explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

3020: Infinite Armada Chess

2024-12-08T15:04:02Z

141.101.98.77: Undo revision 358848 by 172.68.22.82 (talk) Should still be considered relevent, or perhaps discussed as Trivia. Why "armada", rather than "army", without any nautical connections, etc?

{{comic
| number = 3020
| date = December 4, 2024
| title = Infinite Armada Chess
| image = infinite_armada_chess_2x.png
| imagesize = 282x497px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Stockfish 16 suggests the unconventional opening 1. RuntimeError: Out of bounds memory access
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by an infinite armada of Stockfish BOTS - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

{{w|Chess}} is a board game played between two players on an 8x8 chessboard. In standard chess, each player has 8 pawns and 8 other pieces: 2 rooks, 2 knights, 2 bishops, a queen, and a king. {{w|Chess variants}} are chess games in which the rules, board sizes, and/or piece behaviors are altered. In the chess game presented here, a non-standard chessboard is used, which extends vertically past the original 1st and 8th ranks off the page to infinity in both directions. Each square beyond the 8 standard ranks is filled by an additional queen. The {{w|Queen (chess)|queen}} is the most powerful piece on the chessboard, having the powers of a {{w|Bishop (chess)|bishop}} and a {{w|Rook (chess)|rook}} combined. With an infinite armada of queens, each player will have more resources to call on. Sometimes having a bunch of queens [https://x.com/chesscom/status/1841540380363211164 doesn't go very well], however (here, try knight to d6).

[https://www.roblox.com/games/11339102114/Infinite-Armada Infinite Armada] is a spaceship combat game with customizable ships in a massive map that runs on the {{w|Roblox}} online game platform. It's unclear whether its map and number of spaceships are actually unbounded (infinite), or merely very large.

In the title text, {{w|Stockfish (Chess)|Stockfish}} is a {{w|chess engine}} designed to evaluate a chessboard and find the best move. However, it is designed to handle finite boards, so it's likely that some problem will occur as it runs on an infinite one. Here that problem shows up as the game's move #1, "RuntimeError: Out of bounds memory access". This error message is unique to the cross-browser {{w|WebAssembly}} implementations of {{w|WebGL}}, so there was probably not enough memory to {{w|Rendering (computer graphics)|render}} an infinite board in a {{w|web browser}} window.

All but a finite number of pieces are stuck at every step, and thus there are only a finite number of possible moves, but the game is unbounded (each capture resets the draw clock) and each capture also increases the number of possible pieces which can move by opening up more space on the board. No finite amount of space is guaranteed to suffice to analyze the game — contrast with standard chess in which surprisingly little memory (given impossibly vast, but finite, amounts of time) is needed to play perfectly. Still, as in regular chess, a program which understood that only a finite number of pieces are accessible could play the same way programs play conventional chess.

However, without specifically coding Stockfish to be aware of the logical certainty of the infinite number of queens being blocked, it is likely to still be checking ''every'' piece in turn, long after it has successfully prepared to establish (or perhaps [[2407: Depth and Breadth|actually explored]]) the relative strategical advantages of undertaking the twenty initial moves that White could make. Or, in the algorithm's worst case scenario, it has tried to start its movement-checking process at the 'rearmost rank', and has encountered the error before managing to establish (let alone assess) ''any'' valid opening moves. By easy induction, the human player should be able to establish an intrinsic understanding that everything behind two full ranks of undisturbed pieces (or beyond them, when applied to the opponent's position on the other side of the board) is unable to move, where no gaps exist to shuffle around in, but the code (if designed for finite, though perhaps arbitrary, boards) is unlikely to natively have the complexity to derive this computational detail from first principles, or even establish that it might hit a {{w|halting problem}} failure should it somehow avoid the issue of resources.

This comic was published in the middle of the {{w|World Chess Championship 2024|2024 World Chess Championship}}, between the World Champion Ding Liren and the Challenger Gukesh D.

==Transcript==
:[A chess board in the starting position, except it extends further at the top and bottom, going beyond the panel. The extra squares are filled with queens of the sides' respective colors.]

:[Caption below the panel:]
:Infinite armada chess

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Chess]]

3019: Advent Calendar Advent Calendar

2024-12-05T18:27:03Z

141.101.98.77: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 3019
| date = December 2, 2024
| title = Advent Calendar Advent Calendar
| image = advent_calendar_advent_calendar_2x.png
| imagesize = 482x324px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = The growth rate of items per day may may seem absurd, but it's actually much less than the acceleration in the 12 Days of Christmas song.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by 10 NERDS [https://fancyclopedia.org/Neeping A-NEEPING], 9 EDIT CONFLICTS, 8 RED-LINKED USERS, 7 SIGS A-MISSING, 6 [CITATIONS NEEDED], 5 WIIIIKIIII-LIIIINKS..., 4 ENVELOPE BACKS, 3 CALLBACKS, 2 TURTLE BOTS, AND A FUNNY NEW XKCD - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag.}}
{{w|Advent calendar}}s are a form of countdown to Christmas consisting of a card or structure with one closed "window"/opening for each day. Every day, another "window" is opened (e.g. a cardboard flap is opened along perforations), revealing a small present (traditionally, just a thematic picture or chocolate). While the religious season of {{w|Advent}} traditionally begins four Sundays before Christmas, most Advent calendars begin on December 1st for simplicity. In 2024, when this comic was published, the Advent season coincidentally starts on December 1st. Advent calendars usually have either 24 or 25 doors (ending on either Christmas Eve or Christmas Day), depending on manufacturer's choice and/or local tradition.

In this comic, Randall has devised an Advent calendar that contains multiple smaller Advent calendars, each of which contains the same number of items as there are days left until (and ''including'') Christmas Day. By the time he reaches Christmas, he will have 325 different items, or 350 if counting the sub-calendars. The calendar is shown as it might be on December 2<sup>nd</sup>, the date of publication of this strip. The "window" in the upper left, presumed to be for the 1<sup>st</sup> of December, has 25 sub-windows, of which two are open. (One would have been opened on December 1<sup>st</sup> and the next for the day after.) The "window" 5<sup>th</sup> from the left in the bottom row, probably for December 2<sup>nd</sup>, has 24 sub-windows, of which one (that for the initial 2<sup>nd</sup>) is open.

The title text refers to {{w|The Twelve Days of Christmas (song)|The Twelve Days of Christmas}}, a traditional Christmas carol in which the singer receives many gifts from their paramour for each day of the Twelve Days of Christmas. On day one, they receive one gift, and on day ''n'', they receive again all the gifts they received on day ''n-1'', plus ''n'' copies of a new gift. The exact gifts given each day vary by version of the song, receiving 78 gifts on day 12, for a total of 364 gifts. For the Advent calendar Advent calendar, each day a number of items equal to the number of days left until Christmas are added. There are 364 items total in the 12 Days of Christmas, the final day itself having exceeded the gifts of the nested calendars (the sub-gift count being 325, and regardless of the 25 calendars also being included). However the advent calendar uses 25 days rather than just 12, hence the song's acceleration in number of gifts each day is much higher. The title text says “may” twice, either mistakenly, or maybe on purpose since the comic's name has word duplication.

The advent calendar's advent calendar gift total follows the {{w|triangular number}} sequence of all new gifts on a given day being one more than those the day before: on the first day, this is 1 (the first sub-gift of the first sub-calendar); on the second, we now have 3 (add two sub-gifts from two sub-calendars); on the third, we have 6 (three sub-gifts added), etc. The formula for the total on day ''n'' is <table style="display: inline-table; line-height: 0.6em; vertical-align: middle; font-size:9pt; text-size-adjust: none;"><tr><td style="text-decoration: underline">''n''(''n''+1)</td></tr><tr><td style="text-align: center">2</td></tr></table>. For the Twelve Days song (which goes from the 25th of December to 5th of January), ''each day'' adds to the total the next ''triangular number'' in the sequence: +1=1, +3=4, +6=10, etc... The formula for this {{w|tetrahedral number}} (a 'pyramid of triangular numbers') is <table style="display: inline-table; line-height: 0.6em; vertical-align: middle; font-size:9pt; text-size-adjust: none;"><tr><td style="text-decoration: underline">''n''(''n''+1)(''n''+2)</td></tr><tr><td style="text-align: center">6</td></tr></table>, and matches a triple-nested meta-Advent Calendar's non-calendar gift count. This already starts in a more rapid escalation of gift-giving, immediately after the first day where both counts are at one item. However, due to the later start of the Twelve Days, one would have to extend the gift-giving patterns to the 17th Day Of Christmas (and thus the 41st day of Advent) for the number of ''true love'' gifts (969) to properly overtake the continuing meta-calendar's ones, with (902) or without (861) counting the sub-calendars as gifts. (The number of ultimate gifts in any quadruple-nested Advent Calendar would be <table style="display: inline-table; line-height: 0.6em; vertical-align: middle; font-size:9pt; text-size-adjust: none;"><tr><td style="text-decoration: underline">''n''(''n''+1)(''n''+2)(''n''+3)</td></tr><tr><td style="text-align: center">24</td></tr></table>, excluding all the calendars themselves.)

It is not clear what is inside each sub-calendar. The typical filling would be chocolate, however it could also be possible that the advent calendar advent calendars had even more advent calendars within. That this is not the case is revealed in the title text as, if they were (and were run concurrently), the number of (sub-sub-)gifts would always equal those in the song.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[On a grey board, there are 23 Advent calendars behind large "windows", numbered from 3 to 25, plus two open calendars with their covers torn off.]
:[From top-left to bottom-right, the boxes are numbered as such: (opened), 14, 23, 16, 11, 3; 5, 24, 18, 7, 21; 10, 17, 4, 9, 22, 15, 12; 8, 20, 13, 25, (opened), 19, 6]
:[Each calendar numbered ''n'' has 26−''n'' squares in it.]
:[The open calendar on the top left has 25 squares, two of which are black. The other open calendar has 24 squares, one of which is black.]

:[Caption below the panel:]
:I like Advent calendars, so I got an Advent calendar that gives me a new one every day until Christmas.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Christmas]]
[[Category:Calendar]]
[[Category:Songs]]

2779: Exoplanet High-5

2024-10-02T08:41:06Z

141.101.98.77: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2779
| date = May 22, 2023
| title = Exoplanet High-5
| image = exoplanet_high_5_2x.png
| imagesize = 515x582px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Tau Ceti is farther away, so it took me 36 years to start the war over updog.
}}

==Explanation==
''Up high, down low, too slow'' is a {{w|High five#Too_slow|prank variant of a High five}}. In the comic, Earth has established communications with aliens living on {{w|Proxima Centauri b}}, the nearest exoplanet to Earth according to current knowledge, and [[Randall]] has taught them about a high-five.

Instead of physically slapping hands, the high-five is executed by transmitting messages, as in a {{w|Handshake (computing)}}. The diagram in the comic is thus similar to a {{w|sequence diagram}}, one usually employed for describing network communication in computing. As the messages travel at the speed of light and Proxima Centauri b is over 4 light years away, the times in the diagram are measured in (Earth-)years. This is a very slow method of communication – a perfect setup for a "too slow" prank. We can also see that they are taking around <sup>1</sup>/<sub>50</sub>th of a year (approximately an Earth-week) to cue up their considered response, yet clearly Cueball seems quite ready to respond in about half that time (though any quicker would get lost, and appear simultaneous, at the given precision of decimal places).

Having found this way of exchanging a high-five with aliens, Randall successfully pranks the aliens by sending the "too slow" message before their "Low-5" message ''can'' even arrive on Earth, and over an Earth-month before it actually does. This is similar to how, in the original prank, the prankster anticipates the provoked reaction and pulls their hand away after the victim started to move but before the "Low-Five" can taken place.

The aliens do not take kindly to being pranked and start an interstellar war, presumably intending to invade Earth. It is not known at which speed the Centaurians' invasion fleet travels and, therefore, when it will reach Earth. The [[wikipedia:Spatial scale|scale]] of the fleet is also unknown, and with good fortune, it may again prove to be [https://hitchhikers.fandom.com/wiki/G%27Gugvuntts microscopic].

The title text refers to another prank, in which the prankster gets the victim to ask "What's updog?" This is usually done by saying a sentence or asking a question that contains the noun 'updog'. Should the victim of the prank be confused, they will likely ask for clarification as to what 'updog' is (i.e, "What's updog?") At this point, the prankster will then respond as though the victim had asked them 'What's up, dawg?', resulting in probable groans and embarrassment. More on the joke's history and prevalence can be found [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/updog here].

Tau Ceti is a star almost 12 light years away. The exchange might have gone like this:
* t=0y: ''Randall:'' Hey, do you think it smells like updog in here?
* t=12y: ''Aliens:'' What's updog?
* t=24y: ''Randall:'' Nothin', what's up with you?
* t=36y: ''Message received, Aliens start war''
"Updog" was previously introduced in [[1696: AI Research]].
This is an example of a type of joke called a {{tvtropes|WhatsAHenway|henway}}.

==Transcript==
:[A diagram of messages transmitted between the Earth and Proxima Centauri b is shown. An image of the Earth is on the left and Proxima Centauri b on the right at the top, and below each is a vertical timeline. The message transmissions are shown as arrows pointing from one side to the other, between labeled dots on both timelines, and in the middle of them are five distinct depictions of Cueball interacting with an alien. The final Proxima Centauri b action is shown as a labeled asterisk on its timeline.]
:Earth:
* t=0.0y - "Up high" message sent
:Proxima Centauri b:
* t=4.25y - Message received - discussion -
* t=4.27y - High-5 reply sent
:Earth:
* t=8.52y - Reply received
* t=8.53y - "Down low" message sent
:Proxima Centauri b:
* t=12.77y - Message received - discussion -
* t=12.79y - Low-5 reply sent
:Earth:
* t=16.94y - "Too slow" message sent
* t=17.03y - Reply received
:Proxima Centauri b:
* t=21.19y - Message received
* t=21.26y - Invasion fleet launched

:[Caption below the panel:]
:21 years and 3 months after I taught the aliens about high-5s, the war began.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics with lowercase text]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Aliens]]
[[Category:Language]]
[[Category:Exoplanets]]

2892: Banana Prices

2024-02-09T17:13:35Z

141.101.98.77: /* Explanation */ Combined 'my initial attempt' with what Edit Conflicted my submission. Will check compatibility further, once posted.

{{comic
| number = 2892
| date = February 9, 2024
| title = Banana Prices
| image = banana_prices_2x.png
| imagesize = 564x378px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = It's a linear extrapolation, Michael. How big could the error be? 10%?
}}

==Explanation==
{incomplete|Created by a $10 BANANA - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

‘It’s one banana, Michael. What could it cost, $10?' is a line from an {{w|Arrested Development}} episide (Season 1, Episode 6, "Visiting Ours", 2003). This expression has frequently been used as a meme to mock the wealthy who are out of touch as to what prices for common items are. Someone would only think a banana cost $10 in 2003, or now, if they never did any grocery shopping because they have people for that (the line was spoken by Lucille Bluth, a rich socialite). According to the graph, the banana price at the time of that episode was actually just under 25 cents.

This comic shows 3 different linear extrapolations of the current increasing trend in banana prices, using a graph of historic banana prices and a series of projected future prices based upon predicted trends for salient economic factors. [[Randall]] shows that the extraordinary situation from the quote is still likely to be a long time hence before becoming a dead meme overtaken by reality.

The title text is a meta-joke about the false precision of extrapolations. Any extrapolation into the distant future based on past data points is just an educated guess likely to be at least somewhat wrong. However, it could very well be quite wrong, with an error far in excess of 10%. Assuming that the error couldn't be more than 10% shows that the person reviewing the linear extrapolation is presuming way more accuraacy from a multi-century prediction than is warranted.

The most likely reason for these extrapolations to be incorrect is that the current rate of inflation – around 5% in the US – is much higher than the historical average from the past several decades, and if recent historical trends dominate, inflation is likely to revert back to the more typical 1-to-2% range in the near term (next 5 to 10 years), and is rather unlikely to continue at 5% for the next century. The error rate on this prediction is less than 10% (not really).

The comic also does not appear to acknowledge possible {{w|Banana#Pests, diseases, and natural disasters|supply issues}} that could make the current supply of bananas into a rarer (or even {{w|Gros Michel banana|commercially 'extinct'}}) commodity, thus bucking all the economic projections that the graph anticipates.

The graph is drawn to a logarithmic vertical scale, in order to present to exponential price-rise linear, which is a graphing theme that has featured in several recent comics as the seconnd comic in a row to involve logarithms (the prior one being [[2891: Log Cabin]]) and the secnd comic in the last four to involve prediction across centuries (i.e. [[2889: Greenhouse Effect]]). The title text then continues with a meta-joke along the same theme in which the possible error in 'slope' is similarly subject to hyperbole, but quoting ten ''percent'' (a proportional change) rather than ten ''dollars'' (a price threshold).

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

:[A graph with the x-axis showing time, from the years 1950 to around 2275. The y-axis is a log scale showing the price of a banana. A label called "Price of a banana (BLS/St. Louis ''Fred'')" show a rising trend in the price of a banana. There are two dots on that trend. One is labeled "Episode airs" and the other one "Now". 3 extrapolations labeled "General inflation rate", "Fresh fruit price trend" and "Banana price trend" extend until reaching the $10 mark, indicated by 3 dots.]

:Caption above the graph : "It's one banana, Michael. What could it cost? $10?

:Caption below comic : That line probably has another century or so left.

{{comic discussion}}

Talk:25: Barrel - Part 4

2023-05-09T12:56:55Z

141.101.98.77:

The title text suggests that something bad has happened, not simply that he is swimming elsewhere or that Randall is disappointed the boy is no longer floating in the barrel. [[User:Grahame|Grahame]] ([[User talk:Grahame|talk]]) 05:30, 18 October 2013 (UTC)Grahame
:Fixed. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.45|108.162.216.45]] 02:54, 17 November 2013 (UTC)
:The title text suggests unhappiness at the knowledge that the boy is apparently no longer inside the barrel that has been preserving his life so far. We can speculate that something bad has happened, but a sad smiley does not do that for us. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.58|108.162.219.58]] 01:12, 1 February 2014 (UTC)
:: Agreed - the sadness could be that the boy has embarked on a new stage of his adventure, and we're not able to follow it.[[Special:Contributions/141.101.76.16|141.101.76.16]] 10:28, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

@Koolkat38: Updated the link you added to the [[:Category:Barrel|Barrel series]], to be more direct, in all the instances. Though this might have been unnecessary given the exact same link is mentioned in the lower part of the explanation. Still, good to think of, and perhaps the latter (original) link is now unneccesary. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.77|141.101.98.77]] 12:56, 9 May 2023 (UTC)

== Repeated vandalism ==

Page history suggests this article has been vandalized multiple times within past weeks, with no recent legitimate edits. Article should be locked. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.214.185|172.70.214.185]] 17:13, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

Talk:353: Python

2023-04-21T19:22:04Z

141.101.98.77:

It is necessary for both Cueballs to sample the medicine cabinet in order for this to be a hallucination. It was probably python.{{unsigned ip|122.161.29.247}}
:Or maybe there is just one Cueball - the one on the ground who is hallucinating - because he tried everything...? ;-) [[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 20:45, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

'I also sampled everything in the medicine cabinet for comparison' is a possible reference to George's Marvellous Medicine, the children's book written by Roald Dahl, wherein a combination of medicines and household materials produces fantastical effects. [[User:Quetzalcoatl|Quetzalcoatl]] ([[User talk:Quetzalcoatl|talk]]) 14:31, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

:I think it's related to the invention of photographs, but I'm not sure [[Special:Contributions/173.245.48.81|173.245.48.81]] 06:19, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

Woah guys, antigravity is a real module in Python! I was looking around the lib folder, trying to figure out how to put a module into it, and there it was - antigravity.py . It just sends your browser to the comic. --[[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.171|108.162.219.171]] 22:07, 13 December 2014 (UTC)
:Yeah, that's already covered in the ''Trivia'' section ;-) --[[User:SlashMe|SlashMe]] ([[User talk:SlashMe|talk]]) 23:22, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

The implication is that in Python many otherwise amazing things become easily possible after a simple import statement and/or that there is a module for almost anything you'd want to do no matter how difficult.[[Special:Contributions/199.27.130.216|199.27.130.216]] 16:30, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

The explanation was wrong about many things. Python doesn't have a heavily-simplified syntax--it's about as simple as Perl (and a lot less simple than Lisp); the difference is that it's designed first and foremost to be consistent, easy to read, and easy to remember, even at the cost of occasionally being more verbose or rigid. Its syntax doesn't generally reduce complicated things to a single word; it does allow many complicated things that might take 20 statements in C to be reduced to a single statement, but that's because it's high-level (again, like Perl), not because of its syntax. Dynamic typing has nothing to do with declaring the types of values, much less specifically numeric values, and it has nothing to do with Python automatically knowing how much space to reserve for a value--in fact, it's the opposite; C knows to reserve 4 bytes for an int variable at compile time, whereas Python has no idea what kind of value you're going to put into the variable until runtime. And "like in Visual Basic or JavaScript" is very confused--Visual Basic is statically typed, while JavaScript is dynamically typed, just like Python.

Also, the explanation didn't explain why Cueball's friend was reticent to use dynamic typing or significant whitespace, or what the point of importing modules is.

So I rewrote most of it. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.255.69|162.158.255.69]] 20:55, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

I remember this Roald Dahl story where some guy takes everything in the medicine cabinet of their grandparent and can fly. That's what i instanly thought when i saw that phrase. I'm not sure which story, but it was a good one and i think it's worth mentioning. [[Special:Contributions/172.64.238.49|172.64.238.49]] 17:37, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

: Oh wait, i'm dumb it's //George's Marvellous Medicine// [[Special:Contributions/172.71.186.83|172.71.186.83]] 17:43, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
::Not really, because {{w|George's Marvellous Medicine|that}} was mostly about size-changing abilities of an entire houshold (and more?) of constituent ingredients. But getting (or hallucinating) the ability to fly after consuming random pharmaceuticals is a fairly typical trope that stands well on its own general merit.
::I reverted your change, though no doubt you could write a better hedging statement that ''compares'' the one situation with the other. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.77|141.101.98.77]] 19:22, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

Talk:2740: Square Packing

2023-02-22T19:43:59Z

141.101.98.77:

I suspect Randall saw the same social media post that I did (or maybe a repost of the same social media post, who knows or cares). I don't really want to make an explanation, but anyone who does, here's a link to a bunch of square packing findings... of course, no hydraulic press allowed for these packings. https://erich-friedman.github.io/packing/squinsqu/ [[User:Tsumikiminiwa|Tsumikiminiwa]] ([[User talk:Tsumikiminiwa|talk]]) 22:07, 20 February 2023 (UTC)

:Yeah, this was on r/mathmemes the other day. [[Special:Contributions/172.64.238.48|172.64.238.48]] 00:03, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

Welcome to the Hydraulic Press Channel. Today we have a set of squares that are usually used in packing problems. You are supposed to fit them into other squares by arranging them. But I think we can get them to fit easier if we put them on the press, and just try to make them smaller. We are going to start with one square, and see how much smaller we can make this. And here we go.

:Needs to include a mention of the "Square Packer Five Meeellion"... [[Special:Contributions/172.68.51.141|172.68.51.141]] 16:48, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

The post where I saw this said: “God is dead, and what killed him was learning [the similarly inelegant-appearing n=17 solution].” [[Special:Contributions/172.70.254.216|172.70.254.216]] 13:08, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

[[Special:Contributions/172.70.54.77|172.70.54.77]] 19:26, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
Welcome to the Hydraulic Press channel

What does "s<" mean? [[User:Kev|Kev]] ([[User talk:Kev|talk]]) 22:54, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
:"S" (the size of the square, within which lie the N small squares) is less than the following number. i.e. that any S of that amount or greater is more than enough space to contain N unit squares. But it isn't fully established what the ''smallest'' value of S is, just that it will not be bigger than (or equal to) that provisional limit.
:(Do we need a wikilink to inequality notation in the explanation, then? Maybe you can tell us, Kev.) [[Special:Contributions/172.71.242.191|172.71.242.191]] 23:17, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
::Please! I came to the discussion to ask that an explanation of what s means. I did have a look in the Wikipedia article about it, but they don't use it there. So an explanation in the text with perhaps a link to something that expands on the explanation would be greatly appreciated by me :-) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.198|172.70.91.198]] 12:45, 22 February 2023 (UTC)
:::Added something about this. Seems too wordy and partly a repeat of the above. Future editors will refine, no doubt. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.77|141.101.98.77]] 19:43, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

I think I saw this new solution in a paper authored by USPS et al. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.159|108.162.216.159]] 23:33, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

I believe we can get S<3.32 for this problem... if it will Blend. --[[Special:Contributions/172.69.79.133|172.69.79.133]] 09:28, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

1689: My Friend Catherine

2016-07-06T20:32:00Z

141.101.98.77:

{{comic
| number = 1689
| date = June 3, 2016
| title = My Friend Catherine
| image = my_friend_catherine.png
| titletext = I can't get any work done because my friend Catherine is sitting on my keyboard.
}}

==Explanation==

This is another comic using [[:Category:Substitutions|substitutions]] to create the joke by replacing words or phrases, in this case "My cat", with a different word or phrase, in this case "My friend Catherine" (hence the title). The choice of the name is probably because "Kat" is a common nickname for "Catherine".

By doing so in a list of [[#The original posts|people discussing things their cat did]], it makes it seem like they are discussing things their female human friend did. What is cute (sitting on keyboards), impressive (doing backflips to eat bugs), or at least normal behavior for a cat (vomiting hairballs) would often be weird, disgusting or disturbing if an adult human were to do it, which is what makes the substitution humorous.

The comic depicts a feed on a page for people discussing their cat, similar to Twitter or Facebook, which would be the only kind of place where the substitution is really funny. Apart from known characters like two looking like [[Cueball]], [[Megan]] and [[Ponytail]], there is also a person with black hair, not looking particularly like any standard characters, and then a person with a [[1350:_Lorenz#Knit_Cap_Girl|knit cap]], which could be the same knit cap wearing user that was also used in [[1506: xkcloud]] (see the [[1506:_xkcloud/Transcript#User_pictures| pictures of the users]]).

In the title text there is another cat related status update regarding a cat sitting on a keyboard. Given the fact that one of the earlier substitution comics from before the [[1288: Substitutions|three]] ''[[1625: Substitutions 2|Substitution]]'' [[1679: Substitutions 3|comics]], was [[1031: s/keyboard/leopard/]] that replaced keyboard with leopard, many [[#Discussion|fans of xkcd]] were a little disappointed that the title text did not read: ''I can't get any work done because my friend Catherine is sitting on my leopard.''

===The original posts===
*My cat just did a backflip and then ate a bug!
*I wish my cat wouldn't wake me up by chewing on my hair.
*Oh no, my cat has learned to open the refrigerator.
*My cat just walked in, threw up on the rug, and walked out.
*My cat is looking out the window making weird noises at the birds.
*I wish my cat wouldn't make eye contact with me while pooping.
*I can't get any work done because my cat is sitting on my keyboard. (title text)

==Transcript==
:[Captions above the frame:]
:New favorite substitution:
:<big>My Cat→My Friend Catherine</big>

:[A news feed with comments by six different people discussing their cat, but after the above substitution. Next to each post is a user image, and above the clear text of the substituted comment is a unreadable line of wiggles probably with information about the post time stamp.]

:[A head shot of a person seen straight on with black hair:]
:My friend Catherine just did a backflip and then ate a bug!

:[A full view of Cueball:]
:I wish my friend Catherine wouldn't wake me up by chewing on my hair.

:[A head shot of Megan with unreadable text below the image:]
:Oh no, my friend Catherine has learned to open the refrigerator.

:[A head shot seen from the side of a person with a knit cap and short black hair below the cap:]
:My friend Catherine just walked in, threw up on the rug, and walked out.

:[A head shot of Ponytail:]
:My friend Catherine is looking out the window making weird noises at the birds.

:[Cueball seen from the torso and up:]
:I wish my friend Catherine wouldn't make eye contact with me while pooping.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Substitutions]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]
[[Category:Social networking]]
[[Category:Animals]]

Talk:1697: Intervocalic Fortition

2016-06-22T11:22:14Z

141.101.98.77:

The idea, stated in the alt-text, that "meh" was created by writers of "The Simpsons", is incorrect. "The Simpsons", however, was responsible for widely popularizing it. See [http://www.slate.com/blogs/lexicon_valley/2013/09/06/meh_etymology_tracing_the_yiddish_word_from_leo_rosten_to_auden_to_the_simpsons.html] and [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meh] [[User:Dubaaron|Dubaaron]] ([[User talk:Dubaaron|talk]]) 04:31, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

"The" ends in a lax vowel, and it's the most ubiquitous word in the language, so that rule is wrong. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.10|108.162.221.10]] 04:45, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

: I've always seen "lax vowel" referring to full (unreduced) vowels. When unstressed, the vowel in "the" is reduced (/ðə/), and when stressed it's tense (/ði:/). [[Special:Contributions/188.114.109.66|188.114.109.66]] 05:08, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

:: Furthermore, the lax vowel is only used if 'the' is followed by another syllable, and so the utterance will not be lax-vowel-final. {{unsigned ip|162.158.2.219}}

:::What the? That can't be right...

Questions. Is this happening in (American) English? is "adverb" becoming /adferb/. Any other examples?[[User:Zeimusu|Zeimusu]] ([[User talk:Zeimusu|talk]]) 05:55, 22 June 2016 (UTC)
: I scanned some 'v' words and didn't see much. A plural of [http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/000293.html dwarf] discussion; similarly wharf splits into both wharfs and wharves. 'Halving' might benefit in the sense that the 'l' is silent so it sounds like 'having' and might be more clear as 'halfing'. I've also noticed a smattering of YouTubers writing "could of/should of" instead of contracting 'have', i.e, "could've/should've". [[User:Elvenivle|Elvenivle]] ([[User talk:Elvenivle|talk]]) 06:50, 22 June 2016 (UTC)
:No, I don't think this is really happening. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.77|141.101.98.77]] 11:22, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

Talk:1692: Man Page

2016-06-10T07:51:04Z

141.101.98.77: Unmatched brackets

I do not entirely understand how wikis work; however, I have attempted to add a transcript. I apologize if anything breaks. I also apologize if this is not how I should be apologizing.

[[Special:Contributions/108.162.241.135|108.162.241.135]] 04:27, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

The Pope flag is referencing the time of the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avignon_Papacy Avignon Papacy] --[[Special:Contributions/108.162.237.243|108.162.237.243]] 04:56, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

The horrible thing about this comic is that somebody is sure to have implemented this program by the end of the day... {{unsigned ip|141.101.104.140}}

"Behavior Not Defined" might be a reference to undefined behavior, where a program is allowed to do anything including make demons fly out your nose: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Undefined_behavior [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.12|108.162.219.12]] 06:48, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

[[Special:Contributions/162.158.135.36|162.158.135.36]] 06:58, 10 June 2016 (UTC) Søren Mors

I thought Ansel was a deliberate misspelling of ANSI, the most common 8 bit codepage. {{unsigned ip|162.158.135.36}}

The commit "Revision as of 07:08, 10 June 2016" reverted an IMO good explanation for the debug option with a bad one. Consider changing it back. [[User:Todor|Todor]] ([[User talk:Todor|talk]]) 07:20, 10 June 2016 (UTC)
:I agree. The bad explanation also mixed up {{w|Pipeline (Unix)|piping}} with {{w|Redirection (computing)|redirection}} --[[Special:Contributions/141.101.104.76|141.101.104.76]] 07:41, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

I don't think `blerp -a -d -t -p "AVIGNON"` is a valid call to blerp, because the syntax line syntax is utterly off. For example, the first line has an unclosed open [, whereas the second line – in addition to having the corresponding unmatched ] – plays with the fact that even though {} is usually used to list a set of required items, {} is also how `find` (which might do something similar to blerp, and is in fact mentioned in -v) denotes its results when passed to an exec. {{unsigned ip|141.101.104.30}}

Command line options do not normally use n-dashes; they use hyphens. Another problem with this option is that n-dashes and m-dashes cannot usually be displayed properly in the fixed-width fonts commonly used for command line terminals. The usual custom is to use two hyphens to represent a dash (which for proportional font display will often be converted to either an n-dash or m-dash).

While "check whether input halts" clearly alludes to the halting problem, it may not actually be impossible, depending on what blerp actually does and what sort of input it accepts. (It says nothing about actually ''reporting'' the result, and it makes no guarantees that it will itself halt.)

—[[User:PhantomLimbic|PhantomLimbic]] ([[User talk:PhantomLimbic|talk]]) 07:30, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

Currently, there is no mention of the unmatched square brackets in the synopsis, or unmatched parenthesis in the title text. Presumably a reference to XKCD comic 859. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.77|141.101.98.77]] 07:51, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

1663: Garden

2016-04-04T14:33:01Z

141.101.98.77: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1663
| date = April 4, 2016
| title = Garden
| image = garden.png 
| titletext = Relax.
}}
*'''Note''' this is an interactive comic. Go to xkcd to try it out.
*'''Post new images''' etc. in this page [[1663: Garden/Images]]!

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|And will be so for a long time...}}
This is this year's [[:Category:April fools' comics|April fools' comic]] in celebration of {{w|April Fools' Day}}. Due to technical problems (or to make fools of his fans?) the comic did not go live until Sunday evening (after midnight) so there was no Friday release, and this may be the Monday release instead of the planned comic (as to not take attention from this.) So in this way there were only two comics last week, the first time since xkcd went live on xkcd.com.

If you leave the lights on and wait (or relax) then the plants in your '''garden''' start to grow slowly. The plants appear one at a time slowly, but only a few of them actually grow. There is a large tree that does, but most other plants just appear. Some of the plants sway in the breeze.

Also animals and [[Megan]] may appear. See examples here [[1663: Garden/Images]].

Every so often the image will refresh. You can change the number of lights, their position, direction, beam width and the color temperature from red to yellow to white to blue. How much this affects the growth is hard to say, but there seems to be some correlation.

===Functionality===
*The lamp(s)
**It can be moved and turned.
**The light's color can be changed from yellow to red and back to blue.
*The icons:
**By clicking the icon with a lamp and a + in the top right corner a new lamp is added.
***Up to two more lamps can be added for three in total.
***When there are three the icon becomes faded out.
**By clicking the large X icon something may be deleted
***When anything is selected the X becomes red. For instance when a lamp is selected.
***By clicking the icon the selected lamp can be deleted.
***The same can be done for any item appearing (growing or otherwise) by selecting the item and clicking the X.
****An item selected gets a red circle around it
***The X has the same effect as pushing the delete button on the keyboard.
***Some items (the large tree) can be deleted in minor parts taking a branch or a section with leaves off without deleting the entire tree.
*Saving images.
**The image as seen with the light, but without the lamps themselves and the two icons can be saved by right clicking in the image.
***At least for Edge, Firefox and Chrome, but not for all IE versions.
**There doesn't seem to be any [[1350#Permalink|permalink]] options like there were for the last two years' April Fools' Day comics.

==Transcript==
:[There is a web applet with up to three adjustable lights over a patch of dirt. Two buttons in the top right corner let you add another light, or remove objects. If you wait, something (a plant, an animal, ...) will grow.]

==Trivia==
On Friday, April 1st, 2015, the website [http://web.archive.org/web/20160401204749/https://xkcd.com/ began displaying] a message where "XKCD updates every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday" usually is:

The xkcd April 1st comic is currently experiencing technical
difficulties.
Please stand by!

The next day, the following message [http://web.archive.org/web/20160402144823/http://xkcd.com was displayed]:

The xkcd April 1st comic is currently experiencing technical
difficulties.
Status update: Please stand by.
Status update: This is fine. Everything is fine.
Status update: Everything is on fire.
Status update: Searching for calendar systems in which Saturday is April 1st.

On April 3rd, the message [http://web.archive.org/web/20160403234504/https://xkcd.com/ changed] to:

The Friday xkcd comic is currently experiencing technical difficulties
[Editor's note: Everything is on fire] and has been delayed until
Sunday night.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Dynamic comics]]
[[Category:April fools' comics]]