explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Talk:207: What xkcd Means

2024-04-30T14:28:03Z

162.158.159.11:

I'm pretty sure that the first panel isn't talking about the legality of U-turns; I think it's actually talking about the legality of bypassing traffic signals:
https://www.drivinglaws.org/resources/is-it-illegal-to-cut-through-a-parking-lot-to-avoid-a-red-light.html

I do the last panel ALL THE FRIGGIN' TIME. [[User:Alpha|Alpha]] ([[User talk:Alpha|talk]]) 20:07, 8 March 2013 (UTC)
:Graham's Number has not had that title for several years now.... See here: http://googology.wikia.com/wiki/Graham's_number XKCD also means getting addicted to webcomics because they are too funny --[[Special:Contributions/108.162.237.175|108.162.237.175]] 21:57, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

A question, what is meant with "(In fact, A(g64, g64) is less than g65)"? Is g65 more than g64? Is it much more? Is A(g64, g64 "insanely large" compared to what you would expect or not? [[User:Maplestrip|Maplestrip]] ([[User talk:Maplestrip|talk]]) 13:05, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

:It means that mathematicians who read XKCD are not horrified by the idea, but calmly compute the result. (g65 is obviously more than g64 ; both Graham's number and Ackermann functions are methods to make ludicrously high numbers, and the "only slightly more" means that they growing in roughly same ludicrous speed) -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 02:04, 2 June 2016 (UTC)

You know, if everyone did the traffic thing at intersections, it would basically be the same as a roundabout. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.102.150|162.158.102.150]] 16:19, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

[https://dps.mn.gov/divisions/dvs/forms-documents/Documents/Minnesota_Drivers_Manual.pdf Apparently (page 28)] some intersections where I live are designed ''for'' the maneuver in panel 1.--[[User:Troy0|Troy0]] ([[User talk:Troy0|talk]]) 17:30, 29 July 2016 (UTC)

Yo mama ≡ 1 modulo A(g64, g64) [[User:Int|unsigned int]] ([[User talk:Int|talk]]) 22:13, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

I ran into a situation yesterday where the first panel saved me five minutes in traffic. The road I was driving on had two lanes on each side. The left lane was backed up a quarter mile and the right lane was empty, as across the next road, construction trucks blocked the right lane. I drove all the way down the right lane, took a right turn, and then proceeded to execute the maneuver depicted in the comic. Half a dozen other cars caught on and followed. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.52.169|173.245.52.169]] 21:16, 23 February 2018 (UTC)

Maybe it's about his ex Casey D.

Xylophone kicking contest delayed, x-rays knitting crumbles Denmark, xenon kangaroos can't derive, xylocarp kiwi creates dimension, xebec krypton concedes durian [[User:Certified_nqh|Me]][[[285: Wikipedian Protester|''citation needed'']]][[Category:Pages using the "citation needed" template]] 05:53, 2 October 2023 (UTC)

Left turn on red is also legal. But the basic rule is that the turn can't require crossing any traffic lanes, so you can only do it when turning from one one-way road to another. So it's not useful for the maneuver in the comic, because you can't make a U-turn on the second road. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 15:38, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

"how could he get someone outside the house to call it" Some of us still have land lines (and far more did when the comic was written). You can also use email or online messaging. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 15:44, 29 February 2024 (UTC)
:Generally, if you have a landline to talk to someone outside your house, you can do the "call your own (mobile/cell) phone from your (landline) one" without even needing anybody else. (As long as you can remember/look up your own number! That'd might be a necessity, 'cos I can still remember other peoples' phone numbers ''from decades ago'', that no longer apply, but still struggle to remember my own without always initially self-doubting if it starts "0754... or "0745...".)
:That said, post-landline I've also had to go out without my mobile (because I couldn't work out which cushion/whatever it had clearly hidden itself beneath) and then as I was about to leave the venue, where I'd prearranged a meet with someone, have asked the person concerned to "wait half an hour for me to get home, then try to give me a ring... and if I don't call back within five minutes, try once more as I instead specifically listen out upstairs...". Which worked, incidentally, but can't remember offhand if it actually needed that second attempt.
:And I always interpreted the comic as being someone not ''in the same room'', or at least outside the immediate frame of view, to add yet another reason to be drawn that way. But who knows what exact kind of situation Randall was imagining. (Well, Randall might...) [[Special:Contributions/172.71.178.76|172.71.178.76]] 16:30, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

"Using ketchup to cover up stigmata wouldn't be a very good idea, as from afar people would think that you actually are bleeding from your (supposed) stigmata." ...Is the joke not that the ketchup itself is supposed to resemble the bleeding? Why is that not even mentioned as a possibility? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.237.88|108.162.237.88]] 18:37, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
:Until [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=207:_What_xkcd_Means&diff=336416&oldid=336328 recently], it didn't say this, leaving the (IMO) more obvious reasoning implied. But someone obviously had the other idea in mind. (I had your thoughts, but didn't get around to making this alternate reading more a secondary possibility again). Maybe I'll go back in and check it. Or feel free to edit it yourself, if you think you can. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.178.184|172.71.178.184]] 21:01, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

The ketchup isn't hiding the stigmata, it's pretending to be the stigmata. The rapid shuffling past is what's hiding the "stigmata". [[Special:Contributions/162.158.159.11|162.158.159.11]] 14:28, 30 April 2024 (UTC)

2922: Pub Trivia

2024-04-19T17:36:51Z

162.158.159.11:

{{comic
| number = 2922
| date = April 19, 2024
| title = Pub Trivia
| image = pub_trivia_2x.png
| imagesize = 422x666px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Bonus question: Where is London located? (a) The British Isles (b) Great Britain and Northern Ireland (c) The UK (d) Europe (or 'the EU') (e) Greater London
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by TRIVIA IS LATIN FOR THREE ROADS - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

Many pubs have trivia nights, where patrons form teams and compete to best answer questions about a range of topics. Cueball has apparently been hired by one bar to infiltrate other bars' quiz nights and write particularly bad questions for them, which he has accomplished using different strategies. The idea is that by making the trivia nights at other pubs horrible, he will drive business to the pub that hired him.

The comic shows [[Cueball]] reading off bad trivia questions which are either confusing, likely to provoke arguments, or don't have an answer.

1. Which member of {{w|BTS}} has a birthday this year?

Problem: multiple correct answers

BTS is a {{w|K-Pop}} group. Every member would have a birthday each year. In fact, all humans have a birthday every year. (Unless you were born on leap day and trying to be pedantic, or it was a year when {{w|Gregorian calendar|the calendar changed}}.) Since this comic was published in 2024, even the possible February 29 exception does not apply (and no BTS member was born on February 29).

A more usual type of question might be to ask which member celebrates a birthday in a given day, or which celebrates a particular milestone birthday in the current year.

2. How many sides does a {{w|platonic solid}} have?

Problem: multiple answers
Problem: ambiguous language

There are five {{w|Platonic solids}}, with 4, 6, 8, 12, or 20 faces (colloquially called sides) in {{w|Euclid|Euclidean}} {{w|Euclidean geometry|3-space}}. The solids have, respectively, 6, 12, 8, 30, and 30 edges (also occasionally called sides colloquially).

A more devious quizmaster might actually include this as a trick question with the correct answer being 'zero', since strictly speaking solids do not have 'sides'. However, on the basis of the other questions presented here it seems unlikely that Cueball intended for the question to be answerable in this (or any other) way, but a trick answer might be "one": the outside.

More usual questions might be "How many Platonic solids are there?" or "What is the highest number of faces on a Platonic solid?".

3. What is the smallest lake in the world?

Problem: arguable

Unknowable as there are many small bodies of water in the world, and determining which is the smallest while still being large enough to count as a {{w|lake}} is a complicated question. Further, the size of small lakes will fluctuate due to variability in precipitation, drought, etc. Some lakes only exist for brief periods (intermittent lakes).

An acceptable question might ask what is recognised by the Guinness World Records as the world's smallest lake (Benxi Lake in Liaoning Province of China which is only 15 m^2 in area).

4. Which Steven Spielberg movie features more shark attacks? {{w|Jaws (movie)|Jaws (1975)}} or {{w|Lincoln (movie)|Lincoln (2012)}}

Problem: trivial

Jaws is a famous movie about a killer shark, and features at least five fatal shark attacks. Lincoln is a movie about the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, containing zero shark attacks{{cn}}. Unlike the previous unanswerable questions, this is a question that no reasonable person could get wrong.

An actual quiz question might centre around how much the shark appears in Jaws (a surprisingly small amount). An actual comparison between the two movies might ask which won more Academy Awards.

5. How many planets were there originally?

Problem: ambiguous

The joke here is that "originally" is so poorly defined that it could mean anywhere from 0 (the number of planets in our solar system prior to formation of the solar system) to an unknown number in the billions (number of planets in the entire universe).
The ancient Greeks named seven planets: the Sun, the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. Eventually, it was decided that the Earth is also a planet, and that the Sun and the Moon were not. Uranus and Neptune were eventually discovered, followed by Ceres, Vesta, Juno, and Pallas, all of which were considered planets prior to the invention of the term "asteroid". Then Pluto was discovered, and the count of "planets" stabilized at 9 until 2006, when the discovery of Kuiper Belt objects larger than Pluto led to creation of the term "dwarf planet". This leaves us today with a solar system of 8 planets, 5 known dwarf planets, and countless asteroids and Kuiper belt objects. There are also thousands of known exoplanets (planets that orbit stars other than the sun).

6. What {{w|NFL}} player has scored the most points outside of a game?

Problem: unknowable

American football has a somewhat complicated scoring system, and record keeping involves (for instance) crediting the 6 points for a touchdown to both the receiver and the passer in some situations. This question does not address any of this complexity, but adds a new level of ambiguity as the "points" a player can score outside of a game are undefined. Is it any points scored in any game at all (e.g. Scrabble or Root?) except football, or is it points that are not part of ''any'' game at all (e.g. "Wow, you made a good point, I need to reconsider my position.")

Normal questions might be about who scored the most points in a game, a season, or a career.

7. The {{w|Wright brothers}} built the first airplane. Who built the last one?

Problem: unknowable

Since airplanes are built continuously, there is no way to know who built the most recent one. The question also seems to be asking for a name, but modern airplanes are assembled by many people following set protocols rather than by a few individuals who also designed the plane. Alternatively, if 'the last one' means 'the last one ''ever''', then it probably hasn't been built yet (and hopefully won't be built for a long time).

The question's introduction is also wrong: the Wright Brothers managed the first sustained controlled flight of a powered heavier-than-air craft, but many others had built airplanes before them.

8. Is every even number greater than 2 the sum of two primes?

Problem: unknown, and possibly unknowable

This is {{w|Goldbach's conjecture|an open question}} in math.
Known as Goldbach's Conjecture, mathematicians widely believe that it is true, and it has held true for every number we've checked (and we've checked a great many numbers) but since {{w|almost all}} numbers have never been checked, we can't generalize that it will hold for ALL even numbers without proof. Since it is {{w|Gödel's incompleteness theorems|known}} that something can be true but impossible to prove or disprove, this may be the situation forever.

9. Not counting {{w|Canberra}}, what city is the capital of {{w|Australia}}?

Problem: no answer

Canberra is the only capital of Australia. Sydney is larger and possibly more famous, so that asking the capital of Australia would be a good trivia question: people who know their capitals would respond with Canberra and less knowledgeable people would incorrectly guess Sydney. Australia is divided into states and territories, each with its own capital, but this would leave multiple equally valid answers to the question. There is a cheeky answer too: "A".

Common questions similar to this might concern countries which have multiple capitals, where the capital has moved, or, as in this case, where it is not the most well known city in the country.

10. Who played the drums?

Problem: ambiguous

Lots of people have played {{w|drum|the drums}}{{cn}}, through the ages.
If this question asked who played the drums for a particular band or on a particular album, track, or performance, it would be an example of a good trivia question. As it is, it has many possible answers and no way to choose between them.

The alt-text bonus question: Where is {{w|London}} located? (a) The {{w|British Isles}} (b) {{w|Great Britain and Northern Ireland}} (c) The {{w|United Kingdom|UK}} (d) {{w|Europe}} (or 'the {{w|European Union|EU}}') (e) Greater London

Problem: multiple answers

All choices are technically correct as they are various geographical areas that include the city of London, England. (d) incorrectly conflates Europe, a geographical area that London is located in, with the EU, which the UK (and consequently London) has not been in since {{w|Brexit}} in 2020.

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

:[Cueball holding a microphone and reading from a sheet of paper]:
:Welcome to pub trivia! Round one is 10 questions:

# Which member of BTS has a birthday this year?
# How many sides does a platonic solid have?
# What is the smallest lake in the world?
# Which Steven Spielberg movie features more shark attacks - ''Jaws'' (1975) or ''Lincoln'' (2012)?
# How many planets were there originally?
# What NFL player has scored the most points outside of a game?
# The Wright brothers built the first airplane. Who built the last one?
# Is every even number greater than 2 the sum of two primes?
# Not counting Canberra, what city is the capital of Australia?
# Who played the drums?

:[Caption below the panel]:
:A local pub trivia place hired me to run bad quizzes at competing bars.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category: Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category: Comics featuring real people]]
[[Category: American football]]
[[Category: Astronomy]]
[[Category: Geography]]
[[Category: Math]]
[[Category: Music]]

Talk:2682: Easy Or Hard

2022-10-07T16:26:11Z

162.158.159.11: Another typo/thinko by me... Furrfu...

For other people not in US: active ingredient of Tylenol is {{w|Paracetamol}}. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 12:51, 7 October 2022 (UTC)

"Now paleontologists have pinpointed during what time of year that millions of years event happened, all thanks to new fossil evidence" (from [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okOnVovooeM SciShow]) It is probably what's referenced in the "What time of year did the cretaceous impact happen?" [[User:Ppete pete|Pete Ratchatakul]] ([[User talk:Ppete pete|talk]]) 13:36, 7 October 2022 (UTC)

Paper cited in the title text: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/360674587_Derivation_of_a_governing_rule_in_triboelectric_charging_and_series_from_thermoelectricity
[[User:Victor|Victor]] ([[User talk:Victor|talk]]) 13:39, 7 October 2022 (UTC)
:AKA https://journals.aps.org/prresearch/pdf/10.1103/PhysRevResearch.4.023131 [[Special:Contributions/172.70.210.49|172.70.210.49]] 14:17, 7 October 2022 (UTC)

Papers related to the time of the year of the impact:

"... reveal that the impact occurred during boreal Spring/Summer, shortly after the spawning season for fish and most continental taxa." - [https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-03232-9 Seasonal calibration of the end-cretaceous Chicxulub impact event]

"Here, by studying fishes that died on the day the Mesozoic era ended, we demonstrate that the impact that caused the Cretaceous–Palaeogene mass extinction took place during boreal spring." - [https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-04446-1 The Mesozoic terminated in boreal spring]

[[User:Ppete pete|Pete Ratchatakul]] ([[User talk:Ppete pete|talk]]) 13:46, 7 October 2022 (UTC)

Isn't mechanisms of Tylenol well known?
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4912877/

I can't vouch for the long-period accuracy of the software that I just used (nor have I cross-checked with any other list or interactive app), but my quick research shows that on 31st March 1889 (dignitaries were officially taken to the top of the Eiffel Tower), Mars was in Pisces, and that in-between then and 6th May (the public got to do the same) it had drifted through Aries (IIRC, forgot to note that explicitly!) and into Taurus, where it was still on 26th May (the lifts opened, and the journey didn't have to be by the stairs!). Although you would have been unlikely to get a good view of Mars as it was quite close to conjunction with the Sun, getting well past Mercury's furthest extent. (In mid-June, it was practically on top of (or over but behind, as it were) the Sun, out of sight for all practical purposes.) I'm sure someone can do a more thorough check than myself, before we set this down properly/succinctly, but it was the first thing I thought of checking for myself. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.245|172.70.90.245]] 15:56, 7 October 2022 (UTC)

Top right reminds of [[2501: Average Familiarity]]: I guess that for many people relativity and quantum mechanics might fall in the middle right cell, not the top right. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.3.238|172.69.3.238]] 16:07, 7 October 2022 (UTC)

2666: Universe Price Tiers

2022-09-07T08:14:54Z

162.158.159.11: /* Explanation */ Irregular verb-form. (Regular is considered obsolete.)

{{comic
| number = 2666
| date = August 31, 2022
| title = Universe Price Tiers
| image = universe_price_tiers.png
| titletext = In Universe Pro®™ the laws of physics remain unchanged under time reversal, to maintain backward compatibility.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a SOWN WIND - Explained the main point, more details needed. Please change this comment when editing the page . Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
Philosophers have posed many questions in trying to understand the nature of the universe. Some of these have become well-known in popular culture; while some are deliberately open-ended, several others are presented as a choice between two or more options, and are assumed to have a single answer, the debate being about which is correct. In this comic, Randall proposes that the answers to these questions are instead not fixed, but vary according to a tiered {{w|subscription business model}}, as seen in many business pricing schemes, particularly in software. In this model, the no-cost tier gets you a universe experience of a lower quality, while at higher tiers better options are available for a cost - for example in the highest tier the processes of aging and death are "Opt-in" rather than "Mandatory". It is not clear from the comic who is supposed to be paying these subscription fees, or to whom they are paid (presumably the developers or maintainers of the universe, or the {{w|Simulation hypothesis|hypothesized simulation thereof}}), or whose experience of the universe is supposed to be affected.

The universe does not have a subscription model, but on the chart some of the categories that refer to observable properties such as the speed limit or existence of the {{w|Uncertainty Principle}} indicate ours is the Universe Standard® subscription. Other specificied settings may not entirely match our user experience. Possibly a high-tier installation has the option to restrict itself to selected lower-tier behaviours, if it is considered more useful.

The title text refers to the concept of {{w|T-symmetry}} in physical laws. Most properties of our universe are asymmetric, meaning that the property changes if time is reversed (e.g. the entropy of the universe decreases as time flows backwards). Randall again makes a reference to software subscription models in a play on words as the Universe Pro®™ sub appears to have laws that maintain "backwards compatibility".

Given that Universe Standard is most in-line with the non-facetious observations, whoever is paying for this subscription has paid 2.470 × 1012 dollars, given that current estimates place the age of the universe at [https://wmap.gsfc.nasa.gov/universe/uni_age.html 13.77 billion years old.]
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! !! Universe Lite™ !! Universe Standard® !! Universe Pro®™!!Explanation
|-
! Price
| Free || $14.95/month || $49.95/month || Indicative of a typical Freemium product, the versions released include what is effectively an 'unlimited trial' version, but lacking some potentially desired features, and then extra tiers with increased functionality so that you can "get what you pay for".
|-
! Ads
| Yes || Yes || No || Again typical of a tiered subscription, where ad revenue supports the lower tiers. There are indeed ads in our own universe, but whether they are an intrinsic property of the universe or not is an open question.
|-
! Number of angels that can dance on the head of a pin
| 4 || 64 || 4,096 || "{{w|How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?}}" is a question used to poke fun at medieval angelology and medieval scholasticism in general by claiming discussions in its fields revolve around meaningless questions. It is also used as a metaphor for wasting time debating useless questions, as it is generally accepted that we can have no definitive answer. Here, the question is given concrete answers that are powers of 2 often seen when using binary representation. It may also be a reference to [[485: Depth]].
|-
! Free will or determinism
| Determinism || Free will || Free will || {{w|Determinism}} is the belief that all events and actions are predetermined by the conditions that they arise from, including the part played by our own interactions. This does not imply that such predetermined results are at all predictable, due to the potentially {{w|Butterfly effect|chaotic}} way they may play out, but it implies that personal intentions do not change the future at all and merely form a part of the path of inevitability through the chain of causes and effects.

Such a worldview is countered by the concept of {{w|Free will}}, where some element of consciousness (and thus probably an {{w|Quantum indeterminacy|indeterministic element}} of the universe within which the conscious minds exist) is not absolutely bound by any such rules as set out by the most precise level of physics and/or any {{w|Creator deity|gods}} who were involved.

It is interesting that the paid-for versions of the universe are the only ones to include free will, implying that either such a quality is an inherently desirable feature or else that it is a necessary requirement of some other feature in the paid plan (such as, for instance, the dice-playing mentioned below). As the term "free will" can mean a variety of things, this is partly why it exists as the subject of many debates; here, it may mean "randomness", which the current understanding of quantum physics suggests does exist in this universe.
|-
! Cosmic speed limit
| 65 mph || 300,000 km/s || Unlimited || The Cosmic speed limit refers to the {{w|speed of light}}, which rounds to 300,000 kilometers per second in our particular universe, one of the few definite clues as to which tier we might exist in. Of course the basic joke is conflating that with a vehicular {{w|speed limit}}, typically 65 mph (105 km/h) on U.S. highways. Living in a universe with a 65 mph speed limit would render many aspects of experience unrecognizable from our own; assuming the speed of light and thus all relativistic effects were similarly scaled, the act of driving at highway speeds would result in [http://gamelab.mit.edu/games/a-slower-speed-of-light/ human-observable] time dilation and apparent spatial distortion. The {{w|special relativity}} consequences of a low speed of light are explored in one chapter of George Gamow's {{w|Mr Tompkins}}; in Mr Tompkins' dream, the speed of light is approximately 10 mph. The idea of having a speed cap is reminiscent of computer simulations and game engines, which often prevent agents from accelerating beyond a certain point to prevent unintended behavior.
|-
! If a tree falls in a forest and there's no one there to hear...
| No sound || Simple beep || Full sound || {{w|If a tree falls in a forest}} is a popular philosophical question whose answer depends largely on one's philosophical belief system and the interpretation of the question itself. Here it's suggested that there is a definite answer which differs depending on the quality of the universe subscription. On the assumption that "our" universe is on the Standard Plan, this table implies that all trees falling outside of the auditory range of anyone or anything capable of noticing it emit a simplified "beep" sound, rather than the complex crashing one would expect. This concept is similar to the discussion in [[2664: Cloud Swirls]].
|-
! Meaning of Life
| Unknowable || Uncertain || Clearly explained || All we can know is that we (currently) don't know, which makes our universe one almost certainly either with an unknowable or uncertain state of affairs. The closest thing to a meaning of life in this universe that provably exists seems to be natural selection, ie the meaning of life is to spread our genetics, although this is an exceptionally unsatisfying answer. {{Actual citation needed}}
|-
! Sound of one hand clapping
| [None] || [None] || ''Kazzap!'' || A {{w|Koan}} from Buddhism. Koans deliberately have no answer — one hand cannot clap, as the sound of two hands clapping relies upon there being two hands percussing and displacing/resonating air. The "Kazzap" referenced is humorous because it provides an answer to something with no answer, in the form of a nonsense onomatopoeia. To members of our universe, this is absurd. The implication is that those in the Pro version of the universe have access to this seemingly impossible feat.
|-
! Aging and death
| Mandatory || Mandatory || Opt-in || If this is a mere option, we clearly haven't read (or understood) the online manual or perhaps read the tool-tips.
|-
! Does god play dice with the universe?
| Yes, and he cheats || Yes || No || A reference to a phrase famously ascribed to Einstein (in opposition to the concept of quantum uncertainty) that "God does not play dice with the universe." This option and the Determinism/Free Will choice, above, are interestingly linked but not necessarily in a way we can comprehend.
|-
! Bad things...
| Happen to good people only || Happen to good and bad people || Don't happen || Relates to whether there is justice, compassion or fairness in the universe, where good and bad events often seem uncorrelated with whether people morally deserve them. In theological arguments, this debate is intimately connected with theodicy (the problem of how a benevolent god could create a world that contains evil), but like the existence of free will it is hotly debated in non-theological contexts as well. Randall suggests that the situation in a lower-tier universe is even worse, and interestingly that there is no tier where bad things only happen to bad people.
|-
! What happens to those who sow the wind
| Reap the whirlwind || Reap the whirlwind || Lots of crops everywhere || This is a reference to the famous phrase "sow the wind, reap the whirlwind", taken from biblical verse [https://biblehub.com/hosea/8-7.htm Hosea 8:7]. The phrase means that those who do evil without thought to the consequences will receive punishment. However, in Universe Pro®™, nothing bad happens to anyone, which excludes the possibility of the "whirlwind". This implies that it is possible to ''literally'' sow wind (in the farming sense) in the Pro version, which apparently translates to growing crops in a vastly wider range than normal.
|}

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! !! Universe Lite™ !! Universe Standard® !! Universe Pro®™
|-
! Price
| Free || $14.95/month || $49.95/month
|-
! Ads
| Yes || Yes || No
|-
! Number of angels that can dance on the head of a pin
| 4 || 64 || 4,096
|-
! Free will or determinism
| Determinism || Free will || Free will
|-
! Cosmic speed limit
| 65 mph || 300,000 km/s || Unlimited
|-
! If a tree falls in a forest and there's no one there to hear...
| No sound || Simple beep || Full sound
|-
! Meaning of Life
| Unknowable || Uncertain || Clearly explained
|-
! Sound of one hand clapping
| [None] || [None] || ''Kazzap!''
|-
! Aging and death
| Mandatory || Mandatory || Opt-in
|-
! Does god play dice with the universe?
| Yes, and he cheats || Yes || No
|-
! Bad things...
| Happen to good people only || Happen to good and bad people || Don't happen
|-
! What happens to those who sow the wind
| Reap the whirlwind || Reap the whirlwind || Lots of crops everywhere
|}
{{comic discussion}}
[[Category: Philosophy]]
[[Category: Religion]]

explain xkcd talk:Editor FAQ

2022-09-04T10:06:08Z

162.158.159.11:

Feel free to enter any question about editing this Wiki and don't forget to sign you comment. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 21:18, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

== Formatting of explanations ==

Many pages contain tables where a definition list would be 1) easier to read 2) mobile friendly, for example: [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1957:_2018_CVE_List&oldid=160469 1957].

I was also involved in rewriting the transcript for [[1963]], where the discussion came up about how those should be styled. ("as if you were reading the comic to someone")

I think we should have a small style guide to encourage sane formatting. What else should such guidelines contain?

Edit: One more thing I'd love to see: semantic headlines (i.e. < h3> headlines for explanation subchapters instead of < h2> which is the same level as the explanation itself)

(Sidenote: I've been active on explainxkcd for quite some time, but only now got around making an account.) [[User:Gir|//gir.st/]] ([[User talk:Gir|talk]]) 15:01, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

:Thanks for your remarks. First: There is no need to start every new sentence at a new line. Tables are meant for small content in all other cases it's bad layout. I recently changed this [[2034: Equations]] to a proper floating text. At the transcript tables should never be used, even when there is a table in the comic image it should be described by text. The guide here was mainly written by me because there was nothing like this here before. Some people already helped and I'm happy for any further remarks to enhance it. And this table issue is definitely one; I just not wanted to be the only (arrogant) layout master. Your help is welcome to write something, otherwise I will do so soon.
:For headlines we don't use HTML-code but WIKI-code. The main headlines are written like this: <nowiki>==Explanation==</nowiki>, <nowiki>==Transcript==</nowiki>, and (optional) <nowiki>==Trivia==</nowiki>. Headlines inside that chapters should be done in this way: <nowiki>;Subtitle</nowiki>. The preceding semicolon causes the entire line to be rendered in bold. Only when the explanation really needs sub-chapters it can be done by this: <nowiki>===Sub header===</nowiki> (three equal signs before and after the text). I will put this also into the FAQ.
:Welcome and thanks for helping. PROTIP: Always use the preview button to check the layout before saving. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 13:39, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
::hi, I'm aware about the headlines and stuff, it was just shorter to write it this way in the comment. I see you started a bit with a styleguide already; I hope I can contribute to it next week, when things cool down at work a bit. //gir.st/, who is to lazy to log in [[Special:Contributions/172.68.51.190|172.68.51.190]] 06:51, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

So, one more thing, regarding 'What is the proper layout for headers?'. I think we should better use small <code><nowiki>====headings====</nowiki></code> instead of just description titles (<code><nowiki>;bold text</nowiki></code>), since it makes the intent clearer. what is your reasoning behind suggesting it the other way round? greetings, [[User:Gir|//gir.st/]] ([[User talk:Gir|talk]]) 14:49, 25 August 2018 (UTC)
:Thanks for your input and of course Wiki markup headers should be valid. I just believe that the simplest way should also be valid for less experienced writers. When a new explanation starts it's often awful and chaotic; giving a simple but effective structure at the beginning helps against this chaos. So, I'm thinking about dividing the section "What is the proper layout for headers?" (it's a question because it's a FAQ) into two subsections:
:*easy: a semicolon, the colon at the following paragraph may be mentioned - but I'm not sure about the colon because it should be ''easy''
:*advanced: <code><nowiki>===headings===</nowiki></code> if the comic really can be divided into chapters; <code><nowiki>====headings====</nowiki></code> as a replacement for the semicolon; and <code><nowiki>==headings==</nowiki></code> is forbidden because it belongs to expl, trnsc, trivia. The semicolon, colon issue should be mentioned here.
:Please consider that there was many chaos in the past and many writers will do their edits without reading this FAQ. So keeping this simple as possible seems to me to be inevitable. And dividing sections by using the semicolon for a header is still much better than many of those tables. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 17:41, 25 August 2018 (UTC)
::Based on this discussion I edited the current comic here: [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2037%3A_Supreme_Court_Bracket&type=revision&diff=161880&oldid=161841] and compare it to this former version [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2037:_Supreme_Court_Bracket&diff=prev&oldid=161841]. Do not focus on the edits, just scroll down to the resulting page.
::This brought me to another important issue: NO links in a header. At Wikipedia this is also not welcome. This site isn't Wikipedia but in this case I feel this is a good rule. But the TOC (Table of content) is shown in the preview while it's not at the resulting page. The result is preferred but the TOC in the preview may confuse editors here.
::So, I'm still looking for simple instructions, layouts which advanced people always can enhance.
::And consider that some editors are probably younger than xkcd is. Not sure about this but there are definitely young people here and I welcome them all. And I'm NOT getting old like Randall sometimes feel, I like to support every editor despite any other background. And this has to be simple on the first place. STOP(I could talk much more) --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 20:49, 25 August 2018 (UTC)
:::Sorry, I missed this. I'd personally go with the "advanced" option, but mentioning both is fine too. Nice work on 2037! Really enjoying our conversations about this, I hope i'm not a bother ;-) [[User:Gir|//gir.st/]] ([[User talk:Gir|talk]]) 11:20, 28 August 2018 (UTC)
OK, after a few days and some more edits (for example see here: [[2035: Dark Matter Candidates]]) I believe this would be the best guide:
*<code><nowiki>====headings====</nowiki></code> should be preferred because the advantage is that each header has it's own edit button. One other advantage is that the header text will be shown at the summary in the history.
*The semicolon may be used as a preliminary layout for new comics until it's clear of what content the explanation is composed of.
*On more rare circumstances the <code><nowiki>===headings===</nowiki></code> may divide the explanation into different larger chapters.
*<code><nowiki>==headings==</nowiki></code> is reserved to the general layout and has not to be used.
And I still oppose to the colon at the beginning of any paragraph at all. Any thoughts? --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 13:17, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

== Please '''''do not''''' use semicolon-lines as "headings" ==

Hi, sorry to butt in, but I was going to mention this here anyway after I saw it in the FAQ. Please ''don't'' continue to give this advice to editors:
<blockquote>For headlines you have to use Wiki-style code. The simplest way is a preceding semicolon at the beginning of the line which causes the entire line to be rendered in bold.<ref>§ [[explain xkcd:Editor FAQ#What_is_the_proper_layout_for_headers.3F|What is the proper layout for headers?]] of the [[explain xkcd:Editor FAQ|Editor FAQ]]</ref>

====References====
<references/>
</blockquote>

The [[explain xkcd:Editor FAQ#In_which_case_tables_are_meaningful_and_when_not.3F|previous Editor FAQ section]] has it right: in wikicode, the semicolon opens a ''description list'', and will be translated into equivalent HTML. In other words, the wikicode is processed as follows:
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Wikicode !! HTML
|-
| style="vertical-align:top;" |<pre>; xkcd
: a popular webcomic</pre>
|<pre><dl>
<dt>xkcd</dt>
<dd>a popular webcomic</dd>
</dl></pre>
|}

One or more lines started with a semicolon ''must'' be followed by at least one line that starts with a colon, to provide the <code><dd>...</dd></code> part of the description list block.

It is a {{w|Help:List#Common_mistakes|common mistake}} to use semicolon-lines as "headings". Unfortunately the result is '''invalid HTML''', since the HTML spec requires that a <code><dl></code> block contain:
<blockquote>Zero or more groups each consisting of one or more dt elements followed by one or more dd elements</blockquote>
It's fine to have multiple semicolon-lines in a row (as the HTML standard allows for groups of several <code><dt>...</dt></code> blocks in sequence), but they must '''always''' be followed by at least one <code><dd>...</dd></code> block, created in wikicode by following a line started with a semicolon with another line that starts with a colon.

Just like lines started with <code>*</code> or <code>#</code>, a line started with a <code>;</code> creates a list element, and has syntactic requirements that must be followed. Abusing the description-term wikicode for purposes other than description-list creation not only breaks the HTML on the resulting page, but it makes the content much harder for screen readers and other assistive technologies to parse and accurately reproduce.

(And, yes, technically Mediawiki's use of <code>:</code>-lines for indenting, as on talk pages, is also invalid since it creates a <code><dl><dd>...</dd></dl></code> block with no <code><dt></code> element. So it's bad enough on talk pages, it's 100x worse to encourage doing it on '''article''' pages.) Please consider removing this bad advice from the Editor FAQ. Thanks. -- [[User:FeRDNYC|FeRDNYC]] ([[User talk:FeRDNYC|talk]]) 05:48, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

:Thanks for your remarks, that's why I started this FAQ and the discussion about it. Especially the header section is still preliminary, just check the section above here at the talk page.
:My first purpose is to keep it as simple as possible for writers having not much or no knowledge about wiki code or HTML. After that an advanced section should follow and define the rules for a complete article.
:Please check my summary from 29 August 2018 just above here. You're right the semicolon isn't a header, that's why I'm saying it should be used only temporary. And after reading your remarks here I would propose a single line with bold text and a following empty line instead of that semicolon thing.
:Keep it simple for people who just want to write something here; advanced users will change it to an appropriate layout later. Consider: When a new comic is out the explanation often starts in chaos. And for now I'm really happy that the overwhelming usage of tables is stopped.
:Let me know what you do think about the bold text line (not by semicolon) and the more sophisticated header guidance for the final layout as I've mentioned on 29 August 2018. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 12:45, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
::And of course the usage of a semicolon should also be mentioned together with the colon because it's a list. An entire paragraph "How do I format lists?" has still to be written yet. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 12:51, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
::One more: I've checked the definition for <code>dd/dt/dl</code> and it's clear the <code>dd</code> tag must be followed by at least one (either <code>dt</code> or <code>dl</code>) child. This tells me that the indent done by a colon is proper HTML. This is very important because every transcript since the first comic uses this indentation. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 13:20, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
:::On one hand, yes, the HTML is technically invalid, but on the other hand, every browser gets the intended layout correct, in no small part because these sorts of errors have been parts of industry-wide regression test suites since the mid-1990s. Asking users to try to achieve completely unnecessary perfection is a waste of time. Even screenreaders are completely unfazed by this nominal flaw. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.211.36|172.70.211.36]] 01:29, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

==Incomplete tags==
The FAQ says to use <code><nowiki>{{incomplete transcript|YOUR REASON}}</nowiki></code> but instead of rendering like this (like with the incomplete template):

{{notice|'''This transcript is incomplete:''' ''YOUR REASON'' If you can address this issue, please '''[{{fullurl:{{{target|{{FULLPAGENAME}}}}}|action=edit}} edit the page]!''' Thanks.}}

It renders like this:

{{notice|'''This transcript is incomplete.''' Please help [{{fullurl:{{{target|{{FULLPAGENAME}}}}}|action=edit}} editing] it! Thanks.}}

Can someone please change this? [[Special:Contributions/172.68.133.180|172.68.133.180]] 02:55, 13 October 2018 (UTC)
:The FAQ also says: "The reason at the transcript is not shown to the viewer." You can see it when you edit the transcript. And because the reason for the comic is also often not given this should be enough for the transcript. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 16:49, 15 October 2018 (UTC)

== math markup ==

Just to note - I was curious about the "math markup" message at the top of each page, and duly followed the link to the Editor FAQ as instructed, but ther--e is no mention of why it shouldn't be used... (no account yet, as I've not made any edits - yet! and i use google data saver, so this is not my ip -->) --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.34.22|162.158.34.22]] 23:49, 11 December 2018 (UTC)

:damn, I'm tired - just re-read the section titles, and there it is. It's late, so sorry! --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.34.22|162.158.34.22]] 23:54, 11 December 2018 (UTC)

::I think the reason given is incomplete, but wanted to check here before I amended it. Transcripts are for the benefit of visually-challenged visitors, so using math markup, and thus rendering the text as images, is counterproductive. Right? -- [[User:Dtgriscom|Dtgriscom]] ([[User talk:Dtgriscom|talk]]) 15:06, 20 March 2019 (UTC)

:::The explanation is (in my opinion) somewhat silly, as the image generated by MathML has an alt tag for text browsers/accessible use. Further, if this wiki's settings were chosen correctly, the image would be output with MathML alongside, which is the ''actual'' (non-plaintext) accessible solution for displaying mathematical formulas on the web. See also: https://accessibility.princeton.edu/about/blog/mathml-accessible-math-markup [[User:DimeCadmium|DimeCadmium]] ([[User talk:DimeCadmium|talk]]) 02:20, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

== Create page for new comic ==

Should there be a paragraph about this?
Since the bot is not working anymore, people need to do this. I know I have seen isntructions somewhere on this wiki, but cannot find them... [btw: there is a new comic up, right now, as I post this line, which is not yet in the wiki. SO if you know how to do it, do it before explaining it on the FAQ :)] --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 13:27, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

== Page targeted by Spam ==

The page is currently targeted heavily by Spambots. I am not sure why they target this specific page. It might be, because it is linked in the header? Since Admins (who could protect the FAQ) seem to be currently absent from the page, anyone got any ideas what to do about it? leave it to spam and create a seperate FAQ with the same content? --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 10:08, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

== Spaces ==

Seriously, why oh why is [[1285:_Third_Way|1285]] not linked into the statement about the one space / two space [[1285:_Third_Way | controversy]]? This feels like an inexplicable gap. Is there a policy insisting the FAQ remain fastidiously humorless in all ways? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.107.231|162.158.107.231]] 02:10, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

== Duplicating the hover text/title in the transcript section? ==

Is there a reason not to duplicate the title/hovertext in the transcript section, so a screenreader user can be sent there and not have to page back up for that bit (besides "one or more editors would need to check all entries and edit it in where missing")? [[Special:Contributions/141.101.68.43|141.101.68.43]] 00:11, 28 November 2021 (UTC)
:For my two (or three) cents:
:1) You'd be duplicating it, so you ought to lose the sub-image record if you do that or you could get silly with all kinds of repeating of everything..
:2) It's a Transcript to try to record/present the text (and imagery) you cannot already screen-read.
:3) It doesn't need manual editing (and manual editing is more likely to have mistakes, anyway).
:...Perhaps some Template(-pair?) could be developed to sit post-template to "display:screenreader-only" (or whatever the markup format would be) the upper-templated titletext field? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.12|172.70.86.12]] 04:00, 28 November 2021 (UTC)

== it's/its typo ==

At §[[explain_xkcd:Editor_FAQ#How_do_I_enter_mathematical_or_chemical_formulas.3F| How_do_I_enter_mathematical_or_chemical_formulas?]] please change “it's Wikipedia help page” to “'''its''' Wikipedia help page” (for the same reason that "our" and "their" don't have apostrophes).
[[User:Kurahaupo|Kurahaupo]] ([[User talk:Kurahaupo|talk]]) 23:44, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
: Came here to say this, but I see I'm two months too late. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.64|172.70.86.64]] 12:32, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

== Punctuation inside quotes and parentheses ==

Can we add a section saying <tt>."</tt> or <tt>,"</tt> is always better than putting the quotation mark first, and <tt>.)</tt> or <tt>.")</tt> are similarly preferable to <tt>).</tt> and <tt>").</tt> please? We also need to remind editors that numbered hyperlinks come after periods, commas, and parentheses, not before them. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.33.83|172.69.33.83]] 03:30, 3 September 2022 (UTC)
:...Erm. For quotes, it depends. If a proper sentence(-fragment) then I'd put punctuation in front (entry and exit), with ','=>'.' or vice-versa, as required by the full container sentence, but retaining notable exclamation- and question-marks. <tt>He said, "Erm," with a hint of hesitation, "For quotes, it depends."</tt> I know this is how I was taught to deal with quoted speech (close on fifty years ago), although I know standards change, and it may not even then have been so necessary for non-speech quotations. Yet certainly if I were to mention a set of randomish words like "Red green blue" (or "Red", "Green" and "Blue", perhaps) I would unhesitatingly consider it utterly wrong to move punctuation within any such quotation section. And note that an Oxford Comma (even without the quotes) would confuse matters in that second example.
:As for <tt>.)</tt> (etc), I've seen somebody ''wrongly'' do this. Do not do it if you have a in-sentence parenthesis (like this). I have never seen any suggestion that you'd do that (like this.) [<= Deliberately wrong!] And, even if it works "like a quote", it ''really'' looks wrong to me. (The clear exception is when you entirely make a sentence parenthetical, like this.)
:Now, this is just my own experience/preference/habituation. I have no doubt there are alternative points of view, which I would welcome to be added hereafter. But, whilst supporting the ''initial'' idea to precede quotes with punctuation (yet content to let it slip when others have prior authorship and it causes no additional confusion), I rail against it as an unwavering/absolutist style for all quotes ("quotes" ''and'' 'quotes', and maybe even «quotes» and the rest?) and especially it having any bearing at all in any bracketting/bracing/parenthesi(s|z)ing situations where full and proper start/end mark nesting should be adhered to as the ''only'' useful criteria.
:An interesting counter-examplee, however, might even mean individualised punctuation either side of a close-paren (if the sentence somehow does not require the same mark as the aside somehow begs, whether that be exclamation, question or even… ellipsis…?!?). Just so. But I'd normally consider rewriting that, as too stream-of-consciousness-like. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.159.73|162.158.159.73]] 04:25, 3 September 2022 (UTC)
::This is covered in sections [https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/16/ch06/ch06_sec005.html 6.5] and [https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/16/ch06/ch06_sec009.html 6.9] of the ''Chicago Manual of Style''. The intent is to aid readability. The reasons for variation from such style guidelines are evident when they are compelling, but whether a quotation doesn't actually end with a comma is simply not a compelling reason to write typography which distracts the ordinary reader. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.206.213|172.70.206.213]] 09:32, 3 September 2022 (UTC)
:::(Chicago links need registration to access, so no idea whose arguments/what alternative it supports.)
:::There are many Style Manuals (I'd defer to H. W. Fowler's ''Modern English Usage'', if forced). But, I would say, clarity is king above all. And I think the original suggestion is incorrect in that regard.
:::And depends upon medium. I was taught to put a little finger between words when learning to write with nibbed-pens (and don't smudge/flick the ink!) and a thumb-width indent to each paragraph's first line. Later two spacebars between sentences (and four as indent) when typing.
:::But that's old-hat (and doesn't survive whitespace condensing in XMLish context, etc, anyway). Spell things correctly (or, because of where Randall lives, all Americanised!) and try not to be accidentally ambiguous! And "-1" to original suggestion. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.80|172.70.91.80]] 12:04, 3 September 2022 (UTC)
::::A Google search on, "Fowler's Modern English on quotation," returns the question, "What is the correct punctuation for quotes?," in the second paragraph of results. Clicking on it shows the answer, "Commas and periods always go inside the quotation marks in American English; dashes, colons, and semicolons almost always go outside the quotation marks; question marks and exclamation marks sometimes go inside, sometimes stay outside."[https://www.grammarly.com/blog/quotation-marks/] Does ''Fowler'' diverge from ''Chicago'' in any of these respects? The paywall has a free 30-day trial, and it isn't difficult to find citations to those sections elsewhere. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.206.163|172.70.206.163]] 21:38, 3 September 2022 (UTC)
:::::(On principle, I don't do 'free trials', but that's just me and a comment on being asked to check something that has hoops to it.)
:::::Like I said, ''if forced'', I'd defer to Fowler of the many options, after the clear suggestion that Chicago was effectively the ''Académie Française'' of English, no matter which flavo[u]r of the lingo you're defaulting to. And [https://www.thepunctuationguide.com/british-versus-american-style.html this article is interesting], but I'm not sure I agree with its single-/double-quotes mark primacy suggestion.
:::::Anyway, when it's an actual speech-quoting-quote I'd probably adhere to preceding the quotation marks. But was resonding to OP's (your?) suggestion that it "is always better". And, coincidentally, just there it is not. Furthermore, Fowler does suggest that where a sentence is equally clear with and without punctuation, one should leave it out. I may not always stick to that myself, with an inordinate love of comma-bound sub-clausing, but I find it a decent principle to aspire to.
:::::As for "Foo (bar.)"-form sentences. No. Just no. Though "(Foo bar.)", and then always so in that case! Noting that you've not defended this part of the original idea, so I don't feel the need to continue to flog that aparently terminal equine.
:::::It's all just opinions, however, just to demonstrate my feelings on the subject as sympathetic to the gist of OP's first respondant. I have no idea if OP and Chicago-linker (and, in turn Chicago-trialler) are the same person or just separately of the opposing opinion. Let those who actually administer the site have the ultimate say (if they wish to have), naturally. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.79.201|172.69.79.201]] 23:18, 3 September 2022 (UTC)
::::::The reason we don't try to assign identities to the sources of ideas when we discuss them, is because we believe, as Oscar Wilde once said, the value of the idea is greater than the value of the person expressing the idea. Would you please answer the question about whether ''Fowler'' diverges from ''Chicago?'' [[Special:Contributions/172.69.33.83|172.69.33.83]] 23:49, 3 September 2022 (UTC)
:::::::I have yet to delve into the Windy City's precise text. And Fowler has said much, but how about:
[...] Neatness is the sole consideration; just as the ears may be regarded as not hearing organs, but 'handsome volutes of the human capital', so quotation marks may be welcomed as giving a good picturesque finish to a sentence; those who are of this way of thinking must feel that, if they allowed outside them anything short of fine handsome stops like the exclamation and question marks, they would be countenancing an anticlimax. But they are really mere conservatives, masquerading only as aesthetes; and their conservatism will soon have to yield. Argument on the subject is impossible; it is only a question whether the printer's love for the old ways that seem to him so neat, or the writer's and reader's desire to be understood and to understand fully, is to prevail."
:::::::And later, as part of a conclusion, the interesting:
[...] We recommend that the Times method should be abandoned, and the first or second of the others used according to circumstances.
The next question is, Whence is this income derived?—Times.
The next question is 'Whence is this income derived?'. (Full direct quotation. Observe the 'monstrosity' stop)
The next question is whence this income is derived. (Indirect quotation)
The next question is 'Whence this income is derived'. (Indirect quotation with quotation marks, or half-and-half quotation, like the Borrow sentence)
:::::::Far too much to copypasta. The concluding para just over-eggs my already eggy pudding, so above are just two of the many interesting bits that popped up in the source given at the top of my own definitive search (by exactly the same terms as given above), that demonstrate the evolution of what might be considered acceptible (and why) going into the future, ''[https://www.bartleby.com/116/406.html from 1908]''! [[Special:Contributions/162.158.159.11|162.158.159.11]] 10:06, 4 September 2022 (UTC)

2661: Age Milestone Privileges

2022-08-20T08:26:06Z

162.158.159.11: /* Explanation */ Needs not to be downplayed as "the ring". (Should we also wikilink it?)

{{comic
| number = 2661
| date = August 19, 2022
| title = Age Milestone Privileges
| image = age_milestone_privileges.png
| titletext = If you reach 122, you get complete unrevertible editorial control over Jeanne Calment's Wikipedia article.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a BABY GOD-EMPRESS MAKING THE PRESIDENT'S LETTER R-RATED - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This is a list of "age milestones" in the United States. As usual for Randall, he has added many fictional entries to supplement some real life ones.

{| class="wikitable"
! Age || Privilege || Description
|-
| 16 || Drive || Legal driving age varies by state in the US, but 16 is the lowest age to be able to qualify for a learner's permit.
|-
| 17 || Attend R-Rated movies Alone ||In the US, the Motion Picture Association assigns {{w|Motion_Picture_Association_film_rating_system|ratings}} to movies based on whether content in said movie is generally acceptable to present to minors. A rating of "R" is supposed to prohibit viewing by minors under 17 years of age unless a parent or guardian accompanies them.
|-
| 18 || Vote || Twenty-sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution prevents a minimum age of voting from being set above eighteen but does not preclude a minimum age below eighteen. The vast majority of states, but not all, use eighteen years as the minimum age for voting.
|-
| 21 || Buy Alcohol || In the US, the legal drinking age is 21 years, although other countries have a lower drinking age. For example, in Japan the legal age to drink is 20; whilst in the UK a person of 16 may drink (but not buy) alcohol (but not spirits) in a pub (but not the street).
|-
| 25 || Rent a car || Car rental companies charge higher rates for underage drivers; traditionally the minimum age is 25.
|-`e
| 30 || Run for Senate || This entry is incorrect: one must be at least 30 years old in order to ''become'' Senator, not ''run'' for Senate. Joe Biden was 29 years old when he was first elected to Senate but turned 30 before being sworn in.
|-
| 32 || Rent a Senator's Car || This is the first joke entry in the table. For one thing, most Senators do not rent out their cars, which they probably use regularly because they have jobs{{citation needed}} and typically don't sleep in the Capitol Building,{{citation needed}} to random strangers.{{citation needed}}
|-
| 35 || Run for president || In the US a person must be at least 35 years old to be eligible to the Office of President.
|-
| 40 || Rent a flying car ||
|-
| 45 || Learn about the God-empress || Obviously, the god-empress does not actually exist because this comic is visible to people under 45 years old.{{citation needed}}. According to [[1413]], she will be public knowledge by 2040 anyway.
|-
| 50 || Join AARP || Full AARP (formerly called the American Association of Retired Persons) membership is available to anyone age 50 and over. {{w|AARP}}
|-
| 50 || Get a shingles vaccine || At the time of the comic, the [https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd/shingles/public/shingrix/index.html CDC recommended] that adults 50 years and older get the shingles vaccine called Shingrix (this line was not in the original version of the comic, corrected later)
|-
| 52 || Click to skip captchas ||
|-
| 55 || Vote for God-empress ||
|-
| 62 || $80 national parks lifetime pass || https://www.nps.gov/planyourvisit/passes.htm
|-
| 65 || Eligible for Medicare ||
|-
| 67 || Collect Social Security ||
|-
| 68 || See "Skip ads" button on live tv || 68 refers to a "Skip ads" button on live TV. Some DVRs and streaming applications have a feature to skip over commercial breaks in recorded programs, but this could not be available in live TV, since it would require jumping forward in time. Time travel is currently impossible.{{citation needed}} ||
|-
| 70 || Run for God-empress || The name suggests that this would also only be available to women.
|-
| 75 || Ride any animal in a national park || The National Parks Service probably could institute this relatively safely because most people over 75 would not be able to run fast enough to outrun/catch up to an animal and mount it{{citation needed}} and would not have the rebellious/risk-taking/adventurous streak that would incline them to try.{{citation needed}}
|-
| 80 || Eligible for Megacare || This is based off of becoming eligible for Medicare at age 65.
|-
| 85 || Click to toggle whether an ad is positive or negative about the product ||
|-
| 90 || Click to make any movie R-rated ||
|-
| 100 || Get a letter from the president || In the US (which other milestones, such as running for president starting at age 35, indicate is the country being referred to), you instead get congratulated by the weatherman on the {{w|Today Show}}. However, the United Kingdom is much closer; people there get a telegram from the Queen on their 100th birthday.
|-
| 102 || (35+67) Collect a presidential pension || The idea behind this joke is that it is the minimum age of presidency plus the minimal age to collect Social Security. There are several reasons why this must be a joke. Two are that Social Security begins 67 years after the person was born, not 67 years after the person's job started, and that the United States government would not bother to set up such a system because the vast majority of people, including former presidents, do not live to 102 years old; in fact, as of 2022, no former United States president has ever lived to 102 years old.
|-
| 105 || Get a birthday card from the God-empress || Being a god-empress would be more important than being the leader of a single country. This would make the god-empresses's time more valuable, too valuable to be wasted on people who die between their 100th and 105th birthdays.
|-
| 111 || Leave your own birthday party early by putting on a magic ring || This is a reference to the Lord of the Rings where Bilbo leaves his eleventy-first birthday party (the Bilbo Baggins Farewell Birthday Party) by using The One Ring.
|-
| 118 || Vote 100 times || This would happen earlier because there would often be multiple elections per year, e.g., primaries, general elections, and possibly runoffs, and even if there were only one election each year, this would actually be the person's 101st election, at least if the election were held at the same time of each year. If the sole election of each year were held at a different time of each year, someone who voted in every election would vote for the 100th time at either 116, 117, or 118.
|-
| 120 || Collect the pensions of all elected officials ||
|-
| 125 || Drink alcohol in an R-rated movie while getting a shingles vaccine from the president || This entry apparently references four earlier milestones (attending an R-rated movie, drinking alcohol, becoming President, and getting the shingles vaccine) whose corresponding ages (17, 21, 35, and 50) sum to 123. While not exactly 125, this may have contributed to the inspiration or age selection of this milestone.
|-
| 128 || Age rolls over, become a baby again || 128 is a reference to computers because it is a power of two (specifically to the power of seven)—though 128 would become either -128 or -0 (depending upon implementation) in signed 8-bit, which means you would have a weird experience of your next phase of life. For unsigned integers, the correct rollback number would be 256. However, maybe the system uses 7 bits, analogously to ASCII, perhaps because it has never needed an eighth bit. Computers using such systems would have a Y2K-analogous bug once someone reached 128 years old, where they would think that that person is a baby, but that has not happened yet.

|}

The title text mentions {{w|Jeanne Calment}}, who holds the record for the oldest person ever (there are biblical references to older people, such as {{w|Methuselah}}, who supposedly lived to 969, but their ages haven't been verified); she reportedly was age 122 when the died in 1997. Randall claims that if you match her age you get editorial control over her Wikipedia page. Not there's some controversy whether Calment actually claimed her mother's records (including birth certificate) as her own, and "editing wars" have been fought over her article. However, if anyone managed to exceed her age, presumably they would get their own page (albeit that they should not be encouraged to {{w|Wikipedia:Editing Your Own Page|edit it}} themselves) and hers would cease to be as interesting, although that might depend on what use is made of the unparalleled editorial control now granted.

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

<big>Age Milestones</big> 
and associated privileges

16  Drive 
17  Attend R-rated movies alone 
18  Vote 
21  Buy alcohol 
25  Rent a car 
32  Run for senate 
35  Run for president 
40  Rent a flying car 
45  Learn about the God-Empress 
50  Join AARP 
50  Get a shingles vaccine 
52  Click to skip captchas 
55  Vote for God-Empress 
62  $80 National parks lifetime pass 
65  Eligible for Medicare 
67  Collect Social Security 
68  See "Skip Ads" button on live TV 
70  Run for God-Empress 
75  Ride any animal in a national park 
80  Eligible for MegaCare 
85  Click to toggle whether any ad is positive or negative about the product 
90  Click to make any movie R-rated 
100  Get a letter from the president 
102  (35+67) Collect a presidential pension 
105  Get a birthday card from the God-Empress 
111  Leave your own birthday party early by putting on a magic ring 
118  Vote 100 times 
120  Collect the pensions of all elected officials 
125  Drink alcohol in an R-rated movie while getting a shingles vaccine from the president 
128  Age rolls over, become a baby again

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Politics]]
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]] 
[[Category:Wikipedia]]

422: A Better Idea

2022-04-25T13:15:53Z

162.158.159.11: Undo revision 231038 by Blanker (talk) No

{{comic
| number = 422
| date = May 12, 2008
| title = A Better Idea
| image = a_better_idea.png
| titletext = It's *almost* enough to make me want to redo high school.
}}

==Explanation==
In the United States, prom (short for promenade) is a semi-formal (black tie) dance or gathering of high school students. They normally are awkward experiences for nerdy people.

A LAN party is a temporary gathering of people with computers or game consoles, between which they establish a local area network (LAN), primarily for the purpose of playing multiplayer video games. They are normally very informal.

[[Cueball]] and [[Megan]] are likely going to prom together, but they stop when they see that there's a LAN party in formal attire, meaning they wouldn't be out of place. The comic title is likely what one or both of them would say in this situation, since the LAN party is probably much more appealing than a formal ball to them.

The title text indicates that Randall would have loved for such a thing to be possible, so much that he ''very nearly'' would redo high school just to participate.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball wearing a bow tie stands holding hands with Megan wearing a dress. On the left, there is a sign pointing left, which reads "PROM"; on the right, there is a sign pointing right, which reads "LAN PARTY IN FORMAL ATTIRE".]

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]

1835: Random Obsessions

2022-04-25T13:15:14Z

162.158.159.11: Undo revision 231037 by Blanker (talk) No

{{comic
| number = 1835
| date = May 10, 2017
| title = Random Obsessions
| image = random obsessions.png
| titletext = I take the view that "open-faced sandwiches" are not sandwiches, but all other physical objects are.
}}

==Explanation==

This comic is formatted as a graph showing various Internet trends over the years according to [https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=robot%20monkeys,pirates%20vs%20ninjas,zombies,bacon,definition%20of%20sandwich Google Trends]. The caption states that these "random obsessions," as stated in the title, have 9-10 year cycles, and so predicts that the sandwich debate will be over by around 2024.

Discussions about the definition of "sandwich" are surprisingly common on the web, such as "Is hot dog a sandwich?" (See this [https://www.reddit.com/r/Sandwiches/comments/6587ub/what_is_a_sandwich_debate/ discussion] on Reddit)

The title text is a joke based on the debate over the definition of a sandwich. The speaker, presumably [[Randall]], starts out with the fairly reasonable stance that open-faced sandwiches are not true sandwiches, but then veers off into the absurd by claiming that literally every other physical object in the universe ''is'' a sandwich. We can only hope that Randall does not extend this view to {{w|Cannibalism|human beings}}. (On the other hand, Randall may simply be defining a sandwich in an unusual way without implying that all other items are edible. Such strange definitions have been seen before, in the title text of [[1405: Meteor]].)

The other obsessions mentioned are, in order: robot monkeys, pirates vs ninjas, zombies, and bacon.

"Robot Monkeys" likely refers to people being obsessed with a movie or robots of some kind. It may specifically refer to the American/Japanese animated TV series, {{w|Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go!}}, which aired from September 18, 2004 to December 16, 2006. It is possible that, based on this, that the trend curve does not actually begin in 2001, but does actually begin in 2004 as shown.

"Pirates vs Ninjas" refers to a longstanding internet meme, popular in roughly the years shown on the chart, that held that ninjas and Caribbean pirates were arch-enemies.

"Zombies" refers to the recent occurrence of zombie themed television shows (The Walking Dead) and movies (World War Z etc).

Though the trend is dying out, as seen by the fact the graph is past the peak, there has been an explosion in bacon flavored/scented products as well as items of clothing and decor that look like bacon. The YouTube channel Epic Meal Time was also part of the bacon fad, as adding large quantities of bacon to the meal being prepared was one of the running gags of the channel.

==Transcript==
:[The comic shows curves plotted in an (x,y)-plane. The x-axis shows years from 2004 to 2017, with every even year labeled. The y-axis is labeled "popularity relative to peak (based on google trends)". There are five vaguely bell-shaped curves, each stretching over 9-10 years. It is implied that they rise from a value close to zero, to which they also return.]

:The curve labeled "robot monkeys" peaks in early 2005 and ends near the x-axis in late 2011.
:The curve labeled "pirates vs ninjas" peaks in late 2008 and ends in late 2014.
:[The remaining three curves all end in mid 2017, the comic release date. ]
:The curve labeled "zombies" starts in late 2007 and peaks in early 2013. By 2017 it has fallen to about 30% of its peak value.
:The curve labeled "bacon" starts in late 2009 and peaks in mid-2015. By 2017 it shows a value of about 90% of its peak value.
:The curve labeled "definition of a sandwich" starts in late 2013 and in 2017 it has reached approximately half its peak value.

:[Text below the panel:]
:Judging from Google Trends, these random semi-ironic obsessions seem to last about nine or ten years, so we should be done with the sandwich thing by 2024.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Line graphs]]
[[Category:Zombies]]

534: Genetic Algorithms

2022-04-25T13:14:31Z

162.158.159.11: Undo revision 231035 by Blanker (talk) No

{{comic
| number = 534
| date = January 23, 2009
| title = Genetic Algorithms
| image = genetic_algorithms.png
| titletext = Just make sure you don't have it maximize instead of minimize.
}}

==Explanation==
In the {{w|computer science}} field of {{w|artificial intelligence}}, a {{w|genetic algorithm}} is a search {{w|Heuristic (computer science)|heuristic}} that mimics the process of {{w|Evolution|natural evolution}}. This heuristic is routinely used to generate useful solutions to optimization and search problems. Genetic algorithms belong to the larger class of evolutionary algorithms, which generate solutions to {{w|Mathematical optimization|optimization}} problems using techniques inspired by natural evolution, such as inheritance, mutation, selection, and crossover.

In particular, genetic algorithms are designed to evolve, with various mechanisms being used to mimic natural selection. One such mechanism is to assign "costs" to various aspects of the program, and to select for programs which assess a {{w|fitness function}} such as calculating the least sum of all these costs (thus mimicking organisms in an environment where they have to compete for limited resources) versus any measurable benefits.

The line indicated by an arrow is a reference to the ''{{w|Terminator (franchise)|Terminator}}'' series, in which the main antagonist is an artificial intelligence known as {{w|Skynet (Terminator)|Skynet}} that seeks to destroy all humans. By setting an absurdly high cost for an algorithm transforming into Skynet, the coder makes a preventive measure against the algorithm achieving such sentience.

The line about water crossing is a possible reference to the old computer game ''{{w|The Oregon Trail (video game)|The Oregon Trail}}'', in which crossing water was hazardous. This video game was referenced again in [[623: Oregon]].

The title text refers to the method by which the program select the desired option, with minimizing being where the program seeks the lowest possible number, and maximizing where the program seeks the highest possible number. When dealing with cases such as generating profit, maximization would obviously be preferred over minimization; but selecting maximization here would be disastrous as it would always chose the BecomingSkynet option before any other due to its massive cost.

==Transcript==
:[Code displayed, presumably from an IDE.]
:def getSolutionCosts(navigationCode):
::fuelStopCost = 15
::extraComputationCost = 8
:[There is a giant arrow pointing to the next line.]
::thisAlgorithmBecomingSkynetCost = 999999999
::waterCrossingCost = 45
:Genetic algorithms tip:
:'''''Always''''' include this in your fitness function.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Programming]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Artificial Intelligence]]
[[Category:Terminator]]

437: SUV

2022-04-25T13:13:51Z

162.158.159.11: Undo revision 231034 by Blanker (talk) No

{{comic
| number = 437
| date = June 16, 2008
| title = SUV
| image = suv.png
| titletext = Electric skateboards, by cost, get the equivalent of about 300 miles per gallon. Lithium batteries just need to get cheaper.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic is one of a series of [[My Hobby]] comics. Here [[Randall]] describes a "hobby" of confusing self-righteous hybrid car drivers by creating situational irony.

There are many anecdotal instances of drivers of "green" vehicles both criticizing owners of less fuel-efficient vehicles (such as SUVs) and for taunting them about how much more they are paying for fuel. Randall is reversing this by taunting/criticizing the owner of a Prius hybrid vehicle as though their roles were reversed. The owner of the hybrid car is irritated and does not understand what is being said.

Alternatively, in the second sentence, Randall could be talking about the fact that the other person has a hybrid vehicle instead of a full electric vehicle, although Randall's SUV wouldn't be any better in that case.

Yet another possibility is that "go green" refers to using public transportation or walking (or biking, skateboarding, and so on) in which case there is an argument to be made that the Cueball with the SUV might be better due to taking mass transit more. Or, as the title text alludes to, electric skateboards.

The title text, rather than being a joke or additional punchline, seems to be a serious opinion about how much more efficient electric vehicles are compared to gas-powered vehicles; they would be a far superior form of transportation if only they weren't so expensive. But an electric skateboard can only move a fraction of mass comparing to an SUV.

==Transcript==
:My Hobby:
:Renting an SUV and confusing the hell out of hybrid owners
:[A Prius Driver is pumping gas into his car at a gas station. The prices can be seen in the background, and read:]
:$4.08
:M: $4.38
:P: $4.51
:D: $4.85
:[Cueball drives up alongside in an SUV and leans out the window.]
:Cueball: Check out those prices! Your Prius ain't looking so smart ''now'', huh?
:Prius Driver: It's ... wait, what?
:Cueball: Maybe you'll go green ''next'' time, asshole!

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:My Hobby]]

1135: Arachnoneurology

2022-04-25T13:12:48Z

162.158.159.11: Undo revision 231031 by Blanker (talk) No

{{comic
| number = 1135
| date = November 16, 2012
| title = Arachnoneurology
| image = arachnoneurology.png
| titletext = SPIDER PSYCHOLOGY (21st Ed.) is a comprehensive overview of arachnoneurology, neuro-arachnology, forensic arachnology, neuro-arachnoneurology (the study of the brains of spider neurology experts), and arachnoarachnology (the study of too many spiders).
}}

==Explanation==
[[Beret Guy]] uses spider {{w|psychology}} (that he has obviously learned from the heavy volume of a book lying on the table with that title) to engineer a forked object in such a way that {{w|spiders}} will weave a silk shirt around it. After six weeks he can take the finished shirt off the "rack", and after optionally removing some stray spiders it should be ready for use.

Usually extracting {{w|spider silk}} is a complicated process and getting enough to weave a shirt would take very long and be very expensive. But making such an impossible project work is a typical behavioral pattern for Beret Guy, who continues to do amazing things with animals and other things from nature.

The prefix arachno- means "(related to) spiders". {{w|Arachnology}}, for example, is the scientific study of spiders. {{w|Neurology}} is a branch of medicine dealing with disorders of the {{w|nervous system}}, which includes the {{w|brain}}. So the title of the comic can be translated into ''the scientific study of spider brains''.

The title text mentions the book lying on the table, giving not only the title and the edition (21st) but also summing up some more (non-existent and increasingly far-fetched) fields of science related to spiders, which may as well exist if spider psychology has such a big standard work. Apart from adding the word forensic in one case, all five fields come from combining only the same two words "arachno" and "neuro" (sometimes one of them more than once) and ending any combination with "-ology". Especially funny is the neuro-arachnoneurology, which is explained to be the field where it is the brains of the scientist who study spiders brains, that are examined. The last one seems to be related to {{w|arachnophobia}}, the fear of spiders, as {{tvtropes|SpiderSwarm|arachnoarachnology is spiders with spiders on top - i.e. too many spiders}}.

Arachnophobia seems to be a problem for [[Randall]] himself, according to the What if? [http://what-if.xkcd.com/136/ Spiders vs. the Sun]. In this he links to an [http://www.entsoc.org/PDF/2010/Orb-weaving-spiders.pdf article] about a factory that was covered in plenty enough spider web silk to make shirts to a whole regiment of soldiers.

This is the first comic with special mentioning of a science related directly to spiders. The next was [[1747: Spider Paleontology]].

==Transcript==
:[Beret Guy holding a protractor and handling a fork-like stand with black knobbly protrusions. On the table is some sticks, a set square and a ruler. There is also a large book titled:
:Spider Psychology
:[Beret Guy places his creation in a cobwebbed corner.]
:[Spiders weave webs around Beret Guy's creation. One of them hangs down above it from the ceiling.]
:[Beret Guy pulls a shirt made of spider silk away from his creation. At the top of the panel is a frame that breaks the main panels frame. Inside this it says:]
:Six weeks later:

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Beret Guy]]
[[Category:Strange powers of Beret Guy]]
[[Category:Biology]]
[[Category:Spiders]]

1540: Hemingway

2022-04-25T13:11:43Z

162.158.159.11: Undo revision 231030 by Blanker (talk) No

{{comic
| number = 1540
| date = June 19, 2015
| title = Hemingway
| image = hemingway.png
| titletext = Instead of bobcat, package contained chair.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic is a reference to the six-word short story ''{{w|For sale: baby shoes, never worn}}'', which has been commonly attributed to famous author {{w|Ernest Hemingway}} (the disputed authorship of the story is referenced several times in the comic).

The comic plays on the fact that the original story takes the form of a short advertisement that might have been seen in a newspaper, and makes up alternate versions that use various modern 'standards' that did not exist in Hemingway's time. In keeping with the original, each example remains six words long. The title text obeys this rule, too. Many of the drafts poke fun at the tragedy that the original story suggests. With the original ("For Sale: Baby shoes, never worn"), readers could infer that the baby who would have worn the shoes must have died. Randall tries to make the reader infer other, more absurd things instead.

The comic also alludes to Hemingway's practice of repeatedly re-working drafts of his novels before publication. For example, he is [http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/05/books/a-farewell-to-arms-with-hemingways-alternate-endings.html reported] to have rewritten the final passage of [https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=A_Farewell_to_Arms A Farewell To Arms] 39 times. Later editions of his works include these rough drafts, allowing the devoted reader to understand how the work developed.

The following are the various drafts offered in the comic.
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! width="305" | Draft
! Explanation
|-
| For Sale: This gullible baby's shoes
| This suggests the seller somehow tricked the baby out of its shoes.
|-
| Baby shoes for sale by owner
| This suggests that a very intelligent baby is somehow selling its own shoes, or that someone is selling an old pair of shoes they had as a baby. This style represents the typical automobile or house sales ads, differentiating the sale by owner from the sale by a professional middleman (a car dealer or a realtor) and thus bypassing the extra expense of middleman's fee.
|-
| <strike>Actually, there’s no evidence Hemingway wrote</strike>
| A fragment of a preemptive rebuttal to the comic’s premise (or at least its title). This sentence was stopped at the sixth word, in keeping with the premise.
|-
| Free shoes, provided you overpower baby
| This suggests the person posting the ad is asking people to forcibly steal shoes from a baby. This alludes to the common expression "[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/like_taking_candy_from_a_baby like taking candy from a baby]", meaning a task is extremely simple and effortless. One doesn't necessarily need to overpower a baby to steal its shoes either; there are other methods such as annoying the baby until it throws its shoes or tricking the baby (see the first example above).
|-
| For Sale: Weird baby's toe shoes
| Randall once again displays his distaste for [[1065: Shoes|weird toe shoes]], that is, shoes with individual toes. Rather than the tragedy implied by the original story, this instead implies that the baby has odd taste in shoes, and perhaps the parents would rather their child wear regular shoes.
|-
| For Sale: Baby shoes ✓Prime Eligible
| This is a reference to {{w|Amazon.com|Amazon}}, which offers Prime as a paid service to expedite shipping of items ordered on its website.
|-
| <strike>Though popularly attributed to Hemingway, the</strike>
| Another fragment of a rebuttal, written in an encyclopedic style, and also stopped at the sixth word.
|-
| This weird trick covers baby feet!
| This is modeled after common 'click bait' wording designed to get users to visit web pages, typically using words such as "this weird trick" or "secrets they don't want you to know" to artificially increase its apparent appeal. xkcd has previously parodied click bait in [[1283: Headlines]], [[1307: Buzzfeed Christmas]] and [[1426: Reduce Your Payments]].
|-
| For Sale: Baby shoes, just hatched
| This plays on the meaning of the phrase "baby shoes", reframing it to mean a newly-born shoe (similar to "baby bird"), rather than its typical meaning of footwear designed for babies.
|-
| Sale: Seven-league boots (expedited shipping)
| {{w|Seven-league boots}} are mythical boots that allow their user to move seven leagues (21 miles) per step. The "expedited shipping" part suggests that the people delivering these boots may be wearing seven-league boots themselves, allowing them to reach the customer much faster than if by airplane (except, of course, if the boots had to be shipped overseas).
|-
| Complete this survey for free shoes
| This is another reference to common internet marketing campaigns, where users are incentivized to take surveys in exchange for small compensation such as free samples or coupons.
|-
| ''Shoes'', by Ernest Hemingway {{Citation needed}}
| This is a reference to Wikipedia. "{{w|Citation needed}}" is used to mark claims that require additional evidence to justify as true. In this case, Randall is using this to question whether the short story was really written by Hemingway.
|-
| This is my greatest short story
| This is a completely different style that could also have been used to write a short story in six words. Rather than telling a story about shoes, this is more "meta" by referencing itself and being a self-fulfilling (or self-defeating) prophecy. (The sequel was titled "Don't bother reading my other stories").
|-
| For Sale: Baby shoes (-1) [Cursed]
| This is written like a description of a virtual item typically found in Roguelike games or MMOs. "-1" typically means the item will reduce its wearer's stats (such as defense or speed rating) by one point. "Cursed" usually means the item cannot be taken off the wearer's body once it is put on. It might also reference the fact the original story suggests the baby died, perhaps because of the cursed shoes.

"-1" in this context is usually read aloud as "minus one"; this would break the six word pattern.
|-
| <blink><marquee>Baby shoes!</marquee></blink>
| This is reminiscent of the style of HTML widely used in the 1990s. Both the <blink> and <marquee> tags make the text content ("Baby shoes!") appear more prominent and attention-grabbing. The blink tag makes a blinking effect in Netscape, whereas the marquee tag makes a scroll effect in Internet Explorer. On a normal web page, these tags only affect how the text content is displayed on screen and aren't directly shown to visitors. However they are shown here to make the six words count, albeit in a lighter shade of gray to reinforce the fact that they're not part of the text content. An interesting note: When this comic was first posted to xkcd.com, the '/' in the </blink> tag was missing. This was fixed between the 19th and 20th of June, 2015, showing that the omission was, indeed, unintentional.
|-
| For Sale: Baby-sized saddle, bobcat
| This is a reference to [[A-Minus-Minus|325: A-Minus-Minus]] in which [[Cueball]] says: 'Instead of office chair, package contained bobcat'. A 'baby-sized saddle' is presumably a very small saddle that's only usable if the user was a baby and was trying to ride a small animal such as a bobcat.
|-
| Hemingway busted for Craigslist shoe scam
| This is written like a news headline where Hemingway supposedly wrote about shoes in order to perpetrate a scam. {{w|Craigslist}} is a website where users can advertise and seek goods and services.
|}
The title text continues the reference to [[A-Minus-Minus|325: A-Minus-Minus]], but inverts the situation. Rather than unexpectedly receiving a bobcat by package, this time the package contains a regular item instead of the expected bobcat. In keeping with the theme of the comic, the review is written in only six words.

==Transcript==
:Hemingway's Rough Drafts

:[A list of rough draft stories.]
:For sale: This Gullible Baby's Shoes
:Baby Shoes For Sale By Owner
:<strike>Actually, there's no evidence Hemingway wrote</strike>
:Free Shoes, Provided You Overpower Baby
:For Sale: Weird Baby's Toe Shoes
:For Sale: Baby Shoes ✓ Prime eligible
:<strike>Though popularly attributed to Hemingway, the</strike>
:This Weird Trick Covers Baby Feet!
:For Sale: Baby Shoes, Just Hatched
:Sale: Seven-League Boots (Expedited Shipping)
:Complete this survey for free shoes!
:''Shoes'', by Ernest Hemingway [citation needed]
:This is my greatest short story.
:For sale: Baby shoes (-1) [cursed]
:<blink><marquee>Baby Shoes!</marquee></blink>
:For Sale: Baby-sized Saddle, Bobcat
:Hemingway Busted for Craigslist Shoe Scam

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Bobcats]]

1308: Christmas Lights

2022-04-25T13:10:44Z

162.158.159.11: Undo revision 231029 by Blanker (talk) No

{{comic
| number = 1308
| date = December 25, 2013
| title = Christmas Lights
| image = christmas_lights.png
| titletext = Merry Christmas from xkcd!
}}

==Explanation==
Each light in this Christmas scene is represented by its {{w|electromagnetic spectrum}}, which shows in a graphical form how much energy is radiated by each wavelength of light.

These graphs plot the intensity of all visible radiation. Infrared and ultraviolet are partially plotted also, represented by black. It starts with longer wavelengths on the left ({{w|infrared}}), continues with {{w|visible light}} in the middle from red to blue, and ends with {{w|ultraviolet}} at the right. There are 4 distinct spectra in this comic:

In the center of the image, between [[Beret Guy]] and the couple, [[Cueball]] and [[Megan]], appears to be a light spectrum of a fire, notable because it emits a lot of energy in the infrared band (The left zone of the spectrum), emitted typically from hot sources, and in the red and orange zone. The spike toward the left hand side of the spectrum is likely the 4.3 µm resonance wavelength of hot CO2 characteristic of burning hydrocarbons; see {{w|Flame detection#Emission of radiation|Emission of radiation}}. Given the size of the spectrum and its positioning, this represents a fireplace at which the characters are warming themselves against the winter chill.

In the right of the comic appear some spectra arranged in the form of a Christmas tree. There are 3 different spectra in this "Christmas tree":

At the top appears a complicated spectrum, possibly that of a white LED, representing the tradition in some cultures of putting a star (or an angel, but still usually lit) at the top of the Christmas tree.

In the branches there are two simpler spectra repeated at various places, one with a peak in the green zone, representing a green light source, and other with a peak in the red zone, representing a red light source. Both of these represent the tradition of putting colorful decoration in the tree, in this case apparently red and green colored Christmas lights.

In [[835: Tree]] a similarly strange Christmas tree has been constructed using binary trees.

{| class="wikitable collapsible collapsed" style="width:100%"
! The solution to the light spectrum plots can be found here:
|-
|[[File:christmas lights real.png]]
|}

==Transcript==
:[Megan, Cueball, and Beret Guy sitting on the floor and a big spectrum with one peak is shown between them. On the right many smaller spectra are shown in a shape of a Christmas tree.]

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Christmas]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Beret Guy]]

312: With Apologies to Robert Frost

2022-04-25T13:09:30Z

162.158.159.11: Undo revision 231028 by Blanker (talk) No

{{comic
| number = 312
| date = September 5, 2007
| title = With Apologies to Robert Frost
| image = with apologies to robert frost.png
| titletext = Some say the world will end in fire; some say in segfaults.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic presents a poem about a {{w|god}}'s dilemma of whether to create the world using {{w|Perl}} or {{w|Lisp (programming language)|Lisp}}, two popular computer programming languages. The god has chosen to write it in Perl, but since then appears to lament the choice, apparently expressing that if given the chance to write the world's code again, they would use Lisp instead.

The implication is that a universe created by Lisp would look better under close examination, the 'founding myth' referred to in the poem. Instead of an incomprehensible {{w|big bang}}, {{w|Inflationary epoch|inflation}}, {{w|dark matter}}, and {{w|dark energy}}, the elegance of Lisp may have led to more elegantly framed laws of nature.

The grammar of Lisp as a language requires the programmer to use a multitude of parentheses and, in many cases, it can be difficult to determine whether all of the parentheses have been properly matched up to one another. The last two lines of the poem refer to the plentiful parentheses in Lisp, and the image at the bottom of the panel shows a close-parenthesis at the supposed end of the Universe.

A segmentation fault, also commonly called a segfault, is an error that occurs when a computer program attempts to access computer memory to which it should not have access. This is a fatal error that will cause the program to stop executing.

This comic deals with similar subject matter to [[224: Lisp]], in which one of "the gods" claims that although the Universe may appear to have been written in Lisp, it was actually written mostly using Perl.

The poem itself and the title text are a parody of "[http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/fire-and-ice/ Fire and Ice]," written by the American poet {{w|Robert Frost}} and first published in 1920. In this poem, the speaker discusses his stance in the debate on whether the world will be destroyed in fire or in ice. "A God's Lament" has a rhyme scheme that is nearly identical to that of Frost's poem. However, it differs in that "Lisp" does not rhyme with "men," "again," and "paren," while the corresponding four lines in Frost's poem do rhyme. (That said, "Lisp" does have a near-rhyme in "myth" and "with," especially if you say "Lisp" with a lisp.)

==Transcript==
:[A not-very-realistic view of the universe, in profile. To the left, a sectional view of the Earth, with its Moon and few clouds overhead, and a little Cueball standing, looking up. Extending to the right of the Earth, various stellar objects: some planets, some spaceships, another galaxy. Above them, on an artistically jagged white background, somewhat like a torn piece of paper, this text:]
:<big>A God's Lament</big>
:
:Some said the world should be in Perl;
:Some said in Lisp.
:Now, having given both a whirl,
:I held with those who favored Perl.
:But I fear we passed to men
:A disappointing founding myth,
:And should we write it all again,
:I'd end it with
:A close-paren.
:
:[To the right of the "various stellar objects", as if paired with the Earth at their left to bracket them, is a giant close parenthesis:]
:)

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

Talk:2601: Instructions

2022-04-04T20:56:53Z

162.158.159.11:

;Turtle graphics
So these are instructions for a turtle graphics program. The audio is drawn from https://xkcd.com/2601/radio.mp3, a 9 hour 7 minute 12 second long audio file It's generated by feeding turtle code into a text-to-speech program, but idk which language or which program. If you can convert the speech back to text, somehow without ruining the formatting (or just do a lot of editing with regex until it looks right), you could feed it into a turtle graphics program and get the resulting drawing.
:If you're not familiar with Turtle and Logo, look at this [[https://www.tutorialspoint.com/logo/logo_quick_guide.htm|quick guide]]. The short version is that these commands move a little cursor, called a turtle, which draws a line as it moves and turns. At this time, contributors have applied a few different computer transcriptions to the entire audio. There are quotes about turtles from a variety of sources intermixed with Logo code. It is expected that some correction to the code is needed, such as adding parenthesis that are not spoken in the audio. Standard Logo commands found in the audio are: PENUP, PENDOWN, SETHEADING (N) (N), SETXY (N) (N), and FORWARD (N). Some custom functions are defined, including DIST (N) (N) (N) (N), LERP (N) (N) (N), MIX (N) (N), CUBIC (N) (N) (N) (N), and SQUARE (N) (N). The next steps are to test the transcripts of these custom functions in a Logo interpreter, at which point we can begin drawing the picture. [[User:Mannerisky|Mannerisky]] ([[User talk:Mannerisky|talk]]) 02:45, 2 April 2022 (UTC)
: The picture indeed will be Bob Ross. The first hour of radio has him saying, "A happy little tree - holding up a happy little world." We can coordinate transcribing this code at [https://github.com/theinternetftw/xkcd2601 GitHub Repository]. Credit for this progress goes to the GitHub owner. [[User:Mannerisky|Mannerisky]] ([[User talk:Mannerisky|talk]]) 04:55, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

I don't know what the current image on this page is. Is that the drawing you get by following these instructions? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.100.4|172.70.100.4]] 20:58, 1 April 2022 (UTC)
: Wait I see now, that is the actual image for the comic. It just gets covered up by the button so I can't see it. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.126.87|172.70.126.87]] 21:03, 1 April 2022 (UTC)
::Ah, it looks like someone realized it's actually longer than that. After downloading it, I found it to be 131,329,389 bytes. The Windows Properties viewer claims it is 8h41m08s in length, but that's wrong. It is actually 9h07m06s. By the way, the code is in the Logo language. He seems to have copied this from a book, but I don't know which one. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.100.4|172.70.100.4]] 21:12, 1 April 2022 (UTC)
:::Worth taking a look at? I can start looking for books that contain that text[[Special:Contributions/162.158.107.52|162.158.107.52]] 21:39, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

:The automatic speech system is using standard punctuation processing, meaning that critical marks for the code aren't being announced. You can't get the code from the samples without filling in the blanks after getting a transcript. [[User:N|N]] ([[User talk:N|talk]]) 22:19, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

The MP3 file ends with this text: "''I even talk to turtles at times. But you need to understand LOGO to appreciate the great, great things that have been created. We spend so much of our life typing, looking, but never ever seeing.''" [[Special:Contributions/162.158.222.151|162.158.222.151]] 21:17, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

april fools' comic? [[User:GcGYSF(asterisk)P(vertical line)e|GcGYSF(asterisk)P(vertical line)e]] ([[User talk:GcGYSF(asterisk)P(vertical line)e|talk]]) 21:18, 1 April 2022 (UTC)
:I think it's an April Fool's joke. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.238.148|108.162.238.148]] 21:20, 1 April 2022 (UTC)
::Well is it 2022/04/01 [[Special:Contributions/141.101.77.189|141.101.77.189]] 21:26, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

Broken Version

I think mine's broken. I don't get it. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.130.91|172.70.130.91]] 21:29, 1 April 2022 (UTC)
:You press the radio button, it selects it, then you can press it a zillion times in any pattern and all it ever does is blink the entire image. Nothing else ever appears other than the radio button, and there’s never any sound so pressing the speaker in the corner to supposedly turn it on or off is also completely pointless.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.126.65|172.70.126.65]] 23:31, 1 April 2022 (UTC)
::Alright, it’s April 2nd now, so if all of you have been LYING about it actually doing something, just playing along with the joke, you can admit it now.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.130.153|172.70.130.153]] 18:40, 2 April 2022 (UTC)
:::Did it only work on American April 1st, or only for some people? It's the third of April here now, and it's still a boring button that clicks on once and does nothing else. Have I missed it? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.249.13|108.162.249.13]] 20:38, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

Given the alt text "happy little turtles" and the tone of the narration I assume we're supposed to pretend the narrator is Bob Ross guiding us to creating an artistic masterpiece with Logo [[Special:Contributions/172.70.211.72|172.70.211.72]] 21:31, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

Guys, it's been HOURS and the transcription is still incomplete. Step it up! [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.77|172.70.162.77]] 21:37, 1 April 2022 (UTC)
:Not even sure what the transcript should be. I did my best[[Special:Contributions/162.158.107.52|162.158.107.52]] 21:41, 1 April 2022 (UTC)
::I have a feeling this might be one of the longest transcripts on the site. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.245.43|108.162.245.43]] 21:57, 1 April 2022 (UTC)
:::Wanna bet? [[1608: Hoverboard/Transcript]]... --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 20:35, 2 April 2022 (UTC)
:::Or [[980: Money/Transcript]] --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 21:59, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

Up until someone automates the process, I'll be working on the transcript and saving it in exkcd in parts (: Don't worry too much about edit overrides, I'll be transcribing in a google doc to avoid that! --[[User:Char Latte49|Wielder of the Staple Gun]] ([[User talk:Char Latte49|talk]]) 21:53, 1 April 2022 (UTC)
:The sections about turtles between the code blocks seems to be from

Interesting Facts About Turtles
A Little Nature Study by a Scientist that will Interest Old and Young Naturalists Alike
By Randle C. Rosenberger M. D., Professor of Hygiene and Bacteriology, Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia, Pa.
https://archive.org/stream/foreststream861916newy/foreststream861916newy_djvu.txt

The uni.xkcd version of this comic also just shows the turtle like this article. So much for uses two April Fools comics against each other ;) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.114.77|172.70.114.77]] 22:44, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

I ran the MP3 through Amazon Transcribe. It can do only 4 hours at a time, so I had to split the original file. I went from start to 03:59:59, 03:59:59 to 07:59:58, and 07:59:58 to end. Amazon Transcribe also gave me some subtitle files (index 1). They have time codes in them. So if someone wanted to note the times of the little quips, and host the audio file somewhere where links to the middle of the file can be generated (like YouTube), that could be cool. Below are the transcriptions for analysis. Replace X with 1, 2, or 3; and replace Y with json, srt, or vtt. [[User:Pgn674|Pgn674]] ([[User talk:Pgn674|talk]]) 23:15, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

:<code><nowiki>https://pgn674.s3.amazonaws.com/xkcd-2601/xkcd-2601-X.Y</nowiki></code>
:: No need to host anything special. Let's say we want to jump to time code 02:35:14.840 from the vtt subtitle file #1 (line 7084, subtitle 1771). 2*60*60+35*60+14=9314. Subtract a few seconds, and make a link like this. Click here to learn about turtle noises: https://xkcd.com/2601/radio.mp3#t=9310 [[User:Pgn674|Pgn674]] ([[User talk:Pgn674|talk]]) 23:48, 1 April 2022 (UTC)
::: I went and found all mentions of "turtle", extracted those lines, and generated links to them. Programmatically. If anyone wants to go through and do some manual review and fine tuning, go ahead. [[User:Pgn674|Pgn674]] ([[User talk:Pgn674|talk]]) 00:57, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

I threw Adobe Premiere Pro at it: https://anonfiles.com/pbYfK7Sax4/radio_csv; and https://anonfiles.com/35YbKeScxe/radio_txt are the results. Note: these transcribe until 07:01:28:19. I am currently in the process of making APP suffer more and churn out the last two hours. --[[User:ẞ qwertz|ẞ qwertz]] ([[User talk:ẞ qwertz|talk]]) 23:54, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

So... what language is this? I'm hearing: PENUP, PENDOWN, SETHEADING (N) (N), SETXY (N) (N), FORWARD (N) - all of which are standard LOGO commands. But I'm also hearing something that sounds like CUBIC (N) (N) (N) (N) (N) (N), though it could also be QBIT, or text-to-speech for something like "^3". Either way it's NOT a standard LOGO command, so suggests it's a variant. Does not seem to be KTurtle, POOL, UCBLogo. QLogo, FMSLogo, and then I got bored searching. --[[Special:Contributions/172.69.71.91|172.69.71.91]] 00:37, 2 April 2022 (UTC)
:In the automatic transcription it has "Two cubic colon X one colon Y one colon X two"... which would be TO CUBIC :X1 :Y1 :X2 ... so it is defined above. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.107.230|162.158.107.230]] 01:15, 2 April 2022 (UTC)
:: Yes, some of the commands seem to be defined at the top. CUBIC at the top, SQUARE maybe somewhere else. So a shortcut to decyphering it might be to just extract and render all the cubes from the "CUBIC" and "SQUARE" commands, given their values. But what format are the cubes? Are they even the coordinates of cubes? For both commands, the six numbers seem to be in the format A B A B A B where the As and Bs are similar or even in some cases identical, which seems a strange thing for a cube:
<blockquote><pre>
SetXY -443 412
PenDown
Square -443 405 -443 397 -444 390
</pre></blockquote>
The definition seems to be something like:
<blockquote><pre>
ToCubic : X1 : Y1 : X2 : Y2 : Ex : Ey --- Parameter definitions?
local Make " X0 XCor --- Local variable definitions?
Local Make " Y0 YCor
Local Make " ErrX1 Lerp : X0 : X 0.25
local Make " ErrY1 Lerp : Y0 : Ey 0.25
Local Make " ErrX2 Lerp : X0 : Ex 0.75
Local Make " ErrY2 Lerp : Y0 : Ey 0.75
IfElse
Or
LessP : picks error Dist : ErrX1 : ErrY1 : X1 : Y1
LessP : picks error Dist : ErrX2 : ErrY2 : X2 : Y2
[
Local Make " Qx0 mix : X0 : X1
Local Make " Qy0 mix : Y0 : Y1
Local Make " Qx1 mix : X1 : X2
Local Make " qy1 Mix : Y1 : Y2
Local Make " Qx2 mix : X2 : EX
Local Make " Qy2 mix : Y2 : Ey
Local Make " Lx0 mix : Qx0 : QX1
Local Make " Ly0 mix : Qy0 : QY1
Local Make " Lx1 Mix : Qx1 : Qx2
Local Make " Ly1 Mix : qy1 : Q
Local Make " PmX Mix : Lx0 : Lx1
Local Make " PmY Mix : Ly0 : LY1
Cubic : Qx0 : qy0 : Lx0 : Ly0 : PmX : PmY
Cubic : Lx1 : Ly1 : Qx2 : Qy2 : Ex : Ey
]
[
SetXY : Ex : Ey
]
</pre></blockquote>
Least, that's what it sounds like, but I suspect round brackets and suchlike are not spoken aloud :( --[[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.95|108.162.221.95]] 01:54, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

: Maybe it's implementing a cubic spline interpolation, not a tridimensional cube. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.131.214|172.70.131.214]] 11:08, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

Feels like the speech processing is lossy, so generating the code will be a lengthy labor of love transcribing it, then debugging it, trying to fill the gaps. The code may also have been fed through an automated "Bob Ross filter" which may have lost even more data. --[[Special:Contributions/172.69.71.91|172.69.71.91]] 00:37, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

About a quarter of the way into the text is the line "You know, I'm beginning to suspect it's turtles all the way down!" [[Special:Contributions/162.158.78.215|162.158.78.215]] 00:46, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

it's concerning that the only real way we'll be able to figure this comic out is to compile the entire 9 hour computer-generated voice speech. [[User:Lettherebedarklight|youtube.com/watch?v=miLcaqq2Zpk]] ([[User talk:Lettherebedarklight|talk]]) 01:40, 2 April 2022 (UTC)
:Anyone actually doing any transcribing of this audio text is a true April Fools' fool, hence the reason to release this on April 1st. But I'd still like to see what the Fools' come up with :-D --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 21:26, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

I'm moving all things about audio transcription here: [[2601: Instructions/Audio Transcript]], both the real transcript and peoples very long comments in the main discussion, to keep the main page short and keep loading time down. The comments from here go in the [[Talk:2601: Instructions/Audio Transcript|discussion]] for that page --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 20:35, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

OMG, fond memories of LOGO! I'm in a loud bar at the moment so I can't listen, and I'm not listening to NINE HOURS anyway, LOL! Everybody DOES realize, someone needs to extract the program and run it in LOGO, right? I would guarantee this draws something interesting and/or stupid. :) [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 03:27, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

I found a [https://github.com/theinternetftw/xkcd2601 GitHub Repository] for transcription. May be of use to you guys for adding more info and citations to this Wiki. By the way, I didn't know this wiki existed. I don't want to create an account for it right now so good luck guys ;-; 04:12, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

I tried running some code through "ucblogo" on a Linux distro, but didn't get very far with it. ---Tim 04:16, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

Given that the audio is generated by text-to-speech, could a source-aware speech-to-text work better (fewer errors and less manual correction) than a generic one? For example, finding the right text-to-speech, extracting a sound for each phoneme, and then searching for near-identical snippets of waveform, seems like it could potentially be more reliable than the generic neural nets which are primarily trained for real human speech. Or even training a neural net on the same text-to-speech source, with a big block of sample data, if that would help distinguish homophones. Presumably someone here is good enough at this sort of thing to try that? [[User:Sqek|Sqek]] ([[User talk:Sqek|talk]]) 10:05, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

I think that the original comment at the top is the best approach. Using the speech-to-text data posted yesterday, and doing some simple regsubs, I can get it into good enough shape that I can proceed to transcribe the whole program by editing the file while listening to the audio, in real time. "In real time" means nine hours to correctly transcribe the whole thing. So any other approach would have to do better than nine hours. Plus if somebody put a little effort into organization, the transcription can be parallelized and so completed in nine hours / N transcribers. ---Tim [[Special:Contributions/172.70.38.41|172.70.38.41]] 13:10, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

I was helping with this last night, and here are the major steps we've done to interpret the code and who has helped, I think.
* [[User:Pgn674|Pgn674]] Used AWS to make a transcription of the audio, which we have been building from
* [[Special:Contributions/172.68.118.59|172.68.118.59]] Transcribed the critical functions at the top of the transcription
* [https://github.com/theinternetftw theinternetftw] Found a working interpreter and set up a collaboration space at [https://github.com/theinternetftw/xkcd2601 a GitHub repo], and has since been maintaining the code
* [https://github.com/theinternetftw theinternetftw] Also transcribed the first hour and got us our view of a partial picture
* [https://github.com/somebody1234 somebody1234] Got a messy but runnable version of the entire transcription and a view of the entire picture with errors
* Many people are transcribing bits of audio and submitting to GitHub. Here is the list of [https://github.com/theinternetftw/xkcd2601/graphs/contributors contributors]
[[User:Mannerisky|Mannerisky]] ([[User talk:Mannerisky|talk]]) 15:06, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

I have changed the image to that which is seen on xkcd when loading the comic. It has not been updated on this page yet as of when I write this. But the turtle is of course not the comic, but a placeholder for those webcrawlers that would fail when trying to download the radio button. I have also added info on this in the current explanation. As I have made a link to a new sub page for the looong audio transcript and removed all of that from this page and discussion and put it here: [[2601: Instructions/Audio Transcript]] --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 21:38, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

I started planning to write some code to figure this out, but moved on to other things after a few hours, due to psychological issues I have. The draft just runs the audio through the start of a random speech to text model. I trained a tokenizer around the logo code but didn't move farther. There are a lot of possible next steps, some of which others have mentioned. A simple approach would be to finetune the model around the hand-transcribed data. https://colab.research.google.com/gist/xloem/4310a26b6c9d13adac14307b948157d3/untitled4.ipynb [[Special:Contributions/172.70.114.147|172.70.114.147]] 23:04, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

Any plans to exkcd the "real" comic that gets drawn by the LOGO code in the audio? I mean, I recognize, e. g., the Mars rover and Ursa Major, but what's the significance of the vacuum decay here, for instance? [[User:Nitpicking|Nitpicking]] ([[User talk:Nitpicking|talk]]) 01:18, 3 April 2022 (UTC)
:Now that the project is complete, we should add the resulting image on this page (not just a link to github). It'll be what folks are looking for first. And then we can start identifying the many references in the picture and turtle quotes. [[User:Mannerisky|Mannerisky]] ([[User talk:Mannerisky|talk]]) 04:26, 3 April 2022 (UTC)
::well, i added the picture. [[User:Lettherebedarklight|youtube.com/watch?v=miLcaqq2Zpk]] ([[User talk:Lettherebedarklight|talk]]) 08:08, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

It was wonderful watching all of this unfold. Great work everyone. I don't have an account here, nor on github, but I thought I'd mention that the makesvg.py uses the ':=' operator which was introduced in python 3.8. Not all of us have it on our creaky old machines. Maybe add a comment in the usage at the top of the file? Or better, refactor the .py?
-- [[Special:Contributions/172.70.100.4|172.70.100.4]] 14:39, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

Is there a trick to making it work? I've tried both Firefox and Chrome. I hear the narration and can toggle the mute, but it never draws the picture for me. I have enabled JavaScript and I have disabled Privacy Badger, NoSCript, and uBlock Origin and still no joy. I did find the final drawing so I've seen the animation via GIF.
--[[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.221|108.162.221.221]]
:: Signing with triple tilde puts the WRONG IP address for me! My IP is NOT 108.162.221.221, my IP is 47.186.56.37. What gives????
:: --[[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.221|108.162.221.221]]
:::: Just FYI, your registered IP (like mine) is probably from the (regional?) gateway that mediates between you, at your true and current internet-facing IP, and the serving server. It's not something for you to really worry about, but you asked.
::: i'm trying to find a way to say this that doesn't sound condescending, but do you actually think the comic draws the picture or are you using https://benediktwerner.github.io/xkcd-2601-drawer/ ? if it's the former, the comic does not draw the picture. if it's the latter, you have to click the "use the latest code" button and *then* click draw. again, i know that sounded super condescending, pls don't think i'm trying to be mean. [[User:New editor|New editor]] ([[User talk:New editor|talk]]) 05:24, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

does this comic *technically* feature beret guy, ponytail, etc or not. they're not *in* the comic, but it could be said to feature them. [[User:New editor|New editor]] ([[User talk:New editor|talk]]) 05:31, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

What is <pre>CUBIC</pre>? [[User:GcGYSF(asterisk)P(vertical line)e|GcGYSF(asterisk)P(vertical line)e]] ([[User talk:GcGYSF(asterisk)P(vertical line)e|talk]]) 05:45, 4 April 2022 (UTC)
:A function defined above (both in the transcript and, partially, in this Talk page) that is there to define certain smooth lines via a cascade of interesting LOGO procedural code, including branch-tests, that I wasn't even aware could be done until I started to read it.
:(I mean, I didn't even know LOGO used Polish Notation, having last practically dabbled with it on the probably vastly more limited interpreters that ran on BBC Microcomputers at school, back in the early '80s. You could define procedures with params, but I can't remember this syntax, nor any tests available that seem to suggest recursive tests until the finest changes do nothing.)
:That was at my first glance, I've avoided the pages until most of the fuss died down because I could see a lot of work being shovelled in, by others, and I knew I couldn't add much but confusion. But I now think I can take leisurely ride through the code and see what I can personally pick up from it. (Cheers to the army of volunteers that mobilised to make this possible, BTW!) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.159.11|162.158.159.11]] 20:56, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

The inserted comments don't seem to just be facts about turtles - they also include 'Rossisms' - e.g. "I've just covered the entire canvas in a layer of light."[[Special:Contributions/172.69.79.153|172.69.79.153]] 08:35, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

The explanation should reference the World Turtle (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Turtle) in regard to the finished image.[[Special:Contributions/172.69.79.153|172.69.79.153]] 08:46, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

I hope that's Cory Doctorow in the hot air balloon. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.110.209|172.70.110.209]] 13:35, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

== Narrative vs. code ==

There should be some statement that there's code and narrative mixed within the transcript; you can't just hand the whole thing to Logo and expect it to work.

(Unless, of course, there's some way of telling Logo to ignore a block of text that wouldn't be spoken when you actually read the annotated block. In which case, the transcript needs to be so-annotated. I doubt it, though.)

-- [[User:Dtgriscom|Dtgriscom]] ([[User talk:Dtgriscom|talk]]) 10:25, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

:The transcript on GitHub prefixes narration by `;` which turns it into a comment that is not parsed by LOGO. It would be cool to have this read out loud like it seems to have been designed: "Bob Ross" talking about painting while "painting" using logo. It'd be something like "Narrate, execute code snippet, narrate, excute code" until the entire picture is done. I noticed, for example, that he talks about drawing a "happy little tree" in between a section of code that, surprise, draws a tree. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.222.151|162.158.222.151]] 11:23, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

::Good thing to notice, and now we have two topics:

:: 1. What the transcription page should show. Big, big bonus points if we could have a transcript that, when fed to a "text to speech" tool, would produce exactly what the comic's audio track includes (e.g. no "semicolon Happy Little Tree here")

:: 2. What the output animations should include. What if you'd see a blank canvas, and hear the AI-Bob-Ross narrate, and then watch the code execute and draw? Then, more narration, then more code executing? You could even have the code sections be read out loud, and see the results in real time, It would take a lot of patience to watch the results. (I ain't gonna do it, though...)

:: -- [[User:Dtgriscom|Dtgriscom]] ([[User talk:Dtgriscom|talk]]) 12:14, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

One line in the narrative, "I read in the L.A. Times this morning that 42,000 Mazda cars were recalled because of a spider problem. Really makes you think doesn’t it?" could be refering to https://xkcd.com/2600/, namely "Will I have to start worrying about spiders after Tuesday?"

[[Special:Contributions/162.158.222.39|162.158.222.39]] 13:55, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

Talk:2594: Consensus Time

2022-03-16T17:53:21Z

162.158.159.11: Proposal to increase scope of proposal

What if there's, like, a group of trolls that all press the button at like 9:00 pm? [[User:Sarah the Pie(yes, the food)|Sarah the Pie(yes, the food)]] ([[User talk:Sarah the Pie(yes, the food)|talk]]) 17:20, 16 March 2022 (UTC)

Probably a reference to the Senate DST thing[[Special:Contributions/172.70.210.237|172.70.210.237]] 17:46, 16 March 2022 (UTC)

I feel like this could supersede time-zones as well, by weighting reports by relative longitude, so you could have a kind of continuous change in time as you travel. I'm sure this wouldn't cause any problems at all, since every single computer would effectively be in its own mini time-zone, with its clock going at a slightly different speed, and both current time and speed of time would vary continuously with position.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.159.11|162.158.159.11]] 17:53, 16 March 2022 (UTC)

419: Forks and Spoons

2022-03-11T08:33:52Z

162.158.159.11: /* Explanation */ p.p.

{{comic
| number = 419
| date = May 5, 2008
| title = Forks and Spoons
| image = forks and spoons.png
| titletext = Their biggest mistake was bringing Rachael Ray and Emeril to tour the lab and sign off on the project. That's when Spielberg caught wind of it.
}}

==Explanation==
The comic shows scientists testing a new technology to blend species.

They show that their new technology allows them to cross a {{w|spork}} (an even mix between a spoon and a fork) with a spoon to make a new implement that is three-quarters spoon and one-quarter fork. By blending these new fork-spork hybrids and their results together, the scientists could create any mix between a spoon and a fork. (Obviously, regular genetics cannot apply to non-living items such as metal cutlery).

In the second panel, the amounts of spoon and fork are shown with fractions: the number on the left representing the amount of fork, and the right the amount of spoon. The numbers for the cross product below are arrived at by summing each side and dividing by two: (0+1/2)/2 = 1/4 and (1+1/2)/2 = 3/4.

The breeding scheme between the second and the third panel shows at the top how to create a spork from a spoon and a fork, then how this spork could both be bred with either a spoon (as in panel two) or a fork (as shown in the lower right part).

The {{w|binary}} "fork-spoon spectrum" in between the third and fourth panels shows the complete spectrum of sporks from fork to spoon with some of the intermediate steps labeled, the numbers representing how much fork each contains. Since it is a binary spectrum, only fractions with a denominator that is a power of 2 will be possible, i.e. 2^n with n any integer. So in the middle is a spork with 1/2 fork, in between the spork and the spoon there is only 1/4 fork, and in between that and the spoon only 1/8 fork, and so on. Also 3/4 fork is marked, whereas 3/8, 5/8, and 7/8 fork is only indicated on the ruler by small marks. For instance, they could breed a 3/8 fork-spork by mixing a 1/4 fork-spork with a spork.

The comic begins like standard sci-fi fare, where amoral scientists request funding from mysterious benefactors. The dialogue of "You're toying with powerful forces here" and "We know what we're doing" is a {{tvtropes|TheseAreThingsManWasNotMeantToKnow|classic trope}}, foreshadowing that things will soon {{tvtropes|GoneHorriblyWrong|go horribly wrong}}. It inevitably leads to the humorous incongruity of a sentient spoon-fork-hybrid on a murderous rampage, which is impossible in real life.{{Citation needed}}

{{w|Rachael Ray}} and {{w|Emeril}}, mentioned in the title text, are celebrity chefs, and {{w|Steven Spielberg}} is a famous movie director. The joke seems to be that if the laboratory hadn't hired the two renowned chefs, Spielberg wouldn't have heard about the project and would not have made a movie about it - in which the two scientists are killed off horribly (it is probably the scientist from the first panel, [[Megan]], and her friend, [[Cueball]], or the actors hired to portray them in the film). The plot in the comic is very similar to the story in Spielberg's ''{{W|Jurassic Park (film)|Jurassic Park}}''.

==Transcript==
:Megan: A spoon crossed with a fork is a spork.
:Off-panel Megan's voice: Our lab has successfully crossed a spork with a spoon. [Diagram showing the fractions of fork and spoon in each item.]
:[Chart showing possible combinations of spoons a forks.]
:Megan, facing audience: With your funding, we could create hybrids in proportions corresponding to ''any binary fraction''.
:[Fork-Spoon Spectrum.]
:Audience member: You're toying with powerful forces here.
:Megan: We know what we're doing.
:Two weeks later:
:[Picture of a destroyed lab, with a scientific poster and lab equipment. Two dead bodies, blood everywhere, and a spoon-fork hybrid hopping away can be seen.]
:''Hop hop hop.''

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Jurassic Park]]
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]]
[[Category:Comics with blood]]

2351: Standard Model Changes

2022-02-28T18:57:33Z

162.158.159.11: /* Table */ Spare word removed. Comma added for pace (coincidentally in the same place).

{{comic
| number = 2351
| date = August 26, 2020
| title = Standard Model Changes
| image = standard_model_changes.png
| titletext = Bugs are spin 1/2 particles, unless it's particularly windy.
}}

==Explanation==
In this comic strip, Randall is proposing some changes to the {{w|Standard Model}} of particle physics. The currently accepted particle table has 17 slots: 12 fermions (first 3 columns of the table - six quarks [top two rows] and six leptons [bottom two rows]) and five bosons (last two columns of the table - four gauge bosons [left hand column] and one scalar boson [right hand column]).

[[File:1024px-Standard Model of Elementary Particles.svg.png|500px]]

This comic consists of a normal version of the particle table to which Randall has made substantial alternations and additions, which are drawn in red over the black and white table.

While the Standard Model's predictions are very well supported by experiments, the physics community has identified several flaws in it (e.g. it lacks any particles to convey gravity), and so lots of research is committed to searching for "{{w|Physics beyond the Standard Model}}". Some of Randall's changes are sort of intended to fill some of those gaps, but for the most part they are nonsensical (although not quite as much as the [[2301: Turtle Sandwich Standard Model|Turtle Sandwich Standard Model]] or [[1621: Fixion|Fixion]]).

=== Quarks ===

Randall's proposed changes to the quarks are relatively restrained -- he proposes only that the "strange" and "charm" names should be moved to bosons, while the strange quark should be renamed the "right quark" and the charm quark should be renamed the "left quark", so that all quarks will have "ordinary" directional names.

In reality, the original quark model proposed by Murray Gell-Mann included only three quarks, with the "strange" quark so named because the particles that contained them were ''strangely'' long-lived relative to their masses. The "charm" quark was so named when it was proposed because it brought a "charming" symmetry to the weak interaction, which we now understand is because it completes the second generation of quarks, along with the strange quark. When a third generation of quarks was proposed, they were called top and bottom by analogy to the up and down quarks (which are so named because of the {{w|isospin}} they carry), though the names 'truth' and 'beauty' were briefly in competition, and colliders working with B quarks are sometimes even now called "{{w|B-factory|Beauty Factories}}".

Randall likely applied "left" to "strange" and "right" to "charm" simply due to the placement of the particles in the table: In the American English vernacular, the phrase "left and right" is more common than "right and left", in the same way that "top and bottom" is more common than "bottom and top", and "up and down" is more common than "down and up". So he placed "left" above "right" to match the ordering of the other quark generations.

=== Leptons ===
While Randall leaves two leptons, the electron and the muon, untouched, he has opted to discard the tau lepton entirely. Each of these three leptons has an associated neutrino; Randall has decided to discard all but the electron neutrino, as he has decided that three are too many neutrino types. He has also replaced the standard symbol for the neutrino, the Greek letter ν (nu), with a capital N, in order to avoid confusion between ν and v, the two letters appearing similar, though this might further be confused with nucleon (particle physicists commonly use N to denote "proton or neutron", and excited states of nucleons are given the symbol N, followed by the mass in parenthesis<ref>https://pdglive.lbl.gov/ParticleGroup.action?init=0&node=BXXX005</ref>) or possibly even with the symbol for Nitrogen (the atomic nucleus with 7 protons and a similar number of neutrons, encountered more in radiology/chemistry as an N, 7N, 14N, N+, N2 and other variations).

In place of one of the neutrinos, Randall has introduced a new elementary particle that supposedly explains the existence of dark matter. The nature of dark matter is one of the most famous mysteries in physics: galaxies seem to have much higher gravity than their detectable matter would account for, yet this mysterious form of matter does not seem to interact with other matter in any other detectable way. Neutrinos are known for rarely interacting with other matter, due to their lack of charge, which could justify Randall's decision, but even the little interaction that neutrinos have with the weak force rules them out as candidates for dark matter. Hypothetical {{w|sterile neutrino}}s could be the source of dark matter, and also for the small but nonzero masses of the familiar neutrinos, but no such particles have yet been identified. Together with the arrow, the only one in the comic that points at the particle's ''box'' rather than the symbol, the triumphant exclamation "We found it!" probably means that the new "dark matter" entry in the table ''is'' the dark matter particle.

=== Bosons ===

Randall proposes several new names for existing particles. First, that the {{w|W and Z bosons}} should be renamed to the charm and strange bosons, respectively (taking the names from the quarks), and second, that the {{w|Higgs boson}} should be named the {{w|Vin Diesel}} boson, as he considers {{w|Peter Higgs}}'s name to be too boring to be given to a particle. The Higgs boson is known in the popular press (to the chagrin of many physicists, including Higgs) as "{{w|The God Particle (book)|The God Particle}}", which is certainly a flashy name, but which itself was changed by the editors of the book of the same name from its authors' originally-intended title: The ''Goddamn'' Particle.

Randall inserts the graviton, a purely theoretical particle, noting that its inclusion is "probably fine". While the graviton has never been observed, it is occasionally included in diagrams of the standard model to show its hypothetical place, which likely convinced Randall to do the same. Here it is shown below the Higgs boson, implying to be a scalar boson, though it is theoretically a 2nd-order tensor boson (with a spin of 2) and is usually given its own column.

Randall also proposes that a false decoy "Magic" particle should be added to the Standard Model, to trip up promoters of {{w|quantum mysticism}}. Presumably, anyone who invokes this particle to support their claims will expose themselves as a fraud, much as cartographers will print {{w|trap street}}s on their maps to catch plagiarism.

Finally, Randall adds "Cool bugs" as a fundamental particle, with an explanation of "Very small bugs are fundamental particles now".

The title text builds on the "Cool bugs" entry, joking about what spin bugs would have if they were a fundamental particle.

==Table==
The title text references {{w|Spin (physics)|quantum spin number}}, a property of particles in physics that bears similarities to actual spinning. Although the cool bugs particle is put in the {{w|scalar boson}} group with spin 0, Randall states that it instead has spin 1/2, like a fermion. It is thus not clear whether cool bugs obey the {{w|Pauli exclusion principle}} or not. Unique among elemental particles, cool bugs are affected by wind, which can change their spin.

Changes highlighted in red.
{| class="wikitable"
! Particle !! Symbol !! Actual particle !! Actual symbol !! Explanation
|-
| Up quark || u || {{w|Up quark}} || u || No change.
|-
| Left quark || l || {{w|Charm quark}} || c || Randall is continuing the pattern of naming quarks after directions. This wouldn't work well with [[474: Turn-On]] unfortunately. The charm quark was named due to bringing a "charming symmetry" to the weak interaction, completing the second generation of quarks.
|-
| Top quark || t || {{w|Top quark}} || t || No change.
|-
| Gluon || g || {{w|Gluon}} || g || No change.
|-
| Vin Diesel boson || V || {{w|Higgs boson}} || H || {{w|Peter Higgs}} is a British theoretical physicist who predicted the existence of scalar bosons, particles with spin 0. Randall suggests that the Higgs boson needs a flashier name and proposes to rechristen it the "Vin Diesel boson", named after American actor {{w|Vin Diesel|Mark Sinclair}}, who has nothing to do with physics.{{Citation needed}}
|-
| Down quark || d || {{w|Down quark}} || d || No change.
|-
| Right quark || r || {{w|Strange quark}} || s || Randall is suggesting this name to match the charm (now left) quark. Particles containing this quark were considered "strangely long-lived".
|-
| Bottom quark || b || {{w|Bottom quark}} || b || No change.
|-
| Photon || γ || {{w|Photon}} || γ || No change.
|-
| Graviton || G || {{w|Graviton}} (Hypothetical) || G || The graviton is a hypothetical particle which mediates the force of {{w|gravity}}. Randall is taking a very breezy point of view, stating that it would probably be fine to include it, even though its existence has not been confirmed yet. It is not recommended to act this way, though many do.{{Citation needed}}
|-
| Electron || e || {{w|Electron}} || e || No change.
|-
| Muon || µ || {{w|Muon}} || µ || No change.
|-
| (no one needs Tau leptons) || (none) || {{w|Tau (particle)|Tau lepton}} || τ || The tau lepton is a lepton with average lifetime much shorter than the electron or the muon. Randall apparently considers this particle redundant and states "No one needs tau leptons".
|-
| Strange boson || S || {{w|Z boson}} || Z || The Z boson is one of two particles (three, counting the W boson's different charges) that mediate the {{w|weak force}}, named for having '''z'''ero charge. Randall suggests the strange quark's name would be better suited for this particle.
|-
| Magic || M || (none) || (none) || Randall suggests a "magic" particle as a decoy to trip up {{rw|quantum_woo|quantum woo}} promoters in order to expose them as the frauds they are.
|-
| Electron neutrino || Ne || {{w|Electron neutrino}} || νe || Randall is annoyed by the similarity of the Greek lowercase nu (ν) and the lowercase V (v). Interestingly Randall leaves the "electron" part of its name and the subscript E of its symbol, even though he has eliminated the other neutrinos.
|-
| (too many neutrinos) || (none) || {{w|Muon neutrino}} || νµ || Randall thinks one neutrino is enough, and to be honest, who can argue with him?
|-
| Dark Matter || D || {{w|Tau neutrino}} || ντ || {{w|Dark matter}} is thought to make up most of the universe's matter. Randall claims to have found it; replacing the tau neutrino with it. This could easily be the most abundant particle in the universe.
|-
| Charm boson || C || {{w|W boson}} || W || The other mediator of the '''w'''eak force. Randall is suggesting that it would suit the charm name more than the charm quark.
|-
| Cool bugs || 🐞 || (none) || (none) || Randall has decreed that extremely small bugs are fundamental particles. Bugs in reality are several orders of magnitude larger than any of the other known particles.{{Citation needed}} They would not make a good elementary particle{{Citation needed}} for a number of extremely obvious reasons{{Citation needed}} and would make physics pretty frightening to some people.{{Citation needed}} Randall uses the insect emoji as the symbol of the cool bugs particle.
|}

==Transcript==
:[A chart of the Standard Model of particle physics with red marks all over the chart.] 
:Changes I would make to the Standard Model

:[In reading order:] 
:u up, connected to the down quark below. 
:c charm, connected to the strange quark below, in faded gray with a red l left written over it. Above is a red note with an arrow pointing to the :charm quark. The note reads, 
:Consistent quark names (use "strange" and "charm" for bosons) 
:t top, connected to the bottom quark below. 
:g gluon 
:H Higgs, in faded gray with a red V Vin Diesel writted over it. To the right is a red note with an arrow pointing to the Higgs boson, which reads, 
:With all respect to Peter H, the Higgs boson needs a flashier name 

:d down, connected to the up quark above. 
:s strange, connected to the charm quark above, in faded gray with a red r right written over it. 
:b bottom, connected to the top quark above. 
:γ photon 
:G graviton, in red with a red border. To the right is a red note with an arrow pointing to the graviton, which reads, 
:Let's just include it, it's probably fine 

:e electron, connected to the electron neutrino below. 
:µ muon, connected in faded gray to the muon neutrino below, with red rounded corners cutting it off. 
:τ tau, connected to the tau neutrino below, in faded gray with a red scribble over it. On the tau lepton is a red note which reads, 
:No one needs tau leptons 
:Z Z boson, with the Z symbol and the Z in the name in faded gray. The symbol has a red s written over it and the Z in the name is scribbled out in :red. The word strange is written in red between the symbol and the name. 
:M magic, in red with a red border. To the right is a red note with an arrow pointing to the magic particle, which reads, 
:Decoy particle for people making nonsense claims about "quantum" philosophy stuff 

:v e electron neutrino, with the e as a subscript of the v, connected to the electron above. The v is in faded gray and a red N with a circle around it is written on it. Below is a red note with an arrow pointing to the electron neutrino, which reads, 
:Fix neutrino symbol so I stop mixing up ν and v 
:v μ muon neutrino, with the µ as a subscript of the v, connected to the muon above, in faded gray with a red scribble over it. On the muon neutrino is a red note which reads, 
:Too many neutrinos 
:v τ tau neutrino, with the τ as a subscript of the v, connected to the tau lepton above, in faded gray. Written over it is a D dark matter in red with a red border. Below the tau neutrino is a red note with an arrow pointing to it, which reads, 
:We found it! 
:W W boson, with the W symbol and the W in the name in faded gray. The symbol has a red c written over it and the W in the name is scribbled out in red. The word charm is written in red between the symbol and the name. 
:🐞 cool bugs, in red with a red border. To the right is a red note with an arrow pointing to cool bugs, which reads, 
:Very small bugs are fundamental particles now

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Physics]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]]

2578: Sword Pull

2022-02-08T14:43:33Z

162.158.159.11: /* Explanation */ Correcting markup. Didn't like the run-on of the other statement, either.

{{comic
| number = 2578
| date = February 7, 2022
| title = Sword Pull
| image = sword_pull.png
| titletext = Merlin really shouldn't leave his dirt bike lying around.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a DIRT BIKE WITH UNBREAKING II AND CURSE OF VANISHING (I SHOULD REALLY LEARN S.G.A.)- Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

A surprised [[Cueball]] walks up to a stone where apparently a sword is stuck in almost to the hilt, embedded in a stone much like a particularly well-known fable in the legends of {{w|King Arthur}}. This may mean this sword is called {{w|Excalibur}}. Usually the narrative is that the one who can free the significant sword becomes king of England (or, technically, Britain), see for instance Disney's {{w|The Sword in the Stone (1963 film)|The Sword in the Stone}} — or the scene as featured in [[1521: Sword in the Stone]], where [[Megan]] decides to return the sword back into the stone after reading about {{w|England}} on Wikipedia. (It has been commented that the one who managed to embed the sword in the stone in the first place may have had the greater skill and/or strength.)

Cueball rises to the challenge and stands atop the stone, for leverage, and pulls hard to yank it almost out of the stone. With a surprise even greater than before, he finds that the pulling of the sword merely starts a motor within the stone and, almost immediately, the whole assemblage starts moving to the right with Cueball still stood upon it. Having failed to fully remove the sword from the stone, after he releases it the sword is retracted back to its original position inside the now moving stone.

According to the title text the sword is actually the {{w|rope start|rope starter}} for Merlin's {{w|dirt bike}}. {{w|Merlin}}, a wizard, is typically known as King Arthur's mystical advisor. The title text mentions that Merlin really should not just let his dirt bike lie around, indicating that this is a common occurance and has caused problems before. Since rocks are usually not dirt bikes in disguise,{{citation needed}} [[Randall]] may be describing this literally, as in a stone-bike that travels through the dirt, as it appears to represent in the last panel.

Since Merlin is an ancient person, if this comic is set today then maybe it is not really a stone, but rather a pile of dirt (sediment) that has covered Merlin's old dirt bike. Of course rope starters (and engines) were not invented in Merlin's time. But he was a great wizard who famously had a complicated relationship with time and prophecy, so we can only conjecture what has been possible for him.

Some similarly-sized stones, namely {{w|Sailing stones|sailing stones}}, do move spontaneously with up to 0.3 km/h in precise conditions. However, the stone in the comic appears to be moving at a higher speed, and sailing stones require no rope starting.{{citation needed}}

==Transcript==
:[Cueball walks towards a large stone on the ground from which the hilt of a sword is protruding. The ground he walks on is uneven, with small plants growing and small stones lying on the ground.]
:Cueball: ??

:[Cueball stands on the stone and attempts to pull the sword out of the stone using both hands and leaning a bit back away from the sword.]

:[Cueball manages to pull the sword partially out of the stone, still using both hands, and now he is almost standing in full height, but still leaning a bit back. Both he and the sword is vibrating from the effort, as indicated by several sets of two lines around the sword and Cueball's arms. The pull gives off a loud sound, and also a snoring sound comes because of the pull. And three small lines above the right part of the stone indicated that other sounds are coming from the stone]
:Pull: <big><big>''Yank!''</big></big>
:Sword: ''Zzz<big>z</big>z''
:Stone: Put put put
:Stone: Brrrrr<big>rr</big>

:[Cueball is still holding on to the sword, with the tip still inside the stone. But he is not pulling anymore and is now looking down on the stone beneath him. There are now several lines from both sides of the stone indicating noises coming from the stone, which now is written on both sides of Cueball on the stone.]
:Cueball: ?? ??
:Stone:Rrr<big>r<big>rrrrrrrr</big></big>rr

:[Cueball has released the sword which has then returned to the original position deep in the stone. The stone is now clearly moving to the right of the panel, with Cueball on top of it. He is looking behind him and holding his arms out to the side to keep his balance. The patch where the stone lay to start is dark. Four large lines behind the stone indicates how it is moving. The stone is already partially outside the right edge of the panel. The sound from the stone is floating behind the stone as it moves to the right]
:Stone: Rrrr<big>rrrrrr<big>r</big>rr</big>

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Fiction]]

2578: Sword Pull

2022-02-08T14:41:12Z

162.158.159.11: /* Explanation */ Had left it with two 'stuck's, better reading to change one. Trying this.

{{comic
| number = 2578
| date = February 7, 2022
| title = Sword Pull
| image = sword_pull.png
| titletext = Merlin really shouldn't leave his dirt bike lying around.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a DIRT BIKE WITH UNBREAKING II AND CURSE OF VANISHING (I SHOULD REALLY LEARN S.G.A.)- Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

A surprised [[Cueball]] walks up to a stone where apparently a sword is stuck in almost to the hilt, embedded in a stone much like a particularly well-known fable in the legends of {{w|King Arthur}} which may mean this sword is called {{w|Excalibur}}. Usually the narrative is that the one who can free the significant sword becomes king of England (or, technically, Britain), see for instance Disney's {{w|The Sword in the Stone (1963 film)|The Sword in the Stone}} &mdash or the scene as featured in [[1521: Sword in the Stone]], where [[Megan]] decides to return the sword back into the stone after reading about {{w|England}} on Wikipedia. (It has been commented that the one who managed to embed the sword in the stone in the first place may have had the greater skill and/or strength.)

Cueball rises to the challenge and stands atop the stone, for leverage, and pulls hard to yank it almost out of the stone. With a surprise even greater than before, he finds that the pulling of the sword merely starts a motor within the stone and, almost immediately, the whole assemblage starts moving to the right with Cueball still stood upon it. Having failed to fully remove the sword from the stone, after he releases it the sword is retracted back to its original position inside the now moving stone.

According to the title text the sword is actually the {{w|rope start|rope starter}} for Merlin's {{w|dirt bike}}. {{w|Merlin}}, a wizard, is typically known as King Arthur's mystical advisor. The title text mentions that Merlin really should not just let his dirt bike lie around, indicating that this is a common occurance and has caused problems before. Since rocks are usually not dirt bikes in disguise,{{citation needed}} [[Randall]] may be describing this literally, as in a stone-bike that travels through the dirt, as it appears to represent in the last panel.

Since Merlin is an ancient person, if this comic is set today then maybe it is not really a stone, but rather a pile of dirt (sediment) that has covered Merlin's old dirt bike. Of course rope starters (and engines) were not invented in Merlin's time. But he was a great wizard who famously had a complicated relationship with time and prophecy, so we can only conjecture what has been possible for him.

Some similarly-sized stones, namely {{w|Sailing stones|sailing stones}}, do move spontaneously with up to 0.3 km/h in precise conditions. However, the stone in the comic appears to be moving at a higher speed, and sailing stones require no rope starting.{{citation needed}}

==Transcript==
:[Cueball walks towards a large stone on the ground from which the hilt of a sword is protruding. The ground he walks on is uneven, with small plants growing and small stones lying on the ground.]
:Cueball: ??

:[Cueball stands on the stone and attempts to pull the sword out of the stone using both hands and leaning a bit back away from the sword.]

:[Cueball manages to pull the sword partially out of the stone, still using both hands, and now he is almost standing in full height, but still leaning a bit back. Both he and the sword is vibrating from the effort, as indicated by several sets of two lines around the sword and Cueball's arms. The pull gives off a loud sound, and also a snoring sound comes because of the pull. And three small lines above the right part of the stone indicated that other sounds are coming from the stone]
:Pull: <big><big>''Yank!''</big></big>
:Sword: ''Zzz<big>z</big>z''
:Stone: Put put put
:Stone: Brrrrr<big>rr</big>

:[Cueball is still holding on to the sword, with the tip still inside the stone. But he is not pulling anymore and is now looking down on the stone beneath him. There are now several lines from both sides of the stone indicating noises coming from the stone, which now is written on both sides of Cueball on the stone.]
:Cueball: ?? ??
:Stone:Rrr<big>r<big>rrrrrrrr</big></big>rr

:[Cueball has released the sword which has then returned to the original position deep in the stone. The stone is now clearly moving to the right of the panel, with Cueball on top of it. He is looking behind him and holding his arms out to the side to keep his balance. The patch where the stone lay to start is dark. Four large lines behind the stone indicates how it is moving. The stone is already partially outside the right edge of the panel. The sound from the stone is floating behind the stone as it moves to the right]
:Stone: Rrrr<big>rrrrrr<big>r</big>rr</big>

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Fiction]]

Talk:2577: Sea Chase

2022-02-05T03:07:00Z

162.158.159.11:

The flag on the lefthand ship (port-side, if you will :P) looks like the [Rising Sun Flag](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rising_Sun_Flag) that the Japanese Navy uses as its ensign. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.110.147|172.70.110.147]] 02:31, 5 February 2022 (UTC)
:Actually, that the Navy used in 1889 (not uses). [[Special:Contributions/172.70.110.147|172.70.110.147]] 02:31, 5 February 2022 (UTC)
:I reckon it looks more like a Jolly Roger. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.249.87|108.162.249.87]] 02:44, 5 February 2022 (UTC)
::Ah, you're right. I was thinking Union Jack for a minute but thought there were too many streaks. The upper and lower portions of the skull nearly touch the edge of the flag, making it look like something akin to a sunburst. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.114.99|172.70.114.99]] 02:46, 5 February 2022 (UTC)

Okay, I added an initial description for the title text and made a bunch of edits. I'll stop now to let other people get in on the action. :P [[Special:Contributions/172.70.114.99|172.70.114.99]] 02:54, 5 February 2022 (UTC)
:Yeah, I kept edit-conflicting (except the first time, when I ended up just appended to some else's first edit) and I ''think'' I have reached the point where I've unruined everything of everyone else's that I didn't fully intend to change or add to. But it's late (GMT) and I need my sleep so if I've accidentally rushed through some stuff I shouldn't have then please fill your boots and tweak it back (or onwards) to how it should be. G'night! [[Special:Contributions/162.158.159.11|162.158.159.11]] 03:07, 5 February 2022 (UTC)

862: Let Go

2022-02-02T19:30:37Z

162.158.159.11: Undo revision 226364 by 172.69.33.207 (talk) It's explanation, not forwarding. The current forward links will be on the wiki pages, if anyone wants to visit them.

{{comic
| number = 862
| date = February 18, 2011
| title = Let Go
| image = let go.png
| titletext = After years of trying various methods, I broke this habit by pitting my impatience against my laziness. I decoupled the action and the neurological reward by setting up a simple 30-second delay I had to wait through, in which I couldn't do anything else, before any new page or chat client would load (and only allowed one to run at once). The urge to check all those sites magically vanished--and my 'productive' computer use was unaffected.
}}

==Explanation==
It is human nature to lose interest in difficult or boring tasks, and instead do something easier, more interesting or more rewarding in the short term. While procrastination and distraction from more important tasks has always been present, this comic casts a light on the internet and the huge potential for distraction which it provides.

The first two frames in this comic are the set-up, and contain the websites {{w|CNN}} and {{w|Reddit}} and thoughts over the top of them. These types of websites are regularly updated with new content are prime candidates for distraction. The thought bubbles indicate that the reader is fully aware that they shouldn't be looking at these websites, but is unable to stop himself. Even the very rational thought that checking news stories more than once a day is bordering on pointless doesn't seem to stop him.

In the third frame, it starts to look a little different as the screen is not a computer but is in fact the targeting computer from {{w|Luke Skywalker|Luke Skywalker's}} {{w|X-wing}}. At this point it becomes clear that there are ''far'' more important tasks at hand, namely flying the craft. Even then, Luke has an internal conflict and considers checking {{w|Facebook}}, but mentally checks himself, and to prevent himself from further compulsive browsing shuts down the system. The thought bubble at the bottom is one that is probably familiar to many people (especially students), where he realizes that he has to turn off the computer to actually concentrate on the important task.

In the fourth frame, we finally get the movie reference from {{w|Star Wars}} as {{w|Princess Leia}} and one of the Rebel Alliance's officers are gathered around the holographic table that allows them to follow the battle. In the movie, Luke turns off his targeting computer because he uses the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Force_%28Star_Wars%29 force] to fire the torpedoes at the right time. But in this comic, Luke turns off the computer because he keeps getting distracted by Reddit and CNN. When they ask whether he is alright, he responds in the way most people would who have nearly been caught wasting time on the internet. This is however a quote of what he actually replies in the movie.

See the [http://youtu.be/DOFgFAcGHQc Destruction of Death Star] scene on YouTube. The ''Let Go'' remark from {{w|Obi-Wan Kenobi}} that had given the title to this comic occurs about [http://youtu.be/DOFgFAcGHQc?t=2m two minutes into the clip]. Though here it is a reference to let go of refreshing websites...

The headlines on CNN read 'Bees?', 'Where is {{w|Oman}}?', and 'iReport (we mean you, that is.)'.

The headline ''Bees?'' could be a reference to {{w|Cards Against Humanity}}. One of the white cards says exactly that. It could also just be a question to the picture above - if it was bees following the guy.

The headline ''Where is Oman?'' is below a map where land is white. It shows Cyprus, Northern Egypt and the Middle East with the Mediterranean Sea, the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf (seas are grey). Oman is not on this map as it is not situated on the Persian Gulf; it's on the Gulf of Oman and on the Arabian Sea, both of which can be considered parts of the Indian Ocean.

The title text is a serious solution to a procrastination problem that we see in the comic, [http://blog.xkcd.com/2011/02/18/distraction-affliction-correction-extensio/ later explained] to take the form of simply rebooting the computer. Randall just used the honor system, rather than enforcing this behavior with a program, but he solicited suggestions from his commenters for browser addons, for people who could not simply reboot their computers for whatever reason. At the time, a commenter suggested DelaySites, but that addon is no longer available; nowadays, Mozilla recommends [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/leechblock-ng/?src=search LeechBlock NG] (also [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/leechblock-ng/blaaajhemilngeeffpbfkdjjoefldkok?hl=en-US available for Chrome]), which can be configured to implement the loading delay or block websites entirely, with additional parameters for adjusting time limits for browsing and the time of day and days of the week that each behavior is active.

==Transcript==
:[Reddit page.]
:Luke (thinking): I shouldn't be looking at Reddit. Why can't I stop?

:[CNN page.]
:Luke (thinking): Refreshing CNN again. Do news stories so affect my life that I benefit from checking them more than once a day?

:[Shutdown screen.]
:Luke (thinking): I should at least check Faceb... no. Screw it. I can't do my job when I'm distracting myself every five minutes like this.

:[Cueball and Princess Leia looking at a battlefield screen.]
:Cueball: His computer's off. Luke - You've switched off your targeting computer. What's wrong?
:Luke: Nothing. I'm all right.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Star Wars]]
[[Category:Internet]]

1205: Is It Worth the Time?

2022-01-27T11:51:52Z

162.158.159.11: /* Transcript */ added two missing words

{{comic
| number = 1205
| date = April 29, 2013
| title = Is It Worth the Time?
| image = is it worth the time.png
| titletext = Don't forget the time you spend finding the chart to look up what you save. And the time spent reading this reminder about the time spent. And the time trying to figure out if either of those actually make sense. Remember, every second counts toward your life total, including these right now.
}}

==Explanation==

The comic is a straightforward chart showing the amount of work (time) one can dedicate to making a task more efficient, in order not to spend more time optimizing the task than the total time saved. This may illustrate the fact that computer scientists often try to optimize tasks they are likely to perform again in the future - a common goal in their work - even though the work needed for that optimization can itself prove much longer than the time saved when doing the task again; this was previously referenced in [[974: The General Problem]].

E.g. if you do some task every week once, and you are able to save 1 minute of time by doing some preparatory work (e.g. build or buy a tool), you can spend 4 hours doing this preparatory work, and you will, across five-years time, come even. Any less time spent doing the preparatory work, and you will profit from it.

The calculation on which the chart is based, for this example:
:5 years / 1 week = 260 occurrences of the task
:260 occurrences × 1 saved minute = 260 saved minutes = 4.3 hours

Therefore, 1 minute saved every week would, across five years, save over 4 hours of your time.

Or, in algebraic form:
:Total time shaved off across 5 years = 5 × "How often you do the task every year" × "How much time you shave off"

The grayed out areas represent times which are either impossible to save, or where, if you could save this much (say 6 hours on one day), it would almost be worth it no matter how long it takes. For instance it is impossible to shave 1 hour off a task if you perform it more than 24 times a day – the total time shaved off per day would amount to more than one day, and thus you could not have performed the task this many times in a day to begin with. On the other hand, 6 hours shaved off for one day is not impossible, but the net benefit would be so great, that it would very quickly earn itself back again almost no matter how long it takes. If the assumption is that a work day is 8 hours, then even if it took 2 years to do the improvement, you would already have earned it in after less than five years in total - both with the 2 years to make it and the time it takes to save 2 years (2.67 years in this case for at total of 4.67 years).

The comic assumes that equal amounts of time have equal value, which is not necessarily true. For an extreme example, consider programming a telephone with speed dials to be used when there is a fire or to call an ambulance or the police. This may take longer than the time saved when the call is placed, but it is worthwhile to spend a large amount of free time to save any time during an emergency.

Of course, all these conclusions presume you are the only one that benefits. If the savings can be easily adapted by others - for example, computer code for a program that automates a task for hundreds of people - then the amount of time that can be spent increases. Indeed, in some cases, when optimizing for others, spending far more time than they save can be worth it, if the people you're working for are paying you for the product and the time savings keep them happy and likely to keep paying you. And if what you're optimizing is a business process that's unlikely to go out of date with your employer's current tools ''or'' its current products, then you may have more than 5 years to amortize the improvement.

The title text points out the time you spend studying this comic detracts from your overall efficiency, and concludes that maximizing efficiency would require optimal use of every second and finishes very philosophically by pointing out that every second you use counts towards your life total - also those you spend reading and/or editing a wiki about a web comic...

The comic derives humor from the absurd conclusions of hyper-efficiency, which have been examined in [http://what-if.xkcd.com/22/ ''What if?'' - Cost of Pennies], and also in [[951: Working]] which is devoted to insufficient economy, where the money saved is compared to the time wasted while looking for a bargain. In [[1319: Automation]] Randall investigates how bad it really goes when you decide to automate a program to save you time... See also the [[:Category:Time management|Time management category]].

==Transcript==

{{incomplete transcript}}

:[Above the frame is written the following text:]
:How long can you work on making a routine task more efficient before you're spending more time than you save?
:(across five years)

:[The rest of the the comic is given in a tabular format. At the top of the table is how often you do the task, with six time increments underneath, and then at the side is written How much time do you shave off at the leftmost part of the page, with 9 lengths of time to the left. The empty fields in the calendar are shaded dark gray.]
:[The first row is for 1 second, where the table values are 1 day (for 50 per day), 2 hours (for 5 per day), 30 minutes (for daily), 4 minutes (for weekly), 1 minute (for monthly), and 5 seconds (for yearly).]
:[The second row is for 5 seconds, where the table values are 5 days (for 50 per day), 12 hours (for 5 per day), 2 hours (for daily), 21 minutes (for weekly), 5 minutes (for monthly), and 25 seconds (for yearly).]
:[The third row is for 30 seconds, where the table values are 4 weeks (for 50 per day), 3 days (for 5 per day), 12 hours (for daily), 2 hours (for weekly), 30 minutes (for monthly), and 2 minutes (for yearly).]
:[The fourth row is for 1 minute, where the table values are 8 weeks (for 50 per day), 6 days (for 5 per day), 1 day (for daily), 4 hours (for weekly), 1 hour (for monthly), and 5 minutes (for yearly).]
:[The fifth row is for 5 minutes, where the table values are 9 months (for 50 per day), 4 weeks (for 5 per day), 6 days (for daily), 21 hours (for weekly), 5 hours (for monthly), and 25 minutes (for yearly).]
:[The sixth row is for 30 minutes, where the table values are greyed out (for 50 per day), 6 months (for 5 per day), 5 weeks (for daily), 5 days (for weekly), 1 day (for monthly), and 2 hours (for yearly).]
:[The seventh row is for 1 hour, where the table values are greyed out (for 50 per day), 10 months (for 5 per day), 2 months (for daily), 10 days (for weekly), 2 days (for monthly), and 5 hours (for yearly).]
:[The eighth row is for 6 hours, where the table values are greyed out (for 50 per day, 5 per day and daily), 2 months (for weekly), 2 weeks (for monthly), and 1 day (for yearly).]
:[The ninth and final row is for 1 day, where the table values are greyed out (for 50 per day, 5 per day, daily and weekly), 8 weeks (for monthly), and 5 days (for yearly).]

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Math]]
[[Category:Time management]]

2570: Captain Picard Tea Order

2022-01-22T18:18:01Z

162.158.159.11: Earl GREY. Name (and later title), not colour, so doesn't use regional spelling.

{{comic
| number = 2570
| date = January 19, 2022
| title = Captain Picard Tea Order
| image = captain_picard_tea_order.png
| titletext = We can ask the Earl for his order once he's fully extruded from the dispenser.
}}
*This was the fifth comic to come out after the [[Countdown in header text]] started.

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by A VERY ATTRACTIVE BUT NEWLY FORMED 19th CENTURY BRITISH PRIME MINISTER- Please change this comment when editing this page. There would be way too many additional [[285: Wikipedian Protester|citations needed]] for it to work here. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

Captain {{w|Jean-Luc Picard}} is a primary character in the science fiction TV series ''{{w|Star Trek: The Next Generation}}'', which is focused on the crew of a starship. The ship is equipped with {{w|Replicator (Star Trek)|replicators}}, which can create virtually any object or material requested, including food and drink, and which respond to verbal commands. This comic was released one day after the Jan. 18 debut of Paramount's trailer for Season 2 of {{w|Star Trek: Picard}}: https://youtu.be/c6edxNeyJnw

In the show, Picard's beverage of choice is {{w|Earl Grey tea}}. His habitual method for ordering is to first specify what he wants (tea, in this case), then specify a particular type (Earl Grey), and then give specific instructions for how it is to be served (hot, as opposed to {{w|iced tea}}). Because this is his favored drink, he repeatedly places the exact order "[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaAT6-dY1QI Tea. Earl Grey. Hot.]" The first picture in the strip implies that the display shows each part of the order, and provides a list of options for the next step.

[[Randall]] parodies this repeated order by suggesting [[#Other Words|other words]] that could follow "Tea. Earl Grey.", starting from ones he considers more "normal" moving to those he presumes increasingly "less normal" down a long and winding arrow.

The results of two examples from the normal/less-normal scale are also illustrated: Sticky tea and loud tea. Sticky is kind of obvious, though perhaps not immediately understandable, the loud version is a tea that screams "Teeee..." The vibrating and screeching teacup may be a reference to the various ''Star Trek'' episodes about {{w|tribble}}s, which behave in a similar way in the presence of Klingons.

The very last qualifying addition, the least normal is not a single word but "Tea for him, too." This reinterprets the meaning of the standard introductory words, suggesting that "tea", and "Earl Grey" are separate orders, which implies that he wants the replicator to produce tea, then replicate a human being named Earl Grey (either one of the {{w|Earl Grey|Earls Grey}} or a person surnamed Grey with the given name of Earl), then a second tea to serve to this newly created person. {{w|Earl Grey tea}} is named after the {{w|Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey}}, a 19th century British Prime Minister, and Captain Picard possibly wishes to have said Earl be generated to provide him with company.

In contrast to the often trivial use of a replicator as merely a potentially infinitely versatile vending machine, the comic sets up a number of quite esoteric options, culminating in Earl Grey himself potentially drinking (generic) tea, after both the tea and he have been replicated into existence by Picard.

In the title text, someone tells Picard that they should wait until the Earl has been fully extruded from the dispenser, and ''then'' ascertain what he would actually wish to drink. The presumption is that it could take some time to get a full living person out of the replicator. This sort of operation would be better suited for the holodeck, which has been used to create simulacra of other historical figures, including Stephen Hawking, Albert Einstein, and Sir Isaac Newton, with the limitations that they are mere simulations without their own autonomy and cannot exist beyond the limits of the fixed holotransmitters; though at least two others seem to have gained full sentience, and granted (or be convinced they were granted) physical freedom.

In the various versions of ''{{w|Star Trek}}'', it's established that {{w|Replicator_(Star_Trek)#Origins_and_limitations|replicators aren't capable of producing living things}}, so canonically this version of the order could not be filled.

===Other Words===
{| border =1 width=100% cellpadding=1 class="wikitable"
! Word !! Explanation
|-
| Hot
| A fairly normal word to be used when ordering tea. Although that it even needs specifying is itself a clue that other variations (such as "Iced", below) are available. This is the chosen word of the five visible words Picard is potentially presented with in the first drawing. The act of requesting this is thus illustrated, though not of the appearance of the tea itself.
|-
| Iced
| {{w|Iced tea}} is a typical variation of tea. In the United States, iced tea is a popular alternative to soft drinks and makes up about 85% of all tea consumed.
|-
| Decaf
| Traditional teas (from {{w|Camellia sinensis}}) tend to have caffeine in them. Asking for {{w|Decaffeination|decaffeinated}} tea is not particularly uncommon if the drinker requires it. In the series ''Picard'', set several decades after ''The Next Generation'', Picard does actually order "Tea, Earl Grey, decaf" in [https://tvline.com/2020/01/26/star-trek-picard-premiere-easter-eggs-earl-grey-decaf/ one scene].
|-
| Good
| A normal, subjective term. Most people drinking tea would want it to be good, but to specify it like this would perhaps be strange. This is one of the words in the first drawing, as a listed alternative to Hot.
|-
| Lukewarm
| While this is a temperature that tea can be at, most people (including Picard) do not want their teas to be lukewarm.
|-
| Tasty
| Similar to good, most people would want their tea to be tasty, or at least flavorsome.
|-
| Boiled
| Boiling the water used to make the tea is a common and normal way to increase the flavor and nutrients extracted from the tea leaves, though it is suggested that the actual ideal temperature of hot water is 75-98°C (167-210°F), according to whether it is a light tea or a dark one, and that perhaps it should be sipped at around 65°C/150°F-ish if desired 'hot'.
Having made a tea and ''then'' bringing it back to the boil (especially after adding milk/etc.) may destroy some of the desirable qualities previously imbued. {{w|Masala chai}} is generally boiled, but would never be made with Earl Grey.
|-
| Watery
| Tea is a drink that often involves water, but this perhaps suggests over dilution or under infusion in some way.
|-
| Sour
| Many people do not enjoy a sour taste, which can accompany rot and is a strange thing to specify when ordering Earl Grey tea. Although lemon juice is often an additive used in the same way (but as a complete alternative) to milk.
|-
| Meaty
| Most teas are plant-based. While teas such as {{w|beef tea}} do exist they are more generally regarded as either a soup or a medicine. Furthermore, this kind of tea would be unlikely to be Earl Grey, making this statement less normal.
|-
| Solid
| Tea is usually drunk as a liquid. It would be strange to ask for solid tea, unless there was a situation where it could be rehydrated later.
|-
| Dry
| Tea is a liquid typically made with water and may have milk. A dry version might be either unmade (e.g. tea leaves in their un-infused form) or freeze-dried back into a dehydrated form.
"Dry" can also be used to describe {{w|Dryness (taste)|a "mouth feel"}} in a [https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2f1gxx/eli5_how_can_a_drink_taste_dry/ variety of drinks] ''or'' {{w|Prohibition|enforced alcohol-free scenarios}}. For the latter option, it can assume a default serving with an {{w|Hot_toddy#Variations|alcoholic component}}, or an entirely {{w|Long Island iced tea|alternate basis}} for the beverage, which the request needs to be specify it is not.
This is one of the five words Picard was seen presented with in the first drawing.
|-
| Raw
| This describes tea that has not been "cooked", so it would just be tea made with room-temperature water. {{w|Iced_tea#Sun_tea|Sun tea}} is a form of iced tea that can be brewed by placing tea in a large glass container with water and leaving the container in the sun for hours, resulting in a smoother flavor. A replicator could likely produce sun tea at the same speed as hot tea, making it a viable (if somewhat exotic) choice of preparation.
|-
| Deep-fried
| Tea is not usually deep-fried. But you'll probably {{w|Deep-fried Mars bar|find someone}} who has tried it, [https://www.pitco.com/blog/deep-fried-liquids-trend one way or another].
|-
| Sticky
| Perhaps significantly dehydrated, or thickened with enough of a hydrophilic substance, this would produce something very unlike most teas that would usually be requested. For example, the addition of significant amounts of sugar may lead to a more viscous brew.
This scenario is illustrated to show a clearly messy product that awkwardly sticks to and drips from the replicator as well as Picard.
|-
| Grilled
| Meats and vegetables can be prepared via grilling, as can sandwiches and other foods. However, the grilling process requires that the comestible in question be solid so as not to fall through the grill; beverages are notorious for lacking solidity, and thus are not typically grilled.
|-
| Fossilized
| Fossilizing leaves replaces their biological molecules with minerals. Brewing fossilized tea leaves would dissolve some of those and produce a beverage that resembles mineral water more than tea.
|-
| Magnetic
| Tea is not magnetic. Magnetic metals would have to be added to the tea, which would not be pleasant to drink. In addition, consuming more than one magnetic source may end up squeezing tissues in the intestines or bowels, with potentially lethal consequences. However, this would not be the {{w|Irn-Bru|first drink}} to be supplemented with iron.
|-
| Ballistic
| Usually, the replicated beverage is deposited in a stationary cup, but Picard could ask for it to be dropped or thrown out instead. Unless the good captain has a sufficiently quick reaction time and the dexterity to catch the projectile cup, the tea will likely end up spilled onto the floor or splattered against a wall, making the temperature setting of the tea a moot point.
|-
| Unstable
| This word is often used to refer to radioactive or explosive materials, which hopefully is not a property that would apply to something meant to be ingested. Alternatively, this could imply that the receptacle into which the tea is delivered should be unstable - being unbalanced, or lacking a flat bottom. This is likely to lead to the tea being spilled.
|-
| Blessed
| Tea is a beverage, and it may be strange to ask a machine to create 'blessed' tea. However, if the machine were to use holy water, already blessed by a human, it is [https://www.quora.com/When-does-Holy-water-lose-its-Holiness-If-its-boiled-is-the-resulting-water-vapor-still-considered-Holy-Does-it-lose-its-Holy-property-when-it-transfers-into-a-gas-Is-it-still-Holy-when-it%E2%80%99s-frozen#:~:text=In%20other%20words%2C%20as%20long,else%2C%20it%20remains%20holy%20water.&text=a%20simple%20change-,Never.,He%20is%20faithful possible] for it to remain "blessed" after the water is used to make tea. It is also possible that this is a reference to tea which could be used in [http://www.archbishoplefebvre.com/blog/baptism-can-i-use-any-liquid baptism].
In role-playing games, items can be Blessed, i.e. having greater positive or lesser negative effects. This includes potions, a class of drinks that do not usually include any teas but could contain the "potion of water", which may also, therefore, be the basis of this blessed brew.
|-
| Blurry
| Being blurry is not a normal state for tea to have. Cloudy, on the other hand, is quite normal for certain brews.
|-
| Loud
| While molecules in tea (especially hot tea, and vitally so in an {{w|The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (novel)|Infinite Improbability Drive}}) do move vigorously, this does not usually result in distinct audible effects.
However, as illustrated, it seems the requested cup of tea is produced capable of emitting a high-pitched, high-volume whining sound that entirely dominates the vicinity. It actually appears to somewhat vocalize what it is, Teeeee...
|-
| Virtual
| Virtual tea cannot be produced physically, so asking a physical tea machine for it would be very strange. However, it might be useful on the holodeck, a device that can produce a virtual environment able to be interacted with.
|-
| Intravenous
| This means the tea would be injected directly into the customer's veins, likely a very painful experience if the tea comes out boiling. Instrument of choice would probably be a {{w|Infuser|''tea infuser''}}.
|-
| Expanding
| In a sense, most hot tea is expanding: as the water in the tea evaporates, it becomes much less dense, increasing in "size".
But most people would probably argue that the evaporated water is no longer part of the tea. Water, like most materials, usually expands as it increases in temperature—except between freezing and about 4° C, where it has the unusual property of {{w|Water_%28molecule%29#Density_of_water_and_ice|''contracting slightly''}} as temperature increases. If tea behaves similarly despite the extra dissolved compounds, then "expanding tea" would describe any tea between 4° C and boiling point. Possibly beyond, and explosively so, if {{w|Superheating|superheated}} and then nucleating points are introduced.
On the other hand, this tea may simply be tea spilled on the floor, which could then spread out as it evaporated.
|-
| Ironic
| How tea could be ironic will be a mystery if your culture has no understanding of irony. The irony of the most celebrated Frenchman in science fiction history delighting in a very British beverage is a nice touch of cosmopolitanism. There is also a possibility that the tea will speak or otherwise communicate in ironic terms. While this is very strange and unlikely, it can be considered, given the other scenarios on this list.
|-
| Segmented
| Tea is usually served in a cup. There is the simple explanation that the cup is divided into segments, though this is the cup, and not technically the tea itself. Tea tends to stick together and form one liquid making it hard to segment. Separating the tea into segments would not be possible without some form of an emulsifying gel.
|-
| Verbose
| This describes using lots of words and language, and would not likely be used for tea, because it cannot speak. Command-line computer programs often run in a 'silent' mode without displaying every step of what happens on the screen. Such programs may have a {{w|Verbose mode|''-verbose'' parameter}} that disables the silent mode. As the replicator is run by a computer, the verbose parameter could be applied to the process of tea-making, with the replicator providing an info-dump on the molecular arrangement of the tea, together with the cup of liquid.
|-
| Cursed
| As with "Blessed", above, items can be Cursed in role-playing games, i.e. having greater negative or lesser positive effects; while there are strategic uses for Cursed items, generally the player would prefer uncursed ones (neutral or blessed). Amongst curseable items are potions, a class of consumables that do not usually include any teas but does contain the "potion of water", which may therefore be the cause of this cursed cuppa.
Cursed items have featured in xkcd previously: [[2332: Cursed Chair]], [[2376: Curbside]], and [[:Category:Cursed Connectors]].

"Cursed items" are more vaguely defined in real life, making "cursed tea" something rare. However, it is possible for a drink to be [https://www.quora.com/How-do-I-know-if-my-drink-had-a-witchs-hex-potion hexed].
|-
| Unexpected
| By definition, Picard is asking for tea, expecting it promptly. Perhaps the request for it to be "unexpected" would cause it to be delivered at an unknown time in the future, or to have some alteration.
|-
| Bipedal
| Bipedal organisms have two feet. As tea does not walk, this would be a very strange term to use when describing tea.
|-
| Afraid
| Tea does not have feelings. Although water {{w|Water memory|may remember things}} (at least pseudo-scientifically) or [https://www.quotes.net/mquote/901305 consider some things to be unpleasant].
|-
| Infinite
| The scope of this request is unclear. It could mean endless production (a steady stream of tea, without obvious limits so long as servicing the request remains practical), an instantaneous production of an infinite volume of tea (possibly more immediately shown to be flawed in its method of execution), or tea which will exceed the heat death of the universe. Either could result in an infinitely ''dense'' tea (eventually?), but this may no longer be {{w|No-hair theorem|identifiable as tea}} so might be one of the less practical options, even amongst those on this list.
Indeed, Randall ranks it as the least 'normal', except for just ''one'' further named order.
|-
| Tea for him, too
| {{w|Earl Grey tea|Earl Grey}} is a tea blend. In Star Trek, Jean-Luc Picard often offers tea to other people, so it is unclear why this would be the least normal.
Taken along with the title text, this Replicator order is for "Tea" (not otherwise qualified), a replicated version ''of'' the Earl Grey (one or other of those {{w|Earl Grey|of that name}}, possibly the {{w|Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey|2nd Earl}} for whom the tea blend was supposedly named) and a second such beverage for him to later drink. See more in the [[#Explanation|explanation]] above regarding the title text
|-
! colspan="2" | Words Picard could have seen in the first drawing, but which were not included as labels on the line
|-
| Cold
| Like Iced tea, asking for cold tea is a relatively normal request.
|-
| Pink
| Earl grey is usually an orange-brown color, not pink. There are, however, a wide variety of [https://www.adagio.com/search/index.html?query=rose teas which come from pink leaves] or [https://www.flourandspiceblog.com/karachi-style-kashmiri-chai-pink-tea/ whose color is "pinkish"].
|}

==Transcript==
:[At the top of the panel, there is a large caption covering two lines with a sub-caption below in a normal-sized font:]
:<big>Other words Captain Picard tried at the end of his tea order before settling on "hot"</big>
:From most normal to least

:[Bellow this we see Picard, drawn bald except for a bit of hair near his ears and behind his head. He stands next to a machine, which is a standing rectangle of the same dimensions as Picard. In the front, there is an opening around the middle, a dispenser from where the ordered items can be retrieved. There is a label at the top of the machine. Picard is giving a command to the machine. His first three words are clearly spoken out as they stand, but then at the end of the sentence, instead of just adding one more word, there is a list of five words in a column between two gray lines. Five words are visible, but the top and bottom words are fading out, presumably other words are above and below, but no longer visible. All except the middle are gray. The middle word is placed as the direct follow up to the first three words in the sentence Picard speaks out, and this word is black like the previous three words. So this middle word is clearly the one he actually speaks out. The others were options, presumably on his mind.]
:Label: Replicator
:Picard:
Good.
Cold.
Tea. Earl Grey. Hot.
Dry.
Pink.

:[To the left of the machine, a long arrow begins snaking its way towards the bottom, where it ends in an arrow pointing down towards the bottom of the panel. At the top, there is a broad and thick bar from which it starts. Beneath this there are several ticks, the first three are close together and on a part of the arrow that goes almost straight down. But then the arrow curves in under the drawing of Picard, and goes over another drawing of him, placed in a captioned frame. The arrow goes around this and up on the other side, where it goes around another drawing of Picard in a similarly captioned frame. After having gone around this frame it goes a bit up before turning almost straight down before the final arrowhead that points down. In total there are 36 labeled ticks on the arrow, see labels below. The ticks have very varying distances between them. There are especially long between them around the first panels with Picard, but closer together at the start and towards the very end. Above the top bar from where the arrow starts there is also a label and just below this and to the left of the long arrow is a smaller arrow pointing down in the direction of the long arrow. This small arrow has a label at its starting point.]
:Bar label: Normal
:Small arrow label: Less normal

:[The second drawing of Picard, shows him standing next to the labeled machine. Picard is this time holding a cup, with sticky lines connecting his hands and the machine to the cup. He clearly looks down at the cup rather than on the machine, as the hair behind his ear is turned differently than the first drawing, where he looks straight towards the machine. Above is a label inside a frame overlaid on the top line of the panel, with what Picard ordered:]
:"Tea. Earl Grey. Sticky."
:Label: Replicator

:[The third drawing of Picard, only displays him and not the machine. He is holding a vibrating cup in both hands and has now turned the other way, away from where the machine was in the previous drawings (again clearly seen by his hair). Very large letters are displayed in three lines behind him to the exclusion of all else. Four of the 15 letters are partly hidden behind the panel's frame, and seven of them are partly covered by Picard. Above is a label inside a frame overlaid on the top line of the panel, with what Picard ordered:]
:"Tea. Earl Grey. Loud."
:Teacup: <big>'''Teeeeeeeeeeeeee'''</big>

:[Words on the arrow from start to finish:]
:Hot
:Iced
:Decaf
:Good
:Lukewarm
:Tasty
:Boiled
:Watery
:Sour
:Meaty
:Solid
:Dry
:Raw
:Deep-fried
:Sticky
:Grilled
:Fossilized
:Magnetic
:Ballistic
:Unstable
:Blessed
:Blurry
:Loud
:Virtual
:Intravenous
:Expanding
:Ironic
:Segmented
:Verbose
:Cursed
:Unexpected
:Bipedal
:Afraid
:Infinite
:Tea for him, too

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Star Trek]]
[[Category:Food]]

Talk:2558: Rapid Test Results

2021-12-23T10:45:32Z

162.158.159.11:

As a Brit, I had to go away look up College Ruled, which I thought might be more exotic than it actually turns out to be, but a nice set on the whole. Someone is doubtless on top of the Explanation editing already (despite being unusually early, on the clock, as published!) so I'll let them have the fun. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.71|172.70.90.71]] 16:59, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
:As a fellow Brit, I share your pain at these revolting colonials mangling our mother tongue. Why not just call it "narrow ruled" like us? [[User:Kev|Kev]] ([[User talk:Kev|talk]]) 19:23, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
::As an American, I can say that the reason that medium (or "college") ruled paper is not known as "narrow ruled" is because they are two different things. College ruled paper had lines spaced 9/32" (~7.1 mm) apart. Narrow ruled paper has those lines only 1/4" (6.35 mm) apart. --[[Special:Contributions/172.70.35.70|172.70.35.70]] 19:53, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
::Narrow''er'', or ''less'' narrow, you can have better descriptions of line separation than "college". Like picas or other measurements (fractuons of inches or metric, as now given).
::My first thought was that "College Ruled" was an inconstant ruling (e.g. alternating wide and narrow spacings, perhaps for handwriting guides to appropriately constrain ascender and descender strokes) or some variation akin to 'blank' sheet-music paper with staves*. If it's just comparatively narrower (than..? ...all lined paper that is wider-spaced?) then it was not obvious without knowing the 'local' naming convention.
::Whatever the standards we have here (I'm sure it's measurement-based, or possibly how many lines the sheets have crammed onto them) the presence or absence of a left-hand margin was the obvious big difference at some point between Primary/Secondary ('school') education and Tertiary ('college'). I think when young we had to rule our own margins, then at some point the books became preruled, but maybe it wasn't that way at all. By university, you just bought a pad of whatever paper you wanted/was on sale, though, for everything but lab-books. ;)
::(* - One variation of that we had in school was alternating 'normal' exercise-book lining with stave-marked paper, but I only had that in music classes where (because it was heavy on 'foundation' history of music stuff) we hardly did anything on the stave-ruled paper and instead were committed to writing out dictations of how monks developed notations to codify their religious chantings, etc, etc. It was ''not'' a very memorable class, for any of the good reasons you'd hope, but the 'special exercise books' (as also the mathematics ones with one page standard-lined, the next graph-papered, though the latter were at least usefully used more, and not just for doodling!) were one of the things I can still recall after 40-or-more years...) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.22|172.70.86.22]] 20:49, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

I thought the joke in the title text was that while COVID-19 infects nearby people, COVID+19 does the opposite, uninfecting people. If it annihilates COVID-19 like antimatter, that will release enormous amounts of energy, likely destroying the people involved. If you're disintegrated, it's of little help that you've been "cured". [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 20:41, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
:Hmmm ... infected person is supposed to have up to 100 billion of virions ... that's still less than 0.1mg ... but that would be about 9GJ or 2 ton of TNT ... yeah, I don't think it would matter they are cured. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 22:34, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
::2 tons of TNT easily explain the "curing everybody in close contact", though [[Special:Contributions/162.158.92.101|162.158.92.101]] 08:45, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

Would Covid+19 maybe have a positive Effect on health, because it is positive instead of negative? And would a Covid+-0 be neutral? In any case it is not stated that it has a negative effect or that it gets annihilated when meeting Covid-19, so I changed the last paragraph a bit. -- [[User:256.256.256.256|256.256.256.256]] ([[User talk:256.256.256.256|talk]]) 08:27, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

Jeez, why is Randall so afraid to say "coronavirus"? If I didn't read the last line I would have thought this was about pregnancy tests! I've never seen a covid test before...- [[Special:Contributions/172.70.178.113|172.70.178.113]] 09:49, 23 December 2021 (UTC)
:a) Subtle humour that creeps up on you? (N.B., the following points suggest not, but YMMV.)
:b) Didn't think it necessary. I've not seen a Covid LFT, either, but it seemed obvious from topicality, and if the last line would have been riffing on pregnancy I'd have been even more surprised...
:b).i.: Actually, if it had been a pregnancy-tester joke, I'd expect it to be a sort of "conception reveal party" moment, and maybe congratulating Randall and his partner!
:c) He actually does say Covid (more than he ever did in the infection-to-stop-infection comic!) and I don't think he's scared of saying it, but perhaps at ''some'' level (though he's probably failing to do this) he's just not wanting to BE IN THE FACE of some people who can't handle it.
:c).i.: Though not making comics even vaguely related to viruses ''or'' testing would be the solution to that. Which is clearly not his chosen path as he still is pushing what ''some'' (not me!) would call a blue-pill agenda.
:...it's all eye-of-the-beholder. I've had other comics bewilder me (or at least I wandered off down the wrong garden-path at first), and looks like that happened to you. Congratulations, you're (presumably) only human! [[Special:Contributions/162.158.159.11|162.158.159.11]] 10:45, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

Talk:1149: Broomstick

2021-12-18T15:57:37Z

162.158.159.11:

Whichever user removed the category "Comics featuring Black Hat," commenting that his hat is taller and has a white stripe on it, kindly refer to comic 954, 377, 498, or ANY other comic involving him, and you'll see you're... well, wrong. He has never had a white stripe, and his hat is usually short, but occasionally slightly taller (mostly in the older comics). [[User:Maoman|Maoman]] ([[User talk:Maoman|talk]]) 23:59, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
:They were saying that his hat has a white stripe in this comic. That guy in the balloon isn't Black Hat. '''[[User:Davidy22|Davidy22]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 02:41, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

Anyone have any thoughts on the title text? Is that intended to suggest that Toto was an annoyance that Dorothy was happy to be rid of? I'm not really sure why (if) it's supposed to be funny... [[User:TheHYPO|TheHYPO]] ([[User talk:TheHYPO|talk]]) 15:50, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

:I figured it was a kind of loophole closing. With a lot of movies, you have viewers that go "well if the protagonist had just done 'this', then they could have saved a lot of trouble." But in this "easier" scenario, what reason would the witch have to trust Dorothy? Collateral is often used to ensure that one party will keep up their end of a deal, so it helped to seal this one. [[Special:Contributions/76.122.5.96|76.122.5.96]] 16:11, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

:I agree that the intention was to close a loophole, but I also was unable to fathom that Dorothy would leave Toto behind. It would be ''way'' out of character for her. If Dorothy had been a more self-centered character, then the title text would be a lot funnier. [[User:Smperron|Smperron]] ([[User talk:Smperron|talk]]) 11:38, 19 December 2012 (EST)

:Yes, it would be extremely out of character, considering she was willing to run away from home just to protect Toto in the first place.[[Special:Contributions/71.215.186.130|71.215.186.130]] 06:30, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

:Definitely to close a loophole. Dorothy has something the Witch wants that Dorothy doesn't need except the crazy witch wants to hurt her for them. The Wizard seems to have what she needs but won't give it except for what the witch wants. A trade seems much easier. But of course, who would trust the witch (and why would the untrusting witch start trusting)? All things considered, if you're in a strange land with freaky creatures and frighteningly perverse singalongs, you might consider a Scottish terrier a small price to pay to return to a Kansas farm which, while dull, is far superior to that crazy place. :) [[User:Chriss|Chriss]] ([[User talk:Chriss|talk]]) 16:49, 19 December 2012 (UTC)Chriss

:Cairn Terrier, original to the books and continued in the movie. Smaller and less feisty than a Scottie.A loyal breed, he probably escaped from the WWW after the trade, and is flying home with Dorothy and the Professor, unseen down in the bottom of the balloon basket.[[Special:Contributions/24.79.11.46|24.79.11.46]] 21:52, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

:Megan never struck me as much of a dog person. [[User:DanB|DanB]] ([[User talk:DanB|talk]]) 17:19, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

:Just wondering if Wizzard wants to see the broom, why not to show that to him, even let him touch that, than return it to the Witch, collect the pupy from her and merry on my way ? Kind of complicating the quest again, but retaining the all-for-friend appearance. [[User:prom|prom]] 1:13, 20.12.2012 (CET)

Since the book had {{w|Silver Shoes}} and the movie had {{w|Ruby Slippers}}, I think it's probably best to avoid discussion of the book... I've removed the reference to the Nome King - who doesn't appear in the movie or even that first Oz book. – ''[[User:Philosopher|Philosopher]]'' [[User talk:Philosopher|Let us reason together.]] 18:02, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Anyone else notice Black Hat Guy in the balloon? How do you add the tag for "Comics with Black Hat Guy"?

:I dont think that is Black Hat Guy.. This guy's hat is taller. It also wouldn't fit into Black Hat Guy's character, as Megan is essentially tricking him into thinking she's killed the witch.

Due to the absence of lyrics, I assumed it was humming or whistling, not singing. --BigMal27 // [[Special:Contributions/192.136.15.178|192.136.15.178]] 12:31, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

The irony here is her ruby slippers have the power to take her home, but she's trading them away for a broom, in the hopes that the wizard will take her home. She says "that was easy" although it was far more effort than just clicking her heels and repeating "there's no place like home".
[[User:Twifosp|Twifosp]] ([[User talk:Twifosp|talk]]) 02:22, 21 December 2012 (UTC)twifosp

I'm still confused by this one - or maybe I just don't remember the movie well enough. She has the ruby slippers which would let her fly home by clicking them - so what has she gained by exchanging them indirectly for a flight home in a balloon? Has she traded her three companions and dog for the wizard's company? I feel I'm missing something. Also, to the person above saying it would be "out of character" for Dorothy to trade in this way, isn't that the point? That a sociopath version of Dorothy would resolve the problem completely differently? [[User:Stevage|Stevage]] ([[User talk:Stevage|talk]]) 23:48, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Which version of Dorothy is the sociopath? Can't WoO be summerized as "Young girl arrives in strange land, kills first person she sees, then sets out to kill again."?

Dorothy didn't know till near the end of the movie that the ruby slippers could get her home. I also want to point out that the Wizard never actually demanded the destruction of the witch. He just asked for her broomstick. The Tin Man suggested "But if we do that, we'd have to kill her to get it". The Wizard neither confirmed nor denied this, merely restating "Bring me her broomstick, and I'll grant your requests". So Dorothy trading for it without killing the witch is perfectly acceptable according to the terms outlined. {{unsigned|24.72.12.221}}
:Furthermore, the good witch was (likely) not going to tell her how to get home until she had learned some valuable lesson. This bypasses the whole ordeal. [[Special:Contributions/76.122.5.96|76.122.5.96]] 05:36, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps I'm just remembering Wicked instead of the Wizard of Oz, but I was under the impression that the slippers were stuck to her feet. So she couldn't take them off, even if she wanted to. {{unsigned|99.245.20.210}}

:That's right, Dorothy can't get the shoes off her feet, which is why she doesn't give them back to the witch (who is the legitimate owner of them) in the first place. This is the actual loophole that the alt-text is meant to close. [[Special:Contributions/198.103.254.251|198.103.254.251]] 21:53, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
::Late to the party, but... There's probably some mystical detection of coercion, which would prevent even 'willing' self-removal. Fair trade (neither party being aggressive about it) might trigger their removability. The observed "dead witch's shoes" inheritance mechanism is another element of their enchantment that either teleports them to the current wearer's killer (though that's somewhat antithetic to the prior 'safeguard') or else rather more cleverly chooses the nearest possible person who ''hasn't'' personally struck the deadly blow or even conspired to?
::This latter might well be the ''intended'' imbued magical protection. It didn't predict something as esoteric as an entirely unintentional residential-homocide transfering ownership to ''my enemies' friend'' (out of the wicked sisters' hands/feet to the munchkins' more natural ally), but would have been a protection against almost all the actually imaginable threats their ultimate creator (whoever the mythos says that is) would have usually anticipated.
::Or it's a safeguard to get the slippers back into 'good' possession, via the chance innocence of heart, if ever they were somehow wrangled onto the feet of anyone blighted with power enough to bring them over to the 'evil' side. Not so obvious a backdoor that would be aggressively guarded against by even an astute practitioner, but a loophole left in that sufficiently favours (eventual!) repossession in a goodwards direction. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.159.11|162.158.159.11]] 15:57, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

The probable reason she didn't do this in the movie (assuming she thought of it) is that Dorothy is a very generous, loving person. If an evil witch who's terrorizing innocent people 24/7 wants something that bad, it's likely the slippers are a weapon or something the with could use to gain more power or do more evil. [[Special:Contributions/24.20.71.198|24.20.71.198]] 17:26, 1 August 2013 (UTC)EvanJM42 5:24, 1 August (GMT)

I don't think that this comic implies that anything bad would happen to Toto- the Witch would have an incentive to treat the dog well, so that she received her broom back without complication. I think the title text is just to emphasize that the problems Dorothy faced were very solvable if her only priority was getting her and her dog home. [[User:Bbruzzo|Bbruzzo]] ([[User talk:Bbruzzo|talk]]) 00:34, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

2551: Debunking

2021-12-07T07:38:51Z

162.158.159.11: /* Table */

{{comic
| number = 2551
| date = December 6, 2021
| title = Debunking
| image = debunking.png
| titletext = Mark Zuckerberg has only neutral feelings toward Peppa Pig, who he understands is a fictional character, and he blames the coronavirus pandemic on other factors.
}}

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

When writing a news article that "debunks" a claim (shows why it is false), writing its headline in the form "X is false" is [https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/words-matter/201807/when-correcting-lie-dont-repeat-it-do-instead-2 discouraged]. The reason is that just repeatedly seeing "X", even if negated or followed by "is false", can make readers subconciously believe it.

To avoid this, Journalist Randall has worded his debunking articles in a positive sense. This makes for a confusing read if the reader has not heard of the original claim. The "original claims" allegedly being debunked here don't actually appear to have been made anywhere, and can only be inferred from the debunking.

Much of the debunking relies on setting simple facts straight, making for bizarrely banal headlines.

===Table===
{| class="wikitable"
!Article Headline
!Possible claim being debunked
|-
| AP Photos show that Dr. Fauci's office contains a normal amount of microwaves
|
|-
| Singer Billie Eilish was born years after the TWA Flight 800 Explosion.
| A conspiracy theory linking Billie Eilish (born December 2001) with the TWA flight 800 crash in July 1996.
|-
| Vaccinated people can remove their hats without trouble by tugging upward, say doctors.
| A COVID-related claim that vaccination interferes with people's ability to remove their hats.
|-
| Physicists say Dorito powder is affected by gravity.
| A claim that Dorito powder is not affected by gravity.
|-
| Steering wheels will work normally on Dec 12th
|
|-
| Santa's skin is dry and healthy this year, with the same amount of oil as before.
|
|-
| ''(Title Text)'' Mark Zuckerberg has only neutral feelings toward Peppa Pig...
| British Prime Minister Boris Johnson lost his meeting notes in a televised speech and began wittering on about how his love for Peppa Pig is big, implying therefore that Important People In The World (including MZ and, he wishes, BJ) care deeply about Peppa Pig.
|}

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
[Several news headlines shown in boxes]

[Box 1] AP Photos show Dr. Fauci's office contains a normal number of microwaves.

[Box 2] Fact Check: Singer Billie Eilish was born years after the TWA Flight 800 Explosion.

[Box 3] Vaccinated people can remove their hats without trouble by tugging upward, say doctors.

[Box 4] Physicists say Dorito powder is affected by gravity.

[Box 5] Steering wheels will work normally on Dec 12th; Make left and right turns as usual.

[Box 6] CNN Investigation; Santa's skin is dry and healthy this year, with the same amount of oil as before.

[Comment below the headline boxes reads:]

I don't know whether the "Don't repeat the claim in the headline debunking it" thing works or not, but it definitely makes reading the news weird.

{{comic discussion}}

2525: Air Travel Packing List

2021-10-07T08:36:46Z

162.158.159.11:

{{comic
| number = 2525
| date = October 6, 2021
| title = Air Travel Packing List
| image = air_travel_packing_list.png
| titletext = I know the etiquette is controversial, but I think it's rude when the person in front of me reclines their seat into the bell of my trumpet.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by an AIRBORNE TRUMPETER - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
This comic is about a packing list, and the humor is found because most of the items are either found on the plane, would be useful in a plane crash, or SOUND like they are useful on a plane. a quick summary of each:

{| class="wikitable"
! Item
! Explanation
|-
|Seat cushion
|This can be used as a flotation device in a crash and is provided by the airline. Some people may also bring their own cushions for comfort.
|-
|Parachute
|Parachutes are normally used to slow down your falling out of the sky to a relatively safe speed in case of a severe problem with your aircraft, and are routinely used as a safety device by (para)glider pilots, test pilots, military aircraft crew and in similar situations when being unable to land safely is a significant concern. A parachute won't be very useful in a typical passenger airplane (even a small one) as there is no way to safely exit such a plane in-flight. Even the airplanes used to voluntarily exit from while they're perfectly good (as some crazy people do) need to be specifically designed or modified for the purpose such as having wide sliding doors that are unaffected by airflow. However, there were single cases of people being ejected or sucked out of a passenger airplane; in such case a parachute could by arguably useful.
|-
|Wing glue
|to repair wings in the event of damage, potentially in a crash. unclear on how you would apply mid-flight
|-
|{{w|Air horn}}
|An air horn uses compressed air to make a very loud noise very easily. This may be important for drawing attention to yourself in the event of a crash. Typically, emergency lifejackets on a plane are provided with a light and whistle for this purpose. The noise of an air horn might prove more effective for this purpose than a whistle, but it would become useless as soon as the compressed air ran out. Its inclusion is probably meant to suggest that the word 'air' in its name indicates that it's designed for use in an aircraft. Using one in a non-emergency situation would infuriate everyone else on the plane.
|-
|{{w|Sextant}}
|In combination with star charts, a sextant can be used to determine your position based on the location of stars in the night sky. In a crash, you could use this to find your way home, but sextants are rarely used so most people would not know how to operate one. If you've got a homing beacon, it probably makes more sense to just activate that and wait for help to arrive.
|-
|Nose plugs and goggles for pressure
|Nose plugs and goggles are commonly used in swimming but would be useless for dealing with cabin pressurization or depressurization. Since your mouth and nose are interconnected, nose plugs would be useless on their own. Trying to hold your breath in a sudden depressurization event will cause lung damage, so nose plugs wouldn't be a good thing, even if you could also seal off your mouth. Goggles would also not be useful. During depressurization, the air would just seep out. During pressurization, they would just become uncomfortable and difficult to remove.
|-
|Airplane shoes
|like slippers, to keep feet warm and comfy on long flights.
|-
|Navigation crystal
|mystical form of navigation, presumably to help you home after a crash.
Crystals that polarize light can be used as a compass [http://www.polarization.com/viking/viking.html].
|-
|Spare batteries in case the plane runs out
|Planes will generally use more power than any battery small enough to be easily packed in a bag can provide. They will generally use either 115V AC at 400Hz or 28V DC, both of which are very uncommon outside of aviation. The plane will almost never use its own batteries anyway, getting its electric power from the APU, engines, or, in emergencies, the ram air turbine.
|-
|Birdseed
|so you can attract birds, and use THEM to fly the plane in case of crash
|-
|Homing beacon
|Once activated, a homing beacon will send out a continuous radio signal so that rescuers can find your location. These can be very useful in a plane crash, but planes already carry them, so you don't need to pack one yourself.
|-
|Meteorite antidote
|Meteorites are pieces of space rocks that make it all the way to the ground. They can cause injury but they aren't poisonous{{Citation needed}}, so an antidote would not help.
|-
|USB wing connector
|this is a just a wire connector, but because it has wing in the name is on the list. alternatively, the plane wings connect by USB, and this can be used to reattach wings.
|-
|Emergency siren
|USE IN CASE OF EMERGENCY
|-
|Spare flaps
|Flaps can be moved to adjust the lift/drag ratio of a wing, generally during takeoff and landing. Flaps are very large and mounted on the wing, outside the passenger compartment, so bringing spares would be very difficult and completely useless. Flaps failing to come down can also usually be remedied by just landing at a longer runway.
|-
|{{w|Mouthpiece (brass)|Mouthpiece}} (pandemic restriction; airlines still provide the trumpet)
|a part of a brass instrument like a trumpet. Randall jokes that trumpets are provided on airplanes (which would be very obnoxious to other passengers), but due to the pandemic you cannot use a shared mouthpiece.
|-
|Luggage ballast
|for keeping your luggage upright in the water. obviously.
|-
|Flag (international flights)
|To identify your country of origin. Other flags are also used to communicate between boats without electricity, in the event the boats are in distress, so they could be used in the event of a crash.
|-
|Decoy tickets
|Maybe these would used as a distraction so you can sneak onto the plane without paying.
|-
|Keys to the plane
|Though some pushed for it after a plane was stolen in the {{w|2018 Horizon Air Q400 incident}}, planes do not require keys to activate like a car does.
|}

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

<big>Air Travel Packing List</big>

If you haven't flown in a while, you might not remember what you need to bring. Use this handy checklist to pack!

[Two columns of lists of items. Each item is preceded by a checkbox.]
*Seat cushion
*Parachute
*Wing glue
*Air horn
*Sextant
*Nose plugs and goggles for pressure
*Airplane shoes
*Navigation crystal
*Spare batteries in case the plane runs out
*Birdseed
*Homing beacon
*Meteorite antidote
*USB wing connector
*Emergency siren
*Spare flaps
*Mouthpiece (pandemic restriction; airlines still provide the trumpet)
*Luggage ballast
*Flag (international flights)
*Decoy tickets
*Keys to the plane

{{comic discussion}}

151: Mario

2021-09-30T06:47:59Z

162.158.159.11: /* Explanation */ Chevrons!

{{comic
| number = 151
| date = September 1, 2006
| title = Mario
| image = mario.png
| titletext = Why would anyone ever, ever say that? Please, nobody ever say that.
}}

==Explanation==
{{w|One-upmanship}} is the act of surpassing another person. In this case, one female character is one-upping her friend's claim of being taken on a mountain hike with a claim that she was proposed to.

Mario is the major figure in the {{w|Super Mario}} series. In the games, completing specific conditions causes a "1-up" (but the marks are chevrons («»), used in some languages like Russian instead of quotation marks) to appear on screen, referring to an additional life. The comic relies on the homonym of the action of one-upmanship and the event of one-ups in Mario.

In the title text, [[Randall]] implies that this is a pretty bad joke.

==Transcript==
:Megan: For our anniversary, my boyfriend took me hiking in the mountains.
:Ponytail: My boyfriend proposed to me.
:Ponytail: They should call you Mario, 'cause you just got <<1 up'd.>>

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Video games]]

Talk:2519: Sloped Border

2021-09-23T22:33:57Z

162.158.159.11:

I might be old-fashioned, but I've always wanted to live in Mandelbrotistan 3D. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.89.156|162.158.89.156]] 15:49, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

I would make the country's border an Alexander horned sphere. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.245|108.162.221.245]] 03:21, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

At least this border doesn't have [https://youtu.be/Mw44wHG4KOc thickness]. --[[User:Angel|Angel]] ([[User talk:Angel|talk]]) 04:48, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
-yet [[Special:Contributions/172.69.55.107|172.69.55.107]] 05:46, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

GIS: Geographic Information System, that are the systems where maps (and the borders) are defined. They won't care much though, because for them the ground information is the relevant one.
Once you get into air, you'll get a problem, because if the border is very sloped, and not in average straight, then an airplane might still be in the airzone of a different country than where it's flying over. Which will cause all kinds of problems, security wise.
Liechtenstein might loose all control over its airspace, yet their inhabitants want safety even from aircraft flying above them.
Can't imagine that going well, but bureaucrazy is that: it creates paperwork when it is not busy enough with the procedures it already created. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.55.107|172.69.55.107]] 05:46, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

Liechtenstein and air control is a bad example for the problems with sloped borders because it's quite often the case that the air space of one country is done by air space controllers of another country. In the case of Liechtenstein this is done by SKYGUIDE in Switzerland that is also doing it for southern parts of Germany (being responsible for the collision of two planes near Überlingen: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_%C3%9Cberlingen_mid-air_collision) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.89.156|162.158.89.156]] 06:34, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

Wouldn't sloped borders also have interesting consequences underground when mining, building tunnels etc. ? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.88.239|162.158.88.239]] 08:39, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

I introduced into the explanation a hint of the more precise problem with airborne geometry upon spherical (or, possibly, geodesic) coordinates. The shallower the angle, the more possible that the 'curves with the ground' altitude calculation is to actually wrap itself all the way round the Earth before (presumably), whatever altitude limit there is to make space the same upper edge as International Waters are to horizontal edges. Taking the Liechtenstein case, as above, you could easily enclose them in a 'pyramidal' (or wedged, if not applied from all around them) air-claim by angling over them - ''or'' greatly increase their air-claim over neighbours if the angle is away. With inverse issues for the Mineral Rights issue. You need to agree in advance what happens when angled boundaries hit perpendicular ones, ''and'' whether the 'rhumbs' projected from the border mash together when equidistant points on a crinkly border project their own air-distance line. ''And'' if it is from an agreed surface level datum or local ground level, with the complications that arise from both cases. (Yeah, I originally thought there were about four different bones of contention that need to be ironed out in the codicil on curvature, but I now think there's about six of them needing strict definition, not counting the compound cases which further may need specifying in advance or forever requirev adhoc arbitration.) And none of this even takes account of Relativity and curved ''space'' frame of reference that might very subtly shift whatever reference you just agreed upon, if you let it go high enough. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.34.165|172.70.34.165]] 12:05, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

Should there be a part of the explanation talking about how GIS is already a nightmare? Because the hobby is "_new_ ways to make life a nightmare" [[Special:Contributions/162.158.75.159|162.158.75.159]] 13:35, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

It's not worth wondering: is the boarder sloped across cardinal directions, like East to West, or is it sloped inward or outwards from the country in question? If the latter, outwards will make it like a funnel, meaning country A has greater airspace than its surface area at "ground" level. (Which is another consideration: where does the initial angle begin?) If sloped inwards, well then that country loses a lot of advantage. If it's based on cardinal directions... I do not want to consider how many complications that would create along various sections of the border. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.51|108.162.219.51]] 16:55, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

:Also, NERD SNIPE! [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.51|108.162.219.51]] 16:56, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
:My presumption would be that the line-on-the-ground, however it winds around (e.g. following the centre of a river, the apex of a ridge or the point-to-point (with or without Great Circle adjustment) between two defining nodes) is a sequence of presumed horizontal line segments of arbitrary length, normalised to be parallel to the horizontal at the whatever ground elevation they cross. That line and the perpendicular through that line from the centre of the Earth (the vertical, by all accounts) thus define the third mutually perpendicular line that is the 'slopeward'(/antislopward) baseline. The defined angle indicates the inclination from the vertical on the vertical/slopeward plane.
:Where landforms complicate matters the border rises or falls across contours, or twists and turns with a convex and/or concave groundtrack, the dominant inclined border is that originating from the closest source-point wherever there is potentially conflict.
:If Cueball's border was around an enclave otherwise within his area of control, this would result in a tent-like (but strangely irregular) territorial enclosure (assuming not truncated by the Karman Line 'air limit', or similar). But I think he's content to make this just ''any'' shared border (e.g. the mostly 'straight' US-Canada fifty-whatever-parallel one) which means probably all other territorial limits (in that case, maritime) remain vertical (certainly not similarly leaning, in non-right-prismatic form) and except in a ''very few'' edge cases would end up dominating the slope-vs-vertical intersections.
:As to 'advantage' (except for the territory sloped away from), I don't think there really is one. At best, it makes true geofencing of drones a bit more complicated than saying "don't cross this line; don't go above/below these altitudes" for some doubtless functional reason. For the people in the RHS 'illustrative' sub-image, it seems to have no practical effect other than to identify limbs/other extremities as cross-border in rather more unusual slices of the body than a normal border-straddler would expect. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.159.11|162.158.159.11]] 22:33, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

Talk:2516: Hubble Tension

2021-09-16T12:49:11Z

162.158.159.11:

Having noticed that 85 KPH is slower than 85 MPH, it took me a while to work out that 85 MPH is much slower than 68 km/s (and I was blindly assuming that the universe is at least one megaparsec in radius), after which the title-text joke started making sense. Congratulations on being almost too subtle for me.00:46, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

Is the 85 mph number significant in any way? Why does "Dave" who points radar guns in random directions get this number? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.245.167|108.162.245.167]] 03:41, 16 September 2021 (UTC)
:Well, it's probably over the speed limit in most places. Maybe Dave is a traffic cop? --[[Special:Contributions/172.68.129.137|172.68.129.137]] 04:55, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

Unfortunately, the explanation only explains the things everyone can read on the internet anyway. 85 mph or 85 km/h have the wrong unit, because for the expansion speed we need to look at two points of space, measure how fast they move away from each other. Obviously this should be a number that increases linearly with the distance of the two points (if space is created equally everywhere in the universe). Thus the 85 km/h misses the length. Is the joke here that a random dudes results are reported equally (false equivalence)? --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.93.142|162.158.93.142]] 04:41, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

Dave again: "But when they hit 88 mph, we're gonna see some REALLY weird shit!" [[User:RAGBRAIvet|RAGBRAIvet]] ([[User talk:RAGBRAIvet|talk]]) 06:50, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

Just a thought: maybe Dave is talking about Fords Galaxies? -- [[Special:Contributions/162.158.183.222|162.158.183.222]] 08:39, 16 September 2021 (UTC)
:I had already added that before I saw your comment. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 10:37, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

Relating (coincidentally) with several of the above comments, I added in a "what Dave could be measuring" paragraph (ultimately: just traffic!), via a diversion where I totally messed up a factor and it sent me down a rabbithole of completely the wrong distance! ((Sanity-check my new figures, please: e.g. 85mph => ~0.038km/s => ~0.0005588(of the 68km/s/Mpc figure) => therefore 558.8pc, etc and onwards)) Anyway, perhaps Dave just is/wants to be a traffic-cop? (If you can find humour in the 'all directions' - presumably ''away from'' - then obviously supercede the 'both directions' bit.) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.134.47|172.70.134.47]] 09:16, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

I believe a radar speed gun pointed at the sky would actually display something like "no reading" when it doesn't receive any radar echo, rather than 85 miles/h. It wouldn't do to fine drivers for speeding when the measurement fails. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.183.208|162.158.183.208]] 09:39, 16 September 2021 (UTC)
:Dave is measuring Ford Galaxies that are all speeding away from him, either way too fast, or if kph just moderately speed for a normal road between cities. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 10:37, 16 September 2021 (UTC)
::Unless it ''is'' actual some kind of a Ford MPV Owners' Club 'burn out' session of some kind, I read it as more general "large, relatively unwieldy family-style vehicle passing in conspicuous quantities and not actually holding up the rest of the traffic" rather than truly committing traffic violations (in excess of any other vehicle on the road). To "book it" is to hurry, but (more colloquial understandings allowing) more as in the "not dawdling" sense. (They'd be noteworthy only for narrative punning reasons, really, as one of the comic's hooks. But that's only meta.)
::Though (outwith the most obviously speed-trapped areas) my personal experience is indeed that driving ''at'' the posted speed limit often means being treated as an inconvenient mobile-roadblock, by more than half the rest of the vehicles that come up behind and tailgate or pass, I would still consider hugging-the-limit (whatever it is) as going fast and not actually slow. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.159.11|162.158.159.11]] 12:49, 16 September 2021 (UTC)