explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Talk:1691: Optimization

2016-06-08T09:40:48Z

162.158.2.138: New sub-comment

[[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.47|141.101.98.47]] 08:33, 8 June 2016 (UTC) Yay! First time starting a page's explanation! (Actually second time, but first time I didn't save it in time.) Also, first comment!
:[https://xkcd.com/1258/ Please don't start that again...] [[Special:Contributions/162.158.2.138|162.158.2.138]] 09:40, 8 June 2016 (UTC)

Talk:1689: My Friend Catherine

2016-06-05T10:54:46Z

162.158.2.138: New sub-comment

I can't get any work done because My Friend Catherine is sitting on my leopard. [[User:Mikemk|Mikemk]] ([[User talk:Mikemk|talk]]) 15:07, 3 June 2016 (UTC)
:I genuinely expected to see leopard in the alt text.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.214.230|162.158.214.230]] 18:03, 3 June 2016 (UTC)
::I also came straight here to write a note on the leopard after seeing the title text, but Mikmek beat me too it ;-) --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 19:32, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

I'm not so sure that it does conflict with car->cat. This is "my cat"->to " my friend Catherine", i.e. car->cat->my friend Catherine wouldn't happen. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.237.137|108.162.237.137]] 15:15, 3 June 2016 (UTC)
:You would have to make sure that "my cat" came before "cat" in the script, else it would first replace all cats with cars and thus never see the phrase "my cat".[[Special:Contributions/162.158.214.230|162.158.214.230]] 18:03, 3 June 2016 (UTC)
::The substitution was the other way replacing car with cat, so it is the other way around that if there was some "my car" they would also become my friend Catherine in stead of my cat. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 19:32, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

Being a dog person, my dog-->my friend Doug would also be a fun substitution. [[User:Jake|Jake]] ([[User talk:Jake|talk]]) 15:43, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

Is the cat-on-my-keyboard in the title text possibly a reference to that old Keyboard Cat video?[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J---aiyznGQ] [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.80|108.162.221.80]] 20:06, 3 June 2016 (UTC)
:Don't think so—cats seem to have a tendency to sit on computer keyboards when their owners aren't using them. [[User talk:AgentMuffin|~AgentMuffin]]
::More often when the owners ''are'' using them. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.2.138|162.158.2.138]] 10:54, 5 June 2016 (UTC)

For an even creepier substitution, try "great aunt Catherine". [[Special:Contributions/108.162.250.158|108.162.250.158]] 03:06, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

Oh great, I have to change the chrome extension again. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.215.69|108.162.215.69]] 15:18, 4 June 2016 (UTC)--

1665: City Talk Pages

2016-04-09T00:27:17Z

162.158.2.138: /* Transcript */ we don't need this a dozen times

{{comic
| number = 1665
| date = April 8, 2016
| title = City Talk Pages
| image = city talk pages.png
| titletext = "I don't think the Lakeshore Air Crash Museum really belongs under 'Tourist Attractions.' It's not a museum--it's just an area near the Lake Festival Laser Show where a lot of planes have crashed.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|So far only listing references to items. A real explanation needs to be written together from this and more. Title text explanation needed. Real life examples of such city talk pages with at least the more realistic part of the content? There need to be a table with each item?}}

The comic makes fun about Wikipedia talk pages. On Wikipedia, every article has a place to discuss the content of the page, called a "{{w|Help:Using talk pages|talk page}}". In this case, the comic talks about the talk page of an article about a city. While some of the topics are quite normal for such a page (e.g. the quality of the images) others are not (e.g. too many murders and mine disasters in the city).

The topics show a common problem at Wikipedia's talk pages: People often use them as a place to talk about the ''subject'' of the article, but it is for talking about the ''article'' itself.

"Not that notable" refers to Wikipedia's general criteria for including information in articles. Material which is not noteworthy should be removed; however, different editors often disagree about what is notable, resulting in conflicting edits as text is inserted and then removed (an "edit war"). Someone with a personal agenda to suppress certain information might justify their removal of it by claiming it is "not notable", despite other users' interest. "I think the murderer is reverting my edits" suggests the murders are being committed by ''one person'' who is trying to prevent Wikipedia from publishing evidence of them. This raises the possibility that the discussion of the murder visible in the infobox picture was ''initiated by the murderer''.

The {{w|WP:Infobox|infobox}} is a short fact sheet that many articles in the (English) Wikipedia have; it generally includes an image illustrating the subject of the article. The question of which picture is best for the infobox (because this image is so prominent) can cause edit wars.

{{w|Voltaire}} was a French Enlightenment writer. As a prominent and very opinionated intellectual, [https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Voltaire#Misattributed he gets a lot of quotes falsely attributed to him]; most famously, he did not actually say "I disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" (that was {{w|Evelyn Beatrice Hall}}).

{{w|Zootopia}} is a 2016 Disney film. The fictional city which is the setting and title of the film has a distinctive [http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/disney/images/4/43/Zootopia_City_Full.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20160102163923 look] which is far from bleak, but since it is a fictional location, it appears that the people who are editing the article are getting desperate to find a non-bleak picture of the city.

{{w|1982 Secession}} refers to Key West, Florida seceding from the United States in 1982 to form the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conch_Republic Conch Republic].

{{w|Andrew Lloyd Webber}} is an English composer famous for writing ''The {{w|Phantom Of The Opera}}''. (Webber is also known for writing the music for ''{{w|Starlight Express}}'', a rock opera about anthropomorphized trains, which is probably another factor in the train station joke.) Meanwhile, {{w|Frank Lloyd Wright}}, who has a somewhat similar name, was an American architect, who designed more than 1,000 structures. As it turns out it was the composer who was responsible for the train station, and thus explaining the reason for the roof collapse.

In the comic ''Webber'' is spelled ''Weber''. This could be a mistake by [[Randall]], (but then it is likely to be corrected later...) More likely Randall did this for the sake of realism as this is what can be expected by people writing in a talk page on Wikipedia, where errors are not necessarily corrected as they would be in the main article.

==Examples==
*{{w|Talk:Key West, Florida#What's with the Chicken photo}} questions the relevance of free range chickens.

==Transcript==
:[Caption above the panel: ]
:I love reading the Wikipedia talk pages for articles on individual cites

:[A list of contents for a Wikipedia talk page regarding an article about a city. Except for the header and the square brackets, which are written in black text, the rest is in a blue font.]
:::Contents [Hide]

:1 Origin of city's name?
::1.1 Idea for a better name
::1.2 Not how Wikipedia works
:2 Too much promotion of the lake festival
:3 Should we mention the murders?
::3.1 Not that notable
::3.2 All cites have murders
:4 Quote verification: Even if Voltaire did visit (unlikely), why would he get so angry about our restaurants?
:5 Discuss: New picture
::5.1 Current one looks awfully bleak
::5.2 Gray sky
::5.3 What about this
::5.4 Also bleak
::5.5 Maybe this place just looks that way
::5.6 Found a better picture, more colorful
::5.7 That's a shot from Disney's ''Zootopia''
:6 "Mining disasters" section too long
::6.1 Not really Wikipedia's fault
::6.2 Why is this town so bad at mining?
:7 Infobox picture: I just realized you can see a murder happening in the background
::7.1 This city is terrible
::7.2 Photoshopped out murder
::7.3 Can someone just take a better picture
::7.4 Okay, uploaded a new picture
::7.5 Wait, never mind, I just noticed there's a murder in this one, too
:8 1982 secession still in effect?
:9 I think the murderer is reverting my edits
:10 Why does this article take '''''any''''' position on correct condom use, let alone such a weird and ambiguous one?
:11 Train station "Designed by Andrew Lloyd Weber"?
::11.1 They probably mean Frank Lloyd Wright
::11.2 I thought so too, but it's apparently not a mistake
::11.3 Didn't know he did architecture
::11.4 Roof collapse

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Wikipedia]]

1665: City Talk Pages

2016-04-09T00:24:03Z

162.158.2.138: /* Explanation */ the irony

{{comic
| number = 1665
| date = April 8, 2016
| title = City Talk Pages
| image = city talk pages.png
| titletext = "I don't think the Lakeshore Air Crash Museum really belongs under 'Tourist Attractions.' It's not a museum--it's just an area near the Lake Festival Laser Show where a lot of planes have crashed.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|So far only listing references to items. A real explanation needs to be written together from this and more. Title text explanation needed. Real life examples of such city talk pages with at least the more realistic part of the content? There need to be a table with each item?}}

The comic makes fun about Wikipedia talk pages. On Wikipedia, every article has a place to discuss the content of the page, called a "{{w|Help:Using talk pages|talk page}}". In this case, the comic talks about the talk page of an article about a city. While some of the topics are quite normal for such a page (e.g. the quality of the images) others are not (e.g. too many murders and mine disasters in the city).

The topics show a common problem at Wikipedia's talk pages: People often use them as a place to talk about the ''subject'' of the article, but it is for talking about the ''article'' itself.

"Not that notable" refers to Wikipedia's general criteria for including information in articles. Material which is not noteworthy should be removed; however, different editors often disagree about what is notable, resulting in conflicting edits as text is inserted and then removed (an "edit war"). Someone with a personal agenda to suppress certain information might justify their removal of it by claiming it is "not notable", despite other users' interest. "I think the murderer is reverting my edits" suggests the murders are being committed by ''one person'' who is trying to prevent Wikipedia from publishing evidence of them. This raises the possibility that the discussion of the murder visible in the infobox picture was ''initiated by the murderer''.

The {{w|WP:Infobox|infobox}} is a short fact sheet that many articles in the (English) Wikipedia have; it generally includes an image illustrating the subject of the article. The question of which picture is best for the infobox (because this image is so prominent) can cause edit wars.

{{w|Voltaire}} was a French Enlightenment writer. As a prominent and very opinionated intellectual, [https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Voltaire#Misattributed he gets a lot of quotes falsely attributed to him]; most famously, he did not actually say "I disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" (that was {{w|Evelyn Beatrice Hall}}).

{{w|Zootopia}} is a 2016 Disney film. The fictional city which is the setting and title of the film has a distinctive [http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/disney/images/4/43/Zootopia_City_Full.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20160102163923 look] which is far from bleak, but since it is a fictional location, it appears that the people who are editing the article are getting desperate to find a non-bleak picture of the city.

{{w|1982 Secession}} refers to Key West, Florida seceding from the United States in 1982 to form the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conch_Republic Conch Republic].

{{w|Andrew Lloyd Webber}} is an English composer famous for writing ''The {{w|Phantom Of The Opera}}''. (Webber is also known for writing the music for ''{{w|Starlight Express}}'', a rock opera about anthropomorphized trains, which is probably another factor in the train station joke.) Meanwhile, {{w|Frank Lloyd Wright}}, who has a somewhat similar name, was an American architect, who designed more than 1,000 structures. As it turns out it was the composer who was responsible for the train station, and thus explaining the reason for the roof collapse.

In the comic ''Webber'' is spelled ''Weber''. This could be a mistake by [[Randall]], (but then it is likely to be corrected later...) More likely Randall did this for the sake of realism as this is what can be expected by people writing in a talk page on Wikipedia, where errors are not necessarily corrected as they would be in the main article.

==Examples==
*{{w|Talk:Key West, Florida#What's with the Chicken photo}} questions the relevance of free range chickens.

==Transcript==
:[Caption above the panel: ]
:I love reading the Wikipedia talk pages for articles on individual cites

:[A list of contents for a Wikipedia talk page regarding an article about a city. Except for the header and the square brackets, which are written in black text, the rest is in a blue font.]
:::Contents [Hide]

:1 Origin of city's name?
::1.1 Idea for a better name
::1.2 Not how Wikipedia works
:2 Too much promotion of the lake festival
:3 Should we mention the murders?
::3.1 Not that notable
::3.2 All cites have murders
:4 Quote verification: Even if Voltaire did visit (unlikely), why would he get so angry about our restaurants?
:5 Discuss: New picture
::5.1 Current one looks awfully bleak
::5.2 Gray sky
::5.3 What about this
::5.4 Also bleak
::5.5 Maybe this place just looks that way
::5.6 Found a better picture, more colorful
::5.7 That's a shot from Disney's ''Zootopia''
:6 "Mining disasters" section too long
::6.1 Not really Wikipedia's fault
::6.2 Why is this town so bad at mining?
:7 Infobox picture: I just realized you can see a murder happening in the background
::7.1 This city is terrible
::7.2 Photoshopped out murder
::7.3 Can someone just take a better picture
::7.4 Okay, uploaded a new picture
::7.5 Wait, never mind, I just noticed there's a murder in this one, too
:8 1982 secession still in effect?
:9 I think the murderer is reverting my edits
:10 Why does this article take '''''any''''' position on correct condom use, let alone such a weird and ambiguous one?
:11 Train station "Designed by Andrew Lloyd Weber"?
::11.1 They probably mean Frank Lloyd Wright
::11.2 I thought so too, but it's apparently not a mistake
::11.3 Didn't know he did architecture
::11.4 Roof collapse

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Wikipedia]]

1665: City Talk Pages

2016-04-09T00:21:22Z

162.158.2.138:

{{comic
| number = 1665
| date = April 8, 2016
| title = City Talk Pages
| image = city talk pages.png
| titletext = "I don't think the Lakeshore Air Crash Museum really belongs under 'Tourist Attractions.' It's not a museum--it's just an area near the Lake Festival Laser Show where a lot of planes have crashed.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|So far only listing references to items. A real explanation needs to be written together from this and more. Title text explanation needed. Real life examples of such city talk pages with at least the more realistic part of the content? There need to be a table with each item?}}

The comic makes fun about Wikipedia talk pages. On Wikipedia, every article has a place to discuss the content of the page, called a "{{w|Help:Using talk pages|talk page}}". In this case, the comic talks about the talk page of an article about a city. While some of the topics are quite normal for such a page (e.g. the quality of the images) others are not (e.g. too many murders and mine disasters in the city).

The topics show a common problem at Wikipedia's talk pages: People often use them as a place to talk about the ''subject'' of the article, but it is for talking about the ''article'' itself.

"Not that notable" refers to Wikipedia's general criteria for including information in articles. Material which is not noteworthy should be removed; however, different editors often disagree about what is notable, resulting in conflicting edits as text is inserted and then removed (an "edit war"). Someone with a personal agenda to suppress certain information might justify their removal of it by claiming it is "not notable", despite other users' interest. "I think the murderer is reverting my edits" suggests the murders are being committed by ''one person'' who is trying to prevent Wikipedia from publishing evidence of them. This raises the possibility that the discussion of the murder visible in the infobox picture was ''initiated by the murderer''.

The {{w|WP:Infobox|infobox}} is a short fact sheet that many articles in the (English) Wikipedia have; it generally includes an image illustrating the subject of the article. The question of which picture is best for the infobox (because this image is so prominent) can cause edit wars.

{{w|Voltaire}} was a French Enlightenment writer. As a prominent and very opinionated intellectual, [https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Voltaire#Misattributed he gets a lot of quotes falsely attributed to him]; most famously, he did not actually say "I disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" (that was {{w|Evelyn Beatrice Hall}}).

{{w|Zootopia}} is a 2016 Disney film. The fictional city which is the setting and title of the film has a distinctive [http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/disney/images/4/43/Zootopia_City_Full.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20160102163923 look] which is far from bleak, but since it is a fictional location, it appears that the people who are editing the article are getting desperate to find a non-bleak picture of the city.

{{w|1982 Secession}} refers to Key West, Florida seceding from the United States in 1982 to form the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conch_Republic Conch Republic].

{{w|Andrew Lloyd Webber}} is an English composer famous for writing ''The {{w|Phantom Of The Opera}}''. (Webber is also known for writing the music for ''{{w|Starlight Express}}'', a rock opera about anthropomorphized trains, which is probably another factor in the train station joke.) Meanwhile, {{w|Frank Lloyd Wright}}, who has a somewhat similar name, was an American architect, who designed more than 1,000 structures. As it turns out it was the composer who was responsible for the train station, and thus explaining the reason for the roof collapse.

In the comic ''Webber'' is spelled ''Weber''. This could be a mistake by [[Randall]], (but then it it likely to be corrected later...) More likely Randall did this for the sake of realism as this is what can be expected by people writing in a talk page on Wikipedia, where errors are not necessarily corrected as they would be in the main article.

==Examples==
*{{w|Talk:Key West, Florida#What's with the Chicken photo}} questions the relevance of free range chickens.

==Transcript==
:[Caption above the panel: ]
:I love reading the Wikipedia talk pages for articles on individual cites

:[A list of contents for a Wikipedia talk page regarding an article about a city. Except for the header and the square brackets, which are written in black text, the rest is in a blue font.]
:::Contents [Hide]

:1 Origin of city's name?
::1.1 Idea for a better name
::1.2 Not how Wikipedia works
:2 Too much promotion of the lake festival
:3 Should we mention the murders?
::3.1 Not that notable
::3.2 All cites have murders
:4 Quote verification: Even if Voltaire did visit (unlikely), why would he get so angry about our restaurants?
:5 Discuss: New picture
::5.1 Current one looks awfully bleak
::5.2 Gray sky
::5.3 What about this
::5.4 Also bleak
::5.5 Maybe this place just looks that way
::5.6 Found a better picture, more colorful
::5.7 That's a shot from Disney's ''Zootopia''
:6 "Mining disasters" section too long
::6.1 Not really Wikipedia's fault
::6.2 Why is this town so bad at mining?
:7 Infobox picture: I just realized you can see a murder happening in the background
::7.1 This city is terrible
::7.2 Photoshopped out murder
::7.3 Can someone just take a better picture
::7.4 Okay, uploaded a new picture
::7.5 Wait, never mind, I just noticed there's a murder in this one, too
:8 1982 secession still in effect?
:9 I think the murderer is reverting my edits
:10 Why does this article take '''''any''''' position on correct condom use, let alone such a weird and ambiguous one?
:11 Train station "Designed by Andrew Lloyd Weber"?
::11.1 They probably mean Frank Lloyd Wright
::11.2 I thought so too, but it's apparently not a mistake
::11.3 Didn't know he did architecture
::11.4 Roof collapse

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Wikipedia]]

Talk:1515: Basketball Earth

2016-03-25T07:04:48Z

162.158.2.138:

Apologies to the first editor, who made a snappier version of what I wrote. For the record, whilst fighting a dodgy internet connection I eventually ended up replacing the following...
Cueball is seen trying to explain the relative sizes of the earth and moon by comparing the earth to a basketball and the moon to what looks like a golf ball. This explanation is constantly thwarted by passerby interacting with the basketball while Cueball is explaining it.
For the title text, the answer is zero, since it is against basketball rules.
...with what I tried to keep short during my own writing from scratch. I also ommited several other concepts of my own thought: The fact that Blackhat must have used a very light-touch to ''only'' generate a megatsunami (albeit already unimaginably large, at Earthball's scale); The possibility of recursion (including something like the Men In Black 'cat collar' allusion); and that in the universe of the comic strip there is only ''one'' actual basketball (the Earthball itsself), although I like how we ''both'' had the idea that the basketballs upon Earthball would not have counted in a game of basketball with an Earthball-scaled hoop, due to quite obvious interpretations of the sport's regulations. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.67|141.101.98.67]] 05:11, 22 April 2015 (UTC)
:Oh yeah, and reversion is invited, if deemed preferable. As is amalgamation, and refinement and re-replacement by something even better, of course. As per the standard Wiki creed. Much as I am cringing at having upset the original contributor, I'm quite happy to be gazumped in turn. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.67|141.101.98.67]] 05:14, 22 April 2015 (UTC)
If you look at the third frame of the Blackhat sequence and compare it to the frames underneath, you can see that he didn't just touch the Earth or an ocean--he actually rotated it 90 degrees.[[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.115|108.162.221.115]] 09:38, 22 April 2015 (UTC)
:Well spotted! Edit that in! (Do it quickly with a pre-prepared edit. I kept getting hit by edit-conflicts, which I set about to resolve amicably without reversing anybody else's input; only to get hit by further edit-conflicts by the next person to come along and improve overlapping pieces, whom I also strived not to disregard.) [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.67|141.101.98.67]] 09:57, 22 April 2015 (UTC)
::No he didn't. the Earth always rotates from the first panel to the next. So that it is in a different position when Black Hat touches it, to where it was the panel before does not imply that he rotated the Earth. If anything he only rotated it a few degrees, as it had already rotated most of those 90 degree from panel 1 to panel 2 before Black Hat reaches the Earth. As far as I can see there has not been any change to include this yet. So that is good. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 10:41, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

I really love this comic. It is great fun. Thanks Randall, happy Earth day. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 10:42, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

... a tennis ball an average 7.2 metres away, while the Sun would be 26 metres across and 2.8 km away. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.250.165|108.162.250.165]] 13:25, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

It's 13:23 right now, but the clock of explainxkcd.com says it's 13:37. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.201|108.162.221.201]] 13:37, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

If we assume 9,000,000 basketballs sold every year ([http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showthread.php?t=82227 bbs.ClutchFans.net]), one basketball lasts about 10,000 bounces ([http://www.sotruefacts.com/rule/770 SoTrueFacts.com]), and there's between 2,500 and 3,000 bounces per game ([http://www.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_average_lifespan_of_a_basketball_in_bounces_in_National_Basketball_Association_play Answers.com]) we can extrapolate that on average a basketball doesn't live for more than a year, and the number of basketballs sold replace those which have lifed-out. Let's build in a 10% slush factor and say there 10m basketballs produced in the world last year. Let's further say that there's an extra 1m basketballs sold every year which don't get regular use and are in some kid's room and those have been accumulating for about ten years (different kids get basketballs every year which end up in their bedrooms). Dunking a basketball gives two points, and at 20 million basketballs, that gives 40 million points – and a safe bet you're going to make it to the playoffs that year. [[User:Jarod997|Jarod997]] ([[User talk:Jarod997|talk]]) 13:51, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

Is it possible that the megatsunami is actually caused by the gravity of the scale Moon (it being way too close to the scale Earth)? This is a major problem that most children's books (or adult's books or websites) have. They scale the planets/moons/stars but not the distance. As the comment above, to get normal tides, the tennis ball should be 7.2m away at this scale. --[[User:Gravitron|Gravitron]] ([[User talk:Gravitron|talk]]) 14:06, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

I find it interesting that Randall makes the same mistake a lot of people make reguarding the distance between the earth and moon at that scale. I was watching Veritasium (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bz9D6xba9Og) on Youtube a while back and the guy there was asking people how far away a tennis ball sized moon would be from a basketball sized Earth. Most people made the distance way too small, very similar to how far away they appear in the comic. In reality they would be something like 10 times that distance. Usually Randall is more accurate than this. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.171|108.162.221.171]] 14:09, 22 April 2015 (UTC)Agent0013
:Unless he was simply trying to compare the relative sizes. It's possible after that he would get in to the relative distance between the two - but good point. [[User:Jarod997|Jarod997]] ([[User talk:Jarod997|talk]]) 14:12, 22 April 2015 (UTC)
::It seemingly got lost when trying to resolve edits, but I'd calculated and intended to add that (for the size of a baseball, so a tennis ball would slightly different) 110 Moonball diameters separation between the two. Of course no human has (personally) seen that from a proper perspective, i.e. far enough away to get both bodies in the same convenient vision at the same time whilst off to the side. (Even the Apollo astronauts only got to look at one over the top of the other, at various times, or by panning between the two whilst in the midst of their trans-lunar trajectories.) But there's surely been a space probe or two with a suitable imager been tasked towards such a shot whilst off mostly perpendicular to the Earth-Moon and a decent distance away to get both in the same shot without distortion... [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.67|141.101.98.67]] 17:52, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

I don't agree with the claim (at a couple points in the article) that *all* life would be extinguished by any of these manipulations. 2-4 may kill off most or all macroscopic life, but microbes would survive all of them (unless Megan has bleach in that sports bottle). If 3 or 4 shattered the earth, that might extinguish all microbes, but even that I doubt. The only case I can imagine would be if 3 or 4 caused it to spiral into the sun. [[User:Djbrasier|Djbrasier]] ([[User talk:Djbrasier|talk]]) 14:10, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

Title text might be reference to HHGTG: “
Ford Prefect: I read of one planet in the seventh dimension got used as a ball in a game of intergalactic bar billiards. Got potted straight into a black hole, killed ten billion people.
Arthur Dent: Madness. Total madness.
Ford Prefect: Yeah. Only scored thirty points too. ”[[Special:Contributions/198.41.241.91|198.41.241.91]] 14:23, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

-----

I admit that I'm super-confused by the structure of the comic. The explanation here describes possible consequences for the actions, but as depicted, only the first has any "real world" effect. I too would expect the water bottle to cause a deluge, but it doesn't seem to. What's going on? [[User:Mattdm|Mattdm]] ([[User talk:Mattdm|talk]]) 15:40, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

-----

The hoop in panel 16 seems too high, unless both Cueball and Megan are under 5 feet tall. --[[User:PsyMar|PsyMar]] ([[User talk:PsyMar|talk]]) 17:11, 22 April 2015 (UTC)
:It could be perspective...[[User:17jiangz1|17jiangz1]] ([[User talk:17jiangz1|talk]]) 12:58, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

Happy Earth Day everyone. Today is the day we regret everything we do to the earth, and the next is the day we forget all that. [[User:YourLifeisaLie|The Goyim speaks]] ([[User talk:YourLifeisaLie|talk]]) 17:59, 22 April 2015 (UTC)
:I just noticed that if [[1511]] (Spice Girl) had had been released on the following Friday, i.e. the slot actually given to comic 1513 (Code Quality), it would have coincided with Victoria "Posh Spice" Beckham's 41st birthday. So, that would probably not have been an intentional direct reference, but ''soooo'' close to ending up being an accidental one. While I'm happy to go along with Earth Day as a deliberate reference... it makes you think, eh? (Although I'd be happy if people thought about Earth Day itself more than the synchronicity. It's a good cause, and pause for thought.) [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.67|141.101.98.67]] 19:55, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

Why the whole paragraph about it being a baseball? We have no indication of what it is, so why not just say "if it's a tennis ball..." [[Special:Contributions/173.245.50.107|173.245.50.107]] 18:35, 22 April 2015 (UTC)
:Might be my fault. I assumed it was a basketball/baseball comparison in my original endeavour, and this has persisted through other edits, even after the rather logical "...a tennis ball's proportions". Over-compensated for Randall being Leftpondian, probably, even though I've never played Baseball myself (only Rounders). [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.67|141.101.98.67]] 19:55, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

The title is almost certainly a reference to the movie "Battlefield Earth" [[Special:Contributions/199.27.133.109|199.27.133.109]] 23:57, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

The points acquired for simultaneously dunking all basketballs in existence, or further out -- EVER made, would be at most 2 points (0 if any of the Referees deemed this an illegal/foreign object or an attempt at cheating). Introducing more basketballs onto the court would not result in more points being scored. Furthermore, the basketball earth, while 'containing' all other basketballs, is still itself a single object.{{unsigned|Dulock}}

Does anybody else find it odd that black hat is actually the one causing the LEAST destruction?[[Special:Contributions/199.27.130.228|199.27.130.228]] 03:09, 23 April 2015 (UTC)
:Except, in a way, he is causing the most harm. Scenario 2, 3, and 4 do cause everyone to die, but they would be relatively quick, and what black hat does has painful consequences. The megatsunami would cause huge-scale devastation, worst near the sea he poked, but still bad. This would, among other things, require major rebuilding efforts and include crop failures, leading to famines and the like. In addition, it would have scientists trying to explain it, which would lead to confusion, something black hat likes causing. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.2.138|162.158.2.138]] 07:04, 25 March 2016 (UTC)

A useful comparison from the Canadian comedy troupe, "The Frantics": "If we could shrink the sun to the size of a basketball, and the earth to the size of a pea . . . ''we'd be magic!''" {{unsigned ip|173.245.56.173}}

1658: Estimating Time

2016-03-21T12:18:42Z

162.158.2.138: Added transcript.

{{comic
| number = 1658
| date = March 21, 2016
| title = Estimating Time
| image = estimating_time.png
| titletext = Corollary to Hofstadter's Law: Every minute you spend thinking about Hofstadter's Law is a minute you're NOT WORKING AND WILL NEVER FINISH! PAAAAAANIIIIIIC!
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a BOT - Please change this comment when editing this page.}}

==Transcript==
[Ponytail is sitting at a computer, having presumably just paused work on a project.]

Ponytail: AAAA! I'm so bad at estimating how long projects take.

[Danish enters from offscreen]

Danish: Don't panic-there's a simple trick for that. Take your most realistic estimate and double it.

Ponytail: Okay, but-

Danish: Now double it again. Add five minutes. Double it a third time.

Ponytail: Okay...

Danish: 30 seconds have gone by and you've done nothing but double imaginary numbers! You're making no progress and will never finish!

Ponytail: AAAAAA!

Danish: PAAANIIIC!

[Danish raises her arms in mock hysteria. Ponytail runs away from her desk screaming.]

Ponytail: AAAAAAA!

{{comic discussion}}

Talk:1618: Cold Medicine

2015-12-18T06:53:11Z

162.158.2.138:

How hard would it actually be to turn street drugs back into cold medicine? [[User:Benjaminikuta|Benjaminikuta]] ([[User talk:Benjaminikuta|talk]]) 05:41, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

- I'm unsure on the actual scientific accuracy of this, given it is a fake paper, but http://heterodoxy.cc/meowdocs/pseudo/pseudosynth.pdf [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.13|108.162.221.13]] 05:49, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

This is in reference to recent studies that have proven that Phenylephrine is no worse than a placebo.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenylephrine
http://www.annallergy.org/article/S1081-1206(10)60240-2/abstract
[[Special:Contributions/162.158.2.138|162.158.2.138]] 06:53, 18 December 2015 (UTC)