explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

1890: What to Bring

2023-08-13T01:47:27Z

162.158.34.239: /* Explanation */ adopt colour scheme from #2813

{{comic
| number = 1890
| date = September 15, 2017
| title = What to Bring
| image = what_to_bring_NEW.png
| titletext = I always figured you should never bring a gun to a gun fight because then you'll be part of a gun fight.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic derives its humor from combining two common but unrelated pieces of advice: "never bring a knife to a gun fight", and "never put water on an oil fire". The corollary to these phrases is that a knife is only useful for a knife fight, and water is only useful for a wood fire (or similar solid and porous fuel). [[Randall]] creates a {{w|confusion matrix}} applying each of the solutions (knives, guns, lids, and water) to each of the situations (knife fight, gun fight, wood fire, oil fire) to predict the likely outcomes.

The squares in the table are highlighted in green to answer "Yes" to the question, where the specified object is appropriate or advantageous for the situation, or red to answer "No", usually because the object would not be helpful in resolving the situation. The grid concludes that, not only are both pieces of advice correct (bringing knives to gun fights, and using water on oil fires would both end in likely disaster), but only the prescribed solutions are appropriate for each situation (e.g. any solution other than a lid would be ineffective for an oil fire, and potentially very dangerous). The sole exception to this trend is bringing a gun to a knife fight, which would give you a major tactical advantage over your opponent.

The ultimate point of this comic may be in the title text. There is a phrase in American English, "to bring a knife to a gun fight," which means "to be so naive as to be unprepared." While Randall may be commenting specifically on managing {{w|conflict escalation}} by being adequately prepared for the situation, it is also possible that he is subtly expressing his opinion about the virtues of restraint.

{| class="wikitable" | style="background:#E6C3C3;"
! Should you bring ... to ...
! scope="col"| a knife fight
! scope="col"| a gun fight
! scope="col"| a wood fire
! scope="col"| an oil fire
|-
! scope="row"| a knife
| style="background:#C5E6C3;"| If you bring a knife to a knife fight, you will be evenly matched with your opponent (all else equal).
| If you bring a knife to a gun fight, you will be at a perilous disadvantage. (Although, at close range, a knife is considered more lethal than a firearm in certain situations, e.g. a holstered pistol.)
| Attempting to stab a wood fire with a knife will only lead to you being burned.
| Attempting to stab an oil fire will only cause you to get burned and leave metallic scrapes in the pan.
|-
! scope="row"| a gun
| style="background:#C5E6C3;"| Bringing a gun to a knife fight will usually leave your opponent at a perilous disadvantage due to the gun's far greater range. (Though if the fight is in close quarters, you will likely be at a disadvantage. You may also be accused of "not playing fair"<s>, but only if you leave survivors</s>.)
| style="background:#C5E6C3;"| <ref>While the chart states that you should bring a gun to a gun fight, the title text makes the observation that bringing a gun to a gunfight might just raise your status from 'inconsequential bystander' to 'combatant'. So perhaps you shouldn't bring a gun to a gun fight if not bringing one is a way to avoid being considered part of the fight. It probably all depends on why there is a gun fight to begin with, and why you are choosing to go to it, with or without a gun (or knife or water or lid). Or Randall may simply (and wisely) mean that you shouldn't go to a gunfight at all, which is a genuinely valid point, and not a joke. If you're not there, you can't get shot.</ref> Bringing a gun to a gun fight will leave you {{w|Mexican standoff|evenly matched with your opponent}}.
| colspan="2"| Shooting at a wood or an oil fire will not extinguish either one. Depending on the exact caliber of the bullet, you may even end up scattering the wood or oil fueling the flames, leaving you with a worse situation than before. Also, most bullets contain lead, so the heat of the fire may cause the bullet to give off toxic fumes.
|-
! scope="row"| water
| colspan="2"| Splashing either a knife-wielder or a gunman with water may blind your opponent briefly, but if you're still in a fight (i.e. you cannot use the opportunity to flee), it won't win you the fight. (However, water can disable some antique guns that use black powder, since the powder will not ignite when wet.)
| style="background:#C5E6C3;"| Wood fires are best extinguished with a well-aimed splash of water.
| Pouring water on an oil fire is notorious for creating huge fireballs and scattering the oil, making the situation even worse ({{w|boilover}}).
|-
! scope="row"| a lid
| colspan="2"| Attempting to put a lid on the head or weapon of a knife-wielder or gunman will probably not help matters,{{Citation needed}} as it may only serve to agitate them. While it might momentarily confuse your opponent, it probably won't give you much of a running start. (However, a metal lid with the right sort of handle could serve as a makeshift {{w|buckler|shield}}.)
| Trying to put out a wood fire with a lid would usually require a lid far too large for you to carry.
| style="background:#C5E6C3;"| An {{w|Class B fire|oil fire}} is best extinguished by cutting it off from oxygen; stove top oil fires generally occur in cooking pans, which often come with lids suited to making an airtight seal. A fire-resistant blanket or towel also works well for this purpose.
|}

==Transcript==
:[Text in the top-left corner of the comic:]

:"Should you bring _____ to ______?"

:[The comic is laid out like a grid, with implements down the left-hand side (A knife / A gun / Water / A lid) and the type of "fight" across the top (A knife fight / A gun fight / A wood fire / An oil fire). The grid illustrates the "match-ups", with a green square denoting a "correct" match-up and a red square denoting a Very Bad Idea.]

:[From the top left corner, going from left to right, top to bottom, with each first item being on its own line in the grid, the squares are as follows:]

:[Green square, two combatants face off against each other with knives, equally matched.]
:*'''A knife''' to '''A knife fight'''

:[Red square, a person with a knife faces off against someone with a gun, and is clearly outmatched.]
:*'''A knife''' to '''A gun fight'''

:[Red square, a person holds a knife in a wood fire while saying "OW OW OW".]
:*'''A knife''' to '''A wood fire'''

:[Red square, the person with the knife scrapes at the oil inside the pan that's on fire while saying "OW OW OW". The scraping accompanied by the text "SCRAPE SCRAPE".]
:*'''A knife''' to '''An oil fire'''

:[Green square, the person with the gun points it at the opponent with the knife, who exclaims, "Dude!"]
:*'''A gun''' to '''A knife fight'''

:[Green square, two combatants point guns at one another, equally matched.]
:*'''A gun''' to '''A gun fight'''

:[Red square, the person with the gun shoots pointlessly three times at the wood fire, which carries on blazing. The shooting is accompanied by the text "BLAM BLAM BLAM".]
:*'''A gun''' to '''A wood fire'''

:[Red square, the person with the gun shoots at the flaming pan, which does nothing to put it out. The shooting is accompanied by the text "BLAM".]
:*'''A gun''' to '''An oil fire'''

:[Red square, the person with the water throws it uselessly in the face of the person holding the knife.]
:*'''Water''' to '''A knife fight'''

:[Red square, the person with the water throws it uselessly in the face of the person holding the gun.]
:*'''Water''' to '''A gun fight'''

:[Green square, the person throws the water on the fire and successfully extinguishes it, which makes a "SPLOOSH" sound.]
:*'''Water''' to '''A wood fire'''

:[Red square, the person is shown reeling back from the oil fire, the water glass going flying, as the oil fire explodes with a "FOOM".]
:*'''Water''' to '''An oil fire'''

:[Red square, the person with the lid comically places it on the head of the person with the knife, who stands there in confusion.]
:*'''A lid''' to '''A knife fight'''

:Red square, the person with the lid ineffectually places it on top of the gun the other person is pointing at them.
:*'''A lid''' to '''A gun fight'''

:Red square, the person with the lid holds it near the wood fire, which does nothing to put out the fire.
:*'''A lid''' to '''A wood fire'''

:[Green square, the person places the lid on top of the oil fire, which suffocates and extinguishes it.]
:*'''A lid''' to '''An oil fire'''

==Trivia==

*The original image for this comic was missing one of Cueball's arms in the first panel. The original image is [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/File:what_to_bring.png here].
{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]
[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Comics edited after their publication]]

== Notes ==

1037: Umwelt

2022-04-17T23:09:42Z

162.158.34.239: Undo revision 230651 by 172.70.90.145 (talk) Idiot

{{comic
| number = 1037
| date = April 1, 2012
| title = Umwelt
| image = umwelt_the_void.jpg
| titletext = Umwelt is the idea that because their senses pick up on different things, different animals in the same ecosystem actually live in very different worlds. Everything about you shapes the world you inhabit--from your ideology to your glasses prescription to your web browser.
}}
{{TOC}}
==Explanation==
This was the third [[:Category:April fools' comics|April fools' comic]] released by [[Randall]]. The previous fools comic was
[[880: Headache]] from Friday April 1st 2011. The next was [[1193: Externalities]] released on Monday April 1st 2013.

This comic was released on April 1 even though that was [[:Category:Sunday comics|a Sunday]] (only the third comic to be released on a Sunday). But it was only due to the April Fool joke, as it did replace the comic that would have been scheduled for Monday, April 2nd. The next comic, [[1038: Fountain]], was first released on Wednesday, April 4th. This was the first that could be different for different readers.

An {{w|Umwelt}}, as the title text explains, is the idea that one's entire way of thinking is dependent on their surroundings. Thus, this {{w|April Fools}} comic changes based on the browser, location, or referrer. Thus, what the viewer is viewing the comic on, where they live, or where they came from determines which comic they actually see. As a result, there are actually multiple comics that went up on April Fools' Day, although only one is seen.
(The term 'Umwelt,' as mentioned in the comic, refers to the semiotic theories of Jakob von Uexküll and Thomas A. Sebeok)

Information about how the wide variety of data was collected and credit for the viewers who contributed can be found [http://www.reddit.com/r/xkcd/comments/rnst4/april_fools_xkcd_changing_comic/ here].

===The Void===
[[File:umwelt the void.jpg]]

If the device or browser you are using does not support Javascript, you will simply see a static image of a white swirl on a dark background.

Possible reference to The Ring (http://imgur.com/wlGmm), as though to suggest that using an alternative browser is dismal and horrific.

Davean (xkcd's sysadmin): "[This] comic isn't available everywhere and it can come up i[n] some situation[s] only for recognized browsers."

Browser: Alternative Browser

===Aurora===
[[File:umwelt aurora.png]]

One could interpret that since Megan didn't go out and therefore missed seeing the {{w|Aurora}} (northern lights), Cueball in his [[1350:_Lorenz#Knit_Cap_Girl|knit cap]] lied about it. That way, she wouldn't have felt sad that she missed out. Another interpretation could be that he decides that since she did not even bother to go outside to see such a spectacular sight he will not tell her about it. And yet another could be that he did not think it was interesting.

Cueball could possibly also be red-green colorblind, seeing the green aurorae as grey "clouds". This would serve as an example for the theme of the comic, as a non-colorblind person and a colorblind person seeing the same color would perceive it differently, one seeing it as its true color, and the other seeing it without the shade of color they cannot see. If this is the case, then it would be a reference to umwelt, as Cueball would be living in a world where the auroras do not reach his location.

In real life, [https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-northern-lights-dont-look-anything-like-they-do-in-photos_n_5500a4d9e4b0e62d0dd4f9bb aurorae are usually seen as grey/white clouds] to the naked eye, as our eyes cannot perceive the "greener" colors as well in the dark.

This image changed based on the size of the browser window including different panels at different sizes.

Locations: Canada, Boston, Maine, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Texas, Minnesota, Norway, Denmark, France, Rhode Island (not sure if mobile only or not.) (also in Virginia, but using Ohio in the first panel) (also in Maryland, but using Canada in the first panel)

In [[1302: Year in Review]] a possibly different Megan has a completely different approach to the chance of seeing northern lights, as that was the only event she was looking forward to in 2013, and it failed. If this is the same Megan, perhaps she learned that there actually were northern lights in her area from another source, and so desperately wanted to have another chance to see them.

===Snake===
[[File:umwelt snake composite 1024.png]]
[[:File:umwelt snake composite.png|Full size]]

The joke here is the extreme length of snakes. The world's longest snake is the python, the longest ever being 33 feet or approx. 10 meters. The blue and orange circles refer to the hit game {{w|Portal}}.
There is also a reference to the book "The Little Prince" in the second panel, where there is a large bulge in the snake that looks like an elephant. The Little Prince starts out by mentioning a drawing that the author made when he was six that showed an elephant inside a snake.

Also, the number and content of the panels changes depending on the size of your browser window.

This image changed based on the size of the browser window including different panels at different sizes.

Specific AltText for this image: Umwelt is the idea that because their senses pick up on different things, different animals in the same ecosystem actually live in very different worlds. Everything about you shapes the world you inhabit -from your ideology to your glasses prescription to your browser window size.

Location: Texas (on Chrome Version 33.0.1750.154 m), New Jersey, California (on Chrome Version 39.0.2171.95), Maryland, Massachusetts (Safari for iOS, Chrome version 49.0.2623.112), Connecticut (Safari for iOS, Chrome Version 73.0.3683.103, Internet Explorer, and Microsoft Edge), Virginia (on Chrome), Michigan (Firefox v46.0.1), Penang (Chrome Version 65.0.3325.162).

===Black Hat===
[[File:umwelt tortoise 1024.png]]
[[:File:umwelt tortoise.png|Full size]]

Cueball as an analyst attempts to psychoanalyze [[Black Hat|Black Hat's]] [[72: Classhole|classhole]] tendencies. Cueball's quote and the whole setup is a direct reference to the movie {{w|Blade Runner}} (1982) and Black Hat is taking the Voight-Kampff test which is used to identify replicants from real humans.

Black Hat's reason for not helping the tortoise is that ''it '''knows''' what it did'' and thus in Black Hat's world view it deserves being turned over. The final part of the joke is that when zooming out it turns out that there is a tortoise behind Black Hat and he has actually already turned it over for what it did.

Location: Seems to appear mostly in "other countries" — those without location-specific comics.

===Too Quiet===
[[File:umwelt too quiet 1024.png]]
[[:File:umwelt too quiet.png|Full size]]

A reference to {{w|Jurassic Park (film)|Jurassic Park}} which has been [[87: Velociraptors|constantly]] [[135: Substitute|referred]] [[1110: Click and Drag|to]] [[155: Search History|before]] [[758: Raptor Fences|in]] this comic.

Also referencing the film {{w|2 Fast 2 Furious|2 Fast 2 Furious}}, an entertaining, yet intellectually unprovoking sequel in a popular film franchise, which is aimed at teenagers and young adults, prompting the blunt response from the stickman. The fact that Steve would use such a cliché {{w|2000s (decade)|noughties}} movie term in such an intense moment, and the subsequent curse, is the joke in this comic.

Location: short version — iPhone 5c Safari browser in Texas, iPhone 5 Chrome Browser in Minnesota, long version - Google Chrome browser in Indiana, Windows 8 Laptop

===Pond===
[[File:umwelt pond mobile.png]][[File:umwelt pond wide.png]]

Two different versions showed, the narrower version for mobile devices.

Location: The Netherlands and various other countries.

===Galaxies===
[[File:umwelt galaxies 1024.jpg]]
[[:File:umwelt galaxies.jpg|Full size]]

Megan is distracted from her conversation with [[Cueball]] by realizing that the space behind his head, from her vantage point, contains millions of galaxies. This is similar to an [http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/image/astro/hst_deep_field.jpg incredible photograph] taken by the Hubble Telescope, in which a tiny dark area of space in fact contained numerous galaxies.

The title text is an imaginative leap from this scenario: that the galaxies would be up to no good once Cueball is turned away from them. This is presumably a reference to [http://www.mariowiki.com/boo Boo], an enemy from certain Mario games who moves toward Mario only when Mario is facing away from Boo.

This comic was only reported once... the intended environmental context is a mystery.

Location: unknown

===xkcd Gold===
[[File:umwelt xkcd gold.png]]

This is probably a reference to the 4chan Gold Account, an implementation on 4chan that does not actually exist, and is usually used to trick newcomers into revealing their credit card numbers. The joke is that "Gold Account" users can supposedly block other users from viewing images they have posted. The fifth panel is probably a reference to Beecock, a notorious set of shocker images. 4chan's moderators have been known to give out "beecock bans" or "/z/ bans" to particularly annoying users, which redirect the user to a page containing beecock and the text "OH NO THE BOARD IS GONE".

Referrer: 4chan

===Yo Mama===
[[File:umwelt dog ballast.png]]

Possible reference to Kurt Vonnegut Jr.'s "{{w|Harrison Bergeron}}."

The joke is that people's different experiences shape how they perceive the world in that the people who live in this world would perceive the joke as funny, while people in our world would not get it. This is the idea of umwelt mentioned at the top of the context where different individuals perceive the world differently.

Refer: Facebook

===Reddit===
[[File:umwelt reddit.png]]

Reference to referencing, because Reddit, as a referring site, likes references to its referencing in its references.

This comic also features recursive imagery similar to [[688: Self-Description|Self Description]] where the third panel embeds the entire comic within itself.

One of the browser tabs visible in the center panel is {{w|Elk}} on Wikipedia.

Referrer: Reddit

===Buns and Hot dogs===
[[File:umwelt somethingawful.jpg]]

This is a reference to the question "Why do hot dogs come in packages of 6 while buns come in packages of 8?"

Another, more sexual reference to this question can be found in [[1641: Hot Dogs]].

Referrer: SomethingAwful, Questionable Content, & MetaFilter

===Twitter===
[[File:umwelt twitter.jpg]]

A summary of the "content" typically found on Twitter.

In the tweet feed, there are three tweets about some podcast on the top, followed by the tweet containing link they clicked on to get to the comic, tweets about Rob Delaney, unspecified passive-aggressive tweets, and a tweet from [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horse_ebooks Horse Ebooks] retweeted by one of the users the reader follows.

On the left, the topmost dialog, with profile information, shows that the user has posted 1,302 tweets, but only follows 171 people and has even fewer followers, at a measly 48. This is marked with a sad face, implying that the user wants more followers.

Below that is the "who to follow" dialog, which is written up as consisting of "assholes".

Below that is the "trending tags" dialog for the United States. It is full of tags about word games, tags about misogyny, and tags about Justin Bieber.

Below that is an unidentified dialog full of "stuff your eyes automatically ignore". And finally, on the bottom is the background colour, which is "a really pleasant blue".

Referrer: Twitter

===Wikipedia===
[[File:umwelt wikipedia wide.jpg]]
[[File:umwelt wikipedia mobile.png]]

The term {{w|Mile High Club}} (or MHC) is a slang term applied collectively to individuals who have had sexual intercourse while on board an aircraft. Randall says that reading the news articles on it has distracted him from making that comic.

Two different versions shown, the narrower version (the single panel with all the text) for mobile devices.

Referrer: Wikipedia

===Google Chrome===
[[File:umwelt chrome1.jpg]]

{{w|Sergey Brin}} (born August 21, 1973) is an American computer scientist and Internet entrepreneur who, with Larry Page, co-founded Google, one of the most profitable Internet companies. As of 2013, his personal wealth was estimated to be $24.4 billion. Randall makes the joke that as the founder of Google, Brin's permission would be needed to use Google Chrome. Because there are millions of people who use Google, it is likely that at least some of the time Brin would be asleep, thus he would need to be woken.

Browser: Chrome

===Chrome/Firefox===
[[File:umwelt chrome2.png]]

Mozilla {{w|Firefox}} is a free and open-source web browser developed for Windows, OS X, and Linux, with a mobile version for Android and iOS, by the Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation. Cueball is complaining about {{w|Google Chrome}}, to which [[Ponytail]] replies that there is an {{w|add-on}} that fixes what he is complaining about. When questioned, she replies that the add-on is Firefox, which isn't an add-on at all and is instead a different browser.

Browser: Chrome

===Google Chrome-2===
[[File:umwelt chrome3.png]]

This panel references Google Chrome's error screen, which shows a puzzle piece. The comic humorously implies that Chrome is looking for that piece. When completing jigsaw puzzles, a common strategy is to figure out where the pieces must be from their geometry rather than from the picture they create. In this case, the text suggests that Chrome believes the puzzle piece connects to the pieces which form one of the corners of the puzzle, which may seem impossible because any piece that links up to a corner would usually have at least one flat edge, which this piece has none. However, more complicated puzzles have complex shapes and are not always simply approximate squares with tabs and blanks.

Browser: Chrome or silk on desktop view

===Mozilla Firefox Private Browsing===
[[File:umwelt firefox incognito.png]]

Another reference to crashing web browsers.
Firefox shows the history when it crashes.
Browser: Firefox (Incognito only?)

===Internet Explorer===
[[File:umwelt ie.png]]

Yet another reference to crashing web browsers

Browser: Internet Explorer

===Maxthon===
[[File:umwelt maxthon.png]]

Browser: Maxthon

===Netscape Navigator===
[[File:umwelt netscape womanoctopus.png]]

[[File:umwelt netscape man.png]]

{{w|Netscape Navigator}} was a web browser popular in the 1990s.

Browser: Netscape

===Rockmelt===
[[File:umwelt rockmelt.png]]

{{w|Rockmelt}} is a social-media-based browser.

Reference to the gospel song {{w|Longing for Old Virginia: Their Complete Victor Recordings (1934)|"There's no hiding place down here" by The Carter Family}}, later covered by Stephen Stills.

:I run to the rock just to hide my face
:And the rocks cried out, no hiding place
:There's no hiding place down here

It may additionally be a reference to the ''Babylon 5'' episode "And the Rock Cried Out, No Hiding Place," which featured the song.

Browser: Rockmelt

===Plugin Disabled===
[[File:umwelt plugin disabled.png]]

When the Google Chrome web browser does not have the required software (called a plug-in) to display a web page's content, it displays a puzzle piece icon and an error message. In this case, Chrome informs the user that the content is impossible to display.

Browser: Plugin (?) Disabled, Safari Desktop

===Corporate Networks===
[[File:umwelt corporate general.png]]
[[File:umwelt corporate amazon chrome.png]]
[[File:umwelt corporate amazon firefox.png]]
[[File:umwelt corporate amazon other.png]]
[[File:umwelt corporate google chrome.png]]
[[File:umwelt corporate microsoft chrome.png]]
[[File:umwelt corporate microsoft firefox.png]]
[[File:umwelt corporate microsoft other.png]]
[[File:umwelt corporate nytimes chrome.png]]
[[File:umwelt corporate nytimes other.png]]

These error messages appear if the user is on a network owned by one of the corporations noted. The error message includes a warning against speaking on the company's behalf.

ISP: Corporate networks of Amazon, Google, Microsoft, NY Times

===Military===
[[File:umwelt military.png]]

[[Cueball]] assumes that anyone using a military network has an important job like watching for incoming missiles. He includes a thank-you to the user for their military service.

ISP: Military networks

===T-Mobile===
[[File:umwelt tmobile.png]]

Reference to T-Mobile's distinguishing feature (at the time it was written) of weaker coverage, in relation to other major providers.

ISP: T-Mobile

===Verizon and AT&T===
[[File:umwelt verizon.png]]

[[File:umwelt att.png]]

Reference to Verizon and AT&T's scandals/controversy regarding implementation of bandwidth caps.

ISP: Verizon and AT&T

===France===
[[File:umwelt france.jpg]]

A common joke about France is that the nation does not win wars. This originated from France's annexation by Germany during World War II, and America's late entry into the war, which is sometimes portrayed humorously as a case of America 'saving' Europe, in this joke particularly France (the role of the French resistance is usually not mentioned), leading to a common American joke at the expense of France's military prowess [http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/text/victories.html][http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/images/blpic-frenchmilitaryvictories.htm][http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/jokes/bljokefrenchmilitaryhistory.htm]. When France did not form part of the coalition that invaded Iraq in 2003, aligning with the many countries that condemned U.S. action, the joke was revived.

A Google search of "French Military Victories" + 'I'm feeling lucky' used to direct to "did you mean: french military defeats" (due to a {{w|Google bomb}}). Cueball is trying to show this to his friend, who is French. However, his joke backfires, as his friend immediately points out that the stereotype of France not having military victories is undercut by the fact that one of the most innovative military commanders in history, Napoleon, was French by citizenship (though Italian/Corsican by culture, as the French annexed Corsica a few months before his birth to an Italian noble family), and in fact conquered much of Europe.

Following the theme of umwelt, the comic highlights the two characters' differing perspectives: The American thinks that France is a military failure, while the Frenchman thinks of Napoleon.

The last line of the comic further implies that Cueball is not as smart as he thinks he is in regards to anything French, as he mispronounces the French loan word "{{w|Touché (fencing)|touché}}".

Locations: France & Quebec

===Germany===
[[File:umwelt germany.png]]

This comic references the {{w|Berlin airlift#The start of the Berlin Airlift|Berlin Airlift}}, a relief measure for citizens in West Berlin (surrounded by East Germany) instituted by the Western Allies after World War II. In reality, the Western Allies flew a grand total of 500,000 tons of food over the Soviet blockade in planes. Randall puts a twist on this event by making it more fun: dropping supplies from a grand chairlift. The play on words is that "chairlift" rhymes with "airlift" and thus makes an easy substitution. The chair force is also a name that other service branches use to make fun of the air force.

Location: Germany

===Israel===
[[File:umwelt israel.png]]

Translation: Mom, I met a great guy! But he's not Jewish. ...Wait, what do you mean "neither are we"? I'm completely confused.

A reference to the multiple use of the word Jewish to denote both a {{w|Judaism|religious group}} and a {{w|Jews|nationality/ethnicity}}, as well as the stereotype of Jews holding low opinions of interfaith marriage.

A side note: Randall accidentally drew an apostrophe instead of the similar-looking Hebrew letter י everywhere that letter should appear.

Location: Israel

===Carnot Cycle===
[[File:umwelt japan.png]]

A pun on "cycle"; a "{{w|Carnot cycle}}" is a thermodynamic cycle (e.g. refrigeration). Its efficiency depends on the temperature of the hot and cold 'reservoirs' in which it is operating. The icon on the side of the motorcycle resembles a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Carnot_cycle_p-V_diagram.svg graph of the Carnot cycle.]

Location: Japan

===UK===
[[File:umwelt uk.jpg]]

He worded this as though to imply that the UK is a state of the U.S., and an unimportant one at that, which pokes fun at the UK, creating a paradox (sort of).

Location: UK

===Blizzard===
[[File:umwelt disasters blizzard.png]]

This comic is aimed at the debate over whether earthquakes or blizzards are harsher conditions to live under. In keeping with the theme of umwelt, the comic demonstrates that the two people perceive the world in two different ways due to their different experiences: The Californian perceives a mild earthquake and a severe blizzard, while the Northeasterner perceives a severe earthquake and a mild blizzard.

For each location this displayed in, the state name was substituted in the third panel.

Locations: Alabama, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Georgia, Halifax, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, the Northeast, Ohio, Oklahoma, Ottawa, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Texas, Toronto, Tennessee, New York, Wisconsin

===Tornado===
[[File:umwelt disasters tornado.png]]

This comic is aimed at the debate over whether earthquakes or tornadoes are harsher conditions to live under. In keeping with the theme of umwelt, the comic demonstrates that the two people perceive the world in two different ways due to their different experiences: The California perceives a mild earthquake and a severe tornado, while the Midwesterner perceives a severe earthquake and a mild tornado.

For each location this displayed in the state name was substituted in the third panel.

Locations: Alabama, Dallas, Illinois, Georgia, The Midwest, Missouri, Ohio, Oklahoma, Ottawa, Tennessee, Texas (and Virginia, but it used Ohio in the third panel)

Tornadoes are a [[:Category:Tornadoes|recurring subject]] on xkcd. The picture used in [[1754: Tornado Safety Tips]] very reminiscent of the one from this version of Umwelt. [[Category:Tornadoes]]

===Hurricane===
[[File:umwelt disasters hurricane.png]]

This comic is aimed at the debate over whether earthquakes or hurricanes are harsher conditions to live under. In keeping with the theme of umwelt, the comic demonstrates that the two people perceive the world in two different ways due to their different experiences: The Californian perceives a mild earthquake and a severe hurricane, while the Easterner perceives a severe earthquake and a mild hurricane.

For each location this displayed in the state name was substituted in the third panel.

Locations: D.C, Florida, Georgia, Houston, Miami, New Jersey, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia

===Lake Diver Killer===
[[File:umwelt lake diver.png]]

This comic shows a news reporter standing in front of a lake. She is reporting on a serial killer who targets divers. As more divers are sent in to investigate and/or search for bodies, more divers go missing, the implication being that they were also murdered. The more likely reason is the lake itself is dangerous for diving, and the divers probably drowned from natural hazards (undercurrents, entanglement, running out of oxygen in tanks, etc.) instead of a malicious assailant. Also, this is a sort of loop, where each time a diver gets killed, the investigative team goes and investigates, causing more divers to get killed, causing more deaths, and so on.

Location: Bay Areas, Metro Detroit, Vermont showed an image specifically referencing Lake Champlain

===Lincoln Memorial===
[[File:umwelt lincoln memorial.png]]

Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States of America, was not an entity composed wholly of nanobots that attempted to consume the entire nation to then be imprisoned within the Lincoln Memorial.{{Citation needed}}

Locations: Illinois & Washington, D.C.

===Helicopter Hunting===
[[File:umwelt helicoptor.png]]

In Alaska, governments and individuals have {{w|Wolf hunting#North America 2|shot wolves en masse from helicopters}} in an attempt to artificially inflate populations of game, such as moose and caribou, to make hunting them easier. This is opposed by many, as the game populations are not endangered (thus, this threatens ecological balance); wolves are a small threat to livestock in North America; most of the wolf body —including meat and bones— goes wasted as they are sought mainly for their pelts.

Location: Alaska

===Newspaper===
[[File:umwelt life scientists.png]][[File:umwelt life rit.png]][[File:umwelt life umass.png]]

Creating new life has long been a well understood process, in a lab or otherwise.

This comic is likely a reference to the title text of [[983: Privacy]]

Location: Various

Specific versions appeared for RIT and UMass Amherst

===Robot Paul Revere===
[[File:umwelt paul revere.png]]

Combination of the legend of {{w|Paul Revere#"Midnight Ride"|Paul Revere}} and a computer bit that differentiates between two situations by indicating a zero or a one.

Location: Boston

===Counting Cards===

All four colleges in this series are in Massachusetts and, being similar, in pairs, rival each other to some extent (Harvard-MIT, and Smith-Wellesley). The comic contains a reference to the {{w|MIT Blackjack Team}}, which entered popular culture via the {{w|21 (2008 film)|film 21}}, and a possible reference to Orwell's book '1984' and/or {{w|Chain of Command (Star Trek: The Next Generation)|popular homage to it via Star Trek}}: "There are four lights."[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChYIm6MW39k]

Bonus: The thought-gears in panel 3 are spinning against each other.

Location: Harvard

[[File:umwelt counting cards harvard.png]]

Location: MIT

[[File:umwelt counting cards mit.png]]

"Course 15s" at MIT are the business major students, often mocked for taking a less-rigorous program. The different interpretation for why the MIT students could not count cards compared to Harvard may be a reference to the theme of umwelt.

Location: Smith

[[File:umwelt counting cards smith.png]]

Location: Wellesley

[[File:umwelt counting cards wellesley.png]]

Both Wellesley and Smith are all-women colleges in Massachusetts.

===Giant Box Trap===
[[File:umwelt box trap.png]]

Randall got his undergrad in Physics at the {{w|Christopher Newport University}}, and was scheduled to return shortly to give a talk. The "Trible" figure on the right is Paul Trible, the then-president of CNU. This comic depicts a classic trap, where an upside-down box is propped up with a stick. When the stick is removed, by pulling a string, the box falls and traps whatever is underneath it. Aside from the joke of the obvious trap, there's also the fact that the president would not be responsible for revoking unearned diplomas.

Location: Christopher Newport University

===Chemo Support===
[[File:umwelt chemo.jpg]]

[[Cueball]] has shaved his head in support of people going through {{w|chemotherapy}} but, as he is always depicted as a stick figure with no hair, no one can tell.

Randall's now-wife was diagnosed with breast cancer, and apparently DFCI is where they've been spending much of their time.

Location: Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

===Reviews===
[[File:reviews.png]]

The previous strip appears twice when using [[wikipedia:Tor (anonymity network)|Tor]].

Browser: Any using Tor, xkcd API (JSON, RSS, Atom), w3m, and reports of seeing it on a Kindle Fire HD; also happens if visiting with a browser that does not support JavaScript (such as Firefox with NoScript)

===Nothing===

[[File:Umwelt blank.jpg]]

The comic doesn't appear in iPad browsers. The top buttons and the bottom buttons are side by side, and you can only see the title in the top.

On April 28 and 29, 2019, a visit from San Francisco on macOS 10.14.4 using Chrome 74, Safari 12.1, or Firefox 66.0.3, all with JavaScript enabled, produced no comic, just two adjacent rows of navigation buttons.

On April 29, 2019, a visit from Utah using a T-mobile Samsung device running Android pie, yielded the same results

Since this comic's release, all devices viewing it have returned two rows of navigation buttons if near IP address 69.114.249.104.

It also doesn't work in Pennsylvania on the Chrome operating system.

There is a discussion about this in the ''Talk'' page.

==Transcript==
:[Note to courageous readers- The transcript has been reordered in the order in which the comics appear in the picture and appropriate names have been given.]

:'''The Void'''
:[An epic void with a bright light shining right on you.]

:'''Aurora'''
:[Cueball heading out past Megan comfortably sitting in front of a desk.]
:Cueball: Apparently there's a solar flare that's causing some Great Aurorae. CBC says they may even be visible here! Wanna drive out to see?
:Megan: Hockey's on.
:Cueball: Ok. Later.

:[An expansive, marvelous image of emerald green northern lights, floating down through the sky.]

:Megan: See anything?
:Cueball: No, just clouds.
:Megan: Not surprised.

:'''Aurora-US'''
:[Cueball heading out past Megan comfortably sitting in front of a desk.]
:Cueball: Apparently there's a solar storm causing northern lights over Canada. CNN say they might even be visible {Options: "As Far South As Us", "Here in Boston", "Maine", "Ohio", "Oregon", "New York"}! Wanna drive out to see?
:Megan: It's cold out.
:Cueball: Ok. Later.

:[An expansive, marvelous image of emerald green northern lights, floating down through the sky.]

:Megan: See anything?
:Cueball: No, just clouds.
:Megan: Not surprised.

:'''Snake'''
:[Two people standing next to each other. Megan is holding the head end of a snake. Depending on the width of your browser, the snake is: three frames, the third of which has a little bit of a bump; the first frame has a human-size bump, the second has a third person looking at the snake, and the third has the snake going though two Portals; a squirrel and the human-size bump in the first frame, a ring next to the third person in the second frame, and Beret Guy riding the snake in front of the portal; or The squirrel, a fourth person within the snake being coiled, and the human bump in the first frame, the ring, a fifth person in love, and the third person in the second frame, Beret Guy and the portal in the third frame, and the same two people in the fourth frame.]

:Megan: I found a snake, but then I forgot to stop.

:'''Black hat'''
:[Two people sitting at a desk. One is Black Hat. The other is an analyst. Black Hat has a number of terminals attached to his head.]
:Analyst: You come across a tortoise in the desert. You flip it over. It struggles to right itself. You watch. You're not helping. Why is that?

:Black Hat: It '''knows''' what it did.

:[View of the entire scene, with said turtle off in the distance on its back and trying to right itself.]

:'''Too quiet'''
:[A group of four scale down a wall into a field in the middle of the night. They walk off single-file.]
:Person 1: It's quiet.

:Person 3: Yeah - *Too* quiet.

:[A Velociraptor is off in the distance, following the group.]
:Person 4: Yeah - too *too* quiet.

:Person 2: Yeah - 2quiet2furious.
:Person 1: Fuck off, Steve.

:'''Pond'''
:[A landscape showing a pond, some reeds, and a set of mountains off in the distance.]

:'''Galaxies'''
:[A trio of galaxies.]
:Galaxy 1: He's not looking!
:Galaxy 3: Let's get him!
:[Lines draw in illustrating the eye-line of one of a pair of people.]
:Cueball: So he said he didn't get the text, but c'mon, he *never* misses texts. Right? ..hello?
:Megan: I'm just staring at your head freaked out by the fact that there are millions of galaxies *directly behind it*.

:'''xkcd Gold'''
:[Cueball holding bat.]

:Cueball: Sorry, but this comic

:[Cueball starts to wind up.]

:Cueball: requires

:[Cueball prepares to strike with bat.]

:Cueball: XKCD

:[Cueball swings at a beehive.]
:GOLD

:[Penis Bees fly out of the beehive.]

:'''Yo mamma'''
:[Cueball yells at a friend.]
:Cueball: Oh yeah? Well you mama's so ''cynical'', her only dog ballast is a ''leash''!
:(This comic takes place in a dystopian future where the government is afraid dogs can hover, so it requires them to wear weights at all times, and some people privately doubt the government, but not enough to stop buying dog weights.)

:'''Reddit'''
:Five seconds ago:
:[You sitting in front of a desk, reading a reddit thread.]
:You: Oh, hey, reddit has a link to some XKCD april fools comic.

:Now: [An image of the xkcd comic page.]
:Five seconds from now:

:You: ..hey

:30 seconds from now:
:[DANCE PARTY!]

:'''Buns and Hot dogs'''
:Cueball: What I wanna know is why do hot dogs come in packages of six while buns come in these huge sacks of ash and blood from which "Ave Maria" is faintly audible?
:[Chanting sacks of gore in the background.]

:'''Twitter'''
:[A Twitter account page with the following: Many tweets, fewer following, even fewer followers, A bunch of assholes in the suggested follow box, trending topics partitioned into: Word Games, Misogyny, and Bieber, stuff your eyes automatically ignore, A really pleasant blue. and the timeline: Something about a podcast, Someone confused because the description doesn't match the link, The link you clicked on to get to this comic, Rob Delaney, Passive Aggression, and horse ebooks.]

:'''Wikipedia'''
:[There's no comic here because instead of drawing one, I spent the last hour reading every news story cited in the Wikipedia article on The Mile High Club.]

:'''Google Chrome'''
:[A Chrome plugin error page.]
:Chrome: This plugin requires Sergey Brin's permission to run. Please wait while he is woken.

:'''Chrome/Firefox'''
:[Two people; Cueball is sitting at a desk in front of a laptop.]
:Cueball: Man, chrome's hardware acceleration really sucks.
:Ponytail: Oh - Theres' a great add-on that fixes it.
:Cueball: Oh? What's it called?
:Ponytail: "Firefox".

:'''Google Chrome-2'''
:[A Chrome plugin error page with the characteristic jigsaw piece.]
:Chrome: Chrome is looking for this piece. Have you seen it? Chrome thinks it links up with a corner.

:'''Mozilla Firefox Private Browsing'''
:[Firefox error page.]
:Firefox: Well, this is embarrassing. You know how I'm not supposed to peek at your browsing in private mode? Firefox.. is sorry. Firefox will not blame you if you
:[Button with text.]
:Click here to report this incident.

:'''Internet Explorer'''
:[IE error page.]
:IE: Error: Internet Explorer has given up.

:'''Maxthon'''
:Cueball: Maxthon? Hey, 2005 called. Didn't say anything. All I could hear was sobbing. This is getting harder. Anyway, yeah, Maxthon's still cool! Didn't know it was still around!

:'''Netscape Navigator'''
:[Two different versions exist: one with Cueball talking and one with Megan with tentacle arms talking.]
:Person: Netscape Navigator? Hey, the nineties called - drunk as usual. I hung up without saying anything. This is getting harder. Anyway - it's cool that you'e got netscape running.

:'''Rockmelt'''
:[Cueball running to laptop.]
:I ran to Rockmelt to hide my face

:[Cueball sitting at laptop.]
:But Rockmelt cried out -

:[Laptop shouting.]
:NO HIDING PLACE

:[zoom out.]
:NO HIDING PLACE DOWN HERE

:'''Google Chrome-3'''
:[A chrome plugin error page.]
:Chrome: There does not exist --nor could there '''ever''' exist-- a plugin capable of displaying this content.

:'''Microsoft/Amazon/The Times/Google - Chrome'''
:[Chrome error page.]
:Chrome: This plugin requires clearance from the corporate press office in order to run. Remember, Microsoft/Amazon/The Times/Google is a team; individual employees should ''never'' speak for the company without authorization.

:'''Microsoft/Amazon - Firefox'''
:[Firefox error page.]
:Error: This plugin requires clearance from the corporate press office in order to run. Remember, Microsoft/Amazon is a team; individual employees should ''never'' speak for the company without authorization.

:'''Microsoft/The Times'''
:[Error page.]
:Error: This plugin requires clearance from the corporate press office in order to run. Remember, Microsoft/The Times is a team; individual employees should ''never'' speak for the company without authorization.

:'''Corporate - Generic'''
:[Error page.]
:Error: This plugin requires clearance from the corporate press office in order to run. Remember, we work as a team; individual employees should ''never'' speak for the company without authorization.

:'''Military'''
:[Person looking at two browser windows.]
:Cueball: I know y'all know what you're doing. But if you're on a military machine and you're supposed to be watching for missiles or something, I hope you're keeping an eye on that in the background while you're reading comics. Also: Thanks.

:'''T-Mobile'''
:[Error page.]
:Data Error: T-Mobile was unable to establish a connection

:'''Verizon'''
:[Error page]
:Error: You have exceeded your Verizon monthly bandwidth cap. Mobile web browsing has been disabled.

:'''France'''
:[Two people; one of which is browsing using a laptop.]
:Cueball: Hey, you're French, right? Ever see what happens when you type "French Military Victories" into Google?
:French person: Does it take you to an article on Napoleon?

:French person: ..no? Strange, given how he kicked everyone's asses up and down Europe for over a decade.

:[Beat frame.]

:Cueball: Touche.
:French person: You know, that'd sound smarter if you didn't pronounce it like it rhymes with "douche".

:'''Germany'''
:[Cueball dropping food from an unorthodox high perch.]
:June 1948: In response to the Soviet blockade of East Germany, the western allies construct the Berlin Chairlift.
:Cueball on chairlift: Food!

:'''Israel'''
:[Person on phone.]
:Person (Translation from Hebrew): Mom, I met a great guy! But he's not Jewish. ...Wait, what do you mean "neither are we"? I'm completely confused.

:'''Carnot Cycle'''
:[Ponytail on a motorcycle with a heat-entropy graph on the side.]
:Ponytail: Check out my new Carnot Cycle!
:Cueball: Neat - how fast does it go?
:Ponytail: Depends how cold it is outside.

:'''Great Britain'''
:[Illustration of the Atlantic ocean.]
:American person: Sorry I don't have a comic poking fun at the UK here. I only had time to get to the most ''important'' US states.
:British person: Hey - At least we have free health care and real ale.

:'''Earthquake-Blizzard'''
:[Two people sitting at a desk, facing each other. The desk rattles.]
:Cueball: Stop jiggling your leg.
:Danish: I'm not ji-.. oh!
:Cueball: What!
:Danish: You'll get it..

:[EVERYTHING RUMBLES.]
:Cueball: ..HOLY CRAP IT'S AN EARTHQUAKE!
:Danish: Just a little one. Happens all the time back in San Francisco.

:Cueball: But this is {Options: "Alabama", "Boston", "Chicago", "Dallas", "Georgia", "Halifax", "Illinois", "Michigan", "Minnesota", "Missouri", "the Northeast", "Ohio", "Oklahoma", "Ottawa", 'Pennsylvania", "Philadelphia", "Texas", "Toronto", "Tennessee", "New York", "Wisconsin"}! That was huge!
:Danish: Seriously? That's the worst this place can do? Wow. I guess we grow up tougher in California.
:Cueball: Oh ''really''...

:Six Months Later..
:[Both people are trudging through a massive blizzard.]
:Danish: In pictures, snow always looked so nice and sof - ''AAAA! MY NECK! How do people live here?!''
:Cueball: Come on - it's only three more miles.

:'''Earthquake-Tornado'''
:[Two people sitting at a desk, facing each other. The desk rattles.]
:Cueball: Stop jiggling your leg.
:Danish: I'm not ji-.. oh!
:Cueball: What!
:Danish: You'll get it..

:[EVERYTHING RUMBLES.]
:Cueball: ..HOLY CRAP IT'S AN EARTHQUAKE!
:Danish: Just a little one. Happens all the time back in San Francisco.

:Cueball: But this is {Options: "Alabama", "Dallas", "Illinois", "The Midwest", "Missouri", "Ohio", "Oklahoma", "Ottawa", "Tennessee", "Texas"}!
:Cueball: That was huge!
:Danish: Seriously? That's the worst this place can do? Wow. I guess we grow up tougher in California.
:Cueball: Oh ''really''...

:Six Months Later..
:[Both people are in a shelter in a prairie with a rapidly-approaching tornado.]
:Danish: AAAA CLOSE THE SHELTER DOOR!
:Cueball: Say the magic words...
:Danish: THIS PLACE IS THE WORST!
:Cueball: Thank you.

:'''Earthquake-Hurricane'''
:[Two people sitting at a desk, facing each other. The desk rattles.]
:Cueball: Stop jiggling your leg.
:Danish: I'm not ji-.. oh!
:Cueball: What!
:Danish: You'll get it..

:[EVERYTHING RUMBLES.]
:Cueball: ..HOLY CRAP IT'S AN EARTHQUAKE!
:Danish: Just a little one. Happens all the time back in San Francisco.

:Cueball: But this is {Options: "D.C", "Florida", "Houston", "Miami", "New Jersey", "North Carolina", "South Carolina", "Virgina"}! That was huge!
:Cueball: That was huge!
:Danish: Seriously? That's the worst this place can do? Wow. I guess we grow up tougher in California.
:Cueball: Oh ''really''...

:Six Months Later..

:[Both are in the middle of a hurricane. Danish is grabbing onto a signpost to avoid being swept away.]
:Danish: AAAAA WHAT THE SHIIIIT!
:Cueball: Calm down - this is barely a category 2.

:'''Lake Diver Killer'''
:[TV Field Reporter in front of a cordoned-off lake.]
:Reporter: Police divers searching the bay say they have recovered the body of another victim of the "Lake Diver Killer."
:Reporter: During the search, three more divers were reported missing.

:'''Washington'''
:[The statue of Abraham Lincoln in the Lincoln Memorial.]
:In this Marble Prison As in the nightmares of the nation they tried to devour
:The nanobots that constituted Abraham Lincoln
:Are entombed forever.

:'''Alaska'''
:[A person with a gun chasing a helicopter on the back of a wolf in a snowy Alaskan field.]
:Some people hunt wolves from helicopters. I hunt helicopters from a wolf.

:'''Life in lab'''
:[Newspaper headline.]
:Scientists/UMass Amherst students/RIT students create life in lab
:[Caption under picture of scientists.]
:"The trick was fuckin'"

:'''American Revolution'''
:Robot Paul Revere: Remember: Zero if by land, One if by sea.

:'''MIT'''
:[Two people in front of a group of students.]
:Cueball: I've hired a team of MIT students to count cards for us.
:Hairy: We'll be rich!

:[Hairy deals some cards while the students watch.]

:[The gears turn..]

:Student: Five. There are five cards.
:Cueball: I see their admission standards have been slipping.
:Hairy: Yeah - there are actually four.

:'''MIT Course 15c'''
:[Two people in front of a group of students.]
:Cueball: I've hired a team of MIT students to count cards for us.
:Hairy: We'll be rich!

:[Hairy deals some cards while the students watch.]

:[The gears turn..]

:Student: Five. There are five cards.
:Cueball: I *knew* we shouldn't have picked course 15s.
:Hairy: Yeah - there are actually four.

:'''Smith/Wellesley'''
:[Two people in front of a group of students.]
:Cueball: I've hired a team of Smith/Wellesley students to count cards for us.
:Hairy: We'll be rich!

:[Hairy deals some cards while the students watch.]

:[The gears turn..]

:Student: Five. There are five cards.
:Cueball: We should've gone with Wellesley/Smith.
:Hairy: Yeah - there are actually four.

:'''CNU'''
:[Person unsuspectingly strolls under a giant box trap controlled by a Trible.]
:I worry that CNU only invited me back as a ruse because they realized I never turned in my final paper and want my diploma back. But if it turns out it's for real, I'll see you Wednesday at the Ferguson!

:'''Dana Farber'''
:[Cueball, pointing towards head.]
:Cueball: Check it out - In support of people going through chemo, I shaved my head.
:Lots of love to everyone reading this at Dana Farber. Cancer sucks. If you are new to DFCI, there's a great little garden on the third floor of the yawkey if you need somewhere quiet to just sit for a little bit and breathe.

:'''Reviews'''
:Shopping before online reviews:
:[Cueball and Megan stand in a store. Cueball points at a lamp on the table in front of him. There is another lamp on the table behind them.]
:Cueball: This lamp is pretty.
:Megan: And affordable.
:Cueball: Let's get it.
:Megan Ok!

:Shopping now:
:[Cueball points at a lamp on the table in front of him. Megan looks at her phone.]
:Cueball: This lamp is pretty.
:Megan: It's got 1 1/2 stars on Amazon. Reviews all say to avoid that brand.

:[Cueball and Megan are now both looking at their phones.]
:Cueball: This one has good reviews.
:Megan: Wait, one guy says when he plugged it in, he got a metallic taste in his mouth and his cats went deaf.
:Cueball: Eek. What about- ...no, review points out it resembles a uterus.

:[Cueball is still looking at his phone, Megan has hers at her side.]
:Cueball: Ok, I found a Swiss lampmaker with perfect reviews. Her lamps start at 1,300 Francs and she's only reachable by ski lift.
:Megan: You know, our room looks fine in the dark.

==Trivia==
*Reddit user [http://www.reddit.com/user/SomePostMan SomePostMan] created a [http://www.reddit.com/r/xkcd/comments/t6wmh/all_umwelt_1037_comics_in_two_imgur_albums/ post] that collected all of the Umwelt comics and added explanations. Much of his information is now included in this wiki.

*The transcript section for this comic also included a note alluding to its extreme length:
: <nowiki>[[Two people...]]</nowiki> ((..wait.. <scrolls through a listing of everything> oh goddammit Randall. Thanks a bunch, dude. I better get a raise for typing out all this))
: [[Two people standing next to each other. One is holding the head end of a snake...

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:April fools' comics]]
[[Category:Dynamic comics]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Black Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Knit Cap]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Beret Guy]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Danish]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]
[[Category:Philosophy]]
[[Category:Penis]]
[[Category:Video games]]
[[Category:Velociraptors]]
[[Category:Your Mom]]
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[[Category:Squirrels]]
[[Category:Comics with blood]]

718: The Flake Equation

2022-04-17T23:08:46Z

162.158.34.239: Undo revision 230650 by 172.70.90.145 (talk) You're running out of pathetic edits and starting to burn up very-pathetic ones...

{{comic
| number = 718
| date = March 24, 2010
| title = The Flake Equation
| image = the flake equation.png
| titletext = Statistics suggest that there should be tons of alien encounter stories, and in practice there are tons of alien encounter stories. This is known as Fermi's Lack-of-a-Paradox.
}}

==Explanation==
This strip parodies the {{w|Drake equation}}, which is an method for estimating of the number of detectable extraterrestrial civilizations in our galaxy. The Drake equation starts with the best estimate for the number of stars in our galaxy, then multiplies it by successive probabilities (such as the number of stars with planets, the number of planets which can support life, etc), to ultimately calculate how many civilizations exist. While such a calculation necessarily uses speculative numbers, it gives a good sense of how many civilizations could potentially exist.

The Flake equation presented in this strip provides an estimate about how many false or fake stories ''about'' aliens are likely to exist. It does so in similar manner as the Drake equation, by starting with the entire population, estimating how many people are likely to believe that they've had an alien encounter, and then calculating how likely those stories are to become public. Just like in the Drake equation, exact numbers are unknown, but can be estimated, and the equation in the comic shows [[Randall|Randall's]] guesses about these values. See an [[#Explanations of values|explanations of values]] below.

"Flake" is American slang for a person who is casually dishonest or unreliable, implying that such a person would be likely to imagine an alien encounter. Note that, while the Flake equation includes people who imagine encounters "because they're crazy or want to feel special", it doesn't attempt to include outright lies or deliberate hoaxes.

The final results tells us that there should be about 100,000 stories about aliens that have reliable explanations. (The numbers given in the equation gives 126,000 stories). The data is obviously highly speculative, and as with the Drake Equation, you can plug in your own numbers, but if you keep your guesses realistic, you will most likely get a very large number. This convinces the reader that the fact that there are many stories about aliens does not necessarily mean that many people actually met aliens.

The title text refers to Fermi's Lack-of-a-Paradox. The {{w|Fermi paradox}} refers to the contradiction between high numbers of calculated civilizations and the total lack of verified alien contact with earth. This is related to the Drake Equation, many estimates calculate that there should be large numbers of civilization in the galaxy, and they should have existed for long periods of time, suggesting that humanity should have been contacted by them, or at least seen some clear evidence of their existence. There are multiple explanations for this paradox, but it remains a question of scientific debate. The Lack-of-a-Paradox in this strip, however, is that the math suggests that there should be huge numbers of claimed alien sightings, and that's exactly what we observe.

Another comic parodying this equation is [[384: The Drake Equation]]. The credibility of paranormal reports in general is revisited in [[1235: Settled]], which posits that if such phenomena were real they should have been unambiguously captured on camera by now.

===Explanations of values===
{| class="wikitable"
!Symbol
!Assumed value
!Explanation
|-

|WP
|7,000,000,000
|World population at the time of the creation of the comic, taken as a starting value.
|-
|(CR + Mi)
|1/10,000 + 1/10,000
|Fraction of people who would falsely believe they had been visited by aliens. This is attributed to either a person imagining an encounter, and believing that it was real (due to mental illness or a desire to feel special), or to people misinterpreting something as an alien encounter (this can include possibilities as broad as unusual lights in the sky to actual hallucinations). It is estimated that one person in ten thousand falls into each of these categories, suggesting that one person in five thousand either has or will, at some point, believe they've encountered aliens.
|-
|TK
|1/10
|The fraction of people who believe they have experienced an alien sighting that tell others about their experience. [[Randall]] estimates (rather conservatively) that 90% of people who believe they've encountered aliens will keep quiet about it (likely out of fear of not being believed), and only one in ten will talk about their 'experience'. Multiplying with the previous values we get the of first-hand accounts of alien encounters.
|-
|F0
|10
|Average number of people they tell about their "sightings". Multiplying with the previous values we get the number of people who hear about an alien sighting from the "primary source".
|-
|F1
|10
|Average number of people that they decide to tell about the "firsthand" account. Multiplying with the previous values we get the amount of people who hear a second-hand account of a false story.
|-
|DT
|9/10
|The probability that the details will be slightly adjusted during the retelling process, making the account believable. [[Randall]] estimates that 90% of accounts that are actually shared have detailed changed when they're retold. This is exceptionally common when stories are passed from person to person, it's rare for all the details to survive unchanged. In this sort of case, "not fitting the narrative" implies that some details will be unbelievable, or falsifiable, or will be insufficiently dramatic, and those tend to morph over time (often innocently, as people don't remember the original version perfectly). Multiplying this probability by the previous numbers gives number of believable-yet-false alien sighting stories in circulation.
|-
|AU
|1/100
|The proportion of people who have the willingness and ability to share this story with a broad audience. [[Randall]] assumes that the overwhelming majority of people who hear such stories either have no platform to share stories to more than a handful of people at a time, or aren't willing to share these stories. But enough people in modern times have broad audiences (this number includes people with internet audiences), that it's estimated that 1% of the population both can and wants to share second-hand accounts of alien encounters. The total is now the amount of believable-yet-false alien sightings that are published to a wider audience.
|}

==Transcript==
:{{incomplete transcript}}
:The Flake Equation:
:P = WP × (CR + MI) × TK × F0 × F1 × DT × AU ≈ 100,000
:Where:
::WP = World Population (7,000,000,000)
::CR = Fraction of people who imagine an alien encounter because they're crazy or want to feel special (1/10,000)
::MI = Fraction of people who misinterpret a physical or physiological experience as an alien sighting (1/10,000)
::TK = Probability that they'll tell someone (1/10)
::F0 = Average number of people they tell (10)
::F1 = Average number of people each friend tells this "firsthand" account (10)
::DT = Probability that any details not fitting the narrative will be revised or forgotten in retelling (9/10)
::AU = Fraction of people with the means and motivation to share the story with a wider audience (blogs, forums, reporters) (1/100)
:Even with conservative guesses for the values of the variables, this suggests there must be a ''huge'' number of credible-sounding alien sightings out there, available to anyone who wants to believe!

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Math]]
[[Category:Astronomy]]
[[Category:Science]]
[[Category:SETI]]
[[Category:Aliens]]
[[Category:Statistics]]
[[Category:Paranormal]]

502: Dark Flow

2022-04-17T23:06:53Z

162.158.34.239: Undo revision 230649 by 172.70.90.145 (talk) Glow away...

{{comic
| number = 502
| date = November 10, 2008
| title = Dark Flow
| image = dark_flow.png
| titletext = The Pioneer anomaly is due to the force of my love.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic is about {{w|astronomy}} and the {{w|Your Mom}} jokes that have become increasingly widespread in urban parlance. [[Beret Guy]] is reading a research paper presumably discussing {{w|Dark Flow}}, an observed anomaly in the motions of the galaxies that some theorize is caused by an unobservable sibling universe or similarly supermassive object beyond the edge of the visible universe. [[Cueball]] sees this as an opportunity to make yet another Your Mom joke, implying that Beret Guy's mother is fat.

But apparently, Beret Guy's mother is dead, or at least missing, and he takes the joke seriously. He looks toward the sky and wishes that his mom pull harder so that he could be with her. The joke has been turned onto itself.

The title text is a continuation of Beret Guy's thoughts and refers to another piece of science phenomenon that has been observed in space, the {{w|Pioneer Anomaly}}. The ''{{w|Pioneer 10}}'' and ''{{w|Pioneer 11}}'' spacecraft had been slowed down by an (at the time) unknown force as they exited the solar system, which he says is caused by the force of his love, probably toward his mom. This force has since been explained entirely in 2012 by the probes being decelerated by thermal radiation.

In [[2310: Great Attractor]], the more local {{w|Great Attractor}} is pulling Beret Guy so hard that he can sleep on vertical surfaces when it is close to the horizon.

==Transcript==
:[Beret Guy is sitting at a computer, and Cueball is sitting in an armchair, reading either a book or a newspaper.]
:Beret Guy: According to this A.S.T. paper, every galaxy is being pulled toward one area of the sky.

:[Only Cueball.]
:Beret Guy [off-panel]: They hypothesize that it may be due to a supermassive object beyond the edge of the visible universe.
:Cueball: Maybe it's your mom. Zing!

:[Only Beret Guy.]
:Beret Guy: Do you think?

:[Outside at night, on a rooftop. Beret Guy is looking up to the sky, next to a telescope.]
:Beret Guy: Pull harder, mom.
:Beret Guy: I Miss you.

==Trivia==
* Beret Guy's "A.S.T. paper" might refer to the [https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1086/592947 article] that first mentioned the theory of {{w|Dark flow|dark flow}}, published shortly before this comic. The article appeared in the {{w|American Astronomical Society}}'s {{w|The Astrophysical Journal|Astrophysical Journal Letters}} (ApJL), but it is unclear what is meant by "A.S.T." in the comic.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics with inverted brightness]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Beret Guy]]
[[Category:Astronomy]]
[[Category:Space]]
[[Category:Your Mom]]
[[Category:Space probes]]
[[Category:Telescopes]]

565: Security Question

2022-04-17T23:05:57Z

162.158.34.239: Undo revision 230648 by 172.70.90.145 (talk) And again...

{{comic
| number = 565
| date = April 3, 2009
| title = Security Question
| image = security_question.png
| titletext = Let's invite him to a party and play 'I never'. Okay, I never hid any bodies SOUTH of Main Street. ...he's taking a drink!
}}

==Explanation==
Security questions are sensitive questions that allow a user to retrieve or reset his password if the password is lost or stolen. Because of this powerful function, security questions should be treated just as seriously as passwords. Typical security questions include "What's your mother's maiden name?" or "What's your secondary school?" and are intended to be easy for the user to answer but hard for anyone else to answer.

In this comic, however, the security question is deployed in a strange way, as the question "Where are the bodies buried?" assumes that one had buried bodies, hence had killed someone. The question turns out to be a ploy by the police, who were trying to bait Cueball into confessing his crime, as well as revealing the location of the incriminating evidence.

[http://www.wikihow.com/Play-the-%22I%27ve-Never%22-Game "I never"] is a drinking game that somebody says "I never did something" to the others. If you never did it, you don't need to drink, otherwise, drink. Since he takes a drink for "I never hid any bodies SOUTH of Main Street", the police have narrowed down the search area. The next statement in the game could be "I never hid any bodies WEST of Central Avenue" (or whatever road dividing the area), further localizing the bodies to a quarter of the original search area, in a {{w|Twenty Questions}} manner. Of course, by taking the drink Cueball also admits that he buried bodies, though this evidence would not likely be accepted by any court.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball sits at a computer.]
:Computer Screen: -Email Account Setup- To verify your identity, we need to ask you a question nobody else could answer.

:Computer Screen: Q: Where are the bodies buried? A:
:[A text field is shown with "Behind the" typed.]

:[Cueball sits back and thinks.]

:[Three stick figures, two wearing police hats and one wearing headphones, watch another computer.]
:[The same text field is shown with "Behind the ... nice try." typed.]
:Figure in Headphones: Damn.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Computer security]]
[[Category:Email]]

656: October 30th

2022-04-17T23:04:47Z

162.158.34.239: Undo revision 230647 by 172.70.90.145 (talk) Somebody's got a problem, and it isn't us normal people.

{{comic
| number =656
| date =October 30, 2009
| title =October 30th
| image =october_30th.png
| titletext =Not enough houses on your block? Just hit them at 30-year intervals from here to 2300 and get 10x the candy.
}}

==Explanation==
For Halloween, a child has dressed up as Dr. Emmett L. Brown (played by {{w|Christopher Lloyd}}) from the ''{{w|Back to the Future}}'' film trilogy. In the films, Brown created a {{w|time machine}} out of a {{w|DeLorean DMC-12}} car, which he and teenage protagonist Marty McFly use to travel through time.

The joke of the comic is that Halloween is on October 31st, and by showing up dressed as Doc Brown on October 30th, the kid can make the joke that he "overshot" the time machine and went back one more day than he meant to. Doc is heard throughout the movie franchise saying "Great Scott" as an exclamation of surprise.

The title text suggests an inventive use of time-travel to get ten times the candy — hitting each house at a 30-year interval up until 2300. The interval matches that of the first two BttF movies, which take place in the years 1955, 1985 (the present at the time), and 2015.

Of course, one would have no idea starting off if Halloween is still being celebrated in 2300, or indeed if the human race even still exists.

==Transcript==
:[A kid dressed up in a lab coat and goggles is standing on a neighbor's doorstep.]
:Kid: Trick or treat!
:Neighbor: Nice Doc Brown costume, but today's October 30th.
:Kid: Great Scott, I must have overshot!

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Back to the Future]]
[[Category:Time travel]]

2289: Scenario 4

2022-04-17T23:02:59Z

162.158.34.239: Undo revision 230646 by 172.70.90.145 (talk) You're piscine about...

{{comic
| number = 2289
| date = April 4, 2020
| title = Scenario 4
| image = sequence-four.png
| titletext = Remember, models aren't for telling you facts, they're for exploring dynamics. This model apparently explores time travel.
}}
==Explanation==
Although not directly mentioned, this comic is probably the 14th comic in a row (not counting the [[2288: Collector's Edition|April Fools' comic]]) in a [[:Category:COVID-19|series of comics]] related to the {{w|COVID-19 pandemic}}.

In [[2278: Scientific Briefing]], [[Megan]] and [[Cueball]] were briefing [[White Hat]] on things that were getting bad, hoping to convince him to do something about them. He chose to wait until things actually got bad. Evidently, that has happened, and now Megan and Cueball are delivering another briefing on just how much "Bad Stuff" there might be, according to their models.

In the context of the information (and misinformation) explosion associated with the COVID-19 pandemic (ongoing at the time that this comic was published), many graphs have been shown highlighting the prevalence of the disease - the number of cases at any one time and place, and the change in the number of cases over time. That being said, the graphs shown could easily apply to any number of scenarios where an upward trend is bad.

Several of these graphs have attempted to predict the future, using statistical tools ("models") to process existing data and generate a forecast. Inputs to the model(s) may include different assessments of, for example, the number of COVID-19 cases that have been recorded. Four scenarios are presented here, presumably showing what a particular model (probably only one despite the reference to "new modelS" in the comic) forecasts given different, unspecified, inputs.

Megan and Cueball present four scenarios, only three of which are possible.
* The first, "best case" scenario recalls "flatten the curve" graphs that predict an occurrence will eventually cease to increase altogether. Using COVID-19 as an example, if strictest measures are put into place and adhered to, all those who have contracted COVID-19 will eventually be reported, and no further victims will contract it.
* The second and third scenarios are increasingly worse cases, predicting that the occurrence will continue unceasingly. Again using COVID-19 as an example, the less measures are put into place or adhered to, the more COVID-19 cases that will occur. Scenario 3 appears to indicate an exponential increase best suited to a log scale; "pretty bad" is an understatement.
* The fourth curve is not possible, as each point along the x-axis represents a specific time point. If the curve passes the same time point twice (as it does) then this means that on a given day there were two different number of cases. E.g. on the 1st of April there would have been both 100 and 1000 people infected, which makes no sense at all. The only way to make sense of it would be by using the common trope in science fiction of time traveling creating an alternate timeline in which events are different, thus the cases could be 100 in one timeline and 1000 in a different timeline. Hence the remark, "this model explores time travel", in the title text. This is a brain cramp to visualize, and the consequences of it actually happening would be calamitous on several levels. Real modelers might encounter such "graphing errors" while they are developing their models, entering data (especially if there are time-conversion errors), and testing their functions, but persons who went so far as to present such glitches in public, except for a laugh as here, would likely be asked to hand in their modeler's cards.
** The 'time travel' remark is also suggestive of certain particle-physics phenomena captured in {{w|Feynman diagram}}s. Mathematically, an antiparticle moving forward in time looks like its equivalent particle moving backwards in time, so a particle-antiparticle annihilation or creation event could be interpreted as a single particle switching directions in time. In the context of this scenario, it is possible to read the fourth chart as predicting that the bad stuff will start traveling backwards in time as it increases, which we would see as a great quantity of "bad anti-stuff" appearing and decaying in number just as the "bad stuff" increases, until the two quantities meet at the halfway point and mutually annihilate. Even though there will be no more bad stuff after the annihilation (or time-reversal) event, particle-antiparticle annihilation releases enormous energies that might be even more catastrophic than whatever the bad stuff itself was.
** A fanciful interpretation of this otherwise uninterpretable graph is that the number of infections reached some sort of critical mass, breaking reality to begin spreading through time as well as space.

==Transcript==
:[Megan and Cueball are standing in front of a large graph, with "Time" along the horizontal axis and "Bad Stuff" along the vertical axis. The curve on the graph shows a generally shallow upward slope.]
:Megan: Our new models outline a few possible scenarios.
:Cueball: #1 is the best scenario.

:[The graph now shows a much steeper curve, before flattening out far in the future, similar to a logistic curve.]
:Megan: Scenario 2 is not so great.

:[The graph now climbs quite quickly, approximating an exponential curve.]
:Cueball: Scenario 3 would be pretty bad.

:[The graph starts curling up, like the exponential curve, but continues curving back, so that it no longer qualifies as a function, and may indicate time-travel to the past.]
:Megan: Then there is scenario 4.
:Megan: We '''''think''''' it's a graphing error.
:Cueball: If not, we '''''definitely''''' want to avoid it.

==Trivia==
*This is the first [[:Category:Saturday comics|Saturday comic]] since 2006.
**It was released on Saturday since the previous comic was the [[:Category:April fools' comics|April fools' comic]] for 2020.
***The release of this comic, [[2288: Collector's Edition]], had been [[2288:_Collector's_Edition#Trivia|delayed two days]] because of technical difficulties with the complex interactive nature of the comic.
***Thus the planned Wednesday release of this week was thus postponed to Friday.
****To not cheat us from the planned Friday release, this comic was thus released the day after on Saturday.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:COVID-19]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Time travel]]

2291: New Sports System

2022-04-17T23:01:45Z

162.158.34.239: Undo revision 230645 by 172.70.90.145 (talk) Yeah, but no...

{{comic
| number = 2291
| date = April 8, 2020
| title = New Sports System
| image = new_sports_system.png
| titletext = Under my system, boxing and football suffered, pair figure skating still worked but had to adapt by dropping some moves, and pro wrestling was actually completely unaffected.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic is the 16th comic in a row (not counting the [[2288: Collector's Edition|April Fools' comic]]) in a [[:Category:COVID-19|series of comics]] related to the {{w|COVID-19 pandemic}}.

As communities have been ordered to stay indoors to avoid spreading the virus, this has also affected sports leagues around the world, with many of them suspending their seasons, or cancelling them outright. (see {{w|Impact of the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic on sports|this Wikipedia article}} for a full list of sports or sporting events impacted) Some leagues have instead promoted e-sports, such as the [https://www.latimes.com/sports/clippers/story/2020-04-06/patrick-beverley-favorite-to-win-nba-2k-players-tournament NBA holding an ''NBA 2K20'' tournament between active NBA players].

[[Randall]], in this comic, proposes an obviously bad "new sports system" of "virtual sports", in which players play with a virtual ball in separate arenas, and are guided by online viewers. This obviously proves to be challenging, as the ball is virtual but the players are not wearing any virtual reality or augmented reality headsets, and thus they do not know how to interact with it properly. Playing in separate arenas would solve the problem of spreading the virus, as the players do not have any direct interactions with each other.

This would be a similar system to {{w|Twitch Plays Pokémon|Twitch Plays ''Pokémon''}}, in which Twitch viewers "play" ''Pokémon'' video games in a crowdsourced manner. There are also many games that are intentionally constructed so that some players must accomplish a goal they cannot see or with incomplete information, while they are guided by other players. These include common team-building exercises (often involving blindfolds), and the bomb-disposal themed puzzle game ''{{w|Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes}}''.

The NBA also is holding a similar idea, holding a {{w|Variations of basketball#H-O-R-S-E|Horse}} tournament among [https://www.nba.com/article/2020/04/09/nba-air-horse-challenge-espn NBA and WNBA players], which works better than the version of basketball shown in this comic because players don't need to interact with the same ball.

In the title text, Randall claims that boxing and football (he does not specify gridiron football or association football) proved to be difficult, with {{w|Pair skating|pairs figure skating}} still possible as long as figures like {{w|Figure skating lifts|elevations}} are removed, and {{w|professional wrestling}} being unaffected. Boxing and gridiron football would be impossible to play in these situations; on top of the difficulty of trying to play without knowing where the other players are located, these sports are predicated on contact. A boxer cannot get a knockout without being able to touch the other players, and football players cannot block or tackle even if they mime catching the ball. Association football, with less emphasis on contact, might still be playable, but would suffer at least from the same complications as basketball shown here. Pairs figure skating would be possible, excepting "throwing" moves or "lifts", as typically pairs figure skaters skate in unison, replicating the same moves.

Humorously, Randall claims that professional wrestling will be unaffected by his new system. This is in reference to the "open secret" that the matches have predetermined outcomes and are more "entertainment" than actual competition, with much of the 'forced' movement of one competitor being aided or even guided by the 'victim' rather than the 'aggressor' in semi-improvised feats of coordinated athleticism.

==Transcript==
:[Single wide frame representing a basketball court with a basketball hoop at each end. There are seven players running around the court, with a virtual ball in the bottom right corner (indicated as a dashed circle). Nine off-screen voices of "online viewers" are yelling instructions to the players. A caption is below the frame running nearly the full width of the frame.]

:Viewer One: No!
:Viewer Two: It's on the–
:Viewer Three: Look out!
:[A player with thick hair and a goatee is "air-shooting" into the left-hand basket.]
:Viewer Four: ''No!''
:[A player with thick hair is running to the right.]
:Viewer Five: He's right there
:Viewer Five: Don’t run into–
:[A player with no hair is air-dribbling to the right.]
:Viewer Six: Go ''left!''
:Viewer Seven: ''Left!''
:Viewer Eight: ''Riiight!''
:[A player with thick hair and a full beard is facing left and jumping, hands raised to intercept a ball.]
:[A player with no hair is facing left and crouching, reaching for a ball.]
:[A player with no hair is making an alley-oop motion towards the right-hand basket.]
:Viewer Nine: ''Stop dunking and find the ball!''
:[The virtual ball is slowly moving right, unseen by the players.]
:[A player is hanging on the rim of the basket, making a dunking motion.]

:Caption below the panel: No one liked my new sports system, in which each player is in a separate arena sharing a single virtual ball that they can't see while online viewers yell instructions, but it was fun to watch while it lasted.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:COVID-19]]
[[Category:Sport]]
[[Category:Basketball]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]

2290: Homemade Masks

2022-04-17T23:00:34Z

162.158.34.239: Undo revision 230644 by 172.69.79.209 (talk) I suspect not.

{{comic
| number = 2290
| date = April 6, 2020
| title = Homemade Masks
| image = homemade_masks.png
| titletext = I'm going to change the sign so the pole is horizontal and the sign is mounted on the front like a plunger, so I can carry it around like a lance to gently push people back if they try to approach.
}}

==Explanation==

This comic is the 15th comic in a row (not counting the [[2288: Collector's Edition|April Fools' comic]]) in a [[:Category:COVID-19|series of comics]] related to the {{w|COVID-19 pandemic}}.

In this comic, Cueball wonders if Megan's {{w|cloth mask|homemade mask}} will be of any use, because he has seen many different points of view and is unsure which one is correct. It is generally agreed that homemade masks will not block particles (including droplets which carry viruses) as effectively as officially-tested {{w|N95 mask|N95-class masks}} or {{w|surgical mask}}s, and possibly confer no benefit at all; however, wearing a homemade mask may reduce contagiousness if the ''wearer'' is infected, by blocking droplets from being expelled. It may also make the wearer less likely to touch their face (which may be a vector for catching COVID-19 from contaminated surfaces). On the other hand, there are concerns that it may confer a false sense of security, leading to unsafe behaviors, and that the warm, moist environment produced by the wearer's breath may also ''harbor'' incoming viruses, which may later infect the wearer if the mask is not washed frequently.

Megan replies that she originally carried a sign warning people to keep their distance, but people needed to get close to her to read it, making it counterproductive. The implication is that Megan's primary purpose in wearing the mask is to signal to other people that's she's concerned about spreading COVID-19, and remind them to keep their distance. Whether or not the mask has any direct benefits in blocking virus transmission, Megan apparently feels that the social impact of seeing someone in a face mask is likely to change behaviors, making transmission less likely.

The title text indicates an alternate method, where Megan could change the sign into a device for pushing people back in order to maintain distance. Holding the sign out in front of her (instead of over her head) would also let people get close to the sign to read it, without getting in her face.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball stands at a distance from Megan, who is wearing a face mask]
:Cueball: Homemade mask, huh? You think they help?
:Cueball: I've read so many conflicting things.

:[Flashback to when Megan was not wearing a mask but carrying a large sign, with Cueball and Ponytail approaching her from both sides. It is not possible to read what is on the sign. Masked Megan is pictured in an inset panel.]
:Megan (narrating): Well, what I was doing before was carrying around a big sign that said "There's a pandemic so please give me space because I don't want to get sick or make anyone else sick!"

:[Same as first panel]
:Megan: The problem was, I had to write small to fit, so people kept walking closer to read it.
:Cueball: Oops.
:Megan: Yeah, the mask gets it across better.

== Trivia ==
* Cueball has previously encountered signs that are so interesting that they lead people into peril in [[356: Nerd Sniping]], although in that comic strip, [[Black Hat]] was specifically designing his signs with the intent to cause harm.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:COVID-19]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring face masks]]

2607: Geiger Counter

2022-04-17T22:59:11Z

162.158.34.239: Undo revision 230643 by 172.69.79.209 (talk) Nope

{{comic
| number = 2607
| date = April 15, 2022
| title = Geiger Counter
| image = geiger_counter.png
| titletext = At first I didn't get why they were warning me about all those birds sitting on the wire, but then I understood.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by A CLICKING BIRD COUNTER - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This comic is a simple {{w|pun}}. [[Cueball]] and [[Ponytail]] are standing in what looks to be a desert, and Cueball is holding a {{w|Geiger counter}} in his hand. Cueball remarks that he did not understand why he was asked to carry a Geiger counter, but that it then "clicked" with him.

Geiger counters are devices used to measure the amount of {{w|radiation}} in an area. When a particle of ionizing radiation hits the sensor of a Geiger counter, it will give off a distinct "clicking" noise. "Click" can also be a slang term for the {{w|Eureka effect}}, a sudden moment of understanding. The pun in this comic insinuates that Cueball realized why he was asked to bring the Geiger counter when it clicked, indicating radiation nearby. In radioactive areas, it is usually a good idea to carry around some sort of radiation detector for safety reasons.{{citation needed}}

This is likely a {{w|parody}} of a fairly well-known pun that takes advantage of a similar double meaning: "I wondered why the baseball was getting bigger. Then it hit me." Just as that pun uses "hit me" to mean both the action of the ball and to understand, this comic uses the "clicking" to mean both the action of the Geiger counter and to understand. A related variety of pun, told in the {{w|Narration#Third-person|third person}}, is the {{w|Tom Swifty}}.

The title text is also a pun, since "I" stand under the birds on the wire (under-stood, stood under), with the implication being that some birds on the power line pooped on him.

Cueball's failure to expect radiation after being issued a Geiger counter may be a reference to reports that the Russian military unwittingly exposed its soldiers to high levels of radiation during the {{w|Battle of Chernobyl}} in March and April 2022, such as by moving heavy equipment through the {{w|Red Forest}} (named for the color of trees killed by radiation) and by digging trenches in contaminated soil.

==Transcript==

{{incomplete transcript}}
:[Cueball and Ponytail are wearing hard hats and standing in what looks to be some sort of desert or rocky area. Cueball is holding a Geiger counter in his hands. Ponytail is holding a clipboard.]
:Cueball: At first I was confused about why they wanted me to carry a Geiger counter here, but then it clicked.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Characters with Hats]]
[[Category:Language]]
[[Category:Puns]]

2603: Childhood Toys

2022-04-07T11:50:16Z

162.158.34.239:

{{comic
| number = 2603
| date = April 6, 2022
| title = Childhood Toys
| image = childhood_toys.png
| titletext = The rope keeps breaking, I'm covered in bruises and scrapes, and I've barely reached the end of my driveway, but I don't care--I'm determined to become the first person to commute to work by tetherball.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a POGO STICK ON A SLIP'N'SLIDE - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
This comic shows various children's toys, ranked by how practical they would be for long-distance transportation.

The "Practical" panel shows toys designed for convenient transportation, namely {{w|bicycles}} and {{w|Motorized_scooter|electric scooters}}. Most people know how to ride a bicycle, and can easily go several miles on it. Scooters (shown in the comic panel) are also relatively easy to use, and may have a motor, allowing them to be used for significant distances. These are often not even considered "toys".

The "Less Practical" panel has toys designed for transportation, but which may be harder to use than the first panel. {{w|Skateboards}} and {{w|roller skates}}, while designed for transportation, don't work great over long distances or when carrying objects, and {{w|Big Wheel (tricycle)|Big Wheels}} and {{w|unicycles}} (shown in the panel) are simply less practical bikes.

In the "Impractical" panel are toys that are designed for transportation, but are ''very much not'' designed for convenience, especially over long distances. {{w|Stilts}} are long poles that one stands on to extend their legs; while they increase the user's stride length, it takes quite a bit of practice to use them, especially if they're very long. A {{w|jump rope}} is a rope that the user swings around their body while they jump over it whenever the rope passes below their feet; it doesn't actually provide any transportation by itself, the user is simply hopping to their destination, which is a very tiring way to travel (but very good exercise if you can do it). A {{w|toy wagon|wagon}} has no propulsion of its own, it has to be pulled by the user; parents sometimes use it to transport their children short distances (such as to a playground). A {{w|Pogo stick}} is a pole with a spring at the bottom and a platform for standing on, which can be used to bounce; while fun for bouncing a few yards (as shown in the panel), like the jump rope it would be tiring for long distances.

The "Very Impractical" panel has toys that may be used for transportation, but to an ''incredibly'' limited degree. {{w|Slip_%27N_Slide|Slip 'N Slides}} (shown in the panel) only work (effectively) downhill, and only where they are placed down. {{w|Trampolines}} and {{w|Tire Swings}} could let you go somewhere, but you'd need to set up multiple in a row leading to your destination beforehand. {{w|Hot Wheels}} cars could be put onto the bottom of shoes to create ''extremely'' ill-advised{{citation needed}} improvised rollerskates, but the car on its own has effectively no merit for transportation.

The title text refers to {{w|tetherball}}, a game found in many playgrounds where a ball is attached to a pole by a long rope. This is also very impractical, as the rope just winds around a stationary pole. It's possible that he is swinging from the rope and letting go (which would explain the bruises and scrapes, as well as the torn rope), but there is no clear (or even ''remotely'' practical) way to use this to commute.{{citation needed}}

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[Title:] Childhood Toys
:[Subtitle:] By Practicality for Commuting

:[Caption of the first box:] Practical
*Bicycle
*Electric Scooter
:[Cueball, wearing a bicycle helmet, drives by on an electric scooter, passing another Cueball and Hairbun, who is holding a briefcase.]
:Scooter Cueball: Hi, boss!

:[Caption of the second box:] Less Practical
*Skateboard
*Roller Skates
*Big Wheel
*Unicycle
:[Ponytail rides by White Hat on a unicycle.]
:Ponytail: Good Morning!

:[Caption of the third box:] Impractical
*Stilts
*Jump Rope
*Wagon
*Pogo Stick
:[Cueball bounces past Megan on a pogo stick.]
:Pogo Stick: Boing boing
:Cueball: How's it going?

:[Caption of the fourth box:] Very Impractical
*Trampoline
*Tire Swing
*Hot Wheels
*Slip 'N Slide

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairbun]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]
[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]

2600: Rejected Question Categories

2022-04-01T21:06:20Z

162.158.34.239: Undo revision 229395 by 172.70.114.147 (talk) Crime (at least Bank Vault crime) isn't visibly mentioned in the item marked "?????".

{{comic
| number = 2600
| date = March 30, 2022
| title = Rejected Question Categories
| image = rejected_question_categories.png
| titletext = You can click to preorder to get a copy of What If? 2 when it comes out 9/13, assuming we all make it past the spider situation(?) on Tuesday(?).
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a SPIDER-CREATED WEAPON OF MASS DESTRUCTION LAUNCHED AT A VOLCANO - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
[[Randall]] recently announced, in [[2575: What If? 2]], that he is publishing a new ''[[what if?]]'' book based on reader-submitted questions. This comic is another [[:Category:Book promotion|promotion]] of the book, and the entire comic is a link to his [https://xkcd.com/what-if-2/ what if? 2] page on xkcd.

This comic shows the [[#Question categories|categories of questions]] he claims to have received, but rejected to use in his book, giving an example question for each category. In typical xkcd fashion, these begin out by being plausible, although often unlikely to have been submitted as a ''what if?'' question, moving in to more and more absurd types of questions, especially with the last question, that appears to be a combination of all previous categories and is therefore marked "?????"

The title text refers to the launch date of the book September 13, rendered in the American style 9/13. This format can be confusing to non-Americans, although usually not when the date is larger than 12, since it would then appear to reference the 9th day of the 13th month. This "13th month" was, however, referenced in the first comic about the book: [[2575: What If? 2]]. See also Randall's take on the date format, {{w|ISO 8601}}, in [[1179: ISO 8601]].

Randall then continues the title text by referencing the second to last category with vague ominous questions. The example question here asks if there is need to worry about spiders after Tuesday. So Randall notes that the release date, 5.5 months after the release of this comic, is of course assuming we all make it past both spiders and next Tuesday (2022-04-05).

Tuesday has been notably referenced in [[277: Long Light]], [[564: Crossbows]], [[1099: Tuesdays]] and most notably in [[1245: 10-Day Forecast]] where it seems that the last day of forever will by a Tuesday. Normally Tuesday is the second day of the week, however the Tuesday of the week following the publication of this cartoon could be the last day of the last week ever.

==Question categories==
{| class="wikitable"
|'''Category'''
|'''Question'''
|'''Explanation'''
|-
| People cheating on homework
| What if I made a pendulum by hanging a rock on a 2.75 meter string? What would its period be in seconds? (Show your work)
| This appears to be a physics student trying to get out of doing their work by presenting the question for Randall to answer in ''What If'' (which is a common occurrence on question-and-answer sites such as Stack Overflow). Most school homework requires the student to "show their work", i.e. write out their process of solving the question, which will usually go towards marks for the right methodology and basic understanding even if they make a wrong turn along the way and end up with an incorrect answer; the student including this caveat is a giveaway as to their tactic (along with the boring nature of their inquiry).
|-
| Medical advice
| What if you got a scratch and the next day your hand looks like this [''📎 attachment'']? Should you see a doctor or what?
| Randall is not a physician, is not qualified to give medical advice, and will not answer medical questions. This was a problem on early Wikipedia which, for a time, required all articles covering medical topics to point to a {{w|WP:MEDICAL|Medical Disclaimer}}. This was also an issue covered in the 1st ''what if?'' book, under Weird and Worrying Questions from the Inbox, where a reader asks about the effects of a toxin on the excretory system. If your body is not behaving in the way you expect, consulting with a medical professional is, in general, a good idea.
|-
| Personal
| Why don't the squirrels in my yard like me???
| Randall has no way of knowing why the wildlife in a given area dislike a specific person, especially if this hints at a specific animosity/belligerence and not just general avoidance of humans as a perceived threat. These kind of questions are common on sites like reddit, and are usually covered by general explanation of animal behaviors unless the asker supplies more information in the comments. However, the choice of squirrels are likely not random since [[:Category:Squirrels|Squirrels]] are a recurring theme on xkcd and has often been [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/Category:Squirrels#Uses_in_other_xkcd_media: used in what if?] (sometimes as {{what if|105|placeholder}} for a potentially horrible image).
|-
| Spam
| Do you want to meet lonely singles in your area tonight?
| This is a common online popup advertisement and is generally considered undesirable. An unavoidable side effect of Randall having an email address published where the public can find it is that spammers have just as much access to it. Most people do not respond to spam emails, and Randall is no exception.
|-
| Phishing
| Have you recently been the victim of phishing? To check, log in to your account by clicking here.
| Again, because Randall's What-If email is publicly available, phishers have access to it and can probe the recipient for information. Randall is experienced enough to recognize a phishing attempt and ignore it. This type of phishing scam, in which the scammer requests your personal data for the purported purpose of checking if it has been "stolen" thereby "stealing" it himself, has become more common as people have become aware of phishing, and phishers have thus embraced the possibility of exploiting a new niche in the layers of naivete.
|-
| Requests for help with a crime
| Using modern science, what would be the fastest way to get through this bank vault door? [''📎'' blueprints]
| No, Randall is ''not'' going to help a criminal commit breaking and entering or robbery, thank you very much. A common problem with heist movies is that they show a believable{{Citation needed}} method for breaking in to a vault which people then try to replicate in real life. Such movies often portray an expert in some other field being "smart enough" to craft the plan, sometimes unwittingly.
|-
| Unanswerable
| Why am I me and not someone else
| This person seems deeply unhappy with their life, looking for some form of comfort Randall probably couldn't provide as a trained psychologist, let along a scientific webcomic artist. The question is also quite oxymoronic: by the very definition of "me", I can't be anyone else. Otherwise that person would become "me".
|-
| Vague
| What is going to happen? (Be specific)
| Some humor is derived from the request for specificity in the question, which completely lacks any sort of specificity of its own.
|-
| Vague and ominous
| Will I have to start worrying about spiders after Tuesday?
| This implies some event that occurs on a (possibly next?) Tuesday. This event may relate to spiders in some way, and cause those who do not currently worry about spiders to do so. If you do not currently worry about spiders, this question does not give enough specifics for Randall to intelligently answer whether or not you should start.
Possibly a [[:Category:Red Spiders|red spiders]] reference. Could also be a reference to [[1688: Map Age Guide]] where some dangerous event involving spiders is set to happen in 2022.
|-
| ?????
| Hi, we're lonely singles in your area, and we're wondering what would happen if we shot a nuclear bomb into a volcano! Click here to log in and tell us ...
| If nothing else, this entry is clearly made up by Randall, as it appears to be a combination of as many prior categories as he has room for, specifically Spam, Phishing, and an already-answered question, before getting cut off by the bottom of the panel.

"Would dropping a nuclear bomb in a volcano stop an eruption?" was a question featured in the ''first'' book. Randall answered with an emphatic "No!"
|}

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
In ''What If? 2'' (xkcd.com/whatif2), I answer ridiculous questions sent in by readers about everything from volcanoes to spaceships to soup.

Here are a few of the common types of questions that I did ''not'' answer:

[In separate boxes for each category]

[In row 1:]

People cheating on homework: What if I made a pendulum by hanging a rock on a 2.75 meter string? What would its period be in seconds? (Show your work!)

Medical advice: What if you got a scratch and the next day your hand looks like this [''📎 attachment'']? Should you see a doctor or what?

Personal: Why don't the squirrels in my yard like me???

[In row 2:]

Spam: Do you want to meet lonely singles in your area tonight?

Phishing: Have you recently been the victim of phishing? To check, log in to your account by clicking here.

Requests for help with a crime: Using modern science, what would be the fastest way to get through this bank vault door? [''📎'' blueprints]

[In row 3:]

Unanswerable: Why am I me and not someone else

Vague: What is going to happen? (Be specific)

Vague+Ominous: Will I have to start worrying about spiders after Tuesday?

?????: Hi, we're lonely singles in your area, and we're wondering what would happen if we shot a nuclear bomb into a volcano! [partially cut off horizontally:] Click here to log in and tell us

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Book promotion]]
[[Category:Physics]]
[[Category:Squirrels]]
[[Category:Spiders]]
[[Category:Nuclear weapons]]

Talk:2594: Consensus Time

2022-03-17T11:25:08Z

162.158.34.239:

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

Less than a day should be enough time for a team of people to notice and override the trolls' attempt to game the system.
Unless the trolls decide to push the button right before midnight.
--[[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.147|172.70.162.147]] 23:11, 16 March 2022 (UTC)
:Presupposes that an executive decision that "oh, that was just sabotage, we can ignore all those 'votes'" by an oversight panel is deemed ok to occasionally enforce. As with actual election votes, that shouldn't be taken lightly (for fear of top-down skewing of the actual sincere wish of those casting their opinions).
:As it's a median (in itself a good idea, as there's no reason to cast very extreme outliers — it doesn't do anything more to the result than a barely marginal outlier) all you need to do is ask enough people (in excess of any counter-aiming participation, if there's a fight over it) to merely adjust their 'feeling' to half an hour later (or earlier, if that's your aim) than they normally would.
:Added to the 'natural' variation in feeling (spread statistically amongst your participating group) it would be practically impossible to decide that a distinct tapering-lump of results exists, to possibly disqualify. Whereas if results show clear 'lumps' hours apart (e.g. around 3AM and/or 9PM, as well as the standard bunch around the 'honest' opinion point), there might be a case to officially intervene. Or at least officially review the procedure. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.64|172.70.86.64]] 09:14, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

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

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

I have to feel that the night shift people would really not like this. [[User:SDSpivey|SDSpivey]] ([[User talk:SDSpivey|talk]]) 19:35, 16 March 2022 (UTC)

My take on this is that Midnight is a fixed point, it's always at the same time, and the day compresses and expands around it based on the median 9AM location. So, some days will have long hours in the morning, then compressed hours in the afternoon and evening. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.107.52|162.158.107.52]] 20:37, 16 March 2022 (UTC)

See also consensus new year https://xkcd.com/2092/ [[Special:Contributions/172.70.210.237|172.70.210.237]] 20:43, 16 March 2022 (UTC)

I think he's also ripping on the concept of "wisdom of the crowd". [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 21:31, 16 March 2022 (UTC)

If someone makes this app, I'd use it. I might not follow its clock, but I'd be interested in seeing what happens. [[User:Draco18s|Draco18s]] ([[User talk:Draco18s|talk]]) 00:01, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

The sociologist in me wants to see this... The computer scientist in me could not be reached for comment and only mumbled something about "checking stock in the bomb shelter" [[Special:Contributions/108.162.246.62|108.162.246.62]]

Hmm... Does this probably mean 9AM today could theoretically be '''after''' 9AM tomorrow in some cases!? Talk about a new approach to time travel. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.147.9|172.70.147.9]] 05:12, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

Working example: https://matthewminer.name/projects/consensus-time/

I've often thought the answer to the arguments about daylight saving time could be solved by going back to something like the old Canonical Hours with the period from sunrise to sunset divided into 12 hours, with short hours in winter and longer ones in summer. Incidentally, in the late sixties, an experiment was tried in the UK to keep the country on daylight saving all year round, called British Standard Time. I remember going to school in the north of England in December and it was still dark to well past nine o'clock in the morning. It apparently reduced road deaths, but it was abandoned after three years. --[[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.147|172.70.162.147]] 09:09, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

Re. "the next vote would occur sooner or later respectively": This doesn't make sense - by definition, the vote takes place at no fixed time. Everybody votes at different times, depending on when they feel like it's 9am. They could, if they wished, do this capriciously, with no relation at all to the previous day's vote. One possible outcome of this is that the consensus view could drift so far from that of some individual views that it becomes impossible to determine which 'day' they're voting in respect of, and therefore which vote they should be counted in.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.34.239|162.158.34.239]] 11:25, 17 March 2022 (UTC)