for an [[wikipedia:Operational amplifier|op-amp]]. Given the subtraction that an op-amp does, the xand gort's truth table probably resembles that of the [[wikipedia:Material conditional|"implies" operator]]. [[User:Tepples|Tepples]] ([[User talk:Tepples|talk]]) 04:23, 3 August 2021 (UTC)

the "NORG XORT" is not equivalent to an XOR, as the symbol is round on the right. --[[Special:Contributions/141.101.69.186|141.101.69.186]] 06:39, 3 August 2021 (UTC)

Right, "NORG XORT" would be a XNAND with inverted inputs, though I don't know what the logic table from a XAND or XNAND gate would look like. If De Morgan applies to XAND/XOR the same way as with AND/OR, would a "NORG XORT" then be equivalent to a XOR ? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.129.43|162.158.129.43]] 15:12, 3 August 2021 (UTC)
:: I think it is specifically a hybrid between XOR and NAND. The left edge is curved like OR, and the right edge curved like AND. I did spend some time thinking about XAND, though. One of my ideas was a >2-input AND that is only true if exactly 2 inputs are true. I wonder what qubit gates are like. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.174|108.162.219.174]] 16:16, 3 August 2021 (UTC)

;Logic Gates
It seems to me that their ought to be 16 possible logic gates. Although some would ignore one or both inputs. [[User:Algr|Algr]] ([[User talk:Algr|talk]]) 07:18, 3 August 2021 (UTC)
:Yes. The 74181 4-bit arithmetic logic chip implements all 16 possible binary logic operations. See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/74181 [[Special:Contributions/162.158.94.253|162.158.94.253]] 07:34, 3 August 2021 (UTC)
:As Randall drew gates with two outputs, these would have 256 (16^2) possible functions [[Special:Contributions/162.158.94.252|162.158.94.252]] 15:15, 3 August 2021 (UTC)

Talk:1700: New Bug

2021-07-24T21:31:14Z

108.162.219.174:

I'm new. For the explanation: A bug, as in a computer (programming) bug, can be reported and tracked, and many systems allow collaboration on the reporting and tracking of problems, or bugs, in code, and their solutions. Cueball reported a problem (bug) he found in the code, which presumably caused the server (program)—which he wrote as part of his project—to try to read the passwords as URLs before storing them. This exposes serious cross-site scripting attacks and other serious security vulnerabilities, and since handling password and user account information usually requires a lot of programming, this would be difficult to fix, which is why the character off-panel suggests burning the project down, as that would be much easier, and would solve any security problems, much more quickly than fixing the bug would. The comment text refers to Cueball's horrid solution to a horrid problem: Instead of solving the problem that is causing the server to read passwords as URLs, he can instead leverage a known problem in the programme which reads URLs which prevents it from reading a particular way of representing text in binary form, by adding a few characters to the user's password that the URL-reading program can't read. This would also "salt" the user's password, which is a security technique that makes passwords harder to figure out when they are stored properly. Cueball thinks this would solve the original problem, and two other problems at the same time, the second problem being the fact that user's passwords aren't salted (a security problem). The third solved problem is difficult to deduce. &emsp;[[User:Zyzygy|Zyzygy]] 05:40, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

: The third bug is the unicode handling, which would need to be solved in order to salt passwords with emoji since these are unicode only character. Although I'm not sure if salting with emoji really increases security since as a rule i'd say nobody uses emoji in their passwords. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.85.123|162.158.85.123]] 06:34, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

::Password: 👍🐎🔋Π [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.131|141.101.98.131]] 10:11, 29 June 2016 (UTC)
:::That is a really funny password, [[936: Password Strength|but is it strong ennough?]] :-) --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 20:22, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

:Actually, nobody using emoji in their password would be reason salting with emoji is MORE effective. Salting doesn't really increase security of single password, but it does increase security of whole password database, because you can hash some string - like, [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2016/01/26/most-common-passwords-revealed---and-theyre-ridiculously-easy-to/ 123456] and check whole database for users having that as password. If every password is salted with different emoji, this strategy will not work, because while you KNOW which emoji is used - the salt is stored unhashed with the password hash - it's always different so you need to compute new hash for every line in password database. Hashing takes MUCH more time than just comparing strings. And how it's even more effective? Because someone might actually get multiple databases and search for entries with same salt, hoping there will be enough of them to be worth it. And salt with emoji likely wouldn't be so common ... -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 09:54, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

From 108.162.221.22 (long rant)
:Two comments: first, the explanation on password salting is incorrect. The current version says "Salting passwords increases security by adding random data to the passwords which primarily helps defend against dictionary attacks.". Password salting only protects against particular kinds of (common) attacks in specific situations. Most importantly, it is designed to protect passwords only in the event ofa database breach, when a malicious user has gained direct access to the database itself. Password salting provides no protection when brute force attacks (aka dictionary attacks) are directed at the application itself, as the application automatically takes hashes into account. Instead, proper password salting randomizes the hash for each password, ensuring that if two users have the same password, they will not have the same hash. This makes it much more difficult to guess passwords through attack vectors like lookup tables, reverse lookup tables, and rainbow tables. However, because the salt has to be stored with the password (otherwise the application would not be able to make sense of the hash itself), password salting does not secure passwords against dictionary attacks even in the event that a malicious user has managed to acquire the database itself. I will update the explanation with a brief description of what password salts do.
:Finally, I think there is a big misunderstanding throughout this explanation. In a web services context the "server" (referenced in the comic) is a very different thing than the application that a programmer builds. A server can refer to either the computer itself or the software that is responsible for responding to web requests and executing the actual application. In a professional context, the application (which is what cueball would be building) would never be referred to as the "server". It is possible that this is a mis-use of terminology on the part of cueball or Randall, but I suspect that the term was used properly and intentionally. The reason is because if cueball's application is crashing the *server*, it takes the level of incompetence up to completely new (and unusual) levels, in much the same way that he has done in the past. Normally the programming language used to build the application, the software hosting the application, and the operating system itself have a number of safe guards in place to ensure that if an application misbehaves, the only thing that crashes is the application itself. For cueball's application to break through all those safeguards and crash the server itself (either the operating system or the web server software) would require cueball to have developed a program that operates *well* outside the bounds of normal procedures. Just for reference, as someone who has been building web software for over 15 years, I wouldn't even know where to start to crash the server from within an application. It would probably have to involve either exploiting a previously unknown bug in the programming language or some *very* poorly designed system calls. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.22 15:11, 29 June 2016‎ 108.162.221.22]] (Rememeber to sign your comments)

::If you by 'server' means Apache it is not completely unexpected that a sloppy coded extension to Perl or PHP could crash part of the server – and I still maintain mod_perl code that does 'fancy' stuff. I wouldn't be surprised if Cueball still wrote web-application as he did when mod_perl was the hot stuff. Today it is a common setup to have a chain of servers. In the front nginx for SSL termination, maybe an application level firewall filtering out spooky requests, then Varnish for caching and load-balancing and finally the application server running the actual web-application – all layers implementing the HTTP protocol. Which of these are 'the server'? At least it is often easy for the application developer to make the last server in the chain unresponsive (i.e. crashed). [[User:Pmakholm|Pmakholm]] ([[User talk:Pmakholm|talk]]) 12:08, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

:::Writing an extension to your language of choice would probably be a good way of crashing the server, although I would say that writing extensions to the language itself is not a common thing for most people to do. I suppose I'm arguing from experience (which is not always accurate) but in years of PHP and python programming I've never once had to write a language extension, nor did I ever need to for my very complicated thesis work. So I would say that the general point still stands: if Cueball is crashing any part of the server, he is doing things very wrong or at least very different.[[User:Cmancone|Cmancone]] ([[User talk:Cmancone|talk]]) 12:58, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

:::: mod_perl (and it likes) are not language extensions (as they do not extend the language) but are plugins that extends the capabilities of the server (so as to be able to execute perl) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.255.113|162.158.255.113]] 22:03, 5 July 2016 (UTC)

Regarding those last two points: sorry for my long unsigned rant. Didn't realize I wasn't logged in. Still haven't figured out how to sign comments. Gonna try it this time. [[User:Cmancone|Cmancone]] ([[User talk:Cmancone|talk]]) 16:51, 29 June 2016 (UTC)
:You made it ;-) --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 20:22, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

Explanation says "There is no reason for password handling code to access urls" but that is somewhat wrong -- Password handling code frequently perform heuristics on the password to assess the strength, for example checking if part of the password is a dictionary word -- similar heuristics could be done to check thatthe password is not a URL, such as "xkcd.com" applying DNS and other internet resources as an extention of the concept of "dictionary". [[User:Spongebog|Spongebob]] ([[User talk:Spongebog|talk]]) 16:11, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

:I think http://xkcd.com/correct/horse/battery/staple/ would be a perfectly fine password, even though it is also an URL – but a heuristic that just looks at the length of the password and if it only contains alphanumeric characters would probably be fooled. Trying to detect the scheme used to generate the password could be helpful in choosing a relevant heuristic for deciding the password strength. Ont the other hand, I would consider it very bad to actually test whether the URL is resolvable in any way that leaks information about the password to the outside. [[User:Pmakholm|Pmakholm]] ([[User talk:Pmakholm|talk]]) 11:11, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

::leaking password information to the outside would be bad, but then again any implementation of a password URL resolving scheme would just add emoji salting [[Special:Contributions/162.158.255.113|162.158.255.113]] 22:03, 5 July 2016 (UTC)

Currently the explanation says: "Finally, emoji will often include unicode characters, which means that, if one can effectively salt passwords with emoji, then the passwords should be able to be stored in unicode (although that *probably* doesn't require anything outside the Base Multilingual Plane, so that might not need full unicode support after-all)." I'm fairly convinced that this doesn't make sense and is incorrect. Regardless of what character encoding the password is in, hashing will convert the entire thing into binary. This binary is then typically stored as a base64-encoded string in the database. Ergo, it doesn't matter whether the original password strings were in unicode or not: they will be stored in the database as ascii (or binary), not unicode. I'm going to go ahead and remove this comment from the explanation. I'm pretty certain that there isn't enough information in the comic to figure out why salting passwords with emoji would fix a unicode-handling bug in the URL request library. So I suspect that there is no explanation there: either Cueball is entirely confused and his statement makes no sense, or there is simply not enough information given to help us understand why this solution might fix the problem. However, I'm not going to make any updates to the explanation about this yet, because perhaps I'm missing something someone else will notice. [[User:Cmancone|Cmancone]] 12:50, 29 June 2016 (ETC)
:I suspect that the salting with emoji is to ensure that the password does not resolve as a URL (since the library cannot understand the encoding), and thus the issue of the crash is resolved, the issue of unsalted passwords is solved, and the issue of the unicode handling bug is "solved" by virtue of it now being a feature relied on by the system. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.56.68|173.245.56.68]] 20:50, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

I removed from the explanation the discussion about how Cueball's system might be checking passwords to see if they are resolvable URLs as a check against weak passwords. The problem with this explanation is that if that is where the crash was happening, then salting the password with emoji would not fix the crash. For salting to fix the crash (as Cueball suggests it will) requires that the crash be happening during the hashing process, not during password validation. The reason is because password validation is performed on the original password itself, while only hashing happens on the salted password. So for salting to fix the crash it must be happening during hashing, not validation. If the bug is happening while checking passwords for strength then Cueball's suggestion of fixing it by adding in a salt will not actually fix the crash at all. It could be that Cueball is simply completely wrong about everything, but I think it makes more sense to go with an explanation where the title text didn't just get everything wrong.[[User:Cmancone|Cmancone]] ([[User talk:Cmancone|talk]]) 13:12, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

In the nomenclature I am familiar with mailto:somebody@example.com is a URL. If you accept that mailto (and other protocols) are also URLs some of the description is untrue. Fortunately the untrue bits are also unnecessary and can be deleted or generalized.--[[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.11|108.162.219.11]] 04:51, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

Definitely a sequel to 1084[[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.92|108.162.221.92]] 08:27, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

The explanation of 'Resolveable URL' is very confusing and mostly wrong, it is mixing up technologies like HTTP and DNS and is confusing FQDN's with URLs. Though admittedly, the term 'resolveable URL' is a bit of a misnomer by itself. URLs are typically not resolved, they contain an FQDN that is resolved via DNS to an IP(v6) address and optionally port. The remainder of the URL can be used to identify a resource on that server, but how this is done and signaled is quite application/protocol dependent (and shouldn't be called 'resolving'). So if you hit a 404 the FQDN actually resolved but the HTTP resource could not be found. A non-resolveable URL would give a browser error like 'unknown host'. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.83.198|162.158.83.198]] 09:59, 1 July 2016 (UTC)
:Feel free to adjust the text as desired. I think in this case it is best to understand "Resolvable URL" as Cueball meant it, which (I think) is as any valid URL you might stick in your web browser. I don't think he meant any of the more technical possible definitions. In that sense a resolvable URL would be something that points to a server, potentially followed by a resource on the server. At least, that is how I would think to describe it. Feel free to give it a go. {{unsigned|Cmancone}}

Around the time this comic was published, Firefox linked on its start-page to https://advocacy.mozilla.org/en-US/encrypt/codemoji/2, where a webapp Codeempji is available. With this webapp one can use emojis to scramble messages with a Caesar-cipher like method. This might be the reason for the emoji reference in the title text.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.85.147|162.158.85.147]] 09:58, 4 July 2016 (UTC)

A good addition could be that the passwords were most probably stored in plaintext, which is even worse. [[User:Jonsku99|Jonsku99]] ([[User talk:Jonsku99|talk]]) 12:30, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

I think the real horror of this bug has not been addressed in the description above: In order to check if a password is a resolvable domain name it has to be sent to a domain name server - and the connection to the next domain name server is traditionally completely unencrypted => The system's ability to check if the password is a resolvable URL implies that all passwords might be known to everyone who has access to a piece of the internet infrastructure. Things cannot get much worse to a sysadmin than this - except perhaps for later finding the leaked passwords for sale in a public place, that is. [[User:Gunterkoenigsmann|Gunterkoenigsmann]] ([[User talk:Gunterkoenigsmann|talk]]) 07:10, 15 October 2016 (UTC)
: Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't DNS resolution only send the domain name to the DNS server, not the entire URL? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.174|108.162.219.174]] 21:31, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

2480: No, The Other One

2021-06-24T14:55:11Z

108.162.219.174: Updated explanation for Jersey Shore

{{comic
| number = 2480
| date = June 23, 2021
| title = No, The Other One
| image = no_the_other_one.png
| titletext = Key West, Virginia is not to be confused with Key, West Virginia.
}}

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

This is a map of the United States, showing cities or towns with the same name as other more famous cities. For example, the map has a dot for a place called Los Angeles in Texas, not to be confused with Los Angeles, California.

Few place names are unique, and there may be {{w|List of the most common U.S. place names|many places with the same name}}. Multiple American towns have been named after the same British town, famous person, or geographic feature.

However, names can become associated with specific places on a national level, where the best-known example is usually the biggest or otherwise the most significant. The name of this comic indicates the contextualization required to specify one of the less-famous exemplars of a given name. Someone might say they are from "Los Angeles" and would have to say "no, the other one" since the listener would assume they are from Los Angeles, California.

The [[title text]] references {{w|Key, West Virginia}} and {{w|Key West, Virginia}}, two places that, when spoken aloud, are only distinguishable by the pause (comma) location. Neither are to be confused with {{w|Key West|Key West, Florida}}, which is a well-known national location.

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Place name in comic
! Well-known place
! Notes
|-
| {{w|Albany, Georgia|Albany, GA}}
| rowspan="3" | {{w|Albany,_New_York|Albany, NY}}
| rowspan="3" | Albany is the capital of New York state. Albany is also a suburb of Washington Tyne and Wear.
|-
| {{w|Albany, Minnesota|Albany, MN}}


|-
| {{w|Albany, Wyoming|Albany, WY}}

|-
| {{w|Alexandria,_Louisiana|Alexandria, LA}}
| {{w|Alexandria,_Virginia|Alexandria, VA}}
| Alexandria, VA is known for being George Washington's hometown. It is not named after {{w|Alexandria|Alexandria, Egypt}}.
|-
| {{w|Anchorage, Kentucky|Anchorage, KY}}
| {{w|Anchorage,_Alaska|Anchorage, AK}}
| Anchorage is Alaska's most populous city.
|-
| {{w|Atlanta,_Delaware|Atlanta, DE}}
| rowspan="6" | {{w|Atlanta|Atlanta, GA}}
| rowspan="6" | Atlanta is the capital of Georgia, a center of the civil rights movement in the 1950's and 60's, and a major air transportation hub.
|-
| {{w|Atlanta,_Michigan|Atlanta, MI}}

|-
| {{w|Atlanta,_Idaho|Atlanta, ID}}

|-
| {{w|Atlanta,_Nebraska|Atlanta, NE}}

|-
| {{w|Atlanta, Texas|Atlanta, TX}}
|
|
|-
| {{w|Atlanta, Wisconsin|Atlanta, WI}}
|
|
|-
| {{w|Atlantic City, Wyoming|Atlantic City, WY}}
| {{w|Atlantic City, New Jersey|Atlantic City, NJ}}
| Atlantic City, NJ is a famous coastal resort town in New Jersey known for its casinos, boardwalk and beaches.
|-
| {{w|Austin, MN}}
| {{w|Austin, Texas|Austin, TX}}
| Austin is the capital of the state of Texas, and the 11th largest city (by population) in the US.
|-
| {{w|Baton Rouge, South Carolina|Baton Rouge, SC}}
| {{w|Baton Rouge, Louisiana|Baton Rouge, LA}}
| Baton Rouge is the capital of the state of Louisiana.
|-
| {{w|Beaumont, California|Beaumont, CA}}
| {{w|Beaumont, Texas|Beaumont, TX}}
| Beaumont is best known for the oil discovery that sparked the Texas oil boom of the early 1900s.
|-
| {{w|Beverly Hills, Illinois|Beverly Hills, IL}}
| rowspan="2" | {{w|Beverly Hills, California|Beverly Hills, CA}}
| rowspan="2" | Beverly Hills is a city in Los Angeles County, CA and is home to many celebrities, luxury hotels, and the Rodeo Drive shopping district.
|-
| {{w|Beverly Hills, Texas|Beverly Hills, TX}}

|-
| {{w|Bloomington, Minnesota | Bloomington, MN}}
| {{w|Bloomington, Indiana | Bloomington, IN}}
| Bloomington is the location of Indiana University.
|-
| Boston, MO
| {{w|Boston|Boston, MA}}
| Boston is a port in Holland Lincolnshire. It may also be the capital of Massachusetts and the scene of several key events of the American Revolution.
|-
| Bowling Green, FL
| rowspan="2" | {{w|Bowling Green, Kentucky|Bowling Green, KY}}
| rowspan="2" | Bowling Green, KY is the largest city of this name, and the 3rd most populous city in Kentucky.
|-
| Bowling Green, OH
|-
| Bridgeport, WV
| {{w|Bridgeport, Connecticut|Bridgeport, CT}}
| Bridgeport is the most populous city in Connecticut and fifth most populous in {{w|New England}}.
|-
| Buffalo, TX
| rowspan="2" | {{w|Buffalo, New York|Buffalo, NY}}
| rowspan="2" | Buffalo is the second most populous city in the state of New York, after New York City itself.
|-
| Buffalo, WY
|-
| Cambridge, OH
| {{w|Cambridge, Massachusetts|Cambridge, MA}}
| Cambridge is a village in Gloucestershire and also a city in Cambridgeshire known as the home of Cambridge and Anglia Ruskin Universities. Cambridge, Massachusetts is a city in the Boston - not the one in Lincolnshire - metropolitan area known as the home of {{w|Harvard University}} and {{w|Massachusetts Institute of Technology}} among others.
|-
| Cedar Rapids, NE
| {{w|Cedar Rapids, Iowa|Cedar Rapids, IA}}
|
|-
| Charlestown, NY
| {{w|Charlestown, Massachusetts|Charlestown, MA}}
| Charlestown is an area of Boston and home to Bunker Hill, the site of a key American Revolutionary War battle. Originally a separate town, it was the first capital of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
|-
| Cleveland, UT
| {{w|Cleveland|Cleveland, OH}}
| Cleveland is also a range of hills in North Yorkshire. It is presumably unrelated to Cleveland, OH, which was named after its founder, General Moses Cleaveland.
|-
| Columbus, GA
| {{w|Columbus, Ohio|Columbus, OH}}
| Columbus is the most populous city in Ohio, as well as its state capital. It is named after {{w|Christopher Columbus}} and {{w|Columbus#United_States|many other locations}} throughout the United States bear that name.
|-
| Dallas, GA
| rowspan="4" | {{w|Dallas|Dallas, TX}}
| rowspan="4" |
|-
| Dallas, NC
|-
| Dallas, OR
|-
| Dallas, SD
|-
| Dayton, NV
| {{w|Dayton, Ohio|Dayton, OH}}
|
|-
| Des Moines, NM
| rowspan="2" | {{w|Des Moines, Iowa|Des Moines, IA}}
| rowspan="2" |
|-
| Des Moines, WA
|-
| {{w|Detroit,_Alabama|Detroit, AL}}
| rowspan="2" | {{w|Detroit|Detroit, MI}}
| rowspan="2" | Detroit is best known as the center of the U.S. automobile industry.
|-
| Detroit, KS
|-
| Disney, OK
|
|
|-
| Fayetteville, TN
| {{w|Fayetteville, North Carolina|Fayetteville, NC}}
|
|-
| Gettysburg, OH
| rowspan="2" | {{w|Gettysburg, Pennsylvania|Gettysburg, PA}}
| rowspan="2" |
|-
| Gettysburg, SD
|-
| Grand Rapids, MN
| {{w|Grand Rapids|Grand Rapids, MI}}
| The second most populous city in the state of Michigan
|-
| {{w|Houston,_Alaska|Houston, AK}}
| rowspan="6" | {{w|Houston|Houston, TX}}
| rowspan="6" | Houston is the most populous city in Texas and the fourth-most populous in the United States.
|-
| {{w|Houston,_Alabama|Houston, AL}}
|-
| Houston, FL
|-
| Houston, IN
|-
| Houston, MO
|-
| Houston, OH
|-
| Indianapolis, IA
| {{w|Indianapolis|Indianapolis, IN}}
|
|-
| {{w|Jackson,_Alabama|Jackson, AL}}
| {{w|Jackson,_Mississippi|Jackson, MS}}
| Jackson is the capital of Mississippi, but there are {{w|Jackson|many other}} states with Jacksons. This one is likely particularly notable due to its proximity to Jackson, MS.
|-
| {{w|Jamestown,_California|Jamestown, CA}}
| rowspan="2" | {{w|Jamestown,_Virginia|Jamestown, VA}}
| rowspan="2" | Jamestown was the first permanent English settlement in the Americas.
|-
| Jamestown, ND
|-
| Jersey Shore, PA
|
| The {{w|Jersey_Shore|Jersey Shore}} is a coastal region of New Jersey. It is also the namesake of a {{w|Jersey_Shore_(TV_series)|reality TV show}}.
|-
| Key West, VA
| {{w|Key_West|Key West, FL}}
| Key West is an island off the tip of Florida that is popular with tourists and contains the southernmost point of the continental states.
|-
| Knoxville, IA
| {{w|Knoxville,_Tennessee|Knoxville, TN}}
|
|-
| Las Vegas, NM
| {{w|Las_Vegas|Las Vegas, NV}}
|
|-
| {{w|Lincoln,_California|Lincoln, CA}}
| rowspan="4" | {{w|Lincoln,_Nebraska|Lincoln, NE}}
| rowspan="4" | Lincoln is a cathedral city in Lincolnshire. It is also the capital of Nebraska.
|-
| Lincoln, IL
|-
| Lincoln, MT
|-
| Lincoln, RI
|-
| Lisbon, ME
| rowspan="2" | {{w|Lisbon,_Portugal|Lisbon, Portugal}}
| rowspan="2" | Lisbon is the capital of Portugal, in Europe.
|-
| Lisbon, NH
|-
| Long Beach, NJ
| {{w|Long Beach, California|Long Beach, CA}}
|
|-
| Los Angeles, TX
| {{w|Los_Angeles|Los Angeles, CA}}
|
|-
| {{w|Louisville, Colorado|Louisville, CO}}
| {{w|Louisville, Kentucky|Louisville, KY}}
| Louisville is the largest city in Kentucky
|-
| Manhattan, KS
| rowspan="2" | {{w|Manhattan|Manhattan, NY}}
| rowspan="2" | Manhattan is one of the {{w|Boroughs of New York City|five boroughs of New York City}}, corresponds to the {{w|New York County}}.
|-
| Manhattan, MT
|-
| Memphis, NE
| {{w|Memphis,_Tennessee|Memphis, TN}}
| Memphis is a city in Egypt.
|-
| {{w|Mesa,_California|Mesa, CA}}
| rowspan="2" | {{w|Mesa,_Arizona|Mesa, AZ}}
| rowspan="2" | Mesa is a suburb of Phoenix, and the largest suburban city by population in the United States.
|-
| Mesa, CO
|-
| {{w|Miami,_Arizona|Miami, AZ}}
| rowspan="2" | {{w|Miami|Miami, FL}}
| rowspan="2" | Miami is the seventh largest city in the United States and a major tourism hub.
|-
| Miami, TX
|-
| Mountain View, HI
| {{w|Mountain_View,_California|Mountain View, CA}}
| Mountain View is the birthplace of Silicon Valley, and is the location of many high technology companies, such as Google.
|-
| {{w|Nashville,_Arkansas|Nashville, AR}}
| {{w|Nashville,_Tennessee|Nashville, TN}}
| Nashville is the capital of Tennessee and a major center for the country music industry.
|-
| New England, ND
| {{w|New England}}, Northeast
|
|-
| New Haven, KY
| {{w|New Haven, Connecticut|New Haven, CT}}
| New Haven is the second largest city in Connecticut, and is known for its distinctive {{w|New Haven-style pizza|pizza}}. It also home to {{w|Yale University}}
|-
| New York, TX
| {{w|New_York_City|New York, NY}}
|
|-
| Newark, DE
| {{w|Newark|Newark, NJ}}
| Newark is a town in Nottinghamshire.
|-
| North Pole, NY
| {{w|North_Pole|North Pole}}
| North pole is the point in the Northern Hemisphere where the Earth's axis of rotation meets its surface.
|-
| Oakland, OR
| {{w|Oakland,_California|Oakland, CA}}
| Oakland, CA is currently the home to three professional sports teams including the {{w|Oakland_Athletics|Oakland Athletics}} and is the former home of several more, including the {{w|History_of_the_Oakland_Raiders|Oakland Raiders}}, now in Las Vegas.
|-
| Orlando, OK
| {{w|Orlando,_Florida|Orlando, FL}}
|
|-
| Ottawa, KS
| {{w|Ottawa|Ottawa, ON}}
| Ottawa is the capital of Canada.
|-
| Pasadena, MD
| rowspan="2" | {{w|Pasadena, CA}}
| rowspan="2" | Pasadena, California is the home of {{w|California Institute of Technology}} and the NASA {{w|Jet Propulsion Laboratory}}
|-
| Pasadena, TX
|-
| {{w|Peoria,_Arizona|Peoria, AZ}}
| {{w|Peoria, Illinois|Peoria, IL}}
| Peoria is known for being considered an "Average American Town", in the phrase {{w|Will_it_play_in_Peoria%3F|"Will it play in Peoria?"}} It is actually smaller than Peoria, AZ.
|-
| Philadelphia, MS
| rowspan="2" | {{w|Philadelphia|Philadelphia, PA}}
| rowspan="2" |
|-
| Philadelphia, NY
|-
| Phoenix, MD (?)
| rowspan="2" | {{w|Phoenix,_Arizona|Phoenix, AZ}}
| rowspan="2" |
|-
| Phoenix, OR
|-
| {{w|Plano,_Illinois|Plano, IL}}
| {{w|Plano,_Texas|Plano, TX}}
| Plano is part of the {{w|Dallas–Fort_Worth_metroplex|Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex}}, and the home of many corporate headquarters.
|-
| {{w|Plymouth,_California|Plymouth, CA}}
| rowspan="2" | {{w|Plymouth,_Massachusetts|Plymouth, MA}}
| rowspan="2" | Plymouth was the site of the colony founded in 1620 by the Mayflower Pilgrims. Named after the city in the Southwest of England which was the final port of departure.
|-
| Plymouth, IN
|-
| {{w|Portland,_Maine|Portland, ME}}
| {{w|Portland,_Oregon|Portland, OR}}
| Portland is a tied island in Devon, near Weymouth. Portland, OR was {{w|Portland,_Oregon#Establishment|named after}} Portland, ME
|-
| Princeton, ID
| rowspan="2" | {{w|Princeton, New Jersey|Princeton, NJ}}
| rowspan="2" | Princeton, NJ is famous for being the home of the eponymous {{w|Princeton University}} and the {{w|Institute for Advanced Study}}
|-
| Princeton, MA
|-
| {{w|Richmond, Vermont|Richmond, VT}}
| {{w|Richmond, Virginia|Richmond, VA}}
| The Virginian Richmond was named after {{w|Richmond,_London|the suburb of London, UK}} due to an observed similarity of the river. London's Richmond was named for the palace built there by Henry VII, itself named after the {{w|Richmond,_North_Yorkshire|market town}} and castle in the north of England that was a childhood home. That was in turn named for the {{w|Richemont,_Seine-Maritime|Normandy}} area from which the noble family came who were gifted this land for their part of the Norman Conquest of England in the 11th century. There are more than fifty settlements called Richmond across the world, directly or indirectly taking their names from one or other of the English 'originals'.
|-
| Roswell, GA
| {{w|Roswell, New Mexico|Roswell, NM}}
| Roswell, New Mexico is the site of one of the most famous “alien coverups” in American history, and is well known for its alien-themed tourism.
|-
| Saint Louis, MI
| rowspan="2" | {{w|St._Louis|St. Louis, MO}}
| rowspan="2" |
|-
| Saint Louis, OK
|-
| rowspan="2" | Salem, CT
| {{w|Salem,_Oregon|Salem, OR}}
| Capital of Oregon
|-
| {{w|Salem,_Massachusetts|Salem, MA}}
| Location of the {{w|Salem_witch_trials|Salem witch trials}}
|-
| San Diego, TX
| {{w|San_Diego|San Diego, CA}}
|
|-
| Santa Fe, TX
| {{w|Santa_Fe,_New_Mexico|Santa Fe, NM}}
|
|-
| Savannah, MO
| {{w|Savannah|Savannah, GA}}
|
|-
| South Bend, TX
| {{w|South_Bend|South Bend, IN}}
| South Bend, IN is the location of {{w|University_of_Notre_Dame|the University of Notre Dame}}.
|-
| Texas, NY
| {{w|Texas|State of Texas}}
| Located in Mexico township, NY. North of the village of Mexico. No plans for a wall {{fact}}.
|-
| Vienna, ME
| {{w|Vienna, Austria}}
| Vienna is the capital and largest city of Austria.
|-
| Washington, NC
| {{w|Washington, DC}}
| Washington was a a village in County Durham, now a new town in Tyne and Wear.
|-
| White House, TN
| {{w|White House|White House, DC}}
| White House is a building, not a place.
|}

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

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:US maps]]

Talk:2347: Dependency

2020-08-17T22:58:37Z

108.162.219.174: /* Relevance of Imagemagick? */ new section

I worked for the Linux Foundation on the Core Infrastructure Initiative supporting OpenSSL and other projects. The one that scared me was Expat the XML parser maintained by two people on alternate Sunday afternoons assuming no other distractions. We did get funding for a test suite. Joe Biden was a supporter of LF and CII and was going to host a fund raiser for us at the White House until a perverse result.[[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.222|141.101.98.222]] 22:46, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

== Relevance of Imagemagick? ==

Could someone perhaps add to the explanation an explanation of how this applies to Imagemagick (as mentioned in the title text)? —[[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.174|108.162.219.174]] 22:58, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

136: Science Fair

2015-02-28T22:38:54Z

108.162.219.174: Typo

{{comic
| number = 136
| date = August 2, 2006
| title = Science Fair
| image = science_fair.png
| titletext = This poster actually inspired a two-hour powerpoint presentation that Al Gore gave around the country.
}}

==Explanation==

A {{w|science fair}} involves schoolchildren doing research on a subject of their choice. The purpose is to give them hands-on experience with scientific techniques. Even so, a project based on {{w|cunnilingus}}, oral stimulation of the female genitalia, would not likely be acceptable in a science fair, a setting that is not only public but also involving children. However adolescents are often very curious about sex and can often misjudge what is appropriate behaviour.

Especially cute are the notations for a function, its {{w|Fourier transform}}, and its {{w|Laplace transform}}. The section titled "Challenges in frequency domain analysis" show four graphs which may be representative of amplitude modulation (variation in the depth of licking), frequency modulation (variation of the rate of licking), a small high frequency signal superimposed on a larger, slower one, and a periodic but non-continuous signal. These would have more complex Fourier and Laplace transforms than a simple sinusoidal licking function.

The title text is probably a reference to {{w|An Inconvenient Truth}}, a 94-minute documentary film where former US vice president {{w|Al Gore}} teaches the general public about the dangers of global warming. It has been included in science curricula in schools around the world, to the ire of easily bored students everywhere.

This comic was mentioned in [http://blog.xkcd.com/2008/02/25/fruit-opinions/ FRUIT OPINIONS!] on the [http://blog.xkcd.com/ Blag]. Although this comic must have been one of the more controversial, it had nothing on the impact of [[388: Fuck Grapefruit]] which was the cause of the Blag entry as it became the most controversial comic written to that point (i.e. 2008): ''...beating out comics about cunnilingus, the Obama endorsement, and my making 4chan tiny on the map of the internet''. (See the grapefruit comic for more details).

==Transcript==
:Although it caught me by surprise at the time, looking back I understand why my senior science fair project went over as badly as it did.
:[Poster.]
:The mathematics of cunnilingus
:f(t) F(w) L(s)
:Challenges in frequency-domain analysis

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

1263: Reassuring

2014-07-31T15:35:30Z

108.162.219.174: /* Transcript */ match comic presentation (effect)

{{comic
| number = 1263
| date = September 11, 2013
| title = Reassuring
| image = reassuring.png
| titletext = 'At least humans are better at quietly amusing ourselves, oblivious to our pending obsolescence' thought the human, as a nearby Dell Inspiron contentedly displayed the same bouncing geometric shape screensaver it had been running for years.
}}

==Explanation==
''{{w|Go (game)|Go}}'' is an abstract strategy board game considered computationally difficult, compared to chess. Because of the size and number of possible combinations, computers don't have an easy way to exhaustively search for the best move. Still, {{w|Computer Go|they are getting better and better playing it}}. [[Megan]] suggests that computers may soon reach the level of being able to beat the best human players, an {{W|artificial intelligence}} milestone that has already been accomplished with other games. According to Randall in [[1002: Game AIs]], Go is one of the last games where a computer can still be beaten by top humans.

As a common human response, [[Cueball]] attempts to offer the consolation or defensive statement that humans remain better than computers at something else. In this case, the first thing he thinks of is that humans are better at making such consoling statements. However, Megan disproves Cueball's statement by creating a script in the {{w| Python (programming language)|Python programming language}} to create an abundant supply of such statements.

Another such statement is made in the title text, that humans are better at quietly amusing themselves, oblivious to our "pending obsolescence" (which may refer alternatively to our inevitable deaths, or to the comic's own topic of our being replaced and surpassed by computers). The title text then again suggests, however, that the human statement is not true, referring to an Inspiron model of {{w|Dell}} computer which "quietly amuses itself" by showing a geometric {{w|screensaver}} as it presumably one day will be obsolete and replaced by a newer computer.

The original purpose of screensaver programs was to prevent images or characters from being burned into the phosphor layer of the older CRT displays. In more modern displays, including newer CRTs (cca mid-90s or newer), this could be achieved by simply turning it off after some period of time but originally there was no way to turn the display off programmatically. Thus the screensaver itself is already obsolete.

==Transcript==
:[Megan is sitting at a computer, and Cueball is standing behind her.]
:Megan: Looks like computers will beat humans at '''Go''' pretty soon.
:Cueball: Wow.
:Cueball: That's the last of the big ones.
:Megan: Yeah.
:[Megan looks back over her shoulder at him.]
:Cueball: Well, at least humans are still better at, uh,
:Cueball: coming up with reassuring parables about things humans are better at?
:Megan: Hmm.
:[Megan types on her computer.]
:''type type''
:[She leans back over her chair again and addresses Cueball.]
:Megan: I made a Python script that generates thousands of reassuring parables per second.
:Cueball: ''Dammit.''
:Computer: Computers will never understand a sonnet computers will never enjoy a salad comp—

==Trivia==
*Human reactions to being outdone by computers was also the subject of [[894: Progeny]].

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Computers]]

1395: Power Cord

2014-07-16T19:57:49Z

108.162.219.174: /* Transcript */

{{comic
| number = 1395
| date = July 16, 2014
| title = Power Cord
| image = power_cord.png
| titletext = In this situation, gzip /dev/inside to deflate, then pipe the compressed air to /dev/input to clean your keyboard. Avert your eyes when you do.
}}

==Explanation==
'''Always remember: DO NOT put any electrical cords in your mouth. You can be severely shocked'''.

In this comic, we see [[Beret Guy]] walking in from the left, as [[Cueball]] is sitting on a couch, typing on a laptop on his lap, with its power cord unplugged. Instead of connecting it to the wall socket, Beret Guy picks it up and blows air into the loose end of the cord, as if inflating a balloon--and the laptop inflates. It then floats away, making Cueball grab for it as Beret Guy casually walks away.

While it is not possible to inflate a laptop like this, nor to inflate ''anything'' by blowing down a power cord, Beret Guy has previously demonstrated supernatural abilities with power cords, such as in [[1293: Job Interview]]. Although the laptop should not actually float given that Beret Guy's breath should be ordinary air, not a lighter-than-air gas such as helium, it is a standard cartoon convention that [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AllBalloonsHaveHelium inflating something with breath] nonetheless makes it lighter than air.

The title text involves some jokes on {{w|Unix}} systems. On Unix, {{w|everything is a file}}, even most of the hardware can be referenced by a (virtual) file. These virtual files usually are in /dev or another virtual filesystem like /sys or /proc. While /dev/input really exists and points to the input system (mice, keyboards, gamepads, etc), /dev/inside doesn't. {{w|gzip}} is a common tool to compress files. The first joke is to compress the air inside the laptop (with the command <code>gzip /dev/inside</code>) in order to deflate the laptop back to normal size (possibly also a reference to the {{w|DEFLATE}} algorithm used by gzip). Another joke is “{{w|Pipeline (Unix)|piping}}”, the act of using the output of one operation as the input to another. As the output of the gzip command would be compressed air, a ''physical'' pipe could be used to direct the air somewhere useful. The suggestion is to direct the air to /dev/input (in this case, the keyboard) to clean it, similar to "compressed air" dusting cans. As this might cause a spray of unpleasant detritus (compare [[237: Keyboards are Disgusting]]), the reader is advised to avert their eyes.

==Transcript==
:[Beret Guy enters to find Cueball typing on a laptop. Cueball's power cord is unplugged from the wall.]
:Cueball typing: Type type

:[Beret Guy picks up the power cord. Cueball looks up.]
:Cueball typing: Type type

:[Beret Guy blows into the plug end of the cord. The laptop abruptly inflates and Cueball jerks back.]
:Beret Guy: '''PBBBBT'''
:Laptop: '''FOOMP'''

:[Beret Guy walks away, leaving Cueball scrambling to retrieve his inflated laptop which is now floating away.]

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Beret Guy]]

925: Cell Phones

2014-07-03T16:22:30Z

108.162.219.174: /* Transcript */

{{comic
| number = 925
| date = July 15, 2011
| title = Cell Phones
| image = cell_phones.png
| titletext = He holds the laptop like that on purpose, to make you cringe.
}}

==Explanation==
After hearing about the "Cell Phones Don't Cause Cancer" study, which refutes a claim made by the World Health Organization (just Google the debate, the comic doesn't focus much on it), [[Black Hat]] plots "Total Cancer Incidence" per 100,000 and "Cell Phone Users" per 100 on the same graph. The graph in frame 3 shows that the number of cell phone users rises after the number of cancer incidence, which makes Black Hat comically come to the conclusion that cancer causes cell phones.

The comic highlights a well-known fallacy known as ''{{w|post hoc ergo propter hoc}}'', often shortened to simply ''post hoc.'' The Latin translates to "after this, therefore because of this," referring to the common mistake that because two events happen in chronological order, the former event must have caused the latter event. The fallacy is often the root cause of many superstitions (e.g., a person noticing he/she wore a special bracelet before getting a good test score thinks the bracelet was the source of his/her good fortune), but it often crosses into more serious areas of thinking. In this case, the scientific research community, which often prides itself on its intellectual aptitude, is gently mocked for being nonetheless prone to such poor reasoning all too often.

The title text refers to the way Black Hat holds the laptop in panel 2, which is generally discouraged because it puts a large amount of stress on the laptop's hinge and screen.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball holds a cellphone. Black Hat is sitting at a desk with a laptop.]
:Cueball: Another huge study found no evidence that cell phones cause cancer. What was the W.H.O. thinking?
:Black Hat: I think they just got it backward.

:[Black Hat turns towards Cueball, holding the laptop with one hand by the upper edge of the screen.]
:Cueball: Huh?
:Black Hat: Well, take a look.

:[There is a plot of total cancer incidence and cell phone users. Cancer rises from 1970 to 1990, then stays relatively steady. Cell phone use rises from 1980 to the present.]

:Cueball: You're not... There are ''so'' many problems with that.
:Black Hat: Just to be safe, until I see more data I'm going to assume cancer causes cell phones.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Black Hat]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Math]]
[[Category:Statistics]]
[[Category:Cancer]]

1389: Surface Area

2014-07-02T15:52:36Z

108.162.219.174: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1389
| date = July 2, 2014
| title = Surface Area
| image = surface_area.png
| titletext = This isn't an informational illustration; this is a thing I think we should do. First, we'll need a gigantic spool of thread. Next, we'll need some kind of ... hmm, time to head to Seattle.
}}

A [http://xkcd.com/1389/large/ larger version] of this image can be found by clicking the image at xkcd - which can be reached easily from here as always, by clicking on the comic number above.

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Very early draft.}}
This image shows the total surface areas of all {{w|Terrestrial_planet|terrestrial planets}}, {{w|natural satellite}}s, {{w|asteroid}}s, {{w|minor planet|etc.}} in the {{w|Solar System}}, represented as regions of a single massive landmass (in a similar style to the various [[256: Online Communities|maps]] of the [[802: Online Communities 2|Internet]] Randall has created in the past), with a [[977|Waterman Butterfly]] based map of Earth in the center for scale. Relatively small objects like asteroids, comets, and so on are grouped into two regions at the northeast and southwest corners, while tiny objects like space dust are excluded altogether (probably because their total surface area is impossible to estimate accurately, and also because any estimate would likely be too large to fit easily into the map). He has likely used this Wikipedia list: {{w|List of Solar System objects by size}}.

The earth's undersea surface is included, but the {{w|gas giant}}s Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune are not included, presumably because they do not have any "solid surfaces"; even if they had a solid core (which is itself not clear), that would not comprise any "surface". The gas giants are believed to lack any well-defined surface at all, with the gases that make them up simply becoming thinner and thinner with increasing distance from the planets' centers, eventually becoming indistinguishable from the interplanetary medium. If they were included via some sort of surface definition, this part of the map would be a tiny speck among the gas giants. Similarly the {{w|Sun}} also is not considered a solid but hot {{w|Plasma_(physics)|plasma}}; if it was included it would reduce both the original map and the gas giants to a tiny speck.

Between Earth and Titan is a tiny speck noted "''all human skin''", which is an interesting sort of solid surface and could conceivably be a reference to the novel ''{{w|The_Silence_of_the_Lambs_(novel)|The Silence of the Lambs}}''.

The title text explains that this comic is not actually for information, it is something he thinks we should really do - that is, to stitch all the solar system's land areas together, as the comic title says. To do this, we would obviously need a gigantic ball of string and the {{w|Space Needle|Seattle Space Needle}} from Seattle. Of course, since the land areas are on the surfaces of spheres, this would involve lots of deformation and be particularly challenging....

{| class="wikitable sortable"
|+Surface area of mentioned objects
!Object
!Type
!Surface area
|-
|{{w|Io (moon)|Io}}||Moon of Jupiter||4.191×107 km2 (0.082 Earths)
|-
|{{w|Callisto (moon)|Callisto}}||Moon of Jupiter||7.30×107 km2 (0.143 Earths)
|-
|{{w|Europa (moon)|Europa}}||Moon of Jupiter||3.09×107 km2 (0.061 Earths)
|-
|{{w|Ganymede (moon)|Ganymede}}||Moon of Jupiter||8.70×107 km2 (0.171 Earths)
|-
|{{w|Ceres (dwarf planet)|Ceres}}||Dwarf planet||2.85×106 km2
|-
|{{w|4 Vesta|Vesta}}||Asteroid||8×105 km2
|-
|Asteroids 1km+||Asteroid||???
|-
|Asteroids 100m+||Asteroid||???
|-
|{{w|Triton (moon)|Triton}}||Moon of Neptune||2.3018×107 km2
|-
|{{w|Ariel (moon)|Ariel}}||Moon of Uranus||4.2113×106 km2
|-
|{{w|Miranda (moon)|Miranda}}||Moon of Uranus||7×105 km2
|-
|{{w|Umbriel (moon)|Umbriel}}||Moon of Uranus||4.296×106 km2 (0.008 Earths)
|-
|{{w|Oberon (moon)|Oberon}}||Moon of Uranus||7.285×106 km2
|-
|{{w|Titania (moon)|Titania}}||Moon of Uranus||7.82×106 km2
|-
|{{w|Tethys (moon)|Tethys}}||Moon of Saturn||3.61×106 km2
|-
|{{w|Dione (moon)|Dione}}||Moon of Saturn||3.96×106 km2
|-
|{{w|Enceladus|Enceladus}}||Moon of Saturn||8×105 km2
|-
|{{w|Iapetus (moon)|Iapetus}}||Moon of Saturn||6.7×106 km2
|-
|{{w|Titan (moon)|Titan}}||Moon of Saturn||8.3×107 km2
|-
|{{w|Rhea (moon)|Rhea}}||Moon of Saturn||7.337×106 km2
|-
|{{w|Earth|Earth}}||Planet||5.10072×108 km2
|-
|{{w|Moon|The Moon}}||Moon of Earth||3.793×107 km2
|-
|All human skin||||7.2 billion × 1m2 ≈ 7000 km2
|-
|{{w|Mercury (planet)|Mercury}}||Planet||7.48×107 km2 (0.147 Earths)
|-
|{{w|Mars|Mars}}||Planet||1.448×108 km2 (0.284 Earths)
|-
|Various small moons, comets, etc.||||???
|-
|{{w|Haumea (dwarf planet)|Haumea}}||Dwarf planet||6.8×106 km2
|-
|{{w|Makemake (dwarf planet)|Makemake}}||Dwarf planet||6.9×106 km2
|-
|{{w|Eris (dwarf planet)|Eris}}||Dwarf planet||1.7×107 km2
|-
|{{w|Pluto|Pluto}}||Dwarf planet||1.665×107 km2 (0.033 Earths)
|-
|{{w|Charon (moon)|Charon}}||Moon of Pluto||4.58×106 km2
|-
|{{w|Venus|Venus}}||Planet||4.60×108 km2 (0.902 Earths)
|}

Larger than Ceres but not included: Quaoar, Sedna, ??.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript}}

{{comic discussion}}

1007: Sustainable

2014-06-26T14:00:01Z

108.162.219.174: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1007
| date = January 23, 2012
| title = Sustainable
| image = sustainable.png
| titletext = Though 100 years is longer than a lot of our resources.
}}
==Explanation==
This is a simple scatterplot showing how often the word "sustainable" has been used in English texts in the US each year. As can be seen, the y-axis is given a logarithmic scale, meaning that the apparently linear trend is actually exponential. [[Randall]] humorously attempts to extend the graph to the point the frequency exceeds 100% about a century from now, which obviously makes no sense (hence the quip that the word's usage is itself "unsustainable").

The use of the word "sustainable" has been increasing as people become more aware of the steadily increasing use of nonrenewable resources and need to ensure that the Earth's resources do not become totally exhausted, through sustainable development. {{w|Sustainable development}} refers to the practice of using resources that simultaneously aims to meet human needs while preserving the environment so that these needs can be met not only in the present time, but also for generations to come.

As Randall somewhat depressingly mentions in the title text, the ~100 years that it will supposedly take for the word "sustainable" to become unsustainable is actually a lot longer than most of our nonrenewable resources will last on the Earth. The idea that ''all'' of the Earth's coal, oil, natural gas, etc. that has built up over the past millions of years may be completely gone within the century is unsettling.

More realistically, the actual use of "sustainable" is likely to be logistic rather than exponential growth. A logistic curve describes a trend that at first appears to be jumping exponentially, but then tapers off and reaches a cap. Logistic growth is commonly used to model data such as population growth.

Extrapolation of data has also appeared in the following comics [[605: Extrapolating]], [[1204: Detail]] and [[1281: Minifigs]].

==Transcript==
:[A large two-axis scatterplot graph with a caption below. The y-axis displays percentages on a logarithmic scale from 0.000001% to 1,000%, and is labeled "Frequency of use of the word "sustainable" in US English text, as a percentage of all words, by year. Source: Google NGrams." The x-axis displays years from 1950 to 2140, and is labeled "Year". Plotted data points show a high linear correlation (effectively exponential due to being a log scale), ranging from approximately 0.000005% in 1960 to approximately 0.003% in 2012. A linear trend line is drawn through the data points, and is extrapolated to the end of the graph. Four points on this trend line are marked and labled:]

:(2012, ~0.003%): Present Day
:(2036, ~0.03%): 2036: "Sustainable" occurs an average of once per page
:(2061, ~0.5%): 2061: "Sustainable" occurs an average of once per sentence
:(2109, 100%): 2109: All sentences are just the word "sustainable" over and over.

:[The trend line continues past the year 2109, exceeding 100% and breaking up into question marks.]

:Caption: The word "sustainable" is unsustainable.

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