explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Talk:1647: Diacritics

2016-02-24T21:39:34Z

141.101.104.129:

Not quite sure if and how to inlcude the fact, that the German writing of résumé is Resümee. So the ü used by Cueball/Randall ist not that far off. However in German the word is not used for a CV (or similar), but for conclusions / abstracts. [[User:Elektrizikekswerk|Elektrizikekswerk]] ([[User talk:Elektrizikekswerk|talk]]) 10:19, 24 February 2016 (UTC)
:I have included it. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 20:31, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

:There is a newsgroup reading software called Forté Agent, which was popular in the past. It uses the same silly spelling as the title text. Might Randall be referring to it? http://www.forteinc.com/main/homepage.php {{unsigned|Lou Crazy}}

OT but I'm pretty amazed that my browser renders ȩ̊́́́́̆.́́́ properly. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.223.131|108.162.223.131]] 11:09, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

I doubt that Randall **forgets** to add the diacritics. My guess is that he is leaving it out due to habit or custom (or laziness), as accented characters often got mangled in emails at the Internet of yore. Just as some sysadmins here in .cz, me included. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.95.49|141.101.95.49]] 11:35, 24 February 2016 (UTC)
:Well it fits with his error in hie what if that may explain this comic. It is no referenced, so I think he means that it is not his strength to put them right! --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 20:31, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

Might have a relation with changes officially added to school manuals regarding the spelling of many words in french (removal of many accents), in order to simplify it that sparked some debate (1990 paper from Académie française in charge of normalizing/perfecting french language pushed by government few weeks(months?) ago). [[User:Zurgul|Zurgul]] ([[User talk:Zurgul|talk]]) 11:47, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

The top accent on the last e can be a caron [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caron]. It is hard to tell in hand-written text. [[User:Jkotek|Jkotek]] ([[User talk:Jkotek|talk]]) 12:18, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

In phonetics, you have to use many diacritics when describing unusual sounds narrowly. So you could end up with something like [ë̯̰̙̹̃́], which is a slightly rounded, nasalised, centralised, creaky-voiced open short e with retracted tongue root that has a high tone but does not serve as a syllable nucleus. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.91.222|162.158.91.222]] 13:32, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

''Forte'' means both loud and strong in both Italian and French --[[Special:Contributions/188.114.103.7|188.114.103.7]] 14:35, 24 February 2016 (UTC)
:And also in music in English, so included that instead. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 20:31, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

When I first clicked on "explain xkcd" from Android app, I saw:

"@@@@@@@@ Pogo Game Technical Support Phone
Number USA ------ ((((((((- - - - ------Call us on
.
.
."
etc

I wondered whether it was part of the joke. But now I see that it is gone. I have a screenshot, but don't know how to include it. {{unsigned ip|108.162.238.83}}
:We have had a lot [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1647:_Diacritics&oldid=113270 of spam]. (Link is to version you saw). --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 20:31, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

This comic looks like a mild example of [http://www.marlborotech.com/Zalgo.html Zalgo text], of which the most famous example (at least in my corner of the universe) is the "don't parse html with regex" [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1732348/regex-match-open-tags-except-xhtml-self-contained-tags/1732454#1732454 answer on StackOverflow.] [[Special:Contributions/173.245.54.53|173.245.54.53]] 17:42, 24 February 2016 (UTC)
:I was just going to mention the Zalgo-iness. You think this was intentional? [[User talk:AgentMuffin|~AgentMuffin]]

I have seen similar jokes on punctuation. Like: "I know Im not good at putting in any punctuation So here is some you can put in yourself <nowiki>..........,,,,,,,,,,------------""""""""" ''''''''' "</nowiki> I sadly have it this way with commas especially (but not only) in English. I can see that when others have copy edited my posts. But I think that is the great thing about wikis. The hard part is making the explanations, and the others can easily correct spell erroers etc. :-) --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 20:31, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

I'm a French native speaker, and I think I need more explanation. In English, you only use diacritics with words from other languages, right ? I guess "Résumé" comes from French (even if we only say CV), and forte/forté comes from Italian, am I right ? Then WHY do you write "forté" on a music sheet when in France, and I think in Italy too, we write "forte" ? Thank you for your potential answers. [[User:Seipas|Seipas]] ([[User talk:Seipas|talk]]) 21:06, 24 February 2016 (UTC)
:As an Italian mother tongue speaker, I removed the reference to "forté" as musical term, and marked it for verification on Wiktionary. --[[Special:Contributions/141.101.104.129|141.101.104.129]] 21:39, 24 February 2016 (UTC) (Gengis Gat)

1647: Diacritics

2016-02-24T21:38:06Z

141.101.104.129: Removing reference to "forté" on Wiktionary, which is a very doubtful entry

{{comic
| number = 1647
| date = February 24, 2016
| title = Diacritics
| image = diacritics.png
| titletext = Using diacritics correctly is not my forté.
}}

==Explanation==
A {{w|diacritic}} (or a diacritical mark) is a {{w|glyph}} added to a letter. The main use of diacritical marks in the {{w|latin script}} is to change the sound-values of the letters to which they are added, typically vowels.

[[Cueball]] is writing an e-mail (maybe for a job application) and notes in the mail that he attaches his {{w|résumé}}. The word ''résumé'' uses two e's with an {{w|acute accent}} so they look like this: é.

Cueball/[[Randall]] usually forgets to add these '''diacritics''' (hence the title of the comic). So when he occasionally remembers them, for instance when he types a word where he knows they should be included, then he makes up for all those he must have forgotten until now, and adds a whole bunch at once.

The first diacritic he uses is the normal acute accent for the e to make it an é which does belong in ''résumé''. But the second diacritic he uses is a {{w|Diaeresis (diacritic)|diaeresis}} (or umlaut) on the u making it into ü, which is not part of the word. (Although in French the ''u'' is pronounced like a {{w|Close_front_rounded_vowel|[y]}}, which is also the sound of a German or Turkish ''ü'', and in German the word is spelt using this as ''Resümee'', but then the meaning is not the same but rather conclusions or abstracts).

He then goes all in on the last e which, similar to the first e, is supposed to have an acute accent. This e has a {{w|cedilla}} (which normally looks like ȩ), a {{w|Ring (diacritic)|ring}} (as in e̊ ), three acute accents, and is topped off by a {{w|breve}} (which normally looks like ĕ). In total, six diacritics are used on this e alone. Using more than one diacritic on one letter can happen, but usually only two ( for example ṏ). Using them in this fashion makes little sense.

To make sure everyone gets it, there are no less than three acute accents over the last full stop. This is not something that is ever used.

So for a word that is supposed to have two diacritics, Cueball uses eight, plus three for the full stop.

In the title text "not my forté" is supposed to mean that it is not one of Randall's strength or talent. However, to obtain this meaning [https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/forte forte] should not have an acute diacritic over the e, thus proving Randall's point that it is not ''hís fṏrté to ûsë dïãcrítìcs''.

The title text is a reference to the [[what if?]] released a week before this comic, {{what if|145|''Fire from moonlight''}}, in which note 9 reads "My résumé says étendue is my forté." With the same error on "forte". Maybe he realized later that he had made a mistake in the note? Also [https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%C3%A9tendue étendue] can be written without the accent as [https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/etendue#English etendue] and the meaning is only written on this page in the Wikitonary. It means property of the light in an optical system which makes sense in the context of the note. However, it means something different in French where it either refers to size or range as a noun or as a verb is an alternative form of [https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%C3%A9tendre#French étendre] meaning stretch or spread. The most correct way of writing the sentence he tried to write would only have involved the accent on résumé: "My résumé says etendue is my forte." Thus again making it clear that Randall has it right when he writes: "Using diacritics correctly is not my forté."

==Transcript==
:[Cueball sitting in front of his lap top typing. The text above him is the one he is typing. The last word résumé has two many diacritics. The u has an umlaut (as in ü) and the last é has no less than six diacritics; a cedilla below (as in ȩ), a ring above (as in e̊ ), then three acute accents above the ring (as in é), and finally they are topped off by a breve (as in ĕ). Also the last full stop has three accents "´" above it:]
 
:Cueball (typing): Attached please find my résümȩ̊́́́́̆.́́́

:[Caption below the frame:]
:I usually leave out diacritics when I type, so I make up for it by occasionally adding a whole bunch at once.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Language]]

1354: Heartbleed Explanation

2016-01-15T13:37:00Z

141.101.104.129: /* Transcript */

{{comic
| number = 1354
| date = April 11, 2014
| title = Heartbleed Explanation
| image = heartbleed_explanation.png
| titletext = Are you still there, server? It's me, Margaret.
}}

==Explanation==
The {{w|Heartbleed bug}} has received a lot of news coverage recently and was also the topic of the previous comic [[1353: Heartbleed]]. This comic explains how the bug may have been discovered and can be exploited to reveal a server's memory contents.

Meg (her full name is Margaret as seen from the title text - see below) sends heartbeat requests to the server, the server responds to the heartbeat request by returning the contents of the body of the request up to the number of letters requested. The first two requests are well formed, requesting exactly the number of characters in the request body. The server's memory is showing Meg's request with many other requests going on at the same time.

Meg then ponders this and tries to another request asking for "HAT" but requests that it be 500 letters long instead of only 3; the server —not checking it or simply unaware that 500 letters is larger than the request body— returns "HAT" plus 497 letters that happened to be next to the word "HAT" in its memory (more will follow than are shown in the server's speak bubble as there are only 251 letters/symbols in the shown reply). Included are many sensitive bits of information, including a master key and user passwords. One of the passwords shown is "CoHoBaSt", a reference to [[936: Password Strength]], which suggests using "correct horse battery staple" as a password.

Often popular explanations of security bugs require the issue to be simplified a lot and to leave out a lot of details. In this case [[Randall]] didn't have to do much simplifying; the bug is actually that simple. Also, it should be noted that any client which can connect to the server typically can exploit this bug in the underlying {{w|OpenSSL software}} — the use of the term "User Meg" does not imply that Meg had to authenticate first.

Although Randall shows Meg recording the data by hand, on paper, it is more likely that a person exploiting the bug would have a computer record the data, perhaps on its hard drive or on a flash drive.

The title text is a reference to ''{{w|Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret.|Are you there God? It's me, Margaret.}}'', a novel by {{w|Judy Blume}}, and plays off of the "server, are you still there?" line in every panel where she did start a request. ''Meg'' can be a nickname for ''Margaret'' as well as ''[[Megan]]'' who the character Margaret slightly resembles. At the time this comic was released it could be discussed if the fact that Margaret's hair is clearly more curly than the usual Megan was enough not to call her Megan. But that it indeed was another character than Megan became clear when the comic [[1544: Margaret]] came out, featuring a girl that has the exact same type of hair, and of course can no longer be confused with Megan.

==Transcript==
:[Caption above the panels:]
:'''How the Heartbleed Bug works:'''

:[Meg, a girl with more curly hair than Megan, stands to the left in a panel. At the center of the panel is a black and gray server with red and green diode lights showing. During all six panels the server stays the same. Meg is standing with her arms down in four panels. It will be noted when she does not. Meg talks to the server. The server "thinks" all the time, i.e. we see its memory in all panels. The top and bottom line is breaking the edge of the thought bubble making it difficult to discern. In every second panel it replies to Meg. In these panels the number of letters requested by Meg is highlighted with yellow color.]

:[Meg speaks, server thinks:]
:Meg: Server, are you still there? If so, reply "POTATO" (6 letters).
:Server thinking: <tt>wans pages about "boats". User Erica requests secure connection using key "4538538374224" '''User Meg wants these 6 letters: POTATO.''' User Ada wants pages about "irl games". Unlocking secure records with master key 5130985733435. Maggie (chrome user) sends this message: "Hi</tt>

:[Server thinks, the same as above, although cut a little different at the edges, with POTATO highlighted in yellow and it replies the highlighted part in a rectangular speak bubble.]
:Server thinking: <tt>wans pages about "boats". User Erica requests secure connection using key "4538538374224". '''User Meg wants these 6 letters: POTATO.''' User Ada wants pages about "irl games". Unlocking secure records with master key 5130985733435. Maggie (chrome user) sends this message: "H</tt>
:Server: <tt>POTATO</tt>

:[Meg speaks, server thinks:]
:Meg: Server, are you still there? If so, reply "BIRD" (4 letters).
:Server thinking: <tt>User Olivia from London wants pages about "man bees in car why". Note: Files for IP 375.381.283.17 are in /tmp/files-3843. '''User Meg wants these 4 letters: BIRD.''' There are currently 348 connections open. User Brendan uploaded the file selfie.jpg (contents: 834ba962e2ceb9ff89bd3bff8c</tt>...

:[Server thinks, the same as above, although cut a little different at the edges, with BIRD highlighted in yellow and it replies the highlighted part in a rectangular speak bubble. Meg has taken her hand to her chin thinking:]

:Server thinking: <tt>User Olivia from London wants pages about "man bees in car why". Note: Files for IP 375.381.283.17 are in /tmp/files-3843. '''User Meg wants these 4 letters: BIRD.''' There are currently 348 connections open. User Brendan uploaded the file selfie.jpg (contents:</tt>
:Server: <tt>BIRD</tt>
:Meg: ''Hmm...''

:[Meg has taken her hand down again and speaks, server thinks, now with her line at the top:]

:Meg: Server, are you still there? If so, reply "HAT" (500 letters).
:Server memory: <tt>a connection. Jake requested pictures of deer. '''User Meg wants these 500 letters: HAT.''' Lucas requests the "missed connections" page. Eve (administrator) wants to set server's master key to "14835038534". Isabel wants pages about "snakes but not too long". User Karen wants to change account password to "CoHoBaSt". User</tt>

:[Server thinks, the same as above, although cut a little different at the edges, with everything from (and including) "HAT" highlighted in yellow and it replies the highlighted part and even more in a rectangular speak bubble. Meg has taken a note book and a pen and it writing something.:]

:Server memory: <tt>a connection. Jake requested pictures of deer. '''User Meg wants these 500 letters: HAT.''' Lucas requests the "missed connections" page. Eve (administrator) wants to set server's master key to "14835038534". Isabel wants pages about "snakes but not too long". User Karen wants to change account password to "CoHoBaSt". User</tt>
:Server: <tt>HAT. Lucas requests the "missed connections" page. Eve (administrator) wants to set server's key to "14835038534". Isabel wants pages about "snakes but not too long". User Karen wants to change account password to "CoHoBaSt". User Amber requests pages</tt>

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Computers]]

314: Dating Pools

2015-10-29T20:45:02Z

141.101.104.129: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 314
| date = September 10, 2007
| title = Dating Pools
| image = dating pools.png
| titletext = The full analysis is of course much more complicated, but I can't stay to talk about it because I have a date.
}}

==Explanation==
[[File:half-plus-seven.png|right|Half Plus Seven Rule]]
Megan is upset because she is apparently older than 26, and among people who marry, {{w|median|half}} do so below 26. The intuitive conclusion is that the number of potential partners is decreasing as time goes on.

The [http://onehalfplusseven.com Half Plus Seven Rule] is an unwritten rule which asserts that it is creepy to date anyone who is younger than half your age plus 7 years. For example a 50 year old dating someone who is 31 or younger would be classed as creepy. As the graph on the right shows, there is a lower limit and an upper limit.

*The lower limit defines the minimum age of your partner in order that ''you'' are not considered creepy.
*The upper limit defines the maximum age of your partner in order that ''they'' are not considered creepy.

As age increases, they age range of potential non-creepy partners widens. At 26 the range of non creepy partners is 18 years (20 to 38 year olds). At 50 it is a range of 54 years (32 to 86 years old).

At age 14, you can only date people your own age. If under 14, the other person is older than you. The same also works with infinity, but even Methusalem died once.

While the application of this rule actually reduces the number of potential matches further, [[Cueball]] presents it in a positive way. By showing that there are whole swathes of people who she couldn't marry in the first place without being in a creepy relationship, and that as her age increases the range of non-creepy partners increases, combined with {{w|United States Census Bureau|Census Bureau}} data, Cueball shows that her eligible dating pool is in fact still increasing.

Megan notes that graph-making nerds like Cueball may have a hard time finding dates, but this is belied by the title text.

 

==Transcript==
:[Megan is sitting on the ground with her elbows on her knees and her hands on her chin.]
:Megan: This sucks. The median first marriage age is 26. The pools of singles is shrinking. I'm running out of time.
:Cueball: Actually, not quite.

:Cueball: Yes, older singles are rarer. But as you get older, the dateable age range gets wider. An 18-year-old's range is 16-22, whereas a 30-year-old's might be more like 22-46.
:Text on chart: Standard creepiness rule: Don't date under (Age/2 + 7)

:Cueball: I did some analysis of this with the Census Bureau numbers just last weekend. Your dating pool actually grows until middle age. So don't fret so much!
:[The first chart is labelled Singles, and is a decreasing graph. The second graph is labelled Dating Pool, and is a bell curve.]

:Megan: Did your analysis say anything about the dating prospects of people who spend weekends at home making graphs?
:Cueball: Come on. Somewhere at the edge of the bell curve is the girl for me.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Romance]]
[[Category:Statistics]]
[[Category:Math]]

Talk:1398: Snake Facts

2014-07-23T15:35:50Z

141.101.104.129: Cyrano?

I thought the Worlds longest snake was so long that it took up enough space to be in Brazil, Peru, and Chile at the same time.~~

Just a couple of thoughts: How big was the person whose digestive tract became the longest snake in the world? Also, does the grosser end of the digestive tract develop into the head of a venomous snake? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.223.29|108.162.223.29]] 06:57, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

The snake in the map shades Chile, BOLIVIA and Brazil, not Peru. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.229.125|108.162.229.125]] 08:25, 23 July 2014 (UTC)
:Updated the image to match the one on xkcd.com. [[User:Nialpxe|Nialpxe]] ([[User talk:Nialpxe|talk]]) 10:00, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, the shading (unless randell's updated after reading this) does track chili, up the Pacific Coast, across the border with Peru and veers east into Brazil.

I did wonder if 'the World's longest snake' was a reference to the south American highway, part of the pan American highway. Parts were completed in the 1950's making it 'over 60years old', and does track chili as per the 'snakes' body into Peru but the brazilian section is connected elsewhere, neatly crushing my wild theory. :-( [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.161|141.101.99.161]] 09:39, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

The first factoid contains a common misconception about evolution, namely that species evolve ''only'' in small steps. It's entirely possible that a small mutation caused a protein that appeared in snakes' saliva to suddenly be ''very'' poisonous to the snake's prey or enemies. --[[Special:Contributions/108.162.231.98|108.162.231.98]] 11:13, 23 July 2014 (UTC)
:It is possible, but unlikely. Snake venom is not a single chemical, but a mixture of several enzymes and toxins. There is a lot of variation in protein structure and enzymatic properties of the constituents of different snakes' venom, which suggests a gradual shift from one or two simpler lytic enzymes to a complex mixture. Each protein could have mutated separately, but the composition of the venom of each species almost certainly developed over a prolonged period of time. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.223.29|108.162.223.29]] 11:34, 23 July 2014 (UTC)
::I don't think the implication was that every venom evolution happened in one fail swoop. I believe he was pointing out that instead of people thinking that venom evolution started with bad breath (minuscule unnoticeable changes) more likely started with a reasonably poisonous mutation that actually benefited a snakes survival.--[[User:Bmmarti3|Bmmarti3]] ([[User talk:Bmmarti3|talk]]) 12:46, 23 July 2014 (UTC)
:: Exactly what Bmmarti3 said. ''"the composition of the venom of each species"'' You mean of today's snakes. This is what we would expect for animals that have been around for almost 100M years. The venom of the first poisonous snakes was certainly weaker (and probably only worked on specific targets), but that doesn't mean it was weak. --[[Special:Contributions/108.162.231.98|108.162.231.98]] 13:05, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

Is it possible that the alt-text is a reference to Cyrano de Bergeracs "L’Autre monde ou les états et empires de la Lune" ("Comical History of the States and Empires of the Moon")? I don't have a proper translation, but there's a dialogue that says that every man is born with a snake inside his belly as a punishment by god.--[[Special:Contributions/141.101.104.129|141.101.104.129]] 15:35, 23 July 2014 (UTC)