explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Talk:1963: Namespace Land Rush

2020-07-07T03:42:42Z

162.158.74.173: your name

* Ahh, he left off '''root''' under Causing More Trouble. [[User:Nutster|Nutster]] ([[User talk:Nutster|talk]]) 05:41, 5 March 2018 (UTC)
** Also "'''null'''"... [[Special:Contributions/162.158.62.237|162.158.62.237]] 21:09, 5 March 2018 (UTC)
* I'm very disappointed he left out dotnotreplay@... --05:43, 5 March 2018 (UTC)~
* Is "gibberish name no one can pronounce" a reference to xkcd? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.215.64|108.162.215.64]] 05:56, 5 March 2018 (UTC)
* No '''test''' included. Frankly speaking I have seen people using '''testtest''','''testtesttesttest''', and so on, up to the maxiumn allowed character limit. [[User:Jackomatt|Jackomatt]] ([[User talk:Jackomatt|talk]]) 06:35, 5 March 2018 (UTC)
* Took me some time to type the transcript. Randall made it quite hard. [[User:QATEKLYXM|Klyxm]] ([[User talk:QATEKLYXM|talk]]) 06:38, 5 March 2018
:* I came here just to see if the transcript had "..." or "…" in the last one -- [[Special:Contributions/162.158.154.133|162.158.154.133]] 17:01, 7 March 2018 (UTC)
* The thing at the bottom-right, he wrote "forward slash" but used a backslash. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.126.76|162.158.126.76]] 08:35, 5 March 2018 (UTC)
:*It's just to mess with you. [[User:QATEKLYXM|Klyxm]] ([[User talk:QATEKLYXM|talk]]) 08:49, 5 March 2018
* Null! Where's null? [[User:PenguinF|PenguinF]] ([[User talk:PenguinF|talk]]) 09:14, 5 March 2018 (UTC)
* I think this whole comic is a reference to the video Worst Wifi Password Ever [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLE7zsJk4AI] --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.238.76|162.158.238.76]] 11:13, 5 March 2018 (UTC)
This is analogous to the way that land was distributed in America
There is so much wrong with that sentence. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.154.25|162.158.154.25]] 12:26, 5 March 2018 (UTC)
* I think is what he means by rtl override: https://krebsonsecurity.com/2011/09/right-to-left-override-aids-email-attacks/ and I agree surprised he didn’t include the null character; maybe because it’s so hard to get it to actually reach the service? [[Special:Contributions/172.68.54.136|172.68.54.136]] 15:24, 5 March 2018 (UTC)
* Emojis don't work in databases? They should be treated no differently from any other UNICODE characters. They would be hard to type if you're using an OS/browser that doesn't have a convenient Emoji-picker, but I would think that they should work as long as the server isn't filtering them out. But I've never deployed a service like this so there may be something important I'm missing here. [[User:Shamino|Shamino]] ([[User talk:Shamino|talk]]) 17:53, 5 March 2018 (UTC)
:: The "emoji not work" refers specifically to emojis requiring four characters when encoded in UTF-8, as many programs including databases like MySQL [https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.5/en/charset-unicode-utf8mb4.html used to only support three-byte UTF-8 characters]. There are emoji which fits into three bytes and non-emoji characters requiring four bytes, but for most people, support for four-byte UTF-8 is equivalent to support of (new) emoji. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 00:56, 6 March 2018 (UTC)
:: (Obviously, when you want to test database, you should be creative and instead of "any" emoji try something like "fairy girl with dark skin tone" [https://emojipedia.org/woman-fairy-dark-skin-tone/ 🧚🏿‍♀️] - that's five UTF characters, 18 bytes total, and is supposed to render as single character) -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 01:08, 6 March 2018 (UTC)
::: Whether it renders as a single character is only relevant if you're trying to render it. The database only cares about a name as a sequence of characters, it shouldn't care how many glyphs they correspond to. (And almost related: I vaguely recall the guys behind emoj.li saying that the most common complaint they got was that the most obvious single-character usernames were already taken) -- [[Special:Contributions/162.158.154.133|162.158.154.133]] 17:01, 7 March 2018 (UTC)
:::: Most databases support sorting 😊. Also, attempts to store four-byte character into three-byte UTF column really damaged it - although, obviously, storing it to binary column would not, it's just that username is rarely binary column. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 23:41, 7 March 2018 (UTC)

Someone once told me that on old email databases, you could send a message to "*@example.com" and it would send the message to everyone with an account on that domain. No idea if its true or not, but it seems like the username "*" could cause problems. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.75.16|162.158.75.16]] 19:56, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

So '''OkThisIsKindOfConfusingButIt's <LessThan\ForwardSlashHTML GreaterThanActualGreaterThan Symbol>Yes,ThatWasAllPartOfThe Name,ButSoIs...Ok,LetMeStartOver''' actually is "<<\/HTML>> or is it just supposed to be </HTML>? [[Special:Contributions/141.101.105.180|141.101.105.180]] 13:46, 6 March 2018 (UTC)
:: Do you really think there's a definitely correct answer to that question? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.155.38|162.158.155.38]] 14:25, 7 March 2018 (UTC)

* I am not confident enough about this to make the edit myself, but wouldn't the names listed in '''Causing Trouble (Usernames that might cause errors when mixed with the service's back-end code)''' (user, guest, etc) be used not so much to trying to fool other people, but because those names are often used as placeholders when the site is in development, and may therefore still have odd/altered permissions, allowing potential malicious access assuming the devs were lazy? [[User:Snowblinded|Snowblinded]] ([[User talk:Snowblinded|talk]]) 18:04, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

* Also '''true'''. And '''false'''. And '''Schrödinger'sCat'''.[[Special:Contributions/172.69.70.41|172.69.70.41]] 21:15, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

;I still try Alt-codes
I can remember ¥ [alt-157] off the top of my head from high school (circa i286), and I'm trying to figure out how to keyboard 乜 [U+4E5C], it doesn't quite map to [alt-20060].
As for '''Causing More Trouble''' anybody try Hastur? I wonder if there will ever be a Unicode Symbol for "The Yellow Sign."[[User:Cutech|Cutech]] ([[User talk:Cutech|talk]]) 08:54, 11 March 2018 (UTC)

I saw a username that uses hashtag and asterisk symbols before on a website I usually frequent, are they even allowed?Boeing-787lover 09:02, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

;Re: the transscript
Klyxm, I know it was probably a hard effort to make it look this pretty, but I believe that we should not try to recreate the physical layout. Not only is it not relevant to the joke, '''but this makes the transcript hard to use for people using screen readers''' (try reading the source code -- the categories are intertwined and linewise reading doesn't make sense any more).

I have stripped the formatting and replaced it with a list (in reading order). I'd welcome a discussion about this, but if you must, there is the "revert this edit" button right there. {{unsigned ip|172.68.50.112}}
:Please don't forget to sign your comments. You are right and there were many discussions about this here before. My new incomplete reason is this: "Layout not standard (eg. indentation) and a short description at the beginning about what is shown should be given." It needs a little bit more rework. In principle the transcript is the written text of the words you use when telling someone else what's in the comic. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 13:18, 30 May 2018 (UTC)

Added zero-width spaces in the last line of the transcript due to page zooming issues. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.22.140|172.69.22.140]] 06:52, 4 October 2018 (UTC)
:Keep it simple, compare it to other recent transcripts, and read this [[explain_xkcd:Editor_FAQ#What_is_the_format_of_the_transcript_section.3F|What is the format of the transcript section ?]] --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 18:39, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

"Username" could also be a reference similar to entering "your name" when instructed to "Enter your name." [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.173|162.158.74.173]] 03:42, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

2328: Space Basketball

2020-07-05T23:13:34Z

162.158.74.173: Our big pile of words is growing, and might nibble on something soon.

{{comic
| number = 2328
| date = July 3, 2020
| title = Space Basketball
| image = space_basketball.png
| titletext = My shooting will improve over the short term, but over the long term the universe will take more shots.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a METEORIC BASKETBALL. Should discuss expected time to make 30 shots in a row at 30% (and other percentages), odds of meteorite impact, possibly a chart of expected rate of learning for someone Randall's age with reasonable persistence, and maybe NBA Jam and Space Jam. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This comic strip is another one of Randall's [[:Category:My Hobby|strange hobbies]] (released within the same week as his last hobby comic, [[2326: Five Word Jargon]]). Randall wishes to play basketball but has nobody to play with, and so he chooses to play against {{w|outer space}}. (His previous attempt at creating a "[[2291: New Sports System|New Sports System]]" for multiplayer socially-distant basketball was not very successful.) His goal is to make thirty baskets in a row before the universe puts a meteor through his hoop. (This is one of those linguistic spaces where meteors only eight feet above the earth are so uncommonly discussed in our language, that whether or not the term "meteorite" would be appropriate could be a topic of great debate; the object has reached the surface without burning up completely and is likely a fragment from something larger breaking up, but has not touched the ground yet. Most of us have a habit of correcting "meteor" to "meteorite," so it may be safest to use the latter term among nerds other than Randall: or you could out-nerd them by pedantically pointing out a reason to still call it a meteor.)

Randall estimates that his success rate at {{w|free throw|free-throw shooting}} is approximately 30%. Therefore, the chances of Cueball making 30 shots in a row is (0.3)^30, or about 1 in five quadrillion (2×10^-16); for comparison, there are approximately 150 quadrillion seconds remaining before the Sun engulfs the earth (5 billion years), so if Randall has a chute set up under the basket and enough basketballs to sustain a constant high rate of shooting, he has "decent" odds of achieving his goal before the Sun burns out. But really, Randall has comparably rapid learning at this task, whereas asteroids have extreme persistence far beyond Randall's life, so when he says the odds are comparable he is abstractly weighing his unique skillset against that of small stellar bodies. His patience and persistence needs to reach a threshold for his learning to outcompete the patience and persistence of meteors. And they can theoretically kill him if needed to win the competition, whereas he has no such recourse against them.

There is no evidence that meteors strike our planet out of anger. It is believed to be a circumstance of chance, possibly urgently suicidal messages of peaceful communication.

Still, the lifetime odds of being killed by a meteorite have been estimated at 1 in 75,000 or 600,000 or 700,000 [https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-probability-of-me-getting-killed-by-a-meteorite-in-the-next-one-hour]. These calculations are usually based on the probability of being alive at a time when a huge impact kills billions of people. Randall just uses the chance of one meteorite shot on Earth hitting this hoop (hoop-area / Earth-area = 3.2×10^-16) which is in the same range as (0.3)^30. Actual {{w|meteorite fall statistics}} report an average of 1.2 meteorites per year hitting the European continent which suggests that the average probability of Cueball winning after each shot attempt is about equivalent to a meteorite passing through the hoop over the period of 10 hours. Therefore Cueball has a better chance of winning than the universe "on the short term" if he makes more than 840 free-shot attempts per year for the rest of his life. The expected time for the universe to actually "complete" the challenge would be in the range of 8 billion years, the same magnitude to the current age of the universe and longer than the estimated remaining lifetime of the {{w|solar system}}.

In the title text, Randall assumes that he would get better at free throwing shooting with practice in his lifetime ("the short term"). Some of the world's best basketball players have free-throw percentages over 90%, and even professional players with reputations of being "poor" free-throw shooters (e.g. Shaquille O'Neal) are above 50%. If Randall can improve his percentage to 50%, his odds of sinking thirty baskets in a row improve to "nearly" one-in-a-billion, while a member of the elite {{w|50–40–90 club}} would have a probability better than four percent of making thirty free-throws in a row. Some specialists have achieved much higher success rates, with the record for most consecutive baskets being held by {{w|Tom Amberry}} with 2,750. If this "game against the universe" is of any cosmic significance (as in the 1996 comedy film ''{{w|Space Jam}}''), any of those players would be better representatives of Earth than Randall.

However he acknowledges that in "the long term" (the life of the universe, or at least the Earth), the Earth will be hit by very many meteorites; even though it is more likely that Randall will make his thirty free-throws before a meteor passes through his basket, he does not possess the cosmic lifespan{{Citation needed}} required to surmount the odds against him and actually have a good probability to witness either event.

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

:[Cueball is standing in front of a basketball hoop, holding a basketball.]
:Cueball: Okay, here are the rules:
:Cueball: I have to make 30 shots in a row before a meteor falls through the hoop.
:Cueball: I'm a 30% free throw shooter so the odds are actually pretty even.
:Cueball: Ready...go!

:[Caption below panel:]
:My hobby: playing basketball against space

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:My Hobby]]
[[Category:Basketball]]
[[Category:Astronomy]]

2328: Space Basketball

2020-07-05T23:10:18Z

162.158.74.173: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2328
| date = July 3, 2020
| title = Space Basketball
| image = space_basketball.png
| titletext = My shooting will improve over the short term, but over the long term the universe will take more shots.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a METEORIC BASKETBALL. Should discuss expected time to make 30 shots in a row at 30% (and other percentages), odds of meteorite impact, and maybe NBA Jam and Space Jam. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This comic strip is another one of Randall's [[:Category:My Hobby|strange hobbies]] (released within the same week as his last hobby comic, [[2326: Five Word Jargon]]). Randall wishes to play basketball but has nobody to play with, and so he chooses to play against {{w|outer space}}. (His previous attempt at creating a "[[2291: New Sports System|New Sports System]]" for multiplayer socially-distant basketball was not very successful.) His goal is to make thirty baskets in a row before the universe puts a meteor through his hoop. (This is one of those linguistic spaces where meteors only eight feet above the earth are so uncommonly discussed in our language, that whether or not the term "meteorite" would be appropriate could be a topic of great debate; the object has reached the surface without burning up completely and is likely a fragment from something larger breaking up, but has not touched the ground yet. Most of us have a habit of correcting "meteor" to "meteorite," so it may he safest to use the latter term among nerds other than Randall: or you could out-nerd them by pedantically pointing a reason to still call it a meteor.)

Randall estimates that his success rate at {{w|free throw|free-throw shooting}} is approximately 30%. Therefore, the chances of Cueball making 30 shots in a row is (0.3)^30, or about 1 in five quadrillion (2×10^-16); for comparison, there are approximately 150 quadrillion seconds remaining before the Sun engulfs the earth (5 billion years), so if Randall has a chute set up under the basket and enough basketballs to sustain a constant high rate of shooting, he has "decent" odds of achieving his goal before the Sun burns out. But really, Randall has comparably rapid learning at this task, whereas asteroids have extreme persistence far beyond Randall's life, so when he says the odds are comparable he is abstractly weighing his unique skillset against that of small stellar bodies. His patience and persistence needs to reach a threshold for his learning to outcompete the patience and persistence of meteors. And they can theoretically kill him if needed to win the competition, whereas he has no such recourse against them.

There is no evidence that meteors strike our planet out of anger. It is believed to be a circumstance of chance, possibly urgently suicidal messages of peaceful communication.

Still, the lifetime odds of being killed by a meteorite have been estimated at 1 in 75,000 or 600,000 or 700,000 [https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-probability-of-me-getting-killed-by-a-meteorite-in-the-next-one-hour]. These calculations are usually based on the probability of being alive at a time when a huge impact kills billions of people. Randall just uses the chance of one meteorite shot on Earth hitting this hoop (hoop-area / Earth-area = 3.2×10^-16) which is in the same range as (0.3)^30. Actual {{w|meteorite fall statistics}} report an average of 1.2 meteorites per year hitting the European continent which suggests that the average probability of Cueball winning after each shot attempt is about equivalent to a meteorite passing through the hoop over the period of 10 hours. Therefore Cueball has a better chance of winning than the universe "on the short term" if he makes more than 840 free-shot attempts per year for the rest of his life. The expected time for the universe to actually "complete" the challenge would be in the range of 8 billion years, the same magnitude to the current age of the universe and longer than the estimated remaining lifetime of the {{w|solar system}}.

In the title text, Randall assumes that he would get better at free throwing shooting with practice in his lifetime ("the short term"). Some of the world's best basketball players have free-throw percentages over 90%, and even professional players with reputations of being "poor" free-throw shooters (e.g. Shaquille O'Neal) are above 50%. If Randall can improve his percentage to 50%, his odds of sinking thirty baskets in a row improve to "nearly" one-in-a-billion, while a member of the elite {{w|50–40–90 club}} would have a probability better than four percent of making thirty free-throws in a row. Some specialists have achieved much higher success rates, with the record for most consecutive baskets being held by {{w|Tom Amberry}} with 2,750. If this "game against the universe" is of any cosmic significance (as in the 1996 comedy film ''{{w|Space Jam}}''), any of those players would be better representatives of Earth than Randall.

However he acknowledges that in "the long term" (the life of the universe, or at least the Earth), the Earth will be hit by very many meteorites; even though it is more likely that Randall will make his thirty free-throws before a meteor passes through his basket, he does not possess the cosmic lifespan{{Citation needed}} required to surmount the odds against him and actually have a good probability to witness either event.

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

:[Cueball is standing in front of a basketball hoop, holding a basketball.]
:Cueball: Okay, here are the rules:
:Cueball: I have to make 30 shots in a row before a meteor falls through the hoop.
:Cueball: I'm a 30% free throw shooter so the odds are actually pretty even.
:Cueball: Ready...go!

:[Caption below panel:]
:My hobby: playing basketball against space

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:My Hobby]]
[[Category:Basketball]]
[[Category:Astronomy]]

2328: Space Basketball

2020-07-05T23:04:30Z

162.158.74.173: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2328
| date = July 3, 2020
| title = Space Basketball
| image = space_basketball.png
| titletext = My shooting will improve over the short term, but over the long term the universe will take more shots.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a METEORIC BASKETBALL. Should discuss expected time to make 30 shots in a row at 30% (and other percentages), odds of meteorite impact, and maybe NBA Jam and Space Jam. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This comic strip is another one of Randall's [[:Category:My Hobby|strange hobbies]] (released within the same week as his last hobby comic, [[2326: Five Word Jargon]]). Randall wishes to play basketball but has nobody to play with, and so he chooses to play against {{w|outer space}}. (His previous attempt at creating a "[[2291: New Sports System|New Sports System]]" for multiplayer socially-distant basketball was not very successful.) His goal is to make thirty baskets in a row before the universe puts a meteor through his hoop. (Technically, it would be a ''meteorite'', the term given to meteors that reach the surface, rather than breaking up in the atmosphere.)

Randall estimates that his success rate at {{w|free throw|free-throw shooting}} is approximately 30%. Therefore, the chances of Cueball making 30 shots in a row is (0.3)^30, or about 1 in five quadrillion (2×10^-16); for comparison, there are approximately 150 quadrillion seconds remaining before the Sun engulfs the earth (5 billion years), so if Randall has a chute set up under the basket and enough basketballs to sustain a constant high rate of shooting, he has "decent" odds of achieving his goal before the Sun burns out. But really, Randall has comparably rapid learning at this task, whereas asteroids have extreme persistence far beyond Randall's life, so when he says the odds are comparable he is abstractly weighing his unique skillset against that of small stellar bodies. His patience and persistence needs to reach a threshold for his learning to outcompete the patience and persistence of meteors. And they can theoretically kill him if needed to win the competition, whereas he has no such recourse against them.

There is no evidence that meteors strike our planet out of anger. It is believed to be a circumstance of chance, possibly urgently suicidal messages of peaceful communication.

Still, the lifetime odds of being killed by a meteorite have been estimated at 1 in 75,000, 600,000 or 700,000 [https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-probability-of-me-getting-killed-by-a-meteorite-in-the-next-one-hour]. These calculations are usually based on the probability of being alive at a time when a huge impact kills billions of people. Randall just uses the chance of one meteorite shot on Earth hitting this hoop (hoop-area / Earth-area = 3.2×10^-16) which is in the same range as (0.3)^30. Actual {{w|meteorite fall statistics}} report an average of 1.2 meteorites per year hitting the European continent which suggests that the average probability of Cueball winning after each shot attempt is about equivalent to a meteorite passing through the hoop over the period of 10 hours. Therefore Cueball has a better chance of winning than the universe "on the short term" if he makes more than 840 free-shot attempts per year for the rest of his life. The expected time for the universe to actually "complete" the challenge would be in the range of 8 billion years, the same magnitude to the current age of the universe and longer than the estimated remaining lifetime of the {{w|solar system}}.

In the title text, Randall assumes that he would get better at free throwing shooting with practice in his lifetime ("the short term"). Some of the world's best basketball players have free-throw percentages over 90%, and even professional players with reputations of being "poor" free-throw shooters (e.g. Shaquille O'Neal) are above 50%. If Randall can improve his percentage to 50%, his odds of sinking thirty baskets in a row improve to "nearly" one-in-a-billion, while a member of the elite {{w|50–40–90 club}} would have a probability better than four percent of making thirty free-throws in a row. Some specialists have achieved much higher success rates, with the record for most consecutive baskets being held by {{w|Tom Amberry}} with 2,750. If this "game against the universe" is of any cosmic significance (as in the 1996 comedy film ''{{w|Space Jam}}''), any of those players would be better representatives of Earth than Randall.

However he acknowledges that in "the long term" (the life of the universe, or at least the Earth), the Earth will be hit by very many meteorites; even though it is more likely that Randall will make his thirty free-throws before a meteor passes through his basket, he does not possess the cosmic lifespan{{Citation needed}} required to surmount the odds against him and actually have a good probability to witness either event.

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

:[Cueball is standing in front of a basketball hoop, holding a basketball.]
:Cueball: Okay, here are the rules:
:Cueball: I have to make 30 shots in a row before a meteor falls through the hoop.
:Cueball: I'm a 30% free throw shooter so the odds are actually pretty even.
:Cueball: Ready...go!

:[Caption below panel:]
:My hobby: playing basketball against space

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:My Hobby]]
[[Category:Basketball]]
[[Category:Astronomy]]

2328: Space Basketball

2020-07-05T22:58:19Z

162.158.74.173: lifetime of sun is trillions of years not billions. but it swells a little.

{{comic
| number = 2328
| date = July 3, 2020
| title = Space Basketball
| image = space_basketball.png
| titletext = My shooting will improve over the short term, but over the long term the universe will take more shots.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a METEORIC BASKETBALL. Should discuss expected time to make 30 shots in a row at 30% (and other percentages), odds of meteorite impact, and maybe NBA Jam and Space Jam. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This comic strip is another one of Randall's [[:Category:My Hobby|strange hobbies]] (released within the same week as his last hobby comic, [[2326: Five Word Jargon]]). Randall wishes to play basketball but has nobody to play with, and so he chooses to play against {{w|outer space}}. (His previous attempt at creating a "[[2291: New Sports System|New Sports System]]" for multiplayer socially-distant basketball was not very successful.) His goal is to make thirty baskets in a row before the universe puts a meteor through his hoop. (Technically, it would be a ''meteorite'', the term given to meteors that reach the surface, rather than breaking up in the atmosphere.)

Randall estimates that his success rate at {{w|free throw|free-throw shooting}} is approximately 30%. Therefore, the chances of Cueball making 30 shots in a row is (0.3)^30, or about 1 in five quadrillion (2×10^-16); for comparison, there are approximately 150 quadrillion seconds remaining before the Sun engulfs the earth (5 billion years), so if Randall has a chute set up under the basket and enough basketballs to sustain a constant high rate of shooting, he has "decent" odds of achieving his goal before the Sun burns out.

The lifetime odds of being killed by a meteorite have been estimated at 1 in 75,000, 600,000 or 700,000 [https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-probability-of-me-getting-killed-by-a-meteorite-in-the-next-one-hour]. These calculations are usually based on the probability of being alive at a time when a huge impact kills billions of people. Randall just uses the chance of one meteorite shot on Earth hitting this hoop (hoop-area / Earth-area = 3.2×10^-16) which is in the same range as (0.3)^30. Actual {{w|meteorite fall statistics}} report an average of 1.2 meteorites per year hitting the European continent which suggests that the average probability of Cueball winning after each shot attempt is about equivalent to a meteorite passing through the hoop over the period of 10 hours. Therefore Cueball has a better chance of winning than the universe "on the short term" if he makes more than 840 free-shot attempts per year for the rest of his life. The expected time for the universe to actually "complete" the challenge would be in the range of 8 billion years, the same magnitude to the current age of the universe and longer than the estimated remaining lifetime of the {{w|solar system}}.

In the title text, Randall assumes that he would get better at free throwing shooting with practice in his lifetime ("the short term"). Some of the world's best basketball players have free-throw percentages over 90%, and even professional players with reputations of being "poor" free-throw shooters (e.g. Shaquille O'Neal) are above 50%. If Randall can improve his percentage to 50%, his odds of sinking thirty baskets in a row improve to "nearly" one-in-a-billion, while a member of the elite {{w|50–40–90 club}} would have a probability better than four percent of making thirty free-throws in a row. Some specialists have achieved much higher success rates, with the record for most consecutive baskets being held by {{w|Tom Amberry}} with 2,750. If this "game against the universe" is of any cosmic significance (as in the 1996 comedy film ''{{w|Space Jam}}''), any of those players would be better representatives of Earth than Randall.

However he acknowledges that in "the long term" (the life of the universe, or at least the Earth), the Earth will be hit by very many meteorites; even though it is more likely that Randall will make his thirty free-throws before a meteor passes through his basket, he does not possess the cosmic lifespan{{Citation needed}} required to surmount the odds against him and actually have a good probability to witness either event.

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

:[Cueball is standing in front of a basketball hoop, holding a basketball.]
:Cueball: Okay, here are the rules:
:Cueball: I have to make 30 shots in a row before a meteor falls through the hoop.
:Cueball: I'm a 30% free throw shooter so the odds are actually pretty even.
:Cueball: Ready...go!

:[Caption below panel:]
:My hobby: playing basketball against space

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:My Hobby]]
[[Category:Basketball]]
[[Category:Astronomy]]

Talk:2327: Oily House Index

2020-07-04T15:53:36Z

162.158.74.173:

Dangit Randall, this was my retirement plan & now everybody's gonna want to try it!
[[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 00:53, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

Negative Equity (owing more than the house is worth) ''shouldn't'' be an immediate problem under most circumstances. If the householder isn't actually wanting to move and can still afford the asked-for repayments then it doesn't change the physical situation at all. The bank has no problems so long as the household has no problems, as they ride over (temporary) pricing crashes and emerge the other side. It's when banks get nervous that the home'owners' ''might'' default and thus put pressures on them (e.g. 'negotiating' for unsustainably greater repayments or 'immediate settlement' of the unforeseen temporary deficit) that they could tip their so-called customer over the edge. And an increase of defaulting further suppresses house-prices (general availability of sell-quick homes by owners/bank and/or the reduced neighbourhood value around abandoned properties not sold ''nor'' (officially) lived in) to draw more agreements into the self-creating danger-zone. Of course it aint as simple as all that. And permanently being underwater due to coastal flooding, ''probably'' won't sit well with the actuaries behind your continuing loan if your property isn't in Innsmouth... [[Special:Contributions/162.158.159.76|162.158.159.76]] 09:31, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

;Maths
Can someone figure out where I went wrong here?<br>
>The comic then applies dimensional analysis to this index: dividing $/sqft by $/bbl yields a result whose dimension is a linear measurement, which can be called length. 1 barrel is 5.6 cubic feet. The average price per square foot of a new single-family dwelling in the USA in 2019 was about 119 $/sqft, while the price of oil in mid 2019 was about $60/BBL or $337/cubic foot. Dividing gives 60/337 feet-1 or about 5.61 feet. (This doesn't match the value shown on the chart of around 15, so we have done something wrong here. :))<br>
Thanks. [[User:Stevage|Stevage]] ([[User talk:Stevage|talk]]) 00:54, 2 July 2020 (UTC)
:Since barrels are in the denominator, you have to divide by 5.6 to get the price per cubic foot. [[User:LegionMammal978|LegionMammal978]] ([[User talk:LegionMammal978|talk]]) 01:00, 2 July 2020 (UTC)
($/area)/($/volume)=($/sq.ft)/($/cu.ft)=1/ft? Shouldn't the result be in ft?

;Units
Shouldn't area divided by volume be height, not length? It would also fit better with the graph. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.123.173|162.158.123.173]] 03:41, 2 July 2020 (UTC)
:For dimensional analysis, you don't care about the physical context of the units, just about the dimension they are associated with. Height is horizontal length, so it has the dimension of length. In the context of the comic this length can be interpreted as a height, but in another context, it could be a length in a different orientation. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.88.78|162.158.88.78]] 04:16, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

;Category
Should we start a category of dimensional analysis comics: e.g. [[687]], [[1707]], [[2312]] --[[User:WhiteDragon|WhiteDragon]] ([[User talk:WhiteDragon|talk]]) 07:41, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

;Division Error?
You can't divide by zero; which means Randall made an error. Should we update the page to reflect this? [[Special:Contributions/173.245.52.67|173.245.52.67]] 10:25, 2 July 2020 (UTC)
:"OHI briefly became infinite as oil prices reached zero in 2020" could be read as approaching both infinity and zero; that fixes the problem [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.249|162.158.74.249]] 11:18, 2 July 2020 (UTC)
::Randall did not divide by zero. If the price went continually to zero the OHI would aproach infinity. Of course at the time the price hit zero (or negative), then the OHI breaks down, which is what infinite means. So he did not make any error. (Wrote this and had an edit conflict with the first reply.) --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 11:20, 2 July 2020 (UTC)
:You can divide by zero, its just that those lazy mathematicians haven't defined it yet.
::Programmers have defined it but it isn't a number: x/0 = NaN (Not a Number) [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.134|108.162.216.134]] 11:43, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

[[Special:Contributions/162.158.123.155|162.158.123.155]] 04:04, 3 July 2020 (UTC)
:: We defined it; y'all just don't like what we came up with. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheel_theory [[User:TobyBartels|TobyBartels]] ([[User talk:TobyBartels|talk]]) 06:45, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

The comic should not use the word "mortgage," because the calculations are based on sale price. The size of the mortgage depends on the down payment. [[User:Cellocgw|Cellocgw]] ([[User talk:Cellocgw|talk]]) 11:40, 2 July 2020 (UTC)
:My understanding is that if you fully mortgage your house (so that you now have in your hands enough money to buy the house again) and convert the total amount of money that the house is worth into oil, you can then fill your house with X feet of oil. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.56|141.101.98.56]] 15:11, 2 July 2020 (UTC)
::Find me a mortgage that will give me 100% of the value of my house. Please! [[Special:Contributions/162.158.123.155|162.158.123.155]] 04:02, 3 July 2020 (UTC)
:::Hint: Start by not writing in the "Reason for mortgage" box anything like "I want to entirely fill my home with viscous and/or flammable liquid". Notwithstanding what I believe the US calls 'zoning laws'... [[Special:Contributions/162.158.159.14|162.158.159.14]] 20:38, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

It's a pity the graph doesn't go back as far as the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_oil_crisis 1973 oil crisis]. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.26|141.101.98.26]] 12:02, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

I belatedly wonder if the title is meant to be similar to some other famous Index that I happen to have not heard of. Searching around, Freedom House is an American... thing, which apparently publishes a "Freedom House Index" which is a sort of measurement of how "democratic" a country is from year to year. So something like that... Robert Carnegie rja.carnegie@excite.com [[Special:Contributions/162.158.159.14|162.158.159.14]] 21:25, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

Shouldn't the OHI be higher because the footprint of a multiple story house is less than its square footage?

Talk:2285: Recurring Nightmare

2020-03-25T22:18:01Z

162.158.74.173:

Could it just be that Megan is anthrophobic? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.62.247|162.158.62.247]] 16:22, 25 March 2020 (UTC)
:She's friendly (and socially proximate) enough with Cueball. That said, I know first hand how one can be asocial in general (in the verging on mildly enochlophobic sense) and still somehow tolerate acquaintances acquired in familial or vocational settings. (I'm pretty sure it's the obvious current mass nosophobic tendency being referenced, myself. If not, it's a far more complicated joke than it needs to be.) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.34.222|162.158.34.222]] 19:26, 25 March 2020 (UTC)
::To misquote The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, no, that's just the normal paranoia we all have- a couple of million years of strangers killing everybody in the tribe, leaves the survivors with a deep set instinct identifying and running away from .... strangers [[User:Seeberboringert]] ([[User talk:Seebert|talk]]) 21:16, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

This is an instructive video [https://youtu.be/WinPcASr8xw Why the US already practiced social distancing before coronavirus] [[User:Seebert|Seebert]] ([[User talk:Seebert|talk]]) 21:16, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

"Revise" seems to be British for "study." So if u 4got to revise /study, and show up in class with without a pencil and naked just tell the people that u r dreaming and as soon as the dream gets interesting you will wake up, because your dreams are boring. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.236|108.162.216.236]] 21:50, 25 March 2020 (UTC)
:I think you'll find the word in the comment is "REALIZE"[[User:Seebert|Seebert]] ([[User talk:Seebert|talk]]) 21:53, 25 March 2020 (UTC)
:: I'm sure I won't. Qwotegeneral "forgotten to revise for the exam"endqwote is from the explain.
Please be aware that "revise" means "edit, generally to make the text conform to a belief" to me, while to a Britisher it means what "do homework" or "study" means to me.