explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

2187: Geologic Time

2021-02-15T00:09:49Z

108.162.229.220: /* Explanation */ fixed 2 week calculation. Source: https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%282+weeks%2F4.54+billion+years%29*%2891m%29

{{comic
| number = 2187
| date = August 9, 2019
| title = Geologic Time
| image = geologic_time.png
| titletext = Ok, well, we'll be sure to pay you sometime soon, geologically speaking.
}}

==Explanation==
Analogies to explain the passage of billions of years are often used in popular science explanations, to help compress these huge spans of time into something the human mind can comprehend; the football field analogy is one such analogy. {{w|History of Earth|The Earth is approximately 4.54 billion years old}}; if you were to present a timeline of Earth as long as a football field (100 yards or 91 meters), then each inch of that length would comprise more than 1.26 million years of Earth's history and each millimeter nearly 50,000 years.

* Complex life refers to the various animal species which arose in the {{w|Cambrian explosion}} 541 million years ago; the length of time that complex life has existed would translate to 11.9 yards on the football field.
* {{w|Evolution of dinosaurs|Dinosaurs are estimated to have first evolved}} as early as 244 million years ago, and survived until the {{w|Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event}} 66 million years ago; thus it would begin at the 5.37-yard mark and continue up to the 1.45-yard mark.
* Although the {{w|evolution of mammals}} can be dated to around 220 million years ago (depending on definition), they didn't truly become dominant until the aforementioned extinction event paved the way for them to grow and diversify 66 million years ago. The age of mammals therefore extends from the 1.45-yard mark to the goal line (present day).
* {{w|Homo sapiens}} is estimated to be 350,000 years old; our species takes up only a meager 0.28 inches on the football field, or 7.1 millimeters.
* The {{w|Holocene}} era, or the age in which humanity rapidly grew to dominate the Earth, is even less geologically significant, having lasted about 11,650 years so far, which translates about 0.234 millimeters.
* {{w|Recorded history}} begins with accounts dating back to roughly 3500 B.C.E., about 5500 years ago as of this comic's publish date; it would take up a width of about 111 micrometers. {{w|Orders_of_magnitude_(length)#Cellular_to_human_scale|A human hair can be as thin as 17 micrometers, or as thick as 181 micrometers}}, so Megan's claim that all of human history can fit within the width of a human hair depends largely upon the sample being used.

[[Megan]], a {{w|geologist}}, tells a story about how small the timespan of human history is compared to Earth's total history. She does this to juxtapose it with normal human time-scales, to imply that her being two weeks late turning in her project is immaterial by the standards of the Earth's tremendous age. She tries to sell this story to [[Cueball]] and [[Hairbun]], but Hairbun's response does not seem to bode well for Megan.

Megan's delay of two weeks would map to about eight nanometers on the football field. The most powerful {{w|electron microscopes}} have a magnification of ten million, which would make it look like about eight centimeters (about three inches), so her statement about it being "too small to see even with a powerful microscope" is a bit of an exaggeration. The most powerful <i>optical</i> microscope has 6500x magnification,([https://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/08/science/08obscope.html New York Times, March 8, 2011]) which would indeed be inadequate.

[[Randall]] states in the caption that this is a trick that geologists always try to use when being late turning something in.

In the title text, Hairbun and Cueball reply by turning Megan's own argument against her. They promise to pay her for her work in what could be considered a short amount of time on the geological scale - which could easily be many, many times longer than Megan's own lifespan. Megan, like all working people, wants to be paid in a timely manner for her work, and would be deeply dissatisfied to have her payment delayed for so long. Thus, Hairbun and Cueball's rebuttal proves a point: when other people require you be punctual, it's easy to dismiss them as just being impatient; when you're the one who needs other people to be punctual, it's not so easy to criticize yourself.

The comparison with a football field is a typical, but doubtful practice to explain people what the size of an area is ([[1257: Monster]]). Here it is used as an analogy with a one-dimensional timescale.

==Transcript==
:[Megan, arms spread out, is delivering a long-winded explanation to Hairbun and Cueball.]
:Megan: Imagine Earth's history as a football field, from the planet's formation at one end to today at the other.
:Megan: Complex life would be largely limited to the final ten yards. Dinosaurs appear at the five-yard line, the age of mammals happens in the last 1½ yards, and humans arise in the final few millimeters.
:Megan: All of written history would fit in a strip narrower than a single hair.
:Megan: "Two weeks" would be too small to see even with a powerful microscope.
:Hairbun: Mm hmm.

:[Caption below the panel:]
:Geologists always try this when they're late turning something in.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairbun]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Geology]]
[[Category:Time]]

Talk:2408: Egg Strategies

2021-01-07T17:35:39Z

108.162.229.220: Added comment

I'm not going to get into it because it's not related to these egg cartons, but it is ''really weird'' sitting here explaining a joke while I listen to breaking news on the radio. [[User:Captain Video|Captain Video]] ([[User talk:Captain Video|talk]]) 22:24, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

I really thought it was just me who cared about center of gravity for eggs. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.79.49|162.158.79.49]] 23:43, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

We keep the hard boiled ones at one end and the fr4esh ones at the other end.

Bring True Neutral (egg carton sits lengthwise in fridge, most convenient egg is removed until carton is empty), I am ''baffled'' by the existence of other "strategies". Do people really do this? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.241.70|108.162.241.70]] 00:57, 7 January 2021 (UTC)
: True Neutral here, and also putting the carton in the fridge eggless side out (which is consistent with "most convenient egg removed"). The current explanation says that this is "a disaster waiting to happen". Why?<br/>As a side-note, as I understand it, the alternate strategies can be convenient if you ''don't'' put the carton lengthwise in the fridge (particularly if you don't put it in the fridge ''at all''). [[Special:Contributions/162.158.183.117|162.158.183.117]] 11:26, 7 January 2021 (UTC)
:: I am also True Neutral - when putting the carton into the fridge end-first it allows me to extract it with the majority of the weight in my hand. It's a disaster if it is inserted the heavy side in first because when I grab the empty end the weight of the eggs can tip them out the other side. As an aside, I was a little insulted to find out that I am not the only person in the world who actually has an "egg carton strategy". I thought I was unique! ;-) [[User:Rtanenbaum|Rtanenbaum]] ([[User talk:Rtanenbaum|talk]]) 13:40, 7 January 2021 (UTC)
::: Ha, no, far from it! Nothing new under the sun, I guess. Here's some documentation of prior art by John McIntosh from 2006, under the title [http://www.urticator.net/essay/6/649.html "Egg Carton Theory"]. [[User:Dvgrn|Dvgrn]] ([[User talk:Dvgrn|talk]]) 17:27, 7 January 2021 (UTC)
: Chiming in on True Neutral strategy, which I also use, with some added thoughts: I also put the heavy end in first, but primarily because I usually have two cartons stacked, where inserting the heavy end on top of the full carton in the fridge makes it easier to push the carton the rest of the way in on top of the bottom carton. Putting it in the other way around, the heavy end is hanging off the bottom carton, resulting in less stability before it's pushed all the way in. If you can't tell, I'm an engineer! [[User:Ianrbibtitlht|Ianrbibtitlht]] ([[User talk:Ianrbibtitlht|talk]]) 14:41, 7 January 2021 (UTC)
:::: Chaotic Neutral here. Doing it that way means I have the benefit of a seemingly random egg without thinking too much about which egg to actually pick. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.229.220|108.162.229.220]] 17:35, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

Being Lawful Good and married to someone who is Chaotic Good, we might sometimes argue over this. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.62.29|162.158.62.29]] 03:23, 7 January 2021 (UTC) MSS

In Germany, there are two sizes of egg cartons, containing 6 or 10 eggs, respectively. Most refrigerators I’ve seen (in stores or households) contain an egg-holder with six dents, though I also have occasionally seen 10-dent egg holders.
Since I usually buy 20 eggs at the weekly market, my strategy is to transfer the eggs from a package to the egg holder once there are less than 9 left in the package (for the purpose of knowing how many are still left without having to open a package). If there are more than six eggs, the one or two additional eggs are placed lying besides the egg holder.
I think that counts as chaotic neutral. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.68.28|141.101.68.28]] 01:42, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

I've got a niggling feeling that Chaotic Neutral (at least) is wrongly depicted. Too orderly. I'd have put Chaotic Good's pattern there (not necessarily vice-versa, as the current incumbent looks more Lawful or Variation-of-neutrality as well as Good) as attempting to maintain balance but with an element of chance. We don't know what sequence of removal ''led'' to each of these states, of course. That might make much of the difference in how we reach the illustrated states. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.253|162.158.158.253]] 03:03, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

I'd go a little further and swap CG and CN (the current CG being a marginally more ordered and balanced CN) but otherwise agree. CN is the strategy I use when the carton is at risk of being centrally supported while in humid conditions (don't ask), making NG risk bending of the whole carton. LG is actually worse then NG in some circumstances, due to a drastically reduced moment of inertia contributing to the chance of dropping. On the other hand, NG increases the probability of end-shattering if the carton is actually dropped. Overall, different strategies are probably a result of experience, circumstance, relative clumsiness, and hat colour. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.166.75|162.158.166.75]] 05:43, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

I feel like the chaotic good isn't random. It seems like it could be Braille or something like that, maybe? I don't know, I might looking for patterns where there are none.

Is it bother anyone that there are different numbers of eggs in each carton? At least there should have been two boxes for each alignment, one with an even number of eggs and one with odd.
:: I was thinking precisely this. Can lead to a sense of "apples and oranges" otherwise. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.49|108.162.216.49]] 15:51, 7 January 2021 (UTC)MeZimm

Talk:2399: 2020 Election Map

2020-12-18T03:02:57Z

108.162.229.220: New comment

r/PeopleLiveInCities[[Special:Contributions/162.158.49.18|162.158.49.18]] 12:27, 17 December 2020 (UTC)

I see a political comic... sure hope this doesn't spiral out of control. [[User:ChessCake|ChessCake]] ([[User talk:ChessCake|talk]]) 22:21, 16 December 2020 (UTC)
: How dare you accuse me of spiraling things out of control, you so-and-so! This kind of baseless backwards logic is exactly the problem with people who share your particular political opinions! --[[User:NeatNit|NeatNit]] ([[User talk:NeatNit|talk]]) 22:38, 16 December 2020 (UTC)
:: You're being sarcastic, right? Just want to be clear so we don't fuel the [potential] flames to come. [[User:ChessCake|ChessCake]] ([[User talk:ChessCake|talk]]) 22:51, 16 December 2020 (UTC)
::: I took "so-and-so" as proof that neatnit was joking. Angry people on the internet use harsher words. SDT [[Special:Contributions/162.158.75.38|162.158.75.38]] 22:57, 16 December 2020 (UTC)
::: Definitely. The "so-and-so" instead of an insult, and the deliberately vague grouping of "people who share your particular political opinions" were a clear giveaway. :) --[[User:V2Blast|V2Blast]] ([[User talk:V2Blast|talk]]) 22:59, 16 December 2020 (UTC)
It seems to me that one of the main messages in this comic is that voters for both Trump and Biden are pretty well distributed around the country. Looking at the typical choropleth maps with states colored red or blue, it can seem that the political division in the country is also a geographical division. This map, and the title text, emphasize that, at the scale of the whole country, that really isn't the case. The urban/suburban/rural breakdown isn't all that evident at this scale. [[User:Orion205|Orion205]] ([[User talk:Orion205|talk]]) 07:06, 17 December 2020 (UTC)
: ''The urban/suburban/rural breakdown isn't all that evident at this scale'': au contraire, it's quite clear that the denser the area, the more Biden voters there are, even in red states. See Texas for instance, where around big cities you have more blue dots than red.[[Special:Contributions/141.101.107.160|141.101.107.160]] 10:51, 17 December 2020 (UTC)
:: And this map proves that many large areas of the country are still dangerously underpopulated to prevent democracy from becoming tyranny[[User:Seebert|Seebert]] ([[User talk:Seebert|talk]])
::: I don't think more population would suffice for US to get reasonable number of political parties. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 02:55, 18 December 2020 (UTC)

I found [https://engaging-data.com/county-electoral-map-land-vs-population/ this map] a few weeks ago and I love it, it kind of requires interactivity but it can be set to display the difference between population and land area in on of the best ways I've seen. Especially because you can set the population indicators to avoid overlapping, so you can get a land-area-like feel for their size. [[User:Kjmitch|Kjmitch]] ([[User talk:Kjmitch|talk]]) 18:27, 17 December 2020 (UTC)

Where does the .5 in the table for NY and CT come from? I can see that two markers sit across the border for the two states, but it personally seems to me that the numbers can be more accurate with some editing. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.229.220|108.162.229.220]] 03:02, 18 December 2020 (UTC)

Talk:1950: Chicken Pox and Name Statistics

2018-02-02T15:52:59Z

108.162.229.220:

I think Randall missed an opportunity to do another “make you feel old” joke here, perhaps something like “if your age isn’t on the chart, your doctors probably still thought chicken pox was caused by imbalanced humors or angry gods” or something. [[User:PotatoGod|PotatoGod]] ([[User talk:PotatoGod|talk]]) 15:24, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

Shouldn't the vaccine note have been placed at age 23, not 28, if the vaccine was introduced in 1995? [[User:Rockcell|Rockcell]] ([[User talk:Rockcell|talk]]) 15:28, 2 February 2018 (UTC)
:When do children get their first smallpox vaccine? If that's around three that might be one explanation for the position of the note. Also the vaccine wasn't only used on children born after its introduction, kids that were already a few years old but never had smallpox could still have gotten their shots. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.229.220|108.162.229.220]] 15:52, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

1950: Chicken Pox and Name Statistics

2018-02-02T15:41:51Z

108.162.229.220: /* Explanation */ Correlation != Causation

{{comic
| number = 1950
| date = February 2, 2018
| title = Chicken Pox and Name Statistics
| image = chicken_pox_and_name_statistics.png
| titletext = People with all six of those names agree that it's weird that we have teeth, when you think about it for too long. Just about everyone agrees on that, except—in a still-unexplained statistical anomaly—people named "Trevor."
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a TREVOR WITH NO TEETH - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
This comic jokes that, due to the overlay of frequency of name choices with chicken pox occurrence, people with some names are more likely to think that chicken pox is normal while others don't. It relies on the same falacy as [[1138: Heatmap]] which is thinking that [[552: Correlation]] implies causation (here both the proportion of kids with smallpox and the proportion of names depend of the date of birth, but have no direct causal link from one to the other). The claim is dubious, but humorous. This comic is a [[:Category:Fun fact|Fun Fact]].

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

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Fun fact]]

Talk:1865: Wifi vs Cellular

2017-07-26T11:38:24Z

108.162.229.220:

I'm not sure it applies in my country. While I have access to cellular internet that is somewhat faster than my home wifi, it is not nearly as reliable for important downloads and definitely several magnitudes costlier when it comes to, say, a Gigabyte of data. [[User:Xenos|Xenos]] ([[User talk:Xenos|talk]]) 05:39, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

Heck, it doesn't even apply in my area of the US (rural Maine). We have no cellular connection at all (well, if you stand at a window at the farthest end of the house, sometimes you can make a call), and the Internet connection for our computers is so slow that upgrading a new-to-me laptop to Windows 10 last week took 36 hours. Now I'm trying to add several thousand jpg images to my Google Drive; that takes about 75 minutes per 100 photos. While they're uploading I don't dare visit any other website. Something about keepalive pings not being able to get to the modem, which then shuts down the link altogether. [[User:MaineGrammy|MaineGrammy]] ([[User talk:MaineGrammy|talk]]) 08:59, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

Panamax is probably a reference to [[1632]]. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.10.88|172.68.10.88]] 09:51, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

I'm not sure that home wifi was even a thing that could be used widely by the public in the early 2000s. [[User:OldCorps|OldCorps]] ([[User talk:OldCorps|talk]]) 15:06, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

Apple's AirPort was introduced in 1999. So while it may not have been used widely, it was in use at my house. The graph mentions reliability, not ubiquity. [[User:Neopanamax|Neopanamax]] ([[User talk:Neopanamax|talk]]) 15:27, 19 July 2017 (UTC)
:Fair enough. I wasn't talking at all about reliability, I genuinely didn't know home wifi was available that early. [[User:OldCorps|OldCorps]] ([[User talk:OldCorps|talk]]) 17:18, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

The explanation says something about ubiquity, which seems odd in relation to HOME wifi - either you have it or you don't. The performance issue Randall mentions might be the WiFi itself, or might be down to the network; it's common for broadband solutions to be marketed as "up to", while never achieving close to the advertised speed (either through sharing the connection or range-related drop-off). Case in point, I have an ancient (~2004) ADSL connection that was supposed to be 8Mbit/s, and barely reaches 2; my home wifi (which as it happens I've just updated) isn't the sticking point - the upstream connection is. At some point I'll go optical and fix this, but my ADSL router is currently doing complicated things with IP translation and a fix isn't a trivial drop-in. I can't be the only one with iffy home data. Meanwhile, my cell phone's connection has healthily outperformed my ADSL from the moment it went 4G; I'm actively annoyed that my cell provider recently added a 12GB cap on tethered data, because operating system updates are appreciably faster if I link to my phone. Cellphone connections do have to share the available bandwidth across more users, but on the other hand they're less likely to suffer interference and poorly-implemented devices. [[User:Fluppeteer|Fluppeteer]] ([[User talk:Fluppeteer|talk]]) 18:43, 19 July 2017 (UTC)
:ADSL is often limited by physical quality and length of the cable. Most other connections are limited by ISP's price and sharing strategy. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 21:44, 19 July 2017 (UTC)
:Re: Ubiquity, when I'm at home, I connect to my home wi-fi. When I visit my mother, I connect to her home wi-fi. At my brother's, his home wi-fi. At my cousin's, his home wi-fi. At my buddy's place, HIS home wi-fi. Every bar I go to - like right this second as I post this - THEIR wi-fi. In this day and age everybody I know has internet-enabled wi-fi in their home, as do many businesses. So, that's what I understand by Randall's use of "ubiquity" here. :) Most places we go (at least in big cities like mine) there's some wi-fi available to connect to. [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 03:30, 21 July 2017 (UTC)

802.11n can go up to 600 Mbps, and the routers and cards that support it are very reasonably priced with the advent of 802.11ac. That's not to say that LTE isn't sometimes faster, but it's disingenuous to suggest that WiFi is always slower now. [[User:Stephonovich|Stephonovich]] ([[User talk:Stephonovich|talk]]) 18:57, 19 July 2017 (UTC)
:802.11n and 802.11ac are mostly not fully supported, manufacturers use them only as quasi standards for their own solutions often not compatible to others. But modern LTE is faster than 802.11b/g and the real 802.11n standard.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 19:16, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

Note that if your home network is too stable for this effect, try wifi in some restaurant. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 21:44, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

To get something to load on my computer, sometimes I have to turn on my phone's wifi hotspot (or tethering). ―[[User:TobyBartels|TobyBartels]] ([[User talk:TobyBartels|talk]]) 18:06, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

See https://www.maketecheasier.com/find-best-wifi-channel/#comments. One of the problems is that many WiFi routers have their power set to maximum, which means that they can interfere with WiFi networks at fairly large distances. I also have a suspicion that some ISP providers have misconfigured the routers they supply so that the range of their router looks better even though it causes problems. (They hope that you will blame the problems on someone else.) What I haven't decided is whether this is deliberate or simply due to incompetence and lack of diligence. The indication of this is a large number of networks in the display that won't even get to the point of requesting a password. I have also found that performance varies widely over time. [[User:BradleyRoss|BradleyRoss]] ([[User talk:BradleyRoss|talk]]) 03:02, 21 July 2017 (UTC)

Right now the title text's explanation includes "Being "with HBO" would mean being able to stream TV shows made by HBO, notably Game of Thrones, natively rather than relying on piracy or an add-on service to provide them as most online viewers do.". It seems like whoever wrote this is unaware that HBO is an actual TV channel. The title text appears to be expanding on the low quality of the home wi-fi, implying that the wi-fi's internet is from the cable company. A CABLE COMPANY'S package being "with HBO" would simply mean that the CABLE TV channel selection includes that channel, that's all. Nothing about streaming (though people with HBO usually have access to stream it as well, such as with the HBO Go mobile app). And there's nothing "notable" about Game Of Thrones here, that is merely an example of an HBO show, there's no reference or even slight connection to GoT in this comic to make it notable. I'm looking for some consensus here but if there's no change or comments by Thursday night I'll try my hand at fixing it. [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 09:54, 26 July 2017 (UTC)
:Agreed that the "streaming" part of the explanation is a bit cluncky, but I don't agree that there is nothing notable about Game of Thrones. This comic appeared 3 days after the first episode of GoT season 7 was released. My personal experience has been that absolutely everyone is talking about it, and everyone is trying to get access to it. In France, demand for live access to the show via the largest ISP's VOD service was so high it broke their servers, so the first episode ended up being offered to stream for free. It is not out of the question that this comic might have been inspired precisely by Randall's attempt to get a reliable streaming connection to watch the show... [[Special:Contributions/108.162.229.220|108.162.229.220]] 11:38, 26 July 2017 (UTC)

1823: Hottest Editors

2017-04-13T03:10:21Z

108.162.229.220: Irrelevant to the comic.

{{comic
| number = 1823
| date = April 12, 2017
| title = Hottest Editors
| image = hottest_editors.png
| titletext = Elon Musk finally blocked me from the internal Tesla repository because I wouldn't stop sending pull requests for my code supporting steering via vim keybindings.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Needs explanation of title text.}}

The comic has a play on the word 'Editor'. The editors from 1995 to 2000 are plain-text editors, popular among many programmers and other computer scientists to edit machine-readable text.
Two of the earlier editors, {{w|Vim (text editor)|Vim}} and {{w|Emacs|Emacs}}, allow the user to perform common actions (like scrolling, marking text, saving or searching) using keyboard shortcuts.
As Vim and Emacs use different shortcuts, someone who is proficient in one editor may have difficulty using the other editor, since the shortcuts are different.
The 'Editor wars' refer to Vim and Emacs users debating heavily on which of the two editors is the best (for which keyboard shortcuts, or bindings, are just one of the arguments employed). This debate was previously mentioned in [[378: Real Programmers]].
Modern editors (including Notepad++ and Sublime Text) mainly use the shortcuts determined by the operating system, again different from Vim and Emacs.

{{w|Notepad++}} is a popular text and source code editor, initially released in 2003 and only available for the Windows platform. {{w|Sublime Text}} is the current "most popular" text editor according to Randall, released in 2008; it and the other text editors are cross-platform.

The 2020 editor '{{w|CRISPR}}' is not a text editor, but a technique used to edit DNA in a pre-existing genome. The technique has experienced a surge of recent (as of April 2017) attention in the media, suggesting it may become the most popular "editor" in years to come. The joke lies in the comic intentionally not distinguishing between text/code editing and genome editing.
It may also suggest that we will not be editing digital plain-text files, but DNA in 2020, possibly due to very recent advances in {{w|DNA digital data storage}}.

To make the transition between editors easier, some editors offer Vim or Emacs key-bindings: the shortcuts will be (roughly) the same as in Vim or in Emacs, so that someone who used to be proficient in one of those editors can proceed to use the keyboard shortcuts in the way he or she was used to.
The comic suggests that in 2025, the Vim key-bindings will be the most popular for editing genes using CRISPR.
This creates a comical effect: CRISPR is a technique that operates on genes, and not on digital hardware, so it does not use a keyboard per se. Consequently, it is surprising that CRISPR would have key bindings. The comic also suggests that in 2025, Vim will make a comeback in DNA editing, thus having 'won' the battle with Emacs.

The title text says that Randall has been banned from the code base of {{w|Tesla, Inc.|Tesla}}, as he keeps sending {{w|pull request}}s (code changes) to steer a Tesla car using Vim keybindings. Not only does this seem impossible, but it seems dangerous to steer a car with a (computer) keyboard. The arguably most important keybindings of a text editor are those to move the editing location (the cursor) around. Vim, in addition to dedicated keys present on most keyboards, supports the use of "h" for moving left, "l" for moving right, "j" for down, and "k" for up. To use these in a vehicular context, up and down would probably, as in many racing games, be mapped to acceleration and braking, respectively. One additional problem with using essentially binary inputs (key pressed or not) as a replacement for a car's steering wheel is achieving different degrees of direction change. Pressing, say, the "h" key could either cause the car to turn its wheels left by a pre-set, fixed amount, or it could turn them left the more the longer the key is held down. There has been a [http://www.autoblog.com/2017/02/20/doom-porsche-911-infotainment-hack/ spoof] based on the reverse priciple, however.

==Transcript==
:Hottest Editors
:--------------------
:1995-2000—[Emacs–Vim Editor war]
:2005—Vim
:2010—Notepad++
:2015—Sublime Text
:2020—CRISPR
:2025—CRISPR (Vim keybindings)

{{comic discussion}}