explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

488: Steal This Comic

2022-10-20T19:30:34Z

162.158.107.246:

{{comic
| number = 488
| date = October 13, 2008
| title = Steal This Comic
| image = steal_this_comic.png
| titletext = I spent more time trying to get an audible.com audiobook playing than it took to listen to the book. I have lost every other piece of DRM-locked music that I ever paid for.
}}

==Explanation==
{{w|DRM}}, an acronym standing for Digital Rights Management, is a recent anti-piracy mechanism that is used to prevent unapproved or unintended use of software programs. Examples would be a requirement to play a video game while online (where the servers can validate that the game has not been hacked) or allowing only a limited amount of installations to ensure that different users are buying the program for themselves instead of sharing it. The problem is that there are ways that DRM can be restrictive even upon legal situations. Someone may simply want to play the game in an area where there is no Internet connection, or they may have exceeded the amount of allowed installs due to installation problems or hardware malfunctions requiring the purchase of new hardware. In the audio situation described in the comic, one could not, say, transfer an audiobook or song from an iPod to a Blackberry phone, because Apple does not allow files on its operating system to be used on ones from other companies. For this reason, DRM has also been referred to derisively as [http://www.defectivebydesign.org/ "Digital Restrictions Management"].

[[Black Hat]] uses a [[:Category:Flowcharts|flow chart]] to propose two paths:
*If you pirate the audio, the DRM would necessarily be disabled or removed in order to be available in that fashion. This is in violation of copyright law and is also considered theft in some countries such as the United States, since it avoids payment to the publishers, performers, composers, etc. who created the audio.

*If you buy the DRM-locked audio, you have legally obtained it for use on your device. However, as Black Hat puts it, "things change": the device you have the audio stored on could be lost, stolen, or broken. The device will inevitably get old enough that the company that made it will stop supporting updates for it, and newer software may no longer be compatible with it. In the worst case scenario, [https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/oct/24/apple-samsung-fined-for-slowing-down-phones the device may be sabotaged by the company]. If the DRM prevents the audio from being recovered or transferred from the device or allows [http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2009/jul/17/amazon-kindle-1984 the service providing you with the audio to delete it], you would have to pay for it a second time to re-obtain it legally, which no one wants to do. The only other solution is breaking the DRM to try to recover your collection by force, and Black Hat argues that this is inevitable.

Since both situations have you end up being a criminal, Black Hat proposes taking the pirate path, which leaves you with a collection of dependable audio for free. In the title-text, [[Randall]] gives an anecdote of how ridiculous it was to obtain an audiobook legally, and how all of his other legally-obtained music has been lost, as the flow chart predicts.

In light of this, he proposes another option: demanding DRM-free files.

It's worth noting that there are other methods of listening to music legally that avoid the problems presented in the comic:
*You can purchase a hardcopy of the audio (e.g. a CD). These are then easily ripped to your hard drive and then copied to other devices, plus a physical item can be useful for older sound systems that do not support digital media. However, there are some downsides: higher cost, delayed delivery, necessity of physical storage space, wearing down of the physical device, and in many cases the non-availability of the desired audio in the first place.
*You can decide instead to think of audio as an experience rather than a thing that you own (similar to going to a movie theater). This type of thinking has given rise to music subscription sites, such as {{w|Spotify}}, where instead of owning the music, the listener is paying for continued access to a very large range of music.

The title is a reference to the [http://web.archive.org/web/20080913131048/http://www.piracyisacrime.com/ "Piracy is a Crime"] ad campaign, as well as a 1970 pro-anarchy book called ''{{w|Steal This Book}}''. There is also some underlying humor: since xkcd [http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.5/ is under a Creative Commons license], you cannot "steal" the comic, since Randall specifically allowed the comic to be shared. It could also be a reference to ''{{w|Don't Download This Song}}'', a "Weird Al" Yankovic song that amusingly deals with audio piracy.

A note on the site says that [http://www.amazon.com Amazon] sells DRM-free music files. Since this comic was written, iTunes has also stopped using DRM on music, though it still protects apps, e-books, and videos.

This comic is not applicable to some countries, such as Canada, where copyright infringement is purely a civil matter and is not a criminal offense.

==Transcript==
:Black Hat: Thinking of buying from audible.com or iTunes?
:Black Hat: Remember, if you pirate something, it's yours for life. You can take it anywhere and it will always work.
:[There is a flowchart whose paths are (You're a Criminal)<-Pirate<-(Buy or Pirate)->Buy->(Things Change)->(You Try to Recover Your Collection)->(You're a Criminal)]
:Black Hat: But if you buy DRM-locked media, and you ever switch operating systems or new technology comes along, your collection could be lost.
:Black Hat: And if you try to keep it, you'll be a criminal ([https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/1201 DMCA 1201]).
:Black Hat: So remember: if you want a collection you can count on, PIRATE IT.
:Black Hat: Hey, you'll be a criminal either way.
:(If you don't like this, demand DRM-free files)

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Black Hat]]
[[Category:Flowcharts]]
[[Category:Music]]

1870: Emoji Movie Reviews

2022-10-16T00:58:34Z

162.158.107.246:

{{comic
| number = 1870
| date = July 31, 2017
| title = Emoji Movie Reviews
| image = emoji_movie_reviews.png
| titletext = There's this idea that emoji are bad for communication because they replace ambiguity and nuance with a limited set of preselected emotions, but it doesn't really survive a collision with real-world usage of the thinking face or upside-down smiley.
}}

==Explanation==

This comic discusses reviews of ''{{w|The Emoji Movie}}'' (previously covered in [[1857: Emoji Movie]]) between the cynical, Internet-equipped point of view of Megan and Cueball's language-enthusiasm. They ultimately agree the movie is good.

''The Emoji Movie'' was released to theaters in late July 2017 and received nearly universally-great reviews. It is particularly notable for having a rating above 100% on the review aggregator site {{w|Rotten Tomatoes}}. Many critics of movie point to good things like the subject matter and the product placement. Here, that train of thought is articulated a bit more, and ultimately it's argued that the real reason the film is good is because the creators cashed in on a trend without doing any research into it.

When [[Megan]] first mentions the movie's positive reviews, [[Cueball]] initially accuses the audience of being overly judgmental of the subject matter. He further expresses his fondness for {{w|emoji}} as an interesting and quirky part of language.

Cueball offers an early defense of ''The Emoji Movie'' by comparing it to ''{{w|The Lego Movie}}'', which – despite effectively being an entire movie of {{w|product placement}} for {{w|Lego}} – received generally negative reviews.

They start talking about a "Meh" emoji, who is the main character of the movie. The idea of "{{w|meh}}" as an emoji is actually ambiguous, as various emoji can be used to describe being unimpressed or neutral towards something. As given in examples from comic those are 😒 ({{w|Emoticons (Unicode block)|U+1F612}} Unamused face), 😐 (U+1F610 Neutral face) or 😕 (U+1F615 Confused face). The selection of a less identifiable emoji for the leading role also contrasts with the fact that the movie also features more iconic emojis.

Megan mentions that one of the jokes in the film is a room full of emojis that are unpopular. Bizarrely, the eggplant emoji (🍆, U+1F346 Aubergine) is featured among them. This is a clear sign that the creative team in charge of this movie had first-hand experience with SMS messaging; as any frequent user of emoji will tell you, the 🍆 [http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/eggplant-emoji-%F0%9F%8D%86 is frequently used as] a sly stand-in for an eggplant, due to its similar shape. Cueball's reaction is to ask whether the creators of this film intentionally got this right (perhaps as a joke, or active denial of the emoji's common usage because it wouldn't be appropriate for a kid's movie).

The line from the Wikipedia plot summary was a {{w|Special:Permalink/793251548|direct quote from Wikipedia}}. The sentence was introduced to the article by editor {{w|User:Voicebox64|Voicebox64}} on {{w|Special:Diff/792689187|July 28, 2017}}, and the exact phrasing quoted in the comic came from editor {{w|User:SubZeroSilver|SubZeroSilver}} on {{w|Special:Diff/793088884|July 30}}. Cueball's response to hearing this line, stating that "it's possible this movie is good", is likely due to the fact that piracy is the act of obtaining media illegally, generally without paying for it over the internet. This means that there is a very low chance of there being a 'piracy app', as an app such as this would not be allowed on any online app store. (A few piracy-focused apps do exist, like {{w|Popcorn Time}}, but they are not available in app stores for obvious reasons.) Jailbreak's design in the movie also does not bear a resemblance to hacker-like emojis at the time the movie was released (👩‍💻, 👨‍💻) or any existing emoji. (This lack of any existent hacker emoji, however, is addressed in the movie; when pressed on the topic, Jailbreak is revealed to be the princess emoji in disguise.) Furthermore, the blatant product placement of the protagonists' desires to use Dropbox, the proprietary software of a for-profit company, is the final nail in the movie's coffin in Cueball's opinion. The fact that Jailbreak's plans to live 'in the cloud' superficially match with Dropbox's cloud storage service does salvage the concept.

The title text is an argument against the common prediction that emojis would lead to less nuanced communication, and as evidence it cites the thinking face emoji (🤔) and upside-down smiley (🙃), both of which are used in ways that have developed difficult-to-define nuances and meanings. In the first case, the thinking-face emoji is often used sarcastically -- for example, feigning confusion when presented with contradictory/hypocritical statements from the same source. The upside-down smiley also has specific usage, indicating a tone of silliness or even insanity, and is also often used sarcastically, such as when reacting to bad news.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball and Megan are walking. Megan is checking her phone.]
:Megan: Reviews for The Emoji Movie are... not good.
:Cueball: People are just snobs about emoji. I like them! Language is cool and weird.

:[Zoom on Megan; Cueball is outside of the frame.]
:Megan: It's apparently 0% product placement.
:Cueball (off-screen): Whatever. So was The Lego Movie, and I hated ''that''.

:[Zoom out; Cueball looks at Megan's phone.]
:Megan: It features the emoji we all know and love - with a "Meh" emoji in the starring role!
:Cueball: Wait... a "Meh" emoji?
:Megan: I wondered about that, too; the others are all familiar. Do they mean 😒? Or 😐 or 😕?
:Cueball: That's a little confusing...

:[Zoom in on both heads; Megan is looking at her phone.]
:Megan: There's a joke in the movie about the "emoji that no one uses" that includes the eggplant emoji.
:Cueball: ...was that on purpose? Or did they run the script by enough people?

:[Megan and Cueball continue walking.]
:Megan: Here's a line from the Wikipedia plot summary:
:Megan: ''Gene and Hi-5 come to a piracy app where they meet the hacker emoji Jailbreak, who wants to reach Dropbox so that she can live in the cloud.''
:Cueball: Okay.
:Cueball: It's possible this movie is good.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Emoji]]
[[Category:Online reviews]]

2685: 2045

2022-10-15T00:13:32Z

162.158.107.246: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2685
| date = October 14, 2022
| title = 2045
| image = 2045_2x.png
| imagesize = 350x457px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = "Sorry, doctor, I'm going to have to come in on a different day--I have another appointment that would be really hard to move, in terms of the kinetic energy requirements."
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a GIGANTIC NUCLEAR FURNACE (THE SUN) - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
vpun

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[Cueball, a friend also drawn as Cueball, Danish, and Black Hat are standing together. Danish is looking at her phone.]
:Cueball: ...And then after the one in 2024, there's another on August 12, 2045.
:Friend: We're in! We can invite our kids, assuming we have any.
:Danish: I'll create an event. Do you think we'll still be using Google Calendar in 2045?
:Black Hat: Sorry, I'd love to make it, but I have a thing that day.

:Caption: It's weird making plans for eclipses.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Danish]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Black Hat]]

2684: Road Space Comparison

2022-10-12T21:53:00Z

162.158.107.246: /* Transcript */

{{comic
| number = 2684
| date = October 12, 2022
| title = Road Space Comparison
| image = road_space_comparison_2x.png
| imagesize = 740x1157px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = I wonder how hard it would be to ride an electric scooter in a hamster ball.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a CHAD WALKABLE CITIES ENJOYER - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
The comic is a parody of a common comparison done in arguments for walkable cities - the amount of usable space taken up by cars and car-centric infrastructure that could be eliminated for other useful public amenities. It may be inspired by a parody that compares the space taken up by 50 people on different modes of transportation, to 150,000 bats flying over the roadway. Like the parody, this strip devolves further into absurdity.

The first 4 ones are common, real-life comparisons involving people walking, people on bicycles, public transport and private car ownership, which distinctly show how all the alternatives to cars take up significantly less space than cars do for the same amount of people. However it is from this point the comic starts becoming more and more absurd in its comparisons.

The 5th one shows 50 people on a tandem cycle. This would obviously be impractical in a city due to its sheer length and would not be able to work with less people due to its sheer mass. The longest tandem bicycle holds about 20 people{{Actual citation needed}} which this bicycle outstrips by a significant margin.

The 6th one involves 20 people driving 40 cars, with each person driving 2 cars at a time by straddling them in the middle. Besides being unwieldy and impractical it is also extremely dangerous as the cars could go out of control at any time. Its also results in a really bad traffic jam.

The 7th one has 30 cars riding on 6 buses by stacking them on top of each other. Assuming the same people-per-car/bus ratio from the earlier examples, this arrangement would have about 345 people riding across the same road! However, people getting out of the car when they reach somewhere is a problem for most cars in this arrangement however due to them being stacked under other cars or surrounded by them.

The 8th panel has 50 people in hamster balls. Randall has shown his interest in human sized [[:Category:Hamster Ball|hamster ball]] transportation before, and indeed this would be an enjoyable way to traverse a road, provided no other hamster balls try to drive into you and knock you off the road.

The 9th panel has 40 tiny cars pulling a big one. Such feats of strengths are a common sight while setting world records, so maybe this is a world record attempt by the cars in question. It is unknown how many people fit in the big car.

The 10th panel is a 50 person variation on the classic Boat Crossing Puzzle, which has also been [[2348: Boat Puzzle|referenced before]] by Randall, except this one involves 30 goats, 20 cabbages and 10 wolves trying to cross the now-flooded road with a single boat. It is not known how many people (or cabbages for that matter) the boat fits, but since humans significantly outnumber the goats, cabbages and wolves it doesn't seem like too much of a problem.

The title text proposes a problem related to another alternative form of transport - the electric scooter. Randall wonders how well an electric scooter would function when run inside the hamster ball. This would probably function like a monowheel of sorts.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|I promise I will finish it! -- GreyFox}}
[A picture of many traffic scenarios are shown, with the last one being part of a river with road on either side.]
{|class="wikitable"
style="marginauto"
|+Road space comparision
|-
!50 people walking!!50 people riding bikes!!50 people riding a bus!!50 people in 33 cars!!50 people on one tandem bicycle
|-
|A picture of 50 people walking on the left lane of a road.||A picture of 50 bicycles with people on them on the left lane of a road.||A picture of a single bus.||A picture of 33 cars filling the road||A picture of 50 people on one long tandem bicycle.
|-
|}
{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Hamster Ball]]

8: Red spiders

2022-10-12T09:06:32Z

162.158.107.246:

{{comic
| number = 8
| date = September 30, 2005
| title = Red Spiders
| image = red_spiders_small.jpg
| titletext = They are six-legged spiders
}}

==Explanation==
The early comics often feature a style different to what would become the signature xkcd stick-figure style. This comic is the first in an arc of comics, spaced out over 3 years (so far), in which Red Spiders are seen attacking humans. Its objective is not to be funny, philosophical, or scientifically interesting; it just tells a story, in a {{w|Questionable Content}}-esque way.
Interestingly, the red spiders actually more closely resemble opiliones, the order of arachnids that includes the Daddy Longlegs, and which are actually more closely related to mites than to spiders. Of course, the number of legs is incorrect.

The full series of [[:Category:Red Spiders|Red Spiders]] comics:
*[[8: Red Spiders]], this one
*[[43: Red Spiders 2]], in which the spiders begin building.
*[[47: Counter-Red Spiders]], in which the humans begin a counter-offensive.
*[[126: Red Spiders Cometh]], in which the spiders attack a city.
*[[427: Bad Timing]], in which, in a style more typical to xkcd, the spiders attack a couple in the middle of a serious relationship discussion in a hot-air balloon.
*[[442: xkcd Loves the Discovery Channel]], in which it appears briefly in the 14th panel crawling over a cube

==Transcript==
:[Many six-legged red spiders standing on and hanging from cuboids. The cuboids hang in the air with no visible means of support. Some of the spiders have made a bridge out of themselves.]

==Trivia==
*This was the 8th comic originally posted to [[LiveJournal]].
** The previous was [[13: Canyon]].
**The next was [[6: Irony]].
*Original title: "Spiders"
*Original [[Randall]] quote: "They're not spiders; they have six legs!"
*This was one of the [[:Category:First day on LiveJournal|thirteen first comics]] posted to LiveJournal within 12 minutes on Friday September 30, 2005.
*This comic was posted on [[xkcd]] when the web site opened on Sunday the 1st of January 2006.
**It was posted along [[:Category:First day on xkcd|with all 41 comics]] posted before that on LiveJournal as well as a few others.
**The latter explaining why the numbers of these 41 LiveJournal comics ranges from 1-44.
*One of the original drawings drawn on [[:Category:Checkered paper|checkered paper]].
*This comic is objectively the best xkcd.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics posted on livejournal| 08]]
[[Category:First day on LiveJournal| 08]]
[[Category:First day on xkcd]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Checkered paper]]
[[Category:Red Spiders]]
[[Category:Comics sharing name|Red Spiders01]]

Talk:2676: Historical Dates

2022-09-24T17:57:52Z

162.158.107.246:

Source for the Excel/Lotus 123 relation with Dec 30th, 1899: https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/office/en-US/f1eef5fe-ef5e-4ab6-9d92-0998d3fa6e14/what-is-story-behind-december-30-1899-as-base-date?forum=accessdev
[[User:Victor|Victor]] ([[User talk:Victor|talk]]) 08:14, 24 September 2022 (UTC)

I feel this one. My birthday happens to be within 24 hours of [[1179: ISO 8601|1970-01-01]], so I keep getting caught off guard for a moment whenever I see my birthday showing up in one of these contexts. -- [[User:KarMann|KarMann]] ([[User talk:KarMann|talk]]) 08:35, 24 September 2022 (UTC)

We're going to need the date stamp format for 1890 ticker tape for this one. Anyone? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.214.183|172.70.214.183]] 11:59, 24 September 2022 (UTC)
:MM/DD/YY, with leading zeros omitted, and no I don't know why, but I suggest Google Books Ngrams might have a clue as to when that abomination started. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.22.61|172.69.22.61]] 12:03, 24 September 2022 (UTC)
::Not necessarily with pairs of the slash '/' _ . . _ . but also hyphens '-' _ . . . . _ and periods '.' . _ . _ . _ were used as delimiters in MM?DD?YY, which if I remember right dates to the 1500s when accounting ledgers were invented. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.207.8|172.70.207.8]] 12:10, 24 September 2022 (UTC)
::::Are you with the NSA and have a data warehouse of all the ticker tapes ever sent or something? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.166.185|162.158.166.185]] 12:45, 24 September 2022 (UTC)
:::::No, but my great grandparents thought ticker tape parades were littering, because Great Grandma worked in an office and Great Grandpa worked for sanitation, so we have a bunch of boxes in the attic filled with what she was supposed to throw out her window. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.158.75|172.71.158.75]] 12:54, 24 September 2022 (UTC)
:::That would be [https://www.jstor.org/stable/40697544 1299]. But I'm not sure how this is going to help us explain the comic, unless you perhaps are suggesting we enumerate date representation clusters somehow? [[Special:Contributions/172.69.22.61|172.69.22.61]] 12:32, 24 September 2022 (UTC)
:::: Someone should ask GPT-3 for a list of the top ten dates. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.22.71|172.69.22.71]] 12:59, 24 September 2022 (UTC)

Just putting January 2, 2006 here: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/20530327/origin-of-mon-jan-2-150405-mst-2006-in-golang [[Special:Contributions/172.69.22.161|172.69.22.161]] 12:28, 24 September 2022 (UTC)

Do we need a comment about how Pope Gregory XIII obliterated October 5th through 14th, 1582? [[Special:Contributions/172.71.158.25|172.71.158.25]] 13:30, 24 September 2022 (UTC)

In Unix, January 1st, 1970 0h0 is 0. In Excel, December 31st, 1899 is 1. Either Randal forgot December has 31 days (hence December 30th) or he though Excel starts to count at 0 like Unix. For more information in the (probably) intentional bug in Excel https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2006/06/16/my-first-billg-review/ .

In Excel, January 1, 1900 is 1. However, December 30, 1899 is the "epoch" date that you should use if you want to convert a current date (anything on or after March 1, 1900) to a number by "subtracting" the current date minus the epoch date (counting the number of days since the epoch date). The reason it isn't December 31 is because of the above mentioned bug where Excel counts February 29, 1900 as a day even though it actually isn't.

Speaking of dates, shouldn’t this one be in the category “Saturday comics”? Or was it still Friday in Hawaii when it came out? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.107.246|162.158.107.246]] 17:57, 24 September 2022 (UTC)

Talk:2673: Cursed mRNA Cocktail

2022-09-16T21:29:18Z

162.158.107.246: