explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

2220: Imagine Going Back in Time

2019-10-26T10:18:36Z

162.158.114.118: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2220
| date = October 25, 2019
| title = Imagine Going Back in Time
| image = imagine_going_back_in_time.png
| titletext = I wonder what the trendy adults in 2019 who are too cool for Pokemon will be into. Probably Digimon!
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Very rough first draft. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
This comic starts with Cueball stating a complaint related to the game {{w|Pokemon Go}} ("a frog Pokemon in the gym next to mine") and U.S. President {{w|Donald Trump}} ("a player named 'Reelect Trump 2020"). Megan wonders how one would have reacted to such a statement 20 years ago. Cueball then tests the scenario in practice by using a time machine to talk to himself from 20 years ago. His 1999 personality reacts by asking questions about the popularity of Pokemon and the demographics of its players.

"Imagine going back in time" is a phrase used to highlight how quickly or drastically something has changed.

{{w|Pokemon}} is a media franchise that debuted in 1996 in Japan as both a video game and a trading card game. It was originally designed for and marketed to younger children (the tie-in cartoon series constantly emphasizes its main characters are ten years old), with a design, aesthetic and gameplay that were optimized for a younger audience. Since then, and up to 2019, there have been a total of eight generations of video games on consoles. As the franchise continued to thrive and evolve, it's gone through multiple generations, including ''Pokemon Go'', an augmented reality game for smartphones. These latest versions, in particular, have become popular with adults, some of whom grew up playing the earlier generations.

In 1999 in North America, only the first generation of Pokemon video games had been released, consisting of {{w|Pokémon Red and Blue|Pokemon Blue and Pokemon Red}} for the Nintendo Gameboy. The second generation of Pokemon video games would not even be announced in Japan until {{w|Pokémon Gold and Silver#Release|November 1999}}, and advertising for the North American release would begin in December of 1999 with only the launch of the {{w|List of Pokémon: Adventures on the Orange Islands episodes|second season of the tie-in cartoon series}}; however, whether there would be a sequel game to tie in with this new season was only a matter of fan speculation in North America at that time. A person living in 1999, who has only seen the first generation, with no official confirmation that a second generation was even being considered, and unable to predict the nostalgia market that would appear later, would quite plausibly wonder about its popularity 20 years later.

{{w|Donald J. Trump}} is the president of the United States at the time of publishing. He was elected in 2016 in a stunning upset. Even during his campaign, the idea of his election was considered absurd in many circles, as he had never held any kind of public office, and had no background that would lend itself to expertise in government or public policy. Prior to his election, he was primarily known as a New York real estate mogul and host of the 2003 reality television show ''The Apprentice''. While he'd been teasing the idea of a presidential run since the 1980s, and indeed {{w|Donald Trump 2000 presidential campaign|was currently seeking the Reform Party candidacy in 1999}}, most people saw the idea as unserious, and the concept of him actually being President of the United States would have been hugely unexpected to most Americans in an earlier era.

[https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/pepe-the-frog Pepe the Frog] is an internet meme that has become associated with Donald Trump after his use of it during his presidential campaign. The use of a frog pokémon, therefore, is a callback to this internet phenomenon.

This comic's joke is similar to one used in the 1985 science-fiction film ''{{w|Back to the Future}}'', in which Doc Brown (of 1955) is shocked to learn that {{w|Ronald Reagan}} would be the President of the United States in thirty years' time, when in 1955 Reagan was a TV actor.

Presumably, Megan thought that the concept of Donald Trump being President was the most shocking part of Cueball's sentence, but younger Cueball seems much more focused on the idea that a) ''Pokemon'' still exists as a media franchise and b) his adult self is still playing it 20 years in the future. Cueball defensively insists that he's focusing on the wrong thing.

{{w|Digimon}}, as mentioned in the title text, is another media franchise which is similar to Pokemon in some ways, though it is often perceived as more "cool" and "adult" oriented. Its popularity in North America rose around 1999 with the airing of its anime series, but [https://www.geekinsider.com/digimon-vs-pokemon-retrospective-monster-marketing/ never became as popular as Pokemon].

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

[Megan and Cueball standing, facing each other.]
:Cueball: Ugh. A player named "Reelect Trump 2020" put a frog Pokemon in the gym next to mine.

[Megan puts her hand to her face. Cueball is holding a handheld device with an antenna.]
:Megan: Imagine going back in time and saying that to yourself 20 years ago.
:Cueball: Oh, I have a time machine! I'll try that.

[sound effect between panels]
:BZZZZT

[panel caption: 1999]
[Two Cueballs standing, facing each other. The one on the right, from 2019, is holding the handheld device.]
:Cueball from 2019: ... next to mine.

[Cueball from 1999 is shown, with Cueball from 2019 speaking off panel.]
:Cueball from 1999: I see. Pokemon is still popular in 2019?
:Cueball from 2019: Yeah.

[Both Cueballs again, with Cueball from 2019 holding his arm in a threatening gesture toward Cueball from 1999.]
:Cueball from 1999: And it's cool for people your age to play it?
:Cueball from 2019: OK, I did not come here to be mocked.
:Cueball from 1999: This is a sobering cautionary tale.
:Cueball from 2019: '''Listen, self...'''

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]
[[Category:Video games]]
[[Category:Pokémon]]
[[Category:Time travel]]

2210: College Athletes

2019-10-02T18:11:00Z

162.158.114.118: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2210
| date = October 2, 2019
| title = College Athletes
| image = college_athletes.png
| titletext = Their signature play is the three-point combinator, a recursive offense which is guaranteed not to halt and continues accumulating points until the buzzer.
}}

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

[[Ponytail]] is reading from her phone about the [https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201920200SB206 California Fair Pay to Play act], which was signed into law on September 30, 2019, two days before this comic was released. It gives college athletes the rights to their name and face (images) for financial gain, in contrast to {{w|NCAA}} rules which require that athletes be unpaid.

[[White Hat]] thinks this is a good thing, but then [[Cueball]] claims that his state has passed an even better law which ''gave college players rights to use the names and images of any California athletes''. Note that Cueball's state is thus not California, so it is very weird they can use names from another state.

Ponytail doesn't believe him but he ''curries'' on claiming that all members of his school's basketball team thus have changed their name to {{w|Steph Curry}}, after the NBA Player who plays for the {{w|Golden State Warriors}}, a Californian team. Cueball explains in particular, that only one player copied the name from the NBA player, then another member of the team copied the name from that player, and so on.

This is of course an error, since they only had right to use names of California athletes, and as this is another state than California, they could not have used the law to use the name of one of their fellow team mates. Mistake by Randall, or Cueball that is just making a joke...

Because as it turns out in his final remark, all this has only been the setup for his grand joke, when he tells Ponytail that this process is known as "Currying". This is a play on both the name "Curry" used here, as well as the mathematical procedure called {{w|currying}}, named after mathematician {{w|Haskell Curry}}. This is very typical Cueball, and Ponytail almost fell for it, and thus claims that she hates him!

Currying is when a multi-variable function is broken down into a sequence of single-variable functions, each of which outputs a new function until the final variable is consumed. For example, the function f(x,y,z) can be curried into f(x)(y)(z), where f is a function that consumes x and produces a function f(x), which in turn consumes y, yielding the function f(x)(y), and that in turn is a function f(x)(y) which consumes the parameter z to finally produce f(x)(y)(z), which is equal to the original f(x,y,z). This is not commonly used in most areas of math except for foundational logic but it is widely used in functional programming.

When Cueball says ''a team made up entirely of Steph Currys'', White Hat questions what the plural form should be, and is it instead should have been ‘''Stephs Curry''’? This is referring to the pluralization of phrases where a noun is followed by a modifier of some sort, such as ''attorneys general'', ''parts unknown'', ''heirs apparent'', ''mothers-in-law'', and so on. In these cases, plurals are formed by pluralizing the noun parts of the phrases; however, some of these are rare or foreign enough that speakers of English don't always identify them correctly and pluralize the last word instead, e.g. *''attorney generals''.

The title text is a computer science joke, saying that the Steph Currys basketball team's signature play is the "three-point combinator", a joke on the {{w|three-point play}} in basketball, and a type of {{w|Fixed-point_combinator#Y_combinator|fixed-point combinator}} called the [https://rosettacode.org/wiki/Y_combinator Y Combinator], introduced by Haskell Curry. The description of "three-point combinator" is dense with word play that relates to the Y Combinator, which is used to implement {{w|recursive}} methods in functional programming languages, has notable properties relating to halting (see: the {{w|Halting_problem|Halting Problem}}), and has a common form in which a second argument is used as a counter that is increased by one with each recursive call until termination. "Signature play" may also be a play on words, as currying transforms a {{w|Type_signature#Method_signature|method signature}}.

In this case, when this move is performed, it will just keep accumulating points, as it is guaranteed it cannot halt and will not stop until the time runs out and the buzzer that ends the game is activated. Such a move can of course not be a part of a real basketball game, and more of a nod to the Golden State Warriors' reputation as a high-scoring, nearly-unstoppable offense widely known for three-point shooting.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball, Ponytail and White Hat are having a conversation. Ponytail is checking her phone.]
:Ponytail: Oh, huh. California passed a law giving college athletes full rights to their names and images.
:White Hat: Good, I think?

:[Cueball holds his hand up in a fist, while Ponytail, holding her phone down, and White hat looks at him.]
:Cueball: That's nothing. '''''Our''''' state gave college players rights to use the names and images of '''''any''''' California athletes.
:Ponytail: It did not.

:[In a frame-less panel Cueball holds his hands out, Ponytails phone is gone and White Hat puts a hand to his chin.]
:Cueball: Sure it did!
:Cueball: That's how our school fielded a basketball team made up entirely of Steph Currys.
:White Hat: Or is the plural "Stephs Curry"?

:[Cueball holds both hands up in front of him. Ponytail has her arms down but she is balling her hands into fists.]
:Cueball: They didn't all copy the original Steph, though. One player got the rights to his name, then the next player got it from them, and so on.
:Cueball: This process is known as "currying".
:Ponytail: ...I hate you so much.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:Math]]
[[Category:Sport]]
[[Category:Basketball]]

2210: College Athletes

2019-10-02T18:09:38Z

162.158.114.118: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2210
| date = October 2, 2019
| title = College Athletes
| image = college_athletes.png
| titletext = Their signature play is the three-point combinator, a recursive offense which is guaranteed not to halt and continues accumulating points until the buzzer.
}}

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

[[Ponytail]] is reading from her phone about the [https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201920200SB206 California Fair Pay to Play act], which was signed into law on September 30, 2019, two days before this comic was released. It gives college athletes the rights to their name and face (images) for financial gain, in contrast to {{w|NCAA}} rules which require that athletes be unpaid.

[[White Hat]] thinks this is a good thing, but then [[Cueball]] claims that his state has passed an even better law which ''gave college players rights to use the names and images of any California athletes''. Note that Cueball's state is thus not California, so it is very weird they can use names from another state.

Ponytail doesn't believe him but he ''curries'' on claiming that all members of his school's basketball team thus have changed their name to {{w|Steph Curry}}, after the NBA Player who plays for the {{w|Golden State Warriors}}, a Californian team. Cueball explains in particular, that only one player copied the name from the NBA player, then another member of the team copied the name from that player, and so on.

This is of course an error, since they only had right to use names of California athletes, and as this is another state than California, they could not have used the law to use the name of one of their fellow team mates. Mistake by Randall, or Cueball that is just making a joke...

Because as it turns out in his final remark, all this has only been the setup for his grand joke, when he tells Ponytail that this process is known as "Currying". This is a play on both the name "Curry" used here, as well as the mathematical procedure called {{w|currying}}, named after mathematician {{w|Haskell Curry}}. This is very typical Cueball, and Ponytail almost fell for it, and thus claims that she hates him!

Currying is when a multi-variable function is broken down into a sequence of single-variable functions, each of which outputs a new function until the final variable is consumed. For example, the function f(x,y,z) can be curried into f(x)(y)(z), where f is a function that consumes x and produces a function f(x), which in turn consumes y, yielding the function f(x)(y), and that in turn is a function f(x)(y) which consumes the parameter z to finally produce f(x)(y)(z), which is equal to the original f(x,y,z). This is not commonly used in most areas of math except for foundational logic but it is widely used in functional programming.

When Cueball says ''a team made up entirely of Steph Currys'', White Hat questions what the plural form should be, and is it instead should have been ‘''Stephs Curry''’? This is referring to the pluralization of phrases where a noun is followed by a modifier of some sort, such as ''attorneys general'', ''parts unknown'', ''heirs apparent'', ''mothers-in-law'', and so on. In these cases, plurals are formed by pluralizing the noun parts of the phrases; however, some of these are rare or foreign enough that speakers of English don't always identify them correctly and pluralize the last word instead, e.g. *''attorney generals''.

The title text is a computer science joke, saying that the Steph Currys basketball team's signature play is the "three-point combinator", a joke on the {{w|three-point play}} in basketball, and a type of {{w|Fixed-point_combinator#Y_combinator|fixed-point combinator}} called the [https://rosettacode.org/wiki/Y_combinator Y Combinator], introduced by Haskell Curry. The description of "three-point combinator" is dense with word play that relates to the Y Combinator, which is used to implement {{w|recursive}} methods in functional programming languages, has notable properties relating to halting (see: the {{w|Halting_problem|Halting Problem}}), and has a common form in which a second argument is used as a counter that is increased by one with each recursive call until termination. "Signature play" may also be a play on words, as currying transforms a {{w|Type_signature#Method_signature|method signature}}.

In this case, when this move is performed, it will just keep accumulating points, as it is guaranteed it cannot halt and will not stop until the time runs out and the buzzer that ends the game is activated. Such a move can of course not be a part of a real basketball game, and more of a nod to the Golden State Warriors' reputation as a high-scoring, nearly-unstoppable offense widely-known for three-point shooting.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball, Ponytail and White Hat are having a conversation. Ponytail is checking her phone.]
:Ponytail: Oh, huh. California passed a law giving college athletes full rights to their names and images.
:White Hat: Good, I think?

:[Cueball holds his hand up in a fist, while Ponytail, holding her phone down, and White hat looks at him.]
:Cueball: That's nothing. '''''Our''''' state gave college players rights to use the names and images of '''''any''''' California athletes.
:Ponytail: It did not.

:[In a frame-less panel Cueball holds his hands out, Ponytails phone is gone and White Hat puts a hand to his chin.]
:Cueball: Sure it did!
:Cueball: That's how our school fielded a basketball team made up entirely of Steph Currys.
:White Hat: Or is the plural "Stephs Curry"?

:[Cueball holds both hands up in front of him. Ponytail has her arms down but she is balling her hands into fists.]
:Cueball: They didn't all copy the original Steph, though. One player got the rights to his name, then the next player got it from them, and so on.
:Cueball: This process is known as "currying".
:Ponytail: ...I hate you so much.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:Math]]
[[Category:Sport]]
[[Category:Basketball]]

Talk:2203: Prescience

2019-09-29T14:04:43Z

162.158.114.118:

I can't remember the last time a sitting President has been struck by lightning.  [[Special:Contributions/162.158.154.145|162.158.154.145]] 16:09, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

You know, they still haven't attained world peace.  [[Special:Contributions/172.69.68.213|172.69.68.213]] 16:34, 16 September 2019 (UTC)
:Don't risk it: there is one remarkably easy way to attain world peace. Just fire all nukes. It will be very peaceful some time after they detonate. The mentioned giant meteor impact would also attain world peace ... -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 22:26, 16 September 2019 (UTC)
::I'm sceptical. First of all there's not enough carriers (~4k worldwide, maybe much less; the number is for deployed warheads, not necessarily the deliverable ones) to launch all of the nuclear charges (~14k, deployed + in storage). Second, there's far not enough charges themselves, to cover all population centers, from huge to small, much less all habitable areas. One charge is able to destroy a biggish city or a town and contaminate a considerable area - but there's much more than 14k population centers in the world, even if you somehow manage to plant these 10k warheads that don't have an immediate means of delivery. And there are huge rural and sparsely populated areas. ~14k warheads won't scorch all the lands on Earth. Quite many people out of 7.5 billions will survive - and immediately start wars over scarce resources decimated by the nuclear war. What would be the final outcome including long-term effects of all-out nuclear war is very hard to predict. Maybe humans will go extinct, maybe not. Most certainly, life as such would continue to exist. It would take much more energy to sterilize all the biosphere. -- [[User:Malgond|Malgond]] ([[User talk:Malgond|talk]]) 08:24, 17 September 2019 (UTC)
:::Not sure. There's not just the immediate destruction, after that comes fallout, nuclear winter, radiation... not to mention the level of dependence on technology many societies have reached today. There might be some survivors in the end but that would probably be some indigenous groups in rural areas near the equator. They might be good at world peace after all. -- [[Special:Contributions/162.158.114.118|162.158.114.118]] 14:04, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

I can't find it right now, but reminds me of the (probably apocryphal) story of a Stanford professor who was on the phone to a colleague at Berkeley. Berkeley guy suddenly says "I gotta go, there's an earthquake!", and hangs up. Stanford walks out into the hall, takes a sip of his coffee, looks at his watch and says "hey, aren't we about due for an earthquake?", right before the tremors hit.[[User:UStralian|UStralian]] ([[User talk:UStralian|talk]]) 16:49, 16 September 2019 (UTC)
: +1. I came here explicitly to relate this anecdote! [[User:John.Adriaan|John.Adriaan]] ([[User talk:John.Adriaan|talk]]) 02:02, 17 September 2019 (UTC)
: I found a more formal telling of this story in Randall's blag at https://blog.xkcd.com/2011/08/24/earthquakes - "I once heard a story (originally told by Kevin Young) about Gerson Goldhaber, who was a physicist at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. He was talking on the phone with another physicist at SLAC near Stanford University near the end of the day on Tuesday, October 17, 1989..." It turns out the SLAC physicist is the one that reported the earthquake and hung up, and Gerson Goldhaber at Berkeley was the one that impressed others with his earthquake prediction powers. [[User:Ianrbibtitlht|Ianrbibtitlht]] ([[User talk:Ianrbibtitlht|talk]]) 04:19, 18 September 2019 (UTC)

I love the pun in the title between _prescience_ (awareness of the future) and _pre-science_ (before science)... [[User:Gidds|Gidds]] ([[User talk:Gidds|talk]]) 17:17, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

This is the way most tech bloggers operate these days. Throw enough mud up against the wall, and some of it will stick. Print enough rumors and suppositions, and eventually one of them will prove to be correct.[[User:RAGBRAIvet|RAGBRAIvet]] ([[User talk:RAGBRAIvet|talk]]) 20:46, 16 September 2019 (UTC)
:The worst example is actually economists. There are some who always predict a downturn. They keep saying it and being proven wrong, year after year...until when one finally comes they're suddenly on all the talking head shows with the host saying "this guy predicted the recession. Now he's going to tell us what's coming next and how to get out of it." — especially if the way to get out of it involves the broken window fallacy of "stimulus spending". — [[User:Kazvorpal|Kazvorpal]] ([[User talk:Kazvorpal|talk]]) 21:52, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

Not sure about unsinkable, but there were several ''{{w|HMS Invincible|Invincible}}'' ships ... -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 22:48, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

I saw [https://www.express.co.uk/news/science/1171930/Asteroid-news-chance-of-impact-asteroid-hit-earth-Lembit-Opik-asteroid-warning this article] awhile ago, which I feel like may have inspired this comic? [[Special:Contributions/172.69.42.4|172.69.42.4]] 22:53, 16 September 2019 (UTC)
:Given that Randall has made other comics both like this (see [[#Trivia]]) and with [[1159: Countdown|end of the world scenario]], I do not think he was inspired by some random article from a week before. But it is fine to have it mentioned here in the discussion. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 13:19, 18 September 2019 (UTC)
:Recent news of the continued deterioration of the Titanic wreck may have inspired the title text - of course, that ship was deemed "virtually unsinkable". [[Special:Contributions/108.162.241.248|108.162.241.248]] 17:33, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

Saying something that have more importance if you are correct reminds me of [[https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/525:_I_Know_You%27re_Listening this]] [[Special:Contributions/172.68.154.22|172.68.154.22]] 04:50, 17 September 2019 (UTC)
:What about connecting this and https://xkcd.com/628/, which also discussed Cueball using random coincidence to impress people. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.74.70|172.68.74.70]] 19:35, 17 September 2019 (UTC)
::I have added both [[525]] and [[628]] and Lupo has since added [[858: Milk]] to a trivia. And all these other three now also have this trivia connecting them. Thanks for remembering. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 13:15, 18 September 2019 (UTC)

ESP style prescience can and has been measured by science. The measured value is zero, with tight bounds.[[Special:Contributions/172.68.206.22|172.68.206.22]] 16:50, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

2198: Throw

2019-09-03T08:57:04Z

162.158.114.118:

{{comic
| number = 2198
| date = September 3, 2019
| title = Throw
| image = throw.png
| titletext = The keys to successfully throwing a party are location, planning, and one of those aircraft carrier steam catapults.
}}

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

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

This calculator implements the approximate throwing distance estimation model from ''How To'' Chapter 10: ''How to throw things''.

How far could

- An NFL Quarterback

- George Washington

- Pikachu

- Carly Rae Jespen

- Thor, God of Thunder

- Chris Hemsworth

- a squirrel

throw

- a microwave oven

- a basketball

- a blender

- a gold bar

- a wedding cake

- a ping-pong ball

- an acorn

- Thor's Hammer

- a javelin

- George Washington

- Pikachu

- a car

- a silver dollar (spinning)

- a silver dollar (tumbling)

- a squirrel

{{comic discussion}}

1061: EST

2019-08-24T17:41:38Z

162.158.114.118: /* Other features */ uncapitalize “pre” in “pre-Babylonian Exile”, since I don’t think it’s part of the proper noun

{{comic
| number = 1061
| date = May 28, 2012
| title = EST
| image = est.png
| titletext = The month names are the same, except that the fourth month only has the name 'April' in even-numbered years, and is otherwise unnamed.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic pokes fun of attempts to "fix" the calendar by making it simpler or more rational, which inevitably result in a system just as complicated. This is an example of the paradox in complexity theory that if you attempt to simplify a system of problems by creating a new system of evaluation for the problems you often have instead made the problem more complex than it was originally.

[[Randall]] advertises his idea for a "Universal Calendar for a Universal Planet". He combines {{w|calendar#Calendars in use|calendar}} definitions with {{w|Time zone|time zone}} definitions. The abbreviation '''EST''' in this comic stands for ''Earth Standard Time'' (hence the title), but it is in itself a joke on the American {{w|Eastern Time Zone|Eastern Standard Time}}. In the rest of the explanation EST refers to the comic's Earth Standard Time!

===Length of year===
Because there are approximately 365.2422 days in a {{w|solar year}}, various calendars use different means to keep the calendar year in sync with the solar year and the seasons. The Julian Calendar, for example, has leap days every four years, giving it an average year length of 365.25 days. The most widely used system is the {{w|Gregorian Calendar|Gregorian Calendar}}, which also has leap days every four years, but skips leap days in years divisible by 100 unless the year is also divisible by 400, the latter additions come from Earth's {{w|axial precession}}. This gives it an average year length of 365.2425 days, which is very close to the length of a solar year (see detailed explanation in this video: ''[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82p-DYgGFjI Earth's motion around the Sun, not as simple as I thought]''.)
{{w|Calendar reform|Other calendars}} have been proposed, such not counting leap days and special "festival days" as a day of the week, in order to make every date fall on the same day of the week every year.

*At "24 hours 4 minutes", EST days are longer, though there are only 360 of them in the year. The extra 4 minutes over the course of 360 days adds up to one standard day, so Randall's EST calendar would at this point have a year that is 361 standard days long. The 24 hours plus 4 minutes length may be a reference to {{w|sidereal day}}, whose duration is 24 hours ''minus'' 4 minutes.

*Running the clock backwards for 4 hours after every full moon gives 8 additional hours at each full moon, twelve or thirteen times in a year. Because a thirteenth full moon will occur once every 2.7 solar years on average, this modification adds 4.1228 standard days to an EST year, bringing it to 365.1228 days.

*The doubling of the non-prime numbers of the first non-reversed hour after each solstice and equinox is a final, very complicated way to bring Randall's EST year in extremely close sync with the solar year. There are 17 prime numbers between 0 and 59 and 43 non-primes. There are 2 equinoxes and 2 solstices each year, so a total of 4x43 = 172 minutes will occur twice. This brings the average length of Randall's EST year to 365.2422 standard days, equal to the solar year to four decimal places.

===Claimed benefits===
Many of the claimed benefits for the calendar are highly dubious:
*While it is fairly ''simple'' to describe, EST is far from simple to understand or put in practice. Clocks in particular would have to regularly undertake very complicated processes like running backwards or duplicating non-prime minutes.
*EST does appear to be fairly ''clearly defined''.
*EST fails completely to be ''unambiguous''. Following each full moon, four hours occur three times, twice forward and once backward. Several minutes are also duplicated, making times during those periods ambiguous.
*The only way EST is ''free of historical baggage'' is that it breaks free of any sensible bits of historical baggage; it keeps such things as the 30-day month and 12-month year, but adopts a different (and variable) length of day that would make it wildly out of sync with the Earth's day-night cycle.
*EST is ''compatible with old units'', as far as seconds, minutes, and hours are concerned, though not for days, months, or years.
*EST is indeed very ''precisely synced with the solar cycle''. The joke is that this has nothing to do with the day/night cycle or the Earth's yearly orbital cycle; the {{w|solar cycle}} is a period of magnetic fluctuation within the sun, lasting 11 Earth years.
*EST is ''free of leap years'', though some EST years are 8 hours longer than others on account of having an extra full moon.
*A calendar ''amenable to date math'' makes it easy to find the length of time between two dates and times by having standardized periods of time. The complex variability of the length of EST years, days, and hours mean it is only ''intermittently'' amenable to date math, which is to say not at all.

===Other features===
The features of the calendar get increasingly bizarre as the description proceeds:

*The {{w|Epoch (reference date)|Epoch}} for EST is set by reference to the {{w|Julian calendar}}, which was superseded by the {{w|Gregorian calendar}}. The Julian calendar is currently 13 days behind the Gregorian calendar.

*The different zone for the United Kingdom is a reference to 1 yard being equal to 0.9144 meters, a pun on using {{w|imperial units}} instead of the {{w|metric system}}. This has been the joke before in [[526: Converting to Metric]] and is also mentioned in [[1643: Degrees]].

*Randall does not like {{w|Daylight saving time}} (DST) very much, as has been made clear in [[:Category:Daylight saving time|several comics]] both before and after this one. See Narnian time below.

*Narnian time is a reference to the fictitious world of {{w|Narnia (world)|Narnia}} in {{w|CS Lewis|CS Lewis'}} book {{w|The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe}} and its sequels. In Narnia, time passes much more quickly than in the real world. You could be in Narnia for several days and only a few minutes would have passed in the real world. However, synchronizing this effect would be impossible because it is not a consistent rate; it fluctuates wildly based on the whims of drama and magic. This and the DST mentioned above should be seen as a pair. Because when a country goes into DST time may not pass, which is basically what happens (more or less) when a child enters into Narnia. Whereas in EST Narnian time is synchronized to normal time, which DST is but for the one hour difference in the real calendar. Using the weird Narnian time was used as the plot in the bottom left drawing in [[821: Five-Minute Comics: Part 3]].

*The Gregorian calendar does not include the year "0"; after "1" BC the next year is "1" AD. Randall's invention fixes this according to correct Mathematics, only to reintroduce the problem immediately by arbitrarily omitting the year 1958. The year 1958 is significant because January 1, 1958 is the epoch (time zero) in {{w|International Atomic Time}} (TAI), which is part of the basis for {{w|Coordinated Universal Time}} (UTC). (The main difference is that TAI doesn't add leap seconds.)

*The title text's concept of only naming the fourth month ''April'' in the even numbered years, and then leave it unnamed the other years, may be a reference to the ancient (pre-Babylonian Exile) [http://www.jewfaq.org/calendar.htm Jewish Calendar], which did not name the months, rather assigning them numbers from 1 to 12 (or 13 in leap years, where an extra month was added instead of an extra day). The names used by Jews today are the names of the Babylonian months, derived from various Babylonian deities or events in Jewish history or on the calendar.

==Transcript==
:[Caption above the frame:]
:xkcd presents
:<big>'''Earth Standard Time'''</big>
:(EST)
:'''A universal calendar for a universal planet'''
:EST is...
:Simple • Clearly defined • Unambiguous
:Free of historical baggage • Compatible with old units
:Precisely synced with the solar cycle • Free of leap years
:Intermittently amenable to date math

:[Inside the frame a list of the details concerning EST is shown:]
:Units
:Second: 1 S.I. second
:Minute: 60 seconds
:Hour: 60 minutes
:Day: 1444 minutes (24 hours 4 minutes)
:Month: 30 days
:Year: 12 months

:Rules
:For 4 hours after every full moon, run clocks backward.
:The non-prime-numbered minutes of the first full non-reversed hour after a solstice or equinox happen twice.

:[In two columns the "Epoch" is put into a contrasting juxtaposition to "Time Zones":]
:Epoch
:00:00:00 EST, January 1st, 1970 = 00:00:00 GMT, January 1st, 1970 (Julian Calendar)
:Time Zones
:The two EST time zones are ''EST'' and ''EST (United Kingdom)''. These are the same except that the UK second is 0.9144 standard seconds.

:[A few further statements:]
:Daylight saving: Countries may enter DST, but no time may pass there.
:Narnian Time: Synchronized✔
:Year Zero: EST ''does'' have a year 0. (However, there is no 1958.)

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Time]]
[[Category:Daylight saving time]]
[[Category:Astronomy]]
[[Category:Chronicles of Narnia]]