explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

2472: Fuzzy Blob

2021-06-05T10:53:53Z

162.158.159.122: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2472
| date = June 5, 2021
| title = Fuzzy Blob
| image = fuzzy_blob.png
| titletext = If there's no dome, how do you explain the irregularities the board discovered in the zoning permits issued in that area!?
}}

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

Cueball is taking a picture of his house, but sees a large fuzzy blob on the side of the picture. This blob likely comes from Cueball making the mistake of putting one of his fingers partially in front of the lens. This is a common enough occurrence with smartphones or compact cameras that an ordinary user should immediately be able to identify the problem; however, the comic derives humor from having neither Cueball nor anyone else come to this conclusion.

Likely, this comic stems from the resurgent talk of {{w|Unidentified Flying Objects}}, (UFO,) now dubbed "{{w|Unidentified Aerial Phenomena}}", or UAP. The topic regained popularity after the {{w|Department of Defense}}, (DoD,) recently [https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/04/politics/pentagon-ufo-enquiry/index.html confirmed the authenticity of 3 videos] taken by {{w|United States Navy | US Naval}} personnel. It has been much discussed in mainstream news, not just among {{w|extraterrestrial}} enthusiasts or {{w|conspiracy theorists}}, some of whom have created {{w|QAnon}} spin-off theories. (Thankfully, some people do [https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FLPLeig95M4 recover].)

Randall likely wished to clarify that UAP are probably not of alien origin, and appears to be suggesting that there is a simple and obvious explanation for the objects, such as birds or dirt on the navy's camera lenses, that most people in the general public are missing and that [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/2359:_Evidence_of_Alien_Life any definitive conclusion of aliens is overhyped].

The tendency to make unwarranted connections to unrelated but synchronous 'evidence' is shown in the Title Text. Investigation of this phenomena has brought to light 'irregularities' in the local {{w|Zoning|zoning permits}}, which are almost certainly just instances of mundane corruption, incompetence or inconsistency such as might be revealed in many such places once you put extra resources into investigating every trivial aspect of an area.

An alternate intention of the word 'irregularities' might be due to the necessarily zig-zaggy nature of defining a 'circular' zone footprint by drawing best-fit boundary lines only along streets, within any established grid-based system of city 'blocks'. The interpretation of why any zone is a complex and crinkly shape, rather than a strictly utilitarian rectangle, may not be so obvious from an overview that does not take into account geological or political restrictions such as the curve of a watercourse in a valley or a mandate against hi-rise buildings within a certain radius of a monument.

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

:[Cueball takes picture]

:[Below showing an image of a house with a fuzzy blob with a caption "what the..."]

:White Hat: What's that fuzzy blob next to your house? It's huge!

:Cueball: I don't know! I looked up and it was gone!

:White Hat: How can a giant structure vanish?

:White Hat: ...Cloaking device?!!

:Blondie: The fuzzy blob, dubbed "flob" by internet sleuths, has city planners stumped.

:City Planner: No, that's not any type of building I'm familiar with.

:Megan: Could be an experimental military dome.

:Hairbun: The zoning board investigation has found no evidence of a cloaked dome structure. The historical commission will be joining the research into these domes and other unusual buildings, such as the historic 4th ave church...

:Blondie: This only raises more questions.
{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Blondie]]
[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairbun]]

Talk:2470: Next Slide Please

2021-06-02T02:13:16Z

162.158.159.122:

What the hell was Randall been doing for the past week that made this comic come to mind? He must have attended the world's worst seminar. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.69.74|172.69.69.74]] 23:32, 31 May 2021 (UTC)
:He couldn't have, he's been [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/Category:Banned_from_conferences banned] from them all. [[User:Danish|Danish]] ([[User talk:Danish|talk]]) 23:53, 31 May 2021 (UTC)
:Well in my company right now it is even worse with "next slide please" when people share a presentation as they cannot use gestures or something like that to signal the person controlling the slideshow. So I took it initaially not as a jab at seminars/conferences/etc. but online meetings. --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 06:05, 1 June 2021 (UTC)
:Here in the UK, it is 'famous' from the COVID Briefings from Downing Street (not to further drag this into the Pandemic set of comics, of course) where it just looks like they couldn't afford a 'clicker' for (each?) expert/politician bringing visuals to the press conference. (Then they spent millions on a new 'Presidential-style briefing room', but no idea if they'd still need to 'NSP' off-podium due to it being abandoned before it got used.) Which makes for some unintentional satire.
:((But I admit I laughed most for the Latin insertion, regardless of 141.101.98.94's comment below.)) [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.30|141.101.98.30]] 09:47, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

I'm picturing this comic not just as computer slides, but also as birthday cards - those that have a message on the outside and a twist when you open the card. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.102.181|172.68.102.181]] 00:45, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

I was confused about why the "next slide" for "Veni, Vidi, Vici" was in Latin but not "Friends, Romans, Countrymen, etc". Then I remembred the latter was actually from Shakespeare. [[User:GreatWyrmGold|GreatWyrmGold]] ([[User talk:GreatWyrmGold|talk]]) 04:54, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

Pretty sure that in the last one "pictura proxima" should be in the accusative case, as the object of an implied verb "da" (give). As it stands, it means "please, there is a next slide" which is weird. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.94|141.101.98.94]] 07:46, 1 June 2021 (UTC)
:Velim is closer to "I would like" the colloquial way a roman would say please is "amabo te" (I will love you) what's weird is that there's a comma splice. This should be picturam proxima velim; "I would like the next picture". Although, giving it some more thought it's probably intentionally done to keep the alliteration while also being just as stilted; "I Came. I Saw. I Would Like, the next picture. I Conquered." Imagine someone reading that with the same tone an inflection.--[[User:Lackadaisical|Lackadaisical]] ([[User talk:Lackadaisical|talk]]) 20:57, 1 June 2021 (UTC)
:"proxima" seems misplaced: that's "nearest" not next, like Proxima Centauri. Probably should have used "postera" instead.

Shall we add the fact that Winston Churchill's speech is also referenced in [https://explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1148:_Nothing_to_Offer 1148]? [[User:Kvarts314|Kvarts314]] ([[User talk:Kvarts314|talk]]) 07:48, 1 June 2021 (UTC)
:Yes. Done. --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 08:09, 1 June 2021 (UTC)
:On Churchill's (other) quote, the third-column suggests the 'beeches' should be either Dunkirk or Normandy/other Allied landings. But at that point in time it was expected that, France having been effectively los, it would imminently be an ''Axis'' landing on British soil (that did not happen, except for the Channel Islands). The beeches of Britain; the landing grounds of (alongside the aforementioned amphibious options) paratroopers and/or gliders; conflict in fields, in towns and either strategic or guerilla resistance fighting from the geological high ground.
:The image he was trying to convey would be the beeches probably not too dissimilar to the merry 'resort' depiction (sharing with fishing and shipping ports a propensity of not being too difficult to gain a physically useful beach-head, once opposition had been suppressed, rather than cliffs, marshes, etc), which the images from the interbellum would have been recognisably similar to the 'joke' slide (though probably in sepia, or hand-colourised).
:Of course, all these places would by then be well on the way to being studded with tank-traps, landmines, barbed wire and sandbagged/pillboxed defensive positions, and whatever other emplacements the engineers could devise. But compatively few non-locals would have been to the sea-side between the prior September and the pre-Summer months as the situation had drastically worsened (and the Emergency Powers (Defence) Act 1940/etc reshaped life), so the average listener probably would still harbour memories of their experiences as holidaymakers and only be exposed to select patriotically-framed newsreel footage of how the plucky coastdwellers were 'doing their bit' to help secure the nation, For The Duration.
:Just to insert some reality into this, for those who at this point in history had both less or ''more'' conflict on their home soil. Obviously the image of Der Mauer is fairly accurate to the real thing (or at least the bits that I saw, and just one of the layers-in-depth) but I get the impression that most of the indicated imminent slides are (at best) clip-arty/figurative illustrations.
:The "blood", "tears" and "sweat" might be easier to literally show than "fear (itself)", etc, but I can't imagine they'd be too much more sophisticated than a generic photostock of fairly abstract scenarios merely tagged as portraying the bodily fluids concerned. ;) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.159.122|162.158.159.122]]€

Just for the record they actually had slide projectors during the Civil War. There's beautiful photographs and film negatives from that Era. Some of them are even in color using a method where colored lenses are placed in front of the camera and multiple pictures are taken. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.68.167|172.69.68.167]] 18:49, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

Should we be using emdash, endash, or double-hyphen? The alt text uses double-hyphen, but if the rest were put into a slide-show, presumably Powerpoint, they would be converted to emdash, right? 21:02, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

Regarding fake moon landing, I remember a comics (probably not XKCD, though) where the landing was totally staged ... but still filmed on moon, next to big city. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 00:45, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

2467: Wikipedia Caltrops

2021-05-24T15:59:00Z

162.158.159.122: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2467
| date = May 24, 2021
| title = Wikipedia Caltrops
| image = wikipedia_caltrops.png
| titletext = Oh no, they set up a roadblock which is just a sign with the entire 'Czech hedgehog' article printed on it.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by A WIKIPEDIA CRAWL INEVITABLY REACHING "PHILOSOPHY". Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
Wikipedia is a website that manages to permanently alter the flow of time, a dilemma what has been discussed previously in [[214|214: The Problem with Wikipedia]]

A 'Czech hedgehog' is an anti-tank obstacle made of metal, and would be an effective roadblock.

Randall has a collection of Wikipedia links. They include:

1994 Caribbean Cup #Anomaly: A football game where group stage qualification rules had unintended consequences

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

{{comic discussion}}

2467: Wikipedia Caltrops

2021-05-24T15:57:56Z

162.158.159.122: /* Explanation */ typo

{{comic
| number = 2467
| date = May 24, 2021
| title = Wikipedia Caltrops
| image = wikipedia_caltrops.png
| titletext = Oh no, they set up a roadblock which is just a sign with the entire 'Czech hedgehog' article printed on it.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by PHILOSOPHY. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
Wikipedia is a website that manages to permanently alter the flow of time, a dilemma what has been discussed previously in [[214|214: The Problem with Wikipedia]]

Randall has a collection of Wikipedia links. They include:

1994 Caribbean Cup #Anomaly: A football game where group stage qualification rules had unintended consequences

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

{{comic discussion}}

Talk:2463: Astrophotography

2021-05-15T13:19:58Z

162.158.159.122:

So are any of those "balls" actually sunspots or the transit of Venus or something?
[[Special:Contributions/173.245.54.227|173.245.54.227]] 22:47, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

This looks like Destin from Smarter Every Day's lunar eclipse shot https://youtu.be/Nk0MRxXqo9s?t=610
[[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.78|108.162.219.78]] 23:20, 14 May 2021 (UTC)Yeedle
:Destin also caught the ISS transiting during a previous eclipse: https://youtu.be/lepQoU4oek4?t=230 [[User:Astroboy|Astroboy]] ([[User talk:Astroboy|talk]]) 02:11, 15 May 2021 (UTC)
::Yes and that was probably the one that needed to on up so I have added this to the explanation, before I read this coment. The other video has not much to do with transit. But that was also really cool, and I had not seen that one so thx. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 06:42, 15 May 2021 (UTC)

This is actually really cool. [[User:ISaveXKCDpapers|ISaveXKCDpapers]] ([[User talk:ISaveXKCDpapers|talk]]) 02:26, 15 May 2021 (UTC)

It might have been better with two planes that didn't look like they were dangerously within normal flight separation distances. Given they're not obviously 1000ft (300m) vertically apart (and very likely in Opposite Conflict, heading-wise) horizontal separation depthwise to the image should make the two similar models towing (similarly-sized?) banners noticeably off-scale to each other, even with the extreme foreshortening from the much distant cameraman. (Maybe the viewing angle 'up the mountain' would provide sufficient composite diagonal separation to comply with Reduced Flight Levels for two planes obeying hemispherical RVSM, but still with notable off-scaling.) They could be a stunt-pair, of course, asked for and given ATC dispensation (further complicated by the banner-towing) to cross absurdly close (by normal, sane standards) as per a fast-jet criss-cross at an airshow. It might have been even more impressive if one had been a notably 'bigger' class of plane (but silouetted at the same or smaller size) towing a similarly (give or take) rescaled banner. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.131|162.158.158.131]] 02:43, 15 May 2021 (UTC)

I am really looking forward to seeing the simultaneous Eclipse and Transit of Venus [[Special:Contributions/108.162.249.18|108.162.249.18]] 03:46, 15 May 2021 (UTC)
:I look forward to reading Comic #2070397(ish?), and seeing if Randall revisits this! [[Special:Contributions/162.158.159.122|162.158.159.122]] 13:19, 15 May 2021 (UTC)

2462: NASA Award

2021-05-13T17:53:08Z

162.158.159.122: /* Explanation */ It might be an excellent insight, it might be wrong, but it's a leapt-to conclusion thanks to triggering a 'short cut' in perception that doesn't wait for the lion to be actually leaping on you.

{{comic
| number = 2462
| date = May 11, 2021
| title = NASA Award
| image = nasa_award.png
| titletext = The key to discovering life on Mars is to find someone who built a camera and landed it on Mars. Then you just look through the pictures for plants and dogs and stuff.
}}

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

This comic jabs at poorly-supported claims of discovering alien life, particularly when instances of pareidolia are used as "evidence" of such life. {{w|Pareidolia}} is the tendency for perception to spuriously impose a meaningful interpretation on a nebulous visual stimulus, for example a rock that is interpreted as a face. A famous example is the {{w|Cydonia_(Mars)#%22Face_on_Mars%22|Face on Mars}}, a 2km long hill that can be said to resemble the face of a human when viewed on low resolution images, at a specific angle and lighting conditions. At the time some people claimed this was proof of an ancient Martian civilization. Later higher resolution images showed that the face was an optical illusion.
Rocks make for poor prizes as they make for poor evidence, and looking from different angles is of no use for either.

The title text may be using linguistic ambiguity: the discovery mentioned occurs on Mars, rather than life being there. (The discovering entity is probably a robot, as a human astronaut would likely be aware of 1) their own existence and 2) the existence of other living things.{{Citation needed}}). It also pokes fun at borrowing a stranger's camera and seeing all the pictures they've taken before.

An alternative interpretation for the title text is that it is lampooning the simplistic notion that life on Mars would be detected by looking at photos at all. In reality, all extraterrestrial life (in this solar system at least) is almost certainly microscopic. The notion of detecting it by studying photos of the Martian surface is just as absurd as the idea of looking at the photos and expecting to see dogs and trees and other familiar macroscopic lifeforms.

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

:[Cueball, Ponytail, Hairy, and Megan stand on a platform. Ponytail and Hairy are elevated further on another platform placed on top of the first]
:[Ponytail holds a necklace with a rock attached to the end, offering it to Hairy]
:Ponytail: We're honored to present you with this Nobel Prize!
:Hairy: That's just a rock.
:Ponytail: Yeah, but from a certain angle...

:[Caption beneath the panel]:
:NASA has a new award for people on the internet who claim to find life in their Mars photos.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Space]]
[[Category:Biology]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]

2462: NASA Award

2021-05-13T13:49:01Z

162.158.159.122: wikipedia links

{{comic
| number = 2462
| date = May 11, 2021
| title = NASA Award
| image = nasa_award.png
| titletext = The key to discovering life on Mars is to find someone who built a camera and landed it on Mars. Then you just look through the pictures for plants and dogs and stuff.
}}

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

This comic jabs at poorly-supported claims of discovering alien life, particularly when instances of pareidolia are used as "evidence" of such life. {{w|Pareidolia}} is the tendency for perception to impose a meaningful interpretation on a nebulous visual stimulus, for example a rock that is interpreted as a face. A famous example is the {{w|Cydonia_(Mars)#%22Face_on_Mars%22|Face on Mars}}, a 2km long hill that can be said to resemble the face of a human when viewed on low resolution images, at a specific angle and lighting conditions. At the time some people claimed this was proof of an ancient Martian civilization. Later higher resolution images showed that the face was an optical illusion.
Rocks make for poor prizes as they make for poor evidence, and looking from different angles is of no use for either.

The title text may be using linguistic ambiguity: the discovery mentioned occurs on Mars, rather than life being there. (The discovering entity is probably a robot, as a human astronaut would likely be aware of 1) their own existence and 2) the existence of other living things.{{Citation needed}}). It also pokes fun at borrowing a stranger's camera and seeing all the pictures they've taken before.

An alternative interpretation for the title text is that it is lampooning the simplistic notion that life on Mars would be detected by looking at photos at all. In reality, all extraterrestrial life (in this solar system at least) is almost certainly microscopic. The notion of detecting it by studying photos of the Martian surface is just as absurd as the idea of looking at the photos and expecting to see dogs and trees and other familiar macroscopic lifeforms.

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

:[Cueball, Ponytail, Hairy, and Megan stand on a platform. Ponytail and Hairy are elevated further on another platform placed on top of the first]
:[Ponytail holds a necklace with a rock attached to the end, offering it to Hairy]
:Ponytail: We're honored to present you with this Nobel Prize!
:Hairy: That's just a rock.
:Ponytail: Yeah, but from a certain angle...

:[Caption beneath the panel]:
:NASA has a new award for people on the internet who claim to find life in their Mars photos.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Space]]
[[Category:Biology]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]

Talk:2318: Dynamic Entropy

2020-06-11T08:58:24Z

162.158.159.122: GOOMPH.D.R.

Can confirm, have never lost an argument. [[User:Dynamic Entropy|Dynamic Entropy]] ([[User talk:Dynamic Entropy|talk]]) 00:45, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

: Allegrini, P., Douglas, J. F., & Glotzer, S. C. (1999). Dynamic entropy as a measure of caging and persistent particle motion in supercooled liquids. Physical Review E, 60(5), 5714, doi: 10.1103/physreve.60.5714.

: Asadi, M., Ebrahimi, N., Hamedani, G., & Soofi, E. (2004). Maximum Dynamic Entropy Models. Journal of Applied Probability, 41(2), 379-390. Retrieved June 11, 2020, from www.jstor.org/stable/3216023

: Green, J. R., Costa, A. B., Grzybowski, B. A., & Szleifer, I. (2013). Relationship between dynamical entropy and energy dissipation far from thermodynamic equilibrium. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 110(41), 16339-16343.

: S. Satpathy et al., "An All-Digital Unified Static/Dynamic Entropy Generator Featuring Self-Calibrating Hierarchical Von Neumann Extraction for Secure Privacy-Preserving Mutual Authentication in IoT Mote Platforms," 2018 IEEE Symposium on VLSI Circuits, Honolulu, HI, 2018, pp. 169-170, doi: 10.1109/VLSIC.2018.8502369.
:[[User:Bugstomper|Bugstomper]] ([[User talk:Bugstomper|talk]]) 01:28, 11 June 2020 (UTC)
::Can someone with knowledge of the reference system in a wiki make the reference appear above the discussion, maybe in a section named References?--[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 07:06, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

Well bugger me (METAPHOR! METAPHOR!) but my current Master thesis in Computer Science could use that term without much shoehorning. (tl;dr: Binary search trees that adapt, =dynamic, can serve a query series faster than static, and the gain depends on the structure of the query series, =entropy. I prefer the good old "instance optimality", though...) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.159.122|162.158.159.122]] 08:58, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

Talk:2306: Common Cold

2020-05-14T13:50:33Z

162.158.159.122:

WHEN COVID19 IS DONE KEEP UP WITH THE HAND WASHING![[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.122|108.162.216.122]] 23:16, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

I saw a thing reshared some time last month claiming that after the hand-sanitizer-and-masks outbreak in Japan, some regions were recording record low numbers of influenza hospitalisations for this time of year. Thought that would be nice; but could only find unsourced claims. Would be nice to think there really was that kind of silver lining. [[User:Angel|Angel]] ([[User talk:Angel|talk]]) 23:30, 13 May 2020 (UTC)
:Since people are really staying away from each other, the only way flu and common cold can spread has also been eliminated. So of course the rate has dropped. But yes, would be nice to see some citations. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 12:13, 14 May 2020 (UTC)
::Found this [https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-17/coronavirus-numbers-flu-tracking-data/12134082 Coronavirus isolation measures are reducing all flu-like diseases, not just COVID-19].--[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 12:15, 14 May 2020 (UTC)
::And this is more up to date: [https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/health/coronavirus-doctors-see-huge-drop-in-flu-common-cold-diarrhoea-and-conjunctivitis Coronavirus: Doctors see huge drop in flu, common cold, diarrhoea and conjunctivitis cases since circuit breaker measures]. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 12:16, 14 May 2020 (UTC)
:::While this SEEMS good news, I have wondered for a while now if, by eliminating harmless cold viruses that our immune systems are more or less accustomed to as "collateral damage", we might not accidentally open up new ecological niches, which then get occupied by MORE new pathogens that our immune systems are NOT accustomed to. So, it may actually a good idea to consider that deal.... --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.159.122|162.158.159.122]] 13:50, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

According to Taiwan National Infectious Disease Statistics System, the [https://nidss.cdc.gov.tw/en/SingleDisease.aspx?dc=1&dt=4&disease=487a&position=1 number of severe influenza cases in Taiwan] was 109 on week 1 of 2020, then drop to zero since March. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.34.58|172.69.34.58]] 04:54, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

Based on the railroad's Twitter feed which announces when service is suspended because someone got hit by a train, it seems that deaths from being hit by trains are down where I live. I'd expect some reduction in accidental deaths due to fewer trains per day running. However, the reduction in deaths is greater than the reduction in train service, so that's not the full explanation, especially since most of the deaths were suicides.[[Special:Contributions/108.162.215.250|108.162.215.250]] 05:27, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

Was this comic posted a day late? [[Special:Contributions/172.69.130.10|172.69.130.10]] 11:36, 14 May 2020 (UTC)
:No. But the DGBRt bot that uploads the comic is in the wrong time zone and there it was May 14th. But in the archive on xkcd it is listed as a May 13 release. I have corrected the wrong date. This has happened with two comics now over the last few releases. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 12:11, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

Talk:2306: Common Cold

2020-05-14T13:49:19Z

162.158.159.122: --~~~~

WHEN COVID19 IS DONE KEEP UP WITH THE HAND WASHING![[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.122|108.162.216.122]] 23:16, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

I saw a thing reshared some time last month claiming that after the hand-sanitizer-and-masks outbreak in Japan, some regions were recording record low numbers of influenza hospitalisations for this time of year. Thought that would be nice; but could only find unsourced claims. Would be nice to think there really was that kind of silver lining. [[User:Angel|Angel]] ([[User talk:Angel|talk]]) 23:30, 13 May 2020 (UTC)
:Since people are really staying away from each other, the only way flu and common cold can spread has also been eliminated. So of course the rate has dropped. But yes, would be nice to see some citations. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 12:13, 14 May 2020 (UTC)
::Found this [https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-17/coronavirus-numbers-flu-tracking-data/12134082 Coronavirus isolation measures are reducing all flu-like diseases, not just COVID-19].--[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 12:15, 14 May 2020 (UTC)
::And this is more up to date: [https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/health/coronavirus-doctors-see-huge-drop-in-flu-common-cold-diarrhoea-and-conjunctivitis Coronavirus: Doctors see huge drop in flu, common cold, diarrhoea and conjunctivitis cases since circuit breaker measures]. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 12:16, 14 May 2020 (UTC)
:::While this SEEMS good news, I have wondered for a while now if, by eliminating harmless cold viruses that our immune systems are more or less accustomed to as "collateral damage", we might not accidentally open up new ecological niches, which then get occupied by MORE new pathogens that our immune systems are NOT accustomed to. So, it may actually a good ideas to consider that deal....

According to Taiwan National Infectious Disease Statistics System, the [https://nidss.cdc.gov.tw/en/SingleDisease.aspx?dc=1&dt=4&disease=487a&position=1 number of severe influenza cases in Taiwan] was 109 on week 1 of 2020, then drop to zero since March. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.34.58|172.69.34.58]] 04:54, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

Based on the railroad's Twitter feed which announces when service is suspended because someone got hit by a train, it seems that deaths from being hit by trains are down where I live. I'd expect some reduction in accidental deaths due to fewer trains per day running. However, the reduction in deaths is greater than the reduction in train service, so that's not the full explanation, especially since most of the deaths were suicides.[[Special:Contributions/108.162.215.250|108.162.215.250]] 05:27, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

Was this comic posted a day late? [[Special:Contributions/172.69.130.10|172.69.130.10]] 11:36, 14 May 2020 (UTC)
:No. But the DGBRt bot that uploads the comic is in the wrong time zone and there it was May 14th. But in the archive on xkcd it is listed as a May 13 release. I have corrected the wrong date. This has happened with two comics now over the last few releases. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 12:11, 14 May 2020 (UTC)