explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Talk:2321: Low-Background Metal

2020-06-19T06:30:50Z

141.101.76.82:

Spoiler Alert for Avengers Endgame next comment [[Special:Contributions/162.158.75.60|162.158.75.60]] 20:36, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
:I can't help but notice that the basic premise of this comic is very much like the reason for going back to 1970 in ''Avengers: Endgame'', when they needed more Pym particles for time travel. I wonder if Randall re-watched it again recently? — [[User:KarMann|KarMann]] ([[User talk:KarMann|talk]]) 17:10, 17 June 2020 (UTC)
:: Whoa! Spoiler alert! Disney Plus won't have Infinity War until next week. I'm not watching them out of order! [[User:Mathmannix|Mathmannix]] ([[User talk:Mathmannix|talk]]) 12:16, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

Oh, that's new to me, that they use roman ships to get to higher quantities of lead. For Steel they use German ships. after world war I, the german high seas fleet was captured and put under arrest in scottish waters. To not allow the enemy to utilize the ships, they all sank themselfes. {{w|Scuttling_of_the_German_fleet_at_Scapa_Flow|wikisource}} --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 05:46, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

== Drawing ==

There's one leg of the time-machine missing from the 3rd panel. (or is it the side of a base?) --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.155.126|162.158.155.126]] 19:57, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

== Mined lead ==

Pb-210 (half-life 20.4 years) is a decay product of radon, and thus accumulates everywhere that is exposed to the atmosphere or where radon seeps from the ground. I suspect it could be a contaminant in lead from some lead mines, but wasn't able to find any references [[User:ShadwellNH|ShadwellNH]] ([[User talk:ShadwellNH|talk]]) 20:00, 17 June 2020 (UTC) Paul

== One use only? ==

The way I understand it, the time machine is one-use unless you find other Low-Background Metal. If you find it, you can make more trips. It would appear that the trip is successful.
--[[Special:Contributions/188.114.103.129|188.114.103.129]] 01:31, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

So you'd say a car is also one-use, unless you find a gas station? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.167|162.158.158.167]] 08:51, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
: No, but if the parts it was made of had to be replaced after every trip, I definitely would. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.70.117|172.69.70.117]] 16:59, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

:: Sure, but the ability to rebuild the car with completely new material doesn't turn it into a multi-use car. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.130|141.101.98.130]] 04:11, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

== Real life use of this lead? ==

Does anyone know whether there is any truth whatsoever to scientists using lead from sunken ships to shield delicate equipment? Obviously not time machines, but there are some pieces of equipment that might be sensitive to radiation.

Also, would lead that was in the ocean actually be safer from nuclear fallout than lead that was underground and mined after the nuclear testing ended? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.172|108.162.216.172]] 03:31, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
: Yes. At least it is done with steel. [https://hackaday.com/2017/03/27/low-background-steel-so-hot-right-now/][https://www.good.is/articles/the-search-for-low-background-steel][https://www.stainless-steel-world.net/mobile/webarticles/joanne-mcintyre/disappearing-warships-scavengers-raid-war-graves-for-low-background-steel.html] [[Special:Contributions/172.69.33.129|172.69.33.129]] 04:50, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

: Low Background Lead is also used, mentioned in the Good article. The equipment that need this stuff is mostly radiation sensors, very precise ones that can detect even smallest amounts of radiation. And for the last Question, you can't find pure natural lead, its mostly contaminated with radioactive elements (most lead in the universe results from decay chains). And common lead is made through recycling. Ancient lead from roman ships had enough time for the radioactive elements to decay into stable lead. --[[Special:Contributions/141.101.105.114|141.101.105.114]] 06:12, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

== May be complicated ==

The 1968 Story [https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/109243/modern-military-jet-goes-back-to-world-war-i Hawk among Sparrows] discusses the problems modern war hardware may have when used against old tech. -- [[Special:Contributions/141.101.76.82|141.101.76.82]] 07:39, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
: This was also part of the premise of the 1980 movie "Final Countdown", when the aircraft carrier Nimitz shows up in the Pacific Ocean on December 6, 1941. [[User:Nutster|Nutster]] ([[User talk:Nutster|talk]]) 13:38, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
: {{w|Biggles_(film)|Biggles: The Movie}} had a WW1 flying ace ''take'' a 1980s helicopter (ostensibly unarmed, except fortuitously/inevitably against the Big Bad Weapon) back to his era, thanks to a Time-Twin plotline. Thus, IIRC it only did well to defend against era-local aicraft by the mythical skill of the eponymous pilot, and was handily lost once the temporal-trickery job was finally accomplished. If you enjoy that era of kitcsh then I'd suggest you not pass up a viewing, even if not actually seek it out. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.130|141.101.98.130]] 17:11, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
* I am also mildly disappointed that the helicopter is not Airwolf. [[User:Nutster|Nutster]] ([[User talk:Nutster|talk]]) 03:11, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

== Safer alternative? ==

They could just send a cache of modern lead back in time and wait till it cools down. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.76.82|141.101.76.82]] 06:30, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Talk:2321: Low-Background Metal

2020-06-18T07:39:46Z

141.101.76.82:

I can't help but notice that the basic premise of this comic is very much like the reason for going back to 1970 in ''Avengers: Endgame'', when they needed more Pym particles for time travel. I wonder if Randall re-watched it again recently? — [[User:KarMann|KarMann]] ([[User talk:KarMann|talk]]) 17:10, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

Oh, that's new to me, that they use roman ships to get to higher quantities of lead. For Steel they use German ships. after world war I, the german high seas fleet was captured and put under arrest in scottish waters. To not allow the enemy to utilize the ships, they all sank themselfes. {{w|Scuttling_of_the_German_fleet_at_Scapa_Flow|wikisource}} --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 05:46, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

== Drawing ==

There's one leg of the time-machine missing from the 3rd panel. (or is it the side of a base?) --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.155.126|162.158.155.126]] 19:57, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

== Mined lead ==

Pb-210 (half-life 20.4 years) is a decay product of radon, and thus accumulates everywhere that is exposed to the atmosphere or where radon seeps from the ground. I suspect it could be a contaminant in lead from some lead mines, but wasn't able to find any references [[User:ShadwellNH|ShadwellNH]] ([[User talk:ShadwellNH|talk]]) 20:00, 17 June 2020 (UTC) Paul

== One use only? ==

The way I understand it, the time machine is one-use unless you find other Low-Background Metal. If you find it, you can make more trips. It would appear that the trip is successful.
--[[Special:Contributions/188.114.103.129|188.114.103.129]] 01:31, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

== Real life use of this lead? ==

Does anyone know whether there is any truth whatsoever to scientists using lead from sunken ships to shield delicate equipment? Obviously not time machines, but there are some pieces of equipment that might be sensitive to radiation.

Also, would lead that was in the ocean actually be safer from nuclear fallout than lead that was underground and mined after the nuclear testing ended? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.172|108.162.216.172]] 03:31, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
: Yes. At least it is done with steel. [https://hackaday.com/2017/03/27/low-background-steel-so-hot-right-now/][https://www.good.is/articles/the-search-for-low-background-steel][https://www.stainless-steel-world.net/mobile/webarticles/joanne-mcintyre/disappearing-warships-scavengers-raid-war-graves-for-low-background-steel.html] [[Special:Contributions/172.69.33.129|172.69.33.129]] 04:50, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

: Low Background Lead is also used, mentioned in the Good article. The equipment that need this stuff is mostly radiation sensors, very precise ones that can detect even smallest amounts of radiation. And for the last Question, you can't find pure natural lead, its mostly contaminated with radioactive elements (most lead in the universe results from decay chains). And common lead is made through recycling. Ancient lead from roman ships had enough time for the radioactive elements to decay into stable lead. --[[Special:Contributions/141.101.105.114|141.101.105.114]] 06:12, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

== May be complicated ==

The 1968 Story [A hawk among sparrows](https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/109243/modern-military-jet-goes-back-to-world-war-i) discusses the problems modern war hardware may have when used against old tech. -- [[Special:Contributions/141.101.76.82|141.101.76.82]] 07:39, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

Talk:2321: Low-Background Metal

2020-06-18T07:39:01Z

141.101.76.82:

I can't help but notice that the basic premise of this comic is very much like the reason for going back to 1970 in ''Avengers: Endgame'', when they needed more Pym particles for time travel. I wonder if Randall re-watched it again recently? — [[User:KarMann|KarMann]] ([[User talk:KarMann|talk]]) 17:10, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

Oh, that's new to me, that they use roman ships to get to higher quantities of lead. For Steel they use German ships. after world war I, the german high seas fleet was captured and put under arrest in scottish waters. To not allow the enemy to utilize the ships, they all sank themselfes. {{w|Scuttling_of_the_German_fleet_at_Scapa_Flow|wikisource}} --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 05:46, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

== Drawing ==

There's one leg of the time-machine missing from the 3rd panel. (or is it the side of a base?) --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.155.126|162.158.155.126]] 19:57, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

== Mined lead ==

Pb-210 (half-life 20.4 years) is a decay product of radon, and thus accumulates everywhere that is exposed to the atmosphere or where radon seeps from the ground. I suspect it could be a contaminant in lead from some lead mines, but wasn't able to find any references [[User:ShadwellNH|ShadwellNH]] ([[User talk:ShadwellNH|talk]]) 20:00, 17 June 2020 (UTC) Paul

== One use only? ==

The way I understand it, the time machine is one-use unless you find other Low-Background Metal. If you find it, you can make more trips. It would appear that the trip is successful.
--[[Special:Contributions/188.114.103.129|188.114.103.129]] 01:31, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

== Real life use of this lead? ==

Does anyone know whether there is any truth whatsoever to scientists using lead from sunken ships to shield delicate equipment? Obviously not time machines, but there are some pieces of equipment that might be sensitive to radiation.

Also, would lead that was in the ocean actually be safer from nuclear fallout than lead that was underground and mined after the nuclear testing ended? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.172|108.162.216.172]] 03:31, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
: Yes. At least it is done with steel. [https://hackaday.com/2017/03/27/low-background-steel-so-hot-right-now/][https://www.good.is/articles/the-search-for-low-background-steel][https://www.stainless-steel-world.net/mobile/webarticles/joanne-mcintyre/disappearing-warships-scavengers-raid-war-graves-for-low-background-steel.html] [[Special:Contributions/172.69.33.129|172.69.33.129]] 04:50, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

: Low Background Lead is also used, mentioned in the Good article. The equipment that need this stuff is mostly radiation sensors, very precise ones that can detect even smallest amounts of radiation. And for the last Question, you can't find pure natural lead, its mostly contaminated with radioactive elements (most lead in the universe results from decay chains). And common lead is made through recycling. Ancient lead from roman ships had enough time for the radioactive elements to decay into stable lead. --[[Special:Contributions/141.101.105.114|141.101.105.114]] 06:12, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

== May be complicated ==

The 1968 Story [A hawk among sparrows](https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/109243/modern-military-jet-goes-back-to-world-war-i) discusses the problems modern war hardware may have when used against old tech.
-- [[Special:Contributions/141.101.76.82|141.101.76.82]] 07:39, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

664: Academia vs. Business

2018-11-08T17:50:00Z

141.101.76.82: The title text isn't wrong, both constants work.

{{comic
| number = 664
| date = November 18, 2009
| title = Academia vs. Business
| image = academia_vs_business.png
| titletext = Some engineer out there has solved P=NP and it's locked up in an electric eggbeater calibration routine. For every 0x5f375a86 we learn about, there are thousands we never see.
}}

== Explanation ==
[[Cueball]] has solved some tricky and very important problem in computer science, related to {{w|queueing theory}}.

The comic splits into two timelines. Showing the brilliant computer code he'd written to somebody who actually knows computer code allows the academic to see the programmer's true brilliance and get him much-earned plaudits from the academic community.

In the alternate timeline – implied to be what ''actually'' happens – the boss, not possessing that knowledge, simply sees the results and not the means Cueball used to attain them. He then gives Cueball another assignment. This, sadly, is the usual course of events in bureaucracy, which only seems to care about your results, not how you came about them. To drive in the point, the boss asks Cueball to do something as simple as setting up email on the office phones, a stark contrast to the skill and creativity Cueball would have needed to write his code in the first panel.

The references in the title text are to the {{w|P versus NP problem}}, a famous unsolved problem in computer science, and the "magical constant" (0x5f375a86) used in finding the {{w|fast inverse square root}}, i.e. y=x−½ – no-one knows quite who came up this very useful bit of code, but it was discovered hiding in the graphics code of the video game {{w|Quake III Arena}}. Note that the actual constant used in the Quake III source code is 0x5f375'''9df''', but the constant in the title text works also, and is actually slightly more accurate: [http://www.lomont.org/Math/Papers/2003/InvSqrt.pdf]

The title text may be a reference to {{w|Stephen Jay Gould}}'s quotation: “I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.” about how great minds may be exploited by the commercial world and their genius go unknown.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball sits at a desk in front of a computer. There are cans on the desk and more crushed ones on the floor.]
:Cueball: I just wrote the most beautiful code of my life.

:Cueball: They casually handed me an impossible problem. In 48 hours and 200 lines, I ''solved'' it.

:[Lines divide the comic into two possible end panels here, labeled "Academia" and "Business."]

:Academia:
:Professor: My god... this will mean a half-dozen papers, a thesis or two, and a paragraph in every textbook on queuing theory!

:Business:
:Boss: You got the program to stop jamming up? Great. While you're fixing stuff, can you get Outlook to sync with our new phones?

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Programming]]

1756: I'm With Her

2018-10-31T08:22:31Z

141.101.76.82: /* Explanation */ Slightly more correct wording to be closer to the linked source.

{{comic
| number = 1756
| date = November 7, 2016
| title = I'm With Her
| image = im_with_her.png
| titletext = We can do this.
}}
==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Incomplete for at least four reasons: a) The transcript is not standard. b) The table at the explanation is bad layout. c) The "Sad comics" section at trivia doesn't belong to this comic. d) The title text is bad explained, the German Chancellor Angela Merkel is irrelevant here but Barack Obama's famous speech "Yes, we can" has to be mentioned.}}

In this serious, ''no joke'', comic released the day before the {{w|2016 United States presidential election}} (which was more contentious than most, due in part to many people finding both candidates unusually distasteful), [[Randall]] urged his American viewership to vote, and showed his {{w|Political endorsement|endorsement}} for {{w|Hillary Clinton}}, the {{w|US Democratic Party|Democratic}} nominee in the election. She was up against the {{w|US Republican Party|Republican}} nominee {{w|Donald Trump}}, who ended up winning. For the sake of completeness, it should be mentioned that there were also nominees from other parties, including {{w|Green Party of the United States|Green Party}} nominee {{w|Jill Stein}}, and {{w|Libertarian Party (United States)|Libertarian}} nominee {{w|Gary Johnson}}. Neither hoped to garner enough votes to become president, but there was a chance {{w|spoiler candidate|they could affect the result}} in some states (no third-party candidate has ''won'' a state since {{w|United_States_presidential_election,_1968|1968}} - and it did not occur this time either - the closest any came in 2016 was independent candidate {{w|Evan McMullin}} in Utah.)

It was the second time Randall referred to this election, the first being [[1748: Future Archaeology]] three weeks before the election, but here it was just a wish to know the result using time travel (of course he did not learn the result back then…).

The "H" with an arrow was {{w|Hillary Clinton presidential campaign, 2016|Clinton's campaign}} logo, and '''I'm with her''' an official slogan that was widely used by her supporters, hence the title. Randall then lists tips to help you cast your vote ([[#How to help|see table below]]) suggesting a personal investment in the election. Clinton herself may be represented by [[Blondie]] sitting on top of the H looking out at the reader as the only of the 11 characters. The only type of joke in the comic is the chosen characters. Two with weapons flank the left and right side looking out ready to defend against Trump. Both are from earlier comic. Especially [[Ponytail]] with a ray gun (the one she also wielded in [[322: Pix Plz]]). The gun is for melting computers of persons that make snide remarks at women, clearly a reference to {{w|Donald_Trump_sexual_misconduct_allegations|allegations of Donald Trump's sexual harassment of women}} in general and especially to his ''grab them by the pussy'' {{w|Donald Trump and Billy Bush recording|comment}}. [[Cueball]] with his weapon is from [[303: Compiling]]. See more details in the [[#Character gallery|character gallery]] below.

This is the first time Randall has used a comic to directly support a presidential campaign, although he did [https://blog.xkcd.com/2008/01/28/obama/ endorse] {{w|Barack Obama}} in 2008 on his [[Blag]]. He wrote himself later that it was very controversial when he endorsed Obama, but that it was not the most [[388:_Fuck_Grapefruit#Controversy|controversial comic he had published]] at that time. This comic might take that prize now, given that this was one of the most discussed elections up to its time. This is particularly noteworthy outside the US - for example, some European leaders openly opposed Trump, while others supported him. There were also reports of Russian hackers attempting to influence the election.

Randall's support for Hillary Clinton may have been due in part to Donald Trump {{w|Donald_Trump#Healthcare.2C_education_and_environment|being a prominent}} {{w|climate change denier}}. Randall has published comics opposing climate change denial such as this: [[1732: Earth Temperature Timeline]], published less than two months before the election, as well as several other [[:Category:Climate change|comics on climate change]]. Also Trump beating Clinton made Randall's [[1313: Regex Golf|regex that matches the last names of elected US presidents but not their opponents]] impossible to update.

All the information on the bottom half of the comic includes sites, numbers, info, etc., current as of 2016, that are intended to help US voters to vote, regardless of whom they vote for. Including this information can assist voters who don't understand the process, don't feel that it's worth it, or feel intimidated or threatened. In general, these sites and numbers were likely included to help boost voter turnout.

The title text, which states that "We can do this", refers to Randall's desire to unite Democratic voters and elect Hillary Clinton to the White House instead of Trump. It is possible to [https://www.lookhuman.com/design/86542-hillary-clinton-we-can-do-it/tshirt buy t-shirts] with the famed {{w|We Can Do It!}} logo from the "Rosie the Riveter" wartime poster, but with Hillary Clinton in the famed position. However this is not quite the same "We can do this" sentence that Randall uses. "We can do this" (or in German, "[https://www.dict.cc/?s=Wir+schaffen+das+%5BAngela+Merkel%5D Wir schaffen das]") was also the catchphrase of the German Chancellor {{w|Angela Merkel}} during the recent influx of refugees from the Syrian War — like Clinton, Merkel was fighting against {{w|Pegida|a populist nativist movement}} that wanted to close the country's borders.

Unfortunately for Randall, these efforts were in vain, as {{w|Donald Trump}} (another populist nativist who wants to close the country's borders) was elected on Tuesday, November 8, falsifying the title-text. This result became a fact less than two weeks before the first ([[1761: Blame]]) of [[#Sad comics|several sad comics]] that all seemed related to the election of Donald Trump.

===How to help===
The list of things that can help is all about getting people to vote. While Randall is likely to have wanted to boost voter turnout regardless of political leanings, it's clear from his endorsement of Clinton that he believed increased turnout would have helped her win the race. There is general evidence that certain more heavily Democratic-leaning demographics are less likely to vote, and in this election in particular, the various political issues that had been raised against Hillary (such as the {{w|Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI's}} public disclosures of its investigation into her use of a private email server) were shown to have reduced enthusiasm among Democrats. But all these issues aside, both Republicans and Democrats alike agree on encouraging everyone to vote, and Randall is likely to have agreed with that sentiment as well.

Here is Randall's list of suggestions for how to help Hillary Clinton win the election:
{|class="wikitable"
!What to do
!How to do it
!Explanation
|-
|Vote
|[https://iwillvote.com/ iwillvote.com]
|A site to look up polling locations, ID requirements, etc.
|-
|Get a ride to the polls:
|[http://www.drive2vote.org/ drive2vote.org]
|For voters in Douglas and Sarpy County, Nebraska, who needed a ride to the polls from {{w|Warren Buffett}} or his friends.
|-
|If you're having problems voting
|[http://www.866ourvote.org/ 866-OUR-VOTE]
|Racism or other biases on the part of people running polling places is a real issue for minorities. Though it is illegal, people may lie or deny rights to would-be-voters who they believe will not vote for the candidate they agree with. In some instances, voters may require backup from someone with legal understanding to get to vote, which is a service this phone number provides. Since Donald Trump has suggested that unofficial {{w|poll watchers}} should patrol voting stations - which has been described as potential [https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/05/election-day-violence-donald-trump-poll-watchers voter intimidation] - this has been an especially widely discussed topic in this election. The phone number written out as numbers is (866) 687-8683
|-
|Experimental social turnout project
|[http://www.civicinnovation.com/ civicinnovation.com] App Store: VoteWithMe
|An app which "gives you a list of the top 10 highest-impact potential voters in your address book to get in touch with -- based on the likelihood that they support progressive candidates, and that they live in states with the most competitive races". This app is for Android and iOS, with the App Store ID as "VoteWithMe". The "VoteWithMe" app is created by Civic Innovation Works and "uses publicly available voter records to predict which of your contacts are likely to support Democratic candidates, but might not have a plan to vote", as it says on its [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/votewithme/id1170104517/ App Store Page].
|-
|Reminder:
|If you're in line when the polls close, they have to let you vote.
|This is correct, as is printed on most election pamphlets as part of the ''Voters' Bill of Rights'', as well as being cited on numerous sources online (eg [http://votersedge.kqed.org/en/ca/ballot/election/area/42/section/voting-info?id=statewide-42-ca#section-my-rights-as-a-voter here].) Being turned down for trying to vote after the polling place is officially closed (if you were already in line ''when'' the polls closed) might be an instance where you want to use the phone number mentioned above.
|}

===Character gallery===
The comic shows a gallery of 11 xkcd characters including all the main characters from xkcd (except [[Hairy]]), which stand united behind Randall and Clinton despite their lack of agreement in many other comics.

*From left to right on the left side of the H are: 
**[[Ponytail]] with a ray gun (the one she also wielded in [[322: Pix Plz]], a comic where she was named Joanna). The gun is for melting computers of persons that make snide remarks at women, clearly a reference to {{w|Donald_Trump_sexual_misconduct_allegations|Donald Trump's sexual harassment of women}} in general and especially to his Grab Pussy comment.
**[[Black Hat]] (who was the one introducing Joanna/Ponytail in the mentioned comic)
**[[Danish]] (Black Hat's girlfriend setting up a kite for him, although it could be Megan, but she is also shown later with her regular shorter hair). However it has mainly been Megan in comics with kites, like [[235: Kite]] and [[1614: Kites]]. Kites are a [[:Category:Kites|recurring theme]] on xkcd.
**[[White Hat]] looking at the kite.
*On top of the H are:
**[[Blondie]] (looking out at us, maybe representing Clinton herself)
**[[Megan]] (next to Cueball)
**[[Cueball]] (forming the standard couple in xkcd with Megan)
**[[Hairbun]] with glasses (so specifically not the one from the previous comic [[1755: Old Days]], but rather like in [[1637: Salt Mine]]).
*On the right side of the H are:
**[[Science Girl]] (The adult version of her, is holding her hand out towards a cute squirrel. Of course she could also be the girl from [[635: Locke and Demosthenes]] where the squirrel is poisoned...)
**[[Beret Guy]] is holding a squirrel out towards Science Girl. (The first time squirrels was mentioned was actually when Beret Guy found them in a tree in [[167: Nihilism]] and since then they have become a [[:Category:Squirrels|recurring theme]] on xkcd and a similar squirrel can for instance be seen in [[1503: Squirrel Plan]]. Beret Guy has not been seen together with a squirrel before, but has been shown to care for animals, for instance in [[614: Woodpecker]]).
**[[:Category:Multiple Cueballs|Another Cueball]] is standing on an office chair wielding a sword as he was shown in [[303: Compiling]]. (Interestingly enough the previous comic [[1755: Old Days]] was about Cueball asking Hairbun about {{w|compiling}} in the old days. Seems realistic that Randall has this comic ready for this Monday before the election for some time, and when finding this 9 year old version of Cueball in the old comics, he may have gotten inspired to make a comic about compiling in the old days).

Note that the two characters at either side of the comic wield weapons pointing out, defending the other nine. Those next to the characters with weapons are doing recreational things like kiting and admiring adorable squirrels, both of which are recurring subjects in xkcd.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|It's agreed that this overwhelming texts are not a proper transcript.}}
:[Eleven characters are drawn left, right and on top of a huge H with an arrow as the horizontal bar connecting the two vertical towers. The arrow breaks the right part of the H. It represents the logo from Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign for 2016. From left to right on the left side of the H are Ponytail with an exotic looking futuristic ray gun like weapon looking to the left away from the H and the others. Behind her is Black Hat who looks at a girl that might be Danish or Megan (but with longer hair than Megan typically has). She is setting up a kite that flies above the first two characters. Behind her and looking up at the kite is White Hat. The H is right behind him, and on top of the left tower of the H sits Blondie looking straight out at the reader with her legs dangling over the edge and her arms resting on her knees. On the arrow between the two H towers sits Megan leaning against the left H tower, also dangling her legs over the edge and arms resting on her knees. Cueball is standing to her right, just left of the right H tower. On top of the right H towers sits Hairbun with glasses looking straight right with her legs dangling over the edge one arm resting on a knee and leaning back on the other arm. On the right side of the H is an adult version of Science Girl holding a hand out towards the squirrel which Beret Guy is holding out in both arms towards her. Behind them is another Cueball standing on an office chair holding a sword high up in front of him to the right away from the others. He keeps his balance by holding his other arm out behind him. Below the H there is a large caption.]
:<big><big><big>H</big></big></big>
: <big><big>I'm with her.</big></big>

:[Below the panel there are several lines of text. The first header line refers to the next four lines with solutions to problems, title/problem on one side then a long dash and the web-link or other information on the right side of that. Below those there is a reminder.]
:<big>How to help</big>
:Vote - iwillvote.com
:Get a ride to the polls - drive2vote.org
:If you're having problems voting - 866-OUR-VOTE
:Experimental social turnout project - civicinnovation.com App Store: VoteWithMe

:<big>Reminder:</big>
:If you're in line when the polls close, they have to let you vote.

==Trivia==
*Shortly after this comic was released Hillary Clinton lost the election. She won {{w|Massachusetts}} -- Randall's home state -- which was never doubted, and she also got the most voters. But Trump did win the most states and the most electoral voters and started his rule as the {{w|President of the United States}} in January 2017.

===Sad comics===
<div class="mw-collapsible mw-collapsed leftAlign" style="width:100%">


*After this comic there have been a clear trend that '''[[Randall]] has had sad thoughts''' after the {{w|United States presidential election, 2016|election}} of Trump in 2016.
**Over the next few months after the election (at least up till just after Donald Trump’s {{w|Inauguration of Donald Trump|inauguration}}) Randall has posted (at least) five comics that could be interpreted as him being sad/angry or that people around him are acting in such a way.
*Not since Randall's wife's [[:Category:Cancer|cancer diagnosis]] has there been so many sad/negative or depressing comics.
**During a two year span there were only five decidedly sad cancer comics.
**There has now been more "sad" comics in a little more than three months (November 18th 2016 to February 24th 2017), and they continued longer.
***As a comparison the year before the first sad comic there where no really sad, and only one (for real) scary comic: [[1732: Earth Temperature Timeline]].
***That comic has just been made more scary as it now seems the doing nothing is no longer the worst case scenario given That Randall did not expect Trump to win. And his policy of denying climate change, will probably make it even worse than if we did nothing.
***So this is another good reason why Randall would begin to post sad comics after the election. He is likely really scared the climate will be beyond saving once Trump leaves office. And it may be for a good reason. See about the comic [[#Sad|Sad]] below from after Trump became president.
**Hopefully Randall is not so depressed for real as the comics below could suggest.
*Note that none of these sad comics, also including this one, directly mentions Trump at all.
**But this comic indirectly references him as the opponent of the one Randall is with, and all the other comics could be interpreted as being about something that could have come about because of this election result.
**But the connection is not only inferred from the mood. Three comics where released close to some important day on Donald Trump's way to becoming president and another was the New Year comic, thus representing going into the year where Trump actually becomes president. And the fifth was during the days when the first executive order of Trump was overruled (see more below under [[#Focus Knob|Focus Knob]]).
*If more related comics appear they can be listed below; then update the above section regarding dates and number of comics.
**These comics are collected here because they are not easily collected under a specific category.
**Since the connection to Trump and the election is circumstantial in the sad comics, this trivia has been put on this comics page. Though this is not in itself one of the really sad comics, this comic definitely relates to Trump and Randall's stance regarding him becoming president.
**After April 2017 the sad comics related to the election stopped, but in August 2017, a week before the solar Eclipse, the election was mentioned in [[1876: Eclipse Searches]].
**Another few comics came out later with reference to the election: for instance [[#October 2017|October 2017]] (at that time) and, in January 2018, about two weeks before Trump had been president for a year, a comic which clearly tried to show that he was not the popular vote winner: [[#2016 Election Map|2016 Election Map]].
*Here below follows a list of the comics related to these sad comics.
**Relations (if any) between the release day and the comics will also be listed.
**The links points here below to an explanation why each comic is listed here:
*[[#I'm With Her|I'm With Her]] (not one of the sad, thus not numbered)
#[[#Blame|Blame]]
#[[#Negativity|Negativity]]
#[[#2017|2017]]
#[[#Sad|Sad]]
#[[#Focus Knob|Focus Knob]]
#[[#Phone|Phone]]
#[[#Location Reviews|Location Reviews]]
#[[#Vomiting Emoji|Vomiting Emoji]]
#[[#Flag|Flag]]
#[[#Security Advice|Security Advice]]
#[[#Identification Chart|Identification Chart]]
#[[#Eclipse Searches|Eclipse Searches]]
#[[#October 2017|October 2017]]
#[[#2016 Election Map|2016 Election Map]]
#[[#I'm a Car|I'm a Car]]

====I'm With Her====
*[[1756: I'm With Her]] (This comic)
**2016-11-07: The day before the election:
***It all began when Randall urged his American viewership to vote in the election the day after this comic was released.
***Here he clearly showed his {{w|Political endorsement|endorsement}} for {{w|Hillary Clinton}}, the {{w|US Democratic Party|Democratic}} nominee in the election.
***Although this is not directly sad, he included two weapon carrying defenders on either side of the comic.
***One of these was [[Ponytail]] with a ray gun (the one she also wielded in [[322: Pix Plz]]). The gun is for melting computers of persons that make snide remarks at women, clearly a reference to {{w|Donald_Trump_sexual_misconduct_allegations|Donald Trump's sexual harassment of women}} in general and especially to his ''grab them by the pussy'' {{w|Donald Trump and Billy Bush recording|comment}}.
***Randall has often made comics against women harassment before (see for a great example in [[1027: Pickup Artist]]).

====Blame====
*[[1761: Blame]]
**2016-11-18: Ten days after the election.
***This is the first really sad comic in which [[Cueball]] actually begins by stating that: ''I feel sad!'' a clear relation to [[1790: Sad]] (the fourth sad comic after I'm With Her, see below).
***This is likely due to all the angry and scared comments of Cueball’s Facebook friends, and he thus decides to blame them rather than what they are angry about.
***It took some days before Randall posted anything that could be said to have relation to the election, but the defeat of Hillary may have taken some time to digest.
***Also the reactions to Trump’s victory on Facebook needed to build up over time before this comic.
***Furthermore there was also some uncertainty to begin with if some states would call for a re-vote etc.
***Still it was only the fifth comic after his campaign for Hillary failed.

====Negativity====
*[[1773: Negativity]]
**2016-12-16: Three days before the {{w|U.S. Electoral College}} voted for {{w|Donald Trump}} to become the 45th president of the United States.
***The first comic with a really negative title. (Like ''Sad'' (see below), although ''Blame'' is of course a negatively loaded word, the comic did not need to be so sad as it was).
***This comic and ''Blame'' could be seen as a small series as Cueball blames his friends on Facebook in the first comic, and then goes outside to avoid all the negativity online in the second, probably worsened for him after he blamed his Facebook friends because: ''Bad thing are happening''.
***Only it does not work because even the grass is after him.
***At the time of the comics release there was still some rumors/hopes that the {{w|Faithless electors in the United States presidential election, 2016|some of the electors would not vote for Trump}}. (But only two changed away from Trump!)

====2017====
*[[1779: 2017]]
**2016-12-30: The [[:Category:New Year|New Year comic]] – a transition to the year when Donald Trump would become president.
***Even the comic "celebrating" New Year was depressive and it was the first time that a New Year comic had such a depressive mood.
***Cueball and [[Megan]] discuss if 2016 could end up as having been better than 2017 since all the bad thing happening in 2016 would first really take effect in 2017.
***The biggest of these would be Trump becoming president, but also {{w|Brexit}} and a lot of {{w|2016#Deaths|dead famous people}} would be troublesome. None of these events (or any other specifically bad event of 2016 are cited in the comic).
***Randall tries to make a happy twist by saying that maybe some unexpected good would come in 2017 as most of the sad events (just mentioned) was not expected to happen.
***But hopping for this in the face of what awaits is difficult so he retorts to just hoping ''they'' won’t cancel the {{w|Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017|2017 solar eclipse}}.
***Fearing (for real) that astronomical events like this being canceled would call for you to be very depressed. Of course Randall doesn’t fear for this in real life, but it puts a perspective on the other parts of the comic.
***Although the eclipse will certainly happen on August 21st 2017 Randall may still miss it, even if he is in the right place, as the weather could always be overcast and then ruin the experience.
***So the worry that he will miss it is real and had also been mentioned three years earlier in [[1302: Year in Review]].

====Sad====
*[[1790: Sad]]
**2017-01-25: Five days after Donald Trump’s {{w|Inauguration of Donald Trump|inauguration}}.
***This was the comic that sparked this section, with the title really being ''[[#Sad comics|Sad]]''.
***The title "Sad" is a common interjection in Trump's tweets. The time-frame of "the past few months" from the first panel is consistent with this, as the election was on November 8, 2016, and the comic was posted on January 25, 2017 four days after Donald Trump's inauguration as 45th president of the United States on January 20, 2017.
***This was only the second comic released after the inauguration the Friday before this comics Wednesday release.
***Although it could be said that Trump first took office Monday (before this Wednesday comic) he already began signing {{w|Decree|decrees}} (or {{w|Executive order|executive orders}}) on Friday January 20th {{w|First_100_days_of_Donald_Trump's_presidency#Immediate_regulatory_freeze_pending_review|within a few hours}} after becoming president.
****{{w|First_100_days_of_Donald_Trump's_presidency#Policy|Most of these}} would make it even worse for those already sad about him becoming president, because they could now see that he really meant all the things he promised (which is not always the case in politics!)
****Up to the day this comic was released (January 25th) it would already be drastic things like the {{w|First_100_days_of_Donald_Trump's_presidency#Mexican_border_wall|Mexican border wall}} (on the day of the comics release), the {{w|First_100_days_of_Donald_Trump's_presidency#Withdrawal_of_Affordable_Care_Act|withdrawal of Affordable Care Act}}, the approval of the {{w|First_100_days_of_Donald_Trump's_presidency#Dakota_Access_and_the_Keystone_XL_pipelines|Dakota Access and the Keystone XL pipelines}} (which would be troublesome for an [[:Category:Climate change|environmentalist]] as Randall as {{w|Dakota_Access_Pipeline#Environmental_concerns|both}} {{w|Pipeline_transport#Oil_and_natural_gas|oil pipes}} {{w|Keystone_Pipeline#Environmental_issues|have}} environmental issues) and the {{w|First_100_days_of_Donald_Trump's_presidency#Mexico_City_Policy|Mexico City Policy}} regarding stopping any help to poor women abroad with regards to information or any other way helping with {{w|abortion}}.
***The actual reasons for Ponytail's frustrations and depression aren't dwelt on and the focus is on her retreat into video games and the damage it's doing to her work projects.
****The video game she plays is referenced again only seven comics later in [[1797: Stardew Valley]], thus showing this game is on Randall's mind, and that he might be using this to avoid thinking of the things that makes him sad.
****This fits with the [[#Focus Knob|next sad comic]] mentioned below, coming out just before ''Stardew Valley'', where Randall focuses on his e-mail settings rather than the big picture.
***It might appear to be non-political, the reference to {{w|PolitiFact.com|PolitiFact}}, however, makes it clear that she is thinking on politics, and the fact checking of most of Trump's claims
****This is another indication that one of her troubles is Trump's leniency with the truth in both election campaign and after, to the point where lies are now on a daily basis just called {{w|alternative facts}} or {{w|Post-truth_politics#United_States|post-truth}}.
****His statements would often turns out to be ''Pants on Fire!'' on the PolitiFact scale.
****See more on Politifact.com the earlier comic [[1712: Politifact]] from during the election campaign
*****By the way apart from the ''Politifact'' comic and ''I’m with Her'' then the only other direct reference to the election during the {{w|United_States_presidential_election,_2016#General_election_campaign|election campaign}} was in [[1748: Future Archaeology]], where Randall expressed interest in knowing the result of the election in advance.
***Seeing that this comic is about Ponytail being sad, the woman who in the first comic on this list was standing with a weapon to defend herself against condescending men (like Trump) and that one of the first decrees Trump signed, was regarding removal of support for abortion abroad, she can see that she still have good reason (especially as a woman) to being sad as she has been these past few months.

====Focus Knob====
*[[1796: Focus Knob]]
**2017-02-08: Less than three weeks after Donald Trump’s inauguration, only six comics after the previous Sad comic.
***Although this comic may look like an easy joke, there is ''panic and existential paralysis'' if you turn your focus more than two thirds towards the big picture (of the world).
****For instance during the days just before this comics release an {{w|Legal_challenges_to_Executive_Order_13769#State_of_Washington_v._Trump|American judge}} (February 3rd) and two days later {{w|Legal_challenges_to_Executive_Order_13769#Proceedings in the Ninth Circuit|several big companies}} went against {{w|Executive Order 13769|Trump's decision}} of banning people from seven countries from entering USA.
****There have thus been many reasons to panic since his inauguration if one follows the news in any way.
***In the comic the detail oriented side is indicated to be a focus on his e-mail settings. But as it was shown already in the next comic [[1797: Stardew Valley]], there are also video games that can help you take your mind off the real world.
****This also relates back to [[#Sad|Sad]] where the same game was mentioned a week before.

====Phone====
*[[1802: Phone]]
**2017-02-22: During the days before this comic, Trump has promised to make a {{w|Executive_Order_13769#Proposed_related_Executive_Order|related Executive Order}} regarding the banning of people from the same seven countries from entering USA, as was ruled illegal around the time of the [[#Focus Knob|last]] of these comics.
***The sadness is not so clear in this comic, but the conclusion in the title text that it is both bad to hear all the scary news and to disconnect in order avoid them seems rather sad. It is a lose/lose situation.
****This also seems related to the problem of finding the right balance mentioned in [[#Focus Knob|Focus Knob]].
***The idea of going for a walk with the phone, thus not avoiding the news feed, is the exact opposite idea of [[#Negativity|Negativity]], where going outside was to avoid the negativity on the internet. Neither of the idea seems to work.

====Location Reviews====
*[[1803: Location Reviews]]
**2017-02-24: Second comic in a row, this one could be a reaction to the cold relationship between Russia and the United States, that became worse a few weeks before this comic.
***Two weeks prior to this comics release [https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/14/world/europe/russia-cruise-missile-arms-control-treaty.html?_r=0 Russia Deploys Missile, Violating Treaty and Challenging Trump].
***In this comic a Nuclear Launch Facility is reviewed on a Google Map and the last of the reviewers pleads ''Please don't launch these''. Another notices the lack of security as there is a hole in the fence. (See more in the [[1803:_Location_Reviews#Reviews|reviews explanation]] and [[1803:_Location_Reviews#Politics|here]]).

====Vomiting Emoji====
*[[1813: Vomiting Emoji]]
**2017-03-20: The day of this comics release [https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/20/public-editor/trump-russia-fbi-liz-spayd-public-editor.html?_r=0 stories] about Trump's connection with Russia and the word treason was mentioned, and the stories got [https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/23/opinion/theres-a-smell-of-treason-in-the-air.html worse] during the week that followed.
***In this comic six vomiting emoji has been created. Most of them can be connected to the situation in USA.
***A vomiting cowboy, could represents the Americans that votes for Trump but now has regretted it.
***Vomiting Statue of Liberty speaks for it self...
***Vomiting peace dove a clear reference to the fear of Nuclear War, as is the rocket below
***Vomiting Moon, the only one that is not clearly connected in any way with this situation. Although Randall has expressed fear that the moon will be gone before the Eclipse this summer, see [[#2017|above]].
***Vomiting rocket ship, see peace dove above.
***Vomiting Hand, could be a reference to the way Trump always holds up his hand in a special way, which is likely to cause nausea in those that really detest what he stands for.

====Flag====
*[[1815: Flag]]
**2017-03-24: On this day {{w|Patient_Protection_and_Affordable_Care_Act#2017|Trump failed}} to get a vote through for removing/changing {{w|Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act|Obamacare}} which was expected. But had it succeeded Randall might have wished for a departure from Trumps states (see below).
***The comic depicts a flag similar in style to the {{w|Flag of the United States|Stars and Stripes}}, and explains he was asked to create it for a new country.
***This seems like a reference to the fact that some have talked about states leaving the USA due to the election of Trump ({{w|California}} for [http://www.yescalifornia.org/ instance]).
***This flag with three stars could thus be Randall's thoughts on this, maybe the three small states in New England; {{w|Massachusetts}}, where he lives, {{w|Connecticut}} and {{w|Rhode Island}} could break free and form their own small state union.

====Security Advice====
*[[1820: Security Advice]]
**2017-04-05: No special event seems related.
***There are two references to what to do when crossing a border, and especially that last tip could be related to the increasing border control caused by Donald Trump's election:
***''If a border guard asks to examine your laptop, you have a legal right to challenge them to a chess game for your soul.''

====Identification Chart====
*[[1824: Identification Chart]]
**2017-04-17: No special event seems related.
***Once again reference to the military like in [[#Location Reviews|Location Reviews]].
***In the title text hostility between fighter-plane like birds that are territorial are mentioned.

====Eclipse Searches====
*[[1876: Eclipse Searches]]
**2017-08-14: A week before the total {{w|solar eclipse}} occurring on Monday, {{w|Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017|August 21, 2017}}.
***This is not a sad comic, but it refers directly to the election day regarding media interest and searches on Google, which makes it the first in almost four month referring back to the election or the result of said election.
***For that reason alone it is included here. It seems that Randall has stopped focusing on Trump and his actions.

====October 2017====
*[[1898: October 2017]]
**2017-10-04: A month before the similar titles comic [[1757: November 2016]], released the day after the election, both of which had the subject [[:Category:Comics to make one feel old|to make one feel old]].
***The comic mentions a movie that is already 7 years old, to make one feel old.
***But in the title text it refers directly to the election stating that so much has happened (because of this) that it is hard to believe that not even a year has passed since the election itself. However Election 2016 includes the active campaigning which led up to it, starting well before the first state primary election in February 2016.
***It thus still seems that Randall can be sad about the election results, although it was only the second reference to it in almost half a year.

====2016 Election Map====
*[[1939: 2016 Election Map]]
**2018-01-08: Release close to a year after Trumps inauguration. Could be related to the news that [https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/03/us/politics/trump-voter-fraud-commission.html Trump Disbands Commission on Voter Fraud], five days before this comics release.
***The comic displays the distribution of voters across the US in much more detail than the {{w|Choropleth map}} used during the election, which makes large states with small population seem more important and also removes any sign that a state is more of less split in half between red and blue.
***Thus the comic displays that Trump did not win many states by a large margin, and it has been known by everyone except Trump that Hillary got the most votes, in spite of the allegations of Russian involvement in the election trying to get Trump the win.
***Randall is clearly still sad about the election results, almost a year after Trump became president.

====I'm a Car====
*[[2064: I'm a Car]]
**2018-10-26: Release 11 days before the {{w|United States midterm election}} to be held on {{w|United States elections, 2018|Tuesday, November 6, 2018}}.
***The comic reminds people to register for voting.
***It is generally believed that many of those not voting would have chosen democrats on election day.
***Also shortly before this comic was released the [[Design_of_xkcd.com#Header|header text]] at the top of the xkcd page was changed to "Check your registration and find your polling place at [https://www.vote.org/ vote.org]."
***The comic is not sad but refers back to the election two years earlier.

</div>

{{comic discussion}}

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Talk:2030: Voting Software

2018-10-22T19:53:13Z

141.101.76.82:

I think this comic is referencing [https://twitter.com/GossiTheDog/status/1026603800365330432 this twitter thread] and the controversy behind it.
[[Special:Contributions/172.69.190.4|172.69.190.4]] 17:59, 8 August 2018 (UTC)
: The [https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/08/experts-criticize-west-virginias-plan-for-smartphone-voting/ Experts criticize West Virginia’s plan for smartphone voting] article on ArsTechnica has more information (as much as possible when the company in question does not provide any details (note that it is about overseas voting). --[[User:JakubNarebski|JakubNarebski]] ([[User talk:JakubNarebski|talk]]) 19:44, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

Is he saying it's weird that we're so sophisticated in other areas of computer science but so far behind in voting technology, or is he making fun of the idea that electronic voting is somehow inherently unsafe?--[[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.106|108.162.216.106]] 18:10, 8 August 2018 (UTC)
: No i think he is saying computer science is a mess and we should not trust it with voting(he is not making fun of the idea of it being unsafe, he is pressing on the point of it being unsafe[saying that all experts agree on that])18:18, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

: I think he's commenting on how in most fields, the experts are very sure that they do their job well, and all the angles have been tried and tested, but in computer science the experts are more certain than anyone that there is ''absolutely no way'' for a person to actually build a complex software system with no flaws or vulnerabilities, even if they controlled every aspect of the system. in practice of course they control very little of the system and understand even less of it. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.34.88|172.68.34.88]] 18:22, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

: He's saying that software development is a terribly buggy process, most likely because the majority of software out there can have bugs without very dire real-world consequences (unlike aircraft or elevators).

::Not to mention the fact that there are incredibly smart people with great interest in undoing the work that software developers do, whereas that isn't at all the case with airplanes or elevators. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.214|108.162.219.214]] 18:29, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

:: Plus there's the general issue that the public as a whole takes the view that "Computers are majykal" (misspelling deliberate) and therefore somehow automatically safe & infallible, despite experts trying very hard to disillusion people about...pretty much all of that. Compare that to the common assumptions about aircraft and elevators--people need the safety verified, instead of assuming it like they do with computers. [[User:Werhdnt|Werhdnt]] ([[User talk:Werhdnt|talk]]) 19:08, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

:::There's a logical fallacy here. To compare airplaneS and elevatorS to a voting system program is comparing plural to singular. There would be significant opportunity to break/modify a single instance of those objects, although without the relative anonymity of electronic access involved. Once a computer system is infiltrated, the break-in can be replicated to all instances of that program relatively instantaneously, assuming communication pathways are available.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.75.130|162.158.75.130]] 19:12, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

::::No logical fallacy; there have been ''multiple'' attempts to get people to accept a voting system program, and the 'done by a computer=infallible' problem is '''''not''''' unique to voting programs. Mr. Babbage was being confused by people who were thinking it was possible to get the correct answers from a computer despite putting the wrong data in back in the 1860s (at least!), and the computer at the time was not much more than a fancy calculator. [[User:Werhdnt|Werhdnt]] ([[User talk:Werhdnt|talk]]) 20:23, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

A blockchain node doesn't technically need to be connected to the internet in order to function. It needs to have some method for receiving messages from other nodes on the blockchain network, and most blockchain nodes do indeed get these messages via the internet, but some magic beans nodes (for example) get updates about new blocks and new transactions from the Blockstream satellite. An internet connection is therefore not intrinsically necessary for a blockchain to work, it's just the most convenient way to do it.

:::: The blockstream satellite is an internet, just a different media. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.59.24|172.68.59.24]] 14:41, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

Do you think that this comic had anything to do with the debacle in Johnson County, KS last night? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.62.231|162.158.62.231]] 19:30, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

The comic ignores the fact that modern airplanes are heavily utilizing software of all kinds. A software failure in an aircraft could easily be fatal (and have been so various times in history already, while the consequences of a voting software working incorrect are ''relatively'' harmless), and still airplanes remain safe, as the comic recognizes. --[[User:YMS|YMS]] ([[User talk:YMS|talk]]) 21:05, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

:Airplanes are not connected to internet and reasonably well protected from people putting their USB devices in their control system. Also, they are NOT build by lowest bid contractor. There ARE people now capable of building offline voting machine which would be reasonable secure. They are working in banks and stock exchanges and at those companies providing switches for internet backbone, are extremely well paid and wouldn't ever promise they will get the machine finished in single year. Noone asks THEM to make the voting machines. Voting over internet? With consumer-grade devices? Impossible. (I'm also working in IT, although not on mentioned high-security systems.) -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 22:24, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

::Note that she is talking to aircraft designers, not to software engineers working on fly-by-wire systems (back when I took software engineering you got an answer similar to the one about voting machines when discussing fly-by-wire). I took this more as the aircraft designers glossing over the problems caused by software engineering. A voting system which uses paper ballots, with perhaps computer systems used for some stages of counting would be a reasonable analogy to the redundant systems used in aircraft. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.106.228|162.158.106.228]] 23:08, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

Seems to me that the last panel references the E.T for Atari Desert Burial (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_video_game_burial), perhaps to draw some analogy as to the potential quality or likelihood of success of a Block-chain solution as compared to the ill-fated video game. Anyone think that's worth explaining? [[User:Da_NKP|Da_NKP]] 10:15, 8 August 2018 (UTC) Da_NKP

What motive is there to "mine DemocracyCoin"? Who evaluates this blockchain? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.150.100|162.158.150.100]] 22:27, 8 August 2018 (UTC)
:That's simple, ideally it would be a private blockchain, and the evaluators would just be every voting computer in existence (They'd all be active for a similar fairly short time period). Presumably the evaluations would be ongoing during the voting process, then could be stopped once voting was complete. The last few votes of the night may not wind up being evaluated. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.225|162.158.74.225]]
::"The last few votes of the night may not wind up being evaluated" Thats horrifying. That alone should prove how terrible of an idea this is. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.154.181|162.158.154.181]] 17:14, 9 August 2018 (UTC)
:::The current system regularly throws away millions of votes because every step in the process has a strict deadline, and that's before outside processes interfere.[[User:Sailorleo|Sailorleo]] ([[User talk:Sailorleo|talk]]) 15:55, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

Wouldn't it be possible to run said blockchain on one's personal computer, instead of running on a voting machine? and you could compile open source software yourself to perform the voting. That sounds like a solid enough way to keep security fine to me, but if I'm missing something, please tell me. [[User:Gjgfuj|TheSandromatic]] ([[User talk:Gjgfuj|talk]]) 03:25, 9 August 2018 (UTC)
:The bigger challenge in a voting system isn't making sure someone doesn't modify the record, it's making sure that each person only votes once and only for themselves -- think about past internet voting campaigns: Justin Bieber wasn't sent to North Korea by *changed* votes, but rather by flooding the system with *bogus* votes. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.132.47|172.68.132.47]] 06:26, 9 August 2018 (UTC)
::To be a bit clearer, magic beans (for example), doesn't and can't enforce that wallets correspond one-to-one with people -- multiple people can share a wallet (if they all know the private key), and one person can have multiple wallets. If you want to guarantee one-to-one correspondence, you have to validate identities and issue unique, signed keys at some prior point. Leaving aside whether or not it's possible to do this part securely and without error (and how big of a target the root signing key would be), you then have millions of people doing their own key management, just like you do with magic beans. When magic beans wallets are stolen en masse by key compromises (which does happen), only the wallet owners (who were ostensibly using poor security practices which allowed the compromise) suffer, so the harm is limited. If voting system keys were stolen en masse, but the votes still counted, society as a whole would likely suffer. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.132.47|172.68.132.47]] 07:03, 9 August 2018 (UTC)

I think a problem that lies within voting machines is that a single flaw can and will be exploited along all machines.
You wouldn't enter a plane if one plane crashing means that all other planes will crash too.

I am not American and not so inside American politics and its system, but I think there right now is (or just was) some kind of vote in Ohio? Randalls other comic about voting machines, ([[463]])references Ohio directly as well. Even if not, that comic should definitely be referenced here. If no one else does I will in a few hours when I come home from work. [[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 08:11, 9 August 2018 (UTC)
:There was a special election for Ohio's 12th Congressional District on Tuesday to fill in a vacant spot in the US House of Representatives, yes. I hadn't heard anything specifically about any issues with Ohio's voting machines, though I do somewhat vaguely remember Randall making a comic that expressed horror at the fact that a voting machine needed anti-virus software in the first place. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.63.154|162.158.63.154]] 12:58, 9 August 2018 (UTC)

I guess this may be of interest for reasons why not to have electroni voting https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3_0x6oaDmI [[Special:Contributions/162.158.154.13|162.158.154.13]]

Wait, so I'm not into this *at all*, but a bunch of you seem to be, so:
paper ballot voting works because we can assume the humans we choose to count oue votes to be trustworthy. Imagine that as the digital voting device, we use a cheapo Chinaphone. We remove any parts needed for wireless connection, and all USB ports and AUX ports (which are the only ports on such a device) are filled with hot glue (so, destroyed). Some of them are designed in an awkward way where you have to take the backside off in order to access the SD card, which normally is disadvantageous, but now it means that you can use a sort of sturdy phone cover with a physical lock to make the SD card inaccessible to anyone not owning the key. The key is with the trustworthy human that would otherwise hold the key for the box the paper votes go in. You could glue or screw the charger to it, so it was always full and you couldn't put a USB stick into that port without breaking the actual thing - and the trustworthy voting office humans would notice that. If it saves all votes on some SD card, the humans we trust to work for the voting can take the SD cards out, and bring them to a central computer that also has no wireless parts, and some trustworthy humans watching the SD ports. That central computer saves all the votes and counts them.
If you doctor with paper votes, then you'd have to destroy them or there'd be evidence against you. Destroying them is not safe to do.
If something seems fishy, then paper votes can be recounted.
If you have a voting machine that only a trustworthy person has access to, then that means that this trustworthy person has to build every part of the machine from the smallest transistor on and also has to guard the machine the whole time. Because otherwise you could manipulate the machine in a way to count the votes wrong, but show correct results when you test it. Since this is completely unpractical in the end you'd have to count by hand anyway.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.91.251|162.158.91.251]] 12:53, 10 August 2018 (UTC)
:Or just use paper ballots. They have been a perfectly adequate solution for centuries, and will continue to do so forever (and no, the paper usage for voting is not really significant, compared to the paper usage overall). [[Special:Contributions/162.158.202.64|162.158.202.64]] 20:00, 10 August 2018 (UTC)
If also we delete any and all software and firmware on the phones and central computer, and replace it by a piece of software that can literally only show you a multiple choice screen with names of candidates and save what you clicked, that sounds quite safe.
Carrying the SD cards to the central computer would still take time, but we're carrying much smaller things so it might speed up somewhat (less stuff to haul around), and the voting can be done nearly as fast as the central computer can read in the SD cards.
No strange SD cards go into the central machine since they're carried by the same trustworthy human that counts the paper votes.

Yet another issue that paper ballot voting gives us that electronic voting can hardly support is "deniability" of votes: after the fact, you cannot claim to have voted for anyone in particular, so you cannot be bribed or coerced to vote for a given party. This is a very essential and often overlooked property of any voting system.

What things will go wrong? Zillions, I'm sure. But what zillions? I'm curious!
A modern processor can't run without it's own software layer. If you want to transfer the data - even if only from an SD card to a local hard drive - then you'd need about seven layers, from which many have sublayers. The lowest level, which is the hardware level, consists on another plethora of levels. If just one transistor is modified by an attacker - or the layout of the transistors or a part of the CPU or a part of the hdd-controller or a part of the SD card controller or... many other things. Then this could lead to the attacker modifying the result of the vote.
There are thousands of attack points that start before the voting machine reaches it's target. Then there are attacking vectors that target the SD-card even before there's any voting data on it. (There are SD-card viruses that survive formatting and those aren't even on a hardware level) If you want a decently safe voting machine that costs less than a billion $ to make, then you should use a purely mechanical design. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.90.90|162.158.90.90]] 10:22, 13 August 2018 (UTC)

You could all reference Brazil for how an electronic voting system works. It changed in the late 90s after a major country-wide voting fraud scandal that revealed that most of the vote counters in the whole country were unreliable, partisan, bribed or all three; to the point any recount would bring a vastly different result. The Brazilian public lost all faith in the paper ballots and the Federal Electoral Tribunal had to implement an electronic voting system to reacquire voter trust in the voting system.

Twenty years later the public in general still trust the system more than the paper ballot but the losing side in presidential elections always cry afoul about the machines being tampered with (Even though the political parties that complained about fraud for losing the presidential election ended up winning the majority of the seats in both congress and senate, as well as state governships. But, you see, for those elections the system is foolproof, even though they're all done at the same time in the same voting machines.)
: Please sign your comments. The issue is a reduction of points of failure. In a paper ballot system, you have tens of thousands of humans being observed by each other and representatives of interested parties and judges doing the counting. A single malicious person would have to go to incredible effort to hide their miscountings, and then would only be able to change a hundred votes or so. In an electronic voting system, all it takes is one person to do an SD card swap and boom: tens of thousands of votes are changed. One person can change the code on the central counting system that reads the SD cards, and boom: millions of votes are changed. The fact that so much effort would be needed to change the result in a paper ballot system is a security feature. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.62.231|162.158.62.231]] 12:00, 11 August 2018 (UTC)
::And anyway, you're describing more or less [https://app.chicagoelections.com/documents/Judge-Handbook/EJ_Handbook_P2018_ch7.pdf what already happens] in an election. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.58.11|172.68.58.11]] 13:54, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

When paper votes need to be re-counted, it's easy: a vote is valid if there is a croos marking at exactly one candidate row. It's possible to implement this in software: store each "paper" as a separate file, and sing it with the voter's private key! Oh, wait, on real paper you don't add your signature because the vote is meant to be anonymous? Tough luck, as long as electronic votes are secret votes, there will be no way to make them re-countable reliably.

Talk:2059: Modified Bayes' Theorem

2018-10-17T09:42:54Z

141.101.76.82: Suggesting that examples should be given.

Right now the layout is awful:
:"If <math>P(C)=1</math> the..."
:should look like this:
:"If ''P(C)=1'' the..."
But there is more wrong right now. Look at a typical Wikipedia article, the Math-extension should be used for formulas but not in the floating text. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 20:03, 15 October 2018 (UTC)
: Credit for a good explanation though. It made perfect sense to me, even though I didn't understand it. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.167.42|162.158.167.42]] 04:14, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

I removed this, because it makes no sense:

: As an equation, the rewritten form makes no sense. <math>P(H \mid X) = P(H)(1-P(C)) + P(H \mid X)P(C)</math> is strangely self-referential and reduces to the piecewise equation <math>\begin{cases}P(H \mid X) = P(H) & P(C) \neq 1 \\ 0 = 0 & P(C) = 1 \end{cases}</math>. However, the Modified Bayes Theorem includes an extra variable not listed in the conditioning, so a person with an AI background might understand that Randal was trying to write an expression for updating <math>P(H \mid X)</math> with knowledge of <math>C</math> i.e. <math>P(H \mid X,C)</math>, the belief in the hypothesis given the observation <math>X</math> and the confidence that you were applying Bayes' theorem correctly <math>C</math>, for which the expression <math>P(H \mid X,C) = P(H)(1-P(C)) + P(H \mid X)P(C)</math> makes some intuitive sense.

Between removing it and posting here, I think that I've figured out what it's saying. But it comes down to criticizing a mistake made in an earlier edit by the same editor, so I'll just fix that mistake instead.

—[[User:TobyBartels|TobyBartels]] ([[User talk:TobyBartels|talk]]) 13:03, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

What about examples of correct and incorrect use of Bayes' Theorem? I don't feel equal to executing that, but DNA evidence in a criminal case could be illuminating. As a sketch, it may show that of 7 billion people alive today, the blood at the scene came from any one of just 10,000 people of which the accused is one. Interesting, but not absolute. At least 9,999 of the 10,000 are innocent. Probability of mistake or malfeasance by the testing laboratory also needs to be considered. Then there's sports drug testing, disease screening with imperfect tests and rare true positives, etc. rja.carnegie@excite.com [[Special:Contributions/141.101.76.82|141.101.76.82]] 09:42, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

128: dPain over dt

2018-10-13T02:43:02Z

141.101.76.82: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 128
| date = July 14, 2006
| title = dPain over dt
| image = dPain_over_dt.png‎
| titletext = You laugh to keep from crying, you do math to keep from crying...
}}

==Explanation==

Another one of the math-love relationship comics, a mathematical depiction of pain as a {{w|differential equation}} is shown. It is hoped that ''dPain/dt'', or the rate of pain (in this case, shrinking), decreases quickly so that the pain will vanish quickly. He's hoping the value for ''d'' will not be larger than a few days or some weeks. Assuming that ''How much she's still in my life'' is a constant [Megan] then [http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=dP%2Fdt+%3D+%28-k1*P%2BG%29*%281%2F%281%2Bexp%28-%28t-k2%29%2Fd%29%29%29 solving the differential equation] leads to the following solution (with unknown ''c1''):
:<math> Pain(t) = {c_1 \left(e^{k_2/d} + e^{t/d}\right)}^{-dk_1} + \frac{[\text{Megan}]}{k_1}</math>

If ''k1'' was positive or if ''k2'' was a large value, the value of ''dPain/dt'' would approach zero. Ideally, ''k1'' would be "How much she's in my life"/''Pain'' (we assume both these values are positive), while ''k2'' would ideally be extremely large. Either of these scenarios approach what would be a situation where the value of ''dPain/dt'' is close to zero. But we don't know the meaning of ''k1'' or ''k2'', these variables are just unpredictable.

In the title text, [[Randall]] changes the famous "laugh to keep from crying" statement to math.

==Transcript==
:<math>\frac{dPain}{dt} = \left(-k_1\, Pain + [\text{image of Megan}]\right) \left(\frac{1}{1 + e^{-\left(t-k_2\right)/d}}\right)</math>
:''k''1=?
:''k''2=?
:[Image of Megan]=How much she's still in my life
:Please let ''d'' only be a few days... or weeks
:I guess there's some kind of a cutoff after years, where it stops mattering and we can be friends. Do I want that?
:Is ''k''1 positive? Is ''k''2 large?
:Will I ever stop feeling like this?

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Analysis]]
[[Category:Romance]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]

802: Online Communities 2

2018-09-21T09:22:59Z

141.101.76.82: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 802
| date = October 6, 2010
| title = Online Communities 2
| image = online_communities_2.png
| titletext = Best trivia I learned while working on this: 'Man, Farmville is so huge! Do you realize it's the second-biggest browser-based social-networking-centered farming game in the WORLD?' Then you wait for the listener to do a double-take.
}}
A [http://xkcd.com/802_large/ larger version] of this picture can be found by clicking the comic on xkcd.
{{TOC}}

Hello!
http://superviagrabuys.com/ , , http://viagratey.com/ , , http://cialistre.com/ , , http://cialisuqwf.com/ , , http://cialisueo.com/ , ,

==Transcript==
:'''Map of Online Communities'''
:Size on map represents volume of Daily Social activity (posts, chat, etc). Based on data gathered over the Spring and Summer of 2010.

:[Two insets on the upper left-hand corner shows that this map is a tiny portion of the huge continent of Spoken Language, encompassing portions of the Internet, Email, and Cell Phones (SMS).]

:[The largest landmass on the map by far, which takes up nearly the entire northern half of the map is "Facebook" - with large states in the south-east of the country labeled 'Farmville' and 'Happy Farm'. There is a much smaller state to the west of these called 'Farm Town'. To the north of these states is a large swath of unremarkable land entitled 'Northern Wasteland of Unread Updates.' This is directly north of the large Dopamine Sea.

:A peninsula on the south-west, just below the Plains of Awkwardly Public Family Interactions, houses many tiny states, such as MySpace, Orkut, LinkedIn, Bebo, & Hi5. It is bordered on the south by Buzzword Bay, which contains several islands of varying sizes. Among these are YouTube and Twitter (the largest), which are separated by the Social Media Consultant Channel. To the south-east of Twitter, across the Sea of Protocol Confusion, is another, equally large island. Most of it is Skype, with the north having two largish states called AIM and Windows Live Messenger. On the south-west part of the island are two smaller states called GG and Yahoo Messenger.

:The Island of Skype is extremely close to, but separated by the Great Firewall (a dashed line), the large landmass of QQ. It's north shore is the Gulf of China and Grass Mud Horse Bay. Outside of these bays, over the Great Firewall are two islands called Craigslist and 2Channel.

:In the Dopamine Sea, off the southern shores of Farmville and Happy Farm, is MMO Isle. Its largest state is WoW, with Runescape, Lineage, Maple Story, Habbo, and the Mountains of Steam among its notable landmarks. To the southeast of the island is the Gulf of Lag, in which sits the CDC Games island, with Eve Online.

:To the east of Twitter is Troll Bay, with such islands as Reddit and Reddit, Digg, Stumbleupon, Delicio.us, and Wikipedia Talk Pages. To their south are the IRC isles, of which one is the tiny island of #xkcd.

:East of these islands, and north of Skype island, is the Sea of Memes. In this sea, to the north of Craigslist and 2Channel, is an archipelago of tiny islands. There is an inset, labeled 'Forums.' (See below.)

:To the southwest of Twitter island, in the Sea of Opinions, are the blog islands. These lie south of the islands in Buzzword Bay, as well. The northernmost islands in this group are centered around the Bay of Drama, on which can be found Diary Blogs, Gossip Blogs, and Livejournal. Gossip Blogs share an island with Political, Music, and Tech Blogs. To the north of this island is a smaller island called Photo Blogs. South of Diary Blogs, and off the southwest coast of Music blogs is a smaller island called Fandom Blogs. South of Tech Blogs, off of which sprouts the small peninsula of Business Blogs, is the Spamblog Straits. On the other side of the straits is a large island made up of Miscellaneous Blogs, with two states demarcated as Religious Blogs and Blog Blogs. Southwest of the Blog Islands is the Sea of Zero (0) Comments.]

:[An inset of a group of islands in the sea of memes located on the lower right corner of the map, labeled 'Forums'. The largest by far is 4chan and /b/. Also found here are D2JSP, JLA Frums, Fan Forum, Something Awful, and many smaller ones, too numerous to list here.]

:[The northeastern third of Gossip/Political/Tech Blogs island is another inset labeled 'Blogosphere (Core)'. This can be found on the lower left corner of the map. Two peninsulas in Political Blogs bookend the Bay of Flame -- these are Liberal Blogs and Conservative Blogs. Between them lie several tiny islands such as Politics Daily, CNN Politcal Ticker, and Mediaite. Off the coast of Liberal Blogs lies the island of NYTimes, off the coast of Conservative Blogs is Libertarian Isle. Between the two lies The Talk. The northern peninsula of Tech Blogs contains places such as Gizmodo, Engadget, Joystiq, and Kotaku.]

:[Text found between the two insets, which are directly below the main map.]
:ABOUT THIS MAP
:Communities rise and fall, and total membership numbers are no longer a good measure of a community's current size and health. This updated map uses size to represent total social activity in a community -- that is, how much talking, playing, sharing, or other socializing happens there. This meant some comparing of apples and oranges, but I did my best and tried to be consistent.

:Estimates are based on the numbers I could find, but involved a great deal of guesswork, statistical inference, random sampling, nonrandom sampling, a 20,000-cell spreadsheet, emailing, cajoling, tea-leaf reading, goat sacrifices, and gut instinct (i.e. making things up).

:Sources of data include Google and Bing, Wikipedia, Alexa, Big-Boards.com, StumbleUpon, Wordpress, Akismet, every website statistics page I could find, press releases, news articles, and individual site employees. Thanks in particular to folks at Last.fm, LiveJournal, Reddit, and the New York Times, as well as sysadmins at a number of sites who shared statistics on condition of anonymity.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Online Communities]]
[[Category:Comics sharing name|Online Communities]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Large drawings]]
[[Category:Internet]]
[[Category:Rickrolling]]

Talk:239: Blagofaire

2018-09-16T14:42:05Z

141.101.76.82: Sorry

Offline would mean dead.
[[Special:Contributions/173.245.54.47|173.245.54.47]] 13:35, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

;Structuring and levels?

I still don't understand the title text. Structuring, levels? Can it be explained more thoroughly?[[Special:Contributions/141.101.81.220|141.101.81.220]] 15:52, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

I can't figure out how to word well enough to add it in, but my interpretation is that's it's a joke about the way that we organize time, with the Structuring and the Levels being like the Renaissance and the Age of Enlightenment. Someone living through both wouldn't notice a sudden difference between them, while someone looking at them as past events can think of things in terms of decades and centuries, and choose a point at the start, middle or end of the gradual changes which brought about the later time period. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.246.209|108.162.246.209]] 22:16, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

:I have no other explanation, yet I wonder if there was a time before people tended to simplify past events or things in general. The title text sounds like a reminescence, maybe of how Munroe perceived the early internet.

No-one else thought that Structuring and Levels referred to some kind of event that restructured the internet of the future? I mean, the future cosplayer speaks of the modern internet as some wild and adventurous place, free of rules and responsibility. The future internet could be strictly regulated, where bloggers can only speak to bloggers of their "level" and a talk thread digressing out of it's place in the Structure would be ruthlessly persecuted!

Or something like that. In fact, the "wizard" explanation is dumb, so I'm gonna change it. -Pennpenn [[Special:Contributions/162.158.2.221|162.158.2.221]] 03:51, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

Levels would be the amount companies are going to force people to pay to keep the same Internet that they have now with the end of Net Neutrality and the ability to go to any website without restriction because it does not help pad the pockets of today Government/Corporate overlords[[Special:Contributions/162.158.62.231|162.158.62.231]] 11:20, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

Talk:2007: Brookhaven RHIC

2018-06-18T07:07:35Z

141.101.76.82: added a comment

I think the correct explanation has to do with relativistic mass. Accelerated gold ions will have an increased (relativistic) mass. Therefore, the gold coming out of the accelerator will have a higher value than the input. You just have to sell by mass. --[[Special:Contributions/172.68.78.22|172.68.78.22]] 16:14, 15 June 2018 (UTC)
:Yeah, we need to calculate the increase of mass at 99.99, 99,999, 99,9999 percent of the speed of light. I didn't check but I'm curious how many 9s we need to reach the mass of the Earth for a single gold nuclei. Nevertheless the speed is zero again when you collect them, or you have to move at the same speed, but than you can't measure that increase because you're in the same reference -- and back on Earth your own mass would have grown out far beyond the mass of our Milky Way. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 18:11, 15 June 2018 (UTC)
::Mass is an invariant quantity. What is increased is the total energy, E=sqrt(p^2+m^2). As previously mentioned, when they are delivered they would have to be measured in a comoving frame in which case no increase in "mass" would be noticed.-- [[Special:Contributions/162.158.146.70|162.158.146.70]] 20:46, 15 June 2018 (UTC)
:::Sorry, you know what ''invariant'' means in physics? And you can't sum p and m (simply squared both) by using the Einstein conventions c=1, it's in fact E2=m4+p2 -- I fear most people still don't understand. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 22:02, 15 June 2018 (UTC)
::::Comes across a bit condescending considering m^2c^4=(mc^2)^2, not (mc)^4. The mass is the rest mass, which is always the same, considering it is measured at rest. It is a misnomer to call the total energy the mass. The physics you're describing is correct, I just take issue with the wording. I'm sorry if I didn't make myself clear enough. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.146.70|162.158.146.70]] 22:29, 15 June 2018 (UTC)
Isn't a typical cash-for-gold store where you would take your gold and walk out with cash for your gold? It sounds like Randall's proposal is gold-for-cash stores instead. [[User:Ianrbibtitlht|Ianrbibtitlht]] ([[User talk:Ianrbibtitlht|talk]]) 19:03, 15 June 2018 (UTC)
: It makes sense if his proposal is to sell the gold to the stores, where he would just need the stores to agree to buy the high speed particles. I thought he was suggesting consumers would buy the excess gold particles in the stores, but that's probably not what he meant. [[User:Ianrbibtitlht|Ianrbibtitlht]] ([[User talk:Ianrbibtitlht|talk]]) 19:14, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

My first thought here was that he was proposing a gold-ion particle beam weapon. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.106.240|162.158.106.240]] 20:10, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

The destination in the middle appears to be the actual location of a cash for gold shop [https://www.google.com/maps/place/Cash+for+Gold/@40.8009993,-72.8694024,13z/data=!4m8!1m2!2m1!1scash+for+gold!3m4!1s0x0:0xd50dc29c3fa0b22f!8m2!3d40.8023428!4d-72.8620523?hl=en according to google maps]. The other ones don't seem to exist though.
[[Special:Contributions/162.158.88.176|162.158.88.176]] 01:43, 16 June 2018 (UTC)
: Actually all three locations exists in real life. From left to right (north to south): New York Gold Center, Cash for Gold, and Gold Traders Inc. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.134.142|162.158.134.142]] 07:03, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

If anyone wants to calculate the revenue of the project: particles move at 0.99995c and according to one source they use less than 1/1000000 Gramm of gold in 20years(idk they could probably use more if they wanted). Current gold price is about 1280€ per kg
19:22, 16 June 2018 (UTC)some dude that forgot highschool physics19:22, 16 June 2018 (UTC)~21.10:16 June 2018 (UTC)

I suppose that RHIC will generate gold nuclei only, not providing electrons to build-up complete atoms. Thus the objection is "I won't buy gold without electrons, because I will find highly positive electric charges from protons-only projectiles".

My thouhtt was, that Randall proposes to use existing gold particles in shops for the collision, instead of using gold provided by the research program. Thus potentially saving miniscule amounts of gold. - MN (anonymous)