explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

404: Not Found

2025-03-31T18:59:54Z

162.158.33.252: /* Explanation */ I predicted it would be considered too complicated. ;)

{{comic
| number = 404
| date = April 1, 2008
| title = Not Found
| before = <big><big><big><big><big>'''404 Not Found''' </big></big></big></big><hr>nginx</big>
}}

==Explanation==
{{Quote|I have always been of the opinion that http://xkcd.com/404/ is an actual comic, if a slightly avant-garde one. I actually went out of my way to modify the 'random' button to include it, but that annoyed too many people—most of whom reasonably assumed it was a bug—and I eventually undid it.|[[Randall Munroe]], ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20190328010454/https://plus.google.com/111588569124648292310/posts/j6w9DkYApya Source]''}}

This was the first [[:Category:April fools' comics|April fools' comic]] released by [[Randall Munroe|Randall]]. The next became [[880: Headache]], released on Friday April 1, 2011. The [[403: Convincing Pickup Line|previous comic]] was released on Monday March 31, 2008, and the [[405: Journal 3|next comic]] was released on Wednesday April 2, 2008. This comic was released between the two, on Tuesday April 1st 2008.

The "{{w|HTTP 404|404 Not Found}}" error message is a HTTP standard response code to indicate that the browser was able to communicate with a given {{w|Server (computing)|server}}, but the server could not find what was requested. The error may also be used when a server does not wish to disclose whether it has the requested information. The website hosting server will typically generate a "404 Not Found" web page when a user attempts to follow a broken or dead link; hence the 404 error is one of the most recognizable errors encountered on the internet. (For example, a nonexistent page like https://xkcd.com/fooo will display an identical error message.) Randall deliberately skipped the comic number 404, so when people try to view it, they get a "404 Not Found" error instead. He has said that he considers 404 [https://web.archive.org/web/20190328010454/https://plus.google.com/111588569124648292310/posts/j6w9DkYApya an "actual comic"] and that for a time he made it possible to find it using the "random" button on [https://xkcd.com xkcd.com].

It might initially appear coincidental that the [[403: Convincing Pickup Line|comic 403]] was published just a day before April 1, 2008. However, Randall likely became aware of this possible correlation prior to that specific date, so he had an opportunity to influence the comic's release date. In May 2007 and in November 2007, Randall published the [[:Category:Choices|Choices series]] and the [[:Category:1337|1337 series]] respectively, each over five consecutive days, less than six months before April Fool's Day. This deliberate action shifted the release date of comic 403 from April 10, 2008, to March 31, 2008, when it was actually published. This alteration allowed for comic 404 to be posted on the April Fool's Day without abruptly disrupting the normal comic release schedule.

This comic was featured in [[1975: Right Click]] (in File > Open > C:\ > Bookmarks/ > Comics > comic num 404). Interestingly, the next comic, [[405: Journal 3]], includes the line "So, you found me after all." In [[1969: Not Available]], the error message 404 is referenced in the caption.

The word "nginx", below the heading, is the name of the web server software responsible for hosting the 404 Not Found error message. {{w|Nginx}} is one of many possible web server software packages capable of hosting web pages. It is quite common for error messages from web servers to add details about themselves.

In some cases, this would also include other details, such as its internet address, and probably more operational details if the page requested exists but can't be served, to help discover the error. The software name may feature strongly in such pages, but some 404 messages, in addition to alerting the browser of the unfulfilled request, default to a very short and generic error message. Others are custom designed by the site owners, usually to blend in with the site's look and give more options to the user. The default Nginx page is near the minimal end of the scale (as shown above) and is something that many people would have seen, due to being a long-standing and widespread piece of back-end software that reveals itself to anybody who has ever followed a {{w|Link rot|dead-link}} within such a site.

==Transcript==
:[Instead of the regular xkcd site layout, there is only a white page that states the following on top center:]
:'''404 Not Found'''

:[Page-wide divider line]

:[Below that in a smaller font:]
:nginx

==Trivia==
The web comic Comic JK made [https://web.archive.org/web/20100925103935/http://comicjk.com/comic.php/404 a spoof of this comic] in the xkcd style.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:April fools' comics]]
[[Category:No title text]] 
[[Category:Comics with lowercase text]]

Talk:2131: Emojidome

2025-03-29T20:56:33Z

162.158.33.252:

I've checked the network tab and console - nothing really seems to happen when you vote, which may be something we want to put on the explanation tomorrow - Myxoh

I suspect the real april fools joke is going to come on Wednesday when xkdc posts an app showing us our psychological profiles that they are now selling to marketing companies after data-mining our emotional preferences to marketing firms - Nosajimiki

@Nosajimiki: psychological profiles of xkcd fans. That might be some interesting marketing. - 5Cincinatus

@Myxoh: I came here to see if anyone else had noticed this! But, I do also see a websocket connection to emojidome.xkcd.com, I bet it's counting votes that way.

There is a websocket connection. A message is sent every time you vote. It looks like there are also status update messages every second (saying which emoji currently has exactly how many votes, i suspect this changes the amount of hearts that show up), and "bracket start" messages every so often. The bracket start message seems to contain hundreds of upcoming emoji pairs. Edit: a bracket start is sent at the start of every match (so every ~30 seconds). It also contains logs of which messages to show for previous matches, and which emoji are currently battling.[[Special:Contributions/172.69.138.10|172.69.138.10]] 16:30, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

There seems to be nothing stopping me from clicking multiple times. Do you think it actually counts it all those times? Can I click-spam to say "this is much better"? [[User:Fabian42|Fabian42]] ([[User talk:Fabian42|talk]]) 16:48, 1 April 2019 (UTC)
:Randall just confirmed that you can vote multiple times, although if you click too fasr you get rate limited. (*warning: generic ip address assigned to phone data.*) [[Special:Contributions/172.69.70.47|172.69.70.47]] 22:35, 1 April 2019 (UTC)
:Where did he confirm that? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.93.105|162.158.93.105]] 10:44, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

Well this is fun. Look like there are 512 symbols, meaning 256 first-round contests. The first round would take (at 38 seconds / round) ~2.7 hours. The remaining rounds, from an estimate of geometric progression, would just under double this, meaning this comic will run for ~ 5 hours until we have our winner... ~alexandicity [[Special:Contributions/172.69.226.177|172.69.226.177]] 16:51, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

Did he just add a scroll bar to the previous matches? I didn't notice it earlier [[Special:Contributions/162.158.255.148|162.158.255.148]] 18:17, 1 April 2019 (UTC)
:Nope, you were able to scroll before, too. At least about 2 hours ago. [[User:Fabian42|Fabian42]] ([[User talk:Fabian42|talk]]) 18:20, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

While some of the recaps of past battles are generic (taco vs sandwich: "One for the history books"), many seem to be specifically written for the battle (light bulb vs candle: "Some would argue that this one was settled in the 1800s"). I wonder if/how much this will continue into round 2.

Round two has just begun, and the timeout has been bumped to 60 seconds. --[[User:Anarcat|Anarcat]] ([[User talk:Anarcat|talk]]) 18:41, 1 April 2019 (UTC)
:If that trend continues, the full competition will take pretty close to 24 hours. [[User:Fabian42|Fabian42]] ([[User talk:Fabian42|talk]]) 18:45, 1 April 2019 (UTC)
:It looks like it's 1:14/round, which is double what the time was in round one. Will round three be 2:28? 1:51?
::It's just over 1:15/round from the history JSON (plus some hundredths of a second, but it appears 1:15 is the intent)
:::Hadn't looked there. Round one concluded at 18:39:20-ish, 9560 seconds from 16:00:00. At 256 battles, that's 37.34 seconds/battle. However, it looks like the first battle ended at 15:59:57, which would add about 40 seconds, 9600 seconds/256=37.5 seconds exactly. Doubling for round 2 gives 75 seconds.
::2 minutes 30 seconds per battle now. Looks like each round will be 2 hours 40 minutes long.
:: Well it is after 5:00 PST and round 4 just started - and this thing is at exactly 5 minutes a round - which means another 160 minutes for the round. Will see in 2 hours and 40 minutes if the times go up to minutes. --[[Special:Contributions/172.69.33.65|172.69.33.65]] 00:25, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

And while the match-ups winners are typically colored, and underlined, the losers are endgame grey.

Has anyone determined if multiple-voting is actually counted? For me at least the vote button fades back to gray after I click it, which implies you can/should click it again, but that may not actually be processed. We might add a clarification about that to the explanation. [[User:Jerodast|- jerodast]] ([[User talk:Jerodast|talk]]) 19:01, 1 April 2019 (UTC)
: A reddit user on the r/xkcd thread (https://www.reddit.com/r/xkcd/comments/b84at1/xkcd_2131_emojidome_script_src2131comicjs/) claims to have attempted "vote stuffing via the console" with no noticeable change in vote totals. So it looks like it may be sending it client-side, but only counting the vote once server-side --l

::Just few minutes ago there was message in "fun facts" that you can click multiple times, although it's not counted if you click too many times (or something like that). I guess that vote stuffing was too much. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 22:34, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

It would appear that we are supposed to believe the commentary is live, and unscripted:
" {"This one is a true test of the audience today.",
"Just to stress this again. Live commentary, folks. Completely unscripted and coming in hot.} "--[[Special:Contributions/162.158.79.173|162.158.79.173]] 19:20, 1 April 2019 (UTC)
:It's clearly live because the result of a previous round is affecting the next round's commentary - and the combinatorial explosion would prohibit that from being remotely plausible. We're watching live comedy here! [[User:SteveBaker|SteveBaker]] ([[User talk:SteveBaker|talk]]) 19:30, 1 April 2019 (UTC)
: On the dog vs. wolf, he said "Again, we are getting a lot of questions on this today. This is live commentary, folks." Proof I guess. HI RANDALL! [[Special:Contributions/172.68.189.241|172.68.189.241]] 19:31, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

Is there really anything we can put for the transcript? [[Special:Contributions/172.68.189.241|172.68.189.241]] 19:25, 1 April 2019 (UTC)
: We can go into the socket data and pull out the commentary for each matchup. -- [[User:Bobson|Bobson]] ([[User talk:Bobson|talk]]) 04:05, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

Any ideas on how the commentary is done? It seems to sort of match the emojis.
[[User:Svízel přítula|Svízel přítula]] ([[User talk:Svízel přítula|talk]]) 19:31, 1 April 2019 (UTC)
: It seems that Randall is commentating this live, as he periodically says it's live in the robot commentator text. See above. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.189.241|172.68.189.241]] 19:36, 1 April 2019 (UTC)
::Perhaps not "live" as each round 2 matchup was known 160 minutes before it was voted on. He could comment on the battle itself, and/or provide a comment if one or the other combatant won. I think he's a couple hours ahead of us.
::: I dunno. Whenever a new battle starts, there is a default message, that is soon replaced by a more pertinent message. That seems to suggest that he's doing it on the fly. [[User:9yz|9yz]] ([[User talk:9yz|talk]]) 20:03, 1 April 2019 (UTC)
::::If that's live, Randall, and if you see this, give us a shout-out as proof. -Brent
::::: Just because it ''says'' it's live, doesn't mean that it really is. It's also possible that the actual clicks are being ignored and the reported numbers are all pre-generated. Much less likely than that it's actually counting and Randall is inserting commentary live (with default messages when he doesn't), but possible. -- [[User:Bobson|Bobson]] ([[User talk:Bobson|talk]]) 12:50, 2 April 2019 (UTC)
: He updated the title text to thank volunteers for commentating, so I guess we know that the commentary was live, just not necessarily all Randall. [[User:Moosenonny10|Moosenonny10]] ([[User talk:Moosenonny10|talk]]) 14:34, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

This is a quick piece of python to see the json results (and commentary):
<nowiki>import json, urllib.request
d = json.loads(urllib.request.urlopen("https://emojidome.xkcd.com/2131/socket ").read().decode('utf-8'))
for g in d['bracket']['played'][0]:
c1, c2 = g['game']
print(f"{c1['score']} {c1['competitor']}-{c2['competitor']} {c2['score']}")</nowiki>
[[User:Tammo80|Tammo80]] ([[User talk:Tammo80|talk]]) 19:42, 1 April 2019 (UTC)
: or if you want to see the vote count live in browser: https://emojidome.playcode.io/ -Andy 22:01, April 2019
:: Awesome, thank you [[User:9yz|9yz]] ([[User talk:9yz|talk]]) 20:23, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

There must be some kind of manipulation going on with the votes. There is NO WAY the poop emoji would lose to the skull emoji in round two. It was my guess for the winner >:( [[Special:Contributions/162.158.106.138|162.158.106.138]] 20:50, 1 April 2019 (UTC)
: And the 100 emoji just lost to the shiny heart. :(

Well, there's the comment "How do you know for sure that your votes are doing anything?". For my side because every single one I voted for lost so far. Well, I'm not a lucky charm, apparently... [[Special:Contributions/141.101.104.11|141.101.104.11]] 10:14, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

The second round bracket was released, but is hidden behind the bottom nav buttons: https://xkcd.com/2131/emojidome_bracket_256.png --[[User:Thefallen138|Thefallen138]] ([[User talk:Thefallen138|talk]]) 20:56, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

And now the third round has begun. Strangely, the bracket is not visible yet: https://xkcd.com/2131/emojidome_bracket_128.png. The delay has been bump to something above two minutes as well. --[[User:Anarcat|Anarcat]] ([[User talk:Anarcat|talk]]) 21:21, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

: It's here https://xkcd.com/2131/emojidome_bracket_round_3.png [[Special:Contributions/162.158.107.79|162.158.107.79]] 21:41, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

:: It seems to be he overwrote round_3.png with round_4.png (at least its the same picture)

Both the Emojidome and counter were brought together in iframes https://ducakedhare.co.uk/emojidome.html [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.17|141.101.99.17]] 23:39, 1 April 2019 (UTC)taikedz

Anyone have an IRC room for Emojidome discussion? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.146.10|162.158.146.10]]

So disappointed he left out the egg plant... :D --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 12:27, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

Despite Spaaaaaaaaace winning the battle 🌌 (36285) vs 🚝 (17405), the current bracket chart https://xkcd.com/2131/emojidome_bracket_round_3.png shows 🚝 as having won. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.242.13|108.162.242.13]] 13:23, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

What if the April Fools joke of the whole bracket is that the "Vote" buttons were actually switched and all the losers are actually the winners??? [[Special:Contributions/172.68.59.84|172.68.59.84]] 15:24, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

In case the websocket ever goes down, here are the data: https://pastebin.com/YYgPS1FC
[[User:Svízel přítula|Svízel přítula]] ([[User talk:Svízel přítula|talk]]) 19:22, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

Is that a Kingdom Hearts reference I see? - Bench

;"Emoji" or "emojis" as the plural?

Due to the nature of the Japanese language, "emoji" is technically both the plural and the singular - however, the improper form "emojis" is used more as a plural frequently nowadays among English speakers. Which form should this explanation use? --[[User:Youforgotthisthing|Youforgotthisthing]] ([[User talk:Youforgotthisthing|talk]]) 22:27, 1 April 2019 (UTC)
: For clarity, I think we should use emoji as the singular and emojis as the plural. I'm going to go fix this. [[User:9yz|9yz]] ([[User talk:9yz|talk]]) 19:34, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

The "friends in Australia" comment was made during the last round's wink vs upside down smile battle. This is probably a pun on how Australia is on the other side of the world from America; I don't think Randall was seriously saying he witnessed an influx of Australians inbound. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.82|108.162.219.82]] 00:47, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

;Draws

What would happen if any of the fights resulted in a draw? (same number of votes for both)

Given the # of matchups, it's not actually that unlikely.

We should try to test this. Gotta keep Randall on his feet!

Pretty sure one early on resulted in a tie.

: The very first round was 0-0. I guess no one refreshed at exactly the right minute to see it. --[[User:Bobson|Bobson]] ([[User talk:Bobson|talk]]) 04:05, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

: Actually, Birthday Cake vs Cupcake was a tie at 3658:3658. Birthday Cake advanced. I wonder why? (from the socket: [{"score":3658,"competitor":"ðŸŽ‚"},{"score":3658,"competitor":"ðŸ§"}]) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.106.138|162.158.106.138]] 04:54, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

Is Birthday Cake vs. Cupcake the draw referenced at the end of the "How it worked" section? Can we please have names added to all the emoji in the explanation text; I have never found a way to blow up emoji to a visible size, so frequently find I can't see them clearly enough to identify them, and in that bit at the end of "How it worked", the first one isn't rendering on my computer anyway. I'm guessing that the other is the birthday cake; really, I have come to hate emoji because they are so tiny. At least Randall made them nice and big on the voting screens. [[User:Yngvadottir|Yngvadottir]] ([[User talk:Yngvadottir|talk]]) 18:27, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

I had assumed that the "score" was a not simple count of vote clicks - I'd imagine (especially with all the autoclicking etc) that the raw votes would be gigantic numbers. So it could be that these were not draws when calculated to full precision - just that the API was only sending out a rounded number?

;Emoji Fonts
Having an emoji font is required to see emoji displayed on sites such as http://srv-01.valo.media/ . If anybody else is looking for a way to display these, there's a good free emoji font available here:
https://github.com/eosrei/twemoji-color-font
It includes a script to replace the default Windows emoji fonts to get them to display properly on windows. Unfortunately it's only black-and-white in chrome. If anybody knows any better options, please let me know!

: For Ubuntu Linux users: sudo apt install fonts-noto-color-emoji -- then restart Chrome/Firefox.
: [[User:SteveBaker|SteveBaker]] ([[User talk:SteveBaker|talk]]) 11:29, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

::I'm on Android here & many of the emoji do not show up. Notably, this includes the hedgehog, which... is not in the emoji set of any of my Android devices. Could somebody please add the emoji names next to their pictograms, where they appear the explanation? [[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 04:16, 3 April 2019 (UTC)
:::Tested on an iPad, a Mac and a PC, a lot of emoji are still appearing as black rectangles. [[User:Herobrine|Herobrine]] ([[User talk:Herobrine|talk]]) 07:09, 6 April 2019 (UTC)

;Commentary Transcript ;

I've written a script that pulls the commentary history and transforms it into a wiki table. It's up to date as of right now, and I'll run it again in the morning and one last time after the final round. If you have formatting suggestions, just put them here and I'll incorporate it when I regenerate the table. -- [[User:Bobson|Bobson]] ([[User talk:Bobson|talk]]) 04:58, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

: Wonderful, thank you! Could you perhaps make the winner bold (or underlined like in the comic)? -Andy

;Successful Ballot-stuffing?

As I type this, I'm watching owl blast past 180000 votes in the owl-octopus bout. That means that in about 10 minutes, owl has earned more votes than all the votes earned in the entirety of any other individual bout. I could be totally off-base, but that seems vaguely suspicious to me. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.214.82|162.158.214.82]] 05:28, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

I concur: that is highly suspicious. Fortunately, nothing of importance is at stake here, even if you were really pulling for the octopus. At this moment, we're ±10 minutes into bee vs pineapple and nothing comparable has happened. It may be an isolated incident. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.106.144|162.158.106.144]] 05:50, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

I've seen enough hentai to...what? The *owl* has won? O RLY? I demand a recount! [[Special:Contributions/141.101.105.6|141.101.105.6]] 08:10, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

YOLO. You Obviously Like Owls. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.104.11|141.101.104.11]] 10:11, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

For the violin vs the curling stone ('classical vs house'), the stone was ahead, but in the last four minutes I spammed my discord server to vote and we just got it over the line. - fudgeforlife
: Rrrr. :angry face: I love curling, and of course I wanted the stone to win. With curling no-one complains if I fall asleep watching. But with classical music everyone complains... [[Special:Contributions/141.101.104.89|141.101.104.89]] 12:49, 2 April 2019 (UTC)
: A similar thing happened for the "scared cat vs devil" bout - those two were consistently nearly tied until about T-10 minutes, whereupon the devil voting rate spiked and devil finished ~12000 votes ahead. The "cat vs hedgehog" bout was also similar - hedgehog had a consistent lead of ~1000 votes until about T-10 minutes, when the hedgehog voting rates spiked and hedgehog ended up finishing ~10000 votes ahead.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.214.28|162.158.214.28]] 14:39, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

What? It's possible the owl cheated? IT'S POSSIBLE OCTOPUS TOTALLY SHOULD HAVE WON IF THE MATCH WAS LEGITIMATE? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.75.226|162.158.75.226]] 12:02, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

I love how owl getting 200 000 votes in 20 minutes is causing all this controversy when crayon got 40 000 in 75 seconds --[[User:Maple42|Maple42]] ([[User talk:Maple42|talk]]) 18:54, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

;Avocado quote citation

I'm not sure where to put this. The "I like avocados because they taste pretty good and also they come with a cool wood ball you get to keep" quote is from here: https://twitter.com/jitka/status/236240801926086656 . [[Special:Contributions/172.69.33.41|172.69.33.41]] 07:15, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

;How sure are we the voting is real
I'm no expert at all, but it there any way that the websites that shows the number of votes live etc. can test whether these votes are real, or something Randall has pre-programmed? Not that I would not believe he was willing to stay up for the duration of this day, but it is an April Fools' Day comic, so he is completely "allowed" to have decided him self who should win all matched and have made up the commentaries in advance. Yes it would take along time, but not longer than doing it on the fly. It could just be that joke on us, that our votes does nothing and we just see how Randall has decided the dome should end. Can anyone go in to this, and explain why it is as it is either way (for sure made up, for sure real or uncertain if real or fake)? (PS I dislike these sections in the commentaries, but there are already 6...) --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 12:27, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

It should be noted that Milky Way won over Maglev by a long shot, but the bracket shows otherwise. - Brent [[Special:Contributions/172.69.50.58|172.69.50.58]] 13:14, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

;Which picture should we use for the comic
The current picture shown is not relevant. That is only shown to web crawlers that pick new images up. Does anyone have a picture of the very first match? Not sure that is relevant either. Anything in between could be used. like this:
[[File:2131_Emojidome_example.png|800px]]
--[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 12:43, 2 April 2019 (UTC)
:I’m assuming there’ll be a picture at the end. Show that when it finishes. [[User:Netherin5|“That Guy from the Netherlands”]] ([[User talk:Netherin5|talk]]) 13:53, 2 April 2019 (UTC)
::I added the current picture originally as a temporary solution since the bot didn't upload one. No one commented on the image so I kept it though I considered using something like this: [[File:emojidome_blank.png|400px]]
::--[[User:Asdf|Asdf]] ([[User talk:Asdf|talk]]) 14:17, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

Right now, for me at least, the comic shows [https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/emojidome.png this image] with the hover-text "Thank you to the xkcd April 1st volunteers/commentators, including @Chromakode, Kevin, @Aiiane, Patrick, Kat, Reuven, @cotrone, @bstaffin, @zigdon, schwal, Stereo, and everyone who voted!" Just another option, though that image doesn't explain the comic set-out during the competition. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.133.84|172.68.133.84]] 19:12, 2 April 2019 (UTC)
:Yes for sure we should use that now. I should have thought of that. Can see it has already been uploaded, but it takes long time, hours, from these pictures have been changed to the change can be seen ion the site. I have no idea why, but have experienced it several times, so later today the final picture should be ready. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 18:17, 2 April 2019 (UTC)
::If we do that, we should add example pictures in the explanation of what it actually looked like during the competition. I vote for yours, Kynde. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.133.84|172.68.133.84]] 19:11, 2 April 2019 (UTC)
:::I added Kynde's image in the "How it worked" section as it is useful for people who missed the competition. --[[User:Asdf|Asdf]] ([[User talk:Asdf|talk]]) 19:22, 2 April 2019 (UTC)
::::Great, I also added it to the transcript section and transcribed the dynamic part of the image. As well as the final image, which is not on-line and added the error image we had to begin at the bottom of the transcript and kept that transcript as well. Tanscript is more or less done I think.--[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 21:29, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

;References and jokes in the commentary
Should we start explaining some of the robot announcer's commentary lines? Some of them are clear references to things. For example, the "Kickpuncher vs. Punchkicker" line is a reference to Community (Kickpuncher is a character in an in-universe film series, and Punchkicker is one of the characters' OC based on it.)
:Maybe make extra pages like has been done for several of the previous years huge comics, especially April Fools' comics. And yes it would be interesting to explain them... But that is a huge job. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 13:17, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

;Errors
There’s a mistake in the bracket, the genome won but is grayed out [[User:Netherin5|“That Guy from the Netherlands”]] ([[User talk:Netherin5|talk]]) 13:14, 2 April 2019 (UTC)
:Same with stars vs flying saucer --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 13:17, 2 April 2019 (UTC)
::The genome has been corrected, but not the stars. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 13:48, 2 April 2019 (UTC)
:::Yeah - stars is currently duelling volcano - but the bracket shows that stars was eliminated by monorail. This kinda suggests that the bracket is being manually generated! [[User:SteveBaker|SteveBaker]] ([[User talk:SteveBaker|talk]]) 13:59, 2 April 2019 (UTC)
Speaking of errors, hearts no longer show up on mobile. [[User:Netherin5|“That Guy from the Netherlands”]] ([[User talk:Netherin5|talk]]) 14:31, 2 April 2019 (UTC)
:I think that was intentional, as, at least in my experience, the comic was a massive battery hit. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.241.4|108.162.241.4]] 17:11, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

Disappointed no one thought to get the egg to at least the second round. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.255.142|162.158.255.142]] 15:27, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

: Many of the rounds were incredibly close - even the final was won by just a couple of percent. It was rare for there to be an overwhelming majority on either side. But it's incredible that 1,393,048 votes were cast in the final...given that all those people had to be there over just the 26 minute voting timeslot. I presume explainxkcd was taken down by overwhelming traffic? [[User:SteveBaker|SteveBaker]] ([[User talk:SteveBaker|talk]]) 16:44, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

Why are brackets relevent to this time of year.
The FA Cup has reached the semi-final, the Champions League and UEFA have reached the qarter finals. The European Rugby Champions Cup and European Challenge have reached the semi-finals. [[User:Arachrah|Arachrah]] ([[User talk:Arachrah|talk]]) 17:02, 2 April 2019 (UTC)
:March Madness is under way, he has referenced this before, it is in the explanation. Do not post at the top but at the bottom, for continuity. I moved your post down here where it belonged --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 21:27, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

So it is to do with boxing hares.

In the mentioning of eggplant and peach, peaches represent butts, not the female sex organs. At least that is the far more common usage, including but not limited to the gay community. https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/peach-emoji-%F0%9F%8D%91
[[Special:Contributions/172.68.54.76|172.68.54.76]] 16:50, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

;Stuffing

Did anyone else noticed these comments :
<blockquote>
*Honeybees vs. colony collapse disorder
*I’m looking at the totals, and this one is extremely close.
*🦠 fans need to click more and faster!
*I mean, 🐝 fans need to keep clicking!
*Fun fact: You can click more than once, although if you click too much it ignores you.
*No! Save the bees!
</blockquote>
I'm quite curious as to how many people did those 1.4 million clicks in final ! --[[Special:Contributions/172.69.226.131|172.69.226.131]] 11:43, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

;random object battles in popular culture!
Hee hee! All I could think of during this was the [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1n1YjN6z-7Q old Laurie Anderson recording about which thing was more macho] [[User:Jonwchgo|Jonwchgo]] ([[User talk:Jonwchgo|talk]]) 14:19, 3 April 2019 (UTC)
;possible refrence?
is the "spaaaaaaaaaaaace" a refrence to Portal 2? - [[Special:Contributions/172.71.146.130|172.71.146.130]] 03:26, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

according to google emoji kitchen hedgehog+milkyway=[[File:hedgehog-mikyway.png]] {{unsigned|Bb777|18:31, 29 March 2025}}

Talk:3015: D&D Combinatorics

2025-03-17T21:59:47Z

162.158.33.252: Easily fixed (assuming you gave the right details in the first place, which I haven't checked).

The bot originally created this page as “D Combinatorics”. I renamed it to the correct title and tried to get as many of the references as possible (including a few redirects). [[User:JBYoshi|JBYoshi]] ([[User talk:JBYoshi|talk]]) 00:54, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

:The title in the Atom feed (which I'm assuming the bot consumes) is "D Combinatorics". I'm guessing something in Randall's pipeline didn't like the ampersand. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.154.160|162.158.154.160]] 01:41, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

::Yup, if you look at [https://xkcd.com/3015/info.0.json 3015's JSON] you see that <code>title</code> and <code>safe_title</code> differ, and if you look at the HTML page source you'll see '''3''' different things: <code><title>xkcd: D Combinatorics</title></code>, <code><meta property="og:title" content="D&amp;D Combinatorics"></code>, and <code><div id="ctitle">D&D Combinatorics</div></code>! So probably what happened is Randall entered D&D but was supposed to enter D&amp;D, and the openGraph tags adder code, having to be HTML-aware, decoded & normalized D&D as HTML would, but the other parts of the pipeline just ate it for some reason. {{unsigned ip|172.69.65.224|06:09, 23 November 2024}}

::: The problem now is that the feed doesn't validate (because it contains a bare &) and it's also not updating (maybe because of the previous problem). --[[Special:Contributions/172.71.119.13|172.71.119.13]] 11:10, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

::: Well, it's updating now, but it still doesn't validate. Sigh... --[[Special:Contributions/172.70.160.195|172.70.160.195]] 11:33, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

What are the odds of rolling 16 or higher on 3D6+D4? 3D6 average 10.5, D4 average is 2.5, total average should be 13. I do not know how to proceed from here. {{unsigned ip|172.71.147.206|01:14, 23 November 2024}}
:By raw combinatorics: 71 + 52 + 34 + 20 + 10 + 4 + 1 ways to get each of 16 - 22 respectively, for a total of 192, out of 4(6^3) = 864 total. 192/864 simplifies to exactly 2/9. I have no idea how Randall found this; if anyone has an idea, please let me know. [[User:Kaisheng21|Kaisheng21]] ([[User talk:Kaisheng21|talk]]) 01:33, 23 November 2024 (UTC)
::I used some simple python code to loop over every dice and confirm and it's 2/9 [[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.111|162.158.158.111]] 12:11, 23 November 2024 (UTC)
::I suspect there is no better way of doing it than looping over the dice. As to how Randall discovered it, it was obvious that at least 2d6 would be needed (since d6 is the only D&D dice that has a multiple of 3 sides), and after that my guess is Randall used a combination of a python script and some experimentation to land on the correct choice of dice. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.56|172.70.162.56]] 14:15, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

It seems like we edited the transcript at the same time. The odds of rolling 16 or higher in this situation seem to be 2/9? [[User:Darkmatterisntsquirrels|Darkmatterisntsquirrels]] ([[User talk:Darkmatterisntsquirrels|talk]]) 01:29, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

: There are 864 possible rolls (6 * 6 * 6 * 4). If you enumerate all of the rolls you will find that 192 are 16 or higher. 192/864 = 2/9, the value from the explanation. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.54.139|172.68.54.139]] 01:41, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

I added a table of outcomes to clarify how it works out to 2/9, anyone know how to make it pretty? -- Laurence Cheers {{unsigned ip|172.71.150.247|02:03, 24 November 2024}}

A much simpler approach: Roll two six sided dice and sum the result. You are successful if the result is 5 or 9. That happens 8 times out of 36. 8/36 = 2/9. (Or successful if the sum is 4 or 6, or 2 or 7, or 2,3,4 or 11, or several other combinations.) [[Special:Contributions/172.68.54.139|172.68.54.139]] 01:41, 23 November 2024 (UTC)
:Clever, but dice rolls in D&D involving summing all the dice, applying modifiers, if any, and then comparing to one or more threshold values. Your method makes it very difficult to apply modifiers. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.41.8|162.158.41.8]] 02:49, 23 November 2024 (UTC)
::I think you misunderstand the problem here. This is not skill, no modifiers apply, it's purely probability [[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.111|162.158.158.111]] 12:11, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

Minor quibble, arrows aren't fired (unless they're flaming or self-propelled, perhaps), they are shot. (Shotguns are fired of course.) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.41.73|162.158.41.73]] 02:52, 23 November 2024 (UTC)
:Arrows are "loosed", even more accurately. At least to avoid the confusion from how so many things may be shot, or ''a'' shot. (Many different nouns, from a physical measure of liquer/coffee/vaccine to a projectile, or an even abstract fundemental of chance; and, as verb, projectiles perhps may be shot, then so may their targets.) [[Special:Contributions/172.68.205.178|172.68.205.178]] 14:32, 23 November 2024 (UTC)
:Well, lets not quarrel over it.[[Special:Contributions/172.71.103.67|172.71.103.67]] 14:37, 25 November 2024 (UTC)
:Too many barbed comments, and I'd be all of a quiver... [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.153|141.101.99.153]] 14:51, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

Rolling 22 or lower on percentile dice (or, equivalently, 79 or higher) is close enough, and easier to come up with. (Give or take whether 00 is treated as 100 or zero.) Or directly represent the action: roll a d10. If it's 1-5, you lose. If it's 6-10, roll again; if it's 1-5 you lose, 6-9 you win, 10 roll again. (Modify slightly if you want to distinguish the case of grabbing *two* cursed arrows.) [[User:Jordan Brown|Jordan Brown]] ([[User talk:Jordan Brown|talk]]) 03:26, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

Alternative exact solution for getting this probability using dice: Roll: 1d8, 2d6, 1d4 succeed on 19 or higher.{{unsigned ip|172.68.55.11|03:54, 23 November 2024}}

I couldn’t remember the formula for binomial coefficients (“n choose k”), but there’s an easy way to calculate that the probability of drawing no cursed arrows is 2/9 without that formula. You just need to multiply the probabilities that each of the arrows drawn is not cursed. Since only two arrows are drawn, you only have to multiply two numbers.

The probability that the first arrow is not cursed is 5/10 – there are 5 non-cursed arrows and 5 cursed arrows out of 10 total. After taking out one non-cursed arrow, there are 4 non-cursed arrows and 5 cursed arrows out of 9 total, so the probability that the second arrow is not cursed is 4/9. Multiplying the two probabilities, the probability of drawing two non-cursed arrows is (4*5)/(10*9) = 20/90 = 2/9.

I was considering writing this observation in the Explanation section of the page, but I’m not if it belongs there. This solution avoids using formulas from combinatorics, so it might not be connected enough to the comic.—[[User:Roryokane|Roryokane]] ([[User talk:Roryokane|talk]]) 06:02, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

My simple-minded approach:
* Roll d10 once for your first arrow: if 1 to 5, the arrow is cursed, otherwise not;
* Roll d10 again for your second arrow: same rules, but repeat until you have a different number from the first one (so d10 is in fact only a d9 this time)
* I won't calculate probabilities – these are your arrows, live with it ;-) [[Special:Contributions/172.69.109.51|172.69.109.51]] 07:33, 23 November 2024 (UTC)
:That has the benefit (over 3d6+1d4) of telling you which arrow(s) (if either) was cursed. [[User:RegularSizedGuy|RegularSizedGuy]] ([[User talk:RegularSizedGuy|talk]]) 07:52, 23 November 2024 (UTC)
::Also tells you how many cursed arrows are left, which is useful if the next player wants to take their chances with them too.[[Special:Contributions/172.71.103.68|172.71.103.68]] 14:40, 25 November 2024 (UTC)
:If you don't like re-rolls, you can make d9 out of 2d3. Nine possibilities, so just assign one of them (perhaps by rolling them one at a time) to be the more significant digit. Don't have a d3 handy? Use d6 and modulo off the extra! (1=1, 2=2, 3=3, 4=1, 5=2, 6=3) [[Special:Contributions/172.68.150.91|172.68.150.91]] 05:59, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

There seems to be doubt that a "N locks and M keys to unlock them" system could be easily accomplished. I think it could be trivial, with strategically interlocking locked-restraints. A chain formed of bike-locks can give a larger locked loop that can be unlocked by just unlocking any ''single'' one of the constituent locks, leaving the other locked loops to not matter (or you could also try the {{w|Borromean rings}} system, whereby it is again secure against itself, until just one ring is opened up to reveal that the rest now ''aren't even locked at all''...). With almost arbitrary ability to cross-link (or, if you will, repeated/alternating-reflected Borromean triplet connections), you can extend the requirements to more than one unlocking being required (by looping chain elements to mre than just the 'adjacent' loops, sideways onto a parallel meta-loop or up/down the chain, all you might do is allow some slack (could be sufficient to get a thing held directly closed by the taut loop-of-loops, but not enough if the passage of the loop through a hasp/sneck actually prevents the otherwise free movement of the final slide-to-unlock action to occur), but a second (or third, or fourth) unlocking can be required to open-end the whole metaloop of locks. At the top end, M=N solutions are also trivial (e.g. two keys, two locks popularly of safety deposit boxes or [[2677: Two Key System|other things]]). Which is not to say that a specific M-of-N puzzle (where 1<M<N) might not need a ''little'' bit of thought to actually design and implement, but there's no obvious reason why all such combinations shouldn't be nicely doable. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.79.165|172.69.79.165]] 14:56, 23 November 2024 (UTC)
:Can we first confirm that the M-of-N Encryption was what Randall was referencing in the first place? [[Special:Contributions/172.71.154.140|172.71.154.140]] 03:17, 24 November 2024 (UTC)
::No, first confirm that this is what the explanation treats as what Randall was referencing. As it was, "complicated lock mechanics" and/or "magic" were suggested as the only ways of doing this, when this (or what we thought this was) just needs a little thought and N bike-locks suitably entangled. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.58.45|172.70.58.45]] 13:17, 24 November 2024 (UTC)
:I'm glad someone else chimed in on this, because it is definitely ''not'' difficult to require unlocking of multiple discrete locks! I can't even figure out why one might think it would be? [[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 15:55, 24 November 2024 (UTC)
::I had assumed that the locks were built into the chests (as they sometimes are), and that the chests were physically separated. Using m of n keys on a single chest would merely be complicated, but wouldn't really fulfill the description. Leaving the chests unlocked, but tightly wrapped in a locked chain would be more like drawers of a single "chest". I instead assumed that each of m chests had to be individually opened with its own proper key, but you had n chests to choose from. It was unspecified what would happen if you tried pairing a chest to the wrong key; perhaps both the key and the chest would be disabled (melted/stuck/burned/teleported). (And yes, needing only a subset of the chests, but any sufficiently large subset will do, is a semi-standard class of problem; a search for Byzantine Generals or PAXOS algorithm will get you started.) [[User:JimJJewett|JimJJewett]] ([[User talk:JimJJewett|talk]]) 07:45, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
:::For certain combinations of Ms and Ns, one solution is to have each chest have M locks (that must all be unlocked), such that each possible combination of M keys fully opens (at least) one chest, within which are the necessary complimentary keys to now fully unlock every other chest. A looser version is to have possibly only M/2 (or M/3, etc) locks in a configuration whereby you get to open any given two (or 3+) chests that only produce the full set of keys (and probably spares), but does leave it open to being exploited as "we could only open the one chest, and maybe one or two others with (M/2)<(owned keys)<(M) partial key overlap but at least it had ''some'' of the available treasure", unless designed to not work like that.
:::The limited subset of workable {M,N} values makes it impractical as "I have N chests and M chests, how do I...?" puzzle-setting, but still leaves it possible to force a puzzle from scratch that works this way (e.g. "you must have visited at least M antechambers and deceated the Key Guardians within, before you can open the chests within which are all the components necessary to create the potion that makes you ElementalLevelBoss-Proof"), for which you can determine a convenient set of requirements.
:::One (simple) combination would be two of three distinct keys (#1, #2 and #3) and three chests ("A", needs #1+2, contains #3; "B" needs 1+3, contains 2; "C" need 2+3, contains 1).
:::Add in the feature of duplicate keys but also a mechanism (or magic, or valid physical reason) which causes keys to be stuck in the locks (or vanish/melt/shatter/etc) upon being used, and you can create an even more complex puzzle, whereby having keys enough to (theoretically) open two chests is actually only enough to open one of them initially as you then lose the ability to attempt to open the other... at least until the opened chest provides new keys enough to open (perhaps by opening a different interim chest, with its own new keys, etc) the one that you did not initially choose. This would greatly expand the number of higher-order "M-of-N" combinations that you could facilitate. And could even created "M>N" requirements (three keys, two (combo-)locks: chest A needs 1+2, chest B needs 1+3; both render any keys inserted beyond further use but also contain a 'spare' 1; you need to externally gain 1+2+3 to eventually open A+B).
:::Exactly how (and why) you do it is open to your own needs.
:::And, if you're open to add an intermediate "locked box", you can exploit the trivial many:one ''and'' one:many relationships by just compounding them together, and maybe even adding more steps; e.g. with the last example of keys 1+2+3 opening A+B, you can offer up (from A, 4)+(from B, 5). To unlock C needs both 4+5 (thus 1+2+3, once removed), which itself handily contains ''all'' the further individual keys (or copies of the one key) required to open D, E, F, ... Z, so grants the stipulation of "3 needed to open 23". Or the earlier 2 keys (non-sticking, or regained by copies) for 3 chests grants the full co-keys needed to open that same key-store (see also {{w|Annett's key}}). Arbitrarily higher permutations of pretty much any initial number of (original) keys and however many intermediate openings (to match the singular key-safe's relatively simple multi-key requirements) steps you through the means to then open an arbitrary number of (final) locks, but you won't get ''any'' of the last locks unlocked if you have not fully satisfied the very first requirement.
:::...although it'd be neater if it was an M-and-N that was more direct, I still think. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.85|141.101.99.85]] 18:13, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

"other polyhedral dice, with the number of faces denoted by dX (e.g., d10 is a 10-sided die, with numbers from 1 to 10 on it)." - the d10 may be a poor choice as exemplar here; Back in the last century, when I was playing D&D, d10 were typically (and uniquely) numbered 0-9, not 1-10. This may no longer be the case, and I may be showing my age, but if it is still the norm, the d8 or d20 might be a better choice of example. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.210.6|172.68.210.6]] 02:40, 24 November 2024 (UTC)
:Typically, I've only seen 0-9 d10s, as part of a "d100" dice pair, with one reading 0-9 & the other reading 0⁰-9⁰... Single d10, mostly seem to come in 1-10? Maybe it depends which reseller one shops at... [[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 15:49, 24 November 2024 (UTC)
::They are usually numbered 0-9, but the 0 represents 10, since writing 10 would require that face to have a different font size. It is still a d10, since the die has ten sides, and still cannot roll at 0. The d100 variant does the same thing with 100, but for the added reason that the 00 face actually does mean 0 when the other die rolls a 1-9. This is the convention, so a die that actually writes 10 on it instead of 0 will be rare. [[User:Stardragon|Stardragon]] ([[User talk:Stardragon|talk]]) 23:14, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

You've all been nerd-sniped. [[User:CalibansCreations|'''Caliban''']] ([[User talk:CalibansCreations|talk]]) 10:53, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

Combinatorics degree? Does such a degree really exist? --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.130.37|162.158.130.37]] 17:19, 24 November 2024 (UTC)
:There are degrees for all kinds of things. A quick search reveals a number of "Combinatorics" or "Combinatorics and <Foo>" (e.g. "Optimisation") degrees. Some of them are marked as Masters degrees, and I haven't dug into the others to see if there are any 'pure' undergraduate ones (apart from anything else, I know there are crucial differences between the structures and scopes of UK and US 'degree courses' to consider, in particular), but there seems to be representation on both sides of the Atlantic (and elsewhere, e.g. Oceana).
:At the very least, it could be a selected specialised segment of an even wider mathematical degree course, or a cross-disciplinary one (like my own, which was part under Physics and part under Computing, but could have included a Stats-based element). [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.49|162.158.74.49]] 19:07, 24 November 2024 (UTC)
::So "Combinatorics and <Foo>" would be meta-combinatorics, since it is combining something with something else. :) [[User:RandalSchwartz|RandalSchwartz]] ([[User talk:RandalSchwartz|talk]]) 20:19, 28 November 2024 (UTC)
:::I shall do my degree in "Combinatorics, Selectivity, Comparison, Decision Making and/or Cross-Designation (Choose Any Three)"... [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.5|172.70.90.5]] 21:28, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

I'm trying this on my DM. -[[User:Psychoticpotato|P?sych??otic?pot??at???o ]] ([[User talk:Psychoticpotato|talk]]) 15:11, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

Can someone put into the Explanation the current details regarding the nature of cursed arrows, in whatever edition of DnD we're currently up to. (8th? I've lost track.) In different DnD-like media, I know that it can act somewhat negatively (reduces aim accuracy) or even outright problematic (it curses the person loosing the projectile; or even renders the bow otherwise useless, as analogue to a cursed weapon), or else reduces/inverts the damage (breaks easier, or essentially acts like a thrown beneficial potion to increase health/strength/stamina/etc of the target). I assume that it one of these, from the assumption that the player desires a "good enough" roll to avoid. On the other hand, cursed projectiles could be treated akin to poisoned arrows or vengeful weapons in doing more, better or more targeted damage (in which case it's a powerful aid, the archer is instead taking a chance of using up a stock of 'special arrows', perhaps in line with not knowing whether their foe ''needs'' that extra degree of offensive power). But, at least from the explaining text's approach to dice-roll results, that doesn't exactly mesh with the typical "higher is better" rolling mantra. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.129|172.70.86.129]] 22:43, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

I don't think making an M-of-N mechanism with physical locks would be "extremely cumbersome". For example you could have a bolt that must be drawn back to open the mechanism, with several padlocks over it, where the shackle of each padlock blocks the motion of the bolt, such that the distance you can draw the bolt is proportional to how many padlocks are removed. Removing any m of the n padlocks gives you enough range of motion to open the mechanism.
[[Special:Contributions/172.71.154.224|172.71.154.224]] 23:17, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

A DM with a degree in Combinatorics would be unlikely to find this annoying.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.62.245|162.158.62.245]] 05:30, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

With up to three D&D dice, it is impossible to achieve 2/9 exactly. The closest you can get is with d6 + 2d10x10 >= 146 (where d10x10 denotes the tens die, ranging from 10 to 100) yielding a probability of 133/600 = 0.2216667. [[User:Vandof|Vandof]] ([[User talk:Vandof|talk]]) 06:27, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

With four D&D dice, 2d6 + d8 + d10 >= 21 and d10 + 2d12 + d20 >= 36 are alternate solutions. The former is more feasible than 3d6 + d4 for those who don't have three d6's. [[User:Vandof|Vandof]] ([[User talk:Vandof|talk]]) 06:49, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

You can do it with two dice, although not by summation. Roll 2d3; if 1,1, or 3,3 pass, else fail. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.167.88|162.158.167.88]] 19:41, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

Could someone explain option 6, multiplying two six-sided dice, with a threshold of > 20? I think 66, 65, 64, 56, 55, and 46 all work, making it ... equivalent to 1D6.
[[User:JimJJewett|JimJJewett]] ([[User talk:JimJJewett|talk]]) 07:25, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
:It's >= 20, so 54 and 45 work as well. That brings the probability up to 8/36 = 2/9. [[User:Vandof|Vandof]] ([[User talk:Vandof|talk]]) 13:31, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

;Scales for locking
Wouldn't using scales for the chests that measure their current mass and lock/open the doors based on whether the chest still has the object work for an M-of-N encryption? A simple example: A chest has 2.5 kg of Au, with the chest itself and its combination lock being 20 kg. The next door opens iff the chest's total mass is less than 21 kg. Removing all the Au from the chest opens the door. The second one has an object with the mass of 3 kg, and the chest itself is 22 kg, with ''that'' door opening if the chest's mass is between 23 and 24 kg. Removing the object and replacing it with 1 kg of Au opens the door. Long story short: no, one does not need magic for realizing an M-of-N encryption, one just needs scales for a physical M-of-N encryption. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.245.25|172.68.245.25]] 08:16, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

== Randall doesn't understand probability or games ==

You don't need to combine the probabilities. You just make two checks. The first check is even odds of cursed / normal. If the check fails and it's cursed, presumably you proceed with the consequences of grabbing a cursed arrow, whatever that might be. In any case, whether the first arrow was normal, or the curse doesn't prevent you from grabbing and firing another arrow, the second check is either 4:9 (if the first arrow was normal) or 5:9 (if it was cursed). (These odds are written as the number of normal arrows remaining : the total number of arrows.)

There is no reason to roll the dice given in the comic. He just made up some dice rolls vaguely similar to those that he heard someone mention in the context of tabletop games, and he's certainly never actually played in one. You can convert these probabilities into decimal form and use a d100 for every check. Probabilistic results like these are the reason the d100 is in the game. (You can also roll 2d10, selecting one of them to be the tens digit and the other to be the units digit.)

The chance of succeeding (choosing a normal arrow) on the first check is 50%, so you can use any type of dice, and success is rolling above X/2, X = faces of the dice.

The chance of succeeding on the second check is 4/9 if the first arrow was normal, or about 44%. So you succeed on a roll of 44 or less. The chance is 5/9 if the first arrow was cursed, or about 56%. So you succeed on a roll of 56 or less.

You don't need a degree in anything to reach these conclusions. {{unsigned|172.70.83.67|20:51, 17 March 2025‎}}

User:FaviFake

2025-03-09T00:08:07Z

162.158.33.252:

<big>{{TOC}}</big>'''Hey everyone! I got in touch with [[Randall Munroe]] himself!! Here's what you need to know.'''

I emailed him to ask for the official release date of [[36: Scientists]] (see [[36: Scientists#Trivia|the trivia for more info]]). Surprisingly, he got back to me! You can read the conversation, with a summary of his messages, below. I'll keep you posted if I receive more messages! You can [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=User:FaviFake&action=watch add this page to your watchlist] to keep track of it. I haven't received his explicit permission to feature his messages in full, so it seemed ethical to hide his messages. My emails have not been altered, but in the copy-pasting, links have been removed. These emails were all hyperlinked, I now added back only a few links. The reason I waited a few days before publishing them is because I was very busy.

In his last email, Randall expressed willingness to answer a few more questions, particularly simpler, administrative questions (like the one he answered already), but kindly explained he prefers to avoid too much meta-commentary. Because I didn't want to come up with every question and I wanted to hear everyone, I'll try to send him some that you want, if he agrees to receiving more! You can [[#Your suggestions! What should I ask?|add your suggestions here!]].

===Email thread===
{| class="wikitable"
|'''Question from the Explain xkcd wiki regarding one of your comics'''
Email thread - 4 messages —
Here's a [https://imgur.com/a/2StTkvJ screenshot of one of the emails], if you need some sort of proof.
|}

{| class="wikitable"
|'''FaviFake''' <[email redacted]@gmail.com>
|14 February 2025 at 19:16 CET
|-
| colspan="2" |To: Randall Munroe <[Randall's email redacted]@gmail.com>
|-
| colspan="2" |

Hi,
I'm an editor at explainxkcd.com, which you probably know is the wiki that explains all your comics and provides as much info as possible on them.
{| class="wikitable"
|''[In the copy-pasting, links have been removed. These emails were all hyperlinked, I now added back only a few links.]''
|}
In pursuit of that goal, we have always had an unsolved mystery only you can solve. Comic [[36: Scientists]] was originally posted as a duplicate of comic [[10: Pi Equals]]. You corrected this sometime between April 23, 2006 and July 5, 2006 , when the current version showed up in the web archive (see the two links). The comic looks like one of your old drawings.

So, explain xkcd thinks that when you realized your mistake (over three months after it was originally posted), you probably found an old unused drawing and posted it, to not make it stand out compared to the other comics from that time. This all means we have no date for this comic, since it could've been posted anytime between the two dates mentioned above. You can read more about this here. (If you're interested, we have a more comprehensive history of your webcomic here.)

Could you kindly help us figure this out by checking when you released comic #[[36]], so we can add an official date to it? This is one of the only official comics which we don't know the date of.

Kind regards,

FaviFake

editor @ explain xkcd
|}
{| class="wikitable"
|'''Randall Munroe''' [Randall's email redacted]
|14 February 2025 at 22:20 CET
|-
| colspan="2" |To: FaviFake <[email redacted]@gmail.com>
|-
| colspan="2" |FaviFake,
{| class="wikitable"
|''[Randall replies, giving the official date when [[36: Scientists]] was swapped: April 28th.]''
''[He ends with:]''
|}
Thank you for your tireless documentation effort :)
{| class="wikitable"
|''[He signs]''
|}
[Quoted text hidden]
|}
{| class="wikitable"
|'''FaviFake''' <[email redacted]@gmail.com>
|15 February 2025 at 17:39 CET
|-
| colspan="2" |To: Randall Munroe <[Randall's email redacted]@gmail.com>
|-
| colspan="2" |Hello Randall,

Thank you so much for your response!! I'm certain the rest of the community will be thrilled to have an official answer.

Unfortunately, this is by far not the only "unsolved mystery" we have encountered in our research of your comic. Because we don't get to talk to you very often, I'd like to ask you if you can answer more of our many questions, if you're up for it. Of course, I do not want to annoy you or waste your time, so please let me know if this is something you'd enjoy! I will try to keep the questions entertaining for you.

Kind regards,

FaviFake

[Quoted text hidden]
|}
{| class="wikitable"
|'''Randall Munroe''' <[Randall's email redacted]@gmail.com>
|17 February 2025 at 19:02 CET
|-
| colspan="2" |To: FaviFake <[email redacted]@gmail.com>
|-
| colspan="2" |FaviFake,
{| class="wikitable"
|''[He expresses willingness to answer some additional questions, particularly simpler, administrative questions (like the one he answered), but kindly explains he prefers to avoid too much meta-commentary]''
''[He ends with:]''
|}
And seriously, my heartfelt thanks to you and everyone there. It's such a privilege to make something that people think is worth so much effort to explain <3

—Randall

[Quoted text hidden]
|}

{| class="wikitable"
|'''FaviFake''' <[email redacted]@gmail.com>
|20 February 2025 at 18:07
|-
| colspan="2" |To: Randall Munroe <[Randall's email redacted]@gmail.com>
|-
| colspan="2" |Randall,

Thank you for the kind words!! I really appreciate the offer. Next time, I'm thinking of asking the community for other simple and administrative questions, because I'm sure I don't represent everyone.
{| class="wikitable"
|''I also asked for his permission to feature this conversation here:''
|}
(Also, would it be okay to feature your responses on our wiki?)

I had drafted the paragraphs below in advance and I'm not sure if they fall outside the boundaries you mentioned, but I figured I’d ask anyway since this is a topic the other editors are very curious about. Of course, no worries if you’d rather not get into the details! We have plenty of simpler questions we can't answer ourselves. Here you go:

On June 17, 2009, you released [[Conservation]] (along with IBM's accompanying blog post), the first comic created with IBM for their "A Smarter Planet" blog. You used the filename conservation.png, as usual. On August 11, 2009, the second comic of the series, [[Prescriptions]], was released (with its blog post), but this time you used an unusual filename: ibm_hc_1.png.

We initially believed these were the only comics you created, mainly because they were the only ones featured on your page xkcd.com/asmarterplanet, but a little over a month ago we discovered two additional never-before-seen comics by experimenting with the image URLs for [[ibm_hc_2]].png and [[ibm_hc_3]].png. We believe you created these two comics as part of the IBM partnership, but for some reason they were never released publicly and were only accessible from imgs.xkcd.com. (Interestingly enough, they are still available!)

Any additional info you can give us would help a ton! For example: their titles, when they were drawn or supposed to be released, or why they were never officially published. Thank you!

—FaviFake
|}

{{notice|Update: I haven't heard back. I'm planning to send a final email with a few of the quickest and smaller questions, so if you have any, no matter how small, ask away!}}
===What I think I should reply back===
*I first asked for permission to make the conversation public, so you all can read what he said. I wasn't told not to make it public, I just think I should ask for permission first. I'm not even sure if this was the right thing. If you have thoughts, [[User talk:FaviFake#Contacting Randall Munroe|please send them to me on my talk page]]!
*I didn't think it was fair to do everything myself, so I wanted to also hear what you wanted to ask! Randall asked for simpler, administrative questions (like the one he answered), and not ones that required too much explaining. Please add your suggestions to the section below!
*I think in the first message we should send some of the easiest questions to answer, quick ones like "when was this released", and then we can start to ask slightly more complex (but still administrative) questions.

===Your suggestions! What should I ask?===
{{notice|

Format your suggestions like this:

<nowiki>'''SUMMARY OF SUGGESTION --~~~~''' </nowiki>
<nowiki>:Explain in more detail your suggestion.</nowiki> <nowiki>::Discuss it and vote --~~~~</nowiki>
Add new suggestions below the other ones.}}
{{notice2|<big>'''Remember, he said only simple questions. I'm assuming he'd like questions similar to the one he replied to (short, sweet, no explaining needed), or questions that shouldn't require him to explain his comic more than he has already done.'''
'''What's something relatively important that we don't know and that only Randall can answer in a few words?'''</big>}}

{{Done}}'''[[ibm_hc_2]] and [[ibm_hc_3]] (newly-discovered comics) and comic [[36: Scientists]]''' --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 16:34, 21 February 2025 (UTC)
:I asked this one already, because I assume it's the most important one right now. You can [[#Email thread|see my question above]].

'''Why were the first comics [[LiveJournal|uploaded seemingly at random]]? --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 21:51, 22 February 2025 (UTC)
:Initially, randall posted his comics to LiveJournal ([[LiveJournal|learn more here]]). The new xkcd website opened on January 1, 2006, and the backlog of 41 comics from LiveJournal from [[1: Barrel - Part 1]] to [[44: Love]] was transferred on the same day, but in a completely different order. The only comic that has the same number on both sites is [[3: Island (sketch)]], while all the other comics were uploaded seemingly at random. Also, only eleven of the original comic titles were reused of the new site, and even among the last eleven comics posted on both sites, only six used the same title.

'''When was [[Blue Eyes]] released? --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 11:01, 23 February 2025 (UTC)'''
:[[xkcd]]'s [[Blue Eyes]] puzzle is a logic puzzle posted around the same time as comic [[169: Words that End in GRY]]. [[Randall]] calls it "The Hardest Logic Puzzle in the World" on its page, but whether it really is the hardest is up to speculation. This is incorrect, as the comic was available long before October 11, 2006. The earliest date we have is [https://web.archive.org/web/20041024201125/http://68.57.186.221:8080/ October 24th, 2004] (see fourth link on the page), and the earliest version of the comic is from [https://web.archive.org/web/20041109034300/http://68.57.186.221:8080/blue_eyes.html November 4th, 2004]. Additionally, both the puzzle [https://xkcd.com/solution.html and the solution] (here's an [https://web.archive.org/web/20061102070433/https://xkcd.com/solution.html earlier version of the solution])were modified and updated several times since its release.

'''Why are some of the april fools' comics late? - [[Special:Contributions/172.71.146.108|172.71.146.108]] 18:55, 22 February 2025 (UTC)'''
:I'm fairly sure we've had this answered already ("things just weren't quite ready/more testing was needed") for some of the more technical ones, in some other place. Whether we can get more detail and for ''every'' not-on-time might be a matter of him having to remember the precise circumstances. And I also would feel uncomfortable if this turned into "why was <random non-April Fool comic> late?". Or early. (When doing Rightpondian book-tours, sometimes surprisingly early, but every now and then it seems he manages to release them from his native Leftpondia even early here in the Rightpondian day.) But this is far too much detail (and far too much expectation), of no importance so long as he continues to average out at three regular comics a week and ''if he wants to'', and ''when he can'', anything a bit more special.
:Consider this a downvote on bothering him with this question, but that's of course only my opinion, in leiu of anything more constructive to add ("What's your favourite cheese..?") [[Special:Contributions/172.69.79.190|172.69.79.190]] 19:42, 22 February 2025 (UTC)
::I agree with the second IP on this one! Unless there's a particular comic for which the delay was very important (do you have any in mind?), I don't think this is going to be of much interest to him. --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 20:11, 22 February 2025 (UTC)

'''What happened to the transcripts in the JSON interface --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 17:38, 23 February 2025 (UTC)'''
:On the [https://xkcd.com/about/ about] page of xkcd there is a description of where:
Is there an interface for automated systems to access comics and metadata?
:Read more here [[Transcript]]. And on this page there is a [[Transcript#End%20of%20transcripts|description]] about how the json info got messed up after [[1608: Hoverboard]] and how they completely ended after [[1677: Contrails]] which had the transcript of [[1674: Adult]].
:I would like to know if he noticed the messed up order of the transcript and if that was why he choose to end it completely? --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 17:38, 23 February 2025 (UTC)
::This imo is one the best questions we've gotten! Very technical and doesn't require him to explain any of his comics! Thanks [[User:Kynde|Kynde]]! Do you have more questions like this one? --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 18:31, 25 February 2025 (UTC)
:::Thanks. I was frustrated about this at some time. Not any other questions right now of this kind. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 13:54, 26 February 2025 (UTC)

'''Why has there not been any new what if since comet ice? --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.41.44|162.158.41.44]] 17:14, 24 February 2025 (UTC)'''
::Don't really see why we need to ask him this, A. This isn't related to the wiki, and B. They wanted short, administrative questions [[Special:Contributions/172.71.30.168|172.71.30.168]] 17:26, 24 February 2025 (UTC)
:::I kinda like this one! A: I think it's partially relevant, we have [[what if? (blog)#Release schedule|and entire section dedicated]] to analysing the release schedule of new articles. B. That's true, but at least it's shorter than most other ones. Not a terrible question imo. --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 18:31, 25 February 2025 (UTC)
::::I feel like the answer would either be unsatisfying, or unsurprising. Releasing too many articles may disincentivize people from buying the books, the YouTube page is better marketing, people aren't asking interesting questions, the increased popularity of the article has led to too many questions being asked and it becomes increasingly unfair to answer one over the other. There's a possible litany of reasons without considering other more personal reasons that Randall may not want to share. Also, (and this is my completely unfair opinion) I personally feel like any question asking "why?" is meta-commentary and out of scope. It also feels like entitlement when you ask why someone isn't giving you even more stuff for free. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.23.94|172.69.23.94]] 19:25, 3 March 2025 (UTC)
:::::Yeah no you're right. Btw, the first part of your answer is great, you should consider adding it to the blog page! (or I can do if you don't mind) [[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 19:47, 3 March 2025 (UTC)
::::::Thank you! I don't mind you adding it, but I also don't want to burden you with it. I'll look the page over and see where it might fit. I appreciate you fielding the brunt of the community in this matter! [[Special:Contributions/172.69.22.57|172.69.22.57]] 21:16, 3 March 2025 (UTC)

'''Why was there no special thing for comic [[3000]]? [[User:DollarStoreBa'al|DollarStoreBa'al]] ([[User talk:DollarStoreBa'al|talk]]) 17:34, 24 February 2025 (UTC)'''
:This is something major as normally he makes special comics for these types of milestones, but the comic proceeded as if nothing happened. Why?
::A fair question, but a bit of a lower priority than anything else we can throw at Randall. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.26.43|172.71.26.43]] 17:44, 24 February 2025 (UTC)
::I am still curious about this, though. If no other question is deemed as important, this is a good one to ask IMO. [[User:Trogdor147|Trogdor147]] ([[User_talk:Trogdor147|talk]]) 21:32, 24 February 2025 (UTC)

'''Why has the [[Blag]] stopped.? --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 14:11, 26 February 2025 (UTC)
:Seemed like it was a good place to write extra info, but it has been removed from the links on the front page 2023 even though the [https://blog.xkcd.com/ page] still exist.

'''In [[2256: Bad Map Projection: South America]], which eleven islands are representing what I assume are the Philippines and Indonesia? --[[Special:Contributions/104.23.187.145|104.23.187.145]] 13:45, 1 March 2025 (UTC)'''
:Luzon, Samar, Mindanao, Sumatra, Java, Borneo, Sulawesi, and New Guinea seem pretty obvious, but what are the other three islands?

'''Do you read explainxkcd.com? --[[Special:Contributions/172.68.174.146|172.68.174.146]] 19:01, 27 February 2025 (UTC)'''
:We've probably all wondered: Does he ever read the wiki? if so, there are many directions this could go. Like: Has he ever posted anonymously (this could be asked without necessarily identifying which posts were his)? Ever find a explanation and laugh at how wrong it was? Ever find a explanation that had a funnier interpretation then he intended?
::Discuss it and vote - I doubt that counts as "administrative" but by not referencing any particular comic, we definitely avoid the "questions shouldn't require him to explain his comic more than he has already done." part. Anyway, feel free to reword/add parts/delete parts/hack the question up in whatever way you want. Consider this just me posting the idea for a question, and letting you guys do whatever you want with the idea --[[Special:Contributions/172.68.174.146|172.68.174.146]] 19:01, 27 February 2025 (UTC)

'''In [[2951: Bad Map Projection: Exterior Kansas]], assuming you didn't draw the map freehand, what function did you use to convert (actual distance from center point) to (distance from center point in the projection)? --[[Special:Contributions/104.23.187.145|104.23.187.145]] 13:45, 1 March 2025 (UTC)'''
:This information would be helpful for adding more states, territories, countries, and/or landmasses to the map.

'''Does he know that if a=1,b=2,c=3, etc. then x+k+c+d=42?[[User:Thehydraclone|Thehydraclone]] ([[User talk:Thehydraclone|talk]]) 19:49, 2 March 2025 (UTC)'''
:(Answer to life, the universe, and everything)
::[https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/xkcd#:~:text=However%2C%20according%20to%20Randall%20himself%2C%20this%20is%20a%20coincidence This might be relevant], if you can find a citation for it...
::Not very important question but very easy to answer and trivial, i like it. --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 15:59, 3 March 2025 (UTC)

'''[[24]]'s original caption claimed to have more to it, but the link isn't archived. Is there more? [[user talk:lett‪herebedarklight|youtu.be/miLcaqq2Zpk]] 01:23, 4 March 2025 (UTC)'''
::I wonder if he'd want to talk about it, since he's now deleted his LiveJournal reply regarding the broken link. But would be easy to answer if there wasn't more. --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 18:08, 4 March 2025 (UTC)

'''There's a hidden search box in [https://xkcd.com xkcd.com]'s source code. --[[User:Bytesizeinfo.com|Bytesizeinfo.com]]'''
:It's commented out, but you can reenable it with your browser's inspect tool, and it still seems to work. (It's in the footer, if you want to try.) Why is it commented out? It seems like a useful tool.
::Interesting! I had noticed it was there on older archives but didn't know it was just commented out. --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 18:08, 4 March 2025 (UTC)

'''What was/is the purpose of https://xkcd.com/yes/ and https://xkcd.com/no/? [[user talk:lett‪herebedarklight|youtu.be/miLcaqq2Zpk]] 03:32, 5 March 2025 (UTC)'''

::Wait what? I've never seen these pages before! Are there any others? --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 21:30, 8 March 2025 (UTC)

:::When I learnt of them, I tried various others (e.g. ".../maybe"), to no avail. But maybe there's something non-Yes/Noish that goes along with those two, thematically. So far, though, I've not worked out what they might be. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.33.252|162.158.33.252]] 00:08, 9 March 2025 (UTC)


'''<big><big> '''ADD NEW SUGGESTIONS ABOVE THIS LINE '''</big></big>

----

===Out-of-scope questions===
{{notice|'''Remember, he said only simple questions. I'm assuming he'd like questions similar to the one he replied to (short, sweet, no explaining needed), or questions that shouldn't require him to explain his comic more than he has already done''' <big><big>These questions are more like interview questions.</big></big>}}

''' ''' '''''Question about deleted comic '''''

'''Why was what if? article ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20161205191559/http://what-if.xkcd.com/153 Peptides] deleted?'' --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 16:34, 21 February 2025 (UTC)'''
:[[what if? (blog)]] is a blog written by [[Randall]] with entries posted occasionally. On December 5, 2016, the article ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20161205191559/http://what-if.xkcd.com/153 Peptides]'' was published as number {{what if|153|153}}. However, it was [https://web.archive.org/web/20161206171630/http://what-if.xkcd.com/153/ removed the following day] and was replaced by a notice: "''Whoops. This article is still in progress. An early draft was unintentionally posted here thanks to Randall's [http://xkcd.com/1597/ troubled approach to git], and it took a little bit to get everything sorted out and rolled back. Sorry for the mixup!"''. No finished version of the article was ever published, and the URL was later reused for ''{{what if|153|Hide the Atmosphere}}''.
::I this this one is very interesting, but it might not be as administrative and short as Randall wants. He'd need to explain the reason why it wasn't published and why it looks like a complete article, not a "draft". Anyone agree? --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 16:34, 21 February 2025 (UTC)
:::Copy paste from my reply below which I wrote first: "I'm not quite sure he likes questions about things he actually wished to delete... I mean seriously he tried to hide it but we got hold of it anyway?" --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 17:26, 23 February 2025 (UTC)
::::Yeah you're right, I didn't think about that --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 18:31, 25 February 2025 (UTC)

''' ''' '''''Question about deleted comic '''''

'''What happened to [[Five-Minute Comics: Part 4]]? --[[User:CalibansCreations|'''Caliban''']] ([[User talk:CalibansCreations|talk]]) 17:49, 22 February 2025 (UTC)'''
:A lost xkcd comic. He accidentally posted this instead of [[940]], and then erased all evidence of its existence by redirecting the direct image URL to a notice claiming it was a minor glitch in the universe. I'd get deleting the image outright, but just replacing it with what is essentially a sign to stop looking for it? Kinda weird. Also, how many more of these 5MCs has he made that are potentially lost media?
::I like this one, but I'm not sure if it's as simple as he'd like. He'd need to explain why he created the comic, which he almost never does. But there might be a way to ask it in a way that allows him to reply without revealing too much info. Btw, you seem very active on this wiki, do you have anything else in mind? --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 20:11, 22 February 2025 (UTC)
:::I'm not quite sure he likes questions about things he actually wished to delete... I mean seriously he tried to hide it but we got hold of it anyway? Also we know why he drew these, it was a game he played with family. He just did not mean to post the fourth one. There might be more, but he only posted the three because he could not cope with the cancer of his wife and did not whish to give up his schedule. So as he could not draw three comics fast enough for that week he used these instead. Asking into this would also remind him of his wife's cancer. I vote no to this as an e-mail to Randall! [[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 17:24, 23 February 2025 (UTC)

''' ''' '''''Question about deleted comic '''''

'''Why was [[No One Was Hurt]] replaced? [[Special:Contributions/172.68.71.112|172.68.71.112]] 15:44, 24 February 2025 (UTC)'''
:[[No One Was Hurt]] was a comic that was replaced by Comic 2642, and while it's reasonable to assume that it's probably in response to some... unfortunate irl events, for documentation it would be nice to have an official, confirmed answer
::I'm not sure he'd like it, after all, he deleted it, so he might not want to talk about it more --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 18:31, 25 February 2025 (UTC)

'''Will we get more 5-part sagas? --[[User:CalibansCreations|'''Caliban''']] ([[User talk:CalibansCreations|talk]]) 11:44, 23 February 2025 (UTC)'''
:Like [[Choices]], [[The Race]], etc.
:::Not sure about this one, feels like we should be focusing on exclusively wiki data and such, this isn't an interview. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.30.168|172.71.30.168]] 17:28, 24 February 2025 (UTC)
::::Agree with IP, but it's not the worst question we've gotten. --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 18:31, 25 February 2025 (UTC)

'''Machine details -- [[User:HyperBirbN3rd|HyperBirbN3rd]]'''
:Is [[Machine]] going to have a finalized state? If so, when?
::Not sure this is easy enough to answer. He'd have to explain his intentions, which i don't think he published --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 18:31, 25 February 2025 (UTC)

'''What inspired you to make [[Time]]? {{unsigned ip|141.101.109.166}}'''
::Frankly I don't see this one either, see the one above [[Special:Contributions/172.71.30.168|172.71.30.168]] 17:26, 24 February 2025 (UTC)
:::Yup, definitely out of scope. --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 18:31, 25 February 2025 (UTC)

'''Are there comics you'd like to update in light of recent developments? [[Special:Contributions/172.71.102.216|172.71.102.216]] 13:52, 25 February 2025 (UTC)'''
:Are there any existing comics you would like to update / sequel in light of recent developments (environmental, political, webtrends, demographic)? :The first thing that comes to mind is that 2024 was the first year above 1.5C over the pre-industrial average. [https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/01/10/0426254/2024-was-the-first-year-above-15c-of-global-warming-scientists-say].
::This is an interview question, not a simple question — read the notice above --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 18:31, 25 February 2025 (UTC)

'''Just wanted to note that some geography comics might be worth asking about [[User:XKCD Teaches Science|XKCD Teaches Science]] ([[User talk:XKCD Teaches Science|talk]]) 03:27, 24 February 2025 (UTC)'''
:I remember browsing pages on this wiki about 6 months ago and noticing that there were many explainations of maps or map like things where editors weren't sure which small islands or small countries since comic drawing is obviously not perfect. I don't remember which comics exactly and don't have time today to investigate, but I figured this observation is worth noting.
::I'm not sure i get what you're saying. What are you suggesting we ask Randall, exactly (if he answers)? --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 18:31, 25 February 2025 (UTC)

'''Did they notice?''' -unsigned!
:I noticed that in [[1529: Bracket]] 'Jeff Gordan' was changed to 'Jeff Gordon' but apparently nobody noticed. When was the comic fixed?
:: Who knows! Good catch. This is not the correct page to talk about it, but I have mentioned it in the comic page. You can use the Wayback Machine to check when it was changed [[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 20:56, 7 March 2025 (UTC)

Talk:3060: Omniroll

2025-03-08T03:13:49Z

162.158.33.252: Recursion warning...

I wonder what the filling would be... [[Special:Contributions/172.69.20.143|172.69.20.143]] 02:35, 8 March 2025 (UTC)

At some point, this explanation will be complete. Then we can say "that's a wrap!"... [[Special:Contributions/172.69.79.190|172.69.79.190]] 02:36, 8 March 2025 (UTC)

The ''real'' fun would come if this became popular enough to gain its own Wikipedia page. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.33.252|162.158.33.252]] 03:13, 8 March 2025 (UTC)

Talk:703: Honor Societies

2025-03-06T22:11:22Z

162.158.33.252: The initial statement in discussion uses an unsourced definition of tautology and treats it as defacto the only definition of a tautology.

A tautology is a statement that is always true and that doesn't convey any information. A classic example is 'A or not A', which is true if A is true, but also if A isn't true. 'Either it rains or it doesn't rain' is true, no matter what weather it is.

"If 1.000.000 people join this group, it will have 1.000.000 people in it" is, strictly speaking, not a tautology, since it wouldn't be true if - somehow - 1.000.000 people were able to join the group without it having 1.000.000 people in it (I don't know - maybe if people leave the group before the counter hit 1.000.000?). It would also be true if there were somehow 1.000.000 members of the group without 1.000.000 people joining it. It is of the form 'if A then A' which is pretty much a much longer version of just 'A'. It's true if it's true, and it isn't if it isn't - so it isn't a tautology.

The same goes for 'The first rule of the tautology club is the first rule of the tautology club' - It's just a long way of saying "This is the first rule of the tautology club' - which can be true or false.
:No, it's saying that, whatever the first rule of the club is at any given moment, that's the first rule of the club. Which cannot be false. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.38|108.162.216.38]] 16:39, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

A tautology according to Merriam Webster is 1: needless repetition of an idea, statement, or word or 2: a statement that is true by virtue of its logical form alone. Strictly speaking all of these are tautologies.

Granted; the statements hold enough implied information that we will agree that they are true in a trivial sense, and they are much more fun than 'either there are 1.000.000 people in this group or there aren't 1.000.000 people in this group' and 'either this is the first rule of the tautology club or it isn't' [[Special:Contributions/193.88.197.67|193.88.197.67]] 22:15, 2 September 2013 (UTC)
: While I do understand what you're getting at, you are surprisingly wrong on a few accounts. First, A or not A (i.e. A V ~A) is not always a tautology. I've spent enough painful time around intuitionists to say this whenever I can.
:: How is that not a tautology? For any proposition A, if the proposition is true, then A; if not, then ~A. Logic doesn't allow for a proposition to be both true AND false, nor does it allow for a proposition to be neither true NOR false, so the only remaining possibilities are A and ~A; ergo, A v ~A. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.38|108.162.216.38]] 16:44, 11 February 2014 (UTC)
::Not in all forms of logic and mathematics. Intuitionism, in particular (check Wikipedia) treats "true" as equivalent to "provable" and "false" as equivalent to "disprovable," since math is not an abstract Platonic ideal, but a human construction. Even under conventional math, "The current King of France is bald" is neither true nor is it false, because there is no current King of France. x \elem S is neither true nor false if x is not well-defined. 02:13, 17 March 2022 (UTC)
:::re current King of France: isn't the proper term for that “vacuously true”? {{User:PoolloverNathan/Signature}}

:Unnecessary nitpick aside, then, there are more serious things. I presume the sentence, "It would also be true if there were somehow 1.000.000 members of the group without 1.000.000 people joining it," should be, "It would also '''not''' be true if there were somehow 1.000.000 members of the group without 1.000.000 people joining it." (Otherwise, the "also" is used incorrectly, and the sentence is useless.) Unfortunately, this would make it wrong; a statement of the form "if A then B" is not false if B is true and A isn't. (This is the difficulty of making formal logic: the traditional conditional leads to bizarre, vacuous truths.) Also, more seriously, you say that "if A then A" is a longer way of saying "A", or, more formally, that "A → A" is logically equivalent to "A." Unfortunately, this is not the case. The statement "if A then A" is always true, and hence a tautology. You also assert that "A = A" (or "A ↔ A") is logically equivalent to "A", where "A" is "The first rule of tautology club." This is even more obviously false. Even if "The first rule of tautology club" yields falsehood, it is still equivalent to itself.

:Serious issues aside, I do agree with your sentiment that "[i]f 1.000.000 people join this group, it will have 1.000.000 people in it" is not necessarily a tautology, but removing the ambiguities (did they all join at the same time? did anyone leave?), which would necessarily be done in any formalization of the statement, would yield the tautological "A → A." {{unsigned|Quicksilver}}

Why does this comic have the [[:Category:Philosophy|Philosophy]] category? Am I missing something? [[User:GameZone|GameZone]] ([[User talk:GameZone|talk]]) 08:27, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

:Logic is technically philosophy, or at least they're closely connected. [[User:Sciepsilon|Sciepsilon]] ([[User talk:Sciepsilon|talk]]) 20:23, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

It is worth noting that this comic is Randall's commentary on certain honor societies, who don't do anything except for selecting new members. Feynman once made a remark to that effect, and may be Randall's influence on the matter. (Or not.) Regardless, this explanation is missing the viewpoint. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.215.74|108.162.215.74]] 20:53, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

I see that nobody's pointed out that the third figure from the left in the third panel appears to be Jason Fox (see [[824: Guest Week: Bill Amend (FoxTrot)]])- known to be one of those nerdy types who would join a tautology club. He is (to my knowledge) perpetually in the fifth grade, though, which does make me a little suspicious. --[[Special:Contributions/173.245.56.24|173.245.56.24]] 00:03, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

The [http://www.xkcd.com/703/info.0.json official transcript] actually identifies him as "a shorter male with glasses that bears a striking resemblance to Jason Fox". I'd say the chances of it being him are a little more than "could be". [[Special:Contributions/173.245.54.38|173.245.54.38]] 07:02, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

'''[[Hairbun]] vs. [[Science Girl]]''': should "Hairbun" in this comic be changed to "Science Girl"? I know Science Girl is usually younger, and is usually associated with an interest in science, but IMHO, her appearance here is more characteristic of Science Girl (i.e. the curly ponytail hanging from the hairbun). She may have been called "Hairbun" here because this comic was fairly early, before the "Science Girl" character became a regular; for example, even as late as [[1520: Degree-Off]], she was originally called "Hairbun", but was later changed to "Science Girl". [https://store.xkcd.com/products/opinions-bumper-sticker Opinions]? (Also, same for [[1511: Spice Girl]]?) – [[User:Yfmcpxpj|Yfmcpxpj]] ([[User talk:Yfmcpxpj|talk]]) 00:22, 21 September 2020 (UTC)
:For what it's worth, I think that's Science Girl. [[User:Nitpicking|Nitpicking]] ([[User talk:Nitpicking|talk]]) 13:00, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

3057: Excusing Yourself

2025-03-03T02:15:10Z

162.158.33.252: /* Explanation */ Avoiding unnecessary repetition. Adding space.

{{comic
| number = 3057
| date = February 28, 2025
| title = Excusing Yourself
| image = excusing_yourself_2x.png
| imagesize = 740x334px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = The most awkward part is when you have to pause to put on your shoes before you continue rolling out the door.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by AN EXTREMELY POLITE BOT - Please continue to tidy up the explanation. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This comic revolves around different degrees of 'politeness' to leave a gathering, various scenes replicating the end of a social event, possibly a dinner party, but with different outcomes.

The first panel shows [[Megan]] sitting at a table with [[White Hat]] and [[Ponytail]]. She suddenly realizes how late she's 'kept them up', and how she needs to go somewhere early in the morning. Despite this and the fact that sleep is essential,{{Citation needed}} she offers to help tidy up the house before she leaves, possibly the most polite you can be in this situation, as it does not suggest the reason for leaving is related to the quality of the gathering and suggests she would stay longer if not for other obligations.

The second panel shows [[Cueball]] at the same gathering, who says that he must leave due to the fact that he is tired and must sleep. This is considered less polite, as he does not offer to help clean up the way Megan did, and indirectly implies the gathering is no longer entertaining enough to merit staying up; or just that he is ''too'' tired to fully comply with social niceties, in an understandable manner.

Even less polite is the trickster and classhole [[Black Hat]], in the third panel, who excuses himself in typical Black Hat fashion. Instead of him saying that he alone is tired, he says that EVERYONE looks tired ''and'' bored. This is very impolite, especially in a social setting. It might be argued he is not being as rude as he ''could'' since makes his departure less about his own desire to leave and more about the fact that the gathering has (allegedly) served its purpose; on the other hand, if he's just asserting that everyone looks bored based on little evidence he's actually being more rude by arrogantly presuming to speak for everyone.

The final panel shows three points in time, depicting an unfolding action. [[Megan]] kicks the table, sending the chair tipping backwards and dumping her onto the floor. She then proceeds to roll away from the table, and presumably outside the house. This is rude on multiple levels: she does not give the hosts any chance to wish her goodbye, provides no excuse as to why she is leaving (as if it should be obvious), actively makes more mess by spilling the drinks on the table, and draws significant attention to herself all the while. Moreover, it is a health risk as she may sustain a concussion from such a fall pictured in the comic where the head directly impacts the floor, unless she has {{w|Uke (martial arts)#Ukemi|specifically practiced}} {{w|Stunt#Practical effects|such maneuvers}}.

The title text adds to the general awkwardness of having to excuse yourself, when Megan has to stop rolling to put her shoes on before continuing. This interaction is also unusual since in the United States, where [[Randall]] resides, hosts are unlikely to request their guests to remove shoes at a house party, [https://www.cbsnews.com/news/most-americans-are-shoes-off-at-home/ despite a majority opting to not wear shoes in their own homes]. Therefore, there's a reasonable likelihood that Megan would have had her shoes on already and would not encounter this issue.

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

:[Caption above the panel:]
:Ways to leave a social interaction:
:[An arrow pointing towards the right is shown below the caption. Caption above arrow:]
:Less polite

:[First Panel: From left to right, Ponytail, White Hat, and Megan are sitting at a table with half-full glasses on it. Megan is looking down at her phone.]
:Megan: Oh, gosh, I can't believe how late I've kept you up! I have to wake up early, so I should really go soon.
:Megan: Can I help tidy up?

:[Second Panel: White Hat and Cueball are sitting at a table (only the right half is shown, so Ponytail may be presumed to be in the left chair as in the first panel), on which there are half-full glasses and a plate.]
:Cueball: It's been great, but I'm tired and need to sleep.

:[Third Panel: White Hat and Black Hat are sitting at a table (again, Ponytail may be in the left chair), with two plates and a half-full wine glass at White Hat's spot. Black Hat's arm is resting on the back of his chair.]
:Black Hat: We're about done having fun, right?
:Black Hat: Everyone looks bored.
:Black Hat: And tired.

:[Fourth Panel: Ponytail, White Hat are sitting at the table. Megan is shown in a sequence of actions within the same frame.]
:[Action 1: Megan kicks the table at which she was sat, spilling the drinks on it, while simultaneously pushing her chair backwards, to topple it:]
:''Kick''
:Megan: Bye.
:[Action 2: Megan and her chair crash to the floor, with arm flung back.]
:''Crash''
:[Action 3: Megan tumbles away from the position she fell in, either in a backwards or sideways roll.]

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Black Hat]]
[[Category:Social interactions]]

Talk:3057: Excusing Yourself

2025-03-02T08:44:16Z

162.158.33.252: Not Danish unfortunately

Hey look, a new comic! YAYYYYYYY! [[User:DollarStoreBa'al|DollarStoreBa'al]] ([[User talk:DollarStoreBa'al|talk]]) 16:39, 28 February 2025 (UTC)

Added the starts of a new explanation for people to edit in the future. It's nice being the very first stepping stone. [[User:DollarStoreBa'al|DollarStoreBa'al]] ([[User talk:DollarStoreBa'al|talk]]) 17:00, 28 February 2025 (UTC)

I have to say, I was actually at the receiving end of something similar to the last panel-sequence. At a meeting, I was reading the minutes of the previous meeting (or some other administrative thing that even bores ''me''), and one of the people sat opposite me deliberately pushed themselves back onto the floor (though didn't roll away, content to have made their 'point')... Clearly unimpressed with my contribution. But it was standard meeting stuff that needed to be done so... I can't remember quite where I went from there (it was 30 years ago!), but I probably gave 'a look' and continued. Possibly extemporised/varied my delivery as he got back up and everyone else recovered from being temporarily distracted by his antics. (Which I suspect was planned, not ''totally'' spontaneous.) [[Special:Contributions/172.71.26.36|172.71.26.36]] 01:24, 1 March 2025 (UTC)

I've found the 'shoes' thing to vary by region and culture within the USA. In Hawai‘i, "ay, no leave shoes on in da house, brah!" In New England, and perhaps in northern-tier states generally, the shoes stay on, though the polite thing is to leave the overshoes on the porch, and/or make sure that the shoe soles get passed over the door mat. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.90.24|162.158.90.24]] 05:56, 1 March 2025 (UTC)

Absolutely loving the 'citation needed' after the sleep note. --[[User:DollarStoreBa'al|DollarStoreBa'al]] ([[User talk:DollarStoreBa'al|talk]]) 06:07, 1 March 2025 (UTC)
:Was wrongly positioned, regarding punctuation, though. Fixed that. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.157|172.70.86.157]] 08:44, 1 March 2025 (UTC)

;Is it Danish?

I labeled the panel 4 character as Danish, since she's being more rude than Black Hat and Megan is already present. Remind me, are there definite stylistic differences between Megan and Danish's hairstyles that are/aren't present here? --[[User:Jacky720|Jack]] ([[User talk:Jacky720|t]]|[[Special:Contributions/Jacky720|c]]) 18:05, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
:I don't know. From what I can tell, there are no stylistic changes between Megan and the Mystery Woman in this comic. Edit: I've just looked at [[2608: Family Reunion]]. Both Megan and Danish are present. Danish appears to be slightly shorter than Megan. However, I can't really see any difference in height between them. In [[1014: Car Problems]], Danish is the one reacting to Megan's slideshow. Danish appears to have longer hair than Megan in this comic. I also see no difference in hair length. [[User:DollarStoreBa'al|DollarStoreBa'al]] ([[User talk:DollarStoreBa'al|talk]]) 18:29, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
: I can't see any major differences at the moment in this comic, but it makes sense for it to be Danish [[User:Firestar233|guess who]] ([[User talk:Firestar233|if you desire conversing]] | [[Special:Contributions/Firestar233|what i have done]]) 19:24, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
:well, I changed it and ... well, just look [[User:Bb777|Bb777]] ([[User talk:Bb777|talk]]) 02:28, 2 March 2025 (UTC)
:{{Quote|are there definite stylistic differences between Megan and Danish's hairstyles that are/aren't present here?}}
:Yes, there are! Here are some quotes from the [[Danish]] and [[Megan]] character pages:
:{{Quote|Megan is distinguished by her black shoulder-length hair which generally appears to be parted in the middle in front and is draped behind what are presumably her (undrawn) ears. It is shorter than the character of similar appearance, Danish.}}
:{{Quote|[Danish] is similar in appearance to Megan but has distinctly longer hair.}}
:Here, Megan has short hair in both panels.
:{{Quote|[Danish] mainly appears in comics together with Black Hat, which is the most certain giveaway that a long-haired woman is Danish rather than Megan.}}
:In this comic, she isn't accompanied by Black Hat. I have edited the page to fix this issue. --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 08:40, 2 March 2025 (UTC)
:: Came here to ask the same thing in the hope that the beloved Danish had returned. I agree it's double Megan, so a missed opportunity by Randall. In addition it's not caustic misanthropy in the final panel, merely introvert desperation. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.33.252|162.158.33.252]] 08:44, 2 March 2025 (UTC)

3054: Scream Cipher

2025-02-22T20:35:31Z

162.158.33.252: ...ah, I see. trivially miskeyed the end-of-comment. ;)

{{comic
| number = 3054
| date = February 21, 2025
| title = Scream Cipher
| image = scream_cipher_2x.png
| imagesize = 287x416px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = AAAAAA A ÃA̧AȂA̦ ǍÅÂÃĀÁȂ AAAAAAA!
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by A ÃA̧ȂÁAǍẢÂA̋ ȦÅĀ - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
A {{w|Cipher}} is a method of encryption, where characters or sometimes words are substituted for other characters in a set pattern, allowing for arbitrary strings to be enciphered using it. The complexity and strength of ciphers varies, from {{w|one-time pads}} and (historically) {{w|enigma machine|Enigma}} as stronger and more complex, to {{w|substitution ciphers}} as some of the weakest and least complex, where each character is simply given a set different symbol to represent it in the cipher.

This comic uses a substitution cipher, where all the letters of the English Alphabet are represented using the letter "A", with different {{w|diacritical marks}} to define the differences. See details about the 25 marks in the [[#Trivia|Trivia section]] below. This kind of cipher is often used on a recreational basis by children or casual enthusiasts, the similarity of the letters increasing the obcurity of the content and the skill or technology required for use, but there is also significant impracticality, as not only are substitution ciphers the easiest to break, but also the similarities in the letters do make the cipher hard to read and easy to misread, and the detail in the diacritical marks makes it easy to draw the "A"s incorrectly or ambiguously, potentially leading to [[3003: Sandwich Helix|part of the message being lost]]. This was our experience in the comments section of this very article, where one person implemented translator functions alongside another person crafting a message that failed to translate. However, the logic behind the code is mostly visual similarity, and if attentive to connecting concepts between the American and scream cipher alphabet, it could be quickly learned and translated in a glance.

It's named "Scream Cipher" (as a pun on {{w|stream cipher}}s, commonly used in computing) because the written form of a scream is a long string of As, possibly with some other characters at the end (and often an exclamation point for emphasis), such as "Aaaaaah!" or "Aaaaaaagh!". The name may or may not be a reference to IBM's {{w|Scream_(cipher)|Scream cipher}} published in 2002.

In the comic, [[Cueball]] texts the ciphered version for the plaintext "HELLO", and [[Megan]] responds with that for "HI".

The title text deciphers to "AAAAAA A SCARY MONSTER AAAAAAA!"

You can translate text to and from Scream Cipher using [https://github.com/matthewpwatkins/scream-cipher/ the Scream Cipher Translator] or [https://github.com/Reginald-Gillespie/ScreamCipher an alternative] with additional features.

Another recent comic featuring all "A"s was [[2957: A Crossword Puzzle]].

Diacritics was also the main theme in [[1647: Diacritics]] (of course) and was previously also mentioned in [[1209: Encoding]] and in [[1857: Emoji Movie]] where they have an important part of the pun, and is mentioned in one point of the list in [[1957: 2018 CVE List]].

==Worked example==

Say we want to encode "Scream" in the Scream Cipher. First we would need to split out word into the letters, so S, C, R, E, A, M.

The first letter is S, so if we go to S in the table S is shown to become to Ã, C similarly becomes A̧, R becomes Ȃ, E corresponds to Á, A is the main letter so A is unchanged to A, and M becomes Ǎ. If we then write them again in order, we find SCREAM becomes ÃA̧ȂÁAǍ.

To turn cipher text back into normal text, the process is repeated in reverse. To translate A̧ẢA̯A̰ÁȂ, we go to A̧ in the table and find A̧ becomes C. Ả similarly becomes I, A̯ becomes P, A̰ becomes H, Á becomes E, and Ȃ becomes R. If we write the letters in order, we see that A̧ẢA̯A̰ÁȂ becomes CIPHER.

==Transcript==
:[The top of the panel has the 26 letters of the alphabet written, each followed by a hyphen and the letter "A" with a unique diacritical mark for each. "A - A" is the only letter in the top row, and the only one where that A on the right side doesn't have a diacritic. The next 25 is sorted in a 5 by 5 grid, with the first five letters after A in the first column, then the next 5 in the second column and so on:]
:{|
|A - A
|-
|B - Ȧ
|G - A̋
|L - Ă
|Q - A̤
|V - À
|-
|C - A̧
|H - A̰
|M - Ǎ
|R - Ȃ
|W - Ȁ
|-
|D - A̱
|I - Ả
|N - Â
|S - Ã
|X - A̽
|-
|E - Á
|J - A̓
|O - Å
|T - Ā
|Y - A̦
|-
|F - A̮
|K - Ạ
|P - A̯
|U - Ä
|Z - Ⱥ
|}
:[Beneath these letters we see Cueball and Megan typing on their phones, Cueball with two hands and Megan with one hand, small lines indicating the movement of their hands. Cueball and Megan is turned towards each other but with more separation than if they were engaged in normal discussion. They both look down at their phones not towards each other. The text they type is shown above their phone with a line starting in a starburst at the top of their phones going up the to the text.]
:Cueball's phone: A̰ÁĂĂÅ
:Megan's phone: A̰Ả

:[Caption below the panel:]
:In the '''''Scream Cipher''''', messages consist of all As, with different letters distinguished using diacritics.

==Trivia==
The {{w|Unicode}} names of the characters in the cipher are as follows:

{|class="wikitable"
! colspan=2 | Input !! colspan=3 | Substitution
|-
! Plain !! Unicode description !! Cipher !! Unicode description(s) !! Notes
|-
| A || U+0041 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A || {{w|A}} || '''U+0041 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A || Unadorned base character
|-
| B || U+0042 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER B || {{w|Ȧ}} || '''U+0226 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH {{w|Dot (diacritic)|DOT}} ABOVE || A with one dot over it, which can indicate a single change in math and science. Phonetic symbol for low central vowel.
|-
| C || U+0043 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER C || A̧ || U+0041 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A, '''U+0327 {{w|Combining Diacritical Marks|COMBINING}} {{w|Cedilla|CEDILLA}}''' || Cedilla is often attached to a 'c', as in "français", as well as starting with 'c' itself.
|-
| D || U+0044 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER D || A̱ || U+0041 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A, '''U+0331 COMBINING MACRON BELOW''' || Some see the lower bar as similar to the lower edge of the D.
|-
| E || U+0045 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER E || {{w|Á}} || '''U+00C1 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH ACUTE || Many words have an acute e, as in "fiancé".
|-
| F || U+0046 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER F || A̮ || U+0041 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A, '''U+032E COMBINING BREVE BELOW''' ||
|-
| G || U+0047 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER G || A̋ || U+0041 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A, '''U+030B COMBINING {{w|Double acute accent|DOUBLE ACUTE}} ACCENT''' || Adds two acutes to a letter.
|-
| H || U+0048 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER H || A̰ || U+0041 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A, '''U+0330 COMBINING TILDE BELOW''' || The low tilde has horizontal ink in the middle that moves vertical toward the sides, like an H.
|-
| I || U+0049 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER I || {{w|Ả}} || '''U+1EA2 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH HOOK ABOVE ||
|-
| J || U+004A LATIN CAPITAL LETTER J || A̓ || U+0041 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A, '''U+0313 COMBINING COMMA ABOVE''' || The comma symbol looks like a small letter 'J' in some fonts
|-
| K || U+004B LATIN CAPITAL LETTER K || Ạ || '''U+1EA0 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH DOT BELOW || 
|-
| L || U+004C LATIN CAPITAL LETTER L || {{w|Ă}} || '''U+0102 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH {{w|Breve|BREVE}} ||
|-
| M || U+004D LATIN CAPITAL LETTER M || Ǎ || '''U+01CD LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH {{w|caron|CARON}} || The top-centered caron is the same shape as the top center of the M.
|-
| N || U+004E LATIN CAPITAL LETTER N || {{w|Â}} || '''U+00C2 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH CIRCUMFLEX || The lowercase letter 'n' also looks like a circumflex in some scripts. The circumflex peak mirrors the peak at the top left of the N.
|-
| O || U+004F LATIN CAPITAL LETTER O || {{w|Å}} || '''U+00C5 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH RING ABOVE || The symbol contains the letter 'O'. In Scandinavian languages like Swedish, this *is* the letter 'O' (a written 'O' may be closer to a 'U', but not always)
|-
| P || U+0050 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER P || A̯ || U+0041 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A, '''U+032F COMBINING INVERTED BREVE BELOW''' || Refer to R: P also has a curve at the top center, but is encoded with one below.
|-
| Q || U+0051 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER Q || A̤ || U+0041 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A, '''U+0324 COMBINING DIAERESIS BELOW''' || The two dots below the baseline reflect the two times Randall's Q touch the baseline. In the Orthographies of Spanish, Catalan, French and Galician, the grapheme 'qu' normally represents a single sound, before vowels 'e' and 'i'. In the few exceptions where the 'u' is pronounced, a diaeresis is added to it.
|-
| R || U+0052 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER R || Ȃ || '''U+0202 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH {{w|Inverted breve|INVERTED BREVE}} ||
The inverted centered top curve mirrors the curve at the top center of an R.
|-
| S || U+0053 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER S || {{w|Ã}} || '''U+00C3 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH TILDE || Tilde looks like a sideways 'S'.
|-
| T || U+0054 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER T || {{w|Ā}} || '''U+0100 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH {{w|Macron (diacritic)|MACRON}} || The macron looks like the top horizontal line in the letter 'T'
|-
| U || U+0055 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER U || {{w|Ä}} || '''U+00C4 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH DIAERESIS || Many German words have a 'ü', as in "{{w|Volkswagen_advertising#Fahrvergnügen|Fahrvergnügen}}". Similar to the encoding for Q, the two top dots mirror the two times the script of U reaches the top line.
|-
| V || U+0056 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER V || {{w|À}} || '''U+00C0 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH GRAVE || Grave has the letter 'V' in it, as well as being half of its shape.
|-
| W || U+0057 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER W || Ȁ || '''U+0200 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH {{w|Double grave accent|DOUBLE GRAVE}} || The letter 'W' is visually two copies of the letter 'V'
|-
| X || U+0058 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER X || A̽ || U+0041 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A, '''U+033D COMBINING X ABOVE''' || The symbol contains the letter 'X'.
|-
| Y || U+0059 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER Y || A̦ || U+0041 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A, '''U+0326 COMBINING COMMA BELOW''' || Comma is used con conjuntion as the letter 'Y' in some languages like Spanish
|-
| Z || U+005A LATIN CAPITAL LETTER Z || {{w|Saanich_dialect#Writing_system|Ⱥ}} || '''U+023A LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH STROKE || The strikethrough the letter A resembles the diagonal stroke of a capital "Z"
|}

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Language]]
[[Category:Cryptography]]
[[Category:Unicode]]
[[Category:Smartphones]]

3054: Scream Cipher

2025-02-22T20:30:13Z

162.158.33.252: /* Trivia */ Mostly added direct wikilink to cipher-character, where available, combining/diactric detail otherwise (only on 'standard' form, e.g. standard 'over' in most cases and standard 'under' in the case of the cedilla). Further lookup up to reader?

{{comic
| number = 3054
| date = February 21, 2025
| title = Scream Cipher
| image = scream_cipher_2x.png
| imagesize = 287x416px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = AAAAAA A ÃA̧AȂA̦ ǍÅÂÃĀÁȂ AAAAAAA!
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by A ÃA̧ȂÁAǍẢÂA̋ ȦÅĀ - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
A {{w|Cipher}} is a method of encryption, where characters or sometimes words are substituted for other characters in a set pattern, allowing for arbitrary strings to be enciphered using it. The complexity and strength of ciphers varies, from {{w|one-time pads}} and (historically) {{w|enigma machine|Enigma}} as stronger and more complex, to {{w|substitution ciphers}} as some of the weakest and least complex, where each character is simply given a set different symbol to represent it in the cipher.

This comic uses a substitution cipher, where all the letters of the English Alphabet are represented using the letter "A", with different {{w|diacritical marks}} to define the differences. See details about the 25 marks in the [[#Trivia|Trivia section]] below. This kind of cipher is often used on a recreational basis by children or casual enthusiasts, the similarity of the letters increasing the obcurity of the content and the skill or technology required for use, but there is also significant impracticality, as not only are substitution ciphers the easiest to break, but also the similarities in the letters do make the cipher hard to read and easy to misread, and the detail in the diacritical marks makes it easy to draw the "A"s incorrectly or ambiguously, potentially leading to [[3003: Sandwich Helix|part of the message being lost]]. This was our experience in the comments section of this very article, where one person implemented translator functions alongside another person crafting a message that failed to translate. However, the logic behind the code is mostly visual similarity, and if attentive to connecting concepts between the American and scream cipher alphabet, it could be quickly learned and translated in a glance.

It's named "Scream Cipher" (as a pun on {{w|stream cipher}}s, commonly used in computing) because the written form of a scream is a long string of As, possibly with some other characters at the end (and often an exclamation point for emphasis), such as "Aaaaaah!" or "Aaaaaaagh!". The name may or may not be a reference to IBM's {{w|Scream_(cipher)|Scream cipher}} published in 2002.

In the comic, [[Cueball]] texts the ciphered version for the plaintext "HELLO", and [[Megan]] responds with that for "HI".

The title text deciphers to "AAAAAA A SCARY MONSTER AAAAAAA!"

You can translate text to and from Scream Cipher using [https://github.com/matthewpwatkins/scream-cipher/ the Scream Cipher Translator] or [https://github.com/Reginald-Gillespie/ScreamCipher an alternative] with additional features.

Another recent comic featuring all "A"s was [[2957: A Crossword Puzzle]].

Diacritics was also the main theme in [[1647: Diacritics]] (of course) and was previously also mentioned in [[1209: Encoding]] and in [[1857: Emoji Movie]] where they have an important part of the pun, and is mentioned in one point of the list in [[1957: 2018 CVE List]].

==Worked example==

Say we want to encode "Scream" in the Scream Cipher. First we would need to split out word into the letters, so S, C, R, E, A, M.

The first letter is S, so if we go to S in the table S is shown to become to Ã, C similarly becomes A̧, R becomes Ȃ, E corresponds to Á, A is the main letter so A is unchanged to A, and M becomes Ǎ. If we then write them again in order, we find SCREAM becomes ÃA̧ȂÁAǍ.

To turn cipher text back into normal text, the process is repeated in reverse. To translate A̧ẢA̯A̰ÁȂ, we go to A̧ in the table and find A̧ becomes C. Ả similarly becomes I, A̯ becomes P, A̰ becomes H, Á becomes E, and Ȃ becomes R. If we write the letters in order, we see that A̧ẢA̯A̰ÁȂ becomes CIPHER.

==Transcript==
:[The top of the panel has the 26 letters of the alphabet written, each followed by a hyphen and the letter "A" with a unique diacritical mark for each. "A - A" is the only letter in the top row, and the only one where that A on the right side doesn't have a diacritic. The next 25 is sorted in a 5 by 5 grid, with the first five letters after A in the first column, then the next 5 in the second column and so on:]
:{|
|A - A
|-
|B - Ȧ
|G - A̋
|L - Ă
|Q - A̤
|V - À
|-
|C - A̧
|H - A̰
|M - Ǎ
|R - Ȃ
|W - Ȁ
|-
|D - A̱
|I - Ả
|N - Â
|S - Ã
|X - A̽
|-
|E - Á
|J - A̓
|O - Å
|T - Ā
|Y - A̦
|-
|F - A̮
|K - Ạ
|P - A̯
|U - Ä
|Z - Ⱥ
|}
:[Beneath these letters we see Cueball and Megan typing on their phones, Cueball with two hands and Megan with one hand, small lines indicating the movement of their hands. Cueball and Megan is turned towards each other but with more separation than if they were engaged in normal discussion. They both look down at their phones not towards each other. The text they type is shown above their phone with a line starting in a starburst at the top of their phones going up the to the text.]
:Cueball's phone: A̰ÁĂĂÅ
:Megan's phone: A̰Ả

:[Caption below the panel:]
:In the '''''Scream Cipher''''', messages consist of all As, with different letters distinguished using diacritics.

==Trivia==
The {{w|Unicode}} names of the characters in the cipher are as follows:

{|class="wikitable"
! colspan=2 | Input !! colspan=3 | Substitution
|-
! Plain !! Unicode description !! Cipher !! Unicode description(s) !! Notes
|-
| A || U+0041 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A || {{w|A}} || '''U+0041 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A || Unadorned base character
|-
| B || U+0042 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER B || {{w|Ȧ}} || '''U+0226 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH {{w|Dot (diacritic)|DOT}} ABOVE || A with one dot over it, which can indicate a single change in math and science. Phonetic symbol for low central vowel.
|-
| C || U+0043 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER C || A̧ || U+0041 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A, '''U+0327 {{w|Combining Diacritical Marks|COMBINING}} {{w|Cedilla|CEDILLA}}''' || Cedilla is often attached to a 'c', as in "français", as well as starting with 'c' itself.
|-
| D || U+0044 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER D || A̱ || U+0041 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A, '''U+0331 COMBINING MACRON BELOW''' || Some see the lower bar as similar to the lower edge of the D.
|-
| E || U+0045 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER E || {{w|Á}} || '''U+00C1 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH ACUTE || Many words have an acute e, as in "fiancé".
|-
| F || U+0046 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER F || A̮ || U+0041 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A, '''U+032E COMBINING BREVE BELOW''' ||
|-
| G || U+0047 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER G || A̋ || U+0041 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A, '''U+030B COMBINING {{w|Double acute accent|DOUBLE ACUTE}} ACCENT''' || Adds two acutes to a letter.
|-
| H || U+0048 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER H || A̰ || U+0041 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A, '''U+0330 COMBINING TILDE BELOW''' || The low tilde has horizontal ink in the middle that moves vertical toward the sides, like an H.
|-
| I || U+0049 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER I || {{w|Ả}} || '''U+1EA2 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH HOOK ABOVE ||
|-
| J || U+004A LATIN CAPITAL LETTER J || A̓ || U+0041 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A, '''U+0313 COMBINING COMMA ABOVE''' || The comma symbol looks like a small letter 'J' in some fonts
|-
| K || U+004B LATIN CAPITAL LETTER K || Ạ || '''U+1EA0 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH DOT BELOW || 
|-
| L || U+004C LATIN CAPITAL LETTER L || {{w|Ă}} || '''U+0102 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH {{w|Breve|BREVE}} ||
|-
| M || U+004D LATIN CAPITAL LETTER M || Ǎ || '''U+01CD LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH {{w|caron|CARON}} || The top-centered caron is the same shape as the top center of the M.
|-
| N || U+004E LATIN CAPITAL LETTER N || {{w|Â}} || '''U+00C2 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH CIRCUMFLEX || The lowercase letter 'n' also looks like a circumflex in some scripts. The circumflex peak mirrors the peak at the top left of the N.
|-
| O || U+004F LATIN CAPITAL LETTER O || {{w|Å}} || '''U+00C5 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH RING ABOVE || The symbol contains the letter 'O'. In Scandinavian languages like Swedish, this *is* the letter 'O' (a written 'O' may be closer to a 'U', but not always)
|-
| P || U+0050 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER P || A̯ || U+0041 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A, '''U+032F COMBINING INVERTED BREVE BELOW''' || Refer to R: P also has a curve at the top center, but is encoded with one below.
|-
| Q || U+0051 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER Q || A̤ || U+0041 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A, '''U+0324 COMBINING DIAERESIS BELOW''' || The two dots below the baseline reflect the two times Randall's Q touch the baseline. In the Orthographies of Spanish, Catalan, French and Galician, the grapheme 'qu' normally represents a single sound, before vowels 'e' and 'i'. In the few exceptions where the 'u' is pronounced, a diaeresis is added to it.
|-
| R || U+0052 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER R || Ȃ || '''U+0202 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH {{w|Inverted breve|INVERTED BREVE}} ||
The inverted centered top curve mirrors the curve at the top center of an R.
|-
| S || U+0053 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER S || {{w|Ã}} || '''U+00C3 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH TILDE || Tilde looks like a sideways 'S'.
|-
| T || U+0054 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER T || {{w|Ā}} || '''U+0100 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH {{w|Macron (diacritic)|MACRON}} || The macron looks like the top horizontal line in the letter 'T'
|-
| U || U+0055 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER U || {{w|Ä}} || '''U+00C4 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH DIAERESIS || Many German words have a 'ü', as in "{{w|Volkswagen_advertising#Fahrvergnügen|Fahrvergnügen}}". Similar to the encoding for Q, the two top dots mirror the two times the script of U reaches the top line.
|-
| V || U+0056 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER V || {{w|À}} || '''U+00C0 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH GRAVE || Grave has the letter 'V' in it, as well as being half of its shape.
|-
| W || U+0057 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER W || Ȁ || '''U+0200 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH {{w|Double grave accent|DOUBLE GRAVE}} || The letter 'W' is visually two copies of the letter 'V'
|-
| X || U+0058 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER X || A̽ || U+0041 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A, '''U+033D COMBINING X ABOVE''' || The symbol contains the letter 'X'.
|-
| Y || U+0059 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER Y || A̦ || U+0041 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A, '''U+0326 COMBINING COMMA BELOW''' || Comma is used con conjuntion as the letter 'Y' in some languages like Spanish
|-
| Z || U+005A LATIN CAPITAL LETTER Z || {{w|Saanich_dialect#Writing_system|Ⱥ}}<!--best link available?--? || '''U+023A LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH STROKE || The strikethrough the letter A resembles the diagonal stroke of a capital "Z"
|}

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Language]]
[[Category:Cryptography]]
[[Category:Unicode]]
[[Category:Smartphones]]

Talk:3045: AlphaMove

2025-02-04T15:48:12Z

162.158.33.252:

Ask Tom Murphy VII to get on this [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.103|141.101.99.103]] 22:50, 31 January 2025 (UTC)

This has actually been done and tested against other strange algorithms:
https://youtu.be/DpXy041BIlA?t=729

I have attempted to run the proposed bot against itself — if I haven't made any errors, here are the resulting games:

Rounding down:
1. e4 e6 2. f3 f5 3. e5 g5 4. d4 d5 5. exd6 g4 6. d7+ Kf7 7. dxc8=N Ke8 8. fxg4 h6 9. gxf5 Kd7 10. g4 h5 11. fxe6+ Ke8 12. g5 Na6 13. h3 Nc5 14. h4 Ne7 15. Kd2 Ne4+ 16. Ke1 Nf5 17. g6 Nf6 18. g7 Ng3 19. gxf8=N Nge4 20. Ke2 Ng4 21. Kf3 Ngf2 22. Ke2 Nh3 23. Ke3 Nhf2 24. Nb6 Nh3 25. Na4 Nhf2 26. Nac3 Nxc3 27. Kxf2 Nxd1+ 28. Kf3 Qc8 29. c4 Ne3 30. Ke4 Nf5 31. Kd3 Ng3 32. e7 Nxh1 33. Kc2 Qb8 34. d5 Kxe7 35. d6+ Kf6 36. dxc7 Nf2 37. c8=R Ng4 38. Kd2 Nh2 39. Ke3 Ng4+ 40. Kd4 Nh2 41. Kd5 Nxf1 42. Nc3 Nh2 43. Nce2 Ng4 44. Nd4 Nh6 45. Nd7+ Kf7 46. Ndf3 Qd6+ 47. Ke4 Qd2 48. Nf8 Qd5+ 49. Ke3 Qd2+ 50. Ke4 Qd5+ 51. Ke3 Qd2+ 52. Ke4

Rounding up:
1. f3 f5 2. e4 f4 3. d4 e6 4. e5 g6 5. g3 fxg3 6. c3 g2 7. d5 gxf1=Q+ 8. Kxf1 exd5 9. Ke2 d6 10. Kd3 g5 11. Kd2 dxe5 12. Ke2 d4 13. Kd3 dxc3+ 14. Ke3 e4 15. Ne2 exf3 16. Ng1 f2 17. Nxc3 fxg1=N 18. Qc2 Kd7 19. Ne2 h6 20. Qa4+ Ke6 21. Qb3+ Ke7 22. Qb4+ Ke8 23. Qb5+ Kf7 24. Qa6 Kg7 25. Qa4 Kg6 26. Qb3 Kg7 27. Qb4 Kh7 28. Qb5 Kg7 29. Qa6 Nc6 30. Nxg1 Na5 31. Qb6 Kh7 32. Qb3 Kg6 33. Qb4 Kg7 34. Qb6 Kh7 35. Qb3 Kg6 36. Qb4 Kg7 37. Qb6

Rounding down code:
const { Chess } = require("chess.js");

const chess = new Chess();
while (!chess.isGameOver()) {
const moves = chess.moves();
moves.sort((a, b) => b.localeCompare(a));
const move = moves[Math.floor(moves.length / 2)];
chess.move(move);
}
console.log(chess.pgn());

To round up, swap the a and b in the sort function.

Both games end in a threefold repetition draw. The game with rounding down does, in fact, have 6 knights in it, so I believe he did code this to see what would happen.

[[User:Ohpointfive|Ohpointfive]] ([[User talk:Ohpointfive|talk]]) 22:52, 31 January 2025 (UTC)

To elaborate on the Tom VII point - this is the YouTube video that possibly inspired the comic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpXy041BIlA [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.179|141.101.98.179]] 22:55, 31 January 2025 (UTC)
:Specifically, it's the [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpXy041BIlA&t=1483 Arithmetic Player at 24:43] set to ½. [[User:ChaoticNeutralCzech|ChaoticNeutralCzech]] ([[User talk:ChaoticNeutralCzech|talk]]) 17:52, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

Unfortunately for white, it's mate in 1 with Bb4# [[Special:Contributions/162.158.90.124|162.158.90.124]] 23:25, 31 January 2025 (UTC)

Even if white makes a different move, its still forced mate in one. RIP XKCD Bot. [[User:Redacted II|Redacted II]] ([[User talk:Redacted II|talk]]) 00:53, 1 February 2025 (UTC)
:Well, for most options. Queen to a4 puts Black in check, forestalling an immediate move to mate White; capturing the knight de-threatens enough squares around the king that Black can't check next turn without leaving an escape route. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.176.28|172.70.176.28]] 17:45, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

<s>Although it wouldn't change the outcome much (either by changing black's move or white's general options), I'm currently not understanding why Kd4 isn't on the list of options at this point in time. So long since I played serious(ish) chess, and the only reason I could think of is that it's probibited by some strict ortbodox game rule recognising the ''potential'' moving of the knight out of the way (in the next white move-cycle). But I'd have treated that later option as forbidden, as a revealing-mate. But, as I said, it's been a while, so maybe I'm just blind to something like a sweeping bishop-range that disbars this (much as the near knight, bishop and pawn disbars four out of the five moves).</s> ...darn, it's just clicked. That's the AlphaMoved white-knight's destination (before that, the black queen was entirely covering that square, and double-teaming one of the adjacent black-knight covered squares), I'd been thinking that was the piece's origin (with the empty highlighted square as its destination) until I'd finally read the highlighted movelist item properly and deciphered it as Knight To King Two (done), not the (intention of) Knight To King's Bishop One. So ignore the above. Although, just to note, for the Black Queen to have even achieved that position would probably have required at least ''one'' normally-sacrificial exposure to the deadly white Q/B/R pieces guarding the obvious entry, give or take the algorithmic development of their (and the "gateway pawns"') current positions. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.104|141.101.99.104]] 02:00, 1 February 2025 (UTC)
:Follow-up... As far as the black queen is concerned, I suppose she could have done d6, (x?)g3 then f2, in-between the other black and white moves made, largely safe from the white 'defence'. Or to d4 then f2, if white Queen's Pawn was shielding still. (Appears to have been taken, but it would have been bold to have done that with the queen, for a normally immediate pawn-queen exhange!) A bolder/more opportunistic set of moves than I would have tried, either. Even (unknowingly) against AlphaMove, I'd have been wary of the unconventionally developing white disposition actually being an idiot-trap (and I'm really not that far off being an idiot, insofar as chess). [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.162|172.70.162.162]] 02:17, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

The explanation gives both O-O and 0-0 as notations for castling and then explains why 0-0 can never occur, even though O-O can be sorted pretty centrally. So, which is the correct notation? [[Special:Contributions/172.71.250.91|172.71.250.91]] 09:14, 1 February 2025 (UTC)
:According to the [https://ia802908.us.archive.org/26/items/pgn-standard-1994-03-12/PGN_standard_1994-03-12.txt pgn spec], section 8.2.3.3: they are capital Os and not zeros [[Special:Contributions/172.68.3.96|172.68.3.96]] 15:10, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure we're looking at a retrograde puzzle. [[User:Ohpointfive|Ohpointfive]] is onto something here, with the six knights on the board a strong indicator. The question is, of course, where is the joke? White plays Alphamove all along and must have started with e4 (rounding down) or f3 (rounding up). Both are consistent with the end position. So from my point of view, the joke is
* either that the "stronger engine" is not a strong engine at all but maybe the same algorithm, rounding up instead of down
* or that black doesn't win this position (in real chess, White is of course toast) because its algorithm is even worse
@Ohpointfive, could you run the two versions against each other? --[[User:Pganon|Pganon]] ([[User talk:Pganon|talk]]) 15:55, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

I created a playable version of this game in like 10 minutes using ChatGPT ;)

https://enn-nafnlaus.github.io/AlphaMove/alphamove.html

Git page here:

https://github.com/enn-nafnlaus/AlphaMove

-- [[User:Rei|Rei]] 17:52, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

I checked, castling and en passant both work. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.245.25|172.68.245.25]] 19:26, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

@Pganon certainly:
White rounding down vs. black rounding up:
1. e4 f5 2. f3 f4 3. d4 e6 4. e5 g6 5. d5 exd5 6. g3 fxg3 7. c4 g2 8. h3 gxf1=Q+ 9. Kd2 Kf7 10. Kc3 Ke8 11. Kc2 Kf7 12. Kb3 Ke8 13. Kc2 Kf7 14. Kb3 Ke8 15. Kc2
White rounding up vs. black rounding down:
1. f3 e6 2. e4 f5 3. e5 g5 4. d4 d5 5. f4 gxf4 6. h3 h5 7. h4 Kd7 8. Kd2 Kc6 9. Kd3 Kb6 10. Ke2 Kb5 11. Ke1+ Kb4 12. Ke2 Kb5 13. Ke1+ Kb4 14. Ke2 Kb5

The first game is quite exciting, with black at one point having a chance at checkmate in one, but alas too many available pawn moves drives the winning move Qxc4# far past the center of the list. The second game is much less exciting.

[[User:Ohpointfive|Ohpointfive]] ([[User talk:Ohpointfive|talk]]) 21:30, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

Here's a question: What is the quickest way to checkmate AlphaMove? Here's the quickest that I have found so far:
# f3 d5
# e4 d5xe4
# f4 e5
# g3 Bg4
# d4 Qxd4
# f5 e3
# f6 Qxd1#
Thus, we have mate in seven. This might be good to mention outside the comments section as a demonstration tha AlphaGo is not very good (not to mention failing to attack black's queen with a less valuable piece), but a quicker checkmate might be possible, in which case we should mention that instead.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.207.159|172.70.207.159]] 11:08, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

: Checkmating Alphamove is easy. Getting checkmated *by* Alphamove is challenging. You basically have to forget everything you know about normal chess. -- [[User:Rei|Rei]] ([[User talk:Rei|talk]]) 14:48, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

:: Fastest mate against Alphamove playing Black 3 moves (natural max), White 5 moves (exhaustive search), selfmate 9 moves - problem composers and mathematicians solve that in a jiffy. See here: https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/46651/fastest-win-against-xkcds-alphamove [[Special:Contributions/172.70.248.29|172.70.248.29]] 09:11, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

One possible move, Kd2, is missing! /[[Special:Contributions/141.101.76.164|141.101.76.164]] 17:41, 2 February 2025 (UTC)
:That can't be done. The Knight isn't between d2 and the Q@f2 at the point that the moves are being compiled. The Ne2 hasn't happened yet (we now see it, as having moved there, ''as a result'' of Ne2 being selected from the list, so ''next'' turn the King could move there, assuming the game isn't lost (or black decides to do something ''else'' which prevents it, for some strange reason). [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.25|162.158.74.25]] 18:47, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

I [https://lichess.org/analysis/r1b1k2r/1pp1nppp/8/p1b1p3/2PnpP1P/2K5/PP3q2/RNBQ1BNR_w_kq_-_0_1?color=white put the position before White's move into Lichess] and it says it's mate in 12 for Black.

On a related note, I'm also wondering how they got to the comic position in the first place. Anyone want to try constructing a proof game? [[User:Arcorann|Arcorann]] ([[User talk:Arcorann|talk]]) 03:30, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

A lot of the explanation is based on a round-up version of AlphaMove. It should round down for even lists like the title text says. The [https://enn-nafnlaus.github.io/AlphaMove/alphamove.html example implementation] is wrong too. The first move should be e4, not f3. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.187.55|162.158.187.55]] 07:25, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

If there ever was an explanation that needed to be broken up into three paragraphs and a Detail section, this is it. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.142.30|172.71.142.30]] 17:19, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

It is not mentioned what happens when there is a tie for the middle move (for an even number of possible moves). Is it then chosen "at random"? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.155.102|162.158.155.102]] 19:38, 3 February 2025 (UTC)
:The title text discusses it, so presumably that's the principle we should consider at play. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.6.110|162.158.6.110]] 21:23, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

Why is there still a pawn on a2? It would seem that a3 would be the first move, followed by a4. {{unsigned ip|172.69.135.191|23:20, 3 February 2025 (UTC)}}
: a3 would be the first ''in the list'' for the compilation of first move (then a4, then [b-h] x [2-3], then four "N"-moves. The middle of the list would therefore (depending upon round-up or round-down) "e4" or "f3". Assuming e4, the next white move list is going to be seven pawns that can move to self.3 or self.4, one that can move to self.5, with some B-moves between b4 and c3, a K-move, five N-moves and a number of Q-moves. pawn on a2 just doesn't get a look-in, move-wise, at least not until after a lot of moves (possibly designed by the opponent ''specifically' to remove moves from anything that isn't pawn-move from a2 to a3 or a4. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.33.252|162.158.33.252]] 15:48, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

What does this mean? The current explanation includes a paragraph starting with "The actual middle of the list might vary away from the usual alphabetic median if the moves (and the pieces removed by the opponent) are heavily biased to a particular subset of player-pieces." I can't make head or tail of this, but maybe that's just 'cause I'm dumb. Why would the middle of the list be different from the median? It should be re-worded to be clearer, or perhaps removed. [[User:DKMell|DKMell]] ([[User talk:DKMell|talk]]) 22:43, 3 February 2025 (UTC)
: As an example, when the King is in check, there are far fewer legal moves, but they might include (or be limited to) interposing with a bishop, so that a bishop actually does get moved. That differs from the _usual_ median, even though the median function is still being used. [[User:JimJJewett|JimJJewett]] ([[User talk:JimJJewett|talk]]) 06:56, 4 February 2025 (UTC)
: Several ways of reading "alphabetic median", one is that, in a-z, the m/n point is the median, or divide between the two halves. But of course not all letters are used (a-h as no-prefix pawn-destinations, B, K, N, Q, R as non-pawn prefices to destinations, a capturing pawn-move will start with x (of a-h and ''then'' an x, if needing disambiguationg, and then there's O-O and O-O-O). That's already overbalanced, so that 'g' is the 'middle' of the first-letters (unweighted by whatever actual opportunities, or lack of them, there are).
: But, in any given board position, the lower-case letters tend to be pawns with (initially) two possible moves, generally just one move, ''maybe'' up to four (a first-move pawn given 1/2-step forward options ''and'' given two different options to capture away from its current file, where near-neighbour pawns require the disambiguation to be used) A queen can (where not restrained, until (possible capturing whilst) hitting the edge-of-board) have 28 moves (seven positions front/back, seven left/right, similar on the two diagonals). Rooks and Bishops might have 14 move-to positions. The kNight might have up to 8 'landing spots'. Initially, apart from the kNight with two moves, they of course have no opportunity to do anything. As the game develops, though, whatever you prior preconceived 'median' might be, in the alphabetically-sorted list, the gaining (by gaining opportunity to move) eand losing (by a piece being capture) adjusts the move-state's 'middle' of all valid-moves up and down the alphabet. Probably never as far as an unambiguous pawn-capture, or a first-file pawn move (or disambiguated capture from that positions), but it'll change a lot.
: How to concisely explain this, I don't know. Especially as I'm just running off the various possibilities off the top of my head, and might have forgotten some of the 'algebraic' notation's subtleties. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.33.252|162.158.33.252]] 15:48, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

Talk:255: Subjectivity

2025-01-26T23:27:22Z

162.158.33.252:

I did the same thing once when the park was still in existence. The slide was only 12-15' high. That was huge though compared to the "kiddy" slide which was only 6' or so.

Still it was a disappointment. I always remember that thing as being as tall as the trees nearby.

These days you can't even find a slide let alone a tall one. We've lost our adventurous spirit and it starts with the children. [[User:Jakee308|Jakee308]] ([[User talk:Jakee308|talk]]) 20:15, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

About the Aslan reference. In one of the later books one of the children meets Aslan and he is bigger than he used to be. Aslan answers that it is because the child himself (or herself) has grown. Any other Narnia nerd out there remembers this or is it just my memory making things up for me? {{unsigned ip|198.41.241.73}}

Narnia nerd here... “Aslan" said Lucy "you're bigger". "That is because you are older, little one" answered he. "Not because you are?" "I am not. But every year you grow, you will find me bigger".” (C.S. Lewis, Prince Caspian) [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.165|108.162.219.165]] 09:28, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

Be bold! You two were free to edit the wiki to expand on the Aslan reference if you wanted, and the page would've been better for it! (Other people can always revert edits if they turn out to be inaccurate.) [[User:DownGoer|DownGoer]] ([[User talk:DownGoer|talk]]) 04:53, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

Honestly the Aslan=Jesus thing was pretty obvious. {{unsigned|Thehydraclone|22:06, 26 January 2025}}

User talk:42.book.addict

2025-01-12T00:26:54Z

162.158.33.252: /* "Shared named" comics... */ new section

<center>'''Archive 1'''</center>
<center>[[File:archive.png]]</center>
<center>For old and irrelevant messages, see my [[User talk:42.book.addict/archive|archive!]]</center>

== introductions ==
Just replying to your message (also dw no big deal for bothering me)
You click on your username and there should be an edit box. --[[User:1234231587678|1234231587678]] ([[User talk:1234231587678|talk]]) 04:58, 7 February 2024 (UTC)
:it says that i dont have permission to create the page…
:There is currently no text in this page. You can search for this page title in other pages, or search the related logs, but you do not have permission to create this page. it says [[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]] ([[User talk:42.book.addict|talk]]) 19:33, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

I think you might have to wait some time (like a timer) until you can edit your own page... I think I only got to edit my page after 1 month of creating my account.--[[User:1234231587678|1234231587678]] ([[User talk:1234231587678|talk]]) 21:31, 7 February 2024 (UTC)
:ok, thx [[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]] ([[User talk:42.book.addict|talk]]) 21:52, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

My guess on where you live is somewhere in the GMT zone, so United Kingdom.--[[User:1234231587678|1234231587678]] ([[User talk:1234231587678|talk]]) 03:43, 8 February 2024 (UTC)
:nope, im a california girl :) ([[User talk:42.book.addict|talk]]) 05:04, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

lol you never know with utc times --[[User:1234231587678|1234231587678]] ([[User talk:1234231587678|talk]]) 16:52, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

== Depends what you wanted to do... ==

Is the following what you intended? 
{{Userbox | border-c = #255 | border-s = 1 | info-s = 9 | id = [[File:trans_flag.png|45px]] | info = [[{{w|Transgender|This user is trans.}}]] | float = left }} 
{{clear}}...or is even the [[]] part not what you want?{{clear}}
{{Userbox | border-c = #255 | border-s = 1 | info-s = 9 | id = [[File:trans_flag.png|45px]] | info = {{w|Transgender|This user is trans.}} | float = left }} 
{{clear}}As brief a guide as I can manage:
*URL links use []. Although literal https://www.google.com will self-link without ''any'' wikimarkup, you probably don't want it to look like that most of the time.
** Just give the URL, as in <code><nowiki>[https://www.google.com]</nowiki></code>, to get a [https://www.google.com] (i.e. a reference number), not the best way to do it. It can be organised better with a 'References' section, but we don't do that here (they do on wikipedia, but usually with other bits to it.
** Better to give the URL and the text to use (after a space, a character that never appears raw in any proper URL). This can be <code><nowiki>[https://www.google.com Check It Out On Google!]</nowiki></code> or even <code><nowiki>[https://www.google.com https://www.microsoft.com (only kidding!)]</nowiki></code>, to give [https://www.google.com Check It Out On Google!] or [https://www.google.com https://www.microsoft.com (only kidding!)]... But perhaps best not to do the latter too much (I really didn't want to post that without the "(only kidding!)" part, in fact.)
*Internalised wikilinks use the [[]]s.
**Anything that can be found under the title, e.g. "2: Petit Trees (sketch)" (or, because of redirections, "2" and "Petit Trees (sketch)" go to the same spot, so <code><nowiki>[[2]], [[Petit Trees (sketch)]] and [[2: Petit Trees (sketch)]]</nowiki></code> gives you the literal links [[2]], [[Petit Trees (sketch)]] and [[2: Petit Trees (sketch)]]
**Or use <code><nowiki>[[2: Petit Trees (sketch)|that comic with the little trees]]</nowiki></code>, additional text separated by the 'pipe' symbol (i.e. "|"), to link to [[2: Petit Trees (sketch)|that comic with the little trees]]
**You can also link across to articles on other 'wikimedia family' sites, but I'm not going to try to summarise that, as the primary reason to do that is to go to an actual Wikipedia article, and there's a template set up to do that ''very'' nicely, already (and also a few other places, like Wiktionary, and some not-really-wikis with a similar philosphy like TVTropes). If in doubt, do it as a URL link ''or'' find a place where someone else has clearly markuped a link to the same site as you want to link to.
*So, anyway, Wikilink templates use the {{template|w}}-template, with one or two paramaters (pipe-separated). (It shortcuts the thing you'd maybe use [[]]s for
**Using <code><nowiki>{{w|article}}</nowiki></code> gives you a link to "{{w|Article}}" (it capitalises the first character, even if you don't)
**Using <code><nowiki>{{w|article|with alternate text}}</nowiki></code> gives you a link there but "{{w|article|with alternate text}}"
**If the article name has whitespace (or other 'URL-unfriendly' characters) in it, those characters in the URL (which you wouldn't want to use) will be rendered as something URL-friendly. The URL for "Whitespace (programming language)", for example, is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitespace_(programming_language) but you wouldn't normally use that so literally in any case, and definitely not when you can significanty shorten it with the {{template|w}} notation.
***What you can do is (without 'alternate link text') render it as <code><nowiki>{{w|Whitespace_(programming_language)}}</nowiki></code> - i.e. {{w|Whitespace_(programming_language)}} - but that's not nice to see 'rendered raw' when you ''want'' the spaces. You could give it alternate text via <code><nowiki>{{w|Whitespace_(programming_language)|Whitespace (programming language)}}</nowiki></code> to give {{w|Whitespace_(programming_language)|Whitespace (programming language)}} ...but that's wasteful and unnecessary.
***Instead, just do <code><nowiki>{{w|Whitespace (programming language)}}</nowiki></code> (that's the literal copy of the article's own page title, from the rendered page) - and shows as {{w|Whitespace (programming language)}} - which is good. Although <code><nowiki>{{w|Whitespace (programming language)|the programming language called Whitespace}}</nowiki></code> might be the best way to seemlessly link to {{w|Whitespace (programming language)|the programming language called Whitespace}} ...depends what you want to appear there.
***And you can link to header anchors pretty much ''like'' the URL of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitespace_(programming_language)#History by using <code><nowiki>{{w|Whitespace (programming language)#History|the history of Whitespace}}</nowiki></code> to have you show {{w|Whitespace (programming language)#History|the history of Whitespace}} or whatever else you might want to use.
**Also, for the use of a link which is singular but which you would like to include as the plural (usually the "...s" or "...es" version), you could use article-name first parameter and ''pluralised'' article name as second, but instead of <code><nowiki>{{w|Plural|Plurals}}</nowiki></code>, for a link to the {{w|Plural|Plurals}}, you can save yourself a lot of effort by doing <code><nowiki>{{w|Plural}}s</nowiki></code> to also give you a linke to {{w|Plural}}s. Magic, eh? And it also works with <code><nowiki>{{w|Ox}}en</nowiki></code> to link the different standard plural of {{w|Ox}}en to the article for "Ox" (better than linking to the word for {{w|Oxen}}, which ends up redirecting to {{w|Ox}} anyway).
...so, anyway, that's the basics. And a few not-so-basics. So if the solutions to your tagging issue aren't already solved (or even if they are!), you might have enough info here to kludge it into whatever form of infobox info text you ''really'' wanted to use. Ok? Probably far too much info for you to absorb in one go, but covers loads of interesting possibilities. About the only thing you don't want to do is wikilink straight to the word "trans", at that'll be a disambiguation page. And there's also no way (or reason?) to use the terms "trans man"/"trans woman" as the pluralised "trans men"/"trans women" versions via the "directly add the plural suffix" thing, of course. :P Anyway, FYI. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.38.217|162.158.38.217]] 20:40, 25 May 2024 (UTC)
::oh my god thank you so much [[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]] ([[User talk:42.book.addict|talk]]) 19:38, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

== Welcome back, Tori! ==

How's life? [[User:CalibansCreations|'''Caliban''']] ([[User talk:CalibansCreations|talk]]) 18:47, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
:Eh, it’s fine. I just came back from New York on a ''very'' stressful flight-missed the original one, did my Language Arts homework on the flight, and came back to California at 2 am. '''[[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]][[User talk:42.book.addict|Talk to me!]]''' 16:26, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

== Comics with inverted brightness. ==

At the most arbitrary, I'd suggest that, just maybe, ''panes'' with inverted brightness fulfil the category requirements, or perhaps a bit of white text because it happens to be written on a more shaded bit of background, but I'm unsure that the {{diff|358698|lavatory signs}} strictly invoke inverted brightness (if real signs exist that are light-on-dark, which at least some of them are, this makes it an ''un''inverted depiction of one of them), and I'm unhappy with your (presumed) linking of this category for a {{diff|358691|tree silhouette}} (it shows the perfectly cromulant situation of bright sky behind a relatively dark tree, again not inverted, merely drawn for contrast).

An interesting example is something like [[811: Starlight]]. The stars (white spots on floodfilled black background) really shouldn't be considered inverted (black stars on white sky would be inverted; it's only that the category specifically mentions night ''and'' space scenes makes it valid from that perspective), but the text and stickfigures/etc ''are'' definitely inverted (all due to the background they're on).

It's just my opinion, but I don't think that any patch of black-floodfill (especially in just a fraction of a pane or two, within an otherwise normal multi-pane comic) around a white detail is automatically ripe for marking as inverted. I'll reluctantly accept "night sky" or "space" (but only with stars... no "entirely featureless black, through a window/porthole") as cause for being classed as Inverted, due to the category explanation. But feel that the true "inversion" is where there is [[566: Matrix Revisited|pane inversion]] which results in white text and/or (character) stickfigures upon black background as a definite contrast to 'normality'. Before you go too far with HotCatting some things that I'd feel compelled to revert (as I'm very tempted with the tree silhouette, and almost certain I should with the Gents-signs, for example...). [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.119|141.101.98.119]] 19:12, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

==Hey again, I know we have some bad blood but...==
Hey 42, it's Z1m. I know we haven't seen each other in a while (who am I kidding, it's a wiki; I meant talked) Can you do the little welcome thing so I can edit my talk page? Thanks! [[User:Maybe Bill Cipher|An anonymous Gravity Falls expert]] ([[User talk:Maybe Bill Cipher|talk]]) 19:26, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
:Why can’t you use your old account? '''[[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]][[User talk:42.book.addict|Talk to me!]]''' 21:38, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
::I forgot my pass :skull: [[User:Maybe Bill Cipher|An anonymous Gravity Falls expert]] ([[User talk:Maybe Bill Cipher|talk]]) 22:33, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
:::SMH. Done. '''[[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]][[User talk:42.book.addict|Talk to me!]]''' 22:37, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
::::Thanks! [[User:Maybe Bill Cipher|An anonymous Gravity Falls expert]] ([[User talk:Maybe Bill Cipher|talk]]) 22:42, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

==I FORGOT MY PASS AGAIN ASDFGHJK<SAHFJEWIUBEIUWDBHIVHJ==
Help :( [[User:Definitely Bill Cipher|Help I'm not OK]] ([[User talk:Definitely Bill Cipher|talk]]) 18:49, 13 December 2024 (UTC)
:''sigh'' '''[[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]][[User talk:42.book.addict|Talk to me!]]''' 19:41, 13 December 2024 (UTC)
:I KNOW I'M A DINGUS DON'T LOOK AT ME LEAV EME TO MY BASIC YELLOW DORITO SHAME [[User:Definitely Bill Cipher|Do not click on this link if you wish to keep your soul]] ([[User talk:Definitely Bill Cipher|talk]])

==Hi (3==
Sorry if I'm bothering you too much, just wanted to say hi. {{unsigned|Definitely Bill Cipher|15:19, 17 December 2024 (UTC)}}
:Please sign your comments with <nowiki>~~~~</nowiki> '''[[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]][[User talk:42.book.addict|Talk to me!]]''' 16:05, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
::Sorry [[User:Definitely Bill Cipher|A dream demon]] ([[User talk:Definitely Bill Cipher|talk]]) 19:10, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
:::It’s fine, as long as you remember. '''[[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]][[User talk:42.book.addict|Talk to me!]]''' 20:51, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
::::So, uh... do you wanna take this to my talk page and we can talk or... [[User:Definitely Bill Cipher|A dream demon]] ([[User talk:Definitely Bill Cipher|talk]]) 21:18, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

==Congrats==
:I checked and you're the contributor today that has made the most edits. I'm on the leaderboard too, but not in the top three *0(*. Anyway, I just wanted to congratulate you. Talk to me anytime! [[User:Definitely Bill Cipher|⯅A dream demon⯅]] ([[User talk:Definitely Bill Cipher|talk]]) 15:52, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
::Ok, that’s nice. I’ve stopped viewing Contribution Scores as a measurement of my editing ability-it only measures how many points and how many pages I have edited, not the quality of my edits or how much of an impact they have on the wiki. A bot can spam and get onto the All-Time Top 50 Leaderboard, but that's not reflective of its helpfulness (none). '''[[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]][[User talk:42.book.addict|Talk to me!]]''' 16:49, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
:::I remain free from all such objectivity by staying firmly off the list. I ''could'' flatter myself that I deserve a place, for all my (useful?) work over the last 10+ years, but... no definitive tallying and I don't even fool myself that this statement can be believed. Which is liberating. No temptation to "edit for editing's sake", and remaining blissfully unaware how much time I must have spent not doing ''other'' important things. But that's just me (assuming you accept my account), and please don't consider this as downplaying the known-and-named contributors (current and past) who have made a more attributable contribution. Horses for courses. You (both) be you, and who knows where any of us might be in another ten years; hopefully managing to create a net positive outcome for the world, as the only thing that ''anybody'' should aspire to.[[Special:Contributions/172.69.43.182|172.69.43.182]] 17:18, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

== Bluey news just dropped. ==

https://youtu.be/ititZcuih8E?si=_9ceRfwc52qfa5Tu [[User:CalibansCreations|'''Caliban''']] ([[User talk:CalibansCreations|talk]]) 20:23, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
:NOOOO '''[[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]][[User talk:42.book.addict|Talk to me!]]''' 21:25, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

== Deleting User Talk Pages ==
I noticed that you added some user talk pages into the pages to be deleted category. Even if they are an IP address and only have one comment, they still probably shouldn't be deleted. I only noticed because you had marked my talk page. [[User:Firestar233|guess who]] ([[User talk:Firestar233|if you want to]] | [[Special:Contributions/Firestar233|what i have done]]) 09:19, 1 January 2025 (UTC)
:As I commented over on your page (sorry, didn't spot this, yet), I think that it's perfectly legitimate to correct (by ''requesting'' deletion) the creation of IP-based User and User Talk namespace pages. The intended source/target can never make any proper use of them, and they are instead left open to disproportionately high chance of ''improper'' use.
:IPs ''may'' have been more reliably associated with particular login-less users (such as myself) in the earliest days of the site, but it's not just the current proxy-provider that makes it likely that anyone coming here is effectively randomised. A 2015-era commentator almost certainly doesn't have the exact same IP ''from their ISP'' (which is Cloudflared away, anyway), unless they've taken great trouble to maintain statically upon it, and that's presuming that they haven't switched providers and/or routing hardware in the last decade, to further muddle it up.
:So far, I haven't seen any communications to a User Talk:<IP> page that deserves preserving (and User:<IP> stuff tends to be worse, thankfully rarer), but if a named user (who may or may not be currently active, or have had their own Talk page) contributes anything 'untrivial' then you could perhaps copy it to their own (newly created, if necessary?) user-page, or to whatever article Talk page it's identifiably about. Admonations not to delete Incomplete-templates and nice messages of agreement about some Conan-related link-finding are not al all that level of preservable conversation (well, not even a dialogue, as they weren't even acknowledged!), as 'recent' examples.
:Anyway, marking for deletion still requires that someone ''actually'' deletes them. Currently, '42' can't do that. (They're clearly eager to be helpful, but not yet admin-material.) Realistically, it will need someone else to actually do that bit. And I think the current 'someone else' concerned isn't overly eager to delete things not related to more current unwanted contributions. I'd have done a bit more cleaning up, myself, but by deliberately having kept out of consideration for such responsibiity, it's not something I should actively complain about. ;) [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.186|141.101.98.186]] 13:00, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

==Hiiiii==
:Heya, 42! Just wanted to check in because I left for winter break and I thought 'I wonder how she's doing?'
:If I'm being annoying, you can just say so and I'll leave you alone.
:Anyway, I'm gonna go comic hop. Talk to me anytime! [[User:Definitely Bill Cipher|⯅A dream demon⯅]] ([[User talk:Definitely Bill Cipher|Come and talk!]]) 15:15, 7 January 2025 (UTC)
::I’m fine. I went skiing in {{w|Heavenly Mountain Resort|Tahoe}} 5 days during winter break and also went to {{w|Point Reyes Station}}. '''[[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]][[User talk:42.book.addict|Talk to me!]]''' 22:50, 7 January 2025 (UTC)
:::Cool, if you wanna talk I'm here (3 [[User:Definitely Bill Cipher|⯅A dream demon⯅]] ([[User talk:Definitely Bill Cipher|talk]]) 15:35, 9 January 2025 (UTC)

== I heard about the wildfires. ==

Are you safe? Are you alright? [[User:CalibansCreations|'''Caliban''']] ([[User talk:CalibansCreations|talk]]) 08:43, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
:That’s SoCal, not the Bay Area, so I’m all good. '''[[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]][[User talk:42.book.addict|Talk to me!]]''' 10:10, 8 January 2025 (UTC)

== Any luck with Jeff? ==

It’s been a while since you’ve put up the “banner” on your page. Has he responded yet? [[User:Apollo11|Apollo11]] ([[User talk:Apollo11|talk]]) 22:23, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
:Nope. I’ve emailed Davidy22 and he responded, but he doesn’t have server access. I tried on Gmail, Reddit, X, asked @ActuallyBerg from [[explain xkcd#History|the old forum]] who’s apparently a friend with Jeff on both X and Bluesky. '''[[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]][[User talk:42.book.addict|Talk to me!]]''' 22:25, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
::Damn… that’s slightly (very) worrying. Good job for trying tho [[User:Apollo11|Apollo11]] ([[User talk:Apollo11|talk]]) 22:57, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
:::Yeah…I’m just going to keep on trying, seeing if I can solve some of the problems remotely. Not too sure what much I can do about the ‘crat situation though. '''[[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]][[User talk:42.book.addict|Talk to me!]]''' 22:59, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
::::Well good luck [[User:Apollo11|Apollo11]] ([[User talk:Apollo11|talk]]) 23:07, 8 January 2025 (UTC)

== {{w|WP:REMOVED}} ==
kindly stop adding it back. thank you. [[user talk:lett‪herebedarklight|youtu.be/miLcaqq2Zpk]] 15:53, 10 January 2025 (UTC)
:very well. '''[[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]][[User talk:42.book.addict|Talk to me!]]''' 16:05, 10 January 2025 (UTC)
::ok, that's the limit. {{w|WP:NOBAN|don't post on my talk page again.}} if you wish to fiddle with minutae, go to wikipedia, where that sort of thing is appreciated. i'll also note that no one else has complained about my signature, only you. [[user talk:lett‪herebedarklight|youtu.be/miLcaqq2Zpk]] 10:13, 11 January 2025 (UTC)
:::touche. to be honest, grabbing at your throat for a simple signature issue got a bit boring after a couple days. have a nice day! '''[[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]][[User talk:42.book.addict|Talk to me!]]''' 11:28, 11 January 2025 (UTC)

== Talk Page added to "pages to delete ==
Hey, I noticed you added my talk page to the "pages to delete" category. Why? I don't really want my talk page deleted. Qoiuoiuoiu (talk) 16:29, 10 January 2025 (UTC)
:Sorry, changed it. '''[[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]][[User talk:42.book.addict|Talk to me!]]''' 17:58, 10 January 2025 (UTC)
::If you want my advice (no reason you do...), do a little more checking of the page history. ''And'' that of the partner page (compare User: <-> User Talk), where it exists. You might find a few of the ones that you marked for deleting weren't created, unused and abandoned, but actually 'in use' (even if not directly).
::You're eager, and I still completely support IP-related pages being marked for deletion (remembering that you don't have the power to ''actually'' delete them... which is probably a relief to a small handful of actal users, like the above), but maybe dial it back a bit so that you don't make a few more taggings that need to be reverted... Build up a personal 'hitlist', maybe, but do more poking around and keep it down to a handful of the 'best' candidaates that you find, not a couple of a dozen in quick order, which I think you did yesterday.... [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.25|162.158.74.25]]
:::I did check the Page history of [[User talk:Qoiuoiuoiu]] though, and saw that it was created by [[User:While False]]. I also checked the User Page, and saw that it was edited slightly to change While False’s announcement. Because the entire purpose of [[User talk:Qoiuoiuoiu]] was to presumably reduce red links, I tagged [[Category:Pages to delete]]. Checking page history and user pages honestly doesn’t take that much time, and I checked them for every single page (I think). Upon [[User:Qoiuoiuoiu|Qoiuoiuoiu’s]] complaint, I removed the Category and added a comment so that the talk page has a purpose. I believe that I was in the right to tag them in this case, and that is my decision. Although I do like the idea of the “hitlist”, and will create one. '''[[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]][[User talk:42.book.addict|Talk to me!]]''' 19:46, 10 January 2025 (UTC)

== Bluey ==

I can't believe you watch a ''children's'' show like Bluey. You should watch an ''adult'' show, like my personal favourite, {{w|My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic}} ;). [[User:Beanie|Beanie]] [[User talk:Beanie|talk]] 19:38, 11 January 2025 (UTC)
:[https://gamejolt.com/games/sonic/783884 nah I'm sending you to the green hills for that one buddy] /j [[User:CalibansCreations|'''Caliban''']] ([[User talk:CalibansCreations|talk]]) 20:39, 11 January 2025 (UTC)
:LMFAOOO '''[[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]][[User talk:42.book.addict|Talk to me!]]''' 22:38, 11 January 2025 (UTC)

== "Shared named" comics... ==

Not too sure about the shared-name status for "Advent Calendar", "Advent Calendar Advent Calendar" and "Advent" (more clear if there was "Advent Calendars", the AVAV ''might'' be deemed a copy (literally!) of AV, but it'd be a stretch to link the A to the AV and thus also the AVAV), but you can't really put just one comic in the Shared Name category, can you? If you're happy for it, then do it for all of them. And, when you do, might be a good idea to put the markup comment after the category membership tag with an explanation of which one(s) you're linking it with, to avoid random editors getting the wrong idea (or ''no'' idea) on spotting it... [[Special:Contributions/162.158.33.252|162.158.33.252]] 00:26, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

3024: METAR

2024-12-14T18:52:48Z

162.158.33.252: /* Trivia */ Obvious corrections/conclusions. Added past/future data requests (placeholders, until maybe someone can fulfil) in comment form.

{{comic
| number = 3024
| date = December 13, 2024
| title = METAR
| image = metar_2x.png
| imagesize = 640x360px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = In the aviation world, they don't use AM/PM times. Instead, all times are assumed to be AM unless they're labeled NOTAM.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a BOT WITH NO SIGNIFICANT OTHER :( (OTHER THAN AN A380). Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

In aviation, the {{w|METAR}} (Meteorological Aerodrome Report) is used to give pilots a brief overview of the current meteorological conditions at the airport. The METAR follows a specific structure and makes heavy usage of abbreviations, which makes it hard to read for anyone not familiar with it. The comic makes fun of that by assuming meaning of the words based on what non-aviation people might think the different elements of the METAR report may represent. The METAR in the comic is fairly alarming, describing dangerously fast winds, a possible tornado, freezing volcanic ash (in New York!), lightning, and impossibly high atmospheric pressure.

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Code !! Real Meaning !! According to the comic
|-
| METAR
| Type: Meteorological Aerodrome Report
| The comic assumes that this is just a spelling error and it should be "meter"
|-
| KNYC
| Station ID: 4 character identifier; for an airport, this would be the ICAO code. In this instance the identifier represents the automated weather station at Belvedere Castle in Central Park, NYC. Airport, weather, and radio station call signs share a common heritage.
| "Station ID", which is actually correct, although most people unfamiliar with METAR-reporting stations may presume this is a TV or radio broadcaster's registered identification.
|-
| 251600Z
| Time of observation: 25th day of the month at 4 PM UTC. Z is not part of the time, but simply global shorthand for {{w|Military time zone|"Zulu" time}}, i.e. {{w|Coordinated Universal Time|UTC}}. Normally most stations would report at a particular time every hour, in this particular case either 15:51 or 16:51 would apply, but more frequent reports are made during unusual and rapidly changing weather events (as may be the situation, in this case).
| Misreading the "Z" as a 2, resulting in a nonsensical time. Hours greater than 24 are sometimes used to indicate a time after midnight, e.g., in Japan 17~25h means from 5 P.M. to 1 A.M. the following day. A normal METAR does not use more than 24 hours, instead incrementing the day, so 25 hours further adds to the nonsensical nature of the interpretation.
|-
| 18035G45KT
| Wind direction and speed: Wind direction 180° (directly from the south, degrees based on 0°=magnetic north), speed 35 knots, gusting to 45 knots. This is quite stormy weather.
| Instead of interpreting the first 5 digits as direction and speed, it is assumed that it is one big number and the G45 stands for the time span in which this was observed with "G" standing for "good". 18,035 knots is an unrealistically high wind speed, faster than orbital velocity; the {{w|jet stream}} typically contains the highest winds on Earth, and may reach about 250 knots.
|-
| 6SM
| In weather reports related to aviation, "6SM" stands for 6 statute miles of visibility, meaning that objects can be seen clearly up to 6 miles away.<ref>https://weather.cod.edu/notes/metar.html#:~:text=6SM%2DVisibility,SM)%20up%20to%2010%20SM.</ref> This indicates clear enough weather to fly without instruments; the value has a max range of 10SM.
| The comic interprets "6SM" to humorously mean a "Size '''6 Sm'''all".
|-
| VCFCFZVA
| In the vicinity (VC): funnel cloud (FC) and freezing (FZ) volcanic ash (VA). This sounds somewhat unusual for New York City.
| A riff on the repeated letters which give off the impression the string is constructed by randomly keypresses on the keyboard, as exemplified by a [[1689: My Friend Catherine|cat on the keyboard]]. There is a long history of this problem, as well as [http://bitboost.com/pawsense/ attempted solutions].
This string may or may not actually look like the pattern of characters that a walking cat could produce (and be reliably detected). All the letters are in a cluster at the lower left of the (QWERTY) keyboard, with some adjacently paired characters perhaps indicative of stepping on multiple keys and other neighbouring keys having been stepped over, not uncommon of an oblivious feline wandering across your desk. But the repeated cluster of "CFCF", and other implied paw-press events, seem less likely to emerge even from a rapid quadrupedal gait. A more casual stroll would likely also create single-character duplications, unless the keyboard repeat delay was set unnaturally high.
|-
| +BLUP
| Heavy (+) blowing (BL) unknown precipitation (UP)
| Riffing on the fact that it looks like an onomatopoetic word
|-
| NOSIG
| No significant change is expected to the reported conditions within the next 2 hours
| The comic assumes that the transmitter of the METAR report wants the receivers to know that they do not have a significant other, which the comic finds sad. The observer could be trying to abuse the METAR report as a dating platform.
|-
| LTG OHD
| Lightning overhead
| OHD is interpreted as "overheard" instead of "overhead", indicating that they did not observe it themselves and instead just overheard people talking about it.
|-
| A3808
| Altimeter setting: (calculated) air pressure at {{w|Mean_sea_level|mean sea level}} at the airport is 38.08. The value of 38.08 inHg is extremely high. The standard atmospheric pressure used in aviation is 29.92 inHg; the highest recorded surface pressure on Earth was 32.01 {{w|Inch_of_mercury|inches of mercury (inHg)}}<ref>https://learn.weatherstem.com/modules/learn/lessons/125/18.html</ref> ("A" for inHg, used primarily in USA, Canada and Japan; "Q" would indicate a value in hPa). This is used to adjust the altimeter in the aircraft to the local air pressure, instead of using the standard setting used in higher air spaces.
| The comic says that the observer saw an {{w|Airbus_A380|Airbus A380-800}}, a very large passenger plane. Note: The {{w|List_of_ICAO_aircraft_type_designators|ICAO aircraft type code}} for the Airbus A380-800 is A388 and not A3808.
|-
| RMK
| Beginning of the section with remarks
| Remarkable. A comment about the A380.
|-
| AO2
| The weather station is automated (A) and has a precipitation discriminator (O2), which can tell the difference between liquid and frozen precipitation.
| A reference to the {{w|fan fiction|fanfic}} site [https://archiveofourown.org/ Archive of Our Own], often abbreviated as AO3. It's nonsensical to describe this site as having a precipitation discriminator.
|-
| SLP130=
| {{w|Sea_level_pressure|Sea-level pressure}} is 1013.0 hPa (approx. 29.91 inHg). The equal sign signifies the end of the METAR.
| "SLP" interpreted as abbreviation for sleepy, the numbers as a time, and the = sign as "around" (maybe confused with ≈)
|-
| NOTAM (title text)
| Not part of a METAR report, but instead another aviation abbreviation. It stands for {{w|NOTAM|Notice to Air Missions}} (previously Notice to Airmen).
| Parsed as "not A.M.", indicating that a given time is to be interpreted as P.M. While AM and PM are indeed not used in aviation, as the comic says, they use a 24-hour clock system, not an "A.M.-by-default" 12-hour clock system.
|}

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

:Decoding a METAR report:

:[A METAR report is shown with annotations. The report is:]

:<code>METAR KNYC 251600Z 18035G45KT 6SM VCFCFZVA +BLUP NOSIG LTG OHD A3808 RMK A02 SPL130=</code>

:[The annotations are:]

:* <code>METAR</code> "METER" (Usually misspelled)
:* <code>KNYC</code> Station ID
:* <code>251600Z</code> Time (25:16:002)
:* <code>18035G45KT</code> Wind speed has been 18,035 knots for a good 45 minutes now
:* <code>6SM</code> Observer is a size 6 small
:* <code>VCFCFZVA</code> Sorry, the station cat walked on the keyboard
:* <code>+BLUP</code> Weird noise the sky made earlier
:* <code>NOSIG</code> Observer has no significant other :(
:* <code>LTG OHD</code> We overheard someone saying there was lightning
:* <code>A3808</code> Hey look, an Airbus A380-800!
:* <code>RMK</code> Remarkable!
:* <code>A02</code> Fanfic Archive equipped with a precipitation sensor
:* <code>SLP130=</code> Observer got sleepy around 1:30

==Trivia==
The actual last three KNYC METAR strings, roughly covering the actual time of publication, were:
KNYC 131651Z AUTO VRB03KT 10SM CLR M01/M14 A3066 RMK AO2 SLP374 T10061144 $
*''New York, Central Park : 13/Dec/2024, 16:51 UTC (11:51am local time) : Fully Automated Report : Variable wind, no more than 3 knots : 10 (or more) statute miles visibility : No clouds below 12,000 ft (3,700 m) : −1 °C (about 30 °F), dew point at −14 °C (about 7 °F) : Altimeter at 30.66 inHg (1038.3 hPa) : Precipitation discriminator present : Sea-level pressure at 1,037.4 hPa (30.63 inHg) : Temperature -0.6 °C (conversion from exactly 31 °F) , dew point -14.4 °C (from exactly 6 °F)''
KNYC 131751Z AUTO 10SM CLR 00/M16 A3066 RMK AO2 SLP374 T00001156 10000 21028 56006 $
*''New York, Central Park : 13/Dec/2024, 17:51 UTC (12:51pm local time) : Fully Automated Report : (no wind measured) : 10 (or more) statute miles visibility : No clouds below 12,000 ft (3,700 m) : 0 °C (about 32 °F), dew point at −16 °C (about 3 °F) : Altimeter at 30.66 inHg (1038.3 hPa) : Precipitation discriminator present : Sea-level pressure at 1,037.4 hPa (30.63inHg) : Temperature ±0.00 °C (from exactly 32 °F), dew point -11.56 °C [sic, -11.67 °C would be from exactly 11 °F ) : 6 hour maximum 0.00 °C (32 °F) : 6 hour minimum -10.28 °C (from 13.5 °F) : 3 hour pressure tendency, falling by 0.6 millibars (0.018 inHg)''
KNYC 131851Z AUTO 10SM CLR 00/M16 A3066 RMK AO2 SLP377 T00001156 $
*''New York, Central Park : 13/Dec/2024, 18:51 UTC (1:51pm local time) : Fully Automated Report : (no wind measured) : 10 (or more) statute miles visibility : No clouds below 12,000 ft (3,700 m) : 0 °C (about 32 °F), dew point at −14 °C (about 7 °F) : Altimeter at 30.66 inHg (1038.3 hPa) : Precipitation discriminator present : Sea-level pressure at 1,037.7 hPa (30.64 inHg) : Temperature -0.6 °C (from exactly 31 °F), dew point -11.56 °C [sic, again probably from -11 °F]''





==References==
{{reflist}}
[https://e6bx.com/metar-decoder/ Metar Decoder]

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Weather]]
[[Category:Aviation]]
[[Category:Emoji]]

3018: Second Stage

2024-12-01T19:32:54Z

162.158.33.252: Rationalising wikilinks (and a what-if one), to the site-standard template style.

{{comic
| number = 3018
| date = November 29, 2024
| title = Second Stage
| image = second_stage_2x.png
| imagesize = 740x272px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Hmm, they won't do in-flight delivery, so let's order a new first and second stage to our emergency landing site and then try to touch down on top of them to save time.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a BLUE ORIGIN DELIVERY DRIVER - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

In this comic, two people have lifted off in a {{w|Multistage rocket|staged launch vehicle}} without their second stage installed. This is unlikely to happen in real life, because rocket launches are thoroughly planned and checked and the lack of an entire stage would be glaringly obvious to anyone who is part of the project, but can be a problem in games such as {{w|Kerbal Space Program}}.

Staging in rocketry refers of the segmentation of a launch vehicle into distinct, separable modules, each one with an independent {{w|Rocket engine}} (or engines) and {{w|Rocket propellant|fuel}} supply. This is practiced for two critical reasons: firstly, different engine designs work better at different altitudes, so you'd want to use one engine type deep in the atmosphere and a different engine once you get to space; and secondly, since you only need one of those engines (or sets of engines) at once, it'd be better to simply expend the first engine(s) and its fuel tank once you no longer need it. By getting rid of that useless mass, you can {{w|Tsiolkovsky rocket equation|go farther using the same amount of fuel}}. A launch vehicle that does not employ staging is called an {{w|Single-stage-to-orbit}} (SSTO), but none of them have been successful due to the technical challenges. There's a tradeoff between the greater effectiveness of different engines under different conditions, and the mass penalty of having to have multiple engines as well as extra hardware that can be separated.

As Pilot 1 calls to fire the second stage, Pilot 2 is initially confused and asks if a second stage was needed. Pilot 1 confirms that there was supposed to be a second stage, and thought that it was the Pilot 2's responsibility to install and confirm there was a second stage. When both pilots realize there is no second stage, Pilot 2, naturally, thinks he can order one on {{w|Amazon (company)|Amazon}} with {[w|same-day delivery}} (though Amazon typically doesn't sell space ship stages - at least not with same-day delivery [citation needed]). He then has difficulty picking an address {{w|ZIP Code}} as they are likely traveling too high above the ground and too fast to be in a single postal area for long enough for the delivery to take place. The joke is likely poking fun at people who forget to pack certain items when going on road trips or vacation, and rely on Amazon to deliver replacements to them. There is also humor to be found in this rocket apparently being designed, built, and piloted by only two people — in real life, the construction of a rocket, especially a manned one, involves thousands of people, and the pilots do not do the designing themselves.

The comic also alludes to a not-so-distant future when space travel is a much more mundane endeavor. If companies such as {{w|SpaceX}} succeed in their mass-production and launch cadence goals, one could imagine a scenario where rocket parts become standardized and easily replaceable-- similarly to how it is easy today to replace a car's tire or fill its fuel tank if you get stranded on a highway.

In the title text, Pilot 2 concludes that in-flight delivery won't be possible but proposes to have a new first and second stage delivered to their emergency landing site so they can pick them up and continue on their launch without stopping.

This is not the first time Randall discusses the idea of a mid-flight delivery. A {{what if|149|What If? explanation}} attempts to answer if it possible to have pizza delivered to you, by a bird, while flying on a commercial airliner.

== Trivia ==
*The rocket, though apparently at least one segment short, appears to be substantially taller than the launch tower of the pad, which is a strangely incongruous detail. Unless the real rocket support is an angled back "hard spine" structure that has been rotated out of the way and down into the exhaust-flume/flame-trench quenching system. Since the voices are coming from what appears to be a separate module at the top of the rocket, it may be that the ''shell'' of the second stage is present, but not the engine and/or fuel.


==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[A multi-stage rocket, with a capsule on top, is lifting-off the ground from a launchpad, at least two rocket nozzles are visibly producing a flame, and the pad is surrounded with smoke and/or steam from the blast suppression system. A voice comes from the capsule at the top.]
:We have liftoff.

:[The first stage separates from the rest of the rocket, part way through the roll-program. There are no obvious engines standing out from the 'second stage' (or extended payload trunk) lower shroud.]
:Main engine cutoff.
:Stage separation confirmed.
:We are go for second stage burn.

:Second stage?

:Yes.
:...What?

:[The first stage and the rest of the rocket are drifting apart in apparent freefall. No rocket is firing and the background does not seem to indicate that this view is beyond the atmosphere.]
:We were supposed to have a second stage?

:...Yes!

:Did '''''you''''' set up a second stage?

:I thought '''''you''''' were handling staging!

:Oh no.

:[They continue to drift apart slowly.]
:Okay, don't panic.
:Lemme see if we can order a stage online for same-day delivery.

:''Sigh''.

:Hey, what zip code should I put? Ours keeps changing.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Space]]
[[Category:Rockets]]

Talk:3012: The Future of Orion

2024-11-19T00:52:36Z

162.158.33.252:

this is my second first comment. -[[User:Psychoticpotato|P?sych??otic?pot??at???o ]] ([[User talk:Psychoticpotato|talk]]) 17:47, 15 November 2024 (UTC)
:This is my first second comment. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.63.8|162.158.63.8]] 17:56, 15 November 2024 (UTC)
::I plead the third. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.136.188|172.69.136.188]] 19:57, 15 November 2024 (UTC)
:::you mean the fifth????? [[User:CalibansCreations|'''Caliban''']] ([[User talk:CalibansCreations|talk]]) 20:18, 16 November 2024 (UTC)
::::Probably not. I believe it's a perfectly legitimate request. If not because of the muddy boots, then because of the MRE wrappers they leave around (or don't put in the right recycling bin). [[Special:Contributions/172.68.205.92|172.68.205.92]] 21:51, 16 November 2024 (UTC)
:::::This is my French: comment?[[Special:Contributions/172.69.194.226|172.69.194.226]] 13:26, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

okay we need to destroy the stars, any suggestions? [[User:CalibansCreations|'''Caliban''']] ([[User talk:CalibansCreations|talk]]) 19:02, 15 November 2024 (UTC)
:Don't worry, the [https://www.qwantz.com/index.php?comic=4264 insects] should take care of it. (If the rocks don't do it first) [[User:Trogdor147|Trogdor147]] ([[User_talk:Trogdor147|talk]]) 20:23, 15 November 2024 (UTC)

Maybe add a reference to #1020? [[Special:Contributions/172.71.147.100|172.71.147.100]] 19:43, 15 November 2024 (UTC)

now instead of a hunter [[1020: Orion Nebula|with a dong]], its a dinosaur with diarrhea! [[User:Firestar233|guess who]] ([[User talk:Firestar233|if you want to]] | [[Special:Contributions/Firestar233|what i have done]]) 19:47, 15 November 2024 (UTC)

"There are no dinosaur constellations, because dinosaur fossils had not yet been discovered when constellations were first being named in around 3000 BCE." Faulty logic, compare: "There are no microscope constellations, because microscopes had not yet been discovered when constellations were first being named in around 3000 BCE." [[Special:Contributions/162.158.154.221|162.158.154.221]] 20:03, 15 November 2024 (UTC)
: {{w|Microscopium|link}}. Besides, weren't legends about dragons blamed on people finding dinosaur bones? -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 21:48, 15 November 2024 (UTC)

::Besides, Microscopium isn't even 300 years old, much less 5000 [[Special:Contributions/108.162.245.113|108.162.245.113]]

Has anyone figured out how far in the future Randall has projected the new star positions? [[Special:Contributions/172.69.135.5|172.69.135.5]] 21:04, 15 November 2024 (UTC)

There ARE dinosaur constellations, [[1211: Birds and Dinosaurs|nine of them in fact]]p [[Special:Contributions/108.162.245.113|108.162.245.113]]

Meh, dinosaurs. Where are the zombie constellations? [[Special:Contributions/172.69.109.77|172.69.109.77]] 08:54, 16 November 2024 (UTC)

My favorite part is that the dinosaur sill has a dong [[User:Apollo11|Apollo11]] ([[User talk:Apollo11|talk]]) 20:04, 16 November 2024 (UTC)
:If dinosaurs had penises, they would have usually been retracted within their cloaca (Alnilam) so North's ''T. rex'' is either excited to get with a female, or Orion's sword could instead be excrement being expelled. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.207.184|172.70.207.184]] 08:14, 17 November 2024 (UTC)

Dinosaur Comics nearly always uses the same art in every strip, with the T-Rex in the same six poses. But the pose used in this XKCD strip isn't one of them. --[[Special:Contributions/172.71.254.101|172.71.254.101]] 18:05, 17 November 2024 (UTC)
:Yes-and-no. It seems to be a pretty much perfect (or even exact, I haven't dug down into it at the pixel level to check it's ''not'' just a very good Randall-redrawn version) mirror image of the [https://qwantz.com/ 'panel 6' pose]. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.58.5|172.70.58.5]] 19:33, 17 November 2024 (UTC)

When I was a kindergartner my parents had a mini wet bar inside a 1.5+ foot diameter star globe. I remember thinking how much higher quality my own drawings for class were than the really terrible stick figures formed by the lines of the constellations, and how poorly they matched their intended subjects. I still think about that when I see stick figure comics like XKCD. But as an adult I realize that their purpose wasn't art, it was mnemonic help for navigators, just like everyone in the northern hemisphere growing up away from city lights learns the big dipper instead of the Ursa bears, because it's easier to remember for finding the north star.

So, what I'm getting at is, maybe it would be a good idea to replace a bad constellation with the winner of a competition (including with the status quo) for something better every century or so. I'm not sure we really need to take proper motion into account for that though. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.245.132|108.162.245.132]] 02:56, 18 November 2024 (UTC)
: that competition gives the risk of a constellation named 'Starry McStarface.' {{unsigned ip|172.71.195.49|00:22, 19 November 2024}}