explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Talk:2355: University COVID Model

2020-09-05T05:36:27Z

162.158.74.61:

Wait, people in college go to parties? Hm. Must be something people sent to High School for "socialization", participate in.
[[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 21:04, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

I went to high school and didn't party once at college. So...I guess not? 23:06, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

:I don't remember any college party, but I must admit I might missed it while playing FPSs in computer laboratory. Or does that count as party? It is group activity, but there is usually no alcohol involved and social distance is preserved ... -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 02:34, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

::Well, some college students go to a lot of parites, but others don't. It's probably a lot less common among students who spend a lot of time on computers or who have majors in more difficult and mathematically rigorous scientific fields, and more common in certain other majors, people who are in frats, and those who are mainly in college to be on a sports team.--[[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.61|162.158.74.61]] 05:36, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

This likely relates to https://xkcd.com/793/, do we want to mention that? [[Special:Contributions/172.69.42.44|172.69.42.44]] 21:47, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

: That would be great. Do you know where to put it? I was surprised the linked article said it was students who tested positive from the school's tests who actually hosted the parties. Interesting cultural share between the two kinds of personalities. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.62.105|162.158.62.105]] 01:06, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

Talk:2349: Rabbit Introduction

2020-08-23T22:53:08Z

162.158.74.61: "Culling speculation,"

Comic posted shortly after this made national news in the USA:
https://www.newsweek.com/why-hundreds-millions-genetically-engineered-mosquitoes-will-soon-released-florida-1526375
[[Special:Contributions/172.69.34.56|172.69.34.56]] 05:06, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

This comic was posted incredibly early compared to the other recent comics [[Special:Contributions/172.69.34.232|172.69.34.232]] 07:22, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

Yeah wtf it's so early [[Special:Contributions/172.69.33.25|172.69.33.25]] 07:50, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

There's a twitter thread at @xkcd, one word every few days, from 2020-05-15 until 2020-06-01, reading "How's it going I saw a small bun (picture)", continuing the sentence until 2020-06-25, "and an airplane crossing the moon (picture)" [[User:Chrullrich|Chrullrich]] ([[User talk:Chrullrich|talk]]) 07:53, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

I recognise that 'bun-gap' looks like a pun, but what's it punning about? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.154.131|162.158.154.131]] 10:14, 21 August 2020 (UTC)
:I don't think it's really a pun, just an instance of the general X-gap pattern, meaning a significant difference in the amount or rate of X between two entities (e.g. the "wealth gap" between countries). [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 17:47, 21 August 2020 (UTC)
::Bun-gap having nothing to do with thigh-gap in this case.
::[[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 21:04, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

Former POTUS Jimmy Carter is unapologetically completely oppposed to the spread of any species of bunny. [[User:Cellocgw|Cellocgw]] ([[User talk:Cellocgw|talk]]) 12:33, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

The explanation should probably distinguish between the {{w|pygmy rabbit}} which is not at all endangered and the {{w|Columbia Basin pygmy rabbit}} which is an isolated population that the US government (but not the IUCN) treats as endangered independently from the species as a whole. [[User:Shamino|Shamino]] ([[User talk:Shamino|talk]]) 12:57, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

Captain Video, if you can cull speculation here, then shouldn't you be culling a lot of speculation in 1417? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.61|162.158.74.61]] 22:53, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

1179: ISO 8601

2020-08-22T22:39:12Z

162.158.74.61:

{{comic
| number = 1179
| date = February 27, 2013
| title = ISO 8601
| image = iso_8601.png
| titletext = ISO 8601 was published on 06/05/88 and most recently amended on 12/01/04.
}}

==Explanation==
When abbreviating the date into numerical form, {{w|Date format by country|various areas of the world}} tend to list the year, month, and day in different orders (as well as with different delimiting symbols), which can cause confusion particularly when the day value is 12 or lower allowing it to be easily interpreted as the month and vice versa. As a {{w|public service announcement}}, this comic states that there is in fact one international standard for writing numeric dates, set by the {{w|International Organization for Standardization}} in its {{w|ISO 8601}} standard: YYYY-MM-DD.

The comic then proceeds to list several discouraged ways of writing out the date of the comic's publication, as they do not match the standard. It begins with several commonly used ones in countries around the world, but then begins to list increasingly uncommon ways, ranging from strange (Roman numerals) to quirky (binary, Unix time) to essentially impossible (painting the numbers onto a black cat).

The title text provides a perfect example of the kind of ambiguity that can arise when non-standard formats are used. The ISO standard was in fact published on 1988-06-05 and amended on 2004-12-01. This is mentioned in the title text in MM/DD/YY format; however, there is no way to naturally figure this out, particularly with the second date. With the year truncated to two digits and all three numbers at 12 or lower, the date referring to December 1, 2004 may well be interpreted as 12 January 2004, or as 2012-01-04.

Date formats were again the subject in [[1340: Unique Date]].

The other mentioned formats are:

{| class=wikitable
! Date !! Explanation
|-
| 02/27/2013
| MM/DD/YYYY, used mostly in the United States.
|-
| 02/27/13
| MM/DD/YY, same as above but with the year shortened to two digits.
|-
| 27/02/2013
| DD/MM/YYYY, used variously in South America, Canada ({{w|Date_and_time_notation_in_Canada|officially uses ISO 8601}}), Australia, New Zealand and Europe.
|-
| 27/02/13
| DD/MM/YY, same as above but with the year shortened to two digits.
|-
| 20130227
| YYYYMMDD, same as ISO 8601 without delimiting punctuation. Allowed by the standard. Technically not ambiguous but is hard to read as a date at first glance.
|-
| 2013.02.27
| YYYY.MM.DD, used in Japan, South Korea and Hungary. Same as ISO 8601 except with different punctuation.
|-
| 27.02.13
| DD.MM.YY, used in Germany, Russia, and others.
|-
| 27-02-13
| DD-MM-YY, used in Denmark, Netherlands, Indonesia, India, Bangladesh, and others.
|-
| 27.2.13
| D.M.YY. It is common in several areas to abbreviate the month or day to a single digit and drop the leading zero when possible.
|-
| 2013. II. 27.
| YYYY. MM. DD., with month as {{w|Roman numerals}}, used in Hungary.
|-
| 27⁄2-13
| D⁄M-YY, traditional format in Sweden
|-
| 2013.158904109
| Year and decimal fraction of year. 0.158904109 is a decimal approximation of 58/365, with February 27 being the 58th day of the year. This format may be easier to read for computers/programs in some contexts, but is difficult for humans to interpret.
|-
| MMXIII-II-XXVII
| The ISO 8601 standard but written in Roman numerals. Never used as a traditional standard anywhere as it is hard to read, parse, and interpret for no benefit.
|-
| MMXIII LVII⁄CCCLXV
| Year followed by its partial fraction 57/365, all in Roman numerals. Equally useless as the above. As a note, apparently this 'standard' is different from the decimal fraction two rows above, as the decimal fraction notation uses the ''end'' of the day (first day of the year is 1/365 while the last is 365/365), while this uses the ''beginning'' (first day is 0/365 and last is 364/365).
|-
| 1330300800
| {{w|Unix time|UNIX Timestamp}}, a standard method of storing absolute time in many computer systems and defined as the number of seconds since 00:00:00 on 1970-01-01 (UTC). The Unix time listed here appears to mistakenly be for '''2012'''-02-27, which is also mentioned by [[Randall]] in the original transcript. The Unix Timestamp for 2013-02-27 would be 1361923200.
|-
| ((3+3)×(111+1)-1)×3/3-1/33
| A useless format where the numbers 2013, 2, and 27 written as needlessly long arithmetic expressions using just the digits 1 and 3. For additional confusion, the values are delimited by slashes, enabling confusion with the fraction bar. (If evaluated literally, the entire expression evaluates to 670.963, or 671 minus 1 divided by 27.)
|-
|    2  272013
| A nearly impossible to read date "format" that can be considered a parody "compromise" between different formats: rather than argue about the order in which the year, month, and day should be, they are simply all written on top of each other. As a "bonus", there is also no arguing over which separator character to use.
|-
| 10/11011/1101
| The US mm/dd/yy format in {{w|Binary number|binary}}, corresponding to 2/27/13. Never used for obvious reasons.
|-
| 02/27/20/13
| MM/DD/CC/YY, where CC stands for century. This format is never used. Note that while months and days count starting from 1, centuries and years in this format count from 0 for extra confusion. But the CC value is widely used on many operating systems to distinguish between the 20th and 21st century, represented by the values "19" and "20" because 1950 belongs to the 20th century.
|-
| <ruby><rb>0</rb><rb>1</rb><rb>2</rb><rb>3</rb><rb>7</rb><rt>2</rt><rt>3</rt><rt>1</rt><rt>4</rt><rtc style="ruby-position: under"><rt>5</rt><rt></rt><rt>67</rt><rt></rt><rt>8</rt></rtc></ruby>
| An obfuscated format where the small numbers indicate the positions where the large digits should be placed. In this reading, 0 is used at positions 2 and 5, 1 is used on position 3, etc.; the result being 20130227
|-
| [A hissing black cat with "2-27-13" painted on it]
| In Western cultures, black cats and the number 13 are associated with bad luck. The cat might also just be angry that someone covered it in paint.
|}

==Transcript==
:Public Service Announcement:

:Our different ways of writing dates as numbers can lead to online confusion. That's why in 1988 ISO set a global standard numeric date format. This is '''''the''''' correct way to write numeric dates:

::2013-02-27

:The following formats are therefore discouraged:
:*02/27/2013
:*02/27/13
:*27/02/2013
:*27/02/13
:*20130227
:*2013.02.27
:*27.02.13
:*27-02-13
:*27.2.13
:*2013. II. 27.
:*27⁄2-13
:*2013.158904109
:*MMXIII-II-XXVII
:*MMXIII LVII⁄CCCLXV
:*1330300800
:*((3+3)×(111+1)-1)×3/3-1/33
:*   2  272013 [the numbers 2013, 02, and 27 written overlapping each other]
:*10/11011/1101
:*02/27/20/13
:*2053112674378
:*[A black cat with 2-27-13 scrawled across its body in dripping white paint.]
:**Cat: ''Hissss''

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Math]]

1057: Klout

2020-08-22T20:30:15Z

162.158.74.61:

{{comic
| number = 1057
| date = May 18, 2012
| title = Klout
| image = klout.png
| titletext = Though please do confirm that it's actually *me* on Klout first, and not one of my friends trying to get me punched. The great thing about this douchebag deadman switch is that I will never dare trigger it.
}}
==Explanation==
{{w|Klout}} was a site that sought to measure your "influence" on social media networks. They sometimes gave away "perks" to the users with the highest Klout scores, as a means of advertising the products of their sponsors. Generally, the information provided by Klout was not held in high esteem. The type of person who took most interest in their score was typically not well-liked.

There are multiple ways that Klout measured your influence. An example of increasing influence is having been given a +K (a recommendation for a higher score) for knowledge about "Pitbull" (The Bud Light promoter and producer/rapper/musician, etc., not the type of dog). Another could be having an inspiring tweet that generated 2000 retweets. Klout supported many social networks, and ranked people based primarily on how much reaction they garner from the public. For example, if Selena Gomez tweeted that she simply loved a certain blog, she would probably get more people to visit that blog, and thus get a bigger Klout score, than if the mayor of Anchorage, Alaska tweeted that he liked that blog. Or xkcd publishing a comic about Klout would lead to an all time high in [https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=klout Google searches] for it. However, their "about us" page did claim that a small, active group of followers is considered more influential than a large, passive group of followers.

The gist of the comic is that [[Cueball]] (here representing [[Randall]]) does not feel that Klout agrees with his core values, probably as he prefers self-assurance to having an outside authority tell him of his importance to society. He uses this comic to give himself incentive to stay away from Klout. He is very clear that he is dead serious about anyone meeting him after he has (been proven to have) used Klout should punch him in the face. He even makes sure that he cannot later retract this statement, if he for instance becomes interested in Klout (something he would never wish for). Because his last statement is that people should ignore anything he says to retract this statement later.

Randall will now have a problem though because since he also posted the [[706: Freedom]] comic earlier, he will never know if people that hit him does because they believe he has used Klout or just to exercise their free will.

In the title text, a "dead man's switch" is any mechanism which is designed to activate if the user does not take any action. This is generally used to create a failsafe in case the user is incapacitated . For example, many exercise treadmills include a tether meant to connect the runner to the machine's base station. If the runner gets too far from the base station, the tether pulls a pin and the machine stops immediately. This way, if the runner has fallen or is struggling to keep up, the machine does not exacerbate an already unsafe situation. Randall's "douchebag deadman switch" is a variation that would trigger if he ever became enough of an asshole to use Klout. This would lead to him being constantly punched in the face, so he doesn't dare become that type of person.

Shortly after this comic was posted, [https://klout.com/#/irandallmunroe a Klout user] was created claiming to be Randall. This was a fake, so if you ever meet Randall in real life, please don't punch him, unless you view making a webcomic about Klout counts as interacting with it.

Klout shut down on May 25, 2018, for reasons that were never officially stated, but are generally assumed to be related to the {{w|General Data Protection Regulation}}, which went into effect on that day.

==Transcript==
:[Randall has drawn himself as Cueball in a slim panel:]
:Randall: I'd like to ask a favor.
:Randall: If someday, in the future, we meet in person,

:[Zoom out of Randall talking.]
:Randall: And if, as of that day, I've interacted with Klout in ''any'' way except to opt out,
:Randall: I want you to punch me in the face without warning.

:[Zoom in on Randall's head.]
:Randall: This may sound like a joke, so let me be clear:
:Randall: I am ''dead serious''.
:Randall: Ignore anything I say retracting this.
:Randall: Thank you.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Randall Munroe]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Social networking]]

Talk:2322: ISO Paper Size Golden Spiral

2020-06-19T15:43:05Z

162.158.74.61:

It annoys me that the hover text says 11/8.5 = pi/4, when 8.5/11≈0.77272727272 and pi/4≈0.78539816339. Claiming 8.5/11 equals pi/4 would be a much more beleiveable lie. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.79.37|162.158.79.37]] 15:29, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

The explanation says that the A series "side lengths shrink by a factor of the square root of two" but that's not true. The width of A(n+1) is half the length of A(n) as depicted. The sqrt(2) ratio referenced is between the length and width of any one piece of paper.[[Special:Contributions/172.69.62.124|172.69.62.124]] 15:35, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Fixed it [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.61|162.158.74.61]] 15:43, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Talk:2320: Millennium Problems

2020-06-16T04:21:53Z

162.158.74.61: comment

Ironically, Randall misspells Perelman as "Perlman" in the comic but spells it correctly in the alt-text.

[[Special:Contributions/172.69.63.147|172.69.63.147]] 02:56, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Perhaps he meant Perlman the Perl-programming superhero? ;) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.123.145|162.158.123.145]] 03:33, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

There has been some controversy over the millennium prizes, given that in mathematics important results are often a product of the work of different mathematicians who are not necessarily close associates. Perelman reportedly believed that his work was a corollary to prior work by Richard S. Hamilton.

I think the idea of this comic is an extension to a question, which I've seen before in this discussion, "what if person A shows that 2 millennium problems are equivalent, and then person B proves one of them?" Should person B get both prizes, or should person A get one of them? It is easy to think of situations where it is hard to know who deserves the credit, and I think this comic takes that
to a logical exteme. [[User:Probably not Douglas Hofstadter|Probably not Douglas Hofstadter]] ([[User talk:Probably not Douglas Hofstadter|talk]]) 03:59, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

The [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grigori_Perelman Wikipedia article] for Grigori Perelman states the following: "The Clay Institute subsequently used Perelman's prize money to fund the "Poincaré Chair", a temporary position for young promising mathematicians at the Paris Institut Henri Poincaré.", so no funding would be available for Randall's eighth prize. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.61|162.158.74.61]] 04:21, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Talk:2316: Hair Growth Rate

2020-06-05T23:01:24Z

162.158.74.61:

Based on the rate at which I shed hair, mine must be growing at an above average rate or I'd be completely bald by now.
[[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 19:23, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

Is this a Dr. Seuss reference? The [https://seuss.fandom.com/wiki/Zed Zed] "all have one strand of hair up on each of their heads, their hair grows very fast, so fast, people say that they need a haircut everyday" [[User:Usernaminator|Usernaminator]] ([[User talk:Usernaminator|talk]]) 21:18, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

So, anybody have some idea how is this related to covid? :-) -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 22:30, 5 June 2020 (UTC)
: The link is clearly that there are no open barbers now! (THIS IS A JOKE) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.155.80|162.158.155.80]] 22:54, 5 June 2020 (UTC)
: i was like omigod a normal xkcd they freed randall celebrate celebrate!!!! [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.52|108.162.216.52]] 22:38, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

Unrelated to the comic, but I just want to point out that (at least on my monitor), the kerning for "LIVES" in the new header is less than ideal. The "I" and the "V" blend together, looking like an "N" -- at least at the resolution displayed and the distance I view from -- so my mind reads "LNES" and fills in the missing "I" as "black lines matter." Which, for stick figures generally drawn in black on a white background is true, but....[[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.61|162.158.74.61]] 23:01, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

Talk:2314: Carcinization

2020-06-02T23:59:05Z

162.158.74.61: /* Webcomic Name */

Honestly, what is there to explain here? The only thing I can imagine in this explanation page is an explanation of why carcinization happens, which isn't explaining the comic. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.62.119|162.158.62.119]] 22:52, 1 June 2020 (UTC)
:We might need to look at the differences between various 'false crabs' and their relatives, to show that ''in the false crabs' lifestyle'', some crab-feature they have and their close cousinshttps://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=User:Lightcaller&action=edit&redlink=1 do not is a thing that the CCs would be unable to match if they lived in the FC-like style. This is probably the subject of a whole dissertation (if not several). [[Special:Contributions/141.101.107.80|141.101.107.80]] 00:22, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

Does this mean all programming languages evolve into Rust?[[Special:Contributions/172.69.68.87|172.69.68.87]] 23:08, 1 June 2020 (UTC)
:I think this might be part of the joke here. Rust has partially replaced other programming languages in [https://old.reddit.com/r/rustjerk/comments/grspew/request_for_help_where_did_rust_replace/ well known companies], and it has been [https://stackoverflow.blog/2020/05/27/2020-stack-overflow-developer-survey-results/ the most beloved language] for four years straight (according to StackOverflow survey). There has been many XKCDs with programming themes, I don't think Rust would go unnoticed for so long. (Note: Rust's mascot is a crab) [[Special:Contributions/141.101.96.198|141.101.96.198]] 15:22, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

Is it just a coincidence that today's Questionable Content also contained a reference to crabs? [[Special:Contributions/172.69.68.195|172.69.68.195]] 00:31, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

It may be of note that Qwantz (a comic previously parodied in [[145]]) did a [http://www.qwantz.com/index.php?comic=3547 comic about carcinisation] earlier this year [[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.179|162.158.158.179]] 01:08, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
:Why do you call Dinosaur Comic Qwantz? --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 11:51, 2 June 2020 (UTC) <-- because that's the web URL[[User:Cellocgw|Cellocgw]] ([[User talk:Cellocgw|talk]]) 12:36, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

Gotta say, this is the first xkcd in a while that made me laugh. [[User:Lightcaller|Lightcaller]] ([[User talk:Lightcaller|talk]]) 03:49, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

Nature: Time for crab [[Special:Contributions/162.158.50.204|162.158.50.204]] 04:58, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

This comic was posted 3 weeks too early, seeing as Cancer doesn't start until June 21 or 22 [[User:Cellocgw|Cellocgw]] ([[User talk:Cellocgw|talk]]) 12:34, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

Looks like it already happened at one Taiwanese semiconductor company: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Realtek_logo_vector.svg. [[User:Shamino|Shamino]] ([[User talk:Shamino|talk]]) 14:11, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

=== Webcomic Name ===

IMHO, it's pretty likely the last panel is a reference to webcomic name - the formatting of "OH NO" with no punctuation, no other text, the fact it's the last panel etc all seem not particularly xkcd-ish, and very webcomic name-ish. Do we really need this disclaimer " But may have nothing to do with it, since having told Cueball about this and then seeing him turned into a crab, may indicate Megan was the cause! And either way, saying "oh no" to something bad is not particular to the mentioned web comic." [[User:Stevage|Stevage]] ([[User talk:Stevage|talk]]) 13:53, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

: Agreed, the rambling is not needed. Good edit. --[[User:V2Blast|V2Blast]] ([[User talk:V2Blast|talk]]) 19:05, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
:: I disagree that this is related to "webcomic name". "Oh no" doesn't necessarily relate to anything. It is unclear whether Randall is aware of or a fan of that comic. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.33.203|172.69.33.203]] 21:57, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
::: I removed it. It's not even lowercase. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.61|162.158.74.61]] 23:59, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

:By weird coincidence yesterdays Questionable Content ended with Ancient Aliens were Crabs gag...
https://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=4276
Not sure if that's relevant, but it's at least interesting. --[[Special:Contributions/172.68.141.142|172.68.141.142]] 22:39, 2 June 2020 (UTC)