explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

621: Superlative

2023-03-05T19:55:43Z

162.158.34.74: /* Explanation */ Answering the "Incomplete" request. (First time I've seen one added, rather than removed (or re-added due to premature removal..!)

{{comic
| number = 621
| date = August 10, 2009
| title = Superlative
| image = superlative.png
| titletext = Stay while I recount the crazy TF2 kill I managed yesterday, my friends.
}}

==Explanation==
The comic parodies a famous advertisement campaign for the {{w|Dos Equis}} beer brand. In the campaign, {{w|Jonathan Goldsmith}} plays "{{w|The Most Interesting Man in the World}}", a suave elderly gentleman with a number of astonishing life experiences and skills. The campaign's format generally includes the narrator presenting hyperbolic descriptions of the man's accomplishments, followed by the man delivering his signature catchphrase, "I don't always drink beer, but when I do, I prefer Dos Equis.", which has been widely adopted as an {{w|internet meme}}.

[[Cueball]] plays the antithesis of the protagonist in the campaign: the ''least'' interesting man in the world. Unlike the stories in the advertisement, his affairs tend to bore the listeners. Being the generic everyman, he possesses no outstanding capabilities at all. While the original is said to "speak French... in Russian", Cueball seems to have forgotten his French altogether. He also has apparently nothing of interest to tell, either in real life or in his blog. Instead, he will talk away about his weird dreams and his success in video games. Moreover, he is unable to stand too much beer and therefore absolutely ill-qualified to advertise it.

A {{wiktionary|superlative}} is a form of description that conveys the quality of being an extreme example (typically the most or least, in some way), and while the comic makes clear that this individual is not extraordinary in so many ways, his sheer ''blandness'' and lack of any exceptionalism is (in its own way) a very extreme position, hence the title describing this obviously unsuperlative individual as "Superlative", though there may be a small complication to this viewpoint that is related to the thwarted search for {{w|Interesting number paradox|'boring' numbers}}.

The title text is a reference to the slogan of the campaign "Stay thirsty, my friends." It also references {{w|Team Fortress 2}} (TF2), a multi-platform, multi-player {{w|First-person shooter}} game.

==Transcript==
:He has dreams.
:[Cueball is gesturing to Megan.]
:Cueball: I was in this weird cross between work and my old house...
:Which he'll tell you ''all'' about.
:He can speak French.
:Or could in high school, anyway.
:A little.
:Cueball: Man, I knew all these tenses and stuff once.
:His blog has four posts, all apologies for not posting more.
:[Cueball is sitting at a desk, typing.]
:Cueball: Sorry, I've been trying to think of stuff to put here.
:He is
:The least interesting man in the world.
:[Cueball is sitting at a table. Megan and Ponytail are paying no attention to him.]
:Cueball: I don't always drink beer, but when I do, I stick to a glass or two. Any more and I feel sick.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Internet]]
[[Category:Video games]]

1813: Vomiting Emoji

2022-12-27T00:06:16Z

162.158.34.74: /* Transcript */

{{comic
| number = 1813
| date = March 20, 2017
| title = Vomiting Emoji
| image = vomiting_emoji.png
| titletext = My favorite might be U+1F609 U+1F93F WINKING FACE VOMITING.
}}
==Explanation==

This comic relates to the recent [http://unicode.org/emoji/charts-beta/emoji-released.html Emoji v5.0 proposal] for [http://unicode.org/versions/Unicode10.0.0/ Unicode 10.0] which includes a [http://unicode.org/emoji/charts-beta/full-emoji-list.html#1f92e vomiting emoji]. [[Cueball]] initially states that the newly proposed {{w|emoji}} look good, until [[Megan]] points out the existence of the vomiting emoji. While Cueball finds this distasteful, Megan rather seems to like it, going as far as suggesting rather than a single emoji, it should be possible to have a whole array of vomiting emojis by combining the vomiting action with other existing emojis.

: ''Note: Some of the emojis below may not display correctly if your browser or operating system doesn't implement the latest Unicode standard.''

Unicode is the computing industry standard for representing text. More recent additions have included emoji characters, such as grinning face (😁) or hands clapping (👏). Each Unicode character is assigned a numerical code, usually written in {{w|hexadecimal}} notation. For example, the grinning face emoji is assigned the code U+1F601, and the clap symbol is assigned U+1F44F. Unicode also supports "combining modifiers" which allow, among other uses, placing accents on letters, adding decorations to other emojis, or changing the colors of flags or skin tones. For example, letters such as A, O, or n together with a combining tilde (U+303) modifier result in those letters having a tilde glyph on top (Ã, Õ, ñ), and various emojis for people, such as 👨 or 👩, together with the medium-dark skin tone modifier (U+1F3FE), results in those same people with altered skin color (👨🏾, 👩🏾).

Along the same lines, Megan's proposal is to assign the code U+1F93F to be a combining modifier indicating vomiting. Under this proposal, it would theoretically be possible to combine a vomiting modifier with any emoji to produce a vomiting version of that emoji. Six examples are given in the last panel, with each being progressively more nonsensical. The title text continues this and gives another example of a ridiculous combination.

The examples given in the comic are:
* '''Vomiting Cowboy''' (🤠): This seems reasonable and not much worse off than the regular one.
* '''Vomiting Statue of Liberty''' (🗽): Given the turbulent political climate in present-day America, this emoji might see a lot of use by opinionated folks.
* '''Vomiting Dove''' (🕊): As the dove is usually seen as a symbol of peace, a vomiting one could be construed as an omen for war or used to depict strong objection to ongoing conflicts. It may also reference a tendency for birds to drop unpleasant things on people below. It is worth noting that pigeons are a subspecies of doves so a dove emoji might as well represent a flying pigeon.
* '''Vomiting Moon''' (🌛): In cartoons or fairy tales, the {{w|Moon}} is often {{w|anthropomorphized}}, however depicting it as vomiting would be extraordinary since that would not be in line with normal child-friendly material.
* '''Vomiting rocket ship''' (🚀): This might be a reference to the "{{w|Vomit Comet}}" aircraft that astronauts train on. Also, space travel and travel in general (e.g. in cars, roller coasters, airplanes) can all be associated with vomiting. However, since the cabins of rocket ships should be airtight when in flight, vomit coming out of a flying rocket would be quite strange. While it would be hazardous to have vomit floating around in a weightless environment, the situation would more usually be prevented by carefully containing the vomit, and/or by using anti-nausea medication.
* '''Vomiting Hand''' (✋): This one is just bizarre{{Citation needed}}. Maybe it could be used in the context of some horror flick?
* '''Winking Face Vomiting''' (😉, title text): This suggests that the context in which a wink is used is combined with vomiting to humorous effect.

Most of these Emoji could be seen as related to the political situation in the USA at the moment, see more [[Sad comics#Vomiting_Emoji|here]].

Assigning Unicode characters to emojis has been controversial historically due to the fact that Unicode was created as a standard for text. Emojis, which are essentially drawings of people or objects, aren't typically perceived as parts of text, and so leads some to object to co-opting the standard for non-text things. Using combining modifiers to further expand emojis is also seen as an abuse of the original purpose of modifier characters. As an alternative, [http://unicode.org/emoji/charts/emoji-zwj-sequences.html emoji zero-width joiner sequences] are in use, where an emoji is encoded as a series of simpler emoji and zero-width joiners. In practice, this would probably be how the above characters would be implemented, instead of with a combining modifier. Jokes that make fun of Unicode, involving emojis that shouldn't exist or inappropriate combinations thereof, are fairly common on the Internet.

In the title text of [[1726: Unicode]], [[Randall]] mentioned the proposed "{{w|brontosaurus}}" emoji in Unicode. And shortly before that Megan talked in similarly drawn emojis in [[1709: Inflection]]. In general emoji has become a [[:Category:Emoji|recurrent topic]] on xkcd.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball, looking at his smartphone, approaches Megan who is sitting in an office chair at a desk working on her laptop. Next to Megan's reply is a large yellow faced emjoi with closed eyes and a large open mouth from where a thick green stream of vomit is gushing out. ]
:Cueball: The proposed emoji for Unicode 10.0 look good.
:Megan: Hmm.
:Megan: 🤮 "U+1F92E Face with open mouth vomiting"

:[Cueball is holding his phone down looking at Megan's screen.]
:Cueball: Eww.
:Megan: Really, "vomiting" should be a combining modifier, so you can use it to make a vomiting version of any emoji.
:Cueball: Umm.
:Megan: I'm gonna write up a proposal.

:[Megan's proposal with six examples of vomiting emoji. All six are colorful also apart from the green stream of vomit gushing out of mouth or holes when there is no mouth. Above the list is Megan's suggested title for the modifier, and the title for each emoji is next to them in the list. The cowboy is like the original version but with a hat. The Statue of Liberty is blue and bends forward to vomit. The gray dove has lost its green olive branch, now above its head. The yellow moon is in first quarter and has a face. The red and blue rocket has fire out the rear and the vomit out an open hatch. The yellow hand has a big hole in its center.]
:<big>U+1F93F Vomiting modifier</big>
:U+1F920 U+1F93F Vomiting cowboy
:U+1F5FD U+1F93F Vomiting Statue of Liberty
:U+1F54A U+1F93F Vomiting dove
:U+1F31B U+1F93F Vomiting moon
:U+1F680 U+1F93F Vomiting rocket ship
:U+270B U+1F93F Vomiting hand

==Trivia==
Two years after this comic was published, in 2019, Unicode added U+1F93F in Unicode 12.0 and Emoji 12.0, but instead used the code for a [https://emojipedia.org/diving-mask/ diving mask emoji].

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Emoji]]
[[Category:Smartphones]]
[[Category:Unicode]]

2701: Change in Slope

2022-11-22T10:44:16Z

162.158.34.74: /* Explanation */ how it works

{{comic
| number = 2701
| date = November 21, 2022
| title = Change in Slope
| image = change_in_slope_2x.png
| imagesize = 656x371px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Squinting at a graph is fine for getting a rough idea of the answer, but if you want to pretend to know it exactly, you need statistics.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a SIDEWAYS STATISTIC. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

The comic is a tip for detecting changes in slopes over a {{w|scatter plot}} of data. This is a common requirement in exploratory statistics for comparing trends in a series — finding the cutoff where the slope changes may reveal valuable information about the data.

The comic compares two methods. Firstly, a novice method — by 'doing a bunch of statistics'- i.e, applying various statistical tools to analyze the data and figure out the quantitative change in slope. This results in two equations for the trendlines above and below a given value, a box plot, a histogram, and a line chart. It is unknown exactly what methods the novice used to figure out the change in slope in the data. Possibilities include calculating the [https://stackoverflow.com/a/45063636 derivatives] (which probably won't work well on noisy data such as shown), or the [https://stackoverflow.com/a/71744293 gradients], or using a [https://stackoverflow.com/a/47522444 Savitzky-Golay filter or piecewise linear smoothing spline fits].

The other is the so-called 'expert' method, which involves [https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/525939879805190154/1044395695525875712/xkcd_sideways.png tilting the page the graph is printed on to view changes in slope] better. For small changes in an underlying trend, similar to that apparently shown in the comic, direct visual inspection cannot always identify or even reveal the effect. The comic shows, however, that by taking the page and rotating it in just the right way, {{w|Perspective (graphical)|no longer flat on}} to the observer, a change in slope is more clearly visible to the naked eye. Ironically, tilting the comic to make the original roughly resemble the perspective of the 'tilted' version graph shown in the comic shows that the right-hand panel is slightly exaggerated for visual effect.

The effect works because tilting an image results in it appearing to be scaled down, while not changing the location of points within the image. This means that for computerised data, the same effect can be achieved without making a physical copy of the graph by resizing the image, or by changing the range on the axes so that the points appear closer together.

However, applying such an approach to data plots can run into errors — the primary one being parallax error from the oblique viewing angle causing the observer to not necessarily identify or clearly find the point at which the slope changes. It also does not reveal any data about the quantitative value of the change in slope, merely proving the existence of one. Furthermore, noisy data might show an apparent slope change that is not representative of an actual change in the underlying data, so even more advanced [https://www.danielsoper.com/statcalc/calculator.aspx?id=103 statistics testing the hypothesis of whether an apparent slope change is real] may likely be a good idea.

The title text then goes on to say that, while such a trick is useful to identify that there is some change in slope, in order to ''pretend'' to know it exactly one must revert to statistics (the "novice method") to obtain some form of information, defeating some of the premise of the comic. This at least produces a semblance of statistical rigor although, once an answer appears obvious, data could be interpreted to reach an answer that you are now expecting rather than revealing something of more statistically useful significance.

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

:How to detect a change in the slope of your data

:[First column, on the left]
:Novice method:
:[A graph, with dots forming a rough line, math formulas, and sub graphs]
:Do a bunch of statistics

:[Second column, on the right]
:Expert method:
:[Perspective view of the previous graph, with the legend "Hey look, it bends here" and an arrow pointing to the graph]
:Tip the graph sideways

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Scatter plots]]
[[Category:Bar charts]]
[[Category:Line graphs]]
[[Category:Statistics]]