explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

2599: Spacecraft Debris Odds Ratio

2022-03-29T08:45:42Z

108.162.229.53: Fixed typo

{{comic
| number = 2599
| date = March 28, 2022
| title = Spacecraft Debris Odds Ratio
| image = spacecraft_debris_odds_ratio.png
| titletext = You say this daily walk will reduce my risk of death from cardiovascular disease by 30%, but also increase my risk of death by bear attack by 300%? That's a 280% increased! I'm not a sucker; I'm staying inside.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by an EVENS RATIO - Explain how the 280% from the title text comes about. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
This comic is a misunderstanding of statistics very similar to that of [[1252: Increased Risk]]. It explains that going outside for more than 5 hours significantly increases your risk of head injury from falling spacecraft, and advises to limit outside activity to avoid this risk.

However, since the odds of being hit in the head by (part of) a falling spacecraft are astronomically low to begin with, quadrupling it or more still results in a negligible probability. The horizontal error bars for times greater than 4 hours are marked with asterisks to indicate they are significantly different from the reference value at 0 hours, as indeed those error bars don't overlap the vertical line for the 0-hours reference value. It is very difficult to avoid being outside for more than four hours in a total life time!

{{w|Error bar}}s are graphical representations of the variability of data and used on graphs to indicate the error or uncertainty in a reported measurement.

The graph and error bars are based on a {{w|Monte Carlo Method|Monte Carlo simulations}}, a type of computational algorithm that uses repeated random sampling to obtain the likelihood of a range of results of occurring, see for instance this article about [https://www.ibm.com/cloud/learn/monte-carlo-simulation Monte Carlo simulations].

The specific reference to falling spacecraft is likely inspired by events happening around the time of this comics release (March 2022). Around a month before this was posted, the head of the Russian space agency, {{w|Roscosmos}}, warned that sanctions against Russia (mostly those over the {{w|2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine}}) could result in the {{w|International Space Station}} crashing. Since the Russian section of the space station is the one that provides propulsion (although it is built to rely on the power generated by the other sections), this was taken seriously and as of when this was posted, {{w|NASA}} was trying to come up with alternative stabilization strategies in case the situation worsened. There was also a recent [https://www-uol-com-br.translate.goog/tilt/noticias/redacao/2022/03/17/parte-do-foguete-spacex-e-encontrada-por-morador-do-pr.htm?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=pt-BR&_x_tr_pto=wapp report] of some 600 kg space rocket debris found in Brazil.

The title text makes a similar joke. While the increase in chances of death by a bear attack are greater when going outside than the decrease in chances of death by cardiovascular disease, by getting out to exercise, it is incorrect to subtract them, since cardiovascular disease has a much higher starting chance of death, and reducing it by 30% has a much more significant effect on overall life expectancy than quadrupling the very very small chance of death by bear attack. (And besides, even the subtraction is done wrong.)

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

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

1586: Keyboard Problems

2015-10-05T11:32:08Z

108.162.229.53: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1586
| date = October 5, 2015
| title = Keyboard Problems
| image = keyboard_problems.png
| titletext = In the future, a group of resistance fighters send me back in time with instructions to find the Skynet prototype and try to upgrade it.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|First draft. Characters from The Terminator could be explained better. Is there a "comics with Terminator" category? Anything else you can think of}}
This comic is about how computer problems appear with no obvious cause. Even technically skilled people often find themselves powerless to diagnose the problem, and resort to tricks and quirks to solve or circumvent the problem without really understandig how or why the trick should work.

In the comic, [[Cueball]] complains that some keys in his keyboard don't work. Generally speaking, this could be due either to a software problem (i.e. the keyboard driver not working properly, or some program ignoring keypresses) or to a hardware problem (the keyboard is physically damaged, typically because of dirt under the keys).

If the problem is in software, booting from a different operating system (e.g. an external recovery disk) should solve it, as the computer would not be using the faulty software. Conversely, if the problem is in hardware, changing the keyboard should solve the problem as the new keyboard is not physically damaged and has no dirt under the keys.

However, the problem stays there after booting from an external recovery disk (so it's not a software problem) and it has "followed Cueball since his last computer" (i.e. persists after changing the keyboard and even the whole computer, so it's not a hardware problem). Cueball is reasonably puzzled.

[[Megan]] seems to be used to Cueball's computer behaving strangely, and she doesn't even attempt to explain or solve the problem. The only explanation she needs for the problem is that "it's Cueball's computer". The characters in this comic are probably the same as in [[1084: Server Problem]] and [[1316: Inexplicable]].

The last panel is a reference to {{w|The Terminator}}, a 1984 movie often referenced in xkcd. In the movie, a robot (visually indistinguishable from a human) from the future travels through time to the present to kill Sarah Connor. This robot proves to be really hard to stop. Megan suggests that if such a robot ever comes to haunt her, she'll hide in Cueball's house, as the robot won't work there since Cueball's computers can't seem to ever work properly.

==Transcript==
:<nowiki>[</nowiki>[[Cueball]] sits between two laptops. [[Megan]] stands behind him.]

:Cueball: Keys on my keyboard keep failing, even when I boot from an external recovery disk.
:Megan: Sounds like it's hardware, then.

:[Cueball moves over to the laptop behind him.]

:Cueball: Yeah... except the problem followed me from my ''last'' computer.
:Megan: You have the most ''bizarre'' tech issues.

:[Cueball picks up the keyboard from the rear computer and plugs it into the one in front of him.]

:Cueball: It must be spreading via keyboards. This one won't work with ''any'' computer now.
:Megan: When the robot apocalypse happens, I'm hiding out in your house. Any Skynet drones that come near will develop inexplicable firmware problems and crash.

{{comic discussion}}

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

1586: Keyboard Problems

2015-10-05T11:27:00Z

108.162.229.53: First draft

{{comic
| number = 1586
| date = October 5, 2015
| title = Keyboard Problems
| image = keyboard_problems.png
| titletext = In the future, a group of resistance fighters send me back in time with instructions to find the Skynet prototype and try to upgrade it.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|First draft. References to other comics missing. Characters from The Terminator could be explained better. Is there a "comics with Terminator" category? Anything else you can think of}}
This comic is about how computer problems appear with no obvious cause. Even technically skilled people often find themselves powerless to diagnose the problem, and resort to tricks and quirks to solve or circumvent the problem.

In the comic, [[Cueball]] complains that some keys in his keyboard don't work. Generally speaking, this could be due eigher to a software problem (i.e. the keyboard driver not working properly, or some program ignoring keypresses) or to a hardware problem (the keyboard is physically damaged, typically because of dirt under the keys).

If the problem is in software, booting from a different operating system (e.g. an external recovery disk) should solve it, as the computer would not be using the faulty software. Conversely, if the problem is in hardware, changing the keyboard should solve the problem as the new keyboard is not physically damaged and has no dirt under the keys.

However, the problem stays there after booting from an external recovery disk (so it's not a software problem) and it has "followed Cueball since his last computer" (i.e. persists after changing the keyboard and even the whole computer, so it's not a hardware problem). Cueball is reasonably puzzled.

[[Megan]] seems to be used to Cueball's computer behaving strangely, and she doesn't even attempt to explain or solve the problem. The only explanation she needs for the problem is that "it's Cueball's computer".

The last panel is a reference to {{w|The Terminator}}, a 1984 movie often referenced in xkcd. In the movie, a robot (visually indistinguishable from a human) from the future travels through time to the present to kill Sarah Connor. This robot proves to be really hard to stop. Megan suggests that if such a robot ever comes to haunt her, she'll hide in Cueball's house, as the robot won't work there since Cueball's computers can't seem to ever work properly.

==Transcript==
:<nowiki>[</nowiki>[[Cueball]] sits between two laptops. [[Megan]] stands behind him.]

:Cueball: Keys on my keyboard keep failing, even when I boot from an external recovery disk.
:Megan: Sounds like it's hardware, then.

:[Cueball moves over to the laptop behind him.]

:Cueball: Yeah... except the problem followed me from my ''last'' computer.
:Megan: You have the most ''bizarre'' tech issues.

:[Cueball picks up the keyboard from the rear computer and plugs it into the one in front of him.]

:Cueball: It must be spreading via keyboards. This one won't work with ''any'' computer now.
:Megan: When the robot apocalypse happens, I'm hiding out in your house. Any Skynet drones that come near will develop inexplicable firmware problems and crash.

{{comic discussion}}

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

Talk:1266: Halting Problem

2015-03-11T13:43:06Z

108.162.229.53:

I wrote an explanation for the body of the comics, but I believe there are aspects of the title I'm still missing, so I left the incomplete tag in place. [[User:Shachar|Shachar]] ([[User talk:Shachar|talk]]) 07:52, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

Isn't google already running applications designed to continue running even if some of nodes they run on have a fatal hardware failure? Also, even if the claim would be true in "practical" sense, it would not solve the problem, because as you said, the stopping would be because of reasons external to the actual program. In other words, program running on turing machine will never stop by hardware failure, because turing machine BY DEFINITION doesn't have any. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 08:57, 18 September 2013 (UTC)
:Remembered this is wiki and added it to the actual explanation :-) -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 09:10, 18 September 2013 (UTC)
:Several systems are running with redundant nodes. They will not run forever. They are in for example extremely unlikely to outlive the sun. [[Special:Contributions/85.19.71.131|85.19.71.131]] 11:29, 18 September 2013 (UTC)
::System with ability to replace nodes can be deployed on nodes physically as distant as needed. Application which is currently starting on a multi-node system on earth can be later expanded to system with nodes in different star system. Although unless the nodes have FTL connection it would have inpractically large lag ... -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 09:39, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

"For all practical purposes, this is the correct solution"
:No, it's not. A very practical purpose would be "have my OS kill processes that won't stop". Other one would be "reject installing apps that contain algorithms that don't halt". If the OS assumes "every app will eventually halt" it would kill every process and reject every app. [[User:Osias|Osias]] ([[User talk:Osias|talk]]) 12:15, 18 September 2013 (UTC)
::Changing the paragraph to say "a physical perspective" instead of "all practical purposes" was a good solution. [[User:Osias|Osias]] ([[User talk:Osias|talk]]) 14:16, 18 September 2013 (UTC)
::It would, in fact, kill/reject none since it would find no nonhalters.[[Special:Contributions/178.0.89.106|178.0.89.106]] 20:51, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

Google "halting problem" and do a little reeding so you are in the same mindset as Randall. This is a famous computer science problem. You aren't talking about the same thing in comments above. ''— [[User:Tbc|tbc]] ([[User talk:Tbc|talk]]) 12:30, 18 September 2013 (UTC)''

What is the joke here? What does "big picture" mean? [[Special:Contributions/62.209.198.2|62.209.198.2]] 16:33, 18 September 2013 (UTC)
:I believe it's related to the quote " In the long run we are all dead." by John Maynard Keynes. [[User:Osias|Osias]] ([[User talk:Osias|talk]]) 18:46, 18 September 2013 (UTC)
:Alternatively, "big picture" people aren't really concerned with details. "You want to know if it halts? I'm telling ya baby, it halts!" The value of such an assertion is dubious, but it does save a lot of worrying. You know what else is funny? The mind-numbing amount of detail in these responses to a comic about the the "big picture". Reflect, people, reflect! [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.58|108.162.219.58]] 23:04, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

Same kind of humor as in http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=221 [[Special:Contributions/176.67.13.14|176.67.13.14]] 18:47, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

A program with its given input can be seen, as a whole, as a specific program. Therefore the halting function need not take two inputs and is equivalent to a function that takes the two described inputs. Therefore I feel the comment about the number of inputs in the explanation can be removed. {{unsigned ip|66.69.243.27}}
:Yeah, the halting problem on the empty word/input is known to be equivalent to the general halting problem. I think that's the form used in this comic. {{unsigned ip|85.218.82.16}}

Might there be a reference here to Isaac Asimov's famous story "The Last Question"? (The titular question was: 'Can entropy be reversed?' Throughout the lifetime of the universe, the computer only said: 'THERE IS INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER.') [[Special:Contributions/174.239.229.68|174.239.229.68]] 04:18, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

;Missing the obvious?

Maybe it is just me, but I interpreted this to be the "DoesItHalt" function actually *running* "program", then when "program" completes (halts) it returns true. This would be the "big picture" solution and does not actually deal with the "details". --[[User:Bpothier|B. P.]] ([[User talk:Bpothier|talk]]) 23:52, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

What you thought you saw was the most obvious "implementation" of a solution to the halting problem.
define DoesItHalt (program):
{
program();
return true;
}
This solution returns <code>true</code> if <code>program</code> stops, and loops forever is <code>program</code> loops forever. [[User:Xhfz|Xhfz]] ([[User talk:Xhfz|talk]]) 20:44, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

: It won't work if your program is exit() or shutdownYourComputer(). :) --[[Special:Contributions/61.223.87.164|61.223.87.164]] 00:49, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

::It will. We are talking about Turing machines. A Turing machine can stop itself, but it cannot stop the calling Turing machine. [[User:Xhfz|Xhfz]] ([[User talk:Xhfz|talk]]) 12:43, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

:::Turing machines are known to be really poor at I/O. If you trace the shutdownYourComputer function, it actually instructs your {{w|Power_supply_unit_(computer)|power supply unit}} (ATX required, AT lacked such capability) to turn power down. Similarly, rebootYourComputer function instruct outside hardware - usually {{w|Northbridge_(computing)|north bridge}} - to send a reset signal on the {{w|Peripheral_Component_Interconnect|PCI bus}} (and presumably other busses), which will reset all devices and start {{w|Power-on_self-test|POST}}. Unlike Turing machines, virtualized OSs may be able to reboot host computer if the hypervisor is not coded correctly and allows I/O for hardware acceleration. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 09:22, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

::::Irrelevant load. Randall is not concerned with multiple nodes or hypervisors, he is simply demonstrating the "big picture" solution to an undecidable problem in computing. It is *not possible* in general to determine if 'program' will halt or not, so don't even look at it. Sidestep the work and just return your best guess. That's how people frequently operate, right? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.58|108.162.219.58]] 23:04, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

; The halting problem for every input
The sentence in bold is false
:It should be noted that Randall's solution, barring its unsoundness, solves more than the halting problem in the form it is usually stated. The halting problem requires two parameters (a program and its parameters), while Randall's function only accepts one (the program). The question of whether a program halts for every input '''can be shown to be even harder to solve''' than the halting problem, meaning that even if a Turing machine had an additional instruction allowing it to check whether a program halts with given parameters, it still could not always confirm that a given program that halts for all parameters does so.
In fact, let A be a Turing machine that solves the halting problem for one input, and B a Turing machine that solves the halting problem for every input. B can be built using A as a subroutine. First B builds machine Y that takes its input, X, and halts if X loops with at least one input; Y loops if X stops for every input.
:Turing machine B (Turing machine X) {
:// manipulate X in order to build Y that calls X for every input and stops when the first input does not halt
: Y = <code>"s = <nowiki>''</nowiki>; repeat { if (A(" + X + "," s + ") == 'false' then halt; s = next(s);}"</code>
: return A(Y, "") // second parameter is ignored
:}
The function next returns the next valid string. For example, if our alphabet is A..Z0..9, then next("AJ38YT") = "AJ38YU"

Machine B determines if Y halts. And Y halts if machine X does not halt. If we had Turing machine A then we could build B.
[[User:Xhfz|Xhfz]] ([[User talk:Xhfz|talk]]) 17:53, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

; Karl Popper
I think that the title text is a direct reference to Karl Popper's falsifiability argument, since this is one of the most common example of a non-falsifiable statement. [[User:Bonob|Bonob]] ([[User talk:Bonob|talk]]) 19:01, 18 October 2013 (UTC)
:Popper claimed that such things are outside the realms of science, correct? The undecidability of this question has been used to falsify other intended scientific proofs. Therefore, it is surely within the realms of science. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.58|108.162.219.58]] 23:04, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

;Bad example for showing the difference between theoretical computation and "actual" computation

The explanation's "1/3 + 1/3 + 1/3 = 1" example ticks me off: symbolic math programs can already give the correct answer to this easily. See http://www.sympygamma.com/input/?i=1%2F3+%2B+1%2F3+%2B+1%2F3 .

Talk:1271: Highlighting

2013-12-10T15:32:38Z

108.162.229.53:

I used to think I was crazy, but this webcomic tells me I'm not alone. It has nothing to do with marking your place as your reading, its more or less just something to keep your hands busy while reading an article. It does drive other people crazy. [[User:HardKase|HardKase]] ([[User talk:HardKase|talk]]) 02:11, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

Personally, I dislike it when the highlighted area includes either the beginning indent/tab or the ending indent/tab, so according to my standards, I'm satisfied with the highlighting in paragraphs 1-3, but not with 4-6. Saibot84 04:33, 30 September 2013 (UTC)
:There is nothing marked in paragraph 6, is there? --[[User:Chtz|Chtz]] ([[User talk:Chtz|talk]]) 07:07, 30 September 2013 (UTC)
::@Chtz, no there's nothing highlighted in paragraph 6, I meant "mark" as the score it was given. And while I'm here, I just noticed Randall corrected the spelling of "highlighted" in the text below the image. Should someone re-upload the image here? Saibot84 13:21, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

Why does he spell highlight like "hilight"? [[Special:Contributions/62.209.198.2|62.209.198.2]] 06:47, 30 September 2013 (UTC)
:Good question. Wiktionary allows {{Wiktionary|hilite}} as ''informal'', but says that {{Wiktionary|hilight}} is a "common misspelling". --[[User:Chtz|Chtz]] ([[User talk:Chtz|talk]]) 07:07, 30 September 2013 (UTC)
::I assumed the poor spelling was a subtle way of poking fun at a site that would do something as stupid as trying to prohibit highlighting. —[[User:Scs|Scs]] ([[User talk:Scs|talk]]) 03:20, 1 October 2013 (UTC)
:It seems the comic has now changed to spelling it "highlight" [[Special:Contributions/87.198.51.178|87.198.51.178]] 21:56, 1 October 2013 (UTC)
::But the name of the png file is still misspelt (I didn't know if the title was also misspelt or not, that's why I came here :D) [[Special:Contributions/108.162.229.53|108.162.229.53]] 15:32, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

I'm so used to doing this that I know a few tricks and tiny strips of areas to click on in order to achieve symmetry in some tricky situations. [[Special:Contributions/131.215.169.224|131.215.169.224]] 07:53, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

: On some pages, I spent more time getting the highlights right than actually reading it --[[Special:Contributions/141.89.226.146|141.89.226.146]] 08:06, 30 September 2013 (UTC)
: You will all certainly hate Confluence's new editing of code. One micrometer and your h/l is undone {{unsigned ip|145.64.134.242}}

The most frustrating thing when it comes to highlighting: willing to select text on a long line (such as source code with no word wrap) only to have the mouse cursor move out of line, sabotaging your selection and location in the text. When pages are wider than the visible area, it should not jump to the left side when there are empty lines above/below a long line and you drag the selection up/down, instead, it should scroll left only as you drag the selection to the left. [[Special:Contributions/213.163.40.100|213.163.40.100]] 08:11, 30 September 2013 (UTC)
:If you have source code extensively above your horizontal screen size, you either have a very small screen or you should rethink your coding style. ;) --[[User:Chtz|Chtz]] ([[User talk:Chtz|talk]]) 08:35, 30 September 2013 (UTC)
:The most frustrating thing for ''me'' is mouse-selection (though thankfully not keyboard-selection) tends in my experience to assume that a mid-selected word means "the start of the word as well", at least in a browser context. Especially in forum conversations, when you get '<nowiki>[quote="oneperson"][quote="ofanotherperson"]Blah[/quote]Replyblah[/quote]</nowiki>' to reply to, and you want to highlight and excise the inner quote, for brevity, it often adjusts to include the "] after the "oneperson". Which is annoying and breaks your BBCode if you don't notice what you also accidentally deleted, and correct for it.
:Outside of such forum specifics, example 4 looks like a successfully chosen entire DIV-block. Which is a handy thing to be able to do, sometimes, but as long as you aren't ''forced'' to do so (beyond the "reading guide" purpose for the highlighting, with optional OCD, when it's probably not of concern). And watch out (as a variant of the title text) that the ''entire'' text block hasn't been A HREFed or similar (popular, these days, seemingly to cater for messy touchscreen tablet navigation, sometimes even without a navigate-to cursor change). This is why I have a Perl application that will politely scrape regularly-viewed pages, regexp and reformat as necessary and give a better/pre-processed interface to such information. Which is nice. [[Special:Contributions/178.98.253.80|178.98.253.80]] 16:27, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

I do this all the time too... my wife HATES it! --[[User:Jeff|Jeff]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 12:13, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

I thought I was the only one. Although, I do a variation where I try to get the beginning of the selection directly over the end of the selection so that they vertically align and cause a glide reflection of sorts. [[Special:Contributions/96.254.46.231|96.254.46.231]] 14:06, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

;New file name
The picture hilighting.png should be moved to highlighting.png. BTW: There is still a typo at the ''click...'' statement.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 14:56, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

: is that necessary? Imho it should follow the misspelling of the article itself [[Special:Contributions/74.125.183.194|74.125.183.194]] 16:10, 30 September 2013 (UTC)
::It is done by an admin here and necessary because this list [[List_of_all_comics]] did render a wrong image link. Even when the original file name is in fact still "hilighting.png". --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 19:52, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

;Maybe he fears a trojan?
About Randall panicking about the clicking-a-word-triggers-a-search-script, there are certain trojan-ish programs that tamper with the user's browser and install such a script in them. In that case, various words on any webpage would become clickable links that lead to advertisement and potentially other unsavory things.
I had to clean a family member's computer from one such infection; I'm no expert but sleuthing a bit led me to believe he might've got it from a seemingly innocuous video-to-gif freeware.
If I saw that word-popping behavior on a webpage again, my immediate thought would probably be that it's from a malignant script and I'd probably drop everything like Randall and start scanning my machine. [[Special:Contributions/67.71.33.122|67.71.33.122]] 16:17, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

;Can't select the text in the image either

Ironically, when text is displayed using an image like in the comic itself, it is also impossible to highlight text.
[[User:Tom0000|Tom0000]] ([[User talk:Tom0000|talk]]) 18:29, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

;Double-Clicking
While ''double''-clicking on a paragraph, chromium gives the patter of (5); firefox, on the other hand, selects text only, meaning no whitespaces (indent or margin) on either side of the text (not shown in comic). Running linux, I didn't try safari or i-ex. (On a last side-note, konqueror doesn't select the paragraph at all, but only the current line...) [[Special:Contributions/134.130.114.148|134.130.114.148]] 09:06, 2 October 2013 (UTC)
:In Firefox (in Gnome 3 on Ubuntu, in case this is desktop environment specific or operating system specific), I have to ''triple''-click to select a paragraph. Double-clicking would select a single word. --[[User:Das-g|Das-g]] ([[User talk:Das-g|talk]]) 14:09, 2 October 2013 (UTC)
::Also in Firefox, you can't select like Randall has selected, as it doesn't select any non-space/tab whitespace.
::And yes, you have to (or should have to) triple click to select a paragraph.[[User:GBGamer117|GBGamer117 > /dev/null]] ([[User talk:GBGamer117|talk]]) 06:12, 5 October 2013 (UTC)GBGamer117