explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Talk:3020: Infinite Armada Chess

2024-12-11T11:56:41Z

141.101.98.130:

Did I do well? Added a very very basic explanation. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.147.132|172.68.147.132]] 04:25, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

Well, yes but I wonder if just one tiny fix is needed. If you replace the white side with a simplyfied artillery tower, you reinvented space invaders.{{unsigned ip|172.71.160.70|04:57, 5 December 2024 (UTC)}}

I was personally hoping for an explanation of the Infinite Armada thing, and I feel like a link to the TV Tropes page doesn't really. Explain that at all. So I would love a bit of an expansion on that part! Just want to be sure I didn't miss some reference or something. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.23.91|172.68.23.91]] 05:48, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
: Likewise. I get the comic, but I assumed the 'armada' part was a reference that I just did not get. But it seems it is just a word choice. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.102.105|172.71.102.105]] 09:39, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
:: The only "Infinite Armada" reference I can think of is ''[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars:_Knights_of_the_Old_Republic Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic]'', which kind of makes sense because if you have a Star Forge to make chess pieces with, why wouldn't you make them all queens? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.167.159|162.158.167.159]] 18:47, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

I think that since the error was "out of bounds", not "out of memory", it's referring to indexing outside of the region of memory that the program allocated to deal with the board. This would happen since instead of addressing rank 1..8, you could address rank 9, 10, 0, or -1. Unless bounds checking is performed when converting the board coordinates into linear array indices, you'd get an out-of-bounds error (or worse, succeed in reading or modifying memory that you weren't intending to). --[[Special:Contributions/172.71.30.253|172.71.30.253]] 05:45, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
:It was "Out of Bounds memory access". That means it was trying to access a memory address that was out of the bounds of the computer, as if it were trying to access the ω-th index of the board array, which would put it out of the memory range of any computer [[User:Firestar233|guess who]] ([[User talk:Firestar233|if you want to]] | [[Special:Contributions/Firestar233|what i have done]]) 06:15, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
:: There is no hint that the bounds are those of the computer, the simplest explanation really is that the bounds are those of an array. The error message does come up. In addition, to try to access the memory at the ω-th index, you would need to construct the ω-th index itself first (which would fail or not terminate) [[User:Jmm|Jmm]] ([[User talk:Jmm|talk]]) 07:01, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
::: The specific message, "RuntimeError: Out of bounds memory access", is a WebGL error issuing from its WASM cross-platform browser implementation. This implies to me that an attempt to render an infinite chessboard failed in a fairly trivial way, because of a poor implementation. It's very unlikely that there had been a problem with the [https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/tree/master/src Stockfish playing algorithm] yet, which would have failed with a different message if it ran out of memory, such as "Killed", which is all that shells like Bash print when one of their job processes is killed by the kernel's OOM killer, or by anything else for that matter. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.215.21|172.70.215.21]] 12:58, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
:: If it were trying to access an index that was out of the range of the array, then it would probably have mentioned an index somewhere in the message, like "Out of Bounds index". However, it says that the "memory address" was "Out of Bounds," implying that it tried to access a physical memory address that was out of bounds. Anyways, it wouldn't make sense to use an unmodified version of Stockfish that would still expect on 8 rows for a larger chess board, as it's not a close approximation to having an infinite number of queens. [[User:Firestar233|guess who]] ([[User talk:Firestar233|if you want to]] | [[Special:Contributions/Firestar233|what i have done]]) 20:30, 8 December 2024 (UTC)
::: The 8x8 board geometry is hardcoded entirely throughout Stockfish and its data structures. It would be easier to introduce new kinds of pieces with different kinds of moves than change the board size. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.186.10|162.158.186.10]] 01:11, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
:::: I have no insights into Stockfish (had I programmed it, I'm sure I'd also use its handy 8x8ness to highly optimise the way data was stored, i.e. hardcode 1 byte for any 'free' location and probably pack tight the "possible moves from this spot by this piece" bit of the record, where possibly... eight possibilities for a King, etc). I interpret the comic as being of a heavily modified version, though, effectively rewritten to allow arbitrary (if not truly boundless) fairy-boards that aren't square.
:::: Tying the error down is tricky. It'll be a compiler-added failover, either of the custom Stockfish or even of the OS's virtual memory subsystem, to deal with one or more problems that is probably more than exceeding the index bounds of any malloced array structure. It could even be some issue (getting past various initial handling layers, betwixt application and hardware) that tries to access a physical RAM address that doesn't exist, which finally gets caught and 'explained' back down the line by an error-code response that gets translated into the text we see by a less hardware-aware level of application code that just knows that it's an out-of-rangeish exception that's raised.
:::: Back when I regularly did assembler programming, you'd get ''very'' good ideas of what you were doing, what you could do and what would happen if you did slightly odd things. Sometimes to your advantage (i.e. directly peeking/poking memory locations beyond the overflow limit could 'wrap around', which was an interesting shortcut to save the need to detect when you'd go out of bounds and then loop back to the start yourself), if you were careful enough about it. These days, all programming I do is softened and "cotton wool"ed by several Hardware Abstraction Layers (and obscure compiler settings, where it's too much trouble to get to know every individual handling option quite so intimately).
:::: It'd be interesting to find the ''actual'' word-for-word inspiration, but I suspect that it's just a conceptual paraphrasing of the kind of thing that only exists (as needed) in Randall's imagination, so has a fictionality and/or composite source model to it. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.5|172.70.90.5]] 05:28, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

Is this a reference to [https://youtu.be/rav29N0-h2c infinite chess by Naviary?] [[User:HaruruChanDesu|HaruruChanDesu]] ([[User talk:HaruruChanDesu|talk]]) 11:21, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

"it does not really need to consider the infinitely many pieces" => a chess Engine would need to consider the infinitely many pieces (or have a way to abstract them), even if some pieces are currently stuck because the engine recursively evaluates moves and counter-moves (i.e. evaluates the game up to some depth).{{unsigned ip|162.158.95.184|13:44, 5 December (UTC)}}

Is the cardinality of the set of all the pieces smaller than the cardinality of the set of all possible moves? My gut instinct says yes but I don't have the energy to muck around and see if I can prove it. If I did try I think that matrix diagonalization would be the first thing I'd try. Anybody less lazy than me on this? --[[User:Tomb|Tomb]] ([[User talk:Tomb|talk]]) 21:30, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
: The number of games is at least Beth one (cardinality of the continuum so uncountable). After some preliminary moves you can have a black queen on an otherwise empty row and a white queen in the black pawn row. Now on pairs of moves the black queen moves in its row so its column mode four is a base four digit while the white queen moves up one row to give the digits position. So we can map real numbers uniquely into games.
: The number of pieces is obviously countable.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.230.60|172.70.230.60]] 18:59, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
:: Thanks! --[[User:Tomb|Tomb]] ([[User talk:Tomb|talk]]) 19:12, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

Can someone explain the linked joke with all the extra queens? I don't understand why it's a bad position. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.59.126|172.69.59.126]] 16:49, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
:Knight to d6. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.167.175|162.158.167.175]] 17:09, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
::...is checkmate by black. White can't capture the knight with either of the two queens that attack it because they're both pinned, by black's bishop and rook. (And we know it's black's turn to move because the colored squares indicate white just moved.) [[User:DKMell|DKMell]] ([[User talk:DKMell|talk]]) 17:54, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

Expected some discussion here already on the best opening moves given a infinite board or at least the board depicted.
1. e3 e6 2. Qh5 seems a logical start, but not entirely sure what would happen after that?
Any ideas? [[User:Flekkie|Flekkie]] ([[User talk:Flekkie|talk]]) 22:56, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
:I think games will generally end in a draw by perpetual check that's something like:
:1. Qxd7+ Qxd7
:2. Qxd7+ (etc)
:It's tricky to prevent a player at a disadvantage from repeatedly sacrificing queens from further and further away down some file. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.54.138|172.68.54.138]] 02:43, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
::However, the rules of chess wouldn't cause this game to end in a draw since there are captures every turn, and captures reset the 50-move counter that triggers a draw. The players could agree to a draw - or perhaps the player at a disadvantage could hope to win by exhaustion, that is, by following this strategy indefinitely and hoping the other player collapses from weariness first. [[User:DKMell|DKMell]] ([[User talk:DKMell|talk]]) 03:27, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

:::This assumes no chess clock. Alas, what I just wrote assumes a classic chess clock. Some games use time rules that require a modern electronic clock and add time every move, which in this case brings back the "recaptures go on forever" problem. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.207.149|172.70.207.149]] 11:49, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

Hit me up when this becomes real. I would like to try this out. [[User:CalibansCreations|'''Caliban''']] ([[User talk:CalibansCreations|talk]]) 12:29, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
:It should be easy enough. You will rarely get the queens out in play from deep in the array. So maybe just put two chess boars together and put some placeholder in for queens in the extra fields. If ever a queen in the bottom row is moved, place extra queens that can now be moved into the 2-3 squares that would be outside the board...--[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 12:39, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
:It might be something one could set up in Infinite Chess, although having limits on the chessboard may be difficult. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.150.67|172.68.150.67]] 14:01, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
: Here's a finite approximation in ChessCraft: https://www.chesscraft.ca/design?id=5KM4 [[User:Promethean|Promethean]] ([[User talk:Promethean|talk]]) 15:37, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

While I understand how to play chess, I don't get the bit about "having a bunch of queens doesn't go very well". At first glance, the linked chess layout looks pretty solid. Can someone please enlighten me? Also, what does the TV Tropes link about Title Drop have to do with Infinite Armada, aside from that being the title of the comic? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.230.77|172.70.230.77]] 13:10, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
: ... Nd6. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.246|172.70.91.246]] 13:31, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
:: Ah, thanks. Moving the knight there puts the king in check, and moving either queen to take it exposes the king to the bishop or rook, so checkmate. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.63.38|162.158.63.38]] 15:05, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
:::<s>You are assuming that the opponent makes no moves while you spend at least three moves advancing your knight. Looks like either side can draw by always moving the king backwards whenever a queen has moved and made a hole he can move to and otherwise trying to make a new, deeper hole. Eventually he gets so far back that any attack turns into an infinite sequence of queens taking each other, with the attacker only having file attacks while the defender can retake from a rank, file, or diagonal. Any time the attacker breaks off the infinite sequence of queens taking each other to set up something else, the defender takes advantage of the break to move the king deeper and put more queens in front of him or to create more empty spaces to sidestep into when attacked. To me, this looks like a certain draw.</s> [[Special:Contributions/172.69.33.252|172.69.33.252]] 16:21, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
::::They're talking about the linked layout at https://x.com/chesscom/status/1841540380363211164, not the layout in the comic. It only takes one move for the black knight to move to Nd6 and put the white king in checkmate. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.109.167|141.101.109.167]] 20:59, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

You might be able to get the developer of fairy stockfish ( https://fairy-stockfish.github.io/ ) to add this if you ask nicely. I have seen them add several reader requests. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.211.143|172.70.211.143]] 15:46, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

Could this be a reference to the meme about "eating an infinite armada of pizza"? The wording seems too similar to be a coincidence. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.114.46|172.70.114.46]] 14:46, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

Would this guarantee a draw between two competent players who'd played the variant before, or would there be more nuance to it than there appears to be?

Can someone explain the linked joke with all the extra queens? I don't understand why it's a bad position. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.59.125|172.69.59.125]] 16:48, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
: The explanation of the linked joke is that the king appears safe at first glance, but in reality there is a simple move that wins the game for black. Moving the black knight to the top left corner of the queen square checks the king. The king cannot move to escape. Two queens are in position to take the knight and save the white king, but both of those moves expose the king to attack from other black pieces (the rook or the bishop).
:: Wow. Not only did White give Black a mate in one, they also blundered a mate in one. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.167.176|162.158.167.176]] 20:21, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

Really? This comic specifically references some obscure roblox game with like 350k visits? That can't be right. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.154.247|172.71.154.247]] 02:31, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
:I agree, it seems out of character for Randall to use something like that as a punchline. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.166.18|172.71.166.18]] 14:01, 9 December 2024 (UTC)
::Referencing a [[861: Wisdom Teeth|geeky, obscure subculture computer game]] that isn't (yet!) particularly well known..? Nope. Can't at all think why he'd suddenly do that out of the blue, just as a Genius Bonus... /s [[Special:Contributions/172.71.26.100|172.71.26.100]] 15:30, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

This was the variant played at the chess tournament held at David Hilbert's Grand Hotel. You'd think they would have struggled to fit infinitely large boards in the conference room, but they just kept moving the tables until they had enough space. [[User:RegularSizedGuy|RegularSizedGuy]] ([[User talk:RegularSizedGuy|talk]]) 08:01, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

Clarifying "Surprisingly little memory to analyze conventional Chess": Without trying to "golf" the memory requirements, a board can be represented in 64 bytes, a reversible move in three bytes (start square, end square, piece captured). 40 moves without a pawn move or a capture is a draw, so the search stack is less than 5,680 moves. Two copies of the board (current search position, a board for looking back for detecting repeated positions), a few pointers for searching for moves to try: 20K of memory is plenty to search the entire Chess tree. And a truly unimaginably huge finite amount of time. (Golfers, start your carts!) [[Special:Contributions/172.68.55.12|172.68.55.12]] 12:08, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

Queen to A9.56x10^14 -[[User:Psychoticpotato|P?sych??otic?pot??at???o ]] ([[User talk:Psychoticpotato|talk]]) 13:47, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

Seems like a trivial win for white? Start w/ scholar's mate 1. e5 ... 2. Qh6, and just keep throwing queens at the king. It's much easier for the infinite queens to attack than to block and defend. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.154.76|172.71.154.76]] 18:21, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
:The problem is 1. e5 h6 2. Qxh6 Rxh6, if you keep trying to win h6 you’ll run out of queens that can move diagonally and black has an infinite supply moving vertically. 2. Qg4 Ng6 3. Qce2 seem like the logical next three moves? Except now black has a free move and a knight out. So at least it doesn’t seem trivial. I do think these games will be shorter than regular chess if they lead to a result, because long series of moves will tend to release the infinite queens. {{unsigned|Geoffk01}} 23:13, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

I cannot image this is not trying to reference https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSCNW1OCk_M , which recently resurfaced again. {{unsigned ip|172.70.114.35|18:57, 6 December 2024 (UTC)}}

I can't help but wonder if this might be in some way related to a known issue with stockfish, where if there are too many available moves in a given position, it causes a buffer overflow (see https://github.com/official-stockfish/Stockfish/pull/4558). This doesn't actually apply here, but it feels like there could be a relation {{unsigned ip|172.69.79.191|09:50, 11 December 2024}}

Talk:2406: Viral Vector Immunity

2021-01-01T21:30:27Z

141.101.98.130:

Mentioning explainxkcd on Randall's tweet https://twitter.com/xkcd/status/1345061851424501761 started off some explanations [[Special:Contributions/162.158.155.150|162.158.155.150]] 18:09, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

Is anyone else reminded of the "Boil 'em, mash 'em, stick 'em in a stew" rhythm? "Burn it, smash it, push it into the gorge". ''Into'' breaks the rhythm a bit, but perhaps it could be a The Two Towers (Lord of the Rings) movie reference? [[Special:Contributions/141.101.69.107|141.101.69.107]] 19:59, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

Couldn't a similar comic be used to explain how immunity works in general? Instead of the horse being a vaccine vector, it would be a pathogen, and the immune cells recognize it from a previous encounter and attack it. Vaccine vector failure occurs when the vector resembles something you've developed immunity to. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 20:33, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

I would disagree with the title text explanation, at least to a degree. The narrator is the person being recognised and threatened with the sword, but the narrator is not the vehicle of delivery of the modified payload (the coffee), that would still be the cup. I think either the metaphor or the explanation breaks at this point, which is not uncharacteristic of the title text often deviating from the stricter rules of the comic. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.130|141.101.98.130]] 21:30, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

Talk:2324: Old Days 2

2020-06-25T14:35:12Z

141.101.98.130:

I've gotta try that, see how the ice cream truck guy reacts. Wonder where I can find an ice cream truck though? [[Special:Contributions/172.69.71.16|172.69.71.16]] 23:42, 24 June 2020 (UTC)
: The above is me, wasn't logged in, would I get in trouble for fixing the signature? [[User:Mikemk|Mikemk]] ([[User talk:Mikemk|talk]]) 23:44, 24 June 2020 (UTC)
(@Mikemk, I recon you sorted it by adding what you did. If you'd have just changed things, probably no crime if you explained it in the edit Summary. But I'm just an IP Address, so no authority.) Anyway. The bit about a phone-call stopping all electronic business is obviously rooted in dial-up needing exclusive use of a POTS line, something that only went out with broadband piggy-backing alongside voice-calls, the respective carrier-signals now microfiltered at each end of the house-to-exchange copper cabling to let them coexist over the same circuit without blocking/overwhelming each other. Though, in this comic, it's hyperbole, overly fuzzy memory, leg-pulling and/or an alternate-history being described. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.130|141.101.98.130]] 02:06, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

In the early days (of the ARPAnet) there was actually something that today would be classed as a "cloud service" (before the term was invented) although limited. It was a computer (in Cambridge, MA) funded by ARPA with massive amounts of storage and anybody on the ARPAnet could use it for storage (primary access was through FTP). So, cloud storage but not cloud computing. If you wanted to do something with the data you had to copy the whole file to your local disk, edit it there, and then send it back. The actual bits were stored on magnetic tape and there was an elaborate X/Y mechanism to select a tape and mount it on a tape drive, and later return it to its cubby. [[User:MAP|MAP]] ([[User talk:MAP|talk]]) 02:38, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

"State landline" is reminiscent of the old sailing joke where you'd ask a n00b to bring you 100 feet of shoreline. -- brad

Hm, I'd think that "state landline" is a pun on "state line". [[User:Gvanrossum|Gvanrossum]] ([[User talk:Gvanrossum|talk]]) 04:19, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

Also, while mainframes didn't exactly knit sweaters when they ran your code, they *did* produce physical artifacts -- reams of line printer paper. [[User:Gvanrossum|Gvanrossum]] ([[User talk:Gvanrossum|talk]]) 04:21, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

"It's not even likely that any punch patterns used in computer coding would be interpretable as valid sweater-creating instructions." Is anyone up to the challenge? [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 05:04, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

Wouldn't a loom produce woven textiles rather than knit garments like sweaters? Seems like an additional layer of tall tales. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.189.179|172.68.189.179]] 06:46, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

It seems to me that the comic is having fun with false etymologies. There is especially one article that 'explains' a lot of idiom (in the sense of making up a fanciful story), which has been debunked by Snopes
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/life-in-the-1500s/ and the comics seems to allude to a similar situation in computer science, which is now old enough that early days are shrouded in a bit of mist out of which selective trivia is remembered (punch cards had something to do with looms) and then put together into a semi-coherent story that no longer reflects reality. (With part of the joke being that many people here will actually still know or even remember what it was really like in the 'early years', but the fewer those become, the more likely it will be that made-up 'origin stories' become accepted as true.

[[Special:Contributions/141.101.69.33|141.101.69.33]] 06:54, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

Is there a pun in the title text, regarding double meaning of driver? [[Special:Contributions/172.68.226.26|172.68.226.26]] 07:59, 25 June 2020 (UTC) Eddy

The explanation about landlines needs to be reviewed. Landlines are still a thing, people are still using them, they're not a "stone age" technology.[[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.130|141.101.98.130]] 14:35, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

Talk:2324: Old Days 2

2020-06-25T02:06:56Z

141.101.98.130:

Talk:2323: Modeling Study

2020-06-23T23:44:26Z

141.101.98.130:

Also known as

''I still have no clue about my subject, partly because I devised this study when I knew even less, but I need to write a paper anyway or I can never finish my PhD programme ...''

vs.

''I have now fiddled four years with my model assumptions to get the data to fit without, well, fiddling with the data, so please bear with me and my paper, and for heavens sake graduate me so I can save what is left of my soul and sanity ... '' ;-) --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.94.94|162.158.94.94]] 20:23, 22 June 2020 (UTC)
: One of my friends who studied thermal engineering remarked that if his model agreed with the test data to within ten degrees, it was acceptable, but if it agreed to less than five degrees, he was suspicious, because it was probably over-fit to the peculiarities of his thermal chamber, thermocouple placement, and so on, and less applicable for the system's real operational environment. --[[User:NotaBene|NotaBene]] ([[User talk:NotaBene|talk]]) 23:40, 22 June 2020 (UTC)
::We got trolled by our physics teacher in high school, during a calorimetry experiment (where you measure the changes in temperature of a system). All our measurements were way off from theoretical results, so we "adjusted" the reported values to make them fit the expected curve. Unfortunately, the prof knew that the thermometers were too inaccurate to produce precise results, so it was more of a test of our honesty, which we all failed miserably :-/[[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.167|162.158.158.167]] 13:19, 23 June 2020 (UTC)
:::In our Physics A-Level (normal post-Secondary and pre-University stage, for non-UKians) class, the 'trick' played on us was a 'black box' of components that we had to record the resistance/impedence/whatever of when raising the voltage (can't recall if DC or AC) from zero up to a level and then back down again. One of a number of such tests, to be done by rotating around the lab, you'd be tempted to just run it up and record the down as mirror image, or fudgingly near. Except that there was some sort of latching trip, once a given voltage went through the box, that changed the circuit significantly on the return trip. Only the honest (and possibly honest enough to show the 'error' that crept in, when thinking they'd messed it up - and no time to rerun it from scratch!) gave in the two-slope graph or whatever was the record. Can't tell you whether I was a Goody-Two-Shoes or not, though I like to think I was (and would have known about zenor diodes and self-reinfor ing flip-flop circuits, which this may have crudely used). [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.130|141.101.98.130]] 23:44, 23 June 2020 (UTC)
:I once proof read a master thesis, where an experimental setting to optimize a problem in certain network arrangements was set up (basically a laboratory with 15 desktop PCs, communicating with each other on a specific protocol, etc.). The guy who wrote it found out on the first afternoon after setting it up, that the professor who found and described the problem he was about to tackle made a mistake, and the problem didn't exist. By that time he had already - due to university standards - handed in the name of his thesis. While negative results in research are also good results, the problem is, that by the same standards of his university his master thesis had to be a certain size - if I remember correctly, at least 50 pages in small font, excluding data and images - he managed to stretch his afternoons work and some subsequential tests on it to the required number of pages though. I am sure there is a lesson to be learned here, but... I haven't figured it out yet. --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 05:37, 23 June 2020 (UTC)
::well, I gues the most important lesson would be "minimum length of text" is not a good requirement for any academic work. ;) [[User:Elektrizikekswerk|Elektrizikekswerk]] ([[User talk:Elektrizikekswerk|talk]]) 06:50, 23 June 2020 (UTC)
:::No. The most important lesson is "always name your thesis vaguely enough you can scale the content between 5% and 2000% or what you originally planned to do". -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 22:15, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

Various "<Problem> Denier" groups, (Climate Change, Covid, other things not ''necessarily'' starting with "C") do tend to lose their shit over "models" that aren't right (whether 1% out or 50%, they'll take any 'error', or just the failure to model what happened later ''because'' the model was heeded and behaviours changed to avoid the outcome) ironically using their clutched-at-straws to model all ''future'' models as wrong/intentionally-misleading-for-nefarious-intent. They also misunderstand the models (witness them dragging out old "85% chance Hillary will win" predictions against the roughly(-and-slightly-more-than) 50% of the votes she got - a different measure and far from incompatible with the other), whether innocently or deliberately, to 'prove' their point. And that's just done by regular Joes/Josephines. I'm sure you can be far more competently incompetent in your modelling (i.e. sneak sneaky shit past more and more learned people) if you're an actual modeller yourself who feels the need to drive towards an end for which you then look for the means. (Or modes, or medians.) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.155.168|162.158.155.168]] 11:58, 23 June 2020 (UTC)
:I'm nearly 18 hours late reading this comic, but the above is exactly why I'm so surprised to see it. Given Randall's apparent faith in mathematical modeling from other comics that this should be linked to (including the infamous vertical hockey stick temperature graph stretching back several millennia, and all the pro-Hillary bandwagon comics) I found this comic shocking in the extreme- he clearly knows the limitation of the method, and yet is still a true believer. Either that or he's finally growing up on the "A man who is not a liberal when he is young has no heart, a man who is not a conservative when he is old has no brains" spectrum. [[User:Seebert|Seebert]] ([[User talk:Seebert|talk]]) 13:27, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

:Well, whoever makes statements like the one paraphrased above from the 2016 US election, or merely one like "there is a 75% chance of rain tomorrow", is a moronic pseudoscientist, and ought to be flogged, tarred, feathered, and sentenced to clean out public toilets 8h/d for two months, in that order. Such "measures" (of course they aren´t, they are merely a statement about how firmly one believes in his model extrapolating past measurement results into the future) have only one advantage for the "statistican" and newspapers, they can never be proved wrong. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.92.44|162.158.92.44]] 20:38, 23 June 2020 (UTC)
:Ummm. If you run a thousand related but variously hedging weather simulations and 750 of them suggest rain (for a given set of criteria - temporal, geographical and terminological limits), then there's 75% chance of rain. This doesn't mean it'll rain only 75% of the typical raincloud or be raining steady for just 45 minutes in any hour. And the same with polling. No, you ''can't'' prove it "wrong" (unless you said 0% or 100% chance and it did or did not happen; anyone who said such things would be taking their own risk), and that's the point. If the models suggest a majority of at least one vote (EC, ideally, but based on the balloting levels) for one party in 85% of circumstances, it is valid to suggest an 85% chance. However tightly packed the scatter is across all half-reasonable patterns. (Which can be enumerated, for those that understand the enumerations, but how many who don't understand the original figure would understand any additional ones?) So you can't prove it wrong, just an unfortunate 'miss' (like a bet that two dice won't come up snake-eyes; even more certain, but it still does fail to go the promised way), and yet some would say it invalidates all modelling. That they don't like the look of. They'll happily use spurious/selective models that seem to share their viewpoint. (As will many different people with many different viewpoints, of course. Hopefully enough people consider enough competent models to appreciate enough of the true uncertainty. But I'm not sure the models support the more optimistic levels of 'enough'.) [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.130|141.101.98.130]] 23:44, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

[https://dilbert.com/strip/2020-06-23 Dilbert makes the same point the next morning in a slightly different way]--[[User:Seebert|Seebert]] ([[User talk:Seebert|talk]]) 13:30, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

Talk:2319: Large Number Formats

2020-06-22T14:43:07Z

141.101.98.130: Um, yeah. Minor edits.

Wouldn't Lincoln be:
Two score and nine score and six score and fourteen score and seven score and one score and eighteen score and two score and three score score and four? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.155.194|162.158.155.194]] 11:25, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

: Or rather: Two score score score score score score score score score score and nine score score score score score score score score score and six score score score score score score score score and fourteen score score score score score score score and seven score score score score score score and one score score score score score and eighteen score score score score and two score score score and three score score and four. [[User:Tracy Hall|Tracy Hall]] ([[User talk:Tracy Hall|talk]]) 06:18, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

:: What format did you use? Mine was ((((((((2*20+9)*20+6)*20+14)*20+7)*20+1)*20+18)*20+2)*20+3)*20*20+4 [[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.249|162.158.158.249]] 12:26, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

::: Two score and nine score make eleven score, as opposed to (two score and nine) score. I could tell that expression was what you meant, but what you actually wrote translates back to 2*20 + 9*20 + 6*20 + 14*20 + 7*20 + 1*20 + 18*20 + 2*20 + 3*20*20 + 4, because there is nothing in the English to tell you where parentheses should be placed. If you multiply out your expression to get rid of all the parentheses, it becomes what I wrote. [[User:Tracy Hall|Tracy Hall]] ([[User talk:Tracy Hall|talk]]) 07:47, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

:::: Oh. I see. Thanks for explanation. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.130|141.101.98.130]] 12:58, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

I've added the way I'm familiar with (Polish) to the "normal person in Europe outside of UK" caveat, but I think this still might be over-generalization to say that all Europe outside UK uses "." separator; I've actually never seen it used, but I've seen "'" used, even though I have no connection whatsoever with Switzerland. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.154.175|162.158.154.175]] 11:13, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

: Yes. We also use the single apostrophe as a thousands separator in Sweden. And in Excel we use the semicolon in formulas, since the comma is used for decimals.
[[User:Embridioum|Embridioum]] ([[User talk:Embridioum|talk]]) 22:18, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

:: No!? Swedes commonly use blank as thousands separate, eg. 6 500 000. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.183.119|162.158.183.119]] 19:06, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

Would love an explanation of the scientist avoiding rounding one. Would make sense to me with 2.525997..., but as 2.5997... I'm at a loss! {{unsigned ip|198.41.238.106|22:19, 12 June 2020 (UTC)}}
: Truncating the number just before a digit less than 5 so that the final digit is not rounded up. (I do this all the time, and, I am a scientist.) {{unsigned ip|108.162.216.172|00:48, 13 June 2020‎ (UTC)}}
(The above was posted (anonymously?) seconds before I could get mine in, so here it is in the original format.)

This is probably completely irrelevant but it seems Randall made a small typo when trying to show a "Scientest trying to avoid rounding up."
I assume it should be 2.525997*10^13. It seems he left out a 5 and a 2 and I say such because whether he forgot the 52 or 25 is up for debate.

Relevant screenshot: [[https://i.imgur.com/NrvOivy.png]]

Also, if I'm just being completely daft and am missing something completely, please feel free to criticize me harshly and I'll go back to my little hideyhole. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.237.24|108.162.237.24]] 22:21, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

: In reality, a scientist would probably say 6.416*10^13 cm. (Although possible counterpoint, this comic is really about the ''number'' 25,259,974,097,204, not the distance 25,259,974,097,204 inches.) [[Special:Contributions/172.69.33.207|172.69.33.207]] 22:47, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
:: Centimetres are not an SI unit. it would be 6.416*10^11 m [[Special:Contributions/172.68.255.14|172.68.255.14]] 01:51, 13 June 2020 (UTC)
::: Depends on field. It can easily be 35.67 light minutes. Or 2140 light seconds if you insist on SI units. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 22:11, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

I believe the "2.5997" was intentional, or at least I thought it was when reading it. At first I thought it was a typo, but Randall calls that number "Scientist ''trying'' to avoid rounding up" which makes me think Randall intentionally made that "mistake" as if the scientist had accidentally forgotten the first two digits (25) and used the remainder of the number (259974...), rounding it to "2.5997x10^13" [[User:Kirypto|Kirypto]] ([[User talk:Kirypto|talk]]) 23:03, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
: Randall fixed it! [[User:Gvanrossum|Gvanrossum]] ([[User talk:Gvanrossum|talk]]) 05:43, 13 June 2020 (UTC)
:: Looks like that was just a typo, Randall replaced it with a new version. [[User:Natg19|Natg19]] ([[User talk:Natg19|talk]]) 02:55, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

As a (not so?) old British person, I approve. Let the Trillions come around later, when it's ''worth'' increasing the prefix to "level 3". Don't waste them on the more petty numbers. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.155.122|162.158.155.122]] 23:13, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
:I'm also a not-so-old British person, and therefore use the short-scale as a matter of course. But, although I'm too young to ever have used the long scale, I regret its passing, for all that. On a visual level, if a million gives us a chunk of six zeroes, there's a simple elegance to the "bi-", "tri-", "quad-" (etc.) prefixes numerating two chunks, three chunks, four chunks, etc. From a less visual, more linguistically neat perspective, if you've got a million^2, a million^3, a million^4 and so on, then using "bi" to mean two, "tri" to mean three, "quad" to mean four makes sense...because that's what those things mean.[[User:Yorkshire Pudding|Yorkshire Pudding]] ([[User talk:Yorkshire Pudding|talk]]) 10:32, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

;"Engineering" notation omitted?
I find it somewhat strange that Randall doesn't offer '''25e12''' or any of those variants ('''25.259...*10^12'''). I feel like a lot of "non-normal" people would map billion to E12 instead of requiring a single digit to the left of the decimal point. shrug [[User:JohnHawkinson|JohnHawkinson]] ([[User talk:JohnHawkinson|talk]]) 23:09, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
: Honestly I thought "engineering" notation was a myth invented by HP's calculator division. But I'm personally offended that the programmers' notation 25_259_... was omitted. Maybe Randall still uses Python 2. :-) [[User:Gvanrossum|Gvanrossum]] ([[User talk:Gvanrossum|talk]]) 05:47, 13 June 2020 (UTC)
::Well, just because HP's calculator division invented something doesn't mean it's a myth. They do have the power to invent things and had the market penetration for their names to have power and influence the world; but for sure, having used HP calculators in high school affected how I thought about numbers in college. But I think anyone who works with SI prefixes on a regular basis and reports results using them will appreciate "engineering" notation given the direct correspondence. And, of course, it also corresponds to how "normal" people use write numbers in the millions/billions/trillions, as this comic shows…which was the point… [[User:JohnHawkinson|JohnHawkinson]] ([[User talk:JohnHawkinson|talk]]) 12:03, 13 June 2020 (UTC)
:::Engineering notation is what engineers use all the time to make the maths simpler (one quip is an engineer is a physicist with poor maths). Except for the 'everyday' centimetre and decimetre, SI unit names are all in 10^3 steps. [[User:RIIW - Ponder it|RIIW - Ponder it]] ([[User talk:RIIW - Ponder it|talk]]) 18:56, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

"What's an inch?" [[Special:Contributions/162.158.62.119|162.158.62.119]] 23:18, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
: The imaginary nano-scale multiple of the speed of light times Planck's constant. Which, dimensionally, would seem to be kg.m³/s²? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.154.73|162.158.154.73]] 00:15, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

As an article pointed out to me the other day that seemed obvious after it was said it's a non-tariff trade barrier used as American protectionism that doesn't get tariffed back. {{unsigned ip|172.69.63.81|00:10, 13 June 2020 (UTC)}}

Can someone explain the set theory notation? {{unsigned ip|172.68.255.14|01:56, 13 June 2020 (UTC)}}
: You can use only sets to construct the natural numbers, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_number#Constructions_based_on_set_theory - {{unsigned ip|172.68.215.76|02:20, 13 June 2020 (UTC)}}

It seems nobody has pointed out that the power of 10 in the title text is really just the log(x) of the number, which is in fact very common in scientific contexts -> log(25,259,974,097,204) = 13.4024 [[User:Ianrbibtitlht|Ianrbibtitlht]] ([[User talk:Ianrbibtitlht|talk]]) 02:31, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

The alternative would be for him to write 10^13.402432900872993447734410070128 (Rounded up). Notation that produces a longer string of digits than the original number seems useless on all fronts but somehow even more fun. I like the current explanation, though. It was insightful, IMO. -B- [[Special:Contributions/162.158.106.126|162.158.106.126]] 17:14, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

We have kept the olden ways here in the north. Miljon (10^6), miljard (10^9), biljon (10^12), biljard (10^15). Also, "biljard" is the same word as the game of pool in Swedish.
[[User:Embridioum|Embridioum]] ([[User talk:Embridioum|talk]]) 07:17, 13 June 2020 (UTC)
:Another thing an Older British Person might argue about is Billiards, the cue-and-ball game. Often, among all the vaiations, it was the three-ball version (white and white-spot cueballs, for each player, and red ball as the common target) on either pocketted or non-pocketted tables (the former mostly as a sop to using an unmodified snooker table) or, explicitly, Bar Billiards with target holes and obstacle pegs (quite common as early coin-operated pay-to-play tables). Only by succumbing to the americanism was Pool (usually 15-ball, spots+stripes+8ball) ever called billiards. Well, ''I'' thought that was interesting... [[Special:Contributions/162.158.159.136|162.158.159.136]] 12:49, 13 June 2020 (UTC)
::"Why sure I'm a billiard player, certainly mighty proud to say, I'm always mighty proud to say it. I consider that the hours I spend with a cue in my hand are golden." -Harold Hill [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.60|108.162.216.60]] 14:34, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

Also Italian uses the long scale for large numbers, and also in Italian the word for the game of pool coincides with 10^15. Albeit I have to say that I've never heard anyone use bilione and biliardo referring to numbers. We usually stop at miliardo, saying things like "un milione di miliardi" when we need to say those large numbers, or use the scientific notation. --[[Special:Contributions/172.68.198.106|172.68.198.106]] 09:04, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

While we're on different languages, how about this one: 1262998704860-vingt-quatre - French person. --[[User:IByte|IByte]] ([[User talk:IByte|talk]]) 11:11, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

:Russian uses the short scale, like million, billion, trillion, quadrillion, etc. But it calls a billion a milliard, and a thousand milliards is a trillion. Why? [[Special:Contributions/172.69.68.195|172.69.68.195]] 18:09, 13 June 2020 (UTC)
:: Sounds to me like Russia 'inherited' Milliards from its usage by trade partners at one point in time when that was a number people were starting to want to use seriously, but adopted the short-Trillion from a later time when (different) people were needing to discuss higher values and adopt terms for these into their own tongue. If you check the chequered history of what-means-what (before Short and Long scales were mad3 at least self-consistent among their adherents) you could reasonably blame/credit many different sources for each development. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.249|162.158.158.249]] 01:03, 14 June 2020 (UTC)
:A French person would write it the same way as an old British person, but add a silent "s" at the end of "billion" to pluralize it ("25 billions"). Actually, that's how a pedantic French person would do it, because the average Jacques would probably just write it "25 mille milliards" — and an illiterate cheese-eating surrender monkey would most likely spell it "25 milles millards" (source: I'm French).--[[Special:Contributions/108.162.229.234|108.162.229.234]] 12:44, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
:: My habit (as British) is to treat a million (and the rest) like a sheep (the plural of "sheep" being "sheep") when dealing with it as a(n apparently) definite number, but not when being used as a (possibly hyperbolic) grouping term. "There are at least a million sheep in this field, there are over two million sheep in that field. That's more than three million in total. How can millions of sheep fit into two small fields?" When hearing "How many sand grains in that pile of sand? There are at least six thousands.", it comes across as not being either truly English as I know it, and/or not as accurate as it may be intended to be. Similarly ten fish in a tank is 10 fish, but tens ''of'' fish in a tank could easily be "10 tens" of fish, or more, which is at least a hundred, if not hundreds! And probably still none of them know how to drive it. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.130|141.101.98.130]] 14:37, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Why *that* number? OK, so it's a big number (well, maybe not compared to all the other numbers). One oddity is that the prime factors are:

2 2 7 11 82012902913

7 11? Subliminal advertising? If you turn the big prime upside-down calculator style, you get: eigzogzlos8

I'm surprised that 5 and 23 are missing. In fact, that's almost suspicious.
: I think you're overthinking this, or maybe you got nerdsniped. Randall probably just chose a large number with different digits and being a fan of space, this one worked for him. [[User:Bischoff|Bischoff]] ([[User talk:Bischoff|talk]]) 08:40, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

I thought in all or most of Europe the thousands separator was a space not a dot. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.238.4|162.158.238.4]] 03:09, 14 June 2020 (UTC)
: That's actually something interesting I learned from this explanation. I always assumed everyone either used commas (US and UK) or dots (pretty much the rest of at least Europe, never thought much about other continents in this regard) and grouped them in threes. Apparently I was very wrong. The Indian system of grouping digits looks a bit confusing to me, but apparently it corresponds well to their language. [[User:Bischoff|Bischoff]] ([[User talk:Bischoff|talk]]) 08:32, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

Please refrain from using new sections in the comment section! --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 06:43, 14 June 2020 (UTC)
: What's so bad about them? At least in a comic like this one, where people are actually discussing/commenting on different aspects of the comic, I find sections very helpful to keep track of different conversations. [[User:Bischoff|Bischoff]] ([[User talk:Bischoff|talk]]) 08:22, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

Re: Software developer, the "power" operand varies wildly across programming languages, some do indeed use ^, some go for ** and some have to resort to something like a pow(x,y) function, but in the languages/dialects I use most the ** operator binds closer than (has order of precedence over) the * operator, so x*10**y would not be (10x)y as currently suggested in the Explanation. But ^ is the bitwise operator (lower precedence than *), so would do something even more 'interesting' to the result. Now, obviously, different codes for different coves and all - but I'm dredging my memory for all kinds of obscure scripting languages I've not used for years (what does COBOL do..? Forth is Reverse Polish. Lisp(is(more(Forward(Polish))))) not sure which one Randall is basing it on (if it's not just geek-sniping at its finest). [[Special:Contributions/141.101.107.234|141.101.107.234]] 10:47, 14 June 2020 (UTC)
: The link I provided for "every common programming language" which someone edited to say "most common programming languages" is a site that shows what some code snippets look like in some huge number of languages that includes all the common ones. That's why I said "every" for supporting the scientific notation with e for the exponent, it really is all of them. There is much more variation in the syntax for exponentiation, more using ** than ^ and quite a few only having a function to call instead of an operator symbol. However, every one that does use ^ for exponentiation would parse x*10^13 be x times the 13th power of 10. [[User:Bugstomper|Bugstomper]] ([[User talk:Bugstomper|talk]]) 06:25, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Speaking as a set theorist, I'd also describe that number as "Pretty small, just slightly bigger than 1." [[Special:Contributions/162.158.154.73|162.158.154.73]] 11:44, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

No comment in the explanation about the fact that inches are a pretty inadequate unit to express astronomical distances in the first place?[[Special:Contributions/162.158.155.224|162.158.155.224]] 08:57, 15 June 2020 (UTC)
: I actually thought it funny that using ''inches'' in the first place is telling in itself a lot about who one is (most likely American, or at least from the Anglo-sphere).

The set theory bit is a bit too specific, and also not specific enough. This construction (the ''Von Neumann'' natural numbers) doesn't rely on details of the underlying set theory, so it will work just fine with theories other than the Zermelo-Fraenkel one. On the other hand, there exist other (less popular) constructions of the natural numbers using set theory, including one by Zermelo. [[User:Dfeuer|Dfeuer]] ([[User talk:Dfeuer|talk]]) 21:33, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Talk:2319: Large Number Formats

2020-06-22T14:37:22Z

141.101.98.130:

Wouldn't Lincoln be:
Two score and nine score and six score and fourteen score and seven score and one score and eighteen score and two score and three score score and four? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.155.194|162.158.155.194]] 11:25, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

: Or rather: Two score score score score score score score score score score and nine score score score score score score score score score and six score score score score score score score score and fourteen score score score score score score score and seven score score score score score score and one score score score score score and eighteen score score score score and two score score score and three score score and four. [[User:Tracy Hall|Tracy Hall]] ([[User talk:Tracy Hall|talk]]) 06:18, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

:: What format did you use? Mine was ((((((((2*20+9)*20+6)*20+14)*20+7)*20+1)*20+18)*20+2)*20+3)*20*20+4 [[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.249|162.158.158.249]] 12:26, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

::: Two score and nine score make eleven score, as opposed to (two score and nine) score. I could tell that expression was what you meant, but what you actually wrote translates back to 2*20 + 9*20 + 6*20 + 14*20 + 7*20 + 1*20 + 18*20 + 2*20 + 3*20*20 + 4, because there is nothing in the English to tell you where parentheses should be placed. If you multiply out your expression to get rid of all the parentheses, it becomes what I wrote. [[User:Tracy Hall|Tracy Hall]] ([[User talk:Tracy Hall|talk]]) 07:47, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

:::: Oh. I see. Thanks for explanation. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.130|141.101.98.130]] 12:58, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

I've added the way I'm familiar with (Polish) to the "normal person in Europe outside of UK" caveat, but I think this still might be over-generalization to say that all Europe outside UK uses "." separator; I've actually never seen it used, but I've seen "'" used, even though I have no connection whatsoever with Switzerland. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.154.175|162.158.154.175]] 11:13, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

: Yes. We also use the single apostrophe as a thousands separator in Sweden. And in Excel we use the semicolon in formulas, since the comma is used for decimals.
[[User:Embridioum|Embridioum]] ([[User talk:Embridioum|talk]]) 22:18, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

:: No!? Swedes commonly use blank as thousands separate, eg. 6 500 000. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.183.119|162.158.183.119]] 19:06, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

Would love an explanation of the scientist avoiding rounding one. Would make sense to me with 2.525997..., but as 2.5997... I'm at a loss! {{unsigned ip|198.41.238.106|22:19, 12 June 2020 (UTC)}}
: Truncating the number just before a digit less than 5 so that the final digit is not rounded up. (I do this all the time, and, I am a scientist.) {{unsigned ip|108.162.216.172|00:48, 13 June 2020‎ (UTC)}}
(The above was posted (anonymously?) seconds before I could get mine in, so here it is in the original format.)

This is probably completely irrelevant but it seems Randall made a small typo when trying to show a "Scientest trying to avoid rounding up."
I assume it should be 2.525997*10^13. It seems he left out a 5 and a 2 and I say such because whether he forgot the 52 or 25 is up for debate.

Relevant screenshot: [[https://i.imgur.com/NrvOivy.png]]

Also, if I'm just being completely daft and am missing something completely, please feel free to criticize me harshly and I'll go back to my little hideyhole. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.237.24|108.162.237.24]] 22:21, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

: In reality, a scientist would probably say 6.416*10^13 cm. (Although possible counterpoint, this comic is really about the ''number'' 25,259,974,097,204, not the distance 25,259,974,097,204 inches.) [[Special:Contributions/172.69.33.207|172.69.33.207]] 22:47, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
:: Centimetres are not an SI unit. it would be 6.416*10^11 m [[Special:Contributions/172.68.255.14|172.68.255.14]] 01:51, 13 June 2020 (UTC)
::: Depends on field. It can easily be 35.67 light minutes. Or 2140 light seconds if you insist on SI units. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 22:11, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

I believe the "2.5997" was intentional, or at least I thought it was when reading it. At first I thought it was a typo, but Randall calls that number "Scientist ''trying'' to avoid rounding up" which makes me think Randall intentionally made that "mistake" as if the scientist had accidentally forgotten the first two digits (25) and used the remainder of the number (259974...), rounding it to "2.5997x10^13" [[User:Kirypto|Kirypto]] ([[User talk:Kirypto|talk]]) 23:03, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
: Randall fixed it! [[User:Gvanrossum|Gvanrossum]] ([[User talk:Gvanrossum|talk]]) 05:43, 13 June 2020 (UTC)
:: Looks like that was just a typo, Randall replaced it with a new version. [[User:Natg19|Natg19]] ([[User talk:Natg19|talk]]) 02:55, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

As a (not so?) old British person, I approve. Let the Trillions come around later, when it's ''worth'' increasing the prefix to "level 3". Don't waste them on the more petty numbers. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.155.122|162.158.155.122]] 23:13, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
:I'm also a not-so-old British person, and therefore use the short-scale as a matter of course. But, although I'm too young to ever have used the long scale, I regret its passing, for all that. On a visual level, if a million gives us a chunk of six zeroes, there's a simple elegance to the "bi-", "tri-", "quad-" (etc.) prefixes numerating two chunks, three chunks, four chunks, etc. From a less visual, more linguistically neat perspective, if you've got a million^2, a million^3, a million^4 and so on, then using "bi" to mean two, "tri" to mean three, "quad" to mean four makes sense...because that's what those things mean.[[User:Yorkshire Pudding|Yorkshire Pudding]] ([[User talk:Yorkshire Pudding|talk]]) 10:32, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

;"Engineering" notation omitted?
I find it somewhat strange that Randall doesn't offer '''25e12''' or any of those variants ('''25.259...*10^12'''). I feel like a lot of "non-normal" people would map billion to E12 instead of requiring a single digit to the left of the decimal point. shrug [[User:JohnHawkinson|JohnHawkinson]] ([[User talk:JohnHawkinson|talk]]) 23:09, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
: Honestly I thought "engineering" notation was a myth invented by HP's calculator division. But I'm personally offended that the programmers' notation 25_259_... was omitted. Maybe Randall still uses Python 2. :-) [[User:Gvanrossum|Gvanrossum]] ([[User talk:Gvanrossum|talk]]) 05:47, 13 June 2020 (UTC)
::Well, just because HP's calculator division invented something doesn't mean it's a myth. They do have the power to invent things and had the market penetration for their names to have power and influence the world; but for sure, having used HP calculators in high school affected how I thought about numbers in college. But I think anyone who works with SI prefixes on a regular basis and reports results using them will appreciate "engineering" notation given the direct correspondence. And, of course, it also corresponds to how "normal" people use write numbers in the millions/billions/trillions, as this comic shows…which was the point… [[User:JohnHawkinson|JohnHawkinson]] ([[User talk:JohnHawkinson|talk]]) 12:03, 13 June 2020 (UTC)
:::Engineering notation is what engineers use all the time to make the maths simpler (one quip is an engineer is a physicist with poor maths). Except for the 'everyday' centimetre and decimetre, SI unit names are all in 10^3 steps. [[User:RIIW - Ponder it|RIIW - Ponder it]] ([[User talk:RIIW - Ponder it|talk]]) 18:56, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

"What's an inch?" [[Special:Contributions/162.158.62.119|162.158.62.119]] 23:18, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
: The imaginary nano-scale multiple of the speed of light times Planck's constant. Which, dimensionally, would seem to be kg.m³/s²? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.154.73|162.158.154.73]] 00:15, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

As an article pointed out to me the other day that seemed obvious after it was said it's a non-tariff trade barrier used as American protectionism that doesn't get tariffed back. {{unsigned ip|172.69.63.81|00:10, 13 June 2020 (UTC)}}

Can someone explain the set theory notation? {{unsigned ip|172.68.255.14|01:56, 13 June 2020 (UTC)}}
: You can use only sets to construct the natural numbers, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_number#Constructions_based_on_set_theory - {{unsigned ip|172.68.215.76|02:20, 13 June 2020 (UTC)}}

It seems nobody has pointed out that the power of 10 in the title text is really just the log(x) of the number, which is in fact very common in scientific contexts -> log(25,259,974,097,204) = 13.4024 [[User:Ianrbibtitlht|Ianrbibtitlht]] ([[User talk:Ianrbibtitlht|talk]]) 02:31, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

The alternative would be for him to write 10^13.402432900872993447734410070128 (Rounded up). Notation that produces a longer string of digits than the original number seems useless on all fronts but somehow even more fun. I like the current explanation, though. It was insightful, IMO. -B- [[Special:Contributions/162.158.106.126|162.158.106.126]] 17:14, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

We have kept the olden ways here in the north. Miljon (10^6), miljard (10^9), biljon (10^12), biljard (10^15). Also, "biljard" is the same word as the game of pool in Swedish.
[[User:Embridioum|Embridioum]] ([[User talk:Embridioum|talk]]) 07:17, 13 June 2020 (UTC)
:Another thing an Older British Person might argue about is Billiards, the cue-and-ball game. Often, among all the vaiations, it was the three-ball version (white and white-spot cueballs, for each player, and red ball as the common target) on either pocketted or non-pocketted tables (the former mostly as a sop to using an unmodified snooker table) or, explicitly, Bar Billiards with target holes and obstacle pegs (quite common as early coin-operated pay-to-play tables). Only by succumbing to the americanism was Pool (usually 15-ball, spots+stripes+8ball) ever called billiards. Well, ''I'' thought that was interesting... [[Special:Contributions/162.158.159.136|162.158.159.136]] 12:49, 13 June 2020 (UTC)
::"Why sure I'm a billiard player, certainly mighty proud to say, I'm always mighty proud to say it. I consider that the hours I spend with a cue in my hand are golden." -Harold Hill [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.60|108.162.216.60]] 14:34, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

Also Italian uses the long scale for large numbers, and also in Italian the word for the game of pool coincides with 10^15. Albeit I have to say that I've never heard anyone use bilione and biliardo referring to numbers. We usually stop at miliardo, saying things like "un milione di miliardi" when we need to say those large numbers, or use the scientific notation. --[[Special:Contributions/172.68.198.106|172.68.198.106]] 09:04, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

While we're on different languages, how about this one: 1262998704860-vingt-quatre - French person. --[[User:IByte|IByte]] ([[User talk:IByte|talk]]) 11:11, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

:Russian uses the short scale, like million, billion, trillion, quadrillion, etc. But it calls a billion a milliard, and a thousand milliards is a trillion. Why? [[Special:Contributions/172.69.68.195|172.69.68.195]] 18:09, 13 June 2020 (UTC)
:: Sounds to me like Russia 'inherited' Milliards from its usage by trade partners at one point in time when that was a number people were starting to want to use seriously, but adopted the short-Trillion from a later time when (different) people were needing to discuss higher values and adopt terms for these into their own tongue. If you check the chequered history of what-means-what (before Short and Long scales were mad3 at least self-consistent among their adherents) you could reasonably blame/credit many different sources for each development. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.249|162.158.158.249]] 01:03, 14 June 2020 (UTC)
:A French person would write it the same way as an old British person, but add a silent "s" at the end of "billion" to pluralize it ("25 billions"). Actually, that's how a pedantic French person would do it, because the average Jacques would probably just write it "25 mille milliards" — and an illiterate cheese-eating surrender monkey would most likely spell it "25 milles millards" (source: I'm French).--[[Special:Contributions/108.162.229.234|108.162.229.234]] 12:44, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
:: My habit (as British) is to treat a million (and the rest) like a sheep (the plural of "sheep" being "sheep") when dealing with it as a(n apparently) definite number, but not when being used as a (possibly hyperbolic) grouping term. "There are at least a million sheep in this field, there are over two million sheep in that field. How can millions of sheep fit into two small fields?" When hearing "How many sand grains in that pile of sand? There are at least six thousands.", it comes across as not being either truly English as I know it, and/or not as accurate as it may be intended to be. Similarly ten fish in a tank is 10 fish, but tens ''of'' fish in a tank could easily be "ten ten's" of fish, or more, which is at least a hundred, if not hundreds! And probably still none of them know how to drive it. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.130|141.101.98.130]] 14:37, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Why *that* number? OK, so it's a big number (well, maybe not compared to all the other numbers). One oddity is that the prime factors are:

2 2 7 11 82012902913

7 11? Subliminal advertising? If you turn the big prime upside-down calculator style, you get: eigzogzlos8

I'm surprised that 5 and 23 are missing. In fact, that's almost suspicious.
: I think you're overthinking this, or maybe you got nerdsniped. Randall probably just chose a large number with different digits and being a fan of space, this one worked for him. [[User:Bischoff|Bischoff]] ([[User talk:Bischoff|talk]]) 08:40, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

I thought in all or most of Europe the thousands separator was a space not a dot. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.238.4|162.158.238.4]] 03:09, 14 June 2020 (UTC)
: That's actually something interesting I learned from this explanation. I always assumed everyone either used commas (US and UK) or dots (pretty much the rest of at least Europe, never thought much about other continents in this regard) and grouped them in threes. Apparently I was very wrong. The Indian system of grouping digits looks a bit confusing to me, but apparently it corresponds well to their language. [[User:Bischoff|Bischoff]] ([[User talk:Bischoff|talk]]) 08:32, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

Please refrain from using new sections in the comment section! --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 06:43, 14 June 2020 (UTC)
: What's so bad about them? At least in a comic like this one, where people are actually discussing/commenting on different aspects of the comic, I find sections very helpful to keep track of different conversations. [[User:Bischoff|Bischoff]] ([[User talk:Bischoff|talk]]) 08:22, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

Re: Software developer, the "power" operand varies wildly across programming languages, some do indeed use ^, some go for ** and some have to resort to something like a pow(x,y) function, but in the languages/dialects I use most the ** operator binds closer than (has order of precedence over) the * operator, so x*10**y would not be (10x)y as currently suggested in the Explanation. But ^ is the bitwise operator (lower precedence than *), so would do something even more 'interesting' to the result. Now, obviously, different codes for different coves and all - but I'm dredging my memory for all kinds of obscure scripting languages I've not used for years (what does COBOL do..? Forth is Reverse Polish. Lisp(is(more(Forward(Polish))))) not sure which one Randall is basing it on (if it's not just geek-sniping at its finest). [[Special:Contributions/141.101.107.234|141.101.107.234]] 10:47, 14 June 2020 (UTC)
: The link I provided for "every common programming language" which someone edited to say "most common programming languages" is a site that shows what some code snippets look like in some huge number of languages that includes all the common ones. That's why I said "every" for supporting the scientific notation with e for the exponent, it really is all of them. There is much more variation in the syntax for exponentiation, more using ** than ^ and quite a few only having a function to call instead of an operator symbol. However, every one that does use ^ for exponentiation would parse x*10^13 be x times the 13th power of 10. [[User:Bugstomper|Bugstomper]] ([[User talk:Bugstomper|talk]]) 06:25, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Speaking as a set theorist, I'd also describe that number as "Pretty small, just slightly bigger than 1." [[Special:Contributions/162.158.154.73|162.158.154.73]] 11:44, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

No comment in the explanation about the fact that inches are a pretty inadequate unit to express astronomical distances in the first place?[[Special:Contributions/162.158.155.224|162.158.155.224]] 08:57, 15 June 2020 (UTC)
: I actually thought it funny that using ''inches'' in the first place is telling in itself a lot about who one is (most likely American, or at least from the Anglo-sphere).

The set theory bit is a bit too specific, and also not specific enough. This construction (the ''Von Neumann'' natural numbers) doesn't rely on details of the underlying set theory, so it will work just fine with theories other than the Zermelo-Fraenkel one. On the other hand, there exist other (less popular) constructions of the natural numbers using set theory, including one by Zermelo. [[User:Dfeuer|Dfeuer]] ([[User talk:Dfeuer|talk]]) 21:33, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Talk:2321: Low-Background Metal

2020-06-19T04:11:56Z

141.101.98.130: /* One use only? */

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)

Talk:2321: Low-Background Metal

2020-06-18T17:13:30Z

141.101.98.130: /* May be complicated */

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)

== 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)

Talk:2321: Low-Background Metal

2020-06-18T17:11:56Z

141.101.98.130:

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)

== 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)

Talk:2319: Large Number Formats

2020-06-18T12:58:04Z

141.101.98.130: thanks

Wouldn't Lincoln be:
Two score and nine score and six score and fourteen score and seven score and one score and eighteen score and two score and three score score and four? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.155.194|162.158.155.194]] 11:25, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

: Or rather: Two score score score score score score score score score score and nine score score score score score score score score score and six score score score score score score score score and fourteen score score score score score score score and seven score score score score score score and one score score score score score and eighteen score score score score and two score score score and three score score and four. [[User:Tracy Hall|Tracy Hall]] ([[User talk:Tracy Hall|talk]]) 06:18, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

:: What format did you use? Mine was ((((((((2*20+9)*20+6)*20+14)*20+7)*20+1)*20+18)*20+2)*20+3)*20*20+4 [[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.249|162.158.158.249]] 12:26, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

::: Two score and nine score make eleven score, as opposed to (two score and nine) score. I could tell that expression was what you meant, but what you actually wrote translates back to 2*20 + 9*20 + 6*20 + 14*20 + 7*20 + 1*20 + 18*20 + 2*20 + 3*20*20 + 4, because there is nothing in the English to tell you where parentheses should be placed. If you multiply out your expression to get rid of all the parentheses, it becomes what I wrote. [[User:Tracy Hall|Tracy Hall]] ([[User talk:Tracy Hall|talk]]) 07:47, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

:::: Oh. I see. Thanks for explanation. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.130|141.101.98.130]] 12:58, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

I've added the way I'm familiar with (Polish) to the "normal person in Europe outside of UK" caveat, but I think this still might be over-generalization to say that all Europe outside UK uses "." separator; I've actually never seen it used, but I've seen "'" used, even though I have no connection whatsoever with Switzerland. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.154.175|162.158.154.175]] 11:13, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

: Yes. We also use the single apostrophe as a thousands separator in Sweden. And in Excel we use the semicolon in formulas, since the comma is used for decimals.
[[User:Embridioum|Embridioum]] ([[User talk:Embridioum|talk]]) 22:18, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

:: No!? Swedes commonly use blank as thousands separate, eg. 6 500 000. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.183.119|162.158.183.119]] 19:06, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

Would love an explanation of the scientist avoiding rounding one. Would make sense to me with 2.525997..., but as 2.5997... I'm at a loss! {{unsigned ip|198.41.238.106|22:19, 12 June 2020 (UTC)}}
: Truncating the number just before a digit less than 5 so that the final digit is not rounded up. (I do this all the time, and, I am a scientist.) {{unsigned ip|108.162.216.172|00:48, 13 June 2020‎ (UTC)}}
(The above was posted (anonymously?) seconds before I could get mine in, so here it is in the original format.)

This is probably completely irrelevant but it seems Randall made a small typo when trying to show a "Scientest trying to avoid rounding up."
I assume it should be 2.525997*10^13. It seems he left out a 5 and a 2 and I say such because whether he forgot the 52 or 25 is up for debate.

Relevant screenshot: [[https://i.imgur.com/NrvOivy.png]]

Also, if I'm just being completely daft and am missing something completely, please feel free to criticize me harshly and I'll go back to my little hideyhole. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.237.24|108.162.237.24]] 22:21, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

: In reality, a scientist would probably say 6.416*10^13 cm. (Although possible counterpoint, this comic is really about the ''number'' 25,259,974,097,204, not the distance 25,259,974,097,204 inches.) [[Special:Contributions/172.69.33.207|172.69.33.207]] 22:47, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
:: Centimetres are not an SI unit. it would be 6.416*10^11 m [[Special:Contributions/172.68.255.14|172.68.255.14]] 01:51, 13 June 2020 (UTC)
::: Depends on field. It can easily be 35.67 light minutes. Or 2140 light seconds if you insist on SI units. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 22:11, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

I believe the "2.5997" was intentional, or at least I thought it was when reading it. At first I thought it was a typo, but Randall calls that number "Scientist ''trying'' to avoid rounding up" which makes me think Randall intentionally made that "mistake" as if the scientist had accidentally forgotten the first two digits (25) and used the remainder of the number (259974...), rounding it to "2.5997x10^13" [[User:Kirypto|Kirypto]] ([[User talk:Kirypto|talk]]) 23:03, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
: Randall fixed it! [[User:Gvanrossum|Gvanrossum]] ([[User talk:Gvanrossum|talk]]) 05:43, 13 June 2020 (UTC)
:: Looks like that was just a typo, Randall replaced it with a new version. [[User:Natg19|Natg19]] ([[User talk:Natg19|talk]]) 02:55, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

As a (not so?) old British person, I approve. Let the Trillions come around later, when it's ''worth'' increasing the prefix to "level 3". Don't waste them on the more petty numbers. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.155.122|162.158.155.122]] 23:13, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
:I'm also a not-so-old British person, and therefore use the short-scale as a matter of course. But, although I'm too young to ever have used the long scale, I regret its passing, for all that. On a visual level, if a million gives us a chunk of six zeroes, there's a simple elegance to the "bi-", "tri-", "quad-" (etc.) prefixes numerating two chunks, three chunks, four chunks, etc. From a less visual, more linguistically neat perspective, if you've got a million^2, a million^3, a million^4 and so on, then using "bi" to mean two, "tri" to mean three, "quad" to mean four makes sense...because that's what those things mean.[[User:Yorkshire Pudding|Yorkshire Pudding]] ([[User talk:Yorkshire Pudding|talk]]) 10:32, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

;"Engineering" notation omitted?
I find it somewhat strange that Randall doesn't offer '''25e12''' or any of those variants ('''25.259...*10^12'''). I feel like a lot of "non-normal" people would map billion to E12 instead of requiring a single digit to the left of the decimal point. shrug [[User:JohnHawkinson|JohnHawkinson]] ([[User talk:JohnHawkinson|talk]]) 23:09, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
: Honestly I thought "engineering" notation was a myth invented by HP's calculator division. But I'm personally offended that the programmers' notation 25_259_... was omitted. Maybe Randall still uses Python 2. :-) [[User:Gvanrossum|Gvanrossum]] ([[User talk:Gvanrossum|talk]]) 05:47, 13 June 2020 (UTC)
::Well, just because HP's calculator division invented something doesn't mean it's a myth. They do have the power to invent things and had the market penetration for their names to have power and influence the world; but for sure, having used HP calculators in high school affected how I thought about numbers in college. But I think anyone who works with SI prefixes on a regular basis and reports results using them will appreciate "engineering" notation given the direct correspondence. And, of course, it also corresponds to how "normal" people use write numbers in the millions/billions/trillions, as this comic shows…which was the point… [[User:JohnHawkinson|JohnHawkinson]] ([[User talk:JohnHawkinson|talk]]) 12:03, 13 June 2020 (UTC)
:::Engineering notation is what engineers use all the time to make the maths simpler (one quip is an engineer is a physicist with poor maths). Except for the 'everyday' centimetre and decimetre, SI unit names are all in 10^3 steps. [[User:RIIW - Ponder it|RIIW - Ponder it]] ([[User talk:RIIW - Ponder it|talk]]) 18:56, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

"What's an inch?" [[Special:Contributions/162.158.62.119|162.158.62.119]] 23:18, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
: The imaginary nano-scale multiple of the speed of light times Planck's constant. Which, dimensionally, would seem to be kg.m³/s²? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.154.73|162.158.154.73]] 00:15, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

As an article pointed out to me the other day that seemed obvious after it was said it's a non-tariff trade barrier used as American protectionism that doesn't get tariffed back. {{unsigned ip|172.69.63.81|00:10, 13 June 2020 (UTC)}}

Can someone explain the set theory notation? {{unsigned ip|172.68.255.14|01:56, 13 June 2020 (UTC)}}
: You can use only sets to construct the natural numbers, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_number#Constructions_based_on_set_theory - {{unsigned ip|172.68.215.76|02:20, 13 June 2020 (UTC)}}

It seems nobody has pointed out that the power of 10 in the title text is really just the log(x) of the number, which is in fact very common in scientific contexts -> log(25,259,974,097,204) = 13.4024 [[User:Ianrbibtitlht|Ianrbibtitlht]] ([[User talk:Ianrbibtitlht|talk]]) 02:31, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

The alternative would be for him to write 10^13.402432900872993447734410070128 (Rounded up). Notation that produces a longer string of digits than the original number seems useless on all fronts but somehow even more fun. I like the current explanation, though. It was insightful, IMO. -B- [[Special:Contributions/162.158.106.126|162.158.106.126]] 17:14, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

We have kept the olden ways here in the north. Miljon (10^6), miljard (10^9), biljon (10^12), biljard (10^15). Also, "biljard" is the same word as the game of pool in Swedish.
[[User:Embridioum|Embridioum]] ([[User talk:Embridioum|talk]]) 07:17, 13 June 2020 (UTC)
:Another thing an Older British Person might argue about is Billiards, the cue-and-ball game. Often, among all the vaiations, it was the three-ball version (white and white-spot cueballs, for each player, and red ball as the common target) on either pocketted or non-pocketted tables (the former mostly as a sop to using an unmodified snooker table) or, explicitly, Bar Billiards with target holes and obstacle pegs (quite common as early coin-operated pay-to-play tables). Only by succumbing to the americanism was Pool (usually 15-ball, spots+stripes+8ball) ever called billiards. Well, ''I'' thought that was interesting... [[Special:Contributions/162.158.159.136|162.158.159.136]] 12:49, 13 June 2020 (UTC)
::"Why sure I'm a billiard player, certainly mighty proud to say, I'm always mighty proud to say it. I consider that the hours I spend with a cue in my hand are golden." -Harold Hill [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.60|108.162.216.60]] 14:34, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

Also Italian uses the long scale for large numbers, and also in Italian the word for the game of pool coincides with 10^15. Albeit I have to say that I've never heard anyone use bilione and biliardo referring to numbers. We usually stop at miliardo, saying things like "un milione di miliardi" when we need to say those large numbers, or use the scientific notation. --[[Special:Contributions/172.68.198.106|172.68.198.106]] 09:04, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

While we're on different languages, how about this one: 1262998704860-vingt-quatre - French person. --[[User:IByte|IByte]] ([[User talk:IByte|talk]]) 11:11, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

:Russian uses the short scale, like million, billion, trillion, quadrillion, etc. But it calls a billion a milliard, and a thousand milliards is a trillion. Why? [[Special:Contributions/172.69.68.195|172.69.68.195]] 18:09, 13 June 2020 (UTC)
:: Sounds to me like Russia 'inherited' Milliards from its usage by trade partners at one point in time when that was a number people were starting to want to use seriously, but adopted the short-Trillion from a later time when (different) people were needing to discuss higher values and adopt terms for these into their own tongue. If you check the chequered history of what-means-what (before Short and Long scales were mad3 at least self-consistent among their adherents) you could reasonably blame/credit many different sources for each development. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.249|162.158.158.249]] 01:03, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

Why *that* number? OK, so it's a big number (well, maybe not compared to all the other numbers). One oddity is that the prime factors are:

2 2 7 11 82012902913

7 11? Subliminal advertising? If you turn the big prime upside-down calculator style, you get: eigzogzlos8

I'm surprised that 5 and 23 are missing. In fact, that's almost suspicious.
: I think you're overthinking this, or maybe you got nerdsniped. Randall probably just chose a large number with different digits and being a fan of space, this one worked for him. [[User:Bischoff|Bischoff]] ([[User talk:Bischoff|talk]]) 08:40, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

I thought in all or most of Europe the thousands separator was a space not a dot. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.238.4|162.158.238.4]] 03:09, 14 June 2020 (UTC)
: That's actually something interesting I learned from this explanation. I always assumed everyone either used commas (US and UK) or dots (pretty much the rest of at least Europe, never thought much about other continents in this regard) and grouped them in threes. Apparently I was very wrong. The Indian system of grouping digits looks a bit confusing to me, but apparently it corresponds well to their language. [[User:Bischoff|Bischoff]] ([[User talk:Bischoff|talk]]) 08:32, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

Please refrain from using new sections in the comment section! --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 06:43, 14 June 2020 (UTC)
: What's so bad about them? At least in a comic like this one, where people are actually discussing/commenting on different aspects of the comic, I find sections very helpful to keep track of different conversations. [[User:Bischoff|Bischoff]] ([[User talk:Bischoff|talk]]) 08:22, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

Re: Software developer, the "power" operand varies wildly across programming languages, some do indeed use ^, some go for ** and some have to resort to something like a pow(x,y) function, but in the languages/dialects I use most the ** operator binds closer than (has order of precedence over) the * operator, so x*10**y would not be (10x)y as currently suggested in the Explanation. But ^ is the bitwise operator (lower precedence than *), so would do something even more 'interesting' to the result. Now, obviously, different codes for different coves and all - but I'm dredging my memory for all kinds of obscure scripting languages I've not used for years (what does COBOL do..? Forth is Reverse Polish. Lisp(is(more(Forward(Polish))))) not sure which one Randall is basing it on (if it's not just geek-sniping at its finest). [[Special:Contributions/141.101.107.234|141.101.107.234]] 10:47, 14 June 2020 (UTC)
: The link I provided for "every common programming language" which someone edited to say "most common programming languages" is a site that shows what some code snippets look like in some huge number of languages that includes all the common ones. That's why I said "every" for supporting the scientific notation with e for the exponent, it really is all of them. There is much more variation in the syntax for exponentiation, more using ** than ^ and quite a few only having a function to call instead of an operator symbol. However, every one that does use ^ for exponentiation would parse x*10^13 be x times the 13th power of 10. [[User:Bugstomper|Bugstomper]] ([[User talk:Bugstomper|talk]]) 06:25, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Speaking as a set theorist, I'd also describe that number as "Pretty small, just slightly bigger than 1." [[Special:Contributions/162.158.154.73|162.158.154.73]] 11:44, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

No comment in the explanation about the fact that inches are a pretty inadequate unit to express astronomical distances in the first place?[[Special:Contributions/162.158.155.224|162.158.155.224]] 08:57, 15 June 2020 (UTC)
: I actually thought it funny that using ''inches'' in the first place is telling in itself a lot about who one is (most likely American, or at least from the Anglo-sphere).

The set theory bit is a bit too specific, and also not specific enough. This construction (the ''Von Neumann'' natural numbers) doesn't rely on details of the underlying set theory, so it will work just fine with theories other than the Zermelo-Fraenkel one. On the other hand, there exist other (less popular) constructions of the natural numbers using set theory, including one by Zermelo. [[User:Dfeuer|Dfeuer]] ([[User talk:Dfeuer|talk]]) 21:33, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

1975: Right Click

2018-04-17T19:27:24Z

141.101.98.130: /* Context menu */

{{comic
| number = 1975
| date = April 1, 2018
| title = Right Click
| image = right_click.png
| titletext = Right-click or long press (where supported) to save!
}}
*'''NOTE:''' The above is what is seen when viewing the comic on xkcd.
**But it is just the stating point of an interactive comic experience, which begins when you ''Right Click'' the comic. 
**To experience the interactive content, click [https://www.xkcd.com/1975/ here].
**See an example of what happens in the [[#Trivia|Trivia section]] below.

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Please add an explanation table of all functions This is an April Fools comic, so it'll take a while to get organized and much longer to fill out. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This was the eighth [[:Category:April fools' comics|April fools' comic]] released by [[Randall]]. The previous fools comic was not from the year before as there was no such comic [[1818:_Rayleigh_Scattering#No_April_Fools.27_Day_comic_in_2017|released in 2017]]. Instead the previous one was [[1663: Garden]], scheduled for released Friday April 1st 2016, but in the end released on [[1663:_Garden#Monday_4th_of_April_release|Monday April 4th]] 2016.

It will thus be interesting to see if 2019 will be year with or without an April Fools' Day comic. It falls on a Monday so on a scheduled release day. However, this does not necessarily mean anything, because this year Randall once again moved the release day, from Monday April 2nd to Sunday April 1st. This comic thus replaced the Monday release, the second time this happens due to April 1st, last time was back in 2012 with [[1037: Umwelt]], the first time Randall made such comics in consecutive years. That streak ended after 6 comics in 2017, but a new streak may have started now.

At first the comic seems like the most simplistic xkcd comic possible - [[Cueball]] standing and doing nothing. The "editor's note" tells you to save a copy of the image to "view the full comic".

To save an image from a browser most people would right click on it (or long click in mobile devices) which normally leads to a "context menu" allowing several actions related to the image, including saving/downloading. This is what you are encouraged to do by the editorial note as well as by the comic name and title text. However the context menu opened is not the default context menu of the browser but an elaborate context menu containing many nonsensical options.

At first it also seems impossible to save the image using that menu. However after exploring the context menu you can find an "easter egg" in one of two different places (see below) which unlocks the save option. This save option gives you a different [https://xkcd.com/1975/v6xso1_right_click_save.png image] than the one you see, which can be thought of as "the full comic" although the meat of the comic is actually in the interactive context menu itself. Note that "cheating" by disabling JavaScript and other methods that allow you to directly save the image won't get you that "full comic" image.

This comic pokes fun at how hard it can be to save an image or to just navigate context menus in some computer programs. The "easter egg hunt" might be related to the fact the comic was released during easter (which fell on April fool's in 2018). It might also be related to the movie "Ready Player One" which was recently released when the comic was released. In the movie, based on the book by Cline, finding an "easter egg" in a VR world was a central plot point.

The title is reminiscent of one of the first interactive comics [[1110: Click and Drag]], where the title explains what the user should do to experience it. However, that was not a fools' day comic!

The comic uses {{w|JavaScript}} and {{w|HTML5}} to override the standard context menu. Since modern browsers use the same features to integrate Add-ons into that menu, the behavior may be different depending on the browser environment. Browsers with JavaScript disabled, either totally or by using {{w|NoScript}}, won't access the functionality of the comic, but of course can easily save the image (not "the full version" but the image that is seen initialy).

The manipulated context menu is described [[#Context menu|below]].

==Context menu==

===Main Context Menu===
{| border =1 width=100% cellpadding=5 class="wikitable"
! # !! Menu Item !! Explanation !! Sub-Menu Items
|-
!1
| '''Save'''
| Only appears after getting one of the two easter eggs that can be found in the menu - in the games ADVENT.EXE and Mornington Crescent (see their explanations below).
| Save image> Downloads this image. [https://xkcd.com/1975/v6xso1_right_click_save.png]. The image includes a spheroid object near the top right-hand corner which appears to exhibit red shift and green shift, suggesting that it is rotating rapidly.

|-
! 2
| '''File'''
| Normal submenu
|Close: Closes menu, does nothing.
Open: A:\, C:\, / (See more [[#Filesystems Menu|below]])

Find: Where, When, How, (grayed out) What, (grayed out) Why, Who.

'Where' leads to four options. The first, 'computer', has two options ('folder' and 'menus'), which link back to the 'find' and right-click menus, respectively. "Narnia" leads to a link to the comic [[665: Prudence]] as well as to a grey comment about how it's weird that "they" have to die to go back to Narnia.
"Canada" and "America" lead to the same set of bizarre menus (America leads into Canada's menu), which then give the options 'Upper' and 'Lower', ultimately leading to a drive-through and hockey, respectively.

'When' leads to a description of Siri entering someone's home, and the menu can be followed to reveal several further events from 'earlier' in the day. The last one ('a bottle of jack and a toothbrush') is likely a reference to the song 'Tik Tok' by Kesha.

'How' simply leads to an exclamation of 'How!?'.

'What' is grayed out.

'Why' links to [http://itisamystery.com/], ''technically'' answering the question of "Why?"

'Who' leads to a menu version of the Abbot and Costello "Who's on First?" routine, which eventually links to a [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTcRRaXV-fg&feature=youtu.be youtube video] of the routine. As of April 4th, a second submenu has been added, which contains Slappy and Skippy's "Who's on Stage?" parody of the previous routine, which also eventually leads to its [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mdqv5xIsFLM youtube video].

Backup: Causes the area around the comic to flash red 9 times, with high-pitch sounds reminiscent of a truck backing up. Reminiscent of the Sinclair Spectrum SAVE to tape command, which would flash the border and modulate the speaker.

Save: Only available after the save menu is unlocked after one of the two Easter Eggs is found, allows download of bonus comic, same as clicking the save option from the main menu.

|-
! 3
| '''Edit'''
| Enables a mode allowing the user to draw on the webpage. Pressing Esc asks "Aw, that looks nice though. Really delete?" and the page returns to normal if OK is clicked.
| None
|-
! 4
| '''System'''
| Normal submenu
|Shut Down> Changes the only menu option to "Power on", then once that is used, system returns to normal.

/ (See [[#Table - Filesystems Menu|below]])
|-
! 5
| '''View'''
| Normal submenu
|Cascade>Links to [http://wiki.xkcd.com/geohashing/Mt._St._Helens,_Washington]

Tile> Links to [[245: Floor Tiles]]

Minimize> Changes pointer to a smaller pointer.

Full Screen> Enters full screen.
|-
! 6
| '''Utilities'''
| Normal submenu
|Park drives> Nothing.

Check space usage> (cannot click) Space usage: -Dark matter -Hydrogen -Helium -Scattered clumps of heavier elements -Stars -Rocks -Some space probes -Earth

Spell check> English (links to [[1069: Alphabet]]) and Colors (links to [https://blog.xkcd.com/2010/05/03/color-survey-results/])

Train AI> links to [[1838: Machine Learning]]

Identify song> opens a long word-by-word menu for song lyrics; it's actually a menu-ised version of [[851: Na]].

Advanced> several Unix commands, all absurd (or dangerous) for some reason:
* <code>apt-get install /dev/null</code>: <code>apt-get</code> is the standard package manager used in Debian-derived Linux distributions (including Ubuntu); it is normally used to install software; <code>/dev/null</code> is the "bit-bucket" device on any Unix system, which can be used as a dummy output file to discard output or as a dummy empty input file. This command would attempt to install <code>/dev/null</code> (which is a device, not a package!) or, more correctly, would try to install a package reading its data from <code>/dev/null</code> (if <code>apt-get</code> is given a file name it tries to interpret it as a .deb package), which is obviously impossible.
* <code>brew install apt-get</code>: <code>brew</code> is a third-party package manager for macOS; it is generally used to install "missing" open-source utilities on a macOS system; the command is attempting to install the aforementioned <code>apt-get</code>, which is both impossible (<code>apt-get</code> doesn't run on macOS) and hilariously recursive (did you install a package manager - brew - to install another one?). Even if this were possible, the package would have been called <code>apt</code>, as apt-get is only one of the commands in the package manager.
* <code>/usr/local/bin/wine xen-hypervisor.exe</code>: <code>wine</code> is a compatibility layer used to run Windows executables on Linux (and on macOS); the fact that it is in <code>/usr/local</code> hints that it has been manually compiled on this machine; Xen is a Linux-based hypervisor, i.e. a software used to run and manage virtual machines over a Linux host, but the .exe suffix here hints that it is a Windows executable. The command would try to launch a Windows build of a Linux-based virtual machine manager on a Unix machine through a Windows emulation layer (wine).
* <code>source .bash_history</code>: the <code>source</code> shell command reads the file that is given as argument and executes each of its rows as a command in the current shell, roughly as if you typed them in; <code>.bash_history</code> (located in the user home directory) is the file where the bash shell saves the history of the commands that have been run. This command would re-run all the command that have been typed in the shell.
* <code>rm -rf $DIRECTROY/*</code>: <code>rm -rf</code> deletes recursively and forcefully the paths it is given as arguments; <code>$DIRECTROY</code> is a shell variable, probably containing some directory that whoever typed in this command wanted to clean; however, it is misspelled (it says <code>$DIRECTROY</code>, not <code>$DIRECTORY</code>), and, due to how POSIX shell work, it is thus expanded to an empty string; so, the command becomes <code>rm -rf /*</code>, which deletes all the files and directories in the root of the disk, effectively killing the system instead of just deleting the content of some directory. Notice that this particular misspell manages to circumvent the builtin protection of many <code>rm</code> versions, which refuse to do a plain <code>rm -rf /</code>, as <code>/*</code> gets expanded by the shell, so <code>rm</code> never has the chance to see explicitly that you are killing all the data in the root directory.
* <code>:(){:|:&};:</code>: this is [https://askubuntu.com/q/159491/208527 a classic shell fork bomb], i.e. a small program that keeps launching copies of itself, until all resources have been exhausted or the user somehow manages to kill all its copies.
* <code>echo "source .bashrc" >> .bashrc</code>: <code>.bashrc</code> is a file that gets executed whenever the <code>bash</code> shell is started in interactive mode; this command appends the string <code>source .bashrc</code> to it, which effectively executes it again recursively; this would pretty much make it impossible to open an interactive shell when launching it with the default parameters.
* <code>alias gcc=php</code>: the <code>alias</code> shell builtin create an alias for another command; <code>gcc</code> is the GNU C compiler driver, which is used to compile programs written in the C language; <code>php</code> is the command-line interpreter for the PHP language. This line creates an alias such that when typing <code>gcc</code>, <code>php</code> is actually invoked, which would generate completely absurd error messages. This is doubly devious, as PHP isn't generally held in high esteem by large part of the programming community (especially by someone writing stuff in C).

'); DROP TABLE Menus;-- links to [[327: Exploits of a Mom]]
|-
! 7
| '''Games'''
| Normal submenu
| Twenty Questions> A Twenty Questions interface that gets really confusing. There are links to Bing image searches for '[https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=okapi&FORM=HDRSC2 okapi]', '[https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=pronghorn&FORM=HDRSC2 pronghorn]', '[https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=eland&FORM=HDRSC2 eland]', '[https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=baribusa&FORM=HDRSC2 baribusa]', '[https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=musk%20deer&FORM=HDRSC2 musk deer]' and '[https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=ibex&FORM=HDRSC2 ibex]'. The game also contains some extremely large cans of creamed corn (a reference to [[1807: Listening]]).

Rock Paper Scissors> A Rock Paper Scissors game where the computer always matches your move. If you go long enough, the Defect option is added, a reference to the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma Prisoner's Dilemma].

D&D> An inteface which allows you to "cast" over 300 spells from D&D 5e. Several menus are used to filter the spells based on their traits: class which can learn the spell, the school of the spell, spell level and components required to perform it (somatic, vocal, material). The traits can be chosen in any order. After all six traits are chosen a submenu opens with all of the spells that match those exact traits (which might be no spells at all).

Most spells link to various pages, including xkcd comics (e.g. [[1331: Frequency]]), what-ifs (e.g. {{what if|144|Saliva Pool}}) and other external sites (e.g. [https://www.nasa.gov/sun The Sun | NASA]). Some spells create effects that change the comic page temporarily or permanently, and some open submenus from different parts of the context menu.

See [https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/88vwoe/xkcds_latest_comic_has_a_dd_easter_egg/ post on /r/dndnext] for all links and effects.

ADVENT.EXE> A text-based adventure game. If played correctly, you can win, unlocking 'Save'>'Save image' from the beginning menu, which links to [https://xkcd.com/1975/v6xso1_right_click_save.png].

The first scene allows you a choice between exploring a dark cave or a castle. If you explore the cave first you get the following description: "It's pitch black. You're likely to be eaten by a grue". This is a reference to a text adventure game called [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zork Zork], where [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grue_(monster) Grues] are monsters who dwell in the dark and eat human explorers, making it impossible to explore dark areas. The same description often appears when you enter a dark area without a light source in Zork and other related games.

If you ignore the warning and go deeper, you are given one more warning ("You're deep in a cave. Something, possibly this very sentence, tells you it would be dangerous to go any further"). If you ignore that too and keep going, you fall into a pit. Several options are given to try and rescue yourself (or alternatively "resign to you fate" or deny you are in a pit) but all lead to "you've been eaten by a grue". Being eaten by a grue seems to be an irreversible condition - if you exit the context menu and enter ADVENT.EXE again, you are given no options and are told again that "you've been eaten by a grue". Apparently only refreshing the page cancels that.

Exploring the castle is a much safer option to begin with. The main castle scene has a door, a well and stairs that go up to the tower. The door is locked, and trying to break it is futile.

The well is a wishing well. Examining it allows for several options:
* Examine the sign - it reads "Dark! Narrow! Scary! Well of Three Features"
* Wish for... - this one has a lot of options, some of which are links to comics or what if pages and some lead to further submenus:
** World peace - leads to the answer "I'm just a well, can you scale it down a bit?" and then back to the "Wish for..." menu
** More wishes - leads back to the "Wish for..." menu. The idea of using a wish to wish for more wishes is common when discussing things with wish-granting powers and was previously mentioned in [[1086: Eyelash Wish Log]].
** Fewer wishes - Tell you "Really? Okay.." (as this is not something most people would ask for{{citation needed}}). If you continue you return to the "Examine well" menu. If you want to make a wish again (even after exiting the menu and coming back again) you can only wish for "more wishes" and then you can continue wishing normally.
** Happiness - links to [[572: Together]], a comic about getting "happiness" as a scavenger hunt item.
** Luck - links to [[1053: Ten Thousand]] which refers to hearing about commonly known things for the first time as being one of "today's lucky 10,000".
** Wisdom - You hear a voice whisper 'N, E, N, N, N, W, S, W'. This is a clue for later.
** Wealth - Links to the what if article {{what if|111|All the Money}}, which might explain what will happen if the wishing well "overgrants" your wish.
** A human-sized hamster ball - links to [[152: Hamster Ball]] where [[Cueball]] wishes for the same thing.
** A map of everything - links to [[1196: Subways]], a map of the subways of North America, which are apparently "everything" for Americans.
** A kitty! - links to [[231: Cat Proximity]], a comic detailing the effect of cats on humans.
* Jump in - Allows you to swim (and later "just keep swimming..." indefinitely) or climb out and return to the "Examine well" menu.
* Pull up the bucket - "You reel in the bucket. There's something shiny in the bottom". If you examine the bucket you get a key!

After you have the key, if you go back to the castle you can now use the key on the locked door and enter a dungeon. In the dungeon there is a clamp on a table which you can take.

Finally in the tower you can find a "strange machine" dubbed a "C-Remover". You can try to use the C-Remover on any item you got. It doesn't affect the key, but it does turn the clamp into a lamp! The C-remover is a reference to either the T-remover from [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leather_Goddesses_of_Phobos Leather Goddess of Phobos] or the multi-letter remover from [http://emshort.com/counterfeit_monkey/ Counterfeit Monkey], a text adventure by Emily Short inspired by it.

After you have the lamp, entering the cave becomes safer. It now becomes "a maze of twisty passages, all alike" where each room allows going N, E, S, or W, normally leading to an identical room. Only by using the clue from the wish for "wisdom" in the well and going N, E, N, N, N, W, S, W you can navigate the maze successfully. When following that path, after the first "W" the options become N, S, and Dennis instead of the usual N, E, S, W; this is a reference to the text-based game [http://www.hrwiki.org/wiki/Thy_Dungeonman Thy Dungeonman] found in a Strong Bad email from [http://homestarrunner.com homestarrunner.com].

If you follow the full path you find the center of the maze where there is a nest with a "large multicolored egg" (an easter egg!). If you take the egg you are told "You feel a sense of potential, as if you may have more options now". This is because the "save" options are now unlocked in the main context menu and the file menu!

Hoverboard> Links to [[1608: Hoverboard]] browser game.

Mornington Crescent> This is a simulation of the well-known game {{W|Mornington_Crescent_(game)|Mornington Crescent}}, which bears a surprising resemblance to {{W|London_Underground|London's Underground}} railway network. Players name a station, in turn, endeavouring to reach Mornington Crescent. The rules of play are very complicated and beyond the scope of this article; interested persons are referred to ''N. F. Stovold’s Mornington Crescent: Rules and Origins'' (sadly out of print). In this variation, one may reach 'Vauxhall'>'Easter basket'>'Take egg', also allowing you to save. The shortest path to the Easter basket is: Euston / Warren Street / Oxford Circus / Green Park / Victoria / Pimlico / Vauxhall / Easter basket

All playable stations are immediately adjacent on the London Underground network to the station last played. Despite the fact that this version of the game starts at Euston, which is adjacent to Mornington Crescent, the branch of the {{W|Northern_line|Northern line}} on which the {{W|Mornington_Crescent_tube_station|eponymous station}} is situated does not appear in the game.
|-
! 8
| '''Help'''
| Contains various submenus, all of which, barring Credits, loop back recursively to this menu:
|Tutorial
Support

Manual

Troubleshooting

FAQ

Guide

Q&A

User forums

--------------

Credits> 'Some people who helped with this comic:
[http://chromakode.com/ @chromakode]
[https://twitter.com/aiiane Amber]
[https://twitter.com/fadinginterest @fadinginterest]
[https://twitter.com/wirehead2501 Kat]
[https://twitter.com/cotrone Kevin]
[http://90d.ca/ Stereo]'
|-
! 9
| '''Do Crimes'''
| Contains several "crimes" that can be committed. This option is unlocked by File > Open > C:\ (or /home/user) > Bookmarks/ > Secret > Enable Dark Web.
This is a joke about how the dark web is perceived in popular culture - a place that exists solely to do crimes, mainly bitcoin and hacking related.
| Steal Bitcoins > Grayed out.
Say swears > Several clean swears that all link to [[771: Period Speech]].

Hack > Three sub-options that link to various related comics. (Gibson: Nothing. Election: [[1019: First Post]]. Planet: [[1337: Hack]].)

Forge a Scrabble Tile > Several sub-options that don't do anything. (U, Z, <this menu option intentionally left blank>, and two special characters, one being a Russian 'Э', as low-pitched [eh], and the second being a crossed swords emoji (⚔)
|}

====Filesystems Menu====

{| border =1 width=100% cellpadding=5 class="wikitable"
! Drive !! Menu Item !! Explanation !! Sub-Menu Items
|-
! A:\
| '''Insert'''
| Only appears before inserting a floppy disk.
|Floppy disk> Unlocks other options for drive A:\, which are identical to drive C:\
Chip card> A long sequence of being told 'Please wait. Authorizing...' ending in 'Chip error! REMOVE CARD NOW!'
|-
! C:\
| '''Documents/'''
| Nothing.
| None.
|-
! C:\
| '''Music/'''
| Leads to a long string of prompts for song lyrics. 'Hey now / Hey now na now / Sing "This Corrosion" to me' inverts the webpage's color before Easter egg mode is enabled, and plays the referenced song in the browser with inverted color and flashing if the Easter egg mode is enabled. It's actually the same menu that is shown under Utilities>Identify song (which itself is a menu-ised version of [[851: Na]]).
| 'Hey now / Hey now / Don't dream it's over' links to [[240: Dream Girl]]. 'This / is / a / story all about how / my life got flipped, turned upside down' links to [[464: RBA]]. 'This / is / the / story of a girl / who cried a river and drowned the whole world' links to a Youtube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_FVAEYRM5I
|-
! C:\
| '''Bookmarks/'''
| Similar to Music/, Bookmarks/> Comics leads to a chain from which many comics are titled and linked. Probably all comics actually. For instance he thus here recognizes his first April Fools' comic [[404: Not Found]], which cannot be found, as a real comic by linking to it. Bookmarks/> Secret> Enable Dark Web adds the 'Dark Web' option to the initial menu.
|-
! C:\
| '''Games/'''
| Same as 'Games' from the initial menu.
|-
! C:\
| '''Sequences/'''
| The options are the lines from a ''Tim and Eric'' sketch [http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/celery-man Celery Man]; the final option links to a YouTube video of the sketch.
| After several single-option menus, it links to this Youtube video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHWBEK8w_YY
|-
! /
| '''home/'''
| Nothing.
| guest> links to http://uni.xkcd.com/ - a command line unix-style interface for viewing xkcd comics (and other commands to discover) that was used as the April Fool's joke in 2010. See also [[UniXKCD]].

user> Same files as C:\

root> Displays 'You are not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.' Which is what the sudo command will print if unauthorised users try to use it.
|-
! /
| '''opt/'''
| Does nothing.
| None.
|-
! /
| '''sbin/'''
| Does nothing.
| None.
|-
! /
| '''usr/'''
| Opens an infinite sequence of options, each similar to the last, but replacing the previous selection with another folder; probably a reference to the fact that [https://www.tldp.org/LDP/Linux-Filesystem-Hierarchy/html/usr.html the /usr hierarchy] does contain a list of subdirectories pretty much identical [https://www.tldp.org/LDP/Linux-Filesystem-Hierarchy/html/the-root-directory.html to those of the root directory]. /usr/local, too is a duplicate of /usr for files not originating with the distro, and of late /var and /opt have also started expanding.
|-
! /
| '''dev/'''
| Nothing.
|random/> links to a random xkcd comic. In unix systems reading from the /dev/random file generates pseudorandom bytes, so it fits here that /dev/random gives a random comic.
urandom/> links to [[221: Random Number]]. In unix systems, /dev/urandom is supposed to function as a "closer to truly random" alternative to /dev/random, to be used in systems where good randomness is important such as cryptographic systems. The linked comic describes a botched attempt to create a function that would return a truly random number (and thus would be useful as a source of randomness for /dev/urandom) but actually it returns a fixed number (and thus isn't useful at all). The fact that link always reaches the same comic (contrasted with /dev/random that gives a different comic each time) might also relate to the "truly random" function from the comic.
|}

==Transcript==
:[Empty frame with Cueball standing slightly right of center.]

:[Caption below the frame:]
:Editor's Note: Today's comic is optimized for local viewing. To see the full version, just save a copy of the image!

==Trivia==
*Here is an example of how the game looks when entered:
[[File:1975_Right_Click_Systems_menu.png]]

{{comic discussion}}



[[Category:Interactive comics]]
[[Category:April fools' comics]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Animals]]
[[Category:Buns]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Beret Guy]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Black Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairbun]]

1975: Right Click

2018-04-17T17:48:12Z

141.101.98.130: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1975
| date = April 1, 2018
| title = Right Click
| image = right_click.png
| titletext = Right-click or long press (where supported) to save!
}}
*'''NOTE:''' The above is what is seen when viewing the comic on xkcd.
**But it is just the stating point of an interactive comic experience, which begins when you ''Right Click'' the comic. 
**To experience the interactive content, click [https://www.xkcd.com/1975/ here].
**See an example of what happens in the [[#Trivia|Trivia section]] below.

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Please add an explanation table of all functions This is an April Fools comic, so it'll take a while to get organized and much longer to fill out. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This was the eighth [[:Category:April fools' comics|April fools' comic]] released by [[Randall]]. The previous fools comic was not from the year before as there was no such comic [[1818:_Rayleigh_Scattering#No_April_Fools.27_Day_comic_in_2017|released in 2017]]. Instead the previous one was [[1663: Garden]], scheduled for released Friday April 1st 2016, but in the end released on [[1663:_Garden#Monday_4th_of_April_release|Monday April 4th]] 2016.

It will thus be interesting to see if 2019 will be year with or without an April Fools' Day comic. It falls on a Monday so on a scheduled release day. However, this does not necessarily mean anything, because this year Randall once again moved the release day, from Monday April 2nd to Sunday April 1st. This comic thus replaced the Monday release, the second time this happens due to April 1st, last time was back in 2012 with [[1037: Umwelt]], the first time Randall made such comics in consecutive years. That streak ended after 6 comics in 2017, but a new streak may have started now.

At first the comic seems like the most simplistic xkcd comic possible - [[Cueball]] standing and doing nothing. The "editor's note" tells you to save a copy of the image to "view the full comic".

To save an image from a browser most people would right click on it (or long click in mobile devices) which normally leads to a "context menu" allowing several actions related to the image, including saving/downloading. This is what you are encouraged to do by the editorial note as well as by the comic name and title text. However the context menu opened is not the default context menu of the browser but an elaborate context menu containing many nonsensical options.

At first it also seems impossible to save the image using that menu. However after exploring the context menu you can find an "easter egg" in one of two different places (see below) which unlocks the save option. This save option gives you a different [https://xkcd.com/1975/v6xso1_right_click_save.png image] than the one you see, which can be thought of as "the full comic" although the meat of the comic is actually in the interactive context menu itself. Note that "cheating" by disabling JavaScript and other methods that allow you to directly save the image won't get you that "full comic" image.

This comic pokes fun at how hard it can be to save an image or to just navigate context menus in some computer programs. The "easter egg hunt" might be related to the fact the comic was released during easter (which fell on April fool's in 2018). It might also be related to the movie "Ready Player One" which was recently released when the comic was released. In the movie, based on the book by Cline, finding an "easter egg" in a VR world was a central plot point.

The title is reminiscent of one of the first interactive comics [[1110: Click and Drag]], where the title explains what the user should do to experience it. However, that was not a fools' day comic!

The comic uses {{w|JavaScript}} and {{w|HTML5}} to override the standard context menu. Since modern browsers use the same features to integrate Add-ons into that menu, the behavior may be different depending on the browser environment. Browsers with JavaScript disabled, either totally or by using {{w|NoScript}}, won't access the functionality of the comic, but of course can easily save the image (not "the full version" but the image that is seen initialy).

The manipulated context menu is described [[#Context menu|below]].

==Context menu==

===Main Context Menu===
{| border =1 width=100% cellpadding=5 class="wikitable"
! # !! Menu Item !! Explanation !! Sub-Menu Items
|-
!1
| '''Save'''
| Only appears after successfully completing the ADVENT.EXE game or getting the Easter egg in Mornington Crescent.
| Save image> Downloads this image. [https://xkcd.com/1975/v6xso1_right_click_save.png]. The image includes a spheroid object near the top right-hand corner which appears to exhibit red shift and green shift, suggesting that it is rotating rapidly.

|-
! 2
| '''File'''
| Normal submenu
|Close: Closes menu, does nothing.
Open: A:\, C:\, / (See more [[#Filesystems Menu|below]])

Find: Where, When, How, (grayed out) What, (grayed out) Why, Who.

'Where' leads to four options. The first, 'computer', has two options ('folder' and 'menus'), which link back to the 'find' and right-click menus, respectively. "Narnia" leads to a link to the comic [[665: Prudence]] as well as to a grey comment about how it's weird that "they" have to die to go back to Narnia.
"Canada" and "America" lead to the same set of bizarre menus (America leads into Canada's menu), which then give the options 'Upper' and 'Lower', ultimately leading to a drive-through and hockey, respectively.

'When' leads to a description of Siri entering someone's home, and the menu can be followed to reveal several further events from 'earlier' in the day. The last one ('a bottle of jack and a toothbrush') is likely a reference to the song 'Tik Tok' by Kesha.

'How' simply leads to an exclamation of 'How!?'.

'What' is grayed out.

'Why' links to [http://itisamystery.com/], ''technically'' answering the question of "Why?"

'Who' leads to a menu version of the Abbot and Costello "Who's on First?" routine, which eventually links to a [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTcRRaXV-fg&feature=youtu.be youtube video] of the routine. As of April 4th, a second submenu has been added, which contains Slappy and Skippy's "Who's on Stage?" parody of the previous routine, which also eventually leads to its [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mdqv5xIsFLM youtube video].

Backup: Causes the area around the comic to flash red 9 times, with high-pitch sounds reminiscent of a truck backing up. Reminiscent of the Sinclair Spectrum SAVE to tape command, which would flash the border and modulate the speaker.

Save: Only available after the save menu is unlocked after one of the two Easter Eggs is found, allows download of bonus comic, same as clicking on save->save image from the main menu.

|-
! 3
| '''Edit'''
| Enables a mode allowing the user to draw on the webpage. Pressing Esc asks "Aw, that looks nice though. Really delete?" and the page returns to normal if OK is clicked.
| None
|-
! 4
| '''System'''
| Normal submenu
|Shut Down> Changes the only menu option to "Power on", then once that is used, system returns to normal.

/ (See [[#Table - Filesystems Menu|below]])
|-
! 5
| '''View'''
| Normal submenu
|Cascade>Links to [http://wiki.xkcd.com/geohashing/Mt._St._Helens,_Washington]

Tile> Links to [[245: Floor Tiles]]

Minimize> Changes pointer to a smaller pointer.

Full Screen> Enters full screen.
|-
! 6
| '''Utilities'''
| Normal submenu
|Park drives> Nothing.

Check space usage> (cannot click) Space usage: -Dark matter -Hydrogen -Helium -Scattered clumps of heavier elements -Stars -Rocks -Some space probes -Earth

Spell check> English (links to [[1069: Alphabet]]) and Colors (links to [https://blog.xkcd.com/2010/05/03/color-survey-results/])

Train AI> links to [[1838: Machine Learning]]

Identify song> opens a long word-by-word menu for song lyrics; it's actually a menu-ised version of [[851: Na]].

Advanced> several Unix commands, all absurd (or dangerous) for some reason:
* <code>apt-get install /dev/null</code>: <code>apt-get</code> is the standard package manager used in Debian-derived Linux distributions (including Ubuntu); it is normally used to install software; <code>/dev/null</code> is the "bit-bucket" device on any Unix system, which can be used as a dummy output file to discard output or as a dummy empty input file. This command would attempt to install <code>/dev/null</code> (which is a device, not a package!) or, more correctly, would try to install a package reading its data from <code>/dev/null</code> (if <code>apt-get</code> is given a file name it tries to interpret it as a .deb package), which is obviously impossible.
* <code>brew install apt-get</code>: <code>brew</code> is a third-party package manager for macOS; it is generally used to install "missing" open-source utilities on a macOS system; the command is attempting to install the aforementioned <code>apt-get</code>, which is both impossible (<code>apt-get</code> doesn't run on macOS) and hilariously recursive (did you install a package manager - brew - to install another one?). Even if this were possible, the package would have been called <code>apt</code>, as apt-get is only one of the commands in the package manager.
* <code>/usr/local/bin/wine xen-hypervisor.exe</code>: <code>wine</code> is a compatibility layer used to run Windows executables on Linux (and on macOS); the fact that it is in <code>/usr/local</code> hints that it has been manually compiled on this machine; Xen is a Linux-based hypervisor, i.e. a software used to run and manage virtual machines over a Linux host, but the .exe suffix here hints that it is a Windows executable. The command would try to launch a Windows build of a Linux-based virtual machine manager on a Unix machine through a Windows emulation layer (wine).
* <code>source .bash_history</code>: the <code>source</code> shell command reads the file that is given as argument and executes each of its rows as a command in the current shell, roughly as if you typed them in; <code>.bash_history</code> (located in the user home directory) is the file where the bash shell saves the history of the commands that have been run. This command would re-run all the command that have been typed in the shell.
* <code>rm -rf $DIRECTROY/*</code>: <code>rm -rf</code> deletes recursively and forcefully the paths it is given as arguments; <code>$DIRECTROY</code> is a shell variable, probably containing some directory that whoever typed in this command wanted to clean; however, it is misspelled (it says <code>$DIRECTROY</code>, not <code>$DIRECTORY</code>), and, due to how POSIX shell work, it is thus expanded to an empty string; so, the command becomes <code>rm -rf /*</code>, which deletes all the files and directories in the root of the disk, effectively killing the system instead of just deleting the content of some directory. Notice that this particular misspell manages to circumvent the builtin protection of many <code>rm</code> versions, which refuse to do a plain <code>rm -rf /</code>, as <code>/*</code> gets expanded by the shell, so <code>rm</code> never has the chance to see explicitly that you are killing all the data in the root directory.
* <code>:(){:|:&};:</code>: this is [https://askubuntu.com/q/159491/208527 a classic shell fork bomb], i.e. a small program that keeps launching copies of itself, until all resources have been exhausted or the user somehow manages to kill all its copies.
* <code>echo "source .bashrc" >> .bashrc</code>: <code>.bashrc</code> is a file that gets executed whenever the <code>bash</code> shell is started in interactive mode; this command appends the string <code>source .bashrc</code> to it, which effectively executes it again recursively; this would pretty much make it impossible to open an interactive shell when launching it with the default parameters.
* <code>alias gcc=php</code>: the <code>alias</code> shell builtin create an alias for another command; <code>gcc</code> is the GNU C compiler driver, which is used to compile programs written in the C language; <code>php</code> is the command-line interpreter for the PHP language. This line creates an alias such that when typing <code>gcc</code>, <code>php</code> is actually invoked, which would generate completely absurd error messages. This is doubly devious, as PHP isn't generally held in high esteem by large part of the programming community (especially by someone writing stuff in C).

'); DROP TABLE Menus;-- links to [[327: Exploits of a Mom]]
|-
! 7
| '''Games'''
| Normal submenu
| Twenty Questions> A Twenty Questions interface that gets really confusing. There are links to Bing image searches for '[https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=okapi&FORM=HDRSC2 okapi]', '[https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=pronghorn&FORM=HDRSC2 pronghorn]', '[https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=eland&FORM=HDRSC2 eland]', '[https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=baribusa&FORM=HDRSC2 baribusa]', '[https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=musk%20deer&FORM=HDRSC2 musk deer]' and '[https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=ibex&FORM=HDRSC2 ibex]'. The game also contains some extremely large cans of creamed corn (a reference to [[1807: Listening]]).

Rock Paper Scissors> A Rock Paper Scissors game where the computer always matches your move. If you go long enough, the Defect option is added, a reference to the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma Prisoner's Dilemma].

D&D> An inteface which allows you to "cast" over 300 spells from D&D 5e. Several menus are used to filter the spells based on their traits: class which can learn the spell, the school of the spell, spell level and components required to perform it (somatic, vocal, material). The traits can be chosen in any order. After all six traits are chosen a submenu opens with all of the spells that match those exact traits (which might be no spells at all).

Most spells link to various pages, including xkcd comics (e.g. [[1331: Frequency]]), what-ifs (e.g. {{what if|144|Saliva Pool}}) and other external sites (e.g. [https://www.nasa.gov/sun The Sun | NASA]). Some spells create effects that change the comic page temporarily or permanently, and some open submenus from different parts of the context menu.

See [https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/88vwoe/xkcds_latest_comic_has_a_dd_easter_egg/ post on /r/dndnext] for all links and effects.

ADVENT.EXE> A text-based game. If played correctly, you can win, unlocking 'Save'>'Save image' from the beginning menu, which links to [https://xkcd.com/1975/v6xso1_right_click_save.png]. 'ADVENT.EXE>Castle>Well>Wish for...' has links to comics [[572: Together]], [[1053: Ten Thousand]], [[152: Hamster Ball]], [[1196: Subways]], [[231: Cat Proximity]] and to what-if articles {{what if|111|All the Money}} and {{what if|9|Soul Mates}}. The C-remover is a reference to either the T-remover from [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leather_Goddesses_of_Phobos Leather Goddess of Phobos] or the multi-letter remover from [http://emshort.com/counterfeit_monkey/ Counterfeit Monkey], a text adventure by Emily Short inspired by it. At one point in the maze, the options to travel are N, S, and Dennis instead of the usual N, E, S, W; this is a reference to the text-based game [http://www.hrwiki.org/wiki/Thy_Dungeonman Thy Dungeonman] found in a Strong Bad email from [http://homestarrunner.com homestarrunner.com].

Hoverboard> Links to [[1608: Hoverboard]] browser game.

Mornington Crescent> This is a simulation of the well-known game {{W|Mornington_Crescent_(game)|Mornington Crescent}}, which bears a surprising resemblance to {{W|London_Underground|London's Underground}} railway network. Players name a station, in turn, endeavouring to reach Mornington Crescent. The rules of play are very complicated and beyond the scope of this article; interested persons are referred to ''N. F. Stovold’s Mornington Crescent: Rules and Origins'' (sadly out of print). In this variation, one may reach 'Vauxhall'>'Easter basket'>'Take egg', also allowing you to save. The shortest path to the Easter basket is: Euston / Warren Street / Oxford Circus / Green Park / Victoria / Pimlico / Vauxhall / Easter basket

All playable stations are immediately adjacent on the London Underground network to the station last played. Despite the fact that this version of the game starts at Euston, which is adjacent to Mornington Crescent, the branch of the {{W|Northern_line|Northern line}} on which the {{W|Mornington_Crescent_tube_station|eponymous station}} is situated does not appear in the game.
|-
! 8
| '''Help'''
| Contains various submenus, all of which, barring Credits, loop back recursively to this menu:
|Tutorial
Support

Manual

Troubleshooting

FAQ

Guide

Q&A

User forums

--------------

Credits> 'Some people who helped with this comic:
[http://chromakode.com/ @chromakode]
[https://twitter.com/aiiane Amber]
[https://twitter.com/fadinginterest @fadinginterest]
[https://twitter.com/wirehead2501 Kat]
[https://twitter.com/cotrone Kevin]
[http://90d.ca/ Stereo]'
|-
! 9
| '''Do Crimes'''
| Contains several "crimes" that can be committed. This option is unlocked by File > Open > C:\ (or /home/user) > Bookmarks/ > Secret > Enable Dark Web.
This is a joke about how the dark web is perceived in popular culture - a place that exists solely to do crimes, mainly bitcoin and hacking related.
| Steal Bitcoins > Grayed out.
Say swears > Several clean swears that all link to [[771: Period Speech]].

Hack > Three sub-options that link to various related comics. (Gibson: Nothing. Election: [[1019: First Post]]. Planet: [[1337: Hack]].)

Forge a Scrabble Tile > Several sub-options that don't do anything. (U, Z, <this menu option intentionally left blank>, and two special characters, one being a Russian 'Э', as low-pitched [eh], and the second being a crossed swords emoji (⚔)
|}

====Filesystems Menu====

{| border =1 width=100% cellpadding=5 class="wikitable"
! Drive !! Menu Item !! Explanation !! Sub-Menu Items
|-
! A:\
| '''Insert'''
| Only appears before inserting a floppy disk.
|Floppy disk> Unlocks other options for drive A:\, which are identical to drive C:\
Chip card> A long sequence of being told 'Please wait. Authorizing...' ending in 'Chip error! REMOVE CARD NOW!'
|-
! C:\
| '''Documents/'''
| Nothing.
| None.
|-
! C:\
| '''Music/'''
| Leads to a long string of prompts for song lyrics. 'Hey now / Hey now na now / Sing "This Corrosion" to me' inverts the webpage's color before Easter egg mode is enabled, and plays the referenced song in the browser with inverted color and flashing if the Easter egg mode is enabled. It's actually the same menu that is shown under Utilities>Identify song (which itself is a menu-ised version of [[851: Na]]).
| 'Hey now / Hey now / Don't dream it's over' links to [[240: Dream Girl]]. 'This / is / a / story all about how / my life got flipped, turned upside down' links to [[464: RBA]]. 'This / is / the / story of a girl / who cried a river and drowned the whole world' links to a Youtube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_FVAEYRM5I
|-
! C:\
| '''Bookmarks/'''
| Similar to Music/, Bookmarks/> Comics leads to a chain from which many comics are titled and linked. Probably all comics actually. For instance he thus here recognizes his first April Fools' comic [[404: Not Found]], which cannot be found, as a real comic by linking to it. Bookmarks/> Secret> Enable Dark Web adds the 'Dark Web' option to the initial menu.
|-
! C:\
| '''Games/'''
| Same as 'Games' from the initial menu.
|-
! C:\
| '''Sequences/'''
| The options are the lines from a ''Tim and Eric'' sketch [http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/celery-man Celery Man]; the final option links to a YouTube video of the sketch.
| After several single-option menus, it links to this Youtube video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHWBEK8w_YY
|-
! /
| '''home/'''
| Nothing.
| guest> links to http://uni.xkcd.com/ - a command line unix-style interface for viewing xkcd comics (and other commands to discover) that was used as the April Fool's joke in 2010. See also [[UniXKCD]].

user> Same files as C:\

root> Displays 'You are not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.' Which is what the sudo command will print if unauthorised users try to use it.
|-
! /
| '''opt/'''
| Does nothing.
| None.
|-
! /
| '''sbin/'''
| Does nothing.
| None.
|-
! /
| '''usr/'''
| Opens an infinite sequence of options, each similar to the last, but replacing the previous selection with another folder; probably a reference to the fact that [https://www.tldp.org/LDP/Linux-Filesystem-Hierarchy/html/usr.html the /usr hierarchy] does contain a list of subdirectories pretty much identical [https://www.tldp.org/LDP/Linux-Filesystem-Hierarchy/html/the-root-directory.html to those of the root directory]. /usr/local, too is a duplicate of /usr for files not originating with the distro, and of late /var and /opt have also started expanding.
|-
! /
| '''dev/'''
| Nothing.
|random/> links to a random xkcd comic. In unix systems reading from the /dev/random file generates pseudorandom bytes, so it fits here that /dev/random gives a random comic.
urandom/> links to [[221: Random Number]]. In unix systems, /dev/urandom is supposed to function as a "closer to truly random" alternative to /dev/random, to be used in systems where good randomness is important such as cryptographic systems. The linked comic describes a botched attempt to create a function that would return a truly random number (and thus would be useful as a source of randomness for /dev/urandom) but actually it returns a fixed number (and thus isn't useful at all). The fact that link always reaches the same comic (contrasted with /dev/random that gives a different comic each time) might also relate to the "truly random" function from the comic.
|}

==Transcript==
:[Empty frame with Cueball standing slightly right of center.]

:[Caption below the frame:]
:Editor's Note: Today's comic is optimized for local viewing. To see the full version, just save a copy of the image!

==Trivia==
*Here is an example of how the game looks when entered:
[[File:1975_Right_Click_Systems_menu.png]]

{{comic discussion}}



[[Category:Interactive comics]]
[[Category:April fools' comics]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Animals]]
[[Category:Buns]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Beret Guy]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Black Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairbun]]

Talk:1305: Undocumented Feature

2018-03-25T10:54:46Z

141.101.98.130:

:;Please never edit existing posts at the talk page! Just add your content! And NEVER edit foreign posts! Use the "Sign Button" on top of editor or type this at the END of your post <nowiki>~~~~</nowiki>. This will add the IP or User and a timestamp to the END of your post.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 20:53, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

This sound pretty cool... Anyone know if it's real or which tool it's in? [[Special:Contributions/173.245.55.222|173.245.55.222]] 05:53, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

* its real, there are 8 other users, but must stay a secret. {{unsigned ip|108.162.231.233}}

* There is no secret chat room, stop looking for it. It doesn't exist. Look for your own island on the interweb, don't come spoil ours. [[User:scr_admin|scr_admin]]

Okay, let's be honest: how many of us, upon seeing today's comic, immediately went here to see if it was real or not? --[[Special:Contributions/108.162.245.4|108.162.245.4]] 07:47, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

* I honestly did just that. --[[Special:Contributions/173.245.53.137|173.245.53.137]] 08:06, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

* I also just did that... [[Special:Contributions/108.162.231.206|108.162.231.206]] 08:07, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

* I didn't start up my VM to test it, but I came here to see if was real >.< [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.56|108.162.216.56]] 09:47, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

* I also did that. But I take that, if it is real and someone uncovers it, it may destroy that community... [[Special:Contributions/173.245.53.123|173.245.53.123]] 10:28, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

* Same here. If it is real, I sincerely hope Randall has a) wiresharked it to find out where this chat room resides so he can prod the admin if it ever goes down b) has a backup plan to migrate himself and his friends to some other private chat room. It won't have the same mystery surrounding it, but at least it's something. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.231.222|108.162.231.222]] 10:51, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

:;Please never edit existing posts at the talk page! Just add your content! And NEVER edit foreign posts! Use the "Sign Button" on top of editor or type this at the END of your post <nowiki>~~~~</nowiki>. This will add the IP or User and a timestamp to the END of your post.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 20:53, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

It's not about Youtube, but Facebook, which just launched AUTOPLAYING video ads. Look at the title text, it's about Facebook's real name policy. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.231.232|108.162.231.232]] 08:11, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

* I wouldn't limit the scope of this commentary just to Facebook; YouTube's been doing autoplaying video ads for years. YouTube's also been asking for real names recently. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.212.200|108.162.212.200]] 14:26, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

* The video ads thing is definitely related to Facebook, but the title text is probably a reference to Youtube recently asking continuously to switch to the real name of google plus account and not the nickname many used on YouTube. Edited the explanation accordingly, since there was no reference to the title text. Spesknight [[Special:Contributions/108.162.231.216|108.162.231.216]] 09:08, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

I just searched after reading - and found this site! -- {{unsigned ip|141.101.99.247}}

* The real secret place is here! {{unsigned ip|108.162.229.75}}

* So THIS is the secret chat [[Special:Contributions/108.162.229.7|108.162.229.7]] 09:50, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

* One day this place will be forgotten and so will we. --[[Special:Contributions/108.162.231.197|108.162.231.197]] 09:52, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

anyone else recognizes the wonderful tcp-ip explanation movie of Ericsson [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hymzoUpM0K0 Dawn of the net] in frames 6 till 10? [User:Tesshavon|Tesshavon]] ([[User talk:Tesshavon|talk]])

* Tesshavon you're in my mind ! Also, the 6th frame is comes from one of the most common Friends posters (see e.g. here : [http://www.infinitydish.com/tvblog/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Friends-friends-69087_1024_768.jpg Friends] ) [[User:dandraka|dandraka]]

It's true. Small online communities offer a more folksy experience than the online giants. Some of the best places to hang out are BBS's that made it onto the Internet and have been there for 25+ years. {{unsigned ip|216.150.130.111}}

Well there's always IRC... {{unsigned ip|108.162.221.30}}

:;Please never edit existing posts at the talk page! Just add your content! And NEVER edit foreign posts! Use the "Sign Button" on top of editor or type this at the END of your post <nowiki>~~~~</nowiki>. This will add the IP or User and a timestamp to the END of your post.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 20:53, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

I've rewritten all the explanation.
As far as I'm concerned, I'd remove the incomplete box.
I just keep it because it's likely that someone else will feel something is missing.
[[Special:Contributions/173.245.53.180|173.245.53.180]] 15:27, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

If you're interested in a tightknit community out on the fringes of the Net, go join a MUD. Some are combat oriented, some are roleplay and chat oriented, all are text-based, and many have largely the same exact userbase as they had twenty years ago. - [[Special:Contributions/108.162.212.228|108.162.212.228]] 15:48, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

* If you want a really small and odd community check out the Plato network, you have to emulate a terminal from the late 70's early 80's to use it. --[[User:DECtape|DECtape]] ([[User talk:DECtape|talk]]) 00:27, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

Hmm i think randall also wants to share his believs in the subcontext of the comic, the reason why we live on erth as a random error, the sysadmin who probably sees it all(=god), the question what will happen after all that is gone (his opinion, that our lives are compelty senseless)..etc. {{unsigned ip|108.162.254.161}}

* Anyone else think of comic 37 when reading the last panel (due to the ambiguity of whether he is talking about fucking "video ads" or "fucking video" ads)? [[Special:Contributions/173.245.50.227|173.245.50.227]] 18:31, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Yes, of COURSE I came here to see if it really exists! I don't know if there's actually a chatroom as described, but Usenet has become much smaller, has no ads, and doesn't require you to know the secret application to get in. IIf a text experience with no ads appeals, dump FB, come back to Usenet! Tell 'em Sea Wasp sent you! :) [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.186|108.162.219.186]] 19:15, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

*Shhh! You're forgetting the first rule of Usenet! [[Special:Contributions/173.245.54.6|173.245.54.6]] 17:57, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

:;Please never edit existing posts at the talk page! Just add your content! And NEVER edit foreign posts! Use the "Sign Button" on top of editor or type this at the END of your post <nowiki>~~~~</nowiki>. This will add the IP or User and a timestamp to the END of your post.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 20:53, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

It's obviously about life and religion. The sysadmin who never writes anything must be there to keep everything running, because else the chat would stop to exist. Like most religions contribute to a god who is never seen or heard. --[[Special:Contributions/108.162.231.232|108.162.231.232]] 08:03, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

I'm wondering if he got this idea from Starship Titanic. They had a very similar thing happen. [http://www.metafilter.com/98848/The-Post-That-Cannot-Possibly-Go-Wrong#3435156 See this epic MeFi comment from the self-described "main web hacker" behind Starship Titanic's web site.] [[Special:Contributions/199.27.128.119|199.27.128.119]] 17:29, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

I've made several edits to clean up the explanation. Not sure whether I should remove the incomplete tag or not. --[[Special:Contributions/173.245.52.227|173.245.52.227]] 17:57, 19 December 2013 (UTC)
:Please don't do that. A comic at this size isn't complete within one or two days. Removing the incomplete tag is a minor issue, explaining is the major one. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 20:46, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

I don't really see why the trivia should be there. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.45|108.162.216.45]] 20:29, 19 December 2013 (UTC)
:This content was moved from the explain section to a trivia section by me. It still needs some rework but it belongs to "old Windows utilities" like Randall is talking about here at the first panel.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 20:46, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

Reminds me of MUDs. I still check in on New Moon [http://eclipse.cs.pdx.edu/] a few times a year. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.236.25|108.162.236.25]] 16:15, 20 December 2013 (UTC)
:I see what you mean. For me it's the Discworld MUD. But it could similarly (i.e. not exactly like the comic suggests) apply to some long-term Usenet groups that I (in)frequent. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.229|141.101.99.229]] 16:22, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

It may not be the tool from the comic, but people here might be interested in: http://kurlander.net/DJ/Projects/ComicChat/resources.html {{unsigned|Jvfrmtn}}

If this chatroom was real I'd love to see it. I know ts not though. Of course what if there's a little fridge horror in this comic? Like a chatroom 98 sort of thing? Maybe the sysadmin or the people Cueball and the others are talking to are really ghosts or souls that were sucked into an old server forever doomed to spend their days talking to themselves until another unsuspecting user is sucked in.[[Special:Contributions/108.162.215.36|108.162.215.36]] 02:54, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

Ido: Can someone explain why the URL www.xkcd.com/test reference to this strip? looks like an undocumented feature to me :) {{unsigned ip|141.101.98.220}}

:It doesn't anymore… [[User:Varal7|Varal7]] ([[User talk:Varal7|talk]]) 19:03, 20 May 2014 (UTC)
::It now displays to [[1367: Installing]]. [[User:Z|Z]] ([[User talk:Z|talk]]) 01:11, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

I was doing some searching on the internet, and found, in addition to the one/few on this page, some people who said/implied that they have used this chat before, although, like anything on the internet, the claims may not be true. (Links: http://community.spiceworks.com/topic/436369-does-this-actually-exist [see comments 3, 12, and 14], http://pastebin.com/95nGh8Hk [Says it exists, but doesn't elaborate]) [[User:Z|Z]] ([[User talk:Z|talk]]) 22:02, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

I used to be part of something very similar to to what the comic describes (but not exactly the same). When AOL first started, it was a completely 'walled garden' with no access to the internet. Old folks will remember how popular brands used to advertise on TV that you should go to their 'AOL Keyword' instead of a web site URL. Check Wikipedia for more about this. Anyway, AOL had its own set of message boards, for many popular topics, which were not connected to the internet and could only be accessed by other AOL members. I was just a kid. I went exploring through a bunch of message boards about niche topics until I found one with a community that I came to like. We had all kinds of off-topic conversations, and, the moderators having long since gone, it came to resemble its original topical purpose very little. The ages were not kind to AOL, and our group grew smaller and smaller as the AOL service gained a connection to the real internet (including the WWW and Usenet) and not as many new people bothered to look at AOL-only message boards any more. Eventually, the Keyword that accessed our special board stopped working and it was dropped from the public directory that lists all the areas of AOL. But we found a workaround: AOL had its own quasi-URL system that was mostly only used internally in the software and not usually exposed directly through the UI. But, those of us who had directly bookmarked the message board could still access it that way, and we found a way to share the aol:// URL amongst ourselves. Just like in the comic, we couldn't figure out why the message board still worked at all, for many years after it was no longer publicly visible anywhere, and wondered if some sysadmins with a sense of humour at AOL were watching us. It was fun in a way, a secret place all to ourselves. But it was also kind of sad, when sometimes months would go where noone posted. The UI would sometimes get migrated to a newer version with no notice, and then rolled back again just as abruptly. Old messages would suddenly disappear, become resurrected and then disappear again. Eventually, the thing that finally killed it was that one by one, we each stopped paying for AOL as we found better ISPs and couldn’t justify the expense. It would have been easy enough to move to another web site or chat program, and at first, some of us tried to recreate it elsewhere, but it was never really the same, and we could never get the same group completely back together again. But I guess that's how life is anyway: people drift apart. Despite that, many of us still keep in touch and have become very close friends, some of us even in real life. It's good to have friends. xxj{{unsigned|Xxj}}
:TL;DR! Keep your comments short. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 21:57, 23 May 2014 (UTC)
::If you really didn't read that, Dgbrt, you missed out (what are you, from Twitter? everything has to be 160 characters or the ADD kicks in?). It was worth it, for an old internet hand/AOLer. That is too often how life is, xxj; thanks for posting it. I'm feeling a little overwhelmed by nostalgia for some old AOL and GameFaqs message boards, now... [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.77|108.162.219.77]] 03:17, 28 May 2014 (UTC)
:::This is a typical reaction to misuse my reaction. If you look at my contributions here you would know that I'm really NOT a TWITTER man. I don't like Twitter and AOL was always a big mess by it's time. But including some paragraphs, writing shorter sentences, and I wouldn't have posted my "TL;DR!" reply. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 20:30, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

The comic says it's an "old" Windows utility, but the UI in the picture can be from no older than Windows 95. Native Win95 software still runs on modern PCs without resorting to a VM, doesn't it? Did Randall forget how a window looked in Windows 3.1? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.77|108.162.216.77]] 06:49, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

: An old Windows 95 ''program'' may be able to run on modern systems, but an old ''utility'' may be very tightly tied to that particular system. --[[User:Dfeuer|Dfeuer]] ([[User talk:Dfeuer|talk]]) 08:37, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

I think the reason for the cartoon is to explain chat room vs Facebook/twitter, and rather then say "IRC", which could be misunderstood (as being very large ?), he made up the hidden utility chat room.... this utilities chatroom would explain how there could be a small chatroom that is not filled with mindless *MERE USERS* ... [[Special:Contributions/108.162.249.205|108.162.249.205]] 06:17, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

"whereas Ponytail is still using an old computer (as evidenced by the CRT monitor)." No, it doesn't. A modern computer can still perfectly use old CRTs. I did it myself a while back, while my LCD was being replaced. All it takes is a VGA connection, and I'm not sure whether modern computers are coming without any VGA connection at all, be it in the mobo or the GPU (at least high end GPUs are dropping VGA support). Anyway, that's not an evidence. It '''hints''' that Ponytail may be using an old computer. I shall fix it. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.125|108.162.219.125]] 03:39, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

:Ponytail is using a modern computer; the panel is set years ago before "the internet aged". Also why do the sevens have lines through them? It's increasingly common these days, but is that a facility or a habit of Randall's?[[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.130|141.101.98.130]] 10:54, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

1311: 2014

2016-12-28T00:26:58Z

141.101.98.130: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1311
| date = January 1, 2014
| title = 2014
| before = [[#Explanation|↓ Skip to explanation ↓]]
| image = 2014.png
| titletext = Some future reader, who may see the term, without knowing the history of it, may imagine that it had reference to some antiquated bridge of the immortal Poet, thrown across the silver Avon, to facilitate his escape after some marauding excursion in a neighbouring park; and in some Gentleman's Magazine of the next century, it is not impossible, but that future antiquaries may occupy page after page in discussing so interesting a matter. We think it right, therefore, to put it on record in the Oriental Herald that the 'Shakesperian Rope Bridges' are of much less classic origin; that Mr Colin Shakespear, who, besides his dignity as Postmaster, now signs himself 'Superintendent General of Shakesperian Rope Bridges', is a person of much less genius than the Bard of Avon. --The Oriental Herald, 1825
}}

==Explanation==
This [[:Category:New Year|New Year comic]] is to commemorate the {{w|New Year}} by giving us a view of the coming year (2014) from the past. The comic includes many quotes from the 1800s and early 1900s that speak to a time close to 2014. Many of them are for the twenty-first century in general, and only three mention a year that would be 2014 exactly. All but one of them is a prediction, yet some of these are quotes from fictional literature, and therefore are not true predictions. Words are in boldface to highlight the relevant content in the quote. The grey or non-bold text is non-essential to the point Randall is interested in, and only to be used to understand the context of the quote.

The title text refers to a certain British officer, Mr. Colin Shakespeare, who experimented and promoted the use of rope suspension bridges in India.[http://books.google.com/books?id=aZRPAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA367] The reference to "The Bard of Avon" is a reference to {{w|William Shakespeare|Shakespeare (the playwright)}}, as {{w|River Avon (Warwickshire)|Avon}} is the river on which {{w|Stratford upon Avon}} is set, and is where the playwright was born and spent his youth. The author of this quote under the guise of eliminating the potential confusion that might result after decades or centuries have washed away the context, ironically and possibly vindictively, makes a point to note that the bridge is not named after the playwright, but Mr. Colin Shakespeare, whom he considers considerably less intelligent. This topic was previously covered in [[771: Period Speech]].

Two years before, another New Years comic with just the new years number as the title was released: [[998: 2012]]. But actually the content of this comic is more related to the comic coming out just before the 2012 comic: [[997: Wait Wait]], which is also a New Year comic, that took a look at what could happen in 2012, just as this one does for 2014... In 2016 another comic, with only the new year as the name theme, occurred again [[1624: 2016]]. For some reason this only seems to happen in the even years.

The style of the comic is very similar to that of [[1227: The Pace of Modern Life]], which was released half a year earlier.

===Additional information===

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Quote
! Author or publisher
! Year
! Years realized
! Description
|-
| "It's desirable '''every thing printed should be preserved,''' for we '''cannot now tell how useful it may become''' two centuries hence."
| Christopher Baldwin
| 1834
| Not a prediction
| A good idea. Now, with Google Books, this can be done in an easier manner. Many books printed between that time and the widespread usage of higher-quality wood-pulp paper in the early 1990s are either no longer known to exist, are heavily damaged (mostly through deterioration — see {{w|slow fire}}) or are very scarce.
|-
| "I predict that a century hence the '''Canadian people''' will be '''the noblest specimens of humanity on the face of the earth'''"
| Rev John Bredin
| 1863
| Not realized
| Notably, there is a common joke nowadays that Canadians are always calm, mellow, polite peoples, even when insulting others. The rest of the quote goes as follows: ''"all that was good in the Celt, the Saxon, the Gaul and other races, combining to form neither English, Irish, nor Welsh, but Canadians, who would take their place among the churches of Christendom and the nations of the earth."'' This religious prediction probably wasn't believed even by its author. It's only a harangue.
|-
| "In the twenty-first century '''mankind will subsist entirely upon jellies.'''"
| The Book Lover
| 1903
| Not realized
| Concentrates, which are gelatin like, form a large part of our food sources. Absurd if taken literally, but if he's talking about processed foods in general then he's not too far from the mark.
|-
| "The twenty-first century baby is destined to be rocked and cradled by electricity, warmed and coddled by electricity, perhaps fathered and mothered by electricity. '''Probably the only thing he will be left to do unaided will be to make love.'''"
| Mrs John Lane, The Fortnightly
| 1905
| 1960s - 1980s
| The process of child-''rearing'' is still a human task by and large, with the exception of artificial insemination, and Viagra, Cialis, vibrators, and other kinkier toys. Probably meant as an exaggeration when it was first said, but it is still valid to some degree.
|-
| "To-day, in the city of New York, sixty-six different tongues are spoken. '''A century hence, there will probably be only one.'''"
| The American Historical Magazine
| 1907
| Not realized
| The number of languages spoken in New York City is believed to be greater than 100; some estimate as many as 800 languages are spoken there. The U.S. Census Bureau reports that in the greater New York metropolitan area, almost 7 million people speak a language other than English at home, including over 3.5 million who speak Spanish, 2 million who speak other Indo-European languages, 1 million who speak Asian or Pacific Island languages, and 300,000 who speak other languages. Also, New York City is the location of the headquarters of the United Nations, with diplomats from nearly every country in the world, and several official languages.
|-
| "I often think '''what interesting history we are making for the student of the twenty-first century.'''"
| William Carey Jones
| 1908
| 1900's to now
| Referring to the events that led to {{w|World War I}}. In 1908, {{w|Bosnian crisis|Austria-Hungary annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina}}. This led to the {{w|Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria|Sarajevo Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria}} in 1914 that is considered the starting event of the World War.
|-
| "China may be a '''great shoe market''' a decade or a century from now."
| Boot and Shoe Recorder
| 1914
| 1970's to now
| While it is true that China is a good shoe market, this quote can be viewed as vastly underestimating the potential of China. To be fair it says "a decade or a century from now" and it was not a great market until China and Nixon broke down trade barriers, which is well after 1924.
|-
| "'''We cannot settle the problem,''' and I venture the prophecy that perhaps '''a century from now this same question may be brought before some future society and discussed very much as it is tonight.'''
| Dr. Barton C. Hirst (on abortion)
| 1914
| 2014
| Abortion is still heavily debated
|-
| "By the twenty-first century '''we shall all be telepaths.'''"
| Gumbril, A character in Aldous Huxley's novel Antic Hay
| 1923
| Not realized
| [http://books.google.com/books?id=pdXj2SZ1mT8C&pg=PA205]: "And it's my firm belief," said Gumbril Senior, adding notes to his epic, "that they [the birds] make use of some sort of telepathy, some kind of direct mind-to-mind communication between themselves. You can't watch them without coming to that conclusion." [...] "It's a faculty," Gumbril Senior went on, "we all possess, I believe. All we animals." [...] "By the twenty-first century, I believe, we shall all be telepaths. Meanwhile, these delightful birds have forestalled us."
|-
| "The physician of the twenty-first century… may even criticize the language of the times, and may find that '''some of our words have become as offensive to him as the term "lunatic" has become offensive to us.'''"
| Dr. C. Macfie Cambell
| 1924
| 1950's to now
| The word "lunatic" is still considered derogatory and because of that it would never be used in a clinical sense. He correctly predicts the trajectory of terms like "{{w|mentally retarded}}", itself adopted by his day to replace earlier terms for the intellectually disabled, such as "moron" and "imbecile", which had become pejorative. Soon enough the word "retard" joined them in that regard, and it now has largely been abandoned as a medical term. This cycle is a common one, known as (among other things) the "{{w|euphemism treadmill}}".
|-
| "Historians of the twenty-first century will look back with well-placed scorn on the '''shallow-minded days''' of the early twentieth century '''when football games and petting parties were considered the most important elements of a college education.'''"
| Mary Eileen Ahern, Library Bureau
| 1926
| Not realized
| While media still encourages such images, and does not look down upon them.
|-
| "'''In the year A.D. 2014''' journalists will be writing on the centenary of the great war — '''that is, if there has not been a greater war.'''"
| F.J.M, The Journalist
| 1934
| 2014
| July 28, 2014 marks 100 years since the beginning of {{w|World War I}} (more than 9 million combatants were killed). As the author of this quote foreshadows, there was a greater war, {{w|World War II}} (around 25 million soldiers were killed). Journalists will definitely write articles of this war on its anniversary, but as the quote correctly predicts it is no longer popularly called '''The Great War''' as World War II had a larger scope, easily identifiable heroes and villains, and was therefore a '''"greater war"'''.
|}

==Transcript==
:(This is a series of quotes from various people of various timeframes. Each quote is followed by the author, the document of publication if applicable, and the year.)

:'''Notes from the past'''

:It's desirable '''every thing printed should be preserved,''' for we '''cannot now tell how useful it may become''' two centuries hence.
::Christopher Baldwin
:::'''1834'''

:I predict that a century hence the '''Canadian people''' will be '''the noblest specimens of humanity on the face of the earth'''
::Rev. John Bredin
:::'''1863'''

:In the twenty-first century '''mankind will subsist entirely upon jellies.'''
::''The Booklover''
:::'''1903'''

:The twenty-first century baby is destined to be rocked and cradled by electricity, warmed and coddled by electricity, perhaps fathered and mothered by electricity. '''Probably the only thing he will be left to do unaided will be to make love.'''
::Mrs. John Lane, ''The fortnightly''
:::'''1905'''

:To-day, in the city of New York, sixty-six different tongues are spoken. '''A century hence, there will probably be only one.'''
::''The American Historical Magazine''
:::'''1907'''

:I often think '''what interesting history we are making for the student of the twenty-first century.'''
::Willian Carey Jones
:::'''1908'''

:China may be a '''great shoe market''' a decade or a century from now.
::''Boot and Shoe Recorder''
:::'''1914'''

:'''We cannot settle the problem,''' and I venture the prophecy that perhaps '''a century from now this same question may be brought before some future society and discussed very much as it is tonight.'''
::Dr. Barton C. Hirst on the subject of '''abortion'''
:::'''1914'''

:By the twenty-first century I believe '''we shall all be telepaths.'''
::Gumbriel, character in ''Antic Hay''
:::'''1923'''

:The physician of the twenty-first century… may even criticize the language of the times, and may find that '''some of our words have become as offensive to him as the term "lunatic" has become offensive to us.'''
::Dr. C. Macfie Campbell
:::'''1924'''

:Historians of the twenty-first century will look back with well-placed scorn on the '''shallow-minded days''' of the early twentieth century '''when football games and petting parties were considered the most important elements of a college education.'''
::Mary Eileen Ahern, ''Library Bureau''
:::'''1926'''

:'''In the year A.D. 2014''' journalists will be writing on the centenary of the great war — '''that is, if there has not been a greater war.'''
::F.J.M, ''The Journalist''
:::'''1934'''

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:New Year]]
[[Category:Language]]
[[Category:Politics]]
[[Category:American football]]
[[Category:Comics sharing name|2014]]

1227: The Pace of Modern Life

2016-12-28T00:26:18Z

141.101.98.130: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1227
| date = June 19, 2013
| title = The Pace of Modern Life
| image = the pace of modern life.png
| titletext = 'Unfortunately, the notion of marriage which prevails ... at the present time ... regards the institution as simply a convenient arrangement or formal contract ... This disregard of the sanctity of marriage and contempt for its restrictions is one of the most alarming tendencies of the present age.' --John Harvey Kellogg, Ladies' guide in health and disease (1883)
}}

==Explanation==
The debate as to whether or not the pace of modern life is detrimental to society, culture, and the human experience in general has been going on for longer than we may realize. Presently, the debate has focused on technology such as smartphones, tablets, and other portable electronics; however, many of the same arguments were made against newspapers, magazines, telegraphs, telephones, and even written correspondence 100 years ago.

People often tend to think of older times as better. The people complaining compare their present time to the time they lived in before, that is, a couple of decades ago, and this has been happening for over a century (at least). This comic makes a point that the older times people refer to, were also criticized in exactly the same fashion. Since the same criticism is applied to each generation by the generation before that one, every generation thinks that the one they were born in is the good one. This is presentism as explained by Randall in [[24: Godel, Escher, Kurt Halsey]].

The comic begins and ends with very similar arguments, perhaps emphasizing how these debates cycle and repeat over time. The comic does not directly state whether these opinions and criticisms were justified or simple fallacies. There is a desire to consider our present existence as good and reasonable and that society has been improving over time. The difficulty lies in considering the possibility that each generation was perhaps correct in their criticism.

On reading all of these quotes, one may find these quotes redundant and tiresome to read. Readers may find themselves skimming the text and skipping several quotes once they get the overall idea. This could be a self-referential point demonstrating that the writing style of older times was less convenient than the oft-criticized brief modern style.

Some parts of all that long texts are in bold, others not. Here is the summary for only this bold text, picturing just our ''Modern World'':

:The art of letter-writing is fast dying out. We fire off a multitude of rapid and short notes, instead of sitting down to have a good talk over a real sheet of paper.
:In olden times it was different. Men now live think and work at express speed. Sulkily read as they travel leaving them no time to talk with the friend who may share the compartment with them.
:The age of leisure is dead, and the art of conversation is dying. A craving for literary nips. There never was an age in which so many people were able to write badly.
:The art of pure line engraving is dying out. We live at too fast a rate nothing is left to the imagination and human faculty dwindle away amid the million inventions that have been introduced to render its exercise unnecessary.
:Thirty pages is now too much. Fifteen pages further condensed a summary of the summary.
:Those who are dipping into so many subjects and gathering information in a summary and superficial form lose the habit of settling down to great works.
:Hurried reading can never be good reading. Mental and nervous degeneration among a growing class of people, a brain incapable of normal working in a large measure due to the hurry and excitement of modern life, almost instantaneous communication between remote points of the globe.
:Teach the children how to play instead of shutting them in badly ventilated schoolrooms, increased demand made by the conditions of modern life upon the brain.
:We talk across a continent, telegraph across an ocean, we take even our pleasures sadly and make a task of our play.
:The managers of sensational newspapers create perverted tastes and develop vicious tendencies.
:To take sufficient time for our meals seems frequently impossible, may I be permitted to say a word in favour of a very worthy and valuable old friend of mine, Mr. Long walk? I am afraid that this good gentleman is in danger of getting neglected, if not forgotten.
:People talk as they ride bicycles–at a rush–without pausing to consider their surroundings the profession of letters is so little understood, tendency among the children of today to rebel against restraint. Our modern family gathering, silent, each individual with his head buried in his favourite magazine, deal openly with situations which no person would have dared to mention in general society forty years ago.
:A hundred years ago it took so long and cost so much to send a letter that it seemed worth while to put some time and thought into writing it. A brief letter to-day may be followed by another next week–a "line" now by another to-morrow.

The style of the comic is very similar to that of [[1311: 2014]], which was released half a year later.

The title text shows that the meaning of the institute of marriage debate has likewise been going on for quite some time.

==Transcript==
:'''The art of letter-writing is fast dying out.''' When a letter cost nine pence, it seemed but fair to try to make it worth nine pence ... Now, however, we think we are too busy for such old-fashioned correspondence. '''We fire off a multitude of rapid and short notes, instead of sitting down to have a good talk over a real sheet of paper.'''
::''The Sunday Magazine''
:::1871

:It is, unfortunately, one of the chief characteristics of modern business to be always in a hurry. '''In olden times it was different.'''
::''The Medical Record''
:::1884

:With the advent of cheap newspapers and superior means of locomotion... The dreamy quiet old days are over... '''For men now live think and work at express speed.''' They have their ''Mercury'' or ''Post'' laid on their breakfast table in the early morning, and if they are too hurried to snatch from it the news during that meal, they carry it off, to be '''sulkily read as they travel ... leaving them no time to talk with the friend who may share the compartment with them'''... The hurry and bustle of modern life ... lacks the quiet and repose of the period when our forefathers, the day's work done, took their ease...
::William Smith, Morley: ''Ancient and Modern''
:::1886

:Conversation is said to be a lost art ... Good talk presupposes leisure, both for preparation and enjoyment. '''The age of leisure is dead, and the art of conversation is dying.'''
::''Frank Leslie's popular Monthly'', Volume 29
:::1890

:Intellectual laziness and the hurry of the age have produced '''a craving for literary nips.''' The torpid brain ... has grown too weak for sustained thought.
:'''There never was an age in which so many people were able to write badly.'''
::Israel Zangwill, ''The Bachelors' Club''
:::1891

:'''The art of pure line engraving is dying out. We live at too fast a rate to allow for the preparation of such plates as our fathers appreciated.''' If a picture catches the public fancy, the public must have an etched or a photogravured copy of it within a month or two of its appearance, the days when engravers were wont to spend two or three years over a single plate are for ever gone.
::''Journal of the Institute of Jamaica'', Volume 1
:::1892

:So much is exhibited to the eye that '''nothing is left to the imagination'''. It sometimes seems almost possible that the modern world might be choked by its own riches, '''and human faculty dwindle away amid the million inventions that have been introduced to render its exercise unnecessary.'''
:The articles in the ''Quarterlies'' extend to thirty or more pages, but '''thirty pages is now too much''' so we witness a further condensing process and, we have the ''Fortnightly'' and the ''Contemporary'' which reduce thirty pages to '''fifteen pages''' so that you may read a larger number of articles in a shorter time and in a shorter form. As if this last condensing process were not enough the condensed articles of these periodicals are '''further condensed''' by the daily papers, which will give you a '''summary of the summary''' of all that has been written about everything.
:'''Those who are dipping into so many subjects and gathering information in a summary and superficial form lose the habit of settling down to great works.'''
:Ephemeral literature is driving out the great classics of the present and the past ... '''hurried reading can never be good reading.'''
::G. J. Goschen, ''First Annual Address to the Students'', Toynbee Hall. London
:::1894

:The existence of '''mental and nervous degeneration among a growing class of people''', especially in large cities, is an obvious phenomenon ... the mania for stimulants ... diseases of the mind are almost as numerous as the diseases of the body... This intellectual condition is characterized by '''a brain incapable of normal working ... in a large measure due to the hurry and excitement of modern life''', with its facilities for rapid locomotion and '''almost instantaneous communication between remote points of the globe'''...
::''The Churchman'', Volume 71
:::1895

:If we '''teach the children how to play''' and encourage them in their sports ... '''instead of shutting them in badly ventilated schoolrooms''', the next generation will be more joyous and will be healthier than the present one.
::''Public Opinion: A Comprehensive Summary of the Press Throughout the World'', Volume 18
:::1895

:The cause of the ... increase in nervous disease is '''increased demand made by the conditions of modern life upon the brain'''. Everything is done in a hurry. '''We talk across a continent, telegraph across an ocean''', take a trip to Chicago for an hour's talk... '''We take even our pleasures sadly and make a task of our play''' ... what wonder if the pressure is almost more than our nerves can bear.
::G. Shrady (from P.C. Knapp)
::"Are nervous diseases increasing?" ''Medical Record''
:::1896

:'''The managers of sensational newspapers''' ... do not try to educate their readers and make them better, but tend to '''create perverted tastes and develop vicious tendencies.''' The owners of these papers seem to have but one purpose, and that is to increase their circulation.
::''Medical Brief'', Volume 26
:::1898

:'''To take sufficient time for our meals seems frequently impossible''' on account of the demands on our time made by our business... We act on the apparent belief that all of our business is so pressing that we must jump on the quickest car home, eat our dinner in the most hurried way, make the closest connection for a car returning ...
::Louis John Rettger. ''Studies in Advanced Physiology''
:::1898

:In these days of increasing rapid artificial locomotion, '''may I be permitted to say a word in favour of a very worthy and valuable old friend of mine, Mr. Long Walk?'''
:'''I am afraid that this good gentleman is in danger of getting neglected, if not forgotten.''' We live in days of water trips and land trips, excursions by sea, road and rail-bicycles and tricycles, tram cars and motor cars .... but in my humble opinion, good honest walking exercise for health beats all other kinds of locomotion into a cocked hat.
::T. Thatcher, "A plea for a long walk",
::''The Publishers Circular''
:::1902

:The art of conversation is almost a lost one. '''People talk as they ride bicycles–at a rush–without pausing to consider their surroundings''' ... what has been generally understood as cultured society is rapidly deteriorating into baseness and voluntary ignorance. '''The profession of letters is so little understood''', and so far from being seriously appreciated, that ... Newspapers are full, not of thoughtful honestly expressed public opinion on the affairs of the nation, but of vapid personalities interesting to none save gossips and busy bodies.
::Marie Corelli,
::''Free opinions, freely expressed''
:::1905

:There is a great '''tendency among the children of today to rebel against restraint''', not only that placed upon them by the will of the parent. But against any restraint or limitation of what they consider their rights ... this fact has filled well minded people with great apprehensions for the future.
::Rev. Henry Hussmann,
::''The authority of parents''
:::1906

:'''Our modern family gathering, silent''' around the fire, '''each individual with his head buried in his favourite magazine''', is the somewhat natural outcome of the banishment of colloquy from the school ...
::''The Journal of Education'', Volume 29
:::1907

:Plays in theatres at the present time present spectacles and '''deal openly with situations which no person would have dared to mention in general society forty years ago'''... The current representations of '''nude men and women in the daily journals''' and the illustrated magazines would have excluded such periodicals from all respectable families two decades ago... Those who have been divorced ... forty and fifty years ago lost at once and irrevocably their standing in society, while to-day they continue in all their social relationships, hardly changed...
::Editorial, ''The Watchman'', Boston
:::1908

:We write millions more letters than did our grandfathers, but the increase in volume has brought with it an automatic artificial machine-like ring ... an examination of a file of old letters reveals not only a remarkable grasp of details. But a '''fitness and courtliness too often totally lacking''' in the mechanical curt cut and dried letters of to-day.
::Forrest Crissey, ''Handbook of Modern Business Correspondence''
:::1908

:'''A hundred years ago it took so long and cost so much to send a letter that it seemed worth while to put some time and thought into writing it.''' Now the quickness and the cheapness of the post seem to justify the feeling that '''a brief letter to-day may be followed by another next week–a "line" now by another to-morrow.'''
::Percy Holmes Boynton, ''Principles of Composition''
:::1915

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Language]]

Talk:1766: Apple Spectrum

2016-12-01T11:28:11Z

141.101.98.130: Granny Smiths aren't only cooking apples

Well, I did my best on explaining this one... Not really sure I got the Granny Smith part right. --[[User:Andyd273|Andyd273]] ([[User talk:Andyd273|talk]]) 14:32, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

Surely a desert island covered only in apple trees is not beyond all probabilities? [[User:Minimal|Minimal]] ([[User talk:Minimal|talk]]) 15:01, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

I believe his confusion on a desert island with one type of apple is because apples exhibit extreme heterozygosity meaning that any daughter apple tree will produce fruit extremely different from its parent; it would be difficult to have several plants in one area that are all the same that produce no differing offspring (at least on a deserted island...humans can intervene on actively managed orchards). Genetically, the apple does fall very far from the tree. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.59.197|162.158.59.197]] 15:10, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

: This is AMAZING. I had no idea. {{w|Apples}} --[[User:Jeff|Jeff]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 15:16, 30 November 2016 (UTC)
:: {{w|Apple#Cultivation| here}} [[User:Jacky720|Jacky720]] ([[User talk:Jacky720|talk]]) 17:30, 30 November 2016 (UTC)
::: Thanks Jack, I'm a linking idiot. --[[User:Jeff|Jeff]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 19:58, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

What exactly does "doing their own thing" mean in this context? [[User:Drewthedude64|Drewthedude64]] ([[User talk:Drewthedude64|talk]]) 15:20, 30 November 2016 (UTC)Drewthedude64

: I'm assuming it means it was so different, that it couldn't be categorized by a low-high line (those 1-10 scales you see everywhere) --[[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.82|108.162.216.82]] 15:30, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

: Granny Smith apples are green while the other apples in this comic are red. Also, Granny Smith apples are more tart than sweet...these two characteristics distinguish it from many other apple breeds and is probably why he says they are doing their own thing. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.59.197|162.158.59.197]] 15:32, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

: Granny Smith apples are good all of the time (unless they're mealy). All other apples should be made into pie. Except for red delicious, which shall be cast into outer compost, where there are swine gnashing their teeth. - The Opinionated One. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.69.142|162.158.69.142]] 16:40, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

Has Randall ever explained why he doesn't like Red Delicious? Maybe not crisp enough? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.69.100|162.158.69.100]] 15:59, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

Seriously? Have you ever eaten one? Cardboard has more apple flavor! This has to be the most misleadingly named food item ever! [[User:Mwburden|mwburden]] ([[User talk:Mwburden|talk]]) 03:13, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

The explanation says that "Two (apple) trees of the same variety will not pollinate each other." I am no botanist, but I'm not sure this is correct. (The linked citation seems to blur the line between apple trees and fruit trees generally.) I think they will pollinate each other, and will even produce fruit, but the resulting fruit will be 'unpredictable.' No apple tree planted from seed will produce apples like its parent (except by chance), due to the heterozygosity mentioned above. BTW, because apples will not "breed true," this also means that every store-bought apple we've ever eaten came from a cloned or grafted tree. Apples are weird. [[User:Miamiclay|Miamiclay]] ([[User talk:Miamiclay|talk]]) 16:30, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

You're right that it isn't correct. Apple tree's may self pollinate. See [https://www.starkbros.com/tags/self-pollinating-apple-trees] {{unsigned|Induane}}

I went ahead and deleted the offending paragraph. It was unquestionably wrong as it was, even according to it's own source. [[User:ChrisPwildcat|ChrisPwildcat]] ([[User talk:ChrisPwildcat|talk]]) 18:06, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

:That isn't entirely accurate either, though. The first line of that page says that "'''unlike most apple trees''', self-pollinating apple trees are naturally able to set fruit by themselves". Most apple trees can't self-pollinate, and because apples of the same variety are clones of each other, they register each other's pollen as their own. Self-pollinators are the exception, not the rule. --[[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.98|108.162.219.98]] 18:16, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

Odd that he would post a comic with such a glaringly obvious mistake. Red delicious apples are best apples. Anyone who tells you otherwise is a liar and you should not listen to that person. {{unsigned ip|172.68.79.72}}

Red Delicious are the Devil... tasteless, meally... evil. Apples should be crisp and clean in flavor, that's why the misnamed 'Delicious' varieties are on the bad (evil) end and crisps and most other varieties are on the good end (edible). Maybe Granny Smiths 'do their own thing' because they are good with peanut butter.[[Special:Contributions/108.162.246.34|108.162.246.34]] 20:59, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

Red Delicious--Honey Crisp--Regular Apples--Granny Smith--PINK LADY! Sorry! Had to put in a plug for the greatest unknown apple on the planet! They have every great characteristic an apple can have. They're juicy, crunchy, sweet, and sour. The perfect apple! [[User:ExternalMonolog|ExternalMonolog]] ([[User talk:ExternalMonolog|talk]]) 23:37, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

== Granny Smiths ==

I don't agree that Granny Smiths apples are mainly cooking apples. Bramley are what I would consider a cooking apple, but this may be a UK/USA thing (I'm from the UK) [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.218|141.101.98.218]] 10:13, 1 December 2016 (UTC)
I came here to say the same thing, I'm also from the UK. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.130|141.101.98.130]] 11:28, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

Talk:1756: I'm With Her

2016-11-07T17:59:55Z

141.101.98.130:

The "I'm with her" and H with an arrow are CLEARLY the respective campaign slogan and campaign logo for Hillary Clinton, not some vagueness having to do with bringing a significant other. --[unsigned]

Has Randall endorsed a presidential candidate before? --[[User:Dfeuer|Dfeuer]] ([[User talk:Dfeuer|talk]]) 17:14, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
He supported Obama on his blog in '08, not in the comic though.

He could have said any number of clever things about the election, and all he did was put up a campaign sign. Disappointing. [[User:Gmcgath|Gmcgath]] ([[User talk:Gmcgath|talk]]) 17:37, 7 November 2016 (UTC)

what a cuck --[[Special:Contributions/172.68.51.63|172.68.51.63]] 17:45, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
:: leaving aside the most ridiculous slur of the past few years, I don't know what else did you expect from Randall. I guess you must have stumbled upon this wiki by chance and have never heard of xkcd before.--[[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.130|141.101.98.130]] 17:59, 7 November 2016 (UTC)

Talk:246: Labyrinth Puzzle

2016-09-24T12:14:18Z

141.101.98.130:

Just ask which color is the sky.. {{unsigned|‎175.110.37.200}}
:Oh, although the strip doesn't explicitly say so; in those riddles you can normally only ask one question. --[[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 23:00, 27 January 2013 (UTC)
::There's another (more traditional) three-guard variation where one guard always tells the truth, one guard always tells a lie and the third alternates between pure truth and pure lie (and you don't know which flip they're currently flopped upon). But you ''still'' only get to ask one question of one guard. Have fun with that one. My personal solution certainly has a degree of convolution, but I've heard other workable answers. [[Special:Contributions/178.98.31.27|178.98.31.27]] 02:24, 21 June 2013 (UTC)
:::@‎175.110.37.200, you would know which one lies but you would not know which door leads out. [[User:Tharkon|Tharkon]] ([[User talk:Tharkon|talk]]) 23:13, 10 October 2013 (UTC)
::::Eh, well, even if you had a perfect question to ask in this case, a lot of good would that do you: it'd only reveal the truth behind the setup, that ''none'' of the doors lead out. :p -- [[Special:Contributions/173.245.51.210|173.245.51.210]] 08:20, 8 November 2013 (UTC)
:::::Well yes it says that in the title-text. But good pick-up. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.58|108.162.219.58]] 02:31, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

One question, of one guard. I really like the original form of this riddle. It's a bit of a trick, though. It is crucial that the guards "know" each other's rules, but this is not even implied. And if it was stated in the question, that would probably be a good enough clue to get you to the answer. Of course, once you know the answer it seems trivial, but I wonder what percentage of people actually worked it out for themselves? Another good one is Monty Hall, even though that is pure, straightforward probability. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.223|108.162.219.223]] 18:11, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

:With two guards, they wouldn't need to know each others role. If they know their own role - which they do - each can infer the role of the other. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.34.137|162.158.34.137]] 13:01, 21 April 2016 (UTC)

:I think somebody needs a hug! [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.223|108.162.219.223]] 18:11, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

The whole problem with this entire riddle is that if they are both liars you are screwed! Nothing in the riddle establishes a fact that they aren't liars. Now if there was a known truth teller in the riddle that explains the nature of the guards or the narrator does it, then the above solution works. {{unsigned ip|108.162.216.28}}

As you aren't given a limit to the number of questions, you can just ask each guard if they're the stabby guard. If two say yes, the third one is the truthful guard and you can ask him which way the exit is. If two say no, the third one is the lying guard and you can ask him where the exit isn't. No tricky questions so the stabby guard shouldn't stab you.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.255.195|162.158.255.195]] 18:14, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

I have a solution, but you need to ask multiple questions: 
''If the Stab Guard tells the truth:'' 
Ask each guard, firstly, "Are you the Stab Guard?" 
Truth Guard will answer "No." 
Stab Guard will answer "Yes." 
Liar Guard knows the answer is no, but, because he lies, will answer "Yes." 
The one who said no is the Truth Guard, so you can ask him which door leads to freedom. 
''If the Stab Guard lies:'' 
Point to the guard on the left, and ask each guard, "Does that guard lie?" 
If that guard is Truth Guard, then Truth Guard will answer "No," while Stab Guard and Liar Guard answer "Yes." 
If that guard is a liar, then Truth Guard will answer "Yes," while Stab Guard and Liar Guard answer "No." 
Whichever guard gives a unique answer is Truth Guard, so you can ask him which door leads to freedom. [[User:NickOfFørvania|NickOfFørvania]] ([[User talk:NickOfFørvania|talk]]) 23:37, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

:It's been solved on puzzling.stackexchange.com (given a specific definition of a tricky question): http://puzzling.stackexchange.com/questions/43092/xkcd-inspired-logic-puzzle [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.130|141.101.98.130]] 12:14, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

I remember a book where the main character kicked one guard in the face and asked if it hurt. {{unsigned ip|162.158.252.137}}

There's another unspoken rule: That the lie is either a yes or a no. If you asked the liar something, he could lie and say, "I don't know," which would leave you with nothing. Also, as Stabby MacStabberson does not appear to have any restrictions on what he tells you (that is, he has the choice between truth or falsehood,) there's no sure way out even if he wasn't tasked with stabbing you.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.255.69|162.158.255.69]] 05:32, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

Talk:1224: Council of 300

2016-09-06T19:41:40Z

141.101.98.130:

This phenomenon is explained by a Google engineer [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIkhgagvrjI on YouTube].
[[Special:Contributions/62.245.198.190|62.245.198.190]] 08:17, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

No reference to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_of_300 Committee of 300?]. Sorry, I have no time to elaborate. --[[User:Palmpje|Palmpje]] ([[User talk:Palmpje|talk]]) 12:41, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

I think the first panel is poking fun at the complete irrelevance of merit in videos going viral (i.e. a kid crying about a celebrity or a horrible song that only got recorded because the "artist's" parents were rich). You could say it seems that merit makes a video ''less'' likely to go viral, but then you'd have to think about how a small percentage of the videos are worthy of virality, and you see that that percentage within the category of viral videos is proportionate. But, that said, a conspiracy by a dark cabal would answer more questions about this phenomenon more adequately than the commonly quoted, "people are stupid," so I think the first panel is a reference to this. Hence the, "We decree that this video meets our standards and should go viral." The explanation given above really only starts in the second panel. Plus, it wouldn't be the first time xkcd referenced and made fun of conspiracy theories.[[Special:Contributions/173.25.45.105|173.25.45.105]] 14:01, 12 June 2013 (UTC)
:To me, it's just a silly hypothetical link between the number 301 and the Committee (which I didn't know about until, like, just now). I wouldn't say that it's a biting commentary about Internet popularity, but different strokes for different folks. [[User:Alpha|Alpha]] ([[User talk:Alpha|talk]]) 16:50, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

: I can just see the guy doing finger quotes around "go viral". [[User:Wwoods|Wwoods]] ([[User talk:Wwoods|talk]]) 19:20, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

What's the helicopter-carrying-a-string video? Is that something specific and real? [[Special:Contributions/200.49.162.52|200.49.162.52]] 09:56, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

:Looks like a black helicopter (a common conspiracy theory) to me. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.130|141.101.98.130]] 19:41, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

301 is the number of people in the council plus the first regular person to view it. It's an obvious point, but we seem like we want to be complete. Not sure where to add it, so I'll let wiki-magic take care of that. [[Special:Contributions/76.106.251.87|76.106.251.87]] 19:07, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

The council member in the second panel seems to have a collar. Has Randall every drawn figures like that? [[Special:Contributions/141.101.96.120|141.101.96.120]] 12:45, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

The collar looks like a cape to me. {{unsigned ip|108.162.231.220}}

Talk:1081: Argument Victory

2016-09-06T19:38:10Z

141.101.98.130:

I also think it could be a joke on the "Guess some people prefer to stay asleep." line ? [[Special:Contributions/174.93.164.151|174.93.164.151]] 18:30, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

:Conspiracy theories are typically considered (especially by non-conspiracy-theorists) to make one sleepless/have nightmares, due to their often frightening nature.[[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.130|141.101.98.130]] 19:38, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

I still don't understand the title text. I would think that the side that thinks "anyone who's in power has any plan at all" would be the conspiracy theorists, but how is that comforting? [[Special:Contributions/98.66.41.122|98.66.41.122]] 14:25, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

:I think he wants to say that our political leaders don't really seem to overlook our world's machinery (as conspiracy theorists assume), and that he finds this rather frightening. --[[User:Kronf|Kronf]] ([[User talk:Kronf|talk]]) 16:57, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

:No, the opposite. The conspiracy theorists believe there is a plan. We suspect the opposite because we are rational and see no good evidence. [[User:Nonceexkcd|Nonceexkcd]] ([[User talk:Nonceexkcd|talk]]) 21:01, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

::That's what I tried to say. --[[User:Kronf|Kronf]] ([[User talk:Kronf|talk]]) 16:02, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

:I think of it as a joke, based around the stereotype of politicians having either terrible plans/policies or none at all. He finds it more comforting for them to have ''any'' plan, even if it is a conspiracy. It could be thought of as "at least they have a plan and control, instead of no plan and chaos". [[Special:Contributions/108.162.238.155|108.162.238.155]] 09:58, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

To clarify, he finds the fact that if conspiracy theorists are right, somebody is ruling the world and by extension, looking over it and making sure it doesn't fall apart on them, as opposed to it being a chaotic unsupervised mess. {{unsigned ip|71.230.192.134}}

Really? Combs Hair Down? Surely there's a better name for this person... [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.222|141.101.98.222]] 07:13, 10 March 2015 (UTC)
:Conspiracy Theorist? -Pennpenn [[Special:Contributions/108.162.250.162|108.162.250.162]] 04:10, 9 July 2015 (UTC)

Talk:1706: Genetic Testing

2016-07-14T20:34:04Z

141.101.98.130:

Regarding the title text, elbow dysplasia is something that genetic testing might find a susceptibility to in dogs, but parvo (canine parvovirus) is a viral infection and heartworms and mange are both parasites. I'm only beginning my veterinary studies so it's possible I'm speaking in ignorance but I've never heard of any genetic factors that make one dog more or less susceptible to any of the latter three than another dog. Generally speaking, all dog owners are advised to get their dogs vaccinated against parvo and kept on a heartworm preventive treatment such as ivermectin (Heartgard and other brands). Ie., these are blanket prevention strategies recommended for all dogs and no attempt is typically made to ascertain susceptibility level before recommending these treatments.

Of course, Randall is writing a comic intended for mass consumption and it's possible he wanted to include some canine ailments that would be more commonly recognized rather than just strictly listing congenital ailments of dogs like entropion or brachycephalic syndrome, which might have caused confusion and ruined the joke. --(I don't have an account yet) {{unsigned ip|108.162.210.178}}

Now I really wonder if anyone has actually done this before. It would be fun to see the actual results of this. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.104.104|141.101.104.104]] 08:00, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

Just because a disease is infectious doesn't mean there can't be breed dispositions. For example, parvo in GSDs. I tend to see lots of demodectic mange in bull breeds too. This can be due to factors, such as genetic immune deficiency or particular types of skin/hair which can be inherited {{unsigned ip|198.41.239.32}}

Interestingly 5% seems to be the common shared DNA between humans and dogs: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/12/1207_051207_dog_genome.html
[[Special:Contributions/162.158.87.35|162.158.87.35]] 11:05, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

:I was the editor that made the original explanation. I never intended my word to be the final say; if anything, I was expecting the opposite, since I'm not educated at all in those fields. Regarding the link in parvo, I found this study, which starts that Spaniels are the most susceptible to parvo-enteritis. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3003015 [[Special:Contributions/173.245.52.74|173.245.52.74]] 14:57, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

:That effectively puts Pierre Paul Broca in the wrong, from a genetic POV. More specifically his theory that the main difference between humans and primates stem from their understanding of language, something that also relates to Wernickes and Brocas areas of the brain. Obviously animals have language albeit simpler. As for testing the difference between human and animal... with blood tests this is simple, because human blood contains some unique factors. But when it comes to DNA there may be no obvious telltale signs, which would mean only a computer would be able to spot the difference. If that's true it would explain why the lab doesn't run such a test. [[User:Todor|Todor]] ([[User talk:Todor|talk]]) 00:42, 14 July 2016 (UTC)

When I came here, I was rather hoping to see a comment on how legitimate these ancestry services really are. Anyone? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.241.133|108.162.241.133]] 21:10, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

I certainly do not know enough about genetics to edit the explanation nor comment substantively, but elsewhere on the web I've seen that humans' DNA is 82% "homologous" with dogs, and 60% with fruit flies! Presumably this reflects the difference between "homologous" and "shared"? As a non-scientist, 5% does 'feel' sorta low. [[User:Miamiclay|Miamiclay]] ([[User talk:Miamiclay|talk]]) 02:45, 14 July 2016 (UTC)

Well now I'm just curious what a 48% lab, 35% beagle, 12% cocker spaniel and 5% other dog would actually look like. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.50.29|173.245.50.29]] 06:29, 14 July 2016 (UTC)

"Cueball clearly does not understand that he needed to send his own sample for testing" How in the fuck is that the "clear" interpretation of the comic? Last panel and title text both say they are his results. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.210.174|108.162.210.174]] 11:30, 14 July 2016 (UTC)

:That is not the only wrong assumption in the explanation ATM. Another user pointed out that it might not be *practically* possible to test DNA for which species it belongs to. It is not normal nor practical to do DNA sequencing, on the contrary usually a lab test means a quick PCR, and those are different enough to tell a person apart with a fail-rate of about one in a billion. Assumptions, assumptions, assumptions. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.222.218|162.158.222.218]] 15:25, 14 July 2016 (UTC)

::Found on the wikipedia page for DNA barcoding that "mtDNA barcode to assign a species name to an animal will be ambiguous or erroneous some 23% of the time". Also note that this applies to classifying a higher-order species, not like in the comic which sub-species it belongs to. According the the wikipedia page doing so would be largely bogus. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.222.218|162.158.222.218]] 15:43, 14 July 2016 (UTC)

:::This also answers the question in the first panel about how legit these tests are. Spoiler alert: They are not. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.222.218|162.158.222.218]] 15:57, 14 July 2016 (UTC)

Another comic where Randall is attacking groups. This time it's furries. Wonderful. {{unsigned ip|172.68.35.70}}

:Not necessarily, although I did consider it for a moment especially as there have been other comics in the past referring to furries. Except cueball has never been a furry in comics before, and even if he was that wouldn't change his DNA, so I don't think it's got anything to do with furries this time. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.130|141.101.98.130]] 20:34, 14 July 2016 (UTC)

Consider yourself lucky. My blood work has declared me pregnant three times this year as a male. It's gotten to the point that it's one of the ways that my doctors check to see if the results are valid or not. --[[Special:Contributions/108.162.237.213|108.162.237.213]] 15:21, 14 July 2016 (UTC)

1706: Genetic Testing

2016-07-14T20:28:21Z

141.101.98.130:

{{comic
| number = 1706
| date = July 13, 2016
| title = Genetic Testing
| image = genetic_testing.png
| titletext = Plus, now I know that I have risk factors for elbow dysplasia, heartworm, parvo, and mange.
}}

==Explanation==
[[Cueball]] has sent a DNA sample to a {{w|genetic genealogy}} company. It is inferred that he has sent his own sample, but that is not necessarily the case. Apparently he sent it to a {{w|purebred dog|dog pedigree}} company, meaning that the results show what dog the DNA matches. [[Megan]], assuming he was referring to a human sample, thusly comments that he sent it to the wrong company. Only [http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/12/1207_051207_dog_genome.html 5% of DNA] is shared between humans and dogs, so we are genetically very different. In spite of the DNA test clearly showing a canine sample was submitted, Cueball clearly does not understand that he needed to send ''his own'' sample for testing, and assumes that he must be more canine than human. He decides to abstain from eating chocolate, because he figures he is probably highly susceptible to {{w|theobromine poisoning|poisoning from theobromine}}, a compound found in chocolates which causes seizures and heart failure in dogs (and many other creatures). Basically, if Cueball really is a dog, then eating chocolate could kill him.

One would assume that both human and canine DNA analysing services would be able to tell if the sample they received was not from the species they were set up to analyse. In this comic, there are alternative explanations that Cueball actually sent his own DNA to a dog pedigree company, and they didn't couldn't tell the difference, or that Cueball is actually a dog with excellent human impersonation skills.

===Title Text===
The title text refers to the fact that certain dog breeds are more or less susceptible to disease. The diseases he mentions, {{w|elbow dysplasia}}, {{w|Dirofilaria immitis|heartworm}}, {{w|parvovirus|parvo virus}} and {{w|mange}} are several diseases that can end up killing, disfiguring or disabling dogs. While the information is useful for dog owners, as it tells them what diseases they should keep an eye out for, it is unnecessary for humans, as we can express illnesses to other people, and are largely unaffected by these diseases. However, knowing your ancestors (as Cueball was trying to do) is important for figuring out your family's medical history. Had he received legitimate results, he could then look for diseases his ancestors had (or died of) and thus, he would be aware of the risk factors, exactly like he ended up with, albeit irrelevant for him.

==Alternative Explanation==
[[Cueball]] states that he has sent a sample of his DNA to a {{w|genetic genealogy}} service. However, it appears that he is mistaken and has actually sent it to a {{w|purebred dog|dog ancestry}} service, intended to determine what dog breeds a particular dog comes from, meaning that the results show what dog breeds Cueball's DNA most closely matches (although the results would obviously be incorrect, as Cueball is unlikely to contain actual canine DNA and canine DNA analysis procedures would return false results when applied to human DNA). [[Megan]] realises that he has mistaken the service for a genealogy service, although Cueball interprets the results seriously and starts believing that he may in fact be more canine than human, leading him to consider abstaining from eating chocolate (which is harmful for dogs) and (as mentioned in the title text) the diseases which, as a dog, he would be prone to.

The "5% Other" result in Cueball's DNA breakdown is a reference to the fact that [http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/12/1207_051207_dog_genome.html 5% of DNA] is shared between humans and dogs.

==Transcript==

:[Cueball and Megan are talking to each other]
:Cueball: I sent a DNA sample to one of those "Trace your ancestry" projects.
:Megan: How legit are those?
:Cueball: No idea. I just figured it'd be fun.

:Six weeks later...
:[Cueball walks towards Megan with a letter in his hand]
:Cueball: Sweet, got my results back.
:Megan: Ooh, share!

:Ancestry Report
::48% Labrador Retriever
::35% Beagle
::12% Cocker Spaniel
::5% Other

:[Megan is holding the report]
:Megan: I think you sent your sample to the wrong service.
:Cueball: Just in case, I should probably start avoiding chocolate.

{{comic discussion}}

Talk:1693: Oxidation

2016-06-13T09:57:31Z

141.101.98.130:

The white balance is off in this comic. [[User:Mikemk|Mikemk]] ([[User talk:Mikemk|talk]]) 04:39, 13 June 2016 (UTC)
:Where? I checked it in gimp and the white balance is fine. In fact, the .png file for this comic uses the greyscale colour mode.[[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.130|141.101.98.130]] 09:57, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

Maybe Randall drew this one on paper, which had already started oxidizing before it was scanned. ;D
[[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.91|108.162.216.91]] 08:36, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

I thought the arthropods mentioned were meant to be a reference to pubic lice (crabs). [[Special:Contributions/141.101.104.42|141.101.104.42]] 06:11, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

Okay, who else had immediately thought of Skitter? [[Special:Contributions/172.68.11.43|172.68.11.43]] 09:52, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

Talk:1683: Digital Data

2016-05-20T07:12:01Z

141.101.98.130:

Ewww, Verizon? Fuck them [[User:International Space Station|International Space Station]] ([[User talk:International Space Station|talk]]) 04:58, 20 May 2016 (UTC)

Ironically, the title text on explainxkcd is different from the one on xkcd.com, demonstrating the reinterpretation of text encoded in UTF-8 as if it were encoded in ISO 8859-1. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.85.231|162.158.85.231]] 05:45, 20 May 2016 (UTC)

This is a phenomenon that has always both fascinated me and frustrated me. I find it fascinating how, even today, data degrades as more and more people copy it (remember the old days when people used to copy VHS tapes, and the further you were from the original tape the more copying artefacts your copy had in it?). It also frustrates me, though, when I'm trying to find an original, undegraded image or video and it seems impossible to find. It's also annoying because it's actually pretty easy to copy something without causing any quality loss, yet practically every copied image on the internet has been degraded in some way or another. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.130|141.101.98.130]] 07:08, 20 May 2016 (UTC)

It's also funny because just a few moments ago I was trying to compress some video to send to someone. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.130|141.101.98.130]] 07:12, 20 May 2016 (UTC)

Talk:1683: Digital Data

2016-05-20T07:10:38Z

141.101.98.130:

Talk:1683: Digital Data

2016-05-20T07:08:52Z

141.101.98.130:

Ewww, Verizon? Fuck them [[User:International Space Station|International Space Station]] ([[User talk:International Space Station|talk]]) 04:58, 20 May 2016 (UTC)

Ironically, the title text on explainxkcd is different from the one on xkcd.com, demonstrating the reinterpretation of text encoded in UTF-8 as if it were encoded in ISO 8859-1. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.85.231|162.158.85.231]] 05:45, 20 May 2016 (UTC)

This is a phenomenon that has always both fascinated me and frustrated me. I find it fascinating how, even today, data degrades as more and more people copy it (remember the old days when people used to copy VHS tapes, and the further you were from the original tape the more copying artefacts your copy had in it?). It also frustrates me, though, when I'm trying to find an original, undegraded image or video and it seems impossible to find. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.130|141.101.98.130]] 07:08, 20 May 2016 (UTC)

1682: Bun

2016-05-18T11:28:39Z

141.101.98.130: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1682
| date = May 18, 2016
| title = Bun
| image = bun.png
| titletext = If a wild bun is sighted, a nice gesture of respect is to send a 'BUN ALERT' message to friends and family, with photographs documenting the bun's location and rank. If no photographs are possible, emoji may be substituted.
}}

==Explanation==
{{Incomplete|I've rewritten the explanation but it's my first explanation of a comic so if there's a better way to word it go ahead. Hopefully the basic content is good though...}}
[[Ponytail]] is teaching a class about an animal referred as a "bun", which looks like a rabbit. It seems that the term "bun" is used as a shortened form of "bunny", in turn an informal name for a rabbit especially a cute one such as those shown in the comic. She tells the class about the relative rankings and sizes of the "buns", and how smaller "buns" are apparently higher-ranking (it is unclear what is meant by "rank" in reference to rabbits - in reality, rabbits live in groups where they are equal peers; there is no ranking among rabbits like there is with wolves in a pack). In the next panel, Ponytail states that "at this time of year, a lucky few may catch a glimpse of a king bun" - referring to young rabbits (the smallest and thus, in the comic, the highest-ranking, hence the term "king buns") being born in Spring (when the comic was released). The comic ends with [[Megan]] clarifying that she has the correct understanding of what a "bun" is (which is probably what the reader is thinking at the same time), to which Ponytail replies that "bun" is the scientific term. It is noteworthy that Megan quotes the true scientific term for rabbit-like mammals, "lagomorphs", but Ponytail corrects her by stating that "bun" is actually the scientific term, when in reality "bun" is the most contracted and informal name for a rabbit.

The title text is presumably referring to photographing a rabbit and, for example, posting it on social media - something which would typically done today if someone sees a rabbit in the wild. If the poster had failed to photograph the rabbit before it ran away, they may typically post a message saying something like "I saw a really cute bunny today!" with an emoji depiction of a rabbit, hence the second part of the title text.

==Transcript==

:[Ponytail is holding a pointer to a picture of a rabbit on a board.]
:Ponytail/Teacher: Good morning class! Today, we will be learning about the bun.

:[Two rabbits are shown, one slightly smaller, and a greater than symbol is pointed at the smaller one.]
:Ponytail/Teacher: Buns have a heirarchy.
:Ponytail/Teacher: A bun's rank is determined by its size. Smaller buns are higher-ranking.

:[Two larger rabbits are around a very tiny rabbit. The smaller rabbit appears to give off a radiant light.]
:Ponytail/Teacher: Most buns you see are relatively low-ranking.
:Ponytail/Teacher: But this time of year, a lucky few may catch a glimpse of a ''king bun''.

:[Megan is sitting at a desk with a few books on it, pencil in hand.]
:Megan/Student: Ok, hang on.
:Megan/Student: We're talking about rabbits and hares, right? Lagomorphs?

:[Ponytail is holding her finger up on her left hand, and is holding her pointer at her side with the other.]
:Ponytail/Teacher: Informally, yes. But in this course, we use the ''scientific'' term, "bun".
:Megan/Student: (off-panel) Are we sure this is the right room for ''introductory mammalogy?''
:Student #2: (off-panel) I'll check online.
:Student #3: (off-panel) ''Shh!'' Show respect! We look upon the image of a king!

{{comic discussion}}

Talk:1682: Bun

2016-05-18T11:16:23Z

141.101.98.130:

The transcript is almost done, but the setting/image of each frame has to be added, and someone may want to fix my possible typos. This is my first contribute to explain xkcd! [[Special:Contributions/108.162.250.158|108.162.250.158]] 10:51, 18 May 2016 (UTC)

I assumed this was about hair buns, am I incorrect? [[Special:Contributions/173.245.54.25|173.245.54.25]] 11:10, 18 May 2016 (UTC)

I think it's "bun" short for "bunny", an informal term meaning a rabbit (especially a cute one such as the ones shown in the comic). [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.130|141.101.98.130]] 11:16, 18 May 2016 (UTC)

1474: Screws

2015-08-12T15:05:04Z

141.101.98.130: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1474
| date = January 16, 2015
| title = Screws
| image = screws.png
| titletext = If you encounter a hex bolt, but you only brought screwdrivers, you can try sandwiching the head of the bolt between two parallel screwdriver shafts, squeezing the screwdrivers together with a hand at either end, then twisting. It doesn't work and it's a great way to hurt yourself, but you can try it!
}}

==Explanation==
Appliance makers sometimes use strange screw heads to hinder attempts from users to remove appliance covers. Users usually have handy screwdrivers for the first two screw types drawn, Phillips and Flat. More advanced users usually have some less standard drivers, such as Torx or Allen, however appliance makers keep designing increasingly strange screw heads and users keep acquiring increasingly strange screwdrivers.

The comic is about the frustration a user may feel when faced with a screw for which they have no screwdriver. Usually the user will try to fit one of the drivers they have handy into the strange screw, leading to damaging the screw and/or the driver.

The types of screws listed are the following:

{| class="wikitable"
! style="width: 25%"|Screw type
! Description
|-
| Phillips head
| {{w|List of screw drives#Phillips|Phillips screw drive}} and its corresponding screw head is one of the most recognizable types of screw heads that is commonly used in construction. This type of screw head was named after its inventor, a US businessman {{w|Henry F. Phillips}}. Neither the inventor nor his invention have any relationship to the Dutch electronics manufacturing company with similar, but not exactly the same name {{w|Philips}}.
|-
| Flat head
| {{w|List_of_screw_drives#Slot|Slot head screws}} are frequently erroneously referred to as flat heads (a flat head screw refers, in fact, to the shape of the screw head, regardless of the shape of the drive socket). The slot head is also commonly used in construction. Although the diagram shows the slot truncated, the slot almost always runs across the entire head of the screw (as in the case of the "uranium screw" below).
|-
| Uh oh. Maybe it's on Amazon? (star-shaped screw)
| Manufacturers sometimes use screws that require special screwdrivers in order to prevent the customer from opening the product. The reference to Amazon is presumably a suggestion to search Amazon.com for the screwdriver. A number of star-shaped screw heads exist, notably the six-pointed {{w|Torx}}, and Apple's rounded {{w|Pentalobe screw|pentalobe screw}}, although there is no popular design that uses the 5-pointed star shape depicted in the comic. Torx screws are common in automotive applications — Phillips heads are designed to "cam out" at high torque to protect the screw, whereas Torx do not — and on bicycles where a higher tightening torque is needed than hex screws can support. They are also commonly used on disk brake mounts and in Smartphones.

|-
| Cursed -1 Phillips head
| The head of a screw can be stripped by overuse, tightening the screw too much, using the wrong size screwdriver, or other misuse. As the driving surfaces wear away, removing the screw becomes more difficult, and the added pressure needed to drive the screw usually damages it further.

The addition of "cursed" and "-1" in the titles is a reference to various role playing games (e.g. Dungeons and Dragons), where magical "cursed" items appear frequently. This often makes the cursed equipment (in the case of armor or weapons) incredibly difficult to remove, as it will cling to the wielder. Similarly, the cursed Phillips Head screw becomes difficult to remove due to the stripped head.
Alternatively, this may imply that the damage to the screw head was caused ''because'' the screw is "cursed" and therefore difficult to remove.

The "-1" refers to the damage of the screw head. In role playing games, items such as weapons and armor may have an "enchantment", with a positive enchantment making the item more effective, and a negative enchantment making the item less effective. Negatively enchanted items are often also cursed, as is the case with this screw head. The "-1" does not appear to be a reference to a Philips bit-size number, as those are always positive.

Notably, the stripped screw bears a resemblance to a {{w|List_of_screw_drives#Pozidriv|Pozidriv head}}, a modified version of the Phillips head designed to resist slipping and subsequent stripping. Using a Phillips head screwdriver in a Pozidriv screw is very likely to damage the screw head and cause a real Pozidriv screwdriver to no longer mate correctly.
|-
| Crap, it's a ''rivet''.
| A {{w|rivet}} is not a screw - it is a permanent fastener which is secured by deforming the body of the fastener. Rivets cannot be removed with a screwdriver, they must be "drilled out". Some bolts also have rounded rivet-style heads, though, with no means of gripping them.
|-
| Phillips head ruiner ''(actually a hex screw)''
| A reference to the fact that {{w|List_of_screw_drives#Hex_socket|hex socket}} screws can, in a pinch, be removed with a Phillips screwdriver (rather than the intended {{w|Allen wrench}}) but this will likely ruin the screwdriver in the process.
|-
| Uranium screw
| Uranium screws were [http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2014/11/10/fat-mans-uranium/ used] in the [http://www.scintillators.ru/booc/criticality/reports/ref_050.pdf construction] of [http://www.osti.gov/scitech/servlets/purl/769001 nuclear weapons] during the twentieth century. Multiple radially extending short wave-like lines around the screw head symbolize radiant energy output, although real uranium screws were most likely made of depleted uranium, which is [http://www.gulflink.osd.mil/du_ii/du_ii_tabc.htm 40 percent less radioactive] than "raw" naturally-occurring uranium.
|-
| Phillip's head
| This is a morbidly literal interpretation of the misuse of an apostrophe in "Phillip's head". This "screw" is actually a bloody bag containing the severed head of someone named Phillip. Intentionally or otherwise, this last punchline could be described as a "[http://www.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MindScrew mind screw]".
|-
|Hex bolt (title text)
|A {{w|List_of_screw_drives#Hex|hex bolt}} has six external sides, so it could in theory be held by squeezing two screwdriver shafts together with the bolt in between. The amount of force on the two screwdriver shafts needed to turn the hex bolt will probably exceed the strength of human hands - the attempt would most likely only result in causing your hands to cramp or causing the screwdrivers to slip and cause further injury.
|}

==Transcript==
:[Eight drawings of different types of heads each with a caption:]
:Phillips head
:Flat head
:Uh oh. Maybe it's on Amazon?
:Cursed -1 Phillips head
:Crap, it's a ''rivet''.
:Phillips-head ruiner
:Uranium screw (a real thing)
:Phillip's head

{{comic discussion}}