explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

2639: Periodic Table Changes

2022-06-29T23:32:28Z

108.162.245.217: 34% -> 3.4% correction

{{comic
| number = 2639
| date = June 29, 2022
| title = Periodic Table Changes
| image = periodic_table_changes.png
| titletext = It's nice how the end of the periodic table is flush with the edge these days, so I think we should agree no one should find any new elements after #118 unless they discover a whole row at once.
}}

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

The [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Periodic_table periodic table] is a table used to arrange [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_element chemical elements] according to their chemical and physical properties. This comic proposes "changes" to the periodic table that would be more pleasant aesthetically or make the periodic table look more regular. Some of these are (somewhat) practical changes to element abbreviations that could improve clarity, though changing documents to use different abbreviations would probably be more trouble than it's worth. However, some changes don't take into account that elements would stop being arranged by their properties and the periodic table would stop being useful after such changes, unless said changes were meant to physically change the material properties of the elements, which would be impossible.

Other modifications make up new elements or remove existing ones from the table, which would not be a reasonable decision given that the periodic table is supposed to include all existing elements, whether they make the table neater or they don't.

;Move helium over here. It fits nicely!
Helium is moved from the upper right corner to the second column next to hydrogen. However, the reason it is placed at the far-right Group 18 and not Group 2 is because it is a {{w|noble gas}}, rather than a reactive {{w|alkaline earth metal}}. You could say helium is in group 2 because it has two electrons in its outer shell, but normal periodic tables place it in group 0, the noble gases, with which it has far more in common. Hydrogen has similar problems being in group 1, as it's a non-metal and the elements below it are metals which don't have much in common with it chemically. periodic tables show hydrogen floating above the periodic table for that reason.)

;Elements in this corner are cool. Add more!
Two elements labeled TBD (to be determined) are added to the left of boron and aluminium.

;Sp (Spite element)
Spite element is wedged between fluorine and neon. This could be a reference to spite houses, houses jammed into a narrow space to block other construction.

;Merge these boring metals with titanium to make *tixanium*
Tixanium replaces five elements: scandium, titanium, vanadium, chromium and manganese. This may be a reference to the term "UX" (user experience) being used instead of "UI" (user interface) as more of an umbrella term.

While titanium certainly has an impressive name, and is used in the aerospace industry and other high-performance applications, the others are hardly boring; manganese, for example, was part of the cover story for the top-secret {{w|Project Azorian}}.

;Update Latin/Neo-Latin symbols to match names. This isn't ancient Rome.
* Sodium: Na (Natrium) => So
* Potassium: K (Kalium) => Pm
* Iron: Fe (Ferrum) => I
* Silver: Ag (Argentum) => Sv
* Gold: Au (Aurum) => Gd
* Tin: Sn (Stannum) => Tn
* Lead: Pb (Plumbum) => Ld
Since I is already used for Iodine, it gets a new abbreviation Io, and Gadolinium is re-abbreviated to Gm to free up Gd.

Oddly, this group of changes doesn't include mercury (Hg -- hydrargyrum) or antimony (Sb -- stibium).

;Replace the blander post-transition metals with new kinds of carbon
* Indium (In) -> C II.
* Antimony (Sb) -> C III.
* Tellurium (Te) -> C IV.
* Thallium (Tl) -> C V.
* Bismuth (Bi) -> C VI.

Carbon can make four covalent bonds, which means it can form a huge range of chemicals, above all ones vital to life. The post-transition metals don't have this level of interest. If there were more chemicals like carbon, it could allow more exciting chemistry and perhaps new kinds of life.

;That W annoys me
* Tungsten: W (Wolfram) -> Tg.

;Move.
;Inserting the lanthanides and actinides properly makes the table too wide. Triage is needed. Each element will be offerent free training to help adjust to its new column.

;3.4% of all elements are named after Ytterby, Sweden (pop. 3,000). Let's keep yttrium, but rename the other 3 after bigger cities (tokyium, delhium, and jakartium?) to be more fair.

Four elements -- yttrium (Y), ytterbium (Yb), terbium (Tb) and erbium (Er) -- are named after [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ytterby Ytterby], a Swedish village. Scandium (Sc), thulium (Tm), holmium (Ho) and gadolinium (Gd) were isolated from minerals found in the same quarry.

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

{{comic discussion}}

2633: Astronomer Hotline

2022-06-15T13:46:55Z

108.162.245.217: /* Explanation */ spelling and grammar check

{{comic
| number = 2633
| date = June 15, 2022
| title = Astronomer Hotline
| image = Astronomer Hotline.png
| titletext = Employment statistics have to correct for the fact that the Weird Bug Hotline hires a bunch of extra temporary staff every 17 years.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by A HUMAN! (AGAIN) - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This comic is a joke about {{w|Helpline|helplines}}, and how people sometimes call helplines for non-significant reason.

Some people (Often {{w|Unidentified flying object|UFO/UAP}} enthusiasts) tend to get a little over-excited about calling every light in the sky they don't expect a UFO. This comic takes this to the extreme, where someone calls a helpline because they saw {{w|Fireflies}}, and thought they were UFOs. Alternately, this could be a joke about someone not understanding basic concepts of life (E.g The Sun). While UFOs are not mentioned by name, they are heavily implied.

The comic starts with someone calling the "Astronomer hotline" because they have seen strange lights in the sky. Judging by the way the helpline employee (In this case [[Cueball]]) starts the call, it is implied that this is the main/only purpose of the helpline.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript}}

:[Cueball is working at a helpline. He is sat at a desk, with a headset on and a screen in front of him. There is a caller, but they are not shown]
:Cueball:Hello, Emergency Astronomer Hotline. How would you describe the lights in the sky?
:Caller:I don't know! Help!
:Cueball: Stay calm. Is it day? If so, that's The Sun.
:Caller: No, the sun set and then the light appeared!
:Cueball: Hmm, could be stars. Are they stationary?
:Caller: No, they're all zipping around bushes.
:Cueball: ''Aha!'' Fireflies!
:Caller: "Fireflies"?
:Cueball: Lightning bugs. Tree blinkers. Ground start.
:Cueball: They're fine.
:Caller: ''Phew!''
:Cueball: We don't know much about them as they're too fast for our telescopes, but I can transfer you to the Wierd Bug Hotline.
:Caller: Sure, thanks.
:[Something, most likely a mouse, goes "*''Click''*"
:Wierd Bug Hotline [Offscreen]: Hi, Weird Bug Hotline, is it currently biting you?
Caller:
{{comic discussion}}

1901: Logical

2022-06-11T19:33:08Z

108.162.245.217: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1901
| date = October 11, 2017
| title = Logical
| image = logical.png
| titletext = It's like I've always said--people just need more common sense. But not the kind of common sense that lets them figure out that they're being condescended to by someone who thinks they're stupid, because then I'll be in trouble.
}}

==Explanation==
[[White Hat]] says that problems in society could be avoided if people relied on logic and science rather than feelings—but when [[Cueball]] presses him to back up his claim, White Hat insists that his claim must be true, because ''it just seems obvious'' (to White Hat), and what the opposition (which he dismissively refers to as "these idiots") believes is crap in his opinion. Since White Hat refers to all people in general and since he falls in the same trap as he complains about, using his feelings for his case instead of logic and science, White Hat's argument is both fallacious and hypocritical.

The title text is White Hat's opinion, where he states that he has always said that people just need more {{w|common sense}}. He then adds, but not the kind of common sense that lets them figure out that he is condescending (i.e. talking down to them) and basically thinks that they are stupid. If they did, they would probably realize that White Hat considers himself smarter than them, and likely feel insulted and take retribution. (At the same time, he may himself lack this form of "common sense," as Cueball's question could be seen as a veiled insult highlighting White Hat's hypocrisy.)

When people talk about "common sense", they often really mean "they should think like I do". Using a term like "common sense" as a proxy for one's personal point of view implies that everyone else should have the same point of view. This discredits the fact that each person has their own point of view, completely valid to their own mind, and any attempts to push someone else's idea of a "common sense" upon them usually feels like "being talked down to" because of the implicit "fact" that that person's point of view is "common" and makes "sense", and therefore they must be smarter than you if you don't agree with their "common sense".

Ironically, there is some inconclusive scientific evidence against White Hat's position. It is possible that effective rational thought depends on feelings and emotions as a preprocessing step. For example, people with damage to the {{w|ventromedial prefrontal cortex}} lose their ability to have gut reactions to decision options. In the rather cute {{w|Antonio Damasio}}'s research, they were unable to make good decisions in everyday life. This may be because every option seems emotionally as good as any other and the brain is not good at conscious processing of large numbers of alternatives. See ''{{w|Descartes' Error}}'' by Damasio (1994) and ''{{w|The Righteous Mind}}'' by Haidt (2012).

==Transcript==

:[White Hat is spreading his arms and facing Cueball.]
:White Hat: We wouldn't have all these problems if people just learned to be more ''logical'' and ''science-driven'' instead of relying on ''feelings''.
:Cueball: Oh? What study are you basing that on?
:White Hat: It just seems obvious!
:White Hat: I mean, look at the crap these idiots believe!

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]

2619: Crêpe

2022-05-16T21:40:59Z

108.162.245.217:

{{comic
| number = 2619
| date = May 13, 2022
| title = sharty sneed
| image = Ugly.svg
| titletext = sussy baka
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a ÇRÊPË - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
[[File:crêpe.png|thumb|The word "crêpe" in the comic]]
[[Cueball]] has made a {{w|crêpe}}, a thin pancake known for its legendary status in French cuisine, which he proudly announces. However, the {{w|circumflex}} (the accent above the e) is written strangely. Instead of the usual simple angle (^), it looks more like the outline of a flattened arrowhead (⮝). [[Megan]], who can apparently {{tvtropes|PsmithPsyndrome|hear the orthography}} of spoken text, comments on the odd shape with an appropriate pun.

Megan's response, "Weird circumflex but okay" is a play on the recent expression [https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Weird%20flex%20but%20ok Weird flex, but ok]. A "flex" is bragging about something. A "weird flex" is used when the speaker acknowledges (perhaps ironically) that the first person is attempting to brag about something, but doesn't recognise the thing as brag-worthy.

Her answer could also be applied to the shape of the crêpe, as circumflex means "bent around".

In some dialects of English (e.g. British English), and in the original French pronunciation, "crêpe" is said so that the ê is pronounced as in "get", i.e. "cr-eh-p", but American English speakers pronounce it like an "A", i.e. "cr-ay-p".

The title text continues the wordplay by saying that "A medicine that makes you put two dots over your letters more often is a diäretic".

The word diäretic is a pun on {{w|diuretic}} (a substance promoting increased urine production), {{w|Diaeresis (diacritic)|diaeresis}} (a symbol in the form of two dots placed above a vowel, as the ä in the made up word diäretic; the adjective form of diaeresis can be spelled "[https://www.thefreedictionary.com/Diaresis dieretic]") and {{w|diacritic}} (a glyph added to a letter to distinguish its sound from the normal version, what both the circumflex and the diaeresis are). See also the comic [[1647: Diacritics]] about the use of these. Taking a diäretic medicine would supposedly cause you to use diaeresis (also known as umlaut) över möre lëtters thän wöuld üsuallÿ bë thë cäse.

Diacritics are rarely used in English, potentially because of the diverse set of origin languages it developed from, or the wide variation of pronunciations within a same nation, but are a common feature of other languages. In English, they are normally only seen in specific loanwords (such as crêpe) or used for emphasis or decoration (for example the {{w|metal umlaut}} seen in rock bands like {{w|Motörhead}}, {{w|Mötley Crüe}}, {{w|Queensrÿche}}, or {{w|Spın̈al Tap}}). The exception to this is the diaresis, which when it is used at all, is placed over the second vowel in a double-vowel word to indicate a morphological break between them as opposed to a dipthong, e.g. naïve or coöperation. The diaresis is optional, and, especially with words beginning with the co- prefix (e.g. cooperation, coevolution, or coincidence), rarely used. The New Yorker magazine is a famous outlier, advising consistent use of the diaresis in [https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/the-curse-of-the-diaeresis its style guide].

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is holding a plate up in both hand, showing Megan the crepe lying on the plate. His word for crêpe has a different diacritic over the "e" than the normal circumflex (^). Instead it looks more like an open arrow head.]
:Cueball: Check out this crêpe I made!
:Megan: Weird circumflex, but okay.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Language]]
[[Category:Puns]]
[[Category:Food]]

2619: Crêpe

2022-05-16T18:06:39Z

108.162.245.217:

⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⢀⣀⣀⣠⣤⣤⣦⣴⣶⣶⣦⣤⣀⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄ 
⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⣶⠟⠉⠉⠉⠉⠁⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠉⠙⠳⣦⣤⡀⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄ 
⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⣀⣠⡤⠤⠤⠤⠤⠤⠤⠤⠤⣤⣄⡀⣾⠃⠄⠄⠄⣀⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠉⠛⠛⠶⣤⣤⡀⠄⠄⠄ 
⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⢀⣠⠔⠋⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⢀⣼⠟⠛⠓⠂⠄⠉⠛⣦⡀⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠈⠻⢷⣄⡀ 
⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⢀⠔⠚⠉⠁⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⢀⣾⠇⣀⣀⣀⣀⠄⠄⠄⢸⡇⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠙⠻ 
⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⢀⡠⠏⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠰⠂⠄⠄⠐⠲⠤⢄⣀⣸⣏⠰⠁⣀⣀⣉⠉⠲⡄⢸⡇⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄ 
⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⡸⠁⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⢹⣦⣀⠄⠄⠉⠉⠒⣇⡞⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⣠⠶⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄ 
⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⢠⠇⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠠⢄⡀⠄⣽⡟⠛⠛⠛⠛⣿⣿⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⢸⡇⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⢀⡀⠄⠄ 
⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⡏⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠈⢹⣿⠇⠄⠄⠄⣤⣸⡟⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⣼⠇⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⢠⡟⠁⠄⠄ 
⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⢠⠁⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⣀⣀⣀⣀⣀⣀⡀⠄⠄⣼⣿⠄⠄⠄⠠⠶⠿⣇⡀⡀⠄⠄⠄⠄⢰⡟⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⣿⠁⠄⠄⠄ 
⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⡟⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⢀⠴⠊⠉⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠁⠒⠖⣿⡏⠄⠄⠄⠄⣠⠾⠟⠛⠛⠛⠛⠷⠶⣾⡃⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⣼⡏⠄⠄⠄⠄ 
⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⡇⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠞⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⢻⣷⠄⠄⠄⠄⠏⠄⠄⠄⣀⡠⠴⠦⢄⡈⠱⣆⠄⠄⠄⠄⣰⡿⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄ 
⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠁⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⣀⣀⣀⣀⣀⣀⣀⡀⠄⠹⣷⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⢃⠄⠄⠄⠄⠈⢂⢸⣆⣀⣤⣼⠋⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⣠ 
⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠸⠄⠄⣾⠛⠛⠛⠛⠛⠓⠲⢦⣤⣤⣤⣤⡟⠉⣉⣉⣉⡉⠉⠉⠉⠛⠳⣝⣿⣄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠃⢤⣤⣤⣤⡼⣿⠈⠉⠉⠙⠻⠦⣤⠴⠞⠛⠃ 
⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⣇⠄⢿⡄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⢸⡇⠠⣋⠄⣴⣮⠙⠢⢤⡀⠄⣿⠛⠛⠛⠓⠦⣤⡤⣤⣞⠛⢵⠂⠄⢠⡿⡇⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄ 
⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠙⡄⠄⠁⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⢸⡇⠄⠈⠒⠚⠓⠒⠒⠊⠄⠄⣿⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⣾⠷⠿⠯⣀⡸⠄⠄⠸⡇⡇⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄ 
⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⢷⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠘⠷⠶⣄⣀⣀⣀⣀⣀⣀⣀⣀⡿⠄⠄⠄⠄⡄⣿⣀⣀⣀⣀⠄⣀⣀⣀⣸⡧⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄ 
⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠈⢦⠄⠄⠄⢄⡀⢀⣼⣶⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠉⠉⠉⠉⠉⠉⠉⠉⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⢳⠈⠉⠉⠉⠛⠛⠋⠩⡍⠉⡇⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄ 
⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⢈⣷⣶⠿⠿⠿⠿⠿⠶⢶⣶⣦⣤⣤⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠛⣄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⢘⣢⠇⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄ 
⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⢀⣠⣤⠾⠛⠁⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠙⢿⡀⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⢠⡖⠚⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⡸⠃⠄⠄⠄⠄⢣⣤⣼⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄ 
⠄⠄⢀⣠⠶⠾⠛⠉⠉⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⣀⡤⠄⠄⣀⣀⣿⡄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠈⠳⠤⠄⠰⠒⠄⠄⠤⣰⠁⠄⠄⠄⠠⠤⢄⡞⠃⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄ 
⣠⣴⠟⠋⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⢠⡾⠉⠄⠐⠈⠉⠉⠙⢷⣴⠒⠃⠄⠄⣀⡠⠖⡒⠶⡤⣀⣀⣀⠄⣀⠄⠄⢰⣆⣾⡇⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄ 
⠋⠁⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⢸⡇⠄⠄⣀⡀⠤⠤⠤⡈⣿⡄⠄⢠⣾⣏⣷⣶⣷⣶⣇⣼⣀⣿⣦⠈⡇⠄⢠⡏⠁⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄ 
⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠘⡇⢰⠋⣀⣤⠤⠄⠄⠃⣼⠇⠄⢸⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⡟⠘⠃⠭⢹⠁⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄ 
⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠛⢦⡄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠸⣬⣍⣀⣀⣀⣠⣤⣾⠏⠄⠄⠘⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⠃⠄⢠⣼⠛⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄ 
⠄⠄⢰⣆⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⢸⣇⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⢿⣿⠉⠉⠉⠉⢹⣿⡀⠄⠄⠄⠘⢿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⠿⠁⣠⡼⡿⠉⠁⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄ 
⠄⠄⠄⢹⣆⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠈⣿⡀⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠸⣷⠶⠄⠄⠄⠈⣿⡯⢀⡆⠄⠄⠈⠻⠿⠿⠛⠉⠁⠄⣠⢿⡑⠂⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄ 
⠄⠄⠄⠄⣿⡀⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⢸⣇⠄⢀⣀⣀⣀⣀⣰⣿⠛⠂⠄⠄⠄⢿⣷⡾⣷⣇⣰⣀⡆⠈⣷⠲⢶⣄⡶⠛⠉⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄ 
⠄⠄⠄⠄⠘⣿⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⢨⡿⠛⠛⠉⠉⠉⠉⠉⠛⣧⠄⠄⠄⠄⢸⣿⠁⠁⠈⠃⡿⠋⠉⠋⠉⠙⠛⠛⠒⠒⠒⠒⠒⠒⠂⢤⣄⣀⣀⡀⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄ 
⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠻⣧⠄⠄⠄⠄⡼⠃⠠⠔⠚⠛⠲⢤⠄⠄⠄⠈⠃⠄⠄⠄⣿⡏⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄ 
⢦⣄⡀⠄⠄⠄⣈⣿⠤⣤⡤⣇⡘⠄⠄⠄⠄⢀⠜⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⣀⣾⠳⠄⠄⠜⠁⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄ 
⠄⠉⠙⠛⠓⠛⠉⠁⠄⠄⠄⠈⠳⠶⠶⢶⣖⡈⠄⠄⠄⠄⣀⣀⣴⠿⠁⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄ 
 
{{comic
| number = 2619
| date = May 13, 2022
| title = Crêpe
| image = crepe.png
| titletext = A medicine that makes you put two dots over your letters more often is a diäretic.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a ÇRÊPË - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
[[File:crêpe.png|thumb|The word "crêpe" in the comic]]
[[Cueball]] has made a {{w|crêpe}}, a thin pancake known for its legendary status in French cuisine, which he proudly announces. However, the {{w|circumflex}} (the accent above the e) is written strangely. Instead of the usual simple angle (^), it looks more like the outline of a flattened arrowhead (⮝). [[Megan]], who can apparently {{tvtropes|PsmithPsyndrome|hear the orthography}} of spoken text, comments on the odd shape with an appropriate pun.

Megan's response, "Weird circumflex but okay" is a play on the recent expression [https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Weird%20flex%20but%20ok Weird flex, but ok]. A "flex" is bragging about something. A "weird flex" is used when the speaker acknowledges (perhaps ironically) that the first person is attempting to brag about something, but doesn't recognise the thing as brag-worthy.

Her answer could also be applied to the shape of the crêpe, as circumflex means "bent around".

In some dialects of English (e.g. British English), and in the original French pronunciation, "crêpe" is said so that the ê is pronounced as in "get", i.e. "cr-eh-p", but American English speakers pronounce it like an "A", i.e. "cr-ay-p".

The title text continues the wordplay by saying that "A medicine that makes you put two dots over your letters more often is a diäretic".

The word diäretic is a pun on {{w|diuretic}} (a substance promoting increased urine production), {{w|Diaeresis (diacritic)|diaeresis}} (a symbol in the form of two dots placed above a vowel, as the ä in the made up word diäretic; the adjective form of diaeresis can be spelled "[https://www.thefreedictionary.com/Diaresis dieretic]") and {{w|diacritic}} (a glyph added to a letter to distinguish its sound from the normal version, what both the circumflex and the diaeresis are). See also the comic [[1647: Diacritics]] about the use of these. Taking a diäretic medicine would supposedly cause you to use diaeresis (also known as umlaut) över möre lëtters thän wöuld üsuallÿ bë thë cäse.

Diacritics are rarely used in English, potentially because of the diverse set of origin languages it developed from, or the wide variation of pronunciations within a same nation, but are a common feature of other languages. In English, they are normally only seen in specific loanwords (such as crêpe) or used for emphasis or decoration (for example the {{w|metal umlaut}} seen in rock bands like {{w|Motörhead}}, {{w|Mötley Crüe}}, {{w|Queensrÿche}}, or {{w|Spın̈al Tap}}). The exception to this is the diaresis, which when it is used at all, is placed over the second vowel in a double-vowel word to indicate a morphological break between them as opposed to a dipthong, e.g. naïve or coöperation. The diaresis is optional, and, especially with words beginning with the co- prefix (e.g. cooperation, coevolution, or coincidence), rarely used. The New Yorker magazine is a famous outlier, advising consistent use of the diaresis in [https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/the-curse-of-the-diaeresis its style guide].

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is holding a plate up in both hand, showing Megan the crepe lying on the plate. His word for crêpe has a different diacritic over the "e" than the normal circumflex (^). Instead it looks more like an open arrow head.]
:Cueball: Check out this crêpe I made!
:Megan: Weird circumflex, but okay.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Language]]
[[Category:Puns]]
[[Category:Food]]

2619: Crêpe

2022-05-16T17:54:47Z

108.162.245.217:

{{comic
| number = 2619
| date = May 13, 2022
| title = Adolf "Hitler" Sheckelgruber
| image = Hitler portrait crop (cropped).jpg
| titletext = his real last name was sheckelgruber LMAO
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a ÇRÊPË - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
[[File:crêpe.png|thumb|The word "crêpe" in the comic]]
[[Cueball]] has made a {{w|crêpe}}, a thin pancake known for its legendary status in French cuisine, which he proudly announces. However, the {{w|circumflex}} (the accent above the e) is written strangely. Instead of the usual simple angle (^), it looks more like the outline of a flattened arrowhead (⮝). [[Megan]], who can apparently {{tvtropes|PsmithPsyndrome|hear the orthography}} of spoken text, comments on the odd shape with an appropriate pun.

Megan's response, "Weird circumflex but okay" is a play on the recent expression [https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Weird%20flex%20but%20ok Weird flex, but ok]. A "flex" is bragging about something. A "weird flex" is used when the speaker acknowledges (perhaps ironically) that the first person is attempting to brag about something, but doesn't recognise the thing as brag-worthy.

Her answer could also be applied to the shape of the crêpe, as circumflex means "bent around".

In some dialects of English (e.g. British English), and in the original French pronunciation, "crêpe" is said so that the ê is pronounced as in "get", i.e. "cr-eh-p", but American English speakers pronounce it like an "A", i.e. "cr-ay-p".

The title text continues the wordplay by saying that "A medicine that makes you put two dots over your letters more often is a diäretic".

The word diäretic is a pun on {{w|diuretic}} (a substance promoting increased urine production), {{w|Diaeresis (diacritic)|diaeresis}} (a symbol in the form of two dots placed above a vowel, as the ä in the made up word diäretic; the adjective form of diaeresis can be spelled "[https://www.thefreedictionary.com/Diaresis dieretic]") and {{w|diacritic}} (a glyph added to a letter to distinguish its sound from the normal version, what both the circumflex and the diaeresis are). See also the comic [[1647: Diacritics]] about the use of these. Taking a diäretic medicine would supposedly cause you to use diaeresis (also known as umlaut) över möre lëtters thän wöuld üsuallÿ bë thë cäse.

Diacritics are rarely used in English, potentially because of the diverse set of origin languages it developed from, or the wide variation of pronunciations within a same nation, but are a common feature of other languages. In English, they are normally only seen in specific loanwords (such as crêpe) or used for emphasis or decoration (for example the {{w|metal umlaut}} seen in rock bands like {{w|Motörhead}}, {{w|Mötley Crüe}}, {{w|Queensrÿche}}, or {{w|Spın̈al Tap}}). The exception to this is the diaresis, which when it is used at all, is placed over the second vowel in a double-vowel word to indicate a morphological break between them as opposed to a dipthong, e.g. naïve or coöperation. The diaresis is optional, and, especially with words beginning with the co- prefix (e.g. cooperation, coevolution, or coincidence), rarely used. The New Yorker magazine is a famous outlier, advising consistent use of the diaresis in [https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/the-curse-of-the-diaeresis its style guide].

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is holding a plate up in both hand, showing Megan the crepe lying on the plate. His word for crêpe has a different diacritic over the "e" than the normal circumflex (^). Instead it looks more like an open arrow head.]
:Cueball: Check out this crêpe I made!
:Megan: Weird circumflex, but okay.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Language]]
[[Category:Puns]]
[[Category:Food]]

2408: Egg Strategies

2022-05-08T18:56:54Z

108.162.245.217: /* Eggsplanation */

{{comic
| number = 2408
| date = January 6, 2021
| title = Egg Strategies
| image = egg_strategies.png
| titletext = Neutral Evil is for people who like keeping the weight nicely centered in the carton, but also hate everyone else who wants that.
}}

==Eggsplanation==
This comic shows nine egg cartons, each of which contains between five and eight eggs. The cartons are presented in the format of a ''{{W|Dungeons & Dragons}}'' {{w|Alignment (Dungeons & Dragons)|alignment chart}}. Originally created as a way of categorizing game characters' motivations, the chart has three possibilities on each axis: lawful/neutral/chaotic on the X (obedience) axis and good/neutral/evil on the Y (intentions) axis. Used outside its original purpose, the chart has become a meme for categorizing things it has no real applicability to. This comic is one such meme. The rationale for deciding how good or evil an arrangement is based on how the eggs are balanced in the carton.

Eggs in America are traditionally sold by the dozen, with egg cartons consisting of 12 cups to hold them in place. A consumer is unlikely to consume all 12 eggs at once {{Citation needed}}(unless feeding a great many people, or perhaps making a traditional {{w|pound cake}}), which means that the carton will be gradually emptied. Different people have different tendencies as to the order in which they remove eggs. This comic depicts various possible storage schemes for the unused eggs and assigns them D&D alignments.

By the standards of this comic, "good" attributes appear to include targeting having symmetry, with a center of gravity near the center of the carton. Presumably, this is considered to make the carton easier to handle and less likely to cause problems for anyone else who uses the carton. The "evil" alignments appear to go out of their way to make the carton eggs harder to use, with the ultimate example of simply smashing all the eggs.

{| class="wikitable"
!Alignment
!Description of alignment
!Description of eggs
!Explanation
|-
|Lawful Good
|A character who believes in altruism, discipline, and the stability of order, authority, and responsibility. Paladins are traditionally Lawful Good.
|Eggs are picked from the edges, with the eggs in the center remaining
|Taking eggs away from the edges of the carton first keeps the center of gravity of the carton in the middle (both horizontally and vertically), reducing the likelihood of accidents due to unexpected center of gravity when picking up the carton. It also minimizes the moment of inertia, making it easy to rotate the carton to change its orientation. The patterns of eggs and spaces have twofold rotational symmetry around the vertical axis through the center of the carton. This strategy is, literally, ''centralized''; and according to Randall, good. The idea is this person believes in keeping the carton easy to handle, and that following a strict pattern will help.
|-
|Neutral Good
|A character who believes in spreading goodness and benevolence, and fighting evil; they have either no strong feelings toward laws and authority, or are conflicted on the matter.
|Eggs are picked from the center of the carton, leaving the eggs on the edges.
|For an odd number of eggs, as shown, this leaves the center of gravity slightly towards the left, while the center of gravity is at the center of the carton when the number of eggs is even; but the carton has a relatively high moment of inertia. It is neither centralized nor random; Randall interprets this as “Neutral Good.” The idea is this person believes in keeping the carton easy to handle, and that a general, flexible pattern will help.
|-
|Chaotic Good
|A character who believes in goodness, with an emphasis on free will in particular, and strives to fight oppression. Heroic Rogues are the traditional examples of Chaotic Good (e.g., {{w|Robin Hood}}).
|Eggs are picked randomly, while preserving reflective symmetry between eggs and empty spaces, as well as roughly balancing eggs between the sides of the carton.
|The idea is this person believes in keeping the carton easy to handle, and clearly pays at least some attention to how the next user will be impacted. The fact that the person put that much thought into symmetry and usability demonstrates that the person's intention is good, and the fact that the selections were made quasi-randomly suggests a deliberate rebellion against a set pattern, i.e. that the person's obedience is chaotic.
|-
|Lawful Neutral
|A character who places the highest emphasis on laws and traditions, who does not generally have malicious intent, but is also not driven by altruism. Such a character tends to define their morality primarily in terms of what their rules dictate. They favor strict hierarchies.
|Eggs are picked from the top row first, then the bottom, starting on one side.
|This is a very organized method of picking eggs from a carton, but the center of mass shifts to one side. The idea is that this person has a very specific pattern for removing eggs from the carton (as if the person were not trying to follow a specific pattern, he/she would likely remove eggs from the row that has more eggs left), and holds to it without regard to whether it's actually the best way.
|-
|True Neutral
|A character who primarily acts on what seems like a good idea, who has both a lack of bias but also a lack of conviction. Druids are traditionally True Neutral, though this is commonly stereotyped as the alignment of non-player characters such as innocent bystanders and wild animals.
|Eggs are picked from one side, with both rows being roughly equal.
|The idea is a character who does not put much thought into optimizing the carton, and simply takes eggs out of one side, which is common, intuitive, and works well enough.
|-
|Chaotic Neutral
|A character who believes in independence and free will, shirks at traditions or oaths that might tie him down, and has no strong feelings for morality toward or sadism against those around them.
|Eggs are picked in a chessboard pattern.
|This is a very unusual way of picking eggs from a carton. The center of mass is balanced when there are six eggs left, but given that other strategies of neutral intentions do not specifically try to keep the mass balanced, a chaotic neutral person would likely remove the eggs in each checkboard zig-zag from left to right or from right to left, causing the container to be unbalanced unless there are exactly six (or twelve or zero) eggs left. The idea is a person who isn't out to make things harder for others but cares more about breaking from traditional rules (by making a fun and unusual pattern) than about optimizing things for others (where a balanced carton would be considered optimized).
|-
|Lawful Evil
|A character who believes in a strict set of rules, be it a set of laws, code of honor, or body of tradition, but is nonetheless a dangerous and violent or greedy figure who abuses others for his own ends. Dictators and zealots are often Lawful Evil.
|Eggs are kept in the middle of the carton, stacked atop each other in a pyramid shape.
|This keeps the weight nicely centered and puts most of the eggs in their proper spaces but makes it impossible to close the lid of the carton. The idea is a character who wants to frustrate everyone around them, while ''technically'' holding to a systematic set of rules about the best way to store eggs.
|-
|Neutral Evil
|A character who cares only for self-interest, often with a tint of bloodthirstiness or sadism, with no strong feelings for discipline or allegiance beyond what is beneficial to themselves. Sometimes referred to as the "asshole alignment". Villainous rogues, such as assassins, are traditionally Neutral Evil.
|Eggs are stacked in the exact middle of the open carton, in the top row, and on the open lid.
|This keeps the weight centered in the carton only when the lid is open. Since the connection between the lid and the carton is flexible, someone picking up the carton would have to hold the lid and carton separately so that the eggs don't fall off. As explained in the Title Text, Randall interprets Neutral Evil as a character who would put some thought into what other people might want, and go out of their way to deliberately make things more inconvenient for them.
|-
|Chaotic Evil
|A character who cares only for destruction, hedonism, and personal gain, who actively seeks to thwart or harm others, and who actively resists any kind of permanent allegiance and structured planning. Monsters and demons are traditionally Chaotic Evil.
|Eggs are smashed in the center of the carton.
|Smashing the eggs makes it impossible for anyone to have them and creates a terrible mess that the next person will have to spend time cleaning up (unless, of course, that person is also chaotic evil). It takes little or no planning or forethought, just malice and a willingness to destroy. This is likely the action of a character who enjoys destroying things for the sake of destruction.
|}

An alignment chart was also featured in [[2251: Alignment Chart Alignment Chart]], which was published exactly one year earlier.

==Transcript==
[3x3 grid of egg cartons, each containing between 5-8 eggs in an arrangement matching a description of lawful/neutral/chaotic paired with good/neutral/evil. Each egg carton is depicted from a top-down view, with the lid open and the eggs and their places visible.]

'''Top Left - Lawful Good'''

[6 eggs centered

3 in the top row, shifted to the right

3 in the bottom row, shifted to the left]

'''Top Center - Neutral Good'''

[7 eggs

4 in the left side

3 in the right side, with one in the top row and two in the bottom row]

'''Top Right - Chaotic Good'''

[6 eggs spread randomly while preserving reflective symmetry between eggs and non-eggs]

'''Middle Left - Lawful Neutral'''

[5 eggs all on the bottom row, starting on the left side]

'''Middle Center - True Neutral'''

[7 eggs all to the left side

4 in the top row

3 in the bottom row]

'''Middle Right - Chaotic Neutral'''

[6 eggs staggered in every other space so that each egg is diagonal from the two nearest

no two eggs are directly next to each other side-to-side or up-and-down

3 in the top row, starting in the left-most position

3 in the bottom row; starting position second from the left side]

'''Bottom Left - Lawful Evil'''

[8 eggs

6 in the egg carton, centered but offset one place to the left; 3 eggs each on the top and bottom

2 eggs are on top of the 6 that are placed in the carton]

'''Bottom Center - Neutral Evil'''

[8 eggs

3 on the bottom edge of the lid

2 in the top center positions in the egg carton

3 centered on the edge and on top of/between the eggs on the lid and the eggs in the proper positions]

'''Bottom Right - Chaotic Evil'''

[broken eggs in the center of the carton and spilling/splattering over the rest of the carton and onto the lid

6 or 7 yellow-orange yolks are visible

the spilled egg whites are colored light yellow-greenish

several pieces of eggshells, varying in size from approximately one-half to very small chips are mixed in with the yolks and whites]

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Food]]

2613: Bad Map Projection: Madagascator

2022-05-04T21:01:44Z

108.162.245.217: Undo vandalism revision 243695 by Ex Kay Cee Dee (talk)

{{comic
| number = 2613
| date = April 29, 2022
| title = Bad Map Projection: Madagascator
| image = bad_map_projection_madagascator.png
| titletext = The projection's north pole is in a small lake on the island of Mahé in the Seychelles, which is off the top of the map and larger than the rest of the Earth's land area combined.
}}

==Explanation==
This is the fifth comic in the series of [[:Category:Bad Map Projections|Bad Map Projections]] displaying Bad Map Projection #248: Madagascator. It came about 10 months after the fourth [[2489: Bad Map Projection: The Greenland Special ]] (#299).

This time, [[Randall]] used the classic {{w|Mercator projection}} but instead of placing the North Pole on top and the South Pole on the bottom it is oriented so that the top is the island of {{w|Mahé, Seychelles|Mahé}}. The map projection is technically a {{w|Oblique Mercator projection}}, with an unusual choice of the cylinder's axis. Since the Mercator projection tends to visually distort areas near the top and bottom of the resulting map, this gives some areas, notably Madagascar, very unusual shapes, hence the name the ''Madagascator'' — a portmanteau of "Madagascar" and "Mercator"!

The Mercator projection became the standard projection for world maps during the 1800s, because a straight line (or {{w|rhumb line}}) in a Mercator map represents a constant bearing relative to true north. Historically, when navigation was performed by compass, this was a very valuable feature, since one (adjusting for the differences between true and magnetic north) could plot a constant-bearing course between two locations by simply looking at their relative direction on the map.

However, in the mid-20th century, the Mercator was {{w|Mercator_projection#Criticism|criticized}} because it causes distortion near the north and south poles of the map, giving an inaccurate impression of relative sizes. The most commonly given example of this is the size of Greenland — although on the Mercator it appears to be larger than Africa in area, Africa in reality covers an area 14 times that of Greenland.

Randall turns this example on its head by making Madagascar, rather than Greenland, appear larger in the ''Madagascator'' than in reality. By contrast with Greenland, the world's largest non-continent island, Madagascar is only the fourth-largest island in the world, behind Greenland, New Guinea, and Borneo.

To accomplish this, instead of placing the north pole of the map at the geographic North Pole, Randall places the north pole of the map on the island of Mahé in Seychelles. As Madagascar is relatively close to Mahé (around 650 mi (1050 km) distant), placing the north pole of the Mercator projection at Mahé significantly distorts the size of Madagascar, making it appear comparable in size to Europe on the map.

But this distortion is even more pronounced when it comes to the island of Mahé itself, as Randall notes in the title text.
Although Mahé, the largest island in Seychelles with an area of 60.7 square mi (157.2 square km), is minuscule even compared to Madagascar, the claim in the title text that it appears "larger than the rest of the Earth's land area combined" is an understatement.

No part of Mahé is visible in the comic, but clicking on the actual comic will open a website that displays Mercator projections with a pole in any chosen location, with the location of the one opened set to Mahé. The chosen pole is (infinitely far to) the right of the screen, while its {{w|antipodes|antipode}} is on the left. With this, it is possible to see that the island is indeed larger than the rest of the map's land area combined. A single national park within the island rivals Africa in size, and the narrow dirt road closest to the pole appears thicker than Panama. This also reveals that the location of the map's north pole (the "small lake" mentioned by Randall) is the lake impounded by the Rochon Dam, a popular tourist location in Mahé.

Unlike previous Bad Map Projections, Morocco and Western Sahara are drawn as one unlabelled country.

===Comparison of actual/mapped areas===
{| class="wikitable sortable"
! Landmass
! Status
! data-sort-type="number"|Actual Area<ref name="act">Major contiguous land areas that should exclude all islands, ''especially'' major ones, '''''especially''''' especially those listed separately</ref> (Millions of Km²)
! data-sort-type="number"|Proportion Land Area
! data-sort-type="number"|Proportion Image Area<ref name="pri">Of only these listed areas listed</ref>
! data-sort-type="number"|Distortion<ref name="dis">NB. Difference between percentages, rather than percentage difference</ref>
|-
| Africa<ref name="suez">Edge at Suez Canal</ref> || data-sort-value="C2"|Continent 2nd largest || 29.7 || 19.95% || 35% || +15.1%
|-
| Eurasia<ref name="suez" /> || data-sort-value="C1"|Continent Largest || 53.4 || 35.83% || 30% || -5.83%
|-
| North America<ref name="pan">Edge at Panama Canal</ref> || data-sort-value="C3"|Continent 3rd largest || 19.3 || 12.96% || 15% || +2.04%
|-
| South America<ref name="pan" /> || data-sort-value="C4"|Continent 4th largest || 17.8 || 11.96% || 7.8% || -4.16%
|-
| Antarctica<ref name="ice">Significant ice-sheets may complicate mapped/actual 'land' areas</ref> || data-sort-value="C5"|Continent 5th largest || 14.2 || 9.53% || 5.3% || -4.23%
|-
| Madagascar || data-sort-value="I04"|Island 4th largest || 0.592 || 0.40% || 2.9% || +2.50%
|-
| Australia || data-sort-value="C7"|Continent Smallest || 7.55 || 5.07% || 2.5% || -2.57%
|-
| Greenland<ref name="ice" /> || data-sort-value="I01"|Island Largest || 2.17 || 1.45% || 0.87% || -0.58%
|-
| Borneo || data-sort-value="I03"|Island 3rd largest || 0.749 || 0.50% || 0.37% || -0.13%
|-
| New Guinea || data-sort-value="I02"|Island 2nd largest || 0.786 || 0.53% || 0.32% || -0.21%
|-
| Japan<ref name="hon">Honshu only</ref> || data-sort-value="I07"|Island 7th largest || 0.228 || 0.15% || 0.10% || -0.05%
|-
| Mainland Britain || data-sort-value="I09"|Island 9th largest || 0.209 || 0.14% || 0.10% || -0.04%
|-
| Island of Ireland || data-sort-value="I20"|Island 20th largest || 0.082 || 0.05% || 0.03% || -0.02%
|}

<references/>

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
Bad map projection #248: Madagascator

Mercator projection but with the North Pole in the Indian Ocean so it exaggerates the size of Madagascar instead of Greenland. Various countries and oceans are labeled, and country borders are shown.
{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Bad Map Projections]]

1367: Installing

2022-05-04T19:58:51Z

108.162.245.217: Undo revision 241930 by Ex Kay Cee Dee (talk)

{{comic
| number = 1367
| date = May 12, 2014
| title = Installing
| image = installing.png
| titletext = But still, my scheme for creating and saving user config files and data locally to preserve them across reinstalls might be useful for--wait, that's cookies.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic refers to the kind of "inventions" which seem new from the point of view of a {{w|smartphone}} (handheld {{w|computer}}) user, but have already been around for a long time on desktop or {{w|laptop}}/notebook computers.

[[Cueball]] has a clever idea to skip the installing of applications on mobile phones: he would host the applications online instead, and provide links to the servers. The apps wouldn't stay on the phone all the time; instead the phone would download each app again every time the user wanted to run it.

However, web pages and {{w|web application}}s already work like this. Clicking a link will make the browser download a web page and render {{w|HTML|HTML code}} and {{w|JavaScript}} that it links to.

The page usually isn't saved long-term on the user's computer; instead the browser downloads it again when needed. {{w|HTML5}} does however offer the option of {{w|Cache_manifest_in_HTML5|caching web application files locally}} so it can remain operational when there is no network connection.

In the title text, Cueball's idea for local application storage already exists in the HTTP protocol as {{w|HTTP cookie|cookies}}. The more flexible {{w|Web storage|web storage}} was originally part of the HTML5 specification, but it's now in a separate specification.

Native phone applications and web applications are not completely interchangeable. Web applications may not allow access to more advanced or platform-specific resources. Projects like {{w|Apache Cordova}} make these resources available to web applications by creating a native application wrapper for the web application.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball and Megan are standing next to each other.]
:Cueball: Installing things has gotten so fast and painless.
:Cueball: Why not skip it entirely, and make a phone that has every app "installed" already and just downloads and runs them on the fly?

:[Caption below the panel:]
:I felt pretty clever until I realized I'd invented webpages.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Computers]]
[[Category:Smartphones]]

176: Before Sunrise

2022-05-04T00:48:54Z

108.162.245.217: Undo revision 232720 by X. K. C. D. (talk)

{{comic
| number = 176
| date = October 27, 2006
| title = Before Sunrise
| image = before sunrise.png
| titletext = It's an amazing time of day; the light is great for photography.
}}

==Explanation==
This is another example of Randall's propensity towards {{w|Maternal insult|"your mom"}} jokes. The second panel contains an eloquent prosaic description of an idyllic sunrise over an unfamiliar landscape analogizing the uncertainty and excitement of the life that lies ahead. This is designed to put the reader off-guard for the "your mom" stinger in the third panel.

[[Cueball]] wants to settle down on his own, but every time when he tries, he still ends up at the reader's Mom's place (as is customary in such jokes).

In photography, the term {{w|Golden hour (photography)|Golden Hour}} is used to describe the hour after sunrise (and also the hour before sunset), due to the good lighting conditions at those times. In the title text, you could initially believe that Cueball is using these early morning trips to capture beautiful photographs of the scenery, until it turns out that in fact the photos were of the reader's Mom (and likely risque in nature).

==Transcript==
:Cueball: Every morning for a week now I've gone out driving before sunrise.
:I wanted to get lost in the dark, park my car, listen to music, and sip from a warm drink as dawn broke around me, gradually revealing a landscape I'd never before seen. A chain of unique beginnings forcing wonder into the seeds of each day.
:Cueball: But I guess I need more willpower, because each sunrise just found me at your mom's apartment again.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Your Mom]]

2613: Bad Map Projection: Madagascator

2022-05-03T05:51:55Z

108.162.245.217: Undo more vandalism

{{comic
| number = 2613
| date = April 29, 2022
| title = Bad Map Projection: Madagascator
| image = bad_map_projection_madagascator.png
| titletext = The projection's north pole is in a small lake on the island of Mahé in the Seychelles, which is off the top of the map and larger than the rest of the Earth's land area combined.
}}

==Explanation==
This is the fifth comic in the series of [[:Category:Bad Map Projections|Bad Map Projections]] displaying Bad Map Projection #248: Madagascator. It came about 10 months after the fourth [[2489: Bad Map Projection: The Greenland Special ]] (#299).

This time, [[Randall]] used the classic {{w|Mercator projection}} but instead of placing the North Pole on top and the South Pole on the bottom it is oriented so that the top is the island of {{w|Mahé, Seychelles|Mahé}}. The map projection is technically a {{w|Oblique Mercator projection}}, with an unusual choice of the cylinder's axis. Since the Mercator projection tends to visually distort areas near the top and bottom of the resulting map, this gives some areas, notably Madagascar, very unusual shapes, hence the name the ''Madagascator''!

The Mercator projection became the standard projection for world maps during the 1800s because it is ''conformal of normal aspect'': a {{w|rhumb line}} is displayed as a straight line in a Mercator map. A rhumb line is roughly a straight line near the equator, but is very curved near the poles. During the age of sail, when navigation was performed by compass - this was a very valuable feature, since one could plot a course between two locations by measuring the direction from one to another on the map and then accounting for the difference between the magnetic and actual north poles to determine which rhumb should be taken. In the mid-20th century this trend was {{w|Mercator_projection#Criticism|criticized}} because the distortion towards the north and south poles gave an inaccurate impression of relative sizes. The most common example given of this distortion is that on a Mercator map of the world Greenland looks to have more area than Africa, when in real life Africa covers 14 times that of Greenland. Thus the reference to making Madagascar larger in this projection. Madagascar is a large island off the south east coast of the main African continent, but has only a quarter the coverage of Greenland. Greenland is often listed as the largest island in the world (which excludes continents in their own right, e.g. Australia) followed by New Guinea, Borneo and then Madagascar in fourth place.

Mahé, mentioned in the title text as the north pole's new location, is the largest island in Seychelles, with an area of 60.7 square miles. The claim in the title text that it is "larger than the rest of the Earth's land area combined", is an understatement, since the poles in the Mercator projection are infinitely far away the area occupied by Mahé in this projection is infinite. However no part of Mahé is visible on the comic.

Clicking on the actual comic will open a website that displays Mercator projections with a pole in any chosen location, with the location of the one opened set to Mahé. The chosen pole is (infinitely far to) the right of the screen, while its {{w|antipodes|antipode}} is on the left. With this, it is possible to see that the island is indeed larger than the rest of the map's land area combined, with a single national park within the island rivalling Africa in size, and at the site's cut-off point reaching a scale of distortion where a road is thicker than Panama. This also reveals that the location of the North Pole, the lake mentioned by Randall, is the Rochon Dam.

Unlike previous Bad Map Projections, Morocco and Western Sahara are drawn as one unlabelled country.

===Comparison of actual/mapped areas===
{| class="wikitable sortable"
! Landmass
! Status
! data-sort-type="number"|Actual Area<ref name="act">Major contiguous land areas that should exclude all islands, ''especially'' major ones, '''''especially''''' especially those listed separately</ref> (Millions of Km²)
! data-sort-type="number"|Proportion Land Area
! data-sort-type="number"|Proportion Image Area<ref name="pri">Of only these listed areas listed</ref>
! data-sort-type="number"|Distortion<ref name="dis">NB. Difference between percentages, rather than percentage difference</ref>
|-
| Africa<ref name="suez">Edge at Suez Canal</ref> || data-sort-value="C2"|Continent 2nd largest || 29.7 || 19.95% || 35% || +15.1%
|-
| Eurasia<ref name="suez" /> || data-sort-value="C1"|Continent Largest || 53.4 || 35.83% || 30% || -5.83%
|-
| North America<ref name="pan">Edge at Panama Canal</ref> || data-sort-value="C3"|Continent 3rd largest || 19.3 || 12.96% || 15% || +2.04%
|-
| South America<ref name="pan" /> || data-sort-value="C4"|Continent 4th largest || 17.8 || 11.96% || 7.8% || -4.16%
|-
| Antarctica<ref name="ice">Significant ice-sheets may complicate mapped/actual 'land' areas</ref> || data-sort-value="C5"|Continent 5th largest || 14.2 || 9.53% || 5.3% || -4.23%
|-
| Madagascar || data-sort-value="I04"|Island 4th largest || 0.592 || 0.40% || 2.9% || +2.50%
|-
| Australia || data-sort-value="C7"|Continent Smallest || 7.55 || 5.07% || 2.5% || -2.57%
|-
| Greenland<ref name="ice" /> || data-sort-value="I01"|Island Largest || 2.17 || 1.45% || 0.87% || -0.58%
|-
| Borneo || data-sort-value="I03"|Island 3rd largest || 0.749 || 0.50% || 0.37% || -0.13%
|-
| New Guinea || data-sort-value="I02"|Island 2nd largest || 0.786 || 0.53% || 0.32% || -0.21%
|-
| Japan<ref name="hon">Honshu only</ref> || data-sort-value="I07"|Island 7th largest || 0.228 || 0.15% || 0.10% || -0.05%
|-
| Mainland Britain || data-sort-value="I09"|Island 9th largest || 0.209 || 0.14% || 0.10% || -0.04%
|-
| Island of Ireland || data-sort-value="I20"|Island 20th largest || 0.082 || 0.05% || 0.03% || -0.02%
|}

<references/>

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
Bad map projection #248: Madagascator

Mercator projection but with the North Pole in the Indian Ocean so it exaggerates the size of Madagascar instead of Greenland. Various countries and oceans are labeled, and country borders are shown.
{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Bad Map Projections]]

2613: Bad Map Projection: Madagascator

2022-05-03T05:51:24Z

108.162.245.217: /* Explanation */ removed a troll edit

{{comic
| number = 2613
| date = April 29, 2022
| title = Bad Map Projection: Madagascator
| image = bad_map_projection_madagascator.png
| titletext = The projection's north pole is in a small lake on the island of Mahé in the Seychelles, which is off the top of the map and larger than the rest of the Earth's land area combined.
}}

==Explanation==
This is the fifth comic in the series of [[:Category:Bad Map Projections|Bad Map Projections]] displaying Bad Map Projection #248: Madagascator. It came about 10 months after the fourth [[2489: Bad Map Projection: The Greenland Special ]] (#299).

This time, [[Randall]] used the classic {{w|Mercator projection}} but instead of placing the North Pole on top and the South Pole on the bottom it is oriented so that the top is the island of {{w|Mahé, Seychelles|Mahé}}. The map projection is technically a {{w|Oblique Mercator projection}}, with an unusual choice of the cylinder's axis. Since the Mercator projection tends to visually distort areas near the top and bottom of the resulting map, this gives some areas, notably Madagascar, very unusual shapes, hence the name the ''Madagascator''!

The Mercator projection became the standard projection for world maps during the 1800s because it is ''conformal of normal aspect'': a {{w|rhumb line}} is displayed as a straight line in a Mercator map. A rhumb line is roughly a straight line near the equator, but is very curved near my balls. During the age of my balls, when navigation was performed by my balls - this was a very valuable feature, since one could plot a course between two locations by measuring the direction from one to another on the map and then accounting for the difference between the magnetic and actual north poles to determine which rhumb should be taken. In the mid-20th century this trend was {{w|Mercator_projection#Criticism|criticized}} because the distortion towards the north and south poles gave an inaccurate impression of relative sizes. The most common example given of this distortion is that on a Mercator map of the world Greenland looks to have more area than Africa, when in real life Africa covers 14 times that of Greenland. Thus the reference to making Madagascar larger in this projection. Madagascar is a large island off the south east coast of the main African continent, but has only a quarter the coverage of Greenland. Greenland is often listed as the largest island in the world (which excludes continents in their own right, e.g. Australia) followed by New Guinea, Borneo and then Madagascar in fourth place.

Mahé, mentioned in the title text as the north pole's new location, is the largest island in Seychelles, with an area of 60.7 square miles. The claim in the title text that it is "larger than the rest of the Earth's land area combined", is an understatement, since the poles in the Mercator projection are infinitely far away the area occupied by Mahé in this projection is infinite. However no part of Mahé is visible on the comic.

Clicking on my balls will open a website that displays Mercator projections with a pole in my balls, with the location of the one opened set to Mahé. The chosen pole is (infinitely far to) the right of the screen, while its {{w|antipodes|antipode}} is on the left. With this, it is possible to see that the island is indeed larger than the rest of the map's land area combined, with a single national park within the island rivalling Africa in size, and at the site's cut-off point reaching a scale of distortion where a road is thicker than Panama. This also reveals that the location of the North Pole, the lake mentioned by Randall, is the Rochon Dam.

Unlike previous Bad Map Projections, Morocco and Western Sahara are drawn as one unlabelled country.

===Comparison of actual/mapped areas===
{| class="wikitable sortable"
! Landmass
! Status
! data-sort-type="number"|Actual Area<ref name="act">Major contiguous land areas that should exclude all islands, ''especially'' major ones, '''''especially''''' especially those listed separately</ref> (Millions of Km²)
! data-sort-type="number"|Proportion Land Area
! data-sort-type="number"|Proportion Image Area<ref name="pri">Of only these listed areas listed</ref>
! data-sort-type="number"|Distortion<ref name="dis">NB. Difference between percentages, rather than percentage difference</ref>
|-
| Africa<ref name="suez">Edge at Suez Canal</ref> || data-sort-value="C2"|Continent 2nd largest || 29.7 || 19.95% || 35% || +15.1%
|-
| Eurasia<ref name="suez" /> || data-sort-value="C1"|Continent Largest || 53.4 || 35.83% || 30% || -5.83%
|-
| North America<ref name="pan">Edge at Panama Canal</ref> || data-sort-value="C3"|Continent 3rd largest || 19.3 || 12.96% || 15% || +2.04%
|-
| South America<ref name="pan" /> || data-sort-value="C4"|Continent 4th largest || 17.8 || 11.96% || 7.8% || -4.16%
|-
| Antarctica<ref name="ice">Significant ice-sheets may complicate mapped/actual 'land' areas</ref> || data-sort-value="C5"|Continent 5th largest || 14.2 || 9.53% || 5.3% || -4.23%
|-
| Madagascar || data-sort-value="I04"|Island 4th largest || 0.592 || 0.40% || 2.9% || +2.50%
|-
| Australia || data-sort-value="C7"|Continent Smallest || 7.55 || 5.07% || 2.5% || -2.57%
|-
| Greenland<ref name="ice" /> || data-sort-value="I01"|Island Largest || 2.17 || 1.45% || 0.87% || -0.58%
|-
| Borneo || data-sort-value="I03"|Island 3rd largest || 0.749 || 0.50% || 0.37% || -0.13%
|-
| New Guinea || data-sort-value="I02"|Island 2nd largest || 0.786 || 0.53% || 0.32% || -0.21%
|-
| Japan<ref name="hon">Honshu only</ref> || data-sort-value="I07"|Island 7th largest || 0.228 || 0.15% || 0.10% || -0.05%
|-
| Mainland Britain || data-sort-value="I09"|Island 9th largest || 0.209 || 0.14% || 0.10% || -0.04%
|-
| Island of Ireland || data-sort-value="I20"|Island 20th largest || 0.082 || 0.05% || 0.03% || -0.02%
|}

<references/>

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
Bad map projection #248: Madagascator

Mercator projection but with the North Pole in the Indian Ocean so it exaggerates the size of Madagascar instead of Greenland. Various countries and oceans are labeled, and country borders are shown.
{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Bad Map Projections]]

2474: First Time Since Early 2020

2021-07-30T02:43:15Z

108.162.245.217: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2474
| date = June 9, 2021
| title = First Time Since Early 2020
| image = first_time_since_early_2020.png
| titletext = Gotten the Ferris wheel operator's attention
}}

==Explanation==

This is yet another comic part of the [[:Category:COVID-19|series of comics]] on the {{w|COVID-19 pandemic|2020-21 pandemic}} caused by the {{w|COVID-19|coronavirus disease 2019}} (COVID-19).

This comic is a chart that orders things based on the level of alarm that would occur if it were revealed that someone had not done a given thing since early 2020. Many of the items, but not all, are linked to new constraints due to the pandemic.

The title text serves as another chart point, though it isn't given where it is on the chart.

;Been to a birthday party
Going to a birthday party was a normal task before the pandemic, and it's normal to say you haven't gone to one since early 2020.

;Eaten at a restaurant
Eating at a restaurant was also common before governments instated lockdowns, but during the lockdowns many restaurants had to limit their service to delivery and take-out.

;Seen my family
Seeing your family was fairly common before the governments instated lockdowns. However, there were emergency visits during the lockdown period.

;Been on a plane
Governments around the world cancelled commercial flights during the pandemic. However, businessmen like Bill Gates used private jets during the pandemic.

;Gone to a movie
Many cinema halls around the world closed due to the pandemic. Several movies were instead released directly to TV via OTT platforms.

;Gone to a store
Although some stores were closed during the lockdown period, others were open for essential commodities. Therefore, going to a store for the first time since early 2020 is little strange.

;Installed software updates
Regularly installing software updates is recommended, mainly for security reasons. However, many people don't follow these recommendations (mostly by fear of software inconsistency or instability), although a delay of more than one year is quite long. Mentioning software updates is weird, because it is not directly related to the COVID pandemic. On the contrary, since many people spent much more time at home and worked at home, it was all the more important to keep software up to date, especially due to zero-day exploits.

;Eaten a vegetable
Since vegetables are essential to a healthy diet, not eating a single vegetable in a whole year is not recommended.{{citation needed}} Anxiety due to the pandemic and disruption of social relations may have caused people to consume more junk food than usual.

;Opened the fridge
This is quite weird, since most people use their refrigerators to store fresh food. Maybe some people became anorexic because of anxiety due to the pandemic or stopped consuming fresh food and relied more on junk food. Moreover, most food products will alter or rot if stored in a fridge for more than one year, and become dangerous to eat.{{citation needed}}

;Paid taxes
Although some people, depending on where they live and their income, may not pay taxes in an immediately obvious way, there are some taxes, such as {{w|VAT}} in many countries and {{w|sales tax}} in the United States or Canada, which almost everyone would pay in the natural course of everyday life, though may not be 'obvious' in the paying, or even be extracted at source (withheld from payroll) in the simpler cases. (Randall lives in {{w|Massachusetts}}, which does not have a VAT, but does have a 6.25% sales tax.) It is therefore strange that someone could have gone a year without paying any taxes, implying they made almost no monetary transactions in the period, nor are made (directly) responsible for any residential or property-owning taxations that might otherwise be payable to one or other layer of government.

If the statement refers specifically to filing income taxes (which is often the case when people refer to "taxes", because the paperwork and large sums of money transferred at once makes the income tax highly noticeable and memorable), it might describe someone who filed a tax return for 2019 early in 2020 and then waited until later in 2021 to file a return for 2020.

;Washed my hands
One of the main pieces of advice during the pandemic was to wash one's hands, frequently. Even in normal circumstances, washing hands is a good idea to remain hygienic,{{citation needed}} and not do so for a year would be disgusting to most people, and a good way of catching diseases.

Like paying taxes, it is very common to wash one's hands inadvertently as part of another activity, so someone who actually has not washed their hands since early 2020 likely also never bathed or showered.

;Seen another person
Despite the restrictions, most people will have seen another person during the pandemic.

;Seen a ghost
The fact that the speaker apparently has seen a ghost, both now and presumably before early 2020 (else they would simply say it was the 'first time' they saw a ghost) is unusual.

;Served as a decoy
Similar to the previous point, this is not a normal activity, so the specificity is unusual.

;Sighted land
Most people live on land,{{citation needed}} so sighting land should not be unusual, even during a pandemic. The fact that someone has gone over a year without sighting land suggests they have been lost at sea for the duration. There are several reported cases of ships' crews refused permission to disembark, due to local restrictions and/or because their scheduled relief were unable to embark, but the unluckily held-on persons forced to remain beyond their originally planned obligations should never have been left permanently beyond any tantalizingly unreachable view of the shore.

Taken more literally, it could simply mean that the person remained indoors and did not look outside, or that the person was temporarily blind.

;Checked the news
If someone has not checked the news since early 2020, they will likely be in for a shock upon checking. Noting that this could possibly (if increasingly absurdly) still apply to someone like [[Ponytail]] (as portrayed in strip #[[2396:_Wonder_Woman_1984|2396]]).

;Checked on the customers in the {{w|escape room}}
The implication is that the customers in question have been trapped in the escape room since early 2020. Most escape rooms are not equipped to support a person for that length of time, so unless the customers actually escaped, they would likely not have survived.

;Contracted a novel bat virus
As a 'novel bat virus' is what kicked off the whole pandemic, contracting another one may send the whole world into a new pandemic.

;Gotten the Ferris wheel operator's attention (title text)
It seems that the speaker has been stuck in a {{w|Ferris wheel}} for a year. It is unclear how they may have survived.

Alternately, it would be perfectly normal that the speaker has not been at an amusement park with a working Ferris wheel since early 2020 - but it would be unusual to focus on interacting with the operator versus enjoying the attraction.

Several science fiction stories [[https://ask.metafilter.com/78414/The-Rotating-Prison-in-the-Mountain Citation: This discussion]] include wheel-like prisons where people stay for years, but generally they are underground and horizontal rather than in the air and vertical like Ferris wheels are.

==Transcript==
: [Heading:]
: "This is actually the first time I've _____ since early 2020."
: [Below is a long vertical arrow with the words "normal" and "alarming" at the top and the bottom of the arrow respectively. To the right side of the arrow is a list of text, with each item starting with a triangle.]
: ◀ been to a birthday party
: ◀ eaten at a restaurant
: ◀ seen my family
: ◀ been on a plane
: ◀ gone to a movie
: ◀ gone to a store
: ◀ installed software updates
: ◀ eaten a vegetable
: ◀ opened the fridge
: ◀ paid taxes
: ◀ washed my hands
: ◀ seen another person
: ◀ seen a ghost
: ◀ served as a decoy
: ◀ sighted land
: ◀ checked the news
: ◀ checked on the customers in the escape room
: ◀ contracted a novel bat virus

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:COVID-19]]
[[Category:Charts]]

2464: Muller's Ratchet

2021-07-30T02:41:08Z

108.162.245.217: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2464
| date = May 17, 2021
| title = Muller's Ratchet
| image = mullers_ratchet.png
| titletext = Who knew you could learn so much about sexual reproduction from looking at pictures on the internet!
}}

==Explanation==
In this comic, Randall reviews a passage explaining the internet with terms associated with evolution, comparing the constant resharing and changing of popular photos to evolutionary processes, namely {{w|Muller's ratchet}} and {{w|Genetic recombination|recombination}}.

An image of [[Hairbun]] showing a cat to [[Cueball]], who is apparently shocked, is used as an example of the subject phenomenon. This image is altered in various ways:
* A caption is added to the photo as a whole, possibly using an online "meme maker" tool. Many memes are made in this manner, such as the Office Space [https://imgflip.com/meme/That-Would-Be-Great "that would be great"] memes.
* Individual labels are placed on the participants (which include the cat). These labels may be literal, but often they are metaphorical. A common metaphorical example is the {{w|Distracted-boyfriend meme}}.
* This seems to be unmodified from the original, except being a bit fuzzy. This is likely a comment on how most people, due to being unfamiliar with image formats, will often pick settings when saving a picture that results in the image being compressed noticeably (usually via exporting as a JPG as opposed to a PNG).
* A caption is added at the top and bottom of the picture, again possibly by an online meme maker, and the photo cropped.
* A sword has been added to the picture, held in a comical position by a participant (the cat) who wouldn't usually have one.{{Citation needed}} These are typically just done as a joke. This image is also cropped and has its aspect ratio changed.
** A watermark is added to this image, having been added by "SwordApp" a fictional (as of this comic's publication) app used to add the sword
* Individual labels are placed on the participants here as well.
* Individual labels are placed on the main (human) participants only. This might be used to only apply metaphorical meanings to the people and not to the object being held (the cat).

Recombination is the combination of genetic material from chromosomes, shuffling genes during meiosis. In this case, it is being compared to shuffling and recombining aspects of an edited digital image.

Sometimes, genetic mutation can create better genes - like the sword being given to the cat in the image. Other changes remove or degrade from the genetic history, without apparent detriment, just because the circumstances do not currently confer any significant advantage to it. If the 'lost' ability is perhaps useful in dealing with an infrequent environmental stress then the loss of its utility might be felt a generation or two later.

With recombination, useful novel changes can be shuffled into the population without necessarily bringing in a less useful mutation, creating descendents with both the obvious advantages (a sword) and the previously more established resilience (the fuller frame).

The degradation of digital images has previously been explored in [[1683: Digital Data]].

The title text has a double meaning, referring both to the ways these particular images on the Internet illustrate these evolutionary processes (which are driven by the mechanisms of biological reproduction, including sexual reproduction) and to {{tvtropes|TheInternetIsForPorn|the amount of erotic imagery illustrating the mechanics of sexual activity one might find on the Internet}}.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[A caption sits above a slightly greyed-out photo of Hairbun holding out a cat to Cueball, who has his hand over his face and is leaning away. Below are arrows leading to much smaller variations of the photo, all altered in some way.]
:[From left to right: Image with the sides cropped and black text bordered by white in the bottom center; image with black text in white box with black border above cat, on Hairbun, and on Cueball; image identical to the original but with softer edges; image cropped around all sides to exclude all negative space around frame, with white text bordered by black near the top and bottom center; image cropped to cut out half of Hairbun and Cueball's legs and featuring the cat holding a sword out at Cueball; image same as the original except with black text bordered by white on top of the cat, Hairbun, and Cueball; and image blurred out and at low resolution with black text in white oval on top of Hairbun and Cueball.]
:Caption: When a photo goes around on social media, people create lots of new versions of it.

:[A larger depiction of an image altered to cut out some of Hairbun and Cueball's legs and the cat holding a sword to the left of a caption, with a faint, shadowed wordmark saying "Made with ''SwordApp'']
:Caption: Sometimes, one of the edited versions becomes more popular and supplants the original. But often, the new version isn't made from the best copy of the image. It may be pixelated, cropped, or watermarked.
:[The same image appears with a grey box around it showing the cropped-out areas and an arrow pointing into it saying "lost". To the left is a caption.]
:Caption: As long as those flaws are minor enough that they don't cancel out the big change, the new version can still win out. Each good change brings with it random background damage. The degradation only goes one way. Once an image is cropped, its descendents will be, too. This steady loss of information is called '''''Muller's Ratchet'''''.
:[The original photo and the edited replacement are side-by-side, with the original on the right and the replacement on the left. The area above the cat where the sword is shown in the replacement is circled with a dotted line in both images. In the original, the area inside is greyed out, and in the replacement, the entire image is greyed out except for that area.]
:[Arrows point from the emphasized parts of both images to a new photo below that combines the original image with the sword from the replacement. A caption sits to the left.]
:Caption: But there's a solution. The old versions are still around, so if you have an image editor that lets you splice together parts of two images, you can make a new version with the best parts of both. This process is called '''''recombination...''''']
:[All previous panels are grouped in one big box, with a caption below the entire frame]
:Caption: People use evolutionary metaphors to explain the spread of internet content, but at this point we have so much more experience with the internet that I feel like it often makes more sense the other way around.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairbun]]
[[Category:Biology]]
[[Category:Computers]]

2451: AI Methodology

2021-07-30T02:39:53Z

108.162.245.217: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2451
| date = April 16, 2021
| title = AI Methodology
| image = ai_methodology.png
| titletext = We've learned that weird spacing and diacritics in the methodology description are apparently the key to good research; luckily, we've developed an AI tool to help us figure out where to add them.
}}

==Explanation==

The joke in this comic is that the people are using {{w|artificial intelligence}} (AI) without understanding how to, and that by doing this the research concerned is at best unreliable and possibly deliberately compromised. The researchers acknowledge that their approach is risky and requires extra verification, but repeatedly use equally or more unreliable AI-based solutions to these problems. Therefore, their problems are likely as bad as they ever were and any other team using one of their verification tools is likely to experience similar unreliability. For an introduction to machine learning, you can visit https://fast.ai/ .

===Original research===
The first comment, that "some have questioned our AI-based methodology", refers to difficulty verifying the correctness of AI-based processing. A model (a program which solves a problem with AI-based statistical analysis) may appear reliable when it is instead insufficiently tested. Models are liable to experience issues due to lingering influences from its training data or a bad algorithm reducing the quality of the investigation. It is therefore necessary for research using such models to demonstrate that those models have been tested well enough that their results are likely to be useful. Frequently, additional tests are performed after training to confirm that the model can handle data collected in a different way to the data used to train it.

===Classifier of methodology quality===
Cueball seeks to reassure his audience by quantifying the quality of his methodology. He does this by creating yet another AI to rank methodologies. This approach is unlikely to instill confidence for a variety of reasons:
* The quality AI and original research AI were written by the same team. If the original research AI was ill-designed, the quality AI probably shares design problems with it.
* The specific kind of model created is unlikely to be the correct one. Cueball calls this a classifier, which is frequently a type of model which assigns an input into distinct mutually exclusive categories. For example, a classifier might be used to determine what language a chunk of text is, given that the chunk is in only one language. However, quality is a continuous aspect of the data. A classifier of methodologies is likely to sort them into "bad", "mediocre", and "good" categories, whereas an effective model should have the ability to give more precise grades. The choice of a classifier may indicate that Cueball doesn't know which types of models to use.
* The training data for this quality AI is not mentioned. If, for example, the team's previous research is used as examples of good methodologies, the AI is likely to judge all methodologies from them as good as well.
* A ''methodology section'' refers to quality of writing and is a specific section of a research paper. A good methodology section would accurately and clearly explain what he did, but does not mean the research methodology itself was valid. Cueball doesn't indicate whether he believes his model is trying to analyze the quality of the methodology described, but in any case this is nearly impossible for existing machine learning.
* An AI which attempts to judge a methodology section is receiving a great deal of input which is difficult to process. It would have to use {{w|natural language processing}} to understand the writing in the methodology section and would also require a lot of specialized knowledge about the subject matter to judge the quality. This would require artificial general intelligence (AGI), which has not yet been achieved. Since the AI does not have the ability to fully understand complex research, it will likely use unimportant details to judge the methodologies.
* The ranking AI heavily favors the methodology of Cueball's AI, and may be biased. It shows a normal distribution, with a singular outlier to the far right with an arrow above. It can be inferred (from the arrow) that this data-point represents the AI's methodology. It is a significant outlier, and as such it is probably not an accurate representation of Cueball's AI. Alternatively, this could be taken as AI 'nepotism', where Cueball's methodology AI is more likely to select AI-based approaches over others. This type of algorithmic bias is mentioned in [[2237: AI Hiring Algorithm]].

===Spacing AI (from title text)===
While there are many red flags in the original AI and quality AI, it is theoretically possible that they operate as Cueball claims. The title text's comments about spacing and diacritics prove that this is not the case and that the quality AI, at least, is completely broken. AI models are given input in various complex ways and determine based on statistical analysis which details are important. Such models can easily find details in the training data which correlate with correct answers but make the resulting model useless.

For example, a research team once created a model which was given medical information to determine how likely a patient was to have cancer. The model was trained on existing patient records and the team planned to use it on new patients. However, the original model did not use the medical information but instead simply checked the name of the hospital--a patient at a hospital with "cancer center" in the name was likely to have cancer. The model had identified a data point which correlated with the desired answer, but this correlation was not useful for the intended purpose. The model concerned was discarded and a new one created without the hospital name.

In this case, the methodology sections are text written by humans, which can contain various artifacts of the writing process. These can include details like how the user chose to insert spaces, word usage, spelling, or diacritic marks which are optional in English (e.g. naive versus naïve). It appears that the training information identifies certain patterns which correlate with "good" methodologies. This indicates a few more problems for this research team:
* Their AI is using pointless details to decide on the quality of methodology sections, so it is useless.
* They haven't recognized that it's useless, so their other AI is probably fatally flawed.
* The spacing information is correlated strongly with good methodology, which implies that they probably don't have very many different sources for their training data. Their sample size is too small and the AI, even if it was improved to ignore this information, needs more data to have a chance at being useful.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is standing on a podium in front of a projection on a screen and points with a stick to a bar chart histogram with a bell curve to the left and a single bar to the far right marked with an arrow.]
:Cueball: Despite our great research results, some have questioned our AI-based methodology.
:Cueball: But we trained a classifier on a collection of good and bad methodology sections, and it says ours is fine.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Artificial Intelligence]]
[[Category:Public speaking]]
[[Category:Science]]

Talk:416: Zealous Autoconfig

2014-07-09T14:02:43Z

108.162.245.217:

I have my network autoconfig set up to run a rainbow table attack if there's a password on the network. Wifi everywhere is great. [[User:Davidy22|Davidy22]][[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>(talk)</tt>]] 15:05, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

But how would the school know about the Lenhart children if Mrs. Roberts deleted the students table? {{unsigned ip|184.11.73.88}}}
:I say it'd be a liveware attack. A voice-call from the application, with in-built speech-synthisis and speech-recognition capabilities, requesting information from the school secretary him/herself. Probably a Black Hat construction. Or Hartigan (/whoever) from the Leverage series... ;) [[Special:Contributions/178.107.249.215|178.107.249.215]] 23:43, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

I think Miss Lenhart must be the Lenhart children's paternal aunt. Their mother is most probably Mrs. Lenhart. [[User:Xhfz|Xhfz]] ([[User talk:Xhfz|talk]]) 02:20, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

When I saw "Ctrl + C" my first thought was "copy." It's the dumb thing about windows and every implementation that uses that. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.245.217|108.162.245.217]] 14:02, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

Talk:897: Elevator Inspection

2014-06-07T03:41:37Z

108.162.245.217:

I wonder, how fast does elevator technology advance? Is there like a Moore's law for the speed and safety of elevators or something? '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 02:05, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

This comic has my doubts. If you placed the certificate in the actual elevator, it might be vandalized, stolen, or otherwise destroyed. Of course, you could just put a photocopy of the original certificate in the elevator, but not very many pointy-haired bosses are that clever. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.245.217|108.162.245.217]] 03:41, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

Talk:309: Shopping Teams

2014-06-06T06:38:03Z

108.162.245.217: Comments! Yay!

The big problem with nerds is that they so frequently fail to place value on their own time. If you search through newspapers to find the best coupons to save a couple of dollars, I highly doubt that the amount of money you are saving is more than minimum wage. This applies to anything nerds end up spending so much time on. If you spend that time shopping around, clipping coupons or trading in TF2 because its fun, fine. But if you are in it for some sort of profit, its probably a waste of time. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.245.217|108.162.245.217]] 06:38, 6 June 2014 (UTC)