explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

3061: Water Balloons

2025-03-12T10:02:13Z

141.101.98.241: /* Explanation */ Delinking "not all water balloons break on impact" with the conclusion that "flight time would be very short", which is how I kept reading it... Edited to separate the two. Did *not* go into whether it's a water balloon from manufacture!

{{comic
| number = 3061
| date = March 10, 2025
| title = Water Balloons
| image = water_balloons_2x.png
| imagesize = 578x713px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Update: The physics department has recruited an astronomer who studies meteor fireballs.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a BOT SHORT CIRCUITING DUE TO A WATER BALLOON - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
The comic graphs the mass vs the lifetime of three objects: {{w|meson}}s, {{w|water balloon}}s and {{w|planet}}s. Mesons, which are subatomic particles, have a very low mass and a very short lifetime, as they naturally decay into other fundamental particles.{{Actual citation needed}} "Flying water balloons" are depicted as having a mass centered around 1 kilogram, but the area outlined covers a very broad range of mass (from grams to hundreds of kilos), and a lifetime centered around 1 second (but the area outlined covers from fractions of a second to a couple of hours), indicating the approximate amount of time that a water balloon is expected to be in the process of being thrown through the air. Not all water balloons break on impact, and they may be prepared well in advance, so specifying "flying" indicates that it isn't the lifetime of the intact (and water-filled) balloon. Additionally, some are thrown directly into someone's face, thus their flight time would be extremely short, or non-existant if 'planted' before even being released. Finally, planets have a very large mass and a very long lifetime, as they tend to exist for billions of years.

This comparison is somewhat absurd because the objects being compared - mesons, water balloons, and planets - do not have much in common. The joke is revealed in the image caption: an "annual interdepartmental water balloon fight" where multiple departments of a facility/company are pit against each other.

Allegedly, because water balloons are so different from both mesons and planets in terms of size and lifetime (roughly the same number of orders of magnitude), meson particle physicists and planetary scientists are usually evenly matched in water balloon fights. This suggests that deep specialization in a field of study deprives a normal person of their basic aptitude to perform in more 'everyday' activities, but at least it equally disadvantages each of the two teams of researchers and makes for a more satisfyingly [[1819: Sweet 16|competitive match-up]] than with one team clearly far more proficient than the other. By the same logic, one might assume that more generalized physicists might study similar objects with the mass and lifetime of water balloons (if not water balloons themselves!), and other topics of education might also confer an 'advantage' (for example, biologists may study similarly-sized bodies of creatures, whilst chemists may monitor chemical reactions that could take an equivalent time to complete).

In real life, water balloon fights are completely unrelated to particle physics or planetary science, and there's nothing stopping a particle physicist or planetary scientist from ''also'' having experience with water balloons.

The title text continues the joke by stating that "The physics department has recruited an astronomer who studies meteor fireballs". This is likely referring to the fact that [[3049: Incoming Asteroid|meteors are closer in size and lifetime to water balloons]] than either mesons or planets, so having an astronomer with this area of expertise would be advantageous in a water balloon fight against scientists who study either of the latter. While "space rocks" that become meteors may have been around for approximately the age of the solar system (and longer than at least some planets), and may then sit on/beneath the ground for anything up to geologically significant lengths of time, being an actual meteor (and a flaming one, at that) implies we're only considering the period of time the space-rock is traveling through the Earth's atmosphere, specifically ending before it becomes a meteorite. This is a period of time that may be anything from a few seconds (the normal upper limit to the visible 'fireball' stage) to ''possibly'' a minute or two (starting from its first shallow-angle grazing of the atmosphere until it finally lands/burns up/passes back out of the atmosphere). Thus, by one team bringing in a more capable player (especially one arguably more closely aligned to their opponents), they apparently now have an {{wiktionary|ringer#Noun 4|unfair advantage}}.

Extrapolation and interpolation, often absurd, are [[:Category:Extrapolation|recurrent topics]] on xkcd. For example, in [[3050|3050:Atom]], an atom was blown up to the size of a water balloon, with the responsible scientists complaining about it being wet.

==Transcript==
:[Graph with Y axis labeled "Mass" running from 10-30 kg to 1030 kg on a logarithmic scale and X axis labeled "Lifetime", also on a logarithmic scale, running from 10-20 to 1020 seconds.]

:[There are three elliptical blobs on the graph: one on the lower left corner labeled "Mesons", another on the upper right corner labeled "Planets", and another in the middle (1kg mass, 1s lifespan) labeled "Flying water balloons". There are two bidirectional arrows pointing from the center blob to the two other blobs.]

:[To the left of the chart are Cueball and Ponytail. Ponytail is throwing a water balloon, and Cueball is dodging from one. To the right are Megan and Hairy. Megan is preparing to throw a water balloon, and Hairy is slipping in a puddle of water, with a water balloon having landed near his foot with a "Sploosh!".]

:[Caption below the panel:]
:In the annual interdepartmental water balloon fight, meson particle physicists and planetary scientists are usually evenly matched, since they're both equally far outside their areas of expertise.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Line graphs]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]
[[Category:Extrapolation]]
[[Category:Astronomy]]
[[Category:Physics]]
[[Category:Games]]

3043: Muons

2025-01-28T15:16:57Z

141.101.98.241: /* Explanation */ Muons are more than the cosmic ray cascade particles. Tried to make that clear (such cascades may be (mostly?) muons, as we see them, but muons are not *only* in such cascades, just what gets cascaded).

{{comic
| number = 3043
| date = January 27, 2025
| title = Muons
| image = muons_2x.png
| imagesize = 284x388px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Update: I've been banned from the physics department for the way I pronounce "Doppler effect."
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOUN moving at 99.97% of the speed of light resulting in 45x battery life. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

{{w|Muon|Muons}} are elementary sub-atomic particles, often released in {{w|air shower (physics)|air showers}} from high-energy {{w|cosmic ray}} protons causing nuclear decay in our upper atmosphere. These protons come from all over the universe from various interstellar events and have energies in excess of anything our species has created. Some of the muons created in these collisions are deflected away from us and decay quickly in the upper atmosphere. Other muons retain the high energy of the colliding protons effectively and travel so fast that they emit {{w|Cherenkov radiation}} from outpacing photons in air, which is used to visualize air showers with telescopes. Muons usually decay very quickly, but in part because of time dilation these high-energy muons are able to penetrate deep into the earth densely and are also used as a natural radiation source more powerful than x-rays for internal imaging especially of large opaque structures.

{{w|Time dilation}} is the concept from {{w|special relativity}} where faster moving objects travel through time faster than proportional, resulting in an appearance of it slowing down for them to an observer, as well as an ability to cross greater distances. Because the ‘regular speed’ {{w|Muon|muons}} are moving at a relatively normal speed, Cueball pronounces it properly, but because time slows down for the faster moving muons, Cueball adjusts this, and pronounces it much slower, as if he is being slowed down from talking about them.

Cueball is implying that when he says "muons", he is speaking in the same reference frame as them, with time traveling at the same speed for the listener and for the muon. In the same reference frame, muons decay very quickly. He implies that when he says "muuuoooons" very slowly, that he is now speaking in a reference frame where the muons have time dilated relative to the observer and appear to be aging very very slowly. If a relativistic muon were saying its own name, or if Cueball were in the same reference frame as the muon and the observer were not, (and there were a way to transmit sound at relativistic speeds), then the muon might sound like this, stretched out. This is the kind of reference frame in which muons are detected at the surface. We observe them, and we observe that time is passing slower for them than it is for us.

On average, a stationary muon decays after a bit over two microseconds. While moving at 99.97% of the speed of light, their lifespan (from our perspective) stretches to nearly ninety microseconds. If Cueball speaks at four syllables per second (a typical {{w|Speech tempo|speech tempo}} for English), it will take him about half of a second to name the "muons" created in the upper atmosphere; it will take him more than twenty seconds to name the fast-moving "muuuuuoooons."

The title text references the {{w|Doppler effect}}, the change in frequency of a wave when the observer is moving relative to the source. One common example of this is how the sound of a fast car or airplane starts at a high pitched note but then drops to a low droning noise as it passes the observer. By analogy with the time dilation example, Cueball likely imitates this change in pitch whenever pronouncing the phrase "Doppler effect"; as he has been banned for this we must assume that the first syllable or two were pronounced at an obnoxiously high volume and pitch.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[Cueball is standing in front of a whiteboard, which contains a diagram depicting a muon passing through the atmosphere, a distance labeled with a cursive letter, the equation for the Lorentz factor, and some illegible text. He's facing away from the whiteboard and holding a pointer that points towards the diagram.]
:Cueball: ''Muons'' created in the upper atmosphere decay immediately, but fast moving ''muuuuuoooons'' are able to reach the surface due to their longer half-lives.

:[Caption below the panel:]
:Physics tip: Remember to adjust your pronunciations to account for time dilation.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Physics]]
[[Category:Tips]]

Talk:3006: Demons

2025-01-08T12:49:43Z

141.101.98.241: More correct.

Instead of an iron pitchfork, he probably uses a silver hammer! [[Special:Contributions/172.71.26.54|172.71.26.54]] 16:34, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

🤓☝ moment [[User:CalibansCreations|'''Caliban''']] ([[User talk:CalibansCreations|talk]])
20:03, 1 November 2024 (UTC)
:Why are his hands backwards??? What did you do to him?! [[User:Psychoticpotato|P?sych??otic?pot??at???o ]] ([[User talk:Psychoticpotato|talk]]) 21:36, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

Note that while boiling souls in oil or casting them into flame pit is traditional, multiple authors already made the observation that it's not really that effective and that modern devils would likely go for psychological torture instead. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 01:15, 2 November 2024 (UTC)
:That's what I thought... it's a beautiful meta-comment that the comic makes this transition to modern torture coincide with the transition to modern physics, as it is embodied by Maxwell, who explained "large-scale effects" and "distant effects" microscopically resp. infinitesimally. [[User:Transgalactic|Transgalactic]] ([[User talk:Transgalactic|talk]]) 03:06, 2 November 2024 (UTC)
:As discussed in Pratchett's {{w|Eric (novel)|<s>Faust</s> Eric}}, both damned ''and'' demons might actually prefer traditional physical punishment to a more tedious psychological regime. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.36|172.70.162.36]] 03:28, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

The evolution of life (entropy-reversing agents) disproves the second law of thermodynamics, which is rooted in short-term statistics of large systems rather than systems where the duration of time greatly exceeds the number of particles. Maxwell’s Demon could be seen as a simplification of this —- that taking action to counter probability does indeed do so, and is indeed probable eventually. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.3.96|172.68.3.96]] 14:10, 2 November 2024 (UTC)
:Note that life doesn't disprove 2LD at all. The law applies to the whole interacting thermodynamic system, not just the a subset of the system. Life-altered entropy is entirely possible at the 'expense' of a wider rebalancing within 'whole' system. The Earth's biosphere is (mostly) 'fed' by (some of) the heat of the Sun, which in turn is provided by the gradual (but greater) entropy-obeying transition of the star into its various future forms. Life just hitches a ride on this. (It's an interesting question where the 'spare' entropy-change would go if the life wasn't here, actually, except that 2LD doesn't force a given magnitude of change, merely that it not be as if time-reversed.) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.58.5|172.70.58.5]] 16:54, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

Honestly, not necessarily a bad torture method depending on how it was implemented. You start out with people not knowing anything, and wandering around, but then they gradually flow through the door. Meanwhile, on the other side of the door, it slowly becomes more and more crowded as people drift into a limited space. As time goes on it only gets worse as more and more people enter the room and it becomes denser and denser. Eventually, you have everyone is crushed together in what is then basically a box stuffed to the brim with bodies, and even then they know it will only get worse and that had they only stayed outside they would have been fine. Combine this with a large enough group of people and an eternity of time, and it probably would work pretty well. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.22.191|172.68.22.191]] 05:27, 3 November 2024 (UTC)
: It doesn't even need to ever get crowded in the second room. It could be two identical rooms per soul. Just spending eternity in one room, knowing that the only choice you will ever have ''for the rest of eternity'' is to go through that door, and then you will never be able to leave that room or make another decision again. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.198|172.70.90.198]] 19:40, 11 November 2024 (UTC)
: Let's compute the human equivalent temperature...T=mv^2/2/k...something around 10^23 K. Hot as hell :-) [[Special:Contributions/172.69.109.3|172.69.109.3]] 09:35, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

I wonder how they'd get along with daemons from computing. [[User:N-eh|N-eh]] ([[User talk:N-eh|talk]]) 20:25, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

"All of the other demons used to laugh and call him names. They never let poor Maxwell's demon join in any demon games. Then one hot night in Hell, Satan came to say: "Maxwell's demon with your love of violating entropy, won't you cool down hell tonight?" Then all the demons loved him, as they shouted out with glee: "Maxwell the entropy demon, you'll go down in history!" [[Special:Contributions/172.68.55.11|172.68.55.11]] 19:17, 4 November 2024 (UTC)
:Oh, that is '''wonderful'''. Truly a work of art. '''[[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]][[User talk:42.book.addict|Talk to me!]]''' 19:29, 4 November 2024 (UTC)
:: nice new signature! + the phrase "[https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwiw2M-Y4MSJAxWIUKQEHZ2YF2sQwqsBegQIDRAE&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DGutK6q2lgMU&usg=AOvVaw1OkrfCuZiqckImXY2uSC-p&opi=89978449 truly a work of art]" forever haunts me [[User:CalibansCreations|'''Caliban''']] ([[User talk:CalibansCreations|talk]]) 08:33, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

It's worth noting that despite being strongly associated with Christianity in popular culture, the stereotypical portrayal of demons as pitchfork-wielding fiends who "punish evil humans after death" isn't Christian. In Christianity, demons only encourage evil in the living (''a la'' the "demon on the shoulder" archetype and ''The Exorcist''-style possessions.) The "punish evil humans after death" superstition is a holdover from pre-Christian paganism. [[User:The-Daleks|The Daleks]] ([[User talk:The-Daleks|talk]]) 00:11, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

==New category: Infernal Strips==
What do you think about a new Infernal category for strips with demons or in hell? There are quite a few. [[501]], [[533]]... [[Special:Contributions/172.70.47.10|172.70.47.10]] 17:56, 1 November 2024 (UTC)
:I agree. [[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]] ([[User talk:42.book.addict|talk]]) 18:04, 1 November 2024 (UTC)
:: I just tagged a half-dozen strips, but a site admin will have to create the category page itself. It turns out there was some overlap with a "Religion" category, whodathunkit. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.46.243|172.70.46.243]] 19:01, 1 November 2024 (UTC)
:::They were tagged inconsistently (at least two different forms of the category). And as they were all redlinked I undid them all anyway.
:::The proper process is more like:
:::# Say something like ''Hey, I think we need a "Category:<Foo>"'',
:::#* To justify it, identify a handful of comics (or all of them, if you're being thorough). Unless perhaps the comic is called "SOMETHING SOMETHING NUMBER 1" and it very much looks like it's going to be the start of a series, although still might be best to wait for "SOMETHING SOMETHING NUMBER 2".
:::# Get comments (e.g. ''Yes, a good general idea, but it should probably be "Category:<Bar>" to be consistent/accurate/properly-inclusive/etc'') and additions (''Yeah, and comic in #1234 would fit too!'')
:::# When someone who can (e.g. 42, there) decides it's been successfully argued to an agreement (YMMV), they use the final list (and the agreed upon name) to create the category and at least start the process of adding the category memberships.
:::To be honest, though I agree about the relevence of the created [[:Category:Rockets]], as just done, I also think that one was done far too quickly. I'd at least wait a few days after the last "Good idea!", just in case someone who checks in regularly but not frequently (e.g. once a week) has any wise words to add. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.49|162.158.74.49]] 22:14, 1 November 2024 (UTC)
:I agree it would be nice with a list of possible comics, and maybe a better title. Is it to do with demons of hell. Could religion be used, just added that here as the other demons are typical Christian like demons. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 10:44, 2 November 2024 (UTC)
:Names for this category: Category:Demons, Category:Infernal, Category:Hell. Did I miss any? [[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]] ([[User talk:42.book.addict|talk]]) 18:11, 2 November 2024 (UTC)
Me again. Sorry about the IP address. Thanks for the suggestions. Does this wiki maybe have a page where we could discuss projects, or do we have to do all of the discussions in various strip entries? I'd love to have a page about Thought Experiments where we could list the various strips and all of the relevant experiments. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.46.178|172.70.46.178]] 23:08, 2 November 2024 (UTC)
:Yes, there is [[explain xkcd:Community_portal/Proposals]]. Should I move this conversation there? [[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]] ([[User talk:42.book.addict|talk]]) 23:59, 2 November 2024 (UTC)
:Update: I have added Category:Demons. If y’all want a name change, I can move the page once enough support has been shown. [[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]] ([[User talk:42.book.addict|talk]]) 17:59, 4 November 2024 (UTC)
:::Me again. Awesome, thanks! I'm looking through a few of the other category suggestions, It looks like there is also a proposal for a "ghost" sub-category. I guess infernal/demons, celestial/angels, ghosts, and religion could all be subcategories of "supernatural". Are there any other supernatural entities we could include? [[Special:Contributions/172.71.126.94|172.71.126.94]] 14:43, 6 November 2024 (UTC)

==New category: Classical Thought Experiments==
While I'm at it, I'd also suggest a new category for Classical Thought Experiments, everything from Maxwell's Demon to Schroedinger's Cat to the Trolley Problem. Readers may be familiar with some, but not all of the classical references, and it would be nice to have them all accessible from the same page. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.46.243|172.70.46.243]] 19:01, 1 November 2024 (UTC)
:I can see something like this being useful. Not ''entirely'' sure of the name, but maybe, and I'm not sure what a better one would be. (To start off the discussion, as described above.) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.58.21|172.70.58.21]] 22:17, 1 November 2024 (UTC)
:Second that, for whatever it's worth [[User:Yamaplos|Yamaplos]] ([[User talk:Yamaplos|talk]]) 00:54, 3 November 2024 (UTC)
:Third. [[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]] ([[User talk:42.book.addict|talk]]) 01:51, 3 November 2024 (UTC)
:Fourthed [[Special:Contributions/172.69.71.71|172.69.71.71]] 13:14, 4 November 2024 (UTC)
:come on baby, thought experiments category [[User:CalibansCreations|'''Caliban''']] ([[User talk:CalibansCreations|talk]]) 08:57, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

There's some [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demon_(thought_experiment) other demons] made famous by thought experiments. I wonder how Maxwell's Demon would get along with the Evil Demon that tricks people into thinking they're 17th century philosophers. And I'm sure Laplace's Demon already knows how they'd get along. [[User:DanielLC|DanielLC]] ([[User talk:DanielLC|talk]]) 23:36, 1 November 2024 (UTC)
: Ah bother, ninjaed. Laplaces Demon was the first that came to my mind after reading the strip. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.160.115|172.71.160.115]]+
These demons are the nerds of hell [[Special:Contributions/172.69.71.71|172.69.71.71]] 13:14, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

Could this also be a reference to ''No Exit'' by Jean Paul-Sartre?
[[Special:Contributions/162.158.167.191|162.158.167.191]] 22:13, 7 January 2025 (UTC)
:No, I don’t think so. The play {{w|No Exit#Plot|appears}} to be about 3 ''damned'' souls, not 3 demons who are preparing to torture damned souls. '''[[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]][[User talk:42.book.addict|Talk to me!]]''' 22:47, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

3032: Skew-T Log-P

2025-01-03T16:07:09Z

141.101.98.241: /* Table with terms */ Maybe the "heavy"side alludes to heavy iced-up wings? (Paradoically, that is.)

{{comic
| number = 3032
| date = January 1, 2025
| title = Skew-T Log-P
| image = skew_t_log_p_2x.png
| imagesize = 569x626px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = The most important quantity for meteorologists is of course the product of latent pressure and temperostrophic enthalpy, though 'how nice the weather is' is a close second.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a BOT CLEANING UP AFTER DAVE - This needs an explanation. Table not filled out. Also the title text was not mentioned at all. I added a very simple start to this, but nothing about what the product actually means, please expand... Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

{{w|Skew-T log-P diagram}}s are commonly used to plot {{w|atmospheric sounding|atmospheric soundings}} collected by {{w|weather balloon|weather balloons}} or {{w|Constant altitude plan position indicator|other}} [https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/wea.658 methods]. The name comes from the temperature (T) lines being skewed at a 45-degree angle and the pressure (P) lines being logarithmic in scale. Although it ''looks'' very much like a cross-sectional diagram, it shows non-positional information derived from passing (generally) vertically up through the atmosphere from the initial reference location.

Because the diagrams have a lot of lines on them (isobars, isotherms, adiabats, and mixing ratios, and that's before plotting the actual measurements of temperature and dew point temperature), they can be hard to comprehend. The comic pretends to offer an explanation of one such diagram, but most of the explanations are blatantly incorrect or humorous in nature. The diagram appears to have either measurements from two separate weather measurements or the measured temperature and dewpoint from a single balloon, with solid lines for the primary balloon's two streams of data (often disambiguated by the chosen hue of the line) and dashed ones for the secondary set of data (popped balloon(s) falling back down, a separate second survey balloon rising or estimates derived from weather-radar data). See details in the [[#Table with terms|table]] below. Many weather balloons are designed to rupture after reaching a certain height high in the atmosphere.

[[File:Annotated_Skew_T_diagram.png|thumb|An actual Skew-T Log-P diagram, with several real annotations. The X-axis has temperature (blue diagonal lines in diagram) and the Y-axis has pressure in millibars.]]The true design of a Skew-T Log-P diagram is intended to best represent the nature of the weather in any given column of atmosphere. The pressure (vertical axis, with pressure being inversely related to altitude, more or less) is shown as a logarithmic scale (i.e., Log-P) because it makes altitudes nearly evenly spaced. Plotting pressure proportionately (which must also be from top to bottom, to match its general relationship with altitude) would space features out in ways that would be hard to use and interpret, whereas the logarithmic scale is far more pragmatic. The temperature scale is deliberately tilted, rather than orthogonal, which (together with the logarithmic nature of the inverted pressure scale) allows the typical way that temperatures fall with altitude(≈as pressure falls) to trend roughly vertically, give or take the notable changes that are key to understanding the forecast. Other measurement lines, differently skewed and often also curving across the temperature/pressure skewed-log 'grid', represent various other idealistic relationships (where both T and P vary, keeping another measure constant) that are useful references to meteorologists.

Upon this style of graph are plotted the ''actual'' measurements obtained by releasing a weather balloon or through some other sensor. As well as the variation of actual temperatures and pressures, other retrieved and calculated data is plotted, such as the {{w|dew point}}. The dew point, a function of the air's {{w|absolute humidity|water content}}, temperature, and pressure, is where condensation begins. By observing how the actual measurements and dew point line converge and cross, the development and nature of clouds can be tracked and pinned to specific cloud layers. Further details may also be included, such as wind-direction and wind-speed indications (often to the side of the plot) to give a visual cue about possible {{w|wind shear}} and/or to suggest which direction of adjacent weather-station readings may hold clues as to what changes may later blow in above the current site.

In the title text it is stated that "The most important quantity for meteorologists is of course the product of latent pressure and temperostrophic enthalpy, though 'how nice the weather is' is a close second". So it jokes by comparing a non-existent, complicated-sounding product (temperostrophic enthalpy is not actually a thing) with a simple sentence about how nice the weather is.

==Table with terms==
{| class="wikitable"
!Item in comic
!Correct?
!Explanation
|-
| Pressure latitude || No || {{w|Pressure altitude|Pressure ''altitude''}} is the height above a standard datum plane, a theoretical level where the pressure of the atmosphere is 1013.24 millibars (29.921 inHg). It's essentially an estimate of altitude calculated from atmospheric pressure.
|-
| Enthalpic pressure || No || {{w|Enthalpy}} is the total internal energy of a thermodynamic system plus the product of the system's pressure and volume. Essentially, it represents the energy contained in a system, and is independent of the means or sequence of operations that the system went through to achieve its current state.
|-
| Entropic density || No || {{w|Entropy}} is a quantity that shows many physical processes can only go in one chronological direction. An egg can easily be scrambled (increasing its entropy), but it is very difficult to "un-scramble" an egg[[[285: Wikipedian Protester|''citation needed'']]][[Category:Pages using the "citation needed" template]] (which would decrease its entropy). Ordered systems have low entropy, with differences in temperature, pressure, potential energy, or the like. Disordered systems have high entropy, without temperature, pressure, electrical, or other differentials.
|-
| Latent heat of cooling || No || {{w|Latent heat}} is the energy absorbed or released by a system during a '''constant-temperature''' process, like melting, freezing, boiling, or condensing. Cooling is a process of lowering a temperature, and therefore not a constant-temperature process. The humor comes considering the "heat of cooling."
|-
| Isobars || Yes || Lines denoting equal ("{{wiktionary|iso-}}") air pressure ("{{wiktionary|bar-|-bar}}"), probably most often recognized as the indicators of how ground-level pressures change (or not) across the horizontal area depicted on a weather ''map''. In this type of chart, which depicts data obtained from above a single point, it has the same meaning but is instead a pre-existing reference line across which the actual data is plotted, and does not itself indicate the nature of any wind.
|-
| Omnitrophic wind || No || Something "omnitrophic" would apparently be "all-eating", in some scientific sense. An omnitrophic wind would probably be a concerning phenomenon.
Probably a play on something like {{w|geostrophic wind}} ("geo"+"strophic" being from "Earth curving"), a theoretical state of wind that results from an exact balance between the {{w|Coriolis force}} and the {{w|pressure gradient}} force.
|-
| Isomers || No || Different forms of molecules with the same formula, with the atoms or functional groups arranged differently. An example would be propanol, which has three isomers. One of the most common isomers of propanol has its OH functional group in the middle, so is called isopropyl alcohol or isopropanol.
However, these are actually iso'''therm''' lines, representing equal temperature.
|-
| These lines are slightly different because Dave messed them up || No || Indicating isotherms (or, according to the comic, "isomers"), the suggestion is that slightly wrong lines were drawn by Dave and had to be corrected.
The real reason for the not quite identical lines is that the measured temperature at a given pressure can be converted to or from the ''potential'' temperature that the same air would have if at a standard pressure (holding the same amount of heat energy). For practical reasons, both for composing and interpreting the eventual plot, each of the slightly differently skewed isotherms are given, usually in clearly differentiable styles of line.

The "Dave" of the description may be David Bolton, whose 1980 paper introduced a means of calculating the atmosphere's potential temperature<ref>https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/mwre/108/7/1520-0493_1980_108_1046_tcoept_2_0_co_2.xml</ref>.
|-
| Line of constant thermodynamics || No || {{w|Thermodynamics}} is a branch of physics concerned with work, temperature, heat, the way they relate to entropy, energy, enthalpy, and the physical properties of radiation and matter. As a field of study, Thermodynamics does not have '''constant lines,''' except perhaps as a means of describing a consistent avenue of research.
|-
| Uncomfortably moist adiabat || Wrongly placed, unusually qualified|| This labels a segment of isotherm, which is the exact 'opposite' of an adiabat.
An adiabat is a line along which temperature can change for a given mass, without changing the amount of energy. This is primarily made possible by changing the density (by a change in pressure) of the gas. There are typically two types of adiabat, marked for reference on the plot, "dry adiabat" (curves across the isotherms perpendicularly, to create a largely square but slightly curved grid with them), and "moist/saturated adiabat" (the latter's heat-maintaining profile is influenced greatly by the humidity content, and produces graphing lines vastly different from the equivalent "dry" versions). Randall has declared this (erroneous) type of adiabat to be "uncomfortably" moist, so presumably not totally saturated but also not subjectively 'pleasant'.
|-
| Oops, the balloon flew through a ghost || No || Ghosts do not exist.{{cn}} However, one of the purported effects of ghosts (such as in the film *The Sixth Sense*) is a transient/local lowering of temperature around and/or inside them. The line is interpreted as showing a local low temperature encountered at this pressure(/altitude).
This line, however, is probably the dew point line, indicating that in passing through this layer of the atmosphere, a drier band of air was encountered which would theoretically be cooled a lot more before the water-vapor oversaturates it and liquid water droplets form.
|-
| No birds up here :( || Yes* || This point is near the top of the diagram, with an air pressure of about 110 millibar - about 15 kilometers (50,000 feet) above sea level. This is well above the highest [https://peregrinefund.org/explore-raptors-species/vultures/ruppells-vulture flight height of any known bird species]. However, this information is irrelevant to the purpose of a skew-T log-P diagram.
|-
| Track of rising weather balloon || Yes, partially || Although there are other ways of recording these details, this is typically the record of a rising balloon.
However, it would be a track of the balloon through the varying pressures and temperatures that it records (as the second line of this type records the measurements of dew point at each pressure value). Moreover, circumstances that would make the recorded data plot out a neat {{w|figure-eight knot}} (see "Seems bad", below) are very unlikely.
|-
| Track of popped balloon falling back down || Possible, partially || A standard plot track will include two strong lines, as this has, representing not ''two'' balloons but the recorded temperature track ''and'' the dew point track, both against the (altitude surrogate) progressive pressure changes at each pressure-point.
A further pair of tracks as dotted lines could possibly be from a different launch (earlier, later or simultaneous from an adjacent location) as an analytical reference, but ''may'' indeed be the additional results obtained as the scientific package rapidly descends once the balloon pops.
|-
| Meteogenesis || No || The chart purports to show the path of two weather balloons crossing and labels the space between them with a new word. The root "meteo" means something high up (in this case, balloons) and "genesis" means creation. The implication is that a new balloon was created, though no third flight path is shown so it presumably did not fly separately or was not tracked.
In reality, one of the tracks (almost certainly the left one) is the track of the measured dew point. Where the line of the existing conditions cross this line is where the moisture will precipitate out and form clouds, a process that might well be called "{{wiktionary|meteor#English|meteo}}+{{wiktionary|genesis#English|genesis}}", but {{w|Cloud physics|isn't}}.
|-
| Seems bad || Not a common feature || The path of the balloon loops around in the shape of a {{w|figure-eight knot}}, which would indicate very chaotic conditions at that point, if taken as positional informtion
As the actual Skew-T Log-P graph does not record positional information, this is best interpreted as having encountered a fluctuating temperature as the pressure decreases, continuing as something (possibly {{w|Wind shear#Vertical component|vertical wind shear}}, or some form of compression waves, encounter the instruments) creates a temporary increased in external pressure and then circumstances return it to its more typical altitude-induced pressure-drop. Though this is not ''impossible'' to naturally happen, it might even be best interpreted as the instruments being deliberately 'buzzed' by a passing aircraft or rocket, including some intermittent form of thermal backwash as the interfering craft criss-crosses the balloon's physical track in a briefly complex encounter.
 Whatever happened to the temperature/pressure track, it apparently did not significantly change the associated dew-point/pressure track (if the pressure did indeed temporarily rise, the related dew points repeated themselves each time the pressure values were re-encountered).
|-
| Dew point || Wrongly represented || The temperature at which water condenses out of the air, and therefore dew starts to form, given the amount of water vapor in the air. It is shown here as an ''actual'' single point, when it should be a line (typically the leftmost solid plotted line) representing the temperature at which dew should form at any given pressure.
|-
| Humidor || No || In reality, is a {{w|Humidor|container}} that is used maintain a more controllable humidity within which to store smoking products. In the graph, points at the line that is probably representing the dew point, which is represents the ''actual'' humidity encountered.
|-
| Heavyside layer || No || In the metaphysical cosmology of the musical ''Cats'', the Heavyside Layer is a blissful afterlife which all the cats in the musical long for. It is likely included here as a comical misspelling of the {{w|Kennelly-Heaviside layer|(Kennelly-)Heaviside layer}}, also called the E region of the {{w|ionosphere}} that was co-discovered by {{w|Arthur E. Kennelly}} and {{w|Oliver Heaviside}}.
In this diagram it is apparently labeling a heavily marked isotherm, or line of constant temperature - most likely the 0°C line, the freezing point of water that is of great importance to meteorologists, pilots, etc. Passing 'through' this line is a transition between any precipitation tending to be liquid rain and of it being snow/hail-forming, with a few additional caveats, and if the measurement lines ''start'' above-left of this line then any falling (or condensing) water is almost certainly going to appear in one frozen form or other, on top of the important implications of potential ice-formation (affecting ''weight'' and lift dynamics) upon aircraft beyond any given altitude.
|-
| These lines are tilted because the wind is blowing them || No || The wind is not actually a derivable featured of this diagram, which does not have data of either direction or strength of air movement.
These lines are actually dry adiabats (see above), possibly two sets due to a similar renormalized interpretation, as with the isotherms, at a given reference pressure.
|-
| Don't stand here or you might get hit by a balloon || No || On the misguided basis that this is a cross-sectional diagram, this would be the imagined release-point for the balloon(s) involved. And, if you're particularly (un)lucky with the winds, where they eventually fall straight back down to once the balloon has popped.
However, this is a diagram of some measurements ''for'' a location, not directly indicating a range of places you could choose to stand, and the bottom of the lines indicate the conditions ''at'' the release point (and possibly then the point of landing), regardless of where those lines appear to be rooted. To be accurate, the whole width of the the table (and at a 'height' that represents the actual recorded ground-level pressure for that location and time) is where any 'danger' may be, but the person initially releasing the balloon would not normally be too fazed by being struck by a wind-buffetted balloon (if anything, they'd be more concerned at damaging it prior to release). The attached remains of popped balloon that is no longer buoyant wil generally also act as a form of parachute (together with any actual drogue chute) to make any the light (and often well padded) payload descend slowly enough to not be a falling danger.
 Having traveled tens of kilometres up, before gently coming down, the chances of any given balloon landing in any given awkward spot (let alone the point of release) are low. Where possible, the sensor package and the remains of the balloon may be recovered, but the largest danger may instead be the environmental effects of the fragments of burst balloon, scattered to the very winds they were originally measuring.
|-
| Temperostrophic enthalpy (''Title text'') || No || The largely nonsensical first word perhaps could be interpreted as "time-warping", and allude to the varying passage of time experienced by those who do or do not understand these charts, on having to examine them.
|}

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

:How to interpret a skew-T log-P diagram
:[The comic shows a skew-T log-P diagram. On it are various labels, including isobars, comments, and other interpretations of the diagram.]
:[Left to the diagram is an upwards-pointing arrow with the label "Pressure Latitude". Right to the diagram is a downwards-pointing arrow with the label "Entropic Density". Below the diagram is a right-pointing arrow with the label "Enthalpic Pressure".]
:[Two solid and dashed lines extend from the top line to the bottom line of the diagram.]
:[The remaining various labels are inside the diagram.]

:[Labels on the left:]
:[An arrow pointing to a densive dashed segment attaching to one solid line:] Latent heat of cooling
:[A label lying on one horizontal guide:] — Isobars —
:[An arrow pointing to the intersection of one solid and dashed line:] Omnitrophic wind
:[A label lying on one left-downward guide:] Isomers
:[A label lying on one right-downward guide:] Line of constant thermodynamics
:[An arrow pointing to a solid dashed segment on one left-downward guide:] Uncomfortably moist adiabat
:[An arrow pointing to the same solid line as ‘latent heat of cooling’:] Humidor
:[An arrow pointing to a steep peak on the same solid line:] Oops, the balloon flew through a ghost
:[To adjacent arrows pointing to two left-downward guide not perfectly coinciding to each other:] These lines are slightly different because Dave messed them up
:[An arrow pointing to the end of solid and dashed lines on the bottom line:] Don’t stand here or you might get hit by a balloon

:[Labels on the right:]
:[An arrow pointing to the top line:] No birds up here :(
:[An arrow pointing to one solid line generally:] Track of rising weather balloon
:[An arrow pointing to one dashed line generally:] Track of popped balloon falling back down
:[An arrow pointing to crossing of two solid lines, The area enclosed by which is painted black] Meteogenesis
:[An arrow pointing to a knot on one solid line:] Seems bad
:[An arrow pointing to a dot] Dew point
:[An arrow pointing to a highlighted left-downward guide:] Heavyside layer
:[Text written sideways below the line:] These lines are tilted because the wind is blowing them

==Trivia==
*Even though this comic was released on New Year's Day 2025, it was not a [[:Category:New Year|New Year comic]].
**Only second time this has happened since New Year comics became a regular thing from 2011.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Weather]]

3031: Time Capsule Instructions

2024-12-31T15:27:11Z

141.101.98.241: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 3031
| date = December 30, 2024
| title = Time Capsule Instructions
| image = time_capsule_instructions_2x.png
| imagesize = 692x235px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Inside is a third box, labeled DO NOT OPEN UNLESS YOU ARE IN THE TIME ZONE WHERE YOU OPENED BOTH PREVIOUS BOXES.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by an ANNUAL TIME CAPSULE SUBSCRIPTION - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon. Do NOT delete this tag too late either.}}
This [[:Category:New Year|New Year comic]] sees a New Year party held at a location where a {{w|time capsule}} has clearly been buried, as evidenced by a sign marking the spot. It is likely that this was buried some years ago with the intention of being unearthed at the start of 2025, after some significant number of years have passed, rather than for an inderterminate anount of time (such as was the case in [[1617: Time Capsule]]), with the intent to allow people of a then-future time see what those of that era found interesting to preserve and "send" into the future.

Some form of New Year Celebration is happening near to the Time Capsule site, as indicated by the off-panel noises, probably especially convened at the capsule's site in eager anticipation. [[Cueball]] and [[Megan]], who have already said cheers with their wine glasses, look eagerly on when Ponytail opens the time capsule.

Not all such projects are kept conspicuously marked, or may lose their signage due to circumstances unanticipated at the time of the original installation, resulting in a surprise (or accidental) unearthing, while others may still be known for what they are (as with the intended time to stay closed) but need to be relocated/reconcealed due to later redevelopment of the location. (There is generally nothing to prevent premature unearthing and opening, perhaps especially to ensure that the contents are not damaged, but often {{w|Blue Peter#Time capsules|efforts are taken}} to best adhere to the original wishes.) To this end, as might be expected of such a time capsule, the box that [[Ponytail]] digs out is itself marked that it must not be opened until the year 2025 and it seems that (for the comic) this is the case, and at least part of the reason for the gathering.

Within the capsule, however, is a second container (a not untypical precaution), but this one has the instruction to do not open after 2024, which is a far less obvious element for a time capsule (though various supplies, from [[2178: Expiration Date High Score|packaged food]] to [[2297: Use or Discard By|signal flares]], may have a similar requirement). Obeying the instruction for opening the first box has entirely precluded obeying that given as a prerequisite for opening the second... at least without using some form of time-travel. This could be either be a mundane twist of the circumstances (changing reference calendars or time-zones), or else require actual time-travel, but it is unlikely that they have [[1203: Time Machines|any practical solution]] prepared to use to overcome this twist.

The title text alludes to one of the ways one can open the first two boxes without ignoring the instructions: by crossing time zones. When more easterly-referenced locations have become the 1st of January 2025, it will (for a short while) still be the 31st of December 2024 in more westerly ones (the boundaries themselves might be any orientation, not just north-south; the whole concept inverts across the International Date Line, before even considering hour-shift differences), meaning that theoretically someone could open the first box in a time zone where it is 2025 and then quickly travel to one in which it is still 2024 to open the second box. Depending upon where the capsule was located, timely travel opportunities ''may'' be possible, but it seems unlikely to have been something anticipated by the recipients of the task.

However, the title text implies that if you take advantage of this loophole, you will not then be allowed to open a third box inside the second box, as the instructions for ''that'' box requires that you have opened the first two boxes in the same time zone. You must not open the third (and final?) container unless you opened both previous boxes in the same time zone as you are now, which is not compatible with having changed location to get to this point.

===Potential solutions===

Depending on interpretation, you could defeat the third box by placing it inside two time zones at once before opening it, as there is no time limit on the third box. This works if the instruction on the box is read as "unless you are in the time zone where you opened the first box, and you are in the time zone where you opened the second box". However, this new loophole could be patched by interpreting the third box as "unless you are in the ''one'' time zone where...".

How to be considered to be simultaneously covered by two time-zones (in a way that you can [[2846: Daylight Saving Choice|choose which to observe]] is left up to the reader, although another variation of this solution would be to change the calendar used as point of reference, as {{w|Calendar era|many calendars}} use a lower year than the Gregorian calendar, and you could justify changing the date (if not the hour) that you consider true. Or perhaps mix and match calendar traditions that consider a day (and therefore a calendar date) to start only at dawn, rather than at astronomical/geopolitical midnight.

Perhaps the solution would be for both the box and the person opening it to be on the boundary between two time zones, half in each. Or, depending on how one interprets the nature of Daylight Saving Time, there may be another solution. In Australia, {{w|Northern Territory}} and {{w|South Australia}} are in the same time zone (by the most common interpretation of the word) and border each other, but only the latter uses Daylight Saving Time; similarly, {{w|Queensland}} does not use Daylight Saving Time but is in the same time zone (by the most common interpretation of the word) as multiple Australian territories that do use Daylight Saving Time, including {{w|New South Wales}}, with which Queensland shares a border. This suggests the idea of opening the first box in South Australia or New South Wales then taking it north of the (latitudinal) DST boundary without crossing any (longitudinal) time zone boundaries; one will then have up to an hour to open the second box and then as long as one wants to open the third box. However, Randall [[:Category:Daylight saving time|has historically expressed opposition to Daylight Saving Time]], so he might not count the first opening as occurring in 2025 if that year has already started only by virtue of Daylight Saving Time.

Some of the above solutions might only be used if you already knew of the instructions on the boxes, unless it was previously dug into one of the relevant locations (and, depending upon the 'author' of the box-puzzle, this may have also been anticipated and be an intended part of the puzzle). Even getting the second box open following instructions would require it was possible to travel fast enough and far enough to reach a second New Year, which is not easily guaranteeable on the spur of the moment. This is definitely possible if you plan for it, but whether this disinterment party was prepared is unlikely.

Having made the initial two openings in different locations, another possibility is to choose either location (e.g. remain where you were allowed to open the second box) and, with the third box removed/accessible, close the box that is out-of-zone. Creatively interpreting its own probibition as no longer relevant, trivially re-open that box to fulfil the requirements of the third.

In any case it seems more likely that normal people, having taken the initial instruction at its word, you would ignore any new [[2841: Sign Combo|contradictory rules]]. The original rule that the Time Capsule should remain closed until 2025 is the one that makes sense. So after opening the first at the right time, one could just disregard the words on the boxes (or at least Randall's interpretation of them); there is probably not some kind of [[242: The Difference|magical enforcement mechanism]]. Also it seems likely this was just a prank so there will be nothing interesting inside, but one might fear some kind of booby trap, or a [[325: A-Minus-Minus|bobcat]]. So there could be some kind of enforcement mechanism.

Consider when the comic was published, however, well prior to any territory having actually celebrated the arrival of 2025. It is also possible that the depicted party (both diggers-up and associated party-goers) were fully aware of the stipulations they were to be subject to and (at least equally as slyly as the boxes-burier) marked the arrival of 2025 ''early''. Having self-justifying themselves for the opening the outer box, they could then conveniently reconsider themselves to be rightfully still at an occasion back at the end of 2024 and have no further trouble with either of the inner instructions, assuming they opened the next box before the ''official'' arrival of 2025.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball and Megan are clinking wine glasses while Ponytail is digging with a shovel under a sign standing on two legs next to Ponytail. From the off-panel to the left several voices are shouting. On the sign are two large words above two lines of unreadable lines of text.]
:Off-panel voices: <big><big>''Happy New Year!''</big></big>
:Sign: <big>Time</big> Capsule

:[A dirty box with a hasp closing it. There is a label on the lid:]
:Do not open until 2025

:[Cueball and Megan, holding their wine glasses, look over Ponytail's shoulder as she crouches down near the box and opens it with an audible sound. The shovel is standing behind the box, dug into the ground.]
:Click

:[The open box is shown revealing that it contains a second, pristine, box with a similar label:]
:Do not open after 2024

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:New Year]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Time]]

1394: Superm*n

2015-09-30T12:10:21Z

141.101.98.241: /* Explanation */ 7 inches != 188 cm

{{comic
| number = 1394
| date = July 14, 2014
| title = Superm*n
| image = superm_n.png
| titletext = See also: Spider-Man reboot in which he can produce several inches of web, doesn't need as much chalk powder on his hands when he goes rock climbing, and occasionally feels vaguely uneasy about situations.
}}

==Explanation==
By depicting how unimpressive the superhero {{w|Superman}} would be if his increase in powers, when compared to humans, were the same as the moon's increase in apparent size during a {{w|supermoon}}, Randall points that the use of the term supermoon is an exaggeration.

This comic was posted one day after a supermoon, an informal astronomical event where a full moon occurs when it is closest to earth, causing the moon to appear 10% brighter and about 7% larger. This is due to the {{w|apsidal precession}} of moon's {{w|elliptic orbit}} which has an {{w|orbital eccentricity}} of about 0.0549. The conditions for a supermoon happen once every 411 days, and the loose definition of the term means that the supermoon lasts for about two or three full moons.

Returning to the not-so-Superman, the average American adult man is 69 inches tall, with a {{w|standard deviation}} of 2.9 inches. Not-so-Superman, at an assumed 74 inches (188 cm) tall, is within the 94th percentile - certainly a tall man, but by no means phenomenal. Basketball players, for sake of example, range an upwards of 80 inches. "7% stronger" (most likely a reference to how the supermoon is 7% larger) is a bit harder to quantify, but it communicates "not actually impressive" to the reader all the same. For example, if an average man can lift 50 kg, the not-so-Superman would lift 53.5 kg.

The comic's title makes use of an asterisk that is being used as a wildcard. When using search queries an asterisk represents one or more characters. Therefore, Superm*n can represent the strings "Superman" and "Supermoon".

The title text refers makes this same comparison with {{w|Spider-Man}}. Spider man is capable of firing large amounts of webbing, can cling to surfaces with superhuman gripping abilities, and has a sixth sense, "spider sense", that warns him about impending danger. The title text describes trivially minimal versions of these powers, analogous to the trivial size and brightness difference between a "supermoon" and a normal full moon.

Supermoon is also referenced in [[1052: Every Major's Terrible#Verse 3|panel 25]] of [[1052: Every Major's Terrible]].

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is reaching for an item on a high shelf. Superman is rushing towards him.]
:Superman: I'll get it! I'm 5 inches taller and 7% stronger than the average man!
:The new supermoon-inspired Superman reboot

==Trivia==
Supermoon has been mentioned previously in [[1080: Visual Field]] and [[1052: Every Major's Terrible]].
{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]

1516: Win by Induction

2015-04-27T11:35:48Z

141.101.98.241: /* Explanation */ about this parody of implied induction-in-reverse

{{comic
| number = 1516
| date = April 24, 2015
| title = Win by Induction
| image = win by induction.png
| titletext = This would be bad enough, but every 30th or 40th pokéball has TWO of them inside.
}}
==Explanation==
In the {{w|Pokémon}} franchise, human characters called Trainers capture fantastical creatures from the wild, the titular Pokémon (a shortened form of "Pocket Monsters"), and train them to battle one another. Pokémon are captured and stored in devices called Poké Balls, which shrink the creatures down to pocket size (hence "Pocket Monsters"). The anime's dub has enshrined the phrase "''<Pokémon's name>'', I choose you!" into popular culture memory. When Trainers do battle, they often shout this phrase while throwing the ball to the ground, releasing the Pokémon at full size.

In this comic, a Pokémon chosen at some point was a {{w|Pikachu}}, which does not intend to engage in the battle himself. Instead, the Pikachu chooses another Pikachu to fight for him. This process then repeats itself. Behind the Pikachu with the Pokéball is a long line of other Pikachu, suggesting that this process has been going on for a while.

Nearby stands [[Cueball]], holding a closed Pokéball, and [[Megan]], looking at her watch. This suggests that Cueball intends to have his own Pokémon fight the Pikachu, but is waiting to see which enemy his Pokémon must face before the battle can actually begin (waiting in vain, if the above described process repeats indefinitely), while Megan is growing impatient with the delay. Given that Cueball is holding a closed Pokéball he has not deployed yet, Megan cannot herself be his Pokémon. She could be his opponent, or a spectator.

The joke in this comic comes from analogy with the mathematical {{w|proof by induction}}, which is a proof about a base case, followed by a never ending sequence of steps, each step leading to the next. Induction proves an assertion is true for one case, and then infers that it must also be true for all related cases. The title suggests that the process of Pikachu choosing Pikachu will never end, effectively postponing the battle indefinitely. But the title is '''win''' by induction, by which Randall implies that we have been given enough information to reason logically whether Megan or Cueball will win. We have here turned mathematical induction on its head: part of the humour in the comic is that the logic of induction doesn't work in reverse. We cannot reason about an initial case by inferring something from a related case whose proof is dependent on knowledge about the initial case. Or perhaps the "win" referred to is precisely that the battle is indefinitely postponed.

The name "induction" comes from logic and discrete mathematics, and is thus unrelated to the physical phenomena of {{w|electromagnetic induction}}; but the fact that Pikachu is an "Electric-type" Pokémon could be a word play connecting the two ideas.

If there were always only a single Pikachu in each Pokéball, this would spawn an unlimited number of Pikachu growing at a constant rate. Since, as the title text notes, there are occasionally two of them in a Pokéball, this would lead to exponential growth assuming each of the spawned Pikachu in this case is bearing a Pokéball!

Pikachu was used in one of the storylines of [[1350: Lorenz]]. See all the attack moves it made [[1350:_Lorenz#Pok.C3.A9mon|here]].

==Transcript==
:[There's a long queue of Pikachu extending out of the frame to the left. They are all just out from their ball, at least the last eight Pikachu's open balls lie in two parts on the ground at their feet. They are standing in front of Megan and Cueball. Cueball is holding a closed pokéball while Megan checks the time on her watch. The frontmost Pikachu, holding a closed pokéball, speaks.]

:Pikachu at the front: Pikachu, I choose ''you!''

==Trivia==
*For some reason Pikachu is drawn without its lightning shaped tail.
*In Pokémon canon, Pokémon are only allowed to hold on to an ''empty'' Pokéball when stored in a Pokéball.
*In Pokémon canon, only one Pokémon can exist in a pokeball.
*Randall has drawn the pokeballs with the button that opens them in the middle of the red half. Whereas in acutal pokeballs the button is located where the two different halves meet.
*The open pokeballs are shown broken in two. They are normally connected by a hinge. It is an uncommon visualization that the two halves are fully separate.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Math]]
[[Category:Video games]]
[[Category:Pokémon‏‎]]

Talk:713: GeoIP

2015-02-18T12:27:11Z

141.101.98.241:

The title text is more than hyperbole: In the United States, if someone is "living in their mom's basement", it implies they can not or will not get a job allowing them to move out. i.e.: they are a loser. The resultant weak response "Screw you, GeoIP" seems to push that depiction even further. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.56.186|173.245.56.186]] 23:11, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

: I don't get this. The title text goes "Meet hot young singles in your mom's basement today?" Not their. Isn't this another "yo' mama" joke, simply implying that your mama has hot young singles in her basement?[[User:Mumiemonstret|Mumiemonstret]] ([[User talk:Mumiemonstret|talk]]) 08:02, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

:: I think it just means that you can do the same trick on *your* IP, just replacing the string "low earth orbit" with "your mom basement". [[User:MGitsfullofsheep|MGitsfullofsheep]] ([[User talk:MGitsfullofsheep|talk]]) 17:12, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

:: I think this means that your mum is the hot young single in her basement... [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.241|141.101.98.241]] 12:27, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

1478: P-Values

2015-01-27T09:18:51Z

141.101.98.241: /* Explanation */ typo?

{{comic
| number = 1478
| date = January 26, 2015
| title = P-Values
| image = p_values.png
| titletext = If all else fails, use "significant at a p>0.05 level" and hope no one notices.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Needs work to improve readability for non-statisticians.}}

This comic plays on how the significance of scientific experiments is measured and interpreted. The {{w|P-value|p-value}} is a statistical measure of how well the results of an experiment fit with the results predicted by the hypothesis. In lay terms, ''p'' is the probability that random chance can explain the results, without the experimental prediction. When low ''p''-values occur, the results appear to reject the {{w|null hypothesis}}, whereas high ''p''-values suggest no relation between the hypothesis and the real world.

Appropriate {{w|Design of experiments|experimental design}} generally requires that the significance threshold (usually 0.05) be set prior the experiment, not allowing ex-post changes in order to get a better experiment report. A simple change of this threshold (e.g. from 0.05 to 0.1) can change the experiment result with ''p''-value=0.06 from "barely significant" to "significant".

The highest ''p''-value at which most studies typically draw significance is ''p''<0.05, which is why all ''p''-values in the comic below that number are marked at least significant. 0.050 is labeled "Oh crap. Redo calculations," because the ''p''-value is very close to being considered significant, but isn't. Redoing the calculations may result in a different answer, but it is not guaranteed that it will be lower than 0.050. Values that are higher than 0.050 and lower than 0.1 are considered to be suggesting significance without actually supporting it, which will likely support additional trials.

Values higher than 0.1 should be considered not significant at all, however the comic suggests taking a part of the sample (a "subgroup") and analyzing that subgroup without regard to the rest of the sample. For example, in a study trying to prove that people always sneeze when walking by a particular street lamp, someone would record the number of people who pass the lamp and the number of people who sneeze. If the results don't get the desired ''p''<0.1, then pick a subgroup (e.g. OK, not all people sneeze, but look! women sneeze more than men, so let's analyze only women). Of course, this is not accepted scientific procedure as it's very likely to add sampling bias to the result. This is an example of the {{w|Multiple comparisons problem|multiple comparisons problem}}.

If the results cannot be normally considered significant, the title text suggests inverting p<0.050, making it p>0.050. This may fool casual readers, as the change is only to the inequality sign, which may go unnoticed or be dismissed as a typographical error ("no-one would claim their results aren't significant, they must mean p<0.050").

==Transcript==
:[A two columns T-table where the interpretation column selects various areas of the first column using square brackets.]

:{| class="wikitable alternance"
! P-value
! Interpretation
|-
| 0.001
| rowspan="4"| Highly significant
|-
| 0.01
|-
| 0.02
|-
| 0.03
|-
| 0.04
| rowspan="2"| Significant
|-
| 0.049
|-
| 0.050
| Oh crap. Redo calculations.
|-
| 0.051
| rowspan="2"| On the edge of significance
|-
| 0.06
|-
| 0.07
| rowspan="4"| Highly suggestive, relevant at the p<0.10 level
|-
| 0.08
|-
| 0.09
|-
| 0.099
|-
| ≥0.1
| Hey, look at this interesting subgroup analysis
|}

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Statistics]]

504: Legal Hacks

2014-12-01T09:25:50Z

141.101.98.241: /* Explanation */ tighten

{{comic
| number = 504
| date = November 14, 2008
| title = Legal Hacks
| image = legal_hacks.png
| titletext = It's totally a reasonable modern analogue. Jefferson would have been all about crypto.
}}

==Explanation==
[[Megan]] notices that an {{w|Internet Service Provider}} (ISP) is blocking access to some webpages. [[Cueball]] is thankful that cryptology offers a way around such censorship. Encryption, sometimes called "cryptography," or "crypto" for short, is the art of transmitting messages that can only be read by the intended receiver(s) by using mathematical techniques to systematically re-arrange the data in the message. For example, if each letter of the alphabet has a number assigned to it (A = 1, B = 2, C = 3), and so on, and the person receiving your message already knows a nice long, hard-to-guess number (say, the exact latitude-and-longitude coordinates of the treehouse you used to play in as kids), then you can 'rotate' or 'shuffle' each of the letters in your message by the digits of your hard-to-guess number so that only someone who knows that number will be able to decode the message.

One popular and effective way to encrypt messages is called {{w|RSA_(algorithm)|"RSA,"}} after the last initials of the three cryptographers who invented it. The RSA technique relies on the fact that it is much easier to multiply two medium-sized numbers together than it is to factor a large number back into two medium numbers. For example, given the numbers 13 and 17, most middle schoolers can figure out that 13 * 17 = 221, but given only the number 253, it is much harder to figure out what numbers can be multiplied together to arrive there. This principle holds (and intensifies) as numbers get larger, so that a number with 600 digits (or a phrase with 400 letters) can be used to make a code virtually unbreakable with present technology.

Being able to share unbreakable codes and decrypt other people's codes gives countries a military advantage - for example, in World War II, the Americans and British were often able to figure out where a German attack would be coming and send reinforcements there, because they had cracked the German codes. Because of this, the United States government initially tried to keep the mathematical details of the RSA technique inside the country by classifying the techniques as a weapon. It is a crime to share certain kinds of weapons technology with other countries without permission. Amateur and professional cryptographers, angry about the attempt to restrict their work, lobbied the government to change the rule and stop treating cryptography as a weapon, in part so that they could continue to collaborate with colleagues overseas, and in part because they wanted the ability to pass secret messages that the government could not easily decrypt.

In the comic, [[Megan]] makes the provocative and counter-intuitive point that perhaps the cryptographic community could have best ensured easy access to the RSA technique by *allowing* the government to treat RSA as a weapon, and then, once everyone is certain that RSA is a weapon, invoking the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution, which says that "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." In other words, if RSA were a weapon, perhaps the government would be powerless to stop ordinary people from 'bearing,' i.e., obtaining and using, that weapon.

[[Cueball]] is surprised and impressed by this point, and pauses to contemplate Megan's strategy.

The title text claims that this is a reasonable interpretation of the Constitution, because cryptography (a modern weapon) is analogous to muskets and cannons (the weaponry in use in the 1780s, when the Second Amendment was drafted). As evidence for the analogy, the title text points out that Jefferson would have been a big fan of cryptography, which is plausible, because President Thomas Jefferson (the 3rd President of the United States) was an amateur scientist who enjoyed studying a very wide variety of fields (in fact, he invented the {{w|Jefferson_disk|Jefferson disk}} , an encryption device that was quite advanced for its time). The point is somewhat facetious, because it is hard to imagine a modern technique that Jefferson would *not* "be totally into." Also, the mere assertion that an early President would have been a fan of a technique is not very good evidence that the technique would be legally permitted by a particular Amendment.

==Transcript==
:[Megan sits at her computer, Cueball standing behind her.]
:Megan: Another ISP's filtering content.
:Cueball: Thank God for Crypto.

:[Cueball stands alone; Megan is presumably off-panel left.]
:Cueball: It wasn't that long ago that RSA was illegal to export. Classified a munition.

:[Megan, sitting in her chair, is looking back towards Cueball, presumably off-panel right.]
:Megan: You know, I think the crypto community took the wrong side in that fight. We should've lobbied to keep it counted as a weapon.
:Cueball: Why?

:[She is now turned around in the chair looking at Cueball, who is in-panel again.]
:Megan: Once they get complacent, we break out the second amendment.
:[Cueball has his hand on his chin, contemplatively.]
:Cueball: ...Damn.

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

1442: Chemistry

2014-11-10T16:01:22Z

141.101.98.241: /* Explanation */ I think that sentence is wrong

{{comic
| number = 1442
| date = November 3, 2014
| title = Chemistry
| image = chemistry.png
| titletext = These are all sans-serif compounds. Serif compounds are dramatically different and usually much more reactive.
}}

==Explanation==
Chemical bonding is a well-known subject which explains the formation of {{w|molecule}}s from {{w|atom}}s. This comic refers to three {{w|chemical element}}s: carbon (C), hydrogen (H), and oxygen (O). In real chemistry, the formation of bonds between atoms depends on the number of valence electrons each atom has, and how accessible those electrons are for bonding. The comic jokingly replaces valence electron theory with a theory that the number of bonds an atom can form depends on the number of {{w|Leaf vertex|leaf vertices}} possessed by the chemical symbol's letter. A leaf vertex is a vertex having only one edge connecting to one other vertex. "H" for example, the chemical symbol of hydrogen, has 4 leaf vertices. This is shown in the comic by the four half-circles placed at each leaf vertex of the "H". Thus, in the comic's theory, elemental hydrogen can form 4 bonds. Oxygen, however, having the chemical symbol "O", has no leaf vertices, and according to the comic's theory should not bond to anything, and is therefore inert.

Of course, the theory is completely inconsistent with observed chemistry. While the comic declares oxygen is inert and forms no bonds, this is not really the case: the two unpaired valence electrons in a lone oxygen atom makes oxygen reactive, and oxygen readily form molecules. Diatomic oxygen, O2, makes up about 20.9% of Earth's atmosphere, and is essential for aerobic life, including human life. Similarly, a water molecule consists of an oxygen atom tightly bonded to two hydrogen atoms.

By observing real chemical compounds, chemists have deduced that hydrogen atoms really have 1 valence electron, carbon 4 and oxygen 6, allowing hydrogen to have up to 1 bond, carbon up to 4, and oxygen up to 2. Thus carbon can have up to four bonds, and really is {{w|graphite|often found}} in {{w|diamond|crystalline form}} in nature (diamonds and coal are {{w|allotropy|allotropes}} of carbon); oxygen can have up to 2 bonds, and can combine with carbon to form CO2 (instead of C2H in the comic). [[Randall]] thus gives to "typographic" hydrogen qualities that belong in real-life to carbon, since "typographic" hydrogen can have 4 bonds. Similarly, "typographic" carbon is ascribed properties belonging to real-life oxygen. "Typographic" oxygen takes on the properties of the real-life noble gases (like helium, neon, and argon), which form no bonds and are inert.

While the {{w|ethynyl radical}}, which has the structure ∙C≡C-H, does have the formula C2H, there is no molecule with the C-H-C structure in nature. The word "mydrane" is a whimsical neologism for this fictional substance: the "hydr-" prefix for hydrogen is changed to "mydr-" (a prefix which does not exist) and combined to the "-ane" suffix for {{w|alkane}}s (simple hydrocarbon molecules). Perhaps Randall named this compound "Mydrane" to declare ownership of it ("My-" as in "mine").

The title text points out that the theory as presented only applies to sans-serif text. A {{w|serif}} is a small line across the end of each stroke. "H", for instance, has four serifs, each with two leaf vertices. Thus hydrogen in a serif font would be able to form 8 bonds making it, according to the comic's theory, "more reactive".

==Transcript==
:[The symbol for Hydrogen.]
:Hydrogen can form four bonds. It readily bonds with itself, and often exists as a crystal.
:[A diagram with several 'H's is shown. The 'H's are connected in a pattern like a crystal.]
:Crystalline Hydrogen

:[The symbol for Carbon.]
:Carbon can only form two bonds. It readily bonds with Hydrogen to form C2H (Mydrane) or itself.
:[Two diagrams, one with two 'C's connected together and the other with two 'C's and one 'H' connected.]

:[The symbol for Oxygen.]
:Oxygen is inert, forming no bonds...
:[A diagram of several 'O's is shown. None are connected to anything.]
:Monoatomic Oxygen gas.

:Typographic Chemistry

{{comic discussion}}

1442: Chemistry

2014-11-10T15:45:21Z

141.101.98.241: element names are not proper nouns; avoiding some redundancy

{{comic
| number = 1442
| date = November 3, 2014
| title = Chemistry
| image = chemistry.png
| titletext = These are all sans-serif compounds. Serif compounds are dramatically different and usually much more reactive.
}}

==Explanation==
Chemical bonding is a well-known subject which explains the formation of {{w|molecule}}s from {{w|atom}}s. This comic refers to three {{w|chemical element}}s: carbon (C), hydrogen (H), and oxygen (O). In real chemistry, the formation of bonds between atoms depends on the number of valence electrons each atom has, and how accessible those electrons are for bonding. The comic jokingly replaces valence electron theory with a theory that the number of bonds an atom can form depends on the number of {{w|Leaf vertex|leaf vertices}} possessed by the chemical symbol's letter. A leaf vertex is a vertex having only one edge connecting to one other vertex. "H" for example, the chemical symbol of hydrogen, has 4 leaf vertices. This is shown in the comic by the four half-circles placed at each leaf vertex of the "H". Thus, in the comic's theory, elemental hydrogen can form 4 bonds. Oxygen, however, having the chemical symbol "O", has no leaf vertices, and according to the comic's theory should not bond to anything, and is therefore inert.

Of course, the theory is completely inconsistent with observed chemistry. While the comic declares oxygen is inert and forms no bonds, this is not really the case: the two unpaired valence electrons in a lone oxygen atom makes oxygen reactive, and oxygen readily form molecules. Diatomic oxygen, O2, makes up about 20.9% of Earth's atmosphere, and is essential for aerobic life, including human life. Similarly, a water molecule consists of an oxygen atom tightly bonded to two hydrogen atoms.

By observing real chemical compounds, chemists have deduced that hydrogen atoms really have 1 valence electron, carbon 4 and oxygen 6, allowing hydrogen to have up to 1 bond, carbon up to 4, and oxygen up to 2. Thus carbon can have up to four bonds, and really is {{w|graphite|often found}} in {{w|diamond|crystalline form}} in nature (diamonds and coal are {{w|allotropy|allotropes}} of carbon); oxygen can have up to 2 bonds, and can combine with carbon to form CO2 (instead of C2H in the comic). [[Randall]] thus gives to "typographic" hydrogen qualities that belong in real-life to carbon, since "typographic" hydrogen can have 4 bonds. Similarly, "typographic" carbon is ascribed properties belonging to real-life oxygen. "Typographic" oxygen takes on the properties of the real-life noble gases (like helium, neon, and argon), which form no bonds and are inert.

While the {{w|ethynyl radical}}, which has the structure ∙C≡C-H, does have the formula C2H, there is no molecule with the C-H-C structure in nature. The word "mydrane" is a whimsical neologism for this fictional substance: the "hydr-" prefix for hydrogen is changed to "mydr-" (a prefix which does not exist) and combined to the "-ane" suffix for {{w|alkane}}s (simple hydrocarbon molecules). Perhaps Randall named this compound "Mydrane" to declare ownership of it ("My-" as in "mine").

The title text points out that the theory as presented only applies to sans-serif text. A {{w|serif}} is a small line across the end of each stroke. "H", for instance, has four serifs, each with two leaf vertices. Thus hydrogen in a serif font would be able to form 8 bonds making it, according to the comic's theory, "more reactive". This would be the case with real atoms that have fewer than four valence electrons, as they would have more space for bonds to other atoms.

==Transcript==
:[The symbol for Hydrogen.]
:Hydrogen can form four bonds. It readily bonds with itself, and often exists as a crystal.
:[A diagram with several 'H's is shown. The 'H's are connected in a pattern like a crystal.]
:Crystalline Hydrogen

:[The symbol for Carbon.]
:Carbon can only form two bonds. It readily bonds with Hydrogen to form C2H (Mydrane) or itself.
:[Two diagrams, one with two 'C's connected together and the other with two 'C's and one 'H' connected.]

:[The symbol for Oxygen.]
:Oxygen is inert, forming no bonds...
:[A diagram of several 'O's is shown. None are connected to anything.]
:Monoatomic Oxygen gas.

:Typographic Chemistry

{{comic discussion}}

1443: Language Nerd

2014-11-10T15:21:25Z

141.101.98.241: /* Explanation */ add

{{comic
| number = 1443
| date = November 5, 2014
| title = Language Nerd
| image = language_nerd.png
| titletext = Not to go all sentence fragment on you.
}}

==Explanation==
{{w|Part of speech|Parts of speech}} can be treated fluidly, in English and other languages. For example, "medalled" has been coined as a word meaning "gained a medal" in a sporting competition, implying the existence of the verb "to medal" meaning "to win a medal". [[Megan]], in conversation with [[Cueball]], similarly creates new meanings from existing words: firstly, she uses the {{w|adjective}} "legit" (a slang abbreviation of "legitimate") as an {{w|adverb}} to mean "legitimately"; secondly, she uses the {{w|noun}} "adverb" as a verb meaning "to turn a non-adverb into an adverb"; and thirdly, she uses the {{w|noun phrase}} "language nerd" as an adjective. All three are used in the past tense.

Megan uses the words "adverbed", "verbed" and "adjectived" without any comment, implying that the acts of "verbing" the nouns "adverb", "verb" and "adjective" are so natural and long-established that they are unremarkable, even if grammatical purists might decry such usage. An example of a change of parts of speech that is widely accepted is the {{w|gerund}}, which is nothing more than the use of a verb or verb-phrase as a noun (for instance, "I enjoy '''reading'''," and "the best thing for your health is '''not smoking'''").

Added humor is gained by the self-referential nature of Megan's sentence. She uses fluid parts of speech, and also refers to that very same use, in one sentence.

The title text, "Not to go all sentence fragment on you," is an implicitly self-referential sentence fragment, containing neither an explicit subject nor a predicate. It can be converted into a full sentence by rephrasing it something like, "I do not mean to go all sentence fragment on you, but..." It is also funnier because, as well as being ''self''-referential, it also refers to the main comic by adjectiving the noun-phrase "sentence fragment".

==Transcript==
:Megan: I don't mean to go all language nerd on you, but I just legit adverbed "legit", verbed "adverb", and adjectived "language nerd".

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

1444: Cloud

2014-11-10T14:36:53Z

141.101.98.241: avoiding repetition

{{comic
| number = 1444
| date = November 7, 2014
| title = Cloud
| image = cloud.png
| titletext = Cloud computing has a ways to go.
}}

==Explanation==
[[Cueball]] and [[Megan]] are lying outside on the grass and looking up at the clouds. Cueball asks Megan what she thinks a particular cloud looks like, following the common human activity of {{w|Pareidolia}}, or spotting apparent patterns where there are none (particularly in clouds).

Rather than responding with her own interpretation, Megan takes a picture of the cloud with her phone, and uses Google's [http://www.google.com/insidesearch/features/images/searchbyimage.html Search by Image] feature. In this feature, the user uploads an image rather than providing a keyword to search on, and is presented with suggestions about the subject of the original image. Google's search results reveal that the image Megan uploaded is most probably a photograph of a cloud. While indisputable, this does not address the fanciful dimension of Cueball's original question, and highlights the continuing limitations of {{w|artificial intelligence}} with respect to human imagination.

Google image search works by creating a mathematical model of the shapes and colors in the uploaded image, and matching this against images already in its index. Web page analysis then allows Google to guess at what the image is, based on the content of the pages where the matching images were found. Although apparently unimaginative, even humorously so, Google image search does recognize that the subject of Megan's photograph is a cloud, which is an achievement that has so far eluded programmers. This was the subject of [[1425: Tasks]].

If the term "cloud computing" is taken entirely literally, and purely in the context of this comic, then the title text merely comments that the processing of an image of a cloud for queries is not at an advanced state yet. It is really, however, a pun on {{w|cloud computing}}, which is a trendy term for the modern tendency of providing massive amounts of digital storage and distributed computing power over the Internet. In this context, the term "cloud" is a metaphor for the way the details of where or how the storage or processing is done are obscured from the user, as if it all takes place inside a cloud. In 2014, cloud computing ''as a commonly accessible service'' really is in its relative infancy, being a 21st-century phenomenon, although the concept goes back decades. {{w|Java (programming language)|Java}} was originally marketed in the 1990s by Sun Microsystems with the slogan "the network is the computer", and the mantra of technologies for distributed computing such as {{w|Common Object Request Broker Architecture|CORBA}}, {{w|Enterprise JavaBeans|EJB}} and {{w|SOAP}} was "data first" and "the computer is the network".<ref>http://rtcgroup.com/whitepapers/files/RTI_DataOrientedArchitecture_WhitePaper.pdf</ref>

In a way, every conceivable sense of the term cloud computing is utilized in Google's image search for Megan's cloud image. Cloud computing is also referenced in [[908: The Cloud]] and [[1117: My Sky]].

<references />

==Transcript==
:[Cueball and Megan are lying outside on their backs]
:Cueball: What do you think that cloud looks like?

:[Megan takes a photo of the cloud with her smart phone]
:Snap

:[Cueball sits up and looks at Megan. Megan uses her phone.]
:Google -> Search by image
::[Uploading...]

:[In the last frame she gets a response from Google]:
:Google: Best guess for this image: '''Cloud'''
:Cueball: Keep trying, Google.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Google Search]]

1444: Cloud

2014-11-10T14:34:18Z

141.101.98.241: /* Explanation */ add a bit

{{comic
| number = 1444
| date = November 7, 2014
| title = Cloud
| image = cloud.png
| titletext = Cloud computing has a ways to go.
}}

==Explanation==
[[Cueball]] and [[Megan]] are lying outside on the grass and looking up at the clouds. Cueball asks Megan what she thinks a particular cloud looks like, following the common human activity of {{w|Pareidolia}}, or spotting apparent patterns where there are none (particularly in clouds).

Rather than responding with her own interpretation, Megan takes a picture of the cloud with her phone, and uses Google's [http://www.google.com/insidesearch/features/images/searchbyimage.html Search by Image] feature. In this feature, the user uploads an image rather than providing a keyword to search on, and is presented with suggestions about the subject of the original image. Google's search results reveal that the image Megan uploaded is most probably a photograph of a cloud. While indisputable, this does not address the fanciful dimension of Cueball's original question, and highlights the continuing limitations of {{w|artificial intelligence}} with respect to human imagination.

Google image search works by creating a mathematical model of the shapes and colors in the uploaded image, and matching this against images already in its index. Web page analysis then allows Google to guess at what the image is, based on the content of the pages where the matching images were found. Although apparently unimaginative, even humorously so, Google image search does recognize that the subject of Megan's photograph is a cloud, which is an achievement that has so far eluded programmers. This was the subject of [[1425: Tasks]].

If the term "cloud computing" is taken entirely literally, and purely in the context of this comic, then the title text merely comments that the processing of an image of a cloud for queries is not at an advanced state yet. It is really, however, a pun on {{w|cloud computing}}, which is a trendy term for the modern tendency of providing massive amounts of digital storage and distributed computing power over the Internet. In this context, the term "cloud" is a metaphor for the way the details of where or how the storage or processing is done are obscured from the user, as if it all takes place inside a cloud. In 2014, cloud computing ''as a commonly accessible service'' really is in its relative infancy, being a 21st-century phenomenon, although the concept goes back decades. {{w|Java (programming language)|Java}} was originally marketed in the 1990s by Sun Microsystems with the slogan "the network is the computer", and the mantra of technologies for distributed computing such as {{w|Common Object Request Broker Architecture|CORBA}}, {{w|Enterprise JavaBeans|EJB}} and {{w|SOAP}} was "data first" and "the computer is the network".<ref>http://rtcgroup.com/whitepapers/files/RTI_DataOrientedArchitecture_WhitePaper.pdf</ref>

In a sense every conceivable sense of the term cloud computing is utilized in Google's image search for Megan's cloud image. Cloud computing is also referenced in [[908: The Cloud]] and [[1117: My Sky]].

<references />

==Transcript==
:[Cueball and Megan are lying outside on their backs]
:Cueball: What do you think that cloud looks like?

:[Megan takes a photo of the cloud with her smart phone]
:Snap

:[Cueball sits up and looks at Megan. Megan uses her phone.]
:Google -> Search by image
::[Uploading...]

:[In the last frame she gets a response from Google]:
:Google: Best guess for this image: '''Cloud'''
:Cueball: Keep trying, Google.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Google Search]]

1445: Efficiency

2014-11-10T13:26:39Z

141.101.98.241: /* Explanation */ add - why is it funny? perhaps Randall missed a deadline?

{{comic
| number = 1445
| date = November 10, 2014
| title = Efficiency
| image = efficiency.png
| titletext = I need an extension for my research project because I spent all month trying to figure out whether learning Dvorak would help me type it faster.
}}

==Explanation==
There are often multiple ways in which to deal with a problem or task. There may be a ''most efficient'' method, though sometimes the differences in efficiency between methods is only slight. People often try to save unnecessary work by first determining which is the "best" method - either the easiest or the most efficient. This can be a good approach, particularly where the savings prove to be significant. But it can also prove to be more time-consuming than just doing the task using one of the most obvious methods. The comic humorously exaggerates this. In the title text, [[Randall]] says this is why ''he'' is so inefficient - although the effect of this statement is also humorous, because Randall, who is obviously thoughtful, intelligent and reflective, probably isn't often terribly inefficient. The implication here is, perhaps, that Randall is commenting on a recent incident where he delayed a task because he was distracted into working out how best to do it. Perhaps he is even making an excuse for having missed a deadline.

The title text refers to the {{w|Dvorak_Simplified_Keyboard|Dvorak}} keyboard layout, an alternative to the almost universally accepted {{w|QWERTY}} layout. Some believe the Dvorak keyboard offers greater typing efficiency. Efficiency of the Dvorak keyboard layout was mentioned in [[561: Well]].

Another comic about spending too many resources on decisions that ultimately might not matter is [[309: Shopping Teams]]. Other comics that address similarly wasted time due to bad time management are [[1205: Is It Worth the Time?]] and [[1319: Automation]].

==Transcript==
:[A graph titled Time Cost]
:Strategy A
:[Short line beside A]
:Strategy B
:[Slightly longer line beside B]
:Analyzing whether strategy A or B is more efficient
:[A much longer line next to this, about 10 times the length of B]
:The reason I am so inefficient
{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Charts]]

1442: Chemistry

2014-11-03T14:42:15Z

141.101.98.241: /* Explanation */ tighten it up a bit

{{comic
| number = 1442
| date = November 3, 2014
| title = Chemistry
| image = chemistry.png
| titletext = These are all sans-serif compounds. Serif compounds are dramatically different and usually much more reactive.
}}

==Explanation==
{{Incomplete|Rough draft. Need to explain why Hydrogen forms a crystal structure, the origin of "Mydrane", and title text, along with general improvements and proof reading.}}
Chemical bonding is a well-known subject which explains the formation of {{w|molecule}}s from {{w|atom}}s. This comic refers to three {{w|chemical element}}s: Carbon (C), Hydrogen (H), and Oxygen (O). In real chemistry, the formation of bonds between atoms depends on the number of valence electrons each atom has, and how accessible those electrons are for bonding. The comic jokingly replaces valence electron theory with a theory that the number of bonds an atom can form depends on the number of {{w|Leaf vertex|leaf vertices}} possessed by the chemical symbol's letter. A leaf vertex is a vertex having only one edge connecting to one other vertex. "H" for example, the chemical symbol of Hydrogen, has 4 leaf vertices. This is shown in the comic by the four half-circles placed at each leaf vertex of the "H". Thus, in the comic's theory, elemental hydrogen can form 4 bonds. Oxygen, however, having the chemical symbol "O", has no leaf vertices, and according to the comic's theory should not bond to anything, and is therefore inert.

The title text points out that the theory as presented only applies to sans-serif text. A {{w|serif}} is a small line across the end of each stroke. "H", for instance, would have four serifs, each with two leaf vertices. Thus hydrogen in a serif font would be able to form 8 bonds making it, according to the comic's theory, "more reactive".

Of course, the theory is completely inconsistent with observed chemistry. By observing real chemical compounds, chemists have deduced that hydrogen atoms really have 1 valence electron, carbon 4 and oxygen 2. While the comic declares oxygen is inert and forms no bonds, this is not really the case: the two unpaired valence electrons in a lone oxygen atom makes oxygen reactive, and oxygen readily form molecules. Diatomic oxygen, O2, makes up about 20.9% of Earth's atmosphere, and is essential for aerobic life, including human life. Similarly, a water molecule consists of an oxygen atom tightly bonded to two hydrogen atoms.

There is an element in real life analogous to the comic's "hydrogen" - carbon atoms have four valence electrons, and can thus form lattices with other carbon atoms. Diamond consists of pure carbon in which each atom forms four tetrahedral bonds with its neighboring carbon atoms. Graphite is another form of solid carbon where the bond configuration is different. Oxygen atoms in reality have two valence electrons, and thus can form a bond to each of two hydrogen atoms to form water (H2O); alternatively two oxygen atoms can each share both their valence electrons with a carbon atom to create two "double" bonds in carbon dioxide (CO2). There are also real elements analogous to the comic's "O": atoms of the inert gas elements (sometimes called "noble gases") such as helium have no valence electrons.

==Transcript==
[The symbol for Hydrogen is shown.]

Hydrogen can form four bonds. It readily bonds with itself, and often exists as a crystal.

[A diagram with several 'H's is shown. The 'H's are connected in a pattern.]

Crystalline Hydrogen

[The symbol for Carbon is shown.]

Carbon can only form two bonds. It readily bonds with Hydrogen to form C2H (Mydrane) or itself.

[Two diagrams, one with two 'C's connected and one with two 'C's and an 'H' connected are shown.]

[The symbol for Oxygen is shown.]

Oxygen is inert, forming no bonds...

[A diagram of several 'O's is shown. None are connected to anything.]

Monoatomic Oxygen gas.

Typographic Chemistry

{{comic discussion}}

1437: Higgs Boson

2014-10-22T11:30:51Z

141.101.98.241: /* Explanation */ extend

{{comic
| number = 1437
| date = October 22, 2014
| title = Higgs Boson
| image = higgs_boson.png
| titletext = 'Can't you just use the LHC you already built to find it again?' 'We MAY have disassembled it to build a death ray.' 'Just one, though.' 'Nothing you should worry about.' 'The death isn't even very serious.'
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|More detailed explanation required}}
Cueball and Ponytail claim that they have "lost" the Higgs boson. They are therefore applying for further grant money to find it again. This is a humorous play on the term "finding" when applied to fundamental particles. The common usage means to discover or observe the existence of a class of particles, rather than to play 'hide and seek' with an individual particle.

''The Higgs boson'' is an {{w|elementary particle}} that is predicted by a physical model of the universe (the '{{w|Standard Model}}'). Observing evidence that Higgs bosons really exist is a key test of this model: if a search for the Higgs boson had failed to find evidence confirming its existence then the Standard Model would have been shown to be an incorrect description of reality. Finding the Higgs boson was one of the main reasons why the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) was built: to create energies high enough for the Higgs boson to become manifest. The point is, once evidence for its existence has been observed it is not possible to 'lose' the Higgs boson in a way implied by Cueball and Ponytail.

In the title text, the off-screen questioner wonders why Cueball and Ponytail can't use the LHC to find the particle again. The implication is that this would avoid spending another $3 billion. Their responses imply that the pair have already dismantled the LHC and converted its components into a death ray. The ostensibly reassuring platitudes offered mimic those used to placate those who were worried about possible apocalyptic consequences of commissioning the LHC, for instance the creation of black holes, strange matter, a vacuum bubble or proton-eating magnetic monopoles.

==Transcript==
Voice Offscreen: Tell us about your proposal. 
Ponytail: We're requesting $3 billion in funding to find the Higgs boson.

Voice Offscreen: ...wait. Didn't you already find it a year or two ago? 
Cueball: Yes, well, um.

Ponytail: ...OK, this is embarrassing. 
Cueball: See, the thing is —

Voice Offscreen: Don't tell us you lost it already. 
Ponytail: Look. 
Ponytail: In our defense, it's ''really'' small.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Physics]]

1434: Where Do Birds Go

2014-10-16T11:19:56Z

141.101.98.241: /* Explanation */ made some additions, which grew into suggesting this rearrangement

{{comic
| number = 1434
| date = October 15, 2014
| title = Where Do Birds Go
| image = where_do_birds_go.png
| titletext = Water/ice has a lot of weird phases. Maybe asking 'where do birds go when it rains' is like asking 'where does Clark Kent go whenever Superman shows up?'
}}
[[File:Wet_kookaburra_6674_Crop_Edit.jpg|thumb|upright=1.5| A wet bird sitting in the rain. (from Wikimedia Commons)]]
==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Decide how to handle linking to original source website.}}
Cueball searches [http://lmgtfy.com/?q=where+do+birds+go+when+it+rains%3F Google] to find out where birds go when it rains. He finds that the question is asked worldwide, across many different languages and websites. A variety of screenshots are shown of different websites and forums where users have asked where birds go when it rains, with at least nine languages shown. The bottom of this panel fades to white, suggesting that the occurrence of these questions stretches on and on. Cueball expresses delight at the idea that this question is the one to which everyone wants to know the answer; worrying about birds getting wet is "the thing that unites us".

Later in the comic, a bird in the rain is also searching on the Internet for where birds go when it rains. This suggests that the question unites us with birds, who would also post it on the Internet if they could (and would thus presumably increase even further the number of times the question was posted). This reminds us that the question is even more important to birds - a serious practical question. The particular bird in the comic apparently does not know where to go. The humor of this depends partly on characterizing ''sheltering from the rain'' as learnt avian behaviour rather than instinct. For such non-instinctual behaviour, how do birds teach other birds what to do? They do not have an Internet, nor do they have such a sophisticated language or capacity for mass communication and dissemination of information as we do.

As Cueball says, Google ''does'' give the answer to the question: when it rains, birds do what we would do - look for shelter so they can stay dry. Getting wet is not, on the whole, a problem, but it does complicate flying. On a rainy day you can usually find birds in leafy trees, caves or other kinds of cover.

In the {{w|Superman}} comics, Clark Kent ''is'' Superman, so you never observe both Clark Kent and Superman simultaneously. By analogy, the title text whimsically suggests that a possible inference from the observation that you never see birds and rain together is that birds ''are'' the rain. Perhaps birds are an unknown {{w|Phase (matter)|phase}} of water. In addition to its familiar phases of {{w|ice}}, {{w|water vapor|vapor}}, and {{w|water|liquid water}}, water has more exotic phases such as {{w|Ice#Phases|low-temperature and high-pressure ices}} and {{w|Supercritical fluid|supercritical gases}}; why not birds? This conclusion is an extreme demonstration of the pitfalls of noticing superficial similarities between two unrelated phenomena, and proposing a similar mechanism to explain them both.

The title text imbues the question with more philosophical significance than it warrants (prompted, perhaps, by Cueball's earlier hyperbole), and points up the irrationality of the implication that a question must be deep simply because a lot of people ask it, and that such questions demand a complex, radical answer.

{| class="wikitable"
!Websites shown in image (English)
|-
|https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110223085537AAiOFTk
|-
|-
|http://www.enature.com/expert/expert_show_question.asp?questionID=23847
|-
|-
|http://activerain.trulia.com/blogsview/1452078/where-do-birds-go-when-it-rains-
|-
|-
|http://www.godlikeproductions.com/forum1/message979308/pg1
|-
|-
|http://randomthoughtsfrommidlife.wordpress.com/2011/11/22/where-do-the-birds-go-when-it-rains/
|-
|}

{| class="wikitable"
! Language
! Question
! Translation
|-
|French
|[https://fr.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110327100813AAMj2hy Où se cachent les oiseaux quand il pleut?]
|Where do the birds hide themselves when it rains?
|-
|rowspan="3"|German
|[http://www.gutefrage.net/frage/was-passiert-jetzt-eigentlich-mit-den-voegeln-die-bei-dem-wetter-in-den-baeumen-sitzen Was passiert jetzt eigentlich mit den vögeln, die bei dem wetter in den bäumen sitzen?]
|What actually happens with the birds that are sitting in the trees in this weather?<ref>In proper German, all nouns should be capitalized. The author leaves them uncapitalized, characteristic of lazy/hurried typing.</ref>
|-
|[http://www.vogel.info/schlechtes_wetter.htm Was machen Vögel bei schlechtem Wetter?]
|What do birds do in bad weather?
|-
|[http://www.gutefrage.net/frage/wohin-gehen-voegel Wohin gehen Vögel?]
|Where do birds go?
|-
|rowspan="2"|Spanish
|[http://noticias.lainformacion.com/ciencia-y-tecnologia/ciencias-meteorologicas/que-pasa-con-las-aves-durante-un-huracan_g1DV8AL9LSG6Bzy7q5G8s7/ Qué pasa con las aves durante un huracán?]
|What happens to the birds during a hurricane?
|-
|[https://espanol.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20120525145152AABvmOq ¿A donde se van los pajaritos cuando llueve?]
|Where do the little birds go when it rains?
|-
|Dutch
|[http://www.willemwever.nl/vraag_antwoord/dieren-en-planten/waar-blijven-de-vogels-als-het-heel-hard-stormt Waar blijven de vogels als het heel hard stormt?]
|Where do birds stay when it is storming very hard?
|-
|Finnish
|[http://ihmepuu.vuodatus.net/lue/2014/05/minne-linnut-menevat-sateella Minne linnut menevät sateella?]
|Where do the birds go when it rains?
|-
|rowspan="3"|Chinese (simplified)
|[http://wenwen.sogou.com/z/q55741469.htm 下雨时鸟儿往哪躲]
|Where do birds hide when it rains?
|-
|[http://zhidao.baidu.com/question/270774126.html 下雨的时候小鸟住在哪里？]
|Where do birds live while it rains?
|-
|[http://wenwen.sogou.com/z/q145038794.htm 为什么鸟儿下雨的时候在天上飞不会因为淋湿掉下来?]
|Why isn't birds falling to the ground for getting wet while it rains?
|-
|Japanese
|[http://matome.naver.jp/odai/2136533586764388601 【雑学】暴風雨の時、鳥はどこに避難してるの？]
|Miscellaneous Knowledge: Where do birds take shelter during a rainstorm?
|-
|Malay (Indonesian)
|[https://id.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20101215231444AAAVxSM Burung Dapat Bertahan Terbang Berapa Lama Disaat Hujan ?]
|How Long Can Birds Survive Flying In the Rain ?
|}
<references/>

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript}}
[The comic is separated into three sections, with Cueball and Megan having a discussion in the first section, websites found through Google search results depicted in the second, and a bird depicted in the third]

;[First Section - Cueball is sitting at his computer]:
Cueball: "Where do birds go when it rains?" is my new favorite Google search.

Megan [off screen]: Why?

Cueball: It gives the answer, but also shows you an endless torrent of other people asking the same question. Pages and pages of them across regions and cultures.

[Megan enters the frame and shows interest in the computer]

Cueball: I love the idea that somehow this is the universal question, the thing that unites us. When it rains, we wonder where the birds go, and hope they're staying dry.

;[Second Section - A collage of screen snippets]:

[[https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110223085537AAiOFTk from Yahoo! Answers]]: '''Where do the birds go when it rains?''' I've noticed I rarely see birds flying around or in trees or on power lines when it's raining, So where do they go?

[[http://www.godlikeproductions.com/forum1/message979308/pg1 from Godlike Productions]]: '''Where do birds go when it rains really hard?'''
Ok, maybe I'm an idiot for asking this, but during the slew of several storms in California the last couple weeks, I began to wonder where the poor birds go to stay dry? The ducks, seagulls, owls, sparrows, hummingbirds, hawks, etc...I see them all the ti[...]

[[http://randomthoughtsfrommidlife.wordpress.com/2011/11/22/where-do-the-birds-go-when-it-rains/ from Random Thoughts From Midlife]]: Where do the birds go when it rains?

[[http://www.answers.com/Q/Where_do_birds_go_when_it_rains from Answers.com]]: Where do birds go when it rains?

[[https://espanol.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20120525145152AABvmOq from Yahoo! Respuestas]]: ¿A donde se van los pajaritos cuando llueve?

[[http://activerain.trulia.com/blogsview/1452078/where-do-birds-go-when-it-rains- from Active Rain]]: '''Where do Birds go When it Rains?''' I'm no youngster...and I have no answer for this. I've talked to alot of people about the likelihood of where birds go when it rains and everyone has a different perspective.

[[http://ask.metafilter.com/27499/Where-do-the-birds-go-when-it-rains from Ask MetaFilter]]: '''Where do the birds go when it rains?''' BirdFeederFilter: When it's gloomy and rainy, I don't see any birds at my birdfeeder for days on end. Then as soon as it's sunny, they're all over the place. What gives? What do they do on rainy days, just forage near their nest?

[[http://snippets.com/where-do-city-birds-go-when-it-rains.htm from Snippets]]: Where do city birds go when it rains?

[[http://wenwen.sogou.com/z/q55741469.htm from http://wenwen.sogou.com/]]: 下雨时鸟儿往哪躲
没有大树,没有屋檐,怎么办

[[http://www.enature.com/expert/expert_show_question.asp?questionID=23847 from eNature.com]]: '''Storm shelter''' ''In Florida, where I live, we get many thunderstorms, but I never see the birds in trees during the storms. We recently had a tropical storm and I did not see any birds in the trees. Where do birds go when it rains or storms?'' Just like at night, birds will seek shelter during storms. I remember watching a flock of American robins dive into[...]

[[https://in.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110730055427AApJlDb from Yahoo! Answers]]: When it is raining heavily, where do the birds go...i don't see them on the trees, where do they take shelter?

[[https://fr.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110327100813AAMj2hy from Yahoo! Questions Réponses]]: Où se cachent les oiseaux quand il pleut? De ma fenêtre, je n'en aperçois plus un!!!...Les pies semblent avoir abandonné leurs nids...

[[http://www.gutefrage.net/frage/was-passiert-jetzt-eigentlich-mit-den-voegeln-die-bei-dem-wetter-in-den-baeumen-sitzen from gutefrage.net]]: '''was passiert jetzt eigentlich mit den vögeln, die bei dem wetter in den bäumen sitzen?''' bei uns regnet es heftig und der orkanartige wind wechelst ständig richtung und geschwindigkeit. können sich die vögel da in den bäumen halten? retten sie sich instinktiv vorher irgendwohin, wo sie windgeschützt sind?

[[https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20140607171044AAwamou from Yahoo! Answers]]: Where do birds go when it rains? I never see any out...?

[[http://noticias.lainformacion.com/ciencia-y-tecnologia/ciencias-meteorologicas/que-pasa-con-las-aves-durante-un-huracan_g1DV8AL9LSG6Bzy7q5G8s7/ from lainformacion.com]]: ¿Qué pasa con las aves durante un huracán?

[[http://zhidao.baidu.com/question/270774126.html from Baidu]]: '''下雨的时候小鸟住在哪里？''' 下雨的时候小鸟住在哪里？如果是在春天夏天那还好，有树叶遮挡着，但是到了秋天冬天下雨小鸟住在哪里？还住在在树上搭的窝里吗？不怕冻坏自己和小幼崽吗？如果躲雨那就在哪里躲雨呢？怎么没见过它们躲雨？谢谢。

[[http://www.fairfaxunderground.com/forum/read/40/219540.html from Fairfax Underground]]: '''What do birds do when it rains?''' Recently I installed a bird feeder outside my bedroom window. It is so wonderful the diversity of our feathered friends that frequent the feeder! I love it. My question that I haven't found an answer to is this: What do the little birdies do when it rains? I mean, do they stay put in the trees that they find themselves in,

[[http://ihmepuu.vuodatus.net/lue/2014/05/minne-linnut-menevat-sateella from a blog on vuodatus.net]]: '''Minne linnut menevät sateella?''' Tänään satoi rankasti. Kuljin metsän halki. Kuulin linnun laulavan. Yksinäinen, mutta itsenäinen ja vahva, tulkitseva ääni. Kaunis. Minne linnut menevät sateella? En ole koskaan nähnyt lintuja rankkasateessa. Luulen, että ne yrittävät löytää suojan. Kuusien ja mäntyjen oksistossa on varmaan suojaisaa. Kallioiden koloihin ja pieniin luolastoihin voi ehkä lintukin hiipiä. Rohkeille löytyy pihoilta suojapaikkoja. Ehkä linnulla oli oma pesäkolo. Siellä oli lämmintä ja kuivaa. Sieltä saattoi rauhassa katsella sateen vierailua metsässä. Siellä saattoi jopa iloita sateesta ja laulaa.

[[https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110530163957AAaw1S3 from Yahoo! Answers]]: '''What do the birds do when it RAINS like crazy?''' I live in upstate new york and just moved here and there are so many many birds here especially where I live, the other day I saw a broken egg on the ground in the drive way from a [...show more link] '''Update''': I know they get wet btw but was wondering if they did anything extra to [...show more link] '''Best Answer''' Well ... it depends on the species of bird, for one. Some are more adapted for rain then others.

[[http://www.willemwever.nl/vraag_antwoord/dieren-en-planten/waar-blijven-de-vogels-als-het-heel-hard-stormt from Willem Wever]]: '''Waar blijven de vogels als het heel hard stormt?''' Bij hevige stormen zoekt een vogel de beschutting die bij hem past. Er zijn een aantal vogels die met storm wel vliegen. Maar bij een echte hevige storm schuilen [...]

[[http://matome.naver.jp/odai/2136533586764388601 from Naver Matome]]: '''【雑学】暴風雨の時、鳥はどこに避難してるの？''' 人間が歩くのも困難な暴風雨。その時、一番影響を受けるのは空を飛んでいる鳥達ですよね。彼らはどのように風雨を凌いでいるのか？ずーっと気になっていた事を調べてみました！

[[http://forums.speedguide.net/showthread.php?147357-Where-do-birds-go-when-it-rains from speed guide forums]]: '''Where do birds go when it rains?''' Do they just sit in their trees as it rains getting drenched? Or do they seek shelter?

[[http://books.google.com/books?id=c9gTAwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_atb#v=onepage&q&f=false from Google books]]: '''Where Do All The Birds Go When It Rains?''' By Misty Hoopman

[Screen snippets begin to noticeably fade to white at this point]

[[http://vimeo.com/54433164 from vimeo]]: '''WHERE DO BIRDS GO WHEN IT RAINS?''' One young magpie will give its own story. Barring the thunder and heavy rain, all the sounds on this movie are from this one young maggie. Amazing

[[https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20071130121113AA0IjwA from Yahoo! Answers]]: '''Where do birds go during wind and rain storms?''' Where do birds go during wind and rain storms?

[[https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080609181529AAid1nN from Yahoo! Answers]]: '''Where do birds go when it rains?''' I mean, they can't keep dry in their nests...They have to go somewhere.

[[https://id.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20101215231444AAAVxSM from Yahoo! Answers]]: Burung Dapat Bertahan Terbang Berapa Lama Disaat Hujan ?

[[http://www.vogel.info/schlechtes_wetter.htm from vogel.info]]: '''Was machen Vögel bei schlechtem Wetter?''' Zunächst mal, was sie nicht machen: Sie verkriechen sich nicht etwa in ihr Nest, denn das Vogelnest dient der Brutpflege, es ist nicht etwa eine Wohnung. Es stellt sich aber ja auch die Frage, was eigentlich unter schlechtem Wetter zu verstehen ist: Es gibt Vögel, die leiden unter zuviel Sonne und[...]

[[http://www.gutefrage.net/frage/wohin-gehen-voegel from gutefrage.net]]: '''Wohin gehen Vögel?''' Hallo zusammen! Heute als es so richtige Gewitter gab, hab ich mir überlegt wohin alle Vögel verschwinden. Haben alle Vögel Nester in die sie sich zurückziehen können? [link to view complete question]

[[https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080808130433AAE8b3B from Yahoo! Answers]]: '''Where do birds go when it rains?''' Well, yesterday it was raining...I was bored so i started staring out the window, and i say a empty birds nest and i was wondering, where do birds go when it rains?

[[http://diolungroup.com/blog/2014/02/19/where-do-birds-go-when-it-rains-or-snows/ from Diolún Designs Blog]]: Where do Birds go when it rains or snows?

[[http://www.andalusiastarnews.com/2014/04/05/where-do-birds-go-when-it-rains/ from The Andalusia Star-News]]: '''Where do birds go when it rains?''' I haven’t fed birds in my back yard for a long time, but I still enjoy the few I see perching on top of poles, an electric wire, tree branches, or scooting across the [...]

[At this point, very near the bottom of the frame, screen snippets are extremely faded and hard to identify, but with enhancement, evidence can be found to show that the following items are the final snippets]

[[http://dailyapple.blogspot.com/2010/01/apple-431-birds-in-rain.html from The Daily Apple]]: '''Apple #431: Birds in the Rain'''
Forgot until late tonight that I meant to make a new post. Since I didn't leave [...]

[[https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20140522193215AAawPNF from Yahoo! answers]]: Where does birds go when it rains?

[..several more similar questions, fading into white...]

;[Third section - A bird on a wire fence]:
[A bird sits on a wire fence with no rain falling]

[Zoomed in on the bird as it looks at a rain drop splashing on the fence wire]

[Zoomed out on the bird looking at the rain as it increases in intensity]

[The bird flies down to an small smart-phone-shaped object lying on the ground, as the rain increases in intensity even more]

[The bird lands on the object, with puddles increasing in size around the object]

[The bird pecks at the object, ostensibly typing] W... H... E... R... E... D... O... B... I... R... D... S...

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Internet]]
[[Category:Animals]]

1423: Conversation

2014-09-19T11:35:36Z

141.101.98.241: some waffle off the top of my head

{{comic
| number = 1423
| date = September 19, 2014
| title = Conversation
| image = conversation.png
| titletext = Later, at home: 'Dear diary: Still can't figure out what to write here ...'
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Still very brief.}}
[[Cueball]] and [[Megan]] are on a {{w|First_date_(meeting)|first date}} and Cueball is trying to strike up a {{w|conversation}} by asking Megan what she does in her free time. Megan has probably been dreading this question, because she answers that her free time activity consists of trying to figure out how to respond if asked what she does in her free time. Cueball answers soothingly, but Megan's {{w|anxiety}} gets the better of her and she leaves abruptly.

The title text implies that she also spends her free time wondering what to write in her {{w|diary}} (with no success).

Both the comic and the title text are examples of self-referential humor. Megan recognises that she spends her free time thinking what to say about her free time, so she must spend some of that free time thinking about her thinking about her free time. Such self-referential loops are often disturbing, since they contain within them potential for infinite regression. On the other hand there is a simple way to exit the loop before any recursion: Megan ''has already decided'' what to say when asked what she does in her free time, and she ''has'' figured out what to write in her diary. But on realising this, Megan would have to find something else to occupy her free time, such as going on a date.

==Transcript==
[Cueball and Megan are sitting at a candle lit dinner.]
:Cueball: So, what do you do in your free time?
:Megan: Mostly I set around worrying someone will ask me that, and try to think of a good answer.
:Cueball: That's not a bad answer.
:Megan: It's all I've got. Now that it's done I should go. Bye!

{{comic discussion}}

1422: My Phone is Dying

2014-09-17T16:39:26Z

141.101.98.241: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1422
| date = September 17, 2014
| title = My Phone is Dying
| image = my_phone_is_dying.png
| titletext = When it explodes, it will cast off its outer layers, leaving behind nothing but a slowly fading PalmPilot, calculator, or two-way pager.
}}

==Explanation==
Beret Guy's phone is about to "die". Cueball assumes this just means that the battery is running out and it needs to be recharged, but the phone in question appears to "die" in a way analogous to the {{w|Stellar_evolution|life and death}} of a star: expending its fuel while heating up and expanding before ultimately losing its outer layers and becoming a white dwarf or similar "lesser" star. However, this is something phones usually don't do.{{Citation needed}}

Stars constantly undergo fusion reactions. The pressure generated by these reactions counteracts gravity, preventing it from collapsing the star during its main lifespan. As the hydrogen mostly fuses into helium in the core, the core gradually becomes more dense and the region of fusion gradually moves away from the center. Then, the star grows in size, reaching the stage of a Red Giant. When most of the "fuel" for fusion has been consumed, gravity will collapse the star into a white dwarf while the outer layers are shed. For stars much more massive than the Sun, there will be a {{w|Supernova|supernova}} explosion caused by a violent collapse, which is [https://what-if.xkcd.com/73/ very powerful]. Heavier stars have shorter lifespans while producing more energy; Beret Guy probably references this when he refuses the charger.

Both a supernova explosion and the collapse of red giants into white dwarfs shed their outer layers, which is referenced in the title text. Once extra mass is added to the dying star, analogous to "charging", the process only accelerates. The phone seems to have a certain mass because [[Beret Guy]] expects it to go (super)nova. Charging the phone may lead to a {{w|Nova|type 1a nova}}.

The comic also plays on the release of two new {{w|IPhone|iPhone models}} with {{w|IPhone_6|bigger}} screens, planned for 2 days after the release of the comic.

The comic could be also explained by the characteristics of Li-ion batteries, which are used in most cellphones. At the end of their useful life, these batteries grow a bit{{fact}}. In case of severe physical or thermal damage or multiple electrical failures, this type of battery can indeed overheat, leading to a run-away thermal reaction inside. That would result in the battery growing{{fact}} and eventually exploding. Connecting a charger to a battery failing in this manner would probably make the process faster [http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/safety_concerns_with_li_ion].

The title text mentions PalmPilot, an early mobile device (but not phone), calculator, one of the commonly used functions of a smart phone, and two-way pager, a device for sending and receiving short text messages. This humorously implies that an iPhone is made by literally putting these things together in a way molecules are composed of atoms. In reality, these functions are implemented in firmware and neither of these devices is physically inside.

==Transcript==
[Beret Guy walks on-panel, carrying a smartphone.]
: Beret Guy: My phone's about to die.
[The phone is now subtly larger.]
: Cueball: Where'd you get a big iPhone? I didn't think they were out yet.
: Beret Guy: It's my regular one. It's just dying.
[The phone increases in size again. Beret Guy now holds it in both hands.]
: Beret Guy: As it consumes its battery, it heats up and expands. Soon it will swell to enormous size, engulfing us both.
[The phone is now the size of Beret Guy's torso; he is clutching it to himself. Cueball is pointing off-panel]
: Beret Guy: Then it will collapse in a violent explosion!
: Cueball: ...do you want to borrow my charger?
: Beret Guy: That would only make it run out ''faster''!
{{comic discussion}}

Talk:505: A Bunch of Rocks

2014-01-15T08:40:45Z

141.101.98.241:

;Weird thing with lines in it
probably has something to do with relativity -- two objects moving, arriving at different points at the same time, or maybe a diagram of spacetime. [[Special:Contributions/66.202.132.250|66.202.132.250]] 16:44, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

It's a [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feynman_diagram Feynman Diagram] [[Special:Contributions/206.174.12.203|206.174.12.203]] 19:24, 10 June 2013 (UTC) Toby Ovod-Everett

:I did add the incomplete tag because this comic and also the explain is still really complex. More important: People without a proper physics background never will understand. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 21:01, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

There is a short story called "SOLE SOLUTION" by Eric Frank Russell which is quite similar to the one in the story. Just in case that matters.{{unsigned|Maob}}

Re Rule 34 - the point is that this comic _is_ cellular automaton porn (as are the YouTube videos of Minecraft calculators and the like). Rule 34 works, bitches!

Talk:1223: Dwarf Fortress

2014-01-15T08:35:03Z

141.101.98.241:

Turing-complete computers were built in Dwarf Fortress [http://www.geekosystem.com/dwarf-fortress-turing-machine-computer/] and Minecraft [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1X21HQphy6I] Sebastian --[[Special:Contributions/178.26.118.249|178.26.118.249]] 05:48, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

:"getting that computer to run Minecraft" means getting the Dwarf Fortress turing machine to run minecraft. Which would probably be impossible, because the computer Dwarf Fortress is running on will not be able to run the turing machine fast enough or with enough memory. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 09:12, 10 June 2013 (UTC)
::Speed ''may'' be considered irrelevent (as exemplared by [[A Bunch of Rocks]]). Memory upper-limits applies to ''every'' real-world example (possibly including the Universe itself, thus anything that is not self-contained but capable of sharing data with the external Universe, in order to overcome this limitation). However, usually we can fudge this if this expected usage will get nowhere near the effective memory capacity.
:::The real problem in Dwarf Fortress is that there is a hard-coded maximum fortress size. It cannot be extended infinitely like the minesweeper example or Magic the Gathering, which is inherantly infinite assuming you keep supplying the legally generated creature tokens. [[Special:Contributions/96.238.211.171|96.238.211.171]] 04:40, 12 June 2013 (UTC)
::However, apart from the speed of running (and the fact that the quantifiable 'Fort-contained' memory theoretically available may not be sufficient to hold the state of any reasonably Minecraft-like playing environment), I'm wondering about the interface. Playing Minecraft-within-Fortress would require some interesting setting up. Having myself made a Tetris-within-Fortress (sort of, never got around to rotating tetronimos, although translation of the falling pieces and line-anihilationsof those that had settled all worked as planned), I suppose you could start with a matrix display made of remotely controlled bridges (from water-activated pressure-plates), a bit like I used to 'externally' represent the data held within the "block matrix" pump'n'pool 'processor' for my Tetris example.
::Something that somewhat evaded me (or, rather, forced me to slow the game progression down well below its normal pace) was a control mechanism. Clicking and setting levers to be pulled, or locking and unlocking doors to allow creature-activated pressure-plates to be run over, depends on knowing that all dwarves (or animals, or hostiles being sent scurrying in circles in a dungeon loop as each tempting exit is automatically closed off and the next one round the track temporarily opened) continue to respond to your requests. It did very much seem like the Bunch Of Rocks situation, indeed. ;) [[Special:Contributions/178.98.124.195|178.98.124.195]] 13:07, 10 June 2013 (UTC)
::I thought the point of the mouse-over text was that running Minecraft on a turing-complete computer in Dwarf Fortress would be utterly pointless, impractical, and a waste of time, and that's IF it's even theoretically possible. The point of this comparison in my mind is a comment on just how pointless and impractical the task of complete population surveillance is. I mean, surely there's an easier way to get what you want? [[User:Excrubulent|Excrubulent]] ([[User talk:Excrubulent|talk]]) 01:24, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

Shouldn't it be "''I'' do" and "Then you're effectively ''a'' Dwarf Fortress ''player'' watching your dwarves play Dwarf Fortress" because "Big Brother" is singular? [[User:DiEvAl|DiEvAl]] ([[User talk:DiEvAl|talk]]) 09:22, 10 June 2013 (UTC)
:Not necessarily, because "Big Brother" is the nickname for the nebulous amoral mass of people who make up the surveillance arm of the government. Yes, in Orwell's book, this was actually represented by a singular man to the public (who, possible spoilers, may or may not still be alive). But the nickname could refer to a lot of people as a whole. See also the "corporate we", where people in a corporation refer to the company and ambiguous nonspecific people in the company as "we". Not related to the "royal we". --[[User:Tustin2121|Tustin2121]] ([[User talk:Tustin2121|talk]]) 14:04, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

::You sure it's not related? Isn't "royal we" referring to the country and ambiguous nonspecific people in the country in very similar way? -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 11:21, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

Then you're effectively Dwarf Fortress players watching your dwarves make comics about Dwarf Fortress players watching their dwarves play Dwarf Fotrress. [[User:DiEvAl|DiEvAl]] ([[User talk:DiEvAl|talk]]) 09:26, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

Question: Who is the 'you' in "that makes you the kind of person who wastes ten more getting that computer to run Minecraft"? The reader of the comic? Big Brother? I'm very confused how it is that if "A" is the kind of person who implements a Turing-complete computer in Dwarf Fortress, that it follows that "B" is the kind of person who wastes ten years getting it to run Minecraft. [[Special:Contributions/69.21.142.178|69.21.142.178]] 15:23, 11 June 2013 (UTC)
:I think the 'you' is Big Brother. Like I said above, the task of surveilling a population is so daunting that it's like doing the DF-computer-MC thing. It's never going to be practical. [[User:Excrubulent|Excrubulent]] ([[User talk:Excrubulent|talk]]) 01:27, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

You missed spacechem off that list of Turing complete games. {{unsigned ip|141.101.98.229}}

From the referenced site, Pokemon yellow isn't turing complete as a game (unlike, say, DF / MC) - rather it has bugs which make it vulnerable to buffer overrun exploits allowing the attacker to write arbitrary GameBoy code. So while a great hack, that site tells us that the GameBoy CPU's machine code is Turing Complete, not Pokemon Yellow itself.

Talk:625: Collections

2014-01-15T08:21:18Z

141.101.98.241:

I can probably help Cueball (or whoever it is) out in his title-text musings, with an entire bookshelf (floor to ceiling) dedicated to Pratchett books in both Hardback and Paperback versions and related works by him and his collaborators. Apart, that is, from the totally separate bookshelf space reserved for the unabridged audio books of same - these mostly in cassette format, with just a couple of Audio CDs (a purchase error, at the time) and a couple of the newest in MP3-on-CD format (my reluctant nod towards progress). Now talk to me about how long magnetic and optical media can last, in relation to paper. Assuming I don't get hit by a house-fire, flooding, supervolcano, coronal mass ejection, etc. Hmmm... I wonder if I can get them carved onto stone tablets in a reinforced vault? [[Special:Contributions/178.99.247.73|178.99.247.73]] 21:26, 21 May 2013 (UTC)
:Microfilm is all you need. --[[User:Qwach|Qwach]] ([[User talk:Qwach|talk]]) 16:36, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

::Digital data can be copied. Use it. Best way to protect information is having it stored at two different continents and periodically check that copies at both are readable. Wait. Actually, best way to protect information is to get it into some popular piece of software people are going to download in millions ... speaking about which, I wonder how many copies of fortune database of Terry Pratchett's Discworld related quotes is installed globally ... -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 01:16, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

Surely the title text is not just "musing about the shelf space" but wondering how many more Pratchett books will be written; #625 is from August 2009, and Pratchett announced that he had Alzheimer's in 2007/8, and on 2nd August 2009 stated that he intended to commit suicide before his disease "reached a critical point". Which would also suggest that he wasn't "gleefully" considering it, either.

Talk:625: Collections

2014-01-15T08:19:12Z

141.101.98.241: