explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Talk:2550: Webb

2021-12-20T04:38:56Z

162.158.238.239:

Ah, without edit-conflict being indicated (probably because subsequent new paragraphs could be considered as not 'treading on the toes' of the first one posted), I seem to have added repetitious information. Also I can see that I misbalanced the paragraph sizes as I went into increasingly more detail as I got into the edit. Was going to go back to wikilink/fix/etc, but I should probably leave it to a new eye to better re-edit the whole think 'nicer', taking how much or little inspiration the current mess of text might provide. Have fun! [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.41|172.70.85.41]] 04:49, 4 December 2021 (UTC)
: I tried to restructure it a bit (grouping related info, rebalancing paragraph sizes) and resolve the duplication without losing any important information. Hope it looks okay? [[Special:Contributions/172.68.133.99|172.68.133.99]] 05:46, 4 December 2021 (UTC)
:: wtg guys for clearly describing these abstract issues and addressing them [[Special:Contributions/172.70.110.227|172.70.110.227]] 16:38, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

Could someone explain why the numbers are arranged the way they are?
: It looks like the mirror on the telescope. --[[Special:Contributions/172.70.110.171|172.70.110.171]] 14:04, 4 December 2021 (UTC)
: If a magic hexagon was possible, he would have done it. However, the numbers add up to 243, and with 5 rows, this makes it impossible for each row to add up to the same number. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.110.173|172.70.110.173]] 16:29, 4 December 2021 (UTC)
: I know some advent calendars go in exact order, but a lot of them are actually ordered randomly. I've got one in my living room where the top row is "2, 17, 8, 10" [[Special:Contributions/172.70.210.237|172.70.210.237]] 23:42, 4 December 2021 (UTC)

Alternate explanation: all the astronomers are Moldovian Orthodox Catholics, and they timed the telescope to launch on Christmas Eve in their slightly out-of-sync calendar in which Christmas replaced days 2 & 3 of their week long Winter Solstice Party.[[User:Seebert|Seebert]] ([[User talk:Seebert|talk]]) 17:28, 4 December 2021 (UTC)

Why does it have the small hexagons oriented "pointy side up"? I know this is generally considered a good thing, as far as rocket launches are concerned, but in this case? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.88.91|162.158.88.91]] 20:28, 4 December 2021 (UTC)
:That's the way the hexagonal mirrors are oriented in the JWST [[User:256.256.256.256|256.256.256.256]] ([[User talk:256.256.256.256|talk]]) 12:09, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

The cells on the calendar go from 5 to 22, which I assumed was a reference that astronomers have been waiting since 2005 (when the current mission was replanned) until 2022 (the year the telescope will become active). Rather than counting down 25 days until Christmas, astronomers are counting down 18 years (inclusive) until they get their new toys to play with. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.134.23|172.70.134.23]] 00:29, 5 December 2021 (UTC)
: It's also just the number of mirrors the telescope has, and the day it launches. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.110.227|172.70.110.227]] 16:38, 5 December 2021 (UTC) [[User:Cwallenpoole|Cwallenpoole]] ([[User talk:Cwallenpoole|talk]])
: I was wondering why 1–4 were missing. [[User:Cwallenpoole|Cwallenpoole]] ([[User talk:Cwallenpoole|talk]]) 14:28, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

JWST is as fixable as Hubble, if you have Starships. Which NASA is already counting on (and funding) for Artemis.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.134.191|172.70.134.191]] 21:37, 5 December 2021 (UTC)
:Not yet available... Current tech is woefully unable (or unwilling to be put to use) to help with HST, never mind JWST. Retired tech could do Hubble, as proven, but would have been stretched to deal with the Webb. And the Webb isn't even designed ''to'' be fixed (though I'm sure they'll still have people working on it if they discover a washer's-worth of mirror misalignment, or whatever...).
:That sweet smell of Musk isn't yet right for the job. Even if the business plan says that it will be flying within the next few months, it'd be wishful thinking to rely on it at this point.
:(More so than with the sample-driller/collect/return chain of missions currently only a fraction of the way through realisation upon Mars. There's the Return stage to implement almost from scratch (setting up remote launch-site, fully fueled, etc) but the whole rover-with-manipulator thing isn't really an engineering challenge, more a matter of design nuances and the usual amount of (apparently increasing, but surely not infallible) skill and luck in executing the required landings.) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.155|172.70.162.155]] 00:13, 6 December 2021 (UTC)
::Off topic now, but the point about manned missions to Mars is that you _don't_ come back, you colonise. good luck.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.77|172.70.162.77]] 13:19, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

Could it also have to do with the fact that so called "Advent Calendars" tend to have 25 days, even though the Advent Season (Starting 4 Sundays before Christmas) is dependant on what day of the week Dec 25th falls on, and at a minimum 28 days long? Or am I the only one bothered by the fact that the companies making these calendars ignore the meaning of "advent" in the Christmas context, and just arbitrarily start them in December?[[Special:Contributions/172.70.34.165|172.70.34.165]] 14:24, 6 December 2021 (UTC)
:In Denmark we just call it a Christmas Calender (Julekalender) and has no reference to Advent (or the Christ for that matter, they never managed to make us real Christians ;-p ) Also we celebrate on th Eve before the 24th so Santa ha to come while we are still up, as we open the presents on the 24th and thus our x-mas calenders end on the 24th. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 10:19, 8 December 2021 (UTC)
::In Finland it's complicated. My Lego calendar has 24 windows, daughters L.O.L. toy calendar has 25 windows (haven't seen this kind before) and church sells ones that start on 28.11. since that's the first advent this year.
[[Special:Contributions/162.158.238.239|162.158.238.239]] 04:38, 20 December 2021 (UTC)
It's because hexagons are the bestagons. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.71.98|172.69.71.98]] 17:07, 6 December 2021 (UTC)
:[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thOifuHs6eY Hexagons are the Bestagons]! love it ;-) --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 10:19, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

Talk:2381: The True Name of the Bear

2020-11-05T11:46:07Z

162.158.238.239:

This one is ridiculously early. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.22.120|172.69.22.120]] 05:22, 4 November 2020 (UTC)

Let’s try this again, hopefully won’t get stepped on this time... I know I’ve seen Gretchen on various YouTube channels but is she really “the world's foremost internet linguist” as Randal claims?[[Special:Contributions/162.158.79.87|162.158.79.87]] 05:29, 4 November 2020 (UTC)
:Probably as a linguist studying internet culture, which she is indeed one of the most famous in that area. Most popular linguist on the internet? It's everyone's guess.
:From Randall Munroe to Tom Scott... how much more proof do you need? Or is it a conspiracy theory waiting to happen? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.143|162.158.74.143]] 16:34, 4 November 2020 (UTC)
Well, after being mentioned by Randall she totally might become the most known one.

"Arth" is Welsh for bear.

Hmm... I find Ponytail's behaviour strange. At first she asks for explanation/verification of Megan's claim and when she recieves it she yells "NO!" as if she already knew it would be true... [[User:Elektrizikekswerk|Elektrizikekswerk]] ([[User talk:Elektrizikekswerk|talk]]) 09:14, 4 November 2020 (UTC)
:She gets confirmation that the name is lost in panel 3 (and assumes it also confirms the summoning part). So she indeed knew by panel 4.[[Special:Contributions/141.101.68.66|141.101.68.66]] 10:51, 4 November 2020 (UTC)
:: Why isn't the bear's name summoning it after its name being said out loud in panel 3, though? Or is the name only "true" in English (in which the name didn't exist until Gretchen reconstructed it)? Doesn't make sense. /edit: I know we are talking about myths and superstition here and thus it might be all somewhat hazy but this comic is imho not self-consistent. I'm not used to inconsistent comics on XKCD (unless it's done on purpose for humorous effect which in this case seems not to be true). Thus my irritation. [[User:Elektrizikekswerk|Elektrizikekswerk]] ([[User talk:Elektrizikekswerk|talk]]) 11:13, 4 November 2020 (UTC)
:::They are clearly in England (or the Anglosphere in general, though English isn't the official language in the US, merely customary) and by the Rules Of Summoning an English/etc 'bear' ''must'' only respond to the locality-sanctioned word (said with intent, not a coincidentally homophonic collection of syllables, not saying the exact same word but in the sense of being actually quoting a different language that uses the same word).
:::I theorise that the Welsh are saying ''their'' bear-name in slightly the wrong accent for being useful to summon a Welsh bear (maybe it should be more "Ardd"?) due to excessive Anglicisation. Or the Celtic way of not-saying-the-true-Celtic-word is to habitually say the Anglic one, which thus does not count. Or the Welsh bears are just confused by the current trend for dual-language signage and expect/require both. (Welsh then English in one half of the country, English followed by Welsh in the other part of the nation.) [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.208|141.101.98.208]] 12:55, 4 November 2020 (UTC)
:::If we're worried about consistency here, how is it that all the Romance language speakers (e.g. Orso for Italians, Oso for Spaniards, etc) get away without being constantly mauled? Perhaps it's only the *true* name of the bear, -rkto, that summons the animal. I suppose that would give an explanation of why we don't see any Indo-European speakers around nowadays... [[User:Gbisaga|Gbisaga]] ([[User talk:Gbisaga|talk]]) 13:37, 4 November 2020 (UTC)
:::*NOTE* I've added an explanation that attempts to summarize this consistency discussion. But somebody reverted it. Why? It doesn't seem out of line, compared to a lot of what I read on explainxkcd. [[User:Gbisaga|Gbisaga]] ([[User talk:Gbisaga|talk]]) 14:29, 4 November 2020 (UTC)

:: It need not be so complicated. Perhaps there is only 1 ur-bear (ha ha) that can teleport when it hears the magic word. If the magic word is said many times every day in Wales, that ur-bear would be exhausted by teleportation and only rarely does saying the name cause it to do so. Whereas in English, the first time in years it has been summoned is in this comic, so of course it comes. [[User:JohnHawkinson|JohnHawkinson]] ([[User talk:JohnHawkinson|talk]]) 19:54, 4 November 2020 (UTC)

Fascinating! In Russian, the word for bear is also euphemistic, pronounced as ''medved'', which roughly means "knowledgeable about honey". But until today, I thought that something like "ber" is in fact its true name. Turns out it's not even that. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.238.236|162.158.238.236]] 14:02, 4 November 2020 (UTC)
: Actually, ''medved'' is 'honey-eater', see these two links (in Russian) https://pikabu.ru/story/kto_krayniy_za_medvedem_fenomen_tabu_v_lingvistike_5812897 and https://pikabu.ru/story/kak_rabotaet_istoricheskaya_lingvistika2_v_berloge_yetimologa_5817400 [[Special:Contributions/162.158.183.205|162.158.183.205]] 16:14, 4 November 2020 (UTC)
:I've just been down a Wikipedia rabbit-hole, because of this information, to try to work out why I don't remember it being reported that Medvedev had resigned and replaced by Mishustin. (Or replaced ''with'' him, wherever he emerged from, ''by'' Putin, to be strictly accurate.). Probably we were more concerned about the Constitutional changes, then 'other things' hit the headlines. Not comic-related, but thank you for enlightening me on both linguistic and (as a side-effect) political subjects. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.26|162.158.158.26]] 16:39, 4 November 2020 (UTC)

: What were the linguistic speculations that the header mentioned? Even if there's no source, they shouldn't be removed.

I thought the reconstruction was *rtkos, not *rktos? Wikipedia agrees: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/h₂ŕ̥tḱos [[Special:Contributions/162.158.183.205|162.158.183.205]] 16:14, 4 November 2020 (UTC)

I bet a dollar that the long-lost English word for "bear" was "Voldemort". [[Special:Contributions/108.162.215.242|108.162.215.242]] 01:03, 5 November 2020 (UTC)

In Finnish bear is karhu, which is also an euphemistic word meaning "the rough one". There are many other words for bear as well, such as kontio (one that walks slowly), nalle ("bear" in Swedish), mesikämmen (the nectar palm), metsän kuningas (the king of the forest), kouko/kouvo (some kind of ghost?), otava (this one would take way too long to explain) and finally oksi/ohto/otso, which likely is the true name. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.238.239|162.158.238.239]] 11:46, 5 November 2020 (UTC)