explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Talk:2725: Sunspot Cycle

2023-01-17T04:45:16Z

108.162.241.213:

Holy cow, just made my first edit! It was SUPER stressful, and I didn't even know how to make a 'citation needed' thing. Hopefully it was ok, I tried to match the style of the wiki. [[User:GordonFreeman|GordonFreeman]] ([[User talk:GordonFreeman|talk]]) 03:06, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

Is it perhaps worth mentioning that sunspots, while they're darker than the rest of the sun's surface, are not actually black. They are cooler than surrounding regions and appear dark by contrast, but they're emitting lots of IR and some visible light. A sunspots-only (ignore the oxymoron) sun would still emit light and heat, just less. [[User:Nitpicking|Nitpicking]] ([[User talk:Nitpicking|talk]]) 03:18, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

Wouldn't the cycle be 20 ("every other decade") or 22 years (11 in each half of the cycle)? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.166.173|162.158.166.173]] 03:51, 17 January 2023 (UTC)
The cycle of darkness of the sun would be 22 years, but the 11-year cycle referred to in the comic, and described by both diagrams within the comic, is the cycle of "number of sunspots" which peaks when the sun is half light, half dark, and decreases again as there are so many spots that they start to merge into fewer, larger spots. It cycles from very few (or zero) sunspots, when the sun is light, through many sunspots, sun is heavily light/dark spotted, and completes the cycle when the number of spots returns down to near-zero, when the sun is dark.

To what "financial crash of 2014" does this refer? I recall the housing crisis causing financial trouble, but that was around 2008. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.166.173|162.158.166.173]] 03:51, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

Does anyone have any idea what is supposed to be on the Y axis of the bottom graph? Something that goes up when the sun is transitioning between brightnesses and is at its lowest when the sun is either fully bright or fully dark?

2592: False Dichotomy

2023-01-01T00:22:28Z

108.162.241.213: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2592
| date = March 11, 2022
| title = False Dichotomy
| image = false_dichotomy.png
| titletext = There are two types of dichotomy: False dichotomies, true dichotomies, and surprise trichotomies.
}}

==Explanation==
A dichotomy is two alternatives which are normally mutually exclusive (such as the dichotomy between a flat Earth and non-flat Earth). A {{w|false dichotomy}} is a {{w|logical fallacy}} based on an incorrect perception of limited options (for example: if the page background isn't white, it is black).

[[Cueball]] has apparently made one such error and is being called out by [[White Hat]] for it. Upon having this pointed out to him, Cueball says that we must '''embrace''' false dichotomies, because the '''only other option''' is {{w|cannibalism}}. This statement is another false dichotomy, as presenting false dichotomies is not the only alternative to cannibalism{{Citation needed}}. The reverse (that cannibalism is incompatible with expressing false dichotomies) is also not potentially true, as eating people may eventually result in having nobody you need to present false dichotomies to.

Cueball has thus created another false dichotomy to excuse his first.

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The false dichotomy Cueball appears to be referring to is the notion that those identified as human must not be eaten, but even closely related animals are not human and can be eaten, i.e. species can be divided clearly between "human" and "food". If this dichotomy is not accepted, then consuming any species that shares, for instance, any significant percentage of DNA with humans could be considered a measure of cannibalism.

The title text states that there are two kinds of dichotomies, making a dichotomy in itself. Due to three types of dichotomy being mentioned, and only two being foreshadowed, this statement is itself a surprise trichotomy, or three-parted choice. The title text is a variation of the [https://tropedia.fandom.com/wiki/There_Are_Two_Kinds_of_People_in_the_World "Two kinds of People"] joke. The classic math nerd variant is "There are three kinds of people in the world, those who can count, and those who can't." Alternatively, it may refer to a variation about {{w|base 2|binary}}. The original joke usually goes something like this: "There are 10 types of people: those who know binary, and those who don't." The variation is usually something like the following: "There are 10 types of people: those who know binary, and those who don't, and those who weren't expecting a {{w|base 3|ternary}} joke." Another version of this kind of joke is "there are two kinds of people: those who can extrapolate from an incomplete data set,"

The word {{wiktionary|trichotomy}} is a relative neologism, to be understood as to mean "divided into (or amongst) three parts", having replaced the original prefix "di-" (a factor of two, either doubled or, by context, halved) with that of "tri-" (similarly tripled/thirded). Strictly, though, {{wiktionary|dichotomy}} more directly stems from Greek elements that say "apart, I cut", with "apart" being represented by the "dicho-" (itself being roughly "into two", or to separate) which does not have a direct "tricho-" equivalent, although it does ultimately derive from "duo", Greek for "two". This is the kind of linguistic nuance that [[Randall]] clearly enjoys, yet may also happily or carelessly (mis)use without compunction.

==Transcript==
:[White Hat and Cueball are talking to each other. White Hat has his arms spread outwards in exasperation, while Cueball gestures assertively with his pointer finger.]
:White Hat: That's a false dichotomy!
:Cueball: Yes, but we have to embrace false dichotomies, because the only alternative is cannibalism.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Language]]
[[Category:Self-reference]]

2199: Cryptic Wifi Networks

2023-01-01T00:20:25Z

108.162.241.213: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2199
| date = September 6, 2019
| title = Cryptic Wifi Networks
| image = cryptic_wifi_networks.png
| titletext = They actually showed up on the first scan by the first WiFi-capable device.
}}

==Explanation==

In the comic, [[Knit Cap]] is on top of a high mountain in a remote location (second comic in a row with knit cap). Mobile devices frequently launch a popup telling users to choose a network to connect to. Knit Cap sees a WiFi network name listed on a handheld device, perhaps a cell phone. This is something you would expect in a city, but certainly not on a mountain top, hence the joke, that what produced these WiFi networks are unknown, but seem to be distributed randomly over the face of the Earth, disregarding nearness to technology.

Cryptic {{w|Wi-Fi}} (or WiFi) network names, called {{w|Service set (802.11 network)|Service Set Identifiers}} (SSIDs) are part of the joke about not knowing where the corresponding {{w|wireless router}} is located, suggesting they are unexplained phenomena instead of wireless radio devices. Some of the earliest WiFi devices like printers and {{w|internet}} routers advertised cryptic SSIDs, as do many of them today. In 1998, {{w|Lucent}} introduced the [https://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Jean_Tourrilhes/Linux/Wavelan-IEEE.html WaveLAN IEEE], the first {{w|integrated circuit}} chip set supporting the {{w|IEEE 802.11}} wireless {{w|LAN}} protocol, spinning off {{w|Agere Systems}} to produce them in 2000. WiFi followed mid-1990s short-range wireless networks like {{w|Bluetooth}} and radio internet protocols like the 1980s {{w|KA9Q}}, with roots going back to the earliest {{w|ticker tape}} digital telegraphy systems from the mid-1850s. [https://techtalk.gfi.com/the-31-funniest-ssids-ive-ever-seen/ Humorous SSID names] are not uncommon.

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The SSID displayed is '''Toshiba-U2187-OfficeLink-Net46UHZ''' which is 33 characters long, unfortunately one character more than are allowed. {{w|Toshiba}} is a multinational electronics conglomerate manufacturing many products including untold multitudes of different kinds of printers over the years. Such devices often have embedded {{w|wireless access point|wireless access points}} including the manufacturer name in the SSID. Many network names contain words like Net, Office or Link. The code might indicate a model U2187 device from Toshiba named (or having an interface program named) OfficeLink, which has a sub-model number or operates on a wireless network designated 46UHZ. That "Hz" is an abbreviation for {{w|Hertz}} suggests that designation may or may not have something to do with the frequency on which the transmitting device operates. 48 microhertz corresponds to a period of 4.1 per day, or a radio wavelength 41 times as far as the Earth is from the Sun. Or U2187 could be the {{w|Unicode}} character [https://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/2187/index.htm code for the Roman numeral 50,000 spelled "ↇ"] or a serial number for a user or a utility pole. We don't know whether the SSID is connected to a network of more than one or is just one device. The padlock icon indicates that a password is required to communicate. The "join other network" option allows for manually typing SSIDs to attempt to connect with networks which are not configured to display their SSIDs.

While the most likely explanation in an office environment might be a printer plugged in somewhere nearby, other possibilities include a [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJKjnZe4B-M marsupial delivery drone,] television, cryptocurrency mining rig, speaker, pacemaker, alarm system, [https://twitter.com/Theteamatx/status/1162762591677997056 offshore flying wind turbine,] fashion accessory, autonomous antimissile defense system node, hobby project, surveillance device, {{w|Loon LLC|balloon}}, distributed denial of service attack platform malware-infested coffee pot, {{w|Starlink (satellite constellation)|satellite}}, vending machine, [https://x.company/projects/foghorn seawater dialysis station,] telecommunication facility, {{w|Facebook Aquila|solar-powered drone}}, distributed exoskeleton, [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSx_UywxF6o visiting interstellar] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2f0Wd3zNj0 colony(?) ship,] power-to-gas pipeline valve, [http://www.geekculture.com/joyoftech/joyarchives/2340.html ransomware worm nest,] or anything else in the Wifi {{w|Internet of Things}}. Sometimes, the {{w|ionosphere}} reflects radio waves, vastly increasing the distance that they can travel to and from remote locations, but this {{w|skywave}} propagation normally affects frequencies below 30 MHz, and never above 300 MHz, so they couldn't be the cause of receiving far away Wifi signals, which are 900 MHz and above.

Network names can be used to track the geographic locations of mobile devices, for example in the {{w|Wi-Fi positioning system}}. Google {{w|street view}} equipment records locations of networks to assist with {{w|geolocation}}. Location information can be searched in tools like [https://wigle.net/ Wigle] or [https://openwifimap.net/ OpenWifiMap]. The {{w|Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers}} (IEEE) committee number for WiFi is 802.11, which is composed of sub-committees like {{w|IEEE 802.11ad|802.11ad}}, designing the 60 GHz Multiple Gigabit Wireless System (MGWS) and {{w|IEEE 802.11ay|802.11ay}} working on {{w|MIMO|multiple input, multiple output}} (MIMO) bandwidth enhancements. This [https://www.toshibatec.com/cnt/products_overseas/printer2/mobile_printer/b-fp3d/ portable Toshiba printer] supports the "802.11 a/b/g/n" WiFi protocols. The {{w|List of router firmware projects|software which produces SSID listings}} is administered by {{w|List of wireless community networks by region|network communities}} and depends on {{w|Wireless mesh network|mesh configurations}}. (Please see also [[1785: Wifi]].) Alternatives include [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20861948 bluetooth mesh networks] and other {{w|wireless ad hoc network|''ad hoc'' networks}} to provide internet connectivity services.

The title text indicates that the first WiFi networking client interface displayed unexpected SSIDs. If true, this could potentially rule out all of the alternative explanations other than an alien visitation, a software bug, rogue industrial espionage, time travel, trans-multiverse or trans-dimensional communication, hardware misconfiguration, the {{w|simulation hypothesis}}, or the supernatural. (It is worth noting that cryptic-sounding WiFi networks generated by a time-traveling alien entity as a trap was used as a plot device in the 2013 ''{{w|Doctor Who}}'' episode "{{w|The Bells of Saint John}}.")



==Transcript==
:[Knit Cap (who has a backpack) is checking a phone at the highest mountain in a mountainous landscape, with 5 snow covered mountain peaks behind, and a smaller peak connected to and just below that one. There seems to be no snow on those two peaks. Above is a view of the phone's screen as indicated with a zigzag line from the phone's screen to the frame with text. There is also a wifi icon at the top left and a padlock icon at the end of the second line of text. The bottom line is a gray font.]
:Phone: Available WiFi Networks
:Phone: Toshiba-U2187-OfficeLink-Net46UHZ
:Phone: <font color="gray"> Join other network </font>

:[Caption below the panel:]
:Tech Trivia: No one actually knows what devices produce those cryptic WiFi networks. They just appear at random across the Earth's surface.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Knit Cap]]
[[Category:Computers]]

1658: Estimating Time

2023-01-01T00:15:48Z

108.162.241.213: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1658
| date = March 21, 2016
| title = Estimating Time
| image = estimating_time.png
| titletext = Corollary to Hofstadter's Law: Every minute you spend thinking about Hofstadter's Law is a minute you're NOT WORKING AND WILL NEVER FINISH! PAAAAAANIIIIIIC!
}}

[[File:Example.jpg]]==Explanation==
Estimation is difficult; many people seem to greatly underestimate the amount of time or other resources required. To illustrate how difficult this estimation is {{w|Douglas Hofstadter}} coined {{w|Hofstadter's law}} which is a non-scientific {{w|self-referential}} time-related adage, mentioned in the the title text. It states: ''It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law.''

[[Ponytail]] is working at her computer and becomes frustrated as it seems her project will (again) take much longer than she has estimated. She is annoyed with herself for always failing to make a decent guess. [[Danish]] begins to give Ponytail advice on how to estimate the time, starting with the comforting words {{w| Phrases from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy#Don.27t Panic |don’t panic}} and a common guideline of taking the initial estimate and doubling it.

Danish then iterates the law once more and she tells Ponytail to double this again, and then add five minutes. Unless the project to begin with was estimated to somewhat less than an hour, those five minutes will do nothing but confuse Ponytail. But Danish does not stop here, and iterates Hofstadter's law once more. Ponytail still doesn’t get where this goes, saying a hesitant ''okay'' to that.

It turns out that Danish was not at all trying to help, but just mess with Ponytail, as she now tells her that the only thing she has accomplished by listening to her advice is wasting half a minute doubling imaginary numbers (not to be confused with i, the imaginary number), i.e. even her first estimate is just something she has imagined especially since she states herself how bad she is at those kind of estimates. Finally Danish completes her frustration of Ponytail by saying "''Paaaniiic!''", negating the initial advice.

The title text is an extra corollary to the law, that states that using the law to estimate anything about the time your project takes is not only wasted time you could have spent working there is a substantial risk that you will conclude that you will never finish, and thus panic instead of just get the job done now.

Self-reference is a [[:Category:Self-reference|recurring theme]] on xkcd and this comic is quite self-referential both in the comic but also referring to other comics especially to [[917: Hofstadter]]. He is perhaps most famous for his book {{w|Gödel, Escher, Bach}} from where the quote is taken (in a section on {{w|recursion}} and self-reference, rather than estimation). This book has been directly referenced in [[24: Godel, Escher, Kurt Halsey]].

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==Transcript==
:[Ponytail is sitting back from her a laptop lifting her hands of the keyboard, having presumably just paused work on a project.]
:Ponytail: Aaaa! I'm so bad at estimating how long projects will take.

:[Danish walks into the panel towards Ponytail who seems to relax back against the chair.]
:Danish: Don't panic-there's a simple trick for that:
:Danish: Take your most realistic estimate and double it.
:Ponytail: Okay, but-

:[A frameless panel with only Danish holding a hand up.]
:Danish: Now double it again. Add five minutes.
:Danish: Double it a third time.
:Ponytail (from off panel): Okay...

:[Danish raises her arms above her head in mock hysteria. Ponytail runs away from her desk screaming.]
:Danish: 30 seconds have gone by and you've done nothing but double imaginary numbers! You're making no progress and will never finish!
:Ponytail: <big>''Aaaaaa!''</big>
:Danish: ''Paaaniic!''
:Ponytail: <big>''Aaaaaaa!''</big>

==Trivia==
*This is the most recent comic in which [[Danish]] has dialogue.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Danish]]
[[Category:Self-reference]]
[[Category:Time]]

Talk:2712: Gravity

2022-12-16T23:45:38Z

108.162.241.213: Summary of newest comic and details of examination

Whatever image is supposed to be in the center isn't showing up for me! D: Tried on both Safari and Chrome but it gives me the little broken picture icon. Hopefully it's fixed soon! (The comic's been up for about 10 minutes going by when the bot updated this page.) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.126.117|172.70.126.117]] 22:28, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

: The center image is trying to load this link, but there's nothing there: https://xkcd.com/tile/ship1/ship_gliding_2x.png. I hope that gets fixed soon. The "ship" seems to rotate a bit unpredictably over time. At first I thought it was responding to my mouse movements, but I don't think so anymore. [[User:Orion205|Orion205]] ([[User talk:Orion205|talk]]) 22:34, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

: Ah, the center image is controlled by the javascript, of course: https://xkcd.com/2712/comic.js. So this is some sort of interactive comic? [[User:Orion205|Orion205]] ([[User talk:Orion205|talk]]) 22:36, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

: Okay, left/right arrow keys seem to control the rotation. I'll check back in later in hopes of seeing the ship so I have some idea what the point of it all is. [[User:Orion205|Orion205]] ([[User talk:Orion205|talk]]) 22:39, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

: And now it's working. You fly a little spaceship around the little planet. Luckily you have shields if you slam into the ground too hard. [[User:Orion205|Orion205]] ([[User talk:Orion205|talk]]) 22:43, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

: Catch the cannonball for a spaceship upgrade. Also, not so easy to find a stable orbit around this little planet. [[User:Orion205|Orion205]] ([[User talk:Orion205|talk]]) 22:49, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

You can transform the ship into a different (seems faster to me) one by running into the last cannon ball.
[[Special:Contributions/108.162.241.249|108.162.241.249]]

Rough summary: The comic is an interactive space flight game, starting landed on an origin planet. The planet is static, and the player starts in a ship controlled by WASD or Directional keys. The ship can go up and down, and rotate left and right. Game simulates orbits and gravity, making navigation tricky. Around the player ship there are dots which indicate nearby planets - there are numurous planets, each with what seem to be drawings related to the What If book. Within the browser, planets are loaded in PNG format by chunk, names formatted as "planet_0_0" with numbers incrementing as grid co-ordinates. Planets and objects found: "origin" "europa", "road", "b612". NOTE: Several hazards exist, such as a field of black holes - if flown into, the ship can become stuck if let to be pulled close to the surface, locking in place. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.110.230|172.70.110.230]] 23:13, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

: Within browser dev console exists the objects "Ship" and "Comic", the latter containing a list of all objects and coordinates, as well as various setting for the game physics and settings. Comic contains the sub-object "Voyager", which contains the details and settings for the player ship, including location, speed, etc. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.110.230|172.70.110.230]] 23:13, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

:: There are 5 ship types in the game code, each with their own consumable transformative found in the world. The ship alternatives are (ship1, ship2, ship-tintin, ship-figure, ship-soccerball). These can be changed with console command [Comic.ship = "ship1"]. Note: At current, "ship-soccerball" returns an error and does not load correctly. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.110.230|172.70.110.230]] 23:13, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

:: The "ship.shields" is a boolean value that defaults to true, and when set to false, makes the game behave in a lunar lander mode (bad landing black screens the whole page). The "ship.engine" types I see in the code are "warp" (very fast speeds) and "infinite improbability drive" (teleports to 'improbable' places). Default engine is "standard", but it seems any value that is not the former two has the same effect. --[[Special:Contributions/172.70.254.165|172.70.254.165]] 23:32, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

: In addition to Europa, the space road, and B-612, there is the "Edge of the Universe" (complete with Milliways restaurant nearby), a... tree (which is extremely hard to land on), a planet populated by the characters from Dinosaur Comics (and the main cast of Jurassic Park), the USS Enterprice (NCC 1701-C), and likely quite a bit more. Orbital mechanics make it tough to land on the smaller targets. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.254.46|172.71.254.46]] 23:07, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

:: Plus what appears to be Earth, complete with the LHC. There's a 2nd "cannonball" there for an additional ship upgrade, but at the time I found it, that graphic was unavailable. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.126.232|172.70.126.232]] 23:15, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

: I went out a long ways away, and eventually found The Great Attractor. It attracts really hard. I couldn't leave the surface. (I wasn't able to leave the center of Europa either, though, so, not saying much.) There are also some terrifying black holes (a binary system?), though something's weird about their gravity; you kinda bounce off of them a quarter screen away or so? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.77|108.162.216.77]] 23:10, 16 December 2022 (UTC)
:: I *think* thats a wormhole, you go in one and then out the other. I got stuck right between them. Speaking of getting stuck, there is a bug where if you hit a planet with enough gravity fast enough, the ship is inside the planet. Holding W makes you go backwards (or at least towards the center maybe?) and you can get all the way to the other end of the planet where you slow down a lot, but can eventually leave. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.82.166|172.70.82.166]] 23:19, 16 December 2022 (UTC)Bumpf

::There's one planet that's supposed to be the "remnant of the sun", is that what you mean with The Great Attractor? (It has a bridge on it with a coin(?) blocking part of the way, and a space ship actively crashing into its surface, drawn as several frames.) You can leave that by skidding over the surface like a skipping stone to gather momentum - it's tricky, due to various obstacles, but possible! (It's possible you need two ship power-ups?! If they're indeed power-ups and not just aesthetic changes, I didn't pay attention.)
::Screenshot of [https://imgur.com/a/NZulBlb the Enterprise] and [https://imgur.com/2VSZYp7 Dinosaur Comics planet]. Sorry for the broken image in the middle, I picked up two powerups and [https://xkcd.com/2712/tile/ship-soccerball/ship_landing_down_2x.png my current ship image is broken]. -(pinkgothic) [[Special:Contributions/172.68.110.143|172.68.110.143]] 23:22, 16 December 2022 (UTC)
:::[https://i.imgur.com/fLU1cWy.png Dog Park planet] [[Special:Contributions/172.71.254.114|172.71.254.114]] 23:28, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

Using a tablet (no keyboard, but seems to respond to touch), controls are confusing. Presuming that touching bottom left activates left-rotate and touching bottom right does right-rotate (can't see the presumably white-lije controls over the white planet) but I can't get ''thrust'' anything but 'reverse' into the planet centre. No obvious top-edge hotspots, either. Maybe I need to do a "You will not go to space today" and then reverse ''upward''... BRB, after a bit more testing, though... [[Special:Contributions/172.69.79.185|172.69.79.185]] 23:39, 16 December 2022 (UTC)
On the

Using the developer console, the ship can be teleported to different coordinates via console command [Comic.voyager.pos.x = 0, Comic.voyager.pos.y = -1461], provided here with start location coordinates. This can be used for manual navigation to known coordinates. List of locations per game code added below, append landing X,Y to each as determined. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.110.230|172.70.110.230]] 23:42, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

b612: [x,y] dogplanet: [x,y] earth: [x,y] enterprise: [x,y] europa: [x,y] goodhart: [x,y] greatattractor: [x,y] japanmoon: [x,y] maw1: [x,y] maw2: [x,y] maw3: [x,y] maw4: [x,y] maw5: [x,y] maw6: [x,y] maw7: [x,y] maw8: [x,y] maw9: [x,y] maw10: [x,y] maw11: [x,y] maw13: [x,y] maw14: [x,y] nojapan: [x,y] origin: [0, -1461] peeler: [x,y] pigeons: [x,y] present: [x,y] remnant: [x,y] roads: [x,y] soupiter: [x,y] steerswoman: [x,y] sun: [x,y]

973: MTV Generation

2022-12-03T22:54:38Z

108.162.241.213:

{{comic
| number = 973
| date = November 4, 2011
| title = MTV Generation
| image = mtv_generation.png
| titletext = If you identified with the kids from The Breakfast Club when it came out, you're now much closer to the age of Principal Vernon.
}}

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###############*+***##=*#+*#**########%######################%%##%#%#########%############

==Explanation==
{{w|MTV}} stands for "Music Television", which is the name of a US-based cable channel, founded in 1981, specifically focusing on popular music and the music industry in general. The programming largely (though not exclusively) consisted of {{w|music video}}s. The focus of the channel has since shifted to {{w|reality shows}}. In the channel's heyday in the 1980's and early 1990's, it was popular with teenagers and young adults. As is often the case with youth culture, it was roundly condemned by some adults as being destructive and pointless. One of the specific criticisms was that the format of short videos, with quick-edit, highly kinetic visual styles and no underlying narrative was destroying the attention span of the youth.

Despite MTV no longer being especially popular (and no longer focusing on music videos), people still use the term '''MTV Generation''' to refer to the young cohort, and insist that they have poor attention spans, resulting from their media exposure. [[Megan]] explains that the term really originated about 25 years ago, to describe {{w|Generation X}}, the generation born from 1965 to 1980. The actual MTV generation has long since grown up, and most young people today either don't watch MTV, or have no idea that it was originally a music channel. Teenagers today are the children of "the MTV generation" (and even their grandchildren, in some cases).

{{w|The Breakfast Club}} is an iconic movie from 1985 in which 5 teenagers spend a Saturday detention together at school. Principal Vernon was the overseer of the detention, and a symbol of authority and oppression of youth - the actor playing principal Vernon was around 45 years old at the time of filming. The irony is that many adults who grew up watching the movie still identify with the teenagers, but now have little in common with them.

There are a couple of themes in this strip that [[Randall]] has covered before. One is mocking adults for the assumptions they make about young people, youth culture and new technology. Adults have a tendency to whitewash the past, and insist that modern young people are being corrupted by new trends. And when that generation of youth grows up, they tend to make the same assumptions about the next generation. [[1601: Isolation]], [[1227: The Pace of Modern Life]], [[1414: Writing Skills]], [[1348: Before the Internet]]

Another theme is making people feel old by pointing out how long ago their common memories are, as in [[647: Scary]], [[891: Movie Ages]], [[1393: Timeghost]], [[1477: Star Wars]], and [[2165: Millennials]].

==Transcript==

:[Teenager playing with phone walks in background. White Hat and Megan are in the foreground.]
:White Hat: See, that's the problem with the MTV generation— No attention span.
:Teenager's phone: ''Bleep bloop''

:[White Hat and Megan in frameless panel without teenager from previous panel.]
:Megan: You know, that phrase referred to the 12-19 demographic that formed the core MTV audience in the mid-1980s.

:[Zoom in on Megan with White Hat off-panel to the left.]
:White Hat (off-panel): Uh huh? So?
:Megan: That generation's now in their 40s.

:[Zoom back out to White Hat and Megan, with White Hat scratching his head.]
:White Hat: That can't be right.
:Megan: Face it: Your problem with the MTV generation is their ''kids''.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]
[[Category:Comics to make one feel old]]

2699: Feature Comparison

2022-11-20T19:28:40Z

108.162.241.213:

{{comic
| number = 2699
| date = November 16, 2022
| title = Feature Comparison
| image = feature_comparison_v3.png
| imagesize =
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Below the Web, and the Dark Web, a shadowy parallel world of Cybiko users trade messages on the Translucent Neon Plastic Web.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a MULTIHOMED MESH NODE. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This comic compares different remote communication services, including the relatively well-known {{w|Twitter}}, {{w|Discord}}, {{w|Mastodon (software)|Mastodon}}, {{w|Facebook}} (FB), {{w|Slack (software)|Slack}}, {{w|Signal (software)|Signal}}, {{w|Internet Relay Chat}} (IRC), {{w|Tumblr}}, {{w|Reddit}}, and {{w|SMS}} mobile telephone text messages. It also includes the less well-known {{w|Cybiko}}® wireless handheld computer for teens. For each of these, it purports to indicate which of various features they support. The comic illustrates how feature comparison charts and infographics can be abused by sellers who are trying to make their products look better than they really are, compared to their competitors. The comic was likely inspired by the recent news coverage of Twitter's purchase by {{w|Elon Musk}}, and the subsequent mass firings and resignation of its staff, causing many users to start looking for alternatives.

The Cybiko was a handheld computer designed for teens and released in 2000, which featured its own two-way radio text messaging capabilities along with built-in games and a music player. Additional information about it is available at [http://cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php/Cybiko the Dead Media Archive], as the device has not been manufactured since 2003. The chart suggests that the Cybiko has an advantage over all of the other listed communication services, as it is capable of all eight of the table's listed features listed, with none of the others being close.

The features compared are {{w|Private message|direct messaging}}, {{w|group chat}}s, {{w|file transfer}}, built-in {{w|video game|games}}, instances of the software run by individual users instead of the corporation producing it, lack of a {{w|Server (computing)|central server}} requirement, {{w|mesh networking}}, and wireless message delivery without an active internet connection.

Mesh networking is a form of connectivity that reduces or removes the need for a centralized server or predefined gateways to a communications 'backbone'. Nodes communicate directly with any nodes that happen to be contactable, and from there may connect through to whatever nodes are in mutual contact, or to be found further afield, either in real-time or asynchronously. The Cybiko has this ability, as well as wireless message delivery because it communicates directly to other devices via radio, hence the ability to operate without any internet connectivity at all. There are several {{w|Comparison of software and protocols for distributed social networking|ongoing projects for distributed social networking}}, but all of these additionally require a hardware layer to provide signalling via their respective protocols. The Cybiko provides such via its decentralized radio capabilities.

The comic does not mention the downsides of the Cybiko, that being purchasing one, and finding friends who own one, can be its own challenge, as it was discontinued nearly 20 years ago. Additionally, the comparison can be considered apples to oranges, since Cybiko is a ''device'' rather than a ''service''; a fairer comparison would be to a modern {{w|smartphone}}, which can provide most of these features via multiple apps, including ones written especially for such rival services. Even ignoring the above, some of the Cybiko's "advantages" come with their own drawbacks: while not requiring a central server nor the Internet, for example, is touted as a plus, the Cybiko instead relies on having other devices in proximity to relay messages, meaning that unless the person you are sending to is nearby, it will not function. This is not an issue on any of the other options.

This comic contains several errors. Mastodon doesn't support file transfer. Discord does not provide for user-run instances itself, only user-moderated and administrated instances. (There are two third party Discord server implementations, but it is unclear whether those could be counted as run by users.) Slack does not provide for user-run instances itself. Reddit does not provide for user-run instances at all, only user moderation and administration. IRC does require at least one central server,[https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc1459.html] and relegates file transfer support to client extensions. Signal is heavily used in user-run instances via a diverse ecosystem of code forks; many of these don't require a central server, a couple use mesh networking. Reddit occasionally does have built-in games. Finally, Tumblr and SMS both have a form of group chats.

The comic has been updated twice to fix some of these errors. The first version suggested Mastodon did not support user-run instances and required a central server, and that Reddit supported file transfer. This was changed once shortly after publication to add a check mark under "Mastodon" for "User-Run Instances". A second change was made some time later to check "Doesn't Require Central Server" for Mastodon and uncheck "File Transfer" for Reddit.

The title text refers to the translucent plastic covers that were popular in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

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

:[A table with checkmarks to indicate which features various messaging services have. Each column is labeled with a service name and its logo beneath, except that for the last column, the device's longer name is written higher than all the other services' names, with an arrow pointing to a drawing of the device below it.]

{| class="wikitable"
|-
!
! Twitter
! Discord
! Mastodon
! FB
! Slack
! Signal
! IRC
! Tumblr
! Reddit
! SMS
! Cybiko® wireless<br>handheld computer<br>for teens (2000)
|-
! Direct messages
| ✓ || ✓ || ✓ || ✓ || ✓ || ✓ || ✓ || ✓ || ✓ || ✓ || ✓
|-
! Group chats
| ✓ || ✓ || ✓ || ✓ || ✓ || ✓ || ✓ || || ✓ || || ✓
|-
! File transfer
| || ✓ || ✓ || ✓ || ✓ || ✓ || ✓ || || || || ✓
|-
! Built-in games
| || ✓ || || ✓ || || || || || || || ✓
|-
! User-run instances
| || ✓ || ✓ || || ✓ || || ✓ || || ✓ || || ✓
|-
! Doesn't require central server
| || || ✓ || || || || ✓ || || || || ✓
|-
! Mesh networking
| || || || || || || || || || || ✓
|-
! Wireless message delivery works without internet
| || || || || || || || || || ✓ || ✓
|-
|}

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