explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

3014: Arizona Chess

2024-11-20T21:11:11Z

162.158.158.139: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 3014
| date = November 20, 2024
| title = Arizona Chess
| image = arizona_chess_2x.png
| imagesize = 740x315px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Sometimes, you have to sacrifice pieces to gain the advantage. Sometimes, to advance ... you have to fall back.
}}

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

[[White Hat]] and [[Cueball]] are playing a timed game of tournament-style chess. White Hat has the advantage, because he has one more pawn than Cueball and has more time on the {{w|chess clock}}, 6 minutes and 35 seconds, versus Cueball's time counting down from 28 seconds at the start of the comic.

However, Cueball has an unexpected advantage. The building is sited across the border of Arizona with another state, with White Hat on the Arizona side, and the game is being played at a very particular time of year, when (most of) the United States exits {{w|Daylight Saving Time}}, which happens at 2:00 AM on the morning of the first Sunday in November. As Arizona doesn't observe Daylight Saving Time (DST), unlike neighboring US states, only one clock gains an hour. White Hat's time remains normal, but Cueball's time "falls back" one hour, as his departure from daylight saving time occurs. Due to the way the timer clock apparently calibrates its display (perhaps in part based upon something like the self-adjusting [https://en.cppreference.com/w/c/chrono/localtime localtime()] function), Cueball is suddenly given more time in the game. White Hat, whose clock is governed by a different locale, protests, as this is not typically how these clocks should function. Daylight *Slaying* Time is a pun on Daylight *Saving* Time, but note that the comic takes place as the non-Arizona clock joins the Arizona clock in Standard Time.

The title text is a pun on "falling back" strategically from an attack and the term "fall back" in the mnemonic used to remember which way the clock changes when we go in and out of DST: "spring forward, fall back" (we advance the clock forward when entering DST in the spring, and move it backward when leaving it in the fall or autumn).

A handful of buildings even extend across international boundaries (these are known as [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_house line houses]) and many more cross state or local boundaries in the US (a city, county or tribe may sometimes decide to use a different time zone than the rest of the state, so any of these can become a zone boundary, whether or not international databases reflect it). While it is possible to arrange a table across a timezone boundary, a bigger challenge is to arrange the chess clock. Most do not account for timezones at all and are at most about 12 inches across, not far above the positioning error in GPS. Cueball would have needed to find a clock that was capable of tracking time zones separately for each of the two internal clocks and either had an excellent GPS receiver for each side (capable of detecting a several-inch difference in position as corresponding to another zone) or a way to manually enter two different zones, while also having the time-tracking oversight described above. The game could be played in the future where standard chess clocks are different. Ongoing state-level efforts to end time changes could also increase the number of places where this situation could happen.

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

:[White Hat and Cueball are sitting across from each other playing chess. The time, shown above them in white on a black screen, reads 6:35 for White Hat, and 0:28 for Cueball.]
:White Hat: It’s late, I’m up a pawn, and you’re out of time. It’s over.
:Cueball: Ah, you’re forgetting something.

:[Cueball gestures with one hand above the chessboard. His time now reads 0:19.]
:Cueball: Did you know this building straddles the Arizona border?
:Cueball: It actually runs right through the table. You're on the Arizona side.

:[Cueball raises his hand further to gesture at his time. It beeps and is now blank and white.]
:Cueball: This tournament started Saturday, November 2nd. Now it's almost 2AM on the 3rd.
:Cueball: And there's something you should know about Arizona.
:Chess clock: BEEP

:[White Hat raises his head slightly to look at the timer. Cueball's time now reads 60:07. Cueball lowers his hand to make a move.]
:White Hat: '''''What?!''''' No! That's not how... '''''No!!'''''
:Cueball: Looks like it's daylight '''''slaying''''' time.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:Chess]]
[[Category:Daylight saving time]]

2814: Perseids Pronunciation

2023-08-11T14:43:23Z

162.158.158.139: I'm afraid to google the Kentucky Meat Shower.

{{comic
| number = 2814
| date = August 11, 2023
| title = Perseids Pronunciation
| image = perseids_pronunciation_2x.png
| imagesize = 291x414px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = When speaking out loud, you can can call it the 'Perseids meatier shower' and no one will ever know. (If you do get caught somehow, just tell them to Google the 'Kentucky meat shower' and that will distract them while you escape.)
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a BOT wearing a white suit and bolo tie - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

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

{{comic discussion}}
I'm afraid to google the Kentucky Meat Shower. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.139|162.158.158.139]] 14:43, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

Talk:2771: College Knowledge

2023-05-07T17:28:35Z

162.158.158.139: pronunciation of ancient languages is figured out from rhymes - or so they say

Did anyone else learn today that "chitin" rhymes with Triton? (I've always pronounced it chitten, like a chewy kitten, but apparently it's kai-ten!) College Knowledge? More like webcomic knowledge! [[User:Mathmannix|Mathmannix]] ([[User talk:Mathmannix|talk]]) 10:51, 4 May 2023 (UTC)
:Well, if you pronounce it "Tritin", it rhymes. [[User:Yorkshire Pudding|Yorkshire Pudding]] ([[User talk:Yorkshire Pudding|talk]]) 18:14, 4 May 2023 (UTC)
:I'm not sure that's correct, when I read this comic my head just used the "chewy kitten" pronunciation, and pronounced Triton shortly, like Tritin. [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 04:22, 6 May 2023 (UTC)
::Trit'n, rather, I'd say. Yup. Not being English-speak-native, the chronicles tell often on how I learned the language by reading - fantastic vocabulary, spelling, and grammar, rather messy pronunciation. Nowadays, I am working my way through Koyne Greek with the same method. Having learned my lesson (dubious - discuss), I strove to learn pronunciation from modern sources, that indicate that what they found regarding funny pronunciation for otherwise clear written text, they did by studying rhymes of the corresponding period. Much fun to be had [[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.139|162.158.158.139]] 17:28, 7 May 2023 (UTC)

Rather than giving up because "their justifications for each visit become increasingly tenuous," I read the comic as indicating greater and greater complexity in scansion, which leads to increased difficulty in jumping rope, so the point where Ponytail is no longer able to meet the physical challenge, hence her giving up. I do feel like I'm missing something as to the ellipses and the meter in the 4th panel, though. [[User:JohnHawkinson|JohnHawkinson]] ([[User talk:JohnHawkinson|talk]]) 12:36, 4 May 2023 (UTC)
:I think the ellipses are the chanter pausing to think of another heavenly body and what to rhyme it with. But usually the chants are already established and everyone says them in unison -- it's hard to do extemporaneous patter in unison. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 13:38, 4 May 2023 (UTC)
::One thing that bugs me about this site, seeing uncertainty in the weirdest most inappropriate places, LOL! Sorry, there is no question, the final panel is simply that they're struggling to keep rhyming using this scheme, that's it. That's what the ellipsis indicates, delays while reaching for a word. NOTHING about physical difficulty. Note that they ''AREN'T'' chanting together, they're going one at a time. [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 04:22, 6 May 2023 (UTC)
:Betelgeuse only rhymes with Pamplemousse if you mispronounce both ... [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.8|141.101.98.8]] 13:41, 4 May 2023 (UTC)
:: You only have to mispronounce one, but you have to mispronounce it very badly. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.30.96|172.71.30.96]] 15:04, 4 May 2023 (UTC)
::Theoretically, anything could rhyme with anything else if you mispronounce one or both words sufficiently poorly... [[Special:Contributions/172.70.126.141|172.70.126.141]] 17:02, 4 May 2023 (UTC)
::Yeah...but I think final-syllable rhymes are OK, aren't they? Like, if you chanted "You drink grapefruit juice - it makes your bowels loose", that would be fine. Well, it wouldn't, but as a rhyme it would. So "-geuse" rhymed with "mousse" is fine - the "betel-" and "pample-" needn't trouble us. [[User:Yorkshire Pudding|Yorkshire Pudding]] ([[User talk:Yorkshire Pudding|talk]]) 18:10, 4 May 2023 (UTC)
:::-mousse pronounced in the French way (with stress on the final e) does not rhyme with any of the ways to pronounce --geuse - Either Gerse or Jooose ... [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.252|172.70.90.252]] 20:20, 4 May 2023 (UTC)
::::There isn't 'a French way' to pronounce it - sometimes it will sound like the English 'moose', sometimes with an elongated 's', sometimes with a pronounced 'e' (like 'Moussa') - all depends on the speaker, and sometimes the register, or what word happens to follow it....[[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.169|172.70.85.169]] 14:54, 5 May 2023 (UTC)
::::That is ''NOT'' the french way, I'm born, raised, and live surrounded by french and I have no idea how you even would "stress on the final 'e'", I just know that's incorrect. The second half of "pamplemousse" is just simply how we say "moose", that's it, that's the french pronunciation, don't try to complicate it. [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 04:22, 6 May 2023 (UTC)
::You don't have to mispronounce either. ??? Last I knew, Betelgeuse is pronounced like the Tim Burton movie, Beetlejuice (maybe more "Bay-tle"). So, ending in "juice". "Pamplemousse" ends in "moose", identical to the animal. "Juice" rhymes with "moose" just fine. I mean, I've rarely heard "Bay-tel-guise", but it seems like "juice" is the correct one. It's the one Randall is using, anyway. [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 04:22, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

"Girls go to Mercury, to build more funiculæ; boys go to Betelgeuse, to cut down their metal use..." [[Special:Contributions/172.71.178.136|172.71.178.136]] 12:56, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

:I initially read that as "mental" and that fits with the theme, too. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.238.162|108.162.238.162]] 13:06, 4 May 2023 (UTC)
: Girls go to OGLE-2016-BLG-1850L b to... er...[[Special:Contributions/172.71.178.187|172.71.178.187]] 14:59, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

The ellipses help to show that they're improvising the verses in real time. There are better rhymes for Mercury (e.g., "Marie Curie" instead of "Tim Berners-Lee"), but the players are finding it progressively harder to come up with them. [[User:Gmcgath|Gmcgath]] ([[User talk:Gmcgath|talk]]) 15:27, 4 May 2023 (UTC)
::Neither of those names are a great rhyme, but Marie Curie is worlds worse than Tim Berners-Lee. Unless Americans tend to pronounce it "ma REE-keree" and that somehow hasn't made it across the Atlantic. The emphasis is wrong for Tim Berners-Lee too, obviously, but at least his name has the right sounds in it.[[User:Yorkshire Pudding|Yorkshire Pudding]] ([[User talk:Yorkshire Pudding|talk]]) 18:04, 4 May 2023 (UTC)
:::As a DC area American, I pronounce them "Mir-cure-ree" and "Muh-ree cure-ree" which rhyme pretty okay [[Special:Contributions/172.69.70.109|172.69.70.109]] 14:36, 5 May 2023 (UTC)Bumpf
:::Every time I've heard it, Marie Curie's names rhyme with each other, both ending in a "REE" sound. "cury" in Mercury is "cure-y". As such, Curie and Mercury rhyme so much, it's nearly the same sound (just slightly different on the U). [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 04:40, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

Does the fact that Randall hates grapefruit have anything to do with the ending? Because pamplemousse can mean grapefruit
[[Special:Contributions/172.71.182.47|172.71.182.47]] 19:19, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

The rhyme my daughters came home from school with (30 years ago): "Girls go to Mars to get more bras" {{unsigned|108.162.249.4|11:39, 5 May 2023}}

During a general edit, I momentarily undid some other edit about "jump rope" (a.k.a. "skipping" in UK parlance - I know US has its own term, not sure which/what version is most used in rest of anglophone world) whilst not yet seeing which bits I was trampling on in resolving my own Edit Conflict notice, so did a favour on reinstating that bit by adding a wikilink. ("Skipping rope", as main title, a case where Rightpondian got there first. :P ) But though the intro ''mentions'' non-solo skipping, it has far more attention paid to the solo activity, and all its variations. I'm sure there's a better link out there (anthropological study of typical playground games, maybe?) for the group activity. Might be worth a link to that, instead or alongside. Or someone could vastly improve the target wiki article and then perhaps #anchor the cooperative version in the link, but that's probably a lot more work. ;) [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.97|141.101.99.97]] 13:03, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

Science Girl may just be more proficient in astronomy (being true to her 'name') than extemporised poetry, causing the activity to fizzle out, but we can't really tell if this is her first (or last!) invitation to participate in the schoolyard game. (Half inclined to add this to the Explanation, but quite a lot of unknown factors, so it won't add much to be so vague.) [[Special:Contributions/172.71.178.207|172.71.178.207]] 14:46, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

2770: Tapetum Lucidum

2023-05-01T12:55:43Z

162.158.158.139: the fact mirrored what bill nye was doing in the game. also the player isnt shown to be cueball

{{comic
| number = 2770
| date = May 1, 2023
| title = Tapetum Lucidum
| image = tapetum_lucidum_2x.png
| imagesize = 412x492px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Using a reflective wall in a game to give one shot two chances to hit is called a double-tapetum lucidum.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by BILL NYE'S CAT - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
Bill Nye, wearing the same lab coat as in [[200: Bill Nye]], beats an unseen player in an online multiplayer game somewhat resembling {{w|Asteroids (video game)|Asteroids}} or in the vein of {{w|XPilot}}. The whole time, he recounts a scientific fact about light reflection, saying that cats' eyes have another layer between the retina, so that light has a chance to bounce back a second time. He then kills the player by reflecting a laser off the wall, which hits them, mirroring the scientific fact that he was explaining to the player.

In this comic, two small ships battle in a space littered with angled walls. Each ship blasts at the other as Newtonian physics propels it forward unless rotation or playing environment effects slow its course.

The title text refers to "tapetum lucidum" and uses "double tap" in the way that online games, memes, and films refer to shooting something twice in rapid succession to ensure its demise. This phrase is famously{{Actual citation needed}} used in the film "Zombieland," and is the subtitle of the 2019 "Zombieland: Double Tap" sequel.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:Ship 1: Cats have a shiny layer behind their retina called the tapetum lucidum.
:SFX: Pew pew pew

:Ship 1: After light passes through the retina, this layer reflects it back through a second time.
:SFX: Pew pew

:[Ship 1 defeats Ship 2.]
:Ship 1: This extra bounce gives photons another chance to interact with the retinal cells...
:SFX: BOOM!

:[Bill Nye, in a labcoat, at a computer.]
:Bill Nye: ...improving their night vision! Isn't science cool?
:Caption: There's something extra infuriating about losing online games to Bill Nye.

{{comic discussion}}

Talk:2761: 1-to-1 Scale

2023-04-13T16:20:29Z

162.158.158.139:

Really want an explanation for this one. [[User:JobbieJimmies|Melomaniac]] ([[User talk:JobbieJimmies|talk]]) 03:23, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

My comment got deleted by a bot!!! [[User:Unreliable Connection|2659: Unreliable Connection]] ([[User talk:Unreliable Connection|talk]]) 03:23, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
:RIP... [[User:JobbieJimmies|Melomaniac]] ([[User talk:JobbieJimmies|talk]]) 03:25, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
:No, UC, it just got overwritten by the 'bot, when it did its job and (re)created the whole initial state of the various pages to depict the new comic coming out. (Noting that you'd not set them all up fully/correctly.)
:That you had spotted it already and had ''just'' gotten in ahead of the 'bot clearly isn't something it was prepared to handle. But as someone spotting it can usually wait a short while for the 'bot to catch up, I don't think it's a problem. In fact, you could have just copied your old contributions into the now receptive page(s), with nary any comment. Too late now. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.101|172.70.90.101]] 03:44, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

:: This may have broken the next link on the previous page. --[[Special:Contributions/172.71.160.36|172.71.160.36]] 06:41, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

The lines represent the surfaces of the planets I think, so it's basically all the planets overlaid on top of each other. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.142.35|172.71.142.35]] 03:28, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

:Yup, I think it's what he meant - but I find it unlikely that the gas giants would have this clear cutoff of a "surface". [[Special:Contributions/162.158.189.241|162.158.189.241]] 03:34, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
::If there is a gas - liquid phase transition (and I think at least the gas giants have them): Why not? OK, you could see "rain" as blurring a clear cutoff, but wouldn't that also apply to Earth, then?[[User:Tier666|Tier666]] ([[User talk:Tier666|talk]]) 08:04, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
:::Gas giants' diameters are frequently defined at the average radius at which the atmosphere has a pressure of 1 bar (approximately equal to the pressure at sea level on Earth). There's not a physical edge there, like the boundary between the ground and the atmosphere on a rocky planet, but it is a reasonably well-defined (or, at least, define-able) measurement. FWIW, the pressure gradient is pretty high, and Jupiter's atmospheric pressure increases from 1 bar to 10 bar over about 100 km, which is about 0.1% of the radius, so it's fairly insensitive to the pressure you choose.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.139|162.158.158.139]] 16:20, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

I’d think the same citation as stands for ridiculously large would also cover larger than currently exists on earth, and his that citation is not in fact needed? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.174.186|162.158.174.186]] 06:53, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

:It seems like the gas-covered worlds are explicitly those with clearly cutoff "surfaces," so maybe in those cases the cutoff is some specific gas density -- which occurs at a consistent radius throughout the planet, thus creating a flat surface. While for rocky worlds (except Venus, which is treated like a gas planet here), a density cutoff can lead to bumpiness due to terrain. [[User:Trimeta|Trimeta]] ([[User talk:Trimeta|talk]]) 03:57, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
::Correct re: gas giants. Typically 1 bar, which is approximately Earth's atmospheric pressure at sea level.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.139|162.158.158.139]] 16:20, 13 April 2023 (UTC)
:: just to be very clear (this being a explanation site!) that Venus is "treated like a gas giant" because of it's thick atmosphere. It would be just as correct to say "All the gas giants are treated like Venus" After all, ordinary telescopes couldn't take a picture that sees through any atmospheres, except Earth, where you'd see clouds but often surface where clouds don't appear. Sorry if that's an overexplanation [[User:Cuvtixo|Cuvtixo]] ([[User talk:Cuvtixo|talk]]) 19:10, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

On Twitter there seems to be concern that all planets are depicted flat. This may make this a contribution/mockery of the ongoing [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Earth Flat Earth] discussions in some corners of the internet. --[[Special:Contributions/198.41.242.132|198.41.242.132]] 06:49, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
:You can't see the curvature of the Earth when standing on it; doesn't mean it's flat. Since we're looking at the planets at a 1:1 scale, we're literally only seeing a couple of inches of each of their edges (notwithstanding the whole gas-giants-don't-have-a-sharp-edge issue). [[Special:Contributions/162.158.239.20|162.158.239.20]] 12:06, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
:actually you can see it, standing on the shore of any large lake on a calm day looking at a shore that's ~6.5 miles (10.5km) away. You'll lose ~8ft (2.5m) below the horizon - [[Special:Contributions/162.158.186.213|162.158.186.213]] 13:55, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

The display for an uncropped version of the image would not only be larger than any display on earth. It would be larger than earth. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.86.243|162.158.86.243]] 06:59, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
:By necessity, at least as large as Jupiter. Maybe slightly above two Jupiters (max dimension squared compared to display height*width of any common aspect ratio) if you wanted to not overlay any of the others at all. And make the lower limit a packing-problem, then add a buffer so there isn't the actual need for any to touch. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.253|172.70.90.253]] 10:02, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
::I'm going to add that. Someone was confused enough to put {{cite needed}} there, which may be a joke onto itself?, I can't tell. I've removed the cite needed, but I guess it needs to be more clear why it's totally nonsensical and doesn't need a citation? [[User:Cuvtixo|Cuvtixo]] ([[User talk:Cuvtixo|talk]]) 19:16, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
:::The four inner planets are small enough to fit the upper left corner of any display big enough for Jupiter. As Uranus and Neptune are smaller than the latter one, they cannot extend past its top, bottom or right edge in the constellation shown, so they will not need additonal screen space either. Only Saturn is shifted so far to the left that he will require more width than Jupiter itself, but will still fit within the same height. Knowing Randall, the shown angles are not random, but were calculated to match a commercial available display ratio with Saturn placed touching the left edge and Jupiter touching the top, bottom and right edges. 16:9 or 16:10 at 142 km hight would be a fair guess, so I would not rule out 4:3 resulting in total width significantly smaller than two Jupiters. Of course Randall might also be playing hardcore nerd: The outer diameter of Saturns F ring, which is almost always included in representations, has almost exactly a ratio of 32:9 to Jupiters polar diameter, making a picture showing the former in front of the latter a perfect match for those new fancy double wide monitors. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.111.77|162.158.111.77]] 00:22, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

1-to-1 scale means 'assume all planets are the same size,' right? I see Earth's grass is shown to be as large as Martian rocks, because Earth is a third again as large. (At the scale where grass is visible, Earth looks flat.) At first I thought the point was that altitude variation in cloud-tops varied so little that a gas giant shrunk down to Earth size would be featureless and have a distinct edge, but that's wrong. Ground isn't cloud-tops. Do gas giants have any solid ground? We've seen Jupiter eat comets, and it makes sense they would've collected at least some minerals and metals. According to [[https://www.teachastronomy.com/textbook/The-Giant-Planets-and-Their-Moons/Internal-Structure-of-the-Gas-Giant-Planets/|Teach Astronomy]], gas giants have Earth-sized solid cores. I'm guessing gas giants' immense gravity compresses their cores into featureless spheres, which, if scaled to Earth-size and viewed at the scale where one could see grass, would look flat. Yes?
[[User:EllenNB|EllenNB]] ([[User talk:EllenNB|talk]]) 10:14, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
:Gravity itself won't compress (and 'flatten') the cores. "Shell theory" shows that gravitational force only counts from the proportion of the body that is within the radius of the bit you're concerned with. But there'll also be the external pressure (from being at the bottom of a thick atmosphere that ultimately ''is'' above far more of the planetary mass) and possibly a degree of compression density to make any Earth-sized core slightly heavier than if it was just a bare core of the same size but shorn of outer layers.
:As to flatness, I can take you to very flat stretches of Earth and very lumpy bits (depends which direction I go, from where I am now), all within 30 minutes' drive. We can'teven know how representative a sample of planetary cross-sections we are seeing (once we get over the issues of gas/space boundaries for gas-giants), but I bet there are bits that resemble the diagram... If you ''really'' want it to be so real. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.242.87|172.71.242.87]] 11:05, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
:No, 1-to-1 means that they are actual size, not the same size. [[User:SDSpivey|SDSpivey]] ([[User talk:SDSpivey|talk]]) 13:37, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

There are several pieces of information here that are featured but don't make sense to me. What's the function of the dark polygon in the center? Why are the lines showing each surface going in random directions? Why is the surface of each planet so flat at a full scale rendition? When I look out my window at full sized Earth, it's not flat. It's quite bumpy, actually. But perhaps he doesn't mean these are full size, he might be saying that they're all shrunk, but the same amount, so 1:1:1:1:1... but even then, I'm totally lost.

"What's the function of the dark polygon in the center?"
I think it is a view of the dark sky, "above" the surface of the Earth, Mars, etc. [[User:Rps|Rps]] ([[User talk:Rps|talk]]) 11:43, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
:I think the "polygon" is a grassy Earth itself, with the white above it sky. Earth is the rearmost planet pictured. Then in front of Earth, on all sides except the top, are the overlays of the various planets, what little of each one as can fit. But then maybe the polygon is night starry sky, and Earth is the white area above it. [[User:N0lqu|-boB]] ([[User talk:N0lqu|talk]]) 14:35, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
::No, the polygon is the sky. Zoom in and you see the Milky Way and stars and other space stuff. And the ant on the Earth has its legs pointing upwards (in the reference frame of the image). [[Special:Contributions/162.158.239.26|162.158.239.26]] 03:09, 12 April 2023 (UTC)
:::Agreed. [[User:N0lqu|-boB]] ([[User talk:N0lqu|talk]]) 13:43, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

Is this an ant on earth, over the letters "EA" ? On my monitor, set for my less-than-perfect vision, it is 15mm long, which (at a 1:1 scale) makes it a cow ant, or a large african ant. I guess people with normal vision get fire and carpenter ants instead? And those on smartphones get pavement ants?[[Special:Contributions/172.68.50.73|172.68.50.73]] 11:00, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
:I do believe it is! It's 6 mm on my desktop monitor and 3 mm on my phone. We also don't know what side of the Earth we're looking at, so I suppose it could really be any ant, including the one in your local area. I like to think it's a black garden ant (''Lasius niger''), since I'm most familiar with those :) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.239.25|162.158.239.25]] 12:16, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

It took me a good while to figure out this one; I don't normally need to come here, but this one stumped me at first. (The comments as of right now weren't too illuminating either.) I think the lack of color was an issue; I first thought the black polygon in the center was the earth, and then interpreted the various lines as a really weird diagram type I'd never seen before, like a phase diagram or something; I also considered one-dimensional planets. [https://imgur.com/a/yJOYvk1 I colored in the planets to aid me.] The way I now interpret this one is thus: imagine an observer sitting a tremendous distance away from the solar system, and they have a camera with an extremely supremely highly zooming telephoto lens. Then a lining-up of all eight planets happens – I believe this is impossible IRL (because of resonances or something), but just go with it. The observer manages to snap this incredible image of a teeny tiny spot of the sky, which simultaneously manages to include the very very edges of all the planets as well as some of the sky behind them all. The sky is the black polygon: it has nebulae and stars. Neptune is in front of Uranus, and that as well as Mercury are in front of Saturn, which is in front of both Jupiter and Mars; Venus is between Mercury, Mars and the Earth, and the Earth is also behind Jupiter. The reason why these are all so smooth is because it's such a small area: we're literally only seeing a couple of square inches of the surface of each of the rocky planets. (See, you can see an individual ant on the Earth. Go to the most rugged mountain range you can find and observe a couple of square inches; it'll be locally flat.) The lack of atmospheres on the rocky planets as well as the hard edges of the gas giants are artistic license. This one is a member of the genre of "true yet unhelpful diagrams"; I'm surprised that isn't a category on this wiki. – [[Special:Contributions/162.158.238.4|162.158.238.4]] 12:58, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

((Written whilst 162.158.238.4 was editing, above, and I got an edit conflict on that. The editor concerned touches on this ordering business, but I'm pasting my original in unaltered, not rejigged as a more focused reply.)) I was wondering abut the "overlap order" for a while, until I twigged it. May not be worth officially documenting, but my analysis, showing that (perhaps depending upon specific orbital positions, during a given range of times, which can of course be checked) it's ''probably'' based upon distance away from Earth.
*Earth is bottom-most. Could be 1st/2nd, shared with Mars, as their overlap isn't shown.
*Mars is our nearest neighbour. (As above, could be 1st ''or'' 2nd on stack.)
*Venus next. Although it could be 7th (only obscured by Mercury) or anywhere else down to 3rd.
*Jupiter as 4th from bottom. (''Could'' be 3rd..5th, though.)
*Saturn takes 5th-up position. (4th..6th)
*Mercury as 6th. (Or all the way to topmost, but I made an assumption about its relationship to the last two.)
*Uranus as 7th. (6th/7th a possibility, depends on Mercury)
*Neptune as 8th. (7th/8th possible, Mercury again.)
...or at least that's what my mental notes tell me. Not helped by starting off counting from near to far and possibly messing up my numbers when I realised it made sense to flip them. It could also be "delta-V needed to reach the planet concerned" (either without or ''including'' flyby slingshot momentum borrowing/burning), but that's something I'd also need to check. I doubt it really needs tying down/Explaining, and when I edited the Transcript I decided not to record every nuance of the "variously orientated surfaces", as I think it adds nothing so long as the description gives the general idea. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.121|141.101.98.121]] 13:06, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

So no one is going to mention that for the clarity depicted you'd need to literally place the planets inside of each other, or have some sort of focal length from zero to infinity? I'm not sure if that bothers me more or less than the missed trick of making the length of ground shown relate to some comparative parameter (albedo might have been a fun one) - [[Special:Contributions/162.158.186.213|162.158.186.213]] 13:55, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
:To be fair, you're also going to have to choose a "flat" few inches of surface that stands proud of the local geography (such that anything higher is below the curvature of the Earth for its proximity), and deal with an impossible resolution of an impossibly zoomed telephoto shot from a viewpoint unimaginably distant (''whilst'' a near-enough non-Solar conjunction/asterism is happening, or at least was, when the light passed each body), without significant atmospheric distortion (which is a relatively minor issue, compared with the scarcity of photons that reach the camera ''anyway'').
:Can we perhaps instead assume that these are just individual 1:1-scale cross-sectional diagrams (or even carefully curated local photos) drawn together into a hybrid image to accurately retain the scaling verisimilitude, and individual contexts, but happily faking the relative positions? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.56|172.70.85.56]] 15:00, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

It would take some work to check, but I'm wondering if the angle of the horizons of the various planets are perpendicular to the line made between the earth and the planet in question [[Special:Contributions/162.158.154.141|162.158.154.141]] 15:36, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

This is how I interpret this image: [https://imgur.com/a/WwdbXkN I didn't want to make the black dot as small as in the picture so dimensions are insanely larger] [[Special:Contributions/172.69.194.80|172.69.194.80]] 20:35, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
: that is a very clarifying picture, thank you! Shall we include it on the explanation page? It belongs there IMO [[User:Flekkie|Flekkie]] ([[User talk:Flekkie|talk]]) 22:19, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
:: You may by me. The original picture is from NASA https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/resources/686/solar-system-sizes/ and they have no restrictive copyright either. I view this picture as 2D planets stacked and not real planets viewed in space since this is clearly impossible orientation and you couldn't see half the planets, let alone ant on Earth's surface, from behind Neptunes orbit [[Special:Contributions/162.158.239.26|162.158.239.26]] 10:43, 12 April 2023 (UTC)
: Is this right though? Based off the image Mercury is in front of Saturn. For this to happen, Mercury has to be closer distance wise, so Saturn has to be on the opposite side of the sun. But that can't be true if Saturn is in front of Jupiter and behind Uranus/Neptune?

I don't like the current explanation, since the planets never line up like this. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.203.40|162.158.203.40]] 07:11, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

This is truly one of the comics of all time. AzureArmageddon 08:48, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

We have a 1::1 bird book, where each page has a photo of the bird (or a portion of the bird, in case of flamingos) at 1::1 scale. This comic is a play on those books. -- Bob Jenkins [[Special:Contributions/172.71.150.174|172.71.150.174]] 15:25, 12 April 2023 (UTC)
:Regarding the flamingo, and anything else bigger than the book, what a waste of an opportunity for a fold-out section..! [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.152|172.70.91.152]] 18:58, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

This image is only going to be 1:1 scale on a really large display too; The grass on Earth is around a centimeter in length when the image is full-screen on my 27" (68.58 cm) monitor, while it's clear from the way it is depicted that it is supposed to be long grass, at least 50 centimeters in length. That means that the display which would make this truly 1:1 is about 50 times larger than mine, or in other words has a diagonal of about 34 m. This is bigger than a typical cinema screen, but I suppose not that much bigger and there ought to be cinemas in which one can display this image such that it is truly 1:1. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.87.66|162.158.87.66]] 06:27, 13 April 2023 (UTC)
:The ant is 'about right' for a possible ant even on my display (8"/20cm). If that would be 0.5m long grass, the ant would be truly huge, nothing like the typical ones around here. Which I think are actually smaller (certainly more svelte) than the image, if I wandered down the garden path to find an actual ant or three in the 'wild'.
:So I don't think that's long grass of the kind you're assuming. But it does resemble the kind of 'pre-grass' (one step up from mosses) or microscrub (effectively bonzaied grass due to local growing conditions) to be found on a bit of semi-fresh dusty hardcore/well-worn footpath, as also shown by the loose stoney debris also present. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.151|172.70.91.151]] 09:50, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

Talk:2756: Qualifications

2023-04-10T15:54:29Z

162.158.158.139: 600 year old joke added

This reminds me of Ken Thompson's Turing Award lecture, https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~rdriley/487/papers/Thompson_1984_ReflectionsonTrustingTrust.pdf [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 21:23, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

if you’re playing with your llama and build a time machine, make sure to rescue not only randall but everyone else too ! (edit: llama is a powerful language model presently popular, originally shared to non-researchers on 4chan. the joke relates to consumer and general AI being on a huge up-curve without mention in the comic.) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.63.54|162.158.63.54]] 23:34, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

'''over''' 600 ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) --[[Special:Contributions/172.70.111.76|172.70.111.76]] 00:11, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

Featured on r/overemployed [[Special:Contributions/162.158.155.3|162.158.155.3]] 16:14, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

The first sentence of the second paragraph should be reworded. Hairbun seems to be content to have verified the claim but the reader doesn't know if Cueball is as credulous as Hairbun. [[User:Inquirer|Inquirer]] ([[User talk:Inquirer|talk]]) 04:07, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

"''This is essentially a more elaborate version of Black Hat's ploy in another interview 17 years prior.''" that sentence has made feel older than any of Randall's "feel old yet?" comics, yeez! [[Special:Contributions/172.70.82.187|172.70.82.187]] 15:49, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

So, Cueball and Hairbun are registered voters in NYʻs 3rd Congressional district? With hugs to Randall, the best line in comics remains Walt Kellyʻs: "We have met the enemy and he is us." [[Special:Contributions/162.158.187.18|162.158.187.18]] 16:20, 30 March 2023 (UTC)
:Apparently, George Santos has been BlackHat all this time. [[User:These Are Not The Comments You Are Looking For|These Are Not The Comments You Are Looking For]] ([[User talk:These Are Not The Comments You Are Looking For|talk]]) 00:29, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

17 years! Thanks for making me feel very old [[User:Boatster|Boatster]] ([[User talk:Boatster|talk]]) 22:56, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

17 years! Geez, I thought he'd been at it for maybe 12 years (I remember seeing my first XKCD posted in a cubicle in like 2012 or 2011), but damn, even THAT is a long time ago! Time flies! [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 05:19, 1 April 2023 (UTC)

This comic reminded me of a (Portuguese) song "Stories (An orchestrated campaign)" that includes the lyrics (translated):
"Look at his criminal record certificate, issued by him without anyone's help.
Flawless! Great!
It says: his only crime was to falsify his criminal record."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GO2_skp5Pk Lyrics (in Portuguese) https://fora-de-cena.blogs.sapo.pt/140888.html
[[User:Rps|Rps]] ([[User talk:Rps|talk]]) 14:35, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

This comic is possibly related to this joke:
A lawyer passed away and arrived at the Pearly Gates for judgment. The lawyer said to St. Peter, “There must be some mistake! I’m only 50 years old, that’s far too young to die.” St. Peter frowned and consulted his book. “That’s funny, when we add up your billing records, you should be at least 600 years old by now!”

2146: Waiting for the But

2019-05-06T11:25:56Z

162.158.158.139: /* Explanation */ Created basic explanation backbone

{{comic
| number = 2146
| date = May 6, 2019
| title = Waiting for the But
| image = waiting_for_the_but.png
| titletext = Listen, I'm not a fan of the Spanish Inquisition OR predatory multi-level marketing schemes...
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a BUT. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
Often arguments are made in the form of a statement you partially agree with, followed by a "but", and then a sentence describing what you prefer. Randall suggests that the longer the first part is, the worse the second part (after the but) will be.

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

{{comic discussion}}