explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

1822: Existential Bug Reports

2017-06-21T14:09:46Z

162.158.69.9:

{{comic
| number = 1822
| date = April 10, 2017
| title = Existential Bug Reports
| image = existential_bug_reports.png
| titletext = ISSUE: If we wait long enough, eventually the Earth will be consumed by the Sun. WORKAROUND: None.
}}
==Explanation==
[[Megan]] is sitting at her desk, writing an error report. Her description of the issue is fairly standard, albeit somewhat vague: A recent software update has broken the support for hardware she needs for her job. Most likely, she is saying that her OS is now reporting a piece of hardware is no longer supported. This is self-evidently problematic for her, as described in her error report.

The humor in this strip comes from her own suggested {{w|workaround}} (a short-term method of working despite the problem), which is absurd as she proposes simply waiting for the {{w|Sun}} to consume the {{w|Earth}} when it turns into a {{w|red giant}} towards the end of its lifetime approximately {{w|Sun#After_core_hydrogen_exhaustion|5 billion years}} from now.

While this would eliminate the issue, as both the hardware and software as well as Megan and her job would all cease to exist, this would not be helpful to Megan as it does not address the underlying problem of her being unable to work in the present. 5 billion years is also far in excess of the lifespan of humans{{Citation needed}} and operating systems alike. Lastly, as it does not allow Megan to actually continue her work, it's not strictly speaking a workaround.

In the title text, [[Randall]] asks for a workaround from Megan's "workaround". He writes it down as another bug report, as though it were a software problem. The answer is that there is '''none'''. Randall in his crisis see no way to prevent Earth from being consumed by the Sun. However, one possible workaround could be evacuation of the Solar System, as if humanity still exists by the time the Earth's destruction occurs, we will likely have highly advanced technology. Maybe at that time it would even be [https://qntm.org/moving possible to move the Earth], first further out to prevent both the engulfment and also the earlier evaporation of the oceans and later it could then be moved back in when the sun turns into a {{w|white dwarf}}.

Megan appears to be having an {{w|Existential_crisis|existential crisis}}, hence the title of the comic, questioning the purpose of her work if everything will eventually be destroyed anyway, albeit first in 5 billion years. And Randall continues that in the title text. Also the title text for the comic preceding this one, [[1821: Incinerator]], references existential crises, suggesting perhaps that Randall is feeling particularly existential at the moment, see more regarding this [[I'm_With_Her#Sad_comics|here]].

Megan has previously expressed such existential problems in [[220: Philosophy]], where Randall presented a solution for it. Similar she was depressed in [[1111: Premiere]], where it was the boiling away of the oceans, mentioned above, that was her concern.

==Transcript==
:[Megan is sitting in an office chair at her desk typing on her laptop. Above her are two light-gray frames with text. Above each frame is a bold header:]
:'''Issue:'''
:Recent update broke support for hardware I need for my job.

:'''Workaround:'''
:If we wait long enough, the Earth will eventually be consumed by the Sun.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Philosophy]]
[[Category:Computers]]
[[Category:Astronomy]]
[[Category:Time]]

1086: Eyelash Wish Log

2017-06-14T18:40:48Z

162.158.69.9: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1086
| date = July 25, 2012
| title = Eyelash Wish Log
| image = eyelash wish log.png
| titletext = Ooh, another one. Uh... the ability to alter any coefficients of friction at will during sporting events.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic is based on a common belief/superstition that when someone's eyelash falls out, that person can make a wish on it. This comic appears to be a page from the fictitious Wish Bureau in charge of granting said wishes. And of course the wisher is [[Black Hat]] and he has quite a few wishes, most of them based on the previous wish. A common trope in fiction is that wishing for more wishes is prohibited and for many of his wishes Black Hat attempts to circumvent that.

;January 9: That wishing on eyelashes worked
:This wish is pointless. If wishing on eyelashes worked, then this would do absolutely nothing (because it already works) and if it didn't then nothing would happen because wishing on eyelashes wouldn't work.

;January 12: A pony
:This wish functions as a test to see whether or not previous wish worked. It can be assumed that it did, as Black Hat then continued to make additional wishes. Wishing for a pony is a stereotypical wish made by very young girls; since Black Hat is an adult man (with a very dark sense of humor), the contrast is humorous. It could also be a reference to Mr. Krabs wishing for a pony (with saddlebags full of money) on the Spongebob episode "Christmas Who?".

;January 15: Unlimited wishes
:This appears to have failed, due to the typical ban of wishing for additional wishes in conventional folklore.

;January 19: Revocation of rules prohibiting unlimited wishes
:An attempt to circumvent the ban in the previous wish.

;January 20: A finite but arbitrarily large number of wishes
:Another attempt to circumvent the ban on unlimited wishes.

;January 28: The power to dictate the rules governing wishes
:Yet another attempt to circumvent the ban on unlimited wishes.

;February 5: Unlimited eyelashes
:This wish likely caused Black Hat to grow unlimited eyelashes, which could be quite inconvenient and painful. And, yes, one more attempt to circumvent the ban on unlimited wishes.

;February 6: That wish-granting entities be required to interpret wishes in accordance with the intent of the wisher
:This wish is likely a response to the previous day's misguided wish. It's actually quite a common problem that people making wishes leave them open for misinterpretation.

;February 8: That wish-granting entities be incapable of impatience
:An attempt to prevent whatever being is powerful enough to grant wishes from becoming angry with Black Hat while he tries to manipulate the system.

;February 12 #1: Unlimited breadsticks
:The first wish of this day seems to be a reference to the unlimited {{w|breadsticks}} offered at {{w|Olive Garden}}.

;February 12 #2: Veto power over others' wishes
:A power that could be interesting to have. It also very much fits with Black Hat's character.

;February 19: Veto power over others' wishes and all congressional legislation
:An improvement of the previous wish. This would be very interesting to have indeed, especially if you are Black Hat, because you could veto any federal law, a power normally entrusted only to the President.

;February 23: The power to override any veto
:This wish would allow Black Hat to override vetoes which in addition to the previous wish would effectively make him control the US legislature and, to some extent, also all other governing bodies. (Notably the UN, where the veto powers wielded by the "big 5" cannot be overridden and can have large impacts on global politics.) Note that it will not allow him to turn laws off (veto them) and on again (override the veto) at any moment, as once a bill becomes law it cannot be vetoed. Without the ability to propose legislation, Black Hat's powers are still limited. The wish may also refer back to the February 19 wish: by granting himself veto power over wishes, Black Hat just made vetoes more powerful than wishes; now he is trying to control other people's vetoes as well, lest they one-up him.

;February 27: The power to see where any shortened URL goes without clicking
:This wish relates to a common practice especially in tweets or other short length media where full length specific HTML addresses such as <tt>www.somewhere.com/articles/specificdate/the page.html</tt> would not be feasible. So a more compressed but nonsensical string of seemingly random characters is used which links to a link of the full text address. This creates some problems for people who are security or privacy conscious and prefer to be informed beforehand where they will be traveling on the Internet. The use of shortened URLs is also central to many types of trolls or practical jokes, most notably Rickrolling (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5MDnkV8DZA for an example), by directing someone to a different location than the link would initially suggest. Thus Black Hat might be wishing to be able to tell where the links go for the purpose of avoiding this sort of trolling.

;February 29: The power to control the direction news anchors are looking while they talk
:This wish likely appeals to Black Hat's mischievous side, allowing him to cause news anchors to look at the wrong camera during live broadcast. Repeatedly switching to the incorrect camera would cause havoc in the studio. Additionally, Black Hat may also attempt to get a news anchor fired by having them stare where they should not such as a female anchor's breasts.

;March 7: The power to introduce arbitrary error into Nate Silver's predictions
:A reference to {{w|Nate Silver}}, who is a former writer for {{w|Baseball Prospectus}} working on predicting baseball players' stats and now writes for {{w|Five Thirty Eight}} in which he predicts the outcome of elections based on polling data. This would grant Black Hat the power to influence the result of elections. This would tighten the Black Hat's control of the US even more.

;March 15: A house of stairs
:This wish refers to the {{w|lithograph}} {{w|House of Stairs}} by {{w|M. C. Escher}}, or perhaps another of his lithographs, {{w|Relativity (M. C. Escher)|Relativity}}

;March 23: A universe which is a replica of this one sans rules against meta-wishes
:Another attempt to circumvent the rules against wishing for more wishes.

;March 29: Free transportation to and from that universe
:While the previous wish appears to have worked, Black Hat notes a problem with it: he is still in our universe with no ways to get to the new one.

;April 2: A clear explanation of how wish rules are structured and enforced
:It appears that one or both of the previous two wishes failed, so Black Hat tries to discover exactly what is offending the Bureau. Having clear rules and how they work helps anyone finding loopholes in them.

;April 7: The power to banish people into the TV show they are talking about
:Black hat is obviously fed up of hearing people talking about certain TV shows, and would like to be able to banish them into the show, thus prevent him having to listen to those people. It would be quite horrifying for the person getting banished.

;April 8: Zero wishes
:An attempt to hack the wish-granting system by using a quite common vulnerability in input validation: an unexpected value. There may be multiple vectors this can work:
:* in many computer systems, 0 is reserved for unlimited
:* the number may be used as a divisor in some equation and this will make the system divide by zero and probably crash
:* there also may be an assertion like "number of wishes granted == 1" which would fail, again crashing the system
:* similarly, if viewed as a computer system, it is possible that the wish decrement is performed after the wish is granted, thus resulting in either -1 wishes (another common placeholder for unlimited numbers), or an integer overflow if the wish counter is stored in an unsigned integer; the overflow can result in an exception, otherwise -1 becomes represented as MAX_INT-1 - basically, an arbitrarily large number.
:However it seems the eyelash wish-granting system does proper input validation on zero because it did not crash or grant unlimited wishes
:This wish may also be a reversal of the January 9 wish. Black Hat is attempting to win his game by introducing a logical contradiction: if he gets "zero wishes", this is one wish granted; however, if it is not granted, then, de facto, he will have been granted zero wishes. This is a common technique used in logical proofs to show that an earlier assumption does not hold (in this case, the possibility of eyelash wishing to work).

;April 15: Veto power over clocks
:Midnight, April 15 is the deadline for filing income tax returns in the United States.
:It may also be that Black Hat, now in control of all human legislation, is attempting to extend this to further control also rules of nature -- in this case: time. The strange wording is likely to be due to Black Hat having consulted with the wish-hacking manual he acquired April 2.

;April 22: A pokéball that works on strangers' pets
:A reference to the cartoon and video game series {{w|Pokémon}}. A Pokéball can be thrown at a Pokémon (or in this case, a pet that the Pokéball thrower finds either annoying or cute) to capture/contain it and/or achieve ownership of it. Unless cheats are used, Pokéballs cannot be used on Pokémon owned by other people in the Pokémon games. Many players wish to obtain the often high-level Pokémon of NPCs, and Black Hat may also be interested in pranking other players by stealing their powerful Pokémon. This was later revealed to be one of Randall's wishes in the title text of [[1705: Pokémon Go]].

The title text is yet another mischievous wish. The coefficients of friction, though usually not noticed as they are unchanging, are all-important when performing physical activities — imagine trying to play hockey on a field of sand or sprinting over a sheet of ice. In addition to the difficulty going where you want or getting any balls that might be in play where you want them to go in a changing friction environment, angular momentum would also be very difficult to control.

Note, when Black Hat makes meta-wishes no follow-up wishes are logged. This would be logical as any wish made to test the meta-wish would not involve the eyelash process. Since the meta-wishes failed, no valid eyelash wish condition existed and the test wishes were not logged in the eyelash wish log.

==Transcript==
:{|
! align="left" colspan="2" |<font size="+1">Eyelash Wish Log</font>
|-style="color: gray;"
|
|align="right"|Wish bureau ID#:
|-
|
|align="right"|21118378
|-style="color: gray;"
|
|align="right"|Date range:
|-
!scope="row" style="color: gray;"|Wisher
|align="right"|Jan-Apr 2012
|}

:{|
!align="left" width="50px"|Date
!align="left"|Wish
|-
|Jan 09
|That wishing on eyelashes worked
|-
|Jan 12
|A pony
|-
|Jan 15
|Unlimited wishes
|-
|Jan 19
|Revocation of rules prohibiting unlimited wishes
|-
|Jan 20
|A finite but arbitrarily large number of wishes
|-
|Jan 28
|The power to dictate the rules governing wishes
|-
|Feb 05
|Unlimited eyelashes
|-
|Feb 06
|That wish-granting entities be required to interpret wishes in<br>accordance with the intent of the wisher
|-
|Feb 08
|That wish-granting entities be incapable of impatience
|-
|Feb 12
|Unlimited breadsticks
|-
|Feb 12
|Veto power over others' wishes
|-
|Feb 19
|Veto power over others' wishes and all congressional legislation
|-
|Feb 23
|The power to override any veto
|-
|Feb 27
|The power to see where any shortened URL goes without clicking
|-
|Feb 29
|The power to control the direction news anchors are looking while they talk
|-
|Mar 07
|The power to introduce arbitrary error into Nate Silver's predictions
|-
|Mar 15
|A house of stairs
|-
|Mar 23
|A universe which is a replica of this one sans rules against meta-wishes
|-
|Mar 29
|Free transportation to and from that universe
|-
|Apr 02
|A clear explanation of how wish rules are structured and enforced
|-
|Apr 07
|The power to banish people into the TV show they're talking about
|-
|Apr 08
|Zero wishes
|-
|Apr 15
|Veto power over clocks
|-
|Apr 22
|A Pokéball that works on strangers' pets
|}

{{Comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Black Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Nate Silver]]
[[Category:Pokémon]]
[[Category:Time]]
[[Category:Animals]]
[[Category:News anchor]]

598: Porn

2017-06-09T06:06:27Z

162.158.69.9: /* Transcript */

{{comic
| number = 598
| date = June 17, 2009
| title = Porn
| image = porn.png
| titletext = I have a thing for corrupt women.
}}

==Explanation==
[[Cueball]]'s mention of how porn did not scar him is a reference to [http://www.xxxchurch.com/ a lot of testimony on how porn has negatively affected people's lives]. Of course, the porn really did affect the way he looked at women. Due to dial-up being of such a slow speed, videos that needed to be transmitted via dial-up had to be compressed using a lossy format, which reduces file sizes substantially but also causes heavy data losses; the result being that the new decompressed file would not be of the same quality of the original uncompressed file. In this case, the lossy format eats away at the detail of the picture, which, during decompression, results in blocky artifacts in an attempt to "reconstruct" the lost data. Since he associated blocky pictures with arousal, he seems to have trouble enjoying "the friendship of the thighs" with his comparatively hi-fi girlfriend. In other words, the porn really did scar him after all.

The title text expands on this, referencing {{w|file corruption}}. It is also a pun on female "corruption," or a woman's awareness of her sexuality.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is hunched up at a computer. A circle surrounds him; the rest of the panel is black. The text is written in a square panel above the white circle.]
:I shouldn't have watched all that porn as a teenager.

:[The text is above the picture in a square frame. A computer screen is shown. It displays an on-line video player, with what appears to be a Cueball-like guy performing cunnilingus on a Megan-like girl. Five other windows (maybe ads) are also visible, though what they depict is not clear. One of them has readable text above a picture (of what appear to be a fleshlight). The rest of the text, including a heading at the top, is unreadable. There is picture with a lady with "big" hair holding her arms out. She has two black blotches on each side of her body. Maybe representing her breast, perhaps in a bra.]
:It's not that it scarred me.
:Ad text: X 10

:[A modem is shown between the two text parts. The text is in two square frames.]
:It's just that we had dial-up.
:Modem: 14.4 kbps
:And now I'm stuck with a fetish.

:[Cueball and Megan are in bed together. The text above the picture is in a square frame.]
:For video compression.
:Cueball: Can you try to look... blockier?

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]
[[Category:Sex]]
[[Category:Fleshlights]]
[[Category:Puns]]

1847: Dubious Study

2017-06-07T18:23:21Z

162.158.69.9: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1847
| date = June 7, 2017
| title = Dubious Study
| image = dubious_study.png
| titletext = Sounds fine. I looked up the Academy, and it says on their MySpace page that their journal is peer-viewed and downloaded biannually.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic alludes to the growing industry in {{w|Predatory open access publishing|disreputable academic journals}}, many of whom accept articles of dubious merit for publication without rigorous peer review on payment of a fee. In an attempt to sound legitimate (and thus attract submissions), many such publishers publish journals whose names sound mistakably close to (if not identical to) established titles. Here, the ''National Academy of Proceedings'' is a play on the highly regarded academic title {{w|Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America|
''Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA}}

The title text implies that this (at present) fictional journal has a dubious online presence in the faded internet site {{w|Myspace|MySpace}}, where the publishers make claims that may be true but are misleading: "peer-viewed" sounds similar to "{{w|peer review|peer-reviewed}}", the community-led process of establishing a paper's scientific integrity prior to publication, but in fact means only that scientists have viewed the content (as [[Cueball]] is now). Likewise, some journals might be "published biannually", whereas "downloaded biannually" implies that the journal is ''read'' only twice each year. (Or once every two years, due to phrase ambiguity. [http://blog.dictionary.com/bimonthly/] [http://www.elearnenglishlanguage.com/blog/english-mistakes/bi-vs-semi/] [http://www.getitwriteonline.com/archive/051401bisemi.htm]) Single articles in high-profile journals such as ''Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences'' would expect to receive [http://palgrave.nature.com/nchem/journal/v7/n5/nchem.2243/metrics hundreds to thousands] of views in their first year of publication. The fictional journal publisher no doubt hopes that an inexperienced scientist may mistake these claims for meaningful statements of authority, and thus submit a paper (and eventually pay a fee for its publication).

''The National Academy of Proceedings'' in fact sets itself apart from certain predatory journals by ensuring that the claims on its website are in fact factually accurate (if phrased to mislead article authors, particularly those with English as an additional language); some journals are [http://www.nature.com/news/predatory-journals-recruit-fake-editor-1.21662 openly dishonest] on their websites.

Randall also judges academic content based on superficial details in comic [[1301: File Extensions]], where he focuses on how the information is formatted (in particular if it is in TeX or with the TeX rendering-style of a scientific publication). Similarly, in [[906: Advertising Discovery]], Randall muses on how we automatically trust anything formatted in Wikipedia style. (This was later proven in a scientific study.)<ref>No it wasn't. But weren't you inclined to believe it just because of the little blue "[1]"?</ref> And on a different note, prestigious-sounding but meaningless names also appear in the title text for [[1068: Swiftkey|1068]], where {{w|SwiftKey}} suggests the phrase "Massachusetts Institute of America" to Randall.

<div style="font-size:6px;"><references/></div>

==Transcript==
[Megan is standing behind Cueball who is at a computer desk.]

:Megan: Are you sure this study is legit?
:Cueball: Sure, it says it was accepted for publication.
:Megan: Where?
:Cueball: Hmm... ''The National Academy of Proceedings''.
:Caption: If something is if formatted like a serious scientific paper, it can take me a while to realise it isn't one.

{{comic discussion}}

926: Time Vulture

2017-06-04T21:12:00Z

162.158.69.9: huh

{{comic
| number = 926
| date = July 18, 2011
| title = Time Vulture
| image = time vulture.png
| titletext = In a way, all vultures are Time Vultures; some just have more patience than others.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic is about the ''time vulture'' (hence the title), a fictional creature made up by [[Randall]]. [[Cueball]] notices that his Cueball-like friend is followed by a time vulture, making the exclamation '' Dude, you've got a time vulture.''

The primary food source for {{w|Vulture|vultures}} is carrion, or rotting meat. A time vulture, as explained by Cueball, is a type of vulture that can live for {{w|Millennium|millennia}}, spending very little energy and it can even slow down its internal clocks so time speeds past, a kind of forward time travel, to the point where its prey dies. In this way, it can thus always wait long enough for the prey to die of natural causes no matter how long it takes, as seen from the prey's point of view. So in principle they kill their prey by using aging, as Cueball explains, although in fact, like any vulture, they just find prey that has already (almost) died, as from their point of view every living thing is just about to die. But as other vultures they do not participate in the actual killing. Time vultures thus just need to locate and find any one living creature (of a reasonable size), then it becomes it’s prey as it then just waits until it dies, spending hardly any energy while it waits. Real {{w|List of soaring birds|soaring}} vultures can also stay afloat for considerable time spans without actually using any energy as they just {{w|Lift (soaring)|float}} on {{w|thermals}}.

Thus the time vulture will now keep soaring over Cueball’s friends head for the rest of his life, or until they travel on an airplane (airplanes typically cruise at an altitude too high for a vulture to fly over them), and then when he dies (whenever and of whichever cause), it will descend and feast on his carcass. This should in principle not make any difference to the friend, since most people in principle already lives with the knowledge, that they will eventually die and their body will end up being destroyed in one way or the other. Typically it will not be caused by vultures, but for instance by the fire of the {{w|Crematory}} or by the {{w|decomposition}} caused by small animals and germs in the earth we are buried in.

However, it is not very nice to be reminded of this every living second of the rest of your life thus the consternation of the friend and his question and statement; ''But what if the prey doesn't die?'' and ''I'm not about to die...''

At first, the question doesn’t make sense since there are no known examples of terrestrial animals (including humans) that are large enough to matter as prey for a vulture and can survive through the several millennia that a time vulture can wait. The few {{w|List_of_longest-living_organisms|species that can live that long}} and grow at least as large as vulture prey, such as the 2,384 acre (965 hectare) "Humongous Fungus", an individual of the fungal species ''{{w|Armillaria solidipes}}'' in the {{w|Malheur National Forest}}, thought to be between 2,000 and 8,500 years old<ref>http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2003/03/030327074535.htm Humongous Fungus A New Kind Of Individual</ref><ref>http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=strange-but-true-largest-organism-is-fungus Strange but True: The Largest Organism on Earth Is a Fungus</ref>, and a {{w|Great Basin bristlecone pine}} (''Pinus longaeva'') measured by {{w|dendrochronology|ring count}} to be over 5000 years old.<ref>http://www.rmtrr.org/oldlist.htm</ref>, are stationary, such as fungi and plants, or aquatic, such as coral and sponges. Thus, the moving land species large enough to be attractive as prey will always die within the lifespan of the vulture (as Cueball tries to explain).

However, the question actually does make sense, because the prey does not have to outlive the vulture to avoid being eaten by the vulture; it simply has to live long enough to get to an airport, get through security screening, and board a flight that goes either too fast or too high for the vulture to follow. Therefore, the vulture would get to eat the prey only if the prey died on the way to the airport, while standing outdoors on line for security screening, or while walking from the terminal to the airplane (if passengers board outdoors instead of using a {{w|jet bridge|passenger boarding bridge (Jetway)}}). It is possible that the prey might not die this soon, unless security screening lines exceed the maximum human lifespan of approximately 120 years.

And because the time vulture can slow down its internal clock, in its point of view, everyone who ever says "But, I'm not about to die", would say so right before they die; actually anything a person ever says after the time vulture has locked on to that person, happens just before they die as seen from the vulture's point of view. In humans' point of view, it could be many years after the statement was made, but for the time vulture, a human lifespan only lasts a mere moment.

Of course, since a human can travel a considerable distance in this time, even around the world, the human would be traveling at an extremely high velocity from the vulture's perspective, so the vulture would be unable to keep up and the human would escape.

It is thus really more of a philosophical comic about the fact that we all have death waiting for us, you could say it soars above our head and just wait for it to happen. And in relation to the {{w|deep time}} of the geology of the Earth or the expansion of the universe, the time it takes for people to live their lives is hardly worth mentioning...

In the title text it is stated that all real life vultures are actually a kind of time vultures, as real life vultures also sometimes spot a dying animal, not quite dead yet, and then wait for this prey to die. But time vultures are able to wait for millennia for their prey to die, whereas regular vultures do not have that kind of time, before they need to feed or land, thus the comment that some vultures have more patience than others.

Real vultures and their preying habits was referenced in [[1746: Making Friends]], directly in the title text.
<references/>

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is watching a large black bird, with apparently fractal wings, which hovers above his Cueball-like friend who walks towards Cueball and now turns to look at the bird over his shoulder.]
:Cueball: Dude, you've got a time vulture.
:Friend: Holy crap! What is it?

:[Zoom-in on Cueball who now looks at his friend who are now standing close to Cueball looking up at the bird off-panel.]
:Cueball: They're predators that use aging to kill prey.
:Friend: Huh? What do you mean?

:[The panel zooms in on the Cueball's face. The friends reply comes from off-panel.]
:Cueball: They live for millennia and use little energy. They can slow down their internal clocks so time speeds past. To hunt, they lock on to some prey, and when it stops moving, they eat it.
:Friend (off-panel): But what if the prey doesn't die?

:[Zoom out to Cueball and his friend that now look at each other.]
:Cueball: I don't think you quite understand.
:Friend: I mean, ''I'm'' not '''about''' to die...
:Cueball: From the vulture's viewpoint, everyone says that moments before they do.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]
[[Category:Time]]
[[Category:Animals]]
[[Category:Philosophy]]

1845: State Word Map

2017-06-04T06:30:23Z

162.158.69.9: Undo revision 140690 by JohnHawkinson (talk) the line's present on xkcd, the xkcd file page, this comic page, the image's page, and the image's file page. what are you talking about.

{{comic
| number = 1845
| date = June 2, 2017
| title = State Word Map
| image = state_word_map.png
| titletext = The top search for every state is PORN, except Florida, where it's SEX PORN.
}}

==Explanation==

This is another of the many comics where [[Randall]] used a map of the United States for his joke (see below for examples).

Similar in spirit to [[1138: Heatmap]], this comic pokes fun at many maps that attempt to use data to discern unique characteristics about various sub-regions, in this case {{w|U.S. state|American states}}. This map may have been inspired by [https://twitter.com/GoogleTrends/status/869624196921303040 this map] posted on Twitter by Google Trends the day before the comic was posted. Many web companies use maps like this in viral marketing, but the methodology behind them is pretty weak. The random noise in the data will mean that there will be variations between states even if there is no underlying pattern - and this can be further boosted by statistical tricks. A common one is to show the "most characteristic" or "most distinctive" term for each state. For instance, [http://www.businessinsider.com/most-common-causes-of-death-in-each-state-2014-6?IR=T the most common cause of death is heart disease or cancer] in every US state, but this makes for a boring map. Looking at the [https://www.cdc.gov/pcd/issues/2015/14_0395.htm most distinctive cause of death] produces a more interesting map, but it highlights very minor trends - Lousiana is marked as having syphilis as its most distinctive cause of death, even though [https://www.cdc.gov/nchhstp/stateprofiles/pdf/louisiana_profile.pdf only 15 Louisianans in every 100,000 have the disease] and there were only 22 syphilis deaths in the state over a whole decade. These maps can give a misleading impression of huge variation between states that doesn't really exist.

This map does not say anything real, but says:
:You can make these maps say whatever you want by adjusting the methodology. Half of the time you're just amplifying random noise because the underlying data doesn't change that much from one state to another. But whatever. Nobody checks this stuff. Just pick whatever normalization lets you make fun of Florida.

The primary joke is that the likelihood of these being the words used most often by the inhabitants of each state is low, rather than accurately representing the most used words Randall has just done exactly what he says he can do (make fun of Florida by putting whatever he wants). He also has not obtained the data from anywhere, just 'Something Something'.

The joke about Florida is that the most used word in Florida is "Florida", which would make people in Florida very self-centered.

The comic continues to make fun of Florida in the title text by saying that Florida searches for ''sex porn'' instead of ''porn'', which is not needed since porn means images and film of people having sex. This is also probably a reference to PornHub's [https://www.pornhub.com/insights/united-states-top-searches data-farming] exercises, where they have periodically released the most frequently searched term by state.

{{w|Florida}} is often the butt of many jokes, including the {{w|Florida Man}} meme and many mocking jibes regarding its {{w|2000 United States presidential election recount in Florida|messy electoral history}}. {{tvtropes|OnlyInFlorida|"Only in Florida" phenomenon}}

Randall previously used a map of the United States as the basis for his comics in [[1767: US State Names]], [[1653: United States Map]], [[1509: Scenery Cheat Sheet]] and in [[1079: United Shapes]].

==Transcript==
:[Caption above the map, with sub caption:]
:<big>Most-Used Word in Each State</big>
:Based on Something Something Search Data

:[Beneath the captions are a colorful map of the United States of America. Each state has one color, but the colors do not change from state to state, but rather between rows of states. The top "row" is purple, the second row is gray-blue, but only goes half across. Where it stops a pink row of states begins. Beneath this runs a yellow row, except it does not take California with it, since it belongs to the next purple line beneath this yellow line. Finally the two states not in the contiguous states as well as the southern states from Texas to Florida are again pink. Inside each state is written one, and only one word (or for small states the word is outside and if needed a line indicates which state it belongs to). The words size depends on the size of the state and the word. If it can fit inside the state it will be written in a font large enough to fill the entire state if possible (in one case a hyphen is used). So a short word, like "lets" in huge Texas becomes huge, but a word like "noise" which has been fitted inside small Massachusets becomes small.]

:[Here is the 50 words written in lines resembling the colors on the map (from left to right). Purple, gray-blue, pink, yellow, purple and pink:]
:You can make these maps say whatever you want
:by adjusting the methodology.
:Half the time you're just amplifying random noise.
:Because the underlying data doesn't vary that much from one state to another.
:But whatever. Nobody checks this stuff. Just pick
:whatever normal-ization lets you make fun of Florida.

==Trivia==
*When the comic was uploaded, it originally [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/images/archive/0/04/20170602113432%21state_word_map.png lacked] the state line dividing New Hampshire and Maine, but both states still had words attributed to them. It was later updated with the previously-missing line.
{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Maps]]
[[Category:Geography]]

1845: State Word Map

2017-06-03T02:21:40Z

162.158.69.9: /* Trivia */

{{comic
| number = 1845
| date = June 2, 2017
| title = State Word Map
| image = state_word_map.png
| titletext = The top search for every state is PORN, except Florida, where it's SEX PORN.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Almost there...}}

This is another of the many comics where [[Randall]] used a map of the United States for his joke (see below for examples).

Similar in spirit to [[1138: Heatmap]], this comic pokes fun at many maps that attempt to use data to discern unique characteristics about various sub-regions, in this case {{w|U.S. state|American states}}. This map may have been inspired by [https://twitter.com/GoogleTrends/status/869624196921303040 this map] posted on Twitter by Google Trends the day before the comic was posted. Many web companies use maps like this in viral marketing, but the methodology behind them is pretty weak. The random noise in the data will mean that there will be variations between states even if there is no underlying pattern - and this can be further boosted by statistical tricks. A common one is to show the "most characteristic" or "most distinctive" term for each state. For instance, [http://www.businessinsider.com/most-common-causes-of-death-in-each-state-2014-6?IR=T the most common cause of death is heart disease or cancer] in every US state, but this makes for a boring map. Looking at the [https://www.cdc.gov/pcd/issues/2015/14_0395.htm most distinctive cause of death] produces a more interesting map, but it highlights very minor trends - Lousiana is marked as having syphilis as its most distinctive cause of death, even though [https://www.cdc.gov/nchhstp/stateprofiles/pdf/louisiana_profile.pdf only 15 Louisianans in every 100,000 have the disease] and there were only 22 syphilis deaths in the state over a whole decade. These maps can give a misleading impression of huge variation between states that doesn't really exist.

This map does not say anything real, but says:
:You can make these maps say whatever you want by adjusting the methodology. Half of the time you're just amplifying random noise because the underlying data doesn't change that much from one state to another. But whatever. Nobody checks this stuff. Just pick whatever normalization lets you make fun of Florida.

The primary joke is that the likelihood of these being the words used most often by the inhabitants of each state is low, rather than accurately representing the most used words Randall has just done exactly what he says he can do (make fun of Florida by putting whatever he wants). He also has not obtained the data from anywhere, just 'Something Something'.

The joke about Florida is that the most used word in Florida is "Florida", which would make people in Florida very self-centered.

The comic continues to make fun of Florida in the title text by saying that Florida searches for ''sex porn'' instead of ''porn'', which is not needed since porn means images and film of people having sex. This is also probably a reference to PornHub's [https://www.pornhub.com/insights/united-states-top-searches data-farming] exercises, where they have periodically released the most frequently searched term by state.

{{w|Florida}} is often the butt of many jokes, including the {{w|Florida Man}} meme and many mocking jibes regarding its {{w|2000 United States presidential election recount in Florida|messy electoral history}}. {{tvtropes|OnlyInFlorida|"Only in Florida" phenomenon}}

Randall previously used a map of the United States as the basis for his comics in [[1767: US State Names]], [[1653: United States Map]], [[1509: Scenery Cheat Sheet]] and in [[1079: United Shapes]].

==Transcript==
:[Caption above the map, with sub caption:]
:<big>Most-Used Word in Each State</big>
:Based on Something Something Search Data

:[Beneath the captions are a colorful map of the United States of America. Each state has one color, but the colors do not change from state to state, but rather between rows of states. The top "row" is purple, the second row is gray-blue, but only goes half across. Where it stops a pink row of states begins. Beneath this runs a yellow row, except it does not take California with it, since it belongs to the next purple line beneath this yellow line. Finally the two states not in the contiguous states as well as the southern states from Texas to Florida are again pink. Inside each state is written one, and only one word (or for small states the word is outside and if needed a line indicates which state it belongs to). The words size depends on the size of the state and the word. If it can fit inside the state it will be written in a font large enough to fill the entire state if possible (in one case a hyphen is used). So a short word, like "lets" in huge Texas becomes huge, but a word like "noise" which has been fitted inside small Massachusets becomes small.]

:[Here is the 50 words written in lines resembling the colors on the map (from left to right). Purple, gray-blue, pink, yellow, purple and pink:]
:You can make these maps say whatever you want
:by adjusting the methodology.
:Half the time you're just amplifying random noise.
:Because the underlying data doesn't vary that much from one state to another.
:But whatever. Nobody checks this stuff. Just pick
:whatever normal-ization lets you make fun of Florida.

==Trivia==
*When the comic was uploaded, it originally [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/images/archive/0/04/20170602113432%21state_word_map.png lacked] the state line dividing New Hampshire and Maine, but both states still had words attributed to them. It was later updated with the previously-missing line.
{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Maps]]
[[Category:Geography]]

1414: Writing Skills

2017-04-21T08:43:51Z

162.158.69.9: /* Trivia */

{{comic
| number = 1414
| date = August 29, 2014
| title = Writing Skills
| image = writing_skills.png
| titletext = I'd like to find a corpus of writing from children in a non-self-selected sample (e.g. handwritten letters to the president from everyone in the same teacher's 7th grade class every year)--and score the kids today versus the kids 20 years ago on various objective measures of writing quality. I've heard the idea that exposure to all this amateur peer practice is hurting us, but I'd bet on the generation that conducts the bulk of their social lives via the written word over the generation that occasionally wrote book reports and letters to grandma once a year, any day.
}}

==Explanation==
[[Cueball]] and [[White Hat]] are discussing the positive and negative effects of young people writing on mobile phones in the vernacular of the day, {{w|Short Message Service}} (SMS).

SMS messages are one of the primary means of text communication on mobile devices, and are typically limited to 160 characters. Due to the limited space available on this and other messaging platforms, and also to decrease the time taken to write a message, {{w|SMS language}} (aka textese) developed as a form of short-hand writing. This involves the abbreviation and deliberate misspelling of words, and the use of acronyms.

Naturally, the use of this style of language has expanded into other areas, including those where brevity is not an issue, and this expansion and evolution of language is a subject of intense debate. The main viewpoints on the subject are:

*Language is being negatively degraded by the use of text speak
*The use of text speak is a natural evolution of language

Cueball's point is that "practice makes perfect". The ability to form good grammar comes from practice through a lot of writing, even when that writing is informal; hence, the SMS generation gets a lot of practice compared to previous generations, who communicated mostly with speech, over the phone, and in person, and may have written only a few letters a year. To foster talent for a major literary work, we should encourage practice, even when that practice is through informal writing such as SMS.

This idea has some real scientific background. Such as the investigation in 2009 [http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1348/026151008X320507/abstract Exploring the relationship between children's knowledge of text message abbreviations and school literacy outcomes]. In this study children 10-12 were asked to compose text messages. The number of textisms was recorded, and a positive correlation was found between use of sms abbreviations and success at literacy tests. This is then related to David Crystal's concept of "ludic" language: the playful use of language as a contribution to language development. That notion is developed here: By playing with textual language, one develops writing skills, just as by playing with balls one can develop sports skills. David Crystal explains: "Children could not be good at texting if they had not already developed great literary awareness [...] If you are aware that your texting behaviour is different, you must have intuited that there is a standard."[http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=HyNVuCxTtW0C&pg=PA162&lpg=PA162&dq=plester+wood+puja&source=bl&ots=x1kjFfoNAW&sig=moBSR9GJaQJlVBr_P9nqDJwvoxU&hl=en&sa=X&ei=rVwDVK3VBqe60QXM5YHABw&ved=0CEMQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=plester%20wood%20puja&f=false]

{{w|James Joyce}} was an celebrated Irish novelist and poet, and his novel {{w|Ulysses (novel)|Ulysses}} is considered to be one of the most important works of modernist literature. It was criticized in some quarters for the frequent lack of punctuation and ungrammatical {{w|Stream of consciousness (narrative mode)|stream of consciousness}} narrative mode. In addition to his better-known works, he wrote a number of love letters with extremely explicit content.

In the title text, Randall wishes to prove Cueball's point by analyzing and comparing bulk volumes of texts (= a {{w|Text corpus|corpus}}) written by children today and 20 years ago. Randall favors the literary ability of today's children for their everyday use of written word over the situation of the past, when children wrote only if forced to do so. The title text's second sentence is particularly long and complex (compared to almost any other title text), which will generally score much higher "on various objective measures of writing quality". Randall may be hinting that writing a lot of short title texts, like writing lot of SMSs, improves your general writing quality - further strengthening Cueball's point. The title text is also 99 words long, probably referencing a 100 word limit.

==Transcript==
:[White Hat and Cueball are walking together, White Hat is holding a newspaper or report.]
:White Hat: Weird- Another study found that kids who use SMS abbreviations actually score ''higher'' on grammar and spelling tests.
:Cueball: Why on ''earth'' is that a suprise?

:[Cueball turns to White hat (who is now out side the frame. Inserted in the frame is a panel showing several kids throwing balls.]
:Cueball: Imagine kids suddenly start playing catch literally ''all the time''. Everywhere they go, they throw balls back and forth, toss them in the air, and hurl them at trees and signs- Nearly every waking hour of their lives.

:[Cueball talks on while White Hat begins to walk.]
:Cueball: Do you think their generation will suck at baseball because they learned sloppy skills?
:White Hat: ...So you think someone will become a great writer while ''sexting?''

:[They walk together.]
:Cueball: Have you ''read'' James Joyce's love letters? The phrases "My little fuckbird" and "Arse full of farts" appear. If we want to write ''Ulysses'', our generation may not be sexting ''enough''.
:White Hat: Eww.

==Trivia==
*Randall originally misspelled surprise as "suprise" in the first panel and also wrote "writing writing" in the beginning of the title text instead of just "writing". It was initially conjectured here that the errors may have been deliberately introduced as they are relevant to the subject. However, both of these errors were corrected on the same day the comic was released and currently are not present in the live version.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:Language]]
[[Category:Baseball]]

625: Collections

2017-04-10T15:23:32Z

162.158.69.9: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 625
| date = August 19, 2009
| title = Collections
| image = collections.png
| titletext = You know what really helps an existential crisis? Wondering how much shelf space to leave for a Terry Pratchett collection.
}}

==Explanation==
[[Cueball]] enters, excited that he's managed to buy every one of author {{w|Terry Pratchett}}'s {{w|Discworld}} books for his {{w|Amazon Kindle|Kindle e-reader}}. [[Megan]] says that it seems pointless to her to build a Kindle collection.

Cueball interprets this to mean she thinks it's pointless to build a collection on an electronic device, perhaps due to the DRM ({{w|digital rights management}}) software common on these devices which can (for instance) make it difficult to transfer the files if the device breaks. (This was the subject of [[488: Steal This Comic]] and DRM has been the general subject of [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?search=DRM&go=Go&title=Special%3ASearch many xkcd comics].)

However, Megan is ''actually'' commenting on the futility of building up any kind of collection at all, since nothing we do can change the fact that we're inevitably going to die. And when we die, we always die alone - i.e. no one else can follow you on that last journey. And no matter how much you have collected (or earned) during this life that will not change. (A {{w|magpie}} is a bird traditionally thought to be drawn to collect shiny objects and bring them back to its nest.)

This view is in line with those advanced by the philosophical movement known as {{w|existentialism}} which theorizes that life has no deep, hidden meaning and hence even things that we personally feel are meaningful (like building up collections) will not change the outcome of life in the end.

Cueball obviously has seen Megan in such moods before (see [[220: Philosophy]]), and excuses himself for not noticing immediately (in the first panel) by the fact that he sometimes mistakes her {{w|existential crisis}} as technical insight. Megan deepens her crisis by pointing out that she sometimes makes the mistake to think that the {{w|universe}} cares. This is a disguised criticism of Cueball's behaviour, meaning that she would rather want him to care about her existential crisis, instead of simply brushing them off.

The title text sarcastically points out that ''Wondering how much shelf space to leave for a Terry Pratchett collection.'' (That would then be all his works not just the Discworld series...) is an excellent way to deepen an existential crisis

By the time of his death Pratchett had written 41 Discworld books and more than 70 books in total. The day after Pratchett died [[Randall]] made a tribute comic to his memory in [[1498: Terry Pratchett]].

==Transcript==
:Cueball: I now have every Discworld book!
:Megan: Eh. Building a Kindle collection seems pointless.

:Cueball: Yeah, I know the DRM means I'll probably lose them someday.
:Megan: No, pointless in general.

:Megan: Sure, you satisfy deep magpie-like urges by building neat collections, but you still die alone.

:Cueball: Sorry, sometimes I mistake your existential crises for technical insights.
:Megan: Sometimes I mistake this for a universe that cares.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Philosophy]]

Talk:1788: Barge

2017-01-23T11:39:57Z

162.158.69.9:

Any reason why the background is black in this one? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.234.34|162.158.234.34]] 16:35, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
:Black background...huh? [[User:GoonPontoon|GoonPontoon]] ([[User talk:GoonPontoon|talk]]) 18:27, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
::The xkcd Browser Android app, at least, uses black outside the rectangular comic image for this one instead of the usual white. It usually does that for dark-background comics like [[312]]. I don’t know if it gets the color from the site somehow or uses its own heuristics, but either way this isn’t the first time it’s made the “wrong” choice. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.78.148|162.158.78.148]] 18:40, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

When did the fine print at the bottom of the xkcd homepage change? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.122.102|162.158.122.102]] 18:08, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
:A few weeks ago, exactly when I'm not sure.
:Actually, [[footnote|for quite a while]] [[User:Jacky720|That's right, Jacky720 just signed this]] ([[User talk:Jacky720|talk]] | [[Special:Contributions/Jacky720|contribs]]) 21:22, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
::Where do we put this kind of information on this wiki? Very funny but not so great as the one about the humour --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 23:16, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

What exactly would cause a rocket to explode when it lands on this trick-barge (and into water)? [[Special:Contributions/141.101.105.48|141.101.105.48]] 08:52, 23 January 2017 (UTC)
:If the computer thinks it landed on a solid barge, it will turn off the engine, and the rocket will tip over, crash into the remaining hull, and explode. If the computer does not think it landed, the engine will enter the water and either go out (tip over, explode) or cause a steam explosion followed by a fuel tank explosion. [[User:Chrullrich|Chrullrich]] ([[User talk:Chrullrich|talk]]) 10:26, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

I'm not sure it is intended to be destructive, so much as scaling up of the everyday. You know how satisfying it is when you open a new jar of coffee or spread and get to punch the paper seal with a spoon? Randall has previously referred to these little pleasures, like cleaning the dryer fluff in https://xkcd.com/1346/ . [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.244|141.101.98.244]] 09:32, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

:I do not think I would take any pleasures engaging in violence against pinnipeds made of compressed wood cellulose, especially with a metallic eating utensil. Fresh dryer fluff is another story while the spread depends on the magazine. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.69.9|162.158.69.9]] 11:38, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

Talk:1788: Barge

2017-01-23T11:38:47Z

162.158.69.9:

Any reason why the background is black in this one? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.234.34|162.158.234.34]] 16:35, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
:Black background...huh? [[User:GoonPontoon|GoonPontoon]] ([[User talk:GoonPontoon|talk]]) 18:27, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
::The xkcd Browser Android app, at least, uses black outside the rectangular comic image for this one instead of the usual white. It usually does that for dark-background comics like [[312]]. I don’t know if it gets the color from the site somehow or uses its own heuristics, but either way this isn’t the first time it’s made the “wrong” choice. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.78.148|162.158.78.148]] 18:40, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

When did the fine print at the bottom of the xkcd homepage change? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.122.102|162.158.122.102]] 18:08, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
:A few weeks ago, exactly when I'm not sure.
:Actually, [[footnote|for quite a while]] [[User:Jacky720|That's right, Jacky720 just signed this]] ([[User talk:Jacky720|talk]] | [[Special:Contributions/Jacky720|contribs]]) 21:22, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
::Where do we put this kind of information on this wiki? Very funny but not so great as the one about the humour --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 23:16, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

What exactly would cause a rocket to explode when it lands on this trick-barge (and into water)? [[Special:Contributions/141.101.105.48|141.101.105.48]] 08:52, 23 January 2017 (UTC)
:If the computer thinks it landed on a solid barge, it will turn off the engine, and the rocket will tip over, crash into the remaining hull, and explode. If the computer does not think it landed, the engine will enter the water and either go out (tip over, explode) or cause a steam explosion followed by a fuel tank explosion. [[User:Chrullrich|Chrullrich]] ([[User talk:Chrullrich|talk]]) 10:26, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

I'm not sure it is intended to be destructive, so much as scaling up of the everyday. You know how satisfying it is when you open a new jar of coffee or spread and get to punch the paper seal with a spoon? Randall has previously referred to these little pleasures, like cleaning the dryer fluff in https://xkcd.com/1346/ . [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.244|141.101.98.244]] 09:32, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

:I do not think I would take any pleasures engaging in violence against pinnipeds made of compressed wood cellulose. Fresh dryer fluff is another story while the spread depends on the magazine. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.69.9|162.158.69.9]] 11:38, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

Talk:1784: Bad Map Projection: Liquid Resize

2017-01-11T06:16:53Z

162.158.69.9:

I'm not too experienced with PhotoShop, but I think that the tool is a selective delete that he used on water bodies, so removing most of the water while maintaining relative shapes and sizes?
Mostly just from the fact that India looks desiccated.
[[Special:Contributions/162.158.166.197|162.158.166.197]] 05:06, 11 January 2017 (UTC)Girish
Australia is pretty mutilated, so I think the tool was used on land too [[Special:Contributions/162.158.178.111|162.158.178.111]] 05:55, 11 January 2017 (UTC)

Where are Laos and Cambodia missing? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.246.11|108.162.246.11]] 06:14, 11 January 2017 (UTC)

The tool removes spaces of uniform color automagically. If you have big countries like India or Australia, they get caught by the algorithm as well. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.69.9|162.158.69.9]] 06:16, 11 January 2017 (UTC)