explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

62: Valentine - Karnaugh

2024-09-01T15:32:43Z

108.162.242.53: fixed grammar issue

{{comic
| number = 62
| date = February 10, 2006
| title = Valentine - Karnaugh
| image = valentine_karnaugh.png
| titletext = Love and circuit analysis, hand in hand at last.
}}

==Explanation==
A {{w|Karnaugh map}} is a Boolean algebra tool that is used to simplify expressions. The final picture, the one that looks like a crossword puzzle, is similar to the way that a Karnaugh map is used on a Boolean truth table, to identify areas that can be simplified. [http://www.utdallas.edu/~dodge/EE2310/lec5.pdf This PDF document] shows how the process is used to simplify logic circuits. The lament of the {{w|Valentine's Day|Valentine}} is that feelings don't yield themselves to the same kind of analysis.

This comic has four pictures with lines of text alongside them. The text can be used to understand the picture. The first three pictures show love to become more coherent and well-defined but yet complicated. The last picture and text alongside it show [[Cueball]]'s desire that there should be a way to simplify complications in love, just like Karnaugh maps for Boolean expressions.

The first line means that love is such an overwhelming feeling that it is hard to understand it and even harder to explain. The picture alongside has incoherent lines depicting the feelings of someone in love and hearts represents the overwhelming love.

The second picture and related text mean that the feelings are now identified to some extent but are numerous, and there are too few words to explain them. The picture depicts Cueball and [[Megan]] on separate side of his heart crisscrossed by many feelings. It shows that his inability to explain his feelings is like a barrier between them.

The third picture shows that Cueball has a much better understanding of love and now sees it as a matrix of desires and tangled relations, but it is still very complex to fully understand love.

The fourth picture shows a Karnaugh map that Cueball wishes he could find in the future to solve the matrix of desires and tangled relations that is love.

The phrase in the title text, "Love and circuit analysis, hand in hand at last" is likely a play on the more common phrase "love and marriage, hand in hand." It appears that Cueball has finally reconciled and understood his feelings of love via circuit analysis, and could be interpreted as a comment from Randall about how this comic has brought together love and circuit analysis together as such.

==Transcript==
:[An abstract design made of squiggly lines. Colored hearts fill in the gaps, with the largest heart being in the center of the lines.]
:(Text on right)
:You make me feel so much
:it all runs together
:I wish I could tell you
:[A large colored heart being crisscrossed by 3 thick lines in a vague triangle. Hearts border the intersection of the lines. Cueball and Megan stand on opposite sides of the large heart in the center.]
:(Text on left)
:So few words
:for so many feelings
:crisscrossing my heart
:[An unevenly lined grid pattern is present, with small hearts present in select cells. A very large heart covers most of the grid on top of it.]
:(Text on right)
:A matrix of desire
:Tangled relations
:I can't simplify
:[A drawing of a Karnaugh map with individual cells being filled with hearts. 3 groups of 4 hearts have been circled, alongside a pair of hearts.]
:(Text on left)
:I wish I could find
:the Karnaugh map
:for love.

==Trivia==
* From at least 2021-04-16 to 2023-09-23 or before, the image for this comic was rotated 90 degrees counterclockwise due to the EXIF metadata.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Math]]
[[Category:Romance]]
[[Category:Valentines]]
[[Category:Comics with lowercase text]]

Talk:2963: House Inputs and Outputs

2024-07-27T12:01:36Z

108.162.242.53: The friday comic was just late.

what in the heckoslovakia is panel 16 [[Special:Contributions/172.71.147.216|172.71.147.216]] 02:18, 25 July 2024 (UTC)
:I can only assume that it's from the perspective of someone inside the well looking upward toward the outside world. [[User:OmniDoom|OmniDoom]] ([[User talk:OmniDoom|talk]]) 02:23, 25 July 2024 (UTC)
:: It's a reference to The Ring (リング) films and books. This distorted view from the inside of the well is an iconic part of the franchise's imagery, and, in minimal-spoilers form, its appearance suggests that someone has watched the cursed tape and should now expect a visitor to arrive from that well in seven days. (Definitely a red intersection) [[User:Scorpion451|Scorpion451]] ([[User talk:Scorpion451|talk]]) 02:52, 25 July 2024 (UTC)
::: more at https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ring_(franchise) aside holy gosh! I was expecting to link to IMDB for like two or three movies. /aside the trailer at https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0298130/ starts with an a 1950-1990 ish USA telephone ring. It's been a while since I saw it and the ring referring to a telephone not magic ring is starting to sound familiar. SDT
:::: which is too much detail. "Panel 16 refers to a horror film" is not enough info SDT [[Special:Contributions/172.70.134.102|172.70.134.102]] 04:06, 25 July 2024 (UTC)
::: [[396|You watched the tape!?]] --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.94.27|162.158.94.27]] 07:07, 25 July 2024 (UTC)
::: Having never seen* The Ring, I now think I understand a lot more about the film. Here was I, always thinking it was an allegory upon the idea of a {{w|webring}}...
::: ''* figure that if seeing "the tape" causes imminent death, then watching "The Ring" might at least cause an annoying rash/the sniffles in the near future... and I have indeed eventually felt an itch or had a runny nose even after seeing references ''to'' The Ring. Sometimes within a couple of months!''
::: I mean, is it not a bit of a Spoiler? (Clearly, I don't know how much it might be.) Hmmm... *itch itch* ''*aaachew!!*'' [[Special:Contributions/172.69.195.175|172.69.195.175]] 13:04, 25 July 2024 (UTC) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.134.100|172.70.134.100]] 03:58, 25 July 2024 (UTC)
::::Even if it is a spoiler, which is debatable, the movie is from 2002 and the original story is from 1991. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.151.114|172.71.151.114]] 19:07, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

I'm assuming that a table would probably be best for this comic, but tbh I don't know how to make one and it's kinda late for me. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.137.212|162.158.137.212]] 02:48, 25 July 2024 (UTC)
:Update: thanks to whoever made the table [[Special:Contributions/141.101.109.192|141.101.109.192]] 03:32, 25 July 2024 (UTC)
::You're welcome :) I had to look at Wikipedia's tutorial to make it - [[User:Blue in real life|Blue in real life]] ([[User talk:Blue in real life|talk]]) 05:55, 25 July 2024 (UTC)
:::The table parser is incredibly byzantine; good job. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.215.11|172.70.215.11]] 07:34, 25 July 2024 (UTC)
As a note, water in power lines ''is'' actually a thing for high speed EV chargers - so much power is transferred even the cable need water cooling! [[User:Thief|Thief]] ([[User talk:Thief|talk]]) 12:38, 25 July 2024 (UTC)
:I'll be dammed, I'm the one who made that original statement, the more I know! [[Special:Contributions/172.68.210.23|172.68.210.23]] 23:15, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

172.70.162.18 (well, more precisely, the person who made [[Special:Diff/347189|this edit]]): you managed to make me frantically make two page moves thinking that you had removed the link that I added. See, I created [[:Category:Confusion matrices]] and added links to that on all the articles with confusion matrices. However, I thought you had reverted my edit when you removed a link to [[:Category:Comics with confusion matrices]]. So I thought I had created the category under the wrong name compared with what I added and went to move the category, until I realized you had indeed removed a link to a category that isn't used. Two page moves later (because I made a typo in the first move), I realized that the category's name was correct and that someone had earlier linked to a nonexistent category that was not mine. '''OOPS.''' —megan [[user talk:megan|talk]] [[special:contribs/megan|contribs]] 13:35, 25 July 2024 (UTC)
:Hi. I was just trying to submit the following, and got Edit Conflicted about it. Right, then. Obviously it's too late to make my reasoning known (I thought it was an IP who had created the "Charts with Confusion Matrices", or whatever it was, who couldn't have even created the required page, but... well, talk about confusion!) but giving it here anyway...
Removed the category of something to do with "confusion charts", which might be something to do with the appearence as a cross-compare table (akin to a Punnet Square, not ''quite'' the same as a Karnaugh Map; probably has some name such as "compatability matrix", but I can't remember or find what that might be). Anyway, apparently "confusion chart/square/matrix/whatever" isn't a term in use that I've been able to find out there in the real world (also, it is probably supposed to guide one ''away'' from potential confusion, not cause it), it specifically doesn't have a wikipedia entry (or even a wikiledia redirect to another one by another name) and we don't have that category even if we invented the term ourselves. There are other examples of this form already under [[:Category:Charts]], so it's "a thing" that we might want to service with a Category (ideally more "Compatability Matrix" than that other name), but best to create the category and add the comic(s) as members rather than speculatively add spurious non-existent categories then rely on someone else to fulfil them at a later date. Even better to have a quick check to see if everyone agrees to the category title (and need, ...which I would actually tentatively support, in this case, if asked) beforehand.
:...just as a note, as I spent quite some time trying to find out if "confusion charts" were a thing (and coming up blank), so maybe this way I haven't wasted my time quite as much as just going away, or instead just offering a laconic apology for getting in the way. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.195.5|172.69.195.5]] 13:46, 25 July 2024 (UTC)
::Ok, me again. It looks like someone found {{w|Confusion matrix}} after all, as a wikipage. I'd actually looked for various "confusion" things but... Perhaps typoed the search when I tried vs. "matrix"..? Maybe. Seems the most logical mistake to have made. So ignore my above objections. Still, I don't like the name ("deconfusion matrix" would be awful, yet better), and I've never known it by that name. Just left making my opinion known, now, however wrong it turns out to have been. About that ''and'' the original wrong-way-round of implementing it (by parties unknown; not [[:User:Megan]], who it looks like just happened to clash with me in mutually well-meant but oppositely attempted resolutions to the original mess). [[Special:Contributions/172.70.163.121|172.70.163.121]] 14:28, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

it kind of looks like the driver in the car/front door panel is beret guy, assuming the car went front first into the door [[Special:Contributions/172.70.178.9|172.70.178.9]] 16:20, 25 July 2024 (UTC)
:Reminds me a bit of Bumblebee, in the eponymous film, semitransforming to get through the internal door between the attached garage and the living area of the protagonist's (parents') house. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.18|172.70.162.18]] 20:21, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

Is [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2963:_House_Inputs_and_Outputs&diff=347265&oldid=347264 "Randall would get off easy if he were merely to be yelled at."] a threat? Is someone trying to anonymously threaten Randall? [[Special:Contributions/172.71.142.15|172.71.142.15]] 21:18, 25 July 2024 (UTC)
:Probably not, but it should be "Most people would suffer consequences sterner than being yelled at when combining water and electricity without appropriate safeguards." However, in the past I have seen overpersonalization of the author to the extent of clearly indicating NPOV violations in these explanations. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.214.150|172.70.214.150]] 22:18, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

Personally, I thought garages were built for storing boxes of old crap in. For the most part (here in the UK, at least), they are wholly unsuitable for the keeping of cars, due to the steady growth of vehicles, and the relatively static nature of the size of garages.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.18|172.70.162.18]] 11:27, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

;Request for a Wikipedian
Could someone please add a [citation needed] tag to {{w|Lightning rod#History}} where it says Franklin was unaware of Prokop Diviš's work? Decades ago when I read a 1950s biography of Franklin, I am pretty sure there were some questions about whether Franklin would likely have been aware of it and similar work which had not been entirely resolved by historians. My ISPs are both IP-rangeblocked so I can't edit enwiki from home or my cell phone internet. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.34.190|172.69.34.190]] 17:06, 25 July 2024 (UTC)
:Franklin's "Experiments and Observations on Electricity," published in 1751,[https://academic.oup.com/ahr/article-abstract/111/3/826/14788] became widely known and was translated into multiple languages, with practical and accessible explanations of the use of the lightning rod before Diviš's independent work in 1754.[https://english.radio.cz/270-years-ago-czech-scientist-prokop-divis-built-worlds-first-grounded-lightning-8819683]
:The sentence "His experimental apparatus, known as the "weather machine” predated Benjamim Franklin's more widely recognized experiments." is the one that needs the [citation needed] tag. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.207.9|172.70.207.9]] 18:52, 25 July 2024 (UTC)
:gotchu fam[https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Lightning_rod&diff=prev&oldid=1236906845]. Create an account at Starbucks or something. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.210.248|172.70.210.248]] 05:03, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

== No Friday comic? ==

My personal theory is that Randall now regrets backing Harris and will now support Jill Stein. What are your outlandish theories as to why there's no Friday comic?
:No, the comic was just late by 24 hours.

2808: Daytime Firefly

2023-07-28T23:18:30Z

108.162.242.53: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2808
| date = July 28, 2023
| title = Daytime Firefly
| image = daytime_firefly_2x.png
| imagesize = 740x272px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Mr. Jones, watch out for Ms. Lenhart! She's from genus Photuris!
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a LIGHTNING BOT - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

The title text refers to the Photuris genus of fireflies, in which the females exhibit aggressive mimicry of the blinking patterns of other firefly species in order to lure in and then eat males of other species. The speaker is concerned that Mr. Jones will be fooled by Ms. Lenheart, and then cannibalized.

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

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Miss Lenhart]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]