explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

1971: Personal Data

2018-03-23T19:59:22Z

108.162.246.65: /* Topics */

{{comic
| number = 1971
| date = March 23, 2018
| title = Personal Data
| image = personal_data.png
| titletext = Do I just leave money in my mailbox? How much? How much money do they need, anyway? I guess it probably depends how the economy is doing. If stocks go up, should I leave more money in my mailbox or less?
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a typical xkcd Adult... so need more... Add explanation of what Stock, what personal data is and what the economy and tax is as well. Maybe a table? PLEASE. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This is another comic poking fun at adults who have trouble dealing with grown-up issues.

The comic starts with [[Cueball]] wondering what "{{w|personal data}}" is, saying he doesn't understand what it is, and it is an abstract concept. [[Ponytail]] follows by pointing out she doesn't understand what "{{w|Economy|the economy}}" is, and conjecturing that it is related to "{{w|Stock|stocks}}", although admitting that she also does not understand what stocks are. The punchline comes when [[White Hat]] says that he doesn't understand what "{{w|taxes}}" are and asks if he really has to pay them and to who. This surprises Cueball and Ponytail, who promptly advise him to learn about that one soon. The title text has White Hat asking another series of tax-related questions that adults are expected to know already, further compounding his troubles.

White Hat not knowing what taxes are indicates that he may not have paid his taxes in previous years, which would be alarming since tax evasion is punishable as a crime. Ponytail's remark that he should do this ideally in the next few weeks is referring to this year's US {{w|Tax Day (United States)|Tax Day}} which falls on April 17, 2018, less than four weeks after the release of this comic. So if you do not have your tax preparation under control, it is time to research how it works now.

This is not the first time [[Randall]] has made a comic about people having trouble understanding the US tax system in relation to an approaching tax day. Other instances include the title text of [[1805: Unpublished Discoveries]] from March the year before this comic, and this one from August 2015: [[1566: Board Game]].

==Topics==
This comic references several advanced topics that people commonly talk about, but may not actually understand well:

'''Personal data'''

Personal data is usually thought of as any information that pertains to a private person. But this definition is very vague and can encompass a huge variety of data ranging from very sensitive (Social Security number, bank account details, passwords) to less sensitive (first name, color of pet cat). Different people also have different ideas of what information is considered sensitive. For example, some may want eagerly to share the location of their weekend activity with the world, whereas others may prefer not to let everyone know their location.

Even though it is generally advised to keep personal data private and not to expose it to the public or to companies (especially online, e.g. Facebook and Google), not everyone agrees on the level of privacy that should be afforded to the data. Some hold the view that even innocent-looking personal data can be harvested and used for unsavory purposes (for example, a health insurance company can use social media posts about eating fast food as a cause to raise premiums, or a government can use cat pictures as evidence of pet ownership and demand license fees), and therefore all personal data should be strictly controlled. Others hold the view that sometimes it is worth exchanging some degree of privacy for other conveniences (for example, meeting friends by sharing their location info or getting cheaper prices from targeted advertising based on web browsing history).

Personal data breaches were in the news a few days before the publishing of this comic when the UK's Channel Four released an investigative documentary about political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica. Among the revelations of the documentary were that the company had used Facebook to not only harvest the personal data of users taking their polls, but the friends and family of those users, without their knowledge or consent. They used this information to attempt to influence both the 2016 United States elections and the UK's 'Brexit' vote. This sparked an ongoing discussion about the security of personal data and the role of social media in securing it.

Technological changes in the past few decades have made personal data much easier to collect, share, and analyze in bulk, raising new questions and concerns that have not been considered before. Even people who can define what data is personal to them may not realize the full extent of how others might use it, or how it impacts their lives.

'''The economy'''

The economy, at a basic level, is the circulation of money which enables productivity. For example, a bus driver might use their money to watch a movie, the movie producer might use their revenue (gathered from the bus driver and many others) to purchase editing software, the software maker might use their revenue (from the movie producer and others) to buy food, and the food producer might use that money to take a bus, thus returning the money back to the bus driver. The total amount of money has not changed, it merely circulated in a loop, but everyone in the loop received benefits and produced value in the form of goods or services.

The real world economy has much larger and more complex networks of buyers and producers compared to the toy example above, but nevertheless it works on the same principle. Many people correctly associate the economy with money (or stocks in Ponytail's case), but may not understand the full picture.

Circulation of money is critical to a healthy economy. In a recession, financial hardship causes people spend less money, which leads to fewer goods being produced, fewer jobs available, and people earning and spending even less money. That is why (somewhat counter-intuitively) governments need to spend ''more'' money during a recession in order to infuse money back into the economy and get it circulating again. The mint printing more money is also a planned, strategic move to cause inflation, which encourages people to spend their money now rather than save it for later because it will lose value over time. Again, getting people to spend their money is necessary to maintain the economy.

'''Stocks'''

'''Taxes'''

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is talking to Ponytail and White Hat. Both of them are looking at Cueball.]
:Cueball: Everyone keeps talking about "personal data." To be honest, I don't really know what it ''is''.
:Cueball: I mean, I understand the idea and know it's a thing I should protect. But it's so... abstract.

:[Close-up on Ponytail.]
:Ponytail: Yeah.
:Ponytail: It's like "the economy." I don't really know what the economy is, if we're getting specific. I know stocks going up is good. For people who own stocks, at least.
:Ponytail: Whatever "stocks" are.

:[White Hat responds holding his arms slightly out. Both Ponytail and Cueball are looking at him.]
:White Hat: Yeah, or taxes. Everyone talks about taxes. What '''''are''''' they? Do '''''I''''' have to pay them? And to who?
:Cueball: OK, wait, you definitely need to learn about that one.
:Ponytail: Yeah, ideally sometime in the next few weeks.

{{comic discussion}}

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

1971: Personal Data

2018-03-23T19:35:39Z

108.162.246.65: /* Topics */

{{comic
| number = 1971
| date = March 23, 2018
| title = Personal Data
| image = personal_data.png
| titletext = Do I just leave money in my mailbox? How much? How much money do they need, anyway? I guess it probably depends how the economy is doing. If stocks go up, should I leave more money in my mailbox or less?
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a typical xkcd Adult... so need more... Add explanation of what Stock, what personal data is and what the economy and tax is as well. Maybe a table? PLEASE. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This is another comic poking fun at adults who have trouble dealing with grown-up issues.

The comic starts with [[Cueball]] wondering what "{{w|personal data}}" is, saying he doesn't understand what it is, and it is an abstract concept. [[Ponytail]] follows by pointing out she doesn't understand what "{{w|Economy|the economy}}" is, and conjecturing that it is related to "{{w|Stock|stocks}}", although admitting that she also does not understand what stocks are. The punchline comes when [[White Hat]] says that he doesn't understand what "{{w|taxes}}" are and asks if he really has to pay them and to who. This surprises Cueball and Ponytail, who promptly advise him to learn about that one soon. The title text has White Hat asking another series of tax-related questions that adults are expected to know already, further compounding his troubles.

White Hat not knowing what taxes are indicates that he may not have paid his taxes in previous years, which would be alarming since tax evasion is punishable as a crime. Ponytail's remark that he should do this ideally in the next few weeks is referring to this year's US {{w|Tax Day (United States)|Tax Day}} which falls on April 17, 2018, less than four weeks after the release of this comic. So if you do not have your tax preparation under control, it is time to research how it works now.

This is not the first time [[Randall]] has made a comic about people having trouble understanding the US tax system in relation to an approaching tax day. Other instances include the title text of [[1805: Unpublished Discoveries]] from March the year before this comic, and this one from August 2015: [[1566: Board Game]].

==Topics==
This comic references several advanced topics that people commonly talk about, but may not actually understand well:

'''Personal data'''

Personal data is usually thought of as any information that pertains to a private person. But this definition is very vague and can encompass a huge variety of data ranging from very sensitive (Social Security number, bank account details, passwords) to less sensitive (first name, color of pet cat). Different people also have different ideas of what information is considered sensitive. For example, some may want eagerly to share the location of their weekend activity with the world, whereas others may prefer not to let everyone know their location.

Even though it is generally advised to keep personal data private and not to expose it to the public or to companies (especially online, e.g. Facebook and Google), not everyone agrees on the level of privacy that should be afforded to the data. Some hold the view that even innocent-looking personal data can be harvested and used for unsavory purposes (for example, a health insurance company can use social media posts about eating fast food as a cause to raise premiums, or a government can use cat pictures as evidence of pet ownership and demand license fees), and therefore all personal data should be strictly controlled. Other hold the view that sometimes it is worth exchanging some degree of privacy for other conveniences (for example, meeting friends by sharing their location info or getting cheaper prices from targeted advertising based on web browsing history).

The wide range of personal data, as well as differences in views and lifestyles, have led to constant debates about privacy.

Personal data breaches were in the news a few days before the publishing of this comic when the UK's Channel Four released an investigative documentary about political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica. Among the revelations of the documentary were that the company had used Facebook to not only harvest the personal data of users taking their polls, but the friends and family of those users, without their knowledge or consent. They used this information to attempt to influence both the 2016 United States elections and the UK's 'Brexit' vote. This sparked an ongoing discussion about the security of personal data and the role of social media in securing it.

'''The economy'''

The economy, at a basic level, is the circulation of money which enables productivity. For example, a bus driver might use their money to watch a movie, the movie producer might use their revenue (gathered from the bus driver and many others) to purchase editing software, the software maker might use their revenue (from the movie producer and others) to buy food, and the food producer might use that money to take a bus, thus returning the money back to the bus driver. The total amount of money has not changed, it merely circulated in a loop, but everyone in the loop received benefits and produced value in the form of goods or services.

The real world economy has much larger and more complex networks of buyers and producers compared to the toy example above, but nevertheless it works on the same principle. Many people correctly associate the economy with money (or stocks in Ponytail's case), but may not understand the full picture.

Circulation of money is critical to a healthy economy. In a recession, financial hardship causes people spend less money, which leads to fewer goods being produced, fewer jobs available, and people earning and spending even less money. That is why (somewhat counter-intuitively) governments need to spend ''more'' money during a recession in order to infuse money back into the economy and get it circulating again. The mint printing more money is also a planned, strategic move to cause inflation, which encourages people to spend their money now rather than save it for later because it will lose value over time. Again, getting people to spend their money is necessary to maintain the economy.

'''Stocks'''

'''Taxes'''

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is talking to Ponytail and White Hat. Both of them are looking at Cueball.]
:Cueball: Everyone keeps talking about "personal data." To be honest, I don't really know what it ''is''.
:Cueball: I mean, I understand the idea and know it's a thing I should protect. But it's so... abstract.

:[Close-up on Ponytail.]
:Ponytail: Yeah.
:Ponytail: It's like "the economy." I don't really know what the economy is, if we're getting specific. I know stocks going up is good. For people who own stocks, at least.
:Ponytail: Whatever "stocks" are.

:[White Hat responds holding his arms slightly out. Both Ponytail and Cueball are looking at him.]
:White Hat: Yeah, or taxes. Everyone talks about taxes. What '''''are''''' they? Do '''''I''''' have to pay them? And to who?
:Cueball: OK, wait, you definitely need to learn about that one.
:Ponytail: Yeah, ideally sometime in the next few weeks.

{{comic discussion}}

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

1971: Personal Data

2018-03-23T17:58:12Z

108.162.246.65: /* Topics */

1971: Personal Data

2018-03-23T16:57:39Z

108.162.246.65: /* Explanation */

1930: Calendar Facts

2017-12-19T00:42:23Z

108.162.246.65:

{{comic
| number = 1930
| date = December 18, 2017
| title = Calendar Facts
| image = calendar_facts.png
| titletext = While it may seem like trivia, it (causes huge headaches for software developers / is taken advantage of by high-speed traders / triggered the 2003 Northeast Blackout / has to be corrected for by GPS satellites / is now recognized as a major cause of World War I).
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|There seem to be some possible correct statements, which should be recognized and added as part of the explanation. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
[[Randall]] presents what appears to be a generator of 156,000 facts [20 x 13 x (8 + 6 x 7) x 12], about calendars, most of which are false or have little meaning{{Citation needed}}. The facts are seeded by a mishmash of common tidbits about the time of year.

The formula for each generated fact goes as follows: "Did you know that '''[a recurring event]''' '''[occurs in an unusual manner]''' because of '''[a phenomenon or natural property]'''? Apparently '''[wild card statement]'''."

This is the fifth time that Randall has referred to the phenomenon of a [[:Category:Supermoon|Supermoon]], which he tupically makes fun of, most prominent in [[1394: Superm*n]].

The title text continues the chart with an inside information of what this tiny trivia actually have of real life consequences.

==Table==
{| class="wikitable"
! Entry
! What it is
! Relation to other entries
|-
! colspan="3" | Recurring Events
|-
| The [Fall/Spring] Equinox
| The time of year at which the apparent position of the overhead sun passes the equator. During the equinox, the time that the Sun is above the horizon is 12 hours across the globe.
| Before the adoption of the Gregorian Calendar in 1582, the equinoxes fell on earlier and earlier dates as the centuries went by, due to the Julian calendar year being 365.25 days on average compared to the tropical Earth year of 365.2422 days. Pope Gregory's decision to remove the leap days on years that were multiples of 100 but not 400 corrected the average length of the calendar year to 365.2425 days.
|-
| The [Winter/Summer] Solstice
| The time of year when the apparent position of the overhead sun reaches its most extreme latitude. During the Winter and Summer solstices the days are the shortest in the Northern and Southern hemisphere, respectively.
| Similar to the equinoxes, the solstices were also falling on earlier dates every year before the Gregorian Calendar.
|-
| The [Winter/Summer] Olympics
| The Olympic Games occur during the summer and the winter, alternating between the two seasons every two years.
| The Olympic Games do not have any set dates, and seem to only be included humorously as something else that alternates between occurring during the summer and winter.
|-
|Daylight [saving/savings] time
| Daylight saving time, commonly referred to as daylight savings time, is the practice of setting clocks ahead by one hour during the summer months of the year.
| Daylight saving time will push the time of certain events such as sunrise and sunset past their "natural" times. For example, solar noon will occur around 1:00 PM instead of 12:00 noon when daylight saving time is active, making it the "wrong" time.
|-
| Easter
| Easter is a holiday celebrating the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is defined as the Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox. This complicated formula has a long tradition behind it, known as [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computus Computus].
| When Pope Gregory decided to change the calendar in 1582, it was because the spring equinox was putting Easter on unexpectedly early dates.
|-
| Toyota Truck Month
| Toyota offers a discount for Tacoma trucks one month a year. Mainly notable because radio and television ads hype this discount up as "Toyota Truck Month".
|
|-
| [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shark_Week Shark Week]
| Every year, the Discovery channel dedicates a week during the summer to programming featuring or about sharks.
|
|-
! colspan="3" | Unusual manners in which the events occur
|-
| happens [earlier/later/at the wrong time] every year
| colspan="2" | The solstices and equinoxes happened earlier every year ''before'' the decree by Pope Gregory in 1582. The earliest sunrise happens one hour later than it "should" happen due to daylight saving time having turned the clocks forward one hour.
|-
| drifts out of sync with the [sun/moon]
| colspan="2" | The Sun and Moon are generally what calendars are based on. If something were to drift out of sync, some corrective mechanism would have to be put in to put it back. This is the motivation behind leap years, leap months (in countries with lunisolar calendars) and leap seconds.
|-
| drifts out of sync with the [zodiac]
| colspan="2" | The dates on which the Sun crosses the constellations in the traditional zodiac has shifted in the past centuries due to the precession of the Earth's axis. In the period of time traditionally known as Aries (March 21-April 20), for example, the Sun actually points to Pisces instead.
|-
| drifts out of sync with the [Gregorian/Mayan/lunar/iPhone] calendar
| colspan="2" |
*The Gregorian calendar is a solar calendar with a mean calendar year length of 365.2425 days.
*The Mayan calendar is based on two cycles or counts, with a 260-day count combined with a 365-day "vague" solar year.
*A lunar calendar is based on Moon's phases, with each lunation being approximately 29.5 days, and a lunar year lasting roughly 354 days. An example of a lunar calendar is the Islamic calendar.
*The iPhone calendar is listed humorously due to its data synchronization issues.
|-
! colspan="3" | Phenomena or political decisions
|-
| time zone legislation in [Indiana/Arizona/Russia]
| Some states or provinces have time zone legislation that sets the standard time to something other than what the natural longitude of that location would suggest.
|
* The state of Arizona generally does not observe daylight saving time, keeping their clocks on UTC-7:00 Mountain Standard Time year round. However, the Navajo nation inside Arizona does observe it, causing the two regions to have different times in the summer and the same time in the winter.
* Time zones in Russia are all one hour ahead of what their longitude would suggest, which puts them in a "permanent" state of daylight saving time. (For example, St. Petersburg is 30°E, which means that its natural time zone is UTC+2:00, but its time zone is actually UTC+3:00.) Since 1981 until 2011 Russia used to have the daylight saving time on top of it as well. The other changes include the abolishment of the one-hour shift in 1991 and returning it back in 1992, increasing it to two hours in 2011 and restoring back to one hour in 2014.
* Indiana has a complicated history with daylight saving time, likely related to the state being split between two Time Zones. (see [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_in_Indiana Time in Indiana])
|-
| a decree by the Pope in the 1500s
| In 1582, Pope Gregory introduced the Gregorian Calendar, the calendar we use today, to replace the Julian Calendar. The calendar applied retroactively to the birth of Jesus Christ, which means that they had to skip 10 days, going straight from October 4 to October 15, 1582, during the switchover.
| The introduction of the Gregorian calendar brought Easter and the dates that months started back in sync with what they were in the 3rd century AD.
|-
| the [precession] of the [Earth's axis]
| The Earth's axis is slowly changing position, in a phenomenon called the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axial_precession precession of the equinoxes].
| The precession of the equinoxes causes the seasons to occur about 20 minutes earlier than would be expected with the Earth's position relative to the stars, which could be construed as the equinox happening "later every year" if you use the stars as your frame of reference.
|-
| the [libration] of the [Moon]
| The Moon is [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tidal_locking tidally locked] to its orbit around the Earth, which means that the same side of it tends to face the Earth at any given point in time. However, there are slight variations in the angle over the course of a month, which are known as [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libration libration].
| The libration of the Moon does not affect anything else in the chart, and seems only be included humorously as another example of a celestial phenomenon.
|-
| the [nutation] of the [Earth's axis]
| Besides precession, there is also a smaller wobbling effect called [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astronomical_nutation nutation].
|
|-
| the [libation] of the [Moon]
| A [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libation libation] is a ritual offering of liquid to a deity by pouring it onto the ground or into something that collects it.
| This entry seems to have been included simply as a humorous misspelling of the word "libration".
|-
| the [eccentricity] of the Earth's orbit
| The Earth's orbit is slightly elliptical. It travels faster when it's closer to the Sun and slower when farther away.
| The Earth's eccentric orbit causes the equinoxes and solstices to occur at irregular intervals. For example, summer in the northern hemisphere lasted 93 days in 2017, while fall only lasted 90 days.
|-
| the [obliquity] of the [Earth's axis]
| The tilt of the Earth's axis relative to the ecliptic is also known as its obliquity.
|
|-
| magnetic field reversal
| The Earth's magnetic field has been reversed several times in its geologic history, so that what we would currently call the "magnetic North Pole" was actually the magnetic South Pole about 780,000 years ago, before the most recent reversal.
|
|-
| an arbitrary decision by [Benjamin Franklin]
| Benjamin Franklin wrote [http://www.webexhibits.org/daylightsaving/franklin3.html a letter to the Journal of Paris in 1784] in which he advised them to rise with the sun in order to save candlelight, after he observed that the Parisiens were getting up at the same time by the clock and burning a lot of candles in the winter as a result.
| Benjamin Franklin is often touted as "the father of daylight saving time", despite him never actually proposing to alter the clocks.
|-
| an arbitrary decision by [Isaac Newton]
|
|
|-
| an arbitrary decision by [FDR]
| Franklin Delano Roosevelt set all time zones one hour ahead year-round during World War II. The law was repealed after the war ended.
| Setting the time permanently one hour ahead would make everything happen at the "wrong" time celestially.
|-
! colspan="3" | Consequences
|-
| It causes a predictable increase in car accidents.
| colspan="2" | The week following daylight saving time, car accidents increase by about 5-7%<ref>http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/end-of-daylight-saving-time-2015-6-eye-opening-facts-1.3296353</ref>.
|-
| That's why we have leap seconds.
| colspan="2" | Leap seconds occur because the time required for one rotation of the Earth is actually slightly longer than the 86,400 seconds in a standard UTC day. The Earth's rotation is slowing down by about 2 × 10<sup>-5</sup> seconds every year due to tidal friction caused by the Moon's gravity; however, this is not one of the possible entries in the list of phenomena.
|-
! colspan="3" | Title Text
|}

<references />

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

<big>-Calendar Facts-</big>

[Shown below is a branching flow chart of sorts that begins at the phrase "Did you know that", then flows through various paths to build up a sentence. (Note that the "→" arrow symbol is used below to indicate a new branch with no intermediate text from a previous branch.)]

* Did you know that:
** the ( Fall | Spring ) Equinox
** the ( Winter | Summer ) ( Solstice | Olympics )
** the ( Earliest | Latest ) ( Sunrise | Sunset )
** Daylight ( Saving | Savings ) Time
** Leap ( Day | Year )
** Easter
** the ( Harvest | Super | Blood ) Moon
** Toyota Truck Month
** Shark Week
* →
** happens ( earlier | later | at the wrong time ) every year
** drifts out of sync with the
*** Sun
*** Moon
*** Zodiac
*** ( Gregorian | Mayan | Lunar | iPhone ) Calendar
*** atomic clock in Colorado
** might ( not happen | happen twice ) this year
* because of
** time zone legislation in ( Indiana | Arizona | Russia )
** a decree by the pope in the 1500s
** ( precession | libration | nutation | libation | eccentricity | obliquity ) of the
*** Moon
*** Sun
*** Earth's axis
*** equator
*** prime meridian
*** ( international date | mason-dixon ) line
** magnetic field reversal
** an arbitrary decision by ( Benjamin Franklin | Isaac Newton | FDR )
* ?
* Apparently
** it causes a predictable increase in car accidents.
** that's why we have leap seconds.
** scientists are really worried.
** it was even more extreme during the
*** Bronze Age.
*** Ice Age.
*** Cretaceous.
*** 1990s.
** there's a proposal to fix it, but it
*** will never happen.
*** actually makes things worse.
*** is stalled in congress.
*** might be unconstitutional.
** it's getting worse and no one knows why.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]]
[[Category:Daylight saving time]]
[[Category:Time]]
[[Category:Science]]
[[Category:Astronomy]]
[[Category:Supermoon]]

873: FPS Mod

2017-08-17T23:47:20Z

108.162.246.65: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 873
| date = March 16, 2011
| title = FPS Mod
| image = fps mod.png
| titletext = Wait, that second one is a woman? ...wait, if that bothers me, then why doesn't... man, this game is no fun anymore.
}}

==Explanation==
FPS stands for {{w|First-person shooter|First Person Shooter}}, which is a type of video game (like {{w|Halo (series)|Halo}} or {{w|Duke Nukem}}) in which you are looking at the world from the first person perspective of the character you are controlling. [[Randall]] notes in the caption that no one liked his FPS mod (short for "modification" of the FPS game), and in the title text it is clear that [[Cueball]] who played this modified version no longer enjoys the game.

FPS games are controversial for their (supposed) quality of encouraging violence such as killing (especially towards other human beings). One point of the controversy is that, while virtual enemies are just pixels on a screen, real enemies have actual lives, emotions, and the like. In the games, there is a disconnect between the act and its emotional cost, thus leading to the controversy that FPS games encourage wanton killing (or violence in general) to solve problems instead of considering the other party. Randall makes reference to this by adding a mod that gives biographical snippets of the enemy you shoot in the game, thus giving Cueball the perspective of the enemy he just shot, and causing emotional consequence and remorse by removing the disconnect between pixel and life.

The above can also be a reference towards making games more realistic. Giving the enemies a life above being mere targets definitely makes the game more realistic, but such a game would not be that enjoyable. This has been explored previously in [[772: Frogger]].

The title text talks about how gender is portrayed in games. For some people it is more emotionally affecting to kill a woman, as women are considered biologically "weaker" than men by many societies, and societal norms state that men must protect them. Gender equality is a highly debated topic with many different viewpoints, where one's conscious reasoned views may sometimes stand at odds to subconscious feelings. When a player becomes aware that killing women bothers one more than killing men, it exposes an inconsistency in the player's own logic, one that's very uncomfortable to confront.

In the 1993 post-apocalyptic novel {{w|The Fifth Sacred Thing}}, the eco-pacifist residents of San Francisco defeat an invading army using a similar tactic. Rather than engage in armed defense, the family and friends of each dead San Franciscan speak directly to the soldiers who killed them, saying, "My wife was the mother of five children, and I loved her dearly," or "My cousin liked baseball." Eventually the soldiers suffer psychological breakdowns and defect ''en masse'', rather as Cueball seems to do in the title text.

Amusingly, the 2014 game {{w|Watch_Dogs}} does something quite similar to this; the in-game "Profiler" provides a brief summary of a targeted enemy, and if the enemy does not have a gameplay-relevant feature (i.e. "Can call for backup"), it will mention their hobbies or interests.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is sitting in a chair in front of his TV holding a gamepad while playing a video game. Every time he shoots the sound is written inside a ring of small curved lines to indicate the noise. Text on the screen is noted after each round of blasts with a zigzag line from the screen and between each entry.]
:''Blam''
:Game: He once built a treehouse.
:''Blam''
:Game: She has 110 unread emails that she was hoping to get to tonight.
:''Blam blam''
:Game: He was the only one who took care of the plants back at base.

:[Caption below the panel:]
:No one liked my FPS mod that gives you three-second snippets from the bios of people you shoot.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Video games]]

Talk:1862: Particle Properties

2017-07-13T08:41:51Z

108.162.246.65: Haskell reference

oh dear, they copied the alt text wrong
[[Special:Contributions/173.245.50.108|173.245.50.108]] 14:58, 12 July 2017 (UTC)

More significantly, color charge is carried by gluons as well as quarks. [[User:Mjackson|Mjackson]] ([[User talk:Mjackson|talk]]) 15:19, 12 July 2017 (UTC)

As suggested by Zach Weinersmith ([https://twitter.com/zachweiner/status/885154434514395138 "For a joke: If you put pure alcohol under extreme pressure, could you claim to exceed 200 proof?"]), it's kind of confusing that the comic suggests alcohol proof can exceed 200 proof, and also that baseball batting averages can exceed 100%. Although on further review, they use the arrow-dot →∙ notation rather than the dot-arrow ∙→, so maybe it's not intended to indicate a lack of an upper bound. But then I'm not sure what it does indicate, esp. compared to the Electric Charge property. Continuous vs. discrete? It doesn't seem clear… [[User:JohnHawkinson|JohnHawkinson]] ([[User talk:JohnHawkinson|talk]]) 15:41, 12 July 2017 (UTC)

Proof is presumably US proof - UK usage based on gunpowder 175 degrees proof would be 100% alcohol

Batting average is presumably from baseball
Cricket batting averages are measured in runs per dismissal and are in theory unbounded. It is possible to have an infinite average for a season or series - though in terms of lifetime averages the best for players with more than ten matches is 99.96.
:If it is for baseball, it's labeled incorrectly. A perfect batting average is 1.000, not 100%. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batting_average Batting average] is actually a ratio - number of hits to number of at-bats - expressed as a decimal, not a percentage. For example, if a batter goes 3 for 5 in a game, his batting average would be .600, not 60%. [[User:OldCorps|OldCorps]] ([[User talk:OldCorps|talk]]) 16:25, 12 July 2017 (UTC)

We should probably arrange descriptions into a table.

How is it that there's no pain scale?
: Because Randall didn't think -- or possibly want -- to use it. Besides, do you really want every scale in existence in a single comic? If not, Randall has to select based on his own criteria, whatever they may be. As it is, there are 9 or 10 (depending on how you count "entropy") fields that don't apply to particle properties, as opposed to 5 or 6 that do. Gotta stop somewhere. [[User:Nyperold|Nyperold]] ([[User talk:Nyperold|talk]]) 22:44, 12 July 2017 (UTC)

Actually, D&D calls you "dead" if you go to your NEGATIVE hit point maximum. Otherwise, you make a completely random (50%) death saving throw. After 3 cumulative fails, you die. After 3 cumulative successes, you are stable. More info can be found in the {{w|Player's Handbook}}. [[User:SilverMagpie|SilverMagpie]] ([[User talk:SilverMagpie|talk]]) 21:33, 12 July 2017 (UTC)

"Heat" measured in jalapeño has also been used by some email systems such as Eudora to measure how strong an email message is (e.g., whether it will lead to a flame war) [[Special:Contributions/198.41.238.46|198.41.238.46]] 05:02, 13 July 2017 (UTC)

"String Type" being ByteString-CharString is a reference to Haskell, the programming language referenced in [https://xkcd.com/1312/ 1312: Haskell] and used to make [https://xkcd.com/1037/ 1037: Umlaut], which is structurally obsessed with data types. [https://hackage.haskell.org/package/bytestring ByteString] is the go-to type for dynamic text, which in more literal form unpacks to a String of [Char]s. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.246.65|108.162.246.65]] 08:41, 13 July 2017 (UTC)

1834: Lunch Order

2017-06-01T03:42:15Z

108.162.246.65: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1834
| date = May 8, 2017
| title = Lunch Order
| image = lunch order.png
| titletext = GO FOR LUNCH, REPEAT, GO FOR LUNCH.
}}

==Explanation==
The comic plays on the similarity of the words "launch" and "lunch," and the fact that both "Lunch order" and "Launch order" are common phrases in their respective environments. A "lunch order" is common in many work places, where a person may be asked to go pick up lunches for multiple coworkers so they don't all need to leave to get their lunches -- they would typically give their lunch order to the person making the run so he or she would know what to order. A "launch order" would only apply to a place capable of launching missiles, such as military installation housing launch-able missiles. So while a "lunch order" is pretty benign and could certainly apply to such a place, a "launch order" is a much more drastic command leading to the launching of one or more very expensive pieces of equipment, possibly with nuclear warhead payloads, intended to be used to cause massive destruction at one or more targets. By receiving an order for "Lunch" instead of to "Launch," nuclear conflict was avoided.

Autocorrect is a feature in many software text-entry applications (such as smartphone "keyboards") that will make changes to entered text that it identifies as misspelled in order to quickly increase legibility of the final text. While this process typically makes text entry quicker and easier for users, sometimes the automatically corrected text will not match what the user intended to send, which can lead to miscommunication.

In most circumstances, military units charged with the maintenance of active nuclear weapons will receive their orders to employ those weapons based on direct communication from a commanding authority, these forces in the United States are commanded by the United States Strategic Command. The majority of modern nuclear weapons are prepared to be deployed by rocket launch.

The joke involves anachronisms. To our knowledge, the last time the United States were at readiness to launch nuclear missiles at a hostile power was [http://www.rawstory.com/2014/04/nukes-were-almost-used-13-times-since-1962-and-the-risk-of-nuclear-accidents-is-rising-report/ June 1980], while the function we know today as Autocorrect would not enter development until [https://www.wired.com/2014/07/history-of-autocorrect/ the 1990's]. That said, the comic might be playing off recent fears involving [http://www.complex.com/life/2017/04/china-warns-united-states-north-korea-war-possible hostilities between the United States and North Korea]; if any l(a)unch preparations have been taken in 2017, they were not declassified by the time this comic was published.

<sub>There are jokes that the current leader of North Korea often confuses "launch" and "lunch." This has to do with his being the rotund head of a military dictatorship.</sub>

The title text plays on the similarity between two phrases: "GO FOR LAUNCH" is the standard way to express the {{w|Launch status check}} for a rocket (and means that all checks have passed and launch can proceed), whereas "GO FOR LUNCH" expresses the more mundane act of simply beginning one's lunch break. Despite the repetition (which is intended to reduce the chance of a miscommunication), the autocorrect still managed to distort the message a further two times.

A previous comic also explain the [[898: Chain of Command]] and who's responsible of the red button.

==Transcript==
[A control panel is showed, three Hairy's are in there, the rightmost one is controlling the panel, the two others are talking.]

Hairy 1: Sir-Strategic command has sent us a lunch order.

Hairy 2: Don't they have anything better to do?

[Below the panel is a caption.]

Caption: Everyone complains about autocorrect, but we forget about the time it prevented a nuclear war.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]

1774: Adjective Foods

2016-12-20T16:38:15Z

108.162.246.65:

{{comic
| number = 1774
| date = December 19, 2016
| title = Adjective Foods
| image = adjective_foods.png
| titletext = Contains 100% of your recommended daily allowance!
}}

==Explanation==

This comic shows one of [[Randall]]’s goals in life – creating foods with ‘adjective-only’ names, where common phrases such as “Glazed Donuts” or “Lite Beer” would be replaced with “Glazed” or “Lite”. This is a jab at food market buzzwords, which usually rely on adjectives and words that bring up certain feelings based on how the food is ‘supposed to be’. An example of this is something like ‘lean and tender beef’. It is also semi-difficult to determine the actual contents just by adjectives.

Even though the comic says “adjective-only”, “Original Flavor” is a noun phrase.

The title text furthers this by taking the phrase ‘recommended daily allowance of XXX’, and removing the ‘of XXX’ part. This may have been an attempt at furthering the joke by making it vague enough to be meaningless or it could be a jab at the cost of high adjective count food.

This joke is very similar to [[1060|comic 1060, Crowdsourcing]], in that Randall is doing nothing, and trying to make it look like he is doing something. It expresses the opposite idea from [[993|comic 993, Brand Identity]].

===Foods that are probably in each container===
Some foods are unknown, and they all could use details such as what adjectives are typically associated with that food and what they mean.
{| class="wikitable"
!Container
!Type of food
|-
|“… bespoke cage-free” bag
|Cereal or wheat
|-
|“… glazed flambé” box
|Some type of meat or vegetable
|-
|“… Kosher Grade A” box
|Eggs, syrup, foie, wagyu beef, etc.
|-
|“… extra sharp” box
|Cheese
|-
|“… Lite original flavor” can
|Beer or soft drink
|}

==Transcript==

:[An arrangement of labeled foodstuffs, from left to right and top to bottom:]
:Premium Stone-ground Bespoke, Cage-free
:Gourmet Fire-roasted Glazed flambé
:Organic All-natural Locally-sourced Artisanal, Kosher, Grade A
:Craft Barrel-aged Smoked Authentic Homemade Sun-dried Whole Extra Sharp
:Low-calorie Lite Original Flavor
:[Caption:] I'm trying to trick supermarkets into carrying my new line of adjective-only foods.

==Trivia==

* The word “artisanal” was originally misspelled as “artisenal”.
** The wrong spelling is found [https://web.archive.org/web/20161219163201/http://xkcd.com/1774/ here].

{{comic discussion}}