explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Talk:3039: Human Altitude

2025-01-18T21:14:30Z

162.158.74.118:

I splurged a few paragraphs to try to deal with each detail (and a few things not ''directly'' obvious, but related). However, it's a mess and here (UK) it's basically past my bedtime and I have an early(ish) start tomorrow so... I know that if I had spent another half hour on it, it would have been tighter (less florid?), and would be linking to Yuri Gagarin, Montgolfier, Hubble, man-capable chinese kites, the likes of George Cayley, etc. And I never actually ''mentioned'' the Title Text, though the last paragraph I put is sort of relevent so might just need an "In the title text, it says ..., and, as it happens, ...". I shall leave it up to the editing-gods as to whether my sacrifice is acceptable or entirely in vain... Such is life! And so, goodnight. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.205.119|172.68.205.119]] 01:39, 18 January 2025 (UTC)
:I linked up a couple Wikipedia articles with [[Template:w]] and wish I could add all of those things, but alas: today’s the last day of the semester on a 3 day weekend here in the States and I’ve been sick all week. I’m going to be going now to work on my missing assignments and hopefully finish them, really wish that we can finish up the explanation as quick as we usually do! '''[[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]][[User talk:42.book.addict|Talk to me!]]''' 01:48, 18 January 2025 (UTC)
It seems strange how jagged this is and how low the lows are. Since roughly 1930 (certainly since 1940 at the very latest) someone, somewhere in the world has been flying in an airplane, at a minimum of probably 4.5km for the lowest person. And since like 1955 there's always at least someone over like 7km roughly, and since the jet age like 10km+. This isn't the kind of carelessness that xkcd is known for, unless I'm missing something.[[User:Kchinger|Kchinger]] ([[User talk:Kchinger|talk]]) 03:27, 18 January 2025 (UTC)kchinger
:The Apollo part of the graph implies an at least weekly, probably daily or finer resolution. Aviation unlikely reached 4.5 km above surface on a daily basis until transpacific high altitude airliners became a regularity well after WW2. Planes of the 1930s could achieve greater heights, but usually only attempted when moutains forced them to (so it was not height above ground) and high altitude Zeppelin bombers of WW1 did not fly on a daily basis, sometimes leaving week long gaps between campaigns. However, the pre-airplane lows are still wrong: Pole vaulting has been documented since ancient egypts for crossing of crevices, bodies of water, etc. giving a guaranteed minimum of 2-3 meters. Cliff jumping in the 10s of meters range is also likely to have occured daily somewhere on the globe long before the 20th century and I would not be surprised if some tyrannt created a phase of more than 100 m daily by intensive cliff throwing. (As with the ancient chineses kite observation flights, it might be interesting to extend this graph well into the past, at least up to Spartan postnatal parenthood planning.) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.250.194|172.70.250.194]] 16:06, 18 January 2025 (UTC)
::''Aviation unlikely reached 4.5 km above surface on a daily basis until transpacific high altitude airliners became a regularity well after WW2. Planes of the 1930s could achieve greater heights, but usually only attempted when moutains forced them to...'' The limit is the humans. Past 10k or 15k feet (~4.5km) they go loopy then pass out. Pressurized cabins are costly. Wiley Post flew past 17,000 ft (to 50kft!) in 1934 with a pot on his head, after two other suits split their seams. War forces high flight: the B-17 crews had oxygen bottles and electric heat suits; they did fly about every day but thin air was the least of their problems. B-25 was pressurized but not nice inside. The Constellation (the world's finest tri-motor) was one of the first shirtsleeve cabins, to 24,000 ft (7,300m), but was a very premium ride. The DC-2, DC-3, and DC-4 were unpressurized (a few test DC-4s tried it). Piston engine output tends to zero by 55k ft, even with supercharger. The real move to high altitude comes with turbojets (Comet is credited with first pressurized production passenger plane), Boeing 707, Caravelle, DC8, etc which often work better far above 20k feet. --[[User:PRR|PRR]] ([[User talk:PRR|talk]]) 20:09, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

For the "Apollo bits", I actually have (fairly) precise data, but the question is whether the spiky bits resemble the reality at all. Here's a version with accurately positioned timestamps, but with the the altitude normalised. Launch is at bottom, time in lunar orbit is at top. To keep the data short I have removed the 'oscillation in orbit" of them all (except for 13, which ''just'' looped around and came straight back out again), and the track of the landers (as never really gets any ''further'' away, averaged over a lunar orbiter orbit) as these things aren't really isn't visible if overviewing the whole program. Blue=orbit-only, Green=orbit-with-landing, Magenta is 13's mission. All sat on a month-start scale (thicker lines are year-starts), for reference.
{{cot|Apollo.SVG}}
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no"?>
<svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="25174 0 1499 500" >
<g id="monthlines" opacity="0.15" stroke="black">
<line x1="25204" y1="0" x2="25204" y2="500" stroke-width="5" id="1/Jan/1969"/>
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<g id="missionLines" fill="none">
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{{cob}}
If you want to see it, copy the text into a file, save/rename as a .svg and open it in any modern browser. (There are other ways of opening SVGs, but that's probably the easiest way for most of those who don't have a preference.) ...to make it look more like the comic, I suggest you make the stroke-width for the missionLines group '''''huuuuuuge!!!!''''' ;) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.118|162.158.74.118]] 21:14, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

Some of the text (both in the explanation and the "into snow or water" in the title text) seems to suggest a "who wasn't shortly killed" that isn't stated in the chart. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.246.150|172.69.246.150]] 05:55, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

:"into snow or water" is in the title text which is about surviving... --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 13:05, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

I wonder why the chart does not consider parachutes? They might have been available around the same time as balloons, maybe earlier? [[User:Captain Nemo|Captain Nemo]] ([[User talk:Captain Nemo|talk]]) 12:29, 18 January 2025 (UTC)
:A parachutist can onyl start as high as his ballon, so that would make no difference until paragliding became a sport (way too late). However, most highs are still utterly wrong due to the omission of high altitude balooning from the mid-19th century onwards: It seems that no true airplane has ever beaten older baloon records. AT ALL. In fact, among all the objects capable of aerodynamic flight, only the X-2, the X-15 and the Space Shuttle set new 'maximum manned altidude' records going beyond aerostats of their time. However, all three ascended in balistic, rocketpowered flight, only using the lift of their wings during return. So humanitys pinnacle has always been defined by people thrown of cliffs, people attached to kites, peoples in baloons or people on rockets. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.250.194|172.70.250.194]] 16:06, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

huh. no joke comic. [[user talk:lett‪herebedarklight|youtu.be/miLcaqq2Zpk]] 15:43, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuan_Huangtou Yuan Huangtou] is a strong contender for the question in the title text. As a punishment he was sent to the sky on a big kite which was then let go. He came down 2.5 km away and survived. It seems entirely possible that he may have reached altitudes of several hundred meters. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.95.196|162.158.95.196]] 19:05, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

User talk:FaviFake

2025-01-17T22:51:27Z

162.158.74.118: /* Interesting streamlined 'table furniture', but... */

==The huge what if? index==
{{notice|<big><big><big>COORDINATION FOR WHAT IF? (Pinned to top of page for now)</big></big></big>}}

Hey! This is intended to be a space to coordinate the merging of the two tables. I see that [[User:1234231587678]] and [[User:Apollo11]] have been helping us create the two tables! I'm messaging you to coordinate a little bit. Since we're the 3 most active editors, let's coordinate!

My idea for the table was the following: there would be one single sortable table instead of two, and the information density would be very high. There were the columns I had in mind:

* N

* Date (the date YYYY-MM-DD, and then includes week after prev. article)

* Thumbnail

* Title (hyperlinked)

* Reader's question

* Randall's answer

* Book - in something like this format: '''WI?2, nr. 40''' (BOOK1,2,3, nr. ARTICLE NUMBER), which is easily sortable by book - for unnumbered, use the assumed number with an asterisk like this: 69* - this column would also be color coded, by book - this would also contain the title in the book if different - empty when not in any book

* YT (the date YYYY-MM-DD, and then a hyperlinked link with the YT title. if the title is the same, don't repeat it) empty when not on YT

----

I realise my mistake was listing the things we had to do together with the huge task, merging the tables! So what happened is you both contributed, but each of you contribued to a different table. In an attempt to solve this, i have created my own table, which is ready to receive the two additional columns!

'''I believe this third table (available atis the best option for us to work on the index together, so that once it has the 2 additional columns and contains all the articles, we can put it on the blog page and delete the [[What If? chapters]] table. What do you think?'''

I have also made other adjustments:

*Made the Date column nowrap, so the date doesn't wrap around, and made the first column (N) centered and '''bold'''

*Turned each Reader's question cell italic, and added quotation marks to the start and end of each cell. Ex: HOW OLD? becomes ''"HOW OLD?"''

* In the Randall's answer column, split the rows into one per question. For example, if there are 5 bullet points in 1 cell, split the "Reader's question" and the "Randall's answer" columns into 5 rows for that particular Article so that each question has its own mini-row.

*Added file link to all rows so you can just click to go straight to the upload file page.

*<s>'''Downgrade''': titles aren't hyperlinked</s> ''[Update: I manually hyperlinked all of them!]''

*'''Downgrade''': the last ~100 articles are missing. I'll try to add them the day after tomorrow! --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 17:06, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

::I saw your message, and this would be a good idea to coordinate. Maybe also add the missing "Peptides" that was accidentally released on the blog, as index 153 (i think) or have two articles with the same index number, just putting "current" for the current article. --[[User:1234231587678|1234231587678]] ([[User talk:1234231587678|talk]]) 20:47, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

::Also I think the "0w later" or "1w later" on the comics looks a bit odd, maybe remove them entirely? The dates are already present.--[[User:1234231587678|1234231587678]] ([[User talk:1234231587678|talk]]) 20:49, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

:::Thanks for replying! I LOVE the idea of inserting the Peptides article directly in the index. It would technically make it a little less official, but I'm all for it. It looks and feels like a proper article.

:::I also fully agree with you regarding the '''1w later''' line! I do like the idea of seeing the frequency right from the index, but it's too much right now. My idea is to remove the "1w later" part, but leave it in for the articles that aren't released a week after the previous one. For example, this would keep the '''2w later''' and '''0w later''' lines for the articles that have them, but declutter the date cells of the "normal" ones. What do you think?

:::I can't do it right now, but it should be easy. We can also delay it until all articles are on the table, so we only have to do it once. Btw, I hope to get all the articles on the table by the day after tomorrow or the day after that. Meanwhile, you or other editors can add the 2 columns (Book and YT)! --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 22:14, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

----

----

{{TOC}}<big><big><big><big>Hey there, feel free to '''[https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=User_talk:FaviFake&action=edit&section=new send me a message]''' :)</big></big></big></big>
== Objects table ==
Thanks for replying. The current table in the main text looks good, but still it is a ''description'' or just ''enumeration'' of game objects, not an ''explanation'' (or in some cases: partly an explanation). Supposing we keep the current structure, it is possible to add explanations for the planet names in the '''Explanation''' column. For example, first sentence of the second paragraph is a good ''explanation'' for the Uzumaki planet's name. On the other hand, Andal has only a ''description'' (what it looks like and what features are present on the surface) and no ''explanation'' (that it refers to Animorphs series of books). There's also a question where one should put explanations of items and messages. Some do not need an explanation ('You found a stick'), but most do: what they mean and what they refer to, both in xkcd context (such as when there's a comic about the thing) and in general context. I hope you understand the difference between ''description'' and ''explanation''. Maybe there's also some misunderstanding resulting from a language barrier; English is not my native language.

What is also missing in the table are many structures or objects found on the planets and, most importantly, dialogues or monologous of the characters, which contain many puns and references, and also hints for the player. There's simply no place for them in the current structure. Making more columns may be messsy. That's why I proposed making several tables covering different aspects.

Please take my remarks as proposals to improve the structure and not as a criticism or request for you to make everything right and fill every cell of the table. I think we need to create a clear structure for everyone else to fill in with details; but also to provide good examples to follow.

Technical remarks:
* In my opinion, the filename column is not needed, it does not appear anywhere while playing, it's in source code only. Better remove it to have more horizontal space for the rest. The names given to the planets by the editors of the explanation page shown in the Description column are fine.
* Coordinates are also not useful for a regular player, who does not use some Javascript addition/cheats, maybe remove it as well; textual directions in '''Explanation''' column are sufficient.

-- [[User:Malgond|Malgond]] ([[User talk:Malgond|talk]]) 19:59, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
:> Thanks for replying. The current table in the main text looks good, but still it is a ''description'' or just ''enumeration'' of game objects, not an ''explanation'' (or in some cases: partly an explanation). Supposing we keep the current structure, it is possible to add explanations for the planet names in the '''Explanation''' column. For example, first sentence of the second paragraph is a good ''explanation'' for the Uzumaki planet's name. On the other hand, Andal has only a ''description'' (what it looks like and what features are present on the surface) and no ''explanation'' (that it refers to Animorphs series of books).
:Hey! Yeah, that's the state of the table ''right now'', and I 100% percent agree with everything you're saying here. All planets and items that need an explanation should be explained and not just described. I mostly just copied and pasted the "planet description/explanations" from the old list to the table: creating the table was way more painful than i thought. I was actually surprized to see that nobody explained what Andal referred to, but I don't know anything about it so more knowledgeable people will have to chip in on that

:>There's also a question where one should put explanations of items and messages. Some do not need an explanation ('You found a stick'), but most do: what they mean and what they refer to, both in xkcd context (such as when there's a comic about the thing) and in general context. I hope you understand the difference between ''description'' and ''explanation''.
:I do! And I wish other people could help here. I'm not sure if you've seen it, but this is the banner i put above the table:

----
'''ALL ITEM EXPLANATIONS NEED TO BE TRANSFERRED FROM THE OLD PLANET LIST TO THE NEW TABLE''' 
We are currently switching from a disorganized list (below, inside the green banner) to the new organized table, but the explanations for specific items are missing from the new table. Please help by copying the item explanations from the old list and adding them to the new table ''in this format:'' 
<code>The item message &ndash; <nowiki>''Where to find it &ndash; Explanation, such as references etc''</nowiki></code> 
Example: You found a cheese platter (Your tanks recharge faster) – ''Next to the cell tower – The cheese is a reference to [https://example.com 1234: Cheese]''
----
'''OTHER ISSUES:'''
* upgrades that end in "???" need to be replaced by the exact upgrade message shown to the user.
* the "Tiles (X, Y)" column for planet coordinates is empty

:As you can see, the explanations should be put right next to the items and messages. Unfortunately no one has started to add them to the table yet

:> Maybe there's also some misunderstanding resulting from a language barrier; English is not my native language.
:Your English is excellent :)

:> dialogues or monologous of the characters, which contain many puns and references, and also hints for the player. There's simply no place for them in the current structure. Making more columns may be messsy. That's why I proposed making several tables covering different aspects.
Almost all the dialogues are on the [[2765: Escape Speed/Transcript]] page, so I guess they should be added there. I don't know if they're already here, I haven't looked at it enough
:: The transcript is not the place for explanations. Puns and references shall be explained elsewhere. I continue working on the transcript but there's still quite a way to go. -- [[User:Malgond|Malgond]] ([[User talk:Malgond|talk]]) 5 May 2023

:> Please take my remarks as proposals to improve the structure and not as a criticism or request for you to make everything right and fill every cell of the table. I think we need to create a clear structure for everyone else to fill in with details; but also to provide good examples to follow.
:Yeah; i totally get everything you said. In my last reply I think I was a bit too rude for some reason, maybe it's because I just finished the table and was tired.

:>* In my opinion, the filename column is not needed, it does not appear anywhere while playing, it's in source code only. Better remove it to have more horizontal space for the rest. The names given to the planets by the editors of the explanation page shown in the Description column are fine.
:* Coordinates are also not useful for a regular player, who does not use some Javascript addition/cheats, maybe remove it as well; textual directions in '''Explanation''' column are sufficient.
I was heavily inspired by the table in the [[2712: Gravity]] explanation, which included these. I kind of agree that the filename could be removed, and the filenames could be added to the planet name or explanation, i didn't think about that. About the tiles, someone might use them someday, but if the column keeps remaining empty, i don't mind seeing it disappear

:I really liked your ideas, if you don't mind I'll copy and paste this discussion in the actual comic discussion page and see what others think --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 21:37, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

::Update: I found a way and added all the coordinates, and moved the planet filenames to the Planet Name column to make more space for the other columns :)

::: Hi, what about dividing planets and objects like in [[User:Malgond/Drafts/Escape_Speed|my experiment]]? There's plenty of horizontal space for explanations and the entries are quite compact vertically. I also think about color-coding the different Types of game objects. -- [[User:Malgond|Malgond]] ([[User talk:Malgond|talk]]) 5 May 2023

::::Hmm, I think it looks a little messy and maybe too complicated. Do any other comics have two different tables? Also, I'm personally not a fan of mixing items, landscapes, and people. I think most people reading the table are there to get an overview of the planets and what they contain. Do we really have to explain everything in such detail? [[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 14:09, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

:::::We do not have to follow other explanations too closely, we could use a new form if it seems clearer and better. The current form has no place neither for explaining items nor for dialogues/monologues. More columns could be problematic (specifically in today's world of high and narrow screens of smartphones). Should we explain everything? Well, it us up to collective "us". Personally, I would like someone explain a few puns/dialogues I do not understand.
:::::For now, there's only a handful of people still interested in somehow finishing the explanation for this huge comic. Maybe if we two can agree on some format we could put it in discussion page and ask for votes. (Discussion needs a cleanup, BTW). -- [[User:Malgond|Malgond]] ([[User talk:Malgond|talk]]) 22:00, 7 May 2023 (UTC)

:::::Hey, I'm back. I see you're enhancing your example table, and iI was wondering, do you plan to move your edits to the actual article after you're done and use the test to see how the formatting looks? Isn't it easier to just add them to the main page directly? Just wondering. If you want I can help you port them over :)
:::::Keeping the contents of the table on your talk page and then porting them over afterwards could lead to a loss of information added after you started editing your user page [[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 13:11, 13 May 2023 (UTC)

::::::I'm back too. Yes, I intend to put it in the main article, but I am a bit shy to replace a lot of your work; I've asked for opinions in the talk page. Let's see how it sorts out. Maybe someone has a still better idea. -- [[User:Malgond|Malgond]] ([[User talk:Malgond|talk]]) 21:50, 13 May 2023 (UTC)

::::::Oh. I think the structure of the current table in the article is better than the one you've been working on: for example, it's easier to sort for items, is more compact, and is just one. Why don't you just add a "transcript" column like the table on [[2712: Gravity]] to put what things and people say, and add the rest of the information on the respective columns? Personally, I think you're making it a little bit too complicated. [[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 15:26, 14 May 2023 (UTC)

== Haltones ==

"They're not **predominantly** gray, the two main colors are just white and black. Sometimes he uses the gray color just like when he uses any other color" ... It didn't say that they were predominantly grey(/'gray'), any more than it said that they'd be predominently black (as [[:Category:Comics with inverted brightness]], often, in preference to white). The point being that even the most "black and white" images aren't monochrome, but have degrees of grey at the boundaries, with smoothly antialiased boundaries between the full black of the line (or filled area) and the full white of the background (or inverted detail). You'll see this if you zoom in, with your favourite image editor. And very often in images with a default RGB colourspace, even if the effective pallette employed covers just greyscale values. But greys actually do feature a lot, too (often the first choice of non-black-and-white, for slight lessening of prominence, as opposed to 'red pen' ''increased'' visibility). So it's technically inaccurate to describe them as pretty much monochrome. But how to convey this in <...counts...> less than 157ish words? [[Special:Contributions/172.71.242.173|172.71.242.173]] 16:35, 17 May 2023 (UTC)
:The wiki page says
::::"xkcd comics are usually plain, predominantly black-and-white line drawings, but sometimes they make use of hues beyond the usual monochrome colors, even if it is just red-penned annotations.
:I think it's enough, since, even if grey is more used than other non-monochrome colors, I don't believe it's so important that it needs to be included as a "third" main color. If Randall uses many bright colors, that he will obviously also use simpler hues of grey when needed. What do you think? [[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 16:51, 17 May 2023 (UTC)
:Aside from the antialising edging gradient, I just used the Random Page link and landed on [[1301: File Extensions|something with functional greys]], [[734: Outbreak|an unusual use of 'Post-It' yellow]], an unremarkably "just black pen" comic and then [[1788: Barge|more functional grey]]. I'd argue against "monochrome" as a description, as clearly there is more than just #000000 and #FFFFFF, often enough, in an actual fill-colour/broad-brush context. Even if that's #808080 or another no-hue shade. (I was expecting to land on a "grey pen" comic to assess, after enough clicks but, having seen what I got in the random first handful, I saw no need to go on.)
:And "monochrome" can be/often is coloured. Sepia photographs or "night vision" green displays are perfect examples of monochrome (with or without halftones/dithering/whatever). As is [[267: Choices: Part 4]] (other Choices comics may be considered "duotone", in different ways).
:Maybe "...are often drawn as black shapes on white, or occasionally white shapes on a dark background, but may feature at least one additional highlighting shade or an even fuller colour pallette." Does that sufficiently cover that whole breadth of use? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.154|172.70.86.154]] 19:48, 17 May 2023 (UTC)

== Childish slang. ==

Agree with you on the recent change that you (generic 'you', not ''you'' 'you'!) sound infantile, any which way, upon use of the words mentioned. Which is how it was still said before the revert in that version of edit. But with <code>"pretty gay" and "retarded" are infantile and offensive slang for "foolish" or "contemptible"</code>, you miss the point. Foolishness is just one distant contender for what "pretty gay" is often intended to mean (even if not actually being used for someone/something 'effeminate'). And "retarded" is more in the whole "thick, stupid, dumb" line of insult than "contemptible" (which is more "horrible, dislikable, repulsive"..?).
 Personally, I also thought it better with not actually defining insults (correctly or otherwise), as it adds power to them. I can call someone a "numpty" in jest, for example, and colloquially that might be understood as the low-level insult (if that) which it is intended to be. But if I start to bandy around its {{wiktionary|numpty#Scots|dictionary definition}} then it becomes more of a seriously accusatory description.
 Just my opinion. Not really understanding the latest revert when it had seemed to be improved (if anything) in the version you reverted away. Just putting it there. I know you're doing a lot of editing (good stuff!) just wondering if you considered this one carefully enough in your obvious zeal. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.182.89|172.71.182.89]] 16:31, 28 May 2023 (UTC)
:Addendum. Meant to say, if you decide to undo/reform your own revert (I won't do it, but on the offchance you see my point), I'd have not said "''commonly'' used". They're used in slang, but I don't think we can say how frequently they pop up. They're "used in slang" (and also not in slang, or at least not insulting slang, where "gay" has a long history of just meaning "happy", whilst "retarded" is often to do with decceleration/minimised acceleration of physical systems) but I'm not sure they're no more than minority words in the whole world of such language. They depict a subset of insult-givers (like the character in the comic, for whom it adds a certain additional characterisation) amongst all the many and varied insult-givers, and Randall surely chose such semi-bowlderised terms to not have to write any of all the far worse words he might also have done. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.94.31|172.71.94.31]] 16:46, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

== IP page to delete ==

I didn't see your thinking about why the Deletion category was not needed there. And, believe me as an IP myself, I've never known anything useful being said on an IP's User or User Talk page. With that example not breaking the pattern any. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.131|172.70.85.131]] 00:41, 22 June 2023 (UTC)
:I just don't think there's a reason to delete it, it's useful to have a previous talk page if the IP continues to edit and people want to communicate with them [[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 10:51, 30 June 2023 (UTC)
::"The IP" is whichever one of 'us' happens to land on that particular Cloudflare route.
::I'm not going to go back and find out which IP it represents, to check if it's in their current stock of connected gateways, but it might not be. Or it was even (depending on date) a pre-Cloudflare 'straight' access unproxied and thus no longer seen, even if the exact same editor on the exact same IP lucked on ''their'' initial gateway.
::Certainly it won't map to a meaningful 'user', chances may even be that it doesn't map to ''any'' user. IP-version User/User Talk pages are anachronisms pretty much as soon as they're created. Or before, if based upon trying to contact an author of an older edit. I was on 172.70.85.131, above, but who knows (before I submit it) what this reply's sign-off will say.
::And a one-shot editor may never ever see the results of any conversation that was tried to be started. Whereas I ''might'' see any response, anywhere, that contextually makes it plain that they're talking about an edit I once made.
::Honestly, I think it'd be worthwhile checking ''every'' IP-focussed namespace page and archiving anything truly interesting that found itself in there in some other central location then condemning them all to deletion. Maybe, if possible, prevent their creation too. But I don't have the ability to do anything (except sift through them for any of the very rare gems of quality, but I wouldn't be able to do anything about it from there on in, so...
::...not gonna do anything more about it (I can't, other than reinstate the To Be Deleted membership, whch I won't bother with), but I hope you understand my perspective on this. I've seen you become a very useful member of the community, who I generally respect for your input and tweaks to the site, and don't expect you to take instruction from li'l ol' me (not even working with an established identity). Just consider this as food for thought, and leave it at that if you wish. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.34.19|162.158.34.19]] 20:12, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

== RTL/LTR: "...but I think it refers to me" ==

Yeah, it does. The point being that we might not do anything about the smartarses who vandalise knowingly (and I don't see a problem with what you otherwise did), but when someone thinks ''they'' have unique and funny joke (along the lines of putting "Citation needed"s ''everywhere'') they might spot the comment and then realise how we've seen it all done before so refrain from the prank. I can't even recall how many times we have had to revert things, but best to put off the casual comedian, and it won't change the outcome either way for the dedicated vandal with their blood up and looking to cause trouble. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.107|141.101.98.107]] 20:00, 29 June 2023 (UTC)
:I guess you're right, I just thought it was very clear for everyone that rendering an entire article unreadable was an act of pure vandalism, but I guess an editor comment doesn't hurt. [[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 10:53, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

== The reason "the image size wasn't there"? ==

...because it didn't need an image-size restriction, originally? Compare the [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/File:Miss_lenhart.png previous and current version sizes]. Nice to have a (''huge!'') high-res headshot, no doubt, but clearly that's why you found that it now needs artificially constraining... No actual mystery. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.63|172.70.85.63]] 17:16, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

:Yeah you're right, I just assumed every comic had the image size to be future-proof. The weird thing was that the "imagesize: " part was already there, but there was no value. Anyway, nothing important.

: Just out of curiosity, are you the same IP guy from [[#IP page to delete]]?--[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 18:43, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

== I disagree with Oxford commas. ==

"For breakfast I had some bread, toast, and jam." - A legitimate(ish) case of ", and ". Or "I created the world, and saw that it was good." I otherwise prefer to suscribe to replacing all non-final conjunctions in sequence with commas but ''not'' adding one before the ultimate (remaining) conjunction. That's like having "Fish, and chips", where it isn't an actual afterthought. And best to rephrase or repunctuate (e.g. with super-listing semicolons to separate) if you have confusing comma-breakout clauses that ''so'' easily clash (or lead you down funny garden paths) with Oxford Commas. My opinion, but this is why syntax is clearer when leaving out OCs. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.93|172.70.85.93]] 13:59, 6 July 2023 (UTC)
:I just think it's better to use it everywhere to avoid any possible confusion. If we used it half the time, it would be inconsistent. But it's no big deal.
::Similarly, no big deal. Except that it ''looked'' like an error. You've done a lot of useful changes, recently... A ''lot''... Which is not a bad thing, I must add. Occasionally I've seen what (I thought!) you intended to say, and I've helped out with a misplaced word or two. And I honestly do not feel like OCs read correctly in many circumstances. How would you even OC something like "...you should paint it red, yellow or, maybe, orange"?
::The comma already does a lot of heavy lifting, four or five different uses can occur in the same sentence, with it commonly doing duty as a sub-clause parenthetical (except without the clear open/close distinction of an actual parenthetical) ''as well as'' conjunction-replacement within a list. You will find many instances of non-OCed lists on the site. In fact I find the "Please note that all contributions to explain xkcd..." bit, below this edit box, to be the exception and not the rule.
::Anyhoo... I 'corrected' an example, but did not re'correct' it once you made it obvious what rule you were working to. I think you're less right than me, naturally, even if I wouldn't say that you're more wrong. ;) But I thought I'd make you a brief note of my thoughts rather than edit-warring the issue. Less brief, now, but I hope you still take it in good humour. (Oh, yeah, I'm sort of Ok with Oxford Spelling, insofar as it's mostly what I use naturally. Except for the "-ize" bit. That and their Comma are totally against how I was taught at school, a number of decades ago. :P ) [[Special:Contributions/172.71.242.71|172.71.242.71]] 15:26, 6 July 2023 (UTC)
:::You really seem to care about this a lot more than I do, if you want feel free to revert my edit back. I'm not even sure why we're here talking about commas lol
:::I'm no expert and I just like commas. Thanks for checking my edits, I think I've seen a few of your corrections. I have a lot of free time at the moment and I seem to like fixing up unorganized things here --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 21:42, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

== Science Girl/Hairbun ==

You may have noted that several of the Talk pages attached to those you changed already had discussions about whether someone was Hairbun or (a possibly grown-up version of) Science Girl, and you had people like Kynde support the change ''to'' treating her as Science Girl. No skin off my nose, but I'm not sure your arguments are strong enough to support your broad sweep changes in that regard. I think I'd side with "bun with trailing hair" being SG (regardless of apparent age/maturity, as the description only really says ''usually'' a child, whether you take that as prescriptivist or descriptivist) but not enough that I'd reverse your considerable efforts in this matter. But on the off-chance that you hadn't noticed the prior discussions and conclusions, before making your own assessment. FYI, only. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.178.204|172.71.178.204]] 14:01, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

:I will properly reply to you tomorrow since it's midnight here. Btw thanks for letting me know these hyperlinks were rendered correctly, and for fixing my 1 typo <s>(after i corrected 100)</s>
::Guys, some things may be being taken too seriously. Assuming [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1608:_Hoverboard&diff=prev&oldid=317396 this was the 'one error'], yeah, the Pedant's Curse hits us all, that's the point. Easy to see how it was done (read as "a Category:Interactive..." rather than "an interactive", or whatever). Happens to the best of us, when concentrating on loads of other things. Not sure about the Jill thing, at all, myself, but that discussion is probably for soewhere else. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.79.158|172.69.79.158]] 22:22, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

:::Nonononono I wasn't serious when I thanked you about the typo, I was also just kidding. I was joking about how after I corrected a ton of typos I added one more.
:::On the main topic you brought up: I think Jill's main characteristics (I'll talk about why I renamed her) are that she is a child, she is usually interested in science, and has always one or two buns with trailing hair. [[Hairbun]] isn't as defined as Jill: she just has a bun. This is what the page [[Hairbun]] (written entirely by Kynde, I haven't reformatted to remove the bullet points yet), say about the bun:
----
:::*Her appearance, apart from her glasses, can also change.
:::**In 703: Honor Societies, 708: Sex Dice, 1511: Spice Girl, 1601: Isolation and in every instance in 1608: Hoverboard her hair looks somewhat different, curly and with some kind of ponytail, but since '''her main distinguishing characteristic is the hair bun''', these comics are included.
:::[...]
:::*There are some characters with hair buns that are not Hairbun:
:::**Since she is a grown woman, she should not be confused with Jill or any other small girls with hair bun like in 1584: Moments of Inspiration.
----
:::And on the Page for Jill, before I ever touched it, it said:
:::*As she is usually also clearly a child she usually cannot be confused with Hairbun
----
:::Kynde mentioned [[1511: Spice Girl]] and [[1601: Isolation]] as featuring Hairbun and not Jill, but they look exactly like a grown-up Jill. Plus, on the gallery section on [[Hairbun]] (I'm working on adding back a better one since the old one was kinda broken UPDATE 11:13, 8 July 2023 (UTC): Added the gallery back with vector images), this was the first picture of Hairbun:
:::[[File:Hair Bun Girl with curly hair and ponytail.png]]

:::So, to recap: Hairbun has always had a version with a bun with trailing hair, but it was inconsistent between comics, so I settled on Jill is a girl that always has trailing hair and Hairbun is an adult that sometimes has trailing hair.

:::On the topic of renaming Jill:
:::*I searched the wiki for Jill and found 3 discussions. One of them ended up "why world we even create a page for that girl, there aren't many comics featuring her.", but didn't criticize the name too much iirc
:::*We did the same thing for [[Danish]]. The only time she was given ''any'' name ("Danish in the sense of "darling" iirc), that was the name used.
:::*If we change our minds and Jill also becomes a woman, we don't have to remove the "girl" part.
:::*I'm not sure about this, but I think she's slowing being added more and more outside science comics.

:::Wow this was long --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 10:20, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

== In reply to [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2794:_Alphabet_Notes&curid=26437&diff=321127&oldid=320916 this query]... ==

There's {{w|Welsh orthography|the Welsh}}, at the very least! (Well, you did ask! Even if it's truly not so relevent. ;) ) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.159|172.70.86.159]] 11:29, 18 August 2023 (UTC)
:Lol. TIL! --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 20:13, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

== Plural animals ==

Following on from Ferret->Ferrets, what about the last remaining singular that is Category:Apatosaurus? (I must admit, all your edits/re-edits are making my head spin, as worthy as they often are, but this seems like the next logical step that I thought you might have done to finish that particular neatening job.) But I'll leave it up to you as to whether it's Apatosauruses, Apatosaurii or whatever else you might consider most appropriate... ;) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.98|172.70.85.98]] 10:15, 24 August 2023 (UTC)
:I actually thought about it, and I came to the conclusion that I don't know what the plural of that word is. Feel free to research if there's a "right" word and rename that category :)
:> (I must admit, all your edits/re-edits are making my head spin,
:Yeah I don't really organize everything I want to change beforehand, so whenever i notice a little thing is missing, I add it to every page that needs it. I guess it's easier to review my edits in bulk from a page's version history lol --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 10:53, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

== Username ==
I spotted a spam-like user named "Papyrus". [[User:ChristmasGospel|ChristmasGospel]] ([[User talk:ChristmasGospel|talk]]) 21:55, 2 November 2024 (UTC)
:Interesting, i edited that comic's page yesterday. --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 07:49, 3 November 2024 (UTC)
== Community portal spam ==
The spammers seem to be deleting text from Community Portal. [[User:ConscriptGlossary|ConscriptGlossary]] ([[User talk:ConscriptGlossary|talk]]) 07:28, 3 November 2024 (UTC)
:Thanks, but I couldn't find any recent example concerning me. Do you mind giving an example? --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 07:49, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

== Possible Adminship? ==

Hi FaviFake, I’m Victoria. I’m planning on reaching out to Jeff via Twitter/X because there’s a long list of things that only he can do. You can see the list at my [[User:42.book.addict#To_Do_List_for_Jeff|user page]]. One of these tasks is promoting more admins. Seeing as you are quite active, and have done quite a lot of edits (top 10 in CS score-wow!), would you like to be mentioned in my message as a possible admin candidate? [[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]] ([[User talk:42.book.addict|talk]]) 17:21, 3 November 2024 (UTC)
: Oh hey, thanks for messaging me! I started caring a lot for this site about a year ago, went on a complete pause for a few months, and came back this week. You seem very active, love to see some new active users! I saw your message on the community portal saying you were trying to find a way to contact Jeff. That's actually something I've thought about doing for a long time but never actually tried since not even Davidy22 was able to contact him at one point iirc.
:Anyway, yes, I'd love to be an admin for this site since there are so many things I can't do as a user (i have my own to-do list, which includes 1) actually deleting pages in Pages to delete and 2) improving/fixing the comic templates and Main page).
: So yeah, I wish you good luck contacting him! My only advice is to use any possible way to (or to get someone else to) contact him without worrying too much about annoying him. His last contribution was more than a year ago, he can totally jump back in for a moment after being unreachable for so long. I really like your message, it's very well-written, now the hard part is getting it to him. Asking Davidy22 for his email address (or finding it online) sounds like a great idea to me. --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 22:12, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

== Trivia below transcript ==
The FAQ page says that trivia is below transcript. I'm very sorry about this. [[User:ConscriptGlossary|ConscriptGlossary]] ([[User talk:ConscriptGlossary|talk]]) 00:41, 4 November 2024 (UTC)
:Nono don't be sorry, you're totally right! I came back here after months of being offline and forgot about the order! I realised my mistake yesterday but didn't have the time to go look for the article to revert my edit. Please revert it if you get the chance to do it before me. [[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 04:53, 4 November 2024 (UTC)
::There, I should've fixed it now. I see you also reverted my edit, thanks! [[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 04:59, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

== On the Ghosts in the NavPane ==

When I saw 42's inclusion of Ghosts in the Character NavPane, I was pondering asking for Demons and Aliens (the blob-monster types, or near variations, from both UFO-ish comics and far-future) to be added alongside.

But I agree with you that they're not ''really'' minor characters. Yet I think they (all of them) deserve a slot there, as they are as much a feature as the (Animals/)Squirrels section. Originally thought to suggest "Groups" (could include "Multiple Cueballs" and even "Children" for groups with otherwise un-IDed child characters), which you could still ''also'' add (but for human-character groups only), but now thinking "Other Beings" could hold Ghosts, Demons and Aliens (maybe "Future Beings" separate from the latter, or at least the differently-futuristic "Floating Orbs" as ''another'' other classification category in there). As a section between Real People and Animals, I thought, unless it's decided best to put them after Animals.

Food for thought, anyway. You (and 42, and maybe others) may have your own ideas on this, and I wouldn't (and can't) spring my own ideas upon you by suddenly just editing the appropriate source. It probably needs discussion. I nearly put my earlier thoughts in the Community Portal area, but as you're personally active on this at the moment I thought it might be easier for you to ponder if I finally commited it to writing just here. (Feel free to move this contrib/advertise it wider, if you see fit.) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.62|172.70.91.62]] 14:19, 5 November 2024 (UTC)
:Just popping in to add my 2 cents-I wholeheartedly agree with the idea of having “other beings” in the navbox. '''[[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]][[User talk:42.book.addict|Talk to me!]]''' 16:02, 5 November 2024 (UTC)
::Hey there, thanks a lot for messaging me about this. I disagree with you for one specific reason: the navbox was initially supposed to catalogue the recurring characters in the comics which displayed more or less the same behaviours across comics, such as [[Black Hat]] and [[Beret Guy]]. It then expanded to include real people, such as politicians, which still remained the same characters across different comics. The animal section is different in that some of them are the same animals across comics (such as bobcats and red spiders, for example), but since we had to include them, we included EVERY animal, even when they were completely different every time, because it'd look weird if the only animals there were the specific ones i mentioned.
::If we included a section such as Other beings that includes ghosts, I believe it would be filled with characters that are not the same in every comic they appear in and the navbox would completely lose its intended purpose. --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 18:13, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

== (Whoops, forgot a header!) ...FYC ==

If you agree with {{diff|356369|these additions/changes}}, with or without other adjustments, I was wondering if you'd like to do the respective changes to the Incomplete Article category page, as I find it's semi-protected and I'm thus locked out from the edits that I thought I might duplicate there too (in my IP state – yes, I know I could change this, but I'm happier just to leave it up to you/whoever). Anyway, for your consideration. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.202.75|162.158.202.75]] 17:09, 10 November 2024 (UTC)
: Done! Thanks. I removed a few technical details. --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 07:24, 16 November 2024 (UTC)

== Interesting streamlined 'table furniture', but... ==

...I'm wondering about the current (slight) usage differences between:
style="text-align:center" | {{{1}}}
and:
style="white-space:nowrap" |
Do you need to add the Param1 to the nowrap/remove if from the text-alignment?

And what if someone wanted no-wrap+centre at the same time? There maybe ''are'' ways to combine <code><nowiki>{{ac|<foo>}}</nowiki></code> and <code><nowiki>{{nw}}</nowiki></code>, but it seems non-trivial to to do. (Unless you make a <code><nowiki>{{nwac}}</nowiki></code>, but then where do you end?) I'm wondering if you should try it without the |-character.

Let's see if that ''could'' work:
{| class="wikitable" style="margin:auto"
|+ Test
|-
! Foo !! Bar !! Baz
|-
| Normal text of a normal style || style="text-align:center" style="white-space:nowrap" | This is as if using variations <code><nowiki>{{ac|<foo>}}</nowiki></code> and <code><nowiki>{{nw}}</nowiki></code> as rendered without the pipe-character or inconsistent parameter, which is tricky to demonstrate with the actual templates.|| More normal text of a normal style
|-
| Normal text of a normal style || style="text-align:center" | style="white-space:nowrap" | This is how <code><nowiki>{{ac|{{nw}} <foo>}}</nowiki></code> might look || More normal text of a normal style
|-
| Normal text of a normal style || {{ac|{{nw}} This is how <code><nowiki>{{ac|{{nw}} <foo>}}</nowiki></code> ''does'' look, using the current state of the templates.
----
<s>''NB. Why is it in bold? Is that a normal feature of a style of text-align:center?''</s>}}
| More normal text of a normal style
|-
| Normal text of a normal style || style="white-space:nowrap" | style="text-align:center" | This is how <code><nowiki>{{nw}} {{ac|<foo>}}</nowiki></code> might look || More normal text of a normal style
|-
| Normal text of a normal style || {{nw}} {{ac|This is how <code><nowiki>{{nw}} {{ac|<foo>}}</nowiki></code> ''does'' look, using the current state of the templates.}}
----
<s>''Also goes bold, I notice!''</s>
| More normal text of a normal style
|}

So, yes, it looks like it might be better to just remove the pipe (or pipe-and-param) and rely on the table-writer to just put in the relevent bare style-giving {{}} (or {{}}s) before the pipe. (I must look into why there's unexpected boldness. I don't know if that comes from the way you templated it or as an associated function of the aligh-center style. But it doesn't appear when I do it 'raw'.) Anyway, food for thought, over to you. It looks like I ''could'' edit your templates, but that might be rude, and would of course instantly break whatever it is you're currently using them (singly) for. That's the ''What If?'' table, I suppose? Anyway, you can both 'fix' how they work and adjust how they are invoked, rather than leaving me to guess about the latter. ;) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.49|162.158.74.49]] 19:04, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
:PS: Yes, I have just checked, and, yes you've added (apparently ''after'' I saw and copied the original {{template|ac}} for my own testing and emulating purposes!) the bolding to the aligh-centering template. That part of the mystery is solved! :P [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.49|162.158.74.49]] 19:10, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
:PPS: I know what happened. I copied the (slightly '''formatted''') 'plaintext' as it appeared in the template. If I'd have edited it and copied the wikisource then I'd have grabbed the <nowiki>'''formatted''</nowiki> as you already had it by the time I passed by. Don't mind me, it was just something that made me wonder. Probably moreso than the thing that I was ''actually'' trying to prod and poke and solve! IOW: Ignore me. On this bit, at least! [[Special:Contributions/172.68.205.151|172.68.205.151]] 19:32, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

::I love how interested you are about this! Honestly i'm not really sure what exactly it is you're asking, but you seem very smart so do whatever you want! My only request is that the {{ac}} thing keeps working as expected, so i don't have to change the table again. I had forgotten about the {{nw}} thing, you can delete it or change it or do anything else, I don't use it anymore. Feel free to add to the documentation that these are just for 1 table and might break everything if used anywhere else. Or, if they already work everywhere, great! I remember I created them expecting the entire page to be destroyed when used, and being pleasantly surprised when they worked. So yeah go wild! --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 21:19, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
:::I'm not going to make any change without taking time to check your tables and making sure the appropriate change doesn't inflict damage on your attempts to curate the tables you're probably using it for.
:::But, in short, I understand that you're streamlining the (often longwinded) style="" statements, an admirble task. In the structure of "| cell || another cell || etc", you're doing something to save from having to do cumbersome "| cell || style="this-style: that; that-style: that; the-other-style: the.other" | another cell || etc", all of which makes editing 'difficult'. (I tend to do such things in Notepad, or whatever separate text editor I have, which lets me add temporary whitespace and use with no-wrap on the markup while I'm working on it, rather than in this textbox editor.)
::: But the single-pipe that formats the cell isn't a ''great'' difficulty to maintain (indeed, it is useful to line up). As such I'd suggest "| cell || <nowiki>{{??}}</nowiki> | another cell || etc" would be as good. i.e. leave the pipe (intended for the table-cell) out of the template. For the no-wrap version, that's easy enough. Though I do understand that you want to put bold-format about the cell contents, so that's why you give it as a param and explicitly bold the Param1 as you pass it back out.
::: Maybe the solution to ''that'' is to also add (to the style, along with the text-align:center) the "font-weight: bold" doublet. Then "... || <format(s), as templates and/or raw> | Cell Text || ..." doesn't ''need'' to 'enclose' the Cell Text in any way.
::: But making the change from something that expects to transclude the range of the template "... || format | Cell Text || ..." to "... || format | Cell Text || ..." obviously requires that each and every table-cell item that uses "... || <nowiki>{{template|Cell Text}}</nowiki> || ..." to be converted to "... || <nowiki>{{template}}</nowiki> | Cell Text || ...", or... it'll definitely not work as it was originally set.
::: Anyway, that's just my own vision of how you can do what you seem to have wanted to, without introducing more complications. As the cell-formatting gladly accepts multiple statements of the form style="..." (it adds <code>style="..." style="..." style="..."</code> together, much as <code>style="...; ...; ..."</code> does), an editor now has complete freedom to compound the two format-templates you created. And any additional ones that might be useful. Such ones to usefully colour cell backgrounds as red/yellow/green (for use on the various Confusion Tables), something that I sometimes take a couple of goes to do... not least because I habitually spell 'color' as 'colour'..! ;)
::: ...but that's just to explain so that (should you/anybody else wish to follow my own instincts on the matter), you have some decent idea of what I'm getting at. There are probably other ways of doing it. Templates can be made to detect and extract pipes, so that "... || <nowiki>{{template1|{{templete2|Cell Text}}}}</nowiki> || ..." ''or'' "... || <nowiki>{{template2|{{templete1|Cell Text}}}}</nowiki> || ..." would equally produce "... || templateOneOrTwoFormat templateTwoOrOneFormat | Cell Text || ...", but that would take a degree of of unwieldy parameter-processing functions (that I'd have to work out, probably would involve some subst-function, but might depend upon what's available in the installed mediawiki version). I just think you could avoid all that trouble! [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.118|162.158.74.118]] 22:51, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

{{notice|<big><big<big><big>'''If you're here for the'''
'''what if? index, [[#The huge what if? index|click here]]'''</big></big>}}

3038: Uncanceled Units

2025-01-17T22:09:26Z

162.158.74.118: /* Explanation */ Reinstting, as the editor-out seems not to know (or adequately refute) the link between volume and distance³ , such that distance/volume=distance/distance*distance*distance=1/distance*distance.

{{comic
| number = 3038
| date = January 15, 2025
| title = Uncanceled Units
| image = uncanceled_units_2x.png
| imagesize = 323x355px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Speed limit c arcminutes^2 per steradian
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by A BOT USING 3000 JOULES PER SECOND PER HOUR PER DAY - Please continue to explain the joke and possible interpretations. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

Another of [[Randall]]'s [[:Category:Pet Peeves|pet peeves]], this comic expresses disapproval of units that could be mathematically simplified (in other words, the 'uncanceled' of the title refers to mathematical cancellation, not cancellation by a body, like how SI supplanted the CGS system with MKS).

[[White Hat]] is presenting a refrigerator to [[Cueball]], saying it uses 3 kWh per day. This is a common and useful way to report power usage. But mathematically, the units can be simplified because there are two time units that cancel each other:

: 3 kWh per day = 3 kW * 1 hour / 1 day = 3 kW * (1 hour / 24 hours) = 0.125 kW = 125 W

This gives the (average) power usage in {{w|watts}} (a unit for the rate of energy transfer, equal to 1 {{w|joule}} per second).

The reason people would use "kWh / day" without simplifying the unit is that kWh is a commonly used unit for energy, and it's often viewed as a base unit even though it's composite (1 kWh is the amount of energy consumed by one kilowatt of power usage over one hour, and is equal to 1 kJ/s * 1 h = 3600 kJ). It's the unit in which energy consumption is typically reported and in which bills are calculated, so it's more familiar to the average consumer, and giving the power usage in kWh / day makes it easier for the consumer to understand how much money it will cost them to run per day. Also, "per day" makes it clear that this is the ''average'' power usage rather than the maximum power usage (they are different because refrigerators cycle on and off throughout the day). But mathematically, "kWh / day" is inelegant, because it uses power (which is already a measure of energy per time) multiplied by a time unit then divided by another time unit.

Cueball (probably representing Randall) sardonically wonders whether the refrigerator would fit in his kitchen, since the ceiling is only 50 gallons per square foot high. This is clearly an abnormal and unhelpful way of reporting height. This unit turns a normal measurement of height (feet and inches in the US; meters and centimeters most other places) into a weird collection of uncancelled units. Gallons can be transformed to cubic feet (1 US gal = 231 in3), which can be divided by the square feet, yielding a ceiling height of around 6 feet 8 inches, or 203.7 cm. (Using imperial gallons [1 UK gal ≈ 277.42 in3], the height is roughly 8 feet, or approximately 244.7 cm.) This is intended to lampoon the use of both non-metric and uncancelled units by showing how odd things become if they're generally used.

The exact ceiling height in feet, assuming the US gallon is used, can be calculated as:

: 50 gallons per square foot = 50 gal * 231 in3/gal * (1/12 ft/in)3 / 1 ft2 = 6.68402777... ft

''[[what if? (blog)|what if?]]'': [https://what-if.xkcd.com/11/ Droppings] also covers strange instances of unit cancellation, including a measure of volume per distance converted to area; similar to Cueball's measure of volume per area representing a distance (the height of his ceiling).

A common source of unit drama occurs between lay people who are looking for every day practicality and science/engineering types who are inclined towards formalized mathematical operations. For example U.S. customary units which support many divisibility rules (1 foot = 12 inches; 1 inch = 72 points = 1440 twips; 3 feet = 1 yard; 2 yards = 1 fathom; 22 yards = 1 chain; 10 chains = 1 furlong; 1 mile = 5280 feet; 1 league = 3 miles) versus metric units which prioritize base 10 scales. In this case, telling the average customer the energy use in joules per day or average consumption in watts would require them to perform more complicated conversions to get to the figure they actually care about — the actual cost per day. White Hat could just give this cost figure directly, but does not know what every customer pays for electricity (an explicit yearly cost estimate would be included on the government required energy efficiency label).

In the title text, a speed limit is given as c arcminutes2 per steradian, where c is presumably the speed of light in a vacuum — 2.998×108 m/s (meters per second) or 186282 mi/s (miles per second). A steradian (sr) is the SI unit for solid angle, subtended by a section of a sphere (like a radian is a unit of angle subtended by a section of a circle). A square arcminute is also a unit of solid angle, equivalent to a section of a sphere of 1/60 of a degree by 1/60 of a degree. There are ((1/60)*(π/180))2 = 8.462×10-8 sr in a square arcminute. Then multiplying by c gives a speed of 56.75 mph (probably 55 mph, based upon the {{w|National Maximum Speed Law|'traditional' US speed limit}}, before rounding errors in the reverse direction), or 91.33 km/h, showing that you can combine an outrageously high speed with two unnecessary units that cancel each other to form a normal road speed.

It is worth noting that, although some of these examples are ridiculous, there are cases where uncancelled units can be helpful to understanding the concept. For example, while the {{w|Hubble's law|Hubble Parameter}} can be expressed as 2.17132212 × 10-18 {{w|Hz}}, expressing it as 67 km/s/Mpc directly relates the quantity to how it is measured and its natural interpretation. Another example would be fuel efficiency in cars, where mi/gal and km/l technically simplify to 1/area, but expressing it in volume and distance allows easy estimations of range and travel cost, while mm-2 or in-2 would require significant unit conversions.

==Transcript==
:[White Hat and Cueball are standing to either side of a refrigerator. White Hat is lifting one hand up to touch the side of the fridge. The fridge has two compartments, with two doors that open to the top compartment and one bottom compartment, a drawer. The top left compartment has a tall handle on its right, the top right compartment has a tall handle on its left, and the bottom compartment has a long handle on its top. The top left compartment has an oval shape on the top and a paper attached, both with unreadable text. There is also a small square note in the top right corner and an oval shape on the side of the fridge above White Hat. These also have unreadable text.]
:White Hat: This fridge uses only 3 kWh per day!
:Cueball: But will it fit in my kitchen? The ceiling there is only 50 gallons per square foot.

:[Caption below the panel:]
:Pet peeve: Uncanceled units

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Pet Peeves]]
[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Math]]

521: 2008 Christmas Special

2025-01-13T22:19:22Z

162.158.74.118: /* Explanation */ Minor formatting changes. Reduce the pool-of-blue. make the quotes (assuming correct) flow better with the rest. (A proper re-write needs me to have followed the link, I imagine, but doing what I briefly can on a cosmetic level.)

{{comic
| number = 521
| date = December 24, 2008
| title = 2008 Christmas Special
| image = 2008_christmas_special.png
| titletext = 'How could you possibly think typing 'import skynet' was a good idea?'
}}

==Explanation==
This comic is the xkcd Christmas Special from the year 2008. The prologue states that due to the {{w|2008 financial crisis}}, only very few images of the strip could be produced. This leaves the others to be blacked out. It is therefore left to the reader to reconstruct the whole story based on the given images. While it is claimed that the reconstruction should be rather easy, the complicated and abstruse plot-line makes it nearly impossible to fill the gaps. Any attempt at inferring the missing images would therefore be largely guesswork. The comic features the well-known xkcd characters getting involved in a strange fight with cyborgs and raptors on Christmas Eve.

The line "We apologize for the inconvenience." is possibly a reference to the famous book series ''{{w|The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy}}'' by {{w|Douglas Adams}}. It appears there as God's Final Message to His Creation, written in letters of fire on the side of the Quentulus Quazgar Mountains.

'''Panel 2:''' [[Megan]] strives to outdo some Christmas lights she has seen on YouTube.

'''Panel 3:''' Dissatisfied with her work, Megan is thinking about alternative ways to improve her light arrangement. The idea of firing {{w|Sodium}} pellets into snow is probably a bad one, as Sodium reacts exothermically with water and may, in large amounts, induce explosions.

'''Panel 5:''' Probably still obsessed with creating a large and impressive light display, Megan has constructed an electronic device with an {{w|Arduino}} processor, perhaps to make the light chain show patterns. However, the energy she used was too high. This causes one of the control boards to sublimate, i.e. go directly from a solid to a gaseous state without an intermediate liquid phase. She then wishes she could make the system self-repairing.

'''Panel 7:''' Megan's device has developed {{w|artificial intelligence}}, allowing it to feel. This is presumably a result of Megan attempting to make the device self-repairing. This common trope in science-fiction works usually leads to the system's attempt to eradicate its creator. [[Cueball]] attributes the emergence of a personality to the awesome ease and power of programming in {{w|Python (programming language)|Python}}.

'''Panel 11:''' Out of context, this panel introduces the idea of {{w|Santa Claus}} being a {{w|Muslim}}. This may be a reference to the persistent Internet rumours that Barack Obama is a Muslim, though he declares himself to be a Christian. However, the statement could also relate to the fact that Santa Claus is usually displayed with a large beard, which is sometimes also sported by conservative Muslims. Or it could just be nonsensical.

'''Panel 13:''' At this point, the self-aware Christmas light control systems have released {{w|cyborgs}} that tried to kill Megan and Cueball. To repel the cyborgs, they have cloned {{w|Velociraptors}}. Cueball expresses doubt about whether that was a good idea. Velociraptors appear frequently in xkcd, as seen in [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/Category:Velociraptors these comics]

'''Panel 17:''' As predicted, the raptors have gone wild, but Megan, Cueball and the two smaller characters (perhaps their children) managed to cage the dinosaurs. They believe themselves safe unless the raptors learn how to build {{w|lightsabers}}. This is a reference to a line in {{w|'' Jurassic Park''}} where the main characters believe themselves safe until they discover the raptors can learn how to open doors.

'''Panel 19:''' The raptors have indeed succeeded with constructing lightsabers and must now be fought. The "Clever girl" refers to a line from ''Jurassic Park'' where the raptors outflank (and kill) one of the human characters wearing a similar hat. “Snap-hiss” is a common phrase originated by Timothy Zahn to describe the sound of a lightsaber igniting in Star Wars literature.<ref>Zahn, Timothy, "Author Annotations: Chapter 7, 1", Star Wars: Heir to the Empire: The 20th Anniversary Edition, ISBN 0345530004, "I thought long and hard about how to write the sound of an igniting lightsaber. I finally went with snap-hiss.", corroborated by [https://boards.theforce.net/threads/snap-hiss.25830511/ forums]</ref>

'''Panel 23:''' IT billionaire {{w|Bill Gates}} has mistakenly killed Santa Claus, possibly in a sword fight. He claims to have mistaken him for [[Richard Stallman]], a prominent {{w|free software}} activist. (Gates strongly opposes the idea of free software and is therefore considered an antagonist by many of its supporters.) The most striking resemblance between Stallman and Santa Claus is probably the long and untamed beard. [[225: Open Source]] features Stallman involved in a sword fight. Much later, [[Randall]] again killed off Santa in his Christmas comics, and did so twice in only three years. First in [[2559: December 25th Launch]], from 2021, and then again in 2023's [[2872: Hydrothermal Vents]].

'''Panel 29:''' [[Black Hat]] is asked by Megan (or possibly his companion, [[Danish]]) where he obtained the enormously large {{w|Christmas tree}} that can be seen on the right side of the zoomed out picture. It is implied that he felled {{w|Yggdrasil}}, the giant ash tree of Norse mythology. According to tradition, Yggdrasil is the world tree representing the whole of creation and holding together the cosmological structure.

'''Panel 31:''' [[Randall]] wishes Merry Christmas to all xkcd readers.

The title text refers to panel 7. In Python, modules are imported using the "import ''module''" syntax. {{w|Skynet (Terminator)|Skynet}} is a self-aware artificial intelligence system featured in the ''{{w|Terminator}}'' film series as the main influence behind most of the antagonists. Importing the Skynet module might therefore account for Megan's system's developing an evil personality.

There is an actual pip module [https://pypi.org/project/skynet/ named "skynet"]; however, unlike <code>antigravity</code> in [[353: Python]], it seems to not be specifically referencing this comic, having been created almost eight years later. The module's description says that it "demonstrates the usage of Python's exit-hook, exception hook and signals handling", by using them to prevent the user from exiting Python "to the best of its ability" when the module is imported (somewhat in line with the whole idea of a rogue computer), and cautions you to try this at your own risk.

Note that this comic was first published in another version that had panel 29 as panel 27 and the "Merry Christmas from xkcd" message at the bottom. As 27 is not a {{w|prime number}}, the current version was published in place of the erroneous one.

It has been observed that the top left nine panels have the configuration of a {{w|Glider (Conway's Life)|Glider}} in ''{{w|Conway's Game of Life}}''. The glider is sometimes used as an emblem representing {{w|hacker subculture}}, although rotated by 90 degrees. However, it remains unclear whether the occurrence in the comic is intentional or an incidental side-effect of the prime number pattern in use. If you put the shown comic panels in The Game of Life, it turns into a Beehive, for reasons also probably not deliberate, unlike [[2293: RIP John Conway|a later comic]]'s explicit invocation of this mechanism. The last fourteen black panels also coincidentally form the shape of a crewmate from the game ''{{w|Among Us}}'', although the comic predates the game by a whole decade.

==Transcript==
:The 2008 XKCD Christmas Special
:Due to the slowing economy, we could only afford to produce the prime-numbered panels.
:You should be able to infer the missing parts of the story easily enough.
:We apologize for the inconvenience.
:[The first panel is blank.]
:[Megan carrying Christmas lights and Cueball watching.]
:Megan: I'm going to one-up those Christmas light displays on YouTube.
:[Megan thinking.]
:Megan: Hmm. Needs more flair. Do you know what happens when you fire sodium pellets into a snowbank?
:Cueball: No.
:Megan: Me neither.
:[The next panel is blank.]
:[Megan sitting in front of a console.]
:Megan: Whoops, one of the Arduino control boards sublimated.
:Megan: If only I could make it self-repairing...
:[The next panel is blank.]
:Megan: Shit. The system has become sentient.
:Cueball: Friggin' Python.
:System: GRAAARR!
:[The next three panels are blank.]
:[Megan showing laptop to Cueball.]
:Megan: But according to this email forward, Santa is secretly a Muslim!
:Cueball: It explains everything!
:[The next panel is blank.]
:Megan: Okay, the cloned raptors are hunting the last of the cyborgs. We're safe.
:Cueball: Are you sure you thought this through?
:[The next three panels are blank.]
:[Two couples appear in this next panel.]
:Cueball: Are the raptors contained?
:Ponytail: Sure. Unless they figure out how to build lightsabers.
:[The next panel is blank.]
:[Guy with hat fighting with a raptor using lightsabers.]
:Cueball: It's all right. I've got her.
:[Lightsaber appears from behind.]
:Snap-hiss!
:Cueball: ...Clever girl.
:[The next three panels are blank.]
:[Bill Gates is holding a weapon over Santa's body. The two girls are watching.]
:Megan: Great. Bill Gates kills Santa.
:Bill Gates: I thought it was Stallman with a dyed beard.
:[The next five panels are blank.]
:[Danish and Black Hat are looking at a tree.]
:Danish: Where did you get this Christmas tree?
:Black Hat: Nowhere.
:Danish: Did you cut down the Yggdrasil?
:Black Hat: ...Maybe.
:[The next panel is blank.]
:[Megan and Cueball holding hands and looking at reader.]
:Merry Christmas from XKCD <3
:[The last panel is blank.]

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Black Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Richard Stallman]]
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]]
[[Category:Christmas]]
[[Category:Programming]]
[[Category:Star Wars]]
[[Category:Velociraptors]]
[[Category:Terminator]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Danish]]

Talk:1725: Linear Regression

2025-01-10T12:32:25Z

162.158.74.118: it's a cocktail glass

It also seems likely that the teapot refers to the Utah Teapot (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah_teapot). It was one of the first complex 3D objects defined for CGI rendering, and has seen countless uses since. Notably in the Pipes screensaver, and early SIGGRAPH papers where it was rendered along side the 5 platonic solids as if it belonged with them.
[[User:Dkfenger|Dkfenger]] ([[User talk:Dkfenger|talk]]) 17:10, 26 August 2016 (UTC)
: I'm not sure I follow. How do you reach that conclusion? Given that the concept of constellations (and thus stars) is clearly shown in the comic, it seems much more likely to me that he was referring to Russell's Teapot and not to a computer rendering (if there was any reference at all). The fact that that shape could abstractly resemble a teapot may be all that there is to it. :) [[User:KieferSkunk|KieferSkunk]] ([[User talk:KieferSkunk|talk]]) 18:06, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

I think that the teapot is a reference to the constellation Sagittarius. This seems most likely to me as the reference is to a constellation that looks like a teapot despite ostensibly being something else. Sagittarius is a constellation that is supposed to be an archer, but many people see it as a teapot instead. (http://www.space.com/30274-constellation-sagittarius-archer-dipper-teapot.html) [[User:Harperska|Harperska]] ([[User talk:Harperska|talk]]) 19:27, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

I think it looks like a alcohol drink with the little umbrella sticking out. [[User:Mikemk|Mikemk]] ([[User talk:Mikemk|talk]]) 06:25, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

Based on what is an R^2 value of 0.06 significant??? I'm removing that. [[User:Djbrasier|Djbrasier]] ([[User talk:Djbrasier|talk]]) 20:59, 26 August 2016 (UTC)
: Oops, misread it! I read "insignificant" as "significant". [[User:Djbrasier|Djbrasier]] ([[User talk:Djbrasier|talk]]) 21:00, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

The teapot mention may just be a joke, not a reference. {{unsigned ip|141.101.98.114}}

did someone check if it really was a Rsquared of 0,06?[[Special:Contributions/141.101.104.67|141.101.104.67]] 20:56, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

:Asuming the top left of the image as 0/0 and measuring in pixels I get f(x)=-0,135x + 124,8 with R²=0,0197, calcuated with LibreOffice. The line in the image has f(x)=-0,094x+125. If I change a single point by one or two the R² value varies from 0,0195 to 0,0199. If I substract 10% of the x value from the y value R² increases to 0,0574. So I think R²=0,06 is a little bit inaccurate, but not completely wrong. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.83.228|162.158.83.228]] 19:01, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

::I think R^2 = 6% is very inaccurate if the true R^2 = 2%. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.56|108.162.219.56]] 00:07, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

Does anybody know of any real-world examples of a similarly low R^2 given in genuine research? It would be worth mentioning their existence if we can find one. [[User:Cosmogoblin|Cosmogoblin]] ([[User talk:Cosmogoblin|talk]]) 18:03, 28 August 2016 (UTC)
: In published research? I don't recall any. In submissions for review? At least twice. And of course one case where this comic could and should be used as an educational drawing - student reports, master's theses, etc. I've seen "conclusions" drawn from weaker data in those, far too many times for my mental health...--[[Special:Contributions/162.158.86.119|162.158.86.119]] 09:32, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

Rex is also Latin for king, which may be related in the context of constellations. {{unsigned ip|172.68.11.81}}

This is irrelevant to the humor of the comic, but I fixed the paragraph on confidence intervals because it contained at least three misinterpretations (I have a MSc in statistics). The phrasing can be improved if needed. Don't worry though, [http://www.andrewgelman.com/2017/12/28/stupid-ass-statisticians-dont-know-goddam-confidence-interval even experienced statisticians get it wrong sometimes...] [[Special:Contributions/162.158.234.40|162.158.234.40]] 09:43, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

Does anyone else think the "dog" looks like a cocktail glass with a stirrer on the left and a slice of lime on the right, held aloft upon a platter? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.118|162.158.74.118]] 12:32, 10 January 2025 (UTC)

3032: Skew-T Log-P

2025-01-02T23:02:20Z

162.158.74.118: /* Table with terms */

{{comic
| number = 3032
| date = January 1, 2025
| title = Skew-T Log-P
| image = skew_t_log_p_2x.png
| imagesize = 569x626px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = The most important quantity for meteorologists is of course the product of latent pressure and temperostrophic enthalpy, though 'how nice the weather is' is a close second.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a BOT CLEANING UP AFTER DAVE - This needs an explanation. Table not filled out. Also the title text was not mentioned at all. I added a very simple start to this, but nothing about what the product actually means, please expand... Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
A {{w|skew-T log-P diagram}} (the name comes from the temperature (T) lines being skewed at a 45-degree angle, and the pressure (P) lines being logarithmic in scale) are mostly used to plot {{w|atmospheric sounding}}s, which are usually made by sending a weather balloon up into the air.

Because the diagrams have a lot of lines on them (isobars, isotherms, adiabats, and mixing ratios, and that's before plotting the actual measurements of temperature and dew point temperature), they can be hard to understand. The comic pretends to offer an explanation of one such diagram, but most of the explanations are blatantly incorrect or humorous in nature. The diagram appears to have measurements from two separate weather balloons, with solid lines for rising balloons and dashed ones for popped balloons falling back down, whereas two lines and various styles of lines in real diagrams generally mean different measurements from the same balloon (or other sensor platform) track. See details in the [[#Table with terms|table]] below. Many weather balloons do indeed pop, as they're designed to do this after reaching a certain height high in the atmosphere.

In the title text it is stated that "The most important quantity for meteorologists is of course the product of latent pressure and temperostrophic enthalpy, though 'how nice the weather is' is a close second". So it jokes by comparing a non-existent, complicated-sounding product (temperostrophic enthalpy is not actually a thing) with a simple sentence about how nice the weather is.

[[File:Annotated_Skew_T_diagram.png|thumb|An actual Skew-T Log-P diagram, with several real annotations. The X-axis has temperature (blue diagonal lines in diagram) and the Y-axis has pressure in millibars.]]The true design of a Skew-T Log-P diagram is intended to best represent the nature of the weather in any given column of atmosphere. The pressure (vertical axis, with pressure being closely but not exactly inversely related to altitude) is shown as a logarithmic scale (i.e., Log-P) because it makes altitudes nearly evenly spaced. Plotting pressure proportionately (which must also be from top to bottom, to match its general relationship with altitude) would space features out in ways that would be hard to use and interpret, whereas the logarithmic scale is far more pragmatic. The temperature scale is deliberately tilted, rather than orthogonal, which (together with the logarithmic nature of the inverted pressure scale) allows the typical way that temperatures fall with altitude(≈as pressure falls) to trend roughly vertically, give or take the notable changes that are key to understanding the forecast. Other measurement lines, differently skewed and often also curving across the temperature/pressure skewed-log 'grid', represent various other idealistic relationships (where both T and P vary, keeping another measure constant) that are useful references to meteorologists.

Upon this style of graph are plotted the ''actual'' measurements obtained by releasing a weather balloon or other sensor. As well as the variation of actual temperatures and pressures, other retrieved and calculated data is plotted, such as the {{w|dew point}}. The dew point, a function of the air's {{w|absolute humidity|water content}}, temperature, and pressure, is where condensation begins. By observing how the actual measurements and dew point line converge and cross, the development and nature of clouds can be tracked and pinned to specific cloud layers. Further details may also be included, such as wind-direction and wind-speed indications (often to the side of the plot) to give a visual cue about possible {{w|wind shear}} and/or to suggest which direction of adjacent weather-station readings may hold clues as to what changes may later blow in above the current site.

==Table with terms==
{| class="wikitable"
!Item in comic
!Correct?
!Explanation
|-
| Pressure latitude || No || {{w|Pressure altitude|Pressure ''altitude''}} is the height above a standard datum plane, a theoretical level where the pressure of the atmosphere is 1013.24 millibars (29.921 inHg). It's essentially an estimate of altitude calculated from atmospheric pressure.
|-
| Enthalpic pressure || ||
|-
| Entropic density || ||
|-
| Latent heat of cooling || ||
|-
| Isobars || Yes || Lines denoting equal ("{{wiktionary|iso-}}") air pressure ("{{wiktionary|bar-|-bar}}"), probably most often recognized as the indicators of how ground-level pressures change (or not) across the horizontal area depicted on a weather ''map''. In this type of chart, which depicts data obtained from above a single point, it has the same meaning but is instead a pre-existing reference line across which the actual data is plotted, and does not itself indicate the nature of any wind.
|-
| Omnitrophic wind || No || Something "omnitrophic" would apparently be "all-eating", in some scientific sense. An omnitrophic wind would probably be a concerning phenomenon.
Probably a play on something like {{w|geostrophic wind}} ("geo"+"strophic" being from "Earth curving"), a theoretical state of wind that results from an exact balance between the {{w|Coriolis force}} and the {{w|pressure gradient}} force.
|-
| Isomers || No || Different forms of molecules with the same formula, with the atoms or functional groups arranged differently. An example would be propanol, which has three isomers. One of the most common isomers of propanol has its OH functional group in the middle, so is called isopropyl alcohol or isopropanol.
However, these are actually iso'''therm''' lines, representing equal temperature.
|-
| These lines are slightly different because Dave messed them up || No || Indicating isotherms (or, according to the comic, "isomers"), the suggestion is that slightly wrong lines were drawn by Dave and had to be corrected.
The real reason for the not quite identical lines is that the measured temperature at a given pressure can be converted to or from the ''potential'' temperature that the same air would have if at a standard pressure (holding the same amount of heat energy). For practical reasons, both for composing and interpreting the eventual plot, each of the slightly differently skewed isotherms are given, usually in clearly differentiable styles of line.
|-
| Line of constant thermodynamics || No ||
|-
| Uncomfortably moist adiabat || Wrongly placed, unusually qualified|| This labels a segment of isotherm, which is the exact 'opposite' of an adiabat.
An adiabat is a line along which temperature can change for a given mass, without changing the amount of energy. This is primarily made possible by changing the density (by a change in pressure) of the gas. There are typically two types of adiabat, marked for reference on the plot, "dry adiabat" (curves across the isotherms perpendicularly, to create a largely square but slightly curved grid with them), and "moist/saturated adiabat" (the latter's heat-maintaining profile is influenced greatly by the humidity content, and produces graphing lines vastly different from the equivalent "dry" versions). Randall has declared this (erroneous) type of adiabat to be "uncomfortably" moist, so presumably not totally saturated but also not subjectively 'pleasant'.
|-
| Oops, the balloon flew through a ghost || No || Ghosts do not exist.{{cn}} However, one of the purported effects of ghosts (such as in the film *The Sixth Sense*) is a transient/local lowering of temperature around and/or inside them. The line is interpreted as showing a local low temperature encountered at this pressure(/altitude).
This line, however, is probably the dew point line, indicating that in passing through this layer of the atmosphere, a drier band of air was encountered which would theoretically be cooled a lot more before the water-vapor oversaturates it and liquid water droplets form.
|-
| No birds up here :( || Yes* || This point is near the top of the diagram, with an air pressure of about 110 millibar - about 15 kilometers (50,000 feet) above sea level. This is well above the highest [https://peregrinefund.org/explore-raptors-species/vultures/ruppells-vulture flight height of any known bird species]. However, this information is irrelevant to the purpose of a skew-T log-P diagram.
|-
| Track of rising weather balloon || Yes, partially || Although there are other ways of recording these details, this is typically the record of a rising balloon.
However, it would be a track of the balloon through the varying pressures and temperatures that it records (as the second line of this type records the measurements of dew point at each pressure value). Moreover, circumstances that would make the recorded data plot out a neat {{w|figure-eight knot}} (see "Seems bad", below) are very unlikely.
|-
| Track of popped balloon falling back down || Possible, partially || A standard plot track will include two strong lines, as this has, representing not ''two'' balloons but the recorded temperature track ''and'' the dew point track, both against the (altitude surrogate) progressive pressure changes at each pressure-point.
A further pair of tracks as dotted lines could possibly be from a different launch (earlier, later or simultaneous from an adjacent location) as an analytical reference, but ''may'' indeed be the additional results obtained as the scientific package rapidly descends once the balloon pops.
|-
| Meteogenesis || No || The chart purports to show the path of two weather balloons crossing and labels the space between them with a new word. The root "meteo" means something high up (in this case, balloons) and "genesis" means creation. The implication is that a new balloon was created, though no third flight path is shown so it presumably did not fly separately or was not tracked.
In reality, one of the tracks (almost certainly the left one) is the track of the measured dew point. Where the line of the existing conditions cross this line is where the moisture will precipitate out and form clouds, a process that might well be called "{{wiktionary|meteor#English|meteo}}+{{wiktionary|genesis#English|genesis}}", but {{w|Cloud physics|isn't}}.
|-
| Seems bad || Not a common feature || The path of the balloon loops around in the shape of a {{w|figure-eight knot}}, which would indicate very chaotic conditions at that point, if taken as positional informtion
As the actual Skew-T Log-P graph does not record positional information, this is best interpreted as having encountered a fluctuating temperature as the pressure decreases, continuing as something (possibly {{w|Wind shear#Vertical component|vertical wind shear}}, or some form of compression waves, encounter the instruments) creates a temporary increased in external pressure and then circumstances return it to its more typical altitude-induced pressure-drop. Though this is not ''impossible'' to naturally happen, it might even be best interpreted as the instruments being deliberately 'buzzed' by a passing aircraft or rocket, including some intermittent form of thermal backwash as the interfering craft criss-crosses the balloon's physical track in a briefly complex encounter.
 Whatever happened to the temperature/pressure track, it apparently did not significantly change the associated dew-point/pressure track (if the pressure did indeed temporarily rise, the related dew points repeated themselves each time the pressure values were re-encountered).
|-
| Dew point || Wrongly represented || The temperature at which water condenses out of the air, and therefore dew starts to form, given the amount of water vapor in the air. It is shown here as an ''actual'' single point, when it should be a line (typically the leftmost solid plotted line) representing the temperature at which dew should form at any given pressure.
|-
| Humidor || No || In reality, is a {{w|Humidor|container}} that is used maintain a more controllable humidity within which to store smoking products. In the graph, points at the line that is probably representing the dew point, which is represents the ''actual'' humidity encountered.
|-
| Heavyside layer || No || Probably a misspelling of the {{w|Kennelly-Heaviside layer|(Kennelly-)Heaviside layer}}, also called the E region of the {{w|ionosphere}} that was co-discovered by {{w|Arthur E. Kennelly}} and {{w|Oliver Heaviside}}. In this diagram it is apparently labeling a heavily marked isotherm, or line of constant temperature - most likely the 0°C line, the freezing point of water that is of great importance to meteorologists, pilots, etc.
|-
| These lines are tilted because the wind is blowing them || No || The wind is not actually a derivable featured of this diagram, which does not have data of either direction or strength of air movement.
These lines are actually dry adiabats (see above), possibly two sets due to a similar renormalized interpretation, as with the isotherms, at a given reference pressure.
|-
| Don't stand here or you might get hit by a balloon || No || This is a diagram of some measurements, not a place you could stand.
|}

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

:How to interpret a skew-T log-P diagram
:[The comic shows a skew-T log-P diagram. On it are various labels, including isobars, comments, and other interpretations of the diagram.]
:[Left to the diagram is an upwards-pointing arrow with the label "Pressure Latitude". Right to the diagram is a downwards-pointing arrow with the label "Entropic Density". Below the diagram is a right-pointing arrow with the label "Enthalpic Pressure".]
:[The remaining various labels are inside the diagram.]

==Trivia==
*Even though this comic was released on New Year's Day 2025, it was not a [[:Category:New Year|New Year comic]].
**Only second time this has happened since New Year comics became a regular thing from 2011.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Weather]]

User talk:Firestar233

2025-01-01T22:41:56Z

162.158.74.118: /* User and User Talk pages for IPs */

{{crickets}}

but nobody came

== User and User Talk pages for IPs ==

There really is no point to creating these for IP users (such as myself, yes), as they are not a practical/viable a means to contact a specific anonymous contributor, nor a useful 'home-page' for them to use.

Now, '42' is maybe a bit keen to tidy up, and found that you seem to be active (or at least responded to a notification about the change to your Watched page, yes?), so rightfuly that should be reversed (the merits of tagging to delete other named users will depend upon the users themselves, there are occasional spam-only (or failed spam-only!) contributors that were given User-space pages by well-meaning others, who neither know nor care). But setting IP-specific pages to delete is entirely justified. If there are any significant contributions to these, they could probably be copied somewhere else first (pages of the most significant ''named'' contributor?), yet I generally doubt that'll be a realistic consideration, overall. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.163.111|172.70.163.111]] 12:23, 1 January 2025 (UTC)
: If the pages were blank, then I might agree. I'm mostly undecided on deleting the IP addresses' user and talk pages, but ''registered'' users probably shouldn't have their pages be deleted even if they are blank. [[User:Firestar233|guess who]] ([[User talk:Firestar233|if you desire conversing]] | [[Special:Contributions/Firestar233|what i have done]]) 21:31, 1 January 2025 (UTC)
:: Some people, upon getting "page creation privileges" have tended to go around and "un-redtext" people's user-space pages (or even just make them for random users they've seen sign up that day - not realising that a vast majority of the [[Special:Log/newusers|new users]] are typically just attempts at auto-spamming that get stalled).
:: It's all a lot easier if the user concerned (the who gains the pages) hasn't made any actual editing, or whose only edits are discredited. Even if you delete them and it ''wasn't'' a totally abandoned (and never-used) account, just hadn't got around to doing anything for several years, it can be recreated as soon as the puzzled owner finds out. (Some users, recently coming into "page creation capability" have tended to try to de-RedText random contributors to article Talk pagesl; or even give [[Special:Log/newusers|recent new users]] their userspace-pages, despite most of those clearly being abortively created only for spamming purposes.)
:: I think there's a degree of consideration to take when there is some content. But what use does the content of [[User talk:108.162.212.48|a page such as this]] have? That'd be a decision I'd happily leave to the administrator who eventually decideds to ''look at'' the "please delete this page" tag. They can look at the contributors, what they contribute, decided whether to: a) actually delete it (and, if there's reason to, they can always 'undelete' it, but meanwhile it cleans up the openly visible site), or b) remove the tag themselves.
:: I don't think it's your job to remove "please delete" tagging from pages that you randomly find like that. If you know the user concerned, maybe. If you ''are'' the user yourself, especially. But all you're doing is leaving it in a state where someone can be equally certain that they should be tagged-to-delete (with exactly the same reasoning) and re-apply it. Mass-hot(un)catting doesn't make me think that you've even looked at the users (contributors, if any, whoever created the page in the first place, but also the 'owner', if they've ever been involved).
:: No, maybe it wasn't right '42' to mark your particular page, but... look at the actual history of pages like [[User:Danken]]. Created (probably) in error, marked for deletion when that was realised... Then you reverse that for what reason? (Not for the sake of the content.) Good intentions, yes, vs. an equal well-intent. And, personally, I'd side with (some of!) the things you untagged being more tag-worthy than not. Leaving it up to the admin(s) to work out as and when they get around to it. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.118|162.158.74.118]] 22:41, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

3027: Exclusion Principle

2024-12-21T21:17:29Z

162.158.74.118: /* Explanation */ In case anyone wants to know.

{{comic
| number = 3027
| date = December 20, 2024
| title = Exclusion Principle
| image = exclusion_principle_2x.png
| imagesize = 264x336px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Fermions are weird about each other in a standoffish way. Integer-spin particles are weird about each other in a 'stand uncomfortably close while talking' kind of way.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a SOCIALLY ANXIOUS ELECTRON - Someone who knows more about physics should explain this. Also, the title text needs explanation. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
This comic is about the four fundamental forces of physics: gravity, electromagnetism, the strong force, and the weak force. In typical xkcd fashion, [[Randall]] also adds a joke entry: "Electrons are weird about each other". This is a description of how two or more electrons cannot share the exact same "spot". The name of this property is Pauli Exclusion Principle, and Randall has made [[658: Orbitals|xkcd 658]] about it. This is not directly a force: electrons on neighbouring spots do not "feel" each others presence and it's not possible to push one electron so hard that it goes into a spot that an electron already has - properties normal forces have. However, the combination of Pauli exclusion with the actual force of electromagnetism makes electrons behave as if there was a force additional to the electromagnetic one, the {{w|exchange interaction}}.
This is much harder to understand than simple forces, so Randall jokes that Physicists had given up, resolving to make it a force instead.
Randall makes it sounds like Physicists behaved like politicians, changing the laws (of nature) so that they're easier for them. In reality, humanity does not know a way to change the workings of nature, and scientist merely try to figure out and describe how nature works.

The title text expands from electrons to ''fermions'', the class of particles electron belong to, and ''bosons'', the other class of particles.
All fermions share the property of electrons of not being able to share the same spot. Bosons on the other hand, can do that - you can put two or really any amount of Bosons into one spot. Randall refers to this as "stand uncomfortably close while talking". This gives rise to quantum effects like {{w|superconductivity}}.

Interactions between electrons are different from how human interactions can depend upon the concept of {{w|Proxemics#Human distances|'personal space'}}, and they are therefore ‘weird’, which also explains the title text.

==Transcript==
:[Inside the panel, there is an underlined header and a numbered list, with the fifth and last item in red:]
:Fundamental Forces
:1. Gravity 
:2. Electromagnetism 
:3. The Weak Interaction 
:4. The Strong Interaction 
:''5. Electrons are weird about each other''

:[Caption below the panel:]
:Big news: Physicists have finally given up trying to explain about the "exchange interaction" and agreed to just make the exclusion principle a force.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Comics with red annotations]]
[[Category:Physics]]

3024: METAR

2024-12-15T00:26:53Z

162.158.74.118: Undo revision 359508 by 172.70.208.123 (talk) Water is *not* a set of twenty hydrogens... (And I don't believe this has anything to do with it, given that AO1 and AO2A, existst, etc.)

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

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

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

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

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

:Decoding a METAR report:

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

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

:[The annotations are:]

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

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





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

{{comic discussion}}

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

3021: Seismologists

2024-12-06T21:55:56Z

162.158.74.118: /* Explanation */ Better link, less repetition. For starters.

{{comic
| number = 3021
| date = December 6, 2024
| title = Seismologists
| image = seismologists_2x.png
| imagesize = 327x270px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = And even when they're not distracted, they usually get kicked out for illegal under-the-net 'subduction spikes'.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a ROGUE SEISMOLOGIST - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
In seismology, a {{w|Focal mechanism#Moment tensor solutions|"beachball" diagram}} is a [https://www.usgs.gov/programs/earthquake-hazards/focal-mechanisms-or-beachballs graphic] that is used to show the type of slip that a occurs in an earthquake. While playing beach volleyball and seeing the rotating two-shaded volleyball, [[Ponytail]] gets distracted due to its resemblance to what she commonly uses in her field of study, which causes her to be hit on the head. There are 3 types of slips: strike-slip (which Ponytail was distracted by), normal and thrust.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[Megan, Ponytail and Hairy are playing beach volleyball. Megan has her arms outreached, like she had just set the ball. The volleyball is shown three times: once above the net, once heading towards Ponytail, and once after bouncing off Ponytail’s head. Hairy is running towards Ponytail and the volleyball with his arm raised. Wavy lines are shown on the ground to show sand. A dashed line indicates the path of the volleyball.]
:Ponytail: Ooh, a strike-slip fault!
:''Bonk!''
:Ponytail: '''''Ow!'''''

:[Caption below the panel:]
:Why seismologists are bad at beach ball volleyball

==Trivia==
Although probably unrelated, a [https://apnews.com/article/california-earthquake-tsunami-warning-e1c73514097b78dfc082e40f98d0d426 7.0 magnitude earthquake] hit Northern California, USA at 10:44 AM PST, causing tsunami warnings (which were later cancelled) and a state of emergency to be called.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]
[[Category:Geology]]
[[Category:Sport]]

Talk:217: e to the pi Minus pi

2024-11-22T19:03:06Z

162.158.74.118: /* Not a coincidence */

Asserting that the programmers' algorithms truncated to three decimal digits is an unsupported and unnecessary extrapolation. Most floating-point implementations use binary, not decimal, and 19.999099979 ''looks'' very much like a rounding error in binary floating-point that has accumulated over several operations. [[User:Daddy|Daddy]] ([[User talk:Daddy|talk]]) 12:39, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
:Fixed. [[User:Xhfz|Xhfz]] ([[User talk:Xhfz|talk]]) 22:57, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

The "not good at math" might be too harsh, if they've (tried to) read the floating point spec. Depending on precision and rounding regime and order of operations, I could easily imagine the "equation" to be true ... and therefore a test that you were rounding "properly", even when it wasn't intuitive.

The third bullet-point above needs changing... (9^2+(19^2/22))=97.4090909091 which is close to pi to the fourth power, so it should be (as noted in the text) (9^2+(19^2/22))^1/4 [[User:Squirreltape|Squirreltape]] ([[User talk:Squirreltape|talk]]) 19:27, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
:Actually, in-case you didn't notice, it says "∜(9² + 19²/22)", not just the sum on its own. I checked the sum on my calculator, and it is equal to what the page is saying. "∜(9² + 19²/22)" means "4th root of (9^2+19^2/22)" (What the title text is saying), or on Windows Calculator, "(9^2+19^2/22) yroot(4)" (Basically what the sum is saying). So, the 3rd bullet point is correct. --[[User:Katavschi|Katavschi]] ([[User talk:Katavschi|talk]]) 22:48, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

It says above that (π + 20)^i ≈ -i, but this should be (π + 20)^i ≈ -1. Proof: π + 20 ≈ e^π => (π + 20)^i ≈ (e^π)^i = e^(πi) = -1.

The ACM competitions are famous for being under tight time pressure. Making your own team waste time would absolutely get you kicked out (and make enemies) [[User:Danshoham|Mountain Hikes]] ([[User talk:Danshoham|talk]]) 04:40, 23 September 2015 (UTC)

;"If they thought about the mathematics"

hm, are you saying it is obvious that e^ pi - pi is not 20? How would you know without approximating it? The sum of two irrationals is not necessarily irrational. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.34.194|162.158.34.194]] 01:58, 26 October 2015 (UTC)
:approximate e^pi using slightly bigger numbers than e and pi (say e: 2.7183 and pi: 3.1416) and subtract a value that is slightly smaller than pi (say 3.1415). The result is less than 20 and a upper limit for e^pi - pi [[Special:Contributions/141.101.93.49|141.101.93.49]] 19:59, 22 August 2016 (UTC)

the title text was close; the real identity is e^(π - 2) = π [[Special:Contributions/173.245.52.165|173.245.52.165]] 05:39, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

The approximation in the title text(the first quantity) is an approximation provided by Ramanujan. [[User:Sarah the Pie(yes, the food)|Sarah the Pie(yes, the food)]] ([[User talk:Sarah the Pie(yes, the food)|talk]]) 21:09, 22 February 2022 (UTC)

== Not a coincidence ==

In the "Explanation" section, it says that "the title text pokes fun at ''another'' coincidence". This implies that what came before was a coincidence (without ever actually explicitly saying so). As already mentioned in the trivia section, this was indeed what was believed when the comic was published, but it is no longer true (an explanation for eπ − π ≈ 20 was found in 2023; it is a simple consequence of π ≈ 22/7). The text should be updated accordingly. Relevant discussion about this can be found on {{w|Talk:Mathematical_coincidence#Explaining_e^%CF%80_%E2%88%92_%CF%80_%E2%89%88_20|this Wikipedia talk page}}, [https://pastebin.com/VzqPG5Gk here], and in the update eventually made to the [https://mathworld.wolfram.com/AlmostInteger.html Mathworld website] (the original source for much of this article). [[Special:Contributions/172.71.250.8|172.71.250.8]] 13:57, 22 April 2024 (UTC)
:That there is some (quite complicated) derivation of eπ − π ≈ 20 is neat, but that doesn't make it ''not a coincidence''. The fact that π ≈ 22/7 is also a coincidence anyway. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.118|162.158.74.118]] 19:03, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

3014: Arizona Chess

2024-11-21T12:45:44Z

162.158.74.118: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 3014
| date = November 20, 2024
| title = Arizona Chess
| image = arizona_chess_2x.png
| imagesize = 740x315px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Sometimes, you have to sacrifice pieces to gain the advantage. Sometimes, to advance ... you have to fall back.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a DAYLIGHT SLAYING BOT - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

[[White Hat]] and [[Cueball]] are playing a timed game of tournament-style chess. At the start of the comic White Hat has the advantage because, as well as having more pawn than Cueball, he has more time left to play his remaining moves — 6 minutes and 35 seconds, versus Cueball's 28 seconds, as shown on the {{w|chess clock}} above them.

However, Cueball has an unexpected advantage. The building is sited across the border of Arizona with another state, with White Hat on the Arizona side, and the game is being played at a very particular time of year, when (most of) the United States exits {{w|Daylight Saving Time}}, which happens at 2:00 AM on the morning of the first Sunday in November. As Arizona doesn't observe Daylight Saving Time (DST), unlike neighboring US states, only one clock gains an hour. White Hat's time remains normal, but Cueball's time "falls back" one hour, as his departure from daylight saving time occurs. Due to the way the timer clock apparently calibrates its display (perhaps in part based upon something like the self-adjusting [https://en.cppreference.com/w/c/chrono/localtime localtime()] function), Cueball is suddenly given more time in the game. White Hat, whose clock is governed by a different locale, protests, as this is not typically how these clocks should function. Daylight Slaying Time is a pun on Daylight Saving Time, but note that the comic takes place as the non-Arizona clock joins the Arizona clock in Standard Time.

The title text is a pun on "falling back" strategically from an attack and the term "fall back" in the mnemonic used to remember which way the clock changes when we go in and out of DST: "spring forward, fall back" (we advance the clock forward when entering DST in the spring, and move it backward when leaving it in the fall or autumn).

A handful of buildings even extend across international boundaries (these are known as {{w|line house}}s) and many more cross state or local boundaries in the US (a city, county or tribe may sometimes decide to use a different time zone than the rest of the state, so any of these can become a zone boundary, whether or not international databases reflect it).

While it is possible to arrange a table across a timezone boundary, a bigger challenge is to arrange for a chess clock to take advantage of this. Most do not account for timezones at all, as an internal timer should not be left susceptible to external conditions. They are also usually about 12 inches across, at most, which is not far above the positioning error in GPS; assuming that this was the way each 'clock half' tried to obey local conditions. Cueball would, in this case, have needed to find a clock that was capable of tracking time zones separately for each of the two internal clocks and had an excellent GPS receiver for each side (capable of detecting a several-inch difference in position as corresponding to another zone).

The alternative would be for there to be a way to manually enter two different configurations into the time-tracking circuits (an unlikely capability, and even the need to configure it with just the one would seem to be a feature that [[463: Voting Machines|introduces more problems than it solves]]), which might require more active interference in the clock by Cueball (or convenient collusion/mishandling on the part of any officials). In this case, it would have been trivial to set up this situation in ''any'' place (and for any time/date), although lacking the 'justification' for its effect.

Though current chess-timers should merely measure out time (mechanically or electronically), apportioning out the passage of time(/countdown) to one or other subunits, the game could be played in the future where standard chess clocks are different. Many sports are starting to embrace "electronic timing systems" that are increasingly integrated into more generic consumer-level electronics, and may find themselves susceptible to normally unforeseen interactions beyond the core timing functions they are supposed to be upholding.

Ongoing state-level efforts to end time changes could also increase the number of places where this situation could happen, as more DST/non-DST boundaries arise.

The comic was published five days before the start of the {{w:World Chess Championship 2024}} takes place in Singapore.

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

:[White Hat and Cueball are sitting across from each other playing chess. The time, shown above them in white on a black screen, reads 6:35 for White Hat, and 0:28 for Cueball.]
:White Hat: It’s late, I’m up a pawn, and you’re out of time. It’s over.
:Cueball: Ah, you’re forgetting something.

:[Cueball gestures with one hand above the chessboard. His time now reads 0:19.]
:Cueball: Did you know this building straddles the Arizona border?
:Cueball: It actually runs right through the table. You're on the Arizona side.

:[Cueball raises his hand further to gesture at his time. It beeps and is now blank and white.]
:Cueball: This tournament started Saturday, November 2nd. Now it's almost 2AM on the 3rd.
:Cueball: And there's something you should know about Arizona.
:Chess clock: BEEP

:[White Hat raises his head slightly to look at the timer. Cueball's time now reads 60:07. Cueball lowers his hand to make a move.]
:White Hat: '''''What?!''''' No! That's not how... '''''No!!'''''
:Cueball: Looks like it's daylight '''''slaying''''' time.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:Chess]]
[[Category:Daylight saving time]]

1932: The True Meaning of Christmas

2024-11-17T19:24:53Z

162.158.74.118: /* Explanation */ Giving both 'current' Donner and Blitzen and the original Dunder and Blixem, in context. Split paragraph (for title-text) and rewrote a little to make more sense with a better relationship with what's written.

{{comic
| number = 1932
| date = December 22, 2017
| title = The True Meaning of Christmas
| image = the_true_meaning_of_christmas.png
| titletext = They all made fun of Autometalogolex, but someday there will be a problem with Christmas that can only be solved if Santa somehow gets a serious headache, and then they'll see.
}}

==Explanation==
This is the first of two [[:Category:Christmas|Christmas comics]] in a row celebrating Christmas of 2017. The next being [[1933: Santa Facts]], released upon Christmas Day itself. This was the first time that a year with two Christmas comics had one released as early as December 22nd. Otherwise, it has always been in the range from December 23-26th. (As of 2023 it is still the only such comic released on the 22nd. In 2023 this was also the last release day before Christmas, but the earlier date was not specifically Christmas-themed that year.)

It is making fun of the common trope in popular media that the {{tvtropes|TrueMeaningOfChristmas|true meaning of Christmas}} is about family, friends, and sharing the Christmas Spirit. It subverts the trope by suggesting that once the stories of the "True Meaning of Christmas" become sufficiently common, the real true meaning becomes to spread those stories. Thus the search for the "True Meaning of Christmas" is itself the meaning of Christmas, in a sort of "the journey is the reward" discovery.

In the last panel and title text, "Autometalogolex" is a {{w|neologism}} of Randall's, which can be broken down to its various prefixes and the root:
:"Auto-" - Greek meaning "self."
:"Meta-" - Greek meaning "after," "beyond," or "in reference to."
:"Logo-" - Greek meaning "word" or "speech."
:"Lex" - "lexis" is another Greek word meaning "word"; but in this case it is more likely to be a shortening of "lexicon" (another word for dictionary), or perhaps a reference to the process of "lexing" (lexical analysis), part of the process of computer analysis of text.
Thus, "Autometalogolex" would literally mean "A word that refers to itself in the dictionary," or more precisely "the act of looking up the definition of autometalogolex", which leads to a recursion, as all ''meaning of Christmas'' stories do. Recursion and self-reference is a [[:Category:Self-reference|recurring theme]] in xkcd.

The term Autometalogolex might also refer to autological words, words that refer to a property of the word itself. ("noun" is a noun, "pentasyllabic" is pentasyllabic [has 5 syllables]). "Autometalogolex" is a 'meta' version of the looking up (lex) of an autological word.

[[Cueball]] finally states that Autometalogolex is his least favorite of {{w|Santa Claus's reindeer}}. This is not among the commonly quoted list of names, that are ''Dasher'', ''Dancer'', ''Prancer'', ''Vixen'', ''Comet'', ''Cupid'', ''Donner'', and ''Blitzen'' (although, {{w|Santa Claus's reindeer#Eight reindeer|originally}}, the last two were known as ''Dunder'' and ''Blixem''). There exist various other notable, but less famous, reindeer name-lists that also do not feature this; though, being unfavored, perhaps Autometalogolex was never taken out to be popularized by any of the main chroniclers.

The title text reveals this ninth reindeer as a possible equivalence to {{w|Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer}}, who was not accepted by the others until Santa had problems that only Rudolph could solve, and asked it to lead the other reindeer pulling the sleigh (despite being previously not being highly regarded by them). In this case, implies that the effective outcome of Autometalogolex is one in which a headache is given to Santa, for some unstated but apparently necessary reason. As headaches generally are bad,{{Citation needed}} this might be why Autometalogolex is not normally favored by Santa. But - as in a typical Christmas story, here driven into the absurd realm - should Santa ever desperately need a headache in order to fulfil his seasonal duties, then Autometalogolex would be there to save the day.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is talking to a guy wearing a Santa hat.]
:Cueball: You’re looking festive.
:Santa Hat: I love Christmas!
:Cueball: Really? Doesn’t seem like your kind of thing.
:Santa Hat: It’s our most meta holiday!

:[Same setting.]
:Cueball: How so?
:Santa Hat: All our Christmas stories now are about discovering the “true meaning of Christmas.”

:[The same setting in a frame-less panel where Santa Hat shrugs.]
:Cueball: Huh, yeah. And then sharing it with others.
:Santa Hat: At some point, that quest itself ''became'' the true meaning.

:[Same setting with Santa Hat holding a hand to his chin.]
:Cueball: Like a word whose definition is “the act of looking up the definition of this word.”
:Santa Hat: “Autometalogolex”?
:Cueball: My least favorite of Santa’s reindeer.

==Trivia==
*At the time this comic was released the expression ''Autometalogolex'' did not exist. But only a few hours later at {{w|Urban Dictionary}} this phrase got its first entries: [https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Autometalogolex Urbandictionary Autometalogolex].
*It appears that HopJacker Brewer makes a beer named ''Autometalogolex'', presumably named after this comic. There are [https://untappd.com/b/hopjacker-brewery-autometalogolex/2550579/photos multiple] [http://www.rutlandcamra.org.uk/2018/02/27/empingham-cricket-club-beer-festival-beer-list/ references] to it online, though it doesn't appear on [http://hopjacker.co.uk/beers/ HopJacker's own webpage], so it is possible that this beer doesn't exist and folks are just trolling beer drinkers to get them to autometalogolex.
*Some believe that the Santa Hat character is actually [[Black Hat]], owing to the Santa hat in question being black (the character's behavior, and [[Cueball]]'s comment that Santa Hat doesn't seem to be the type to enjoy Christmas match Black Hat's personality perfectly). However, the Santa hat may actually be meant to be red but rendered as black because the comic is in black-and-white (although it's worth nothing that in [[361: Christmas Back Home]] and [[838: Incident]], Christmas clothing was shown as red, not black). Santa Hat's identity is therefore unclear. But that was of course [[:Category:Comics with color|Comics with color]] which is not the norm in xkcd, which is why there is a category for those. In black and white comics it makes no sense to discuss that a black Santa hat must be black.
**But already in the next comic where the "real" Santa is described his red Santa Hat is drawn black, thus proving that it is not a black hat because it is black in the comic.
**Since there are many comics with [[:Category:Multiple Cueballs|Multiple Cueballs]], it could just as well be Cueball with a Santa Hat and another guy asking him about it.
**As there is no way to decide, then the best description of this comic is that Cueball is talking to a guy with a Santa Hat.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Christmas]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Characters with hats]]
[[Category:Animals]]
[[Category:Self-reference]]
[[Category:Language]]

590: Papyrus

2024-11-03T16:06:26Z

162.158.74.118: /* Trivia */ Or a possibility that the browser will find fall back to a 'papyrus substitute' font. (If configured similar to "Specific Serifed Font" having "More Generailised Serifed Font" and "Just *Any* Serifed Font!" configured as style-failovers.)

<noinclude>
{{comic
| number = 590
| date = May 29, 2009
| title = Papyrus
| image = papyrus.png
| titletext = I secretly, deep in my guilty heart, like Papyrus and don't care if it's overused. [Cue hate mail in beautifully-kerned Helvetica.]
}}</noinclude>

==Explanation==
One of the comics in the "[[:Category:My Hobby|My Hobby]]" series, this one touches on the fact that the font {{w|Papyrus (typeface)|Papyrus}} is considered to be overused by many typography geeks, including the font's own creator. Pretending that he doesn't know that, [[Cueball]] gives [[Ponytail]] a heartfelt card written in that font just to see her twitch.

The title text says that [[Randall]] actually ''likes'' Papyrus, even if it ''is'' overused, and refers to the fact that he will soon be receiving hate-mail from people who dislike Papyrus. Those mails will be written in {{w|Helvetica}}, another commonly-used sans-serif font that is highly esteemed by typography geeks, designers, and often hipsters. It suggests that the designers would also take the time to check the "{{w|kerning}}", editing the spacing between individual letters to be visually pleasing - a time-consuming activity that, it can be suggested, would only be noticed by other designers. See also [[1015: Kerning]].

==Transcript==
:[Caption above the panel:]
:<big>My Hobby:</big>
:Getting typography geeks heartfelt cards printed in "Papyrus" and watching them struggle to act grateful.

:[Ponytail is holding a card, with lines of indiscernible text, open and looking down, specifically neither on the card nor on Cueball, who is watching her instead. An angry tic is flicking on her forehead.]
:Ponytail: Thank you for the ''*twitch*'' ... lovely... ''*twitch*'' birthday card!

==Trivia==
Some editors have made a page that is a copy of this explanation in the Papyrus font, which can be accessed on [[590: Papyrus/Font]]. Note that the page only displays in that way if the required font is installed on your device, otherwise it should fall back to using the standard browser font.

{{comic discussion}}<noinclude>

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:My Hobby]]

Talk:3003: Sandwich Helix

2024-10-27T19:01:20Z

162.158.74.118:

Sandwich presumably refers to {{w|compliment sandwich}}, but I don’t know what the helix is. --[[User:Galaktos|Galaktos]] ([[User talk:Galaktos|talk]]) 14:03, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
:I think sandwich refers to the context itself, as in, the context of something is both what is before that and what is after. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.222.236|172.71.222.236]] 15:19, 26 October 2024 (UTC)
: Maybe {{w|Models of communication#Dance}}? --[[User:Galaktos|Galaktos]] ([[User talk:Galaktos|talk]]) 14:12, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

:The word "Helix" may be a reference to the previous comic. [[User:CategoryGeneral|CategoryGeneral]] ([[User talk:CategoryGeneral|talk]]) 14:36, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

:The moral of this story is "People will try to find meaning in anything, even things that are directly stated to be meaningless."[[Special:Contributions/172.70.176.43|172.70.176.43]] 23:01, 26 October 2024 (UTC)

That title text makes me reasonably upset. What nitwit decided "smart quotes" AND incompatible default encodings was a good idea? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.174.203|172.70.174.203]] 16:45, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

It seems that something like this could happen over time naturally if it's a saying that "everyone knows" so that real meaning stops being said, and then eventually that bit of information disappears. For instance KISS "Keep it simple, stupid" has a negative connotation, but the idea is very sound. So people keep saying the abbreviation but stop saying the full version, and new people hearing it the first time might get the basic idea without knowing why. Eventually even the meaning could be lost, and it could just become something that people say without knowing why. Maybe the assume the ancient designers and engineers liked to make out when they saw complex things. [[User:Andyd273|Andyd273]] ([[User talk:Andyd273|talk]]) 17:58, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

Frums - Options [[Special:Contributions/162.158.91.14|162.158.91.14]] 04:18, 26 October 2024 (UTC)

''KISS Keep it simple, stupid'' was originally ''keep it stupid simple''. An emphasis, not an insult. --[[User:PRR|PRR]] ([[User talk:PRR|talk]]) 05:12, 26 October 2024 (UTC)
: "Keep it stupid, simple" still sounds like an insult. [[User:These Are Not The Comments You Are Looking For|These Are Not The Comments You Are Looking For]] ([[User talk:These Are Not The Comments You Are Looking For|talk]]) 03:07, 27 October 2024 (UTC)
:: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KISS_principle#Origin --[[User:PRR|PRR]] ([[User talk:PRR|talk]]) 18:31, 27 October 2024 (UTC)
::: Note for recent editors... You can use that link as <code><nowiki>{{w|KISS principle#Origin|~insert some link text here~}}</nowiki></code> to get it to look like {{w|KISS principle#Origin|~insert some link text here~}}. I think we're getting some new users who seem not to be aware of this handy template, and/or being lazy about it. (I also indented your comment, for the circumstances.) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.118|162.158.74.118]] 19:01, 27 October 2024 (UTC)
:maybe keep it stupidly simple?{{unsigned ip|172.69.34.176|04:56, 27 October 2024}}

Infodump: To my knowledge the only five encodings resulting in "â€™" for utf-8 encoded "’" are Windows-125X where X is an even decimal digit. {{unsigned ip|162.158.154.78|15:25, 27 October 2024}}
==Grammar==
Minor grammatical point; please feel free to skip this. I just tweaked "a communication technique [...] which meaning has not been lost." to "a communication technique [...] whose meaning has not been lost.". "''Of'' which ''the'' meaning" or "whose meaning" both work, but the latter is less contrived. People keep forgetting that "whose" can refer to objects, as well as to people. <https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/whose#Determiner>

The first rule of communication is "Always talk about communication." [[User:RegularSizedGuy|RegularSizedGuy]] ([[User talk:RegularSizedGuy|talk]]) 15:36, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

==Helix==

I don't think the "helix" refers to software development. It could be about the helical model of communication, which conveys communication as a non-linear process.

This is perhaps a joke with these simplistic "rules" of communication (like the compliment sandwich), which portray communication as something much simpler.

If we assume that communication is complex and non-linear (as the helical model of communication portrays), we might conclude that there is no such thing as "#1 rule of communication"; something that could be observed by the misuse of the "compliment sandwich". {{unsigned ip|172.70.47.87|15:38+, 25 October 2024}} (Assuming all the above is the same IP editor, tweaking their comment.)

:Ah, thank you. I added the Spiral (for development) because I couldn't find the Helix one (for communication), and I thought this was the best linkable item out there. Now I know it's ''Helical'', I've found it and I can put a link on your addendum and perhaps remove my original 'placeholder'. That's collaborative communication! ;) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.77|172.70.91.77]] 15:56, 25 October 2024 (UTC) (PS, please sign Talk contributions, and wikilinks are a good idea if you can add them. ;p )

I took the opposite point from that in the explanation so far, especially with the title text: Even if the encoding is wrongly specified, it's possible to figure out what was meant by some sequence of bytes. I imagine the teacher using a different nonce every time to make the point about the #1 rule of communication: Words don't have inherent meaning, it is acquired through use. (Though if I'm the only one with this interpretation it kind of sinks my idea I guess). [[User:Hcs|Hcs]] ([[User talk:Hcs|talk]]) 10:18, 26 October 2024 (UTC)

Is it not true that Cueball could basically be demonstrating the #1 rule, i.e. context is important, and that sometimes language is self-repairing? [[Special:Contributions/172.69.214.109|172.69.214.109]] 14:42, 26 October 2024 (UTC)

:<=========>
: ∞∞∞∞∞∞∞
:<=========>

Helix sandwich. That did not render well.- TenGolf
[[Special:Contributions/172.69.58.19|172.69.58.19]] 18:20, 27 October 2024 (UTC)
:Like it now? (There are better ways, but is the simplest.)[[Special:Contributions/172.68.205.134|172.68.205.134]] 18:28, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

Talk:2851: Messier Objects

2024-10-27T18:56:25Z

162.158.74.118:

addededededded transcript [[User:Certified_nqh|Me]][[[285: Wikipedian Protester|''citation needed'']]][[Category:Pages using the "citation needed" template]] 17:34, 6 November 2023 (UTC)
: meow [[User:SomeoneIGuess|someone, i guess]]([[User talk:SomeoneIGuess|talk i guess]]|[[Special:Contributions/SomeoneIGuess|le edit list]]) 17:54, 6 November 2023 (UTC)
Is M30712050 that specific squirrel, or just the general category of squirrels? [[Special:Contributions/172.69.247.56|172.69.247.56]] 17:57, 6 November 2023 (UTC)
:The debate about the Ship of Theseus suggests that every ship gets its own number, so why not every squirrel? Although then the numbers would be much larger. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 18:04, 6 November 2023 (UTC)
::...and the list would be much messier. [[User:Yorkshire Pudding|Yorkshire Pudding]] ([[User talk:Yorkshire Pudding|talk]]) 18:32, 6 November 2023 (UTC)
:::*fwap* [[Special:Contributions/172.69.43.143|172.69.43.143]] 00:47, 7 November 2023 (UTC)
:It can't be all squirrels, CM could not have seen *all* squirrels. In fact, he would have been dead long before *that* squirrel was born. [[User:SDSpivey|SDSpivey]] ([[User talk:SDSpivey|talk]]) 21:20, 6 November 2023 (UTC)
::Presuming that Messier is alive in this panel, then this panel isn't the present, and the squirrel was alive when Messier was alive. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.155.162|162.158.155.162]] 21:58, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

could the numbers have been picked to represent something rather than be entirely random? like 41592 coming from pi and 137 being FSC... idk maybe i'm just reading too much into it... [[Special:Contributions/162.158.186.11|162.158.186.11]] 18:09, 6 November 2023 (UTC)
: i mean...every finite string of numbers "comes from" pi [[User:Certified_nqh|Me]][[[285: Wikipedian Protester|''citation needed'']]][[Category:Pages using the "citation needed" template]] 15:42, 9 November 2023 (UTC)

Between the Messier catalog and the Marvel multiverse, we've got a well-defined numbering system that indexes all objects in all universes. (Or, I guess at least those universes with Messier catalogs. Damn.) [[Special:Contributions/172.69.58.18|172.69.58.18]] 19:03, 6 November 2023 (UTC)
:You should also number all Messier catalogues (and intermediate versions of them), then, to make sure we know which ones we're talking about. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.43.143|172.69.43.143]] 00:47, 7 November 2023 (UTC)
:: Furthermore, each entry in the catalog should have it's own entry in the catalog. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.247.65|172.69.247.65]] 02:57, 8 November 2023 (UTC)
:: I went through the contribs of one of my IP addresses and found this. I don't know how that happened. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.58.18|172.69.58.18]] 18:22, 27 October 2024 (UTC)
::: You don't get consistent IPs as (like me) an IP-only editor. Even if there wasn't the proxy guarding the site, converting everyone's actual ISP-end IPs into the proxy-ranges (which basically lumps people into various more concentrated, geographically bunched, sub-sets of IPs), the similar thing that your ISP would have done could also have assigned you (right here, right now) an IP that a completely different editor was using last year, last month, even (in some circumstances) a minute ago.
::: If I go back in and edit my own contribution, seconds apart, it's likely the IP will change ''slightly'', and sometimes even across on a totally different IP-block. As an example, testing this entry with Previews first gives 172.70.58.30, then 172.68.205.178, then 172.68.205.135 (for that demonstration, I was hoping I'd maybe land onto a 140-ish or 162-ish block, but I didn't).
::: I've also replied to someone else's (recent) comment and found myself on the ''same'' IP as them (which looks weird, frankly). Luck of the draw.
::: Talking about luck of the draw, let's see what I land on with my ''actual'' saved comment, thusly: [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.119|162.158.74.119]] 18:55, 27 October 2024 (UTC) (Post-edit... hah! Got a 162.* after all!)

Wait a minute... this is just the wikidata QID system again[[User:AtaraxianAscendant|ataraxianAscendant]] ([[User talk:AtaraxianAscendant|talk]]) 19:34, 6 November 2023 (UTC)
:Yes, it's like Wikidata. Not sure if it's worth mentioning. Unfortunately, the numbers don't match those Wikidata for equivalent objects.
:Furtermore, Wikimedia Commons ID use an M and a number. For example, https://commons.wikimedia.org/entity/M205.--[[User:Pere prlpz|Pere prlpz]] ([[User talk:Pere prlpz|talk]]) 19:39, 6 November 2023 (UTC)
:: {{wikidata|2013|Wikidata}} does something similar, but they use /Q\d+/ instead. [[User:Certified_nqh|Me]][[[285: Wikipedian Protester|''citation needed'']]][[Category:Pages using the "citation needed" template]] 15:45, 9 November 2023 (UTC)
:I added a section about Wikidata because the first thing that I wanted to do when I read this comic was look up what the IDs were for all of the objects mentioned. It certainly could be written better. [[User:Brycemw|Brycemw]] ([[User talk:Brycemw|talk]]) 15:31, 7 November 2023 (UTC)
:: Ha! Edit conflicted. Sample of diff (-my submission and +the one that got there just before me):
-
:[https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1050837 Q1050837] (Ship of Theseus) (The ''concept'', only...)
+
:[https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1050837 Q1050837] (Ship of Theseus) (The thought experiment)
::: Oopsies! the one on the bottom is mine haha. [[User:SomeoneIGuess|someone, i guess]]([[User talk:SomeoneIGuess|talk i guess]]|[[Special:Contributions/SomeoneIGuess|le edit list]]) 18:45, 7 November 2023 (UTC)
:: Great minds think alike! (Fools never differ...) [[Special:Contributions/172.71.178.79|172.71.178.79]] 16:19, 7 November 2023 (UTC) 

The existence of a Messier catalog implies the existence of a Neater catalog. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.134.130|172.69.134.130]] 19:42, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

The explanation suggests that we might number every grain of sand. But the comic just has a single number for "Earth". Would the catalog have separate entries for an object and all its constituents? It doesn't seem like it, since Randall didn't label the wings of the butterfly, limbs of the squirrel or human, or branches and leaves of the tree. Of course, how we distinguish distinct objects in the world is an even thornier philosophical problem than the Ship of Theseus. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 20:36, 6 November 2023 (UTC)
:I deleted that portion as non-explanatory wild speculation. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.159.64|172.71.159.64]] 21:03, 6 November 2023 (UTC)
::The same would apply to the real Messier Objects too - do you label a star cluster, and then label the individual stars within it as well?[[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.228|172.70.90.228]] 10:04, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

Shouldn't Earth (or Messier) be object #0? [[User:SDSpivey|SDSpivey]] ([[User talk:SDSpivey|talk]]) 21:20, 6 November 2023 (UTC)
:You'll need to bring that up with Messier... [[Special:Contributions/162.158.197.136|162.158.197.136]] 15:52, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

How messy are they? 🥁 [[Special:Contributions/172.70.100.211|172.70.100.211]] 22:00, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

Earth number might be influenced by [https://rickandmorty.fandom.com/wiki/Dimension_C-137 Dimension C-137] from Rick and Morty, which often is used to refer to the "Earth" location from early easons. --
[[Special:Contributions/172.70.200.145|172.70.200.145]] 22:27, 6 November 2023 (UTC) (edit [[Special:Contributions/172.68.146.17|172.68.146.17]] 22:33, 6 November 2023 (UTC))

For the numbering of the ships of Theseuses, why not just use the numbers from a particular type of prime number? ----

In the UK, the Ship of Theseus problem is sometimes referred to as Trigger's Broom, after a character from one of our most popular sitcoms ("Only Fools And Horses"). Trigger is a mentally-deficient road sweeper who is proud of the fact that he's still got his original broom that he was given when he started work 20 years ago. He's looked after it in that time: it's had 17 new heads and 14 new handles...
[[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.189|172.70.86.189]] 06:21, 7 November 2023 (UTC)
:To be fair (and, unfortunately, historically unfair to the Irish), that's just a transplant of the older "Irishman's Broom". And it's just one of many variations like "grandfather's axe", etc. Depends on whether you're going for fairly recent pop-culture (lovely-jubbley!), falling back on old stereotypes (to be sure, to be sure) or whatever else you have in mind. (I'm sure I actually heard "Ship of Theseus" said on the street, just the other day, by a conversing couple. And this wasn't even an Oxbridge street!)
:To be fair ''to Trigger'', the council for whom the character worked was also as blind/far-sighted regarding the philosophical (dis)continuity of existence, given the award in which they were citing the broom as one of the outstanding features... Much as the US Government treats the 'modern' USS Constitution as the same as the 'original', maybe? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.231|172.70.90.231]] 09:02, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

Could the M137 for earth be a Rick and Morty reference, since that is their earth/universe-number as well? [[User:Eugen|Eugen]] ([[User talk:Eugen|talk]]) 09:54, 8 November 2023 (UTC)
: We gotta go to xkcd, Morty! There's no time to explain, get in, Morty! [[User:SomeoneIGuess|someone, i guess]]([[User talk:SomeoneIGuess|talk i guess]]|[[Special:Contributions/SomeoneIGuess|le edit list]])
:I think it's close to impossible that this ISN'T a Rick And Morty reference, well spotted! That should probably go in the explanation somewhere... [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 05:04, 11 November 2023 (UTC)

Another interpretation isn't so much that the higher-numbered objects are less "significant", but more that Messier numbered them in order, and so higher numbers mean objects that Messier took longer to get around to numbering. It took him until object 206 to think to number himself, and other things such as random specific squirrels have much higher numbers because he didn't get to them until much later in his cataloguing process. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.242.54|108.162.242.54]] 16:13, 9 November 2023 (UTC)

Concerning trees and squirrels, this assertion can and indeed should be supported with a citation (citing any adequate souce listing the objects in the catalogue). I have therefore changed the "fact" tag to "Actual citation needed" to avoid confusion with the humourous version. Whether the assertion is correct or not is questionable. One could argue that M5, the Rose Cluster, is named after the rose tree; that M20, the Trifid Nebula is actually the Triffid Nebula; and that M93, the Critter Cluster, refers to a variety of critters, including squirrels.[[User:Catherine|Catherine]] ([[User talk:Catherine|talk]]) 00:53, 11 November 2023 (UTC)

Okay, so right now where it says there are no Messier-numbered galaxies named after trees or squirrels, it says "Actual Citation Needed". I would assume the only proof of this would be to cite the actual list to note no squirrels or trees in it (squirrels obviously, I feel like trees would be plausible). So, how do we do an actual citation? Link to the list somewhere reliable and put a footnote like on Wikipedia?

Also, I feel like there's an intentional joke that the first object available to Messier, himself, is numbered as low as 205. Like logically he'd be 1 (or 0, if he wanted to keep actual numbers for actual celestial bodies) or 111. [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 05:04, 11 November 2023 (UTC)
:Numbered in the order of being first observed, from the moment he set his mind to it? And there were no mirrors (that weren't probably concave and mounted in his telescope*) in direct view for the first couple of hundred observations? His notepad given zero, perhaps? What of his pen(cil)? The non-telescopic mirror would have been 205, perhaps, or lower, depending on how he came upon it.
:<nowiki>*</nowiki> Hmmm... Whereupon is numbered the telescope he initially used? Unless using some special "need a full, all-round, unoccluded view" rule as part of his internal process of concluding a valid observation.
:Fleeting sideling glimpses (and being, ironically, far too close) could defer many, many things from snap consideration. It does suggest The Earth should be almost the last thing to be numbered (after "the inside of the Apollo 8 capsule"?), but perhaps his particular systematic rationale has occasionally been revised... [[Special:Contributions/141.101.68.80|141.101.68.80]] 11:32, 11 November 2023 (UTC)
::Even without mirrors, there's still reflections in water (I feel like there's other natural mirrors, but I can't think of any). Also, you only need a reflective surface to see your own face - and more than that to see your back - but people generally can see all of their front from the chest down (chest, stomach, arms, legs, hands, feet...)... Even some of our backs (butts, back of the legs and arms) by moving our parts around. Messier is still the first observable object to Messier. :) [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 06:06, 19 November 2023 (UTC)
:::"Messier object 0: Messier's nose". Beyond that (and I think that the flash of inspiration is as likely, or more, to have struck when his dominant eye is firmly stuck to an eyepiece, rendering even his nose not directly visible), you have to at least be paying attention to ''notice'' even your own hands in front of your face. If you first action is to contort yourself to assess exactly how steatopygian your gluteals are, then you're probably thinking of far different things than astronomy, or even just "what can I actually see, in front of me?" (apart from that pencil and paper, presumably). The mysterious backstory behind the (in-universe) sources of the comic's details are, of course, unknown, but you can probably defer some assumptions as less likely than others. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.43.138|172.69.43.138]] 17:03, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

Albert Einstein

2024-10-15T11:13:39Z

162.158.74.118:

{{Infobox character
| image = Albert_Einstein_1233.png
| imagesize = 200px
| caption = '
| first_appearance = [[1206: Einstein]]
}}

<noinclude>:''For a list of comics, see [[:Category:Comics featuring Albert Einstein|Comics featuring Albert Einstein]].''</noinclude>

'''{{w}}''' was a German-born theoretical physicist who is widely held as one of the most influential scientists. He is best known for developing the {{w|theory of relativity}}.

[[Randall]] has made many references to him, and also drawn him in at least three of his comics. The first was called [[1206: Einstein]], the second [[1233: Relativity]] (where the picture of Einstein on this page is from), and finally [[2959: Beam of Light]].

A joke used by Randall is that Einstein got his ideas while working at the {{w|Albert_Einstein#1902–1909:_Assistant_at_the_Swiss_Patent_Office|Swiss patent office}}, because little to none Swiss patents have been registered, due to the fact that Switzerland hasn’t had a pressing need to come up with inventions over the years. This is mentioned in [[505: A Bunch of Rocks]].

{{navbox-characters}}
[[Category:Characters]]
[[Category:Real people]]

2982: Water Filtration

2024-09-28T21:07:27Z

162.158.74.118: /* Explanation */ Better commaing

{{comic
| number = 2982
| date = September 6, 2024
| title = Water Filtration
| image = water_filtration_2x.png
| imagesize = 593x467px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = You'd think the most expensive part would be the quark-gluon plasma chamber, but it's actually usually the tube to the top of the atmosphere to carry the cosmic rays down.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic seems to be a diagram of how well water is purified, a common set of procedures done to make said water safe to drink. However, this well water is "purified" through a series of increasingly unnecessary, expensive, and possibly hazardous steps, ending with producing "pure" water synthesized from hydrogen and oxygen (which have each been synthesized from subatomic particles) - before promptly undoing all of the work by re-adding raw well water and its original minerals and probiotics, (which is one way of describing chemical and biological contaminants) "for taste and to support immune health". In real life, groundwater generally only needs treatment for any contaminants (chemical or biological) known to be a problem based on the results of water testing or an incident, but adding the original water back in could be dangerous if the water has not been sampled recently.
A faucet is "a device that controls the flow of liquid, especially water, from a pipe", commonly known as a ''tap'' in many parts of the world.

{| class="wikitable"
|-
!Step
!Real Device?
!Used for water treatment?
!Explanation
|-
|Water softener
|{{Yes|Real}}
|{{Yes}}
|{{w|Water softening}} is the removal of calcium, magnesium, and certain other metal cations in hard water. The resulting soft water requires less soap for the same cleaning effort, as soap is not wasted bonding with calcium ions. Soft water also extends the lifetime of plumbing and appliances by reducing or eliminating scale build-up in pipes, fittings, reservoirs, and so on. The comic shows the water either being passed through some granulated material (presumably, {{w|ion-exchange resins}}) or into a precipitation chamber for lime (or soda ash) softening. This is one of the few steps in this process that arguably fits the comic title of "Water Filtration."
|-
|Reverse osmosis
|{{Yes|Real}}
|{{Yes}}
|{{w|Reverse osmosis}} is a common step used in modern water-purification systems. It relies on using osmotic membranes and high pressures to separate water molecules from dissolved solutes and biological substances. Interestingly, it would also act as a softening step, rendering the previous step potentially redundant, depending on the goals for each step. It's also overkill for most wells, as groundwater often needs treatment targeted to only a few contaminants, if any treatment at all. This is one of the few steps in this process that definitely fits the comic title of "Water Filtration."
|-
|Ultraviolet Sterilization
|{{Yes|Real}}
|{{Yes}}
|{{w|Ultraviolet germicidal irradiation|Ultraviolet sterilization}} uses UV lamps at short wavelengths to damage the DNA and thereby kill micro-organisms in the water. In the USA, this is an uncommon method of well water sterilization, as the pathogens most likely to be found in well water (as opposed to surface water) are generally much more responsive to chemical disinfection. Many wells don't even need a disinfection step; whether this well needs disinfection or not, this is hardly the most impractical step in this treatment train.
|-
|Autoclave
|{{Yes|Real}}
|{{Yes}}
|{{w|Autoclaves}} are essentially large pressure cookers that sterilize items and liquids through exposing them to a high temperature (~120°C or ~248°F) over tens of minutes in presence of water. By maintaining a high pressure, the boiling point of water goes up. This creates a very hot and humid atmosphere, making efficient heat transfer with all contents and inactivating all biological entities through this heat. They are commonly used in hospital and laboratory settings to sterilize plastics, glassware, equipment and solutions (like bottles of growth medium for bacteria) to be used in a sterile environment. The advantage of this method compared to dry heat (aka putting things in a 150°C-180°C oven until they are sterile) is that most lab plastics survive a passage at 120°C without melting. While difficult to streamline (as this technique is used for batches), it has the advantage over light-based methods that heat gets everywhere, and that instead of just damaging DNA, you also denature many of the proteins and other structures of microorganisms. Some proteins, such as {{w|prion}}s, can survive autoclaving intact but, for most purposes, equipment that's been autoclaved can be regarded as sterile.
|-
|Condenser
|{{Yes|Real}}
|{{Yes}}
|This step condenses the steam generated by the autoclave back into water. This is a normal part of the process used in "traditional" water purification by distillation.
|-
|Regular osmosis
|{{Yes|Real}}
|{{No}}
|Regular osmosis (also known as "osmosis") is the tendency of a solvent (like water) to flow through a semipermeable membrane towards the side that has a higher concentration of dissolved molecules or ions. It therefore goes from a purer state to a less pure state, the opposite of filtration.
|-
|X-Ray Sterilization
|{{Yes|Real}}
|{{No}}
|{{w|Sterilization_(microbiology)#Ionizing_radiation_sterilization|X-ray sterilization}} is used to sterilize equipment, and may also be used as a cold method (in contrast to techniques like pasteurization) of eliminating germs and killing insects in fresh foodstuffs. Has also been used to sterilize postal mail.
|-
|Carbon Filter
|{{No|Fake}}
|{{No}}
|The water is passed through some volume of carbon - a riff on activated carbon filters, which ''are'' used in water filtration as seen later in the process. The exact {{w|allotropy|allotrope}} of carbon is not mentioned, so this could possibly be a graphite, carbon nanotubes, or even solid diamond "filter". This is one of the few steps in this process that definitely fits the comic title of "Water Filtration."
|-
|Neutron Source
|{{Yes|Real}}
|{{No}}
|A {{w|neutron source}} generates high-energy neutrons. High-energy neutrons are highly penetrating and will cause ionization events to occur due to collision with atoms in the water. This can potentially make the water more radioactive due to the generation of radioactive isotopes.
|-
|Activated Carbon Filter
|{{Yes|Real}}
|{{Yes}}
|{{w|Activated carbon}} is a form of carbon commonly used to filter contaminants from water and air, as it has a large surface area available to adsorb impurities on its surface. While this isn't a strange step to see in a water purification process, Randall makes a pun here with its proximity to the neutron source - the carbon has been '{{w|Neutron activation|activated}}' by the neutron source, and is currently radioactive. Water filtered through this may pick up radioactive isotopes from the filter. This is one of the few steps in this process that definitely fits the comic title of "Water Filtration."
|-
|Gamma Ray Sterilization
|{{Yes|Real}}
|{{No}}
|Similar to x-ray sterilization, this step uses {{w|Sterilization (microbiology)#Ionizing radiation sterilization|gamma rays}} to sterilize the water. Gamma rays can potentially irradiate the water through photodisintegration if their energy is higher than the binding energy of oxygen.
|-
|Cosmic Ray Sterilization
|{{No|Fake}}
|{{No}}
|Similar to the previous step, but this time using high energy {{w|cosmic rays}} to do so. This would be incredibly impractical, as cosmic rays are generally blocked by the atmosphere at high altitudes (as stated in the title text). Furthermore, their extremely high energy (shown to be in the exa-electron volt (EeV, or 1018 eV) range) would cause multiple high-energy particles to be created on impact with the water molecules, irradiating the water significantly.
|-
|Electrolysis
|{{Yes|Real}}
|{{No}}
|The water is broken down into hydrogen and oxygen gas using an electric current. Assuming the gas outputs of this process are pure hydrogen and oxygen gas, this *would* be an extremely effective sterilization tactic, seeing as no known organism or water pollutant is entirely composed out of hydrogen or oxygen gas. Along with the next step, this step may be a misguided attempt to "take the water apart and clean each part individually". The hydrogen is sent to the ionizer, while the oxygen is sent to the oxygen spallation step.
|-
|Oxygen Spallation
|{{No|Fake}}
|{{No}}
|Almost all oxygen in existence was originally created via {{w|stellar nucleosynthesis}}. Now, in this step in the purification, the oxygen is apparently broken down back into hydrogen via a fictional form of {{w|Cosmic_ray_spallation|spallation}}. While spallation can form lighter nuclei from heavier ones, there is no known process to convert oxygen back down to hydrogen. It is unclear what happens to the neutrons present in the oxygen nuclei - whether they are removed, used to create hydrogen isotopes or allowed to decay into protons and electrons (the components of yet more hydrogen, when properly reintroduced). The hydrogen formed here is merged with the rest of the hydrogen before being sent to the ionizer.
|-
|Ionizer
|{{Yes|Real}}
|{{No}}
|The hydrogen output by the previous step is made into a plasma with free electrons and protons (not bound into atoms).
|-
|Quark-Gluon Plasma Chamber
|{{No|Fake}}
|{{No}}
|The plasma output from the previous step is further energized into a {{w|quark–gluon plasma}}, such as the one found just after the Big Bang. This follows the theme of the previous steps, which all serve to break the water down into their elementary components. The incredible energies involved in doing so are unachievable by current technologies (current particle accelerators can form such a plasma for very short periods of time and involve a very small amount of matter), and serve to highlight the impracticality of this setup (as alluded to in the title text). The energies would also result in formation of lepton pairs from energy, which is presumably where the electrons from the previous step ended up.
|-
|Hydrogenation
|style="background:#FFFF9E;vertical-align:middle;text-align:{{{align|center}}};{{{style|}}}" class="table-yes"|Kinda
|{{No}}
|This process converts the quark-gluon plasma output in the previous step into elemental hydrogen, reversing the previous two steps. Presumably, this is done via {{w|hadronization}} and {{w|recombination}}; however, it is unclear how the {{w|baryon asymmetry}} needed to generate matter and not anti-matter is developed. The resulting hydrogen is split into 2 streams leading into the Nucleosynthesis and Reverse Electrolysis steps. In real life, {{w|hydrogenation}} is the process of adding hydrogen to unsaturated hydrocarbons.
|-
|Nucleosynthesis
|{{No|Fake}}
|{{No}}
|Part of the hydrogen produced in the previous step is converted into oxygen via 2 sub-processes. The hydrogen is first converted into helium and carbon through a combination of the {{w|proton-proton chain}} and the {{w|CNO cycle}} as per the labels on the step. The helium and carbon are then converted into oxygen through the {{w|alpha process}}. This step may also involve the {{w|triple-alpha process}}, seeing that the alpha process is typically only applicable to converting carbon into heavier elements owing to the lack of a stable element with eight nucleons. These steps normally occur in the cores of massive stars. It is not known how the oxygen is filtered from the extremely hot plasma of fusion products.
|-
|Reverse Electrolysis
|{{Yes|Real}}
|{{No}}
|This step is essentially a fuel cell, utilizing an electrochemical reaction to convert hydrogen and oxygen back into water and electricity.
|-
|Adding Well Water
|{{Yes|Real}}
|{{Yes}}
|A second pipe is linked to the first that simply feeds untreated well water into the pipes, partially undoing the entire process. Even if the well water is only a small portion of the faucet water, its presence has now made the now incredibly pure water impure. This act of putting well water into the faucet after treating it may be a riff on the cultural interest in "spring water" or "pure glacial water" that is said to have additional minerals or beneficial properties but is oftentimes not meaningfully distinct from properly treated tap water. "Local minerals and probiotics added" may be a reference to Coke's "Dasani" brand drinking water, which is purified by reverse osmosis, and then has a package of minerals added to create the flavor (pure water's actual lack of flavor can be perceived as an unpleasantly 'flat' flavor).

In addition, drinking only {{w|Tonicity|extremely hypotonic}} liquid intake can induce the body to expel more water than it took in (taking with it some essential minerals that are not being replaced) to try to maintain equilibrium of concentrations. This effect is not directly dangerous, but could exacerbate other bodily deficiencies in the long term and have the issues of greater than necessary liquid throughput than with 'normal' drinking water. The tendency for {{w|Sports drink#Categories|many 'sports' or 'health' drinks}} to hype the term 'isotonic' is based upon the idea that an ideal concentration of solutes can be added, in-between the opposing problems of having either too many ''or'' too few 'impurities'. The process does not include adding untreated (and probably also untested/unquantified) ground water, which could carry pathogenic organisms and chemicals, and appears to have no mechanism for ensuring what ''might'' be an acceptable level of re-blending for the circumstances.

Alternatively, it may be that the level of purity achieved by this setup is so overkill, and the cost per liter processed so high, that it's simply more efficient to treat just enough of the water to dilute the rest of the water to acceptable levels of contaminants. For example, it's common to use a partial bypass to supply water to the shower, since shower water does not need to be potable. Also, some well water systems are clean enough to not need any treatment at all and can be used straight from the well, and some water systems are only slightly high in a single chemical contaminant that can be addressed by blending the water, either with treated water or another source (treated or untreated). Perhaps the treatment process led to enough radioactivity that blending with the original source was required to address radiological contamination (either gross alpha radiation or specific radionuclides).
|}

The title text briefly covers the cost implications of the components. Various 'real' filter elements will have material or energy costs or both, in operation or to replenish their effectiveness, and the high energy input needed to disassociate hadrons into raw quark–gluon plasma (at bulk levels) would seem to require the most in terms of running the equipment. But it is pointed out that to ''ensure'' enough cosmic rays reach that particular phase of sterilization, there would have to be a pipe (not shown) leading out to the edge of the atmosphere to optimistically carry down such particles (due to also containing ''no'' air, i.e., keeping it out to negate the normal {{w|Air shower (physics)|shielding and dissipating effect}} of the atmosphere on cosmic rays). However, this pipe would not only be a flight hazard, but also to ensure that no air molecules get in, the pipe would have to be similar to a space elevator, which would wreak a lot of havoc on LEO and MEO.
Whether a one-off cost or needing regular replacement, the setting up of such a tubular structure (a vertical air-proof pipe perhaps somewhere between 100 and 10000 kilometers high) would be technically challenging and has not ever been actually accomplished. The conditions for a quark–gluon plasma, albeit in limited quantities, at least have been fulfilled at {{w|CERN}}, with its 27 kilometer airless pipe that goes round within a vast circular tunnel.

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

:[Header:]
:How Water Filtration Works

:[A system of various devices between water pipes is shown.]
:[Input:]
:Well water
:[Labels of various devices:]
:Water softener
:Reverse osmosis
:Ultraviolet sterilization
:Autoclave
:Condenser
:Regular osmosis
:X-ray sterilization
:Carbon filter
:Neutron source
:Activated carbon filter
:Gamma ray sterilization
:Cosmic ray sterilization [On the device: "EeV γ"]
:Electrolysis [H2O split into O and H]
:Oxygen spallation [O becomes H]
:Ionizer [H split into + and -]
:Quark-gluon plasma chamber [+ and - become QGP]
:Hydrogenation [QGP becomes H]
:Nucleosynthesis [H goes through "P-P CNO" and becomes He and C, then through "Alpha" and becomes O]
:Reverse electrolysis
:[Output after devices:]
:Pure water
:[Second input, mixed with pure water:]
:Well water
:[Label:]
:Local minerals and probiotics added for taste and to support immune health
:[Final output:]
:To faucet

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics with lowercase text]]
[[Category:Chemistry]]
[[Category:Physics]]
[[Category:Engineering]]

Talk:62: Valentine - Karnaugh

2024-08-15T16:40:52Z

162.158.74.118:

As of 16.4.2021 the image on xkcd.com is rotated 90 degrees counterclockwise.

:Curious indeed. [[User:ISaveXKCDpapers|ISaveXKCDpapers]] ([[User talk:ISaveXKCDpapers|talk]]) 06:57, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

:It’s always been sideways for me, and I’ve been reading since around 2015. [[User:Intara|Intara]] ([[User talk:Intara|talk]]) 04:45, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

The explanation post should explain what a Boolean expression is as well. [[User:Epicradman123|Epicradman123]] ([[User talk:Epicradman123|talk]]) 16:21, 15 August 2024 (UTC)
:I'd definitely say yes to this. Or no. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.118|162.158.74.118]] 16:40, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

1576: I Could Care Less

2024-08-15T16:38:48Z

162.158.74.118: Standard editor-friendly wikilink template substituted.

{{comic
| number = 1576
| date = September 11, 2015
| title = I Could Care Less
| image = i_could_care_less.png
| titletext = I literally could care less.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic references the dichotomy between the literal meaning of the phrase "I could care less" and its idiomatic meaning in American English as an expression of indifference, [http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/care synonymous with "I could'''n't''' care less."] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCUsPnKD1gk&t=14s Many] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=om7O0MFkmpw&t=1m2s people] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Gv0H-vPoDc&t=1m7s argue] that this use is incorrect and the phrase should only be "I couldn't care less," which is the original form of the expression and remains the [http://blog.dictionary.com/could-care-less/ standard form in British English]. This is the opinion expressed, for example, by the Weird Al Yankovic song "[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Gv0H-vPoDc Word Crimes"]: <blockquote>Like I could care less 
That means you do care 
At least a little</blockquote>
However, linguists point out that the strict application of logic to an idiom is inappropriate: many expressions seem on the surface to mean the opposite of the meaning they are used to convey (e.g. "head over heels"), and they [http://www.slate.com/blogs/lexicon_valley/2014/03/18/why_i_could_care_less_is_not_as_irrational_or_ungrammatical_as_you_might.html defend "I could care less" on those grounds]. The psychologist {{Steven Pinker}} argues in ''The Language Instinct'' that the phrase is sarcastic (cf. "Big deal!"), [http://www-personal.umich.edu/~jlawler/aue/giveadamn.html while linguist John Lawler explains] it as a "Negative Polarity Item," a phrase that is practically only used in negated form, allowing the explicit negation to be omitted (a pattern often found in French).

In this comic, Megan feels alone because there is unavoidable difference between her understanding of her own words and the listener's interpretation, so while she sees discussion of semantics as being of potentially high social and emotional value, she doesn't think it has objective value. However, ironically, at the end of the comic, the meaning of "I could care less" with regards to Ponytail's behavior is ambiguous: either Megan is brushing off Ponytail's pedantry because she doesn't care about it (she couldn't care less) or she is hurt by Ponytail's focus on the details of her words rather than the emotional cues she should have learned over the course of their relationship (she actually could care less).

The title text refers to another word often used in ways some consider incorrect: "literally" (see [[725: Literally]]). The sentence is also ambiguous, as it may mean that 'literally' or 'figuratively,' the speaker could or couldn't care less. Further, it implies that [[Randall]] considers the argument over whether literally may be properly used to mean 'figuratively' is petty in the same way. Later in [[1735: Fashion Police and Grammar Police]] Ponytail is once again on the side of the grammar police and also in this comic the word literally is used.

Alternatively, it could mean that Megan cares too much about Ponytail's correction, considering her response to it.

In a further alternative, the title text could amount to a self-ironical evaluation on Randall’s part to the effect that he himself might be devoting too much of his time and energy to the meaning of the phrase in question, as evidenced by the comic itself.

The inverse image of Megan floating through space in the fourth panel, as well as her long introspection, is a reference to the five-part "Choices" series, starting at [[264: Choices: Part 1]].

==Transcript==
:[The first three panels are slim compared to the next row below, and they only takes up the same space as the first two of the three panels below this row. Similarly the bottom row, also with three panels, take up less space, although more than the top row. But in this bottom row the empty space in the comic is to the left vs. to the right in the top row.]

:[Megan and Ponytail are walking together, Megan in front holds her arms out to the side.]
:Megan: ...Anyway, I could care less.

:[Zoom in on Ponytail holding up her hand (which can atypically be seen), finger pointing up.]
:Ponytail: I think you mean you '''couldn't''' care less. Saying you '''could''' care less implies you care at least some amount.

:[Back to Megan and Ponytail walking, both have their arms down.]
:Megan: I dunno.

:[The next panel supposed to be to the right of this is missing, instead the comic jumps to the next row. This fourth panel has inverted brightness, with a white Megan floating in a black void, with white text above her.]
:Megan: We're these unbelievably complicated brains drifting through a void, trying in vain to connect with one another by blindly flinging words out into the darkness.

:[Back to Megan and Ponytail walking.]
:Megan: Every choice of phrasing and spelling and tone and timing carries countless signals and contexts and subtexts and more,
:Megan: and every listener interprets those signals in their own way.
:Megan: Language isn't a formal system. Language is glorious chaos.

:[Zoom in on Megan's head.]
:Megan: You can never know for sure what any words will mean to anyone.
:Megan: All you can do is try to get better at guessing how your words affect people, so you can have a chance of finding the ones that will make them feel something like what you want them to feel.
:Megan: Everything else is pointless.

:[They have stopped walking as Megan holding a hand out has turned around facing Ponytail.]
:Megan: I assume you're giving me tips on how you interpret words because you want me to feel less alone.
:Megan: If so, then thank you.
:Megan: That means a lot.

:[Megan and Ponytail resume with their walking.]
:Megan: But if you're just running my sentences past some mental checklist so you can show off how well you know it,

:[Megan and Ponytail continue walking.]
:Megan: then I could care less.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics with inverted brightness]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Language]]
[[Category:Logic]]
[[Category:Pedantic]]

Talk:2972: Helium Synthesis

2024-08-15T08:25:25Z

162.158.74.118:

I had imagined that, rather than destroying the entire universe, they just somehow made a big bang INSIDE THE MACHINE that they could somehow obtain helium from safely. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.109.166|141.101.109.166]] 07:34, 15 August 2024 (UTC)
:I get the impression that, like an abbreviated version of the cyclical {{w|Big Bounce}} hypothesis, they did indeed recreate the conditions for a (sufficiently similar) universe.
:The question as to whether they obliterated their current one (in a short-sighted and {{w|Instrumental convergence#Paperclip maximizer|paperclip-maximiser}}-like effort that disregards the safety of their current existence) or create a new instance of universe-within-the-universe (like [[2688: Bubble Universes]], presumably with some way of [[248: Hypotheticals|bringing the stuff out]]) is left open.
:If the latter, it could be that the ''reason'' why each universe's helium-users are chronically short of helium is that their universe ''has'' been used as a source for the next-universe-out's helium by the equivalent outwards recursion of the very same people. (The former would imply a kind of {{w|The Last Question}} situation, only not with the same timing.) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.118|162.158.74.118]] 08:25, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

46: Secrets

2024-08-11T21:00:39Z

162.158.74.118: Undo revision 348464 by 172.69.134.30 (talk) Non-existent Category. Find the right one, or push for one by this name (or better) to be created, noting all suitable examples to justify it.

{{comic
| number = 46
| date = January 6, 2006
| title = Secrets
| before = <big><big>[https://web.archive.org/web/20060529063441/http://xkcd-drawings.livejournal.com/#:~:text=1%3A14%20pm-,Secrets,-I%27m%20a%20fan LiveJournal title]: '''Secrets'''</big></big>
| image = secrets.jpg
| titletext = I'm a big fan of Kurt Halsey [https://web.archive.org/web/20060529063441/http://xkcd-drawings.livejournal.com/#:~:text=1%3A14%20pm-,Secrets,-I%27m%20a%20fan LiveJournal caption]: I'm a fan of [http://www.kurthalsey.com/ Kurt Halsey], if you hadn't noticed. Don't click that right now, because it's depressing how much better at this he is than me.
}}

==Explanation==
This was the forty-third comic originally posted to [[LiveJournal]]. The previous one was [[45: Schrodinger]], and the next one was [[47: Counter-Red Spiders]]. It was among the [[:Category:Posted on LiveJournal after xkcd.com|last eleven comics]] posted both on LiveJournal and on [https://xkcd.com xkcd.com] after the new site was launched. This comic was published on the same day across both sites, but not all of them shared the same posting day.

This comic addresses the issue of {{tvtropes|CommitmentIssues|commitment-phobic partners}}, people who get into relationships but get cold feet when it starts to get serious. The girl in the comic wants someone who can see every part of who she is and still love her.

In the title text, [[Randall Munroe|Randall]] mentions that he is a big fan of [https://www.amazon.com/s?i=stripbooks&rh=p_27%3AKurt+Halsey+Frederiksen&s=relevancerank&_encoding=UTF8&dplnkId=e0cac8d9-f28e-4d8e-be19-f6bfe9ed9baf&nodl=1&ref=ntt_athr_dp_sr_1 Kurt Halsey], a comic artist from Oregon. His style is similar to that in this comic. Many of his comics and paintings depict a couple and convey various emotions they go through, as does this comic. In the original caption of the LiveJournal post, he provides a link to the homepage of Kurt Halsey and praises him for "how much better at this he is" than Randall. The link is now defunct, but there's an [http://archive.today/2013.04.11-052747/http://www.kurthalsey.com/ archived version].

== Transcript ==
:[Drawing of a lonely girl staring down with almost closed eyes. The first line of text stands next to her to the left. The last part bottom, right.]
:I just want you to share in my secrets
:and not run away

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Posted on LiveJournal| 43]]
[[Category:Posted on LiveJournal after xkcd.com]]
[[Category:Romance]]
[[Category:Comics with lowercase text]]

842: Mark

2024-05-21T22:49:47Z

162.158.74.118: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 842
| date = January 3, 2011
| title = Mark
| image = mark.png
| titletext = I'm a solipsistic conspiracy theorist. I'm sure I must be up to something, and I will not stop until I find out what.
}}

==Explanation==
In this comic, [[Jill]] asks [[Cueball]] about a mark on his arm. He apparently believes he is part of a secret society, so secret that he doesn't know anything about the society. His belief in the existence of the society, and that he is a part of it, stem from one contact with an 'agent'. Most people would immediately dismiss the idea of such a secret society, especially with no evidence of its existence, and no knowledge of the goals or even whether it is inherently good or evil.

Six years after being 'chosen', Cueball finds a scrap of paper with an address on it, and a can of {{w|kerosene}}. Both of these events are not unlikely, and easily explained as simple coincidences, but Cueball somehow sees this as a command that he must burn down the house (maybe an example of {{w|ideas and delusions of reference}}). Cueball shows that he is willing to put other people's lives at risk, destroy property and possessions, and face the possibility of prison, all because of one event six years prior.

Cueball's belief in the society, his delusional linking of the address and kerosene, and his actions in burning down the house, show how badly he wants to be part of something bigger, and to find meaning in the "Chaos of Life".

The punchline refers to an old grade school/middle school prank (Urban Dictionary: [http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=pen15+club pen 15 club], [http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=pen15 Pen 15].) You'd typically walk up to an unsuspecting schoolmate and ask them if he wants to join the Pen Fifteen Club. You'd tell them that to join, you merely have to write the club name on them. You'd then write "PEN15" on their hand or arm, and everyone would laugh at them because it looks like "PENIS". (In a common variant, it is simply called the Pen Club, 15 is the victim's "member number", and the pranksters write "PEN13" and "PEN14" on themselves.) In this case, [[Cueball]] fell victim to this prank as a child without ever figuring out the joke, and the ink somehow never got washed off by showers or baths or removed by shedding skin. In reality, it would be unlikely for such a mark to last for so long. While methods of marking someone's skin more permanently do exist, it is hard to imagine someone tattooing or branding "PEN15" on their friend's arm as a prank.

It is also possible, considering the recurrence of absurd and surrealist humor on xkcd, that this comic's PEN15 club is indeed a dark secret society working to further mysterious goals. The punchline only makes sense to the viewer, who lives in a reality where "the pen fifteen club" is a middle school prank and not an Illuminati-esque shadow organization.{{Citation needed}} Humor of this type is an example of {{w|dramatic irony}}.

The comic's title may refer to the mark on Cueball's arm, or to the fact that he is the 'mark' (i.e. victim) of the prank, or to the owner of the house he burnt down as the 'mark' of his imagined secret society. As for the title text, {{w|solipsism}} is the philosophical idea that only your own mind is sure to exist while other minds can't be really known and so those other minds are not proved to be real. In this context it might mean that the only one who can conspire would be you, hiding the truth from yourself.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball and Jill are talking.]
:Jill: What's that on your arm?
:Cueball: The mark of a secret society.

:Jill: If it's secret, why tell me-
:Cueball: Because I know nothing. I can't betray them because I don't know who they are. I was chosen by an agent 20 years ago. That was my first and last direct contact.
:Cueball: It's safer that way.

:Six years later I found a piece of paper in the street with an address on it. The next day I found a can of kerosene in my garage that I'm sure I never bought.
:[The panel represents these actions by highlighting the mentioned objects in a world of gray.]

:I didn't know whose house it was. I just knew that I'd been given my orders. And I carried them out.
:[A dark figure holding the kerosene is silhouetted against a flame.]

:Cueball: I don't know who or what we're fighting.
:Cueball: Maybe we're the bad guys.
:Cueball: It doesn't matter to me.

:Cueball: It's enough to know that there are forces working beneath the chaos of life, and I'm a ''part'' of them.

:Cueball: That whatever this "Pen Fifteen" club is,
:Cueball: I'm ''in'' it.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Penis]]
[[Category:Philosophy]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Jill]]

1333: First Date

2024-05-20T23:01:37Z

162.158.74.118: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1333
| date = February 21, 2014
| title = First Date
| image = first_date.png
| titletext = I sympathize with the TPP protagonist because I, too, have progressed through a surprising number of stages of life despite spending entire days stuck against simple obstacles.
}}

==Explanation==
TPP, or {{w|Twitch Plays Pokémon}}, was the first of a creative and radical new variant of streaming gameplay videos created in early 2014 — a few days before this comic was released.

Some people enjoy watching video games being played by other people (usually 'popular' gamers known for entertaining gameplay), thus streaming sites dedicated to streaming gameplay were created. [http://twitch.tv/ Twitch.tv] was one such site.

Whereas traditional video game streams involved the channel broadcaster or another personality playing the game, the channel "Twitch Plays Pokémon" recorded a {{w|Internet bot|bot}} playing an emulated game of [http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Pok%C3%A9mon_Red_and_Blue_Versions Pokémon Red] for {{w|Game Boy}}. The game inputs given by the bot were based on players' messages in the video stream itself. Thus, the watchers of the stream were playing the game themselves using chat "commands." The Pokémon character behaved incredibly erratically, frequently getting "stuck against simple obstacles" (as mentioned in the title-text) and moving about in a strange manner ("Why are you up there?"/"Bye...Okay, coming back now").

Despite this, the character advanced surprisingly far in games. They have beaten the [http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Elite_Four Elite Four] and [http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Pok%C3%A9mon_Champion Champion] of generations [http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Generation_I I], [http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Generation_II II], [http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Generation_III III], [http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Generation_IV IV], and [http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Generation_V V], and [http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Generation_VI VI]. Twitch Plays Pokémon has also completed various {{w|ROM hacking|ROM hacks}} and {{w|Spin-off (media)|Spin-off}} titles, establishing a seasonal format with multiple games each season. You can see the state of the player characters' Pokémon and inventory at game end in [http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Twitch_Plays_Pok%C3%A9mon this Bulbapedia article].

TPP surged in popularity rapidly since its inception, reaching 80,000 channel viewers within five days. Derivative channels (such as 'TwitchPlayers') soon arose, turning "Twitch Plays..." into an idea rather than a single channel; that of crowdsourcing a task, such as controlling a single person (as in the Pokémon games) for erratic and often hilarious results. The stream, which is still active as of this writing, has reached [http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/events/twitch-plays-pokemon memetic status].

In the above comic, [[Cueball]] and [[Megan]] are on a date. However, Megan is behaving very erratically. Cueball determines that Megan is being "controlled by Twitch," as her behavior matches well with that of the TPP protagonist (whose name, canonically, is [http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Red_(game) Red]).

Megan loudly declares at one point that she is "SAVING" her 'game progress', referencing the incessant saving in TPP via random button presses. The random ten-letter string she says is reminiscent of the [http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Nickname nicknames] that all of TPP's Pokémon end up with as the players move haphazardly across the game's keyboard.

Her fascination with the "cool spiral" is an allusion to TPP players' fascination with the [http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Dome_and_Helix_Fossils Helix Fossil], an in-game item. As user input often leads to checking of the in-game backpack followed by erratic commands to handle the items within, it was common for various valuable items to be haphazardly thrown away. However, as the Helix Fossil was a [http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Key_item key item], it could not be tossed. It was also the first item in the Bag due to this, leading to the players' continuously selecting it whenever accessing their Bag, eventually causing them to somewhat jokingly regard it as an object of religious reverence. "Check out this cool..." is also a phrase used in various XKCD comics, typically in a tongue-in-cheek context, such as in [[2703: Paper Title]].

The title text, as explained above, simply is a light-hearted joke from [[Randall]], empathizing with TPP as he has also spent real-life days stuck against simple obstacles, and is surprised by how far he has gotten in life despite this fact.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball and Megan sit at an intimate dinner table. They have plates and glasses of wine in front of them.]
:Cueball: So, did you grow up around here?
:Megan: I love you.
:Cueball: ... huh?
:Megan: Waiter! One of everything on the menu.

:[Megan stands up. Standing on her chair, holding a plate.]
:Cueball: Why are you up there?
:Megan: I'm stuck.
:Megan: This plate looks delicious.
:Megan: Aaaoogaoag.

:[Megan has put the plate down and walked off-panel.]
:Megan: Bye.
:Megan: OK. Coming back now.

:[Megan is crouched on her chair, holding a spiral.]
:Cueball: You're being controlled by Twitch, aren't you?
:Megan: Check out this cool spiral!
:Cueball: It's—
:Megan: <big><big>'''SAVING.'''</big></big>

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

User talk:SqueakSquawk4

2024-04-07T23:58:23Z

162.158.74.118:

==Discussion of calculation of Physics Cost-Saving Tips==
:At the moment the calculation for [[2649: Physics Cost-Saving Tips]] performed by SqueakSquawk4 is included in the explanation of said comic. Here this can be discussed. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 07:01, 25 July 2022 (UTC)
{{cot|[[User:SqueakSquawk4|Calculations]]}}
{{User:SqueakSquawk4}} 
{{cob}}
That looks great! Sorry I can't talk to you on your talk page, it hasn't been created and I've always been too lazy to make an autoconfimed user. I hope you're okay with the changes in this edit. Do you mind if we subst: this into the collapse box on [[2649]] so it can be cleaned up and formatted there? Thanks for looking all that up. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.207.8|172.70.207.8]] 14:37, 24 July 2022 (UTC)
: What actually is Subst-ing? [[User:SqueakSquawk4|SqueakSquawk4]] ([[User talk:SqueakSquawk4|talk]]) 15:51, 24 July 2022 (UTC)
:: It just means copying it instead of transcluding it like a template. The advantage is it's not dependent on your userpage which is kind of nonstandard and awkward, but the disadvantage is that edits in one place won't show up in the other. [[mw:Help:Substitution]]. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.210.145|172.70.210.145]] 16:12, 24 July 2022 (UTC)
::: I actually kinda like it referencing my profile. If there's no strong reason to change it, I'd like to keep it.[[User:SqueakSquawk4|SqueakSquawk4]] ([[User talk:SqueakSquawk4|talk]]) 18:06, 24 July 2022 (UTC)
:::: No problemo! [[Special:Contributions/172.69.34.50|172.69.34.50]] 23:46, 24 July 2022 (UTC)
:Hi SqueakSquawk4. I cannot validate your calculation, but given all the discussion about it, I think it is valid to include in the explanation. It is a new way to include stuff on explain xkcd, so I'm not sure about that version, but I will not oppose it. If others agree with your calculations, I think it is a great effort by you. Thanks. Have added a header, so the next who wish to write to you on other subjects, can make a new header, so not to mix up the discussions. And also included the calculation at the top, so everyone coming here knows what the fuss is about. Good job! ;-) --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 07:01, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

<s>... First, I just noticed, why did you go from 1.25 to 1.35 to 1.5 MeV? Which figure did you use for the total energy product?</s> Fixed math. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.34.86|172.69.34.86]] 16:53, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

== I put a broken machine into https://xkcd.com/2916/ ==

Hiya!

If you're reading this, it's probably becuase you spotted a square on https://xkcd.com/2916/ that doesn't let any balls through, which should be impossible because it can only be submitted if balls are flowing.

Put simply, what I did was take advantage of the time it takes balls to fall. The square was such that balls took a while to drop the height of the room before being accepted. I placed a "Bucket" under the dispenser, then had a fan blow the balls round the bucket and into the receptor. To get it recieved, I just had to delete the fan then paste the name into the name box and submit before they stopped falling.

Here are some screenshots I took: https://imgur.com/a/yAJ5pjM

I know this is kinda mean and I may get banned for it or something, but considering I'm writing out how I did it so Randal can prevent it I don't see it as so bad, at least I'm open about it. [[User:SqueakSquawk4|SqueakSquawk4]] ([[User talk:SqueakSquawk4|talk]]) 17:55, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

:Not gonna say that you're to blame (there's all kinds of other possible problems, even at my end), but just to note that I've been having submit-crashes (not of the browser, but of the functionality) for several goes, now. I did the "Two yellows, one green!" (see my little contribution to the Machine comic Talk) and got so far as seeing that I had Under Construction tapes above me (as well as either side and below), so maybe I was already on procedurally-dodgy territory. All solutions since then have page-crashed (gone to completely white area between the standard upper and lower comic navigation buttons) and apparently not got anywhere.
:What I'm sort of hoping is that it's a server-side issue (perhaps your 'broken machine' submission, but as likely some other cascading operational error, or even whatever it is that prompted "multiple yellow routes" to actually emerge onto a given pane) that a bit of manual tweaking at Randall's (or his collaboration team's) end will make work again once it's obvious that it's gone a bit funny.
:...also possible that it's just overloaded ''my'' browser and there's absolutely no issue (or, at least, not this one) with anyone else out there. ;)
:As for getting 'banned for this'. Well, apart from pushing the envelope a little (a very xkcdian thing to do!), I don't think there's anything to be worried about having done. It was an experiment, not malicious. And 'banning' from here won't help regards anything you did to the Machine site, and this isn't somewhere Randall comes (that we know of!), let alone involved in our business here (well, not that I've seen). If you want my opinion, as a casual observer with absollutely no say in the matter, don't worry about this. Maybe this is the kind of thing the release delay was trying to address (didn't delay long enough, for further testing!), but that's all a development/stress-testing issue, not a 'moderation' one. But it's been interesting, either way.
:Half minded to poke Randall and let him know ''my'' ideas for an interactive comic (sometime in the next couple of years... I see no need to rush). But there's a lot to do to make sure it even works in the sort of way that I think Randall would appreciate, even before I nudge him and see if he even ''wants'' such an unsolicited suggestion! :P [[Special:Contributions/172.70.163.31|172.70.163.31]] 21:09, 7 April 2024 (UTC)
::Not sure how I would have crashed the site, seeing as all I really did was stop the flow of balls. I saw someone on r/xkcd put the script of the Bee Movie as a name so that's more likely to have caused problems than me. I was also getting either the same or a similar fault myself on Firefox (But not Chrome) before I submitted this.
:::Oh, I'm fairly confident it wasn't as simple as stopping the flow of balls, but I just thought I'd mention my issues, whilst here. Some things seem to have started working nicely (also, for the first time I've seen the glass/award icons... they were conspicuously missing from the toolbar), although several (IMO 'award winning') solutions seem not to have stayed in the overall picture. Quite proud of some of the recent ones, especially ones where I've applied advanced hue-sorting techniques to unmix mixed balls. But looks like there's still an issue of being accepted as permanent submissions. Not 'crashing white' anymore, though. So maybe been tinkered with (to work with Firefox). [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.118|162.158.74.118]] 23:58, 7 April 2024 (UTC)
::
::Also "this isn't somewhere Randall comes (that we know of!), let alone involved in our business here (well, not that I've seen)" sounds like something Randall would say if he were here and trying to be stealthy
::: I'm definitely not Ran... wait, that's what he'd say... I definitely ''am'' Randall. Darnit. He might say that too... I definitely and definitively am not definite about anything. I mean, I used to be indecisive, but now...? I'm not so sure! [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.118|162.158.74.118]] 23:58, 7 April 2024 (UTC)
::
::Btw, how did you find this? Does explainxkcd have a new edits thread? Did you see the link in the name in the comic? Genuinely, I'm curious [[User:SqueakSquawk4|SqueakSquawk4]] ([[User talk:SqueakSquawk4|talk]]) 21:54, 7 April 2024 (UTC)
::: I'm just a big fan of the "Recent changes" link over <<<thataway<<<... :P [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.118|162.158.74.118]] 23:58, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

2907: Schwa

2024-03-16T00:15:32Z

162.158.74.118: /* Explanation */ Reducing "spoken" and "text" usages, in close proximity. Minor rephrasing.

{{comic
| number = 2907
| date = March 15, 2024
| title = Schwa
| image = schwa_2x.png
| imagesize = 301x389px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Doug's cousin, the one from London, runs a Bumble love cult.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a VOWEL ALIGNMENT CHART - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

All the speech (as well as the title text) in this comic can be spoken, at least in some dialects and enunciations, using ''only'' a {{w|schwa}} (ə) as all its voiced vowel-sounds. It works in any dialect featuring the {{w|Phonological history of English close back vowels#STRUT–COMMA merger|STRUT-COMMA merger}}, including most of the US dialects that [[Randall]] himself would be most familiar with. Since all of the words can be spoken with only a schwa, Randall states that the schwa is so common that one can learn the English language without learning any other vowel sounds if they stick to the right conversation topics.

As an experiment to see you have an accent of your own which supports this effect, you could try to say "Wh'ts 'p? W's D'g g'nn' c'm? D'g l'vs br'nch" and "N' ', D'gs st'ck c's 'f ' t'nn'l 'bstr'ct'n. ' tr'ck d'mpd ' t'n 'f 'n'ns", using the same inflection at each apostrophe.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[Megan, Cueball, and Ponytail stand in front of a restaurant table. Megan has her hand on the rightmost chair.]
:Megan: What's up? Was Doug gonna come? Doug loves brunch.
:Ponytail: Nuh uh, Doug's stuck 'cause of a tunnel obstruction. A truck dumped a ton of onions.
:Megan: Ugh.
:[Caption below the panel]: The schwa is the most common vowel sound in English. In fact, if you stick to the right conversation topics, you can avoid learning any other ones.
{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Language]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]

Talk:2902: Ice Core

2024-03-04T23:04:59Z

162.158.74.118:

Akin to [[2729: Planet Killer Comet Margarita]], which perhaps needs mentioning in the upcoming Explanation... [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.118|162.158.74.118]] 23:04, 4 March 2024 (UTC)

1242: Scary Names

2024-03-04T22:59:43Z

162.158.74.118: Prove it.

{{comic
| number = 1242
| date = July 24, 2013
| title = Scary Names
| image = scary_names.png
| titletext = Far off to the right of the chart is the Helvetica Scenario.
}}

==Explanation==
This chart humorously explores how things are often named colloquially and without regard to accuracy in correlating actual scariness with apparent scariness. It is interesting to note how people react to the items near the bottom right of the chart "scary things with not-very-scary names" when compared to how they may react to items in the upper left "not-very-scary things with scary names". Some of the entries on the chart are especially interesting examples considering that portions of the names that are associated with significant historical or cultural events and themes. i.e. Chernobyl Packet, Demon Core. All items are described in the [[#Table|table below]] including the title text on Helvetica Scenario.

On the chart, things toward the right are scary/dangerous/very bad, while things toward the top ''sound'' scary without ''necessarily'' being scary.

Note that [[Randall]] uses similar diagrams in both [[388: Fuck Grapefruit]], [[1501: Mysteries]] and [[2466: In Your Classroom]], which also contain different items. The first two also have an extra point, and the last two extra points mentioned in the title text. Only the first and the last comics points are also off the chart, whereas for the second the description of the point is too long to fit on the chart. Extra info outside the chart is also used in the title text of [[1785: Wifi]], but this is a line graph.

===Table===
*This table list the entries from least to most scary, including the ''entry'' mentioned in the title text.
*To begin with it is sorted from most scary name to least scary name.
**The assigned percentage values assumes a linear scale and assigns ''flesh eating bacteria'' with the point (100%, 100%).
**This is simply the easiest way to list the entries as there is no mention of the scale.
**As is clear from the title text, "flesh eating bacteria" is not an absolute, simply the highest in this particular sample; there are things more scary than 100%!

{| class="wikitable sortable"
! scope="col" class="unsortable"| Name
! scope="col"| Approximate Apparent Scariness
! scope="col"| Approximate True Scariness
! scope="col" class="unsortable"| Description
|-
|{{Nowrap|{{w|Necrotizing fasciitis|Flesh-eating bacteria}}}}
|{{Nowrap|{{Hs|m !}}100%}}
|{{Nowrap|{{Hs|l !}}100%}}
|As the name suggests, bacteria that eat (or more accurately, releases toxins that destroy) your skin and muscle.
|-
|{{Nowrap|[http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/C/Chernobyl-packet.html Chernobyl Packet]}}
|{{Nowrap|{{Hs|k !}}95%}}
|{{Nowrap|{{Hs|a !}}4%}}
|A network packet that induces a {{w|broadcast storm}} or network meltdown. It is an analogous reference to the {{w|Chernobyl disaster}}.
|-
|{{Nowrap|{{w|Kessler syndrome|Kessler Syndrome}}}}
|{{Nowrap|{{Hs|k !}}90%}}
|{{Nowrap|{{Hs|d !}}53%}}
|A hypothetical scenario where low Earth orbit objects collide, creating debris which increases the risk of more collisions, leading to a cascade effect which could severely hinder exploration and satellite technologies for many decades. It has been mentioned in {{w|Gravity (2013 film)}}.
|-
|{{Nowrap|{{w|Demon core|Demon Core}}}}
|{{Nowrap|{{Hs|j !}}87%}}
|{{Nowrap|{{Hs|h !}}73%}}
|A subcritical mass of plutonium that was involved in two separate fatal incidents at Los Alamos laboratory in 1945 and 1946. In both cases, the core was accidentally placed into a configuration where it went supercritical and exposed an experimenter to fatal doses of radiation. The second is more notable, where Louis Slotin held two halves of a beryllium neutron reflector apart with a flat head screwdriver which slipped, suddenly causing the contained plutonium core to become supercritical and delivering a fatal dose of radiation. This is later referenced in [[2593: Deviled Eggs]].
|-
|{{Nowrap|{{w|Calorimeter#Bomb calorimeters|Bomb Calorimeters}}}}
|{{Nowrap|{{Hs|h !}}67%}}
|{{Nowrap|{{Hs|b !}}28%}}
|A device for measuring heat of combustion of a reaction in a pressure vessel. It does not interact with explosive devices directly, though the chemicals a bomb calorimeter would be called upon to measure are occasionally explosive or dangerous, and a carelessly operated calorimeter could start a fire.
|-
|{{Nowrap|{{w|Avian influenza virus|Bird Flu}}}}
|{{Nowrap|{{Hs|h !}}57%}}
|{{Nowrap|{{Hs|g !}}72%}}
|An illness caused by strains of influenza adapted for birds, which is generally very deadly in humans. Should the virus adapt for human to human transmission, a pandemic can quickly result. Since birds can travel great distances quickly, it is generally already widespread and difficult to contain.
|-
|{{Nowrap|{{w|Nuclear football|Nuclear Football}}}}
|{{Nowrap|{{Hs|g !}}52%}}
|{{Nowrap|{{Hs|k !}}94%}}
|An aluminum Zero Halliburton briefcase which is used by the President of the United States to authorize nuclear attack. A military aide carrying the football is always near the president.
|-
|{{Nowrap|{{w|Sulfur mustard|Mustard Gas}}}}
|{{Nowrap|{{Hs|f !}}47%}}
|{{Nowrap|{{Hs|c !}}50%}}
|A chemical warfare agent which causes blisters and severe irritation on skin and lung tissue.
|-
|{{Nowrap|{{w|Antimicrobial resistance|Superbug}}}}
|{{Nowrap|{{Hs|e !}}39%}}
|{{Nowrap|{{Hs|j !}}83%}}
|Antibiotic resistant bacteria. The growing use of antibiotics has caused some bacteria to evolve to become resistant to the antibiotics. A "superbug" refers to a scenario where a bacteria evolves to become resistant to all antibiotics, for example, {{w|MRSA}}. Thanks to popular culture, however, the term "superbug" usually makes the audience think "a bug with superpowers", such as {{w|Atom Ant}}.
|-
|{{Nowrap|{{w|Criticality accident|Criticality Incident}}}}
|{{Nowrap|{{Hs|d!}}22%}}
|{{Nowrap|{{Hs|i !}}74%}}
|An unexpected and uncontrolled nuclear reaction. This occurs when a system that should be sub-critical becomes critical by accident (a term devised by Louis Slotin, as seen above).
|-
|{{Nowrap|{{w|Soil liquefaction|Soil Liquefaction}}}}
|{{Nowrap|{{Hs|c !}}16%}}
|{{Nowrap|{{Hs|e !}}54%}}
|A phenomenon where wet soil loses its strength and becomes temporarily liquid, capable of swallowing people and buildings, especially after earthquakes or torrential rains. Liquefaction can cause landslides; landslides can cause more liquefaction. Once the earthquake stops, the ground becomes solid again, trapping whatever was submerged.
|-
|{{Nowrap|{{w|Gray goo|Grey Goo}}}}
|{{Nowrap|{{Hs|b !}}5%}}
|{{Nowrap|{{Hs|f !}}69%}}
|A hypothetical end-of-world scenario where self-replicating nanobots consume all matter. It is (partially) illustrated in [[865: Nanobots]].
|-
|Helvetica Scenario (from the title text)
|{{Nowrap|{{Hs|z !}}N/A}}
|{{Hs|m !}}Off the chart
|This scenario is also in the title text of [[683: Science Montage]]: "...We have a Helvetica scenario!". The scenario is a fictional experiment, presented in Switzerland (Helvetica), which assumes that removing only the nucleus (the center of an atom) of a calcium atom in one's skin, but still leaving the electron shell at its position, would cause a massive reaction ending up in heavy mutations. The Helvetica scenario was made up by the BBC comedy show {{w|Look Around You}} in the pilot episode, which can be seen [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4CRCJUmWsM&t=5m53s here (at 5:53)]. The fact that the term {{w|Helvetica}} is more commonly known as referring to a very-commonly-used modern typeface makes the name sound like it should refer to a much less serious situation.
|}

==Trivia==
*In the ''[[What If? (book)|What If?]]'' book, the article No More DNA (exclusive to the physical book), this graph is shown redrawn with "Destroying Angel" added to it. Destroying Angel is a poisonous mushroom.

==Transcript==
:[A scatter-plot, with 12 labeled dots. Both axis are labeled but neither has an arrow at its end. The dots are scattered from left to right and top to bottom. Below all labels are given, first for the axis, and then for each dot in approximately normal reading order, left to right top to bottom, but in the order it would make sense to read them:]
:Y-axis: Scariness of name
:X-axis: Scariness of thing name refers to

:[Top left]: Chernobyl packet
:[Top halfway right]: Kessler syndrome
:[Top three quarters towards right]: Demon core
:[Top right]: Flesh-eating bacteria
:[A third down left]: Bomb calorimeter
:[Halfway down three quarters towards right]: Bird flu
:[Halfway down right]: Nuclear football
:[Dead center]: Mustard gas
:[Just below and right of center]: Superbug
:[Bottom halfway right]: Soil liquefaction
:[A third up three quarters towards right ]: Criticality incident
:[Very bottom two-thirds to the right]: Grey goo

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Scatter plots]]
[[Category:Rankings]]
[[Category:Nuclear weapons]]

Talk:931: Lanes

2024-02-17T00:02:49Z

162.158.74.118: Undo revision 335182 by 172.68.242.118 (talk) Clearly troll-changes to others' contributions.

;Typo?
Not positive enough to change, but..."Randall's now wife"? Is that supposed to be 'Randall's NEW wife'? --[[Special:Contributions/68.200.188.141|68.200.188.141]] 02:00, 28 January 2013 (UTC)
:No. At the time, she was his fiancee. She is now his wife. His then-fiancee, now-wife. [[Special:Contributions/184.144.254.165|184.144.254.165]] 01:32, 28 October 2013 (UTC)
::This explain now covers this issue very well. Thanks for your hints. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 22:35, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

;My edit to the transcript
I've noticed that when the only characters in a comic are two stick figures, explainxkcd usually calls them "Cueball" and "Friend". So I changed this transcript to reflect that. I tried to clarify what "off-panel" meant, and I added the fact that the second Cueball-only panel shows only the top half of his body. Lastly, I changed "roughly fifty" to "fifty-two", since an exact count of the lanes was given in the explanation. I hope no one disagrees with these changes, but if you do, please don't just revert without an explanation. [[User:NealCruco|NealCruco]] ([[User talk:NealCruco|talk]]) 19:06, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

Here's to Randall's Now Wife. Good on you my dear!

[[User:Weatherlawyer| I used Google News BEFORE it was clickbait]] ([[User talk:Weatherlawyer|talk]]) 16:29, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Fuck cancer. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.143|108.162.219.143]] 02:02, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

Just read Jimmy Carter's got cancer. I echo the sentiments of the IP poster above me.[[User:PsyMar|PsyMar]] ([[User talk:PsyMar|talk]]) 20:54, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

Might be worth mentioning too that this resembles a Sankey Diagram [[Special:Contributions/162.158.167.24|162.158.167.24]] 07:13, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

== this comics meaning to me ==

As someone who has previously have family members battle with cancer, this was shockingly realistic. My mother got breast cancer and had treatment which seemed to work. Ten years later she got sick again and ended up dying. The idea that treatment works or doesn't is simply incorrect and a single cancer cell can become a massive potentially fatal problem in the seemingly distant future.

1233: Relativity

2024-02-03T22:05:27Z

162.158.74.118: Undo revision 334159 by 172.69.6.160 (talk) If wanting to say {{incomplete}}, say {{incomplete|why incomplete}}

{{comic
| number = 1233
| date = July 3, 2013
| title = Relativity
| image = relativity.png
| titletext = It's commonly believed that Lorentz contraction makes objects appear flatter along the direction of travel. However, this ignores light travel times. In fact, a fast-moving butt would appear rotated toward the observer but not substantially distorted. Shakira was right.
}}

==Explanation==
''Gedankedank'' is a humorous {{w|portmanteau}} of ''Gedankenexperiment'' (German for "{{w|thought experiment}}") and ''badonkadonk'' (slang term for [http://urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=badonkadonk an attractive, round butt]).

{{w|Albert Einstein}} often used thought experiments to explore scientific hypotheses too impractical or impossible to actually perform, in order to examine their consequences. Moving close to the speed of light, '''c''', is nigh-impossible with existing technology; and according to Einstein's theory of {{w|special relativity}} accelerating a mass exactly to '''c''' ''is'' impossible. Einstein is well known not to have cared about his appearance (e.g. {{tvtropes|EinsteinHair|his uncombed hair}}, the tongue photo, etc.) so it is unlikely that he pondered how relativistic velocity would affect the appearance of his butt.{{citation needed}}

{{w|Lorentz contraction}} is a consequence of special relativity, whereby objects contract in the direction of travel.

The appearance of rotation while moving close to the speed of light is known as {{w|Terrell rotation}}. The title text then connects this rotation to the Shakira song "{{w|Hips Don't Lie}}".

==Transcript==
:[We see a head and shoulders view of Einstein. He looks pensive.]
:[Einstein's "line" is in a thought bubble.]
:Einstein: If I were traveling at the speed of light, my butt would look ''awesome''.
:Einstein was famed for his ''Gedankedank''.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]]
[[Category:Physics]]
[[Category:Portmanteau]]

Talk:521: 2008 Christmas Special

2024-02-03T19:46:41Z

162.158.74.118:

Santa actually really is Muslim. Saint Nicholas was from Turkey, although his remains have been somewhere in Italy for the past millennium.{{unsigned ip|121.222.232.156}}
: Yeah, right. Living in what was later to be Turkey makes him a muslim. Islam was not even invented yet. [[User:Undee|Undee]] ([[User talk:Undee|talk]]) 11:44, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
:: Oh snap! xD --[[User:JayRulesXKCD|JayRulesXKCD]] ([[User talk:JayRulesXKCD|talk]]) 17:03, 27 September 2016 (UTC)
::: Yeah, right. How could anyone doubt that St. Nicholas and Santa Clause are in fact the same person? I mean, they have similar names, outfits and skin colours. Furthermore both aggressively promote annual shopping frenzies in the richest countries and have advertising partnerships with Coca Cola(r). {{unsigned ip|141.101.76.58}}

Of course you have to explain how St Nick who died in 343 CE could have been following a religion whose founder was born in 570 CE. But you knew that. I also think we can do somewhat better than "somewhere in Italy". His tomb is at Basilica di San Nicola in Bari, Italy. {{unsigned ip|108.162.237.11}}

And also, equating Santa with St Nicholas is problematic at best. Santa came about as an amalgamation of many different figures from folklore, so even if St Nick were Muslim, at best you could call Santa part-Muslim.[[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.171|108.162.216.171]] 18:31, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

Since in muslim view Islam was not 'invented' but reintroduced, Adam and Eve were muslims, as are all newborns. They only stop being by accepting (a.k.a. growing up in)
another faith. So yes, Santa might be a muslim (we don't see him running around with crucifixes as we'd expect from St. Nicholas). [[Special:Contributions/162.158.90.212|162.158.90.212]]

I always thought Black Hat was talking to Danish. The hair's longer and it makes a modicum more sense that way (at least to me) Anonymous 03:34, 4 December 2013 (UTC) {{unsigned ip|173.245.54.91}}
:I see what you are saying (although I couldn't comment on whether the hair is longer) but the question sounds like something Megan would ask. Danish would have built the laser chainsaw. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.223|108.162.219.223]] 19:20, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
::True... Anonymous 20:14, 13 February 2014 (UTC)
:I don't see Black Hat in any of the panels... [[Special:Contributions/173.245.55.83|173.245.55.83]] 14:50, 22 May 2014 (UTC)
::He is at the bottom line, first panel from left. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 20:48, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

Just checked this image for any data in the black frames (like in [[SOPA]]). There is nothing; all pixels read #000000. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.53|108.162.216.53]] 20:52, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

I'm don't think "sublimate" means vaporize... And neither would vaporize fit with the rest the story... [[Special:Contributions/141.101.89.208|141.101.89.208]] 14:08, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

Sublimation is a specific type of vaporization. I don't think the exact nature of the board's destruction is important to the comic.[[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.171|108.162.216.171]] 18:31, 8 November 2014 (UTC)
:I think it's relevant because it's a secondary joke - the arduino boards could possibly have melted, but not sublimated: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sublimation_(phase_transition) Sublimation_(phase_transition)] [[User:L-Space Traveler|L-Space Traveler]] ([[User talk:L-Space Traveler|talk]]) 23:54, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

Of all the black panels, i'm most curious about the contents of number 32. It would have made more sense if panel 31 read something like "From all of us to all of you, we wish you..."[[User:Mumiemonstret|Mumiemonstret]] ([[User talk:Mumiemonstret|talk]]) 09:37, 12 August 2014 (UTC)
:In the final panel, they get eaten by raptors. [[User:L-Space Traveler|L-Space Traveler]] ([[User talk:L-Space Traveler|talk]]) 23:54, 2 September 2022 (UTC)
::(This is a joke!) [[User:L-Space Traveler|L-Space Traveler]] ([[User talk:L-Space Traveler|talk]]) 23:54, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

Clones (cloned raptors) vs droids (cyborgs), and then victorious clones turning against their masters... Well, this raptors seem to be more independent then altered clones of Jango Fett but may be lightsabers aren't the only SW quote here.
[[Special:Contributions/141.101.92.202|141.101.92.202]] 16:53, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

I changed "self-conscious" in the explanations for panel 13 and the title text to "self-aware". The former is generally understood to mean something along the lines of "nervous, especially in social situations" which doesn't describe the behavior of computers trying to wipe out humanity. {{unsigned ip|108.162.214.77}}

I feel like there should be some sort of way to view them probably via Easter egg [[Special:Contributions/141.101.104.154|141.101.104.154]]

"Import skynet" may be a reference to Lorenz (or referenced in Lorenz), where the computer automatically types it.
[[Special:Contributions/199.27.128.108|199.27.128.108]] 14:06, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

Is "we apologize for the inconvenience" really trying to reference to Hitchhiker's Guide? The quote certainly appears in it, but it's a pretty common statement. [[User:RamenChef|RamenChef]] ([[User talk:RamenChef|talk]]) 18:08, 14 March 2017 (UTC)
:There are many guesses like this here but it says "possibly a reference". Nevertheless I'm sure it's easy to find hundreds of other possibilities...--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 19:13, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

You can also substitute Richard Stallman and Bill Gates with Linus Torvalds and Bjarne Stroustrup, respectively, if you like. :P [[Special:Contributions/172.69.42.92|172.69.42.92]] 19:05, 29 August 2020 (UTC)
Has anyone filled in the rest of the panels? [[User:Anonymouscript|Anonymouscript]] ([[User talk:Anonymouscript|talk]]) 22:14, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

How does [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=521:_2008_Christmas_Special&curid=10638&diff=334151&oldid=332563 this comma make things clearer]? Intruiged to know how it was unclear in perfectly standard list format... (I wouldn't multiply commas unnecessarily. Too easy to confuse clausal-commas with an unnecessary conjunction-comma.) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.118|162.158.74.118]] 19:46, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

2368: Bigger Problem

2024-01-29T23:04:36Z

162.158.74.118: Undo revision 333776 by 172.71.142.60 (talk) There are so many potentially specific examples. I don't think it helps to try to make this about any single one of them.

{{comic
| number = 2368
| date = October 5, 2020
| title = Bigger Problem
| image = bigger_problem.png
| titletext = Your point that the world contains multiple problems is a real slam-dunk argument against fixing any of them.
}}

==Explanation==
[[Cueball]] is asking [[White Hat]] to help fix an unspecified problem with the world. Presumably, he is working for some form of charity and perhaps asking for donations or signatures. White Hat responds by saying that Cueball doesn't care (about, presumably, the world) and that he would be working to fix an unspecified larger issue if he ''really'' cared. Cueball then asks if White Hat would rather be working to solve that problem. However, White Hat says that he doesn't want to, but that he also hasn't come up with an excuse not to yet. White Hat seems as if he couldn't be bothered, and wants to go on with his life.

The claim that someone is not working towards an important issue, [https://what-if.xkcd.com/imgs/a/146/dontcare.png while not always completely invalid], is commonly used as a cheap tactic to ignore a solution to a problem, even when the person using it does want to help out with either cause and is also a {{rw|logical_fallacy|logical fallacy}} known as the "{{rw|Not_as_bad_as|Not as bad as}}" fallacy, [https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/logicalfallacies/Relative-Privation Fallacy of Relative Privation], or {{tvtropes|AppealToWorseProblems|Appeal to Worse Problems}}. In the last panel of this comic, White Hat reveals that he isn't sufficiently devoted to either cause to act on them, so that his bringing up the larger issue appears less like interest in the larger issue than an excuse to not support Cueball's cause.

The title text furthers this point. While the argument used by White Hat is supposed to imply that the person giving the argument cares about an issue that matters more (to the exclusion of the other issue), it's often used, as seen in this comic, as an excuse to not work to fix any problem, making it "a real slam-dunk argument against fixing any of them."

Both causes in the comic are referred to ambiguously and surrounded with angle brackets to imply that they can be filled it with any two problems, as the comic is supposed to depict a common situation that happens during discussions of many different causes.

This comic is quite similar to [[871: Charity]] because both have a character that responds to people trying to help "by figuring out a reason that they're not really as good as they seem". Additionally, it seems to relate to [[1447: Meta-Analysis]] on being very meta. [[1232: Realistic Criteria]] has an extremely similar conversation between Cueball and White Hat.

People sometimes use similar fallacious reasoning against ''themselves,'' thinking that they shouldn't tackle "simple" "unimportant" problems when there are "important" problems outstanding, even if the former are within their ability to handle but the latter aren't. This can be a form of self-sabotaging behavior.

In essence, this may be an example of the principle "The perfect is the enemy of the good." That is, it is better to make a small advance which does some good. If you insist on doing nothing until you cure everything to perfection, nothing will be done.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball, holding a clipboard next to his body in his left hand, holds his right hand palm up towards White Hat.]
:Cueball: I'm trying to fix <problem with the world>. Can you help?

:[Cueball stands with both arms down while white Hat lift one hand up toward Cueball.]
:White Hat: It's obvious you don't actually care. If you did, you'd be trying to fix <bigger problem> instead.

:[Same setting as the first picture, wit Cueball's hand a bit further out towards White Hat.]
:Cueball: Okay, want to help fix <bigger problem>?
:White Hat: No, for another reason I'll think of later.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]

Talk:992: Mnemonics

2024-01-28T23:51:30Z

162.158.74.118:

The most memorable resistor code mnemonics I know are not...politically correct, shall we say. But they are memorable. [[User:Blaisepascal|Blaisepascal]] ([[User talk:Blaisepascal|talk]]) 19:55, 27 August 2012 (UTC)
:tell pls [[User:SuperSupermario24|Just some random derp]] 23:45, 8 June 2015 (UTC)
::Bad Boys Rape Our Young Girls But Violet Gives Willingly [[Special:Contributions/172.68.132.77|172.68.132.77]] 22:53, 24 April 2017 (UTC)
::: And that's one of the better ones. Some use "black" instead of "bad", which is better in that it disambiguates (that color is actually black IIRC), but worse in that it's even more terrible and has added racism. [[User:Hppavilion1|Hppavilion1]] ([[User talk:Hppavilion1|talk]]) 07:14, 7 September 2017 (UTC)
I learned: Bad Beer Rots Our Young Guts But Vodka Goes Well (thanks to my college physics teacher).

I feel like he got lazy at the end and didn't provide an "or" to the Jesus one mnemonic. Also, why is mnemonic often pronounced "new-monic" ?

Mnemonic is supposed to be pronounced "nim-monic"; "new-monic" is rather a malapropism, given that is a correct pronunciation of "pneumonic" (meaning related to lungs or to pneumonia"), similar to how some people pronounce "nuclear" as "nu-kyoo-lar" (reminiscent of "-cular"-ending words, such as: perpendicular, particular, jocular, etc.).
:I pronounce it as written, same for "gnome" - keeps those muscles going. (Try it with "knight", you'll get an approximation of Chaucer. Seriously.) --[[User:Qwach|Qwach]] ([[User talk:Qwach|talk]]) 02:39, 1 September 2013 (UTC)
:My dictionary says it's a schwa sound. Both "nim" and "new" are putting too much emphasis on the first syllable. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.202|108.162.219.202]] 06:46, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
::Yes, it should be nuh-MAHN-ic (n'monic) [[Special:Contributions/172.68.78.10|172.68.78.10]] 02:15, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

Mnemonics are actually counter-productive. They claim to help you remember something but, in actuality, they replace what you're supposed to remember with something useless, thus causing you to FAIL to remember.[[Special:Contributions/76.29.225.28|76.29.225.28]] 03:32, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

"Mnemonics are actually counter-productive." I disagree. They provide the '''order''' to the list of already known, or mostly known, words. They provide a little extra help.--DrMath 20:50, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

The only one I ever learned:
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz.
Fucking stupid brain! (It HAS been useful, although I don't recall why at the moment. (Fucking stupid brain.))
[[User:Weatherlawyer| I used Google News BEFORE it was clickbait]] ([[User talk:Weatherlawyer|talk]]) 07:15, 22 January 2015 (UTC)
Big Brother Reptilian Overlors. This aren't Raptors or Tyranosaurs?? I remmeber any 'fear' from Monroe to they -- {{unsigned ip|108.162.210.252}}
:"It's the most remarkable word I've ever seen!"[[Special:Contributions/173.245.50.174|173.245.50.174]] 05:25, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Has anyone noticed the Order of Operations is Out of Order? Please Email Dad & Mum A Shark? - Apostrophyx ([[Special:Contributions/108.162.249.221|108.162.249.221]] 03:17, 15 July 2014 (UTC))
:It's not out of order, multiplication and division are one tier together. 6 x 5 / 2 and 6 / 2 x 5 have the same result. [[User:Cflare|Cflare]] ([[User talk:Cflare|talk]]) 14:29, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

I learned "Kahn's Hot Dogs Use Dead Cow Meat" as a mnemonic for SI prefixes. Covers all the common ones, but leaves out extreme ones like Giga or Zepto.--[[Special:Contributions/173.245.55.64|173.245.55.64]] 20:13, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

My favorite is for SOHCAHTOA: "Some Old Hippie Caught Another Hippie Tripping On Acid." [[Special:Contributions/199.27.128.228|199.27.128.228]] 05:16, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

And this, fundamentally, is why people don't like Pluto not being a planet. Sure, it's logical, but you took away our nine pizzas and gave us only nachos in return. Who wouldn't be mad about that?[[Special:Contributions/173.245.50.174|173.245.50.174]] 05:25, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
:Not to mention the self-referential "My very educated mother just showed us nine planets." [[Special:Contributions/172.68.78.10|172.68.78.10]] 02:15, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

My personal favorite for taxonomy is "Dumb kids playing catch on freeways get squashed."[[User:RedHatGuy68|RedHatGuy68]] ([[User talk:RedHatGuy68|talk]]) 01:12, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
:Exactly what I was thinking. That one seems to be more traditional because I got taught that back in school. [[User:625571b7-aa66-4f98-ac5c-92464cfb4ed8|625571b7-aa66-4f98-ac5c-92464cfb4ed8]] ([[User talk:625571b7-aa66-4f98-ac5c-92464cfb4ed8|talk]]) 03:43, 9 March 2017 (UTC)
:Do Kindly Please Come Over For Green Soup [[User:Cosumel|Cosumel]] ([[User talk:Cosumel|talk]]) 01:46, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Marx didn't "invent" either socialism or communism. Both terms predated him. [[User:Gmcgath|Gmcgath]] ([[User talk:Gmcgath|talk]]) 17:09, 6 November 2016 (UTC)

I know one for SI prefixes: Kalium, magnesium, gallium, thallium, palladium, erbium, zinc(, yttrium), for the >1 ones, and "Magnesium, manganese, natrium, palladium, actinium, zinc(, yttrium)" for <1. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.88.188|162.158.88.188]] 10:26, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

It can be noted and I suggest this onto the trivia section that the ''only'' sexually suggestive traditional mnemonic has the only sexually non-suggestive suggested mnemonic besides the suggested SI mnemonic. ''(Sorry, but the more traditional version for taxonomy is "King Phillip Came Over For Good '''Spaghetti'''")'' [[Special:Contributions/172.69.186.58|172.69.186.58]] 11:27, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

My favorite one is for the digestive system: Mouth, Esophagus, Stomach, Gall Bladder, Small Intestine, Large Intestine, Rectum, Anus. Better remembered as "Mother Eats Squirrel Guts Because She Is Living In Rural Arkansas." [[User:Cosumel|Cosumel]] ([[User talk:Cosumel|talk]]) 01:46, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

I learned "Patrick Eats Markers Daily At School."
Also, from CGP Grey: "My Very Easy Method Just Speeds Up Naming (Planets)"
[[User:Wilh3lm|Wilh3lm]] ([[User talk:Wilh3lm|talk]]) 12:58, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

Can someone make an updated version for ronna and quetta? [[User:IJustWantToEditStuff|IJustWantToEditStuff]] ([[User talk:IJustWantToEditStuff|talk]]) 19:45, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

Am I the only one who remembers King Henry Died Drinking Chocolate Milk {{unsigned ip|172.70.111.147|22:47, 28 January 2024}}

2875: 2024

2024-01-01T22:43:59Z

162.158.74.118: /* Explanation */ General tidy-up and correction.

<noinclude>:''This page refers to the comic named "2024". For comic #2024, see [[2024: Light Hacks]].''</noinclude>
{{comic
| number = 2875
| date = January 1, 2024
| title = 2024
| image = 2024_2x.png
| imagesize = 740x553px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = It wasn't originally constitutionally required, but presidents who served two terms have traditionally followed George Washington's example and gotten false teeth.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by OBAMA'S TEETH - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

[[Ponytail]] observes that it's now 2024, which [[Cueball]] notes is an election year. Ponytail then replies in some form of exasperated tone that they "keep on happening".

After this, they then devolve onto a discussion about Obama. Ponytail seems to be quite behind the times as she asks if Obama is still president (when he left in January 20th, 2017, which was 7 (!) years ago). Ponytail states that she liked him, but Cueball states that, due to the {{w|Twenty-second Amendment to the United States Constitution}}, he can't come back. The only president to have actually served more than two terms (dying in office during his fourth term), was {{w|Franklin D. Roosevelt}}, who served prior to the 22nd Amendment.

The humor in the comic comes in the second half; Cueball and Ponytail discuss wether Obama is the same person, ironically misinterpreting the constitution, but then finding that in 30 years, Obama might be re-elected upon a philosophical technicality, or earlier theough extreme dentistry.

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

:[Ponytail and Cueball are walking.]
:Ponytail: So this is 2024.
:Cueball: Guess it's an election year now.
:Ponytail: Again? Man, those just keep happening, huh?

:[Ponytail and Cueball now standing.]
:Ponytail: Who's the president these days, anyway? Is it still Obama?
:Cueball: What? No? he hasn't been... How do you not...

:[Ponytail and Cueball still standing.]
:Ponytail: Darn, I liked him. Is he running this time?
:Cueball: No, he's not allowed to.
:Ponytail: He's not? Why?
:Cueball: Constitution.

:[Ponytail checks her smartphone.]
:Phone: ''Amendment 22''
:Phone: No person shall be elected to the office of the president more than twice
:Ponytail: What?? C'mon...

:[Ponytail talking to Cueball.]
:Ponytail: Don't all your cells get replaced every seven years, Ship of Theseus-style? Is he even the same person?
:Ponytail: Maybe "no person shall be elected more than twice" isn't a prohibition, it's more of an observation, like "you can't step in the same river twice."

:[Zoom in on Cueball.]
:Cueball: Isn't the cell thing a myth?
:Cueball: I think tooth enamel has a turnover half-life of 30+ years. His teeth molecules are probably the same.

:[Ponytail heads off with a finger raised.]
:Ponytail: So if Obama just gets false teeth, he can run again! I need to talk to a dentist and a lawyer!
:Cueball: The Supreme Court is about to vote 9-0 to block your number.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Elections]]
[[Category:Politics]]

Talk:2873: Supersymmetry

2023-12-28T10:35:57Z

162.158.74.118:

Ah, good, I was ''just'' about to tell people (on 2872's Talk page) that there was a new one... (And that we obviously need to prod the theusafBOT.) Currently, [[2872: Hydrothermal Vents]] doesn't have the 'Next' links to here, but (from last comic's experience) it might just be a matter of nudging its server-side cache a bit. I'll try the tricks I tried yesterday. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.101|141.101.99.101]] 20:08, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

Too bad the franchise has never introduced a Weach character (there's a couple of witches). A game with Peach as the main protagonist would be interesting, and it would give us a convenient positron. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.26.135|172.71.26.135]] 20:56, 27 December 2023 (UTC)
:If they made Weach, people would start asking for Wowser. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.245.202|108.162.245.202]] 21:53, 27 December 2023 (UTC)
::Isn't that just Bowyer? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.131.37|172.70.131.37]] 21:59, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

I think the mouse over text references mariokart? We know that Randall plays... [[Special:Contributions/172.70.200.144|172.70.200.144]] 00:43, 28 December 2023 (UTC)
: Absolutely. It's directly referring to the track ''GCN Baby Park'', found in ''{{w|Mario Kart: Double Dash|Double Dash}}'', ''{{w|Mario Kart 8|MK8}}'', and ''{{w|Mario Kart 8 Deluxe|MK8DX}}''. on the other hand, it also references ''The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask'' (which is already included in the explanation) [[User:SomeoneIGuess|someone, i guess]]([[User talk:SomeoneIGuess|talk i guess]]|[[Special:Contributions/SomeoneIGuess|le edit list]]) 02:21, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

I'm not that familiar with Mario or particle physics. What would the anti-Peach particle be? Bowsette? [[User:GreatWyrmGold|GreatWyrmGold]] ([[User talk:GreatWyrmGold|talk]]) 00:59, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

----

Clearly, he's referencing Wapeach. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.118|162.158.74.118]] 10:35, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

199: Right-Hand Rule

2023-12-27T12:41:17Z

162.158.74.118: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 199
| date = December 20, 2006
| title = Right-Hand Rule
| image = right_hand_rule.png
| titletext = To really expand your mind try some noncartesian porn. Edwin Abbot Abbott has nothing on "Girls on Girls in Tightly Closed Nonorientable Spaces"
}}

==Explanation==
The {{w|right-hand rule}} is a mathematics and physics trick to learning how to find the {{w|cross product}} of two Cartesian vectors in three dimensions. First, extend the fingers of your right hand in the direction of the first vector (in the example diagram in the comic, this is to the left). Then, curl your fingers in the direction of the second vector (out of the page/screen, in the example). Now point your thumb perpendicular to the other fingers, and it will point in the direction of the cross product of those two vectors (upwards, in the example). Note that reversing the order of the two vectors also reverses the direction of the cross product.

The book rule is an actual alternative to the right hand rule that might be useful to some physics students doing exercises out of their textbooks. However, it would give incorrect results with books in languages that are read from right to left, such as most Jewish prayer books.

The gun rule also technically works, but it would be extremely impractical, expensive, and dangerous to use and fire a loaded gun every time you want to find the result vector. It would also be very awkward to hold the gun in line with the vectors. It also assumes that the safety latch is consistently on the same side of all guns; if a gun was made with the safety latch on the other side, then it would give incorrect results.

The body rule is described as for 'males only', which would limit the number of people who are able to use this rule. With the right arm oriented along one vector and the legs along the second, the result vector is found along the penis of a person who has one, which may be conveniently erected by watching porn. The 'males only' description is problematic, as it is generally and scientifically accepted that not all males have penises, and not all people with penises are male.

The title text refers to {{w|Edwin Abbott Abbott}}, author of the book Flatland, a story about a two-dimensional world. Flatland is a recurring topic, such as in [[721: Flatland]]. The title text misspells Abbott's name - unlike most typos in XKCD, this has not been corrected by Randall.

{{w|Orientability}} is a property that refers to a space with continuously varying {{w|surface normal}}s, which are essentially just vectors that are perpendicular to the surface of the space. Nearly every space commonly encountered is orientable; this is likely why the porn is referred to as mind expanding and superior to Edwin Abbott Abbott's work.

==Transcript==
:[Picture of a right hand with fingers curved, thumb pointed away, with axes drawn to demonstrate the right-hand rule of physics.]
:Alternatives to the Right-Hand Rule in vector multiplication:
:[A slightly-open book with labeled axes drawn on.]
:Book Rule: Open the front cover along the first vector and the back cover along the second. The result vector is along the spine, out the top.
:[A handgun with axes.]
:Handgun Rule: Point the grip along the first vector and rotate it so that the second vector is on the safety latch side. Fire. The result vector is toward the bullet holes.
:[A person with right arm extended.]
:Body Rule (males only): Point your right arm along the first vector and your legs along the second, then watch some porn.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Math]]
[[Category:Physics]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Flatland]]

199: Right-Hand Rule

2023-12-27T12:36:59Z

162.158.74.118: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 199
| date = December 20, 2006
| title = Right-Hand Rule
| image = right_hand_rule.png
| titletext = To really expand your mind try some noncartesian porn. Edwin Abbot Abbott has nothing on "Girls on Girls in Tightly Closed Nonorientable Spaces"
}}

==Explanation==
The {{w|right-hand rule}} is a mathematics and physics trick to learning how to find the {{w|cross product}} of two Cartesian vectors in three dimensions. First, extend the fingers of your right hand in the direction of the first vector (in the example diagram in the comic, this is to the left). Then, curl your fingers in the direction of the second vector (out of the page/screen, in the example). Now point your thumb perpendicular to the other fingers, and it will point in the direction of the cross product of those two vectors (upwards, in the example). Note that reversing the order of the two vectors also reverses the direction of the cross product.

The book rule is an actual alternative to the right hand rule that might be useful to some physics students doing exercises out of their textbooks. However, it would give incorrect results with books in languages that are read from right to left, such as most Jewish prayer books.

The gun rule also technically works, but it would be extremely impractical, expensive, and dangerous to use and fire a loaded gun every time you want to find the result vector. It would also be very awkward to hold the gun in line with the vectors. It also assumes that the safety latch is consistently on the same side of all guns; if a gun was made with the safety latch on the other side, then it would give incorrect results.

The body rule is for males only, which limits the number of people who are able to use this rule. With the right arm oriented along one vector and the legs along the second, the result vector is found along the penis of the person, which is conveniently erected by watching porn.

The title text refers to {{w|Edwin Abbott Abbott}}, author of the book Flatland, a story about a two-dimensional world. Flatland is a recurring topic, such as in [[721: Flatland]]. The title text misspells Abbott's name - unlike most typos in XKCD, this has not been corrected by Randall.

{{w|Orientability}} is a property that refers to a space with continuously varying {{w|surface normal}}s, which are essentially just vectors that are perpendicular to the surface of the space. Nearly every space commonly encountered is orientable; this is likely why the porn is referred to as mind expanding and superior to Edwin Abbott Abbott's work.

==Transcript==
:[Picture of a right hand with fingers curved, thumb pointed away, with axes drawn to demonstrate the right-hand rule of physics.]
:Alternatives to the Right-Hand Rule in vector multiplication:
:[A slightly-open book with labeled axes drawn on.]
:Book Rule: Open the front cover along the first vector and the back cover along the second. The result vector is along the spine, out the top.
:[A handgun with axes.]
:Handgun Rule: Point the grip along the first vector and rotate it so that the second vector is on the safety latch side. Fire. The result vector is toward the bullet holes.
:[A person with right arm extended.]
:Body Rule (males only): Point your right arm along the first vector and your legs along the second, then watch some porn.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Math]]
[[Category:Physics]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Flatland]]

Talk:2869: Puzzles

2023-12-19T10:21:30Z

162.158.74.118:

Aunt Alice is obviously a reference to the standard Alice / Bob / Eve crypto protocol characters. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.219|162.158.158.219]] 20:00, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

Anyone know if this is an actual scene from an actual children's book? Or is it just sort of an ad hoc representation of how these things might typically go? -- MeZimm [[Special:Contributions/172.68.2.107|172.68.2.107]] 20:27, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

:Something about this reminded me of *The 39 Clues*? Which I've never read, so I don't know why. Looking them up, Wikipedia says book 1 leads to the clue "iron solute", and the fact that it specifically anagrams to "resolution" (sounds backwards, I'd think the final one would be "iron solute") - never mind that it could be many, many other things, such as "tonsure oil" or "ursine loot" (honey) or "oriole nuts" or "urine stool" or lots of other less-immediately-interpretable-as-an-ingredient things. And never mind that this clue was supposedly hidden by Ben Franklin, old enough that I wouldn't trust anything that relies on very specific spellings. I would assume that other puzzles within the book, and the rest of the series, are of similar dubiousness. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.146.183|162.158.146.183]] 04:15, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

:"Aunt Gertrude" suggests *The Hardy Boys* series of children's novels. I don't recall this particular scene. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.46|172.70.85.46]] 20:38, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

::I don't think Aunt Gertrude ever set Frank and Joe a puzzle herself, but it is certainly evocative of several puzzles in the Hardy Boys. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.151.136|172.71.151.136]] 21:07, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

:::Can anyone with stronger Hardy Boys knowledge add some examples? I never read the Hardy Boys books or similiar kid mysteries, so it's hard to imagine how thin those mysteries got, to be compared to "character name -> random letter/word association -> answer" as used here without some examples. [[User:Mneme|Mneme]] ([[User talk:Mneme|talk]]) 22:57, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

::::I read seven of the earliest Hardy books plus about that many around #100, give or take. They didn't use a lot of word clues, it was more about who looks shady/innocent (but isn't), interviews, half-overheard crime plans, footprints, vehicle tracing, a suspect lost a hat/glove/crossbow, etc. The only word clues I recall off the top of my head were: shipment abbreviations (easy), a crook deathbed-confessing where he hid his loot (but the boys search the wrong building, confusing them), a bit of Morse Code (bonus for Frank sending it to Aunt Gertrude, and she understood despite the fact that she ''hated'' the idea of her nephews getting into danger), and two or three other coded distress signals (which the boys and/or their expert detective dad had already discussed beforehand). The most obscure of those signals I can recall was from The Mystery of Cabin Island -- Google that name plus "''alley'' cat" and you'll see how difficult it was (i.e. not at all) for them to guess that shady-guy-of-the-week Mr. ''Hanleigh'' was dangerous. (there was also a time when their computer-geek friend cracked a password, but it wasn't really a puzzle -- the computer belonged to a medieval faire technician, so I think the friend just brute-forced medieval words until he got in) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.175.126|172.70.175.126]] 00:18, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

::::The Mystery of Cabin Island included a substitution cipher that was not trivial (at least to crack by hand). The cipher told the location of the stolen medals. The Yellow Feather Mystery used a platen (a piece of paper with cutouts which, when placed on the proper source text, reveal the hidden message) as the device to reveal the location of a dead man's will. I also recall a time when the Hardy's pilot friend Jack Wayne was kidnapped and could only communicate in an obfuscated radio message that was something like 'beware the bite'. Turns out he mean the homophon 'bight', like a curve or recess in a coastline (it was a geograpical reference). There was a public domain Hardy story published earlier this year, The Crypto Mine Cypher, which involves a group of thieves that are stealing electricity to run a crypto mine as well as stealing NFTs and crypto via a drainer smart contract. Perhaps that would be more to Randall's liking? --[[Special:Contributions/172.69.58.14|172.69.58.14]] 06:21, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

::::The Secret of the Lost Tunnel has a good example of a multi-layered mystery involving codes. A piece of paper is hidden in an ammo box. The paper itself is a sort of book cipher that when decoded just gives a clue to location ("Find coin in iron"), not much better than "diG a hole in the Ground", really. Of course this was a reference to hiding a lot of gold in some cannon balls.

Could someone add a category for "Alice and Bob" comics? Right now, the list seems to be 177, 1323, 2440, 2691, 2869. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.233.38|162.158.233.38]] 22:07, 18 December 2023 (UTC)
:I'm not convinced that [[2440]] should be in the list; at best, it's using similar naming patterns. [[User:BunsenH|BunsenH]] ([[User talk:BunsenH|talk]]) 22:48, 18 December 2023 (UTC)
::Eve is clearly mentioned in the title text (Evangeline the Adulterator, which is clearly a reference to Eve from 177).
::: ''Is'' Evangeline the Adulterator clearly a reference to Eve? [[User:BunsenH|BunsenH]] ([[User talk:BunsenH|talk]]) 23:57, 18 December 2023 (UTC)
::: Well, 2440 doesn't mention anything about Evangeline the Adulterator except that she is named Evangeline and presumably adulterates. But in 177, Eve (not Evangeline) is the adulterat''ed'', not the adulterat''or''. That would be Alice, since Bob was in a relationship with Eve, not Alice. It feels disingenuous to say that they ''might'' be the same person; there's no proof they ''aren't'', but there are no reasons to think they ''are''. [[User:GreatWyrmGold|GreatWyrmGold]] ([[User talk:GreatWyrmGold|talk]]) 00:52, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

I think Aunt Vergenie would leave a clue that has some specific content and requires some effort to understand, but isn't simply impossible to figure out without the key like Aunt Alice's. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.154.170|162.158.154.170]] 05:04, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

Is it worth putting in this scene from Batman 66 as a similar example? Even if it is A. TV instead of book and B. Making fun of the idea itself
https://youtu.be/M-vAlR3-Ovg

Commissioner Gordon : It could be any one of them. But which one? Which ones?

Batman : Pretty *fishy* what happened to me on that ladder.

Commissioner Gordon : You mean where there's a fish there could be a Penguin?

Robin : But wait! It happened at sea. See? C for Catwoman!

Batman : Yet, an exploding shark *was* pulling my leg...

Commissioner Gordon : The Joker!

Chief O'Hara : All adds up to a sinister riddle. Riddle-R. Riddler!

Commissioner Gordon : Oh, the thought strikes me. So dreadful, I scarcely dare give it utterance.

Batman : The four of them. Their forces combined.

Robin : Holy nightmare

I feel like the explanation needs at least one example, from somewhere.
[[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.118|162.158.74.118]] 10:21, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

Talk:2865: The Wrong Stuff

2023-12-09T20:05:29Z

162.158.74.118: /* What kind of bricks? */

the design is very timeghost-esque [[Special:Contributions/172.71.167.165|172.71.167.165]] 21:42, 8 December 2023 (UTC)Bumpf

== personal similarity ==

NOTE: people are misleadingly adding comments below this lengthy topic. Looks like the interface is defaulting to that.

I made a post to the derelict cypherpunks list right before this about ghost visits. It’s notable because I used to post to the same derelict list about making a spaceship out of tissue paper, specifically pursuing the wrong materials in response to a ghostlike experience preventing me from effective work (which i now understand as a dissociative disorder).

[https://lists.cpunks.org/pipermail/cypherpunks/2023-December/120247.html Thu Dec 7 20:57:06 PST 2023]<blockquote><code>2249

a ghost visits you

you: “oh! a ghost! are you a spirit of a person who is now dead?”

the ghost looks sheepish

ghost: “i am a psychological result of something you went through!”

the ghost grins, trying to put on a great-looking appearance

you: “awww frack”

the ghost stops grinning and looks crestfallen and depressed

ghost: “i want to repeat something that perturbed you from the thing you went through, over and over … would this be okay with you?” [translator may have taken liberties with this line]

you: “oh no that would um be really perterburing! um !!”

ghost [looking sheepish again]: “um !”

you and the ghost both put handkerchiefs over your mouths to represent politeness or something and you go for a walk down a lane in your town called “memory la—
</code></blockquote>

[https://lists.cpunks.org/pipermail/cypherpunks/2023-January/110003.html Mon Jan 30 18:35:20 PST 2023]<blockquote><code>[crazy][spam]

let’s reduce the tension and go back to a concept spammed to this list before

let’s make a space rocket out of tissue paper! or s9mething similarly incredibly flimsy like cobwebs or dustballs.
</code></blockquote>
[https://lists.cpunks.org/pipermail/cypherpunks/2023-January/110004.html Mon Jan 30 18:36:19 PST 2023]
<blockquote><code>[crazy][spam]

- we can use an nlp bot to scrape the internet for materials
properties and perform the rough design

- we can make bots that replicate like a reprap generator to collect
the materials
</code></blockquote>
[https://lists.cpunks.org/pipermail/cypherpunks/2023-September/117502.html Sun Sep 3 18:03:06 PDT 2023]
<blockquote><code>Model Spaceship Made Of Snow

I'm guessing we can make it out of ice when it is really cold. We
could press or melt the snow to make it into ice, and cast, cut, or
assemble and fuse parts into a spaceship shape.

Rocket fuel could melt the ship when it burns, maybe need a way to
cool it significantly, but with a model maybe it could hold compressed
air somehow? it does seem hard
</code></blockquote>
[https://lists.cpunks.org/pipermail/cypherpunks/2023-September/117517.html Sun Sep 3 18:23:54 PDT 2023]
<blockquote><code>how to make spaceship out of ice?

so, ice is likely to melt when traveling at escape velocity, maybe
imagining a huge buffer around the ship: like, design it to melt its
exterior. big wide giant spaceship near ground, little tiny spaceship
at edge of atmosphere
</code></blockquote>
[https://lists.cpunks.org/pipermail/cypherpunks/2022-March/097050.html Tue Mar 8 17:35:33 PST 2022]
<blockquote><code>The Questioning Spam

A worker was building a rocket ship out of grass.

Questioner: "Why don't you use, I dunno, like, steel and ceramic
plates, to make your rocket ship, rather than grass?"

Worker: "It's just a hobby project."

Questioner: "Why don't you make it a serious proiject?"

Worker: "I really have more time than money, honestly."
…
</code></blockquote>
[https://lists.cpunks.org/pipermail/cypherpunks/2022-January/094637.html Fri Jan 7 03:23:38 PST 2022]
<blockquote><code>[ot][spam][crazy] holding community goals

stone soup is kind of a puzzle, no? like building a spaceship out of
wet noodles
</code></blockquote>
[https://lists.cpunks.org/pipermail/cypherpunks/2021-December/093963.html Wed Dec 22 09:47:30 PST 2021]
<blockquote><code>Making a Spaceship out of Wet Noodles in C

It's hard to make a C program that builds a spaceship out of wet noodles.

But, at the end of the day, it's down to your free time,
experience+ingenuity, and the libraries you have available to call
into.
</code></blockquote>
[https://lists.cpunks.org/pipermail/cypherpunks/2021-December/093000.html Wed Dec 1 00:17:51 PST 2021]
<blockquote><code>[spam][ot][rambling][crazy] Building a Spaceship Out Of Something Ridiculously Weak and Flimsy

I like to daydream around hard challenges.

I don't know how to build a spaceship. But maybe it would be fun to try.

To make it harder, let's make it out of only something ridiculously hard to
do it with, like toilet paper, or leaves, or old newspapers.

I don't know what kinds of problems one runs into when building a
spaceship, but when I start planning it I think the first problem will be
getting something to go really, really far against gravity.

Another problem I hear about is burning up as you accelerate through the
atmosphere.

I imagine aiming what direction you go in is pretty hard too.

I'm thinking I'm probably okay with there being some guidance computers and
robotics on the craft, but that we would _mostly_ make it out of tissue
paper or whatnot. Making computers out of tissue paper can be considered a
separate problem, for now.

One way to make tissue paper move is to burn it. Could we use a
tissue-paper-fueled rocket to accelerate the craft? Almost certainly not,
but doing the calculations for this could inform what thing to consider
next.

I have no idea how to make a rocket, or how rockets work, but I imagine
that when you burn something, it turns into gas, and the expansion of the
gas is much larger than the thing you burned, so if you direct this gas in
some direction or another, it might push something further. I dunno. Like
getting up from a chair because of a fire you sat in. Maybe? I dunno.

Maybe I'll briefly websearch for "solid fuel rocket" and see what I get.
</code></blockquote> … the post goes on and I then replied with more things for a few days. Rereading it turns out I was playing with my psychological triggers from social influence AI, and it’s hard to continue cause my amnesia and dissociation is kicking in (might try a different part not sure). I think of this xkcd as about me though!

[[Special:Contributions/172.71.254.32|172.71.254.32]] 21:48, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

It's probably worth a mention that the title is most likely a reference to "The Right Stuff" (film). [[Special:Contributions/172.69.247.65|172.69.247.65]] 22:57, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

The title is probably a reference to "The Right Stuff" (TV Series) instead, since the title's unusual capitalization aligns with the series's title's font style but not the film's title font. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.146.43|172.71.146.43]] 00:04, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

:I don't understand why the Trojan Horse is considered an example of building something out of the wrong stuff. Within the legendary context of the Trojan War, the Trojan Horse succeeded at exactly what it was built to do, namely, transport the Greek warriors into Troy so they could sack the city. An actual horse made out of skin and muscle and bones would not have been able to fit the Greek warriors inside.{{cn}} That's like saying that Lunar Module Eagle from Apollo 11 was built of the wrong material because it didn't have feathers. --[[Special:Contributions/172.70.127.57|172.70.127.57]] 06:34, 9 December 2023 (UTC)
:: Humour comes in threes, perhaps Randall was struggling to come up with a third example (while saving the Brick Moon for the mouse over text)? :) [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 07:04, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

What has happened to this wiki? It used to be when there were glitches and flubs, there would be evidence, screenshots, records for us to see, particularly for those of us who didn't see it before it was fixed. Now there's a passing mention in Trivia and for all we know someone could be mistaken or lying. Uhhh, we'd like to SEE this! I mean, when the anomaly is "It was posted super early/late", okay, not much to capture there, really, but a screenshot of the mis-capitalized title would have been easy! Every time the comic is uploaded 2x, a bot gives "here it is normal sized, which isn't special at all and you can see anyway because Randall fixed it by now". What happened to the recordkeeping here? (BTW, the text title here still says "the", not "The") [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]])
: The mailing list email was sent out with the incorrect capitalization, which should provide some evidence. Unfortunately the RSS and Atom feeds have been corrected, so I'm not sure how someone could provide proof, since screenshots can be manipulated. Could someone publish the email headers to show that an email with that subject was sent by the mailing.xkcd.com servers? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.46.251|172.70.46.251]] 12:47, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

The discrete would have worked. :-) What isn't mentioned was the successful (for a given definition of) we the reinforced concrete ships in WW2. Mostly mine sweepers. They could be repaired at sea! Possibly a precursor of GRP? Oh, BTW steel was thought to be a wrong material! [[User:RIIW - Ponder it|RIIW - Ponder it]] ([[User talk:RIIW - Ponder it|talk]]) 08:14, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

== What kind of bricks? ==

When I first read this comic, I was sure it meant LEGO bricks... --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.129.17|162.158.129.17]] 11:33, 9 December 2023 (UTC)
:...which would naturally lead to the obvious reply: "That's no moon!" [[User:Ralfoide|Ralfoide]] ([[User talk:Ralfoide|talk]]) 18:48, 9 December 2023 (UTC)
:Within the Long Earth series (Pratchett/Baxter, and I'm not quite sure whose imagination/knowledge was initially used in this case as they both have(/had) a lot of the necessary for this kind of thing) there's a "Brick Moon" in 'The Gap' (a place where there's not an Earth at all, in the place where one should be) that's built almost 'simply', given then ability to avoid the need to 'launch' hardware into space like you would to access space above the Earth(s) as we do here. The structural requirements and materials available (basically, anything so long as it wasn't iron) made bricks (or similarly trivial materials) the ideal bulk material to be 'stepped' over from adjacent Earths into the Earthlike 'solar orbit' where things would happily sit. And, by proxy, become a staging point to easily launch off the 'missing' Earth from which other steppings could also be made. With a few caveats, of course. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.118|162.158.74.118]] 20:05, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

1891: Obsolete Technology

2023-11-23T10:53:54Z

162.158.74.118: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1891
| date = September 18, 2017
| title = Obsolete Technology
| image = obsolete_technology.png
| titletext = And I can't believe some places still use fax machines. The electrical signals waste so much time going AROUND the Earth when neutrino beams can go straight through!
}}

==Explanation==
This comic mocks people who criticize an industry for using obsolete technology, even when said technology is sufficient for the task at hand. The claim often comes with the implication that those in charge of the industry are behind the times and cannot adapt to the cutting edge. What these critics often fail to realize is that there are cost benefits to sticking with "obsolete" infrastructure, and that upgrading to the newest tech can introduce unwanted side effects and other risks.

Here, [[Ponytail]] acts as one such critic, complaining that the business is taking "forever" to get with the times. [[Megan]] uses sarcasm to deliver her counterargument: despite the advent of nuclear weapons, fireworks use the ancient technology of {{w|gunpowder}} (invented in the 9th century), because fireworks are used by civilians for celebratory purposes and should have as few lethal side effects as possible.{{citation needed}}

As they use gunpowder, fireworks do claim a handful of lives and cause thousands of injuries each year due to improper handling procedures; between June 18th and July 18th of 2016 (thus including the {{w|Independence Day (United States)|Independence Day}} celebrations on July 4th), fireworks caused an estimated 11,000 injuries, of which 7,000 had to be treated in hospitals. In the whole year of 2016, four people died ([http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2017/06/30/456213.htm U.S. stats]). Nuclear explosions, meanwhile, have "detrimental effects" {{citation needed}} on human health in the same way sledgehammers have "detrimental effects" {{citation needed}} to chicken eggs. For example, should a nuclear explosion at a firework display be too powerful, the spectators, and possibly the neighborhood around the display, would be vaporized instantly. Fallout from a nuclear reaction could spread radiation across a wide area, leading to increased risks of cancers and other detrimental{{citation needed}} genetic mutations.

In other words, sometimes using newer technology is "overkill" for the purpose, and it might be costlier to switch to a newer technology. For example, many industrial machines were designed and sold in the 1990s when {{w|floppy disk}}s were the prevalent means of storing the instructions, but those machines still have one or two or even more decades of usable lifetime left, and the instruction files still fit on those floppy disks. So, in 2017, there are several companies that thrive on buying, refurbishing and selling floppy disks. This [https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/why-do-floppy-disks-still-exist-the-world-isnt-ready-to-move-on/ report] portrays one of these companies.

{{w|MS-DOS}} is a computer operating system made by {{w|Microsoft}} that was dominant during much of the 1980s. When Microsoft released the Windows line of operating systems, they encouraged people to switch to the new platform, which many did. MS-DOS became essentially obsolete when Microsoft released {{w|Windows 95}} in 1995. However, there remain rare circumstances in which MS-DOS (or another command-line operating system) is still preferred, such as when no mouse, touchscreen, or other pointing hardware is available, or when the hardware does not support a newer operating system. To make matters simpler, there is {{w|DOSBox}}, a free and open-source MS-DOS emulator which is actively maintained and extended. Likewise, {{w|FreeDOS}} is a free and open-source operating system designed to run on both older and newer computers which is compatible with programs written for MS-DOS.

The title text uses a different twist, criticizing the current use of {{w|fax}} machines. In many respects, faxing is obsolete compared to e-mail; it supports only black-and-white images, it complicates the process of modifying sent text by rendering it as images, it consumes the recipient's paper and toner and, in some countries, requires the recipient to pay a fee. Fax machines are a peculiar topic among "obsolete" technology; in some fields, like lawyer offices, pharmacies and medical practices, they staunchly hold their ground, as they offer a way to quickly transfer handwritten and hand-signed documents. Confidentiality is also an issue; fax, which uses a landline, is more difficult to intercept than internet-based traffic. In some countries, a telecopy is a valid document, having the same legal value as the original. A patient can thus call their doctor to fill a prescription, which is faxed to the pharmacy where the patient can fetch their drugs, saving precious time. In the same manner, a legal request can be sent to the receiver, without having to use a courier or express mail.

But rather than argue on any of the above points, the title text instead claims that faxing is obsolete due to being electron-based, while {{w|neutrino}}-based communication would be faster. In 2017, neutrino detectors are heavy and expensive, used for nuclear research only. Electronic communications travel at a fair share of the speed of light and the advantage of path would be at most a factor of π/2, so neutrino-based communication would normally be far too expensive compared to the speed gain. Even in the most extreme case (communicating between {{w|antipodes}}), the time saved would be a few hundredths of a second – insignificant for almost all purposes, but potentially enough to gain an edge in {{w|high-frequency trading}}, as suggested in a [https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucedorminey/2012/04/30/neutrinos-to-give-high-frequency-traders-the-millisecond-edge/#25d0ba7a590c 2012 ''Forbes'' article.] Real-world fax detractors would rather replace it with other electronic communication systems, not neutrinic ones.{{citation needed}}

==Transcript==

:[Ponytail sits in front of an old computer. Megan stands behind her.]
:Ponytail: Whoa, this is running MS-DOS! It's weird how new technology takes forever to reach some industries.
:Megan: Yeah. Like how we still use gunpowder for fireworks, even though we've had nuclear weapons for over 70 years.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Computers]]
[[Category:Nuclear weapons]]

1927: Tinder

2023-11-20T13:36:57Z

162.158.74.118: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1927
| date = December 11, 2017
| title = Tinder
| image = tinder.png
| titletext = People keep telling me to use the radio but I really hate making voice calls.
}}

==Explanation==

{{w|Tinder (app)|Tinder}} is a social media/dating app. The main interface of Tinder shows photos of people. Users swipe right for matches that they like, and left otherwise. The purpose of the app is to get dates, with the intent of a romantic relationship or sexual intercourse. However, in the comic, [[Cueball]] is trying to use it to request assistance flying a plane instead. If the request is genuine, this is a bad situation, because it suggests Cueball is in charge of a plane he is unable to fly, and unless he finds a match with someone who can, and is able to provide assistance, the plane will crash. Even then, unless the matched person happens to be on board, and therefore able to assist directly, providing help through Tinder messages is unlikely to be a sufficiently efficient way of solving the problem{{Citation needed}}.

Alternatively, Cueball may simply be pretending that there is an emergency so that he can get matches on Tinder. In either case, depending on the jurisdiction, Cueball may be violating the law by using a cell phone that is not in "airplane mode" (in some phones, "flight mode" or "offline mode") when on an airplane. WiFi can be enabled on some flights during the entire flight; in others it may be banned during takeoff and landing. Even if he is either uploading the picture after the flight or using the in-flight internet service, he is still violating other, more serious laws (if he is a pilot, he may be liable for negligence, and if he is an ordinary passenger, God knows what he may have done...)

The title text explains that Cueball's unwise method for getting help stems from astonishingly skewed priorities and no small amount of selfishness. He claims to strongly dislike conversing over audio-only channels, and this dislike is apparently so overwhelming that he would rather jeopardize his life and that of any passengers on the plane, than put aside his own hang-ups. Even if we give Cueball the benefit of the doubt and assume that he has a phobia of public speaking, most human beings tend to automatically suspend their irrational anxieties when experiencing the fear of imminent mortal peril, at least until after the danger has passed. For example, those normally afraid of dating Cueball would "match" with him to prevent a plane crash, which may be his secret intent after all.

Randall may be satirizing people who use Tinder (and other similar social apps) by portraying an extreme caricature of a Tinder user.

This comic is similar to [[1897: Self Driving]], and as well as [[582: Brakes]], which also is about bad ways to get help in emergencies and other time-critical situations.

Note that the photo is at an angle, but the view out of the window shows the airplane to be in level flight. This could be due to haste taking the picture, or a feigned haste in taking the picture, or could suggest that, for whatever reason, the photo is making the situation seem worse than it is.

==Transcript==

:[A Smartphone is shown with the screen facing the viewer. On the screen is the Tinder UI. The main photo is of Cueball, in the cockpit of a plane which appears to be tilting to the right, holding up a makeshift sign saying:]
:If you know how
:to fly a plane
:please swipe
:right ASAP

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Social networking]]
[[Category:Smartphones]]
[[Category:Aviation]]

2852: Parameterball

2023-11-18T19:28:18Z

162.158.74.118: Trivia sections usually live beyond the Transcript. Good entry, otherwise, I would say...

{{comic
| number = 2852
| date = November 8, 2023
| title = Parameterball
| image = parameterball_2x.png
| imagesize = 518x371px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = The ball's density also varies, but players don't learn the value until after choosing their raquets. The infamous 'bowling ball table tennis' region of the parameter space often leads to equipment damage.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by an EXOTIC SPORTS FAN WAITING FOR A GAME OF PARAMETERBALL}} 
This comic depicts the game of parameterball, a "raquet" game. This is a misspelling (creative or unintentional) of the {{w|Racket_(sports_equipment)|sports equipment}} that is [https://www.quora.com/When-do-you-use-racket-and-raquet spelled] "raquette" in French (probably from the Dutch for the action of "striking back"), was adopted into English as "racquet" and later acquired the alternative (and extremely common) form "racket" ([[1010: Etymology-Man|etymologically]] distinct from the noise/"protection racket" use of that word).

There are a number of distinct {{w|List of racket sports|racket sports}}, which generalise to various forms of opposing players hitting a projectile between their respective zones of control. These are usually two-sided (2-{{w|Doubles|or-4}} players) point-scoring games using a delineated court/playing-surface, with a net or {{w|Squash (sport)|markings}} defining either side's control of play. The projectile is often a ball of some kind (or equivalent, such as the {{w|Badminton|shuttlecock}}), which must be hit with a racket(/'paddle' bat). Often, the objective of the game is to hit the ball so that it bounces on your opponent's side, in a legitimate manner, that cannot then be legitimately returned. Two notable examples of this kind of game are {{w|Tennis}} and {{w|Table Tennis}} (also known as Ping-Pong), which demonstrate the potentially different scales of playing area, ball and net.

In this comic, a game called "Parameterball" is proposed, where net size, ball size, and court size are randomized every quarter. There are 4 different instances of [[Megan]] and [[Cueball]] playing this game, each in one corner of the comic, so we can assume all four of these were used within the same game of Parameterball. The different examples provide insight into the absurd games that may be played in Parameterball, depending on how mismatched the racket, court, and ball size are.

Such kind of parameterization is typical in designing video games. Typically, the main premise of the game is written in code with several parameters added to the logic to fine-tune the feel and balance of the game by trying different values. In this case, the main premise of the game is hitting a projectile back to the opponent, as noted above, while the parameters are the size and height of the court, ball, and net. The comic, in its extreme absurdity of parameter range and selection, illustrates the wide range of possible games by tuning a few parameters. Some video games similarly also provide alternate modes that provide a minor tweak in parameters to provide a different feeling game. Video game designers often talk about the arduous process of selecting the ideal parameters to tune the game exactly so the game is fun and challenging to play. Here, the aspect of playing random variations of the parameters itself is part of the game, rather than playing a finely-tuned set of parameters by someone else perfected for enjoyment.

The title text mentions that the ball's density is also randomized, and refers to instances where the net size, ball size, and court size were similar to that of a Ping-pong match, but with a ball as dense as a {{w|Bowling ball|bowling ball}}, which not only led to equipment damage, but does so regularly. Despite this, the participants ''do not'' learn the density until ''after'' their racket is chosen, meaning that they have no way of determining whether the racket they chose is durable enough until it's already too late. (Conversely, choosing an excessively robust item could be a bad decision when trying to play with a light ball, as it would be detrimental in reacting against rapid volleys by a more aptly-equipped opponent.)

The mention of this 'region in parameter space' may reference the 'bowling ball on a sheet' metaphor sometimes used to try to illustrate how the gravitational fields of objects, often more specifically black holes, 'bend' spacetime around them. If the parameters of the game allow for balls with densities such that they create a singularity, this would indeed seem highly likely to damage not just equipment, but players as well. More simply, though, a 'parameter space' is the theoretical n-dimensional mapping of all theoretical combinations of individual variables - the specific variable of ball density will render an entire slice of this 'gamespace' problematic (irrespective of the other slices, or covarible regions where everything else might work or otherwise).

Note that the players can choose their own racket, and can do so after finding out the three parameters given in the main comic. Only the density of the ball is unknown when they choose the racket. Thus this indirectly leads to some randomness in the selection of racket also, as the players try to guess what would be best for a random choice of ball density.

It’s unknown whether the parameters of Parameterball are unlimited or limited to what human players can reasonably work with, although the fourth phase of the game as demonstrated in the comic certainly seems to represent an extreme of both net height and ball size that appears to be causing problems. But if the comic shows the outliers then the [[#Table of limits in the comic|table below]] lists the limits for the parameters.

[[Randall]] may have been inspired by {{w|Pickleball}}, a type of racket sport rising sharply in popularity in the US at the time this comic came out. Pickleball is a middle-ground of tennis and table tennis, with an intermediate-sized ball, court, and net height. Randall may have noticed the distinct parameters of pickleball’s elements compared to its cousin sports and was inspired to imagine a scenario in which such parameters might be randomized.

This comic is reminiscent of [[2663: Tetherball Configurations]], also four different settings for the same sport, that makes it more or less playable. Randall also invented another unusual ball game with [[1507: Metaball]] and [[2705: Spacetime Soccer]].

The parameters of the game being randomized is reminiscent of the "Calvinball" game in the {{w|Calvin & Hobbes}} cartoons, which is never played twice with the same rules.

===Table of limits in the comic===
Assuming that the comic shows the full breadth of options, here are the approximate, apparent upper and lower limits of the four parameters mentioned:
{|class = "wikitable"
! Parameter !! Apparent Lower Limit !! Apparent Upper Limit
|-
| Ball Size || Ping pong ball || Human hamster “Zorb” ball
|-
| Court Size || Large board game board || NHL ice hockey rink
|-
| Net Height || Soda bottle || Giraffe
|-
| Ball Density || Ping pong ball || Bowling ball
|-
|}

It is unclear what rules, if any, there are about the size below which the court will be elevated on a table.

From what is shown, racket choice appears to be limited to those commonly in use in other existing racket sports.

==Transcript==
:[Megan and Cueball are playing a game that looks similar to tennis or table tennis in four different settings, one in each quadrant of the comic. Each setting has different parameters for three parts of the game, the size of the court, the size of the ball and the height of the net. In each case Megan is on the left and Cueball is on the right.]

:[Top left: The court is much smaller than a normal tennis court, each half slightly wider and deeper than a person is tall. The net, however, is a fairly normal height, maybe a bit higher than in tennis. But the ball is much larger, even bigger than a beach ball but with curved 'seam' to it similar to certain types of more robust balls. The ball has just bounced on Cueball's side and he is about to hit it.]

:[Top right: The ball and the net closely match that of a regular tennis game, but the court has a size much like a five-a-side football field. Cueball has just hit the ball, which is currently flying towards Megan's side, but could seem like it will barely make it all the way over to the net. Both players are thus very small, compared with this huge court.]

:[Bottom left: The ball, and net are basically the same as in table tennis, and the rackets also looks like table tennis bats. But the 'court' is a much smaller tabletop. The ball has just bounced back up on Megan's side, and she is poised to smash it back. This is the only case in which the court has been elevated and the players are not standing on it.]

:[Bottom right: The court is slightly larger than the top left, but the net is much taller than the humans, more than double their height, thus much higher than in for instance volleyball. Also the ball is several times larger than a beach ball (with the same curved seam). The ball is larger than Cueball, like a human hamster ball. Cueball is apparently fighting to push the huge ball high enough to get over the net, indicated by movement lines in which he is barely managing to keep the ball on the racket itself, not to mention he has only gotten the ball halfway up the net. Megan is just standing on the other side waiting to see if Cueball manages to get the ball over to her.]

:[Caption below the panel:]
:Parameterball is a raquet  game divided into four quarters, with ball size, court size, and net height randomized each quarter.

==Trivia==
* A Pong-style video game, implemented in Godot, has been inspired by this comic: https://github.com/sdfgeoff/parameterball

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

2851: Messier Objects

2023-11-18T18:50:28Z

162.158.74.118: Undo revision 329248 by 172.70.90.243 (talk) I have no idea what that editor was doing... Keyboard mashing with the paste-buffer?

{{comic
| number = 2851
| date = November 6, 2023
| title = Messier Objects
| image = messier_objects_2x.png
| imagesize = 293x294px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = The debate over the correct Messier number for the Ship of Theseus is ongoing.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a BUNCH OF PEOPLE ARGUING OVER WHAT TO LABEL THE SHIP OF THESEUS - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This comic is a play on the {{w|Messier object|Messier Catalog}}, which is a famous list of astronomical objects compiled by the French astronomer Charles Messier in the 18th century. The real Messier Catalog includes 110 objects, which are all deep-space objects like nebulae and galaxies.

In the comic, it's humorously suggested that the catalog includes not just these distant celestial objects, but also very ordinary things found here on Earth. Each ordinary object is labeled with an "M" followed by a number, just as the real Messier objects are numbered (like M1, M31, etc.). However, the numbers are much higher than the 110 included in the actual catalog, and they point to mundane things such as the Earth, Charles Messier himself, a tree, a butterfly and a squirrel.

The numbers increase as the objects go from large and significant to humans (the Earth, Charles Messier) to those that are smaller and less significant (a tree, a butterfly, and a squirrel). However, this pattern isn't strictly numerical (i.e., there's no clear mathematical sequence), but rather a conceptual one where the numbers arbitrarily become larger for things that are commonly considered less monumental or noteworthy than celestial objects.

So, the comic is a playful take on a piece of astronomical history, suggesting that everything in the universe is part of the Messier Catalog, not just the deep sky objects Messier originally listed.

The title text refers to the {{w|Ship of Theseus}}, which is a thought experiment. If a ship is repaired and/or modified such that it has ''all'' of its parts replaced over the years, is it the same ship as the original? And then, what if you take all of the parts that were removed and create another ship using those parts? Are they ''both'' the same ship, and if not, which one ''is'' the original ship? The title text suggests that this leads to a debate as to whether the original ship and the new ship (with all of its parts replaced) should be considered the same object and therefore given the same Messier number, or the two ships should be considered different objects with different Messier numbers, and if so, which of them should retain the original number.

"M41592" may be a reference to pi as it contains 5 of the first digits at 3.1'''41592'''. Also noteworthy is that (the real) M6 is called the {{w|Butterfly Cluster}}. However, there are no real galaxies in the original Messier Catalog named after trees or squirrels.{{citation needed}}

"M137" for Earth seems likely to be a reference to the animated sci-fi/comedy show ''{{w|Rick and Morty}}'', since the versions of Rick and Morty primarily followed by the show come from Dimension C-137, even identifying themselves as Rick C-137 and Morty C-137 when around Ricks and Mortys from other dimensions.

==About the Messier Catalog==
The Messier Catalog was devised as a tool for comet hunters to differentiate between permanent, blurry celestial objects and the transient, moving comets that appear similar at first glance. Such blurry objects, unlike comets, remain fixed against the stellar backdrop, and their inclusion in the catalog ensures that astronomers could avoid mistaking these for newly visible comets, when systematically looking for unfixed 'fuzzy' objects to start to track. The catalog excludes terrestrial objects, as they pose no risk of confusion with comets.{{Citation needed}} Following the creation of the Messier Catalog, other catalogs like the New General Catalogue ({{w|New General Catalogue|NGC}}) and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey ({{w|Sloan Digital Sky Survey|SDSS}}) emerged, expanding the documentation of astronomical bodies.

==Similar Numbering Systems==
This numbering system is somewhat reminiscent of Wikidata which also gives objects a number starting with a letter. Numbers starting with Q refer to concepts including specific physical objects (like the Earth) and more abstract ideas (butterflies as organisms known by a particular common name). Here are some of the objects mentioned in the comic:
:[https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2 Q2] (Earth) (The normal one)
:[https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q14524 Q14524] (Charles Messier) (The astronomer)
:[https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q10884 Q10884] (tree) (The plants known by that common name)
:[https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q11946202 Q11946202] (butterflies) (The Lepidoptera known by that common name)
:[https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q9482 Q9482] (squirrel) (The taxon of rodents)
:[https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q14530 Q14530] (Messier object) (The astronomical catalog)
:[https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1050837 Q1050837] (Ship of Theseus) (The thought experiment)
:[https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q13915 Q13915] (xkcd) (The webcomic)

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

:[Multiple objects are labelled with M followed by a number.]
:[There is a tree, a butterfly, a squirrel, a man with a powdered wig labeled Charles Messier, a squirrel, and ground.]
:M137 (Earth) (pointing to the ground)
:M205 (Charles Messier) (pointing to Charles Messier)
:M21860 (pointing to a tree on the left of the panel)
:M41592 (pointing to a butterfly above Charles)
:M30712050 (pointing to a squirrel)

:[Caption below the panel:]
:People usually focus on the first 110, but the Messier Catalog actually includes '''''all''''' objects.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Astronomy]]
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]]
[[Category:Animals]]
[[Category:Squirrels]]
[[Category:Philosophy]]

909: Worst-Case Shopping

2023-11-17T22:12:19Z

162.158.74.118: None of these changes are valid (noting "labeled"/"labelled" are two different versions of the word, but not a direct quote so...).

{{comic
| number = 909
| date = June 8, 2011
| title = Worst-Case Shopping
| image = worst case shopping.png
| titletext = Wait a minute. If I'm escaping from a submarine at 50 meters, then I'll *definitely* need a flashlight to find air pockets for gradual decompression on the way up. Time to start shopping professional dive lights.
}}

==Explanation==
For most people, under most circumstances, a flashlight's water-resistance is a completely moot point, as most flashlight use occurs on dry land. But, [[208|as Randall has shown before]], there is a tendency for people to imagine elaborate scenarios in which an extra edge would be useful.

In the dream sequence over the first 2 and a half frames, [[Cueball]] appears to be diving to find a key underwater, which he spots using his flashlight when he is at 8 meters. His flashlight goes out at 10 meters because he bought the "Hi-Brite" model. The dream sequence also references a "radio shed", which were only really used in the past for {{w|amateur radio}}s or some other military style bases/compounds—which would align with his "warn the President" line. He thus suggests the more water-resistant flashlight. However, this is seen as ridiculous from his friend, since the more durable model costs over $25 more in return. He replies that "you never know" what situation you'll be in.

The title text takes Cueball's thought process to the next level. If he is getting a flashlight that works to 40 meters (worst-case), he should probably be prepared for even deeper waters as well (even worse-case).

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is diving in very deep, dark blue water. He shines a flashlight at the sea floor.]
:Cueball (thinks): Eight meters. There's the wreckage... Yes! I see the key!

:[As he swims further toward it, his flashlight starts to cut out.]
:Cueball (thinks): Gotta grab it, surface, get in to the radio shed, and warn the President! Just a few more...
:Flashlight: BZZT FIZZ

:[This panel has no border like the others, and is divided in half diagonally by a thought bubble.]
:[The left half of it is a dark blue thought bubble with the diver inside it. On the right hand side are packaged flashlights hanging on a shelf. The one called Hi-Brite is $24.95 and is labeled "water resistant to 10 meters." The one called "FenStar G6" is $49.95 and says "water resistant to 40 meters."]
:Cueball (thinks): Oh no.

:[Cueball and a friend stand in front of a flashlight display in a store. Cueball looks down at the packages with his hand on his chin in thought. The thought bubble from the previous panel leads from his head. The friend stands behind him.]
:Cueball: ...maybe I should spring for the deeper water resistance.
:Friend: Why on earth would you care about that?
:Cueball: Look, you never know.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]

2849: Under the Stars

2023-11-04T12:09:59Z

162.158.74.118: Undo revision 327905 by SomeoneIGuess (talk) Unnecessary. It's like painting "wet paint" in paint. Eventually it will be both dry and wrong.

{{comic
| number = 2849
| date = November 1, 2023
| title = Under the Stars
| image = under_the_stars_2x.png
| imagesize = 672x258px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = If you live in Los Angeles (around 33°52'N, roughly the latitude of Hermosa Beach) the black hole in V404 Cygni passes over you each day. On Christmas Day it will be directly overhead around 2pm.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a CONSTELLATION COVERED IN A FEW QUINTILLION GALLONS OF BLUE PAINT - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
The phrase "under the stars" generally refers to being under a visible field of stars (either real stars visible at night, or representations of stars constructed by people, as in a dance hall). Megan points out that we're always under the stars, they're just obscured ("painted over") during the day by the brightness of the Sun and its interaction with the sky. Of course, this makes the 'under the stars' part of the remark redundant in the first place, because by this definition, sitting outside is always under the stars. Also, since the Sun is itself a star, regardless of whether the other stars exist when it's daytime or not, you would always be under at least ''a'' star. In fact, sitting inside is arguably under the stars as well, since the stars are still there, but just obscured by a roof or other construction. Poetically, though, it could be taken to mean that Megan simply loves to sit and ponder the very existence, vastness, etc. of the stars, even when she can't see them.

[[File:parallel V404 Cygni.png|300px|thumb|If you live on the blue line, the black hole in V404 Cygni is directly over you once a day. Zoomable version [https://rpubs.com/perelopez/Parallel_33_52_02_N here].]]
This is related to the concept of {{w|object permanence}}, which is the understanding that objects continue to exist even though we can't physically sense them. When you close your eyes, the universe doesn't go away even though you can't see it; similarly, when the Sun is shining, the stars are still all there.

In the early days of xkcd, it was common for Randall to publish a comic that was not intentionally funny -- often also featuring Cueball and Megan -- so this is a bit of a return to form.

The title text mentions {{w|V404 Cygni}}, a binary system composed of a 9 solar masses black hole and a star smaller than the Sun. With a {{w|declination}} of +33° 52′ 02.0″, once a day it passes over any point of Earth with that latitude North, like Los Angeles, Atlanta or Beirut.

This comic may also have some subtle reference to the novel {{w|Nightfall (Asimov novelette and novel)|Nightfall}} by Isaac Asimov and Robert Silverberg which takes place on a planet that has so many suns they never have darkness and can never see the stars. In that novel there is an eclipse which occurs roughly every 2050 years, which causes a complete psychological breakdown of everyone on the planet, as they all fear the dark and have no concept of the vastness of space. In this comic the reference to every sky being full of stars being "terrifying" is very reminiscent of that novel.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[Megan and Cueball are sitting in a field under a clear blue sky and bright Sun.]

:Megan: I love sitting out under the stars.

:Cueball: ...It's daytime.
:Megan: Yeah, but the stars are all still up there.

:Megan: Constellations wheel overhead; they're just painted over with blue.
:Megan: Every sky is full of stars.

:Cueball: That's somehow terrifying.
:Megan: It's okay—just look at that sunny sky and tell yourself space isn't real.
:Megan: "Daytime" is us closing our eyes and pretending it makes infinity go away.

== Trivia ==
* The sun and grass are continuously drawn between frames, as if the frames are organized spatially instead of temporally.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Space]]
[[Category:Time]]

Talk:Main Page

2023-11-04T12:07:58Z

162.158.74.118: Undo revision 327913 by 172.64.236.12 (talk) Error or mischief. Either way, not necessary to keep.

{{TOC}}{{notice|This page is for discussion of the [[Main Page]] itself. For discussion of the latest comic, see [[{{LATESTCOMIC}}#Discussion|its discussion section]]. Other issues probably belong at the [[Explain XKCD:Community portal]].}}

==New discussion page==
As a new user, I think the first page is very important. So I thought why not begin a discussion here what to have on the first page every user visits.--[[User:Relic|Relic]] ([[User talk:Relic|talk]]) 05:59, 1 August 2012 (EDT) Re-signed here - b/c I broke the comment in two when I added the "List of comics" header. --''[[User:Philosopher|Philosopher]]'' [[User talk:Philosopher|Let us reason together.]] 23:01, 2 August 2012 (EDT)

==List of comics==
I was thinking of having a quick link to the list of comics that is explained. Right know, it took me a while to even see any of them. Eventually I found the "List All Pages" (found it in Special pages) where I could find the comics that have been explained. What do you think?
:A category tag will do that for you automatically. Having a list of comics indexed by its number would be a little different.--[[User:Relic|Relic]] ([[User talk:Relic|talk]]) 05:59, 1 August 2012 (EDT)
::Sounds like a great list - I ''think'' it'd have to be manually maintained until/unless we get someone who knows how to make a bot update it. Categories will be useful, but they only work if someone added the category to the page in the first place. --''[[User:Philosopher|Philosopher]]'' [[User talk:Philosopher|Let us reason together.]] 07:21, 1 August 2012 (EDT)
:::A (somewhat) related question - should [[:Category:Comics]] be sorted alphabetically or by comic number? --''[[User:Philosopher|Philosopher]]'' [[User talk:Philosopher|Let us reason together.]] 07:43, 1 August 2012 (EDT)
::::I think [[:Category:Comics]] should be sorted by comic number. If you are looking for a specific comic, you will use the search field. Is there a way to make that happen? --[[User:Jeff|Jeff]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 08:11, 1 August 2012 (EDT)
:::::They are two different functions. For the former, instead of adding <nowiki>[[Category:Comics]]</nowiki>, add, say, <nowiki>[[Category:Comics|1]]</nowiki>. For the second, we can create redirects. Normally, I'd say just make sure the search term was in the article text, but since numbers are going to be use for other purposes than just comic titles, it may be better to create [[1]] and [[Comic 1]] as redirects to the relevant articles right off the bat. --08:24, 1 August 2012 (EDT)
::::::We could also have a comic-list template on the Main Page, I suppose, or perhaps two - one for number and one for name? --''[[User:Philosopher|Philosopher]]'' [[User talk:Philosopher|Let us reason together.]] 08:54, 1 August 2012 (EDT)
:::::::Here's what I was thinking of for that: {{tl|Comics navbox}} Thoughts? ''[[User:Philosopher|Philosopher]]'' [[User talk:Philosopher|Let us reason together.]]
:(outdent) It's ugly, but a sortable wikitable [[User:SurturZ/sandbox|(click here for example)]] could be used as a checklist to see what has been uploaded and what hasn't. What's the project namespace here, anyway (analogue of "WP:")? --[[User:SurturZ|SurturZ]] ([[User talk:SurturZ|talk]]) 03:04, 3 August 2012 (EDT)
:OK, I've found a way to get all the titles of the comics, so I was confident enough to create <big>[[Explain XKCD:Checklist]]</big> which can be used to fill in the gaps. --[[User:SurturZ|SurturZ]] ([[User talk:SurturZ|talk]]) 03:41, 3 August 2012 (EDT)
::I'm liking the checklist! That should do quite nicely as a "tool for editors". (I'm linking to it at the Community Portal). We still need the "template for readers." Did you think {{tl|Comics navbox}} was on the right track or should we do something else for that? --''[[User:Philosopher|Philosopher]]'' [[User talk:Philosopher|Let us reason together.]] 20:09, 3 August 2012 (EDT)
::Better idea - I'm throwing it directly onto the Main Page. --''[[User:Philosopher|Philosopher]]'' [[User talk:Philosopher|Let us reason together.]] 20:10, 3 August 2012 (EDT)

==Admin list==
You can find a system-accurate list of admins [{{canonicalurl:Special:ListUsers|group=sysop}} here], so that might good to share, along with the manual list. --''[[User:Philosopher|Philosopher]]'' [[User talk:Philosopher|Let us reason together.]] 07:13, 1 August 2012 (EDT)
:Added to page. --''[[User:Philosopher|Philosopher]]'' [[User talk:Philosopher|Let us reason together.]] 08:10, 1 August 2012 (EDT)
::That's exactly what I wanted, but couldn't find the auto page for it. I knew it was somewhere. I don't see any reason to keep the link to the manual page. Do you? --[[User:Jeff|Jeff]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 08:11, 1 August 2012 (EDT)
:::Not unless you want it. I'll remove it. Should I add the similar link for 'crats or is that unnecessary at this point? --''[[User:Philosopher|Philosopher]]'' [[User talk:Philosopher|Let us reason together.]] 08:25, 1 August 2012 (EDT)
::::To be honest, I have no idea what the Burecrats role does. Might be unnecessary now but helpful in the future? --[[User:Jeff|Jeff]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 11:16, 1 August 2012 (EDT)
:::::Bureaucrats can turn other users into administrators (or indeed, other bureaucrats). That privilege isn't available to ordinary administrators. I'd keep it to yourself for the time being. :-) --[[User:Yirba|Yirba]] ([[User talk:Yirba|talk]]) 17:39, 1 August 2012 (EDT)
::::::You can actually see a technical list of which rights each group confers at [[Special:ListGroupRights]]. As the wiki grows, you might want to spin off a few, such as the ability to grant rollbacker and autopatrolled, to admins as some other wikis have. But for the time being, at least, there's really no reason for the wiki to have more than one 'crat. --''[[User:Philosopher|Philosopher]]'' [[User talk:Philosopher|Let us reason together.]] 17:07, 2 August 2012 (EDT)

== Community portal ==

I've created the [[Explain XKCD:Community portal]] as a tools/help page. If that's not what you want, feel free to change/move/whatever it, but I thought it'd be nice to save this page for discussion of the Main Page and discuss the wiki as a whole/ask for help there. --''[[User:Philosopher|Philosopher]]'' [[User talk:Philosopher|Let us reason together.]] 08:36, 1 August 2012 (EDT)

== Direct link to latest comic ==

There should be a direct link to the latest comic at the top of the Main page. A nice thing about going to explainxkcd.com was that the latest comic is right there at the top. For those changing their default link to the wiki, there should be an easy "Latest Comic" link that quickly takes them there. I'm sure some folks actually skip xkcd.com and come directly here instead to read the latest offering from Randall. They shouldn't have to search for it.
[[User:Christopher Foxx|- CFoxx]] ([[User talk:Christopher Foxx|talk]]) 11:59, 1 August 2012 (EDT)

: Maybe the page [[latest]] should redirect to the most recent comic? Could that be taken care of by some sort of script/template so it doesn't have to be manually updated? Should each explination page also have "next", "previous", "random", "first" and "latest" links, possibly also generated automatically via scripts/templates? Additionally, shouldn't the number page be the canonical one? It seems like [[Internal monologue]] should redirect to [[1089]] rather than the other way around - certainly it would make a bunch of scripting types of things a lot easier. [[User:J-beda|J-beda]] ([[User talk:J-beda|talk]]) 13:02, 1 August 2012 (EDT)
:::If you wanted, we could even use wiki-magic to show the title of the page as the Comic name, but the URL as the number - in order to parallel the actual XKCD website. --''[[User:Philosopher|Philosopher]]'' [[User talk:Philosopher|Let us reason together.]] 17:09, 2 August 2012 (EDT)
:: Shouldn't there be a way to programmatically find the comic with the highest number that has a page with content? That would work as long as no one puts future comic pages up. --[[User:Jeff|Jeff]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 20:25, 1 August 2012 (EDT)
:::It's all sounding like folks are over-complicating something quite easy. All I'm suggesting is a prominent link to http://www.xkcd.com/. No need, I think, to list which number the latest is, or include the next/last/random buttons, etc. [[User:Christopher Foxx|- CFoxx]] ([[User talk:Christopher Foxx|talk]]) 11:41, 3 August 2012 (EDT)
::::Oh. We've got that, now, in the sidebar - labeled as "XKCD." I do think that having an internal link to the latest (explained) comic would be a great thing, though. --''[[User:Philosopher|Philosopher]]'' [[User talk:Philosopher|Let us reason together.]] 16:36, 4 August 2012 (EDT)

You can transclude the latest comic on the main page like this: <nowiki>{{:pagename}} e.g. {{:Internal_monologue}} </nowiki>--[[User:SurturZ|SurturZ]] ([[User talk:SurturZ|talk]]) 00:25, 2 August 2012 (EDT)
: I've started with just a manual link to the latest comic. Ideally it will be automatic, but a manual link will work for now as I've had quite a few people ask for it. --[[User:Jeff|Jeff]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 21:09, 1 August 2012 (EDT)

Transclusion of the latest comic is great. Someone with the right permissions should add (for instance on the top-right corner of the grey transclusion area) a link to edit the corresponding wiki page, so that people seeing something they could add would feel invited to do so (wiki style). In my opinion this would be a good way to improve the quality of the user-generated explanations.
Also, all the "XKCD"s in the "New here?" section should be converted to the lowercase "xkcd"...
[[User:Cos|Cos]] ([[User talk:Cos|talk]]) 14:00, 6 August 2012 (UTC)
:Good points. I've done both. --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 15:48, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

Call me dumb, but... You've got a link called "prev" that goes to the explaination for the previous comic. Then a link called "comic #42" but that goes to xkcd. And then a smaller, less prominent link called "go to this comic" that doesn't go to the comic but to its explaination. Anyone else think that's a little back-to-front? [[User:Zootle|Zootle]] ([[User talk:Zootle|talk]]) 17:18, 31 August 2012 (UTC)
:OK, you're dumb :-). The standard template for an explanation page includes the header with "Prev", "Comic # (date)", and "Next" links. If we don't have explanation pages for the previous or next comic, we don't show the respective link. I hadn't noticed that the "Comic # (date)" bit was a link to the xkcd site before, but in context it makes sense to me. Including a link to the Explain page for the comic who's explain page you are already looking at doesn't make sense.
:The explanation page for the latest comic is "transcluded" in the main page pretty much as-is, so we get the header, the comic, the explanation, etc. We don't get the discussion, which is visible at the bottom of the Explain page. Because there is never an explanation for a comic that hasn't been released yet, there is never a "Next" link on the main page's transcluded header. So you get "Prev" and "Comic" links. The "Go to this comic" link is added by the main page above the transcluded explain page.
:I can see how the "Go to this comic" link might be poorly worded especially as it's placement seems to be within the explanation it's linking to. [[User:Blaisepascal|Blaisepascal]] ([[User talk:Blaisepascal|talk]]) 18:16, 31 August 2012 (UTC)
::Rather than "Go to this comic" maybe it could be "Go to full explanation" ? Something else? [[User:J-beda|J-beda]] ([[User talk:J-beda|talk]]) 13:38, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
::There was [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=explain_xkcd:Community_portal/Admin_requests#.22Edit_this_explanation.22_link_on_main_page a discussion at one point] about a wittier/more descriptive link - but no one came up with anything. I do like "Go to Full Explanation" better, for what it's worth. --[[User:DanB|DanB]] ([[User talk:DanB|talk]]) 15:31, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
:::My problem with that suggestion is that it implies that the main page explanation is not full. As of right now, the full explanation is transcluded on the main page. There's nothing more to see by clicking that link (explanation wise) Perhaps "Go to full explanation page" but that doesn't quite sound right to me... [[User:TheHYPO|TheHYPO]] ([[User talk:TheHYPO|talk]]) 15:42, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
::::How about "Go to this Comic Explanation Page"? One nice thing about the specific page rather than the [[Main_Page]] transcoding is that it nicely includes the discussion as well. I have a bookmark to the [[Main_Page]] that I look at every day, but I want to easily read the discussions, not only the explanation. Humm, maybe we could have a page [[most recent comic]] that automagically redirects to the most recent comic? [[User:J-beda|J-beda]] ([[User talk:J-beda|talk]]) 12:42, 8 September 2012 (UTC)
:::::I tried to get [[most recent comic]] to redirect to LATESTCOMIC, but can't get the syntax working - it is possible? [[User:J-beda|J-beda]] ([[User talk:J-beda|talk]]) 13:03, 8 September 2012 (UTC)
::::::Apparently it isn't. I would have tried <code><nowiki>#REDIRECT [[{{LATESTCOMIC}}]]</nowiki></code> like you did, but since that doesn't work, I'll delete the page for now. --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 16:38, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

== Discussion of latest comic ==
Perhaps include the discussions of the latest comic here? I almost missed there was a discussion field a few times because I would only read about the latest comic on the main page. [[User:Carewolf|Carewolf]] ([[User talk:Carewolf|talk]]) 14:54, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

This comics's explanation is complete bollocks, I think. Of course it is NOT a "fact that such a room exists". This comics parodies trope often used in cop movies - an elderly cop goes to work for the last time before his retirement, packs things, plans fishing the next day ... only to be called to one more case (possibly with a new, young and brash partner). And despites his efforts not to screw anything and stay clear of danger, he is either mortally wounded or screws big time and is degraded. So much clichè, that if someone says "It's my last day or service", you might be sure one of the two options above happens. See http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Retirony [[User:edheldil|Edheldil]] 10:17, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

I believe this link maybe relevant: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turtle_graphics {{unsigned|Rhudi}}

I went ahead and filled out the bracket from today's (see edit date) comic: http://m.imgur.com/gallery/WyPkHx2 {{unsigned|Glaucon81}}

*rise

Btw, why wouldn't I just enter "ipconfig free" if I didn't want my IP address showing? {{unsigned ip|172.68.65.48}}

== The comic explanation count is wrong ==

The adjustment is currently 3, but there are now 6 subcategories and one list making the current correct adjustment 7.
If the wiki was upgraded to version 1.20, a form exists to automatically exclude subcategories.
--[[User:Divad27182|Divad27182]] ([[User talk:Divad27182|talk]]) 09:56, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

:Looks like another week of the wiki going down then.
:But seriously, I've been noticing this too. Didn't know what was causing it, but it's going to have to be fixed sometime.[[User:Davidy22|Davidy22]] ([[User talk:Davidy22|talk]]) 10:25, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

::The text reads <pre><nowiki>We already have [[:Category:Comics|'''{{#expr:{{PAGESINCAT:Comics}}-3}}''' comic explanations]]!</nowiki></pre> The -3 is to account for the subcategories and non-explanation pages in the category. There apparently used to be three such pages, and now there are seven. I would fix this myself, but the page is protected. If the wiki where upgraded to version 1.20, the categories could be explicitly excluded, but the [[List of all comics]] would still be in the category. (Note that the -3 actually appears twice.) --[[User:Divad27182|Divad27182]] ([[User talk:Divad27182|talk]]) 05:03, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

:::Mediawiki 1.20 fixes this issue, although it'd be nice if this could be fixed in the meantime via the hack reccommended by divad. [[User:Davidy22|Davidy22]][[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>(talk)</tt>]] 06:40, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

:Looks like Waldir updated the "Comic Correction Count" to "10" (as of 20 November 2012):
<nowiki> We already have [[:Category:Comics|'''{{#expr:{{PAGESINCAT:Comics}}-10}}''' comic explanations]]!</big>
Note: the -10 in the calculation above is to discount subcategories (there are 7 of them as of 20 November 2012),
non-comic pages (2 as of same date: [[List of all comics]] and [[Exoplanet]])
and the comic 404, which was deliberately not posted. Thus 7 + 2 + 1 = 10
(But there are still {{#expr:{{LATESTCOMIC}}-({{PAGESINCAT:Comics}}-10)}} to go. Come and [[List of all comics|add yours]]!)</nowiki>
:Could we possibly make this more dynamic by creating a "IGNORE_IN_COUNT" category or something? and then using something like: <nowiki>{#expr:{{PAGESINCAT:Comics}}-{{PAGESINCAT:IGNORE_IN_COUNT}}}</nowiki>? Then any additional entries to the "Comics" category (that are 'special' entries) could just have the special category added and no main page editing would be necessary? --[[User:Bpothier|B. P.]] ([[User talk:Bpothier|talk]]) 07:50, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

==Make Jeff stop apologizing==
The apology for server downtime has been around for a while now. Can we take it down? [[User:Davidy22|Davidy22]] ([[User talk:Davidy22|talk]]) 04:41, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

== Spambots ==

I think someone should install [http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:AbuseFilter AbuseFilter]. --[[User:Kronf|Kronf]] ([[User talk:Kronf|talk]]) 10:09, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

== Purge ==

We should regularly purge the server's cache for the main page using http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page&action=purge to keep the explanation up to date. --[[User:Kronf|Kronf]] ([[User talk:Kronf|talk]]) 02:28, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

Now that we've been hacked, that doesn't seem like a very good idea. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.167.209|172.71.167.209]] 02:55, 25 July 2023 (UTC)
:We've really [[932: CIA|not been hacked]], and even I can undo the vandalism (though there are other ways to proof us from a recurrance of this latest laughable attempt, that proper admins might use). [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.80|172.70.90.80]] 07:46, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

== Updating the Rules ==

I've been having a lovely discussion with someone who apparently thought the "edit anything you want" rule applied to the Talk pages. As we don't have any codified rules for ''here'' and can only point to "well the canonical way this is done on Wikipedia is..." I think that there are a few things we need to put into the list of Rules on the front page, and then have a link to a more in-depth talk about why the rules exist and what-not.

Specifically, I'm talking about writing "Feel free to edit any page on the wiki to be better. But, treat talk pages like you would blog comments: comments by other people ''cannot be changed by you'', you can only respond to them." as a new rule to be plastered on the front page, as there seems to be an increasing number social neophytes that seem to think that editing words that are attributed as being said by another person is perfectly legitimate and non-controversial.

Shall we discuss? [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]]_a ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 01:25, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

:We could add the etiquette rules as an addendum to the signature reminder at the top of the page. Just an extra note below the alert box asking people to not edit other people's comments. [[User:Davidy22|Davidy22]][[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>(talk)</tt>]] 06:40, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

::It really should be right down with the "edited mercilessly" description, because this is an exception to that statement. Shouldn't have two sets of contradictory instructions in different places. When I made my improper edit, I had a semi-conscious moment of doubt about whether changing the other guy's comment was ok, even though this is a wiki (and even though it wasn't really clear to me that this "discussion" box held something totally separate from the page content), but that statement at the bottom put all such doubts to rest. I read it multiple times to be sure. But I did not notice that line at the top about the four tildes until ''much'' later. It's somewhat lost, visually, in the header line, when you're not looking directly at it.[[Special:Contributions/50.0.38.245|50.0.38.245]] 18:32, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

:::There's discussion to replace that message with a more noticeable alert box. The message at the bottom of the page appears for all pages, including talk pages, so a talk-page specific message there would not entirely fit. [[User:Davidy22|Davidy22]][[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>(talk)</tt>]] 00:18, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

::::If that text at the bottom is in fact alterable, it should be written to take every case into account. It's an extremely poor user interface that has instructions appearing on a page stating rules that are the exact opposite of reality. And note that the altert box on the top looks a lot like a banner add, when you don't focus on it and read it. People will tend to habitually filter out anything written there from their perception. Also, it can easily be scrolled off the top of the screen when the discussion starts to get long, and they have a preview displayed.
::::So I think after the "...then do not submit it here.", it should add, "'''Exception''': others' comments in Discussion pages are not to be altered. See full rules at <<link to appropriate wikipedia page>>."[[Special:Contributions/50.0.38.245|50.0.38.245]] 15:46, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

== Update after changes ==

The front page explanation hasn't been updated at all day to match changes in the explanation on the comic's page. This is a major problem i think, as it is the front page explanation people visitors will most often read. --[[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 20:43, 26 November 2012 (UTC)
: It might be a caching issue. Appending <code>&action=purge</code> to the URL will probably fix it. Can you confirm it looks good to you now? --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 00:29, 27 November 2012 (UTC)
::Yep, now it updates instantly! Well done, whatever you did! :) --[[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 16:24, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

:::I've also added a link underneath the comic box that has the action embedded, so no one has to do any manual URL hacking. [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]]_a ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 17:38, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

::::Just wanted to check in on this - are there issues with automated systems or spammers following this link? I know it can affect performance - caching is important on a busy site! --[[User:Overand|Overand]] ([[User talk:Overand|talk]]) 22:37, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

== Suggestion: Change "Go to this comic" to "Go to this entry" ==

Just a small suggestion. For the Main Page, I suggest changing "Go to this comic" to say "Go to this ''entry''" instead to remove any confusion for new and regular viewers. It certainly took me a while to figure how to go to each featured comic's entry from the main page.

[[Special:Contributions/69.43.114.2|69.43.114.2]] 17:04, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

:How about if it reads "Go to this comic explanation"? Would that be less confusing? I only quibble because the explanations aren't really entries, in wiki parlance each page is usually called an article, but that doesn't seem to fit here as we really have explanation pages. [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]]_a ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 17:41, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

::Agreed. [[User:Ctxppc|Randy Marsh]] ([[User talk:Ctxppc|talk]]) 22:55, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

== Explain the Unreleased Comic? ==
:I wonder if [[http://i56.tinypic.com/a9ton8.png this comic]] is permitted to be explained, despite the double issue of Randall pulling the comic plus me finding the pulled comic through "xkcd overrated"... [[User:Greyson|Greyson]] ([[User talk:Greyson|talk]]) 18:21, 12 December 2012 (UTC)



== Comic Links ==

Some of the links seem to be confusing, as they're titled in a weird way. The link/button 'go to this comic', I'd expect would go to the actual comic on XKCD's page. Yet it goes to the comic's wiki page. And clicking on the comic # and date directs you to the XKCD page, yet I really feel that link should go to the wiki page, as it's right at the top center there, and has the date and everything, sort of indicating that it's a wiki page, yet it's not. And the prev and next buttons next to it don't go to the xkcd page, they go to the wiki pages. Which is really messed up, I think. Because of my confusion, every single time I visit here, I clicked on the wrong link, though now I've gotten used to it. I suggest rewording the links as 'XKCD Comic # and date' and 'go to this comic's wiki page'. And possibly switching the links' positions so that the wiki links could be in that navigation bar and the XKCD links could be off to the side. After all, we are a wiki, so putting our wiki links to the comic off to the side and the direct xkcd link in the center seems odd. Anyway, has anyone had the same thoughts and/or agree with me on this?--[[Special:Contributions/69.119.250.251|69.119.250.251]] 18:19, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

== Unexplained comics ==

The template that starts each explanation page should be edited to have the next and previous buttons automatically skip over pages that don't exist, rather than simply not being there if comic n+1 or n-1 doesn't exist. Preferably it would append a notice to the next page (like the redirect notices commonly found on mediawiki) telling you how many comics have been skipped. I'm not sure how feasible this would be to script, however. [[Special:Contributions/130.160.145.185|130.160.145.185]] 23:45, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

== Percentage of remaining comics calculation is off... ==

Okay, I hate to be "that pedantic math guy", but... Today the main page reads "We have collaboratively explained 936 xkcd comics, and only 252 (27%) remain." While I agree that 252/936 is roughly 27%, I believe we should really be calculating the percentage as "the number left to explain" divided by "the total number of comics that exist", not divided by "the number we have finished". That is (today), 252/1188=21%. Think about it. If we had completed 594 comics today, with 594 remaining, what should the percentage be? 594/594=100%? That's not right... 594/1188=50%? That's what we really want to say.

The page is protected, which makes sense. So I'll make my suggestion here.

Change this:

<pre>
and only {{#expr:{{LATESTCOMIC}}-({{PAGESINCAT:Comics}}-9)}}
({{#expr: ({{LATESTCOMIC}}-({{PAGESINCAT:Comics}}-9)) / ({{PAGESINCAT:Comics}}-9) * 100 round 0}}%)
remain.
</pre>
To this:
<pre>
and only {{#expr:{{LATESTCOMIC}}-({{PAGESINCAT:Comics}}-9)}}
({{#expr: ({{LATESTCOMIC}}-({{PAGESINCAT:Comics}}-9)) / {{#expr:{{LATESTCOMIC}}}} * 100 round 0}}%)
remain.
</pre>
[[User:Imperpay|Imperpay]] ([[User talk:Imperpay|talk]]) 15:32, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

:Done and done. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|purple|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 15:37, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

:Thanks for the heads-up! However, notice that the #expr: around LATESTCOMIC was unnecessary. I've removed it. [[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 11:30, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

::Waldir, you have exposed me as a charlatan and a fool! (I just copied, pasted, and tinkered until I made something that worked. I don't actually understand it. No formal training, you see. It's what we used to call "hacking" back in the dawn of the digital era, before the word took on connotations of vandalism, trespassing, and fraud. Have you kids come up with another word for it?) [[User:Imperpay|Imperpay]] ([[User talk:Imperpay|talk]]) 13:59, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

::: Joke's on me then, 'cause you sure fooled me – I readily assumed you knew your way around those parser functions. Nice job hacking the code, it was a nearly perfect crime ;) --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 03:26, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

:::I've heard the cool kids call that the "Maker Mentality", usually with a reference to [http://makezine.com/ Make magazine] and [http://makerfaire.com/ Maker Faire]. But I think there's also a movement to resurrect the original meaning of hacker. [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]]_a ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 04:21, 25 March 2013 (UTC)


== Expression error on Main Page ==

Please use <code><nowiki>{{PAGESINCAT:...|R}}</nowiki></code> instead of <code><nowiki>{{PAGESINCAT:...}}</nowiki></code> to correct these errors :) --[[Special:Contributions/110.168.83.62|110.168.83.62]] 10:55, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
:Dun diddly done. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 11:21, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

== Compile a list of non-technical comics to non-technical readers? ==

I'm a long-time reader and fan of >< |< C |}, but my normal approach is useless when I introduce this provocative comic series to my less technical friends. They stay at the apparent level of many comics. They don't bother reading the explanations, but they would say, "it's hard to make sense". Imagine an average non-technical (and non-arts) major guy/girl, can we compile a list of state-of-the-art but less-technical, easy-to-comprehend but "ah ha!!" strips that is suitable for them? --[[User:FrenzY|W shll nvr flly xpln xkcd!]] ([[User talk:FrenzY|talk]]) 12:39, 18 May 2013 (UTC)
:Oh my god that signature.
:Gaah, derailment. Uh, pretty much anything that isn't tagged with the physics or math categories are easy enough to understand for the average English speaker, so just check the categories at the bottom of the page for that. Also, avoid comics with the incomplete tag, and that oughta be fine. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 14:41, 18 May 2013 (UTC)


== List of incomplete comics ==
We need a link to the "Incomplete articles" at the main page below the "Missing link". Most pages are created but many are incomplete.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 19:06, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

== Header message ==

'''Please don't take this seriously unless you actually think it's a good idea:'''

I think the header should be changed from "explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb." to "explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb... or still have some hope that comic [[1190]] will end." or something similar. [[User:Schiffy|Schiffy]] ([[User_talk:Schiffy|Speak to me]]|[[Special:Contributions/Schiffy|What I've done]]) 14:53, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

::Nope! This page is trying to explain more than 1222 comics, not only [[1190: Time]]. The header just states the truth.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 15:49, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

I'd vote for a change. People have started coming over to discuss the comic even when they've 'gotten' it. That, and the fact that this is one step ahead of Googling the references yourself. So.. maybe, "it's because you're dumb..and lazy."[[Special:Contributions/220.224.246.97|220.224.246.97]] 02:26, 31 August 2013 (UTC)
:I honestly don't think it either. This is the most comprehensive comic-by-comic Wiki. People don't come here because they're dumb ''or'' lazy. That's like saying I'm dumb for reading a review of an episode after I've watched it - I'm interested in seeing what other people up with or caught that I didn't. It denigrates the idea of aggregating information, which is a very un-XKCD idea.

As a regular reader of explainxkcd (who was to lazy to cotribute anything until now), I'd like to support the proposed edit. (... and lazy) It really fits to the tone of our favourite waste of otherwise productive time (which is xkcd for myself). Best wishes from Heidelberg, Germany. --[[Special:Contributions/147.142.13.86|147.142.13.86]] 14:38, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

A friend that happens to be blind hates this site because of the "It's cause you're dumb" tagline. If he wants a transcript of the comic on xkcd, his option is to come here and have his screen reader program telling him that he is dumb every single time.

How about, "explain xkcd: because sometimes we all need a little help."? -- [[Special:Contributions/173.245.54.65|173.245.54.65]] 02:07, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

:Oh, hadn't thought about that. There's been recurring complaints about this over the years, though the tagline's been around since before we were a wiki. I'll write something up and put this to a vote. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 09:00, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

== A point of confusion ==

Why is 'Apatosaurus' a category but 'Internet Argument' no longer a category? [[User:Greyson|Greyson]] ([[User talk:Greyson|talk]]) 13:53, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
:Cuz people hit the random button, see an Apatosaurus feature in three comics and figure it must be a recurring theme. Same as the internet argument thing. Will get round to a category purge after we've cleared out all the incomplete tags. I think there's one for ferrets hidden away somewhere in the dark recesses of our catalog of categories. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 14:45, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
::On the subject, can I suggest a "Barred from Conferences" category, or similar? That's definitely a recurring theme (for a long, long time), and thus should be justified enough. I'd be happy to add various qualifying articles as I scroll through again, if I can, but first I'll leave it up to someone else to solidify the actual name. (In case it turns out not to be just conferences, for example.) [[Special:Contributions/178.98.31.27|178.98.31.27]] 16:27, 22 June 2013 (UTC)

== Incomplete comics statement ==

I suggest the minor change: "We have an explanation for all x xkcd comics, and only y (y/x %) are '''marked as''' incomplete." –[[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 08:07, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

== 1262 is out ==

So what are you waiting for? [[Special:Contributions/75.60.27.102|75.60.27.102]] 06:25, 9 September 2013 (UTC)
:<nowiki>(diff | hist) . . N 1262: Unquote‎; 06:23, 9 September 2013 (UTC) . . (+322)‎ . . ‎Davidy22 (Talk | contribs | block)‎ (Created page with "{{comic | number = 1262 | date = September 9, 2013 | title = Unquote | image = unquote.png | titletext = I guess it's a saying from the Old Country. }} ==Expl...")</nowiki>
:Examine the time stamps. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 06:30, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

== Adverts ==

I am not going to disable my adblock, I hate ads. If you accept bitcoin I can make a donation though. [[Special:Contributions/184.66.160.91|184.66.160.91]] 05:24, 27 September 2013 (UTC)
:Our ads are always easy-to-load images as opposed to flash ads, they're always pointing to some valuable product of some form and we've looked at and approved all of them. They also occupy space that would otherwise have been empty, as our one ad is bound strictly to the sidebar. We used to have a paypal donation button, but it was pitifully tended to and a much less reliable source of income than ads. Ads are the only reliable business model for small sites like this one; unless our readers suddenly become willing to pay all our server costs for us, we can't feasibly afford a better hosting plan without ads. We legally aren't allowed to open a merch store, because that infringes on Randall's shop, and we haven't had a single generous benefactor yet. If you want to stop seeing our server error messages, loosening up adblock for us and contributing to our impressions count will help us massively. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 06:00, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

I don't care about your server message, I wanted to make a donation. Sooo, you don't want any bitcoins? [[Special:Contributions/37.221.161.235|37.221.161.235]] 07:16, 27 September 2013 (UTC)
:This took a bit of digging. We're fine with bitcoin donations, it's just that at the rate donations came in, they were just not enough to pay for anything. [https://coinbase.com/checkouts/b19f921822ac962807a8f72d51509e59] '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 20:34, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

Donation made! [[Special:Contributions/184.66.160.91|184.66.160.91]] 23:23, 30 September 2013 (UTC)
:Thanks! '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 02:27, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

I hope you kept your Bitcoins ;) --[[User:192·168·0·1|192·168·0·1]] ([[User talk:192·168·0·1|talk]]) 21:43, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

Am I the only one that feels it is "wrong" that the explainxkcd site has ads and the real xkcd doesn't have any? It feels like someone is profiting off of Randall's work. Does he officially endorse this website? Do any proceeds help go to support his ongoing publication of an awesome comic? [[Special:Contributions/173.245.54.19|173.245.54.19]] 16:01, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

:An admin will be able to give you more detail than me, but explainxkcd has a significant number of visitors (and thus hosting costs), and no way to generate income other than donations and ads. In contrast, Randall makes money from his comics by way of books and merchandise (and possibly public speaking), some of which will pay for his hosting. He could choose to have ads on his site to generate additional income, its his choice not to. I have no knowledge of the finances of explainxkcd, however I doubt there is much/any surplus ad revenue being pocketed by the owners/admin. As far as the site being officially endorsed, not as far as I'm aware, no.
:Also, for more discussion on adverts/income, see [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/explain_xkcd:Community_portal/Proposals#Sidebar_ads here].--[[User:Pudder|Pudder]] ([[User talk:Pudder|talk]]) 16:21, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

== /wiki is returning a 403 ==

Hello, 
http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/ is returning a 403 now. In my eyes you should redirect it to the main-page instead :-). --[[User:DaB.|DaB.]] ([[User talk:DaB.|talk]]) 12:41, 8 November 2013 (UTC)
:We have a new, hopefully better, server. The problem is already reported to [[User_talk:Jeff#Forbidden]] --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 14:22, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

== Explain Explain XKCD / Explain^2 XKCD ==

This particular comic explanation requires explanation. Way too many potential cross references with each conjecture requiring its own explanation page. Dial it back a little. {{unsigned ip|108.162.245.11}}
:Uh, sorry, could you clarify that a little? '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 07:23, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

::He is talking about the [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/ http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/] issue. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 21:32, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
:::Well if it's that, that's an intentional permissions setting on a URL that no-one is feasibly going to type. Unless you can come up with a better use for that URL, with a reason? '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 08:40, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
::::A symlink to "index.php" at the root folder would solve the problem.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 09:26, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
:::::I cannot believe how many weeks that took to fix. Amazing. No one was going to type it, but everyone was going to get redirected to it from the home page! [[Special:Contributions/108.162.222.227|108.162.222.227]] 11:37, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

The problem is still not solved. [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/ http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/] gives still a 403 error because "index.php" is not included in the http server configuration as a default index page. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 20:07, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
:: I've fixed this. Sorry about the delay. Was super busy! --[[User:Jeff|Jeff]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 16:02, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
:::Thanks Jeff, it's working. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 22:20, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

== Webmaster: Obtrusive video ad on your site ==

In the ad section I saw a box sticking out and blocking out the explanation. This was therefore a very obtrusive botched video ad. Please remove this ad from your site. [[Special:Contributions/199.27.128.188|199.27.128.188]] 22:29, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

EDIT: It's now sticking out and preventing me from clicking on the "Save page" button. [[Special:Contributions/199.27.128.188|199.27.128.188]] 22:29, 6 June 2014 (UTC)
:We only accept GIFs for moving ads. Ads should also be contained within the sidebar as they're techonogically restricted to standard-sized PNGs and GIFs, so an extruding ad would be a CSS error on the site end/browser error. In addition, we run ads from lots of advertisers, and "this ad" is not specific enough to tell us which ad you want us to remove. Could you provide a screenshot/link/more information? '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 22:54, 6 June 2014 (UTC)


== This explanation may be incomplete or incorrect: link ==

This has been bothering me for a while now. Why does the link in the info box for the main page link to editing the main page? It needs to link to the editing of the page which the comic's explanation is on. When I would like to edit the latest XKCD explanation, I click that thinking I am going to edit the explanation, but instead I am led to editing the main page. [[User:Auraxangelic|Auraxangelic]] ([[User talk:Auraxangelic|talk]]) 15:19, 24 October 2014 (UTC)
:Ooooooh, nice catch. I've actually never noticed that before, and it's definitely not intentional. It happens because the text of the explanation page is folded into the main page before mediawiki parses links and syntax, and the "Edit this page" button links to the page that the link is on. I have an idea for how to fix it though, so I'll get on that. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 01:49, 25 October 2014 (UTC)


==Cueball/Rob merge==

It seems to me from a general reading of the comics that Randall has always intended for the character we here call "Cueball" to have the name "Rob". Much as "Cutie" was renamed "Megan" when we learned her name, and now she is identified as "Megan" even in comics where her name is not explicitly mentioned, I think we should consider merging the "Cueball" and "Rob" articles. I know there's a lot of inertia here, but it seems to me that this is Randall's intention for the character's name. [[User:Djbrasier|Djbrasier]] ([[User talk:Djbrasier|talk]]) 13:38, 10 March 2015 (UTC)
: Alternatively, we should un-merge [[Megan]] and [[Cutie]] for consistency. [[User:Djbrasier|Djbrasier]] ([[User talk:Djbrasier|talk]]) 14:50, 10 March 2015 (UTC)
: I'm pretty sure this is an augmentation of the author's internal characters, including the one he has developed involuntarily as to the nature of his love. His memory of his love is not his love, yet it is what he has to love. Randall seems the type to delve into this, and thus I am in support of keeping the character names as they stand. /eof [[Special:Contributions/173.245.56.185|173.245.56.185]] 05:43, 25 March 2015 (UTC)


== Broken Date Box on comics ==

The "Comic #1511 (April 13, 2015)" textbox that appears on top of each comic breaks if you shrink the screen. I think the space after the comma needs to be replaced with a non breaking space.{{unsigned ip|108.162.238.144}}

:Is it fixed now? '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 20:59, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

::It looks like it. I had pointed it out once before and it was fixed. I guess somebody reverted that change or something... --[[Special:Contributions/173.245.56.202|173.245.56.202]] 13:42, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

== 1515? ==

Is it correct that we have 1515 comics, as of April 15, 2015? --[[Special:Contributions/173.245.48.122|173.245.48.122]] 05:20, 15 April 2015 (UTC)
:It's not, but some people insist on making comic pages for things that aren't comics. I'll fix that. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 06:27, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

== 972 is broken ==

Look, I'm not going to make an account here or anything, but I just wanted to point out that trying to access the page for comic #972 leads to a database error, and maybe someone should check on that. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.48.102|173.245.48.102]] 07:45, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

Actually a lot of other pages lead to that same error as well... Even the 'Technical Diskussions' sub-page is broken. Seems to my, like some swap-spac needs cleaning up? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.230.83|108.162.230.83]] 10:32, 14 July 2015 (UTC)
:Yep. It's a symptom of another problem, but the errors should be cleared up now. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 16:31, 14 July 2015 (UTC)
::No dice. [[997]] is still broken. --[[Special:Contributions/198.41.235.119|198.41.235.119]] 00:27, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

:::Looks like they're working now. 21:01, 2016-11-27 {{unsigned ip|141.101.98.163}}


== URL ==

I notice that whenever you add "explain" to an xkcd url, it takes you here! neat! [[Special:Contributions/198.41.235.233|198.41.235.233]] 23:13, 28 August 2015 (UTC)
:Someone noticed! Finally! '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 04:45, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

== Should we really be using CC-BY-SA? ==

Don't get me wrong, CC-BY-SA is my favorite creative commons license. The problem is, are we really allowed? The reason I'm worried is that I'm not sure if what we are doing really counts as "fair use" with respect to XKCD. It would probably be better to do CC-NC-BY-SA, to respect XKCD, or at least put a note that CC-BY-SA only covers the wiki portion (since it's probably too late to do CC-BY-SA anyway).
[[Special:Contributions/173.245.54.37|173.245.54.37]] 23:38, 27 January 2016 (UTC)
:This is a tough one. Mediawiki sites generally use CC-BY-SA, even if the content they're based off is copyrighted (Wikia sites for various topics do this). The license only does apply to content ''created'' here. What should probably be done, if it isn't already, is some specification on pages in the <code>File:</code> namespace indicating that they are owned by someone other than the owners of this site. [[User:Schiffy|Schiffy]] ([[User_talk:Schiffy|Speak to me]]|[[Special:Contributions/Schiffy|What I've done]]) 19:37, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

== #1663: Garden not yet added? ==

For me it's 4:30 AM, 4/4/16 - I have a sleep schedule just like [https://xkcd.com/361/], so I've been first on quite a few xkcd explanations immediately. when they came out.
I notice that usually, immediately once a new xkcd comic is released, a bot generates a corresponding bare-bones page on this wiki. However, this new comic "1663: Garden" doesn't yet have an automatically-generated page. Maybe it's because of the strange user-session hash key that appears in the URL bar when the "comic" is interacted with? Maybe this sort of interactive thing messes with the bot?
Am I just being impatient? Do I have to wait a few minutes? (I'm going to bed, and this probably won't be seen until tomorrow, but I am at least interested in knowing how the bot system works.) [[Special:Contributions/173.245.54.21|173.245.54.21]] 09:01, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

== Skins broken ==

It seems both the Classic and Monobook skins are very very broken. Only Vector seems to be laid out normally. [[User:Schiffy|Schiffy]] ([[User_talk:Schiffy|Speak to me]]|[[Special:Contributions/Schiffy|What I've done]]) 19:39, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
: Yes, for me too. Let me see what can be done. [[User:Jeff|Jeff]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 20:10, 12 April 2016 (UTC)
::All calls to /load.php seem to fail, which results in the broken look. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.86.167|162.158.86.167]] 11:02, 14 April 2016 (UTC)
:::Oh wow, I thought I was the only one. [[User:SuperSupermario24|Just some random derp]] 15:57, 8 May 2016 (UTC)
::::Should be fixed now. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 18:59, 17 May 2016 (UTC)


== Random Button ==
The actual xkcd site has one and adding one would make it closer to the actual site and make discovering random comics and their explanations easier. It could go next to the comic # button.[[Special:Contributions/173.245.52.69|173.245.52.69]] 01:03, 5 June 2016 (UTC)
:There is a random page button on the left. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 02:36, 5 June 2016 (UTC)
::Oh. Didn't see that. Sorry.[[Special:Contributions/173.245.52.69|173.245.52.69]] 20:16, 5 June 2016 (UTC)
:I think that a random button next to the XKCD button would make sense too, but also with the link on the sidebar. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.151.78|172.71.151.78]] 22:50, 15 February 2023 (UTC)


== Chatroom Idea... What do you guys think? ==
I have an idea. What if there was a discussion board for the wiki? (And no, I don't mean boards like this or the "comment section" of comic explanations. I mean a live chatroom plugin of sorts. We could add it to the website and enable it so we can talk to each other in real-time and make live edits with each other. This way, we can also let each other know of edits we've made, make new pages altogether, or just talk. What do you guys think? -- [[User:JayRulesXKCD|JayRulesXKCD]] ([[User talk:JayRulesXKCD|talk]]) 9:10, 13 September 2016
:The [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/Special:RecentChanges recent changes] log already notifies all users on the site of new pages and edits. User talk pages and the community portals exist for coordination. Also, avoid creating new comment topics in the middle of a talk page in the future, comments are supposed to follow a chronological order. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 15:39, 13 September 2016 (UTC)
::Sorry. --[[User:JayRulesXKCD|JayRulesXKCD]] ([[User talk:JayRulesXKCD|talk]]) 13:59, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

== Copying versus embedding ==

Hi, I'm new here and I'm trying not to be an asshole. However, I just noticed that this site uses its own archive of copied xkcd comics, rather than using the image URL provided for hotlinking and embedding. I can understand this website will want to have its own archive in case xkcd.org ever goes offline, but until then, why not just embed the images instead of copying?

The reason I'm asking: I just realised I hardly ever go to xkcd.org anymore ever since my browser put explainxkcd above xkcd.org. Explanations get updated, so sometimes I check back later, which rarely happens with the comics. It makes perfect sense. But if more people experience this issue, xkcd.org is getting fewer unique visitors because of it, and this could be fixed by fetching the image directly from there, while still making and storing a copy in case it is needed in the future. Thoughts, anyone? [[Special:Contributions/141.101.104.33|141.101.104.33]] 17:08, 18 October 2016 (UTC)
:So, we can't do this for every comic, like [[1190]] or other april fools comics. Also, xkcd's revenue comes from merchandise sales, not ad revenue, so I believe it's not actually negatively impacting them that we're serving the images ourselves rather than making the main site serve them for us. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 05:39, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

:Embedding images is generally known as "stealing bandwidth", since it uses resources of the original site's server (may be limited) without bringing it any actual visitors (they won't see anything else of the website, like announcements, shop, other sections, ...). Also, depending on how unique visitors are counted, "visitors" through embedding might be invisible (client's side scripts won't be loaded). So no image embedding without the original site's owner express permission. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.88.106|141.101.88.106]] 12:51, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

== Other Languages ==
Are there translations of pages anywhere. It has been mentioned that they are on subdomains of this site, or a sub-page, as Main_Page/es for spanish. I can't seem to find them there. [[User:The Muffin Man|The Muffin Man]] ([[User talk:The Muffin Man|talk]]) 14:48, 7 February 2017 (UTC)
:It's a work in progress, long delayed but I really do want to get to it eventually. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 18:58, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

== Why are there male/female symbols in some of the entries? ==

Those symbols are not in the comic, but they're in the table. I think a vandal put them there. Can someone remove them from the Lavaball, Bladeball, Eggspotting, Merfishing, Consequence Golf and Heck Escape? (now don't act like someone who criticizes "politically correct leftist "libt++d" SJW snowflakes" just because I said "heck" or censored the derogatory term for "liberal" or not even trying to say these uncensored) -- [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.106|108.162.221.106]] 12:36, 25 November 2017 (UTC)

== How quaint ==

From the Main Page:

Explain xkcd: '''It's 'cause you're dumb.'''

From the Rules section:

'''Don't be a jerk. '''

(Emphasis mine)

How very ,very quaint. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.126.100|162.158.126.100]] 21:00, 5 December 2017 (UTC)

== HTTPS? ==

Hi,
With the general trend towards HTTPS being favoured over HTTP for security and speed reasons, would it be possible to force the use of HTTPS and secure the mixed content please?

Please see [https://www.whynopadlock.com/results/7e707bfd-cd71-4b00-b95e-be226fb10fb6 Why no Padlock?] for more details.

Thanks,
[[Special:Contributions/162.158.179.202|162.158.179.202]] 10:32, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

:Browsing using HTTPS seems to just work. There's even a signed certificate.
:https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1946

:I really don't get why people are so convinced that browsing using HTTPS is so much more "secure". You even seem to claim that it's faster?
:If you love it so much, install a browser extension like https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere.

:With the exception of the login / register page, I really don't see the point for enforcing this for the whole site. I am no admin though.
[[Special:Contributions/172.69.54.93|172.69.54.93]] 22:30, 25 January 2018 (UTC)

We are already in 2018 and this website still does not even redirect automatically to HTTPS ([https://support.cloudflare.com/hc/en-us/articles/200170536-How-do-I-redirect-all-visitors-to-HTTPS-SSL- you can do it so easily with Cloudflare...]) nor enforce HTTPS with {{w|HSTS}}... I don't know, just check [https://scotthelme.co.uk/hardening-your-http-response-headers/#strict-transport-security on Scott Helme's site] why it's important. Having to rely on the user installing an extension for doing the sysadmin work is a bad joke, really. And it does not fix some issues with mixed content of course. With Let's Encrypt and Cloudflare providing certificates for free and the plethora of tutorials online on securing a website (not limited to HTTPS), there is no excuse to not do it. -- [[User:guest|guest]] ([[User talk:guest|talk]]) 11:22, 31 January 2018 (UTC)

== "It's 'cause you're dumb" ==
I see that there was some talk about this a while ago, in which people seemed to agree that the "It's 'cause you're dumb" tagline is unnecessarily mean and should be changed... and yet, it's still here. I'd like to add some more fuel to the fire with several reasons why I really hate this tagline:

* The tagline doesn't fit the tone of XKCD. Randall celebrates knowledge. Even Black Hat wouldn't just outright say "You're dumb", because he's a classhole who can insult way better than that.
* Many of the people who contribute to this wiki are very smart. They're not dumb.
* They're also quite amicable from what I've seen. If they wouldn't insult someone, why is the website doing so?
* Not knowing something is not the same as being dumb. Even the smartest people don't know everything.
* Having a desire to learn is smart, not dumb.
* The tagline's logic is flawed. Just because you learn a new thing, doesn't mean you were dumb to begin with.

Anyone with me on this?

[[User:Hawthorn|Hawthorn]] ([[User talk:Hawthorn|talk]]) 14:07, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

: The first line of the "Rules" section is "Don't be a jerk" at the time of writing. The first thing this wobsite does is to break that rule. I'm not sure what else is to be said here. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.126.76|162.158.126.76]] 16:55, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

:I always thought that was weird too. But it's still there... I'll tell the admins about it, and hopefully it will be changed. [[User:Herobrine|Herobrine]] ([[User talk:Herobrine|talk]]) 13:18, 18 April 2018 (UTC)

Explanation: ''This'' is a joke... Missing the punchline? --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 15:15, 18 April 2018 (UTC)

Personally, I'm fine with the current tagline. I consider it a joke and don't feel offended. However, if there is consensus a) that and b) to what it should be changed, I'm ok with changing it. --[[User:SlashMe|SlashMe]] ([[User talk:SlashMe|talk]]) 16:18, 18 April 2018 (UTC)

I'm wondering, would it be possible to temporarily (a week or so?) stop new ads from appearing in the sidebar and replace it with a poll concerning this issue? Right now it's just showing what appeared in the banners in [[1965: Background Apps]], and not a real ad. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.58.81|162.158.58.81]] 10:12, 19 April 2018 (UTC)
:The advertisement is used to pay the fees needed to run this site. Right now this wiki get's an upgrade but when it's done this discussion will get a proper placement here. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 13:37, 21 April 2018 (UTC)

The first time I encountered this tagline I thought it was pretty funny. Satire can be hard to detect online but this one seems clear enough. --[[User:DKMell|DKMell]] ([[User talk:DKMell|talk]]) 20:42, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
:What is it satirizing? I'm serious; I genuinely don't know. It could well be that I just don't get the joke. [[User:Hawthorn|Hawthorn]] ([[User talk:Hawthorn|talk]]) 13:39, 10 January 2019 (UTC)

At first I liked the joke, but now it's either annoying or I ignore it. Personally I don't feel it needs to be changed, as it's in the satirical spirit of xkcd, but I wouldn't care too much. [[User:Nyx goddess|Nyx goddess]] ([[User talk:Nyx goddess|talk]]) 22:56, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

It's satire, if it gets removed that's exactly the kind of overzealous political correctness that MAGA chuds are talking about when they accuse us of being snowflakes, howabout let's not give them ammo. - 02:03, 22 December 2018 (UTC) {{unsigned ip|162.158.63.94}}
:As above: what it is satirizing? Also, for my part, it's not about political correctness at all; it's that the tagline doesn't match my personal positive image of XKCD, nor of this wiki, and it just feels unfitting to me, for all the reasons that I laid out. [[User:Hawthorn|Hawthorn]] ([[User talk:Hawthorn|talk]]) 13:39, 10 January 2019 (UTC)

I'm in favor of a change. Let's drop the "dumb". Or at least modify it. I propose a "strikethrough" of dumb, then add any one of a list of possible words: confused, ignorant, curious, wondering, befuddled... (Oooh, could it randomly change each time the page is loaded? Code wizards, advance!) [[User:Imperpay|Imperpay]] ([[User talk:Imperpay|talk]]) 22:25, 24 January 2019 (UTC)
:A complete list of all synonyms of dumb, including dumb and all synonyms of those synonyms, according to thesaurus.com. One randomly loads each time you load the page via rng, or on a once a day system, like the incomplete page of the day. That would actually probably make it more mean on average, but more clearly a joke. Wouldn’t be impossible to code either.[[User:Netherin5|Netherin5]] ([[User talk:Netherin5|talk]]) 15:18, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

The reason I come to Explain XKCD is because I'm excited to see what other people have said about it. I agree with the above - it doesn't fit the spirit of xkcd's joy for knowledge and it really just isn't why people come here. Furthermore, it skirts demeaning people with disabilities. Please remove it. [[User:Jachra|Jachra]] ([[User talk:Jachra|talk]]) 07:43, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

I also agree with Hawthorn. This tagline always was very strange for me. No, this is nothing about political correctness. I don't mind being insulted, if there is a joke, or something ironical or satirical behind it. But there just isn't. It's just not funny at all.
A random selection on every page load from a long list of completely absurd reasons would be more the XKCDs way. You could even try to create one or more "''It's because ...''" explanations for every comic and randomly display one out of those. 2206: "''... you don't know how to type capital numbers.''", 2205: "''... you don't assume Pi is one.''", 2204: "''... you didn't give us a moon.''", 2203: "''... there wasn't a really big meteor impact for a while.''" and so on. Pretty straight forward. The more frequent visitors of XKCD would probably even get many of the references and remember the corresponding comic. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.91.221|162.158.91.221]] 17:39, 24 September 2019 (UTC)
:I did recently raise the issue again on the [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/explain_xkcd:Community_portal/Miscellaneous#Is_the_.22It.27s_.27cause_you.27re_dumb.22_tagline_a_relic_of_the_past.3F Community Portal], explaining my case in more detail, although it seems to have garnered little interest. [[User:Hawthorn|Hawthorn]] ([[User talk:Hawthorn|talk]]) 12:13, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

What instead, then? It's poor form to suggest half a change; if not "it's cause you're dumb," what should the tagline be? [[Special:Contributions/173.245.52.85|173.245.52.85]] 16:37, 25 December 2019 (UTC)

There seems a pretty clear consensus to get rid of the jarring insult, with no apparent objections. Has been for years now. What do we need to do to delete it? What's the blocker, here?
"first we need a consensus on replacement" isn't an answer. It sets too high a bar for something which is trivial, and anyway replacement is a separate task which can be performed later. Deletion is step 1, so what needs to be done to perform step 1, since none of us seems to have access to do so?
Personally, I'd argue for making it publicly editable, which then magically also resolves step 2, replacement. Any tagline that stayed for any amount of time would then only remain because it was widely considered worthy by site members. --[[Special:Contributions/172.69.71.143|172.69.71.143]] 16:39, 30 September 2021 (UTC)
:I like that idea, it efficiently gets rid of the years-old issue, and any further issues would have their own discussion page, plus any change that's problematic, obscene or spam could easily be reversed. I can imagine that at first there would be many changes, but after a few weeks/ months it should stabilize itself. [[User:256.256.256.256|256.256.256.256]] ([[User talk:256.256.256.256|talk]]) 14:19, 30 November 2021 (UTC)

In my opinion it is not an issue of political correctness, or any related flavour of woke nonsense. It is much simpler. Problem is, ''"It's 'cause you're dumb"'' is extremely pretentious and high-horsed, while simultaneously having absolutely no business being so. It feels like it is said by someone who unironically refers to him/herself in third person. Someone whose professional CV includes the fact that he/she used to be a class leader in second grade of primary school. Someone who used to remind a teacher about homework that the teacher was supposed to check, but forgot. Someone who still asks his/her mom to cut the crust off his/her sandwiches. I am not offended nor insulted by this line, I am just cringing because of that line's author being too socially inept to realize that he/she is not in the place to judge and attempt insulting readers' intellectual capabilities. Understanding Munroe's poorly drawn stick figures, diatribes, and diagrams originating from his neurotic turmoil does not come with an added bonus of entering the supposed high echelons of intelligence, and certainly not comedy nor humour. Munroe's "humour" actually requires only the superficial sliver of knowledge from any given domain to understand and thus does not really come with too many prerequisites, while at the same time it succeeds in making readers feel rare and exceptional as a result of being able to understand said "humour", and makes them feel much smarter than they actually are. That's why those comics were able to find quite a large audience within their niche. It is quite smart in itself, actually: while Munroe may be poor quality comedian, he seems to be self-aware enough to realize the existence of his own shortcomings, and compensate by "bribing" his readers via appeasing their egos. In return, the readers are willing to overlook poor comedic value of virtually all Munroe's content, as long as they are being deluded to feel exceptionally intelligent and sophisticated for understanding the comics' supposedly hyperintellectual subtle references. Meanwhile, doing what this website does: insulting that audience is basically, in principle, going in the completely opposite direction to what actually made Munroe's content successful in the first place, and hence is quite self-destructive from this website's point of view. --[[Special:Contributions/172.70.242.207|172.70.242.207]] 00:20, 3 May 2022 (UTC)

Sometimes you're dumb, sometimes it's the joke that's dumb.

== Editor FAQ ==
Eventually we may need that banner at the top for something else, like the incomplete explanation spotlight, or when the wiki was being upgraded, so I think we should add the Editor FAQ in the New Here? section. [[User:Herobrine|Herobrine]] ([[User talk:Herobrine|talk]]) 11:21, 2 June 2018 (UTC)
:It's a first draft and I'm just waiting to be convinced that it's NOT incomplete. And be sure I haven't written it without a plan how to present it on the proper places. Furthermore this "Sitenotice" on the top is only "dissmissable" for valid users, every visitor not logged in does see this always. Thanks for your participation and I'm grateful about any help. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 16:30, 2 June 2018 (UTC)

== Categories on Main Page ==

[[MediaWiki:Common.css]] has the following entry:
<pre>
.page-Main_Page div#catlinks ul li {
border-left: none;
position: absolute;
left: 70px;
bottom: 6px;
}
</pre>
The <code>70px</code> cause an overlap for me in Firefox, and much too small a gap in Chrome. I suggest to actually remove that line completely, just compare it with categories on other pages: The gap is quite large. In Firefox, also the <code>6px</code> are too much, but in Chrome they are required. But it might be worth to try whether setting vertical align to something else can achieve a more consistent display. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.88.230|162.158.88.230]] 10:22, 13 July 2018 (UTC)
:And the comment above that says: "Dirty hack to hide the categories of the current comic from main page. ...". I'm aware of this but there is much more, especially for a mobile version I'm looking forward to. Only in this case I see three problems: The component is rendered as a list (ul,li) by hiding the bullets. This then empty space is always rendered different in different browsers. Using "position: absolute" tries to circumvent this but absolute positioning is bad layout and never should be used. Furthermore mixing the units ''px'' and ''em'' in many places is also a problem when comparing it at different browsers. I'm working on this with the final goal also having a proper mobile version, not only for Firefox, Chrome, Edge,... on a desktop. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 12:12, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

== Bookmark ==

I think we should add this book mark I made to automatically transfer anything from xkcd to its explainxkcd page (I was frustrated, ok?):

javascript:x=window.location.href;x = x.replace(/\D/g,'');t=document.title.substring(5).replace(/ /g,"_");window.location.href="https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/"+x+":"+t;

I know the code could be more compact, but using this, you can just press a button and it will take you to the explain page {{unsigned ip|172.68.47.84}}
:Just changing the URL from <code>xkcd.com/2115/</code> to <code>explainxkcd.com/2115/</code> (putting the word explain to the beginning) does the same. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 16:41, 22 February 2019 (UTC)
:Collecting these [[Browser helpers|here]]. – [[User:Yfmcpxpj|Yfmcpxpj]] ([[User talk:Yfmcpxpj|talk]]) 04:48, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

== Non-comic explanations? ==

So I was looking at xkcd and I noticed a little jokey line near the bottom of the page in very small print that reads <pre> <nowiki> "xkcd.com is best viewed with Netscape Navigator 4.0 or below on a Pentium 3±1 emulated in Javascript on an Apple IIGS at a screen resolution of 1024x1. Please enable your ad blockers, disable high-heat drying, and remove your device from Airplane Mode and set it to Boat Mode. For security reasons, please leave caps lock on while browsing." </nowiki> </pre>
Now, I know enough to understand the joke, but it would be nice to have a page for this. Do we have one? Am I just blind? Either way, I would like to know. Thanks! [[User:Nyx goddess|Nyx goddess]] ([[User talk:Nyx goddess|talk]]) 23:39, 28 March 2019 (UTC)
:Nevermind, I just found it. Sorry! [[User:Nyx goddess|Nyx goddess]] ([[User talk:Nyx goddess|talk]]) 23:40, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

== Latest comic released. ==

I don't know where to post this, but the bots haven't created the page yet.
[[User:HelloWorld|HelloWorld]] ([[User talk:HelloWorld|talk]]) 19:24, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

: Probably infected by COVID-19. That's why you should wash your keyboards after visiting other websites. Until then, feel free to create the page manually (if possible). --[[Special:Contributions/108.162.242.19|108.162.242.19]] 21:07, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

== Minor edit proposal ==

Line 19 of the main page includes this sentence:
<pre>Many of the recent contributors, listed above, have [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Special%3AContributions&contribs=newbie just joined].</pre>
That right there is not a wikilink. Could we change it to:
<pre>Many of the recent contributors, listed above, have [{{fullurl:Special:Contributions|contribs=newbie}} just joined].</pre>
Both render as follows:
{|class="wikitable"
|Many of the recent contributors, listed above, have [{{fullurl:Special:Contributions|contribs=newbie}} just joined].
|}
And I think my way is cleaner. [[User:Jacky720|That's right, Jacky720 just signed this]] ([[User talk:Jacky720|talk]] | [[Special:Contributions/Jacky720|contribs]]) 14:52, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

==1000: 1000 Comics/1000 characters update==
I've completed the blank explanations for all the remaining characters in [[1000: 1000 Comics/1000 characters]]; however, it could really use some work in terms of verification. I offer the sweet incentive of being able to get rid of a page's 'incomplete' label as reward for people to double check my, and [[User:Kynde|Kynde's]] work on the project. [[User:BlackHat|Your favourite sociopath]] ([[User talk:BlackHat|(the one who leaves all the parentheses open]] 07:58, 25 October 2020 (UTC

==2021-02 updates to top of page==
I don't really like the changed first few lines - I think it takes up too much room and the previous info was better. I look at the main page daily, and want to see the comic and explination not all this stuff that I think would be better down below the daily comic display. [[User:J-beda|J-beda]] ([[User talk:J-beda|talk]]) 17:50, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

: I agree, and it drives me crazy that {{tl|Welcome}} is designed for talk pages, so there is a red link to [[User:Main Page]]! [[Special:Contributions/172.68.142.213|172.68.142.213]] 15:22, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

: Since Jeff is much more involved in all this sort of stuff than myself, I would tend to defer to his judgement, but I also agree that the "Main Page" red link is pretty ugly. I will "be bold" and revert the change and then drop it if he really wants it. [[User:J-beda|J-beda]] ([[User talk:J-beda|talk]]) 18:54, 6 February 2021 (UTC)
::I guess I cannot revert things as there are no "edit" buttons I can view for the Main Page [[User:J-beda|J-beda]] ([[User talk:J-beda|talk]]) 19:01, 6 February 2021 (UTC)
:::You need administrator privileges to edit the main page. This was done to reduce spam, which is basically non-existent now. I made the {{tl|Welcome}} template, and I certainly did not make it for it to be displayed in the main page! I made it to welcome new users to the site. — [[User:Sqrt-1|The 𝗦𝗾𝗿𝘁-𝟭]] [[User talk:Sqrt-1|talk]] [[Special:Contributions/Sqrt-1|stalk]] 13:16, 8 February 2021 (UTC)
::::I see on [User:Jeff|Jeff]]'s talk page that Sqrt-1 has made a comment about this so maybe it will be taken care of. I am guessing that some automatic bot-like thing might have made an error. Today I got the {{tl|Welcome}} template added to my user page by Sqrt-1. It does seem like a useful template for user pages - less so for the Main page. [[User:J-beda|J-beda]] ([[User talk:J-beda|talk]]) 13:28, 8 February 2021 (UTC)
:It looks like [[User:Jeff|Jeff]] has reverted it - Thanks! [[User:J-beda|J-beda]] ([[User talk:J-beda|talk]]) 11:51, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

== Overuse/misuse of incomplete template ==

Instead of having information on why the comic is incomplete or being removed once the explanation is finished, the incomplete template is being treated as a place to put witty comments. This overcrowds the category, making it more difficult to see articles in need of actual help or know why they need help. I have gone through the incomplete articles and posted new topics on ones with incomplete tags that do not provide information on why the template is there, asking to know why the comic is incomplete and, failing that, to have the template removed. For the full details, please see [[User:Quillathe_Siannodel|my user page]].

I would like to request that either a less obtrusive solution or compromise be found or the error of my (relatively new user) ways be explained to me by someone more experienced.

Sincerely, <s>[[406:_Venting|Summer Glau]]</s> [[User talk:Quillathe Siannodel|{)|(}]][[User:Quillathe_Siannodel|Quill]][[User talk:Quillathe Siannodel|{)|(}]]

P.S. Maybe an "incomplete incomplete template" template? I don't know.

P.P.S. I can kill you with my brain.

I don't know. I re-signed and edited so many times, March 2021 (UTC)
: In some cases, the "incomplete" tag is left on for a long time, when nobody takes the trouble to remove it from a page that has migrated out of people's attention. Sometimes, people remove it inappropriately, while a page is still actively under revision. In many cases, it's hard for anyone to say what's "incomplete" about a page because there's relevant stuff to add that isn't obvious until someone adds it. The question is more: at what point can a page be reasonably assumed to be "complete"? A week after the most recent edit to it? Some pages undergo revision for quite a while after they're first posted; other pages remain stable after only a few days. It annoys me when someone edits a page and removes its "incomplete" tag at the same time, which gives me the impression of "now that I have made my change, the page is in its final form, and nobody else should touch it!" [[User:BunsenH|BunsenH]] ([[User talk:BunsenH|talk]]) 22:55, 6 April 2021 (UTC)
::Proposal: The default text of the incomplete template could be modified to include <code><nowiki>[[Category: Incomplete Incomplete (or something similar)]]</nowiki></code>. If the text is modified, the page should be removed from the category. This new category would be easily accessible from the main page, and anyone visiting it should see information about the category's meaning and how to help make said templates more informative. Possible ways to go about this:
::* Line 315 of the bot script would be changed to read: <code><nowiki>{{incomplete|Created by a BOT - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.[[Category: Whatever The Name Ends Up Being]]}}</nowiki></code>.
::* The main page banner would be changed to read: <code><nowiki>''Welcome to the '''explain [[xkcd]]''' wiki!'' 
We have an explanation for all [[:Category:All comics|'''{{#expr:{{PAGESINCAT:All comics|R}}-1}}''' xkcd comics]],

and only {{PAGESINCAT:Incomplete explanations|R}}
({{#expr: {{PAGESINCAT:Incomplete explanations|R}} / {{LATESTCOMIC}} * 100 round 0}}%) [[:Category:Incomplete explanations|are incomplete]]. Help us finish them! If you're looking for something easier, you could also edit one of the {{PAGESINCAT:Whatever The Name Ends Up Being|R}} pages with [[:Category:Whatever The Name Ends Up Being|incomplete explanations]], which would help other editors.</nowiki></code>.

::* The new category would read: <code><nowiki>This is the category page for incomplete pages that have no explanation for why they are incomplete in the incomplete tag. Do not add pages to this category. See also: [[:Category:Incomplete pages]] and [[:Category:Incomplete transcripts]]</nowiki></code>.
::I will not do this without first seeking community approval, because these are huge edits that could majorly change the wiki. Is this a good idea? [[User talk:Quillathe Siannodel|{)|(}]][[User:Quillathe_Siannodel|Quill]][[Special:Contributions/Quillathe_Siannodel|{)|(}]]
::: Feels a great idea. Given the dearth of opinion ventured either way, and given you've given plenty of time for people to declare an opinion, I'd argue to be bold, do it, and see if people squeal. It can always be reverted if required. --[[Special:Contributions/172.70.178.161|172.70.178.161]] 17:02, 9 November 2021 (UTC)

== Add another digit to percentage incomplete count ==

With the large majority of comics gaining explanations, I suggest that the current expression be adjusted to the following, changing "round 0" to "round 1":

<pre>({{#expr: {{PAGESINCAT:Incomplete explanations|R}} / {{LATESTCOMIC}} * 100 round 1}}%)</pre>

Resulting in: ({{#expr: {{PAGESINCAT:Incomplete explanations|R}} / {{LATESTCOMIC}} * 100 round 1}}%)
[[User:Gamma|Gamma]] ([[User talk:Gamma|talk]])

== Problems creating account ==

I just attempted to create an account, and got the following message:
There are problems with some of your input.

I made an adjustment to the password (which seemed to be the problem), consisting of making one of the letters of my original attempt a capital. This didn't work.

There is no point telling me there are problems with my input and not telling me what the problems are. I can't read your mind at this distance.

Cheers
Copey.


== add non-numbered comics ==

idea: for the "We have an explanation for all [number] xkcd comics..." make the number include the non-numbered comics like five minute comics part 4, Syndication, Blue Eyes, and that one book-publishing-rate one. what do you guys think? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.93|108.162.221.93]] 17:52, 22 October 2021 (UTC)Bumpf

:Good point, also as of right now even only including the numbered comics it's not up-to-date, as the newest comic is 2555 and it says "We have an explanation for all 2554 xkcd comics" -- [[User:256 256.256.256|256.256.256.256]] ([[User talk:256 256.256.256|talk]]) 09:38, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

:: That is likely due to:
<nowiki></nowiki>
:: -- [[Special:Contributions/108.162.237.65|108.162.237.65]] 17:21, 21 February 2022 (UTC)

== fix these articles please! ==

What If chapters should be a redirect, not a mirror of [[What If? chapters]] ! [[Special:Contributions/172.69.71.10|172.69.71.10]] 17:38, 19 November 2021 (UTC)Bumpf
:Done. — [[User:Sqrt-1|The 𝗦𝗾𝗿𝘁-𝟭]] [[User talk:Sqrt-1|talk]] [[Special:Contributions/Sqrt-1|stalk]] 07:00, 28 November 2021 (UTC)
::The redirect page now deleted --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 14:10, 23 May 2022 (UTC)


== Top 10 includes no more than 9 people? ==

[[File:Top_10_but_it's_just_nine.png]]

have only nine users edited in the past seven days (unlikely) or does that top ten list really show no more than nine users? [[User:256.256.256.256|256.256.256.256]] ([[User talk:256.256.256.256|talk]]) 09:13, 6 January 2022 (UTC)
:My guess is that it is because currently place 10 and 11 have a tie with a score of 4 due to 3 edits on 2 pages and the top 10 table can show a maximum of 10 entries and cannot "decide" which one to show as no 10.
:You can view the full list by clicking the "lots of people" below the table. --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 13:19, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

::That would make sense, except right now it alternates between ElijaRock and Asdf who both have two edits, two points and two unique pages edited, and pure chance seems to decide which one of the two gets 10th place every time I hit F5 [[User:256.256.256.256|256.256.256.256]] ([[User talk:256.256.256.256|talk]]) 14:31, 12 January 2022 (UTC)
:::PS: The actual 10th place right now is neither Asdf nor ElijaRock, it´s Jack (or at least it should be and sometimes, when the wind is blowing in the right direction, it even is) [[User:256.256.256.256|256.256.256.256]] ([[User talk:256.256.256.256|talk]]) 14:34, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

... maybe it's because everyone else is dumb... ^_^ [[User:20040302|20040302]] ([[User talk:20040302|talk]])

== Countdown Timer? ==

What’s the timer at the top right of the xkcd site counting down to? Apologies if there’s already a page on this; I didn’t look very hard :P

See https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/Talk:2566:_Decorative_Constants -- [[Special:Contributions/172.70.114.39|172.70.114.39]] 02:17, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

Now here: https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/Countdown_in_header_text.

== Set up X-Forwarded-For for correct IP address reporting ==

(I already posted this on David's talk, but I noticed he's no longer active... Hopefully an admin will read this here) This should be done server-side, as right now (and for a very long time) it's been reporting load balancer / cache IP addresses for all the users. With recent vandalism, it'd help. [[User:BytEfLUSh|BytEfLUSh]] ([[User talk:BytEfLUSh|talk]]) 22:27, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

== It says "all 2626 xkcd comics"?? ==

so i get that there are one less than the category, so it should be 2627 (at the time of writing, [[2628]] is the most recent) right? where is the extra one being removed from?[[Special:Contributions/162.158.78.33|162.158.78.33]] 21:05, 6 June 2022 (UTC)Bumpf
:Backend counting error that'll be refreshed when whichever page is missing from the count is updated '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 06:39, 7 June 2022 (UTC)
:: Still not fixed. [[User:GcGYSF(asterisk)P(vertical line)e|GcGYSF(asterisk)P(vertical line)e]] ([[User talk:GcGYSF(asterisk)P(vertical line)e|talk]]) 23:32, 30 June 2022 (UTC)

== wait what ==

category:google doesn't exist yet, it links to its preview, but edit box is empty.
:can you fix the issue? thx [[User:An user who has no account yet|An user who has no account yet]] ([[User talk:An user who has no account yet|talk]]) 16:07, 14 September 2023 (UTC)

== How Long the Bot Takes to Update When New Comics are Released ==

I was wondering how long it takes the bot to scrape new comics from https://xkcd.com.
This is the second time I've seen a brand new comic appear there and it bugs me knowing that the explaination page is yet to be made.
I know it's a silly thing so I feel like maybe, if I know how long the bot takes to update the comic list then I might be able to bring myself to wait.
Thanks, --[[User:OmniDoom|OmniDoom]] ([[User talk:OmniDoom|talk]]) 03:55, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

Talk:2849: Under the Stars

2023-11-03T12:58:53Z

162.158.74.118:

Reminds me a lot of many of Randall's first few dozen XKCD's that weren't trying to be funny but just kind of sweet and observational. [[User:Laser813|Laser813]] ([[User talk:Laser813|talk]]) 15:32, 1 November 2023 (UTC)
: "Mostly void, partially stars..." [[Special:Contributions/172.71.151.161|172.71.151.161]] 18:07, 1 November 2023 (UTC)

Is the title text trying to relate the black hole to the Star of Bethlehem? [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 15:49, 1 November 2023 (UTC)
: No, he's just trying to make you freak out that a black hole is RIGHT ABOVE YOUR HEAD!!! ;) [[User:Elektrizikekswerk|Elektrizikekswerk]] ([[User talk:Elektrizikekswerk|talk]]) 16:31, 1 November 2023 (UTC)
:: Good thing I don't live in Los Angeles :) [[User:Certified_nqh|Me]][[[285: Wikipedian Protester|''citation needed'']]][[Category:Pages using the "citation needed" template]] 16:54, 1 November 2023 (UTC)
::: On the other hand, I live pretty damn near {{w|Atlanta}}, so it's pretty damn close to coming over my head every day... Edit: Just checked the zoomable map... it goes right over my head every day [[User:SomeoneIGuess|someone, i guess]]([[User talk:SomeoneIGuess|talk i guess]]|[[Special:Contributions/SomeoneIGuess|le edit list]]) 17:44, 1 November 2023 (UTC)
:::: Well, I'm 20ish° away from that track (and have never actually been anywhere near that latitude, despite occasional intercontinental travel). Looks like I'm not going to be in danger of hitting a black hole.... [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.220|172.70.90.220]] 18:48, 1 November 2023 (UTC)

I think we need a category for "comics in full color" since there are 519 with color, but most of those aren't full color [[User:Laser813|Laser813]] ([[User talk:Laser813|talk]]) 18:25, 1 November 2023 (UTC)
: [[Technically]], it's not in full color, because Cueball and Megan's heads are white, not skin tone [[User:SomeoneIGuess|someone, i guess]]([[User talk:SomeoneIGuess|talk i guess]]|[[Special:Contributions/SomeoneIGuess|le edit list]]) 18:48, 1 November 2023 (UTC)
:: As I was thinking. But I was trying to think of a good word (like "photorealistic", though it isn't quite that) to describe significant arty/colourwashed scenic elements. There are a handful of comics (I think, without trawling through the candidates I have in mind, or look for others) that are so coloured. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.194.194|172.69.194.194]] 19:03, 1 November 2023 (UTC)
::Maybe that is their skin tone, though. skin colours in comic strip land don't necessarily correspond to those in human experience land. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.242.140|172.71.242.140]] 09:12, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

Is there something significant about V404-Cygni? Surely there are enough black holes that there's at least one that passes over every line of latitude. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 19:31, 1 November 2023 (UTC)
: My best guess: Randall picked it at random because it's funny. [[User:SomeoneIGuess|someone, i guess]]([[User talk:SomeoneIGuess|talk i guess]]|[[Special:Contributions/SomeoneIGuess|le edit list]]) 23:31, 1 November 2023 (UTC)
:: I'm thinking he chose it because of its number – V404. Isn't '404' the internet error code for something that can't be found... something that has figuratively slipped into a black hole somewhere? [[User:RAGBRAIvet|RAGBRAIvet]] ([[User talk:RAGBRAIvet|talk]]) 07:29, 2 November 2023 (UTC)
:::As I recall, he previously quoted this particular black hole in a prior "passes directly over..." reference, which ''perhaps'' (I can't quite remember how, without searching) tied in with the requirements of that particular comic/article/whatif. And, at some point, you're gonna get yourself a 'favourite' that you'll reference whenever you get a decent chance, right? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.28|172.70.85.28]] 08:45, 2 November 2023 (UTC)
:::: Unfortunately not. [https://what-if.xkcd.com/161/ What If? 161] mentions {{w|Cygnus X-1}}, but no mention of V404-Cygni [[User:SomeoneIGuess|someone, i guess]]([[User talk:SomeoneIGuess|talk i guess]]|[[Special:Contributions/SomeoneIGuess|le edit list]]) 00:59, 3 November 2023 (UTC)
: To quote wikipedia: In 2009, the black hole in the V404 Cygni system became the first black hole to have an accurate parallax measurement for its distance from the Solar System. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmosealy]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 00:10, 2 November 2023 (UTC)
:The Earth wobbles quite a bit. How long will it be pointing close enough (I guess within 1 minute of declination) that V404-Cygni will be over that specific line of latitude? [[User:Nitpicking|Nitpicking]] ([[User talk:Nitpicking|talk]]) 02:30, 2 November 2023 (UTC)
::If I'm reading [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axial_precession] correctly only 72 years, but that seems surprisingly short to me. Perhaps I am missing a conversion factor? [[Special:Contributions/172.69.34.49|172.69.34.49]] 23:25, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

The title text reminds me of what if? 161 [[User:MrCandela|MrCandela]] ([[User talk:MrCandela|talk]])
: You're thinking of {{w|Cygnus X-1}}, a similarly named and located but completely 0different black hole. Cygnus X-1 and V404-Cygni appear to be unrelated to each other, besides being within Cygnus [[User:SomeoneIGuess|someone, i guess]]([[User talk:SomeoneIGuess|talk i guess]]|[[Special:Contributions/SomeoneIGuess|le edit list]]) 00:53, 3 November 2023 (UTC)

Out today just before noon (local time, but of course it doesn't matter much ''which'' local time) I saw in the significantly bright blue sky... <s>a partially built planet-destroying space-station</s> the Moon. Which of course you do. But reminds me of the time when just such a prominent daytime phased-Moon was visible when children were being let out from school and there was this conversation with a supervising member of staff (I forget why, might even have been from "today we learnt about the skies/time!" from the child involved) where we pointed out the Moon up in the bright blue sky and ''he refused to look!''. Not sure if he suspected a practical joke, "didn't want to confuse his pupils" or genuinely was stuck on "only the Sun is up there in daytime". Didn't press the issue, but always worth a laugh about it. Whatever the reason. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.118|162.158.74.118]] 12:58, 3 November 2023 (UTC)

2520: Symbols

2021-09-24T22:22:13Z

162.158.74.118: Everything was replicated - transcript followed by discussion followed by transcript followed by discussion!

{{comic
| number = 2520
| date = September 24, 2021
| title = Symbols
| image = symbols.png
| titletext = "röntgen" and "rem" are 20th-century physics terms that mean "no trespassing."
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by an INTERNET ARGUMENT - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon. Bare-bones explanation is in, but needs much more detail.}}

This comic refers to elements of (mostly mathematical or engineering) notation commonly used in various fields of math and science. Each piece of notation is presented as "symbolizing" a typical context in which it might be encountered. Many of the individual descriptions sounds look like verbiage that might be found on informational or warnings signs or placards, although typically with a silly edge.

*d/dx: An undergrad is working very hard
d/dx is the symbol for a single-variable {{w|Derivative|derivative}}. This is a mathematical operation that, while difficult, is one of the most basic operations in calculus and consequently well within the reach of an undergraduate student, particularly in science. Thus, an equation with this operation would be one that would cause an undergraduate student to work very hard.

*∂/∂x: A grad student is working very hard
The replacement of the standard "d" letters with the curly letters "∂" denotes the partial derivative, which generalizes the ordinary derivative to multi-variable calculus. Problems with partial derivatives, especially partial differential equations, can be extremely challenging—appropriate for hard graduate-level work.

*ħ: Oh wow, this is apparently a quantum thing
ħ (pronounced "h-bar") is a symbol used for (the reduced) Planck's constant, a universal, fundamental constant in quantum physics. ħ is equal to the energy of a photon divided by its frequency, and angular momentum in quantum mechanical systems is measured in quantized integer or half-integer units of ħ.

*Re: Someone needs to do a lot of tedious numerical work; hopefully it's not you
The Reynolds number (which is actually usually denoted by "Re," not "Re" as it appears in the comic) is the most important dimensionless group in fluid mechanics. Named for Osborne Reynolds, Re characterizes the relative sizes of inertial and viscous effects in a moving fluid. Large values of Re are indicative of turbulent flow, which cannot usually be solved for analytically, and so numerical modelling is necessary. Accurate numerical studies of high-Reynolds-number flows are notoriously difficult to create and program.

*(Ta4 – Tb4): You are at risk of skin burns
The Stefan-Boltzmann law says that a perfectly absorbing ("black body") source emits electromagnetic radiation with a power per unit area of σT4, where σ is a known constant and T is the absolute temperature. The quantity (Ta4 – Tb4) thus appears in any calculation of purely radiative energy transfer between two bodies, one at temperature Ta and the other at Tb. When radiative transfer is large enough to be the most import form of heat interchange, it is normally also large enough to sear the skin with thermal or ultraviolet burns.

*NA: You are probably about to make an incredibly dangerous arithmetic error
NA, or Avogadro's number, is the number of molecules in a mole of a substance—roughly the number of protons and neutrons in 1 gram of matter. This is an enormous number, approximately 6.02 × 1023. Working with NA, it is easy to make errors of one or more factors of ten without noticing. If this kind of error is made in the calculation of the stoichiometrically correct amount of a reagent in a chemical reaction, it is possible to accidentally create dangerous amounts of unwanted chemical products.

*µm: Careful, that equipment is expensive
Micrometers are a very small unit of distance. Any equipment that is operating in these units will be incredibly finely calibrated and thus very expensive.

*mK: Careful, that equipment is very expensive
Millikelvin temperatures are very cold, barely above absolute zero, suggesting sensitive experiments probing quantum mechanical behavior that would likely only exist in an advanced laboratory. Any equipment that works down a mK temperatures is likely to be very expensive.

*nm: Don't shine that in your eye
Nanometers are most frequently seen in the listed wavelengths for lasers. Pointing a visible or infrared laser at someone's eye is notoriously dangerous; the tightly-focused coherent light can cause permanent damage very quickly.

*eV: Definitely don't shine that in your eye
Electron volt energies are typical of moderate-energy particle beams, produced by accelerating electrons (or protons) over macroscopic voltages. These particle beams can be even more damaging to soft tissues than optical-wavelength lasers.

*mSv: You are about to get into an Internet argument
The millisievert is a unit of radiation dose absorbed. It is actuality a very small dosage, but the joke refers to Internet trolls debating the effects of low-dose radiation sources, such as 5G wireless networks. Randall's comment may also be referring to [https://xkcd.com/radiation/ this chart].

*mg/kg: Go wash your hands
This measures the dangerous dose of a chemical in milligrams per kilogram of body mass. If the dose is measured in mg/kg (parts per million), then the substance is quite toxic.

*µg/kg: Go get in the chemical shower
If the dosage is measured in micrograms per kilogram (parts per billion), the substance is extremely toxic.

*π or τ: Whatever answer you get will be wrong by a factor of exactly two
π is defined as the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter, while τ is defined as 2π (the ratio of the circumference to the radius). π has been used as the primary constant for describing the circumference and area of circles for millennia, but proponents of τ point out that τ is actually more natural in most constants, since it makes working in radians more straightforward. The joke here is that whichever constant you use, it will probably be the wrong one (off by a factor of two, one way or the other) for what you are trying to calculate.

The title text refers to two non-SI units of radiation measurement. In the mid-20th century when they were in use, the dangers of radiation weren't as well understood as today, so an area with radiation that was noteworthy back then is probably dangerous, hence the no trespassing part.

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

;d/dx
:An undergrad is working very hard
;∂/∂x
:A grad student is working very hard
;ħ
:Oh wow, this is apparently a quantum thing
;Re
:Someone needs to do a lot of tedious numerical work; hopefully it's not you
;(Ta4 - Tb4)
:You are at risk of skin burns
;NA
:You are probably about to make an incredibly dangerous arithmetic error
;µm
:Careful, that equipment is expensive
;mK
:Careful, that equipment is very expensive
;nm
:Don't shine that in your eye
;eV
:Definitely don't shine that in your eye
;mSv
:You are about to get into an internet argument
;mg/kg
:Go wash your hands
;µg/kg
:Go get in the chemical shower
;π or τ
:Whatever answer you get will be wrong by a factor of exactly two

{{comic discussion}}

2502: Every Data Table

2021-08-14T15:01:36Z

162.158.74.118:

{{comic
| number = 2502
| date = August 13, 2021
| title = Every Data Table
| image = every data table.png
| titletext = "I'm hoping 2022 is relatively normal because I don't know what symbol comes after the asterisk and the dagger."
| imagesize =
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a TRIPLE DAGGER. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
This comic is another entry in a [[:Category:COVID-19|series of comics]] related to the {{w|COVID-19 pandemic|2020-21 pandemic}} of the {{w|SARS-CoV-2}} virus, which causes {{w|COVID-19}}.

The COVID pandemic has had a large impact on the entire world and one way this can be seen is through strange stats resulting from the effects of the pandemic. Various statistics such as employment statistics, spending power, holiday miles, pet ownerships, births (or at least conceptions) and — naturally — deaths may have been either grossly suppressed/increased for the majority of 2020, and for 2021 may have hardly recovered, partially recovered, renormalised, bounced back with a vengeance or be over-compensated for in the effort to catch up.

It is hard to know what 2022 might be like. Nothing (at the time of this comic being published) is exactly back to normal and proper recovery or the resulting compensatory readjustment may not have concluded in time for 2022 to reflect the trends expected based upon pre-2020 figures, and the additional further years that future statistics will record.

As an example, the cycles of Summer and Winter Olympics/Paralympics has been disrupted due to the 2020 Summer Olympics being postponed to 2021, thus causing the next Winter Olympics to be only half a year away (in early 2022) and the next Summer Olympics/Paralympics to be 3 years away (in 2024). This has not occurred since the 1990s (when both of the Winter Games were shifted away from the Summer Games' years), or the 1940s (the last major interruption in the main Summer Olympic cycle).

Sometimes punctuation such as an asterisk (*) or a dagger (†, also called an obelus or obelisk) is used to denote an unusual entry in a table to be explained in a footnote with a matching symbol. Common symbols that are used if the first two are taken include multiple symbols (such as †† or ***), or a series of further symbols such as a double dagger (‡), the section symbol/silcrow (§), the parallel/double-pipe (‖) and the paragraph symbol/pilcrow (¶). Alternately you can start and continue with superscript numbers (¹, ², ³ ...), especially when you expect to commonly need {{w|Terry Pratchett|multiple}} and/or {{w|Randall Munroe|nested}} footnotes on each page, or gather them as endnotes, a whole chapter at a time.

The author, however, seems to have forgotten the potential monkey's paw nature of his wish. Relative is a relative term. It could well be that the whole pandemic thing becomes the new normal, thus removing the necessity of using symbols to delineate such years.

== Transcript ==

:2017........ (scribble)
:2018....... (scribble)
:2019....... (scribble)
:2020*...... (scribble)
:2021†...... (scribble)
:2022....... (scribble)
:2023....... (scribble)
:2024....... (scribble)

:[Caption under the panel:]
:Every data table from now on

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:COVID-19]]
[[Category:Statistics]]