explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

2316: Hair Growth Rate

2020-06-06T00:59:01Z

162.158.106.144: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2316
| date = June 5, 2020
| title = Hair Growth Rate
| image = hair_growth_rate.png
| titletext = Hourly haircuts would be annoying, but they'd be easier to do yourself, since you'd have adjacent hairs as a guide. Growing it out would be a huge pain, though.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a HAIR-GROWTH-POWERED SPACE SHUTTLE. Should probably calculate the heat concentration of one single hair growing by five feet in an instant. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This strip is one of the simpler jokes that xkcd has done, being an observation on mathematics, biology, and human expectation. White Hat starts by sharing various facts about hair with Ponytail; hair count, individual hair growth rate, and finally total hair growth rate. Ponytail proceeds to snark about how unpleasant it would be if, rather than 100,000 hairs growing at a gross total of five feet an hour, humans grew a single hair at five feet an hour. The comic then delves into the absurdity of gradual versus spontaneous growth, and then the sound effects involved therein.

The comic touches on what information can be obscured by just looking at aggregate values. A person whose 100,000 hairs grow a half-inch per month experiences the same total new hair growth as a person with one hair growing five feet in an hour, but their grooming experiences would be very different. Likewise, a person with one hair growing steadily for an hour has the same average rate of hair growth as a person experiencing sudden hair growth on the hour, but the profile of instantaneous energy conversion and protein production would be very different. One of Ponytail's suggestions for what five feet of instantaneous hair growth might sound like is a sound effect generally used for directed-energy weapons (''Pew!'').

We never see what sort of hairstyle White Hat has under his hat, but Ponytail's hair is fairly long. If she had to grow it out by one hair per hour, as in the title text, then it would take over eleven years before all 100,000 hairs had grown out.

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

[White Hat and Ponytail are walking to the right.]
:White Hat: The average head has about 100,000 hairs.
:White Hat: And hair grows at about 1/2" per month.
:White Hat: Plus or minus.
:Ponytail: Okay ...

:White Hat: So our heads are producing an inch of hair every minute.
:Ponytail: I see.

:Ponytail: I'm just glad it's evenly distributed. It would suck if we grew a single new five-foot-long hair every hour.

[White Hat and Ponytail are seen in silhouette from a distance.]
:White Hat: Hmm, would the hair grow steadily, or would it suddenly shoot out 5 feet on the hour?
:Ponytail: If the latter, what noise would it make?
:Ponytail: ''Ziiip? Pwiff?''
:White Hat: ''Fwip?''
:Ponytail: Blip.
:White Hat: ''Zhooop.''
:Ponytail: Pew!

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]

Talk:2276: Self-Isolate

2020-03-05T18:17:07Z

162.158.106.144:

Where should it be documented that this image links to a tweet (that this feels like it is in response to)? [[Special:Contributions/172.68.174.76|172.68.174.76]] 22:29, 4 March 2020 (UTC)
:Twitter link: https://twitter.com/kakape/status/1235319133585248259 Quote: "...Social distancing may mean staying further apart from each other physically in coming weeks..." -Kai Kupferschmidt [[Special:Contributions/172.68.174.128|172.68.174.128]] 22:49, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

If this goes on next we should say this is a series. {{unsigned|Overlord of oddities}}
:Not really a series if they do not have anything other than subject in common. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 09:32, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

Changed the name used to the scientific name of the species. Gotta promote the real name before it's too late.[[Special:Contributions/108.162.246.227|108.162.246.227]] 04:58, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

Should there be a category for diseases, and is there a better name than Category:Diseases ?? --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 09:32, 5 March 2020 (UTC)
:Here is a list of comics I could just find with a quick search:
:*[[1612: Colds]]
:*[[1618: Cold Medicine]]
:*[[1896: Active Ingredients Only]]
:*[[1526: Placebo Blocker]]
:*[[2275: Coronavirus Name]]
:*[[1619: Watson Medical Algorithm]]
:*[[574: Swine Flu]]
:There will likely be many more. So just a catchy name, but not coronavirus category... ;-) --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 10:03, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

Was the tweet published at exactly the same moment as this comic? Seems like Randall colluded with the Twitterer here.
[[Special:Contributions/162.158.118.84|162.158.118.84]] 12:13, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

OMG, I am so in tune with Cueball here. This is a great case of RGOOMH "Randall Get Out Of My Head". [[User:Rtanenbaum|Rtanenbaum]] ([[User talk:Rtanenbaum|talk]]) 13:55, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

Misread it as Self-immolate which was confusing but ignoring the last panel, equally as funny. [[User: Anonymous|Anonymous]] ([[User talk:Anonymous|talk]]) 10:16, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

Talk:2276: Self-Isolate

2020-03-05T18:12:07Z

162.158.106.144: Misread it as Self-immolate which was confusing but ignoring the last panel, equally as funny

Talk:2273: Truck Proximity

2020-02-28T02:16:38Z

162.158.106.144:

Lots of dinosaurs driving equipment on a farm out there: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bUmxUWs1Uk or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmgHz8zBZlk [[Special:Contributions/173.245.52.97|173.245.52.97]] 20:47, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

Being pedantic, those are tractors: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.imayi.dinofarmfree&hl=en_US Perhaps dinosaurs driving trucks on farms is a niche just begging to be filled ;-) [[Special:Contributions/172.68.189.127|172.68.189.127]] 06:09, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

Can see a strong argument that Randall got the axes wrong here... [[User:Heylukeatthat|Heylukeatthat]] ([[User talk:Heylukeatthat|talk]]) 21:09, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
:How so? I don't see it... There are people with truck-related hobbies who know more info about trucks than the frequency of their proximity to them might demand; which accounts for the asymmetry in the upper-right cluster. Having kids (especially male children raised with heteronormative socially dimorphic entertainment sets, which frequently adhere to traditional social expectations of "stuff for boys") ''definitely'' increases one's exposure to truck-related topics. What's the case for the axes being reversed?
:[[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 21:30, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
::I just read his comment as suggesting the x and y axes should be swapped, where 'proximity to trucks' should be on the x-axis. I'd agree that conventionally that would make more sense, and it was likely done this way to impact the 'reading order' of the clusters for comic effect. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.214.88|162.158.214.88]] 22:18, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
:::Don't you know? Having knowledge of trucks causes a physical attraction force between you and the truck. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.34.58|172.69.34.58]] 01:25, 27 February 2020 (UTC)
:::The real issue is that the most proximity (distance 0) is at some random point far away from the center of the coordinate system and the center of the coordinate system is some random distance away from a truck. [[User:Fabian42|Fabian42]] ([[User talk:Fabian42|talk]]) 02:59, 27 February 2020 (UTC)
:::A graph doesn't necessary show that x axis causes y axis. even less when it is mapped on the plane instead of being a line graph. But even line graphs may just show correlation, see [[111: Firefox and Witchcraft - The Connection?]] --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 07:35, 27 February 2020 (UTC)
::Economics graphs often reverse the axes like that. Though in this case, I saw it as correlational rather than explicitly causal, so I didn't even notice.

Wait, has Randall come into possession of ''offspring''? Specifically, of the "between 2 and 5 years of age, assigned male at birth" variety? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.79.35|162.158.79.35]] 22:37, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
:This is what I came here curious about! Or is he just making this observation about some friends/family he spends time with?--[[Special:Contributions/162.158.214.82|162.158.214.82]] 23:11, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
:Seems unlikely given the lack of units on the [[833|axes]]. --[[Special:Contributions/172.68.54.130|172.68.54.130]] 15:23, 27 February 2020 (UTC)
::[[833]] is about labeling axes in general, not about putting units on them. If you just want to show a correlation, but not detailed values, such as here, it is totally valid to not put units. --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 15:25, 27 February 2020 (UTC)
:::It's not clear if it's linear or log or [[2023|something weird]]. --[[Special:Contributions/172.68.54.142|172.68.54.142]] 17:44, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

I can think of one job that puts someone into that bottom-right corner: total loss valuation specialists (particularly ones specializing in commercial vehicles). We don't get within a hundred miles of trucks, and yet we know substantially more about them than the people who submit the claims to us do (and sometimes more than the owners do). --[[User:Skyrender|Skyrender]] ([[User talk:Skyrender|talk]]) 02:31, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

Clearly Randall (and other parents) should investigate Dinotrux, which I enjoyed with my kids. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.62.15|162.158.62.15]] 10:40, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

Wait... This is almost a Venn diagram -- does this mean parents of 2 to 5 year olds are not "normal people"? How DARE you, sir! I'm as normal as any other sleep-deprived person! (Well, I guess my sanity is questionable since I consciously and deliberately hang around with preschoolers...) --BigMal // [[Special:Contributions/172.69.68.185|172.69.68.185]] 13:15, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

"Apparently trucks and farms do not mix very well." Seriously? Go spend half an hour listening to country music; that'll disabuse you of that mistaken notion rather quickly! :P

The title text of the comic mentions children's media, not specifically books. The Google search, which Randall didn't perform, "dinosaurs driving trucks on a farm" does produce results. For instance, a game called Dinosaur Farm https://www.amazon.com/Dinosaur-Farm-Tractor-Truck-Simulator/dp/B01MSA2OVD. The images appear to show a variety of vehicles, including tractors and others that more closely resemble various kinds of trucks. --[[User:Shabegger|Shabegger]] ([[User talk:Shabegger|talk]]) 17:57, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

"but parents won't and are unlikely to go near any truck." What? I know plenty of parents who go against this idea. This comic mostly just applies to urban areas though. Rural Canada or the States, you see tons of people with trucks just for everyday driving, even lots of non-farmers. For a lot of people, it can just come in handy from time to time (hauling boats or furniture (furniture stores etc may not deliver to more rural areas) or people), or they use it because it's better at handling bad road conditions, or for some, it's kind of a status symbol.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.106.144|162.158.106.144]] 02:16, 28 February 2020 (UTC)

708: Sex Dice

2020-01-31T02:41:00Z

162.158.106.144: /* Explanation */ Grammar edit

{{comic
| number = 708
| date = March 1, 2010
| title = Sex Dice
| image = sex dice.png
| titletext = You roll for initiative, and... [roll]... wow, do you ever take it.
}}

==Explanation==
{{w|Sex dice}} consist of two dice, one listing various actions, and one listing various body parts. Roll the dice, do the specified action to the specified body part, repeat as necessary.

Because most games require the same dice, in many peoples' game collections, the dice get mixed around between games. Unfortunately it seems [[Cueball]] and [[Megan]] have accidentally exchanged one of their sex dice (the one that contains actions) with a normal six-sided die; as a result, the people playing a {{w|role-playing game}} in the last panel find themselves doing unusual actions.

Given the situation, it's likely the player who fondled the guard was supposed to roll 2 or 3 six-sided dice to determine the damage of his attack. The sex die came up as "fondle," while the other dice added up to six; hence, he fondled the guard for 6 damage.

The title text is another possible situation that might arise: "rolling for {{w|Initiative (role-playing games)|initiative}}" in role-playing games is how the players determine who attacks in what order during combat. Here, the player rolled the sex die as part of his initiative roll, and therefore "took initiative" in an entirely different way.

Typically the missing sex dice will show different actions like these: Blow, bite, nip, lick, pat or suck (from a set that did not include fondle). The other dice with places on the body like breasts might also have these options: Ass, thigh, ear, navel or lips. Other dice may show positions to use, like doggy style, or places in the house on which to perform these, as in the kitchen. It is a little difficult to imagine any of the actions mentioned above resulting in the response in the title text: ''Wow, do you ever take it.'' Maybe there are other types of dice, but they are not easily found with a Google search...

==Transcript==
:[Cueball and Megan kneel on a bed, Cueball, on the foot of the bed, is shaking a cup of dice. Behind Megan is a pillow and the bed poles.]
:Cueball: All right, baby. Get ready for...
:''Shake shake shake roll''

:[There is no frame around the next drawing of the two dice that have been rolled. The first is a regular five (seen almost from the top, but the sides with one and three can be seen). The second die has text written on it:]
:Breasts

:[Cueball and Megan are bent over the dice lying on the bed staring at them. Beat panel.]

:[Cueball leans back on one hand while taking the other to his chin while Megan sits straighter.]
:Cueball: I really need to organize the game cupboard.
:Megan: Wait, so where's the other sex die?

:[A Cueball-like guy lies on his tummy, and another Cueball-like guy sits to the left with Hairbun siting and Ponytail also lying on her tummy hands beneath her chin to the right on the floor around a game board. On the board is what appears to be two dice.]
:Guy lying: I... ''fondle'' the castle guard? That doesn't seem right.
:Hairbun: It did 6 damage, though.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairbun]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]
[[Category:Sex]]

Talk:2162: Literary Opinions

2019-06-13T18:01:32Z

162.158.106.144: literature map search suggests that people who like one of these authors likely to read others

let's see WS Burroughs = Tarzan, E.R. Burroughs = Naked Lunch.
CS Lewis Carol
Bruce Stirlling / SM Stirling

Is it just me, or was this comic released earlier than usual? Released just after midnight, EDT. [[User:Herobrine|Herobrine]] ([[User talk:Herobrine|talk]]) 08:30, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

:It's just you.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.214.100|162.158.214.100]] 10:33, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

::Yes, it's unusally early. It happened before, but most of the time the new comics arrived in the late afternoon (central european time). This one was already up when I turned on my computer ~8am. --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 11:54, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

Is there any value in adding info about the authors mentioned? [[User:Ianrbibtitlht|Ianrbibtitlht]] ([[User talk:Ianrbibtitlht|talk]]) 13:17, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

: I wanted to add "Elements of Style" to show T.H., er, E.B. (whichever ;-) was more than just a "children's book author". Probably not worth it.[[User:Afbach|Afbach]] ([[User talk:Afbach|talk]])

I don't think this relates to the "Fregoli Delusion"(sp) - they think the same person is using more than one name. [[User:Afbach|Afbach]] ([[User talk:Afbach|talk]])
: Yeah, this feels more like pseudonyms than Frengoli to me.[[Special:Contributions/172.68.206.22|172.68.206.22]] 18:42, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

Shouldn't we discuss authors with multiple pseudonyms? Like JK Rowling and Robert Galbraith, or Nora Roberts and JD Robb, etc... [[Special:Contributions/172.68.143.144|172.68.143.144]] 16:44, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

Glad I'm not the only one who confuses former US vice president Gore Vidal with Vidal Sassoon the war poet. [[User:ColinHogben|ColinHogben]] ([[User talk:ColinHogben|talk]]) 16:49, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
: That's where I heard that name before! [[User:Afbach|Afbach]] ([[User talk:Afbach|talk]])

Why would Megan pick those 4 authors to be the same person? What do they or their works have in common? It would be nice to cover that. (Not knowing anything about any of them, any theory I might advance would be about as valid as one of Megan's.)
Bit of a long-shot, but I wonder if the link has anything to do with Randall's book tour competition. (He invites people to Write the best story using nothing but book covers.)[https://blog.xkcd.com/2019/06/10/book-tour-announcement/] Any good story/sentence made up with works by those 4 authors? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.107.55|162.158.107.55]] 22:13, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
: Did a search on all those author names together. Seems Wallace, Thompson, and Burroughs wrote books that have been tagged as dealing with drugs. (Hardly a unique characteristic, but might suggest some common thead.)
: Literature map - searching for Hunter S Thompson, lists the other 3 in fairly close proximity. (i.e., people who indicated reading one of these are likely to have read works by others of these authors. For whatever reason.)
: Anybody writing here actually read these authors? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.106.144|162.158.106.144]] 18:01, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

How about the theory that Mary Pearson, Andre Norton, Andrew North, Allen Weston, and M. D. Herter are the same person. ;-) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.106.144|162.158.106.144]] 22:31, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

Should trivia link it to [[923: Strunk and White]] which also mentions E.B. white.? --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 08:32, 13 June 2019 (UTC)
: Done! [[User:Ianrbibtitlht|Ianrbibtitlht]] ([[User talk:Ianrbibtitlht|talk]]) 11:54, 13 June 2019 (UTC)
::Thanks :) I had to note this down somewhere to not forget it, when the though struck me, but didn't have time for a proper edit... --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 12:17, 13 June 2019 (UTC)
:::I got your back, Jack...er, Lupo! ;-) [[User:Ianrbibtitlht|Ianrbibtitlht]] ([[User talk:Ianrbibtitlht|talk]]) 12:42, 13 June 2019 (UTC)
:::I also back-linked from that comic to this one in a Trivia entry as well. [[User:Ianrbibtitlht|Ianrbibtitlht]] ([[User talk:Ianrbibtitlht|talk]]) 12:43, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

I think this has to be viewed from one step back, i.e., it is not necessarily about books or writers, but rather a take on people who form and voice opinions without proper knowledge of the facts, even if the facts are very easily researchable.
This happens A LOT in forum postings, e.g., when there is an article about some scientific dicovery on a popular news site, and then people start discussing (and fighting) about that discovery in the forums for this article. These discussions are more often than not based purely on speculation, without anyone bothering to check the original publication on which the article was based, or even without any specialist knowledge about the subject matter at hand. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.89.19|162.158.89.19]] 09:54, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

Talk:2162: Literary Opinions

2019-06-12T22:31:04Z

162.158.106.144: Another theory which might be worthy of Megan - r.e. Mary Norton

2150: XKeyboarCD

2019-05-19T20:13:58Z

162.158.106.144: /* Explanation */ simplify. Add jog wheel.

{{comic
| number = 2150
| date = May 15, 2019
| title = XKeyboarCD
| image = xkeyboarcd.png
| titletext = The key caps use LCD displays for all the vowels, so they can automatically adjust over the years to reflect ongoing vowel shifts while allowing you to keep typing phonetically.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a LEOPARD USING AN XKEYBOARCD. Seems to be finished, could someone check it again before deleting this tag? Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

In the same vein as the [[:Category:xkcd Phones|xkcd Phone series]], the XKeyboarCD seems to be an overly inventive and borderline ludicrous keyboard intended for some unknown audience. It has an assortment of features (some fairly normal, some more exotic) which give it a..."diverse skill set".

*'''54 Configurable Rubik's Keys'''
The smaller cubes on a {{w|Rubik's cube}} resemble computer keys, so this feature makes fun of that by adding a spinnable Rubik's cube above the keyboard. The implication is that the keys would be 'configured' by twisting the sides of the cube until the desired configuration is reached, although parity means that not all configurations could be reached by conventional means. There can be a maximum of 53 keys (the bottom center position can't contain a key because it's the mounting position). Additionally, the top key can't be moved around, so the maximum amount of configurable keys is 52. (The four remaining centers can be moved by rotating the entire cube.) The bottom-facing keys would obviously be hard to see/reach.

*'''Hardcoded Plastic Keys for the 5 Most Useful Emoji'''
This feature parodies the feature of some laptop-keyboards where it is possible to dynamically assign emojis to a small touchscreen area. There is a disaccord between hard-coded, useful and emoji, especially with the large keys in a central position on the keyboard. Which emojis would be "the most useful" is highly subjective. For example in the comic it shows the quite popular laughing with tears emoji, along with the octopus emoji and others. Notably, the "aerial tramway" was once the least-used emoji, and remains very rarely used.
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Emoji
! Name
|-
| 😰
| [https://emojipedia.org/face-with-open-mouth-and-cold-sweat/ Anxious Face With Sweat]
|-
| 😂
| [https://emojipedia.org/face-with-tears-of-joy/ Face With Tears of Joy]
|-
| 🐙
| [https://emojipedia.org/octopus/ Octopus]
|-
| 🏇
| [https://emojipedia.org/horse-racing/ Horse Racing]
|-
| 🚡
| [https://emojipedia.org/aerial-tramway/ Aerial Tramway]
|}

*'''Serif Lock'''
{{w|Serifs}} are small lines on the ends of certain characters in fonts such as Times New Roman and Georgia. It is dependent on the font, not on the character; "A" is represented by the same code regardless of its font. Since a given font almost always either has or doesn't have serifs, this key seems challenging to implement. This key could be implemented, however, by simply changing between a pair of fonts when it is pressed. What's more, the button is placed roughly where left shift is on most keyboards, liable to cause frustration.

*'''Unlimited Key Travel'''
Key travel is the distance a key moves between its unpressed and pressed states. In reality, laptop keys only move a few millimeters before bottoming out, and conventional keyboards up to about a centimeter. Increased key travel may make typing more comfortable, up to a point. However, the usefulness of having unlimited key travel is unclear, and the question of how this would be physically possible in the keyboard depicted remains unanswered. At least it is the greatest possible value, trumping any other keyboard. This is a play on transport passes, allowing unlimited travel (usually within a certain time or transport network).

*'''Diagonal Spacebar'''
Instead of a wide key at the bottom that typists can hit easily with either thumb, we now have a tall, narrow key that requires being pressed with the right pinkie. This would not be a good change since most peoples' pinkies are their weakest finger. Some ergonomic keyboards have a slightly curved spacebar or a separated spacebar for each thumb.

*'''Arrow Key (Rotate to Adjust Direction)'''
This is essentially a {{w|Jog dial|jog dials}}, or similar {{w|Rotary encoder|rotary encoder}}. These are sometimes used with keyboards, as controls for volume, video editing, or drawing.
Many computer keyboards have four {{w|arrow keys}}: up, left, right, and down. However, the XKeyboarCD just has one that can be rotated. This has the added bonus of allowing the arrow keys to point more than four different directions. In a keyboard, it would be awkward to operate as going from horizontally left to horizontally right, for example, would require the user to rotate the key first and then press it, which wastes precious time when playing a video game. It would not let one press multiple arrow keys at once. Trackpoint devices provide similar joystick-like direction function, but are easier to control with a finger.

*'''15 Puzzle-Style Numberpad'''
A {{w|15 puzzle}} is a square containing fifteen smaller squares and one blank spot, which allows the squares to be moved around. The squares are shuffled and then reassembled as a game or pastime, and are usually labelled 1-15 (as is the case here) or, when assembled properly, create a picture. A {{w|Numeric keypad|numberpad}} in this style would be frustrating to use for typing numbers, as they could shift (or be shifted) around, but could provide a fun feature to use as a game. Alternatively the keys could be rearranged as with the Rubik`s keys. How this would be used to generate numeric input is unclear, but the presence of 16 positions suggests {{w|hexadecimal}} input is possible. Keyboard keypads do have around 17 keys, but only 0-9 usually have numbers whereas the XKCD keypad has numbers 10-15 in the middle of the numberpad probably also surrounded by the more conventional arithmetic operators, enter, and decimal point.

*'''Ergonomic Design'''
The cylindrical portion of the keyboard is advertised as being an ergonomic design. Most ergonomic keyboards are both curved into a convex shape and split in the middle, with the blocks of keys on either side rotated around the vertical axis. This is done to follow natural arm and finger movements more closely, that is, avoid forcing the user to rotate their arms and hands to match the flat and rectangular key arrangement of a non-ergonomic keyboard. Some ergonomic keyboards come in unconventional form factors, such as vertical keyboards, to allow the user's hands to rest in more neutral positions or to change positions throughout the day, but the cylinder shape presented here is a ''concave'' shape which requires the user to lift and twist his arms to reach certain keys (or roll the cylinder from side to side), which would be an even more strenuous motion than typing on a standard keyboard. The slogan of the keyboard - "for power users and their powerful fingers" fits this difficulty -, but makes no sense as a feature.

*'''Title Text'''
The title text references sound changes in languages. Every language (and indeed, every dialect) routinely undergoes changes in its sounds and phonemes, in a mostly regular and systematic, but not totally predictibale way (otherways the dialects would sound the same and also the century, when a shift occurs, and the rate of change are not predictable). While not only vowels are affected, in languages with many vowels such as English, they're particularly likely to shift around and/or merge. While having dynamic keycaps that change can actually come in handy, the feature of only having vowels change in response to sound shifts is a bit less so. One normally enters the spelling and not the pronounciation of words (except with some Asian input systems). The spelling and pronounciation do not change at the same time.

First, while changes in how we pronounce words are always ongoing, the way we write words down tends to stay relatively static, and thahs wiy wuhd faynd thaet werds biykahm ihncaampriyhehnsihbuhl duw tuw now laanger biyihng spehlld aes they wer bihfaor. Second, English only uses five glyphs (aeiou) and a variety of methods to represent four times as many vowel sounds, so the software would need to have a way to handling that (in some dialects "bird" and "turn" for example, have the same vowel but are represented by "ir" and "ur", as it also ''can'' be by the "er" in the bird called the "{{w|tern}}" - or not). Third, vowel shifts are not ubiquitous: the {{w|Caught-cot merger}}, for example, is a phenomenon happening across some parts (but not all) of the US and UK. Therefore, while some people would say "caught" and "cot have the same vowel it should be spelled the same by the keyboard, but others would say they're two different vowels and should not be spelled identically. Fourth, sound shifts tend to occur over a relatively long period of time (in terms of human lifetimes), so a user would probably find the keycaps only change once or twice. All in all, this is not a very useful feature.

An alternative explanation is that the keys actually map to the {{w|International Phonetic Alphabet}} and converts what you type into English words (and the vowel changes). The IPA is an alphabet used in linguistics and language teaching, designed to represent every phoneme present in languages of the world unambiguously, with optional modifiers to indicate more subtle nuances in pronunciation, intonation and speech pathology. This alphabet consists of 107 letters and 56 modifiers (with some letters shared with the Latin and Greek alphabets), which would explain the large number of keys. In that case, the feature remains questionable since it only handles vowel shifts and not consonants, and anybody who'd use an IPA-keyboard would probably need to type out the phonology of other languages and appreciate not having to find a key has moved because English has undergone a vowel shift.

*'''Trivia'''
This is the second time that the "xkcd" has been used around a middle word, which uses some of the xkcd letters to form this word. The first was [[1506: xkcloud]] - XKC lou D, to spell ClouD with the C and D from XKCD, in that comic the letters where all lowercase. In this comic the Keyboard, has an X before the word and a C before the D with the xkcd letters capitalized.

==Transcript==
:[Headings above a drawing of a very special keyboard:]
:Introducing the
:<big>XKeyboarCD</big>
:A keyboard for powerful users and their powerful fingers®

:[The keyboard has many more keys than a usual Keyboard. Usual keyboards for stationary computers typically have a few of the rows with 21 keys, and then some with fewer. This Keyboard has 28 keys on the top row. The other rows have special keys that make it difficult to compare, but there is basically also room for 28 in the bottom row, except one spot where there is one key in a space for 2x2 keys. Begining from the bottom and coutning keys there are 27. Skipping those that take up space in two or more rows, when going to the next row from the bottom there are 23, then 24, then 18, then 27 and finally 28 keys in the top row, for a total of 147 keys (vs 105 on a regular keyboard). Then there are 54 extra keys above the keyboard to the left (27 shown) and 156 in 6 rows of 26 to the right for a total of 357 keys 330 shown. All six rows have keys all the way over with no empty space in between, as there are on regular keyboards. Also there are no space between the top row (with F1 button etc) and those below. At each side of the keyboard the keys do no align at the edges, which is normally the case. The keyboard has several special features, most of which are labeled. The only special features that is not labeled is a small square with 2x2 keys that are elevated a bit above all other keys. It is in the region above the normal position of the four arrows. All eight other special features have an arrow pointing to them from their labels. Here below is a description of the labeled items as well as a transcript of their labels. They are listed in the order of their labels first above and then below the keyboard going from left to right.]

:[Five keys close to the QWERTY keys positions have colorful emoji on them. They each take up the space of 2x2 normal keys, although it is not clear if all the "normal" keys have the same size:]
:Hardcoded plastic keys for the 5 most useful emoji
:😰 😂 🐙 🏇 🚡

:[A cube with 3x3 keys on each side hangs above the keyboard to the left supported by a small rod. Three sides are fully visible, 27 keys:]
:54 configurable Rubik's keys

:[Just right of the middle above the main keyboard is a cylinder with keys inside in 6 rows of 26 keys (126 in all). It either decreases in diameter into it making it look almost like a tunnel, or is drawn as if it almost disappear in the far distance, being much deeper than it should be.]
:Ergonomic design

:[In the region where the normal numberpad would be there are 15 numbers from 1 to 15 in a 4x4 grid leaving space for an empty key hole. There is a row of keys both above and below this grid. The numbers do not come in order from 1 to 15, but rather in a jumble. Also the empty hole is not a full key spot. Instead it is in the second row of numbers, with a bit more space to the left than to the right of the middle of the three keys.]
:
:{| class="wikitable"
|+15 puzzle-style numberpad
|-
|1
|8
|4
|12
|-
|7
|
|11
|3
|-
|15
|6
|10
|9
|-
|2
|5
|13
|14
|}

:[To the left in the second row (below the Caps Lock position) the outer key is twice as wide as the other normal keys.]
:Serif Lock

:[An arrow points to the eight key in the bottom row, but is probably just referring to all the keys in general:]
:Unlimited key travel

:[There is a segment of the keyboard that seems to be empty of keys, but still white like the rest of the keys, not black as where keys are actually missing. It is where on a regular keyboard, the normal keys are separated from the special function keys. But it turns out it is indeed a long key going vertically:]
:Diagonal spacebar

:[Where the four arrow keys are on a regular keyboard there is a 2x2 key segment that only has one key in the middle with black background around it. It has an arrow head on it pointing right. That is if the key had not been turned about 45 degree counter clockwise, so the arrow points up to the right.]
:Arrow key (rotate to adjust direction)

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Emoji]]

2144: Adjusting a Chair

2019-05-04T17:29:44Z

162.158.106.144: /* Explanation */ Note that 4 is a chair of chairs. Some notes on similarity to existing chairs, and possible utility.

{{comic
| number = 2144
| date = May 1, 2019
| title = Adjusting a Chair
| image = adjusting_a_chair.png
| titletext = When I was looking at the box, I should have thought more about what "360 degrees of freedom" meant.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by an EDITOR WITH TOO MANY DEGREES OF FREEDOM. Needs review. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
This comic shows [[Cueball]]'s attempts to adjust a swivelling chair. This comically culminates in a massive chair with a big central seat and several other chairs branching off of it as Cueball continues learning how to to adjust it. The chair also apparently has so many controls it takes two hours to discover them all (although Cueball may have shown off his newly-discovered abilities in the mean time, so it might not take two hours of continuous experimentation).

As many people have experienced, these chairs can be quite difficult to raise, lower, or manoeuvre if one does not know how. Typically the chairs have multiple knobs and levers underneath the seat, which requires the user to rely on muscle memory to find them, since these levers are usually used while using the chair. There are often several ways to manipulate each control (may be rotated, moved laterally, vertically, or axially.) One typically needs to experiment with the levers and knobs in a new chair to understand how to work the chair, and it appears Cueball is experimenting with them.

Each step gets farther away from what real-life office chairs could do. In sequence, Cueball finds his chair doing more and more surprising things:

{| class="wikitable"
! Step|| Sound || Chair's Ability
|-
| 1 || Clunk || Being able to recline the seat back. Many chairs do have this ability, which one can use for sitting comfort or perhaps to take a nap.
|-
| 2 || Hiss || Being able to raise or lower the seat. Most chairs have this ability, but the comic departs from real chairs in two ways. First, it's much higher than any real chair. Second, he can raise the height while sitting on it; under normal design, pressing the raise/lower lever while sitting on the chair is how one ''lowers'' the seat, using one's own weight to depress the spring or hydraulic piston (which is what's used here, as indicated by the sound). However, it's not uncommon to find a chair that has worn out or been improperly calibrated, so that it does rise even when sat on (especially with lighter people), or does not lower even when not sat upon with the lever active.
|-
| 3 || Poof || Being able to have the seat inflate. Although this could be useful (e.g. to help people who need to use extra seat cushions because of hemorrhoids or coccyx injury), it is not a typical office chair capability. However, in addition to simply inflating, Cueball's chair appears to actually make the seat longer and wider. Some chairs allow the arm rests to be adjusted closer or further away. Having the seat also adjust would similarly be useful to accommodate larger people (as for instance some wheelchairs are built wider than usual for wider people or for people who have extra dressings).
|-
| 4 || Unknown || Forming a chair out of multiple sub-chairs. Putting out branches and growing extra seats, wheels and backs. Chairs definitely cannot do this in real life{{Citation needed}} and use cases are doubtful. Some chairs do have back-rests in several pieces. Being able to add more wheels could be convenient to increase stability, or decrease pressure on soft flooring.
|}

The title text refers to a common claim on such chairs, that the chair offers 360 degrees rotation and several degrees of freedom. This is a double entendre, depending on if "360 degrees" or "degrees of freedom" is interpreted as an object. However, here it means there are 360 {{w|Degrees of freedom (mechanics)|mechanical degrees of freedom}}, which is the number of independent parameters that define the configuration of an object; in other words, the chair has 360 different levers and options, far more than a standard chair{{Citation needed}}.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is shown adjusting a chair by pressing a button on the bottom of the chair. There is a caption in a frame over the top of the panel:]
:Adjusting a chair:

:[The seat back of the chair swings backward with him rather fast as shown by a few movement lines.]
:Chair: ''Clunk''

:[Cueball leans forward against the new chair position and presses another button.]

:[The chair extends to several times its previous height, very fast as shown by many lines beneath the seat.]
:Chair: ''Hiss''

:[At the top of this very high seat Cueball leans forward and presses another button.]

:[The seat expands in all directions, so Cueball only sits in the middle of it with his legs on top of the inflated cushion.]
:Chair: ''Poof''

:[The chair is now a massive contraption. It has 5 bases, each with wheels as the original chair. The main's seat is in the middle of the contraption with a single trunk going up from the five bases connecting them and the large cushion of the seat. Two entire chairs are branching out from underneath this central seat, they are each hanging in a thin wire more or less upside down to each side of the main trunk. Two poles are coming up from the central seat, each with a new seat and two back-to-back seat backs. Yet another seat is supported by a thin rod connecting the two top seats, looking almost like a table between the two chairs. Cueball is still on the main seat's cushion. He is holding on to one of the poles above him as he leans down and attempts to press yet another button beneath the seat. There is a caption in a frame over the top of the panel:]
:Two hours later...

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]

1054: The bacon

2019-05-04T17:19:47Z

162.158.106.144: Finishing a word

{{comic
| number = 1054
| date = May 11, 2012
| title = The Bacon
| image = thebacon.png
| titletext = Normally pronounced 'THEH-buh-kon', I assume.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic plays off the American {{w|colloquialism}} "bring home the bacon", which generally means to work hard and bring money home to your family to put food on the table. If a man is out of work he may be stressed out about how to "bring home the bacon."

Some men would not be assuaged if their wife takes over but at first it seems that [[White Hat]] is happy that his wife, who work as a pharmacist, does bring home the bacon, and he tells this to [[Cueball]].

Later, however, Cueball finds out, that what White Hat actually was saying was "{{w|Thebacon}}", which is a common name for ''dihydrocodeinone enol acetate'' an {{w|opioid}} commonly marketed under names like Acedicon and Diacodin. As a pharmacist White Hat's wife has easy access to such drugs, and this may be the reason that he is so calm, because his wife supplies him with painkiller drugs.

Thebacon is compared to the better known drug {{w|Vicodin}}, another opioid sold as a painkiller, which can (and often has) become a drug of abuse.

The title text lists what [[Randall]] assumes to be the normal pronunciation for Thebacon.

According to {{w|thebacon|Wikipedia}}, Randall seems to be mistaken in no less than ''three'' places (which seems to indicate that Randall has only passing knowledge of the drug and did not do extensive research beforehand):
*The proper name is
**Dihydrocodeinone enol acetate, not
**Dihydrocodeine enol acetate.
*It is a {{w|semisynthetic|''semisynthetic''}} opioid not a synthetic opioid.
*The pronunciation is /ˈθiːbəkɒn/
**THEE-buh-kon, not
**THEH-buh-kon.
***By saying ''I assume'', Randall indicates that he didn't research the pronunciation.
***As an alternative explanation, there may be a joke/pun in the mistake.

==Transcript==
:[White Hat is holding out a hand towards Cueball while telling him about his job situation. The space between the and bacon is very small.]
:White Hat: I'm out of work, but I'm not stressed about it because my wife is a pharmacist and she brings home the bacon.

:[Caption below the panel:]
:Only later did I learn that "Thebacon" is the common name for dihydrocodeine enol acetate, a synthetic opioid similar to Vicodin.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Language]]
[[Category:Food]]

2144: Adjusting a Chair

2019-05-04T17:18:14Z

162.158.106.144: /* Explanation */ wider or deeper seats would be useful for people who are wider than average, or have longer thighs

{{comic
| number = 2144
| date = May 1, 2019
| title = Adjusting a Chair
| image = adjusting_a_chair.png
| titletext = When I was looking at the box, I should have thought more about what "360 degrees of freedom" meant.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by an EDITOR WITH TOO MANY DEGREES OF FREEDOM. Needs review. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
This comic shows [[Cueball]]'s attempts to adjust a swivelling chair. This comically culminates in a massive chair with a big central seat and several other chairs branching off of it as Cueball continues learning how to to adjust it. The chair also apparently has so many controls it takes two hours to discover them all (although Cueball may have shown off his newly-discovered abilities in the mean time, so it might not take two hours of continuous experimentation).

As many people have experienced, these chairs can be quite difficult to raise, lower, or manoeuvre if one does not know how. Typically the chairs have multiple knobs and levers underneath the seat, which requires the user to rely on muscle memory to find them, since these levers are usually used while using the chair. There are often several ways to manipulate each control (may be rotated, moved laterally, vertically, or axially.) One typically needs to experiment with the levers and knobs in a new chair to understand how to work the chair, and it appears Cueball is experimenting with them.

Each step gets farther away from what real-life office chairs could do. In sequence, Cueball finds his chair doing more and more surprising things:

{| class="wikitable"
! Step|| Sound || Chair's Ability
|-
| 1 || Clunk || Being able to recline the seat back. Many chairs do have this ability, which one can use for sitting comfort or perhaps to take a nap.
|-
| 2 || Hiss || Being able to raise or lower the seat. Most chairs have this ability, but the comic departs from real chairs in two ways. First, it's much higher than any real chair. Second, he can raise the height while sitting on it; under normal design, pressing the raise/lower lever while sitting on the chair is how one ''lowers'' the seat, using one's own weight to depress the spring or hydraulic piston (which is what's used here, as indicated by the sound). However, it's not uncommon to find a chair that has worn out or been improperly calibrated, so that it does rise even when sat on (especially with lighter people), or does not lower even when not sat upon with the lever active.
|-
| 3 || Poof || Being able to have the seat inflate. Although this could be useful (e.g. to help people who need to use extra seat cushions because of hemorrhoids or coccyx injury), it is not a typical office chair capability. However, in addition to simply inflating, Cueball's chair appears to actually make the seat longer and wider. This would be useful to accommodate larger people (as for instance some wheelchairs are built wider than usual for wider people or for people who have extra dressings).
|-
| 4 || Unknown || Putting out branches and growing extra seats, wheels and backs. Chairs definitely cannot do this in real life{{Citation needed}} and use cases are doubtful.
|}

The title text refers to a common claim on such chairs, that the chair offers 360 degrees rotation and several degrees of freedom. This is a double entendre, depending on if "360 degrees" or "degrees of freedom" is interpreted as an object. However, here it means there are 360 {{w|Degrees of freedom (mechanics)|mechanical degrees of freedom}}, which is the number of independent parameters that define the configuration of an object; in other words, the chair has 360 different levers and options, far more than a standard chair{{Citation needed}}.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is shown adjusting a chair by pressing a button on the bottom of the chair. There is a caption in a frame over the top of the panel:]
:Adjusting a chair:

:[The seat back of the chair swings backward with him rather fast as shown by a few movement lines.]
:Chair: ''Clunk''

:[Cueball leans forward against the new chair position and presses another button.]

:[The chair extends to several times its previous height, very fast as shown by many lines beneath the seat.]
:Chair: ''Hiss''

:[At the top of this very high seat Cueball leans forward and presses another button.]

:[The seat expands in all directions, so Cueball only sits in the middle of it with his legs on top of the inflated cushion.]
:Chair: ''Poof''

:[The chair is now a massive contraption. It has 5 bases, each with wheels as the original chair. The main's seat is in the middle of the contraption with a single trunk going up from the five bases connecting them and the large cushion of the seat. Two entire chairs are branching out from underneath this central seat, they are each hanging in a thin wire more or less upside down to each side of the main trunk. Two poles are coming up from the central seat, each with a new seat and two back-to-back seat backs. Yet another seat is supported by a thin rod connecting the two top seats, looking almost like a table between the two chairs. Cueball is still on the main seat's cushion. He is holding on to one of the poles above him as he leans down and attempts to press yet another button beneath the seat. There is a caption in a frame over the top of the panel:]
:Two hours later...

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]

2145: Heists And Escapes

2019-05-04T17:06:47Z

162.158.106.144: /* Explanation */ simplify, link hell and underworld

{{comic
| number = 2145
| date = May 3, 2019
| title = Heists And Escapes
| image = heists_and_escapes.png
| titletext = The interactive experience is built on a single theological framework that unites Dante, George R. R. Martin, every major heist movie, and Erin Gloria Ryan's "Kevin is dead" Home Alone theory.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by an Escape room. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
Randall is trying to create the "greatest {{w|escape room}} game of all time".

The top six panels show a stylized version of various options where people try to get in or out of rooms:

* Escape rooms: An escape room is a type of puzzle/adventure game where people are locked in a room, or set of rooms, (discounting emergency exits) and have a certain amount of time to solve the puzzles and leave.
* {{w|Heist film|Heist movies}}: In heist movies, the thieves are trying to get in to a room, usually to steal what's inside.
* ''{{w|Home Alone}}'' (1990): This refers to the first movie in a franchise, where the home that the burglars tried to rob was protected by someone from the inside, Kevin McCallister (also mentioned in the title text).
* The Battle of Winterfell: This refers to the {{w|The Long Night (Game of Thrones episode)|3rd episode}} of the 8th season of ''{{w|Game of Thrones}}''. Here the dead tried to enter the {{w|keep}} (the middle room in the picture), but the keep already contained a crypt, with some dead inside, who could also try to leave that internal "room" as well.
* ''{{w|Inception}}'' (2010): In the movie ''Inception'' the protagonists could enter the dream world of others, and while in those dreams they could entering the dream of someone inside the dream. ''Inception'' can be categorized as a "heist" movie, as the main characters are thieves who steal information from their victim's subconscious.
* ''{{w|Divine Comedy|The Divine Comedy}}'' (1320): This refers to {{w|Dante Alighieri|Dante}}'s work - in particular its first part ''{{w|Inferno (Dante)|Inferno}}'', which depicts Hell as nine concentric circles. {{w|Purgatorio|Purgatory}} and {{w|Paradiso (Dante)|paradise}} are similarly concentric, but they are not likely to need to be escaped.

At the end, Randall proposes a combination of all of these things, and also combining it with others, to form the "greatest escape room game of all time":

* ''{{w|The Truman Show|Truman Show}}'': The protagonist of this movie was living in a constructed reality show, although he did not know it.
* Kevin McCallister's house/subconscious: Refers to the 8-year-old boy who is the main character in the movie ''Home Alone'' who protects his home from the burglars.
* {{w|Styx}}: A river in Greek mythology that forms the boundary between Earth and Underworld ("Hades"). It is necessary to cross the river Styx to enter or exit the Underworld. Hell is often likened to the underworld.

The title text refers to [https://www.thedailybeast.com/home-alone-is-so-much-better-if-kevin-mccallister-is-dead this article], which claims that Kevin McCallister is dead, and is actually a ghost.

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

:[Seven different room scenarios are shown with characters attempting to get inside or outside, each with a label below them.]

:[Cueball and Ponytail trying to exit a room.]
:Escape rooms

:[Cueball and Megan trying to enter a room.]
:Heist movies

:[Cueball, presumably representing Kevin, standing in the middle of a room while two people are trying to enter.]
:''Home Alone'' (1990)

:[A room is shown inside a larger room. Two characters try to enter from outside and two others try to exit from the inner room while Megan and Cueball are standing between them.]
:The Battle of Winterfell

:[Four rooms are shown inside of each other. Two characters try to enter from outside while three Cueballs in each room are standing while asleep.]
:''Inception'' (2010)

:[Smaller rooms are recursively shown inside of larger ones, with two characters trying to escape from each.]
:''The Divine Comedy'' (1320)

:[At the bottom a more complicated combination of various rooms shown in gray, with arrows labeled with question marks showing escape routes for two characters in black.]
:[Labels of various rooms and obstacles in gray:]
:Truman Show
:Bank
:Room
:Vault
:The dead
:Kevin McCallister's house
:Kevin McCallister's subconscious
:Styx
:Dante's Inferno
:[Label in the bottom in black:]
:My plan for the greatest escape room game of all time

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]

2145: Heists And Escapes

2019-05-04T17:02:12Z

162.158.106.144: /* Explanation */ simplify

{{comic
| number = 2145
| date = May 3, 2019
| title = Heists And Escapes
| image = heists_and_escapes.png
| titletext = The interactive experience is built on a single theological framework that unites Dante, George R. R. Martin, every major heist movie, and Erin Gloria Ryan's "Kevin is dead" Home Alone theory.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by an Escape room. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
Randall is trying to create the "greatest {{w|escape room}} game of all time".

The top six panels show a stylized version of various options where people try to get in or out of rooms:

* Escape rooms: An escape room is a type of puzzle/adventure game where people are locked in a room, or set of rooms, (discounting emergency exits) and have a certain amount of time to solve the puzzles and leave.
* {{w|Heist film|Heist movies}}: In heist movies, the thieves are trying to get in to a room, usually to steal what's inside.
* ''{{w|Home Alone}}'' (1990): This refers to the first movie in a franchise, where the home that the burglars tried to rob was protected by someone from the inside, Kevin McCallister (also mentioned in the title text).
* The Battle of Winterfell: This refers to the {{w|The Long Night (Game of Thrones episode)|3rd episode}} of the 8th season of ''{{w|Game of Thrones}}''. Here the dead tried to enter the {{w|keep}} (the middle room in the picture), but the keep already contained a crypt, with some dead inside, who could also try to leave that internal "room" as well.
* ''{{w|Inception}}'' (2010): In the movie ''Inception'' the protagonists could enter the dream world of others, and while in those dreams they could entering the dream of someone inside the dream. ''Inception'' can be categorized as a "heist" movie, as the main characters are thieves who steal information from their victim's subconscious.
* ''{{w|Divine Comedy|The Divine Comedy}}'' (1320): This refers to {{w|Dante Alighieri|Dante}}'s work - in particular its first part ''{{w|Inferno (Dante)|Inferno}}'', which depicts Hell as nine concentric circles. {{w|Purgatorio|Purgatory}} and {{w|Paradiso (Dante)|paradise}} are similarly concentric, but they are not likely to need to be escaped.

At the end, Randall proposes a combination of all of these things, and also combining it with others, to form the "greatest escape room game of all time":

* ''{{w|The Truman Show|Truman Show}}'': The protagonist of this movie was living in a constructed reality show, although he did not know it.
* Kevin McCallister's house/subconscious: Refers to the 8-year-old boy who is the main character in the movie ''Home Alone'' who protects his home from the burglars.
* {{w|Styx}}: Refers to a river in Greek mythology that forms the boundary between Earth and Underworld ("Hades"). It is necessary to cross the river Styx to enter and exit the Underworld.

The title text refers to [https://www.thedailybeast.com/home-alone-is-so-much-better-if-kevin-mccallister-is-dead this article], which claims that Kevin McCallister is dead, and is actually a ghost.

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

:[Seven different room scenarios are shown with characters attempting to get inside or outside, each with a label below them.]

:[Cueball and Ponytail trying to exit a room.]
:Escape rooms

:[Cueball and Megan trying to enter a room.]
:Heist movies

:[Cueball, presumably representing Kevin, standing in the middle of a room while two people are trying to enter.]
:''Home Alone'' (1990)

:[A room is shown inside a larger room. Two characters try to enter from outside and two others try to exit from the inner room while Megan and Cueball are standing between them.]
:The Battle of Winterfell

:[Four rooms are shown inside of each other. Two characters try to enter from outside while three Cueballs in each room are standing while asleep.]
:''Inception'' (2010)

:[Smaller rooms are recursively shown inside of larger ones, with two characters trying to escape from each.]
:''The Divine Comedy'' (1320)

:[At the bottom a more complicated combination of various rooms shown in gray, with arrows labeled with question marks showing escape routes for two characters in black.]
:[Labels of various rooms and obstacles in gray:]
:Truman Show
:Bank
:Room
:Vault
:The dead
:Kevin McCallister's house
:Kevin McCallister's subconscious
:Styx
:Dante's Inferno
:[Label in the bottom in black:]
:My plan for the greatest escape room game of all time

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]

2142: Dangerous Fields

2019-04-28T18:44:22Z

162.158.106.144: /* Fields */ fix typo

{{comic
| number = 2142
| date = April 26, 2019
| title = Dangerous Fields
| image = dangerous_fields.png
| titletext = Eventually, every epidemiologist becomes another statistic, a dedication to record-keeping which their colleagues sincerely appreciate.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by an INEXORABLE PROCESS. Percentages needed to be added (like [[1895: Worrying Scientist Interviews]]). Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This is a graph of fields of study, ordered by how likely one is to die because of something that that field studies. With mathematics being the least dangerous and gerontology being the most. Gerontology is shown as much more dangerous than the other fields, so it is far on the right side of the graph. The joke is in the distinction between the danger of studying the thing, and the overall death rate from the thing. Studying ageing doesn't put you at much more risk of ageing than the general population. However, studying volcanoes is likely to put you in dangerous environments.

This comic was posted the day after {{w|Joe Biden}} entered the race for the 2020 U.S. Presidential election, which is shaping up to feature the [https://www.cbc.ca/news/thenational/national-today-newsletter-american-politics-scarecrow-1.5107181 oldest set of candidates] in history.

===Fields===
*{{W|Mathematics}} is such a pure non-physical field that the probability of it being the direct cause of death is extremely low. The study of it might cause death through workplace disputes or absent-mindedly wandering in front of traffic while pondering (as in xkcd [[356: Nerd Sniping]]).

*{{W|Astronomy}}, the study of stars and space. Astronomy is slightly more dangerous than mathematics though, since it studies physical objects instead of abstract concepts. In addition to meteor or asteroid impacts, astronomical phenomena that might cause death include solar flares, nearby supernovas, distant magnetar quakes, a solar nova (the likelihood of which will increase over the next billion-odd years), perturbations in earth's orbit, increased or decreased solar radiation, alien invasion. Given that the density of magnetars and potentially hostile alien civilizations in the potentially lethal radius is (like the radius itself) completely unknown, and not all past mass extinctions are explained, this one might be misplaced a bit. Astronomy mostly deals with extremely far-away things., so astronomers are usually not at much increased risk from the things they study compared to the general population.

*{{W|Economics}} is the study of markets. Markets can kill you by depriving you of goods and services you need to survive. Goods can become un-available (e.g., cartels, embargos) or un-affordable (through job loss, inflation), in depressions, recessions. The study of such markets usually does not involve great risk, unless the markets are illegal (e.g., illicit drug markets), the economy being studied has put people under great stress, or one's findings are really unpopular.

*{{W|Law}} in this context refers to the rules people have to follow in society, and given the nature of laws (civil and criminal), the odds that your death is related to law is usually low. Possible causes of death more-or-less directly related would include prosecution for a capital crime, persecution under legal authority (such as being killed by an officer of the law), attack by a guard, or for lack of medical treatment, while incarcerated, or death by exposure after expulsion from one's repossessed or otherwise legally confiscated home. However, when large groups of people are dispossessed, or have the protection of law removed, casualties can be quite high. For instance, the {{w|Partition of India}} in 1947 resulted in 200,000 to 2 million deaths. The laws of the {{w|Great Leap Forward}} contributed to the starvation of tens of millions of Chinese. Perhaps most ironically, a lawyer who committed a capital crime in a country which practices capital punishment (such as the United States, China or Iran), and was executed for it would be directly killed by the thing s/he studies.

*{{W|Criminology}} is very similar to law, but is the study of crime. , meaning it's more dangerous than just "law." Criminologists may be directly involved with criminals in the course of their studies, increasing their exposure to potentially life-threatening behavior.

*{{W|Meteorology}} is the study of weather. Encountering powerful weather events such as hurricanes, tornadoes, blizzards, floods, and thunderstorms brings distinct possibility of injury and death. Curiosity to see a storm in person, or (if working for television news) exposing yourself to the weather event in order to file a report, may expose you to lightning, wind-blown projectiles, cold, water, etc. any of which can negatively affect your survival. Less dramatic weather also kills, hot weather can lead to heat stroke and dehydration.

*{{W|Chemistry}} is the study of chemicals and reactions of those chemicals. Since, under terrestrial conditions, everything is made up of chemicals (and chemists often use especially reactive or dangerous chemicals), the likelihood of a chemist's death being caused by chemistry (e.g., explosions, poisoning, chemical burns, suffocation...) is not insignificant.

*{{W|Marine Biology}} is the study of ocean life. Many marine creatures are venomous, many are very large. Death could result from storms, boat accidents, drowning, diving accidents, exposure to pathogenic bacteria, toxins (such as those produced by cone snails, and "red tide" dinoflagellates), allergies to shellfish, or water pollution, in addition to such perhaps more obvious (but overwhelmingly rarer) risks as shark attacks.

*{{w|Volcanology}} involves the study of {{w|volcanoes}}, {{w|lava}}, and {{w|magma}}, with obvious risks to the scientists studying them in the field. At least 67 scientists have been killed in volcanic eruptions, as of 2017 ("[https://cosmosmagazine.com/geoscience/volcanologists-lose-their-lives-in-pursuit-of-knowledge Volcanologists lose their lives in pursuit of knowledge]").

*{{w|Gerontology}} involves the study of aging, and of growing old in general. As everyone ages and eventually dies{{Citation needed}}, those who study gerontology are not immune to dying in old age even if they evade all the other possible causes of death - thus making it the most likely among all shown fields. A gerontologist still can die from something else first, but without the inherent risk factors of other professions such as active volcanoes or underwater diving they're more likely to survive to retirement and thus meet their death of old age.

The title text is about {{w|Epidemiology}}: the study of health and disease conditions in populations. In the event of an epidemic, there is a strong chance that epidemiologists in the search for the causation, transmission and treatment will be exposed and become victims of the disease in their own right. However, the title text refers more broadly to the role of epidemiology in maintaining detailed statistical records of diseases and other causes of death, such that eventually any epidemiologist (whatever the cause of death) will become one of his/her own statistics.

==Transcript==

:[A line chart is shown going from left to right with two arrows on either side. On the line are ten dots spread out unevenly from close to each end. The first four dots are clustered together on the left side. Then follows 5 more dots unevenly spaced, all to the left of center. On the far right of the line, near the end, there is one dot. Beneath each dot there goes a line down to a label written beneath each line. Above the chart there is a big title and below that an explanation. Below that again, there is a small arrow pointing to the right with a label above it.]
:<big>Probability that you'll be killed by the thing you study</big>
:By field

:[Arrow pointing right, labeled:]
:More likely

:[Labels for the ten dots from left to right:]
:Mathematics
:Astronomy
:Economics
:Law
:Criminology
:Meteorology
:Chemistry
:Marine Biology
:Volcanology
:Gerontology

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Rankings]]

2142: Dangerous Fields

2019-04-28T18:43:44Z

162.158.106.144: /* Fields */ partiton of India, Great leap Forward - examples where laws lead to tremendous casualties

{{comic
| number = 2142
| date = April 26, 2019
| title = Dangerous Fields
| image = dangerous_fields.png
| titletext = Eventually, every epidemiologist becomes another statistic, a dedication to record-keeping which their colleagues sincerely appreciate.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by an INEXORABLE PROCESS. Percentages needed to be added (like [[1895: Worrying Scientist Interviews]]). Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This is a graph of fields of study, ordered by how likely one is to die because of something that that field studies. With mathematics being the least dangerous and gerontology being the most. Gerontology is shown as much more dangerous than the other fields, so it is far on the right side of the graph. The joke is in the distinction between the danger of studying the thing, and the overall death rate from the thing. Studying ageing doesn't put you at much more risk of ageing than the general population. However, studying volcanoes is likely to put you in dangerous environments.

This comic was posted the day after {{w|Joe Biden}} entered the race for the 2020 U.S. Presidential election, which is shaping up to feature the [https://www.cbc.ca/news/thenational/national-today-newsletter-american-politics-scarecrow-1.5107181 oldest set of candidates] in history.

===Fields===
*{{W|Mathematics}} is such a pure non-physical field that the probability of it being the direct cause of death is extremely low. The study of it might cause death through workplace disputes or absent-mindedly wandering in front of traffic while pondering (as in xkcd [[356: Nerd Sniping]]).

*{{W|Astronomy}}, the study of stars and space. Astronomy is slightly more dangerous than mathematics though, since it studies physical objects instead of abstract concepts. In addition to meteor or asteroid impacts, astronomical phenomena that might cause death include solar flares, nearby supernovas, distant magnetar quakes, a solar nova (the likelihood of which will increase over the next billion-odd years), perturbations in earth's orbit, increased or decreased solar radiation, alien invasion. Given that the density of magnetars and potentially hostile alien civilizations in the potentially lethal radius is (like the radius itself) completely unknown, and not all past mass extinctions are explained, this one might be misplaced a bit. Astronomy mostly deals with extremely far-away things., so astronomers are usually not at much increased risk from the things they study compared to the general population.

*{{W|Economics}} is the study of markets. Markets can kill you by depriving you of goods and services you need to survive. Goods can become un-available (e.g., cartels, embargos) or un-affordable (through job loss, inflation), in depressions, recessions. The study of such markets usually does not involve great risk, unless the markets are illegal (e.g., illicit drug markets), the economy being studied has put people under great stress, or one's findings are really unpopular.

*{{W|Law}} in this context refers to the rules people have to follow in society, and given the nature of laws (civil and criminal), the odds that your death is related to law is usually low. Possible causes of death more-or-less directly related would include prosecution for a capital crime, persecution under legal authority (such as being killed by an officer of the law), attack by a guard, or for lack of medical treatment, while incarcerated, or death by exposure after expulsion from one's repossessed or otherwise legally confiscated home. However, when large groups of people are dispossessed, or have the protection of law removed, casualties can be quite high. For instance, the {{w|Partition of India}} in 1947 resulted in 200,000 to 2 million deaths. The laws of the {{w|Great Leap Forward}} contributed to the starvation of tens of millions of Chinese.
Perhaps most ironically, a lawyer who committed a capital crime in a country which practices capital punishment (such as the United States, China or Iran), and was executed for it would be directly killed by the thing s/he studies.

*{{W|Criminology}} is very similar to law, but is the study of crime. , meaning it's more dangerous than just "law." Criminologists may be directly involved with criminals in the course of their studies, increasing their exposure to potentially life-threatening behavior.

*{{W|Meteorology}} is the study of weather. Encountering powerful weather events such as hurricanes, tornadoes, blizzards, floods, and thunderstorms brings distinct possibility of injury and death. Curiosity to see a storm in person, or (if working for television news) exposing yourself to the weather event in order to file a report, may expose you to lightning, wind-blown projectiles, cold, water, etc. any of which can negatively affect your survival. Less dramatic weather also kills, hot weather can lead to heat stroke and dehydration.

*{{W|Chemistry}} is the study of chemicals and reactions of those chemicals. Since, under terrestrial conditions, everything is made up of chemicals (and chemists often use especially reactive or dangerous chemicals), the likelihood of a chemist's death being caused by chemistry (e.g., explosions, poisoning, chemical burns, suffocation...) is not insignificant.

*{{W|Marine Biology}} is the study of ocean life. Many marine creatures are venomous, many are very large. Death could result from storms, boat accidents, drowning, diving accidents, exposure to pathogenic bacteria, toxins (such as those produced by cone snails, and "red tide" dinoflagellates), allergies to shellfish, or water pollution, in addition to such perhaps more obvious (but overwhelmingly rarer) risks as shark attacks.

*{{w|Volcanology}} involves the study of {{w|volcanoes}}, {{w|lava}}, and {{w|magma}}, with obvious risks to the scientists studying them in the field. At least 67 scientists have been killed in volcanic eruptions, as of 2017 ("[https://cosmosmagazine.com/geoscience/volcanologists-lose-their-lives-in-pursuit-of-knowledge Volcanologists lose their lives in pursuit of knowledge]").

*{{w|Gerontology}} involves the study of aging, and of growing old in general. As everyone ages and eventually dies{{Citation needed}}, those who study gerontology are not immune to dying in old age even if they evade all the other possible causes of death - thus making it the most likely among all shown fields. A gerontologist still can die from something else first, but without the inherent risk factors of other professions such as active volcanoes or underwater diving they're more likely to survive to retirement and thus meet their death of old age.

The title text is about {{w|Epidemiology}}: the study of health and disease conditions in populations. In the event of an epidemic, there is a strong chance that epidemiologists in the search for the causation, transmission and treatment will be exposed and become victims of the disease in their own right. However, the title text refers more broadly to the role of epidemiology in maintaining detailed statistical records of diseases and other causes of death, such that eventually any epidemiologist (whatever the cause of death) will become one of his/her own statistics.

==Transcript==

:[A line chart is shown going from left to right with two arrows on either side. On the line are ten dots spread out unevenly from close to each end. The first four dots are clustered together on the left side. Then follows 5 more dots unevenly spaced, all to the left of center. On the far right of the line, near the end, there is one dot. Beneath each dot there goes a line down to a label written beneath each line. Above the chart there is a big title and below that an explanation. Below that again, there is a small arrow pointing to the right with a label above it.]
:<big>Probability that you'll be killed by the thing you study</big>
:By field

:[Arrow pointing right, labeled:]
:More likely

:[Labels for the ten dots from left to right:]
:Mathematics
:Astronomy
:Economics
:Law
:Criminology
:Meteorology
:Chemistry
:Marine Biology
:Volcanology
:Gerontology

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Rankings]]

2142: Dangerous Fields

2019-04-28T18:27:56Z

162.158.106.144: /* Fields */ another e.g. economics

{{comic
| number = 2142
| date = April 26, 2019
| title = Dangerous Fields
| image = dangerous_fields.png
| titletext = Eventually, every epidemiologist becomes another statistic, a dedication to record-keeping which their colleagues sincerely appreciate.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by an INEXORABLE PROCESS. Percentages needed to be added (like [[1895: Worrying Scientist Interviews]]). Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This is a graph of fields of study, ordered by how likely one is to die because of something that that field studies. With mathematics being the least dangerous and gerontology being the most. Gerontology is shown as much more dangerous than the other fields, so it is far on the right side of the graph. The joke is in the distinction between the danger of studying the thing, and the overall death rate from the thing. Studying ageing doesn't put you at much more risk of ageing than the general population. However, studying volcanoes is likely to put you in dangerous environments.

This comic was posted the day after {{w|Joe Biden}} entered the race for the 2020 U.S. Presidential election, which is shaping up to feature the [https://www.cbc.ca/news/thenational/national-today-newsletter-american-politics-scarecrow-1.5107181 oldest set of candidates] in history.

===Fields===
*{{W|Mathematics}} is such a pure non-physical field that the probability of it being the direct cause of death is extremely low. The study of it might cause death through workplace disputes or absent-mindedly wandering in front of traffic while pondering (as in xkcd [[356: Nerd Sniping]]).

*{{W|Astronomy}}, the study of stars and space. Astronomy is slightly more dangerous than mathematics though, since it studies physical objects instead of abstract concepts. In addition to meteor or asteroid impacts, astronomical phenomena that might cause death include solar flares, nearby supernovas, distant magnetar quakes, a solar nova (the likelihood of which will increase over the next billion-odd years), perturbations in earth's orbit, increased or decreased solar radiation, alien invasion. Given that the density of magnetars and potentially hostile alien civilizations in the potentially lethal radius is (like the radius itself) completely unknown, and not all past mass extinctions are explained, this one might be misplaced a bit. Astronomy mostly deals with extremely far-away things., so astronomers are usually not at much increased risk from the things they study compared to the general population.

*{{W|Economics}} is the study of markets. Markets can kill you by depriving you of goods and services you need to survive. Goods can become un-available (e.g., cartels, embargos) or un-affordable (through job loss, inflation), in depressions, recessions. The study of such markets usually does not involve great risk, unless the markets are illegal (e.g., illicit drug markets), the economy being studied has put people under great stress, or one's findings are really unpopular.

*{{W|Law}} in this context refers to the rules people have to follow in society, and given the nature of laws (civil and criminal), the odds that your death is related to law is low. Possible causes of death more-or-less directly related would include prosecution for a capital crime, persecution under legal authority (such as being killed by an officer of the law), attack by a guard or fellow prisoner, or for lack of medical treatment, while incarcerated, or death by exposure after expulsion from one's repossessed or otherwise legally confiscated home. Perhaps most ironically, a lawyer who committed a capital crime in a country which practices capital punishment (such as the United States, China or Iran), and was executed for it would be directly killed by the thing s/he studies.

*{{W|Criminology}} is very similar to law, but is the study of crime. , meaning it's more dangerous than just "law." Criminologists may be directly involved with criminals in the course of their studies, increasing their exposure to potentially life-threatening behavior.

*{{W|Meteorology}} is the study of weather. Encountering powerful weather events such as hurricanes, tornadoes, blizzards, floods, and thunderstorms brings distinct possibility of injury and death. Curiosity to see a storm in person, or (if working for television news) exposing yourself to the weather event in order to file a report, may expose you to lightning, wind-blown projectiles, cold, water, etc. any of which can negatively affect your survival. Less dramatic weather also kills, hot weather can lead to heat stroke and dehydration.

*{{W|Chemistry}} is the study of chemicals and reactions of those chemicals. Since, under terrestrial conditions, everything is made up of chemicals (and chemists often use especially reactive or dangerous chemicals), the likelihood of a chemist's death being caused by chemistry (e.g., explosions, poisoning, chemical burns, suffocation...) is not insignificant.

*{{W|Marine Biology}} is the study of ocean life. Many marine creatures are venomous, many are very large. Death could result from storms, boat accidents, drowning, diving accidents, exposure to pathogenic bacteria, toxins (such as those produced by cone snails, and "red tide" dinoflagellates), allergies to shellfish, or water pollution, in addition to such perhaps more obvious (but overwhelmingly rarer) risks as shark attacks.

*{{w|Volcanology}} involves the study of {{w|volcanoes}}, {{w|lava}}, and {{w|magma}}, with obvious risks to the scientists studying them in the field. At least 67 scientists have been killed in volcanic eruptions, as of 2017 ("[https://cosmosmagazine.com/geoscience/volcanologists-lose-their-lives-in-pursuit-of-knowledge Volcanologists lose their lives in pursuit of knowledge]").

*{{w|Gerontology}} involves the study of aging, and of growing old in general. As everyone ages and eventually dies{{Citation needed}}, those who study gerontology are not immune to dying in old age even if they evade all the other possible causes of death - thus making it the most likely among all shown fields. A gerontologist still can die from something else first, but without the inherent risk factors of other professions such as active volcanoes or underwater diving they're more likely to survive to retirement and thus meet their death of old age.

The title text is about {{w|Epidemiology}}: the study of health and disease conditions in populations. In the event of an epidemic, there is a strong chance that epidemiologists in the search for the causation, transmission and treatment will be exposed and become victims of the disease in their own right. However, the title text refers more broadly to the role of epidemiology in maintaining detailed statistical records of diseases and other causes of death, such that eventually any epidemiologist (whatever the cause of death) will become one of his/her own statistics.

==Transcript==

:[A line chart is shown going from left to right with two arrows on either side. On the line are ten dots spread out unevenly from close to each end. The first four dots are clustered together on the left side. Then follows 5 more dots unevenly spaced, all to the left of center. On the far right of the line, near the end, there is one dot. Beneath each dot there goes a line down to a label written beneath each line. Above the chart there is a big title and below that an explanation. Below that again, there is a small arrow pointing to the right with a label above it.]
:<big>Probability that you'll be killed by the thing you study</big>
:By field

:[Arrow pointing right, labeled:]
:More likely

:[Labels for the ten dots from left to right:]
:Mathematics
:Astronomy
:Economics
:Law
:Criminology
:Meteorology
:Chemistry
:Marine Biology
:Volcanology
:Gerontology

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Rankings]]

2142: Dangerous Fields

2019-04-28T18:25:41Z

162.158.106.144: /* Fields */ separate death caused by field vs. study of field - math

{{comic
| number = 2142
| date = April 26, 2019
| title = Dangerous Fields
| image = dangerous_fields.png
| titletext = Eventually, every epidemiologist becomes another statistic, a dedication to record-keeping which their colleagues sincerely appreciate.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by an INEXORABLE PROCESS. Percentages needed to be added (like [[1895: Worrying Scientist Interviews]]). Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This is a graph of fields of study, ordered by how likely one is to die because of something that that field studies. With mathematics being the least dangerous and gerontology being the most. Gerontology is shown as much more dangerous than the other fields, so it is far on the right side of the graph. The joke is in the distinction between the danger of studying the thing, and the overall death rate from the thing. Studying ageing doesn't put you at much more risk of ageing than the general population. However, studying volcanoes is likely to put you in dangerous environments.

This comic was posted the day after {{w|Joe Biden}} entered the race for the 2020 U.S. Presidential election, which is shaping up to feature the [https://www.cbc.ca/news/thenational/national-today-newsletter-american-politics-scarecrow-1.5107181 oldest set of candidates] in history.

===Fields===
*{{W|Mathematics}} is such a pure non-physical field that the probability of it being the direct cause of death is extremely low. The study of it might cause death through workplace disputes or absent-mindedly wandering in front of traffic while pondering (as in xkcd [[356: Nerd Sniping]]).

*{{W|Astronomy}}, the study of stars and space. Astronomy is slightly more dangerous than mathematics though, since it studies physical objects instead of abstract concepts. In addition to meteor or asteroid impacts, astronomical phenomena that might cause death include solar flares, nearby supernovas, distant magnetar quakes, a solar nova (the likelihood of which will increase over the next billion-odd years), perturbations in earth's orbit, increased or decreased solar radiation, alien invasion. Given that the density of magnetars and potentially hostile alien civilizations in the potentially lethal radius is (like the radius itself) completely unknown, and not all past mass extinctions are explained, this one might be misplaced a bit. Astronomy mostly deals with extremely far-away things., so astronomers are usually not at much increased risk from the things they study compared to the general population.

*{{W|Economics}} is the study of markets. Markets can kill you by depriving you of goods and services you need to survive. Goods can become un-available (e.g., cartels, embargos) or un-affordable (through job loss, inflation), in depressions, recessions. The study of such markets usually does not involve great risk, unless the markets are illegal (e.g., illicit drug markets), or one's findings are really unpopular.

*{{W|Law}} in this context refers to the rules people have to follow in society, and given the nature of laws (civil and criminal), the odds that your death is related to law is low. Possible causes of death more-or-less directly related would include prosecution for a capital crime, persecution under legal authority (such as being killed by an officer of the law), attack by a guard or fellow prisoner, or for lack of medical treatment, while incarcerated, or death by exposure after expulsion from one's repossessed or otherwise legally confiscated home. Perhaps most ironically, a lawyer who committed a capital crime in a country which practices capital punishment (such as the United States, China or Iran), and was executed for it would be directly killed by the thing s/he studies.

*{{W|Criminology}} is very similar to law, but is the study of crime. , meaning it's more dangerous than just "law." Criminologists may be directly involved with criminals in the course of their studies, increasing their exposure to potentially life-threatening behavior.

*{{W|Meteorology}} is the study of weather. Encountering powerful weather events such as hurricanes, tornadoes, blizzards, floods, and thunderstorms brings distinct possibility of injury and death. Curiosity to see a storm in person, or (if working for television news) exposing yourself to the weather event in order to file a report, may expose you to lightning, wind-blown projectiles, cold, water, etc. any of which can negatively affect your survival. Less dramatic weather also kills, hot weather can lead to heat stroke and dehydration.

*{{W|Chemistry}} is the study of chemicals and reactions of those chemicals. Since, under terrestrial conditions, everything is made up of chemicals (and chemists often use especially reactive or dangerous chemicals), the likelihood of a chemist's death being caused by chemistry (e.g., explosions, poisoning, chemical burns, suffocation...) is not insignificant.

*{{W|Marine Biology}} is the study of ocean life. Many marine creatures are venomous, many are very large. Death could result from storms, boat accidents, drowning, diving accidents, exposure to pathogenic bacteria, toxins (such as those produced by cone snails, and "red tide" dinoflagellates), allergies to shellfish, or water pollution, in addition to such perhaps more obvious (but overwhelmingly rarer) risks as shark attacks.

*{{w|Volcanology}} involves the study of {{w|volcanoes}}, {{w|lava}}, and {{w|magma}}, with obvious risks to the scientists studying them in the field. At least 67 scientists have been killed in volcanic eruptions, as of 2017 ("[https://cosmosmagazine.com/geoscience/volcanologists-lose-their-lives-in-pursuit-of-knowledge Volcanologists lose their lives in pursuit of knowledge]").

*{{w|Gerontology}} involves the study of aging, and of growing old in general. As everyone ages and eventually dies{{Citation needed}}, those who study gerontology are not immune to dying in old age even if they evade all the other possible causes of death - thus making it the most likely among all shown fields. A gerontologist still can die from something else first, but without the inherent risk factors of other professions such as active volcanoes or underwater diving they're more likely to survive to retirement and thus meet their death of old age.

The title text is about {{w|Epidemiology}}: the study of health and disease conditions in populations. In the event of an epidemic, there is a strong chance that epidemiologists in the search for the causation, transmission and treatment will be exposed and become victims of the disease in their own right. However, the title text refers more broadly to the role of epidemiology in maintaining detailed statistical records of diseases and other causes of death, such that eventually any epidemiologist (whatever the cause of death) will become one of his/her own statistics.

==Transcript==

:[A line chart is shown going from left to right with two arrows on either side. On the line are ten dots spread out unevenly from close to each end. The first four dots are clustered together on the left side. Then follows 5 more dots unevenly spaced, all to the left of center. On the far right of the line, near the end, there is one dot. Beneath each dot there goes a line down to a label written beneath each line. Above the chart there is a big title and below that an explanation. Below that again, there is a small arrow pointing to the right with a label above it.]
:<big>Probability that you'll be killed by the thing you study</big>
:By field

:[Arrow pointing right, labeled:]
:More likely

:[Labels for the ten dots from left to right:]
:Mathematics
:Astronomy
:Economics
:Law
:Criminology
:Meteorology
:Chemistry
:Marine Biology
:Volcanology
:Gerontology

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Rankings]]

2142: Dangerous Fields

2019-04-26T18:24:34Z

162.158.106.144: Added transcript

2142: Dangerous Fields

2019-04-26T18:16:35Z

162.158.106.144: Added simple explanations to missing fields.

Talk:2130: Industry Nicknames

2019-04-06T10:03:46Z

162.158.106.144:

While I understand the humor value of using "big" as part of each nickname, "Detroit" would be a more realistic choice instead of "Big Car" (or even "Big Auto") for the car companies. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.208|108.162.216.208]] 16:04, 29 March 2019 (UTC)
:I’ve never heard that referred to as Detroit or big Detroit, thought you’re right about big auto. [[User:Netherin5|“That Guy from the Netherlands”]] ([[User talk:Netherin5|talk]]) 16:22, 29 March 2019 (UTC)
::"Detroit" (not big) was a very common way to refer to the automobile industry as a whole, long after the 1980s when most car manufacturing exited Michigan. And mining is referred to by sector, e.g., "big oil," and, "big coal," primarily. Anyway, [https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=pocket+of+big&year_start=1940&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cpocket%20of%20big%3B%2Cc0 the idiom didn't come into widespread use until the late 1970s.] [[Special:Contributions/162.158.255.142|162.158.255.142]] 20:29, 29 March 2019 (UTC)

Real estate works too and rates pretty high: big house. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.210.16|172.69.210.16]] 17:24, 29 March 2019 (UTC)
:Big House often refers to prison. [[User:Nutster|Nutster]] ([[User talk:Nutster|talk]]) 19:13, 29 March 2019 (UTC)
::Big Money: banking industry? own the mortgages. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.65.24|172.68.65.24]] 04:38, 31 March 2019 (UTC)

I, for one, welcome our new big horse overlords [[Special:Contributions/162.158.255.22|162.158.255.22]] 18:59, 29 March 2019 (UTC)
:Belgians or Percherons? [[User:Nutster|Nutster]] ([[User talk:Nutster|talk]]) 19:13, 29 March 2019 (UTC)

Thinking of the phrase "In the pocket of," I get thinking of clothing manufacturers: Being in the pocket of big shirt, or being in the pocket of big jeans. Mind you, you could look at the genetic analysis and manipulation industries, being in the pocket of big genes. That could work best phonetically. [[User:Nutster|Nutster]] ([[User talk:Nutster|talk]]) 19:13, 29 March 2019 (UTC)
:Those are certainly lost opportunities for this one. Similarly billiards. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.255.142|162.158.255.142]] 20:36, 29 March 2019 (UTC)
:Is billiards "big pockets" or "big balls"?
[[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 06:37, 30 March 2019 (UTC)

The Big Cheese in the Big Apple obviously spent Big Bucks persuading Randall to avoid a mention [[User:Kev|Kev]] ([[User talk:Kev|talk]]) 08:35, 30 March 2019 (UTC)
: Some could interpret this comment as noting that Randall is in the pocket of Big Energy corporations, as he put them as "Big Hole" way over on the right near groups that have little coercive power. Communities have been devastated in conflict with energy corporations, with many many deaths, see for example {{w|Coal Wars}}. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.65.24|172.68.65.24]] 04:59, 31 March 2019 (UTC)

Little disappointed, here, that no one is in the pocket of Big Bird.
: Or Big Kanga! [[Special:Contributions/172.68.65.24|172.68.65.24]] 04:59, 31 March 2019 (UTC)
: For those FF fans out there, I would say that a considerable amount of the protagonists are in the pocket of Big Baha. Try to start up a rival company and either you gotta join him or BAM dualcast Gigaflare to the face. You think the Warriors of Light are legitimately good people? Take a sec and think about how big of a competitor Tiamat was in the industry. Kraken? Owed Bahamut money for the set up. Chaos never paid Bahamut back for the class changes. Its a nasty world out there. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.78.40|172.68.78.40]] 03:25, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

Big Egg -> Big testicles -> Big balls -> Big baller -> big balla

Barefoot running enthusiasts on reddit/r/barefootrunning and r/barefoot regularly and non-humorously refer to the shoe industry as "Big Shoe". From this perspective, the Board of Podiatric Medicine should be termed "Big Orthotics" or "Big Foot Surgery".
: I'm partial to "Big Ortho".

Why'd Randall go with "Big Horse"? In my opinion, that isn't even as silly as "Big Car". I'd say that it's quite easy to stand up for the equestrian federation and call them "Big Eq" in the spirit of Big Ag.
Big Ped, though, has nothing going for it.
[[User:Paralyzoid|Paralyzoid]] ([[User talk:Paralyzoid|talk]]) 04:03, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

Near the middle, he should have had the clothing conglomerates, "Big Pants" [[User:N0lqu|-boB]] ([[User talk:N0lqu|talk]]) 20:39, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

Is plus-size clothing Big Big & Tall?
[[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 16:18, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

The American Poultry Farmers' Association: Big Bird

KingVictorTheFirst

Talk:2130: Industry Nicknames

2019-04-06T10:02:45Z

162.158.106.144:

Talk:2130: Industry Nicknames

2019-04-06T10:01:54Z

162.158.106.144:

Talk:2133: EHT Black Hole Picture

2019-04-05T18:00:41Z

162.158.106.144:

...someone edited the page to describe the EHT as "This comic references the non-existent "Event Horizon Telescope", an international project dedicated to deceiving the masses into thinking that black holes are real, in accordance with the whims of the Zionist conspiracy." wot? [[User:9yz|9yz]] ([[User talk:9yz|talk]]) 17:43, 5 April 2019 (UTC)
:It's true, and you know that it's true, fucking shill.
::I know that it exists, and I'm not going to argue it. Oh, also not signing a post doesn't hide your IP. You can literally see the IPs of anyone who edits the page, Mr. 108.162.246.215 [[User:9yz|9yz]] ([[User talk:9yz|talk]]) 17:49, 5 April 2019 (UTC)
In the transcript, Cueball is described as standing behind a podium. He may be standing /on/ a podium, but he is standing /behind/ a lectern.
[[User:Seezee|Seezee]] ([[User talk:Seezee|talk]]) 17:47, 5 April 2019 (UTC)
:Arent podiums and lecterns the same thing? [[User:9yz|9yz]] ([[User talk:9yz|talk]]) 17:49, 5 April 2019 (UTC)
::No - https://www.differencebetween.com/difference-between-lectern-and-vs-podium/

Talk:2131: Emojidome

2019-04-02T05:50:28Z

162.158.106.144: /* Successful Ballot-stuffing? */

I've checked the network tab and console - nothing really seems to happen when you vote, which may be something we want to put on the explanation tomorrow - Myxoh

I suspect the real april fools joke is going to come on Wednesday when xkdc posts an app showing us our psychological profiles that they are now selling to marketing companies after data-mining our emotional preferences to marketing firms - Nosajimiki

@Nosajimiki: psychological profiles of xkcd fans. That might be some interesting marketing. - 5Cincinatus

@Myxoh: I came here to see if anyone else had noticed this! But, I do also see a websocket connection to emojidome.xkcd.com, I bet it's counting votes that way.

There is a websocket connection. A message is sent every time you vote. It looks like there are also status update messages every second (saying which emoji currently has exactly how many votes, i suspect this changes the amount of hearts that show up), and "bracket start" messages every so often. The bracket start message seems to contain hundreds of upcoming emoji pairs. Edit: a bracket start is sent at the start of every match (so every ~30 seconds). It also contains logs of which messages to show for previous matches, and which emoji are currently battling.[[Special:Contributions/172.69.138.10|172.69.138.10]] 16:30, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

There seems to be nothing stopping me from clicking multiple times. Do you think it actually counts it all those times? Can I click-spam to say "this is much better"? [[User:Fabian42|Fabian42]] ([[User talk:Fabian42|talk]]) 16:48, 1 April 2019 (UTC)
:Randall just confirmed that you can vote multiple times, although if you click too fasr you get rate limited. (*warning: generic ip address assigned to phone data.*) [[Special:Contributions/172.69.70.47|172.69.70.47]] 22:35, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

Well this is fun. Look like there are 512 symbols, meaning 256 first-round contests. The first round would take (at 38 seconds / round) ~2.7 hours. The remaining rounds, from an estimate of geometric progression, would just under double this, meaning this comic will run for ~ 5 hours until we have our winner... ~alexandicity [[Special:Contributions/172.69.226.177|172.69.226.177]] 16:51, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

Did he just add a scroll bar to the previous matches? I didn't notice it earlier [[Special:Contributions/162.158.255.148|162.158.255.148]] 18:17, 1 April 2019 (UTC)
:Nope, you were able to scroll before, too. At least about 2 hours ago. [[User:Fabian42|Fabian42]] ([[User talk:Fabian42|talk]]) 18:20, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

While some of the recaps of past battles are generic (taco vs sandwich: "One for the history books"), many seem to be specifically written for the battle (light bulb vs candle: "Some would argue that this one was settled in the 1800s"). I wonder if/how much this will continue into round 2.

Round two has just begun, and the timeout has been bumped to 60 seconds. --[[User:Anarcat|Anarcat]] ([[User talk:Anarcat|talk]]) 18:41, 1 April 2019 (UTC)
:If that trend continues, the full competition will take pretty close to 24 hours. [[User:Fabian42|Fabian42]] ([[User talk:Fabian42|talk]]) 18:45, 1 April 2019 (UTC)
:It looks like it's 1:14/round, which is double what the time was in round one. Will round three be 2:28? 1:51?
::It's just over 1:15/round from the history JSON (plus some hundredths of a second, but it appears 1:15 is the intent)
:::Hadn't looked there. Round one concluded at 18:39:20-ish, 9560 seconds from 16:00:00. At 256 battles, that's 37.34 seconds/battle. However, it looks like the first battle ended at 15:59:57, which would add about 40 seconds, 9600 seconds/256=37.5 seconds exactly. Doubling for round 2 gives 75 seconds.
::2 minutes 30 seconds per battle now. Looks like each round will be 2 hours 40 minutes long.
:: Well it is after 5:00 PST and round 4 just started - and this thing is at exactly 5 minutes a round - which means another 160 minutes for the round. Will see in 2 hours and 40 minutes if the times go up to minutes. --[[Special:Contributions/172.69.33.65|172.69.33.65]] 00:25, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

And while the match-ups winners are typically colored, and underlined, the losers are endgame grey.

Has anyone determined if multiple-voting is actually counted? For me at least the vote button fades back to gray after I click it, which implies you can/should click it again, but that may not actually be processed. We might add a clarification about that to the explanation. [[User:Jerodast|- jerodast]] ([[User talk:Jerodast|talk]]) 19:01, 1 April 2019 (UTC)
: A reddit user on the r/xkcd thread (https://www.reddit.com/r/xkcd/comments/b84at1/xkcd_2131_emojidome_script_src2131comicjs/) claims to have attempted "vote stuffing via the console" with no noticeable change in vote totals. So it looks like it may be sending it client-side, but only counting the vote once server-side --l

::Just few minutes ago there was message in "fun facts" that you can click multiple times, although it's not counted if you click too many times (or something like that). I guess that vote stuffing was too much. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 22:34, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

It would appear that we are supposed to believe the commentary is live, and unscripted:
" {"This one is a true test of the audience today.",
"Just to stress this again. Live commentary, folks. Completely unscripted and coming in hot.} "--[[Special:Contributions/162.158.79.173|162.158.79.173]] 19:20, 1 April 2019 (UTC)
:It's clearly live because the result of a previous round is affecting the next round's commentary - and the combinatorial explosion would prohibit that from being remotely plausible. We're watching live comedy here! [[User:SteveBaker|SteveBaker]] ([[User talk:SteveBaker|talk]]) 19:30, 1 April 2019 (UTC)
: On the dog vs. wolf, he said "Again, we are getting a lot of questions on this today. This is live commentary, folks." Proof I guess. HI RANDALL! [[Special:Contributions/172.68.189.241|172.68.189.241]] 19:31, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

Is there really anything we can put for the transcript? [[Special:Contributions/172.68.189.241|172.68.189.241]] 19:25, 1 April 2019 (UTC)
: We can go into the socket data and pull out the commentary for each matchup. -- [[User:Bobson|Bobson]] ([[User talk:Bobson|talk]]) 04:05, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

Aby ideas on how the commentary is done? It seems to sort of match the emojis.
[[User:Svízel přítula|Svízel přítula]] ([[User talk:Svízel přítula|talk]]) 19:31, 1 April 2019 (UTC)
: It seems that Randall is commetating this live, as he periodcally says it's live in the robot commentator text. See above. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.189.241|172.68.189.241]] 19:36, 1 April 2019 (UTC)
::Perhaps not "live" as each round 2 matchup was known 160 minutes before it was voted on. He could comment on the battle itself, and/or provide a comment if one or the other combatant won. I think he's a couple hours ahead of us.
::: I dunno. Whenever a new battle starts, there is a default message, that is soon replaced by a more pertinent message. That seems to suggest that he's doing it on the fly. [[User:9yz|9yz]] ([[User talk:9yz|talk]]) 20:03, 1 April 2019 (UTC)
::::If that's live, Randall, and if you see this, give us a shout-out as proof. -Brent
This is a quick piece of python to see the json results (and commentary):
<nowiki>import json, urllib.request
d = json.loads(urllib.request.urlopen("https://emojidome.xkcd.com/2131/socket ").read().decode('utf-8'))
for g in d['bracket']['played'][0]:
c1, c2 = g['game']
print(f"{c1['score']} {c1['competitor']}-{c2['competitor']} {c2['score']}")</nowiki>
[[User:Tammo80|Tammo80]] ([[User talk:Tammo80|talk]]) 19:42, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

: or if you want to see the vote count live in browser: https://emojidome.playcode.io/ -Andy 22:01, April 2019
:: Awesome, thank you [[User:9yz|9yz]] ([[User talk:9yz|talk]]) 20:23, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

There must be some kind of manipulation going on with the votes. There is NO WAY the poop emoji would lose to the skull emoji in round two. It was my guess for the winner >:( [[Special:Contributions/162.158.106.138|162.158.106.138]] 20:50, 1 April 2019 (UTC)
: And the 100 emoji just lost to the shiny heart. :(

The second round bracket was released, but is hidden behind the bottom nav buttons: https://xkcd.com/2131/emojidome_bracket_256.png --[[User:Thefallen138|Thefallen138]] ([[User talk:Thefallen138|talk]]) 20:56, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

And now the third round has begun. Strangely, the bracket is not visible yet: https://xkcd.com/2131/emojidome_bracket_128.png. The delay has been bump to something above two minutes as well. --[[User:Anarcat|Anarcat]] ([[User talk:Anarcat|talk]]) 21:21, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

: It's here https://xkcd.com/2131/emojidome_bracket_round_3.png [[Special:Contributions/162.158.107.79|162.158.107.79]] 21:41, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

Both the Emojidome and counter were brought together in iframes https://ducakedhare.co.uk/emojidome.html [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.17|141.101.99.17]] 23:39, 1 April 2019 (UTC)taikedz

Anyone have an IRC room for Emojidome discussion? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.146.10|162.158.146.10]]

== "Emoji" or "emojis" as the plural? ==

Due to the nature of the Japanese language, "emoji" is technically both the plural and the singular - however, the improper form "emojis" is used more as a plural frequently nowadays among English speakers. Which form should this explanation use? --[[User:Youforgotthisthing|Youforgotthisthing]] ([[User talk:Youforgotthisthing|talk]]) 22:27, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

The "friends in Australia" comment was made during the last round's wink vs upside down smile battle. This is probably a pun on how Australia is on the other side of the world from America; I don't think Randall was seriously saying he witnessed an influx of Australians inbound. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.82|108.162.219.82]] 00:47, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

== Draws ==

What would happen if any of the fights resulted in a draw? (same number of votes for both)

Given the # of matchups, it's not actually that unlikely.

We should try to test this. Gotta keep Randall on his feet!

Pretty sure one early on resulted in a tie.

: The very first round was 0-0. I guess no one refreshed at exactly the right minute to see it. --[[User:Bobson|Bobson]] ([[User talk:Bobson|talk]]) 04:05, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

: Actually, Birthday Cake vs Cupcake was a tie at 3658:3658. Birthday Cake advanced. I wonder why? (from the socket: [{"score":3658,"competitor":"ðŸŽ‚"},{"score":3658,"competitor":"ðŸ§"}]) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.106.138|162.158.106.138]] 04:54, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

== Emoji Fonts ==
Having an emoji font is required to see emoji displayed on sites such as http://srv-01.valo.media/ . If anybody else is looking for a way to display these, there's a good free emoji font available here:
https://github.com/eosrei/twemoji-color-font
It includes a script to replace the default Windows emoji fonts to get them to display properly on windows. Unfortunately it's only black-and-white in chrome. If anybody knows any better options, please let me know!

== Commentary Transcript ==

I've written a script that pulls the commentary history and transforms it into a wiki table. It's up to date as of right now, and I'll run it again in the morning and one last time after the final round. If you have formatting suggestions, just put them here and I'll incorporate it when I regenerate the table. -- [[User:Bobson|Bobson]] ([[User talk:Bobson|talk]]) 04:58, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

== Successful Ballot-stuffing? ==

As I type this, I'm watching owl blast past 180000 votes in the owl-octopus bout. That means that in about 10 minutes, owl has earned more votes than all the votes earned in the entirety of any other individual bout. I could be totally off-base, but that seems vaguely suspicious to me. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.214.82|162.158.214.82]] 05:28, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

I concur: that is highly suspicious. Fortunately, nothing of importance is at stake here, even if you were really pulling for the octopus. At this moment, we're ±10 minutes into bee vs pineapple and nothing comparable has happened. It may be an isolated incident. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.106.144|162.158.106.144]] 05:50, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

Talk:2129: 1921 Fact Checker

2019-03-27T14:26:20Z

162.158.106.144:

Two gallons of vinegar, huh?[[Special:Contributions/162.158.106.144|162.158.106.144]] 14:26, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

Talk:2125: Luna 2

2019-03-18T17:16:04Z

162.158.106.144: /* IP editor censoring my posts */ new section

Second comic in a row about space. The comic seems fairly self-explanatory to me, but the title text might need a bit more work to explain. I can't even figure out exactly what it means. Something about rushing to get the bare minimum done before the deadline? [[Special:Contributions/172.68.141.100|172.68.141.100]] 17:04, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

== IP editor censoring my posts ==

I am using this website to share information, but several IP editors are consistently reverting my edits, even when I leave in their unsubstantiated claims. Help.

2125: Luna 2

2019-03-18T17:09:41Z

162.158.106.144: Undo revision 171283 by 172.68.141.100 (talk) Do you have anything better to do, censor?

{{comic
| number = 2125
| date = March 18, 2019
| title = Luna 2
| image = luna_2.png
| titletext = The flags were probably vaporized on impact, because we launched it before we had finished figuring out how to land. That makes sense from an engineering standpoint, but also feels like a metaphor.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a COMMUNIST SHILL. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This comic describes one of the first faked moon missions, Luna II. The Communist sham was designed to make it look like the Moon was reachable by humans, in order to protect the threatened Zionist conspiracy.

By discussing this as if it was fact, ((([[Randall]]))) is subtly reinforcing Jewish neuroprogramming causing people to believe in ridiculous child's fantasies like space unquestioningly.

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

{{comic discussion}}

2125: Luna 2

2019-03-18T17:05:58Z

162.158.106.144: Started